Diaries of the Family Dracul - The Covenant with the Vampire Part 6

I followed him out and ran down the stairs, thinking to confront him about the contents of the bundle, but he had already vanished. And so I went down to the kitchen, where I learned through roundabout questioning that the cook was stewing a lamb and had no knowledge of Laszlo's hen.

How could any murderer be so bold, so brazen, so contumelious as to proudly sport the stolen effects of his victim, then hint at the crime?

Only one who is insane.

These revelations were simply too unnerving to keep to myself. When V. rose, I called on him in his drawing-room. Ana had lit the fire and tapers so that the room emanated a cosy warmth. Hands upon the armrests, straight and regal as a king upon his throne, Uncle sat in one of the two large camel-back chairs facing the hearth. Between them on the end-table sat a small silver tray, upon which rested a crystal snifter and a decanter of slivovitz, an indulgence no doubt provided for the possibly ill-fated Mister Jeffries.

The instant I closed the door behind me, V. pushed himself from his chair with exceptional alacrity and whirled to face me, his eyes wide and full of fire. Before I could utter a word, he thundered: "You are never to remove a guest from this castle without my express permission! Never!

Do you understand?"

I was so taken aback that for a few seconds my voice failed. These were not my father's voice, my father's eyes -they were the voice of an imperious prince, the eyes of the cold- blooded Impaler in the portrait.

His face, far from possessing its usual pallour, was flushed with rage, so that his white eyebrows stood out alarmingly against his pink forehead, and an even rosier hue stole across his cheeks and the high, narrow bridge of his nose. His crimson lips were twisted, the lower one pulled down to reveal a row of jagged, glistening white teeth. He had moved so quickly and with such energy that I thought I stared at a different man. Indeed, a streak of iron grey had appeared at each of his temples.

He had grown younger. I blinked, but the hallucination did not fade. The change was slight but unmistakable-and quite impossible, as impossible as Stefan's appearance. I winced and raised a hand to my temple at the now-familiar sensation of pressure there, and heard, quite clearly, as though I whispered them into my own ear, the words: You must be going mad.

"I am sorry," I stammered. "I shall never do it again. It was just that Mister Jeffries was such good company-"

"Swear it! Swear that you will never repeat such a mistake. Now!"

"I swear it," I whispered, truly frightened-not by V."s temperamental outburst, but by my own impossible perceptions. "I will never do it again."

At once his anger dimmed; he straightened, and his powerful body relaxed. "Good. Good."

He nodded in grim satisfaction. "I will accept the word of a Tsepesh." His tone lightened abruptly; he gestured at the chair beside his own. "Now, Nephew, sit, and tell me how I might help you."

I crossed the room and sat sideways on the edge of the chair, facing him with my hands lightly on the armrest and fixing on him my uncertain gaze, trying not to gape at his slight but obvious rejuvenation. I felt so entirely nonplussed that I was reluctant to begin; but V.

smiled at me, and said: "I must apologise for my fit of temper, Arkady, but I have only a few rules for those in my service, and I demand that they be followed. There is no quicker way to provoke my wrath." He poured a gla.s.s of the slivovitz and handed it to me, saying: "Drink."

I took it, though I did not want it, and, after a small sip, set it down.

"Now," said V., with his usual warm solicitousness, "please forgive my outburst; I can see it has unnerved you, and this was not my intent. Speak to me, Arkady. Tell me what I must do to help you."

I ventured timidly, "It is about Mister Jeffries that I have come." When this drew only an expression of polite interest, I grew bolder. "He has vanished without a single trace, leaving all his belongings behind."

"Indeed?" V. said, his eyebrows lifting with mild surprise. And then his expression grew thoughtful, and he gazed into the fire as he considered this, his ruddiness deepened by its warm glow. His anger had faded, but the blush across his cheeks had not; it seemed his show of anger had left him permanently revitalised. "Most odd," he murmured at last. "I suppose I should not be insulted by this abrupt departure. The English are full of peculiar customs."

I made a small noise of exasperation. "I lived among the English for four years. They are not in the habit of suddenly disappearing. I am afraid something dreadful has happened to him."

He stared back at me with puzzlement at the degree of my distress. "What would make you say such a thing? What could possibly happen to a guest here, in my home?"

"Perhaps... perhaps someone has harmed him; perhaps even killed him."

At this he laughed aloud. Embarra.s.sment and anger brought a surge of heat to my cheeks, the back of my neck; he noted this, and immediately sobered, then in a patronising, soothing tone, said, "Dear Nephew... you have suffered a terrible strain over the past few days. Could it be this which has caused you to jump to this conclusion? The man has left abruptly, but how can we say harm has come to him? Perhaps he simply decided to return to Bistritz and in his haste forgot his trunk; or perhaps he has some reason for wanting to disappear into the countryside. Perhaps he foolishly went walking unattended in the forest and had his throat torn out by wolves. Who knows? Perhaps he is not the newspaperman he claims to be, but a criminal or murderer hoping to elude justice."

My voice shook (from both anger at his questioning of my mental stability and from fear that he was correct in so doing) as I replied, "Had he decided to return to Bistritz, he would have asked Laszlo to take him, and he would have taken his things. But today Laszlo is wearing his watch and his ring. He would not dare attempt such thievery unless he knew Jeffries would not return."

"Perhaps Mister Jeffries gave those things to Laszlo."

"I think not. I think... I think he may have killed him and then stole them."

"Killed him?" He was careful not to laugh, but this time only permitted his eyebrows to lift in disbelief. "Arkady, the servants would never dare harm one of my guests, I a.s.sure you.

As you can see, I am most protective of them."

"Perhaps most of the servants would not. But I think Laszlo is capable of such an act. When I confronted him about the watch and ring today and accused him of thievery, he said that dead men owned no property. And there was blood on his sleeve, fresh blood. And this morning, when I arrived at the courtyard, he was driving the carriage away, with a very suspicious expression, and on the seat beside him was a large bundle."

V. listened keenly. At last he said, in the patient tone of one trying to reason with a madman, "Arkady, certainly carrying a bundle in the caleche can be explained, as can the blood?"

"He lied about the bloodstain," I interrupted. "He said he had slaughtered a chicken for the cook, but she knows nothing about it."

He paused, then continued, "But are you quite sure these things belonged to Mister Jeffries? And that you did not mishear Laszlo's words? I feel certain this must all be just a misunderstanding-"

"I have no doubt what Laszlo said to me. And Jeffries" watch and ring are monogrammed with his initial. He wore them all day yesterday."

"You are quite sure of this?"

"Quite sure," I said, but I read the clear disbelief in his eyes.

"I see," V. said slowly, and turned away from me to gaze into the fire. I knew he thought me quite irrational, and struggled to keep control of my temper, lest I say something else heated that might further prove his conclusion. We sat in silence a time, and then he asked: "What do you think should be done?"

"Go to the authorities in Bistritz," I replied, "and tell them our suspicions. Let them investigate Mister Jeffries' disappearance."

Again V. contemplated my words, and after a long pause said slowly, in a tone so soothing I thought at once I was a child snuggled in my bed, listening to Father's low, lulling voice relating a fairy tale. "Arkady... I ask you to restrain your impulse and trust me. I a.s.sure you nothing has happened to Mister Jeffries, and that your conclusions are... premature.

You have been under an enormous emotional strain; perhaps sorrow is clouding your judgement. Let two days pa.s.s. By that time, I am sure the mystery of Mister Jeffries will be solved. If it is not, then you shall serve as our detective. You are bright, with a good brain; I trust you to solve the mystery, and in the end we shall see that justice is done. Only there is no need to trouble the authorities. Will you promise to trust me?"

As he spoke, I felt a wave of dizziness, and the same viselike pain in my skull-and the same conviction that I was losing my grip on sanity. Perhaps I was being foolish to suspect Laszlo on such little evidence; perhaps I could not trust what my own eyes had seen. After all, here was V. sitting before me, a man suddenly ten years younger.

"I promise," I said bleakly. V. refused to discuss any business, saying that I clearly needed to go home early and rest; and so I took my leave of him.

When I pa.s.sed by the guest chambers again on my way out of the castle, they had been entirely emptied of Jeffries' belongings; it is as if he had never existed, had never come.

I left the castle, my heart heavy at the thought of what might have happened to poor Jeffries, my mind perplexed by all I had seen-both real and unreal.

How shall I discern the difference?

On the drive home, as the caleche rolled across the gra.s.sy knoll, I was drawn from my anxious reverie by the horses" nervous whinnies, and caught a glimpse of what had troubled them: a large grey wolf, bounding in our same direction, from the castle towards the manor. I gave the reins a snap and the horses gratefully quickened their pace; but I had come to myself enough to note my surroundings, and could not help gazing over my right shoulder at the bright nacreous beauty of the moon, sailing above the thick stand of forest.

I stared at it only a few seconds. As I did, something small and pale began to materialise against the backdrop of dark forest; I knew at once, before my eyes focused, that it was Stefan. After Father's mutilation, I could not bear to look upon my brother's face or throat, and so I fastened my gaze on his white linen shirt, and the large irregular black stain there, which radiant moonlight imbued with a satiny sheen.

Stefan raised an arm, and pointed at the forest-in the same direction as twice before.

Hesitant, intrigued, fearful, I coaxed the reluctant horses in the direction of the apparition.

As I neared, Stefan vanished, only to reappear further away, almost hidden by the shadows of tall pine at the forest's edge.

I urged the horses closer. Again Stefan vanished, then reappeared, this time inside the forest's border, and motioned me to enter.

I drew a breath and followed; the horses moved tentatively, snorting their disapproval at my foolhardiness. The pa.s.sageway between the trees was narrow, and boughs brushed against the sides of the caleche, releasing the fragrance of evergreen. The instant we entered, panic and regret seized me, for the trees were so close and their foliage so dense that I found myself staring into utter blackness; by contrast, the moonlit knoll had seemed bright as day. Only the smell of pine and the brush of tree limbs revealed my location.

Blinded, I reined the horses to a stop, and tried to determine the placement of tree trunks so that I might safely direct the caleche back out. Yet in the midst of the darkness, Stefan's small form appeared once more before us, glowing with the same radiance as the moon, illuminating the path towards him.

Once more, I followed in the caleche. But before we arrived at the place where Stefan had stood, I detected a thrashing in the undergrowth, a low growl, a blur of movement, and pulled the horses round at once. The caleche swung about in the opposite direction, so swiftly that one wheel lifted off the ground and I very nearly lost my balance and fell-which would have proven fatal.

The forest went coal-black. I could see nothing, but felt the tension on the reins as the horses reared, heard their screams above the snarls of wolves. I slapped the reins, hard, harder, half rising out of desperation, but the horses were too panicked to obey. The wolves leapt, biting at the horses' faces; I heard the snap of their jaws, the thud of their paws against the ground, and recoiled as one jumped at the caleche, so near that I felt its warm breath against my face and heard the whistle of air as its teeth clamped shut.

This horrible scene endured only seconds, but it seemed an eternity before I found the whip and galvanised the shrieking horses into movement. We thundered out of the trees into the streaming moonlight. The wolves at first followed, nipping at the terrified animals' hooves, but soon fell away and dashed back into the forest.

The horses and I were trembling uncontrollably by the time we returned to the manor.

Through some miracle, neither of the animals was seriously harmed. Even so, I felt terribly guilty when I saw their bleeding muzzles, and as the stablehand was already asleep, I tended to their wounds, speaking gently to calm them-though I think the act did more to steady my nerves than theirs. I promised them we would never again venture into the forest without Father's gun.

I could not promise that I would not go there again. Stefan awaits me. Something evil tried to prevent me from discovering what he wanted me to find tonight.

But this is irrational! My dead brother's appearances are nothing more than the result of stress and imagination. Yet the delusion is so strong, it is difficult to resist...

Have shock and sorrow driven me to the brink of insanity? I feel as though I teeter on the precipice. I have seen my dead brother materialise before me; I have seen V. impossibly rejuvenated. I have felt the talons of madness clutch my skull. How can I be certain if I indeed saw Laszlo wearing Jeffries' ring, or saw the bundle in the caleche, or blood on his sleeve? How can I know for certain Jeffries himself existed?

No. No. I must not doubt or I shall go mad. Stefan is an hallucination-compelling but unreal; but I know I saw Laszlo wearing the ring, and I know I did not misunderstand his insolent, incriminating remark.

By the time I entered the house, I had mastered my shaking and achieved some degree of calm-a good thing, as Mary was still awake. I think she is concerned about me-I have tried to hide the shocks of the past few days, but I suspect I have done too poor a job. That small crease she gets between her eyebrows when she is particularly preoccupied has reappeared. She gently broke the news to me that Zsuzsanna seems to be quite ill of some unknown malady, and though I know she was distressed by it, I could not help feeling that she was hiding something more for fear of alarming me. I worry so that she is unhappy here, or that something has occurred to upset her.

She also questioned me, asking whether there was something troubling me. I tried to rea.s.sure her that all was well, but I do not think she believed me.

We retired early, and I did not pause, as is my custom, to record the day's events in my diary; I was exhausted by the emotional strain.

To comfort me as we lay together, Mary put my hand upon her stomach so that I might feel the child moving within her; the precocious rascal kicked so hard that we both were forced to forget our troubles and laugh. My own laughter verged on tears, for I felt a resurgence of the overwhelming love and grat.i.tude I had experienced on the wagon-lit from Vienna, when I had gazed upon my sleeping wife.I fell asleep quickly, but woke within the hour from a dream of Shepherd, lifting his b.l.o.o.d.y head to regard me with the white eyes of a wolf. I fear returning to that dream, and so I have risen to record these words by lamplight.

Oh, Mary! Dear unborn child! To what sort of madhouse have I brought you?

The Journal of Mary Windham Tsepesh 11 April. Morning.

The night before last, I scarcely slept, though I pretended to be asleep when Arkady returned. I was too overwhelmed to make sense of what I had seen, so I spent the long hours beside him in bed, listening to his breathing and praying to G.o.d that, when I rose in the morning, I would wake to find I had been victim of nothing more than a nightmare.

I pray often in secret these days. Arkady knows of my faith in G.o.d. (How tolerantly we smile at one another, each smug in his own beliefs, when one of us makes a p.r.o.nouncement concerning religion.) Not the sour, wrathful G.o.d of England's Church, Who would curse my husband to h.e.l.l for his disbelief. The G.o.d to Whom I pray is wise, loving, far too divinely shrewd to be concerned with the petty rules and jealousies and wars of humans, or to be so annoyed by my husband's rejection that He would d.a.m.n him to eternal torment.

But that G.o.d seems very far from this place. Though I have privately never believed in the Devil, no stranger can fail to sense that some malignant Power holds sway here. Indeed, G.o.d seems no longer to hear my prayers. I woke to the sorrowful knowledge that what I had seen had been no dream.

Far from it; the evidence for what I have witnessed grows. I pray that what I have learned today is false, but my heart and mind are divided. My mind knows that it is insanity, and utterly false; my heart, that it is true. But I cannot trouble Arkady in his time of grief with such terrible, fantastic things until I myself am certain of them.

Yesterday, when Zsuzsanna failed again to come down for breakfast, I paid another visit to her bedchamber. Before I could knock, Dunya opened the door and was hurrying out with a trayful of dishes; and this time, she did not duck her head as is her usual custom. This time she met my gaze, and her own was so plainly terrified and desperate that I remarked in German, "Dunya! Is something the matter?"

Beneath knitted reddish-black brows, her eyes betrayed such anguish that, when she gestured for silence and motioned with her head for me to step back into the corridor, I obeyed unquestioningly. She balanced the tray on one hand and with the other closed the door behind her, softly, then moved down the hall several paces before stopping and turning to be sure I followed.

At last she stopped and faced me, and leaning forward over the tray, whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "He has done it! He has broken the Schwur!"

"I don't understand," said I; I did not recognise the word. "Who has done this?"

"Vlad," she replied, looking fearfully about. Had she not been holding the tray, she no doubt would have crossed herself. "The domnisoara, the young miss, is very bad. Very bad."

"Zsuzsanna?" I glanced back at the bedroom door. "Is she ill?"

Dunya nodded vigorously. "Very bad."

At that point I was still undecided as to the explanation for what I had seen the night before; I was toying with the notion that my own mind had created a visual metaphor. After all, Vlad's seduction of his own niece and his flirtatious manner with me clearly marked him as a predatory beast. And so I blushed to think that Dunya knew about Vlad's nightly visits, and was alarmed by Zsuzsanna's resulting nervous condition-which was apparently worse this morning. Soon the news would be all over the manor, and then the village.

"I must talk to her at once," I said, and made for the door. As I did, Dunya hissed behind me: "Frau Tsepesh! Doamna! You must believe! He has bitten her. Your husband I know will not, but someone here must believe, and help her!"

I froze instantly, then turned back slowly to face her; she set the tray down with a clatter of dishes, crossed herself, then hurried toward me, her manner so beseeching that at first I thought she would throw herself at my feet.

"What do you mean?" I demanded, softly lest Zsuzsanna hear. "What do you mean, he has bitten her?"

She pointed at once to her neck, just above the collarbone. "Here," she said. "He has bitten her here."

It was as if I had spent my entire life in a darkened room, and for the first time, someone had entered and lit the lamp. I stiffened as I thought of Mister Jeffries' laughing words: A vampire, madam... and the souls of innocents are the price...

"Strigoi," I whispered, without realising it until the word pa.s.sed my lips. Dunya nodded, desperately grateful to have at last been understood.

"Strigoi, yes. Yes! We must help her!"

I am not sure what I believed at that moment. I only know that, as I turned the doork.n.o.b, my heart pounded with dread at what I would find.

Such an ominous pall hung over the room that a sense of foreboding came over me as I crossed the threshold. The air seemed heavy, chill, as stifling as the air had been inside the family tomb during Petru's funeral. I fancied I smelled a faint odour of decay. Perhaps the gloom was created by imagination and a sense of revulsion at the fact that I knew Vlad had been here only hours before.

Zsuzsanna lay with her dark hair spread on the pillow. Brutus sat on the floor with his great square head resting on the edge of the bed, near the pillow, gazing up into his mistress's face with a worried, attentive expression. As I entered, he turned his furrowed, mournful countenance towards me and whined softly, as if pleading for help.

At the sight of Zsuzsanna, I raised my hands to my lips and repressed a gasp of horror.

She resembled a living corpse-as pale as her pillows or nightgown. Her dark eyes were shadowed deep purple above and beneath; her skin, no longer supple but a lifeless grey- white, had drawn taut, accentuating the prominent cheekbones, the sharp, narrow nose, the huge dark eyes beneath slashes of jet black brows. The high, sculpted cheekbones and slight upward tilt of her eyes gave her an oddly feline appearance, and the extreme pallour a strange, consumptive beauty.

Her face had the pinched, waxen look of the dead. Only the eyes seemed alive, shining, liquid, full of a peculiar excitement. She did not so much sit as lie against three pillows, breathing in quick little gasps as she struggled to write in a diary propped on a lap tray. The effort seemed almost too great for her.

My appearance startled her. With a swiftness that clearly exhausted her she turned the little book over (though not before I chanced to see it had been written in English, presumably to render it unintelligible to prying servants). She smiled up at me with a flash of teeth; her grey gums had receded, making the teeth appear abnormally long.

I returned the smile, trying to keep the horror from it, for gazing on her I could think of nothing but a grinning skull. I was appalled to see that she had grown so ill so quickly; she had seemed slightly worn and tired the day before, but nothing like this-so close to death's door. "Zsuzsanna!" I exclaimed. "My poor dear, what has happened?"

She did not rise; she could not, but struggled to draw sufficient breath to whisper, "I don't know. I feel so weak, and my back aches so dreadfully." She gestured weakly at it with a hand, and it seemed to me-it is impossible, of course-that her shoulders were almost even, whereas before one had been a few inches higher than the other. "But it's all right, Mary. I don't mind..." She smiled again, her eyes aglitter with beatific madness.

"Don't talk," I ordered. "You're too weak." I turned to Dunya, who had followed me in, and was watching with an air of horrified conviction, her thin hands clasped together at her waist, as if she was secretly praying. "Dunya," I said, "send one of the servants to fetch a doctor."

"I do not need a doctor," Zsuzsanna whispered, but we gave no attention to such a ridiculous statement.

"The nearest doctor is in Bistritsa," Dunya replied. "If he will come at once, he will arrive here tonight, but he is not so good. The best is in Cluj, but that is too far away to be of help."

She paused, lowered her voice, and said with utter conviction, "I know what to do to help her."