Diaries of the Family Dracul - The Covenant with the Vampire Part 9

And then the impossible occurred.

I sensed movement beyond my closed eyes, but it was not accompanied by the pain of my throat being flayed asunder. The heat on my neck was replaced by the cool damp of the forest; the pressure of paws against my shoulders disappeared.

I opened my eyes and saw that the wolf had withdrawn. He now sat on his haunches at my feet like an obedient, panting dog, tongue lolling out the side of his deadly mouth.

I pushed myself to a half-sitting position. The wolf snarled and snapped, and moved to charge again-but reluctantly held himself back at the last instant, as though an invisible, unwanted barrier held him in check.

I wasted no time questioning the reason for this remarkable phenomenon. I found the revolver nearby on the ground and moved slowly, stealthily towards it as the wolf growled his displeasure, but remained otherwise still. At last, I reached swiftly for the gun and fired it point-blank at the creature, who remained so unresisting that I felt a stab of pity. It died with a soft whine as its head sank onto its forelegs.

Afterwards, there was only silence-not even the scurrying of a squirrel, or the singing of a bird, only the soft, steady drum of rain upon foliage. The third wolf never appeared. When my trembling eased, I determined with footsteps the limits of the sinking soil. It was much smaller than I expected, perhaps only three square feet- far too small for a body. With dark mirth that verged on hysteria, I began to laugh: perhaps the tales of the moroi were true. Perhaps my brother had led me to a buried cache of jewels or golden coins.

Obsessed, I began to dig with nothing more than my hands.

It was sweaty work. The soil was heavy with moisture, and after an hour, perhaps two, I was soaked, covered with mud, aching. The rain was coming down hard. I was on the verge of giving up when my chilled fingers finally struck something soft and yielding beneath the inch of muddy water.

It felt like a thick layer of fabric. I frantically cleared away enough mud to determine the dimensions of the hidden prize: it was a square roughly twelve inches on each side, and when I dug deep enough to get my fingers beneath it, I could feel that it was apparently a perfectly square box of some very hard material, either metal or wood, beneath the cloth.

I knelt on the wet, yielding ground and leaned forward, wriggling first fingers, then hands, beneath the box. It took several moments before I could get a good enough grip and enough momentum to pull it from the wet earth, but at last I gave a mighty yank and it came forth with a loud sucking sound.

I fell back onto my haunches and studied my treasure: it had been wrapped in several layers of fine black silk, now soaked and filthy, but too new and in too good shape to have been more than a day in the earth. Eagerly, I unwrapped it, and discovered beneath a simple, unvarnished wooden box fashioned from the native pine, with a crude bra.s.s latch.

I set the box on the ground and unfastened the latch, cutting my thumb on its sharp, unpolished edge, but in my fearful excitement, I did not care. I flung back the latch, slipped my fingertips under the top, and attempted to pry the box open. It took a great deal of effort, as the wood was swollen from the moisture, but at last it came, and I threw back the top.And screamed when I stared into Jeffries" wide, death-clouded eyes.

I sprang to my feet; the box fell from my hands. Jeffries' head rolled out across the soggy foliage with a damp crackling sound and came to rest face up on the very edge of the gaping grave. As it rolled, something fell from the open mouth, which was frozen in the same anguished rictus it had worn in my dream. I reached for the white object on the dark glistening ground, and picked up a head of garlic.

His neck had been sawed through in the same manner as father's, and his mouth crammed full of the pungent herb. His skin was whiter than I thought it possible for any human's to have been; it was precisely the colour of chalk, even paler than the tufts of tousled hair that stuck out wildly in all directions from his scalp.

Thunder rumbled as I stared, aghast, down at the severed head. An abrupt cloudburst beat down through the sheltering trees, spilling a violent cascade on me and my unfortunate erstwhile guest, washing mud from my trouser legs and sleeves. The rain pounded down on Jeffries' open, unseeing eyes, glued his hair to his scalp, swept away twigs and soil and the solitary alder leaf that had clung to his marble-white cheek.

For an instant I thought I would vomit; but what erupted from the depths of my terrified being was entirely unexpected.

I began to laugh.

Low at first, then rising higher in pitch until the sound became hysterical. I threw back my head and laughed harder, weeping, letting the rain mingle with my tears, letting it drum against my open eyes as it did Jeffries' sightless ones, letting it fill my grinning rictus of a mouth until I bent forward, gagging, still convulsed by h.e.l.lish glee.

For I realised: Stefan had first appeared before Jeffries' death. Jeffries was merely coincidental, an afterthought.

There was more treasure to be found.

And I found it, little brother. Oh, I found it.

I spread my arms wide, embracing the rain, whirling in circles like a child seeing how much he could bear before becoming dizzy. I danced, crashing through the brush, unmindful of wolves, uncaring, pressing my feet into the loamy, carpeted soil, pausing when it yielded to dig in the mud like a dog h.e.l.lbent on retrieving a bone.

I found bones, a graveyard full of them-and all of them skulls. Big skulls, and little ones, too. The infants were buried without any amenities; I found their heads in a ma.s.s grave.

Many of the tiny skulls were irregularly shaped, and hinted at gross deformity. One child had half an extra head emerging from his cranium, as though he had endeavoured and failed to give birth to Athena.

I stopped opening the boxes after the second one- which contained the head of a man several months' decayed and slippery with moss-though I continued my mad excavation, collecting the small boxes like so many trophies. But after some two dozen-in addition to too many infants' skulls to count-I found my maniacal energy exhausted, though the ground still gave way in several places immediately surrounding me.

And how many more graveyards like this lay hidden in the endless forest?

Too many places for one man to dig. For one man to bear.But where had the bodies gone, the larger ones of the adults, and the little twisted ones of the poor, discarded children?

Ah, Stefan, I think I learned the answer to that, too.

There were bone fragments mingled with the thatch of twigs, leaves, and pine needles carpeting the forest floor. Upon sifting through the loam carefully, I became convinced that the bodies had been left for the wolves. The fragments were all that remained after the animals had cracked the largest bones into pieces between their powerful jaws, to get at the tasty marrow.

Who can say how long I remained there, scrabbling madly in the mud? How could any human being be expected to account for the pa.s.sage of time in the face of such horror?

I know only this: that when at last I collapsed, trembling, spent, unable to move another handful of heavy soaked earth, I fell back onto the ground and looked up between the branches at a tiny crevice of reddening sky, and knew the clouds had cleared, and the sun was setting.

I am uncertain what happened then; a comforting madness had entirely overtaken me, and reduced my mind to a tabula rasa, incapable of remembering the past, incapable of retaining the present. I do not remember if I replaced the heads and bones I discovered (I pray I did, to protect poor Jeffries and his fellow victims from any further post-mortem indignity), but I apparently managed to crawl into the caleche and drive home.

By the time I returned home, disheveled, damp, and muddy, I was in a delirium. Mary says I have been ill two days with a fever, one so dangerously high that the night of the twelfth they feared I would not live. She seems to know something terrible has happened; she is kind and loving, and does not press.

How can I ever tell her? G.o.ds, I cannot bear to think of her living so close to such danger... !

I am responsible for bringing her to this chamber of horrors, and if anything happens to her or the child- I can write no more of this, for writing makes me remember, and think, and when I begin to remember, when I begin to think, the insanity threatens again...

Chapter 7.

The Journal of Mary Windham Tsepesh 14 April.

For two days, Arkady has been so terribly ill that I have been afraid to leave his side even to write in my journal.

His daily custom is to rise late, take lunch, then read, write, or walk until just before sundown, when he heads for the castle. He usually does not return until after I am asleep.

But the day before yesterday, he came home shortly after sunset. The old gardener, Ion, saw him coming. Something about the way Arkady erratically drove the horses, he said, alerted him, and he rushed into the house, calling: "Doamna! Doamna!"

I was reading in one of the sitting rooms, but the strident tone in the old man's voice bade me drop the book and rush towards the foyer. Somehow, my heart knew something terrible had happened to my husband.I arrived in time to see Ion holding open the ma.s.sive front door as Arkady staggered in, his hair and clothes disheveled, soggy, smeared with mud. His eyes were bright and wild, his features contorted as though in pain -but he was laughing. Laughing, such an evil sound that it froze my heart.

I lifted a hand to my throat, to the small gold cross hidden beneath the fabric of my dress, and said, almost too softly to be heard above his hysterical laughter, "Arkady."

He glanced up, startled. His eyes focused on me, and his mirth abruptly became terror, which grew until he could bear it no longer, but sank to his knees and covered his face with his hands. Beneath them, he released a long, low groan, then muttered, "The skulls! All the little skulls!"

I stepped up beside him as he knelt, and pressed a hand to his forehead; it was so hot that I glanced up at once at Ion and ordered, "Send at once for the doctor." He seemed to understand the word doktor well enough, for he nodded and hurried off towards the servants' quarters.

Just then, Arkady threw his arms around my legs, pressed his face to my belly, and wept, "His head! His head! Stefan was right! There was treasure in the forest!"

Dunya and another of the chambermaids, llona, appeared, and the three of us managed to get Arkady to bed. That night his fever rose and the delirium worsened so that it was all Dunya and I could do to keep him from throwing himself from the bed. He shouted horrible, frightening things about bones and skulls and Mister Jeffries and Stefan, his brother, who had died in childhood -and wolves.

At the worst point that first night, he jerked bolt upright in the bed and stared at me with eyes so wide the irises were edged all round with white, and panting, exclaimed: "My G.o.d! I wrote the letter that brought him here! Father and I both-!" And he let out an anguished howl that could be heard all through the house.

I thought that night that he would die. But through the goodness of G.o.d, he lived, and by the next day he was a little better, though still lapsing into occasional mild delirium. Dunya insisted we take turns watching, though she let me sleep through most of my shift. The sweet girl is concerned about me. I feel dreadfully tired all the time, and the child drops lower each day.

Today Arkady is better. The fever has broken, and his eyes are the clear, gentle ones I have always known.

Zsuzsanna has improved much, too. She was able to walk to the sitting room today, but we were reluctant to break the news of Arkady's illness, so the servants and I have entered into a conspiracy of silence. She is sweet as ever, but distantly dreamy, and at times I detect smug condescension in her smile. I cannot help thinking her recovery is more Dunya's doing than the doctor's, and so we faithfully garland the window with pungent wreaths each night, then closet them away in the daytime.

But something heartbreaking happened this noon, and I do not think we will be able to hide this truth from Zsuzsanna very long. The day was temperate and sunny, and while Arkady was peacefully napping, I went out into the little landscaped garden by the east wing, which captures the morning sunlight. I was sitting on the cast-iron loveseat there with my eyes closed, dozing in the delicious warmth of the sun when I heard footsteps nearby. I glanced up to see the gardener, Ion, carrying big brown Brutus like a pup in his arms. I smiled at first at the tender sight-until the poor dog's head lolled back with lifeless abandon, and I saw the blood on his throat and flank where he had been cruelly mauled.

I burst immediately into sobs, and cried out, "What happened?" Ion stopped, gazed sadly down at the animal in his arms, and shook his head; whether to indicate regret at the sweet animal's pa.s.sing or his own ignorance of German, I do not know.

Weeping, I pointed to myself, and said, "I will tell Zsuzsanna." And I lifted my finger to my lips in a signal for silence, hoping that he would understand not to speak of it to her or anyone else until I had done so.

He looked back up at me and nodded, seeming to understand, then slowly trudged onward, apparently intending to lay the animal to rest.

I hope he buried him somewhere near a garden or trees, where there is plenty of sunlight and growing things and small animals to chase.

I went inside and shared the sad news with Dunya. She listened solemnly, her lips pressed tightly together and her eyes downcast with sorrow. Though I said absolutely nothing of my suspicions as to the cause of poor Brutus' death, her first words were an offer to sleep in Zsuzsanna's room tonight.

I agreed at once.

Superst.i.tious and silly it may be, but I have witnessed events which logic says are impossible, and I have a husband driven mad by some private terror. I know why that poor dog died; I have seen the reason grinning outside my bedroom window at night.

I only pray that Dunya, endowed with the same good, loyal heart but a far shrewder brain, can avoid the same fate.

Zsuzsanna Tsepesh's Diary 15 April, 2 a.m.

It is done. I am his.

My back and leg and foot ache terribly, but I know now it is a good pain-like birth pangs, temporary and leading to a outcome so wondrous all suffering will soon be forgotten.

Despite the pain, my entire body vibrates, sings with incredible, newfound strength; such strength, such aliveness that I cannot sleep, cannot return to bed, but leaned naked and b.l.o.o.d.y out the open windowsill after he left, stretching out my arms at the waning moon and inviting it to dance with me, laughing up at the stars.

Laughing at Dunya, pitiful witless creature. She lies snoring (just as Brutus did) on the floor beside the bed in deep, deep slumber. Look at her there, with her gaping ugly mouth, her stinking crucifix! She will not wake until morning, no matter how hard I laugh, no matter how loudly I taunt, singing into her ear: Silly Dunya, silly Dunya! My ineffectual little watchdog!

I know nothing can rouse her. I know everything he knows now.

I know everything.

Once a miserable cripple, unloved, unwanted, I am now stronger and more beautiful than you all! Immortal, because he loves me. I had no inkling of the depth of that love until tonight; I am still awed, moved, amazed to the point of uncontrollable trembling.Oh, how I love him!

They told me about Brutus this evening-Mary and her little shadow, Dunya. A part of me, a very small part now, wept. I had to; they were watching. They expected me to be crushed and heartbroken. I obliged.

But I was so relieved. Relieved and happy, for I knew it meant he was coming that night, tonight, and I knew what I had to do. And even when Mary told me that Dunya would be spending the night in my room, "to look after me in case I was upset," I wasn't worried. I knew to trust him. (Better Dunya than Mary; for now that I know everything, I also know it is easier to influence some more than others. Mary is one of the hardest -even more so than jealously devoted Brutus was-and there is always the danger she might sway Arkady, who is already difficult enough to deal with because of the headstrong streak he inherited from Mother. But Dunya is superst.i.tious, and like most of the local folk, readily affected, especially when asleep.) And so as we settled down to bed tonight, I waited, heart beating rapidly with excitement, until I sensed the approach of those beautiful eyes, jewel-like, evergreen, immortal. When Dunya fell to snoring beneath her blanket on the carpet, I knew it was time. I stole quietly from the bed, gathered up the woven heads of garlic around the window and hid them in the closet, grimacing at their repugnant smell and crinkly, papery feel.

And then I leaned over the window-seat to fling back the shutters and raise the sash; in poured the argent, energizing light of moon and stars. I stood in the center of that magnificent l.u.s.trous pool and watched as shimmering atoms of light began to swirl with rainbow colours, the way sun reflects off a soap bubble. Then the specks themselves began to vibrate, to move, to encompa.s.s me, circling faster, faster, until my overwhelmed eyes could no longer focus; and out of that prismatic diamond dance, Vlad slowly appeared-faint and ill-formed at first, like a daydream, then gradually more solid, until at last he stood, his fine skin no longer so pale, but still catching the light with fleeting iridescent glimmers of quicksilver, pink and turquoise, like mother-of-pearl, like the fieriest opal. He was younger; yes, younger, with hints of iron at each temple, making his resemblance to Father, to Arkady, all the stronger. I reached for his crystalline-cold hands, and was pulled towards him.

We kissed as relatives do-solemnly, on each cheek, hands primly clasped; and then he encircled my waist with his arms and slowly, gently, unloosed my nightgown and drew it down to my waist. I shook free of it and kicked it aside. He pressed me to him, with that strong hand firm against my bare, almost-straight back, and kissed my lips in a manner that was far from familial, with tongue and teeth and heat.

Near-faint with antic.i.p.ation, I leaned away from that embrace, presenting myself to him: my head and shoulders fell back, causing my long, loose dark hair to hang mere inches above the floor; my pale torso, silvered by starlight, curved away from him like the crescent moon.

He arched his own body like a scimitar forward, against mine, and kissed me again, drawing his lips-no longer so cold-once again over my mouth, my chin, the curve of my jaw until they found my exposed, proffered neck, and the tiny, elegant wounds just above the collarbone. His tongue circled them, delicately, and I shuddered at the sensation of exquisite, feverish tenderness there. His mouth opened wide; his lips pressed against my skin; his tongue began working rapidly, eagerly over the wounds. I felt the ever-so-gentle pressure of razor-keen teeth resting against the centre of each partially healed incision- waiting to strike like a serpent, to sink deep into my flesh again.

I trembled, waiting.

He lifted his head, and whispered into my ear: "No. You are still too weak. Let me be the first tonight..."

To my bitter disappointment, he recoiled, as swiftly as he had struck out the time before, and released me from the embrace. I cried out softly in despair, but fell silent when I saw his hands flash phosph.o.r.escent-pale against his black cloak. It dropped to the floor, and he worked swiftly to unfasten his vest, then his shirt. He did not remove them, but let them hang undone, and reached forth with one hand to pull the fabric back, revealing a broad, powerful chest that looked hewn from marble, as muscular and unyielding firm as a young Roman G.o.d's. His other hand he raised, and drew a long, pointed nail as sharp as knife- edged steel across his heart, riving asunder his beautiful flesh and leaving a red, diagonal slash in its wake.

And then he reached deep within that wound; his gaze held mine as he found the vein and scored it. I saw the faint, transient flicker of pain in his eyes, but it was far, far overwhelmed by a growing excitement. My gaze dropped to the red ribbon on his chest, and the rich, crimson fluid welling there. I stared at it, compelled, astounded, worshipful.

He wove his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and grasped it, tenderly, tightly, then pressed me to him.

I drank.

I drank like a newborn babe; I drank like a lover. As icy as his touch had been that first night, as cool as his skin, so much hotter now was that blood-hotter than any living creature's. It scalded my lips and tongue and throat, made tears course down my cheeks into my mouth, mingling brine with iron.

The taste! The dark, dark taste... !

I worked noisily, greedily, lapping with animal abandon; I threw my arms around him and pulled him closer to me, with a surge of strength that made him laugh, low and confident, but also with the faint surprise of one seduced, one overwhelmed to the point of sudden startling weakness. I smiled even as I feasted, hearing in that laughter a hint of the sweet, languid pleasure I had known when he drank from me. My abrupt embrace threatened his balance, and he was forced to steady himself against me, flattening his palms against my back, gradually pressing his fingers more tightly against me until, at the end, he dug them deeply into my flesh lest he fall.

As I drank, I learned. With his blood came the knowledge and perspective of centuries; I could see it all now, see why he had to leave for England. The world is changing with geometrically increasing rapidity. Our land is remote, and has been spared for four hundred years, but civilisation is nearing at last. The world and its governments encroach; he witnessed the establishment of Austrian rule with trepidation, for it marked the beginning of the end of his reign.

He has fended off their control, but eventually, they will attempt to intervene; and when they do, Transylvania will be too small. It will become difficult, if not impossible, to prevent outsiders from questioning the disappearance of stray travelers-travelers who have been all too few of late, but who bear useful news of that changing world. And with each successive generation, the villagers become fewer and more difficult to control.

The Carpathians grow less safe, less sustaining, each day. And so, with the patient, cunning foresight of an ancient predator, he had sent my brother to London, to be educated in the ways of that great city, that his own transition there might be eased.

I understood now, with dazzling clarity; and I wept, too, to know that he had loved me enough to provide the miracle through which I might accompany him to safety. To England.Oh, more than that, it was far more than that. He has remained alone since his wife died, almost four centuries before. But now, of all women, he has chosen me, and as I drank, emotion flowed out from him and engulfed me like that dark red tide, and borne upon it was the knowledge that, with our exchange, he was tied to me and I to him, forever.

He had chosen me as bride because I had chosen him. I had drawn him to me, and he had seen that my loneliness was a need, a hunger, even greater than his own.

He had chosen me because I alone loved him freely -no, it is a word beyond love. I revered him in the manner he deserves.

I drank, and tasted his pa.s.sion, and his unbending will; his hatred of the rumini, and his pain when they revile him as a monster.

He is no monster, no devil. He is a saint, an angel from Heaven!

No-more than that. He is a G.o.d.

I drank, and wept with sorrow for countless loved ones dead and buried, the ache of knowing that each fresh young face, each new love, would be seen to wither in turn and die.

I saw the procession of a hundred faces in seconds, all of them different, all of them the same, like Arkady and Father, all of them minor variations of Vlad's own handsome visage.

Again, and again and again that love, that loss, that fresh grief, creating a loneliness eternal and more horrible than the one I had tasted in my brief mortal life.

I drank, and knew we two would never be alone again.