Kiss Of The Butterfly Part 17

'Faith?' he said faintly. 'I didn't think I had any left.'

'Don't be silly. Of course you do. You've only lost faith in yourself, not G.o.d. One day you will be a champion of light.'

'A champion of light?!' he sputtered. It sounded like a tacky, second rate, made-in-j.a.pan Sat.u.r.day morning cartoon. 'What in the world are you talking about?'

'Oh, I am merely talking. But don't worry. You were not attacked by vampires. You were challenged by the Dark One himself. He is too jealous of his power to ever give that much of it to anyone else, particularly to vampires, greedy small-minded things that they are.'

'Is this for real?' He didn't want to believe what he was hearing, but couldn't reject what she was saying.

'We must get you out of Serbia. When are you leaving to see Marko? He'll put everything in perspective.'

Steven sat up, now feeling there was an exit from the dark tunnel. 'I'm leaving tomorrow evening around 11:00 p.m.' He nursed his chamomile tea for some time then looked at her. 'What's this all about?'

She gazed at him a long, long moment, looked around the room at the Lazarevic portraits, and finally returned her gaze to him.

Mrs. Lazarevic stood and walked to the china cabinet, opened it and withdrew an old alb.u.m, its cover well worn. She set it on the table and slowly opened the discolored cover, revealing yellowed black and white photographs, some of which appeared to be Daguerreotypes from the 19th century. She pointed to one, which showed two youngish men posing formally in the tightly-tailored narrow-waist dress uniforms of the Habsburg cavalry, with calf-high boots, striped trousers, richly braided Hussar tunics slung jauntily across one shoulder and plumed czako hats on their heads. Both held officers' swords and wore long moustaches, and one was clearly a Lazarevic. The other reminded Steven vaguely of someone, although he couldn't say who. He wracked his brain, trying to remember the Austro-Hungarian n.o.bility and royal family. At the bottom of the page someone had written: Wien, 5.viii.1874 in now-faded ink using an elegant cursive hand.

Mrs. Lazarevic turned the page and pointed to another black and white photo of the same two officers, this time wearing open great coats draped around their shoulders. Both wore the World War One field uniforms of the Habsburg Kaiserlich und Koniglich Army, held officers' swords and sported the same long moustaches. Underneath, the same elegant, cursive hand had written: Peterwardein, 5.viii.1914. Steven looked closer at the photo. The second man looked increasingly familiar, but he wasn't certain.

Mrs. Lazarevic simply turned the page and showed him another photo of the same two men, their moustaches as black and full as in the first photo, this time wearing officers' uniforms of the Yugoslav Royal Army. The photograph had been taken on field maneuvers as they stood proudly next to a large artillery piece. On the bottom the same hand had written: Brcko, 5.viii.1940. He stopped her and turned the pages back, comparing the photographs. Neither man appeared to have aged in the course of sixty-six years. And then he saw it. The second man bore a striking resemblance...no, it couldn't be...to Professor Slatina!

'Who are they?' His voice was so dry he barely managed to expel the words.

Her unwavering gaze made him deeply uncomfortable. 'You really don't know, do you? He told you nothing? The man on the left is my late dear husband, Rade Lazarevic. A better, more honorable and upright man never walked the face of this earth. The man on the right is well known to you. He is your dear professor, Marko Slatina.'

His vision darkened and his breathing quickened. He steadied himself on the table with both hands, trying to concentrate on the photographs now blurring before his eyes. After several moments he lifted his head in disbelief and looked directly at Mrs. Lazarevic. 'Is this real? Are you serious?'

'Yes. Very real. And I am quite serious. I can't believe Marko is so irresponsible as to send you out here completely unprepared. You could get killed. Or worse.'

He stared at her uncomprehendingly. 'But how can this be?'

'How well have you studied your folklore? Do you know what a vampirovic is? Or a kresnik, in Marko's case?'

His mind flashed back to what he had read about the vampirovic, the offspring of a vampire and a human that could live forever and hunted vampires. He sat stunned. 'But that's only folklore...I mean, this isn't real, is it. A vampirovic? Come on...' Yet he kept flipping through the pages, examining the photographs. He came to a photograph of a young Mrs. Lazarevic standing between the two men, now without moustaches, her arms around them, next to the clock tower at Petrovaradin, dated 6.viii.1960.

'Are Marcus von Zlatinow and Professor Slatina...'

'One and the same,' she finished Steven's sentence for him.

He scanned the portraits on the walls around him, until a light switched on inside his head. 'Then these are...'

'All of my late husband, may his soul rest in peace,' she answered proudly.

'And are you...'

'A mere mortal, such as yourself.'

Steven sat speechless, looking at the portraits on the walls and the photos in the alb.u.m. All seemed to smile at him.

'Marko has sent you on a fool's errand and placed you in grave danger,' she said. 'You must take great care what you do, with whom you speak, and what you write down. Already you have attracted unwanted attention.'

'I don't understand.'

'Use your head. If Marko and my husband are vampirovici, what does it mean?'

'Come on, they're just folklore, old tales,' he protested.

'What does it mean?'

'That vampires exist...'

'That vampires exist,' she said. 'Marko didn't send you on an academic voyage. He sent you as a scout.'

'A scout?! What are you talking about?'

'I'll let Marko tell you everything in Budapest. Better you hear it from him than from me. Please, take care of yourself. But if you have any problems, come see me, and I'll help you as best I can.'

Steven sat stunned.

'Marko has always been a strong, good man,' Mrs. Lazarevic said. 'But he is a fool when it comes to matters of the heart.'

'Excuse me?'

'Never mind. We shall speak only about what is important, not gossip.' Her voice was now more severe, and she seemed to say it more to herself than him. But then she decided to enlighten him a little.

'I have seen the signs, Steven... They feed... I feel it, sense it, in the air, in the wind, in the trees, in the soil. It is they who brought this darkness to the land. Even now they think they are undiscovered. As long as they believe this, you are safe. Yet nature abhors them. Their very presence is an open wound on the face of the land, and nature screams out in pain.'

'They fear Marko will come for them again and finish the job, as he must, and this time he will not be soft-hearted as before. For them there will be no redemption, nor will there be an Emperor to show some foolish notion of mercy. But they have grown careless and complacent, gorged and bloated on the freshly-spilled blood of innocents. For now they focus on Niedermeier. For your sake, I hope he is discreet,' she fixed him with an accusing stare. 'And,' she added, 'alive.'

She resumed: 'You have partaken of new knowledge, much as did Father Adam and Mother Eve. Like unto the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil, it can kill. You must be extremely careful with this knowledge and mention nothing of it or your research to anyone, even your professors and most trusted friends. For in the day they partake, they shall surely die.'

Steven stared in his tea then turned to her. 'So you really believe vampires exist?'

'Oh Steven, how young you are. After all these years of communism I find your innocence refreshing. It gives me hope for a better world. Yes, vampires really do exist. But for this evening you shall be safe from them. Come, you will sleep in Katarina's room for the night. And when you see Marko, tell him the Emperor's pets have escaped and that it's time he return and finish the job.'

Mrs. Lazarevic had turned Katarina's room into a shrine to her daughter, and Steven fell asleep surrounded by Katarina smiling at him from countless picture frames.

Steven waited until the operator called his name, then he entered the musty booth, picked up the receiver and heard the phone ring distantly. Even now there was static on the line. Someone picked up the phone and the line suddenly became clear and he heard Katarina's voice as though she were in the next room. He had forgotten the nine hour time difference and had woken her at two in the morning.

'It's me,' Steven said.

'Where are you calling from?' she whispered, her voice still groggy.

'Novi Sad.'

'Are you okay?'

'I'm okay...I think.'

'I've been worried,' she said. 'Do you need anything?'

'I don't know.' He hesitated. He wanted to escape from Serbia to the warm feeling he had when he was in Katarina's presence. 'I...I just needed to hear your voice.'

There was silence. Finally she said: 'I'm here.'

He listened to her breathing softly over the line, wanting to say something. But the words wouldn't come out, as though he feared that the invisible force that bound him to her would disappear.

'Do you still have the cross?' she asked.

'And the pine cone,' he answered.

A wave of silence washed over them.

'I have faith in you,' she whispered.

After a long silence he asked: 'Do you?'

After an equally long silence she answered 'Yes.'

'Thanks.' Steven could hear her breathing become gentler.

'I look forward to seeing you again,' she whispered faintly, almost asleep.

'Good night,' he said. 'Sleep well.'

He hung up the phone.

They came for Steven two nights later in a dark late model mini-van with mud-covered license plates. The time was shortly before midnight and lightning slashed across the heavens, its intermittent streaks revealing the undersides of murky clouds, billowing and roiling behind a cloak of darkness, while chains of gut-wrenching thunder shook the dormitory windows and set the walls humming. Black rain cascaded down as they entered the dorm.

Steven had fallen asleep early, exhausted by the stressful events of the week and was roused from slumber by male voices that matched the resonance point of the concrete, causing the surrounding walls to vibrate with eerie tonality. An unusually deferent Neso said: 'Yes, yes, the American. He's in the room down there. Knock on the door. He's probably sleeping. I'll show you.'

Steven slipped from his bed in fear and grabbed the stake from his backpack.

The sound of hard-soled boots drew closer, until they stopped in front of Steven's door, and then Neso politely said 'he's here. He's a good kid, be nice to him.'

A fist pounded heavily on the door and a gruff male voice called out: 'Mini-van for Budapest.'

Steven breathed a sigh of relief, hid the stake and opened the door. The driver carried Steven's suitcase out to the van, along with a small package Neso had slipped him in return for a fistful of Marks. Ceca smiled coyly as Steven said goodbye, while Neso insisted on kissing him three times on the cheeks. 'If you need anything in Budapest, I mean anything, call this number.' Neso handed him a piece of paper.

Heedless of the downpour, the dark van rushed through an even darker countryside while Steven stared through fogged-up windows, nicotine-blackened condensation dripping down the gla.s.s. Most of the pa.s.sengers slept, their bodies contorted into unnatural positions against the seats and windows, while a nervous businessman in the rear puffed putrid cigarettes all the way to Budapest.

Steven stayed awake all the way to the border, thinking about everything that had happened since his arrival: the war, vampire ethnography, Gordana the librarian, Vesna, Niedermeier, the attack of darkness, and now Mrs. Lazarevic's revelations about her husband and Professor Slatina. He would finally have the chance to leave it all behind, decompress and clear his head for a few days in Budapest. But he also felt apprehension about his impending reunion with Slatina. What would he say to the professor? What would the professor say to him?

Was Mrs. Lazarevic really to be believed? Were both her late husband and Slatina really the quasi-immortal vampire-hunting offspring of vampires the vampirovici of the old folk tales? Could a person really live that long? Was Slatina really the enigmatic Captain Marcus von Zlatinow from the fortress commander's log books? The names were certainly similar enough, but the commander had referred to von Zlatinow in his log book as a Venetian, whereas Slatina claimed to be from the island of Hvar in Croatia. What would a Venetian have been doing in the service of the Habsburg emperor? If Slatina really is a vampirovic, why did he send Steven on a scouting mission? Why not come himself? Looking at his dim reflection in the foggy gla.s.s Steven asked himself: 'Am I losing my sanity along with everyone else in this country?'

If everything Mrs. Lazarevic had said was true and he had no reason to doubt her, other than the fact that it was completely outlandish then the professor had a lot of explaining to do. Or was Mrs. Lazarevic simply a crazy widow suffering from loneliness, whose only child had gone off to America leaving no one to keep a lid on the mother's fantasies?

After the border, he relaxed with the knowledge he was outside Yugoslavia and fell into a contorted sleep, only to awake disoriented on the outskirts of Budapest. Dawn's first faint light was beginning to creep over the horizon when they reached the Budapest airport, where all the pa.s.sengers alighted, except Steven.

The van then took him into the city center, through 19th century Pest, across the Danube to Buda via the gaunt skeleton of the emaciated Szabadsag Bridge to deposit him in front of the Hotel Gellert, an imposing fin de siecle building sitting heavily on the banks of the Danube. The lobby was deserted but for a middle-aged desk clerk with greased-back hair, chatting with two tired-looking ladies-of-the-evening. The desk clerk jumped up when he saw Steven, shooed away the girls with a wave of his hand, and rushed behind the reception counter.

'Plea.s.sse, may I help you,' the clerk's heavily accented English and lisping "s" gave him all the charm of Boris Badenov in the Bullwinkle and Rocky cartoons. Slightly giddy from lack of sleep, Steven fought to keep from laughing at the mental image.

'I'm looking for a guest, Professor Marko Slatina,' Steven said, keeping a straight face.

'Plea.s.sse, one moment, plea.s.sse.' The oozing clerk ruffled through some papers. Unable to find what he was looking for he opened a drawer and ruffled through more, and then another drawer. He shrugged his shoulders. 'Plea.s.sse, we have no guessst by that name. May I help you in sssome other way, Mr....?'

'Roberts, Steven Roberts.'

'Ahhhh, yesss, plea.s.sse,' he rummaged again through more papers. 'Thisss isss for you,' the clerk handed him an envelope and disappeared into the back room.

Surprised, Steven opened it and found a piece of hotel stationery with a street address on Uri Utca. Not knowing where that was, he brought down his hand on the silver bell on the counter, filling the empty lobby with a loud metallic ring. The greasy-haired clerk reappeared hastily and clasped his hand over the bell to dampen the tone.

'Yesss plea.s.sse, how may I help you plea.s.sse?' The clerk's forced politeness was infuriatingly servile, yet he was clearly annoyed and his use of the word "please" bordered on obdurate.

'Where is this address?'

'You may take a taxi, plea.s.sse. One isss waiting right outssside the front door, plea.s.sse.' He gestured towards the entrance with a dramatic flourish of his arm. 'Plea.s.sse, it isss on Varhegy, Ca.s.sstle Hill.' The clerk watched Steven walk from the lobby, suitcase in hand, and then picked up the telephone and dialed a number.

As though immune to speeding tickets the taxi driver raced his aging Skoda north along the Danube and up Castle Hill. The rickety suspension banged against the uneven cobblestones as they zipped through the castle walls and past a ma.s.sive palace, testimony to the bygone grandeur of the Habsburg imperial court. The taxi clanked over the cobblestones as it turned into Uri Utca and the driver slammed on the brakes, throwing Steven against the dashboard. Steven paid the driver, who rattled off as though late for the starting flag of a Formula One race.

In the deserted street the only sound was the tweeter and chirp of birds waking to the new day as the sun's first rays began to brighten the tops of the houses, bathing the pavement in radiance, drenching the tightly-packed two and three storey Baroque buildings in pastels.

The blue building stood against the western wall, a patron saint on timeless watch in a second floor niche above a stone archway large enough for a coach and horses. Steven approached and knocked at a small door set in the ma.s.sive gate. After waiting a respectable interval, he knocked again. Then he pounded hard. 'Come on, open up,' he muttered.

Exasperated, he finally tried the door latch and it sprung open. He stepped into a gravel courtyard filled with unexpected greenery: a large tree, a flower garden and a mult.i.tude of bushes, all shimmering with hordes of b.u.t.terflies, taking Steven aback. Towards the rear a green door opened, and a stocky elderly man emerged, dressed in overalls and a workman's ap.r.o.n.

He walked past Steven, shut the door in the gate, picked up Steven's suitcase and walked into the building, taking no notice of Steven whatsoever. Steven followed him up a flight of stairs to the first floor, where the man set the suitcase on a bench in an austere room that resembled a monk's cell, with a small bed, a writing table, and a plain wooden cross on the wall. From the window Steven could see the ramparts of the medieval city and valley. The old man showed Steven the bathroom, led him back to the room, said 'schlafen' in badly accented German and left.

Steven headed for the bathroom to bathe. Staring back at him from the mirror he saw a scraggly Che Guevara look-a-like, whose bleary, bloodshot eyes would have looked at home begging at a freeway off-ramp.

After bathing, Steven lay down. Four hours later he awoke to find a tray of food on the table. After eating, he opened the bedroom door to find the old man sitting on a chair in the hallway, reading a book.

'Komme' he said to Steven, once again in barely intelligible German, and Steven followed with his backpack. The old man took him out into the courtyard, through another door, then down into a musty cellar with vaulted brick ceilings, where he turned on a flashlight.

'Komme,' he repeated, as he led Steven through another door, then downward into another, even deeper cellar, then through a veritable labyrinth of corridors, tunnels, cellars, and more tunnels.

Steven was completely disoriented. He followed the old man through the underground warren, until they came to a series of staircases that led up and finally out into a different courtyard, this one painted in a bright orange that magnified the midday sunlight, causing Steven to shade his eyes with his hand.

'Komme,' the old man repeated once more as he led Steven quickly inside the building to a s.p.a.cious and airy upper room filled with a ma.s.sive dark wood dining table that appeared to have been left from medieval times.

They continued out onto a terrace above the city wall, bright sunlight reflecting from the white stone b.u.t.tresses and arches of the neo-Gothic parliament directly across the glittering Danube. They had crossed the entire width of Castle Hill via the cellars and were now on the eastern-most river side. Steven squinted and blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust to the brilliant glare of midday.

The silhouette of a man approached, grasped him firmly by the hand and shook it heartily.