Grateful to be of help, I went downstairs, and en route discovered that the
main entrance had been unbolted and flung open sometime in the night. The morning
sky was grey, filled with ominous clouds; the air smelled of imminent rain.
Beyond, near the front steps, awaited horses and the caleche. The sight brought
both gladness and dread: gladness, because here was a chance at escape; dread,
because I remembered my promise to retrieve the new visitor from Bistritz.
I stepped down into the courtyard. The horses were rested and groomed, despite
the fact that every servant had disappeared from the castle. As I stood staring
at them in wonder, I felt pulled in four directions by varying impulses.
First, I wished to flee, to carry my suffering wife down the stairs and gallop
off with her in the caleche, despite the danger to her; second, I wished to
go to Bistritz to warn the visitor to return from whence he came.
Third, I wished to go to Bistritz, retrieve the visitor, and deliver him into
V.s hands - knowing it would purchase the safety of my wife and child. What was
one more death when the Muellers blood was already upon my unwitting hands?
Yet if the legend was true that the vampire slept by day, then I needed do
none of the foregoing - only to kill V. as he slumbered. I knew the method, and
had the means.
I made my decision just as the soft sunlight began to burn through the mist,
which hung low to the ground. When it seemed that the white swirls beside me
grew solid, I judged it a
trompe Ioeil
born of exhaustion, and paid
it no mind until I heard a familiar, agitated voice whisper:
Kasha
!
The horses snorted nervously and stamped.
I glanced up. Zsuzsa stood, clutching the wispy white cerements of the tomb
about her like a cloak of fog. She seemed younger, a woman of barely twenty
years. Her body was still straight, still perfect, still possessed of unearthly
beauty, yet in the light of day, her supernatural radiance was dimmed. She approached
with movements graceful but so entirely human that sorrow clutched my throat.
I stared into eyes striking and full of allure, but no longer distant and predatory;
a hint of their golden lustre remained, but the dominant hue was soft brown - the
colour of my dear, dead sister's eyes.
Her cheeks were wet with tears.
Oh, Zsuzsa, I whispered, and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the vision
remained. I swayed, suddenly dizzy.
Kasha, she said urgently, and caught my wrist; I shivered at her cool touch,
and saw that she, too, shuddered - at the sight of Ion's crucifix, which I had
drawn with my free hand from my pocket, and displayed in my open palm. She recoiled
at once, as if my skin scalded her like vitriol. I have been waiting for you
to venture where
she
cannot hear. Kasha, I must talk to you at once!
We must save you - you do not know what he plans! But let us go into the shadows;
the light pains me.
I straightened, unsteady; she gestured as though to help, but was forced by
the crucifix to keep her distance. Together we walked into the shadow cast by
the castle, and there she reached out to embrace me - then dropped her arms, helpless
in the presence of the cross. Yet I sensed no attempt on her part to mesmerise.
Kasha, she repeated, in a low voice that shook with desperation. I know
that you were there last night. You saw me feed -
I saw you kill a woman, I said.
Her lids lowered. She did not meet my gaze, but there was no trace of guilt
in her voice, her expression as she said, Yes, but I had no choice. You cannot
imagine the hunger, the pain; I was not myself. Not myself at all, but I am
what I am now, and I cannot change it. I do not say these words to entice you,
but because I mean to help: Kasha, you must let me bite you. You must let me
make you as I am! It is the only way; otherwise, what happened to poor Father
will happen to you!
I raised the crucifix and held it before her face, wondering at its effectiveness - so
the peasants tales are all true! - and wishing I had thought to use it last night,
to save Frau Mueller from the creature standing before me. She grimaced and
drew back, raising her hands as if she feared I might strike her, but she showed
no anger. Go back, I commanded. Go back to him, monster. My sister is dead.
She let go a single bitter sob, but stood her ground, though clearly the proximity
of the cross tormented her. When she had gained some measure of control, and
wiped her
eyes
with the edge of her burial clothes, she said, in as
determined a voice as I had ever heard the living woman use, I
am
your sister, Kasha. Yes, I am undead - but I am still Zsuzsa. You must understand;
Vlad has always been as he is, a cruel tyrant. Death and immortality have changed
him - and me - but little. Do you not wonder why I have come now, in the morning,
when you have never seen him?
I had no answer to this, for in fact I was amazed. My silence brought her faint
satisfaction.
He can move at day, if emergency demands it, she continued, but the light
is very uncomfortable, and he does not like it, for his powers are greatly reduced.
He
must
rest for a portion of each twenty-four hours, more when he
has fed, and so he chooses most times to rest at day. But I fed and rested last
night; and I appear before you now at the time when I am most vulnerable, as
a sign of trust. Oh, I am still stronger than you, and I could try to control
you - but I will not. Arkady, you must listen and believe!
Her tone was one of anguished sincerity; and I could not deny that she was
not attempting to hypnotise me, as she had the night she first rose. And so
I asked, Listen and believe what?
The truth. Her face contorted with pain. He does not love us. Oh, Kasha,
he has never loved us! I thought, when he came to me, that he did so because
he had feelings - but it has all been a lie. He controlled me then, he made me
feel and believe things, and even when I drank his blood -
Here, she lost her composure and lowered her face into her hands and wept;
her dark hair, free now of any trace of silver, fell forward from beneath her
white veil. After a time, she raised her face and continued, in a shaking voice,
When I drank his blood, I knew all that he knew. I learned then the terms of
the pact -
The covenant, I said.
Yes. I learned everything about it then; but he still controlled me, and forced
me to forget what he did not want me to know. He thought - his arrogance knows
no bounds! - he thought I would be so grateful to him for my immortality that
I would continue to be his slavishly adoring little Zsuzsa, that once I rose
as
strigoi
and remembered everything, I would still love him. Perhaps
he thought I would become as heartless as he! But you are still my brother,
and I am still Zsuzsa, even though changed. I still love you, Kasha, and cannot
bear to see him use you so.
He made me
strigoi
because my worship of him appealed to his ego;
and so, in his hubris, he decided he would appease his hunger, silence my opposition
to his desire to go to England, and have an immortal partner who would forever
revere him as the
voievod.
You see, he has surrendered control of me - he
does not know my thoughts, does not know where I have gone. It is part of the
bargain he struck, in order to break the covenant and make one of his own family
strigoi.
He could not do so without paying a heavy price, for to make
one of his own a vampire meant the soul would be trapped eternally between Heaven
and Hell, so the Devil cannot have it; so he chose that, once I rose as undead,
he would forfeit his ability to enter and control my mind. He was that sure
of my loyalty.
Bargain with whom? I interrupted, but her eyes narrowed at this and she could
not seem to bring herself to answer, but continued rapidly.
And so I remembered none of the truth of his pact when I was changing, before
I died, because he still directed my thoughts then; and when I rose from my
coffin, I could think of nothing except the horrible hunger. Only after I had
drunk the woman's blood and rested was my mind clear enough to think; and then
I was horrified for your sake. Our poor father suffers in Hell now, in
his
place! Vlad could have saved him, could have done for him what he did for me - trap
my soul upon earth; but instead, he made sure he would suffer eternal torment!
Do not think he kept his teeth from Father's neck out of kindness! And he will
do the same to you - entrap you, force you to commit crimes out of your own free
will. You should hear how cruelly he laughs when he speaks of sending you to
Bistritz to see the
jandarm.
He delights in your torment; it is all
but a game to him, watching your growing dread as you realise the truth, bringing
you to the edge of madness in hopes of breaking your spirit
I closed my eyes, thinking of Radu's letter:
He is like an old wolf who
has made so many kills he grows bored and must find new pleasures; destroying
innocence is one of them
This entertainment remains fresh for him, for he can
only enjoy it once a generation.
The Muellers, I said abruptly as I opened my eyes, realising that V. had
killed Laszlo in order to force my complicity. At Zsuzsanna's quizzical glance,
I added, The visitors. He tricked me into driving stakes through their hearts
before they were dead; tricked me into murder, when I thought I was only preventing
them from rising as undead.
You did not kill them, she said, with such certainty that I believed her.
I felt the girl die.
But she screamed -
As the undead do, when they are destroyed. I felt a relief so deep my eyes
filled with tears; but my sister shuddered at the thought as she added urgently,
Have you harmed anyone else? Brought anyone to the castle, knowing what Vlad
was, and what he would do to them?
No.
My sister clapped her hands in a childlike gesture of glee. Then perhaps it
is not too late! Perhaps there is no need yet to make you one of us! You have
committed no mortal sin yet. He tried to deceive you into thinking you have
already done so, and that therefore future crimes will not make any difference.
I shook my head and said, in a tone filled with irony, Whether it was sin
or not will make no difference to the authorities in Vienna. They will know
only that I wielded the stake and knife -
Kasha, I do not speak of anything so unimportant as the
jandarm
in
Vienna! I speak of the pact, the covenant! Your eternal fate!
For an instant, we stared at one another, each realising the other did not
understand.
I spoke first, softly. I know about the covenant. Dunya spoke to me of the
one he has with the villagers, for their protection; and V. himself explained
the agreement he has with our family: the eldest son's service in exchange for
the family's protection and wealth.
Oh, no, said she, in a whisper so harsh it cut through the air between us,
cut through my heart as easily as V.s dagger cut through a child's tender skin.
Then you know nothing of his true covenant - with the Devil.
Your soul, Kasha. Yours, and that of your father, and his father before him.
The soul of the eldest surviving son of each Tsepesh generation: that is the
gold with which he purchases his immortality.
* * *
Zsuzsa told me more, in a low voice that shook with horror as we stood in the
castle's shadow. After V. had escorted me to my wife's side, he had returned
to the inner chamber and turned on Zsuzsa in a fearsome rage, screaming that
she had betrayed him.
He accused me of bewitching you, she wept, of entering into my own pact
to set you free from his control.
It's true, I said. He no longer controls my mind. Not from the moment you
rose from the tomb
She nodded sadly. Vlad meant to entangle you further, to tie your child to
him with the blood ritual before returning your will to you. That is why he
was compelled at the last moment to abduct Mary - to bring you and the child to
the castle, since he could no longer mentally summon you here. But I suspect
he was tricked by One even more evil and cunning than he. Perhaps the price
of my will was not enough payment to break the covenant and make me
strigoi;
perhaps yours was needed, too
for he threw me from the inner chamber, and his
wrath was so frightening that I have not yet returned. But I lingered near the
outer door, and I could hear him shouting at someone - something - inside.
I thought of the black altar at the head of V.s coffin and shuddered. My mind
still could not believe, could not comprehend, but my heart accepted Zsuzsas
words. For if something so heinously evil as V. can exist, there must surely
be a Devil.
Zsuzsa, I whispered, as the realisation dawned. He has asked me to go to
Bistritz, to retrieve another visitor
Kasha, you must not go! If you deliver a victim into his hands, then he has
won - and your soul is lost.
Then help me kill him! He is asleep now, and vulnerable -
She jerked her face towards me, and her eyes gleamed not with gold, but with
the dull, angry red of dying embers. Do not speak of such a thing again! How
can you ask -
He is a murderer a thousand, a million times over, Zsuzsa! You said yourself
you no longer love him.
No, she said slowly. No
I do not love him. I despise him for what he has
done to you and Father, for how he has misled me. But I came to you because
I wish to see no one harmed. Not even him.
But he might hurt Mary!
She lowered her beautiful face, with its faint rosy blush, stolen from Frau
Mueller's cheeks - and sighed in reluctant admission. Yes
he would do anything
to corrupt your soul - would kill your wife, your child (so long as you live to
sire another). But he will not harm you, not as long as you remain innocent.