The Dead Travel Fast (9 page)

He stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle and folding his arms behind his head in a posture of ease. He was indeed enjoying himself, and for the first time I wondered if it was at my expense.

“The third class of women, those one seduces, these are by far the most interesting. Unlike the wives and the whores, these cannot be bought. They can only be persuaded, and that is the test of any gentleman’s skill. They are ladies, but barely so. The governess, the poor relation, the novice nun.”

“Surely not!” I interjected, but he held up a hand.

“I am merely quoting from the memoirs of Casanova, not personal experience,” he said seriously. “But make no mistake, when one is not certain of the outcome, victory is much the sweeter. A man values what he has worked for, Miss Lestrange. Consider the hunt. When I ride out, do I aim for the cow chewing placidly in the field? I do not, and yet why not? It would provide good meat for my table. It would be fat and tender and keep me well fed. But I despise it because there is no sport.”

He drew back his legs and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, fixing me with the intensity of his gaze. “But when I have been in the saddle all day, legs astride a fast horse, riding hard, sweating and cursing with the wind in my face, jumping hurdles and risking my very neck, I never know until the very last moment if I am going to be successful, if I will achieve my aim and bring home my trophy. I have pursued something wild and beautiful that will sustain and feed me and I am more a man for having taken it on its own ground.”

My mouth felt suddenly dry and I swallowed hard. “You have indeed given this a great deal of thought.”

“I take my pleasures very seriously,” he said, leaning closer still. I caught the scent of him then. The smell of opium clung to him, not unpleasant, but primeval, like windfallen fruit on freshly turned earth. He studied my face, his gaze moving slowly from eyes to lips, lingering there as if to memorise every contour. It was a challenge of sorts or perhaps an invitation.

“Indeed,” I murmured. “And if you assume a facade of manners calculated to please the lady, I wonder you are not unmasked and seen for what you truly are.”

He shrugged, the wide shoulders moving easily beneath the excellent tailoring of his coat. “I am never with a woman long enough for her to penetrate my pretty deceits. She sees what she wants to see, and if she glimpses something underneath, she persuades herself she was mistaken. By the time she has come to realise her error, I have withdrawn from the field to meditate upon the pleasure of my spoils and embark upon a new siege.”

He leaned nearer still. I wondered if he meant to kiss me then, but even as I parted my lips, he rose and lifted a finger in command, whether to Tycho or to me, I could not say.

“Stay there. I have something for you.”

He disappeared down the little staircase and returned a moment later bearing a slender volume.

“Have you read this?” he asked, proferring the book.

I took it from him, admiring the beautiful gilt tooling on the soft scarlet morocco cover. I traced the title.
Les Fleurs du mal
. “Baudelaire!” I exclaimed. “I wanted to read this, but Charles said it was not available in Edinburgh.”

A small, knowing smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “I suspect your gentleman was trying to protect you. I believe he would say it is not suitable for ladies.”

“That is precisely what he said,” I admitted, thinking of the row Charles and I had had over the poems. The book had been published the previous year to both acclaim and outrage. “However did you find a copy? I heard they were seized by the French government.”

He shrugged. “I know the poet.”

I stared at him, openmouthed. “You know Baudelaire? What is he like?”

“Read the poems,” he urged. “They will tell you all you wish to know about the man.”

“I will.” I pressed the book to my chest. “Thank you for the loan of it. I will be most careful.”

“What a prim schoolgirl you are!” he exclaimed, but he smiled to take the sting from his words. “Besides, it is a gift.”

“I could not possibly,” I began, but he waved my words away.

“We have discussed my guiding philosophy, Miss Lestrange. I do nothing which does not give me pleasure. It pleases me to give you the book more than it would please me to keep it. It is a trifle.”

“Still, it was kind of you. Thank you.”

He nodded slowly, a peculiarly Eastern gesture of acknowledgement that seemed unique to the Carpathians. For all his Parisian sophistication, there was still much of the Transylvanian about him.

I rose then and he walked me to my door, Tycho following quietly behind.

“I will begin it tonight,” I told him, brandishing the slender volume.

“I shall be eager to hear your thoughts,” he said, touching my hand briefly to his lips.

“Do you mean to educate me?” I asked
en badinage
.

“No,” he said seriously, “to corrupt you.”

And with that he turned on his heel and left me.

Tereza had come in my absence to prepare the room for the night. A hot brick wrapped in flannel had been tucked at the foot of my bed, and a mug of warmed milk, laced with honey and spices, had been placed upon my bed table. I drank it off, feeling pleasantly drowsy and content and reflecting that there is nothing quite like a warm bed in a cold room to make one feel all is right with the world.

Burrowed far down into the soft mattress, I opened the book at random and my eyes fell upon “The Revenant.”

Like angels with wild beast’s eyes

I shall return to your bedroom

And silently glide toward you

With the shadows of the night
;

And, dark beauty, I shall give you

Kisses cold as the moon

And the caresses of a snake

That crawls around a grave
.

When the livid morning comes
,

You’ll find my place empty
,

And it will be cold there till night
.

I wish to hold sway over

Your life and youth by fear
,

As others do by tenderness
.

I longed to read more, but as I reached the last line, I slid regretfully into sleep. I dreamt, for hours it seemed, and in my dreams I walked the corridors of the castle, searching for something. But all of the doors were locked, and though I pushed hard against them and beat the door with my fists, none of them would yield. I began to weep and felt something soft against my cheek, taking up my tears. Hot breath rolled across my skin, and I bolted awake, suddenly aware that I was not alone in my room.

All that remained of the fire was cold grey ash; the candle had long since burned to nothing. But something was there, breathing in the darkness. It had touched me, and as I put out my hand, I felt rough fur.

I scrambled backwards across the bed. I groped on the bed table for a lucifer match and struck it. The light flared, illuminating two great yellow, lamplike eyes glowing in the shadows. I gasped and dropped the match, nearly setting the bed alight. I beat the single flame with my hand, and once more the room was black as pitch. I heard a snuffling sort of sound, and suddenly cursed myself for a fool. It was Tycho, doubtless accustomed to roaming about the castle at night.

I reached for another match and struck it, intending to scold the miscreant for frightening me so and show him to the door. But when the flame flared up, I saw that I was quite alone. The dog had gone, shown himself out, I thought with a smile.

But the smile faded when I realised that the door was still firmly bolted. The dog had disappeared into the shadows without a trace.

8

The rest of that night I slept but poorly. I banked up the fire and dozed in a chair before it, rousing myself whenever the flame burned too low to feed more wood into it. By the time the grey light of dawn began to lighten the chamber, I was numb with fatigue. Only then did I return to my bed and surrender to sleep. Some time later there was a sharp rapping upon the door. I stumbled to it, drawing back the bolt to admit a scolding Tereza.

She bore in my tray, and it was not until she left and returned with my washing water that I realised she was more annoyed at having to do her sister’s work than at being locked from my room.

“Where is Aurelia?” I asked. I knew she would understand only her sister’s name, but I shrugged my shoulders and made a show of looking about the room to convey the rest of my question. I had learned that Tereza had a few words of German, but not enough to permit proper conversation, and I rather enjoyed our attempts at pantomime.

She made a comprehensive gesture that left no doubt. Aurelia was ill, messily so, from Tereza’s little pantomime. I made a face of concern, but Tereza flapped her hands as if the ailment were nothing to worry over. She uncovered my dishes and I fell upon them, suddenly too ravenous to attempt further conversation. The food was the same as it had been for the last fortnight, but the cooler weather had brought the addition of a bowl of porridge, called
mămăligă
by the local folk. It was tasty and well-prepared and I scraped the bowl clean and ate two of the bread rolls. A few cups of strong, dark Turkish coffee helped to clear my head, and washing myself attended to the rest.

The day passed quietly, for the storm held, and no one dared the Devil’s Staircase in the heavy rain. I made excellent progress on my book, larding the tale with the superstitions I had discussed with Dr. Frankopan. I crafted a character based upon Frau Amsel, with a fondness for strong drink and hearty food, whose husband—like poor Madame Popa’s—abandoned his family to roam the mountains as a lycanthrope. It was a horrifying tale, and I was enthralled with it as I had never been with my writing before. I had written pretty little horror stories to frighten ladies, I thought with some satisfaction. But now I was writing a book to chill the very marrow of the stoutest man.

I returned to my labours in the afternoon, and that evening, though the household retired early, the count did not come for me. Piqued, I took to my bed with the poems of Baudelaire, hesitating only a moment, for it had occurred to me to wonder if perhaps such sensational reading before bed had caused my unsettling experience the previous night. I read for only a little while before snuffing my candle. As soon as I blew it out, the room was softened by a silver glow from the moon falling through the casement, sometimes shining brightly through the broken storm clouds, sometimes covering her face with the stormy veil. It was the night of the full moon, the time for superstitions of the great and the mundane, the hour when werewolves are said to roam the shadows to feed, and an expectant mother must not go abroad lest the babe in her womb be born harelipped and dull of wit.

I slept fitfully because of the moonlight, dreaming of things I could not later remember. I heard a chorus of wolves, first a plaintive cry and then a response from far away, not the tricksters of faery tales, but the simple, slavering beasts that would devour the unwary traveller. I turned towards the wall and stopped up my ears with my hands, falling into a restless sleep even as I thought of poor Madame Popa and wondered if she heard them too.

The wolves began to howl again, just before dawn, and above them a high, keening wail from somewhere quite close. I came awake slowly, stupidly, surfacing from a dream. I lay still for some minutes until I heard the cry again and a commotion in the corridor. I rose and flung a coverlet about my shoulders.

Outside my door the noise was louder now, a terrible banshee cry I knew would echo in my ears so long as I lived. It came from the garderobe at the foot of the tower. I hurried down the small flight of stone stairs, stopping short when I reached the open door of the garderobe.

The small, icily cold room was full of people, all in varying states of undress. The count, pale and unshaven, wore his evening clothes of the previous night, his collar and neckcloth abandoned. Florian had drawn trousers over his nightshirt, and Frau Amsel and Cosmina supported the countess, all of them wearing nightdresses and wrapped in shawls or furs. They crowded around something huddled on the floor, and as I approached, they shifted enough that I could see Tereza, crouched like an animal over a bundle of clothes. A single candle trembled in her hands, the flame guttering as she swung it wildly in her panic.

The count took it from her and held it steady and only then could I see the pale form of Aurelia lying on the stone floor, her head twisted, her unbound hair covering her face.

The count reached out to touch the girl and her head rolled to the side, exposing the pale marble flesh of her shoulder and neck. Her nightdress had been torn, baring much of her smooth, plump bosom, unblemished save for two punctures rimmed by the dark, rusty red of crusted blood.

Pandemonium broke out. Florian groaned and Cosmina fell to her knees, crossing herself. The countess cried out to Heaven and Frau Amsel began to chant her prayers. Only the count remained silent, his fathomless expression unchanged in the pale pewter light of morning.

Tereza crawled forward to gather her sister’s body into her arms. She keened over her, lifting up her sorrow in lamentation, until the count murmured something, urging her to come away. She raised her hand and pointed at the count, uttering a single word, pronouncing it as both a judgement and a condemnation. “
Teufel
,” she spat.

He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the spittle on his cheek. Tereza crouched, holding her dead sister and trembling as his cold grey gaze held hers. Then, with infinite calm, he replaced the handkerchief to his pocket and turned away. For a long moment the only sound was the rhythmic click of his retreating footsteps and the muttering of Frau Amsel’s prayers.

“Miss Lestrange, come away,” Florian said softly. “The countess will be having care of her.”

Like a coward, I permitted him to lead me away. Tereza’s grief was too palpable, a thing living apart in that tiny room, squeezing out the air until there was nothing left to breathe.

He walked me to the door of my room. “I will go back. Aurelia is dead,” he said by way of explanation, and I realised the servant girl was now simply a body, a burden to which attendance must be rendered.

“Florian,” I said finally, calling him back. His eyes were full of pain, and I felt a surge of pity for him, for all of them. I opened my mouth, but he shook his head to quiet me.

“It is not the time to make questions. Dress yourself. Someone will be bringing food.”

Food! The very thought of it turned my stomach to water. I closed the door, shooting the bolt behind him. I had seen the marks upon the girl’s breast, two distinct punctures, perhaps three inches apart. I had seen the bloodless, drained look of her. And I had heard the word Tereza had hurled at the count.
Devil
, she had called him.

I reached under the bed and extracted my boxes and began to pack.

Within a very short time I was ready to leave, neatly dressed in my plain travelling costume of dark tweed, travelling boxes at my feet. Frau Graben, the castle cook, brought a pot of thick Turkish coffee and some rolls from the previous day. She was a German woman of stout form and sober mien, and she did not tarry to gossip about the tragedy in the castle. She merely instructed me to dip the rolls into the coffee to soften them and apologised for the paucity of the meal. She looked for a long moment at the boxes I had packed, then left without a word, dipping me a sad-eyed curtsey as she withdrew.

I ate nothing, but fortified with two cups of the strong black brew, I made my way to the library, intending to speak with the count about making immediate arrangements for my departure. As I approached, I heard voices through the door, his and the higher one of the countess.

They were speaking in Roumanian, but the tones were impassioned and unmistakable, hers pleading, his implacable. I lifted my hand and knocked.

The countess called out sharply, and I entered. The count was standing at the fireplace, his hands braced upon the mantel, his head bowed. The countess was standing near him, her posture one of supplication.

When she turned to me, I saw that her eyes were glittering with emotion. “Miss Lestrange.”

“I apologise, madame, I believe I have come at an inopportune moment,” I began.

“No, I am glad to see you. Perhaps you will be my ally.” She put out a withered hand and I went to her, suddenly sorry for what I was about to do. It seemed a terrible and cowardly thing to abandon my hosts when their household had suffered such a calamity, but neither did it seem polite to linger.

“Madame, I—”

“You wish to leave us,” she said. The count’s head came up sharply, but he said nothing.

“Yes, madame.”

“Oh, Miss Lestrange. I must beg of you to reconsider. Selfishly, for I know these things must be strange and frightening to you. But I know what is afoot, and I would have you here with me for the battle we have yet to fight.”

I flicked an uneasy glance to the count, but he made no move to respond to her extraordinary statement. He was pale, unnaturally so, perhaps not an unusual thing given the ghastly circumstances. But I was too wary to spare him much pity. As much as I fought against the notion of vampires and monsters stalking the Carpathians, there was still the body of that girl, punctured horribly and drained lifeless. And there was this man, whom the dead girl’s sister had pointed to in accusation and called “devil.”

As if intuiting my thoughts, he dropped his head again, giving a little groan of anguish, and it was this sound, this small animal sound of desperation that roused my doubts. Was it possible that there had been some horrible, tragic misunderstanding?

The countess gestured towards a chair. “Please sit, Miss Lestrange. What I have to say to you will be very difficult for you to understand. But I must ask you to remember that we are in Transylvania, and things happen here that happen nowhere else in the world.”

“Do not tell her,” the count put in. “She will think you mad. She will think all of us mad, and who would fault her, for we are.”

“Andrei,” the countess said sharply, “be peaceful. Miss Lestrange has a right to know what is afoot in this place. She has seen the girl and she ought to know what you are.”

My eyes darted to his face. “I am no vampire,” he said bitterly, his cold grey eyes locked to mine.

I dropped my gaze. There was no response to be made, not even an apology for thinking such a monstrous thing.

“No, Andrei is no vampire. But there is a
strigoi
who stalks this castle. He must be destroyed before he kills again.”

I struggled to understand. “Madame, these things are impossible. They are faery stories, meant to frighten children and peasants.”

“Was that girl frightened to death then?” she asked softly. “Because I do not think even Aurelia’s vivid imagination could have punctured her neck and drained her of her life’s blood.”

“Don’t, madame,” I begged her. “It is too horrible.”

“It is horrible,” she agreed. “And it must be stopped before it happens to another.” She turned to the count. “Andrei, you know what you are and you know you are the only one who can possibly put a stop to him.”

He groaned again, something inhuman and protesting rising from his lips. So must Prometheus have sounded when the gods bound him to his rock.

“I cannot,” he said in sudden anger, raising a fist to smash it into the mantel. A pretty little Dresden shepherdess went flying, shattering against the hearth. There were splinters of porcelain on the hem of my skirt, but I did not move to collect them. The statue was broken beyond repair.

The countess appealed to him again. “I know what this will cost you, my boy. I know the price to your soul to destroy him. But you have no choice. It is the call of your own blood, your own destiny. This is what you were born for. You are the
dhampir!
” she said fiercely, fisting her hands at her sides. “Even as a child your father knew what you were. From the moment of your birth, when he saw the caul over your face, he knew you would destroy him. Why do you think he tried so hard to destroy you? Beating you? Starving you? He would have killed you with his bare hands were it not for your grandfather’s protection. And Bogdan knew the old man had kept you safe in order to ensure his destruction. Why else would he have desecrated his memory? Despoiled his very corpse?” She moved closer to him with each question, pressing her urgency upon him whilst I watched in horrified fascination.

She remained at his side for a moment, letting her words penetrate as salt into a wound, bleeding it afresh until it ran clean.

She turned to me. “Miss Lestrange, you see now why I need you. I have not strength enough to convince my son of his duty to this place, to his family. He is the
dhampir
, the only one who can send the
strigoi
back to the grave. He was born to this role, as his father was born to destroy us.”

“You think it is Count Bogdan who has done this, who has risen from the dead and has murdered this girl?” I asked.

“Impossible,” the count said, his voice strangely tight. His knuckles had turned white as he gripped the mantel. One of his hands was bleeding from the shards of the shepherdess and I was half surprised to see the normal crimson flow seeping from his flesh. He was mortal then, as human as I was. I sagged against my chair in relief.

“Then how can you explain this thing?” the countess demanded. “It is the curse of the
strigoi
to destroy his family. Bogdan was steeped in viciousness. He nursed every grievance, caused every evil to flower in his heart. He knew what he could become, and he welcomed it. He wanted to be revenged upon us all.”