Blood of the Impaler (3 page)

"Correct," he said. "There is more. Listen carefully."

The Szgany glanced over their shoulders at Miklos as he listened and nodded. They avoided looking at the eyes of the demon as they burned red in the darkness of the Carpathian night, for to look too deeply into the eyes of the Devil would be to lose one's soul. They continued to lean their weight against the ends of the barge poles, and the barge made its way slowly upstream through the pitch-darkness.

All through the night the Voivode stood at the bow of the barge, an unearthly captain of a stygian vessel. He looked behind him at the black river that wound its way back into the darkness of the Balkan night, and he could almost sense his enemies drawing closer to him. He knew that they were still far away, but his cold lips grew narrow and tense with the knowledge that each passing minute reduced the distance safety. "Faster," he ordered, and the Szgany strained at the poles in their effort to obey. He summoned his powers over the elements and called up a cold, biting wind to beat against the current of the river and aid him in his flight.

Is this fear?
he wondered.
It has been so long since I have feared
. . .

When dawn approached, he again dissolved into mist and seeped back into the box.
This would be the last day
, he thought as he slipped into his death dreams. Within an hour the barge would leave the Somesul for the Bishta, and the Szgany would begin the arduous last stage of the journey. The dock nearest the border city of Oradea should be reached early in the afternoon, and thus he would be home by sunset.

Home, he thought as his eyes grew empty and his cold hands grew still.
Home, where I will be safe again. Home to hundreds of hiding places. Home to my wives and my noble coffin. Home to my grave.

The sun was high in the heavens when he stirred slightly in his undead sleep. He had a fleeting vision of the bearded, heavyset old man creeping quietly through the crypt of his ancestral home, and be saw him throwing back the lid of coffin after coffin. He heard silent screams of agony echoing from the distance as the stakes were driven through the hearts of the women who had been with him through all the long centuries since they had been killed by the Turks. He heard Magda's mind screaming "Voivode! Voivode!" as the wood invaded her body, heard Katarina and Simone shrieking as they were reduced to dust.

He lay in cold, mute, impotent fury.
To lie here helpless as they invade my home and massacre my wives! Helpless, defenseless, weak! Damn them! Damn them all!

He awakened as the sun's rim kissed the turrets of his castle ruins. He felt himself being tossed and jostled roughly within the box as the cart sped along the pitted dirt road. He heard the cries of his Szgany as they whipped their horses for more speed, and he heard the almost deafening pounding of hooves upon the roadway. And then, drawing closer with each moment, he heard the sound of gunfire.

They had found him.

"
No!
"
he screamed.
"
No!
"
In my own land, surrounded by my own people, not one mile from my castle, not one minute to sunset, and they are upon me!

It must not be thus!
I will not have it thus!

He sent out a silent command to the wolf packs that dwelt in the crags, summoning them to his aid. The sudden chorus of howls and snarls mingled with the gunfire and the shouts of his Gypsies as the battle was joined on the cold Carpathian road. He hissed in anger and his red eyes blazed as the sun began to sink behind the mountains.

"Damn you, Van Helsing," he whispered . . .

". . .
In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on the one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the leveled weapons nor flashing knives of the Gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great chest, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. As Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to pry off the lid with his great Kukri knife, Mr. Morris attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.

"By this time the Gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no further resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountaintops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well.

"As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

"But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.

"It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight."

Bram Stoker,
Dracula

. . . visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me . . .

—Exodus 20:5

"M
alcolm?" Rachel Rowland pounded insistently upon the bedroom door. "Malcolm! Get up and get dressed. It's after six o'clock in the evening. Father Henley will be here for dinner any minute." She waited a moment and then pounded again. "Malcolm! If you don't get up, I'm going to come in there and get you up!"

She heard a muffled and annoyed, "Okay, okay!" from within and frowned to herself.
He has a lot of nerve, sleeping
all day
. "Why don't you get a normal, respectable job and get a decent, healthy night's sleep? Working all night, playing until the early hours of the morning, and then spending all day in bed . . . it just isn't proper, Malcolm!"

The bedroom door swung open and Malcolm Harker gazed at his older sister through bleary eyes. "Sis, get off my case, will you?"

"Don't you take that tone of voice with—" He slammed the door in her face and she began to pound on it again. "Malcolm!"

"All right, I'll be right down. Just go away!"

Rachel sniffed and harrumphed and then walked down the stairs to the dining room. Her husband, Daniel, was
standing at the bar, and he looked over at her placidly as she marched into the room. "Prince Charming awake?" he asked.

"Spoiled brat," she muttered. "Yes, I suppose so."

Daniel Rowland shook his head. "How old is he now, twenty-six?"

"Twenty-seven," she muttered as she walked around the dining table, inspecting the place settings for the tenth time.

"Twenty-seven," he mused. "Why, when I was twenty-seven, I'd already made my first big killing in the market. Had a Mercedes when I was twenty-seven. Had a few CDs, a mutual fund, and a good stock portfolio, all before I was thirty."

She nodded. "I just don't understand that boy. He seems to have absolutely no ambition whatsoever, if he doesn't get himself straightened out, I don't know what's going to . . ." She paused at the sound of a slow shuffle at the doorway. "Oh, hello, Grandfather. Have a nice nap?"

"Couldn't sleep," old Quincy muttered as he walked slowly into the dining room, leaning heavily upon his cane. He shuffled over to the table and sat down awkwardly at the head. "Malcolm was having nightmares again. Kept
talking in his sleep."

"I don't
wonder," Daniel observed as he uncorked a bottle of wine and placed it in the middle of the table. "All those misfits and malcontents he's always hanging around with at that bar where he works . . ."

"Not that bottle, Danny," Rachel said. "That's the dessert wine. Open the white for dinner."

"White? Fish or fowl?"

"Cornish hens," she muttered as she marched into the kitchen.

"Oh, well," he sighed. Daniel Rowland was not overly fond of poultry—strictly a meat-and-potatoes man. "But he should cultivate a few respectable friends," he continued as he corked the bottle and began to uncork another. "Why, when I was his age, I had friends and contacts in all branches of industry . . ." A mutter from the old man interrupted him. "What was that, Grandfather?"

"I said I'd be content if the boy would just go to church," old Quincy repeated in the soft voice which, though weak and trembling with advanced age, was still precise and dignified. Though the family patriarch had lived in the United States for over eighty of his more than ninety years, he still retained some small vestige of his English accent. He sighed as he absentmindedly reached up to smooth back the hair which his bald head had discarded decades ago. "I wish I was strong enough to go," he said. "I've taken the sacrament every Sunday since I was a child. It bothers me, not going to church."

"Oh, Grandfather, don't be silly," Rachel said. "Father Henley or Father Langstone can come to the house to give you communion."

"Not the same," he insisted.

"Besides, you can't expect to hop out of a hospital bed and go running off to church. When you get your strength back, you'll be able to go."

"What makes you think I'll be getting my strength back?" Quincy asked with annoyance, the wrinkles in his face made all the more prominent by his frown. "I'm not immortal, you know, and I've already gone beyond my three score years and ten."

"And I'm sure you have many years left," Rachel insisted, not quite truthfully. Though the doctors had claimed that the prostate operation had been routine and successful, the ordeal had weakened the old man considerably, and he appeared to be slower of movement and wearier with each passing day.

Quincy glowered at his granddaughter as she picked up a perfectly clean fork and began to wipe it with a spare napkin. "Omniscient now, are we?" he asked.

"Now, Grandfather, don't get in one of your moods," she said briskly as Quincy continued to glower. "Don't forget, we have company this evening."

"How old are you now, Rachel?" Quincy asked, watching as she inspected the table obsessively. Rachel was austere and prim, the potential attractiveness of her high cheeked, narrow face and thin, aristocratic nose offset by the penetrating, judgmental, constantly disapproving eyes and the holier-than-thou demeanor. Her short brown hair was pleasantly styled and her clothing was always the latest in fashion, but there was nothing even remotely feminine about her. She was too cold, too hard, too humorless.

"Hm?"

"I asked how old you are."

"I'll be forty in December," she replied. "You know that."

The old man nodded. "That makes you sixty-five."

Rachel looked over at him. "Whatever are you talking about?"

"Twenty-five and forty make sixty-five," he muttered. "You've been acting like a forty-year-old since you were fifteen."

Rachel turned her head in her grandfather's direction and stared at him silently for a moment, her brusque austerity seeming to be softened by some unspoken sorrow as her face was briefly suffused with an uncharacteristic vulnerability. She swallowed hard before responding,
"Yes, I
suppose I have. Fifteen was a difficult age for me."

She continued to stare at him, and the old man sighed. "Now, Rachel, you know I didn't mean to say . . ."

"I know what you meant," she snapped, hard and unyielding once again. "And you know what I mean."

"And I know what you both mean," Daniel offered, not understanding at all. "Adolescence is a difficult time of life for everyone."

Quincy looked at his granddaughter and sighed once again. "Harder for some people than for others."

"Stop it, Grandfather," Rachel sniffed. "Be of some help to me, will you? Try to make Malcolm behave himself."

"Yes, really," Daniel Rowland agreed, his irritatingly precise little mustache twitching with disapproval above his fat lips. "The boy's attitude is absolutely disgraceful. Now, I know that my own good fortune had an element of luck involved in it, but it was hard work and farsighted investments which made me what I am today." He patted his ample belly arrogantly, not taking the time to reflect that a man who marries a wealthy woman and then takes up residence in her grandfather's house is at best a dim reflection of Horatio Alger. "If that boy doesn't start planning for his future, he isn't likely to have one. Why, when I was his age . . ."