Covenant With the Vampire (11 page)

Mister Jeffries, it seems, is a journalist who recently returned to the Continent
after a news-gathering trip to America. Over dinner he spoke animatedly of the
situation in that country; they have elected a new president, James Polk, and
may soon annex a new state with the exotic name of Texas. Slavery is permitted
in Texas, which has generated a good deal of controversy over there. Not only
are the northern abolitionists and southern plantation owners arguing over this,
but a neighbouring country disputes ownership of the territory altogether; according
to Mister Jeffries, war between the United States and Mexico is imminent. The
Americans are also involved in a disagreement with England as to where the northwestern
Canadian border lies. All in all, they seem a very quarrelsome, bullying lot,
and I was glad to be in peaceful Transylvania. Mr. Jeffries made us laugh with
his nasal imitation of an American accent; after all the stress Arkady has been
under, I know it did him good.

After dinner. Mister Jeffries reminded Arkady of his promise to take him on
a tour of the chapel, and i said I wanted to go, too, for I had never seen it
myself. The two men looked at me with concern, and Arkady mumbled something
about it being late (it was no more than eight o’clock) and my needing rest
in my condition. i abruptly dismissed this as nonsense, and asked only for a
moment to go get my shawl; at which Mister Jeffries smiled and said slyly that
i would have no trouble holding my own with Americans, and again we laughed.

In truth, I did not want to be left alone to worry over what I would say to
Arkady when our guest departed; nor did i want to sit alone in the bedroom,
peering through the window worrying over Zsuzsanna.

The chapel was unlike any I had ever seen in England, and more than anything
else I have seen in this country revealed the Turkish influence; its interior
walls were covered with paintings and mosaics of saints - literally thousands
of them - in the Byzantine manner. Near the altar was a high cupola, from which
hung a heavy candelabra, and at the back of the large sanctuary, against the
wall, were great crypts with names engraved on gold plates.

Although the beautiful tiled walls stole my breath, Mister Jeffries seemed
most taken with the crypts, which were actually compartments built into the
wall like a honeycomb, then mortared off and sealed with stone, and adorned
with the plaques. As we stood reading the names of Arkady's ancestors, awed
to silence by the sanctuary's beauty and reverent atmosphere, Mister Jeffries
took a small notebook from his waistcoat and began writing.

After a moment he turned to Arkady and said, in a hushed voice that echoed
faintly off the high ceiling, “I forgot to ask… When we stood in front of the
portrait of Vlad Dracula - ”

Here I frowned, curious, at him, for I had heard a similar word, Dracul, before - on
the servants’ lips, and those of the old coachman in Bistritz. Mister Jeffries
broke off and instantly corrected himself with an apologetic glance at my husband.
“Forgive me, I meant to say, Vlad Tsepesh… Does the name Tsepesh have any meaning?”

Arkady stood gazing steadily at the crypts with his back to us, and I could
tell from his distant tone that he was brooding over whatever has been troubling
him the past few days - something I suspect is connected with the castle and his
father's death. “Impaler,” he said quietly, and I knew at once that he had quite
forgotten my presence; in many ways he is like his sister, given to abrupt,
intense daydreams which completely remove him from the present. “Hardly more
noble in meaning than the name Dracul, but at least the peasants do not utter
it with the same loathing, and it carries no hint of the supernatural. Impalement
was a common form of execution at the time.”

Mister Jeffries arched a pale, disbelieving brow as he stepped beside Arkady
and followed his gaze to a gold marker on which was engraved the legend VLAD
TEPES. “Indeed? History indicates it was common only among the Turks. The peasants
say Vlad borrowed their methods and turned this” - and he swept his arm to indicate
the entire countryside - “into a veritable forest of the impaled. The smell, they
say - ”

And here Mister Jeffries broke off in horror at his own words and turned to
me. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Tsepesh, forgive me! How insensitive of me to alarm you,
mentioning such terrible things…”

I laughed gaily, though in fact I had never heard these things before and was
fascinated in a horrified way. At the sound, Arkady withdrew from his reverie
and faced us, also distressed that such things were being discussed in my presence.
“I am no delicate maiden given to swooning, sir,” I said.

Arkady flushed and moved beside me to take my hand. “It's true,” he said, gazing
at me with affectionate concern but addressing Jeffries. “Mary is the most levelheaded
person I have ever known.” He glanced at Jeffries with an awkward smile. “I
am constantly grateful for her trait. It is quite an invaluable attitude here,
where one is surrounded by superstition and dark legends.”

“My dear,” I told him softly, “you mustn’t try to shield me from these things.
How will I be able to refute the servants’ strange beliefs if I know nothing
of them?” To Jeffries, I said in a firm cheerful voice, “Of whom were you speaking?”

“Of Vlad Dracul - Forgive me, madam. Vlad Tsepesh, whom the peasants call Dracula.”

“The prince?” I asked.

Jeffries tilted his long face in a gesture which seemed to both confirm and
deny. “His namesake.” He flipped a page on his notepad and scanned it for a
fact, then looked up. “Born 1431, supposedly died 1476, though the peasants
would disagree.”

Arkady gestured at the plaque at the foot of a crypt. “You see his marker here
before you.”

“But he died in that region to the south known as Wallachia, did he not? Where
he reigned?”

“True,” said my husband. “But the family moved northward to Transylvania soon
after his death, and brought his remains with them. It was not an uncommon practice.”

Mister Jeffries’ tone grew skeptical. “Surely you know he is not buried here.
It is a blind, so that those who would try to desecrate the body will not find
it.”

My husband turned towards his visitor with narrowed eyes and a faint, ironic
smile on his lips. “Sir, you clearly know more about the subject than you have
disclosed.” He paused and gazed back at the marker. “It is true. He is buried
at the monastery at Snagov, in his native Wallachia.”

“The peasants would disagree with you once again, sir. They say no body lies
at Snagov, either. Perhaps that is why the peasants say he is
strigoi,
and accuse your great-uncle - ”

“Strigoi,”
I repeated, unable to contain myself, as I recognised it
as the word Dunya had used earlier. “Please; what is the meaning of that word?”

Arkady glanced at me sharply, clearly distressed to learn that I had been exposed
to the term, but Jeffries looked me in the eye and said, “A vampire, madam.
They say your kind and gracious great-uncle is in fact Vlad the Impaler, also
known as Dracula, born 1431; that he has made a pact with the Devil to obtain
immortality, and that the souls of innocents are the price.” And he laughed
as if the notion were incredibly amusing. Arkady and I did not join in.

Jeffries realised the discomfort his words had provoked, and immediately switched
the conversation to a lighter topic. We departed the chapel soon after, and
when I left my husband and his guest in the dining-room they were engaged in
a friendly argument about America's newest literary sensation, Mister Edgar
Allan Poe, and whether his poem “The Raven” was as great a work of genius as
purported.

And so I retired to the bedroom, thinking that, by the time I finished this
entry, Arkady would return, and I would confess everything to him; but it is
almost eleven now, and still he has not come. I am tired and yearn for sleep,
but I cannot keep my gaze from the heavy curtains drawn across the window; I
cannot keep from worrying about what lies on the other side.

The peasants are right; Vlad
is
a monster. They simply do not realise
what sort.

Zsuzsanna Tsepesh's Diary

10 April.

I am dying of love.

Another night of dreams; this morning I am so weak, I can scarcely pick up
the pen. After a sentence or two, I must set it down to rest. My back aches
terribly, from the top of my spine all the way to the bottom. And so strangely:
sometimes it feels as if the muscles and bones are moving, stirring beneath
my skin.

He came again. He came, and this time I was waiting for him at the open window.
This time I unfastened the ribbon myself, though I let him gently pull the thin
fabric down across my skin. I shivered at its softness; and then I shivered
at the coolness of the night air against my exposed flesh, followed by the chill
of his hands, and the heat of his breath.

He was just as gentle this time, and twice as bold. He pulled the nightgown
until it fell about my ankles, all the while keeping his lips pressed to my
skin, drawing them slowly down with the fabric over the curve of my shoulder,
my breast, my ribs; parting them to taste my flesh with his tongue. I blush
to write that he did not stop there, but knelt down and continued the kiss downward
over the soft slope of my abdomen, my belly, and below…

I felt a rush of warmth and a tingling that began at the base of my spine and
ascended through the top of my head, and beyond. I felt as though I had been
dead all my years on earth, and for the first time, a kiss had wakened me to
life. I looked down at my kneeling saviour and buried my fingers in his thick
mane of silvery-white hair.

And then he drew his lips over the thigh of my withered leg. At first I flushed
in embarrassment; in my adult life, I have never permitted anyone to touch,
even to see my crippled limb. I began to pull away, but he drew me back, and
stroked and kissed it gently, lovingly -

No. Far more than that; he kissed it with pure reverent adoration, and in that
moment I loved him as a god.

The kiss continued to the very tip of my poor, twisted foot; and then he rose,
and took me in his arms, and said: “Zsuzsanna. I am bound by the covenant I
made with your father to take care of you while you lived. I am bound by it
as well not to come to you in this way. But you are too sickly to make the journey
to England - where I am determined to go. This is the only way you can accompany
me. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I whispered, though in truth I knew nothing, understood nothing except
that I wished to remain in his embrace always.

He smiled faintly, and said, “Of all the family in all the many years of my
time on this earth, you alone have freely loved me - ”

“No,” I whispered. “I worship you. When I was sick, you saved my life; and
no man has ever treated me so kindly, has ever given me notice, as you have.
To other men, I am invisible; but you alone see me.”

A look of utterly regal satisfaction crept over his face; I knew my words had
pleased him. “Because of that devotion,” he said, “I have broken the covenant
with the family, and must pay the price; and now I make a new one in its place.
I will never leave you, but will make you mine, and bind us both together forever.”
And when I begged for him to do so at once, he shook his head sadly. “I had
hoped to tonight, but it is not to be; I am still too hungry. Soon it will be
possible… Very soon.”

And with a move swift as a serpent, he fastened his lips upon my neck.

It was as if the suddenness of the motion woke me from a trance. I felt the
sharp pain of his teeth piercing my flesh and cried out, struggling in his steel
embrace, full of a wild unreasoning fear. I recoiled and struck my fists against
his broad, unyielding chest, tried to push him away, but with a single hand
spread against my back he crushed my body against his. His grip tightened until
I could not breathe. I felt pressure against my neck, and his tongue and lips
working hungrily against my skin with the same soft sucking sound of a babe
at its mother's breast.

I gave up fighting and fell into a swoon. At that instant, the sweet pleasure
of the previous night overtook me again; and the more I surrendered, the more
intense that pleasure became, until I could not repress my moans. I became aware
of nothing but velvety darkness, the feel of his tongue and lips, of my blood
flowing out towards him to the slow, synchronous beating of our hearts.

The ecstasy mounted until I could bear it no more and cried out. At that moment,
he withdrew and let me fall back, barely conscious, into his arms. I was too
weak to stand, to speak, even to see, but I heard his deep voice clearly as
he said: “Enough. Perhaps too much… !”

He carried me over to the bed and gently covered me with the blankets. I sensed
him leave, though I could not move, could not even open my eyes to watch him
go. For a time I lay, feeling with each breath that I would not have strength
to draw another, feeling a faint ripple of pleasure with each throb of my heart,
and thinking it would be its last.

Most of all, I felt amazement that death could be such an exquisitely sensual
experience.

But I did not die. I slept, and in the late morning when I woke, once again
there lay the nightgown on the floor by the window. I was too weak even to retrieve
it; Dunya found it this morning when she brought breakfast and handed it back
to me with a scandalised expression - whilst I guiltily tried to hide my nakedness
under the sheets.

Dunya suspects; and Mary, I think, knows, though it is impossible for one person
to know another's dreams. I tried to convey this in my thoughts to Vlad, to
warn him that others knew and might try to interfere. No doubt they must be
horrified, shocked.

I do not care.