Covenant With the Vampire (15 page)

“Then we must stop him,” I said, no longer sure what to believe, but knowing
only one thing: that Vlad had harmed Zsuzsanna, and that he must not be permitted
to do so ever again. “But what is the
Schwur?”

“That he will not hurt us, so long as we obey him.” She released a quick, troubled
breath, her gaze wandering to a distant point, as though she were scrutinising
some object she could not identify. “I do not understand why this has happened.
He is
strigoi,
but has always behaved with honour. He has never hurt
his own. But if he has bitten her…” She looked up swiftly at me, and I saw the
flicker of fear in her eyes again. “None of us are safe,
doamna.
Not
even you and your husband.”

Logically, I could not make much sense of her words, and a hundred rational
questions crowded my mind all at once, but they were drowned out by one single,
compelling, all-consuming phrase that seized my mind and soul and heart and
would not release them:
My child. My child. My child…

The thought of that monster laying a hand on my baby prickled the skin on the
back of my neck, my arms, caused a cold, hot chill to course the length of my
body, through its centre. I thought I would sink to my feet; somehow, I managed
to stand. In that moment, I allowed myself to enter Dunya's magical, superstitious
world, and I saw all too clearly, all too well.

I knew then why he had bitten his niece, why he wanted her gone. I had seen
it at the
pomana,
in the flashing red fury in his eyes, when Zsuzsanna
had cried out that he must not go to England. Vlad would permit no one, not
even a beloved relative, to interfere with his will.

So long as we obey…

I began to speak my thoughts aloud.

“You are saying Zsuzsanna will die if we do not stop him.”

“Die,” Dunya agreed, “and herself become
strigoi.
Did you see,
doamnai
She is starting to change; already her back is beginning to straighten.
But this has never been permitted; no
strigoi
but him, for the good
of the people.”

I raised a hand to my forehead, remembering Zsuzsanna's now-level shoulders,
trying to cool feverish thoughts. “What can we do?”

“Let me help,
doamna.
Her room can be made safe so that he will not
enter. She put the dog in the kitchen last night; she says he disturbs her with
barking.”

“Then we must see that he sleeps with her tonight.”

“Yes,” Dunya said. “And there are other things to keep the
strigoi
from her room.”

“What?” I recovered a shred of my former sensibility; whatever Dunya did, it
would have to be subtle enough that my husband would not find out and become
incensed. I knew that I was terribly frightened, but I also knew that I was
not certain yet what I believed, and wanted to do nothing to add to Arkady's
unhappiness.

“The
knoblauch,
”she said. “I will put it by the window. And the crucifix
round her neck, and see that the dog sleeps with her. That is all - all that we
can do now. It will be enough for now, as long as she lives. But you must know,
doamna
- if ever in the years after this she becomes ill and dies…”

She broke off, unwilling to state what she felt was obvious. But I did not
follow, and frowned at her, puzzled. Finally, after an extended silence, I demanded,
“What if she becomes ill and dies?”

“She will become
strigoi,
like him. There is something which can prevent
it, and spare her life.”

Again, silence, and I prompted: “And what is that?”

“To kill him,
doamna
, with the stake and the knife. It is the only
way.”

* * *

I do not know what to say, what to think, what to feel. At times, I laugh at
myself for yielding to Dunya's ridiculous request, and think: I had an evil
nightmare about Vlad because I am so distraught over discovering his affair
with Zsuzsanna. It is only that, and my mind's exposure to the peasant's upsetting
superstitions, and the stress of travel and Arkady's father's death. Men do
not metamorphose into wolves. And Zsuzsanna has merely accidentally pricked
her neck with a pin, just as she said.

At other times I think: I know what I saw outside Zsuzsanna's window; I was
as awake then as now. I remember the hypnotic lure of Vlad's eyes, and the revulsion
I felt. I remember the icy touch of his tongue upon my skin.

No pin, no brooch, no dog makes marks like those.

When the doctor came, I thought,
Here is an educated man.
He will
explain the marks, explain Zsuzsanna's sudden weakness, reveal my concerns for
the absurdities they are. I escorted him up to her bedroom and remained for
the examination. He was middle-aged, middle-class, apparently intelligent and
rational. But the moment I received him into the house I saw his unease; and
when I led him into Zsuzsanna's bedroom and questioned him about the marks on
her throat, that unease turned to fear. He gave a prescription as to her diet,
and made her drink a draught to bring sleep, but when I questioned him candidly
out in the corridor, he remained evasive as to the cause of her malady and would
not meet my gaze.

At least he did not cross himself like the servants.

It can do no harm to let Dunya have her way, so long as Arkady does not know.
After he had left for the castle and the doctor had paid his visit, Dunya and
I set to work. Poor Brutus watched, his ponderous jowls resting on his paws,
as we festooned Zsuzsanna's window with wreaths of garlic - the
knoblauch
- while
she lay, grey and immobile as a corpse thanks to the doctor's sedative. Barking
will not disturb her now.

When we finished our strange task and moved towards the bed where his mistress
lay, to fasten the crucifix round her wounded throat, Brutus did not challenge
us, but thumped his tail approvingly.

I asked Dunya if she wished to stay at the manor, since it was already so late.
She said she could not, that her aged father would be terribly worried, so I
had one of the men drive her home. She has promised to stay here tomorrow night
to watch, with Brutus, over Zsuzsanna. For some reason, her presence is an enormous
comfort to me. After she left, I grew frightened all over again.

But when Arkady returned home, I forgot all about myself, for he was clearly
trying to hide his own terrible nervous state. I finally asked him directly
what was troubling him. He said it was nothing, that when he was returning home
a wolf had come very close to the horses, giving him and them a start, but reassured
me lone wolves were cowardly and would not attack without the protection of
the pack.

I did not entirely believe him. I think it has to do with Vlad.

At other times, I think: It is only grief. He has lost his father but recently;
give him time to recover, do not press.

I cannot tell him: The legends are all true; your uncle is a vampire, and soon
your sister will be one unless we kill him…

But yesterday evening, I located a massive German-English dictionary in the
upstairs library, and sitting in an armchair two centuries my senior, with the
great book spread upon my lap, found the words:
Schwur, Bund.

Covenant.

What unholy alliance is this?

The Diary of Arkady Tsepesh

11 April.

A day has passed, and there is still no sign of Jeffries.

I do not sleep much. When I do, I return in my dreams to that moment of breathless
panic in the forest and find myself trapped in its all-consuming blackness,
doomed to experience forever the sting of pine boughs whipping against my face,
the heat of wolves’ breath, the snap of hungry jaws amid the screams of horses.
I pull at the reins with all my strength - to no avail. The caleche wheels about
in an unending circle; the branches continue to slap me; the horses never cease
their shrieking, nor the wolves their snarling attack. I know I will never find
my way out of the infinite forest.

Never.

In my dreams I see Jeffries, too, caught at the moment he peered out the castle's
south window from a dizzying height at the great expanse of forest below. I
see the flush of fear on his face, on his pink scalp where the milky-blond hair
parts, on his brow as he lightly blots beads of sweat with his monogrammed handkerchief.
I see the dread in his eyes… and then I see him fall.

Fall through the open, waiting window. I follow through that window, watching
safe as a bird aloft while he hurtles downwards, arms and legs flailing, cutting
through the cold mountain air with the same sharp whistle as wolves’ teeth.
He struggles so frantically that in mid-fall, he rolls face upward, and I can
see the terror in his wide pale eyes, his contorted features, his mouth, a gaping
rictus frozen in a soundless scream.

Down, down, down… All the while silent, save for the whistling sound of his
struggling limbs, and a faint, distant snarl that comes from somewhere outside
the dream.

Such a long way down.

At last he reaches the trees; and here is the joke. His fall is not broken
by them, nor interrupted with bruising force and the crash of bough and brush
until needle-strewn ground finds him. No; as he reaches the very tips of the
tallest trees, their thin pointed branches pierce like sharpened stakes through
torso, neck and arms, calves and thigh.

He lies impaled, torn, swaying with the wind that ripples through the treetops,
bloody pine branches protruding from his body like the shafts of primitive arrows,
a modern Saint Sebastian.

And then he smiles, the muscles in his neck straining around the branch that
pierces them, rippling beneath blood, and he gazes up at me with the very same
delightedly curious expression he wore when he had looked at my ancestor's portrait,
and says:

“Vlad the Impaler. Vlad the Tsepesh. Born December 1431. You’re an Impaler,
aren’t you? One of the wolf-men? Are you quite sure you prefer that to Dracul…?”“

I wake, heart pounding to the point of nausea, remembering the bright fear
in his eyes as he peered out the south-wing window, and I think:
He was
frightened not of heights, but of his fate. He saw it awaiting him there.

The longer I analyse it, the more I realise I cannot go to the authorities
in Bistritz without more evidence.
Non habemus corpus;
we do not have
a body, ergo there is no crime. V. will refuse to suspect Laszlo out of blind
loyalty, will continue to insist that Jeffries simply chose to disappear, unless
there is proof.

And so this morning I cleaned Father's pistol - a shining steel Colt revolver,
the most recent innovation in firearms and my final gift to him, sent from England -
and put it in the caleche along with a lantern.

I then left for the village. I drove the horses slowly alongside the wood,
purposely taking a small detour back towards the castle and returning to the
spot where Stefan had last appeared, but his ghost did not reappear.

It was mid-day when I made my way to the village churchyard, where Masika's
son was being buried. I tethered the horses to a post outside the church and
from a distance watched the simple peasant ceremony. There was a sad beauty
to its spartanness. Six muscular
rumini
bore the pine casket on their
shoulders and set it down beside the fresh-dug grave while all the women sang
Bocete
in high, wavering voices. There were no hired mourners, no elegant
marble tomb crowded with ancestral shades, no plaques of gold; just villagers
and family, a deep hole in the black earth, a marker made of stone which the
elements would render illegible within a generation's time. Nor was there any
sense of family history; Masika Ivanovna, clad in black from crown to toe, was
the young man's sole relative in attendance, the only one to throw herself upon
the closed coffin and wail.

After the space of some moments, the small group of women attending her gently
pulled her away, so that the burial service might begin. The priest stood behind
the small stone marker and recited the Fiftieth Psalm, then the liturgy in a
soothing, musical tone; from time to time, the mourners chanted a response.
Soon the coffin was lowered into the waiting trench and strewn with handfuls
of earth and single wild roses. I thought of the beautiful spray of scarlet
roses, exuding sweet perfume from their wounds, as they lay crushed upon the
marble floor of Father's tomb.

When it was over, those present gave me wide berth, crossing themselves and
performing the peculiar gesture to avert the evil eye - first and middle fingers
forming a V and thrust towards me. One of the women who had attended Masika
Ivanovna hissed at me as she passed. I was dismayed and confused by this reaction,
but relieved when Masika Ivanovna, her round cheeks flushed and glistening with
tears, approached and warmly clasped my hands.

We embraced like long-lost relatives. In retrospect it seems odd and inappropriate,
but at the time I felt towards her a very strong and tender emotional tie, as
strong a one as I might feel towards Uncle or Zsuzsanna.

Still holding my hands in hers, she drew back and gazed with fond wistfulness
on my face, as a mother might. “Arkady Petrovich! How good it is of you to come!
How grateful I am to set eyes on you one more time!”

She uttered the last sentence with such finality that I replied, “And you shall
have many opportunities to set eyes on me again, at the castle.”

Her lips pressed together tightly; she shook her head, and in her eyes shone
the same grim regret and fear I had seen just before Laszlo's presence interrupted
her in Father's office. “No,” she said in a low voice. “I will never go back
there.”

“You are overcome with grief, Masika Ivanovna. In a week, perhaps two, you
will feel strong enough to work again. Besides, you are my only true friend
there.” I released her hands and withdrew from my pocket the large gold crucifix
and chain I had recovered the night before from the guest chambers. I pressed
it into her palm; she looked down at it with dismay.