Stoker's Manuscript (29 page)

“No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”

He tapped one into his hand but did not put away the pack. “You know,” he said, “the very first writing instruments were camel hairs.”

I knew that trivia, which suggested this was no chance encounter.

Again he offered me the pack. “Go ahead, take the whole pack.”

I just looked at him, and then looked at the pack.

“They’re from Mr. Bena. He sends his regards.”

I’m sure my eyes widened, and he thrust the pack in my direction. I took it, opened the lid, and saw a phone number.

The man came a bit closer and whispered quickly, “When you need to escape.”

And just as quickly he was gone. I memorized the number before destroying and trashing the cigarette pack. Five minutes later, two tall men stepped in front of me, both middle-aged and looking out of place in trench coats with their collars up. “Joseph Winston?”

I nodded my head. Neither appeared to have the red eyes or jaw structure of Regulats.

“Come with us.” The man spoke with a slight Eastern Euro accent.

Not sure if they were police or my intended contacts, I asked, “Who are you with?”

“You will soon know.”

“Are you with the authorities?”

“We have only one authority.”

“What is his name?”

“You will soon know.”

They didn’t try to muscle me away in front of a crowd. I took that as a good sign, but I wished that I had set up some sort of signal or phrase, a
qui vive
watchword with the merchant, so that Radu’s representatives could identify themselves.

Reluctantly, I fell in line between them and followed them out of the square. A couple blocks down the busy street, they stopped at a large German-made SUV shaped like a squared-off safari coach. It only took a couple minutes to exit town, and I recognized we were bound in the direction of Baia Sprie. Five minutes later, the SUV pulled off the highway at a place that looked familiar, the same route I had walked before. The vehicle steered into the driveway in front of the old structure that resembled a haystack.

The men got out of the car and opened my door. “You know the way.”

“The cemetery,” I said.

“The Braithwaite residence.”

I knew the way. Radu had picked the only place we both had visited. Across the road I found the small path that led over the old bridge and continued up the hill. At that point my senses registered that something was missing—the night was not filled with bats or birds or the sound of mosquitoes. Obviously he was not yet there. The path was dimly lit under a cloudless night and a sliver of moon. Stumbling over the stones, I turned east and entered the cemetery under its tree-lined entry, the summer having filled the limbs since my first trip there.

Recalling Braithwaite’s tomb was located about halfway across and in the back, I set out that direction, carefully avoiding stepping on headstones. I stopped when I heard something, looked up at the sky, and wondered what the hell I was doing. The sound of several mosquito clouds circled the graveyard periphery. Overhead a hundred bats convened, and I knew I had company.

With eyes adjusted to the dark, I spotted the lone cross perched atop the tomb of the late Loreena Braithwaite and walked that way with my eyes down, guiding my feet. Once there, I took out my GPS and memorized the coordinates and shone a light. The site was as I recalled it, with a cross (since repaired) at the head of the tomb and another laid onto the stone, giving the appearance of a strap. More mosquito clouds buzzed in the distance as I looked around trying to see them.

When I faced the tomb again, someone was sitting on it within arm’s reach. I jumped back so fast that I landed on the seat of my pants on the neighboring headstone.

“Why did you come here?” The man’s voice owned the same deeply aged quality of Dalca’s, but without the sneer.

I stood but kept my distance. From ten feet away I could see he had similar features to his brother’s, but carved more carefully of Roman design. Of course he had the thin mustache and swept-back straight hair, but his eyes were not set like an insect’s, and his nose was proportionately straight. Much like the photo of Tesla, he had the serious Slavic stare of answering a challenge. Like his brother, he had the signature smell, though perhaps not quite as acrid.

“Why did you come here?” he repeated.

I did not know which visit he was referring to, this one or the first time, so I answered in chronological order: “I thought that tomb held the remains of your brother.”

“To claim to know my brother is to suggest you know who I am.”

“I beg your pardon.” I looked down. “
mâna.
numesc
Joseph Barkeley.”

“Joseph Winston Barkeley.” He emphasized my middle name. “As you can see, this . . . young lady does not wish to be disturbed.”

“Yes, sir.” I bowed my head. “I made the mistake of disturbing her.”

“Tell me of this mistake.”

I looked up at him. It was difficult not to stare with his red eyes glowing like small lamps and his mouth open enough to reveal long teeth and a red tongue. “I was trying to do business with a foreigner, a stranger, and did not realize that I had interfered with his family’s business.”

“I see,” he said. “And why do you come this time?”

“Well . . . Should I succeed in finding what this foreign businessman is looking for, my usefulness to him will end, and I fear that I will be eliminated.”

“So you wish to make a deal for your safety.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Many a human have approached me to make deals over the centuries. Some of them hunters.” He spread his arms wide as if addressing a crowd. “They are scattered all about you.”

Then he made a sound that vaguely resembled a laugh, but came out more like a hiss. A bat swooped down and bounced off his arm as he swatted it away. He had huge, cartoon-proportioned hands. Before I could see him move he was off the tomb and standing behind me, and I heard him take in a long deep breath through his teeth as he smelled me.

“I smell . . . fear, desperation, weakness.” He breathed deeply again, his nostrils ranging from my right ear to my left. “I see you are one of us.” He held the last
s
through a hiss. “At least a drop or two.”

“My mother.”

“Lucia . . . Petrescu . . . Barkeley,” he said. “I knew of her, from a long line of Gratzes. Pity, that one. You carry your father’s filthy name as a burden.” I stood silently as he circled me, still sniffing. “Yes, Mr. Joseph, we know everyone in our little community.”

“Your community is not growing,” I said. “That is why I came here this time.”

“To join?”

I shook my head.

“I did not think so.” He was a tall creature, well over six feet. Now he was breathing directly in my face. “I smell . . . perfidy.”

“I have pledged no fealties to your brother.”

“Come now, human.” He turned in dramatic fashion and paced before me, passing his arm through the air like a lecturer in search of a word. “Perfidy is like . . . a wandering atom, for soon it will attach itself to another.”

“I come here to exchange, not to offer to be your slave.”

“What could you possibly have that I want?”

“Information . . .” I could barely get out my response. “About what you want most.”

His eyes started to glow a brighter red, and he leaned toward my face. “After your first visit here you should have discovered what I want most, or else I would consider you too stupid to deal with.” He circled behind me. “Now, human, just so we are in full understanding, tell me what I want most. Tell me.”

“What you want most is to know where your wife is.”

“Hmm. Yet you also must know that if you simply tell me where she is, you fear your usefulness to me will end as well.”

“I do not know where
she
is.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I know what you want second most.”

“Oh? Like a game . . . I see. You think you will set the rules and I am the contestant. Go on to the second round. Something like that?”

His eyes glowed bright red, and in a blink he grabbed me with one of his huge hands across my chest and lifted me in the air. He stepped toward the great stone sarcophagus, lifted its stone cover, and threw me in with the dead Miss Braithwaite, then lowered the top back over me.

I don’t know how long I was entombed. As soon as I understood what was happening, I took a deep breath, held it as long as possible, then let it out. A couple quick breaths, and then I held another deep breath. I was almost petrified as I realized that my worst fears were suddenly becoming reality. To be buried alive is an unspeakably hideous fate. Too tightly pressed to move, I could not even bring my hands up to my face. The stone was cold and the sides cramped, as I shared the small space with bones and dust and decaying cloth. Each breath sent dust into my nostrils and exhausted the small amount of oxygen remaining. I felt nonexistent bugs on my face and my skin began to crawl. The cold of the stone began to warm, and sweat poured from my body. I felt too frightened even to pray.

Then the stone lifted. As I went to raise myself out he pushed me back down. “Not yet, human.” He threw something in with me and lowered the stone again. I held my breath. Whatever he threw in began to panic and brush against my leg. I tried to kick it but my legs were too confined. When it squealed I realized it was a bat. I don’t know how long he left the cover on, but it felt much longer than the first time. Our confinement afforded the bat the chance to bite my legs repeatedly.

When the stone moved again, the bat escaped and I called out,
“
rog.” Please.

“You break easily, mortal.” He lifted me out of the box with one hand and lowered the stone cover.

“Thank you,” I said, brushing my face off and patting down my legs. I bent and gagged from the smell attached to my nostrils.

“Do not thank me, Christian. I only sought to show you what happens when you cross me. See, with my brother you will simply be tossed out of the tower and become a kabob.
Splat
 . . . over quickly, and on to your . . . swift judgment.” He pointed at the tomb. “But when you cross me, this little box becomes your home.” He knocked on the top. “Oh, don’t worry about suffocating—we’ll drill a small airhole. And someone will come around every . . . twenty-eight days or so . . . to provide you with nourishment.”

He gave a most convincing, cruel smile, displaying large sharp teeth.

“I know better than to cross you,” I said.

“Save your blandishments, mortal. Only know this, that your fate will be the same as what my wife has been going through.” He inhaled, and a long hiss carried past his bared teeth. “For a very long time.”

“
.” I understand.