Part 12 (2/2)

I turned, only for an instant, back towards the carriage; but by the time I looked again at the old man, he had vanished, and the great black door was once again closed. I hurried back to Arkady and the waiting ca-leche with my prize, and when I climbed in and gazed back at where I had stood, only mist and prismatic sunlight remained.

A dream, no more.

So it seems now as I sit beside Arkady, hurtling through the snowy darkness towards the Borgo Pa.s.s. But my right hand clutches black silk, and cutting into my fingers and palm are the sharp and all-too-tangible edges of a golden cross. . . .

Chapter 13.

The Journal of Stefan Van Helsing 26 NOVEMBER.

I doubt there will be time to write it all down.

I am prisoner in a strange castle in a strange land. I write now in a room with walls and floor of cold stone, and no warmth except the hearth, which I have lit. Beyond the single high, narrow window lies the night and no doubt a spectacular view of the spiralling Carpathians and the thick evergreen forest. From the carriage I saw the mountain range in all its splendour, at sunset when the highest snowy peaks were tinged with an unearthly rosy glow; at the very same moment, a chorus of wolves echoed mournfully in the distance.

Despite my fear, I could not help but be impressed by the land's wild, dangerous beauty.

Zsuzsanna ceased to mesmerise me-and this I mean both in literal and figurative senses- sometime after the carriage left Bistritz, which is when dread overcame me. I suppose she realised I was in her grasp, so further efforts were not necessary; appearing in daytime seems to wear on her. And she was preoccupied with little Jan, who slept covered by a blanket until the sun set, and our sweet companion, Frau Buchner, who now seems just as comfortable as I had been earlier with our strange travelling arrangements. Zsuzsanna spirited the dear woman off the train with us at Bistritz, and from there into the Bukovina diligence, which we took to the Borgo Pa.s.s.

The frau seems cheerfully oblivious to her previous destination and her cousin's funeral, and quite unaware of her role as b.l.o.o.d.y nursemaid to little Jan, who rose once darkness fell to suckle contentedly at the woman's neck, whilst she stared vacantly out at the pa.s.sing black scenery. She is now quite happy and anxious to be going to meet the prince. (Or is it the count? I have forgotten how Zsuzsanna referred to him.) Little does she realise where she is truly headed. And to what fate, poor creature? To what fate?

Still, Zsuzsanna's control was sufficient to keep me silent when we boarded and disembarked the Bukovina coach, and also when the prince's carriage arrived, driven by a grim-looking older man whose face was partly hidden beneath a thick scarf to ward off the chill.

It was after nightfall when we arrived at our final destination: the castle, a craggy black monolith, with crumbling spires rising into the sky. Our driver disappeared at once, and Zsuzsanna smiled drowsily at us mortals, the slumbering child in her arms, as I helped Frau Buchner from the coach.

”Come with me, my dear,” she said to the older woman. ”I know the prince will be anxious to meet you at once. And as for you”-she turned to me-”I will show you where you are to rest until we come for you. But the prince must prepare first so that the ritual may be accomplished.”

I gazed stricken at the matron, who stood smiling with sweet innocent excitement as she smoothed her hair and wrinkled skirt, eager to make a good impression on her royal host. I opened my mouth to warn her, reached forth my hand to grasp her arm, to rescue her- Zsuzsanna struck it down with bruising force, so swiftly that I do not think my eyes would have perceived the blur of movement had I not also felt the pain. Certainly the other woman never saw, never suspected, but maintained her nervous, antic.i.p.atory smile, her pale eyes wide and vacant, while I struggled to speak and found no words came.

So like a puppet I followed and let myself and Frau Buchner be led dumbly to the slaughter.

I was brought to this room, with its moodily eastern European flavour: dark stone walls, upon which hang dust-covered mediaeval tapestries; a generous, centuries-old carved bed, with a headboard of gargoyles and a cover of fine brocade, its gold threads gleaming in the firelight. Everything here speaks of age, of glittering corruption, of night.

Buchner is gone, and now I sit awaiting my fate.

Bram, my brother! I do this for you. If this record survives me, my prayer is that you will know my love for you, and my grief for having wronged you. . . .

Chapter 14.

The Diary of Abraham Van Helsing 27 NOVEMBER.

Shortly after midnight we arrived at a place as dark, malignant, and forbidding as I could imagine: Vlad's castle, a great turretted fortress of grey stone, clearly many centuries old and constructed to discourage invaders.

Surely I was among the most discouraged of them; at the sight of our destination, my heart quailed to think of my little boy and my brother inside such an evil place. So vast was it that not one of the many windows shone with light, but at my murmur of dismay at this we approached, Arkady whispered, ”They are here, and there is light. Somewhere deep inside.”

My fear did not ease-not to think that we would have to foray deep into the belly of the monster, on such a night when stars and moon were blanketed with thick clouds. The clearer weather of that afternoon had vanished, and snow rained down upon the dark silent landscape. But as Arkady leapt soundlessly down from and tethered the worn, still-anxious horses a short distance from the front entry, I reached once again into my pocket and drew an odd comfort from the crosses and Host wrapped in black silk.

”Put it on,” Arkady said, meaning one of the crucifixes, as I rose to climb down. ”But realise that it prevents me as well as Vlad from touching you. And . . . you will need something from your medical bag. Chloroform, if you have it; something soporific. But do not keep it inside the bag-it must be ready at an instant's notice.”

At this, I looked at him askance; he directed his gaze away from mine, towards the castle.

”We may already be too late. And if we are, Stefan will not come with us willingly.”

I was too far gone already into this mad adventure to question such a point; I possessed a small amount of ether for the direst emergencies. I poured a bit of the volatile liquid onto my kerchief, careful to hold my breath all the while, then wrapped it again, then a second time, in small towels from my bag before stuffing it into my waistcoat. And then I took one of the crucifix necklaces from the pouch and slipped it round my neck.

Immediately, I noticed Arkady move a slight distance away; and never during the whole fateful night did he violate a certain area around me. It was as though I were cus.h.i.+oned by a pocket of air that he could not pierce. For the first time, I felt safe within his presence; I had never entirely trusted him, especially since the terrible incident with the apoplectic.

”I will bring the bag, too,” I announced, as I stepped with it down from the carriage.

”It will be no use to you,” Arkady said.

”How can we know? If they have harmed Jan or Stefan-”

His expression hardened. ”Little Jan they cannot harm in a way that can be mended using the contents of that bag; and Stefan they would protect at any cost. Their existence is tied to his life.”

I would not abandon the bag but took a step towards the castle, my jaw set. He gave a faint sigh and reluctantly moved alongside me. ”This way,” he said, gesturing with a nod away from the great front door, adorned with inhospitably sharp metal spikes. ”It is the fastest.”

He led me round to a side entry, inside the stone walls up a sloping sweep of dead gra.s.s- past large gardens that had clearly been untilled the previous summer and were left to go to seed until all died with the first winter frost; past untrimmed grape arbors that threaded their way off trellises to wind around nearby bare-limbed fruit trees. There were wooden fences rotting in disrepair, and chunks of stone that had fallen from the castle face and lay ignored; clearly, this had once been a vast, thriving estate that had housed and fed many people. But any mortal who had dwelt here had long ago fled in haste.

And one of them-dead now-served as my guide, moving quickly, silently, his feet gliding over the snowdusted frozen gra.s.s without the soft, squeaking crunch my own boots made.

Despite the absence of moonlight, his pale skin glowed with that curious incandescence, which strangely rea.s.sured me, for I could easily follow in the fluctuating dark. He moved with the a.s.surance of one who knows the route and whither he is bound; but beneath his sharp, slender nose, his lips grew thin and taut and lined on either side, and his large dark eyes narrowed. He was struggling to contain emotion, and I realised, as I emerged from my self-made coc.o.o.n of grief and fear, that monster or no, he suffered as I did. For it was his son, too, who lay within these walls, and he knew better than I what was to be feared; he had paid a price greater than death. I saw as well the pain and hatred provoked by the sight of this so-familiar place.

When we arrived at the door-clearly the servants' entrance-he stopped and turned towards me, careful to maintain a comfortable distance from the golden charm that hung over my heart.

”Once we enter,” he said, ”I may communicate with you-though not aloud. But you must not speak unless I question you, or unless it is the deadliest emergency. Even so, Zsuzsanna and Vlad will hear your footsteps after a time, if they are not utterly distracted; as we near them, they will hear even your breath.”

”And you?” I asked.

”They will not hear me until I make myself known. This is the training of which I spoke, that of containing the aura.” And at the look of guilt that crossed my face, he added, ”Even had you begun on the train, there would not have been time, I think, to perfect it. You are not a sensitive by any stretch of the imagination.””Thank you,” I said, managing a tone of irony despite the fact that my hands had begun to tremble slightly in my pockets; it was, I told myself, the cold.

Wryness flickered in his eyes a moment, but he dismissed it at once and said, ”Do precisely as I tell you. I realise you desire nothing better than to rush inside and demand your son- but that would merely cost you your life or worse. Vlad is more than a vampire-he is a s.a.d.i.s.t, and at the first opportunity he will use those you love to torment you, and use you to torment those you love. Disobey me, and your failure is guaranteed. Understood?”

”Understood,” I said, but in truth his first point was quite right: I understood only that my child was somewhere nearby, and my brother. I would have said anything to bring myself closer to them.

We stepped inside the castle. I took a deep breath and released it with a gasp, almost gagging, which drew a backward warning glance from Arkady. The air, though cold, was stale, utterly devoid of oxygen, as though no window or door had been opened in many a year. And foetid, so much so that I became convinced this was the kitchen, whose servants had fled in the midst of preparing a large meal, leaving the food to rot. At the same time, I was grateful that the room was shrouded in total windowless blackness, lest my surmise prove incorrect. The only light was that provided by my radiant host, whom I followed through the dark, trying to m.u.f.fle the ringing of my boot-heels against the smooth stone floor.

We pa.s.sed through several large rooms whose contents I could not divine, then up a narrow winding staircase, with shallow steps built for a shorter people than mine. At one point upon them, Arkady paused and, without turning, without speaking, said: ”It was here, long ago, I first met your father.”

And I, forbidden to question, to raise my voice, could only recall my mother's chronicle of the past and imagine what had occurrred there and then.

During our journey, he paused only once more, this time in front of a large portrait rendered in faintly Byzantine fas.h.i.+on. This was quite visible, for it was flanked by sconces, whose lit tapers cast a wavering glow upon the subject: a lean, hawk-nosed man with a drooping black mustache and curls that flowed onto his shoulders. Arkady, I thought at first sight, but this man's eyes were a striking shade of dark green, such as I had never seen before, and his feathered cap and dress -and the painting itself-were clearly from a century long past. In one bottom corner was a s.h.i.+eld bearing a winged dragon; in the other was what I took to be a familial crest-an ominous one, with the head of a great grey wolf resting atop the coiled body of a serpent. I knew from what I had read in my mother's diary that this must be the likeness of the mortal man, Prince Vlad, known to some as Dracula, the son of the Dragon; to others as Tsepesh, the Impaler.

<script>