Part 14 (1/2)
He flanked me to my left; as I struggled for balance, I became aware of a crimson presence to my right: Vlad, who sidled alongside, speaking directly to my confused mind.
Join us, Stefan. See how your poor child longs for you? I ask only one small thing: the blood ritual. Permit this, and I swear to you that your little son can return home with you. No harm will come to any of you, if you allow this one thing. . . .
His plea was joined by that of little Jan: Papa, come. Oh, Papa, come!
Arkady spoke as well: Bram, my son. My son! I know you are strong-willed, like your mother. Remember her now-and listen to me- But his voice was drowned out by the others. I hesitated, torn, the cross held loosely in my palm. I had only to overturn my hand-such a small movement, so easily accomplished- and let it drop to the stone.
In the midst of this mental chorus, a distant part of my mind was peripherally aware that the woman had, amazingly, fought off the effects of the ether and gotten to her knees; Vlad's mental urging was apparently stronger than the drug. She crawled past us towards the grisly torture chamber, ignoring the elderly woman's hanging corpse, and disappeared behind the remaining velvet curtain.
Again I say, I noted this with a distracted portion of my mind-a portion that, at that moment, was scarcely cognizant, for the voices in my head had nearly overwhelmed me.
But I am a father; and the one I heard most clearly was my son's.
Papa, Papa, come. . . .
His little voice was full of tears, near breaking with childish desire as Zsuzsanna picked him up to soothe him, patting his back in a purely human maternal gesture, whispering sweet rea.s.surances; she looked at that moment so like Gerda comforting our boy that I scarce could bear it.
I spread my fingers and let the cross slip between them, then took a step towards my child.
Arkady and Vlad both descended on me at once; but Vlad was the swifter. He wrapped a strong arm round my shoulders, in a gesture that was both welcoming and restraining. His touch was icy-so cold that it penetrated layers of fabric, raising gooseflesh on my skin. But I was mentally in his grasp as well and felt no fear, just a swift sinking sensation of the descent into the vortex.
In the next blurred second, Arkady took hold of me by the shoulders, pulled me from Vlad's grip, and hurled me down.
In the fleeting instant of contact when Arkady's hands were upon me, my mind cleared and I came to myself, enough to hear his urgent message: My son, flee!
Swift instinct made me break the fall with my open hands; they struck the stone with such bruising force that I cried out in pain. But the distraction of it pa.s.sed as I discovered, beneath one swelling and cut palm, the crucifix.
I s.n.a.t.c.hed it up immediately and glanced up to witness a second horror: In order to free me, Arkady had stepped into Vlad's grasp, taking my place. The two struggled mightily, each leaning into the other, straining with effort to move the other into position and thrust him backwards. It was a trap; for the peasant woman had reappeared from behind the black veil and staggered drowsily towards us. Again she bore a weapon- but not the pistol. In its stead, clenched in both fists just below her heart, was a sharpened wooden stake the length of half an arm.
I scrambled to my feet, crying out a single word in warning, one that rose unbidden from the deepest recesses of my soul: ”Father!”
He heard. I know he heard, for in the midst of his battle with Vlad, his gaze met mine, and I saw there love and grat.i.tude, mixed with deep concern.
We shared a look that said we had, after so many years, recognised each odier at last; shared it a fraction of a second, no more, but it was enough to seal his fate.
”Go!” he gasped aloud, and the moment of inattention was enough. Vlad spun him round and, with a mighty thrust, sent him hurtling backwards.
Against the peasant woman. Both went flying against the remaining black drape, tearing that, too, down to reveal a butcher's table stained with blood and flanked by a grisly a.s.sortment of knives and stakes.
They slammed against the far wall: and for a terrible instant they stood flattened against it-Arkady atop the woman, his eyes wide, stunned by pain, the sharpened point of the stake protruding from the center of his chest.
I ran to him, unmindful of Vlad and the others, and crouched down at his side as he slid slowly down until he sat, knees bent, upon the cold stone. There was no blood; no fluid at all, only a gust of air like lungs deflating, like a sigh, and on it was carried a barely perceptible whisper: Mary . . .Pressed to the wall behind him, the woman half sat, her head lolling to one side at an impossible angle, peering out just beneath his shoulder with wide sightless eyes. I did not need to touch her to know that her neck was broken and that there would be no pulse.
”Father,” I said again, but he could not hear me; he was already gone, transforming before my stunned gaze from immortal to a man. The vampire's luminescent glow died like a suddenly extinguished flame, and streaks of silver spread through his black hair as though molten metal had been spilled upon his crown, then trickled downward. His face, too, rapidly aged until I found myself staring at an utterly mortal man, my mother's age-a man whose face was lined by grief and despair, whose shadowed eyes were full of pain and desperation.
For the first time, I gazed upon my human father's face; the face of sacrifice, worn by the heavy burden of generations past and future.
He was dead, I knew, but I still heard his voice in my head, as though he spoke to me: My son, go. Go. ...
Whilst the heart-rending metamorphosis occurred, Vlad laughed, saying, ”You have failed, my boy, after all these years, just as I foretold. You are a fool to think you possessed my cunning, my strength. None can destroy me! None has the power!”
At the same time, Zsuzsanna had collapsed, sitting on her heels with her gown fluted out around her, my child still clutched in her arms as she sobbed: ”Kasha!
Kasha! You are right-what have I become? Forgive me!
Vlad turned upon her, sneering. ”I thought you would be strong enough by now, Zsuzsanna.
Spare me your shows of grief! By to-morrow you will have forgotten your brother and will be laughing again, in love with your own beauty. It was necessary that he be destroyed; there was no time left us for mercy. Or would you prefer that we both perished in his stead?”
All this they said while I knelt at Arkady's side, the crucifix still clutched in my hand.
Then Vlad approached me again, stretching forth a ghostly white hand, the scarlet robes spreading beneath his arm like a b.l.o.o.d.y veil between us. ”Know that this pains me, my child, as it does you; but I cannot permit betrayal. He sought to steal from you your birthright. You have seen my harshness; let me show to you now my generosity, to which Zsuzsanna and Jan can attest.”
And he fixed his green eyes upon me once more. I would not meet them. Instead, I looked down at Arkady's mortal, aged corpse; and away, at my beloved brother's body. These two were the only convincing things in this chamber of horrors, the only things that had any reality, and I focussed on them to the exclusion of all else, until Vlad's words faded and became no more meaningful to me than the buzzing of a fly.
There is a measure of anguish that the human mind can accept; beyond that, each new blow brings only numbness, the heart's anaesthesia, for it can tolerate only a finite amount of anguish. Even writing this, I find I cannot weep for them all at once; the loss of Stefan brings a different pain, a different sorrow, from the loss of my little boy, or of Arkady.
Intense grief brought with it a liberation from reason: any remaining scepticism I might have possessed died that moment with Stefan, Arkady, my son. Perhaps I might have surrendered then, in despair-but I could not so disrespect my father and brother by falling prey to the evil they gave their lives to overcome.Instead, I clutched the cross in my hand and felt its warm tingling emanation. I lifted it high-higher, fending off the undead murderer that approached me -and felt its power course through my arm and beyond. My surge of confident belief seemed to extend the range of its power: Vlad lowered his hand, and snarled, retreating one step, then another.
I used the opportunity to dash to the exit, where I broke the sacred Host and placed half at the doorway behind me, preventing Vlad and his consort-and what remained of my Jan- from pursuit ... at least until a human hand removed the holy relic.
Down gloomy corridors I ran, down winding stairs, out into the night, where the carriage and horses waited. I staggered out of blackness into a world of white and grey; the storm had turned to blizzard. At that moment, I felt I had lost so much-father, brother, wife, child-that I hoped only to lose myself in the all-consuming whiteness.
I climbed into the carriage and drove the horses onwards, onwards, away from the castle and into the very heart of the storm.
Chapter 16.
The Journal of Mary Tsepesh Van Helsing 27 NOVEMBER.
The past week has been a difficult one. Were it not for my daughter-in-law, I should have broken my promise to Arkady and followed them to Transylvania.
But Gerda is as helpless as a child. This must certainly be the way that Bram discovered her, mute and vacant-eyed, in the sanitorium. For love of him, I cannot desert her, nor hand her back to her former captors; they would lead her at once to an empty cell and bind her in a strait-jacket behind a locked door, treat her as an object rather than the tormented soul she is. Bram would never forgive me.
But I shall never forgive myself, if harm comes to him.
I shall never forgive myself regardless.
To-day was the hardest day of all. I spent it as I had the others, in a house that a mere fortnight ago was filled with contented voices and laughter: my husband's, my sons', my grandchild's. Now it stands empty and silent. Gerda neither speaks nor moves but submits pa.s.sively as I spoon-feed her, bathe her, dress her, sit her before sunny windows in hopes that the scenery outside will spark a response, will somehow pierce the veil that separates her from the outside world. Once placed, she will remain motionless if left to herself, and she responds to nothing I say.
I talk to her nevertheless, forcing my tone to remain falsely bright as I speak of Bram and Stefan and little Jan as though they will return to us soon; chattering away as though our lives had not been destroyed by darkness.
And I watch carefully for changes in her. The small bite marks that Zsuzsanna left on her neck have not healed-which I think may actually be a good sign. For I remember when, long ago, Zsuzsanna was herself bitten, and how the wounds Vlad inflicted disappeared the day she died. Gerda appears to be in no danger of imminent death. But she eats so little; I worry for her health. And I dare not leave her alone, not even to go to market, for fear she might harm herself. If she was to die . . . what would she become?