Diaries of the Family Dracul - The Covenant with the Vampire Part 15

Thus I sent a second servant to the castle, to give V. the message that Zsuzsanna was dying and asked for him.

Soon after, poor Arkady arrived. Though I had succeeded in composing myself as I sat at Zsuzsanna's side, wis.h.i.+ng to be strong for my husband's sake, at the sight of his grief- stricken face in the bedroom doorway, I dissolved in tears.

He strode quickly to her side. I withdrew, and he sat on the bed and gathered her to his bosom, lifting her head and shoulders so that her dark hair streamed down over his arm and onto the pillow.

"Zsuzsa..." he sighed, tears spilling down his cheeks, and tenderly stroked her face. "Zsuzsa, how can this be?"

His presence brought her to herself again, and endowed her with strength. She smiled up at him with the sweetness of a saint, her eyes once again radiating that uncanny serenity despite the fact that her breath came in sharp gasps. "You mustn't cry, Kasha. I'm happy now..."

He released a bitter sob, and said, "You can't leave, Zsuzsa. I'm so lonely, now, with Stefan and Father gone. Don't you go, too." Her smile widened, showing a flash of long teeth as she whispered, "But I'm not leaving you, Kasha. You'll see me again. We'll all go to England together."

I stiffened and repressed a shudder at this, but sweet Arkady's face contorted in a spasm of grief, which he quickly stifled and replaced with a mask of courage. "Yes, of course," he said, in a placating tone. "You must get better, so we can all go to England together. You, me, Mary, Uncle, and the baby..."

"Yes, the baby," Zsuzsanna hissed dreamily, and fixed on me a gaze full of such hunger and longing that I thought I should faint. "We will all be so happy when the baby comes. We will love him so much..."

Arkady bowed his head in grief.

She fell silent a time, and nothing could be heard in that sad, sunlit room except her laboured breathing. I looked away, unable to bear more of the heartrending tableau until I heard her gasp, "Arkady... Kiss me. Kiss me one last time..."

I glanced up to see her looking at her brother with those huge, sensual eyes, eyes as compelling, as alluring as the dark green ones that haunted me on the verge of sleep. At once I put an arm on my husband's shoulder, to restrain him-and Dunya, alerted, had stepped over towards him, swooping like a mother hen protecting her brood.

Yet we were too late; Arkady bent to kiss her. She parted her lips, ready to meet his, but at the last instant, he turned his face and gave her a chaste, brotherly kiss on the cheek. She raised a feeble hand to his jaw as though to direct him into the embrace she desired, but she was too weak, and as my husband raised his head, I saw the keen disappointment in her eyes.

Lucidity deserted her then, and she lapsed into begging for Vlad, who I knew would not come, for the sun was still high in the sky. She alternated between restlessness and sleep, and in the late afternoon, the doctor arrived, but could do nothing except leave behind a foul-tasting medicine which she refused to drink.

As sunset approached, she woke and became extremely restive, crying pitifully for Vlad by name-no longer did she refer to him as "Uncle." By then she was terribly weak. We were all amazed that she was still alive when darkness finally came.

Vlad arrived shortly thereafter. I dreaded setting eyes on him again; but when he entered the room, I felt no thrill of fear or hate, for his demeanour was not at all what I expected.

Oh, yes, he was a man twenty, thirty years younger than the one I had met at the pomana-as handsome as my own husband, with the same striking, heavy black brows, and now black hair streaked with silver.

I expected a trace of the wolfish, gloating grin on his lips, a glint of mocking triumph in his eyes. But no- there was only sincere, somber concern reflected in his posture, his step, his expression. He ignored us all and went straight to Zsuzsanna, who still lay in her brother's arms, and took her hand with a grip so strong cords stood out on his pale wrist. Arkady's grief-dazed eyes flickered with fear, which soon was washed away by tears.

"Zsuzsa," Vlad said, and I marveled to hear emerge from that monster's lips a voice undeniably gentle, full of love and compa.s.sionate sorrow; marveled to know that Devil Himself still possessed the remnants of a human heart. He spoke to her in Roumanian, and I did not comprehend every word; but I understood perfectly from his tone what he said to her. I know he told her he loved her, and not to be frightened; I know he told her he would never leave her side.His voice was so charming, so compelling that, hearing it, I believed he meant every word with all of his wretched soul.

And he bent low and kissed her on the lips.

Arkady was sobbing by then, and had covered his eyes with one hand, leaving the other around his sister's shoulder. But I watched, and saw, with the same fascinated revulsion with which I had read Zsuzsanna's diary, the deep sensuality, the barely contained pa.s.sion, hidden in that brief embrace.

Vlad reluctantly lifted his mouth from Zsuzsanna's, and I saw the sudden blaze in his eyes, and the utter wors.h.i.+pful devotion in hers. She seemed at that instant to bloom; the barest flush of colour entered her cheeks, and her eyes shone with a joy so intense it verged on lunacy.

She relaxed utterly then, and gave up all struggle as she lay in her brother's arms while Vlad sat beside them, clasping her small, frail hand between his two large ones. She died with her eyes open wide, staring raptly into her killer's; and it was only after Dunya remarked that Zsuzsanna had not drawn a breath in some time that we realised she had gone.

Arkady broke down, overwhelmed by grief, hugging Zsuzsanna's body tightly and crying out in Roumanian. Vlad wept-wept, actual tears!-with him, then put a hand on his shoulder and tried to comfort him, but there was nothing that could be done to ease Arkady's pain; he pushed his uncle's hand away, angrily, and then turned to me and ordered: "Leave! Leave me alone with her!"

Heartbroken, I obeyed, and went with the others into the hall. Dunya excused herself, saying that she had to prepare for the body to be washed-and she shot me a glance warning me to be careful of Vlad.

She left, and I was alone in the corridor with the vampire.

His grief and distress in Zsuzsanna's bedroom had been so genuine that I had actually felt sympathy towards him; but now, it vanished, for as he turned to watch Dunya leave, I caught sight of his expression, and the gleam of victory in his eye. And more: an intelligence so utterly cold, so utterly calculating, that I felt no fear, only such hatred that for a moment I could not speak.

Despite his display of devotion towards Zsuzsanna he was no less a monster, no less her murderer.

As he faced me, his expression once more became that of the concerned relative, and he said to me in German: "Your husband has been through too much. You must try to comfort him now."

In response, I slipped a finger beneath the collar of my dress, caught the gold chain there...

and drew out the cross, so that he might see it.

His eyes gleamed red, like an animal's catching the lamplight at night. He took a step back from me, but I caught the fleeting expression of fury that crossed his features. Most inappropriately at this time of great sorrow, his lips resolved themselves into a slight, bitter smile that revealed teeth.

"So," he said. "You are becoming superst.i.tious, like the peasants?"

"Only because I have read her diary," I replied, my own lips twisted with loathing. "Only because I know what-who-killed her. Only because I know you have broken the covenant."

As I spoke, his smile faded, but the deadly teeth were still revealed. For a moment, he regarded me with such infinite rage that I felt a wave of dizzying terror. "You have learned more than Zsuzsanna's pages could have revealed," he said slowly, fixing his magnetic gaze upon me. "Who has spoken to you? Who?"

Suddenly fearful for Dunya's sake, I replied with silence.

He spoke again, with the lethal languor of a serpent coiling for the strike. "Only the ignorant," he said, his gaze still on me, "believe they know everything. You are not capable of understanding. How dare you speak to me of the covenant, of something I revere, something you know nothing of? I love Zsuzsanna... !"

Conscious of Arkady weeping beyond the open door, I dropped my voice to an impa.s.sioned whisper. "That is not love. That is vileness. Pride. Monstrous evil..."

He lowered his own voice to a hiss that sounded like an angry viper. "It is not yours to judge, to understand!" Suddenly his fury cooled, and his eyes took on that compelling loveliness, and he smiled-sweetly, as sweetly as Zsuzsanna had when she had begged me to kiss her.

"In the past, I would have decreed only one sort of fate for such a woman who dared insult me," he said softly, studying me from head to toe with that intent, sweeping gaze. "But you are a beautiful woman. Such eyes-like sapphires set in gold. Perhaps someday you can be made to understand. I have been alone, I have denied myself companions.h.i.+p too long. Too long..."

And he reached for me-gently, with the back of his curled fingers, as if to touch tenderly my cheek, but the cross at my throat held him back. Instinctively, I recoiled, and moved away until my back was pressed against the wall. He followed, until his hand hovered two inches from my face, and caressed the air above my skin. I trembled as he lowered it lovingly, lingeringly, as if stroking my cheek, the curve of my jaw, the sweep of my neck.

For a horrible instant, I found myself staring into his eyes, all grief, all disgust forgotten, thinking of nothing but their exquisite deep green beauty, of the t.i.tillation- G.o.d forgive me-I had felt while reading Zsuzsanna's diary, of the intense pleasure she had experienced, of how I might experience that pleasure, and more, should I simply tear the cross from my neck and pull him to me in that dark hallway, and feel his teeth sink deep into my flesh...

I raised my hand to my throat and closed it over the cross.

As I did so, the child within me stirred. I came to myself and felt a wave of revulsion greater than any I have ever known, and cried, "I would never allow it! I would rather die!"

He smiled evilly, and opened his mouth to speak, but I would not permit him. I trembled as I spoke-but with rage, not fear. Hatred and love gave me the courage to speak the truth.

"I will not stay," I said, lowering my shaking voice, once again mindful of my grieving husband in the nearby bedroom. "Nor will I permit Arkady to remain and be abused. You have mesmerised him somehow to make him stay here, to make him love you, but you have no power over me!"

"Do not be so sure, my beautiful Mary," he said- but this was entirely my imagination, for his lips never moved. He lowered his hand, but rather than step back, he leaned forward, threateningly, until those green eyes loomed large in my field of vision as he whispered, with the same hideous leer I had first seen at the pomana."Then for your own sake, and your child's, I would advise you to be mindful of wolves."

He left. I could say nothing, do nothing, but sag trembling against the wall in the corridor and listen to Arkady's tortured weeping.

My husband refuses to leave his sister's body. Tonight he is safe, Dunya says; Zsuzsanna will not rise until after she is buried. And so I instructed the servants to leave him, as he requests.

Dunya and I are sleeping tonight in the little nursery, and have garlanded the windows with garlic wreaths. I cannot bear to be alone, or to spend the night in my bedroom, thinking of the shattered pane hidden behind the curtain. I hold the faint hope that perhaps he would not be able to find me here, and so I have brought my pillow and blanket, journal and pen.

Dunya's presence is a sincere comfort.

As terrified as I am, there is a very strange relief in no longer doubting the peasants' tale of the covenant and the strigoi. The truth may be horrible, but at least I know for certain the Evil that I fight; and I know it cannot be stronger than the love I bear for my husband and child.

Zsuzsanna's death is but a temporary triumph for him. He will not win. He will not.

Chapter 10.

The Journal of Mary Windham Tsepesh 19 April.

Arkady has gone mad. He refuses food or sleep and will not leave his sister's side, despite the fact that we buried her this noon.

The night Zsuzsanna died, he remained with her body. I did not try to dissuade him, as Dunya a.s.sured me he was in no danger, and I believed he was doing so out of Transylvanian custom; after all, he had sat vigil with his father's body the night we arrived at the manor.

But yesterday morning, he was still with her. Dunya came to the nursery to report that Arkady refused to leave Zsuzsanna alone with the servants, even when the women came to wash her; and when the men laid her in the coffin and carried her to the main drawing- room, he never left her side. This worried Dunya, for she has told me that it has been arranged for Zsuzsanna to be freed from the strigoi's curse once she is buried and everyone has left the tomb.

After speaking with Dunya, I went to the drawing-room, but the door was locked and bolted, and Arkady appeared not to recognise my voice. He would not so much as come to the door-only shouted threats that he would use the pistol were he not left alone.

Disheartened, I returned to the nursery-and though I was not raised a Catholic, found myself praying at the little shrine to Saint George Dunya has erected there. Grief and misery left me unusually exhausted, and so at last I fell into an unpleasant sleep.

In late afternoon, I was wakened by the distant sounds of a commotion. Later I learned from Dunya that my husband had brandished the pistol at two women hired by Vlad to sing the customary songs of mourning to Zsuzsanna's corpse, and had chased them from the room. The child began to kick so forcefully that afternoon, that I could not return to sleep, could find no rest.

By the time the sun set yesterday, Arkady still had not emerged from his vigil. The onset of evening reawakened my fears and my sense of urgency; I could not bear to think of my husband alone beside his undead sister in the darkness. And so, with a final silent plea to Saint George, I went to try to persuade Arkady to return with me to the safe haven of the nursery.

Chin lifted, shoulders squared with determination, I knocked on the door of the drawing- room. In reply, I received a harsh shout: Go away!

"Arkady," I answered at once, and drew a breath, preparing to launch into a rational discourse as to why he should open the door. But at the sound of his voice, so strange and bitter and broken, I released instead a sob, and slowly leaned against the door, overwhelmed by the horror of our circ.u.mstances.

I could not find my voice; could only weep. For a few seconds there came silence-but then beyond the door came the m.u.f.fled sound of footsteps, and the creaking of the bolt as it was pulled back. Slowly, the door opened, and in the wavering shadows stood my husband, with the pistol held in his right hand.

The sight of him pained my heart. He was rumpled, unshaven, with deep shadows beneath his tormented eyes, and at his right temple an unmistakable thin ribbon of silver had appeared in his thick coal-black hair in the hours since I had last seen him-put there by Vlad, who each day seemed to grow younger.

"Mary?" he asked tremulously, in a voice so childlike, so helpless and broken, it evoked more tears. He lowered the pistol ever so slightly, and frowned as he peered at me with red, swollen eyes encircled by dark shadows. His eyes have always been, I felt, his most handsome feature-in fact, the word "beautiful" is more appropriate. Like his "uncle" and sister, he has striking, breathtaking eyes: light hazel, flecked with much green, and encircled by a ring of dark brown.

Those pitiful, lovely eyes were utterly lost, as bewildered as those of a little boy wandering dazed through endless forest. He fixed them on me, and I saw them narrow, saw them flicker with uncertainty as he reached deep into his memory and tried to recall whether he truly knew me, whether I could be trusted.

"Yes, dear, it's Mary," I said gently, and took another step closer to the threshold. He tensed, but did not raise the pistol further; and when I held still, waiting, he lowered it at last until the barrel pointed at the floor, but did not ease his grip.

I entered and moved slowly, deliberately beside him as he turned and walked back towards the casket in the room's centre. Inside, no lamps had been lit, and the corners were shrouded in blackness. The only light came from great solitary candelabra, twenty-armed and almost my height, that stood at the head of the open coffin.

All twenty tapers were lit, and they cast onto Zsuzsanna a wavering golden glow that imbued her with such stunning loveliness that she seemed unreal as a statue, a magnificent work of art intended to represent the ultimate quintessence of Beauty. No living human could ever possess such allure. The sight of her stole my breath, caused me to raise fingers to my lips. Yet as I gazed at her, I realised that the effect was due to more than the candlelight; her very being seemed to radiate with an internal light, and her skin possessed the same peculiar phosph.o.r.escent quality I had first noticed in Vlad"s skin, at the p.o.r.nana.

Indeed, it seemed, as I continued to look, to gleam with subtle flashes of pale silvery blue.

So enchanting was the sight of her that I had to close my eyes and force myself instead to look upon my husband, who settled into a chair pulled alongside the casket, the place where he had apparently spent the last several hours. Arkady, too, gazed upon Zsuzsanna so steadily he appeared entranced; and when I called his name at first gently, and then more loudly, he never heard, but continued staring at his sister with the distant, , slack expression of one mesmerised.

I reached down to touch his arm. He whirled, and raised the pistol still clutched in his right hand, as though he had already forgotten that he had invited me in. I recoiled, and watched as the fear in his eyes eased, and was replaced once again by recognition.

"Arkady," I said softly, and when his expression faintly warmed, I grew bold and reached again to stroke his shoulder. I was not at all certain, when I entered the room, what I should say; I knew only that we had both come to a point of utter desperation, and so I spoke to him from my heart. "Arkady, I need my husband back. I need your help."

My words pierced his veil of despair and touched him. Slowly, he set the pistol down beside him on the chair cus.h.i.+on, and turned to gaze up at me with eyes that spoke of his fierce struggle to emerge from his interior darkness.

But I saw in that gaze a glimmer of the man I had known, and was heartened. "Come to bed, darling," I whispered. "Come to bed. It's time for both of you to rest."

He laced his fingers into his newly silvered hair and clutched it, shaking his head; his voice carried a hint of the anguish which had driven him to madness. "I can't... I dare not leave her..."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," I soothed. "We can have one of the servants sit with her."

"No!" He whipped round like a serpent to face me. "We can trust them least of all!" He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, as though afraid one of them might overhear, but his eyes were oddly lucid. "I trusted them once... with Father's corpse. If I told you what they did to him..." He shuddered, and again shook his head. "No. I will trust none of them with her."

"Arkady," I said firmly, "you said you have seen terrible things at the castle. Well, I have seen horrible things here. This house is no longer safe, and I need you. And not just I... Your child needs you as well." And I placed his hand upon my stomach and let him feel the restless child. His expression softened at that, and for a moment I thought he would weep.

But instead, he rose from the chair and embraced me, clasping me so tightly I could scarcely draw a breath.

Yet I was grateful for that embrace; hot tears spilled onto my cheeks, and I held him with a desperation to match his own, terrified that if I dared let go, our little family might never be together again.

"I am so frightened," he whispered into my ear, our wet cheeks pressed together; tears streamed down our faces, but I could not tell which were his and which mine. "So frightened that anything should happen to you or the baby."

"And I am frightened for your sake," I said, "because of what has already happened to you.

Arkady, you are not yourself; you are sick with grief. Do you remember we had agreed to go to Vienna, because the strain was too great? We must do so at once, before any further evil befalls us."

"Yes..." he murmured absently. "We should go." And then I felt his body tense against mine, and a muscle in his jaw begin to twitch. "But I cannot leave her. Not yet..."

I stiffened myself, and pulled back from the embrace, though our arms were still about each other's waist. I decided to try to lead him gently to the truth of what Vlad really was.

"Arkady... you do see how beautiful Zsuzsanna He sighed, and, releasing me from the embrace, turned towards the casket to look on her once more with sorrowful appreciation. "Yes... Yes, she is beautiful..." He choked, righting back tears.

I stood beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. "More beautiful than she ever was in life. But... have you forgotten her spine was curved, and her leg withered?"

He looked suddenly up at the shadows dancing on the high ceiling, as though unwilling to confront the memory, as though afraid what contemplation of it might reveal. His breath began to come quickly, and his shoulders to rise and fall, as though he were struggling to repress the conclusion reason might bring.

"No," he said bitterly. "No, I haven't forgotten."

I gestured at the body in the coffin. "Look at her, Arkady. Look at her! You can see she does not look as the dead ought to look after a day's time. Her back is perfectly straight; she is taller. And look at her legs!"

And despite himself, he looked down at his sister's corpse, and the two perfect, well-formed legs beneath her gown.

"They are both perfect now," I continued. "What could cause such a miracle?"

He clutched his forehead. "Insanity! The same insanity that caused me to see Stefan, to see the wolves spare my life; that causes Uncle every day to grow younger! And I have done this to you, Mary, to the person I love most in all the world..." His voice cracked. "I cannot bear to see it happen to you..."

I heard the wildness in his voice, but also the stirrings of unwanted revelation; I felt I could not afford to desist. Gently, but firmly, I said: "Arkady, I am perfectly sane; I am the same Mary you have always known, and I tell you now, you are not mad to have seen these things. Zsuzsanna is perfect now because she is strigoi, one of the undead." I hesitated. "Did you not see Vlad, when he came to be with her? His hair is black, where once it was silver; he appears thirty years younger. How do you explain it?"

His gaze went directly to the small gold cross, which I had thoughtlessly failed to slip inside my dress before coming to speak to him. His eyes narrowed at the sight of it, and he lifted his gaze to mine and with horrified revelation whispered, "Good Lord, you are just like them now, aren't you? You are as misguided as they! You would like nothing better than for me to go to sleep, so you can help them violate her body, just as they did Father"s-!"