Covenant With the Vampire (23 page)

He pierced me once more, for the final time, and I gasped as I felt his teeth
sink sharp into that tender, dark skin so near my heart. He sucked like a babe
at my breast, with each pull of his mouth and tongue causing a renewed throb
of pleasure between my legs. I cradled his head in my arms, a loving madonna
surrendering my lifeblood to this infinitely old and wise saviour-child, my
progenitor. He drank until my arms dropped and I could cradle him no more, until
I descended into veiled, shadowy rapture, into dark, mindless ecstasy.

For hours I knew nothing. I remember the distant sound of an explosion, but
it was merely a faint silver ripple against the deep velvet background of darkness.

Then, just before dawn, I emerged from my trance to discover he had gone, and
left me in my nightgown in the bed. I was consumed by an urgent need to write
this, my final entry, and so reached for the diary hidden beneath my pillow,
and the pen and ink at my night-table.

At times I feel a stirring of fear at the realisation that death is so close
at hand; but then I shut my eyes and allow myself to drink of his constant presence,
his depth-less intelligence, and I know I am not alone. The knowledge of what
I am soon to become comforts me. I go to the tomb victorious, certain of my
resurrection.

To whoever reads these words: Do not weep for me, and do not judge. The life
to which I go is far sweeter than the one that I have known.

* * *

The Diary of Arkady Tsepesh

17 April.

It is late morning, almost ten o’clock. Mary has risen and gone downstairs.
I write these words in bed, staring out at the bright sunshine filtering through
the open window.

Hoping to dispel gloom, I have pulled the curtains back, but from my comfortable
vantage point against the pillows, I can see the light glint off the cracked,
pockmarked pane. Last night's horrors - indeed, the whole, jumbled confusion of
yesterday's puzzling revelations - seem distant, veiled by the lingering mental
fog induced by laudanum.

To think that this bit of broken glass was all that stood between my wife,
my child, and Death - !

Mary was quite beside herself with terror last night - and so was I, though
to comfort her, I hid it. While I was reading in the study, a wolf leapt directly
at the window while she was gazing through the pane. Had it burst through the
glass -

I cannot even write the words, cannot bear to think of the mildest harm coming
to her or the child. Last night she wept as she begged me again to take her
from here, and the sight of her thus tore at my heart. I promised I would.

But I cannot see my way clear to accomplishing it. Even so, I must try. I have
never seen Mary hysterical - but then, never in my life have I heard of a solitary
wolf attacking a human so boldly. In those precious moments when rationality
returns, I can dismiss it as a strange, random event, as meaningless as it was
distressing.

But Mary kept repeating, in her frenzied state, that it was an omen, saying
that the creature could easily have killed her had it wanted, that it spared
her to drive home the threat. She would not tell me who, or what, she believes
has warned her, other than pure Evil itself.

Her words made me think of the wolf's paws against my shoulders, its breath
hot against my throat. The wolves seem but a symbol, a reminder of the madness
which lies in wait, eager to devour me.

If I believed in God, I would petition Him to take me and spare my family.
I can see why the peasants feel the need for an omnipotent parent, a divine
watchdog - what hell it is, to know there is no greater power than myself to
protect my wife and child - I, who am weak and utterly unreliable, on the verge
of mental collapse! Earlier this morning, in the grey light of sunrise, I opened
my sleepy eyes briefly - and saw, impaled on the bedpost at my feet, Jeffries’
head. He was looking down, laughing, wearing the same malignant, mocking grin
Stefan had worn when he appeared in Uncle's chair.

I think I and Uncle and Zsuzsanna and all the Tsepesh carry madness in our
blood. After yesterday's events, I am convinced.

The night before last, I finally brought myself to cast V.“s letter into the
fire. I left the manor yesterday dawn in the caleche and headed directly for
Bistritz full of agitation and hopefulness. When I reached the city shortly
before two o’clock, my agitation lessened as my hopefulness grew, for I felt
an exceptional degree of relief when I handed the innkeeper the sealed letter
I had written, informing the visitors that they should not come.

The innkeeper is a pleasant, round-faced man, heavy, but with hawkish features
that indicated our distant blood ties; he recognised me at once, since Mary
and I had spent a night gratis in his establishment, and welcomed me warmly,
though he was curious as to why I, and not Laszlo, had come. I murmured a vague
reply about having other business in town as I gave him the letter. He thanked
me as he received it, saying that the timing could not be better, as the guests
were due to arrive sometime later that afternoon. I merely smiled, knowing that
he thought it contained instructions on meeting Laszlo“s coach.

The innkeeper insisted on serving me luncheon “on the house,” and afterward,
I took the solicitor's letter to the postal office. Everything had gone smoothly,
and I took enormous comfort from knowing that the newlywed guests would be protected
from harm. Only one task remained.

Yet as I entered the constabulary and stepped up to the tall, uniformed lad
behind the first long wooden desk, I began to feel some trepidation, for there
was no concrete evidence tying Laszlo to the crimes other than the fact that
he had nicked some of Jeffries’ things and lied about a hen. It was my word
against his. And how could I prove Uncle's blamelessness in this? How could
I prove that /was not mad and the killer? After all, I knew the location of
the skulls…

Suddenly lost, I stared up at the posters on the wall beside him, artistic
renderings of the escaped, the criminal, the insane. I searched those hard,
scowling faces for similarities, some quirk of lip or glint of eye that marked
a murderer, a crazed man - some clear tendency that I had seen before, in Laszlo's
visage.

“Yes, sir?” the young
jandarm
asked. He was fair-haired and peered
at me through round spectacles with eyes of astonishing blue. His tone was frosty,
openly condescending, despite the fact that my dress and demeanour marked me
as nobility, educated, rich. He may have been of a lower class, shabbily groomed
and poor, with inferior education and an inborn resentment of my influence and
wealth, but he was Saxon - which made him the former conqueror, and me the formerly
conquered. It was his one advantage, and he was not about to let it escape my
notice. There was boredom in his tone, too, the
ennui
of one who has
seen so much there are no surprises left.

As I turned from the posters, two uniformed officers passed, one on either
side of a very drunken, barefoot Tzigani woman who would have fallen had they
not firmly gripped her upper arms. I blushed and averted my eyes as they passed,
for the woman's blouse had been torn at the collar and gaped open to the waist,
revealing beneath several strands of cheap beads but no undergarment. Her dark
hair had tumbled free from her scarf, which had slipped down and hung, in danger
of falling. There was blood and dirt on her face, as though she had been struggling
in the mud, and though she could scarcely walk, she kept growling and lunging
viciously at the men who restrained her, as though she intended to bite them.

The officers drew back their faces quickly enough, but laughed derisively to
show they were not frightened. As they passed me and their seated colleague,
one said, smiling: “She says she is possessed by the spirit of a wolf. It's
a spirit, all right: cheap wine.”

The three men laughed. But the woman balked, unwilling to go further, and raised
an arm, which, swaying, she pointed directly at me.
“He
does not scoff;
he understands,” she hissed.
“He
is one of us!”

I froze, discovered.

Laughing, the two officers dragged her off; the young Saxon behind the desk
gazed up at me with a condescending little smile, but used the most polite tone
and form of address possible as he gestured at the dirty wooden chair across
from his desk. “Please, sit,
Dumneavoastra… ?”

“Tsepesh,” I replied stiffly, and gave the filthy seat an uncertain glance.
It looked as though someone had recently spit on it, and when at last I settled
into it, I felt a sensation of slight moisture.

“And what do you wish to report,
Domnule
Tsepesh?” He pronounced the
name “Tzepezh.”

Murders,
I almost said.
How many? I don“t know. Too many for me
to count…
But I told him instead, ”I wish to speak to the head constable,
please.“

His tight smile widened a bit, but a slight hardness crept into his gaze. “Ah.
I am sure the constable would like to speak to you, my good sir, but he is engaged
at the moment in some very pressing business. I assure you, I can assist you
in whatever you - ”

“I must see him, if it is at all possible - ”

“And I assure you, it is not.”

“I see.” I rose, adjusted my clothing, then extended my hand. “Well, good day,
then.”

Apparently mildly surprised by my abruptness, he rose and took my hand - then
palmed the gold crown therein, and with the smoothest, most practiced movement
I have ever witnessed, slipped it into his pocket.

I turned and feigned movement toward the door.

“One moment, sir,” he said, still standing behind the desk. “There is a slight
chance the constable has finished his business and is free. I will go check,
if you like.”

I faced him. “Please.”

Within a minute, he returned and said, with an attitude considerably warmer,
“The chief constable will see you now.”

I followed him down a narrow corridor of closed doors to a room at the far
end, and stepped forward when he held the door open for me, with that stiff
Teutonic formality that we Transylvanians so enjoy parodying in our jokes. Once
I crossed the threshold, the door closed quietly behind me.

The man behind the desk was a native countryman, shorter and heavier than his
young counterpart.

“Domnule
Tsepesh,” he said softly. His voice and posture were less
formal, far warmer than the young Saxon’s. Indeed, there was an odd familiarity
in his tone, and I thought I detected a gleam of recognition in his eyes; he
nodded faintly to himself as he looked me up and down. Yet I was sure I had
never seen him before. He must have been Father's age - he had a head of waving
silver hair, but his eyebrows and curling moustache were still almost entirely
black, which gave his face a stern, dramatic appearance. “I am Chief Constable
Florescu. Come in. I have been expecting you.”

The incongruous statement temporarily stymied me - his anticipation could have
endured no more than a few seconds - but I stepped forward and took his hand.
His grip was warm and firm, and he studied me with an emotion in his dark eyes
that I detected from time to time during our conversation in his expression,
his voice, his posture. While I was with him, I tried to name it, and could
not - its identity remained elusive to me until now, as I write these words.

Pity. He looked on me with pity.

Florescu gestured for me to sit (this time in a chair padded and much cleaner
than the one in the outer office), which I did. He took his own seat, folded
his hands upon his desk, and leaned forward, fixing upon me a gaze that was
most oddly unbusinesslike: kindly, almost paternal, but also pensive, thoughtful,
guarded. “So,” he said, with unmistakable reluctance, tempered with resignation.
“Perhaps I should let you tell me why you have come.”

Though I had rehearsed my little speech several times on the ride over, my
chosen words deserted me at that instant. I stammered, “It - it is a very delicate
matter. I should explain myself. My great-uncle is Vlad Tsepesh - ”

Florescu gave a single, solemn nod. “The prince. Yes, I know of him.”

“I have come here not so much to make accusations as to… discreetly aid in
an investigation. The prince would be angry if he knew I had come here; I do
not want this to reflect on him in any way. But I believe that one of his servants
is guilty of a crime. Several, in fact - ”

“Which crime would that be?” he interrupted, but his tone was calm.

“Murder,” I said, and released a long breath.

His response was measured, even, not at all hasty - the response, I decided,
of a man who has heard so many horrible confessions that none can shock him
anymore. He did not recoil, did not flinch, but stayed perfectly still, hands
folded, asking the question and eyeing me with the composure of a professor
giving an oral examination. “And who do you believe has committed these murders?”

I got the odd impression he was an actor, playing a rehearsed role. And beneath
his words, a puzzling undercurrent of the real emotions: pity, regret. A desire
to help.

“My uncle's coachman,” I replied. “Laszlo Szegely. Though he likely had someone
assisting.”

“Why do you make such an accusation?” Again, calm, measured. “Have you actually
seen him commit these crimes? Do you have evidence?”

“I saw him with articles stolen from the dead man, and with fresh blood on
his sleeve not his own, hours after the man's disappearance. Earlier that morning,
I saw him leaving the castle with a bundle large enough to have held a body.”
I paused, shuddering to think of the bundle's square shape; had it been poor
Jeffries, he had already been dismembered. “Perhaps it is not enough to hang
him. But my hope was that if you carried out a discreet investigation, you would
find enough proof to convict the killer. I have nothing else, except my own
instincts concerning the man's character. There is something… criminal about
him. At the very least, if you could investigate him - ”