Covenant With the Vampire (24 page)

“There is no need to do that,” the constable said abruptly. He hunched forward,
his tone and gaze compellingly earnest. “I can tell you about Laszlo Szegely.
If you are certain you want to know the truth of the matter.”

Surprise lowered my voice to almost a whisper. “Of course…”I leaned forward,
eyes wide, ready to hear.

“Szegely,” Florescu said, and gave a small, sickly smile that vanished as quickly
as it had appeared. “A butcher by trade. Never married, no children. He came
to us by way of Buda-Pesth, because he was hoping to evade the authorities there.”

“For murder?” I asked swiftly.

He shook his silver head. “Grave robbery.”

“He did this here, in Bistritz, as well? You caught him?”

The constable nodded.

“You should have put him behind bars and kept him there,” I said, in a low,
ugly voice that shook. “Perhaps there are not enough corpses in the mountain
villages for him, because he has taken to creating his own dead. I found them
myself. The forest is full of buried heads.” Unable to continue, I stared, horrified,
down at my hands, thinking of Jeffries, of all the tiny, tiny skulls.

Florescu and I sat in silence a full minute; I could feel his gaze on me, pitying
me. Sizing me up. Thinking.

I heard him fumble in his desk, draw something out; I heard the flare of a
match, heard several strong intakes of breath, then smelled smoke, and the scent
of fragrant pipe tobacco.

At last the constable said, very softly, very kindly:
“Domnule
Tsepesh.
You resemble your father so very much.”

I raised my head, startled.

Florescu's eyes softened, but he could not bring himself to smile. “He came
here, just as you did, more than twenty-five years ago; I dare say before you
were born. I was not chief jandarm then, naturally. But I remember him because
he was so distraught. And, of course, because I was one of two chosen to return
with him to look for the bodies in the forest.”

I stared, struck dumb, astounded, unable to comprehend. Laszlo had worked at
the castle for only two years. How was it possible… ?

The constable was silent a time to let his words sink in; and then he added,
“But I was the only man who returned to Bistritz. It would be better for you,
domnule,
if you forget ever having seen such things. It would be better
for both of us.”

I half rose in outrage. “How can you say such a thing, when my wife, my family,
are living with a murderer nearby?”

Florescu merely looked at me and drew on his pipe, his face suddenly a narrow-eyed
mask, unreadable.

“What do you want?!” I demanded angrily. “Money? I am wealthy! I can pay more
than whoever else has bribed you!”

“No one has paid me,” he replied evenly, without a hint of offense. “At least,
not with anything as worthless as money. Though it is true; I arranged Szegely”s
freedom only two years ago, at the request of another.“

“Who?”

“Your father.”

I let go a breath and sank back into the chair, too stunned and outraged to
speak, to protest. Florescu continued calmly from behind a veil of pipe smoke.
“Just as someday you will come,
domnule
Tsepesh, most likely to my
successor, when Laszlo is dead and you must make your own arrangements.” His
tone grew familiar, confidential. “You are young now, and there are things you
do not yet understand. But you will. There are times when it does no good to
struggle against the inevitable. The more you fight, the harder it will be for
you. For your family.

“Perhaps someday your son will come to visit my successor, who will go to that
same forest. And he will take men, and guns, but the outcome will be the same:
only one man will emerge, and that man will find his promotion to this office
comes very easily.

“I have spent my life devoted to the dispensation of justice; but there are
some situations far beyond the pale of law - man's or God’s. I will not go again
to that forest. I am not a brilliant man, but I learn quickly where my life
is concerned.”

He paused, and in that instant I tried to speak, but he began talking swiftly
once more.

“There is nothing you can do, understand? Nothing either of us can do.” He
rose and crossed from behind his desk to the door; his tone grew insincere and
loud, as though he spoke for the benefit of those who might be listening. “I
ask you to leave now. These are only silly rumours, this business of a murderer
in the forest. The peasants have been telling these foolish legends for hundreds
of years. Everyone at the constabulary knows this, and if you speak to anyone
else, they will laugh if you tell them why you have come.

“Do you understand,
domnule
Tsepesh? It has all been arranged, long
before you were born. There is nothing you can do. Go home and take care of
your family.” He turned the knob and flung open the door.

I rose, red-faced, choking, not permitting myself at the time to understand.
“No. No, I do
not
understand. And I will go all the way to Vienna,
if I must - !”

His voice grew low, quiet, full of regret without a trace of anger. Full of
that damnable pity. “And I would inform my superiors there that you are a madman.
I assure you,
domnule,
nothing would be done. Just as I assure you
that it is not I who threaten you when I say: For love of your family, do not
do so.”

I left, trembling with fury, and headed back into the Carpathians. At first,
in my shock and rage, I told myself that Laszlo had sinister friends at the
jandamis
office - a group of criminals with influence so broad the chief
constable himself feared them, and made veiled hints about them. Florescu was
a liar, a damned liar who was party to every one of the murders by his refusal
to investigate. I could believe nothing he said - certainly not his vile insinuation
that Father had known anything of Laszlo's background!

I decided that the only logical course of action was to inform V. about Laszlo's
past and the constable's strange reaction to news of the bodies in the forest;
this, I felt, would convince him that we should all seek refuge from danger
in Vienna, whilst I informed the authorities there. I could not believe Florescu's
influence reached that far.

And then, as the hours passed on the long drive home, I calmed and began to
think.

There had been too many skulls in the forest to have been the work of one man
over the course of two years. I had uncovered at least fifty, most of them children,
and stopped only because I had not the strength, physical or mental, to continue.
How many had I failed to find, littered through the infinite forest?

I burst into angry sobs, grateful for the privacy afforded by the lonely mountain
road, as I recalled Florescu's contention that my father had arranged for Laszlo's
release. For a moment, I dared allow myself to consider that the chief
jandarm
had been telling the truth. But why would Father have knowingly arranged for
such a man's release - a man skilled in dealing with the disposal of corpses?
Why, if he did not share complicity in the murders?

I drove the horses hard over the mountain pass, rendered thoughtless by cold,
unnamed dread. Afternoon gave way to dusk. Sunset must have been breathtaking,
with the pink glow reflecting off the snow-covered peaks and limning the entire
blooming landscape with unearthly radiance, but I saw none of it. Masika's voice
spoke in my head:
Come to me, Arkady Petrovich, in the day when he sleeps.
It is not safe for us to speak here in the open. Come to me quickly…

It was no longer day, but I felt compelled to speak with her at once, to learn
the truth I could not at that moment bring myself even to think, yet which my
tormented heart knew was true.

By the time I reached the village, all was shrouded in night; the streets were
empty, and the rows of small huts dark. I had no idea where I might find Masika
Ivanovna, yet my desperate compulsion to speak to her was too overwhelming to
surrender and return home. I lit the lantern in the caleche and, taking shameless
advantage of my position as nephew of the prince, knocked on the first door
I came to with the intention of asking Masika's location.

No reply came; I took this to mean the hut's inhabitants were asleep, and so
called out. When still no answer came, I pushed open the door with the lantern
held high, and stepped inside - only to see that the hovel had been entirely deserted,
and its contents removed.

I proceeded to the next home, only to find the same eerie circumstance there - and
at the next hut, and the next. On the fourth try, however, I met with success.
The sleepy peasant inside would not welcome me in, but instead called out directions
from the other side of the latched wooden door.

I hastened to Masika's home - a small cottage with a thatched roof acrawl with
rodents, their tiny eyes gleaming in the light cast by my lantern. In the solitary
window, a feeble light flickered, but when I knocked stridently upon the door,
there came no answer, no sounds of stirring within. I grew bolder, calling Masika's
name as I pounded, but received in reply only silence.

At last I pushed against the door. Unlatched, it swung open; I stepped inside,
and there saw Masika Ivanovna, still dressed in her mourning clothes, sitting
at her crude-hewn dining-table. She had slumped forward in her chair so that
her forehead and one arm rested upon the table; two inches from the top of her
scarf-wrapped head stood a candle, melted to the base of its holder so that
wax had poured out onto the wood and the remaining bit of wick sputtered with
dying blue flame. Beneath her hand rested a folded piece of paper; nearby sat
a small icon of Saint George, and on the dirt and straw floor surrounding her
was an almost perfect circle of poured rock salt. Clearly, she had fallen asleep
waiting for someone who had not yet come.

Shivering slightly at the crunch of salt beneath my boot, I moved to her side,
touched her shoulder and said softly, “Masika Ivanovna. It is Arkady Tsepesh;
do not be afraid.”

She did not stir. I shook her shoulder, gently at first, then more insistent,
raising my voice until it became a shout; until I realised she would never wake.

I lifted her beneath both shoulders then, and set her back gently in the chair.
The crucifix I had returned to her at Radu's funeral now hung around her neck,
and swung briefly in the air.

Words cannot describe the horror I saw frozen upon that sweet, worn face, in
those wide, bulging eyes; it was the same anguished terror I saw on Jeffries’
severed head. Yet Masika bore no visible mark upon her person.

I reached for the now-cold hand upon the table, clasped it, sinking down onto
my knees beside her, and wept, feeling as though I had once again lost a mother
whose loving company I had never known.

When I rose, drying my eyes, I spied upon the table the folded paper that had
lain beneath Masika's hand, and read my own name written there, in script I
did not recognise. Compelled, I lifted the letter and unfolded it to read:

To the brother I will never know:

I write this on behalf of our father, Petru, who was unable to tell you
the truth himself before his death. He said that your innocence has protected
your life, and those of your sister and wife; he feared telling you because,
he said, Vlad was too close to you, and would realise at once that you had been
warned and would retaliate. But I risk telling you in secret now in hopes that
the knowledge may spare you life in the hell where our father dwelt.

My mother says Vlad has not spoken to you yet of the family covenant; but
the time will soon come. When it does, remember: Believe nothing he tells you,
for he will lie if it is to his advantage. He will tell you he abides by the
covenant out of a sense of honour, or love for the family, but this is false.
What the peasants say is true. He is
strigoi,
a soulless monster, a
murderer, and the covenant is no more than a game to him; he will adhere to
it only so long as there is profit for him. Your father too long believed that
Vlad possessed some good in his heart, but in truth, the prince knows only evil.
He is like an old wolf who has made so many kills he grows bored, and must find
new pleasures; destroying innocence is one of them. He toys with you now, as
he toyed with our father when he was young, and his father before him. This
entertainment remains fresh for him, for he can only enjoy it once a generation.
He will say that he loves you, but in fact he desires only to corrupt you, to
break you as he did Father.

With my whole heart, I beg you: Flee from him. Escape before he destroys
your soul.

But plan carefully, and wisely, and know that failure may cost you your
loved ones. Father tried to flee, and in retribution your mother, and our brother,
Stefan, were taken from him. Yet I believe there is still time for you, if you
are shrewd and cautious and realise that Vlad cannot be trusted; and I believe
to my dying day and beyond that love can overcome all manner of evil.

I must end swiftly now, though there is much more that needs saying. But
I cannot remain in my mother's house once the sun has set, for her safety's
sake. I must go. I pray for you, Brother. Do not be so shrewd that you cannot
pray for yourself.

Radu

I sank once again onto the floor, sitting back on the cold, packed earth, letting
the letter flutter down onto my lap. The shock of both Masika's death and the
letter's contents gave me a lunatic's clarity of perspective; for the first
time, I saw how tightly the pieces fit: All those skulls. Laszlo's insolence.
The peasants’ stories that V. was a bloodthirsty monster (there was no such
thing as a vampire, of course, and I did not take Radu's use of the word
strigoi
literally, but it would explain the origin of the legend). V.“s fury that I
should interfere with his guests, his insistence that I not tell the authorities…