Covenant With the Vampire (26 page)

I simply could no longer allow myself to believe Dunya's silly stories. For
the sake of my child.

And if we could not go to Vienna, so be it; I would find a way to feel happy
and comfortable here, at least until the baby was old enough to travel. There
was no point in pressuring Arkady into an unpleasant argument with Vlad.

Once I decided, I felt much relief. I went back upstairs, thinking to wake
Arkady and apologise to him for my earlier attack of nerves, and reassure him
that, if Vlad found it inconvenient for us to leave now, we should not fret,
but instead focus on the upcoming joy. We deserved to permit ourselves some
happiness.

But Arkady had already gone, apparently in a hurry, for he had left his cabinet
open, and his diary lay open, as though hastily abandoned, near his pillow.

I carefully shut it, set it on his night-table, and stoppered the open bottle
of ink I found there. I would have gone back down to the kitchen to search for
him, but the thought of navigating the stairs again held me back. Instead I
made my way to the east wing and Zsuzsanna's bedroom, holding in my mind the
cheerful notion that I could spend the day with Dunya and my child's aunt sorting
through heirloom baby clothes and linens, and readying the nursery. I remembered
how radiantly Zsuzsanna had smiled, when she spoke of how good it would be to
hear the laughter of children in this house again.

It was quite late by this time, almost noon, but her door was still closed.
I knocked; no answer came. I called; hearing no response, I timidly opened the
door a crack and peered inside.

Sunlight streamed in through open, unshuttered windows. My eyes caught sight
of the far window-seat first, and I noticed that Dunya had already taken down
the garlic flowers.

And then my heart froze when I heard the sound of gentle snoring, and realised
both women were still asleep. I stepped inside, and as my gaze fell upon Zsuzsanna,
I raised a hand to my lips and cried aloud:

“Dear God!”

She had been writing as she lay on her bed, but weakness had caused her to
drop the pen and overturn the ink bottle; the indelible black liquid now stained
quilt and sheets. Her little diary lay face-up, the leaves opened like a fan.

But it was not the large, black splotches on the bed that had made me cry out.
Zsuzsanna was paler than the linens, paler than the pillow on which her head
lay. She gasped, chest heaving as she fought for breath, her contorted white
face lined with soft, dove-grey furrows that looked rendered by a watercolour
artist's brush. Her open lips revealed colourless gums which had so receded
that her teeth appeared ghoulishly long.

“Zsuzsanna,” I said at last, and hurried to her side. I took her hand; it was
icy and limp as that of one dead.

She was fully awake. Her dark eyes, encircled by aubergine shadow and wide
with childlike innocence, stared up at me with frighteningly intense lucidity;
she struggled to draw enough air to speak, and failed.

“Don’t move,” I whispered. “Don’t talk…” I moved the diary and the ink to the
night-table, noticing as I did the crucifix there, set atop the coiled, broken
chain, as if she (or someone else) had impatiently torn it from her neck. I
settled beside her, avoiding the large damp spot on the quilt, and gently brushed
the hair back from her cool forehead.

The safe, happy world I had endeavoured to create for myself that morning collapsed
utterly around me. I knew Vlad had come again last night, to visit Zsuzsanna
- and to threaten me.

I will kill him before I let him harm my husband or my child.

I went over to Dunya, lying on the floor beneath a blanket, seized her shoulders,
and shook her. Her stupor was greater than any produced by laudanum; I could
only think of my waking nightmare of Vlad's green eyes as Dunya's head lolled
sleepily on her shoulders. She did not even open her eyes until I shouted in
her ear:

“He returned! He returned, and Zsuzsanna is on the verge of death!”

This seemed to draw her back. She blinked, and rubbed her eyes; and then she
saw Zsuzsanna, and covered her face with her hands as she let go a horrified
wail that broke my heart.

But there was no time for pity. I gave her another shake, and said, “Go at
once downstairs and have one of the men fetch the doctor!”

She lowered her hands, threw back the blanket, struggled to her feet. Tears
glistened in her eyes as she leaned over Zsuzsanna - who watched us with that
oddly intense gaze - and gently loosened the nightgown at her throat. She pulled
the fabric down an inch or two, and drew back with a gasp.

I moved beside her and followed her gaze, to the place on Zsuzsanna's milk-white
neck, just above the collarbone, where those terrible red marks had been. Impossibly,
they had altogether disappeared, leaving no trace, not even tiny scars - nothing
but pearlescent, unblemished skin.

Dunya drew her trembling hand away, and straightened, then motioned for us
to go into the corridor, lest Zsuzsanna should overhear.

I followed her out into the hall with a sense of dread.

“It is too late for the doctor,” she whispered sadly. “You saw that the marks
have healed. The change is complete; she will be dead before tomorrow comes.”

I felt a surge of anger at hearing those words: It was unfair that Zsuzsanna
should be so cruelly stricken, unfair that Vlad should triumph. The poor woman
had endured a difficult enough life, and now she would die at a time when she
should be joyously awaiting her nephew's birth with her family. My resolve to
be cheerful for the child's sake crumbled; Vlad had won again.

I vented my rage on Dunya, shouting: “I don’t care what superstition says!
Go get the doctor! We must do
something
to help her!”

The poor girl recoiled, trembling, then curtsied and flew down the stairs.
I returned to Zsuzsanna's bedside and took her cold, lifeless hand; she looked
up at me with those great, strangely euphoric eyes.

“It will be all right,” I soothed. “We have sent for the doctor. We’ll make
you well…”

She drew a hitching breath and released a soft sigh on which was carried the
barely audible word: “No…”

“Don’t speak like that,” I said firmly, still feeling the undercurrent of my
fury at Vlad, at fate, at God, that such a cruel thing should be happening to
such a helpless innocent. “Of course you’ll get better.”

Her eyes were glittering, bright with excitement and a vibrant, radiant joy
in sharp contrast to her cadaverous appearance. She fought to take another breath,
and with an effort that was painful to watch, whispered, “No… I
want…
death…”

I fell silent, pierced through the heart. There was nothing I could do but
remain beside her and hold her hand, and when Dunya reappeared, breathless from
running on the stairs, I sent her away again to fetch Arkady.

She was gone some time. During her absence, Zsuzsanna closed her eyes, and
appeared to sleep; and I - God forgive me - could no longer resist the lure of the
little diary on the night-table. I know it is a sin to invade another's privacy,
but I had to know the truth, had to know whether my real enemy was Incarnate
Evil, Madness, or Superstition.

And so I stealthily slipped my hand free from hers, took the diary from the
table, and opened it to the final entries.

There are no words. No words to describe the revulsion, the horror, the lurid
fascination those pages held for me. I cannot - I cannot write here of what I
read. Decency forbids it.

Zsuzsanna had taken the vampire as lover.

My first thought was that this was the most grotesque, obscene sort of fantasy;
but can fantasy kill a woman? If she is mad, then we are all mad with her, and
living in a world in which the magical, the impossible, the fantastically evil,
are resoundingly real… and deadly.

I devoured the last four entries with a swiftness born of titillation and terror,
then set the vile little book aside and raised shaking hands to my face.

I thought:
We must flee at once
.

I thought:
He is free to go to England now
.

I thought:
We must kill him quickly
.

I stared at sleeping, dying Zsuzsanna, and in my mind heard Dunya's solemn
voice:…
kill him,
doamna,
with the stake and the knife. It is the
only way…

Zsuzsanna stirred, languidly lifted her eyelids, and gazed up at me.

I retook her hand, and tried to compose my expression into one of comfort,
tried to smile.

How large those eyes were, how infinitely dark and deep and loving. They shone
with the gently mad, beatific radiance of a saint, shone like a midnight sea
rippling with moonbeams. They caressed me, pulling like an ocean current.

Without realising it, I leaned closer to the dying woman until her soft, gasping
breath warmed my cheeks, until our two faces were scarcely a hand's width apart.
At that moment I was suddenly struck by the fact that in death, Zsuzsanna“s
heretofore plain face had taken on the classic beauty of an alabaster Venus,
sculpted by the most brilliant of Roman artists. Her mouth seemed softer, fuller,
touched by the same newly unleashed sensuality that emanated from her fathomless
eyes, eyes that grew larger as I approached, until they filled the entire world.

“Mary,” she mouthed silently - or perhaps she did not speak at all, perhaps teeth
and tongue and lips never moved. Perhaps I merely imagined that she struggled
to speak my name. “Sweet sister. Kiss me before I die.”

I surrendered, sinking deep into the dark ocean of those eyes with the euphoric
peace of a drowning swimmer who at last yields to death. I brought my own lips
closer to those pale parted ones until I hovered two inches above her. She smiled
with the same dreamy pleasure that now engulfed me, and her tongue flicked in
anticipation over white, gleaming teeth.

The door swung open with a resounding slam. I straightened, startled back into
ordinary consciousness.

“Doamna!”
Dunya exclaimed breathlessly. She stood in the doorway,
one hand against the lintel, sturdy little body taut, frozen with alarm. I knew
at once that she had purposely made a loud noise. Zsuzsanna did not stir, but
the tenderness in her eyes had entirely vanished, replaced by an unmistakable
glint of hunger - and livid hatred.

“Doamna,”
Dunya repeated, her manner oddly formal, “if I could speak
to you in the corridor…”

I rose stiffly, as though I had been sitting in the chair for eternity instead
of half an hour, and followed the girl into the hallway.

When we were both outside the room, Dunya reached for the door and closed it,
so that there would be no chance of Zsuzsanna overhearing. The instant it clicked
shut, she became galvanised, and whispered, all in a rush, with the air of a
panicked conspirator: “You must not kiss her,
doamna,
nor permit anyone
else to! She is hungry, and there is a chance now that her kiss could create
new
strigoi.”

I leaned against the wall, suddenly weary, and rested my hands on my stomach,
wishing that I could cover my poor child's ears, to protect him from all this
insanity. “It is true,” I said softly, more to myself than Dunya. “Everything
about Vlad. I have read Zsuzsanna's diary.”

Dunya's full lower lip began to tremble. In a high, unsteady voice, she said,
“It is my fault,
doamna.
She will die because it is all my fault.”
And she covered her eyes with her hands and began to weep, with bitter, rasping
sobs that shook her small frame.

I put my arms around her and patted her back, softly and regularly, as a mother
would a colicky infant; she clung to me desperately, like a child, and gasped,
“He made me sleep… If I hadn’t been so weak… But I do not understand why she
became so strong…”

“He deceived us both,” I said soothingly. “She wrote in her diary. He made
her drink from him, to deceive us, and to bind her to him. We must be careful
now; he knows everything she sees and hears.”

Dunya got control of herself at last. She straightened, then crossed herself,
and with her index finger caught a single tear that slid down her cheek. I released
her from the embrace with a reassuring pat on her shoulder.

“What can we do to help her now?” I asked.

She shook her head. “There is nothing now that will prevent her death. All
we can do is prevent her from becoming
strigoi.”

“By killing Vlad,” I whispered.

She hesitated. “He is so old and cunning… Many have tried. All have failed.
There is another, safer way.”

I felt a glimmer of hope. “What must we do?”

She looked down at the carpet, unable to meet my gaze, her lips twitching with
the effort to repress further tears. “After the
domnisoara
is dead,
but before she can rise as
strigoi
- which she will do in two days, perhaps
three - drive the stake through her heart. Then the head must be severed, and
garlic put in her mouth, and this buried separately from the body.”

Aghast, sickened, I put a hand to my gaping mouth and leaned once more against
the wall, fearing my legs would fail me. In my mind's eye, I saw the glint of
a large steel blade as it hacked through the skin of that small, tender neck.
I saw the thick wooden stake positioned between her breasts, heard the ring
of the hammer as it came down, driving that stake home, heard her anguished
shriek as her eyes flew open, wide with startled agony…

Arkady would never permit such an atrocity to be committed against his sister.
If it was to be done, it would have to be done in secret; but such a heinous
act seemed impossible to accomplish without discovery.

“Why?” I asked, when I once again could speak. “Why such a horrible thing?
Why… must the head be buried apart from the body?”

She finally looked up, and straightened her small shoulders, trying to summon
resolve. “Because the regenerative powers of the
strigoi
are so great
that, unless the head is buried in a different place, even such terrible wounds
might heal, and the undead rise again.” She glanced back over her shoulder at
the closed door. “You saw her,
doamna.
Her body is perfect now.”