House of Bathory (29 page)

Chapter 86

F
OOTHILLS OF THE
T
ATRA
M
OUNTAINS
B
ORDER OF
S
LOVAKIA AND
P
OLAND
D
ECEMBER 28, 2010

A
s Jo
hn
drove, Betsy continued to read.

During the course of treatment—a period of two years—Bathory confided his dreams to his therapist. The patient regularly dreamed of his ancestor, the Countess Erzsebet Bathory—a notorious sadist and murderer of hundreds of young women. The patient described the brutal torture and sadistic pleasure of watching innocent women die. Count Bathory became noticeably excited at the description. He displayed physical signs of sexual arousal: penile erection, glittering eyes, and increased swallowing of saliva.

Attending Physician initiated questioning, asking why Bathory so delighted in the suffering of women. The patient drew back his lips, snarling like a wolf. He refused to answer any more questions or participate in any further therapy.

Attending Physician ordered the dietician to stop the feedings of blood, which Bathory continued to insist on referring to as “pressed meat juice.” Bathory reacted violently to this change in diet, exhibiting signs of acute withdrawal, much as a heroin addict would manifest if suddenly deprived of drugs.

In the hours that followed, the patient collapsed in the corner of his room, shaking with spasms.

Jo
hn
put his hand on Betsy’s arm. He could see she was so engrossed in reading that she hadn’t looked up to see where they were.

“There it is,” he said.

Betsy saw a dark-turreted castle rising before them. On one side extended a vast garden, encircled by a black iron-spiked fence. The other side was built flush with the edge of a rocky cliff. A murder of crows swooped and circled, their harsh cries echoing down.

“Oh my God!” gasped Daisy, looking up from her iPhone. “It’s the castle from my dreams!”

Jo
hn
parked the car in a wooded pullout.

“Let’s reconnoiter,” he said, setting the parking brake. “We need to figure out how to get inside the gates. And it’ll be dark in a few hours.”

Jo
hn
and Betsy both got out of the car. Daisy didn’t move.

“Go on without me. I’ll be fine,” she said.

“Daisy!” said Betsy. “That madman tried to kidnap you in the tower. We’re not going to leave you here alone.”

“Look, I’ve got to call Morgan.”

“I don’t—”

“I’ve got to talk to Morgan. Privately. It’s really important. I told you we haven’t really talked with each other in years. I’ve got to ask her some things while she’s still talking to me.”

Betsy hesitated.

“Important things, Betsy,” Daisy pleaded.

“Come on,” said Jo
hn
. “Daisy, sit in the front and blast the horn if anyone comes near.”

Betsy nodded. She dug a finger under her glove, scratching at the palm of her hand. “Don’t move, don’t go anywhere, promise?”

Daisy nodded, catching the worry in Betsy’s eyes. “I promise.”

“And lock the doors.”

“OK, OK!” Daisy turned back to the tiny screen.

Jo
hn
and Betsy walked along the edge of the woods, trying to stay out of sight.

Jo
hn
went a little ahead in the shadow of a rocky knoll. He suddenly jumped backward.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What?”

He lifted up one foot and stared at his shoe. It was covered in mud, despite the patches of hard snow and dirty ice on the cold ground.

“It’s all wet here,” he said. He looked at a rivulet carving through the mud and moss.

Betsy traced the source of the water to a seeping hole in the rocks. She brushed aside the tangle of dead vines and heard the rush of water.

“It must be an underground spring,” she said, “for the water not to be frozen. Slovakia is riddled with caverns and thermal springs.”

“Well, my foot is freezing,” said Jo
hn
. “This water isn’t hot at all, I promise you.”

Betsy wasn’t listening. She was staring beyond him.

“What is it?” Jo
hn
turned to look. A pond, silver with ice, stretched out about fifty yards from them.

The snow had stopped and white mist rose steaming from the water. Ice clung to the bare branches of the weeping willows. Frost outlined the bark eyes of the birch trees, staring solemnly.

The frozen world glittered as the sun’s rays filtered through the steam coming off the water in gently moving waves, ghosts gliding over the pond.

“I—think I am having déjà vu,” Betsy whispered. “I have seen this place before, I swear I have.”

“It looks like a Christmas postcard, it’s beautiful,” said Jo
hn
. He put his arm around her.

Betsy nodded, gliding into his arms. She thought how well she fit against his chest, his arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes, letting herself be comforted.

When she opened her eyes again, her attention was riveted elsewhere. In the dusk, a scrap of white against the iron-spike fence caught her eye. She moved out of Jo
hn
’s embrace.

“Stay away from the fence!” whispered Jo
hn
. “They probably have a video camera.”

But Betsy had already scrambled up the swell of the hill. As she got to the fence, she realized that what she had seen was a sheet of paper. She jumped up to reach it.

Her eyes were riveted on the paper, the edges flapping in the wind.

At the last instant, she sensed danger. A pack of German shepherds, trained guard dogs, silent in their approach, snapped at her grasping hands, punching their muzzles and bared teeth through the iron bars. One caught her ski jacket between his teeth, pulling her closer. Two others snapped at her head.

Jo
hn
shouted at them, rushing the fence. He banged his fist on the first dog’s muzzle, dislodging his grip on her jacket.

Betsy fell back, collapsing in the snow. She clutched the scrap of paper in her fist.

“Jesus, Betsy!”

The dogs still snarled through the fence, baring long white teeth.

Jo
hn
sat down beside her, panting. He glanced at what she had in her hand, a photocopied picture. Beneath the picture was written, T
HE
R
ETURN OF
T
HE
M
ACABRE
C
OURT OF
C
OUNTESS
E
RZSEBET
B
ATHORY
,
THE
B
LOOD
C
OUNTESS
. The photo was circled in red, a diagonal slash running across the image.

“Someone else must be suspicious of the Count,” said Betsy, her voice low.

Jo
hn
leaned over her shoulder and studied the picture, a black-and-white copy of a painting of a vicious scene. In a snowy courtyard, white-kerchiefed peasant women—servants—surrounded several naked women who were dead or dying in the savage cold. One victim was held upright by three of the servants, who grasped her arms as her body sagged, trying to surrender to death and collapse into the snow. Horror on her face, her mouth open in a scream, trying, even as she died, to cross her white arms over her naked breasts.

Another lay prone, propped up on her elbows, pleading for her life with the last of her strength as one of the peasant women hurled a bucket of water at her.

Two others lay in the snow, either dying or dead, no longer struggling to cover their nakedness.

Around the courtyard, a handful of men and other women looked on, warmly dressed, their faces contorted with spite and hatred.

And, on a wooden throne, an imperious figure, dressed in layers of brocade and swathed in a black shawl, leaned back in satisfaction, relishing the sight.

“It’s like Detective Whitehall said, ‘Countess Bathory is in the subconscious of every Slovak,’ ” said Jo
hn
. He tapped his finger on the grainy photocopy of a painting. “What an evil bitch.”

“It is more than that,” said Betsy. “It is the most disturbing depiction of sadism I have ever seen.”

“She’s really getting off on it,” observed Jo
hn
. “Look how she is leaning back in her chair, looking like it’s Christmas morning.”

“Like she’s about to climax,” said Betsy, studying her face. “The artist got it right. And not just her. Look at the vicious pleasure in the tormentors’ eyes.”

“That one with the bucket of water,” said Jo
hn
. “And the men watching. See the gleam in their eyes.”

Betsy was silent, so Jo
hn
continued.

“I had a photography professor once who said that if you want to capture the truth of a catastrophe, turn your back on it and photograph the emotion in the eyes and faces of the onlookers. That’s the story.”

Betsy nodded, her fingers cautiously tracing the savage glee of the perpetrators, the onlookers. And especially Countess Bathory.

“Freud would say that this is the id—the beast within—breaking through the barriers of the ego and especially the super-ego.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you citing Freud.”

“For this case, he’s dead-on.”

They both stared at the black-and-white picture.

“That’s a scene that would make any normal, well-adjusted human being shiver with despair. But…” Betsy hesitated.

“But what?”

“If a mentally unstable mind—a psychotic sadist or killer—were to see this, he or she could actually be inspired.”

“Betsy! Come on—”

“No, I mean it. This painting would appeal to a very dark, twisted mind, someone who would want to emulate this kind of torture.”

“Betsy, no. It’s a warning. Look at the slash through the image. Someone is challenging the Bathory legend.”

Jo
hn
stretched out his arms and pulled Betsy to his chest. She nestled briefly against the soft wool, haunted by the image.

Daisy’s black curtain of hair fell on either side of her face as she hunched over her iPhone. She had not received any updates from Morgan in the last hour. She scrolled through dozens of messages in her in-box.

Morgan has always been erratic,
she thought. She bit her hand
.

Erratic? The understatement of a lifetime. Why should I be surprised—

Daisy rehearsed the conversation in her mind, her lips moving silently. This had waited too long and it was tearing a hole in her. Somehow right now, with everything so crazy, so out of control, this was suddenly the moment when she could. The moment when she had to. Just say it all and be done with it.

I found the letter on your pillow, Morgan. A gushy, pornographic love letter, in his handwriting.

Oh, yeah—I read it. And then I puked my guts up.

Mother thought it was food poisoning. I started choking, trying to tell her.

How could I tell her? What her own daughter had done—it would have killed her. That her husband was a psycho leech, and her daughter was screwing him?

When we got home from the ER, you both were gone. You and him.

Daisy remembered that she had promised to move to the driver’s seat so she could blast the horn. She sighed, rolling her eyes. She closed her computer, shoving it into her backpack.

That whole big lie about making a clean break for Mother’s sake, Dad filing divorce papers from Florida. Leaving me with the mess. You telling Mother that it was better to go live with Dad because of “personality differences.” And that he was tutoring you for the college boards.

Right! It would break her heart. How can I ever tell anyone the truth?

You both make me sick.

Daisy hooked her finger under the door lock, clicking it open. She slid across the backseat, lining her foot up to step out of the car, moving to the front seat. Her eyes were riveted on the iPhone screen. Three bars, she thought, good enough reception to reach Morgan.