"Just what I appear to be: a humble Jew born many years ago in Buda, before it was joined to its sister city across the Danube."

"How many years ago?"

He shrugged, as if it were too insignificant to mention. "Some few centuries before Vlad.

Suffice it to say that I left my native Hungary to escape the Black Death and certain reprisals against those of my heritage, and found a safe haven in the wilds of the Wal- lachian Forest. There I acquired an interest myself in alchemy and those things labelled occult."

"You were one of the Sholomonari, then?" I no longer worried that my questions were uncourteously direct; his startling admission negated any right to privacy on the matter.

"Yes. As it was the fashion then to take on a Latin name, I became known as Arminius, the mage. So I am known even now." He sighed unhappily at the memory. "I was as greedy, in my own way, as Vlad. But I did not crave blood or political gain; no, I desired simple immortality, and personal powers. So I did what others have done before and after me and shall continue to do in the future: I used my magical knowledge to forge a pact. But such bargains are never without price. I sacrificed the souls of innocents-"

He broke off suddenly and turned away from me, hiding his expression; I suspected he did so to hide his grief. Archangel woke at once at the movement and pressed a muzzle against his hand, as though to offer comfort.

After several seconds' pause, Arminius continued. "Yes, I sacrificed innocents, just as Vlad now does, in order to purchase my immortality. Unlike him, I had no desire to play generations-long cat and mouse games. No, I wanted simple power, not blood; and I obtained it by draining my victims psychically."

"Psychically?" I could not keep the scepticism from my tone.

"Arkady spoke of it to you, did he not? Of the physical aura, of the life-force?"

"He has mentioned it," I said with unease. It is not so easy to change from cynic to convert overnight. Yes, I had seen with my own eyes that the vampire existed; but talk of auras and animal magnetism and psychic forces still struck me as purely ridiculous.

"I can hear you still do not believe. A pity, because you must learn to contain yours, to protect it, if you are to prevail against Vlad," he said sternly. "My victims never had such knowledge and died as a result. For I knew how to attach my own aura to theirs, to pierce it, to obtain from them all their energy and life. Thus was I strengthened, whilst they weakened slowly to the point of death. And with each new life I absorbed, I gained increased knowledge, increased ability such as you have observed in Vlad and your father: super-normal hearing, vision, smell-even the ability to know others' thoughts.

"As for my victims: I knew their thoughts all too well. Not in the crude manner that Vlad gleans them, a snippet here and there, from the blood-but intensely. Deeply, for my contact with them opened the innermost recesses of their minds and joined them with mine.

It was at first a pleasurable process for me, for I saw the faceted jewel-like intricacies of each shining soul, the incredible, infinite wealth of knowledge stored within each memory.

But over time, the very beauty of what I stole began to haunt me; and the treasure I acc.u.mulated preyed upon my conscience until I could bear the guilt no more."

"And what did you do?" I asked, spellbound, scarcely daring to breathe.

"I repented," he said, turning to face me once more. "I made amends."

My heartbeat quickened; I could think only of Arkady. If my father had only been able to repent, to somehow redeem himself- "Arminius," I said, "my father's soul is lost. Is there anything I can do-"

"Just one thing. And I suspect you already know what it is."

"Kill Vlad," I replied grimly.

He answered with a solemn nod and, in a tone that reminded me eerily of my dream, said, "The covenant works both ways, Abraham. Destroy him, and you release your father's soul from h.e.l.l-and those of your ancestors. You alone can redeem them.

"But you should also know: His final loving sacrifice for you in fact saved you. Because every time one of the Draculs overcomes evil and chooses good, it weakens Vlad. It is probably the only reason you were able to escape the castle without being trapped by his hypnotic powers."

I considered this in silence a moment before I asked, "And now-are you mortal again?"

At this, he laughed suddenly; the sound brought Archangel to his feet. "Who knows? I suppose it depends on whether I have truly found the philosopher's stone. You are a scientist, too; no doubt you can understand, I have no empirical evidence except"-and he swept his arms out, looking down at the scrawny body beneath his robe with amus.e.m.e.nt- "I do not seem to have died yet."

As he laughed, he brought out a crudely formed cup from a nearby cabinet and set it on the table in front of me, then fetched a smaller kettle from the hearth and poured a dark- looking brew into it. "Drink," he said, in a suddenly stern tone that allowed no contradiction.

"It will do you good."

Tentatively, I raised the cup to my face, pausing to smell the muddy brown liquid. "What is this?"

"A medicinal draught of herbs. To cure what ails you.

I frowned. "Nothing ails me. At least, not that a tisane of herbs can right."

A glimmer of hilarity pa.s.sed over his features, then was firmly repressed. "You are indeed a physician, aren't you, Doctor Van Helsing? Do you not trust me? Do you think that I have rescued you, bandaged you, fed you, provided a warm bed for you, only to poison you now?"

I hesitated perhaps a second longer than was polite (which seemed only to cheer him all the more, a fact I found rather irritating). "No. Of course not. But I would like to know what purpose this serves. Out of . . . professional curiosity."

"To stengthen you, my friend. For your return to the castle. Have I offered you anything here that has not brought you good?"He had a point. I had, after all, gulped down the soup without a second's thought; and Arminius had obviously managed to successfully treat my wounded shoulder and the impossibly nonexistent frostbite.

But I had always scoffed at folk medicine, which I felt was as liable to kill as to cure. I scowled uncertainly down at the liquid in the cup. It looked somewhat like plain black tea, but the smell was altogether different and peculiar, with strong overtones of earth. I took a small sip and could not repress a grimace; indeed, it was all I could manage not to spit the "tea" back into the cup.

My less than gracious response again faintly amused him, but his demeanour remained one of firmness. "Yes, it is bitter. Many things are, but they are necessary. Drink. Drink."

His insistence took me aback. I did not quite understand it, except that he obviously felt the concoction had some value. I opened my mouth to inquire as to its specific purpose, but he spoke first.

"Since you share an interest in the medical arts ... I have seen many changes over the years in medicine-some good, others not so very. You doctors have lost too much of the old herbal knowledge; it would do you good to add such things to your practice."

"Herbal knowledge?" I asked.

He looked pointedly at the cup in my hand; I gave a sickly smile and took another tiny sip.

Bitter, indeed -to the point of inducing nausea. Had I not trusted him, I might have thought it was poison. But he smiled again at my pained reaction as I swallowed, and replied: "Such as the proper use of wolfsbane. And garlic. And the petals of the wild rose. We will speak of this again, Abraham, when you return."

I glanced at him askance-and took another sip of the terrible tea at his insistent look.

Apparently, he expected me to depart, then come again. But his expression remained enigmatic, and he supplied no answer, even when I asked in jest, "Am I leaving again so soon."

Instead, he changed the subject and began speaking at length about the subject of homeopathy, while I slowly drank the vile brew; about how ingesting a small amount of what ailed a body in fact often brought a cure.

I could not resist arguing against it, in defense of my profession and beliefs. I cited many an example, all of which he attempted to refute; in desperation, I at last gave what I believed to be a compelling comparison. "It is as foolish," I said, "as attempting to avoid the vampire by allowing him one small bite."

At that, he grew quite silent and gazed at me searchingly. "You are more correct than you know, Abraham. To 'cure' the vampire, you must become the vampire."

His words chilled me to the core. Quite literally, for I suddenly realised that my arms were freezing cold. I rubbed them in an effort to warm them, then glanced back up at Arminius to see he smiled encouragingly, despite the alarming statement he had just made.

As I stared at him, I realised that, behind him, the fire had grown exceptionally colourful, the flames changing from red and orange to green and blue and violet before my eyes. The room, too, was changing in perspective, seeming suddenly enormously large. Ar-minius himself was transforming, from a white-haired man into a handsome white wolf like Archangel, who still lay sleeping in front of the fire.I realised of a sudden that I, too, had changed; that I could see a strange glow around Arminius and Archangel, which seemed to undulate with their breath and movement and change colour. And I could hear everything: our breathing, the beating of our hearts, the sound of our digestion. I could even hear that the snow outside had stopped falling.

Suddenly compelled by a sense of wild freedom, I ran towards the door and discovered I was no longer in the body known to Abraham Van Helsing but in a young, strong animal body-that of a wolf, like Archangel and Arminius. The knowledge filled me with exhilaration and euphoria, like a prisoner suddenly released who has heretofore never known he was in jail.

As I approached the door, it opened before my very will.

Outside, the night was bright and clear, filled with a moon shot through with prismatic glints of violet, red, blue. So brightly did it and the stars shine down on the sparkling fresh snow that it seemed day, not night. I bounded off into it in my wolf-body, but within an instant I realised I was not running at all-nor entrapped within any body, but gliding easily upon the cold breeze.

I rode the wind over high, glistening white mountains, over valleys, pa.s.sing by isolated cottages until I found a suitable large town. There, looking down from my avian perspective, I saw a radiant warm glow-like that cast by a fire-emanating from the peasant cottages upon the hillside and the finer homes in the valley. Like a feather I floated down, past homes and shuttered windows, marvelling at the sound of breathing that came from within, of the beating hearts, at the smell of warm flesh as unmistakable as if my face were pressed against it. ...

I chose a large house-an inn, according to the sign above the door chime-where the sounds and smells were particularly inviting. There I felt myself coalesce in front of a shuttered door.

I looked down to see my hands-but not my hands; they were someone else's, and I realised that this was not my body. I held those stranger's hands up to the moonlight and realised, with a thrill of horror and intrigue, that the flesh was pale and radiant; I spread one out in the cold air and turned it this way and that, like a woman admiring a diamond ring upon her finger, and watched with childlike amazement as different colours, beautiful quicksilver mother-of-pearl hues, pale blue and rose and green, glittered in my skin as though it were polished opal.

I lowered it again at the sound of footsteps-upstairs, I realised with oddly mounting euphoria-and listened impatiently as, step by lumbering step, my victim neared. Surely time had slowed for me, for it seemed hours before at last the door creaked open.

Behind it stood a woman in a large shapeless nightgown-a middle-aged woman, stout and sagging from childbearing, two waist-length brown braids emerging from beneath her white cap, a large mole sprouting two dark hairs just above her upper lip. She squinted out at me, tucking her chin atop a fold of pasty flesh, and snapped, "It is late to knock!"

She spoke in Roumanian. Impossibly, I understood every word, as though she had addressed me in perfect Dutch.

A faint red glow surrounded her like a gauze veil; I knew at once that this was the phenomenon Arkady and Arminius had referred to as the aura. Hers spoke of animal strength and determination, of unalloyed life force, and it flickered with dark brown sparks of annoyance.

Make no mistake: She was a plain woman, even homely, a woman who would have incited in the mortal Doctor Abraham Van Helsing not even a flicker of l.u.s.t. But the scent of her drove me to madness. Such a marvellous smell! Earthy, warm, bittersweet; the smell of healthy blood, accompanied by the beautiful music of a strong heart thrumming in her ample bosom. A robust woman, with blood dark and rich and red-I almost could not answer her.

My desire made me near swooning, evoked the same weak-kneed sensation I had felt the first time I carried Gerda to the marriage bed and kissed her.

All this I noticed in my curiously expanded time, before she had even uttered the first word; I could scarce control my impatience whilst she spoke. Yet as desperate as I was to embrace her, some intangible force held me back.

I knew I must await her invitation.

"I seek a room," I said, and marvelled at the sound of my own voice. For it was not my own but a stranger's, richly melodious and deep. I looked over at the heavy peasant woman with true longing-an emotional and physical ache, like l.u.s.t-though it was somehow not as coa.r.s.e but more refined. I yearned not for her body and a moment's pleasure but for her essence, her very life.

Yearning so permeated my entire being that I could direct it through my eyes, like a beam of light; and when I gazed into her eyes, I sensed the red glow surrounding her-protecting her-weaken round her heart. As I continued to stare at her, it glimmered, then went out altogether, like an extinguished candle flame.

I surged forth, feeling my very desire precede me, filling the air around her with darkly sparkling indigo mist. Her eyes at once went dull, confused-the same terrible dazed look I had seen in the eyes of the peasant woman in Vlad's castle. I knew then I had established a connection, similar to the one Arkady had attempted with me on the train: I knew, beyond all doubt, that I was free to place thoughts directly into her mind.

"Of course," she murmured, her wide-eyed gaze focussed entirely on me; it was, in fact, the answer I had ordered. When she opened the door and gestured me inside to a dimly lit corridor, I felt a wicked thrill. Yet I began to struggle against it, suddenly realising what it was: a thirst, a hunger, all-consuming, all-compelling, so desperately painful that I could scarce bear it, could scarce stand.

For a few pa.s.sing seconds, somehow I fought: somehow held back, not understanding how I could have so suddenly found myself inside a vampire's skin. Not willing, most certainly, to kill. But my restraint lasted only briefly; and then the ache grew to such intensity-far, far beyond any emotion, any sensation I have known as a mortal man-I could endure it no longer.

It is a dream, I told myself with relief. The dream of a dying man trapped in the snow.

None of it-Arminius and his white wolf, the glade, perhaps not even Vlad and Arkady and Stefan's death-was true. Perhaps I was even home at bed in Holland, so delirious with fever that the entire last few weeks had been nothing but hallucination. Perhaps even poor Papa was still alive.

Thus I rationalised my next action: to yield to the blood-hunger and seize the woman in the corridor, pressing against her st.u.r.dy body with my own, revelling in its warmth, in the texture of the soft, firm flesh at her throat, in the smell of her hair. So I found that soft flesh with my moudi, my tongue (revelling, too, in the salty tang of unwashed skin) and at last my teeth; and when I forced my jaw down, piercing her, she trembled and let go a soft cry of shock and bliss that spoke for us both.

I stepped behind her and held her in my arms like a lover-for this was surely a more intimate act than that of uniting mere flesh-and drew from her, aided by lips and tongue, divine nectar, the sweetest wine I have ever drunk. Yes, it was sweet, and utterly intoxicating, so much so that I was completely lost to myself, more swept away than I have ever been either by the act of love or by drink. I pressed closer to her, closer, and with my chest against her back, my hands beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, felt the furious rhythm of her heart as it gradually slowed, slowed, slowed. . . .

The sound of the blood in her veins was the gentle rushing of the sea. And on that tide were borne her thoughts, sailing past like bobbing bits of flotsam that I could pluck at will. Here was an appreciation of my handsomeness, and a desire to wrap her st.u.r.dy legs about mine; here a murderous thought towards her husband, drunken and asleep upstairs, and of the extra coin she might pocket should she offer me her services. . . .

Her mind was entirely mine to control, to utilise as I wished, as was her body. Yet I cared for none of it save her hot pulsing blood. I drank and drank of it, wishing for that moment never to end, for to be candid, it was as deeply pleasurable as the moment of s.e.xual release.

But end it finally did; the ocean of her thoughts went still and placid, motionless. And then there was naught but darkness. I pulled back at once from the presence of Death and watched with revulsion and dismay as her body dropped heavily to the floor. I shall never forget her face in death: chalk-white, grey rosebud mouth open in faint sensual surprise, eyes wide and vacant.

At the sound of her corpse thudding against the ground, a door down the corridor opened, and a man -huge and slovenly, with matted dark hair and beard and a stained white nightshirt-appeared, calling: "Ana?"

My reaction was pure instinct; I held totally still. (I almost wrote the words, and dared not breathe-but in fact, I did not breathe at all.) And as the man moved slowly through the doorway with the deliberate snail-paced movements of a mortal, I espied beside the woman Arminius, wearing as always his dark robes and gentle smile.

As Arkady had, he spoke to me without moving his lips. He will see you soon, Abraham, unless you act. Remember the aura: Withdraw it tightly into the centre of your being.

Oddly, his advice made perfectly understandable good sense to me. With a sensation of drawing in, as one might inhale air, I retracted at once from the dead woman my glittering indigo aura, with which I had pierced hers. I could feel the withdrawal of that power into the inner core of my being; there I kept it and turned to face the man, prepared to similarly dispose of him should the need arise (though, in fact, my appet.i.te had been more than a.s.suaged, and the thought was unappealing).

But he did not see me, or Arminius-only poor Ana, on whose behalf he released a sharp cry. He ran to her side and knelt down, frantic, shouting her name. I stood right beside him, but never once did he exhibit any awareness of my presence.

I was-like Arminius before me, whose feet were planted next to the shrieking man's head-entirely invisible.

Now move, Arminius instructed, by sending the aura ahead of you. Visualize it in the direction you wish to go.

Again, I followed his command, mentally placing the glittering dark blue energy at the doorway.

And in the single beat of a heart, I was diere: standing at the entrance; and with my will gusting like the winter wind, I shoved the door open to make my escape.

I crossed the threshold-and to my amazement stood not outside in the cold street but in front of Arminius' hearth, where Archangel the wolf lay stretched out on the warm stone, his silver-white fur orange with fireglow.

Arminius stood beside me. "You are like your mother, Abraham; blessed with a strong will.

This has a great advantage: a strong-willed soul can more easily control the aura.

"And it has two disadvantages: You are insensitive to many diings; and you are also very sceptical. . . one might almost say, stubborn. Forgive me if I have used drastic measures to convince you of the reality of certain things; but if you cannot believe in the aura, you will never learn to control it. Succeed at that, and you will be able to enter and leave Vlad's domain safely. Odierwise, your survival is left to chance."

His charge that I was stubborn bothered not a bit. In fact, I giggled, under the sway of giddy euphoria, utterly unconcerned that I had just killed a human being. Like a child, I held my hands, my arms out against the dark backdrop of the earthen walls, and saw that I was once again in my own, Bram's, body. Yet it still glowed-this time with a much brighter blue, edged with violet and occasional bursts of red and orange.

Like a child, too, I played with simple delight as Arminius showed me how to control the colours in order to move without making a sound, without exuding a scent. It all seemed remarkably easy, and so obvious that I could not believe I had never considered that the human body had its own electrical and magnetic field.

In the midst of my play, I turned round to find my companions suddenly gone and the door open.

It was an invitation: I walked towards it and gazed past the threshold to see feeble sunlight and a stretch of rolling green landscape.

I stepped into that place and time-into the dawn, where the waking sun filled the eastern sky with the rose-orange glow of tiger lilies. The gra.s.s was alive and green, sparkling with heavy dew, the air clean and cool, heavy with mist that left fat droplets on my coat and boots.

And in my hands rested a single sharp stake, made of wood and half as long as my arm, and a mallet; at my waist, sheathed, a long-bladed knife. In my mind, Arminius' voice spoke as though it were my own thought: Do you understand what these are for, Abraham?

I understood. I walked alongside the gra.s.sy lawn on a gravel path, which led past tidy rows of headstones: the plain grey quartz markers of commoners, the ornate marble memorials for the upper cla.s.s. It took me to a wrought-iron fence with great black spikes; within lay a grey stone mausoleum.

I knew what I was here for and of a sudden remembered the control Arminius had taught me. I held the hand that bore the stake up against the pink-orange sky and spread my fingers. They were my hands, human hands. No longer could I see the blue glow so clearly, but a faint trace of it remained (or perhaps I simply fancied it). Using my imagination, I retracted it deep into the core of my being and realised that my breathing no longer made any sound. I moved, stepping from gravel inside the mausoleum's stone entryway, but my boot-heels made not the slightest noise. In the early morning stillness, I heard only the soft calls of birds.

So I pushed open the heavy metal door and stepped inside the dim airless tomb. It smelled sadly of dust, mildew, decaying lilies; no light shone here except the bleak first rays of the sun that fell inside the open doorway. Even that illumination faded as I walked down a long, narrow corridor with an arched ceiling- empty and silent, save for the soft insistent dripping of water, accompanied by increasing dankness. The effect was claustrophobic, like entering a close tunnel. I could not resist comparing it, in my mind, to the process of birth: In a way, I was being born anew. But something far more sinister than a mother's arms awaited me at the end of this dark pa.s.sage.

At last the corridor opened onto a vast silent chamber, illuminated by feeble sunlight filtering through arched stained-gla.s.s windows and staining the air, the stone, my skin watercolour washes of red, blue, green.

Here, arranged in equidistant, orderly rows, sealed coffins rested upon stone catafalques, each set beneath a marble plaque set into the wall.

Instinct led me to a far corner, where the newest casket, its finish glossy and undulled by the procession of years, lay surrounded by garlands and vases of white flowers: velvety lilies, their edges browned, curling, and roses, their blooms open and raining dried petals upon the stone. The atmosphere of desolation was increased by the ring of cold, extinguished candles encircling the site.

This coffin was smaller, gleaming white, not yet sealed with strong iron bands designed to spare mourners the stench of decay; the very sight of it brought memories of my little Jan and constricted my throat. I blinked back tears and, trembling with emotion, raised the lid.

There upon pink satin reclined a girl no more than twelve years of age but already possessing the exquisite beauty of womanhood. The light streaming through the gla.s.s cast ribbons of colour-amber, violet, red- across her pale drawn face, with the red falling upon a luxurious cascade of shining copper curls, causing them to glow like fire. Yes, she was beautiful, with skin like fine porcelain beneath a scattering of childish freckles, and full primrose lips; and there was a grace and dignity in her repose to equal any gentlewoman's, as she clutched a single dying lily in her small fine hands.

Too beautiful. I had never seen her before and could only surmise that she had been a victim of Vlad's, Zsuzsanna's, or Arkady's-or one of their hapless sp.a.w.n who had somehow escaped the stake and knife. Even so, my heart went out to her. That is a metaphor, I know, but I knew then that it was based in fact. I physically felt my emotions, my will surge towards her in a rush. I should have realised my error then and been more cautious; but instead I let go a sigh of pure sorrow, stricken that anything so virginal, so lovely, should be dead, and leaned forward to plant a respectful kiss upon her ivory forehead.