"Dunya, my darling. Take the visitor; he is yours. Only mark that you do not drain him to death, else I will not be able to protect you from Vlad's anger."

Atremble with desire and terror, the little servant glanced up at Elisabeth with wide, confused dark eyes. "But, doamna, if I do, then the prince shall see the mark!"

I stepped forward. "He won't. Elisabeth can cause the marks to disappear."

On her face, darkness warred with light: darkness, as she wondered how I should know such a thing unless Elisabeth had done it for me-which meant that I had withheld from my loyal companion nourishing blood, this visitor's blood. Light, as she tried to repress doubt and anger and focus instead on this hope-restoring marvel, that she could drink deep at Harker's well without danger of retaliation.

As always, rage succ.u.mbed to hunger. She bent low over the Englishman, whose eyelids fluttered; clearly, he was watching her with the same delicious antic.i.p.ation she directed towards him, for as she neared, his lips parted sensually to draw in and release air more quickly. His sighs caused a warm, rapid thrill to course down my spine, at whose termination I felt as though I had burst into flame.

Closer she drew to him, and closer, with the most erotic reverence I have ever witnessed, until her mouth opened wide and her teeth pressed ever so gently against his flesh-not piercing, merely touching. I do not think I had ever seen her appear quite so cla.s.sically beautiful as she did at that moment: her eyelids half lowered with desire, her profile pale and fragile against Harker's more rounded ruddy one. A single lock of her hair had escaped the long braid and fell straight onto Harker's cheek, where it coiled, a red-black serpent.

In that pose she lingered, and slowly closed her eyes, savouring the ecstasy induced by waiting.

And I was hungry, hungry, hungrier than I had ever been, yet aware that my yearning could not be sated by blood alone. I pressed a hand to my heaving breast and looked at my beloved, my Elisabeth.

She, too, was drunk with antic.i.p.ation, for her mouth had fallen open and, like Harker, she panted. Unlike Harker, her blue eyes were open wide and frankly ablaze with l.u.s.t.

But not for me, not for me. And not for our Englishman.

Jealousy abruptly replaced my arousal:. How could she look at Dunya as she looks at me?

How dare anyone else be the object of her pa.s.sion!Yet that emotion was just as swiftly replaced by surprise. Bony spine arched in a delicate curve, Dunya lifted her shoulders in a gesture I have come to know well, for it is that of the vampire preparing to strike.

At the same time, there came a sound like the rushing of a great wind, and its slamming into the motionless air of the sitting-room.

"Leave him!" Vlad thundered, and Dunya cried out in horrified alarm as he flung down a large burlap sack and rushed towards her. Before either Elisabeth or I could intervene, Vlad caught her neck between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her from her knees, then hurled her backward with such great force that she struck the wall.

She was, of course, unhurt (though she remained cowering in the corner), but the cruel disrespect of the gesture filled me with fury. What if it had been I or Elisabeth instead of a serving-girl? Would he have dared lay a hand on as?

My anger rose as he turned his wrath upon us two, shouting: "How dare you touch him, any of you! How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it! This man belongs to me!"

Able to bear it no longer, I cried, "But we do not belong to you, and we are hungry! What sort of tyrant starves his own family, then strikes us when the opportunity to save ourselves appears? You say he belongs to you, but he wandered into our rooms-we did not bring him here. Fate has decreed that we shall be fed!"

His eyes reddened with fury at my impudence, as I knew they would; I do think if Elisabeth had not been there, he would have killed me if he could. He glanced from me to her; she said nothing at all, but merely gazed back at him with an enigmatic half-smile and eyes hard, cold, deadly fierce.

I think she frightened him, for he remained silent a moment before answering slowly, "Harker shall be yours after a time, when I am done with him. Until then"-he nodded at the brown bundle on the floor; a shrill animal cry, similar to that of a cat, emerged from within, but the smell was definitely that of warm human blood-"let that suffice."

And he lifted the swooning Englishman into his arms and departed as quickly as he had come. Immediately relieved, Dunya scrambled over to the bag and loosened the drawstring; wet burlap fell away in folds to reveal a filthy, naked male child of perhaps a year, its smudged cheeks wet with tears. It gazed up at Dunya and immediately calmed, though its little torso spasmed comically with hiccups.

Elisabeth sniffed the air, her porcelain features contorted with disgust, and raised a lace handkerchief to her mouth. "It smells."

"Ah, no." I wagged a finger at her. "Remember Alexander Pope: You smell. It stinks."

"I think it peed in the bag," Dunya said, and grinned at it, relieved to find that she had not only escaped punishment, but would have her dinner after all. (The sense of smell, apparently, is first to fade when hunger overwhelms.) The child returned the smile sweetly, and reached for her with chubby fingers. "A baby," she said, and scooped it up at once, whirling round and round and tickling its fat stomach until it crowed atonally with delight.

She snapped her fingers beside its ear, then added, "I think it's deaf."

Another prize from our oh-so-generous Vlad: a dirty, p.i.s.s-soaked deaf boy whose own parents had probably offered it up gladly. "And he is all yours," I told Dunya.

She neither questioned my abstinence nor protested the gift, but immediately pressed her lips to its neck in a hungry kiss; the child giggled, writhing as if tickled. But its laughter turned at once to a terrified scream as Dunya opened wide her mouth and struck. The cry soon faded; the boy grew gla.s.sy-eyed and still as the muscles in Dunya's jaw worked, and soon he was limp in her arms. She cradled him then, lifting high the elbow beneath his head so that she could drink comfortably without bending too far down-the mother suckling the child.

The tableau seemed both strangely tender and erotic; I found myself yearning to join her in that gently pa.s.sionate embrace. A glance at Elisabeth confirmed that she felt the same, for she stared at the two with the same intent l.u.s.t she had directed at Dunya and Harker.

Was I again jealous? Yes, as I am now, watching Dunya as she sleeps enfolded in Elisabeth's arms in the great bed. But that verdant emotion did not stay with me for long. For this time, Elisabeth felt my gaze upon her, and favoured me with a faint, seductive smile. Oddly, that small gesture caused all jealousy to lift, and filled me instead with fire. So I did not resist when Elisabeth took my hand and, laying it upon her breast and her own hand atop mine, drew me with her to Dunya's side.

What possessed me then I cannot say, nor can I remember clearly what transpired afterwards. I only know that we indulged ourselves in an orgy of blood and s.e.xual excess, and that I violated each woman just as each one violated me. Only one image remains with me clearly- that of Elisabeth naked and kneeling upon the stone, crying out More, morel as Dunya and I each held one of the dying child's heels and shook him so that the dregs of his blood spattered down upon Elisabeth's breast and face. This she frenziedly rubbed into her skin, as if somehow she might absorb some good from it.

When it was over, Dunya was too sated to move, and all three of us were sticky with the remnants of the child's blood. Elisabeth carried her and I trailed behind as we three made our way to Elisabeth's chamber. There we piled into the big bed, where I slept until the dawn.

How strange this all is, and how confused I have become. I am jealous of Dunya and angry at Elisabeth-and yet I am not. I know but one thing for certain: that I shall convince her to wait no longer, but to take me to London at once.

Chapter 6.

Szuzsanna Dracul's Diary May.

When I went alone to Harker's chambers this morning-Elisabeth had gone off again, without explanation-I found, to my delight, that my hypnotic suggestion to him had worked, after a fashion. He was still writing in shorthand in his diary, but he had taken to transcribing the whole thing into English on some parchment he had apparently brought with him in order to post letters. He had begun with the most recent entry, the sixteenth, and I was amused to see his perspective of what had happened the night of 15 May.

Clearly, he was quite fixated upon Elisabeth, for he spoke of nothing but the "fair girl" and her wavy ma.s.ses of golden hair. She had taken the place of Dunya in his shoddy memory, and he spent an inordinate amount of time describing her and overstating the "count's"

show of anger. Quite insulting, really, and where did he get this business about "you never love"? All fantasy.

But the worst insult came in the previous day's entry -the entry he must have been writing when Dunya and I caught him in our sitting-room. I was so infuriated that I committed it to memory: "Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter..." Ill-spelt? Ill-spelt? Sir, I have avoided insulting your pitiful attempts at poetic prose, nor have I chided you in my diary for your faulty spelling. I resent the implication that the Tsepesh (or Dracul, or Roumanian, for that matter) women were ill-educated, or that they wasted their time blushing over silly love-letters. My mother was a renowned poetess, sir, and I alone possess more literary skills than you and all your future heirs together dare ever hope to have. I have never misspelt a word in all my life.

Ill-spelt, indeed!

As for the misspoken Mr. Harker, I gave him a small nip, and took just enough blood to stave off hunger; this time, I skipped any s.e.xual encounter, for I had little of that sort of appet.i.te after the long, strange night with Elisabeth, Dunya, and the deaf child.

When I had drunk (much less than my fill), I left Harker and wandered out into the hallway.

I was filled with restlessness, as I had wanted badly to tell Elisabeth that I could no longer wait to go to London. Yet I could find her nowhere in the castle-save for the one place I feared to look, Vlad's chambers.

And if she refused again to leave this prison, I had resolved to attempt what heretofore I had never dared even to think: kill Vlad with the stake. Yes, he had told me that vampires could not directly kill each other, but he had managed to kill my brother by hurling a stake at him.

Why should I not do the same to him? For with Elisabeth here, I had come to realise that I was strong enough to face even the Impaler. "If I am destroyed, you are destroyed," he has always told me, but I know now in my heart that is a lie.

Yet before I could enter his inner sanctum, I needed to render myself invisible, soundless- for even hard at rest, Vlad was capable of sensing danger, and retaliating. Thus I carefully performed the necessary mental machinations and chant, and when I felt confident that he could never detect me, I set off.

Up the stairs I went, moving so swift and light that my feet literally never touched the stone. Soon I arrived at the great oak-and-iron door to find it closed and bolted from the inside; from within came no sound. Rather than dramatically break the bolt and fling the door open-which I could manage easily now, but which would also alert Vlad to my increased strength-I instead opted for stealth, and narrowed my body in order to slip through the crack into the vast chamber, which was modelled upon the Prince of Wallachia's private throne room.

There to the west stood the Theatre of Death, where black manacles graced a bloodstained wall, and the wicked chains of the strappado (from whence a victim might struggle, suspended in midair) hung from the ceiling. Beneath them both lay a large wooden tub, of oaken exterior but an interior the colour of red mahogany, a legacy left by its former contents. And beyond them both stood a large butcher's table, its surface worn and scored by the bite of countless blades. This in turn was flanked by a rack of knives of different sizes and shapes, and a stand of sharpened wooden stakes-some broad as a strong man's arm and taller than I, others shorter and thinner, destined for more delicate uses. In the halcyon days before Van Helsing's birth, all these were used to dispose of dead guests in a manner which prevented them from becoming compet.i.tion.

These devices had long lain unused; but I had no doubt they represented the fate intended for our Englishman, no matter what false claims of generosity Vlad had uttered.

I approached them, tempted to arm myself at once and enter the small door to my left wherein my uncle slept (this I sensed beyond doubt), in hopes of achieving the brazen deed before my resolve fled entirely. But a slight, barely perceptible movement at the chamber's opposite wall caught my notice.Elisabeth, I was convinced, though when I stared intently in the direction of the movement I saw and heard nothing-nothing save the Impaler's throne, and the wooden platform on which it rested, and the three stairs inlaid in gold with the motto JUSTUS ET Pius. Yet I knew she was there-as invisible and undetectable as I; but even the strongest magic is not so powerful as love.

And with loving eyes I looked as I slowly crossed the Impaler's great chamber, nearing inch by inch until I discovered the boundaries of her spell. One instant, I stood several arm's lengths from the platform, and saw nothing save what I have above described. But one step more-a single hesitant step-and the air began to shimmer and roil like clouds caught up in a fierce storm; then, like a veil, it lifted to reveal my Elisabeth.

In front of the great throne, she had erected a polished onyx double cube as an altar.

Around this she had inscribed a circle, on whose boundaries I had encroached, thus opening this secret ritual to my eyes.

Dressed in the simple black robe of a priestess, golden hair streaming freely down her back, Elisabeth raised her arms in a V before the altar, on which rested the same implements I have seen on Vlad's: pantacle, dagger, cup, and candle.

And a dead, b.l.o.o.d.y boy child lying beside locks of indigo hair.

Locks of my hair, I realised with an abrupt thrill of horror. Locks of my hair-and Dunya's, for I recognised my jet colour, kissed with blue, and Dunya's, kissed with red. What manner of evil did she intend to work against us? And what had we to do with the dead child?

This I could not determine, for as she faced west- faced me-she intoned words in a bizarre language that sounded like no earthly tongue I knew; but regardless of the language, I can recognise my own name, and that of my serving-girl. And those I heard.

Had I not been frightened of her powers and her anger, I would have broken the circle and stepped forward to demand explanation at once, instead I lingered on the perimeter and watched, hoping that I could ascertain the purpose of this ritual and knowing that I could not. But something-perhaps someone-compelled me to remain.

And then I saw Him.

Elisabeth had completed her chanting and now waited, hands crossed upon her chest like a penitent, head bowed. Unbeknownst to her, standing behind her back, towering over her like a t.i.tan stood...

How shall I describe Him? He was entirely dark, like a huge shadow cast by a lamp, yet He seemed quite solid. I could not see His face or features, yet He had both, for I saw Him smile at me. Neither had He eyes, but I gazed into them just the same.

He knew me. He smiled at me, and knew me. And I -I knew at that moment that I had always known Him, and felt no fear, no fear at all, for looking into His eyes I saw acceptance and compa.s.sion, and indeed love.

Such love that I was swept away into it, pulled as if by the tide into the infinite blackness, the infinite light, in His eyes. For He and I were Nothing and All Things, existence and annihilation, thought and mindlessness, all together, and all things and no thing the same.

This was an ecstasy far beyond any physical satisfaction and desire, and as I reflect upon it now, I can honestly say that if Death is such a state, I would gladly kill myself now.

Then all awareness pa.s.sed away, and I fell into an unconscious state and woke a short time later to find Elisabeth and the altar and-could it have been the Dark Lord? No! An archangel, at the very least, capable of only the whitest magic, for when I have heard of the Dark Lord or heard Vlad in session with Him, it brings only fear. But this creature... this dark, good creature...

I can only speculate. I fled to my room and have written this all down, lest time cause my memory of that powerful encounter to fade. As for now, I have not seen Elisabeth yet, and am fearful; if she detected me after my swooning, then she will no doubt be furious again.

But I must know what she is about. If she means to betray me, then my death is a.s.sured anyway, and I might as well face it swiftly rather than linger in an agony of doubt.

19 MAY.

She is dead, she is dead! How can this be? How can any immortal be murdered, save by the hand of the living?

My hand trembles so, I fear I shall drop the pen, for I realise that I am no longer safe myself.

I went to her coffin today, filled with concern because the morning after the deaf boy's death-the sixteenth- Dunya, still sated and sleepy, crawled from Elisabeth's bed to her little casket in the servant's quarters and closed the lid with a weary thump.

It is not uncommon for a vampire who has had her fill after a long deprivation to sleep a day, a night, and another day, then rise refreshed and invigourated; I have done it myself many times. So when Dunya did not rise at all on the night of the sixteenth, I was unconcerned. And when she did not emerge on the seventeeth, I told myself: She is enjoying a long, deep rest, and when I see her tomorrow, she will appear younger and stronger than she has for decades.

She did not arise on the eighteenth. "Have no fear," Elisabeth said, trying to comfort me.

(She has never mentioned my appearance at her ritual; I can only surmise that my invisibility spell was successful, that I was not detected, for she has only been kind to me since.) "Dunya is immortal. Who can harm her?"

Who, indeed?

This morning I left Elisabeth sleeping and crept in the hour before sunrise to Dunya's quiet chambers. How dark it seemed there, and how melancholy; from outside came the sweet, high song of a solitary lark, but that morning it seemed peculiarly mournful.

I lingered for a moment in the sitting-room where we had encountered Jonathan Harker, Esquire; my fears held me back from proceeding directly into the bedchamber. The couch still stood where the Englishman had placed it -in front of the large window. There I stood, gazing out at forest and mountains and fierce ravine as they slowly emerged from darkness into the pale grey light of dawn.

Then I steeled myself and moved into the inner room where Dunya lay inside her closed casket. And in the instant I stepped across that threshold, a startling revelation seized me: Dunya was not here, not here at all! I had always been able to sense her gentle presence, as she was entirely ignorant of magic and the methods of self-protection (this at Vlad's insistence).

For a fleeting moment, I felt overcome by the wild hope that Elisabeth had at last empowered her, that she had somehow managed to escape the castle; this was accompanied by an equally wild but vague terror-vague because my mind would not permit the admission of what I feared I might find. Consumed by those two incompatible emotions together, I approached the little casket and flung open the lid.Bone and dust!

Bone and dust: her small, delicate skull was palest ivory, cleaned of any remnant of eye or skin, though a long, liquefying strand of reddish dark hair stuck to the white satin beneath, from neck to waist. It was as though she had truly died as a mortal those twenty years before, and her corpse left to the elements under a pitiless sun. The skull had fallen off the bones of the neck and stood on the bones of the upper jaw (the lower had collapsed), somewhat perpendicular to the dry yellowed bones of the limbs and torso. Her arms were crossed over the breastbone and ribs as neatly as if she had been arranged for burial, but the leg bones had detached and lay scattered in disarray.

I suppose I screamed; I must have screamed, though how loud and long I cannot say, for all fear fled and I knew only hysterical grief. And as I cried out, my breath stirred the dust in the coffin-truly her final resting-place now-causing it to scatter upward into the air and float like the white-hot ash of burning parchment.

I breathed in that ash, choked on it, wept for it; indeed, I crawled into the coffin and clutched the bones, kissed them, baptised them with my tears.

Sweet servant and friend! Loyal and unquestioning companion! I remember with pain each thoughtless act I ever committed against you, and know that now, I have failed in my obligation to protect you...

I did not mourn alone long; in the midst of my sobs, I felt a warm hand touch my shoulder.

Above me stood Elisabeth, her own eyes aglisten with tears, her expression one of horrified shock and pity. She was naked, her hair in streaming tangles; apparently she had heard my wailing and hurled herself from bed.

"Zsuzsanna, my darling!" Her voice was low, softer and more tender than ever I had heard it-oh, but I was too full of grief and fury to believe her. "My dear, what has happened? Oh, this cannot-is this poor Dunya?" At once she fell to her knees beside the coffin and swore: "d.a.m.n him! d.a.m.n him!"

I whirled round and sat up at once, filled with an anger pure enough, grand enough, to consume the entire world. I cared not whether I offended her, or Vlad, or the Dark Lord, even if He be the Devil Himself; I cared not if in the next instant I, too, was reduced to a heap of bones and dust. I lashed out, wanting only for her to suffer as I suffered at that moment.

"You know it is. You are the one who has killed her! I trusted you-trusted you, but now-"

A flash of rage on her face, but only a flash; she controlled herself immediately and replied, with an expression of infinite hurt and sadness, "Zsuzsa, sweet Zsuzsa, how can you say this to me? How can you think that I would ever want to harm your friend and cause you such suffering? You are first in my heart, and I would never betray you... This is all Vlad's doing!"

I would have none of it; all an act, all an act, one I had been foolish to believe. "You killed her, as you intend to kill me! I saw you perform the ritual; I saw Dunya's hair, and mine, upon your altar. I saw the Dark Lord..."

At those last two words, her eyebrows lifted sharply, and her gaze became intense, ferocious, diamond-bright; she had not known. Then slowly, the golden brows lowered; her forehead smoothed and her entire expression grew composed. When at last she spoke, her words were measured and deliberate.

"If you saw, then surely you understood the ritual's purpose: to protect you and Dunya from harm. My darling, there is much I have not revealed for fear of frightening you. Vlad intends to destroy us all, and it has taken all my reserves of strength and wit simply to protect you. I admit, I have failed you in terms of Dunya, your good servant, whose death has clearly broken your heart. For my mistake has been to put especial protection round her whom I love most"-and here she kissed my hand, leaning down so that her hot tears spilled onto my flesh-"and to leave only a modic.u.m for myself and Dunya."

What could I say to such a confession? I struggled onto my knees, inadvertently cracking dry, brittle bones, and reached for her. Sobbing, we embraced.

"Ah, my Zsuzsanna, my Zsuzsa, I am sorry I misled you, but I did so out of concern that you should not be afraid. Vlad is weak, yes, and I am the more powerful- except that he has studied magic some two centuries longer than I. His father and grandfather both ascended the throne with the Dark Lord's aid, and I believe he has invoked that powerful ent.i.ty yet again in hopes of defeating us. For he fears us and anything, anyone,, stronger than he-and that which he fears, he is bound to destroy. This is how he repays me, who have come to offer him help... and you, who remained his loyal companion for fifty years, despite his despicable treatment of you."

So gentle was her gaze, so wounded yet full of compa.s.sionate sorrow, that my heart was pierced by a fresh grief, that of the realisation I had hurt her unjustly. "I am sorry, I am sorry," I murmured, with renewed weeping, and pressed harder against her warm ivory flesh, against the soft perfumed hair that cascaded like G.o.diva's over her shoulder, breast, and belly. "I understand... you had invoked the Dark Lord for protection for us all. But you must have the same protection I have, for if I rise and find you so destroyed"-here I gestured at the pitiful heap of bones beneath me-"I truly will die of unhappiness. What shall I do to save you? Teach me, and I will bargain with the Devil Himself!"

A hint of wryness crept into her expression, and she chided quickly beneath her breath, "Do not call Him the Devil, Zsuzsanna; that is so superst.i.tious and mediaeval!" Immediately after, she straightened and said more loudly, "I will not have you bargaining with Him, dear one. It is too unsafe, even for those of us long practiced in the black arts. He is a treacherous negotiator, and He deals only in lives and afterlives; He would all too quickly possess your soul."

"My soul? What would He want with it, if He is not the Devil?"

She lowered her eyelids and, in an obvious effort to distract me, said, "Come away from those bones, darling -it is too gruesome!" And she lifted me up by the waist as easily as if I had been a babe, and set me down beside her to brush away dust and bits of crumbled bone from my dressing-gown. Shattered, frightened, I clung to her as she led me out into the hallway and back towards the chamber we had come to share.

But still I contemplated her odd statement about her Master; if He was not the Devil, was He then G.o.d? Surely G.o.d would not stoop to bargaining for souls! As sorrow had removed all my courteous restraint, I demanded again, "Why my soul?"