Written in Blood

As we moved toward the doors, they swung open, revealing a man standing at the entryway. He held out his hands, bruised and bloodied, from his pounding his fist against the door, begging her. He fell to his face, prostrate on the wet stones.

“Please, Mistress Countess, return her to me,” I’m sure he spoke his native tongue, but oddly, I perceived him in English.

“No,” Countess Drago said, “she pleasures my children. They please her far more than you can. Soon, she’ll feed for nights to come.”

“No,” he cried out. “Take me instead. I’m full of blood for you.”

“You lack energy in your life. Your blood is far too pale to give nourishment. No, will keep her, too, late for her. You wouldn’t want her back now, for I have … contaminated her.”

“She will be as you are?”

Her laughter rang into the still night’s air, echoing in the courtyard and off the sides of the mountains. The haunting chuckle reverberated and returned to her. That’s when I spotted the beasts behind the man. I was sure he didn’t realize they were so close, I supposed, in my hallucinating dream state, her laughter called them to her. A lynx moved to his right, while a giant bear stood not five feet behind him, and three enormous wolves stood in the archway entrance to the courtyard.

“Never shall she be like me, once she has satisfied my Undead children, she’ll feed these the other children of the night or rot in the tombs below my home, forage for my rats. I would never allow such common blood the gift of infinity.”

He turned his gaze to his left, his right, pivoted about, and stood face to face with the bear. Twisting back to the Countess, his eyes wild, he started to run toward her. Taking two steps, he froze when she whispered to him.

“Be still,” she said, “turn,” he moved around, faced the bear. “Walk to them, embrace them with open arms, give yourself to them, leave them something of your happiness, so they might remember you with fondness … after you fill their bellies.”

The man tried to resist, but with his right foot pushed forward against his will, the other one followed. In a few short strides, he stood in front of the bear, the front paws of the beast rested on the shoulders of the peasant, the bear’s slavering mouth began to lower to the man’s face.

The Countess moved us inside, and the doors closed behind us. The weird, disgusting sounds of the beasts devouring the man filled my brain as she carried me to my bed. As though I was in a stupor, I didn’t move, offered no resistance to what happened to me.

The boy kissed me and hugged me. In the meantime, his powerful arms engulfed me. The Countess and I intertwined, Alexandru joined the orgy, as thoughts of Michael sprang into my intellect. In a flash, these sweet thoughts, driven from my mind by a yearning. A deep carnal, craving hunger consumed me, as the Countess and her young disciple did the same.

I wandered in and out of consciousness. Salacious corruptions happened in flashes. Through spurts of memory, I can only recall glimpses of our coupling. Weirdly, only the Countess and I were intimate. The hulking Alexandru, only joining in with sweet, longing kisses. He and she sucked on me in long, loving bites of the tender flesh, on my neck, shoulder, or breasts. Valarie kissed me, long, and we wound our bodies together again. Alexandru only watched as we pleasured one another.

My rapture held a price, for my breathing was not easy. In the excitement of our congress, my breathing turned ragged, and I took lengthy, rugged wheezing pants as I struggled to pull enough air into my lungs. But this only served to heighten my utopia.

As swiftly as all this began, it ended, and I lay alone in the dark, whereas my two hosts turned into two wispy pillars of smoke which rushed toward the door and vanished around the cracks of the doorway. The dream ended, and darkness covered me.

I lay alone in my bed. My energy sapped, my confused needs, which I had never admitted I possessed, satiated. I struggled to return to sleep, but the thoughts of the dream plagued me.

I mulled over the disturbing vision, eventually falling into a deep slumber. I dreamed of Michael. The dream took a turn, and I perceived as Valerie made love to him on my bed. The vision ended when her long incisors dug deep into the soft flesh of his shoulder — waking from my dream with a start. My heart raced, my chest heaved, I had anger in my heart for Michael. In a few moments, I calmed myself, realizing this was only a dream, a translucent vision made of storms and mist.

In the morning, I awoke in my bed. I remembered nothing of returning from the library. Odd dreams came to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they indeed happened if the Countess carried me. If the man, in reality, had been torn apart by those beasts. Every night brought a new revelation and new horrors. Coupled with unique visions of ecstasy. The shape of these things, I can’t quite make into some sensible idea. Nonetheless, they creep into my subconscious.

I did not know what treatment the boys received. They feared her, and they feared me, other than in my dreams. But again, are their mere dreams, or are the dark terrors I see not imagined but lived? If they are actual, I’m the one Doctor Drago treats? If all the goings-on were genuine, indeed, I was the lunatic.

Each day, I spent in the company of one or the other lads, or I spent my time alone. On odd occurrences, the Countess was my companion. We talked well past midnight every evening. I asked questions, and she avoided the answers. She asked questions, compelled me to answer by her sheer willpower. She learned where Michael has moved for his summer’s work and my small circle of friends, where they live, and what they do for livings.

I asked her this or that, she replied with long, rambling orations, which in the end, left me wondering what my questions were. After a while, she leaves me alone. In the dead of night, in this prison where I locked myself into my cell, only to return in my torrid, tortured, wanton dreams. All the while, I loathed her, yearned for her touch, her cold scorching flesh pressed to mine.

In all my life, I have never touched anyone with so little warmth. Nor one who inspired such sweltering covetousness for them inside me.

Alone in my room, I hungered to press my mouth to hers. I longed to feel the icy touch of her lips touching mine. The tension of fear, hatred, and lust built inside me every single moment we were together and a desire to flee, mixed with a necessity, to find her and be with her, each moment when we were apart.

And as always, the dreams followed her nightly departure. Wild, sexual fantasies of one of the boys. Still, Valerie Drago guided the boys, giving me, one of them, or both of us, instruction. Always, she and I make love until she sups from my neck or breasts.

In all the encounters with the boys, they only drank my blood or oral joinings. I wondered, was this to make me think they were dreams? These visions haunted my waking hours, and longing had overtaken logic. I tried and questioned her about treatments, but the words refused to issue from my mouth.

Let us consider the roses. The vase filled with twelve is lessened by one each day. The decaying petals cover the table, and new ones fall every morning. Those in the vessel are alive and vibrant. But where 12 began, 11, 10, and so on, until this morning, six remained. Were it not for the falling petals, I wouldn’t mark the day of the month. I feared those dying flowers were counting down to something. What I feared, for the thing might be the countdown to the death of me.

When I was not randy with lust, I trembled with fear. Strange occurrences shadowed my every move. One night, I witnessed the Countess turn to vapor, assuming this was another dream. The fog drifted out the window. I ran to the opening in terror, gazed outside while the mist wafted down the wall like sinister smoke drifting down into the trees. The fog evaporated into an immense wolf, which bounded away into the trees.

When I was awake, some nights, late in the evening, I heard men at the doors pounding. They screamed, shouted in angered voices to gain entry, and I remembered the dream from my second night.

I overheard the wild animals, and those poor wretches screamed louder as the beasts ripped the men to shreds, hideous, frightful noises. Once morning came, the dreadful sounds remained in my thoughts. I pondered if these awful events happened, or were these too, merely dreamt?

One day, whilst I was alone, I spied men loading coffins into carts from a room high above the courtyard. I counted 11 of the oblong boxes, being hauled away from the castle in oxen carts by rough-looking men, their heads wrapped with brightly colored bandanas, and the clothing was bright. They carried formidable daggers in their belts, and the workers gave every impression of being violent menfolk. For a brief moment, I thought they were Dacians, but the thought soon fled from my brain.

I remembered the word the coachwoman hurled at the coachman, Dacians trash. Which I thought, a specific insult. I learned from the Countess, those called Dacians were descendants of an ancient race. Once warriors believing, they turned themselves into wolves, but nowadays, mere peasants are afraid of their own shadows. A people who gave up their own religion and became Catholic Christian. Thus, the coachman’s propensity for crossing himself frequently. I realized these wild men were not Dacians but were, in fact, Gypsies.

I had learned much about the people, both in American and my journey here. Unbelievable stories of witchcraft, strange religious beliefs, and practices, including the cannibalism of small children, which they stole from unsuspecting strangers. I had never put much stock in the tales, but looking at these men, one believed they were capable of almost anything.

Where might they be taking these containers? Why move her dead? Was an oblong-box waiting for me? Were these packaged dead other people she had tricked into coming here for some perverse pleasure, which, once she finished with them, she murdered?

Had I become the subject of some strange experiment in terror and sanity? At that point, I believed I would soon be driven mad. If in truth, I had not already been made insane, for, truth be told, I held no certainty one way or the other.

Seeing this odd transportation of what I supposed to be human remains caused a distinct sense of vulnerability inside, illogical as this was. One day we all shuffle off this orb to whatever is beyond the curtain of our understanding.

After all, we are all finite, living in an infinite universe.

I’d never considered my mortality quite like I had the past few days. I couldn’t shake the fear, the dread, I’d become the Countess’s prisoner, and anxiety invaded my waking hours, my dreams, my heart had sunken into me as despair filled every fiber of my substance.

Think about the questions surrounding my intercommunications, for Michael’s messages come every few days. Each letter detailed what happened since his last. And each asked me why I hadn’t written to him. He begged me to write to him.

However, I wrote Michael each morning detailing events of the previous day. I told him I had bizarre dreams, though I omitted all the lurid details, which I never quite shook from my mind. I sealed those letters, again, every day, placed them in the Countess’s hand. She assured me she mailed them; natheless, Michael claims I do not write to him, may they both have told me the truth?

I had determined to explore, and this exploration had a mission. I must leave this terrible place. The air itself had taken on a whiff of imprisonment — if such a thing is possible. I must have the freedom Countess Drago robbed from me, and I must escape and return to Michael. I want to feel free. To breathe fresh air and fill my lungs with freedom once more. The foul stench of a landfill in America would smell better than the sweet, putrid fetor of my captivity.

Not an actual odor, mind you, subtler than stink, more of an emotional sense. With this in mind, I must find some means of egress to the outside world. I realized this would be difficult, but were I to be free, it required action on my part.

The windows, which face the courtyard, refused to open. Those facing outward, escape through them, appeared all but impossible. For with all sincerity, I couldn’t have survived such an effort. None of the windows open at all until the third floor.

Such a fall would surely kill me. For while I was on the third floor above the entry, at this place, I’d fall five or six stories to what lay beneath the level. At the library, you plummet fifty feet to a raging river. Should you move to the far side, you shall tumble and continue in a plunge hundreds of feet into the thick forest, which laid at the bottom of the cliff. Only one possible exit remained for me.

With my resolve steeled for my escape, a harpy voice issued a fretting warning inside me. The lust, yes, a dark desire the Countess, forced into me shouted for me to stop, to turn back from this ill-conceived plan, and to give in to my Aphrodite-driven cravings.

The veiled voluptuous beast desired to be free inside me, to gratify all those fleshly urges; the creature had no desire for liberty. I pushed the thought from my mind and continued my quest. Even so, the thing lingered in the darkest recesses of my understanding, called to me, too, forget Michael and embrace the Countess.

Regaining my focus, I lighted on an actual plan. It might be possible, and I might climb down into the courtyard, using toe and finger holds in the rocks, which covered the castle’s outer walls. In a frank and straightforward assessment of the situation, this appeared unlikely. First, to date, not one room facing the courtyard had any window possible to budge, or else, they were mere notches far too small for me to pass.

Second, and more fundamental, I doubted my physical ability was up to the dangerous feat. Notwithstanding, I must try, an open the window or not, I must attempt this. For the courtyard was the only place where I might survive a fall. I must succeed, or the snickering voice in my head should indeed have won out, and whatever fate awaits me here would have, in a short time, come to fruition.

I made my way to the other side of the castle. I was on the east side, where the outer wall held a cliff at its base. To the south, the river ran under the library window tumbled down in a massive waterfall. Once I arrived on the third floor, I found a substantial window looking over the center square, an opening, which held a single, great pain of glass. I took a chair in hand, raised it over my head, and threw the furniture at the window.

The first time, the piece bounced off, landing on the floor, breaking into pieces. Seizing another chair, I hurled my new projectile at the window harder than before, and the glass yielded, shattered into thousands of fragments, as the chair tumbled outside and disappeared.

Such a thrill passed through my every fiber. I had done the first feat; I had broken the window. Tearing away the lower part of my gown and underpinnings, I began clawing and kicking, pulled myself up into the spacious opening, sat on the inside ledge, turned my body, and hung my feet outside. I gazed down at freedom.

I beheld the broken chair and glass on the stoneworks below me — the stark realization of how far down the ground lay sent a shiver up my spine. Not three stories, as I had presumed, a fourth floor, or half of a fourth, for one must walk up a half-a-flight of stairs to the first-floor door. I was opposite to the side of the dwelling where my room, the Great Entryway, and the massive door stood.

“Courage, old girl, courage,” I said. “Think of dear, sweet, Michael.”

The other voice taunted me from deep inside, Yes, insipid, lifeless Michael. But, would you not prefer to think of the Mistress?

“Leave me alone,” I said.

Observing the wall, I took courage, for chinks had fallen out of the mortar, chunks of rocks gone in other places, and hole stones missing at odd intervals down the entire surface of the walls. I kicked off my shoes, I might get better traction this way, and I needed every advantage I might muster. With some care, I swung my body out the window.

Finding a toehold, I lowered myself. Ever so, cautiously, taking hold of an opening in the wall, I let myself down a tad. The climb took me more than an hour. I slipped several times, clutched hard to keep from falling. In the end, I dropped the last 6 or 7 feet to the hard-stone courtyard.

Curling into a ball, I cried from the hurt, wiped my tears, and sat up and considered the patio. I took a deep breath, dragging the air of freedom into my lungs. Never had air’s bouquet been so sweet. Such a pleasant aroma, I forgot the aches and pains.

Gathering my strength, I stood, marched toward the arched opening leading to the winding mountain road, with my courage soaring as I shed the numbness and stench of captivity and Castle Drago. As I passed the steps, I caught sight of a wild lynx from the corner of my eye as she examined me. I refused to turn and look at her.

At the arched gateway, the beast stood, massive and angry, reared up on its hind legs, in the middle of the opening. A mighty bear raised its enormous head, let loose his harrowing roar. Running from outside, cutting around the bear, were three wolves. They ran toward me, howling, snarling, and snapping at me. I froze in place. One critter ran up and butted against me on my left side, the side away from the door. He pushed on me like he wanted me to turn.

I twisted the direction he seemed to want me to turn. The lynx ran down the stairs and stood in the middle of the courtyard. She yowled at me and turned her head toward the massive entry doors. The doors creaked, moaned, shuddered, and a crack appeared betwixt the two of them.

The sunlight began to fade as the sun dipped below the roofline of the western face of the castle. I felt Countess Drago’s darkness creeping over the place, the air chilled, and I a shiver ran through my insides. My hopes faded as the door swung inward. I detected her standing in the spot when I first arrived.

“Return now, child,” I plodded up the steps, marched to the threshold but stopped short of the entry, “Foolish, Jane, if you wish to leave, you may.”

“I may?”

“Of course,” she said. “As soon as my coachwoman returns, in two or three days, she will take you and let out where she collected you. A day or two, certainly no more than three, and one of the coaches will come through the area, and you can return to whence you came.”

My hopes dashed, for how may I possibly do what she suggested I do?

“How can I pay for such a thing? Where do I stay while I wait for the coach?”

“What concern of mine are those things? I have given you shelter, food, purpose, and you repay my hospitality by sneaking away, at a time I’m busy tending my patients, like a thief absconding with their ill-gotten gains, rather than telling me you wish to leave.”

“I’m supposed to be assisting you, and you haven’t asked, not one time, for me to help. How do you suppose being ignored, in such a way, makes me feel?”

“Your presence here as my assistant is to assist me, and at present, your company is all I need from you. And your willingness to be of assistance and provide what the boys need.”

“How can I be of assistance? You haven’t told me anything, and you haven’t asked anything of me, save personal facts of my life in America.”

“Of course, I have asked you many things. Think, what do you think all those visions are? You desire to help, give in to your dreams, accept what we are, and let go of your foolish fondness for your American lover. Let go of Michael, let your ill-conceived and foolish commitment to an addle-brained bore pass and give in to your deepest, darkest longings. Join us, become one of us, reach the perfection you deserve.”

“Michael isn’t addle-brained. Rather he is quite intelligent,” I said.

“Your defense of him is admirable, but he bores you. His ambition is always quite beyond his grasp, for others in his field are his superiors,” she said. The words had the ring of truth. I had feared for him for some time, for whereas he possesses intellect, he lacks discipline and self-assuredness.

Michael is complacent, yielding to any person of authority. But worse, he is a coward. I have said it, Michael fears each day throwing himself into his work, so he doesn’t have to face his fears. If his employers say do this or do the other, go here or there, he does so without questioning why.

“Your desire is to be rid of him, the truth is buried inside you, but you want the freedom, the power most men have in this world, to do as you please, without regard to consequences. You want sexual freedom, the same way men have had it since the beginning of time.”

There it was, the cover pulled away to expose the darkness I feared. The Countess stared at me, her eyes burned into my brain. Yes, her crystal blue eyes bored into my soul. I felt her glower inside me like a flame. The heat seared into me, boiling away the layers of half-truths and lies, hiding my secret desires, my insecurities, and fears.

“The coachman wasn’t a servant; she was you,” I said, having recognized, somehow, before I ever allowed myself to speak it.

“Yes,” Valarie said. “You have choices. You are not a prisoner unless you make yourself one. Though you’re not free either, and you can be if you wish it. You can have your desires fulfilled. Join me, be a superior being.”

“Will you take me to the place where I boarded your coach?”

Letting out a long hiss, the Countess curled her hands into a fist, shaking in anger. The fear inside me threatened to reveal itself. My body wanted to tremble. I felt she knew I was on the verge of folding. My spirit hovered in an air of uncertainty, and I neared a breakdown.

“In two days, I will,” she said, “or, you can walk out of her right now. Follow the road, and stay on it. You should arrive by this time on the morrow. I cannot ensure your safety, though. Many of my pets roam the woods, between here and there.”

I had forgotten about her pets, the wolves, the bear, and the lynx. They all sat or lay scrutinizing us, their sharp fangs and claws ready to tear me apart. I mindfully weighed the options. None were acceptable.

I hadn’t a doubt, these animals would rip me apart.

A brutal, hot blast of stinking breathe moved over my head and neck. Twisting my head, I stared into the drool, dripping bear’s snout, standing over me, menacing, hungry. The beast wanted nothing more than to devour me. He opened his maw, lowered his mouth toward my face.

 

Chapter 6

 

“I’ll stay,” I said, stepping away from the massive beast, moving deeper into the Great Entry Hall. Turning my attention back to the Countess, knowing she controlled the beast as indeed as she manipulated me, “I’ll continue as your assistant.”

The door swung closed, and when the wood jarred shut, the thing made a clanging bang, like the sound of my soul collapsing into the miserable darkness. My heart mightn’t sink lower. A deep melancholy engulfed my essence. The air grew heavy, my mood dark, the sunset left us in a blackout. With a wave, her hand, all the wicks of the candles in the room burst into flickering flames.

This pale dancing light did nothing to lighten the darkness of my mood. My spirit was swarthier than the night’s deep gloom. For the night sky was ablaze with bright stars to give hope to anyone watching, while my thoughts sunk into an impenetrable shroud of despair, which no light would breach.

Call it what you will, I was her prisoner, her slave, for the Countess to do with as she saw fit. In the gloom, the lust she forced into me cried for joy, for I belonged to her, body and soul, if not wholly her slave in my mind. The irony of these convulsions did not escape my attention, for a war raged inside my heart. One side clamored for freedom, the other craved captivity, and the freedom her control gave me for a less virtuous version of myself.

She led me to the library, we talked as if nothing had happened. She asked her questions, digging deeper into my hospital work, knowledge of Nantucket Island, Boston, and the surrounding area. We conversed for hours. At last, our parley turned to her therapeutic treatment of the boys.

She talked of her medicine and the red serum, which the boys ingested, making them whole and healthy. I had already gleaned the formula of the serum. My blood, or the blood of others, on which they fed. I couldn’t believe this, for this was inconceivable, yet, I realized this terrible thing was true. Also, I realized the ancestor the Countess spoke of my first night was indeed her.

I also understood the utter impossibility of this. No human would live for 600 or more years. Nonetheless, I believed this to be so, how, I could not say. After some time, she sauntered to the massive, broken bay window. She stood, her toes hung over the edge of the stones like a beautiful sculpture.

“Come and join me,” Countess Drago said.

Obediently, I stood and strolled to her, moving with expediency to her side. Her arm went around me. She pulled me to her body, holding me with a tight grip. For a man, her strength would have been formidable. For a female, the power she held was prodigious. The woman’s hands held on to me like tools forged from iron and covered with velvet.

We kept in the position. A prolonged silence hung think around us for what felt like an eternity. Neither Countess Drago nor I spoke a word. In all honesty, I halfway expected her to heave me from her home into the river far below us, like some much garbage tossed away out of sight and mind. In the stillness, my hearing became more acute.

I made out the water whooshing. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, I distinguished the fluid meandering in the river. Little swirls here or there, turbulence rippling the waters from some submerged rock or water-logged stump, and the moisture-laden air smacked of a slight musk from the muddy shores.

“Examine the river. Can you not perceive how gentle and calm the waters flow?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

“I suppose one might survive the fall,” she said, pushing me forward but holding me frim. “How gentle and still the waters appear, but they move with such a force, you cannot fight the current. The waters would carry one to the falls beyond the edge of the castle. Over the edge, one would join the cascade, tumbling fifty more feet, another cascade twenty-five feet further. And still, the water rushes headlong, leading to more rapids and waterfalls further downstream. If one wished to kill themselves, this is a chancy way to attempt death.”

“I don’t wish to kill myself.”

“If one wished to escape, this is also a perilous choice.”

“I told you I’m staying to assist you,” I told her.

“You want to continue here. A part of you, another part of you does not. My dear Jane, you have to appreciate I discerned you were deceitful,” the Countess was no longer next to me. I pivoted, she stood at the door. “You should return to your room before long. You might read first; your novel is where you left the book the last time you were here.”

The days wore on, the rose petals continued to crumble, the dreams persisted, and I tried to fight in them. I couldn’t let go of my thoughts about Michael. I thought his memory was all which protected me, from her or them.

Nonetheless, his memory was no longer whole and required my constant attention to maintain. I longed to send Michael a note and believe he would receive the same said message. I no longer tried to write to him.

On my ninth day at the castle, the 19th day of May in the year of our Lord 1901, Countess Drago came to me and ordered me to write a letter to Michael. I explained to him, I no longer loved him. I told him,

 

****

 

Dear pitiful Michael,

Stop sending me messages filled with your pestering’s and unwanted proclamations of your undying love …

I haven’t traveled tens of thousands of miles from you, with some concern in my heart for you. You bore me to tears. You need to get on with your useless life without me. For I assure you, I certainly am better without you …

I have never been so happy, as the day I first shed you from my life …

In conclusion, I have no desire to ever set eyes upon your face again, I loathe the thought of your feckless touch, your passionless kiss, and your smothering attentions, and I hate your letters …

Without regret,

Jane

 

****

 

Many insults proliferated the note to make him understand we were finished. I said I hated him.

I wrote the accursed thing and addressed the envelope before her, so she read each word I put on paper. I think this was the moment — the instant in time when she plucked the sealed envelope from my hand, Michael’s place in my heart died. A cold blast of hate breathed over my heart, and the last remnant of concern for him curled into death.

Filled with despair, I made my way to the library, found my novel, and began to read. The words of love in the thing meant nothing to me. The heartache of the hero and heroine was unimportant. My own heart was far too damaged to care about their trivial issues.

I’m not sure when everything happened during the night, what time the last moment any hope existed for a return to my life before the Countess. My thoughts of Countess Drago sprang to life. The lust nibbled at my heart as she took Michael’s place. And so, my destruction loomed in front of me, and in some strange way, I sought my own death, longed for my last breath.

The words on the page blurred. My thoughts turned to her and the boys. Sleep, blessed, cursed sleep overtook me, for I so wanted and dreaded slumber. I forced myself to return to my room. All the while, sleep and thirsty hunger for carnality with her plagued me with each step of my feet.

The day which followed was much the same as the previous day. I don’t understand why any of this matters. I sped on her leaving each night as before, a fog or mist floating down the outside wall. The vapor became a bat, flapping into the darkness.

This is all, too, much, and my heart can’t take much more. Dreams consume me, and I fear they aren’t dreams, though Countess Drago hasn’t confirmed they are a reality, I suspected the visions are real, and she and her boys are … oh, for God’s sake, this was unbelievable … yet, I did believe they all fed on me. I felt like ripe fruit. They suckled my sweet nectar as one would consume a succulent peach.

That night, I fell asleep in the library again, knowing you shouldn’t do a thing, and not doing something isn’t the same. Perchance I had given up. After all, the futility of attempting escape is apparent. Why continue to fight the inevitable.

Late in the night, with moonlight streaming through the broken casements of the old stained glass, I espied Alexandru. He wasn’t, an instant later, he was, no ghostly arrival from fog or fire, he materialized, stepping into being — from thin air.

He scrutinized me with this intense glower. I wasn’t dreaming. This encounter happened, and when he gaped at me with hungry, lustful intent, I surrendered. I had clung to my thoughts of Michael for so long, using his memory to shield myself from giving in to them.

I tried to think of him, but Michael wasn’t in my mind. And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose, or the color of his hair or eyes. For me, Michael never existed. I lay on the sofa, venerable and exposed, I could not will myself to move, and the lust in Alexandru’s eyes burned passion into me. Without Michael’s memory to ward off Alexandru, I’d have to do it myself. Drawing on my own inner strength, I pushed myself to my feet and grew cross with him.

“Leave,” I ordered him.

“No,” he said, moving toward me.

“I said leave,” pointed to the door as if pointing made my words more imperative.

He moved closer to me. His eyes were red and angry, his hands at his side were curled, though not quite to fists, he stepped closer to me. I dashed by him, trying to escape, and yet the truth unvarnished was, escape wasn’t what I wanted.

For I hankered to be taken by him. His hand grabbed my shoulder, he tossed me to the lounger, I hit the sofa hard and pushed to stand and run again, but he was so fast my attempt had been doomed before I had tired.

He dived on me, swung his arm, the back of his hand stung across my face. With one hand clutching my throat, he tore my clothing from my body. The lustfulness overtook me in a wave and gave into him, laying back to accept his salacious advance.

Mounting me, he entered in one rugged, quick thrust. I yearned for this. I had long ached for the feel of a man inside me. Pleasure pushed through my pain. Like a wild animal, he took me. And may God and Michael forgive me, for I gave back to him all of me.

In another quick move, his teeth sank deep into the soft flesh of my shoulder, a frenzy of emotions welled up inside me, the same feelings as when the Countess and I are together in my dreams, though not as forceful or pleasing.

In a flash, he was torn from me. I envisioned him lifted away as the Countess ripped him from me by the scruff of his neck. Hurling him to the window, she rushed at him, striking him, driving him out the window. They plummeted from view. I grew weary, so tired and worn, I tried to rise but collapsed in a heap on the couch.

Waking in the early morning hours, I again wished, against hope, I only dreamt of those events until the pain. I still felt him, between my legs, a stabbing twinge as if his manhood still resided betwixt my legs, buried inside me.

Touching myself, I raised my hand. The blood told me I hadn’t dreamed.

I gazed to the door, beholding to the vase, and only the stems remained. Not one flower had a single petal left. My virginity was gone. In distress, I laid my head on my pillow and cried. I had brought shame to myself, Michael, and my family name, and I have no way to reclaim purity once taken or given away freely.

“So, now you know with certainty,” the Countess said. I gazed at her, standing at the opening of the water closet. Her hands were on her hips, her body was erect and proud, her lavender dress clung to her every curve of her body, pinned over her heart a white rose which garnished her ensemble.

“Nosferatu has claimed you. Cornelius tried to resist me. He so desperately wanted to warn you, to tell you the truth. Despite a continent and an ocean between us, the man wouldn’t resist my will. He waits for me in America, as he has done so for more than a decade,” a sad smile crossed her lips.

“Waits for my sweet kisses, my cold tender touch which burns his soul. Soon, I will join him. Poor Cornelius, he is not one I have chosen. I’ll consume every drop of him, bleed the life from him and discard his exsanguinated body.” A tear ran down her cheek, “He would never survive as one of us. A warm spirit cannot endure in the cold, eternal clutches of living death.”

Reaching to the table by my bed, I grabbed the crucifix and held the cross toward her.

“The protection the idol affords is a myth. Those who believe in the power want the protection they think the crucifix affords. And yet, my existence, my control of all within my domain, disproves this power. A lifeless hunk of silver with a tiny representation of a man in agony. Precious Jane, my child, your neither religious nor superstitious.”

“You’re a …,” I could not bring myself to say the word. The creature is only a myth to frighten little children.

“I’m a child of Lilith, I am Undead — Nosferatu,” the Countess stood, sauntered toward me.

“Is the boy dead?”

“No, he wasn’t hurt,” she said. “You have much to learn before you’re allowed to crossover.”

“Crossover?”

“To another side, which type of crossing will be your choice to make,” Standing, she came to me. Taking the cross from my hand, she held it, stared at the cross until the symbol melted. The liquid fell to the floor, solidified into a silver nugget.

“You recognize, strictly speaking, it’s a graven image. I’m certain God doesn’t find this appropriate for people to put their faith in any object rather than him. Did you know this world, no dissonance, no disharmony, exists between God and my kind? We are good or evil, the same as your kind are.”

“Why?”

“Why,” she sat next to me, extended her hand, and touched my face. The electrical yearning ran through my body.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“For your life,” the Countess said. “Your fresh, sweet life’s blood is what I need. I grow younger, feeding on your life. The locals have lived in fear for centuries. Their lives have been drudgery and suffering under the hand of a beautiful, wonderful, cold, cruel, life-sapping tyrant. She has drained the life from them, dulled their minds, bludgeoned their spirits, and sullied their souls until all which remains is pale, flavorless blood, with no nourishment left to devour,” her eyes brightened for a moment.

“This history was written in blood, their blood,” the Countess said.

“All the while, I grew strong and youthful on their blood, alas, the best of the sustenance is gone, nowadays, all we can take from them is barest of nutrition and end their pitiful existence. The population’s vitality, passions, and lifeforce destroyed by a might tyrant.”

“What tyrant?”

“Why you foolish, silly, innocent, little child, I am the tyrant,” her eyes bore into me as her mouth hovered inches from lips. “I am their shepherd, they are my sheep, I lead them to slaughter. I protected them in life so long ago, but these days, as the Queen of the Undead, I destroy them, one life after another. I require new lives, souls unburdened from constant fear. The blood of those lovely people who are fresh and full of life, full of delicious, nutritious lifeblood. I have brought many from France, England, and America, but now, I’m relocating to fresher, how shall I say? Hunting grounds.”

I wanted her. My mind scattered her words, and I couldn’t concentrate on what she said. I pressed my lips to hers, we locked in a ravenous embrace. The Countess and I made love as she fed on me. I shouldn’t have. Instead, I should have tried to escape. But as soon as she touched me, I couldn’t resist. She controlled me, or at least, I wanted to believe I had no choice. Afterward, the Countess held me in her arms.

“I will not force you to drink my blood or one of the boy’s blood. This choice I will give you, for you can become a child of Lilith, one of my children, or you can be food for my grooms. They’ll need your blood to grow strong. The others can only sustain us. I’ve chosen you, but I will not force my choice on you.” She pulled me to her, kissed me, drank from me again. The room spun around me as the pleasure overwhelmed me. Letting me loose, she stood and paced around the room.

“Am I not your prisoner?” I asked.

The Countess stopped her moving about, pirouetted toward me, her face had grown cold, cruel, while her pale blue, crystalline eyes burned with fiery anger, the woman’s blazing glare relaxed as she snarled countenance turned softer. The sneer of her grin turned to a warm, friendly smile, which beamed with her victory.

“My dear, Doctor Jane Hanson, from your first hesitant footfall inside my home, you belonged to me,” Countess Drago said as her smile softened more.

“And yet, you chose to be my captive. You elected to allow me to control you.” My blood-stained her teeth. The life’s fluid lay thick on her lips and dribbled in two thin streams from the corners of her mouth. Her tongue snaked out, and like an animal, she cleaned her lips and face, lapping up the thickening blood, and savored the flavor.

Once she swallowed the blood, wiped the residue from her teeth, she rolled back her eyes, and, leaning back her head, Valarie let a gratified moan escape her lips.

“So, very, sweet, succulent, full of life, inside of you. Standing on my portico, you understood the danger. I had willed you across my threshold. But I didn’t jerk you into my home. No, this wasn’t hard. Only a gentle nudge inside your lustful mind was all I needed to pull you into my nest. The wave of my hand and your yearning for a fuller life pushed you to rush headlong … to me.”

“Yes,” I said, admitting the awful truth.

“You wanted this,” she said. “Soon, I depart for America. New York City, Boston, and all your astonishing continent swarms with such hospitable, fresh life to refresh my own. I will feed for centuries, millennium and not drain all the oh, so, many sweet men and women. Those wonderful souls, so full of the vigor of free lives. They will, so willingly, mollify my pangs of hunger. They are ripe with savory, rich blood for me to feast upon. The blood here has become bland and puny. Your fiancé will be my first, I think, or conceivably, I’ll save him for you. Though his best friend is one, whom I shall take particular pleasure in turning to one of us.”

“How do you know of Clifford?”

She laughed, gazed into me, a burning filled me, “I’m aware of many things. Clifford Hobson is my vengeance. I’ll use him, and he shall destroy his entire family for me. Leaving his father for last, for the fulfillment of my craving for revenge.”

I stood, rushed at her, my hands flying. I proposed to batter her, she held her hand out, and my feet flew from under me. I landed on the hard, stone floor knocking the wind from myself. Valerie Drago hadn’t touched me. With some unseen force, she slammed me to the floor. She knelt and pressed her hand to my chest. The pain subsided; my breathing eased.

“Like the peasants’ religion hasn’t saved them, neither has your faith in science saved you. Your reason and science are futile when confronted by one such as I. My powers are beyond nature, more potent than science, and rooted in the supernatural.

“I’m far more powerful than you can imagine, do not test me, child. If you set yourself against me, your death will be slow, agonizing, I promise you. But needed needn’t be an ending. In fact, after death, you can be Nosferatu … forever alive, forever young, feeding on the inferiors around you. Will you join me?”

Looking at her, I realized how much she had changed. She appeared younger than me, decades younger than when my eyes first set eyes on her. Her eyes were brighter than before, her body tightened and toned. Her hair, once streaked with gray, shined jet black and smooth as silk. The furrowed lines in her face were gone. In only a few short days of feeding on sips of my blood and the carnality of my flesh, she had grown a lustrum younger than I.

“No,” I said. I wanted so desperately everything Valarie offered, yet I refused her. My reason reeled at all the happenings. The information proved, too, much to process.

“Your decision saddens me,” Valerie Drago said. “It is rash and impulsive.” She helped me to my feet. Looking at the window, she dipped her head. “Sunrise and time for me to rest.”

“You must not be in sunlight?” I asked, remembering something I had read.

“Sunlight does not harm me. The brilliant light of day weakens me, but daylight doesn’t hurt me. Think, child, have you not seen me in the brightest light of day?”

Of course, I had seen her in daylight.

“You cast no reflection in the mirror,” I said, remembering the incident from my first morning.

“Child, I do cast a reflection in mirrors, poppycock to believe otherwise. My reflection isn’t a delightful image for me to examine,” the Countess said. “The mirror reflects something of the effects which others don’t see. It was not that my reflection wasn’t visible. But rather, the image staring back at me was no longer I, but a conglomeration of those innocent lives I had brought over, only to have to murder them, for they were ill-suited to existence as Nosferatu,” again tears ran down her face.

“The whole can never be threatened by any single member. We have all mistakes. Every child of Lilith’s undoubtedly made this mistake. In caring for a mortal, no, it’s deeper than caring for, in falling madly in love with a temporal, clouded our vision, and unwisely we gave a gift to them, which they ought not have.

“Mayhap, I have made this error of judgment more frequently than others, for I have fallen in love often, and with such passion, I forget the consequences. Notwithstanding, no Nosferatu can stomach their own reflection once they have murdered another of their kind.

“Therefore, in time, if you do crossover, you’ll ultimately despise your own reflection as much as I do mine. Perhaps, a precious few of my kind don’t mind their reflection. For aught one knows, a few of us haven’t slain innocent lives. Even Alexandra, the last of the Amazon’s, made mistakes in those she loved. And Alexandra is only a little lower than Lilith.

“How heartbreaking, having given them the gift of being mort-vivant, only to have to kill them lest they bring ruination to many. When I gaze at a mirror, only to regard their eyes, their noses, or mouths and not my own, I can’t stand the thought of their destruction at my hands. My cruelty is boundless. Still, my empathy and regrets consume me when I view myself and fathom only my destroyed lovers in my hideous reflection.”

All at once, something beautiful happened.

A shimmering covered her, and her form swirled and altered. Where once stood a woman, in a moment, hovered an immense bat, whirling about the bat flapped leathery wings, ducked her head, she flew beyond my open window. I walked to the window and gazed at the bat as she coasted around, descending outside the castle walls, spiraling downward, while she glided on some air current. The creature appeared to grow smaller and entered a dinky opening in the wall near the ground. This would be, I supposed a dungeon or perhaps a catacomb.

The sun rose over the mountains to the east. The brilliant light flooded the valley, and the shadow of the castle engulfed the forest to the west of me. Nonetheless, I beheld such brilliance of light over much of the woods, for a moment, the fear fled my heart, and I hatched a plot. I had so much new information to contemplate. I had a location to discover; howbeit I sought to do this, I couldn’t tell you.

Nonetheless, I wanted to learn what I might discover. I pushed the fear to the back of my consciousness, girded myself in what courage I found inside me. I dressed and sat out to find where the Countess had gone in the form of a bat.

Making my way, I came first to the Great Hall, where the entry door stood as an impenetrable barrier to my left. I found the door Countess Drago exited the room through the first night, for I had worked out the geometry of the building. I realized my chamber was two stories above whatever lay behind this door. Turning the knob, I yanked on the door, nothing happened, for the thing was locked.

There had to be a way into the room. Going about the room, I scoured the place, looking in drawers, behind curtains, under rugs, trying to find the key. After hours of searching, with no key to be seen, I sat down on the steps of the old staircase, placed my hands to my face, and wept. All the fear, anxiety, disappointment, and shame poured out of me.

It was too much. I hadn’t more than a brief respite from terror since my arrival. Layers of myself had been laid bare, and day after day, I had been subjected to new terrors. And the constant, unrelenting probing of body and mind had pushed me to the edge of sanity.

Twelve days of utter fright had taken a toll on my being, my soul. My soul, what a strange, morbid concept, for I have a soul. A part of me would live after death. What punishment had I earned in all this? In the end, I loved all which happened as much as I despised each and every moment.

The thought of being food, of existing to only serve others as a slave, burned in my brain. From the first day, her first kiss in the middle of the night, the Countess had controlled me. Her control grew as she feasted on my blood each night.

The thing demanded I reason out all the possibilities. Some shred of logic to this must exist. Some slender, tenuous, tendril of meaning, which could make sense of this thing for me. The bite must be the source. Logic would dictate the saliva contained something. Yes, the first kiss Countess Drago gave me in the wee hours of the morning after my arrival.

I thought this kiss a dream, it wasn’t. I knew better at this point. The kiss had to be the point of some infection. Yes, some pollution passed from Countess Drago to me, giving her control of my will. With each new kiss, more of her contamination entered me, and her power over me grew.

If she sleeps, perhaps the control isn’t as strong. Was this a foolish thought on my part? Whilst she slumbers, I have some measure of freedom, for I can search for her and move about freely. I must find her … my thought was broken. I perceived something which registered in my brain.

What was it? What did I see?

Over next to the door, a little toy house was mounted on the wall. The thing resembled a small tool shed, an ornamental addition to the wall, but more than decoration? Why hadn’t I considered this?

I realized the hour had grown late, I had calculated all this out, and my search took many hours. How long until she’d wake? I rose from the step, beholding the thing, my soul clung to possibilities, I ran straight to the box. Grabbing the little door, I yanked, keys hung on a ring.

Taking them, I fiddled with this key, another, until … at last, one turned in the lock. A satisfying clank sounded, telling me the bolt had withdrawn. I tugged on the door. A weighty arched doorway screeched and creaked as I opened her. The inside of the room was dark, dank, and had a light foulness hanging in the air, a musky odor not unlike what a skunk sprays at his adversaries.

I grabbed a candle from one of the many candelabras, lit the wick in the fireplace’s flame, and entered the room.

The words, Abandon all hope, passed through my mind from Dante’s work.

The temperature dipped when I passed the threshold; the chill settled into my bones. A maudlin sense filled me. I wanted to weep and run back to my room. No, I had to continue. I had to follow this thing through to the end if this meant the end of me. My shoe heels clicked as I walked, so I kicked them off and moved inside the room further, trying to adjust my eyes to the near twilight conditions.

The light provided by my small candle wasn’t enough to illuminate much of my surroundings. Catching my eye, I saw an opening near the outer wall, through which one might view the forest beyond the castle. Making my way, I cautiously turned into a doorway, a tight round corridor, with stairs corkscrewing into the bowels of the structure. This passageway, undoubtedly, led to the room where the bat had flown. Was this unseen room, her place of rest? There was only one way to discover if this were so.

In dread, I took one faltering step downward, my shoeless foot touched the cold stone, and my journey of discovery commenced with my heart pounding inside my chest. In contrast, I perceived my heartbeat as a dreadful, brattling disturbance of a pounding drumbeat in my ears, I pressed on. With each step, slow and plodding, I descended lower into the innards of the Castle Drago. The foul stench strengthened with each step, filling my nostrils, my mouth, with the awful malodor and flavor of death.

The base of the stair opened into a vast, vaulted room strewn with sarcophaguses made of stone. Between the open caskets lay bodies, heaped in piles. The remains of men, women, children, and babies scattered about this cavernous, underground vault.

The babies, oh, my dear God, the young babies. They appeared as though they had been eaten. What little flesh or muscle remained was jagged and gashed. As if pulled from the bones by the teeth of some vicious predator. Rats big as cats stared at me. From their mouths hung bloodless hunks of flesh. They scurried away from the flickering light of the candle in my hand. Scampering up the walls and into holes in the stones. I found the red of their eyes staring out at me most disturbing.

The stench overpowered my senses. Coupled with this ghastly vision, shivers rushed through me. My body tingled, the stink caused me to gag, and I fought the urge to vomit.

I stopped, stifling the desire to run from this place. I girded myself with my inner strength and continued onward. My feet touching the dead bones, flesh, and sinew sent waves of deep, passionate disgust through me. Revulsion inundated me like the waters of a river. Fresh — kills, I guess you would call them, young women, young men, strewn amongst the longer dead, in various stages of decay. I couldn’t step without stepping on someone. Bones crunched under my bare feet, soft flesh crushed and gushed, something which had been flesh oozed around my toes.

In the putrid mess, the young woman from my second night, the one she brought to them in the library, her eyes glassed over in death, stared at me. A young boy lay next to her, a child of hers, possibly. I estimated his age to be 11 or 12. One was as equally dead as the other, not yet rotting. A fresher unpleasant fragrance wafted from their corpses and mingled with all different foul scents.

They had kept the pair of them alive for nearly two weeks, feeding on them and the others she brought to them. I didn’t think they were departed more than twelve or fourteen hours, judging from the lightness of their stink compared to the rest of rotting flesh.

A thin shard of light, shown through a small opening in the wall. One couldn’t call the space a window. Perhaps the hole was an archer’s notch. A light, which barely made ray through a window into the room. Slowly my eyes adjusted to what light was present. This did nothing to allay my fears. Clarity of vision only made the horrible scene sharper.

Stopping, I forced the dread, apprehension, and revulsion down inside me. Pushing those aversions into what the westerners call my sand, or grit, a part of you, which allows you to stand against things that terrify you. My inner strength devoured the fear, or at least held my panic in check, allowing me to continue.

Nonetheless, my heart pounded in my chest, threatening to rupture. My breathing was ragged, my breasts heaved with hard, deep breaths as I struggled to maintain my sanity. For nothing about this place was sane. Most of the stone coffins held skeletal remains.

At last, I found Alexandru, his handsome face bloated, a ruddy reddish hue to his complexion, watching his chest move not, he appeared to me, dead. His bright brown eyes were open.

Stone cold dead eyes gazed at me without seeing.

A foulness distorted his face, with his mouth married by a thick coating of blood, which trickled down his face in tiny rivulets of deep, congealing red. In his arms lay a girl, her breath rattled in her throat and chest, she was white as the grave, her eyes, open, pleaded with me. Without saying a word, she begged for release.

Perhaps, she only wanted me to free her from living. And death, to her, would be freedom. She tried to speak, not a sound emitted from her mouth, save the rattle of death from deep within the wretched, young woman.

In another box of stone, I found Boian. He, too, had changed, healthier-looking, his flesh plumped, and the muscles defined. The boys were getting stronger, adding to both their supernatural and physical strength. Mostly, I assumed, from the mouthfuls of my blood they consumed.

Cristian, dear sweet Cristian, he too slept as if dead. His face wasn’t stained with blood, though I doubted he hadn’t fed. He was much more robust. Why had I not spotted the changes as they occurred? I had come to realize his submission was an act. He was the most aggressive of them. He would have devoured me, sexually and as much of my blood as he could stand to consume, without orders from his Mistress.

The hunger burned in him, needing more than he could consume. My blood was too full of life for him, but this would change. There wasn’t enough life in the local’s blood to satisfy him, and my blood was, too, rich in life for him to take in much quantity. I began to understand this … disease, for this was a malady passed to others through the contamination of their blood. But how do you cure?

Would curing them cost the immortality they possessed? I understand now the Warrior Princess was none other than her, Countess Valarie Drago. My doubts had passed on this point. For her life was in the blood of others.

Above all, the other sarcophagi elevated on a platform. The elevation showed the high station of the one who rested inside, a leader which her survivors revered. Etched into the stone were the words “Draconus Valeriana” like the Asians, Romanians placed the family name first and the given name afterward. For as the Countess had said, no Drago would ever allow an offspring another name, though apparently, she shortened her name, may chance, to hide from her enemies.

An old shovel stood next to a box near her resting place. Without thought, I picked the tool up, clambered up to the stone elevation of her coffin, placing the candle near her head. Standing above the casket, I gazed at her. One could not help but heed her breathtaking beauty. With all my life in her, she appeared young, full of life, and vivacious.

In death, for she was dead at the moment, still, she appeared alive, healthy, and youthful.

How can this be, for I loved her, I hated her. All was wrapped up in lust, desire, and revulsion. Emotions, conflicted and contrasted, entwined like our bodies when we loved each other. And the truth of the matter was Valeriana, Valerie lay helpless before me. I had a chance to free myself from her, but would her, true death, release me or imprison me in the mundane world I fled to come to her.

The thought sprang to me, kill the bitch, and my heart hardened. Determined to end her, I raised the shovel above my head. Hesitating, I gazed at Countess Drago, resting in her slumber of death, her belly bloated with blood, for my life filled her with youthfulness.

Did she dreamed, were those dreams, of me? Her eyes didn’t roll around in her head, but do they move when she’s dead? All this passed through my mental calculations in a single, solitary moment. Clearing my head, I started to move forward. Wanting to crash the blade of the shovel down into her lovely neck and chop off her beautiful head. Hesitating, I gazed at her elegant splendor.

Watching the Countess in her motionless slumber, I lost all track of time, her beauty consumed me, and I gawked at her. For she was so inordinately comely, I became bewitched whilst I regarded her. The light streaming through the notch faded as the sun dropped behind the mountains.

Her eyes flung open, her hand raised, I hurled off the platform, crashing into the muck and mire of decomposing bodies. The gelatinous mess clung in clumps to my clothing, soaking through to my skin. Valarie towered over me. Reaching, she snatched the shovel from my grasp, held the weapon over her head. The woman, my mistress, Valarie, would kill me. I identified my death lay in my a few fleeting heartbeats.

The woman’s eyes glowered red, her teeth bared, fangs pinkish with the residue of my blood, as she prepared to murder me.

 

Chapter 7

 

The Countess held the shovel. Hovering above me, her eyes were enraged, red, and glowing. With a roar, Valarie threw the spade away toward the stairs. The metal blade clattered on the steps. Reaching down, she clutched my neck, lifting me from the ground, and she flung me with the same ease as she tossed the shovel.