He shrugged and said good-naturedly, As you wish. But I shall prepare a tonic
for your mistress, and set his bag upon the credenza at the wall nearest the
foot of the bed. His back was to us, and neither I nor the others could see
what he was doing; and then he turned towards us, smiling, and walked swiftly
up to the side of the bed where Dunya sat.
She suspected nothing, but was studying with concern and puzzlement her tearful
mistress. Kohl leaned over the bed as if to administer some drug to Mary, but
at the last instant turned and clapped a handkerchief over Dunya's nose and
mouth.
She rose at once to her feet, and released a muffled cry; above the handkerchief,
her eyes were wide with indignant surprise. But within seconds, they closed,
and she sagged, unconscious, in Kohl's strong, solid arms.
Do not hurt her! Mary cried. She cannot help what has happened. In her
distress, she clutched my hand, and at last allowed the tears to flow; I cried,
too, and we wept for a time while Kohl softly set the sleeping girl upon the
floor.
He returned swiftly to Mary's side, and soothed, She is unharmed; she will
merely sleep for some hours.
Mary, I said, you and the baby must go at once with the doctor. It's the
only hope I have of keeping you safe.
You cannot stay! Aghast, she struggled to sit; the sleeping infant in her
arm stirred. Kohl gently but firmly guided her back against the pillows.
If you read that - I nodded at the papers piled in her lap - you know that he
will do nothing to harm me. I can distract him until you are safe. When the
time is right, I will join you.
Despite her weakness, she spoke fiercely. Knowing your life is no longer in
danger is little comfort; he will stop at nothing to corrupt you, and more than
your life will be lost.
I ran a hand over her hot forehead and smoothed back her damp hair. Mary
you are no longer safe with me.
Perhaps not, she said. Perhaps he will kill me. I no longer care what becomes
of me, so long as I am with you. But I wont lose both my husband and son.
Vlad knows that he has no power over you save through me and the baby. You
wont be able to hold him here; he will go after us at once - for only so long
as we are alive and in his reach can he blackmail you.
I cannot let him destroy you because of us. You must accept this; you must
be brave. You are my husband and I will not abandon you. I will remain with
you until you are free of the curse.
I turned my face away from her, unwilling to let her see the grief there, for
I knew what she said was true. If I sent her and the child away together, V.
would follow - with, I feared, terrible consequences. It mattered not whether
I accompanied them.
But the same horrors would befall them if they remained.
There seemed no solution to our little family's plight. Even so, at that moment,
revelation descended: I saw with magical clarity what had to be done, though
I could not bring myself to give it voice, knowing the unspeakable pain it would
inflict on the one nearest my heart.
Yet she was strong; I turned back towards her as she said with bitterly poignant
sweetness: But we both want our son to be free. I believe God sent this man
to deliver our son from evil. I trust him. She nodded at the stranger is she
spoke, her pale face radiating such serenity and grace that he was clearly moved,
for he knelt at her side and gazed on her with unmasked admiration.
Madam, he said, and laid his great broad hand upon the small frail one she
used to hold the child. May I prove worthy of that trust. Your courage is remarkable;
only name what you require, and it shall be yours.
Will you help us? she asked, echoing the question I had asked him in the
strigois
inner sanctum.
And again Kohl promptly replied, in his unwavering bass voice, Yes.
Thus were our fates decided. I could do nothing but kiss the palm of my wife's
hand, and grip it tightly as we made the plans that broke our hearts.
* * *
Within the hour we had abandoned the castle, taking with us only the most basic
necessities in the event we survived. I directed the stranger to the north,
while we took the more obvious escape route to the southwest, towards Bistritz.
By then it was late afternoon; the rain had ceased, but the air was damp and
cool. Dark clouds still filled the sky, transforming day into the gloom of premature
twilight. The tall trees were hung with raindrops, recalling another time, another
Stefan. I had dreamt of my brother on my re-entry into this dark forest; I thought
of him now as we fled. And of Shepherd, whom we had trusted, but who proved
to have the heart of a wolf.
I drove the caleche, Father's Colt tucked beneath my waistband as protection
against wolves. Mary lay behind me in the passenger's seat, reclining on pillows
and covered by wool blankets, with a small swaddling bundle held tenderly at
her breast.
We had but an hour before sunset. By then the stranger would cross running
water, which Mary told me rendered the vampire unable to follow, save in his
coffin or at the slack of the tide.
But because of our chosen route, my wife and I would not reach the nearest
stream for some two hours. It was a danger we willingly accepted, so that the
other carriage might be safe.
Still, I was seized by the same panic I had felt twenty years before, as a
five-year-old running through the rain-drenched forest in search of my brother.
I calmed myself by calling out to Mary. I feared she might begin to haemorrhage - a
possibility the stranger had warned of, but for which he had also provided instruction.
She answered weakly, but with encouragement that all was well. And so I drove,
forcing the horses as hard as they could go, grimacing at each bump in the uneven
roadway and glancing over my shoulder at Mary, who bore it all in silence, but
was pale and tight-lipped with pain as she clutched the bundle more tightly
to her bosom.
After a time, the forest gave way to village - where I gave one final glance
at Masika Ivanovna's little house and the church graveyard - and then to forest
again as we headed towards the Borgo Pass. Soon the sun set, and the winding
sand road narrowed until we were closed in by darkness and the black shapes
of trees and distant mountains. The moon rose, limning the rain-kissed branches
with silvery light.
The night brought with it more fear; I sank into the same suffocating panic
I had experienced when trapped blindly with the horses and snapping wolves in
the midnight forest.
Silence. All silence, save for the laboured breathing of the horses and the
rumble of the earth beneath the wheels. We rode thus for the space of an hour,
until I dared hope we might make good our escape.
And then: a howl. Distant at first, then closer, and joined by another. And
another. And another.
I snapped the reins and cried out to the frightened horses to go faster, faster,
knowing that it was all for naught: the salvation-giving stream lay another
half hour to our west.
Still I drove, praying that the other carriage had already found deliverance
by water, praying that our sacrifice should not be in vain.
The howls neared. I drew Father's revolver. As if evoked by that very action,
the wolves emerged from the darkness in all directions. A pack of six rushed
the caleche, attacking the screaming horses with an urgent ferocity that made
Mary and I cry out as one.
At the same time, I felt pity for them, knowing that they were but V.s pawns,
as I had been - but pity could not supplant the instinct for survival. I fired,
forcing my hand not to tremble, for there would be more wolves than I had bullets.
Indeed, I killed one cleanly, as it caught hold of a shrieking horse's leg,
only to watch two more snarling creatures spring from the darkness to take their
fallen comrade's place.
And then the focus of the wolves attack shifted from the quivering horses
to us. As my bullet struck a yelping second, yet another emerged from the darkness
and leapt up into the passenger's seat where my wife lay.
Fear and instinct rendered me mindless. I turned with preternatural swiftness
and pulled the trigger in the split second before the animal sank its teeth
into Mary's neck. It died with a rattling sigh, its slavering jaws open wide
for the kill, and fell to her feet as she rose speechless with shock, the bundle
pressed tightly to her. With revulsion, we pushed the dead creature from the
carriage.
Of a sudden the wolves ceased their attack. For a few moments they paced, whining
softly, then crouched in the moonlight like silent grey sphinxes encircling
us, their ears pricked with an odd, restless expectancy. The horses - trembling
and bloodied, but neither seriously harmed - stamped and neighed fretfully. I
set the gun down upon the driver's seat beside me, knowing the remaining bullet
in the chamber would prove useless against the evil to come.
From out of the brooding darkness, a thin column of mist sailed out of the
eastern sky, crossing over our heads and settling in front of the caleche, just
within the circle of wolves. As we watched, the mist, asparkle with glints of
unearthly blue and rose light, began slowly to solidify and take on the form
of a man, until at last V. himself stood before us.
He was young, raven-haired, possessed of the same dazzling, leonine beauty
I had witnessed in the Impaler when my father had led me to his throne, and
in those piercing evergreen eyes shone mocking contempt. At the sight of their
master, the animals whimpered, and lowered their chins between their paws in
unhappy obeisance.
Arkady, he said - softly, but his voice filled the entire forest. I had not
taken you for such a fool. Did you really believe you could escape me?
He moved towards the carriage - not by walking, but by simply looming larger
in my field of vision - and stretched out his hand towards Mary, who sat, pressing
the white woolen bundle to her heart. Give him to me. Quickly! My patience
was long ago spent.
My eyes at once sought Marys, and we gazed at each other with secret triumph
in the midst of our fear. She stood, and with an expression of such intense
loathing as I had never before seen, hurled the bundle from the carriage at
the wolves, shouting: You will never have my child, monster! Never!
V. let go a gasp. Before he could come to himself, the nearest wolf, startled
and yielding to instinct, had sunk its jaws into the soft child's blanket and
shook it as though wringing a rabbit's neck. The act revealed the blanket to
be empty of content, and the creature, after sniffing it with puzzlement, sat
on its haunches with the blanket between its front paws.
V. turned back to stare at us, his face gleaming in the moonlight like white-hot
ash, his eyes blazing with a fury that could never be assuaged. Harlot! Deceiver!
he screamed, his lips twisting to reveal sharp teeth. Do you think you are
indispensable? If not your child, then that of another womans - by your husband!
And then his rage went cold, and a cruel, sensual smile played upon his red
lips. Mary, pretty Mary, he crooned, as though reciting a child's rhyme, and
suddenly he stood upon the passenger's step. Hair of gold, eyes of sapphire.
You think you can deceive me, hide your baby from me; but the truth is carried
on your blood. I have only to taste it
And he reached a finger towards her, as if to caress the skin beneath her chin.
She recoiled, falling back against the seat.
No! I begged. I will do anything -
anything
you ask. I will go to
Bistritz at once, bring you a victim, help you dispose of him, have other children
by other women - whatever you require. Only let her live! I uttered those words
with complete sincerity, for I no longer cared what became of my eternal soul,
so long as my child and wife were safe. Now that I knew little Stefan's escape
was achieved, I was willing to do whatever V. bid to save Mary's life. This
I had been prepared for from the moment we fled the castle - but I could not confide
it to Mary, for she would never have accepted it.
V. drew back and smiled with pleasure at this; but Mary's mouth fell open,
and she cried, Arkady, you mustnt your soul will be lost, and it will never
end! He will hunt Stefan down!
And with swift, sudden sureness, she reached forward and took my father's gun.
V. threw back his head and laughed with arrogant delight as he spread his arms,
offering himself as a target. Go ahead, my dear: Fire! Fire! And see what good
it will do.
And my brave wife fired. Mary, my soul, my saviour, my beloved murderer.
Less than a second passed before the remaining bullet struck my chest, but
in that fleeting instant of time I saw my wife take aim, and looked up into
her eyes. Those eyes held such love that the evil surrounding us seemed to fade
into unimportance; and I smiled at her with adoration and utter joy, for I knew
my life had not been cursed but blessed, blessed to have loved one who would
stain her own soul to save mine.
I had not been able to speak to her of ending the covenant by taking my life,
for to have done so would have amounted to suicide, and victory for the
strigoi.
I could do no more than leave the journal entry where she might
find it, and read it; and then pray she would have the strength to do what was
necessary.
She did not disappoint me.
The impact hurled me backwards from the carriage, against the horses, down
amongst the wolves. The pain grew, consuming my heart, my lungs like a raging
fire, but it mattered not, for my bliss, my triumph, were greater. I stared
up at the black velvet sky and saw that the stars had disappeared
and knew
this was not night, but the sweet darkness of approaching death.
Silence enveloped me. The world receded as, grateful, drowsy, I sank further
into bliss. An eternity - or perhaps only an instant - passed.