by Ana Calin
I let it go through my head. Jealousy and the need to punish Radek pump my chest. “Yes.”
Dracula rises from his throne, and all his vampires shrink back. They retreat into the shadow from adjacent tunnels, only a few claws sticking out, holding to the cave’s rim like bats. His dark energy seems to press against the Old Priest and me as well, making us draw back.
Even the way he moves around, one finger tapping his chin as he’s thinking, shows that Dracula isn’t a usual man, despite his human form. For those who don’t know of vampires’ existence, he would come across as.... He would scare the daylights out of them.
“Killing Radek and taking back my castle, and, with it, all the power that Radek has accumulated over Europe.” He stops pacing, relishing that thought. “All that power.... And I can make it so much greater.”
I know what’s going through his head. Radek was always a daredevil, the younger brother, always taking risks. Dracula is wiser, more calculated. He could indeed take what Radek did to the next level.
Dracula bursts into frightening laughter. His vampires withdraw even deeper in their caverns, while the Old Priest covers his ears like a child with a trauma. When the great vampire king stops laughing, I realize that I’ve retreated in a corner, too.
“I can’t believe it,” he says, grinning, wickedly amused. “It’s too easy! Radek will never see this coming.”
“We will have to plan well,” I dare mutter, thinking he might be taking this a little too lightly. “To plan everything in detail. No matter what, Radek is a great warrior and strategist, he won’t—”
“No, Miss Victoria, you don’t understand what I mean.” He looks away from me, staring into space as he contemplates some dark plan of his own that seems to give him great pleasure. His eyes sparkle dangerously. “What I have in store is a game more wicked than yours. Radek’s little love story will be his undoing. Your plan has holes and risks, Miss Victoria. Mine is waterproof.”
Juliet
THE NIGHT OF RADEK’S yearly Christmas festival is here. I’m nervous as hell as Lazarus, Magda and I push through the crowd towards the castle that now rises like a jewel of lights from the rock and snow. I’m wearing a heavy cloak with mock-fur linings like ladies of the past, a brunette wig with an elaborate bun on my head, heavy make-up with my face super white and my lips super red. What am I? A vampire, of course, like half the girls here. And this counts as blending in the crowd. A black mask with golden vines and fine workings cover my face from forehead to nose.
One thing is certain—no one will recognize me. No one except Radek, of course. He and I have been so intimate with each other, I fear he might pick up my scent as soon as I set foot in the same room as him.
The memory of our intimacy squeezes my heart as Lazarus, Magda and I climb the stairs towards the narrow entrance, part of a river of glittery attendees up the endless stairs. The castle itself is a maze of big and small rooms that lead from one to the other, and the guests soon fill them all. Servants snake among the guests with trays above their heads, moving smoothly and expertly. Hiding from them proves easier than I thought. Not only there are too many people here for them to recognize me, but everyone wears a costume or at least a mask.
The atmosphere is soon hot, people start smelling, the scent of alcohol and the sound of laughter filling the room, medieval music playing in the background. The only sources of light are beautiful, ornate candles, but soon I realize Radek isn’t here. After I voice my worries to Lazarus, he grabs one of the moving servants’ by the arm. It’s a young man with a long face and the air of a butler that often served Radek and me at breakfast.
“Excuse me, chap, is the prince in the program, too?”
The young man brings his ear closer to Lazarus’ mouth, unable to hear him over the noise despite Lazarus’ yelling.
“The prince, is he going to give at least a speech or something?”
The server tells Lazarus something in his ear, Lazarus’ face expressing worry as he listens. After the server leaves, he only presses his lips together and shakes his head no at me. Shit, if Radek isn’t going to make an appearance, our whole plan is worthless.
I look around. If Radek isn’t going to give a speech or welcome his guests, I won’t be able to get to him, which means Lazarus and Magda have no chance of finding Isolde. For all I know, he could be wearing any mask, any man here could in truth be him. He could be watching me as I’m spinning around, my eyes darting behind the mask holes as I watch people, my own pulse gagging me.
A man in a cape with a simple white mask to cover his eyes bumps into me. I look after him, then spin after another one in green princely coat and feather cap, then after another one and another one. I’m growing paranoid, my eyes darting faster, my head dizzier. The smell of sweat and candle wax soon fills the air, mixing with different perfumes and the scent of old clothes kept in moldy wardrobes for too long.
I realize we’ve lost Magda, too. We said we’d stick together, claw to each other if we must, all three of us, should the crowd tug to drift us apart. But she still got lost.
I feel Lazarus’ steady hands on my shoulders. He turns me around and crams me in a corner.
“Get a grip,” he says, “you’re acting like an amateur spy, drawing attention. Everyone can see you agitated, looking around desperately for someone.”
“We should have made a plan B,” I whisper only loud enough for him to hear it. “Plan A is gone down the drain. We lost Magda, too.”
“Plan A was that you would get to the prince, touch him to heal the midnight monster, then I would take him down while Magda would look for Isolde. Even if only half of that plan turns out, it’s still a win. We can look for Isolde together after we neutralize the prince. So we stick to plan A.”
His milky blue eyes fix me reassuringly from behind his mask. I can’t help thinking he looks like a billionaire at a fancy swinger club. Many women check him out from the corners of their eyes.
“Stick to it?” I snort. “Radek won’t show himself. How am I supposed to find him?”
“You’ll have to reveal yourself to him.”
“Great, than why did I bother with the mask?”
“Because we were hoping you could stay incognito, and only touch him in the crowd, where he couldn’t expose himself doing anything to you. We were hoping that your touch would make him lose his powers, and I would take him down immediately afterwards, but there were no guarantees anyways.”
Take him down. Lazarus never really said how he planned to do that. I don’t even know if he’s armed, but one thing I do know—I don’t like the idea of anybody harming Radek. Shit, Juliet, get a grip! You can’t still care for a man who’s as much a monster on the inside as he is on the outside.
I nod, and look around again.
“Okay, so say I look for a secret passageway, say I even get to him. He won’t let me come close enough to touch him.” It hurts as I put my following thoughts into words. “He thinks I took off with you, Lazarus. If he wants me back, it’s only to punish me, cruelly, maybe even have me watch my sister blindfolded and tied down, writhing for his touch like a drunk hooker.” By now the pain is so great I brace myself at the waist, struggling to keep standing and not crouch.
Lazarus cups my face, making me look into his eyes. “Don’t do this to yourself. This is your own monster talking now, making you suffer—the monster of jealousy, a monster that Radek must have planted inside your mind, and now, being back at his castle, his influence over you is kicking in again.” There’s pain in his voice.
“Lazarus,” I say softly. “It’s you I should be in love with, not that monster who does....” The woman spitting black body liquid at me flashes through my mind, and a thousand fire ants bite into my heart. “Those terrible things to women.”
I want to say more, but I decide to shut my mouth. I know for a fact what I feel isn’t jealousy that Radek has planted inside of me, because I felt it the entire time while waiting for this festival. Even wh
en away from his castle, this feeling that he belongs to me hasn’t lessened, this feeling that I have a claim on him. And that no other woman should touch him, because I’ll claw her eyes out.
A creak right by my ear draws both Lazarus’ and my attention.
“A door,” Lazarus breathes, his hands falling from my face to his sides. I don’t need much to understand what’s happening.
“Radek is close,” I whisper, looking at the faint strip of light filtering through the door now slightly ajar. It’s a small, almost unnoticeable door like the one that leads to the secret passageway they show tourists, but it’s still a wonder that no one noticed it until now. We are in a corner, but still in a full room.
“How come we didn’t see it before?” Lazarus says.
“Because it wasn’t here. Radek has heard what I said—that I should be in love with you, not him. He’s been close to us all along, he’s always known we’re here. What I said angered him. Now he’s leading us to the meeting point.”
“Then he also knows—”
“What we have planned.” I take his hand and squeeze. “Come with me.”
I push the door, and we slip inside a narrow corridor. My heart drums like crazy as I think of all the things that might be expecting me, the worst possibility being Radek fucking my sister. My mind revolves obsessively around the idea, making my eyes burn as we move down this corridor scooped in the rock, the air thick, following the lining candles.
Then, one wicked second, my worst fear comes true—I hear Isolde’s voice, faint in the distance, pained and calling out my name. Fire shoots from my heart to my head, and I grip Lazarus’ hand behind me, still clinging to the wild hope that it’s only happening in my head.
“Did you hear that, too?”
When Lazarus doesn’t answer, I turn to look at him. He looks down at me, his blue eyes glimmering with focus in the orange glow of the candles telling me he’s heard it, too. He doesn’t voice the confirmation because he knows what it would do to me.
The pain in my chest is unbearable. I cling to his arm, howling, and clawing to the wall with the other hand. Lazarus makes to help me but, driven by the urge of a mad woman, I start moving again and pull Lazarus after me.
I hear him trying to reason with me, but it’s like I’ve turned into a beast that doesn’t understand human language. I’m all instinct and ache. I keep going until I hear her voice again, echoing behind a side door—the first one I find.
Letting go of Lazarus’ hand because I feel like he’s lagging behind and slowing me down, I push through it, spinning around in a small medieval chamber with one crown glass window. I hear Isolde again, only that this time she’s moaning, as if someone’s either hurting her, or she’s having sex. A flash of Radek’s body between her legs runs through my imagination, and I let out a cry. I follow the sound into another room, then another.
Her calls are easier to follow as I approach the place where I’m certain I’ll find her. I increase pace, my eyes burning, unblinking, focused. I’m certain I’ll find her behind this rusty iron door that seems familiar.
I press the handle, step inside the darkness, and mean to move forward using the light that comes from the room I left behind. But then the door slams shut and I’m left in complete darkness.
CHAPTER XIV
Juliet
Time stops, space ceases to exist, my heartbeat being the only thing still moving in the universe. I stand in place, arms slightly away from my body, as if seeking balance. All I see is black. I blink, my eyes automatically trying to adjust to the darkness, but it’s like someone just killed the spotlights in a theatre, with me on the stage. I can’t see anything ahead, but just as I begin to panic, a small stream of light begins to trickle in from the ceiling. The light grows slowly until liquid mirrors become visible around the room.
A few moments later, the masks on the walls between the mirrors start reflecting the light as well, and I strongly feel a presence very close to me. It’s not rocket science—the Prince of Midnight is in here.
And so is Isolde, something screams in the back of my mind. I start walking, the mirrors rippling as I pass them by, chills running down my spine. I’m sharply aware I’m in the prince’s cellar, and this time he surely wants to harm me. Anxiety makes my hands sweat. This is a matter of life and death.
One mirror draws my attention as I walk by it. It’s rippling wildly, as if it wants to tell me something. I turn to it, trying to make sense of its erratic movement. Soon the mirror’s liquid glass turns into veils undulating in the wind; beyond them, I see Lazarus tied to an iron chair with medieval chains that are so heavy he can’t move an inch, even though it’s clear he’s struggling. His entire frame quivers.
“Lazarus,” I scream, reaching out to him, but the mirror’s folds turn into moving blades, ready to cut me.
“How touching,” Radek’s velvety voice ripples behind me. “Juliet risking everything to save her Romeo.”
I stiffen. I can feel him approach me from behind, and my heart beats faster with expectation.
“When did you...?” I whisper.
“Get him? Desperate to save Isolde, you barely noticed when the tunnel sucked him away from you.”
“Where is Isolde?” I can feel him walking behind me, my heart beating like crazy, but I don’t take my eyes away from Lazarus through the moving knife-like glass. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing she didn’t enjoy.” I can sense his grin. Anger surges in my chest, and I turn swiftly, not caring if I’ll face the monster and get myself killed. But he flashes away from my eyes, letting me feel him once again behind me. I turn as quickly as I can again, but I’m facing the mirror, Radek once again having flashed away before I could lay eyes on him.
“Are you in the mood for children’s games?” I blurt through my teeth.
“Keeping you alive isn’t a children’s game,” he says in a serious tone.
I laugh bitterly. I recognize it as the laughter of a jealous woman. If Radek and I would be living a normal life, in the normal world on the surface of this magic underground where he blends dimensions with each other like a twisted mage, I would be throwing pans and plates at him.
“So worried about my well-being all of a sudden. You think you’re doing me any good by sleeping with my sister?” The reproof flies out of my mouth like poison. I cry out in frustration, balling my hands, stopping in place, facing the mirror.
“I could scratch you right now,” I let out. Jealousy is tearing at every organ inside me. “How could you do this to me? My own sister!”
“You left me,” he hisses in my ear, his breath touching the side of my face, the warmth of his body close behind me.
“You ran away with Lazarus Raica,” he spits, hatred in the way he speaks Lazarus’ name. The movement of the mirror blades in front of me slows down enough for me to get a more or less clear image of him struggling in that chair.
“I didn’t run away with him. He was out there when I emerged into the courtyard, and I asked for his help.”
“Asked for his help,” Radek hisses, his strong hands clamping my shoulders from behind. “Why did you need help, Juliet? You know I would never have taken you against your will. You knew I had feelings for you, you could have persuaded me to let you go, if that was what you wanted. Why go behind my back, why hurt me like that?”
Hurt him? Guilt and pain shoot from my stomach to my feet, even though I know I can’t tell him the truth—that I know about those women; that I know about the monstrous things he did to them, and that I’d hate myself if I’d continue living with him. But I need to convince him that I didn’t leave him for another man.
I look to the side, determined to turn slowly, but when I see the hand on my shoulder the intention catches in my throat.
It looks like corals have grown on it. It’s thick, with burls and large pores, claws instead of fingernails. A lump forms in my throat, preventing me from screaming.
“Admit it,” Radek says. �
��You asked for his help because you’d been thinking of him the entire time. The more you got to know the monster hiding behind my daytime self, the more attracted you felt to the cute student who could cuddle naked with you at night like a normal man.”
“Even if that were true,” I cry, realizing he can’t be reasoned with if I keep trying to explain what happened with Lazarus. “You slept with my sister! Nothing can justify that, that’s such a low blow.”
“Low blow,” he repeats, and I can feel his mocking grin. The liquid mirror in front of me begins moving again, and instead of Lazarus struggling with his chains, I see my sister’s back. Her long blond hair cascades in waves to her waist, her round butt moving as she arranges something in front of her. I soon realize she’s at work, doing night shift, as usual.
“She’s not even here,” I breathe, relief coursing from my head to my feet, making me weak all over. “But I heard her, I heard her calling my name, and moaning as if she was....” My words trail off.
“You heard your worst fears, Juliet.”
“My worst fears? But how—?”
“It was an induced psychological effect, the ‘call of the siren.’ I influenced your mind to perceive what it feared most to get you following my energy.” He pauses. “And your worst fear was that I would be sleeping with your sister.”
Guilt and shame wash over me, my cheeks burning. Now, face to face with the truth, I realize that I feared for her life less than I feared she might take Radek’s heart away from me. Despite knowing the terrible things Radek did to women after using them, what I cared about most was for him not to sleep with another woman but me. That thought makes me feel so sick that I prefer not to dwell on it.
“Then Lazarus,” I whisper. “He’s not in chains either?”
Radek laughs behind me, the laugh of a bitter, vengeful creature. The blades return to the mirror, moving wildly, the mirror once again showing Lazarus.