I am drawn on as if in a trance. The danger around me seems incorporeal, nothing more than a dream. I could awake to escape—I’m sure of it.
I have to see inside the open vault. Is there a second, normal sized coffin inside this large stone vault? One made of wood? Is it still sealed? Is there a body inside? A skeleton or a fresh corpse? Is this morbid curiosity on my part? Perhaps, but I have to know.
In the cold air, sweat beads on my forehead, and my muscles feel as though I have run a marathon. Cautiously, I reach out, touching at the rim of the stone vault as I step up on a lip around the base, wanting to see within. To my surprise, the vault is full of dirt.
The wall beyond the vault moves.
Shadows dance along the stonework.
At first, I’m confused, and I question my sense of sight. Am I imagining the darkness coming to life? But then I see them. Two men step forward on either side of the stone coffin.
I back away, holding my hands out in front of me and gesturing for calm.
“Easy now,” I say, as though I were trying to placate a panicked horse.
The men pace toward me. They’re dressed like monks, with long flowing robes made from rough hessian sacking. Hoods cover their faces, hiding their features in the shadows.
“Hey,” I say, mustering courage in spite of my trembling hands. “Just a tourist. Got lost in the woods. Trying to find somewhere dry out of the storm.”
The monks are carrying lengths of chain with a heavy block of stone attached at one end. Manacles hang from the other end of each chain. The monks swing their chains, whirling the metal links with a slow, menacing motion. They mean to capture me, that much is sure, but I don’t understand why.
“Let's all just stay calm,” I say, and my voice waverers with doubt. I’m terrified of what is about to happen. My life is suddenly measured in seconds, not decades.
As I step backwards, I trip on either a fibula bone or a length of wood, I’m not sure which, as I don’t have time to look properly, but the thought of stumbling over human remains is horrifying. The monks seize their opportunity to charge at me, yelling incoherently as they swing their metal chains.
I turn and run, bolting for the doorway, wanting to reach the outside balcony and escape down the stairs, fleeing to the forecourt of the ruins. Rain lashes my face as I fly out into the storm. There’s a third monk blocking the stairs. He holds a giant mallet in one hand—a wooden hammer with a neck like a broomstick and a head well over a foot in length.
“Now, wait a minute,” I cry, backing against the railing of the balcony as the three monks close in on me. “Look, this is all a big misunderstanding.”
They rush at me, swinging their chains. I duck, and links of heavy chain slam into the marble railing, sending fragments of shattered stone flying through the air.
I push the closest monk, only to be grabbed by another and thrown to the ground. Struggle as I may in the torrential rain, they easily overpower me. Irons are clamped on my wrists. In an instant, the stone anchors at the other end of each chain are pushed through the gaps in the railing, falling over the balcony. The chains go taut, stretching my arms out wide. I find myself pinned against the marble balustrades, unable to raise my arms more than a few inches.
The monks yell at each other in Romanian. I can’t see their faces. They’re wearing leather masks hiding all but their eyes. Gloved hands tear open my jacket, and my heart races as I see one of the monks brandishing a large wooden stake. Rather than the small, theatrical stake so often depicted in vampire movies, this looks like something designed to secure a circus elephant to the ground. The mallet has a handle almost five feet in length, designed to drive the stake deep into the earth with each blow.
“No, no, no,” I cry. “This is a mistake.”
I struggle, trying to pull my hands from the iron clamps, but the weights keep my arms pinned back. I am fixed in place, as though on a crucifix, with my arms out wide in surrender. I strain against the combined weight of the chains and the stone blocks, but even with two arms, I'd struggle to pull one of these stones back up. My arm muscles spasm in pain, and I feel the pectoral muscles on my chest stretch as my biceps give in.
“Please, no,” I yell. “Don’t do this. I beg you.”
One of the monks positions the massive wooden stake over my madly beating heart while the other readies the mallet, swinging it back over his shoulder and preparing to strike a single, fatal blow.
I piss myself. I can’t help it. It’s an involuntary reflex at the prospect of being murdered. Kneeling there with my arms outstretched, pulled taut against the balustrades, my bladder empties.
With my jacket torn open, the third monk grabs at my shirt, ripping buttons away and pulling at the soaking wet cotton, exposing my bare chest.
“This is a mistake,” I repeat as the rain comes down in sheets and lightning ripples through the dark clouds, urging these brute men to strike me down. “Please, I didn’t mean any harm.”
“Nahd,” the monk says in a whisper almost lost in the storm, “Marca de vampir.”
He steps back, pointing at my chest and dropping the wooden stake. The calm that descends in that instance is as dire as the threat of being impaled. I can see it in his eyes. I am cursed seemingly beyond redemption. The rain fades, softening to a drizzle.
All three men step away from me, leaving me pinned to the railing. One draws a sword, the other a handgun, while the third holds his mallet like an ax. They turn away from me, looking back at the ruins surrounding the crypt. They're expecting to be attacked, but by whom?
“What? What is happening?” I plead as they keep their backs to me.
“Vrolok a evadat,” one of the men says, pulling the mask from his face. Given how strong they are, I’m surprised to see a frail old man standing before me holding the mallet. His silver grey hair is wet, matted down by the rain. Wrinkles line his face. Dark rings hide his eyes.
“These marks,” he says, pointing at the scratches lining my chest and speaking in broken English. “How did you get them?”
“My wife,” I say through tears streaming down my cheeks. “She did this to me.”
“And you lived?” he asks, even though the answer is apparent.
“I almost died,” I say, begging for my life. “Please, you’ve got to let me go.”
“Elibereze,” the old man says, and one of the other monks unlocks the chains binding my wrists, allowing the stone weights to fall to the courtyard below. With my arms released, I curl into a ball, leaning against the railing, trying to get some blood back into my extremities and shivering in the cold.
“She hunts us, even as we hunt her,” the old man says, looking at the open window in the tower as he speaks. He grabs me by my torn jacket and hauls me to my feet. “The creature has fooled us, tricked us into revealing our snare.”
“I don’t understand,” I say as he rushes me toward the stairs.
“She used you as bait,” he cries over the angry sound of thunder rumbling overhead. “We thought you were one of them—Vrolok.”
Several bats take flight from somewhere deep inside the crypt, racing out through the broad stone entrance. Within seconds, there are hundreds, and then thousands of bats funneling through the vast open chamber, out through the doorway, and across the balcony.
“Do not let them scratch you,” the old man yells, throwing his hood over his head and bundling me down the stairs. Although my jacket has been torn open, I raise my arms, shielding my face as bats swirl around me. Leathery wings ruffle my hair, clipping my scalp, and I am forced to reach over my head with one arm, grabbing at the back of my neck as claws and teeth tear at the thick padding on my sleeves.
Thousands of wings thrash at the air around me. Bats screech and cry with shrill madness. The sound is overwhelming, like that of a freight train rushing past, and I stumble, tripping over rocks on the forecourt of the castle. The old man drags me to my feet, pushing me on. I cradle my head, peering down the length of my body an
d watching only the mud and weeds and rocks passing under foot as a vortex of bats envelops the two of us. My jacket has been shredded. Bits of white stuffing and torn thermal lining swirl around me on the wind, until suddenly I'm thrust into pitch black darkness.
I strike my knees on the rim of a door as I fall forward. I can feel the gentle rocking of a carriage as the suspension takes my weight. A door slams behind me. Reaching out with my hands, I feel a seat. My fingers trace the outline of the door, reaching for the curtains covering the windows. I pull back the dark lace to see bats clawing at the glass. Their hideous, dark faces and bloody mouths seem to mock me.
Flames light up the night.
The monks have lit torches. Burning tar drips from tightly bound bundles at the end of each torch as the three monks wave off the bats. I can hear the monks yelling to each other, but I have no idea what they are saying. The cabin lurches, and the horse bolts, galloping as though it’s not harnessed to a carriage. I brace myself. With one hand on the roof, and the other on a handle by the door, I bounce around inside the carriage, colliding clumsily with the wooden frame every few seconds.
Moonlight slips through the trees. The shadows are alive, I’m sure of it.
On the horse charges.
Looking out the other window, I see a drop of hundreds of feet. We’re following a track winding around the cliff. The horse gallops at a breakneck pace. Wooden wheels catch in the ruts of the track, kicking up loose gravel as we round a steep corner, and I feel the carriage tilt toward the drop. I shift to the far side of the cabin, trying to work against the roll of the carriage. One wheel lifts off the track. I can tell, because there’s no longer a jarring shudder coming through the frame on that side. The horse straightens out and the wheel lands with a thud, sending me careering into the back of the cabin.
“Slow down, please,” I cry, but no one can hear me over the thundering hooves. If they can, I doubt they understand me.
From what I can tell, peering through a narrow window behind the driver, only one monk made it. I don’t think it’s the old man, as the monk's muscular frame speaks of youth. A burning torch sits in a stand by his side, its flame fighting against the wind whipping by.
Dense forest looms up on either side of the carriage, and the horse slows as we descend the mountain.
The door to the cabin swings open, and the old man steps forward from the rear, climbing around and into the moving carriage.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, waving his burning fiery torch in my face. The heat causes me to reel backwards. Black smoke wafts to the ceiling.
With a determined hand, he pushes me back into the seat, flicking my torn jacket open and waving the torch inches from my skin. Heat radiates from the flames, threatening to burn me, and I try to push him away, but he will not be deterred.
“One scratch. Just a nick,” he says, grabbing my jaw and turning my head one way and then the other. For someone that ten minutes ago was about to drive a wooden stake through my heart, his concern is contradictory.
“She wants you alive,” he says, satisfied by his search. “She means only to scare you, to demonstrate her power over nature.”
Sitting back on the far side of the carriage, he asks. “This woman. This wife. You knew her well?”
“Fifteen years,” I reply, coughing against the smoke filling the cabin. “We were married for over a decade.”
“Hmm,” he says, opening the door and handing the torch to the third monk, who must be mounted on a seat at the rear of the carriage.
“Who are you?” I ask.
The old monk speaks with slow, deliberate enunciation as though he were recounting some ancient spell. Although his words are spoken in Romanian, there is no doubting their meaning.
“Vladimir Gustavo, descendent al profesorului van Helsing.”
“Jesus,” I say. I’m not sure what Vladimir makes of my reply. I’m not even sure what I meant, beyond utter astonishment, but my worst nightmare has come true.
Chapter 2:05 — van Helsing’s Diary
The carriage wheels are monotonous, crunching relentlessly on loose gravel. When the sound undergoes a distinct change, I realize we’re moving from the rough track onto the muddy cobblestones in the village. I peer out from behind the curtain and note we have returned to Armista. The streets are deserted. Wooden shutters bar the windows of the various cottages.
The carriage comes to a halt, and Vladimir says, “We must be quick. They are stronger and faster at night.”
I don’t have to be told twice. The door opens and I follow Vladimir, leaping out of the carriage into the deathly quiet street. Thousands of bats soar through the sky high overhead, appearing as dark shadows blotting out the stars and the moon. Storm clouds roll down from the hills, but their motion is unnatural, smothering the forest instead of riding on the wind currents.
With a violent knock on a solid wooden door, Vladimir calls out, “Flori să înflorească în primăvara anului.”
From out of sight, a woman replies, saying, “și durează doar pentru un sezon.” She peers briefly through a narrow window beside the door, apparently sizing me up and determining whether I pose a threat.
I hear a heavy wooden beam being removed from behind the door.
“Memory,” the old man says, touching his temple. “It is all we have against the vampire. She may steal our body, but she cannot steal our memories.”
And intuitively, I understand. This is some kind of secret passphrase.
“It is a poem,” he says, clarifying his coded message as the door opens, “about flowers in spring. Each day, a different line. Each day, we establish trust with each other once again.”
“Alan,” Joe cries, seeing me from behind a woman standing in the doorway, and I’m overcome with emotion. I rush forward, hugging him as he stands to greet me.
“What the hell happened to you?” Joe asks, looking at the torn rags that were once an expensive winter coat.
“Funny you should use the word, ‘hell.’ It’s disturbingly appropriate,” I reply, smiling, still reeling from the surprise of seeing him again. Joe is an anchor to reality, reminding me there is life beyond the madness, refreshing me with thoughts of home.
“My Tetea,” the woman says, using what I’m guessing is an endearing term for her grandfather. She hands us a pair of towels. “Are you all right?”
The towels are little more than small torn strips of sheet by Western reckoning, but a fire rages in the hearth, throwing out warmth, so they'll do nicely.
The other two monks come through the door behind us, closing the door and barring it with a solid wooden beam. The woman talks with the three men in Romanian. A single kerosene lamp provides the only real light beyond the crackle of the fire.
I dry my hair. Seeing my bag beside the fireplace, I grab a fresh shirt, some clean underwear and worn jeans. Huddling in the corner, half hidden by the shadows, I strip down, dry off and get dressed. Joe turns his back, politely positioning himself between me and the others. Once I’m dressed, I realize I haven’t properly answered Joe’s question.
“So?” he asks, as I rub my hands by the fire, warding off both the cold and my shattered nerves.
“I found her.”
“Jane?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s great news, right?” he asks.
“Not quite,” I say, gesturing to our hosts as they confer among themselves in the kitchen. I whisper, “I think the old man wants to kill my wife.”
Joe looks at me with a stern expression. His eyes narrow slightly before he breaks into a smile and slaps me on the shoulder, saying, “You are such a kidder. Damn. You almost had me there for a moment.”
I raise my eyebrows, screwing up my lips a little, trying to think of what to say to convince him I’m serious.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
I shake my head softly.
“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “We have to get out of here.”
“Not t
onight,” I say, as the storm reaches the village.
Torrential rain begins to fall. Wind howls through the rafters. The door shakes. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear someone was trying to break in. The rattling must be due to the changing air pressure and the door shifting with the wind. But that doesn’t stop all eyes from watching as the door flexes against the wooden beam barring the entrance. The violent pounding continues for a few minutes before softening as the storm continues to rage outside.
Vladimir introduces me to his granddaughter, Dr. Adriana Gustavo and her two older brothers Michael and Anton. Joe has spent the afternoon assisting Adriana in her clinic. Apparently, she’s an itinerant doctor, traveling from village to village, returning to Armista and her grandfather every few months. She can’t be more than thirty years old, and has probably only recently graduated from med school.
“Eat. Eat,” Vladimir says, gesturing for us to join them at the table for dinner. The house is plain, lacking any of the trappings I’d normally associate with a home, such as family pictures or sentimental items. There’s no television, which isn’t surprising given we’re dining by the light of a kerosene lantern.
The table has a rustic feel that western stores try to imitate but can never match. Rough-hewn wood forms a knotted, uneven tabletop. Adriana dishes up bowls of soup and locally baked bread. Unlike our spongy Wonder Bread back home, with its soft crust and bleached white interior, this bread is as brown as the dusty floor. The bread is thick and dry. Like the others, I dip my bread in the soup and try to put thoughts of contracting hepatitis far from my mind. Joe doesn’t seem bothered, so I smile, determined to enjoy what I'm guessing is chicken soup. We chat, but we speak like old friends who have nothing in common any more, referring only to how nice the food is, and feeling awkward as the silence between comments extends from seconds to minutes.
After we’ve eaten, we retire to the couch by the fire. Michael and Anton clear away the dishes and wash the pots.
“What do you know?” Vladimir asks as I sit opposite him on a stool by the fire.
We Are Legion (van Helsing Diaries Book 2) Page 6