The Keep

by F. Paul Wilson

  “He didn’t care that I had been assaulted and almost raped by two Nazi brutes…didn’t even ask if I was hurt! All he cared was that I had shortened his precious time with Molasar. I’m his daughter and he cares more about talking to that…that creature!”

  Glenn stepped over to the bed and seated himself beside her. He put his arm around her back and gently pulled her against him.

  “Your father’s under a terrible strain. You must remember that.”

  “And he should remember he’s my father!”

  “Yes,” Glenn said softly. “Yes, he should.” He swiveled half around and lay back on the bed, then tugged gently on Magda’s shoulders. “Here. Lie down beside me and close your eyes. You’ll be all right.”

  With her heart pounding in her throat, Magda allowed herself to be drawn nearer to him. She ignored the pain in her knee as she swung her legs off the floor and turned to face him. They lay stretched out together on the narrow bed, Glenn with his arm under her, Magda with her head in the nook of his shoulder, her body almost touching his, her left hand pressed against the muscles of his chest.

  Thoughts of Papa and the hurt he had caused her washed away as waves of sensation crashed over and through her. She had never lain beside a man before. It was frightening and wonderful. The aura of his maleness engulfed her, making her mind spin. She tingled wherever they made contact, tiny electric shocks arcing through her clothing…clothing that was suffocating her.

  On impulse, she lifted her head and kissed him on the lips. He responded ardently for a moment, then pulled back.

  “Magda—”

  She watched his eyes, seeing a mixture of desire, hesitation, and surprise there. He could be no more surprised than she. There had been no thought behind that kiss, only a newly awakened need, burning in its intensity. Her body was acting of its own accord, and she was not trying to stop it. This moment might never come again. It had to be now. She wanted to tell Glenn to make love to her but could not say it.

  “Someday, Magda,” he said, seeming to read her thoughts. He gently drew her head back down to his shoulder. “Someday. But not now. Not tonight.”

  He stroked her hair and told her to sleep. Strangely, the promise was enough. The heat seeped out of her, and with it all the trials of the night. Even worries about Papa and what he might be doing ebbed away. Occasional bubbles of concern still broke the surface of her spreading calm, but they became progressively fewer and farther between, their ripples smaller and more widely spaced. Questions about Glenn floated by: who he really was, and the wisdom, let alone the propriety, of allowing herself to be this close to him.

  Glenn…he seemed to know more about the keep and about Molasar than he was admitting. She had found herself talking to him about the keep as if he were as intimately familiar with it as she; and he had not seemed surprised about the stairwell in the watchtower’s base, or about the opening from the stairwell into the subcellar, despite her offhand references to them. To her mind there could be only one reason for that: He already knew about them.

  But these were niggling little qualms. If she had discovered the hidden entrance to the tower years ago, there was no reason why he could not have found it, too. The important thing now was that for the first time tonight she felt completely safe and warm and wanted.

  She drifted off to sleep.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As soon as the stone slab swung shut behind his daughter, Cuza turned to Molasar and found the bottomless black of the creature’s pupils already fixed on him from the shadows. All night he had waited to cross-examine Molasar, to penetrate the contradictions that that odd red-haired stranger had pointed out this morning. But then Molasar had appeared, holding Magda in his arms.

  “Why did you do it?” Cuza asked, looking up from his wheelchair.

  Molasar continued to stare at him, saying nothing.

  “Why? I should think she’d be no more than another tempting morsel for you!”

  “You try my patience, cripple!” Molasar’s face grew whiter as he spoke. “I could no more stand by now and watch two Germans rape and defile a woman of my country than I could stand idly by five hundred years ago and watch the Turks do the same. That is why I allied myself with Vlad Tepes! But tonight the Germans went further than any Turk ever dared—they tried to commit the act within the very walls of my home!” Abruptly, he relaxed and smiled. “And I rather enjoyed ending their miserable lives.”

  “As I am sure you rather enjoyed your alliance with Vlad.”

  “His penchant for impalement left me with ample opportunities to satisfy my needs without attracting attention. Vlad came to trust me. At the end, I was one of the few boyars he could truly count on.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience.”

  Cuza tried to clear away the confusion that smudged his thoughts. So many contradictions…nothing was as it should be. And hanging over it all was the unsettling knowledge that he owed his daughter’s safety, and perhaps her life, to one of the undead.

  “Nevertheless, I am in your debt.”

  Molasar made no reply.

  Cuza hesitated, then began leading up to the question he most wanted to ask. “Are there more like you?”

  “You mean undead? Moroi? There used to be. I don’t know about now. Since awakening, I’ve sensed such reluctance on the part of the living to accept my existence that I must assume we were all killed off over the last five hundred years.”

  “And were all the others so terrified of the cross?”

  Molasar stiffened. “You don’t have it with you, do you? I warn you—”

  “It’s safely away. But I wonder at your fear of it.” Cuza gestured to the walls. “You’ve surrounded yourself with brass-and-nickel crosses, thousands of them, and yet you panicked at the sight of the tiny silver one I had last night.”

  Molasar stepped to the nearest cross and laid his hand against it.

  “These are a ruse. See how high the crosspiece is set? So high that it is almost no longer a cross. This configuration has no ill effect on me. I had thousands of them built into the walls of the keep to throw off my pursuers when I went into hiding. They could not conceive of one of my kind dwelling in a structure studded with ‘crosses.’ And as you will learn if I decide I can trust you, this particular configuration has special meaning for me.”

  Cuza had desperately hoped to find a flaw in Molasar’s fear of the cross; he felt that hope wither and die. A great heaviness settled on him. He had to think! And he had to keep Molasar here—talking! He couldn’t let him go. Not yet.

  “Who are ‘they’? Who was pursuing you?”

  “Does the name Glaeken mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  Molasar stepped closer. “Nothing at all?”

  “I assure you I never heard the word before.” Why was it so important?

  “Then perhaps they are gone,” Molasar muttered, more to himself than to Cuza.

  “Please explain yourself. Who or what is a Glaeken?”

  “The Glaeken were a fanatical sect that started as an arm of the Church in the Dark Ages. Its members enforced orthodoxy and were answerable only to the pope at first; after a while, however, they became a law unto themselves. They sought to infiltrate all the seats of power, to bring all the royal families under their control in order to place the world under a single power—one religion, one rule.”

  “Impossible! I am an authority on European history, especially this part of Europe, and there was never any such sect!”

  Molasar leaned closer and bared his teeth. “You dare call me a liar within the walls of my home? What do you know of history? What did you know of me—of my kind—before I revealed myself? What did you know of the history of the keep? Nothing! The Glaeken were a secret brotherhood. The royal families had never heard of them, and if the later Church knew of their continued existence, it never admitted it.”

 
Cuza turned away from the blood stench of Molasar’s breath. “How did you learn of their existence?”

  “At one time, there was little afoot in the world that the moroi were not privy to. And when we learned of the Glaeken’s plans, we decided to take action.” He straightened with obvious pride. “The moroi opposed the Glaeken for centuries. It was clear that the successful culmination of their plans would be inimical to us, and so we repeatedly foiled their schemes by draining the life from anyone in power who came under their thrall.”

  He began to roam the room.

  “At first the Glaeken were not even sure we existed. But once they became convinced, they waged all-out war. One by one my brother moroi went down to true death. When I saw the circle tightening around me, I built the keep and locked myself away, determined to outlast the Glaeken and their plans for world dominion. Now it appears that I have succeeded.”

  “Very clever,” Cuza said. “You surrounded yourself with ersatz crosses and went into hibernation. But I must ask you, and please answer me: Why do you fear the cross?”

  “I cannot discuss it.”

  “You must tell me! The Messiah—was Jesus Christ—?”

  “No!” Molasar staggered away and leaned against the wall, gagging.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He glared at Cuza. “If you were not a countryman, I would tear your tongue out here and now!”

  Even the sound of Christ’s name repels him! Cuza thought.

  “But I never—”

  “Never say it again! If you value whatever aid I can give you, never say that name again!”

  “But it’s only a word.”

  “NEVER!” Molasar regained some of his composure. “You have been warned. Never again or your body will lie beside the Germans below.”

  Cuza felt as if he were drowning. He had to try something.

  “What about these words? Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei raba bealma divera chireutei, veyamlich—”

  “What is that meaningless jumble of sounds?” Molasar said. “Some sort of chant? An incantation? Are you trying to drive me off?” He took a step closer. “Have you sided with the Germans?”

  “No!”

  It was all Cuza could say before his voice cracked and broke off. His mind reeled as if from a blow; he gripped the arms of his wheelchair with his crippled hands, waiting for the room to tilt and spill him out. It was a nightmare! This creature of the Dark cringed at the sight of a cross and retched at the mention of the name Jesus Christ. Yet the words of the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the dead, were just so much meaningless noise. It could not be!

  And yet it was.

  Molasar was speaking, oblivious to the painful maelstrom that swirled within his listener. Cuza tried to follow the words. They might be crucial to Magda’s survival, and his own.

  “My strength is growing steadily. I can feel it coming back to me. Before long—two nights at most—I shall have the power to rid my keep of all these outlanders.”

  Cuza tried to assimilate the meaning of the words: strength…two more nights…rid my keep…But other words kept rearing up in his consciousness, a persistent undertone…Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei…blocking their meaning.

  And then came the sound of heavy boots running into the watchtower and pounding up the stone steps to the upper levels, the faint sound of human voices raised in anger and fear in the courtyard, the momentary dimming of the single bulb overhead, signaling a sudden draw on the power supply.

  Molasar showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “It seems they have found their two comrades-in-arms.”

  “And soon they will come here to place the blame on me,” Cuza said, alarm pulling him from his torpor.

  “You are a man of the mind,” Molasar said, stepping to the wall and giving the hinged slab a casual shove. It swung open easily. “Use it.”

  Cuza watched Molasar blend and disappear into the deeper shadow of the opening, wishing he could follow. As the stone slab swung shut, Cuza wheeled his chair around to the table and leaned over the Al Azif, feigning study; waiting, trembling.

  It was not a long wait. Kaempffer burst into the room.

  “Jew!” he shouted, jabbing an accusing finger at Cuza as he assumed a wide-legged stance he no doubt considered at once powerful and threatening. “You’ve failed, Jew! I should have expected no more!”

  Cuza could only sit and stare dumbly at the major. What could he say? He had no strength left. He felt miserable, sick at heart as well as in body. Everything hurt him, every bone, every joint, every muscle. His mind was numb from his encounter with Molasar. He couldn’t think. His mouth was parched, yet he dared not take any more water, for his bladder longed to empty itself at the very sight of Kaempffer.

  He wasn’t cut out for such stress. He was a teacher, a scholar, a man of letters. He was not equipped to deal with this strutting popinjay who had the power of life and death over him. He wanted desperately to strike back yet did not have the faintest hope of doing so. Was living through all this really worth the trouble?

  How much more could he take?

  And yet there was Magda. Somewhere along the line there must be hope for her.

  Two nights…Molasar had said he would have sufficient strength two nights from now. Forty-eight hours. Cuza asked himself: Could he hold out that long? Yes, he would force himself to last until Saturday night. Saturday night…the Sabbath would be over…What did the Sabbath mean anymore? What did anything mean anymore?

  “Did you hear me, Jew?” The major’s voice was straining toward a scream.

  Another voice spoke: “He doesn’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  The captain had entered the room. Cuza sensed a core of decency within Captain Woermann, a flawed nobility. Not a trait he expected to find in a German officer.

  “Then he’ll learn soon enough!” Two long strides took Kaempffer to Cuza’s side. He leaned down and forward until his perfect Aryan face was only inches away.

  “What’s wrong, Major?” Cuza said, feigning ignorance, but allowing his genuine fear of the man to show on his face. “What have I done?”

  “You’ve done nothing, Jew! And that’s the problem. For two nights you’ve sat here with these moldering books, taking credit for the sudden halt in the deaths. But tonight—”

  “I never—” Cuza began, but Kaempffer stopped him by slamming his fist on the table.

  “Silence! Tonight two more of my men were found dead in the cellar, their throats torn out like the others!”

  Cuza had a fleeting image of the two dead men. After viewing the other cadavers, it was easy to imagine their wounds. He visualized their gory throats with a certain relish. Those two had attempted to defile his daughter and deserved all they had suffered. Deserved worse.

  Molasar was welcome to their blood. But it was he who was in danger now. The fury in the major’s face made that clear. He must think of something or he would not live to see Saturday night.

  “It’s now evident that you deserve no credit for the last two nights of peace. There is no connection between your arrival and the two nights without a death—just lucky coincidence for you! But you led us to believe it was your doing. Which proves what we have learned in Germany: Never trust a Jew!”

  “I never took credit for anything! I never even—”

  “You’re trying to detain me here, aren’t you?” Kaempffer said, his eyes narrowing, his voice lowering to a menacing tone as he studied him. “You’re doing your best to keep me from my mission at Ploiesti, aren’t you?”

  Cuza’s mind reeled from the major’s sudden change of tack. The man was mad…as mad as Abdul Alhazred must have been after writing the Al Azif…which lay before them on the table…

  He had an idea.

  “But Major! I’ve finally found something in one of the books!”

  Captain Woermann stepped forward at this. “Found? What have you found?”

  “He’s found nothing!” Kaempffer snarled. “Just another Jew lie to le
t him go on living!”

  How right you are, Major, he thought.

  “Let him speak, for God’s sake!” Woermann turned to Cuza. “What does it say? Show me.”

  Cuza indicated the Al Azif, written in the original Arabic. The book dated from the eighth century and had absolutely nothing to do with the keep, or even Romania for that matter. But he hoped the two Germans would not know that.

  Doubt furrowed Woermann’s brow as he looked down at the scroll. “I can’t read those chicken tracks.”

  “He’s lying!” Kaempffer shouted.

  “This book does not lie, Major,” Cuza said. He paused an instant, praying that the Germans would not know the difference between Turkish and ancient Arabic, then plunged into his lie. “It was written by a Turk who invaded this region with Mohammed the second. He says there was a small castle—his description of all the crosses can only mean he was in this keep—in which one of the old Wallachian lords had dwelt. The shade of the deceased lord would allow natives of the region to sleep unmolested in his keep, but should outlanders or invaders dare to pass through the portals of his former home, he would slay them at the rate of one per night for every night they stayed. Do you understand? The same thing that is happening here now happened to a unit of the Turkish Army half a millennium ago!”

  Cuza watched the faces of the two officers as he finished. His own reaction was one of amazement at his facile fabrication from what he knew of Molasar and the region. There were holes in the story, but small ones, and they had a good chance of being overlooked.

  Kaempffer sneered. “Utter nonsense!”

  “Not necessarily,” Woermann said. “Think about it: The Turks were always on the march back then. And count up our corpses—with the two new ones tonight, we have averaged one death a night since I arrived on April twenty-second.”

  “It’s still…” Kaempffer’s voice trailed off as his confidence ebbed. He looked uncertainly at Cuza. “Then we’re not the first?”

  “No. At least not according to this.”

  It was working! The biggest lie Cuza had ever told in his life, composed on the spot, was working! They didn’t know what to believe! He wanted to laugh.