“But… but…” I recoiled from the memory of Marc telling me they were a nest of vipers.
“Consider it a diplomatic mission.” The Ambassador smiled the toothy grin of a hungry alligator.
I sighed deeply, frustrated by the man’s apparent stupidity. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea. No good can ever come from mixing with these people.”
Penelope picked that moment to return with a mug of decent-smelling coffee and a plate of biscuits. She placed them on the desk in front of me and clicked a button on her keyboard. A screen on the wall lit up.
“We’ve found her. She’s connected.” Penelope nodded at Wizard Shadowmender and he directed my attention to the screen.
“We assumed you wouldn’t be too keen, Alf.”
“Merry meet, Alfhild.”
I turned to stare at the screen in shock. An old woman, much older than Wizard Shadowmender, peered out at me. I recognised her instantly. It hadn’t been many weeks since I’d last been in her presence. Neamh, Mother of Witches. The most divine of the living goddesses. She had long silver hair that luminesced with life; her dark, aged skin glowed with ruddy health. Among witches there was no superior authority than she, and to be in her charismatic presence was a great honour.
“Mother.” I bowed my head in respect, unwilling to meet her bright gaze, half afraid she would strike me down for causing so much trouble at Whittle Inn. “I can explain,” I said, continuing to look at the floor.
“Alfhild,” she said again, and the word was a command. Reluctantly I stole a look at her. I could see slight concern in the crease of her brow, but in her eyes, there was only love.
“We’re in a bit of a pickle,” she said. Her choice of words surprised me—in a good way.
“I’m sorry—” I began to apologise but she waved my words away, a fiery glint in her eyes.
“Oh tosh! The Transylvanian Vampiri are out to make trouble, and The Vampire Nation are evidently keen to back them at the moment, but let’s just to see how far it gets them. They’ve latched onto the most convenient excuse they can find. Unfortunately that does place us in a bit of a bind at this time. Don’t you agree, Wizard Shadowmender?”
“Oh I do, Mother Neamh. Most definitely.” Wizard Shadowmender winked at me.
“Penelope?” Neamh enquired.
Penelope came out from behind the desk to stand beside me so that she could be seen. She carried a clipboard containing a few printouts and a pen in her hand. “I’m in agreement too, Mother Neamh.” She brandished her notes. “If I may?”
“Of course.” The old witch in the screen leaned closer to whatever was being used to relay her image as though she would be able to read the details over Penelope’s shoulder.
“Grigor Corinthian comes from an illustrious and renowned vampire family. In fact they claim a bloodline with the notorious Vlad Țepeș—although that’s not something we have been able to verify. Nonetheless his line have been feted as princes for many centuries.” She flipped over a page. “It seems Grigor was born in 1734 to Prince Petr Corinthian and an unknown mother. You know how it is with their kind?” Penelope sniffed. “Grigor has himself taken a number of wives, including Rose Alberta Moretti in 1841. She is a Princess of Italian descent and gave birth to Thaddeus while she was still a mortal, in 1864. There are rumours of two male siblings, one older, one younger but we haven’t been able to find much out about either of them. We’re still searching.”
I wondered where all this was going.
“Our intelligence suggests that after the unfortunate death of Thaddeus at…,” Penelope nodded at me, “… Alf’s inn, there wasn’t a huge amount of reaction, neither at Grigor’s court or in Italy where Princess Rose Moretti now lives with her own small cadre. We see no evidence that suggests that Thaddeus was particularly close to anyone in his family. He had been living in Paris, sporadically between 1882 and 1914, but he travelled a great deal. He moved into an apartment on Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1934 and has actually owned the building itself for many years.”
I recognised the address. “Sabien—”
“Lives in the same building.”
“Thaddeus was his landlord.” That surprised me.
“The point is—” Penelope directed her words back to Neamh on the screen, “—Grigor Corinthian was not overly concerned about the death of Thaddeus at the time it occurred. He has many offspring from his harem of wives,” Penelope uttered the words with complete distaste. “As you intimated Mother Neamh, the fact that he chooses to make a move against Alf now, and also rope in the assistance of The Vampire Nation is simply an excuse. It’s probably something he’s been looking at doing for months. He wants to stir up a hornet’s nest amongst us witches.”
A tap sounded against the door and Ross poked his head around. “We found this.” A sheet of paper blew in and Penelope grabbed it. Ross winked at me and retreated. The door closed behind him while Penelope read the contents of his missive.
“Ah,” Penelope said. “Fresh intelligence from our counterparts in the Ukraine. This might explain it.”
“What does it say?” Mother Neamh asked.
“It appears that Grigor’s eldest son, Mikhael we think, was last reported as domiciled in the USA. But he’s has not been active for over six months.”
“Destroyed?” Wizard Shadowmender asked.
Penelope shrugged. “Unconfirmed.”
“So you’re thinking that Grigor is suddenly worried that certain powers are destroying his heirs? That would make sense. Good work as always, Penelope.” Penelope flushed a little pink and bowed to the Mother of Witches before stepping away and busying herself at her desk.
Where did that leave me?
“Alfhild.” Mother Neamh turned her kind scrutiny back to me. “I’m sorry to drag you away from your inn but the threat was initially made to you and your guests. What we are hearing through various channels is that unless we turn you, Marc Williams and Ekaterina Lukova over to The Vampire Nation they will raise the stakes—so to speak—quite considerably.”
“You can’t be considering sending Marc and Kat to Transylvania,” I blurted out in alarm, completely forgetting whom I was speaking to for a moment.
“Certainly not. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.”
I grimaced. The goddess alone knew what would happen to them and their baby if they were delivered into Melchior’s keeping. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“However, I am going to ask you to go, Alfhild.”
I stepped backwards, a reflex flight reaction. My mouth dropped open in astonishment. “You… Me…? What?” I swallowed hard. There was silence in the room. “You want to turn me in to the Corinthians?”
She couldn’t be serious. They’d rip me to pieces. Limb from limb. Then scatter the pieces across Northern Europe.
“I’m not going to insist you go, of course.” Neamh’s gentle voice broke through my rising levels of panic. “And you won’t be going alone.”
I looked hopefully at Wizard Shadowmender. If I tagged along with him, everything would be alright.
“Ambassador Rubenscarfe will lead the diplomatic mission, and we will send a number of security personnel out with you.”
My heart sank. I hadn’t warmed to the Ambassador. Hopefully he knew his stuff.
“Why do you need me to go?” I asked.
“We’re hoping you can help to soothe the ragged tempers,” Mother Neamh smiled, “and maybe really get to the heart of what is going on out there. At the very least find out more about the youngest son.”
I slumped in my aeroplane seat, staring out the window as the plane taxied along the runway heading for our final destination.
So this was Bucharest?
The sky, a forbidding slate grey, could have been my gaoler. I hadn’t been able to escape coming here no matter how much I had protested, and once the Mother of Witches had become involved I’d had to zip it anyway.
They were hanging me out to dry.
Following assurances from both Sabien and Wizard Shadowmender that everyone at the inn would remain safe and unharmed, I’d been ordered to attend Wizard Shadowmender and the Council of Witches at their headquarters in Celestial Street, London. Sabien and I had travelled up together in a black limousine, neither of us making eye contact or deigning to converse with the other.
My emotions pummelled me, collided head on and left me breathless and confused. I confess I found myself both scared and more than a little furious.
How in the goddess’s name had I ended up in this mess?
Thaddeus had died horribly, but not by my hand.
For some reason the Ambassador warranted a seat in first class while I had to make do with economy. The flight, just over three hours in duration, was devoid of snacks which added to my misery. Fortunately it passed without incident, save for the large Romanian chap in the seat next to me who fell asleep and dribbled on my shoulder.
I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. I muttered a little ‘zip-it-up’ spell that glued his mouth together every time he fell asleep. Effectively that meant he could only breathe through his nose, which had the effect of waking him up with a jolt, at which point his mouth was freed from the hex.
We repeated this cycle ad nauseum throughout the short trip, but don’t worry, I did remember to release him entirely from the spell before I uttered a cheery goodbye.
Night was falling by the time we arrived. This part of Central Europe was an hour ahead of UK time and in any case at this time of the year darkness came earlier and earlier. Not entirely unexpectedly Romania seemed several degrees cooler than London. I shivered as I stepped down onto the tarmac. A stretch black limousine waited to take me and Ambassador Rubenscarfe to Castle Iadului. The other plane passengers stared at us curiously as we were directed straight from the plane to the car. Of the security personnel I’d been promised back at the Ministry of Witches in Celestial Street, there was no sign.
I slid across the leather of the backseat so that I could stare out of the window as we began our journey. I hadn’t travelled much in Europe and I was curious about the landscape. As we set off, it rapidly became obvious that there wouldn’t be a huge amount to see. Once we were out of town, ramshackle buildings lined the route and then became few and far between. We drove North and slightly east for a hundred miles or so towards Brașov, climbing the Southern Carpathians, and then followed the route of the River Olt west for another few dozen kilometres until finally we arrived at Castle Iadului.
Our driver—a tall and broad man dressed in a dark suit who reminded me very much of the hearse drivers that had turned up at Whittle Inn but without a mask in this case and sporting sunglasses instead, which seemed ridiculous given how dark it was everywhere—remained mute for the entire journey. Ambassador Rubenscarfe occasionally deigned to glance up from his iPad to tell me where we were, but for the most part the journey of nearly three hours was passed in lonely silence.
This gave me plenty of time to ponder on the meaning of life and what exactly Neamh hoped to achieve by sending me into the lion’s den. What was it she thought I could do that would help ease tensions between The Vampire Nation and ourselves?
For now I was stumped.
“Iadului.” The driver spoke to us at last.
“Yadaloy.” I repeated the unfamiliar sounding word as I leaned forward in my massive seat and gazed out at the front window to where he was pointing. For the past fifteen minutes we had been winding deeper and deeper through a dark pine forest, the headlights of the car picking up the startled faces of the occasional deer and very little else.
With my expectation based solely on vampire movies, Castle Iadului did not disappoint. Set high on a jagged hill, surrounded by rocks and boulders that fell away to the valley floor, the Castle towered high above everything surrounding it. I had a brief view of a huge medieval stone edifice, its narrow windows burning with yellow light, and then we were back among the trees and winding our way up a steep incline.
Up and up we went, until I imagined we must be among the clouds, for the mist came down and the driver slowed the car to take account of the deteriorating conditions. At one stage I looked out of my own window and the mist parted enough for me to see the extent of the drop to the valley below. My stomach lurched and I was mightily pleased I hadn’t eaten anything properly for twenty-four hours. I sat back and buckled my seat belt. After that I didn’t look out of that window again for a while.
Finally the car slowed to a standstill in front of a bridge. I craned my neck to look past the driver and observed a drawbridge slowly lowering into place. It didn’t take long and then we were on our way again, the bridge clanging loudly as we trundled over it towards the entry of a thick outer wall.
I swivelled my head to look out the back and watched the drawbridge rise once more. We were trapped inside this castle unless there was another way out. My nerves clanged along with the sound of heavy iron meeting heavy iron. I didn’t like this, one little bit.
The driver pulled up outside the main castle building. As we approached, a massive set of double doors at the top of a flight of stone steps swung open emitting a warm golden light. Someone unlocked my door and flung it wide. I stepped out into the cold night air, with knees that seemed to shake with exhaustion.
And maybe a little terror.
“Good evening, Ambassador Rubenscarfe. Good evening, Miss Daemonne.” A woman with a thick Eastern European accent, dressed in a dark business suit, greeted us. The milky paleness of her face, the blood red of her lipstick and empty black eyes identified her for what she was. “I am Nadia Cozma. I work for the Vampiri Diplomatic Service and I am charged with ensuring your stay is a pleasant one.”
When she took my hand to shake it, her skin was as cold as ice. I shivered.
“Please,” she said. “You must be tired. I will show you to your suite. No need to join us this evening. We will serve supper to your room.”
“I would very much like to see Prince Grigor Corinthian this evening,” Ambassador Rubenscarfe protested, but Nadia silenced him with the most frigid of smiles.
“That is entirely out of the question Ambassador. Prince Grigor is hunting tonight.”
My stomach rolled in revulsion.
Nadia turned on her six-inch heels. Without looking back to check we were following she gracefully climbed the stone steps to the main entrance. After a long moment, where the Ambassador and I exchanged stricken glances, he followed her.
Swallowing hard, so did I.
They had some sort of electricity within Castle Iadului, that much was obvious; chandeliers burned brightly in the massive entrance hall lit, with hundreds of tiny lightbulbs rather than candles. We progressed up a grand central staircase—wide enough for a lorry—to the first floor, and then up a slightly less grand one to the second floor. Here the Ambassador and I, in spite of my protests, were split up. He was taken to the right by Nadia and I was led along a corridor to my left by a nameless man in another smart suit with eyes as black as coal.
At this point the grandeur of the floors below suddenly ended. We reached the corner staircase, and from then on, the floor and walls that wound their way up to the next few levels were carved from stone. Rather than electric lights, torches burning at strategic spots illuminated our route, meaning we were never quite out of the shadows. I expected the day-to-day residents of the castle liked it that way—vampire mood lighting, maybe?
I lost count of how many times I walked round and round, climbing up and up. My knees ached and my lungs burned. Fortunately I only had a small backpack with me, so I didn’t have to lug a massive suitcase in my wake.
I’d decided we must be heading for the attic, so I was pleasantly surprised when my black-eyed guide opened a small wooden door in the thick wall that led out into another long corridor. We walked past several closed doors on both sides, until he pushed open the third on the left with a flourish and stood back to allow me through.
I inched past
him, straining to see inside. Nadia had called it a suite, but it looked nothing like the suites at Whittle Inn. For one, the room was high, maybe twelve or fourteen feet, and it was spacious too. An enormous four-poster bed, hung with thick tapestries, took centre stage. Huge tapestries also graced the walls, while a fire burned in an enormous stone grate as large as the one in the bar of my wonky inn. And this was only a bedroom... There was a sofa and a couple of easy chairs arranged around the fire, a small table set for dinner, and the stone floor had been covered by numerous antique silk Persian rugs.
“Is there a bathroom?” I turned to enquire politely of my guide, but he only stared at me blankly and then without further ado stepped backwards and closed the door.
“Maybe he doesn’t speak much English,” I said to the now empty room.
I heard the familiar clink and clunk of keys being turned in the locks. I dropped my bag and tracked back to the door, rattling it and then beating against the heavy wood. “Hey! Hey?” I called. “That’s not part of the deal. Unlock this door!”
The sound of footsteps heading away on the stone floor outside told me that my demand had fallen on deaf ears. I turned about in despair.
“Oh no. No no no. This is not good,” I chanted under my breath. “Why would they do that?” I rushed across the room to another wooden door I’d spotted. This opened easily enough but only into a bathroom. A massive iron claw-foot bath and an old-fashioned toilet with the cistern above your head filled the room, but there were no windows or other doors in this room.
Disconsolate, I headed back into the main bedroom. On either side of the fireplace a window, both intricate with stained glass, were locked. I rattled the handles willing something to budge. They didn’t. I’d have to break them to get out. Given the number of stairs I’d climbed in order to get to the room, and how high I must be. I shuddered at the thought.
Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8 Page 7