I stared around at the extravagantly decorated room, the comfortable bed, the tapestried walls and cheerful fire, and bit my lip.
I patted the wand in my pocket, reassured by its presence. Of course I could unlock the doors using my magick, but that wouldn’t explain why the vampires wanted to lock me in and hold me prisoner. It certainly wasn’t the welcome I’d hoped for.
“Welcome to Castle Yadaloy,” I said glumly.
I didn’t so much sit on the sofa as perch.
The fire burned hot and bright, yet I struggled to get warm. I held the orb in one hand, having made several attempts to contact Wizard Shadowmender but to no avail thus far. I checked my mobile, but unsurprisingly, here in the back of the Transylvanian beyond, I wasn’t getting much of a signal, and given what I knew about the way The Vampire Nation could block communication, I wasn’t entirely surprised not to be able to use any of my devices.
My body felt tight with stress. My head ached. Hunger pangs created a swell of nausea. I rummaged in my bag for a mint or something—anything—but I found no witchy first aid kit to come to my rescue.
A clink by the door alerted me to a visitor. I sprang to my feet straight away, my wand drawn.
“No need for alarm,” Nadia said, pushing the door open and eyeing my wand. She stood back to allow a tall, broad man dressed in a black cloak and a black leather mask into the room. He took a quick look around and then nodded at Nadia. Nadia gestured into the hallway and another woman, this one bent double with age and dressed in clothes a peasant might have worn in a European fairy tale of old, entered my suite. The old dear didn’t make eye contact with me, just shuffled to the table and set a tray down. When she began to empty the covered plates onto the table Nadia motioned her away with an air of irritability.
“Eat and sleep, Miss Daemonne. Tomorrow you will have your first audience with Prince Grigor Corinthian. Until then…” She bowed slightly and began to retreat from the room.
“Wait,” I called, running after her. The guard stepped in front of Nadia, folding his thick forearms across his chest, blocking my way.
“There is nothing further to discuss at this time, Miss Daemonne,” Nadia called back. The guard followed her out and firmly closed the door.
I banged on the wood, listening to the clink of keys and the clang of the locks. “You can’t keep me prisoner here.”
A quiet voice behind me almost made me jump out of my skin. “Maybe you shouldn’t think of it as a prison and more as protection, Madam.”
I turned about in surprise. I couldn’t see anyone.
“Hello?” I asked, frowning in suspicion.
“Perhaps you would do me the pleasure of acknowledging me, Madam?”
A ghost light. I hadn’t spotted it before, preoccupied by my own thoughts as I had been. It hovered near one of the windows.
“Come to me,” I told it, “be seen.” I watched as the light, not much larger than a soccer ball, spun and elongated until it stood around five feet or so in height and rapidly gained colour and substance (well… after a fashion. It was a ghost after all). I found myself in the presence of a relatively short round man with a bald pate and a fine curly moustache. He displayed a proud military bearing and stood looking at me expectantly.
“Well this is terribly exciting,” he said in native English. “It’s a rather long time since anyone actually looked me in the eye.”
“Is that so?” I asked, not experiencing any level of excitement myself, although I had to agree with him that the situation was terrible. “Who might you be? And what are you doing here?”
The gentleman bowed. “My name is Archibald Peters. I’m a—I was a—Colonel in the 14th King's Regiment of Dragoons for many years.”
“Which King would that be?” I enquired, requiring a little more context.
“Why King William IV, Madam. Who else?”
I nodded, wracking my brain to come up with a date and deciding he’d been alive sometime in the vicinity of the early nineteenth century. Perhaps. “What brought you here to Castle Yadoloy?”
“After my retirement from active service I became a trusted envoy of Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria. I escorted a diplomatic mission here to the castle in 1846 and unfortunately I met my demise.”
I scrutinised the ghost in front of me. “How did you… meet your end?” I asked. Experience with ghosts had taught me that this could be a delicate question at times; normally among those who didn’t realise they were dead. The Colonel obviously understood exactly what had happened to him.
“I’m no medical professional, but I think my old ticker just decided to give out, Madam.” He stood straight and stuck his chest out. “Appearances can be deceptive. I’m not a young man.”
I held a smile in check. He was a gentleman in his sixties or early seventies perhaps. “Just one of those things then,” I marvelled. Odd to find someone so quintessentially English in such a hideous place as this.
My head buzzed, suddenly giddy. I put an arm out to steady myself.
“If I may, Madam. You look a little peaky yourself.” The Colonel appeared concerned. “Perhaps you should take a seat?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said automatically. The faint scent of food emanating from the table had my stomach rolling, but I knew that if I could only eat something I would feel a million times better. I pointed at the tray. “Would you mind if I ate while we carried on with our conversation?”
“No, by all means, Madam. Be my guest.” The Colonel waited until I took my seat at the table and then joined me, hovering close by.
I lifted a few of the covers from the dishes arranged on the tray. There was a steaming dark soup of some kind, and a plate full of herb-crusted pork and vegetables. Some sort of pastry had been arranged on the final plate. I covered my lap with a linen napkin and pulled the soup towards me, imagining it would be glutinous and tasteless. Instead I found it delicious and perfectly spiced. After a few spoons of it, I felt stronger than I had in hours.
“Mmm,” I said, and slurped away happily until my bowl was empty, tearing off crusts of bread to mop up the juices. I’d never downed a bowl of soup so fast.
“Sorry,” I said, my mouth full. “I’m ravenous.”
“So I see,” the Colonel said, delicately stroking the side of his mouth. I hastily mopped a spillage with my napkin, loaded the empty bowl onto the tray and started on the main course. This time, I ate a little more slowly.
“You said Queen Victoria sent you out here?” I asked. “What was your mission?”
“Why I should imagine it was much the same as yours.” The old man nodded sagely as I cut into the pork.
“I doubt that,” I said, coating the chunk of meat on my fork in dark gravy.
“Oh you think Queen Victoria knew nothing of vampires then?”
My fork halted midway to my mouth. I stared at the ghost opposite me in surprise. “You mean she did?”
“Of course. Of course. They’d made some interesting threats against the Royal Family and believe me; the Queen did not suffer fools gladly. We were sent here to make that perfectly plain.”
“And did you?” I returned my fork to the plate. “Make it plain, I mean.”
“We had the mighty power of the growing Empire behind us. I’d say we stated our case.” He hesitated. “Well presumably relations improved, but unfortunately I can’t tell you what the final outcome was because I passed away before I could find out.”
Fascinating stuff, I thought. I’d love to have known more about Queen Victoria’s dealings with Prince Grigor. Definitely something for Mr Kephisto, keeper of stories, to look into when I returned home.
If I returned home.
“I died in this room, you know?” The colonel carried on cheerfully. “I’m becoming a tad bored of it, so it is nice to have company.”
“I’ll bet,” I said, chewing hard on the meat. Too gristly. Monsieur Emietter wouldn’t have served up such substandard fayre. It needed roasting more slowly and in a c
ooler oven. “Have many people stayed in this room.”
“A few. Some of them have been interesting. I’ve had visitors from around the world. Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, the United States. But I was never able to converse with them until your predecessor showed up.”
That stopped me in my tracks once more. “My predecessor?”
“Yes. You must be related somehow. You look a little alike. Just the hair is rather different.” He made a gesture around his own head suggesting mine was quite… unkempt. “But given you share the same name I’d say that’s a given.”
“Alfhild Daemonne?” I checked with him, almost choking on a mouthful of red cabbage.
He nodded.
“Well I’ll be—” I couldn’t believe it. Gwyn had been here?
“When was this?” I asked.
“Hmmm. Some time ago. A little while after the war. The first one. Nineteen twenties. Mid nineteen twenties.” He took a moment. “Yes. I believe it was 1924”
I can’t tell you how reassuring it was to have the Colonel to spend time with in that huge hostile castle. He told me what little he knew about Gwyn’s brief stay. Apparently the Vampiri had made threats against us before. Gwyn had ventured here with a number of high-ranking witches of the day. She’d stayed maybe forty-eight hours or so and departed in a rush. That was all Archibald could tell me.
But I certainly enjoyed his description of my great-grandmother as she was then. Still in her twenties, and feisty as could be. He told me her hair had been darker than mine, more of a tarnished reddy-brown, but her features were similar. And she was well-spoken—I think the insinuation being that I was not—and well-mannered.
Ah, well.
“Can you tell me about her visit here?” I asked the Colonel and he spent a while ruminating over what he could or should say.
“It didn’t end well,” he started and faltered.
“In what way?” I pressed.
“I don’t entirely know. I’m unsure about her diplomatic mission—”
“So it was official?”
Archibald nodded. “Your great-grandmother didn’t say very much. She kept things very close to her chest. But I remember that she attended the castle with two colleagues.”
“Mmm?” I wanted to know more. I guessed any diplomatic mission relied on a team rather than a single person, but I might have been wrong.
“Unfortunately her colleagues never made it back home.”
I gasped. “What happened to them?”
The colonel shook his head. “No-one knows for certain, but er… I did do a little roaming after the event.”
“And?”
The Colonel stared into the fire for some time before answering. “I really don’t want to alarm you. It was a very long time ago.”
I badly wanted to laugh and say, ‘Don’t worry! I’m made of strong stuff’. However, increasingly I wasn’t so sure that I was, so I didn’t.
“Does it bring back awful memories?” I asked quietly, and he nodded.
No witch worth the name would let themselves be taken by a vampire. Not one on one at any rate. Which could only mean grandmama’s colleagues on the trip had been ganged up on by the nest of vampires inhabiting this wretched castle. No wonder Gwyn loathed them so much.
“How did my Grandmama manage to escape?” I asked.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I’m certain she had inside help,” the ghost told me. This made sense.
“Thank goodness,” I said, stifling a yawn and wondering who it had been that had helped Gwyn. Not that it mattered. Whoever it was wouldn’t be alive now, one hundred years later.
I regarded the locked door, toying with the wand in my pocket and thinking of escape. I’d eaten and the dinner had helped the nausea, but I recognised I needed sleep too. I understood that if I wanted to keep my strength up, I had to try, although how I’d sleep after Archibald’s information I didn’t know.
Tomorrow would provide new opportunities to learn about the Vampiri. That’s what I’d been sent here for. For now, I’d play their game.
Archibald turned his back while I changed for bed, but as I snuggled down beneath the covers, which felt slightly damp to the touch, I asked him whether he would hang about during the night.
“Only…” I hesitated. “If you could alert me to anything out of the ordinary?” I didn’t expressly state that I feared I would be murdered in my bed by some voracious pointy-toothed psychopath. I didn’t need to say that. I had that sentiment written all over my face.
“Fear not, dear lady,” the colonel said with a gallant dip of his head. “It would be my honour.”
“Thank you.” I lay on my side and watched the flames in the grate. It occurred to me that the fire had not been fed while I’d been in the room, and yet it hadn’t died down. There was magick in this castle in spite of the vampires.
I quite liked the thought of that. It comforted me as I finally dropped off to sleep.
I endured a restless night, not least because I was so hot. The fire didn’t die back or go out as it should have done, and the windows didn’t open. I normally slept in a cold room with the window open so that Mr Hoo could come and go as he pleased.
I missed my feathery little friend.
Archibald dozed in the corner. Ghosts don’t need sleep, but it doesn’t stop them napping, as Monsieur Emietter often demonstrated. I dragged myself out of bed and made my way to the window to try to take a look at my surroundings through the coloured glass. It was difficult to gauge the time. Leaden clouds zipped across a grey sky. Below me the valley fell away and a blanket of impressively green pine forest stretched as far as the eye could see. Out on the horizon the Carpathian Mountains loomed large, their caps covered in snow.
I longed to get outside and breathe deeply the fresh and furious air. I could imagine the taste of the pine on my lips. For half a second I considered whipping my wand out and breaking the window locks.
I spun in alarm at a rattle of a key in the door behind me. In a long white nightdress I’d plundered from the wardrobe—It had probably been worn by some Victorian maid many years ago—I stood and waited.
Not Nadia this time.
A dark-cloaked guard, silent and sinister, and the old peasant woman in her drab brown clothes and white apron.
“Good morning,” I offered, but she didn’t even look up. She tidied up the tray from the previous evening and replaced it with a new one, then left the room.
“Good morning, Madam.” The colonel yawned and stretched. “I trust you slept well.”
“Not so well,” I grumbled. I sat down at the table and inspected breakfast. I wasn’t particularly hungry after eating so late the night before, but I was gagging for a cup of tea. Unfortunately, in their wisdom they had only provided some nondescript apple juice and coffee. I picked at some of the eggs provided and pretty much left everything else.
Bidding Archibald to stay where he was, I ran a quick bath—there was no shower—and jumped in to scrub away two days’ worth of grime. I hadn’t submerged myself for longer than thirty seconds when something suddenly occurred to me. I jumped out, dried myself off and dressed rapidly, returning to the bedroom where Archibald stared into the fire.
He’d probably been doing that for decades.
“Nadia didn’t bring breakfast,” I said.
“The Vampiri sleep during the day,” Archibald confirmed.
I knew that. Of course I did. “So who was the goon in the cloak that brought up breakfast with the old lady?”
“He’s a shadow guard. They keep a group of them here. The Vampiri have humans around to ensure the smooth running of the castle during the day and to make sure they are not disturbed while they rest.”
“Security guards?” I asked.
“The shadow guards look after the security, that’s correct, Madam,” Archibald confirmed. “They have other humans as servants.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do these shadow guards have weapons?”
Again. “S
ome.”
“Guns?” I asked and when he looked confused I mimed a gun with two fingers. “Bang bang.”
“Oh you mean like muskets?” Archibald shook his head. “Not that I’ve ever seen although I believe there is a locked cabinet downstairs for such things.”
I nodded, thinking. The Vampiri wouldn’t want too many guns on the loose, because a silver bullet would wreak havoc with their quest for immortality.
I hadn’t thought to bring any silver bullets with me, and no-one had provided me with any. That was fine. Ostensibly this was a diplomatic mission.
“Let’s go for a little walk,” I sang with a smile, and Archibald stared at me in confusion.
“The door is locked, Madam. I mean, that won’t prevent me, but you—"
“Have a wand.” I brandished my curled and well-sanded wand, a piece of Vance the Ent who guarded the marsh in Speckled Wood. It fit naturally in my hand. It connected me with my home. It grounded me.
“And I’m going to have a little look around.”
Heart skipping in my chest, I used a little magick spell I’d seen Silvan utilise from time to time to unlock the door. I crept into the corridor and tried a few of the other doors on my landing. They were all locked. There was nothing for it but to retrace my steps from the previous evening. Back out onto the spiral stone staircase and down to the next landing. The wooden door on this floor opened out to one that was remarkably similar to my own. Feeling a little more relaxed I tried all the doors, always expecting them to be locked. I jumped when one finally opened.
The door swung inwards and knocked against the wall beyond with a loud clatter.
I held my breath, my eyes wide. Standing stock still I waited for someone to start shouting and to give the game away at any moment, but nothing happened. Exhaling slowly, I stepped into the room. Much like mine this had a four-poster bed and a roaring fire.
A woman, her face as white as alabaster, her hair as black as a raven’s wing, lay in the bed, a smear of blood on her chin. Morbidly curious, I crept towards her. She might have been dead so still did she lie. Her chest did not rise and fall, and there was no hint of movement at all. I inched even closer, so close that I could reach out and touch her if I wished.
Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8 Page 8