by David Wood
Petran thought of the being before him as a man, but he soon learned his mistake.
The creature hissed at him and bared its teeth.
“I still thirst,” it said, with a throaty croak.
Petran hung his head in stark disappointment.
“I understand.”
Petran, still on his knees on the hard stone floor, closed his eyes as the creature descended on him. It sank its teeth into his neck, long fangs puncturing the skin. As Petran’s blood began to flow, the creature sank its teeth deeper.
And drank.
Chapter 1
Dorna-Velta, Hungary, 1899
Andreas Wagner stepped down from the coach and took in the bleak little village around him. The buildings were all white-washed structures, tightly grouped together around the central road that ran through the village, with narrow winding alleys off to the sides. Some of the buildings had thatched roofs and some had farm equipment parked or abandoned in front of them, rusting in the elements. The buildings all appeared to lean toward each other, as if shivering from too many brutal Carpathian winters.
The sky was a billowing explosion of dark autumn clouds threatening to dump torrents on him at any second. The few trees around the village were tangled and dark, and the hills were so thick that he could see little past the first range of them. Small farm fields with distinctive pear-shaped haystacks on poles circled the tiny hovels and the single crumpled church in the town. But he had noticed larger untilled fields that ringed the smaller active ones, on his journey in. The dead fields looked like a barrier, announcing his crossing into civilization, after long hours in the coach.
Wagner could see no villagers anywhere on the fields or amongst the tightly grouped buildings. The growing wind banged a loose shutter on the window of one of the tiny houses, the sound a steady clack on the wind.
Last stop before the castle, Wagner thought. A pitiful place.
The wind blew hard, making his long, thick blonde hair dance on the currents. He ran a hand through his mane, attempting to keep bits of it from whipping him in the eyes. He stretched his lower back, twisting and turning the kinks out after the long ride from the spa town of Dorna-Watra. He reached down to touch his toes, then stood and turned to face the driver up on the coach. The man was reclined on the driver’s seat, a small flask clutched in his hand. He was already sound asleep, even though the coach had stopped only a moment before. It’s a wonder we made it here at all.
Deciding to let the old man sleep it off, Wagner stepped toward the town’s only inn, hoping the place would have a beer and a warm meal. Then he would decide whether to press on to the castle as night fell or wait until the following morning.
He had no reservations about having taken the job. He needed the money, and this job promised plenty. More, though, he needed a new start. Everyone and everything in Munich had been getting on his nerves. He understood why, but in the moment, he could blame it all on Munich and Germany in general. In his soul, and in his quieter moments of reflection, he knew that the death of his infant child the previous year was the cause of all of his mood swings. Britta. My little Britta.
She had died of some inexplicable wasting disease. None of the doctors could even pose any theories on what had taken his precious little six-month-old darling from him. They were useless. His wife, Anneli, was unable to even speak afterwards. It had been a year and both of them had grieved enough. Her moods were generally improving and far cheerier than he had seen from her in a long time. She was taking her pleasures in small things like planting flowers in the small garden of their place in Munich. Her voice had not returned yet, but her disposition had.
Wagner was the opposite. At first he raged and raged until his voice was hoarse. Now his voice had grown silent, as he brewed internally, wanting change but not knowing how to accomplish it. He talked only when he needed to, and his disposition leaned more toward long silences and lack of emotion now, than toward anger.
Still, things had been improving with the two of them, and they had even begun lovemaking again. He supposed that their relationship would have eventually been restored with time, and maybe her voice would return as well. The doctors all told him that the loss of her vocal abilities was strictly psychological. A specialist had traveled from Vienna to examine her, and the man had given Wagner much the same impression. His wife would speak again, but not until she was ready.
Then Wagner had received the letter.
A new chance for a start, in a distant land, working for an eccentric noble. It sounded too good to be true. But Wagner had begun shutting down his life and work as a well-respected stonemason and craftsman in Munich. He would come here to the distant reaches of the Carpathian Mountains, meet the noble, and begin work on the restoration of the man’s gigantic home. In a few weeks, once things were settled and Wagner had had time to prepare their quarters, his wife would make the long journey from Munich to Vienna, then on to Budapest and Klausenburg, and finally through Bistritz and into the mountains past the Borgo Pass and the tiny vacation town with the ski resorts north of him. She would come here—Wagner looked around—to this desolate forgotten village, and join him at last.
Wagner looked again to the door of the inn, its bright green paint fading and peeling.
Let’s hope the people are warmer than the landscape.
As he stepped up to the door, he failed to notice the large silver cross, nailed above the doorframe.
Chapter 2
Silence fell as the door to the tavern opened.
Wagner had heard talking and merriment through the heavy wooden door before he had opened it, but now the room had fallen quiet. He had been in plenty of drinking establishments in Germany, and many of them in small insular villages fell silent when newcomers stepped inside. But in those cases, the silence was from curiosity as the locals looked over newcomers. As Wagner moved into the room, he looked around and saw most people not meeting his eye, or even looking in his direction. They weren’t curious, or even angry. They looked like they were hoping he wouldn’t notice they were there.
The room had a low ceiling with dark exposed beams. A few local crafts were colorfully decorating the walls along with a very large crucifix, which Wagner thought odd for a tavern. Was the place used for worship on Sundays, because of the disheveled state of the village’s church? There were small tables and chairs around the room, and many men crowded throughout it. They all looked to be locals, wearing the customary shirts and woolen sweaters he had seen in countless villages on his travel through the region. Hard-working farm folk. Normally, the kind of people Wagner thought of as his kind of folk. But not these people. They all seemed shriveled and shrunken. Hoping not to be noticed. Hiding their faces in the tops of their beer steins. Looking away as he walked in the room.
As if they were all frightened of something.
A pretty waitress in a dress bustled out of the room with her tray, into what Wagner supposed would be the kitchen. At a counter that served as both reception and a bar, a middle-aged man with hair plastered down on his head in a greasy smear stood drying a glass with a white rag. His gray eyes avoided Wagner’s, as if he, too, were hoping the stranger would just find the room too inhospitable and just leave. At least the fireplace emitted some warmth, even if the people did not. Wagner wouldn’t be going anywhere until his fingers were warmer and his back was unkinked.
“Do you have a room?” Wagner asked the innkeeper.
The man finally looked up at him, wariness in his glare. “Where are you heading, sir?”
“The castle. I was thinking of spending the night here, though, and pressing on in the morning.”
“There’s no castle near here,” the man said, and began wiping the glass again, as if the conversation was over.
“I’m told it’s just a few miles south and east of here. You must know it.” Wagner was surprised the man wouldn’t know about the place. He suspected the man was lying. It was there in his demeanor and his pinched face.
/> Upon hearing the directions, though, the man stopped his polishing and looked up. Color, what little there was, had drained from the man’s face. “Why would you want to go there? That place is abandoned.”
“Oh, but it isn’t. I’ve been hired to make repairs to the structure. I’m a stone mason, you see.”
“Hired?” The innkeeper raised one bushy eyebrow. “By whom?”
Andreas looked stunned. Surely these people must know his employer. “By Count Dracula.”
Chapter 3
The greasy innkeeper swallowed hard, an audible click in his throat. Someone else in the packed room had gasped in a breath at the mention of the name. Wagner turned his head and took in the smoky room again. All eyes were facing his way now, and they all showed fear.
“We haven’t heard that name in some time, sir. We had heard that the Count was dead.” Wagner turned back to see the innkeeper had begun to sweat at the top of his slick forehead.
“Well, I received a letter from the Count, asking if I would come work for him to restore his castle. He did mention that he had been away for several years, and that the place had fallen into some disrepair. He said he is a businessman. Do you know what sort of work he does?”
“As long as he does his business abroad, we don’t really care.” The innkeeper said, and turned to a wooden board behind him, pulling down a large brass key. “Room 3 is available. You should definitely stay the night. The road to the castle is…treacherous at night. Much safer in the daylight.”
The man sounded angry now, and Wagner wondered if he had perhaps lost loved ones on the road to the castle. He would have to speak to the Count about it, and if need be, maybe he could be further employed to shore up the dangerous road. It would be a lengthy job and would keep him paid for a long while, well after the castle restoration project was done. Wagner had worked some simple road jobs in Bavaria, and he was familiar with the twisting, crumbling roads in the mountain passes.
“Andreas Wagner,” he said, taking the key from the man.
“I am Martin Miklos. This inn is my home.” The man shook Wagner’s hand, and then went back to polishing his glass, this time with a defeated resignation about him.
“A pleasure,” Wagner told him. “Would I be able to get a warm meal as well?”
“The girl will bring you some food,” Miklos said, then he set the glass down and clapped his hands loudly.
The brunette waitress with long curling hair and a large bosom squeezed into a tight fitting dress, reappeared from the kitchen, and Miklos pointedly nodded his head at Wagner. She slipped back into the kitchen, her long curls bouncing. Miklos turned back to Wagner. “Take a seat, sir.”
Wagner turned to walk to the only available seat, at a table with three other men, one drinking his beer quickly, and a younger man just staring down at the table. The third was an older man. He was smoking a Bavarian pipe that filled the corner of the room with a deep fragrance. Then Wagner remembered the coach driver and turned back to Miklos.
“Oh. The coach man is passed out on his seat—he’ll likely need a bed for the night as well.”
A tall man leaning by the door, holding a stein filled to the brim with beer and squinting out the sole window in the room, turned to Wagner. “No. He’s already left.”
“What?” Wagner raced over to the window. “He was supposed to take me on to the castle!” He moved to the door and opened it, only to find his luggage deposited on the hard ground outside. He stepped over the bags and out into the dark dirt road. He peered into the distance and could just make out the coach moving around a curve in the road, deeper into the forest, back toward the north.
“Blast! What will I do?” Wagner reached down and picked up his bags, bringing them back into the tavern.
Miklos had stepped away from the bar and came now to close the door firmly, once Wagner was in, locking it with three locks from the inside. He reached out to take Wagner’s bags and said, “I imagine the Count will send his own coach for you, if he is really back, as you say.”
The man moved with the bags toward the stairs, and Wagner slipped into his seat at the table. The others had not moved from their places. The man with the pipe slid a stein of beer toward Wagner, then nodded to him. “You sound like you are from Bavaria, Herr Wagner.”
“Yes.” Wagner took a deep pull from his stein.
“I came from there many years ago,” said the man. “You’ll find that most of the people in Transylvania are deeply superstitious, and that coach drivers are not to be relied upon, as they are in other parts of the world.”
“So I see.”
The conversation was minimal, and eventually the food came, the waitress weaving through the tightly spaced tables with her tray, while fending off leers. The meal was a thick stew with cabbage, potatoes, and meat. A huge loaf of bread was provided, as well as succulent cheese and grapes bursting with flavor. Wagner thought he might not have eaten so well in many years. The people were strange in this village, and the landscape was bleak and foreboding, but he had never had food so good.
At one point, Wagner asked the Bavarian man whether the tavern was full every night.
“Yes. This is the entire village,” the man told him, between puffs on his pipe.
“Where are all the women and children?”
Miklos, who had overheard the conversation while walking by, answered loudly. “They are safe.”
The conversation died down after that, and most of the men resumed their gloomy stares into the depths of their steins or their own bowls of steaming stew. An older man in the corner with a long, flowing white beard had his head bowed down, as if asleep. Others were drinking with stern faces, lost in their individual thoughts. Wagner wanted to inquire about what kind of construction supplies he might find in the village, because he knew he would likely need to make many trips down from the castle, but with the mood as grim as it was, he figured he had best wait until morning. When he was done with his beer and stew, he made his polite excuses and retired to his tiny room at the top of the stairs. After laying down on the soft mattress, he was asleep in moments.
As Wagner left the room, all eyes in the tavern followed him.
Miklos watched him trudge up the stairs and waited for the sound of the guest room door shutting. After a few moments, Miklos turned back to his fellow villagers. He dismissed the waitress for the night, and after she had left the room, he spoke to the others.
“Unbelievable. He’s back.”
Henning Brandt, the German who had spoken with Wagner, took a large puff on his pipe and spoke loudly so the others would hear—but not so loudly that the blonde stranger might hear from upstairs. “We knew there was a possibility.”
Nicolai Razvan, a hefty and morose farmer in the corner, spoke next. “What should we do? Few of us have remained these long years. I cannot part with my family land. If…he’s really back?”
Miklos frowned at Razvan’s refusal to speak the Count’s name. Most of the villagers refused to utter it, out of some irrational fear that it would summon him from his castle to their doorstep. “I will tell you what we’ll do—”
“You will do nothing.” The old man spoke sharply from the corner of the room. His head had been bowed for most of the evening, as if he were asleep, or at least in deep concentration. His long, flowing white hair and beard obscured the thick starched collar hidden under it. The priest with the thick German accent had always commanded respect, even before he was a man of the cloth. Now he raised his head and looked into the room at each man, pointedly, until no one could hold his gaze. His pale blue eyes—almost white, Miklos thought—burned with a strange, fiery hatred that Miklos had not seen in the old man for a long time.
Not since the last time.
“You will all do nothing,” the priest said again, struggling to stand before limping around the room. “We will let Herr Wagner make his way to the castle, and we will gather information. We will determine whether the Count is truly returned, or if Herr Wagner
’s new employer is some pretender to the throne of evil. Once we have sufficient information…I will act.” The priest stalked around the small space, weaving between the tables as he spoke, and every man present, whether devout or not, deferred to the raging fires in the normally contemplative pastor.
The stress and authority in the man’s voice clearly conveyed that he would be in charge of any organized reaction to the Count’s return.
“And if the killings begin again?” Miklos asked.
A gleam of danger brewed in the ancient priest’s eyes as he turned his gaze on Miklos. “Well, then. Things will have gotten interesting, won’t they?”
Chapter 4
Despite the previous gloomy evening and the unusual atmosphere of the dour tavern, Wagner woke feeling refreshed and delighted to see the sun shining.
He stood at the cracked frame of the window in his small room, which overlooked the dirt road in front of the inn and the craggy mountains beyond the smooth pastures and untilled fields. The mountains looked lush in the morning glare, and his thoughts turned toward tramping in the nearby hills and tackling some of the distant peaks, once he was underway with his employment at the castle. He had climbed the snowy mountains of Bavaria and made a few climbing trips to Switzerland—once even successfully summiting the mighty Matterhorn. But those days had been before Britta and the grim hell that had followed her swift demise. Still, one of the things he hoped to do in his new life in the Carpathians was get his feet back in touch with the stone and soil of the mountains.