by David Wood
“He was a clout. So I took his woman. She did not last very long, did she?” Dracula swirled the liquid again. Wagner was certain from the way it sloshed up on the sides of the goblet, and took a long time to recede into the bottom of the glass, that the liquid was blood. “But your wife, your little Anneli…she is a singularly gorgeous creature. I was really going to let you all leave here with your lives, but when I saw her that first night in the courtyard…”
The bat.
Wagner had read in the folktales that it was believed that vampires could transform themselves into animals. Can this man really turn into a bat? But then the attack on the bridge, and Gretchen’s illness, made sense. Fritz was the one who had beaten the bat off in the courtyard that first night. A bat of that size could easily have been the culprit, and it could simply have flown off. Neither of them had been looking for an enemy in the dark overcast sky that day.
“…I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She is a wonder. Those sapphire eyes of hers… You really were a lucky man, Andreas.” Dracula was still going on about the first night. “If it were not for her beauty, I might have let you all go.”
“All except Gretchen,” Wagner pointed out.
“Well, yes. One gets peckish from time to time. Her blood was ripe, with just a hint of lavender. But this bouquet is better. This is your man, Fritz.” He took a huge gulp, allowing the blood to drip down the sides of his face from around the edges of the glass. When he pulled the glass from his mouth, the effect of the blood on his face made a garish clown’s smile, but his cruel mouth remained in a thin line. “Maybe you would like some?”
Dracula tipped the goblet over, and Fritz’s blood rained down on the spot where Wagner was braced. It coated the walls, and splashed on his face and chest.
“You son of a bitch! I will kill you!”
“Good luck with that, stonemason. I hate to waste a meal, but the blood will make the walls slippery, which should make climbing more difficult. Plus,” he paused and listened. Wagner heard small chirping noises. “it will also bring out some friends.”
Dracula turned and strode away from the hole.
Wagner heard the noises again. They were both above and below him, and they were getting louder. The noises were not chirps, but squeals. A lot of squeals.
There were rats in the bottom of the oubliette. He could hear them crawling up the rock walls toward his legs. A quick glance upward showed him a large rat crawling into the top of the oubliette through the bars. It was the size of cat, and its red eyes glowed dimly in the pale light.
From some distance away from the top of the hole, Wagner could just hear the Count’s voice. “Oh, and Herr Wagner? I’ll make it more entertaining as well. You don’t mind a little darkness, do you?”
Then the light was extinguished. The oubliette plunged into blackness. The rats below him in the pit shrieked louder, and he could hear the scrabbling claws begin to skitter up the walls faster.
Chapter 27
Wagner began to shuffle upward again in the dark. He knew the rat above him would reach him before the ones below. He just didn’t know how many more might be lurking on the floor above the grate, and he had no way of knowing how many were coming up from below him. But from the sounds echoing off the narrow tube of stone, there were a lot.
He strained to hear the rat above him—the immediate threat—but all he heard were the frantic sounds below him, agitated and growing nearer. He focused on moving his body up the chute of rock. He told himself he would feel the rats crawling on his body before they started to gnaw on him. If he tried to keep one leg fairly loose at all times, he might be able to bat away the ones below him. Once he got to the grate, the problem would become how to open it.
Shuffling up and repeating the same movements, with the need to exert even more force, to prevent slipping on the already damp and now occasionally blood-slicked walls, Wagner found he could keep a lid on his mounting panic. Shuffle, expand, step up, repeat. Then something thumped in his lap hard, and he knew the rat above him had fallen—or jumped—off the grill. He pushed hard against his legs and swept at the rat with his arm. It slid across him, and he could hear it hit the wall in the dark. He felt it bounce off the wall and against the side of his leg, frantically scrabbling for a purchase, before it was gone. He could hear it shriek as it fell, and the shrill cries of the others advancing up the oubliette below him grew louder.
He braced his arms again, and resumed his shuffling upward, picking up the pace, now that he was no longer worried as much about attack from above. His arm slipped once on the slick wall, but the motion made him breathe in deeply, and his chest expanded, forcing his other limbs outward, arresting a potential fall. Another step, another shuffle.
On the next step up and shuffle, he hit his head on something and nearly lost his tension on the walls. The tube of the oubliette was slightly wider now. He realized he was at the top, and he pressed firmly with his foot, bracing his back, so he could reach above him for the metal grate. His hand hit it before he was expecting to. He grabbed the bar with one hand and used it to relieve some of the stress on his foot and back, but the oubliette was still so tight he could easily remain in the position for a while. It was the rats coming up from below, and the small amount of room he would have with his dangling leg to swing at them, that concerned him. He reached past the bars with his right hand and quickly felt around the edge of the wall for the locking mechanism on the grate. Then he berated himself for not even thinking to test it with his hands. He brought up and tightened the tension on his left leg—the leg he planned to use as a weapon when the biting started—and pushed against his back, bracing himself harder in the vertical tunnel. Then he shoved upward on the grate with both hands.
He was surprised that it moved. But it only moved an inch or two before it hit its stops.
He felt around again with his right hand and quickly found a hinge. He moved his hand to the opposite side of the grate and felt with his hand reaching through the bars. There you are. The gate was locked with a thick padlock. Wagner sighed. The lock was broad and it felt new—there was no tangible rust on it. He knew instantly that none of the keys in his pocket would fit the lock.
Still, he thought. He pulled his hand in through the bars and reached back to the hinges. They were metal, and were bolted down into the floor of the room above. But the stone was wet and damp, and as his fingers had brushed the stone the first time and come across a hinge, it had felt gritty. He found the hinge again in the dark, but something nudged his lower spine. Damn.
He could feel something trying to get up his back. A wave of revulsion swept over him, and he almost screamed. Then the anger surged back in. He released the tension on his legs, pulling on the grate with his left arm, moving his back away from the wall. The rat quickly scurried upward to fill the void between his back and the wall.
Wagner shoved hard with his feet, his back mashing the creature against the unforgiving stone. The beast’s bones ripped through its body with a squelch, stabbing into his back, and showering his ass with moisture. Dear God. He pulled up again with his arms and the corpse fell away. His panic rose again, and he could hear a keening wail. He realized it was coming from his own mouth, and he frantically reached for the gritty stone at the hinge. Yes! he thought. The mortar that had been used was a concrete. He knew that only a lime mortar would suffice for such a building. The concrete would not allow the water permeability necessary for old castles. The concrete trapped the vapor and the stone was crumbling from the moisture. He dug at it with his finger, and felt the soft mortar break and crumble like clay that had not completely hardened.
He reached into his pocket and retrieved the ring of keys just as he felt something brush his legs. He violently jerked his leg away from the wall, and began to thrash with it around in the confined space. Then he lowered it and swung it in the void below him. He felt his leg hit several soft spots on the walls, and the sound of falling shrieks and squeals of surprise and anger fill
ed the tiny chamber.
He quickly pulled his leg up again and braced himself with his feet. Then he reached up with the key ring and used one of the keys to scrape and grind at the weak stone around the metal hinge. Every few scrapes he rubbed his finger on the groove in the dark.
It’s working.
Must move faster. Faster. He scraped again and again, pulling himself up to put more strength into the scraping. When enough of the stone around the hinge felt crumbled, he lowered and wedged himself tighter between the curved walls of the oubliette and shoved upward on the grate. He could feel the hinge come loose, and when he checked with his fingers, he felt the metal bolts. He braced again, and shoved hard on the grate. It moved far more than it had, but not enough for him to squeeze between the gate and the lip of the floor above him. It was probably only a few inches.
He felt another rat running up his shin and then another on his arm. He flailed wildly, feeling the creature on his arm bite him three times in quick succession before he was able to dislodge it. The one on his leg was pinned between his shin and the wall, and struggling madly to free itself. He stabbed at it with the key ring, and it bit and clawed at his hand as he struck. Then he flexed as hard as he could, and the creature ceased its movements. He pulled his leg back and the crushed rodent refused to fall away from his shin. For some reason, this last tenacious clinging in death was the thing that sent him into a mental panic. He didn’t want to have to touch the damned thing and peel it off his leg. He shook violently and rubbed his legs together hoping to dislodge the rat, but it was still wrapped around him. He began punching at it again and again, forgetting to brace himself against the walls in his fit.
One hand was still clinging with all his strength to the bar of the overhead grill, as his body slid down and away from his crouched brace. He swung his dangling legs madly, smashing into the slick walls of the oubliette, feeling rats bumping him and falling on him, and crawling on him. He shrieked in crazed panic, and threw his body around the cell, swinging from one arm.
After a moment, he stopped and swung to a stillness directly beneath the grate and away from the walls. He couldn’t feel anything moving on him, and the only rat squeals he could hear sounded far below him. Gone, he thought. They are all gone now. I’ve killed them all.
Slowly his control returned, and he reined in his scampering wits. His arm was tiring and his grip on the bar would soon be lost. Then so would he. He reached up with his right hand and grabbed the bar, taking the strain off his left. Then he pulled one leg up and planted the foot on the wall, pushing his back against the other as he had been doing all along. He raised the other leg and pressed it against the wall too. Finally wedged again, he released both hands from the bars, and rested them. He breathed slowly and smelled the dank wetness, the smell of the rats, and the metallic scent of the blood all around him—now most likely some of his own mixed with that of the rats and his murdered friend.
Far below him, the squeaks began to grow louder.
There were more rats. From the sound of it, many more. And they would be here soon.
He had lost the ring of keys in his struggling, but that wouldn’t matter. He no longer had time to scrape and pick.
Enough of this Godforsaken place.
Wagner grabbed the bars with both hands and slowly walked his feet up the wall, lowering his ass into the pit, and hoping nothing would take a great chomp out of it. When only his neck was against the wall behind him, and his feet were up by the bars, he pulled himself tighter and lowered his head down. Now he hung upside down in the tube of rock, his head the first and most obvious target for the rats. His hands gripped the bars and his feet were placed against them as if he meant to rocket off the grate directly down. But he had other plans. Carefully, so he wouldn’t fall, he moved one hand from the bars to the lip of stone at the top of the oubliette, then the other. He hung from the rock in his inverted position and brought his knees to his chest, moving his feet away from the bars.
Then he thrust out, crushing his feet against the bars. The grate jolted and shuddered, and he almost lost his grip. Once his balance was restored, he carefully pushed up on the grate with both feet, testing how far it moved. Further. Maybe six inches. One hinge completely free. Not enough. He pulled his legs in again, held his breath and thrust. The noise was tremendous, with the grate first crashing up to its limits and then slamming back down again on the stone. In the confined space, it was louder than it should have been. The rats were going insane and shrieking hysterically. Wagner tested the grate. Still not enough.
He pulled his legs back for another attempt, and a rat leapt onto his head.
Chapter 28
Screaming his voice hoarse, and thrashing his head from side to side, Andreas Wagner developed a strength unheard of, as he repeatedly smashed his feet upward until the grate flew open into the dark room above. When it happened, it happened so suddenly, that with his thrust, his legs flew up and into the room, launching him partly out of the dungeon trap, so that he landed with his legs and pelvis on the stone floor of the room above the pit. His head was still in the tube of stone and when he tried to sit up, he smashed his forehead against the opposing wall.
The rat was no longer on his head, but every nerve in his body was screaming, and he felt coated in blood. He shimmied his way up onto the floor until he was sure he was away from the pit, then he stood in the complete darkness and put his hand out in front of him. He walked quickly in a straight line, and even with his hands extended, when he made contact with the wall—it couldn’t have been more than a few feet away—it was a surprise, and he stubbed his fingers.
The rats were still shrieking their terrible calls down in the hole. He placed his hands along the wall and moved sideways as fast as he could, until he reached a door. He moved his hand down and felt for a handle. It took some time, and his panic began to grow again.
Then he found it. The latch.
He opened the door, unsure of what he would find. The room or hallway on the other side of the door was just as dark. He reached out tentatively and his hand hit something that tinkled. He pulled the hand back, then gently reached out again. He ran his hand over the shape, recognizing it instantly.
It was a wine bottle. He ran his hand further and felt the wooden rack. He was in the wine cellar. He moved his hand along the edge of the doorframe on the other side. He was expecting to feel stone, but he felt more wooden racks instead… Of course, this is not the locked room, it is the side room from which Petran accosted me.
Somehow, he found it very easy to believe that Petran’s room was the place where such a hellish pit existed. He could still hear the rats whining in their hole. How long until they came out after him?
He stepped into the room and slid his hand to the right, stretching out in the dark. When he felt the rough surface of the stone wall, he followed it to the mysterious locked door. He knew where he was now, and how to get out. He turned around and began to walk in the dark, his hands outstretched, as he wound his way through the labyrinth of wine racks. Soon he turned to where the doorway for the stairs was in his mind’s eye. He was pleased to find it right where he imagined it to be.
Once in the stairwell, one hand on the wall, he began to run up the steps.
He tripped twice, but soon the squeaks and chittering of the rats was far behind him. He shivered. He had never been afraid of rats—or any other creatures, for that matter—but the thought of being down in that hole with the rats on him made him shudder.
The door at the top of the stairs was closed. Locked, in fact, but he was far past caring about small obstacles like locks. To bolster his confidence, he began planning ways to take his vengeance on Dracula and rescue Anneli. He hefted one booted foot and smashed the door near the lock. The wooden door burst into the kitchen so hard, it smacked against the frame at the far end of its swing. Still disconcerted from his ordeal, he was past caring whether Petran would hear him.
The kitchen was empty, but the diffuse li
ght from the shaded windows high on the walls told him it was day still. He made his way into the room, checking the corner, and now, compulsively, the ceiling, too. He had no idea where the Count might have taken Anneli, or where the waitress might be. He hoped they were all sleeping somewhere.
He would start with Anneli’s room, and then move to his own, collecting some of the masonry tools he kept there to use as weapons, should he encounter the vampires again.
When he reached Anneli’s room, it was empty, but the window was open, and he heard the noise of horse hooves on the paving stones in the courtyard below. Anneli’s room looked out over the courtyard—it was just above the hole in the wall where he had almost met his end by Petran’s hand. He crossed to the window and remained out of view while peeking around the thick hanging curtain.
The coach was ready to go. Petran was loading a black coffin into the back of the long narrow carriage, in a compartment that looked to be under the main seating area. Where are they taking the dead? Wagner asked himself. With the coffin secured, Petran walked out of sight toward the castle and returned a moment later, dragging Anneli with him. And then it all clicked into place for Wagner: It was daylight—and vampires were active only in the night. Dracula was in the coffin, he was sure of it. He didn’t know where the tavern girl might be, but he knew if it was only Petran he had to contend with, he stood a chance.
He raced to the stairs and down to the main foyer. The front door stood open, but he moved quickly to a closet just inside the door, where he had been keeping several tools. The first he found was a shovel, which he grabbed. He raced to the door, preparing to smash Petran over the head. But the tall servant had already managed to get Anneli into the carriage and himself seated in the driver’s seat. As Wagner came rushing out the door, the carriage was already in motion.