by Amy Cross
"This isn't funny!" he called out, his voice echoing in the vastness of the building. This was a place where armies would once have marched through high-ceiling corridors, and now Mike was wandering lost and alone.
Wandering into a nearby room, he saw a rumpled bed that looked suspiciously as if it had been used by someone. He made his way over and placed his hand under the sheets, immediately feeling a hint of warmth, as if there had been a body occupying the bed recently. Trying not to panic, he turned and looked across the room, spotting a bat clinging to the far wall. Although he knew that there might be a perfectly rational explanation, Mike could feel the concern starting to build in the pit of his stomach. While he certainly didn't believe in vampires, he figured there was a chance that someone had been making this abandoned castle their home.
Hurrying back to the door and out into the corridor, he realized he had to make a decision. The castle was far too large for him to search every room, and clearly he was at a disadvantage if it turned out that there was someone else hiding in the shadows. Then again, it was still possible that this whole situation was a misunderstanding, and that Amanda had merely become distracted as she explored the place. There was a chance that she'd wandered into a remote part of the building, and that she'd eventually come back, muttering about being a little late, and then laughing at Mike's concern. He was worried, sure, but he figured it was still a little too early to collapse into abject panic.
"Amanda!" he called out, heading back to the stairs and making his way down to the large entrance hallway. After all, this was where they'd arranged to meet, so this was where Amanda would eventually show up. In theory, anyway. There was still no sign of her, but Mike forced himself to stay calm. Checking his watch, he decided to give her one more hour, and then he'd start thinking about the possibility that she was in danger. Hoping to take his mind off his worries, he headed through to one of the nearby rooms and found himself in a long, tall space lined with hundreds of large oil paintings, each of which bore a ledger with the name of a member of the Le Compte family.
"So this is where you've all been hiding, huh?" he muttered as he looked up at a huge painting of someone named Martin Le Compte, identified as having lived in the fifteenth century. The image itself, cracked and peeling a little, was several meters wide and at least five or six meters tall. It was a huge and impressive piece of work, and Martin Le Compte himself was an imposing figure. In the background of the image, soldiers appeared to be dying on a battlefield, and their splashes of blood were the only vibrant color in an otherwise drab and dark palette.
Wandering along the room, admiring each painting in turn, Mike began to realize that Amanda was right when she said the Le Compte family deserved further study. They appeared to have been one of the richest and most feared families in European history, up there with the likes of the House of Medici. It was hard to believe that such a powerful lineage could have been forgotten by scholars, and Mike figured that it was almost as if the Le Comptes had purposefully tried to expunge their name from the history books. Either that, or terrified locals had done the job for them, although it was hard to see why the Le Comptes had died off. The castle showed no sign of disrepair or damage. It was as if, one day, the last of the Le Comptes had simply walked out the door and left the place to rot.
Stopping in front of another painting, Mike stared up at the dark, furrowed brow of a gentleman by the name of Ivan Le Compte. As strange as it seemed, there was something a little familiar about the man's face, although Mike couldn't quite work out where he'd seen him before. Some of the noblest old European families enjoyed a degree of inter-breeding, of course, but this seemed like a much stronger resemblance, almost as if Mike had at some point stared into this very face, or at least into the face of someone who shared the same blood. Then again, he figured, after staring at painting after painting, he was probably just getting used to the facial features of this great family.
"Amanda!" he shouted, turning to look back at the door. "Come and see this!"
No reply.
Sighing, he continued to make his way along the row of paintings, casually glancing at each one. He knew that the next step would be to secure funding for a team of experts to come out to the castle. The place would be taken apart with forensic care and analyzed in excruciating detail, and eventually the Le Compte family would likely become famous around the world. There would be books about them, maybe even films, and they'd become part of wider Bulgarian and maybe even European folklore. Mike felt a little humbled to realize that he was present at the start of this huge process, which would eventually change the way Bulgarian history was regarded. As he pondered these possibilities, he realized it was insane for Amanda to think that there was any point in them staying and doing any work by themselves; now that they'd taken a quick look around, they needed to go and get in touch with their colleagues back in London and arrange for a proper expedition.
Reaching the end of the room, Mike noticed that the final painting was a little different to the others, since it was the first to show the image of a woman. As soon as he looked up at the face, however, he felt his chest tighten, and it took a moment before he was able to fully understand what he was looking at. Checking the name on the plaque at the bottom of the frame, he saw that the image was of a woman named Madeleine Le Compte, but there was something horribly wrong with what he was seeing. He stared up at the face, and slowly a sense of absolute horror and dread began to creep through his entire body. Finally, filled with panic, he turned and ran.
Six
"Amanda!" Mike shouted, coming to a halt in the hallway as he saw Amanda standing over by the door. "What are you doing?"
With her back to him, Amanda was staring out at the mountains. It was almost as if she was looking for someone, waiting for someone to appear from the wilderness. Slowly, she turned and looked at Mike, and there was a curious smile on her lips.
"I was looking for you," he stammered. "I found something. Through in the next room, a painting, you..." He paused as he realized that there was something strange about the way Amanda was watching him, as if she was amused by his words. It was definitely her, but something had changed.
"It's okay," she said softly. "Don't worry."
"You have to see this," he continued. "I know this is going to sound crazy, Amanda, but there's a painting, and it took me a moment to realize what I was looking at, but it's... It's like..." He paused, fearing that the words would sound insane as soon as they left his mouth. "You have to see for yourself," he said eventually. "This painting, this woman, her name's Madeleine Le Compte, but when you see the likeness..."
"I already know the painting well enough," Amanda said, stepping toward him. "I've looked at it a thousand times over the years. I even remember posing for it."
"No," Mike continued, taking a step back, "you don't understand. This is one of the Le Compte family portraits. It's from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and this Madeleine Le Compte woman looks exactly like you. It's not just a passing resemblance, Amanda. She looks exactly like you, like a spitting image."
"I know," Amanda said, still sounding strangely calm, and with the smile on her lips growing by the second. "The man who painted my portrait was a local artist. My father forced him to come up here and paint both my brother and myself, and then he had the man's throat slit and he used his blood to add some color to the canvas. My father felt that no false pigment would be good enough. Blood has its own unique tone that just can't be copied. Daddy was always so fussy about the little details."
"Amanda, this painting is hundreds of years old -"
"It was a warm summer's day when the painter arrived," Amanda continued, slowly advancing upon Mike as he backed away into the next room. "I had to spend a week posing for him. God, it was boring, but the end result, the painting, was quite fabulous. I almost felt sorry when father handed me the knife and told me what I had to do, but of course, one is always a little hesitant when one kills for the first time."
"Amanda...
"I chose that name when I came to work at the museum," she explained. "Catherine Carter. Amanda. I plucked it out of thin air. I just wanted to be close to the bones when they arrived. I knew my brother would be among them. It was so hard to keep calm when I first saw his remains, but I couldn't let Marlowe or the others know who I really am, could I? I've waited centuries for him to be resurrected. In fact, after a while, I began to regret the little trick I pulled to get Alderman Petrov to bury him in the first place, but that's all by the wayside now. What matters is that my dear brother is on his way home. In fact, he should be here any minute. It's been so long since I saw Edgar. Our reunion is going to be so fabulous."
"Amanda -"
"Call me Madeleine. I've used so many fake names over the years, but at the end of it all, I'm still, always and forever, Madeleine. I'm sorry I lied to you, Mike, but it was all rather necessary. Deception, like cruelty, courses through my veins and makes me who I am." She smiled, with tears in her eyes. "It's been three hundred and fifty years since I last saw my brother, but I haven't changed at all. And he hasn't changed, either."
"I'm getting out of here," Mike stammered, trying to walk around Amanda, "I'm not going to -"
Stepping directly in front of him, Amanda opened her mouth and hissed, exposing two sharp fangs.
"Jesus!" Mike shouted, stepping back.
She smiled. "I feel bad about Marlowe. He was a nice guy. A fool, but still a nice guy. Maybe I should have killed him, instead of allowing him to descend into madness. Then again, I've always enjoyed such cruelty. I've tried to change, Mike. Really, I have. I've dallied with purity and innocence. I've tried to be good and kind, but it just doesn't work. God, the torment has damn near ripped me apart, but eventually I had to accept that I can't change. None of us can. We are who we are, and what we are. Cruelty's just part of my nature. It's who I am. After all, did you ever see a scorpion try to cut off its own tail?"
"What are you?" Mike asked, his heart racing as he tried to work out how to get past her and make it out to the jeep.
"What do you think I am?" she replied, opening her mouth a little and showing her fangs once again. After a moment, she frowned, and then she turned to look back at the door. "He's here," she said eventually, her voice filled with longing and passion. "At least, he's here!"
"Who?" Mike asked.
"He's here!" she shouted, running back to the door and stopping for a moment. "Oh, after all this time, my handsome brother and I are to be reunited!" Putting her hands together under her chin, as if in prayer, she clapped with excitement. "How utterly fabulous!"
"What are you talking about?" Mike asked, moving across the room until he could see through to the hallway, and to the main door that led into the castle from outside. After a moment, he realized there was another figure walking slowly into the castle. "Who's that?" he shouted.
"This is my brother," Madeleine said, grinning from ear to ear, looking as if she was totally mesmerized by the dark silhouette that had stopped in the far doorway. "Edgar is home! After long last, we're reunited! This is going to be so wonderful! So fabulous!" She turned back to look at Mike. "He's risen. Don't you see? He's crawled from his grave! It took him centuries, and it must have been so painful, but our games can begin all over again! The games and the pain and the love and the hatred and the anger. All of it. And now we'll be together forever, and the Le Compte family will rise again!"
The Vampire's Grave part 2
One
"Your new skin," Madeleine said softly, as she ran a sponge over Edgar's bare back in the flickering candlelight, "is just like your old skin. It's amazing how it can grow back like this time and time again, reforming in its old patterns, never losing an inch of its perfection. If anything, you look even better than before. Younger, more radiant." She squeezed the sponge, forcing out some more of the soapy water and the using a hand to spread the foam across her brother's flesh. It was just like the old days, when they'd bathe together, and she felt reassured by the resumption of this ancient tradition. "Our bodies, Edgar, are the most wondrous things. To think, the last time I saw you, you were just a set of bones on a tray in the museum in London. How quickly you've returned to your old form. Just a couple of months. It's a miracle. A miracle from God."
"I had no choice," Edgar said darkly, staring at the candles that flickered by the edge of the bathing pool in one of the smaller rooms of the castle. "I spent an eternity in that grave, thanks to you. My head was removed and placed between my feet. A brick was forced into my mouth. The fools even put herbs and flowers in my coffin, thinking that they would prevent me from returning."
"And they did," Madeleine said, dipping the sponge in the pool for a moment before continuing to wash Edward's lower back. "Didn't they? For a while, at least."
"You went too far," he replied firmly. "The game was just supposed to be a way for us to pass the time, Madeleine. You had me imprisoned in that grave for hundreds of years. Did you never think to dig me up and rescue me? Did you never think that perhaps, just perhaps, you'd overstepped the bounds? I waited for you to come and get me out of there, but you never came."
"I knew someone would dig you up eventually," she said calmly, "and I was right. As soon as I heard that your bones were to be taken to London, I made my way there and ensconced myself at the museum. I created a whole new identity for myself, just so that I could be close to you, so that I could watch your ragged remains as they healed. Do you have any idea how long I spent at that museum, pretending to be some other woman, just so I could be there when you finally arrived? And then I pretended to like that Marlowe fool, just to get closer to his work. I was going to help you, but obviously you took matters into your own hands and burned the museum down instead. I must say, Edgar, I think that was a little over the top." She giggled. "A whole museum. Daddy would have been so proud."
As she ran the sponge over Edgar's skin, Madeleine was momentarily dazzled by the candlelight as it glistened against his wet shoulders. She'd missed these moments. While Edgar was gone, she'd been alone. She'd dallied with humans here and there, but a human mind wasn't enough for her. She needed a vampire; she needed her brother. Now that he was back with her, she was convinced that their pair of them could resume their old life. The castle was still in good condition, so they could use it as a base while they re-established themselves in the region. After three hundred and fifty years, the locals would learn to fear the Le Compte family all over again.
"Just so that you know," Edgar said eventually, "your debt will be repaid. I won't forget what you did to me. When you're least expecting it, I shall take my revenge."
"Oh, I hope so," she replied. "You know how much I enjoy our games."
"You won't enjoy this one."
"Sounds like fun."
"It'll hurt."
She squealed with delight.
"Give me that!" Edgar snapped, grabbing the sponge from her hands. Turning to her, there was real anger in his eyes. "I can bathe myself. I'm not a child. Don't you have other things to be doing?"
"I've missed you," she said hesitantly, shocked at his forcefulness. "Edgar, it's been so long -"
"And whose fault was that?" he shouted. "Three hundred and fifty years, Madeleine! I was down in that grave for three and a half centuries! Do you think I wasn't conscious during that period? Of course I was! Every second of that time, I was trying to force my body to heal! Can you even begin to imagine the agony I endured? Can you conceive of my thoughts when finally, after so long, I realized that my coffin was being dug up? And then, to realize that my body had deteriorated to become little more than a collection of bare bones? The healing process was so desperately slow! I had to wait while I was driven and flown halfway across the world, with a bunch of other, ordinary corpses all around me! And then, laid out on that metal slab in that idiot's laboratory at the museum -"
"It was just a game," Madeleine replied, her voice low and pained. "I didn't mean to -"
"When you came in to look at my bones," Edgar sneered, "I swear to God, I was ready to rise up and slit your throat. I could hear every word you said to that idiotic man. I knew exactly what kind of game you were playing. Do you want to know why I burned that entire museum down? It was because I could no longer contain my anger at you! You filled me with so much rage, I had to find a way to let it out!"
"It was a game," Madeleine said again, trying to sound a little more firm this time. "We always played games, Edgar. That's how we amused ourselves. Perhaps I went a little far on this occasion, but it was still just a game -"
"Games are for children!" he shouted.
"No! No, that's not true! We're different, Edgar. We're not like others. We were just having fun -"
"Three hundred and fifty years!" he screamed. Standing naked, waist-deep in the bathing pool and illuminated only by candlelight, he was a fearsome sight. Slowly, as if he was becoming a little calmer, he began to use the sponge to wash his chest. "Three hundred and fifty years trapped in a pauper's grave," he continued. "Believe me, sister, I had more than enough time to contemplate all manner of things I could do to you. I came up with a thousand ways to gain my revenge. The only difficult part of the endeavor will be in deciding which I shall choose first."
"I look forward to it," Madeleine said with a faint smile.
"Don't," he replied firmly. "You will suffer, and you will regret the day you had me entombed."
"When you've finished washing yourself," she said, "perhaps you can wash me?"
"You disgust me," he sneered.
"I must say," Madeleine replied, watching as Edgar continued to clean himself, "I think you're overreacting just a little. We never set any rules for our games. They were a free-for-all, so I don't see why you're so mad at me. It was all just a way of playing with each other, to pass the time. It's not my fault you weren't able to find a way out of that grave sooner. I mean, how was I to know that idiotic old Alderman Petrov and his bunch of yokels would actually be able to stop you from breaking free? I thought they were just full of bluster."