Emma first led us to an empty room at the far end of the corridor. The room was nondescript, with only a bed and lone dresser. She closed the door behind us. I started to ask her whose room this had once been, but stopped myself when I saw the urgency in her eyes.
“Do you trust everyone in your group?” she whispered.
“We trust them with our lives,” I replied, confused by her query. "Why?"
Her rigid shoulders relaxed, and she nodded.
“That is what I thought, but I wanted to make certain,” she said. “I need to tell you about the Bathory family…and our vampire ancestor. It is imperative that what I’m about to tell you remains within this house.”
15
Blood of Monsters
I dashed out of the room and down the hall, a sinister excitement flowing through my veins. I hurried into the guest bedroom that Abe and I were to share, pausing by the doorway as I caught my breath.
Abe was seated on the bed, scribbling down notes in his journal by the lone light of a single candle. He looked up, taking in my frantic state with concern.
“What—“ he began.
“I know how to kill her,” I said in a rush, entering the room further. “I know how to kill Elizabeth Bathory.”
The story Emma told me and Gabriel had at first filled me with horror, rendering me silent. And then a strange sort of elation had taken over, one that now had me firmly in its grip.
Now, Abe’s eyes widened as he got to his feet, blinking in astonishment.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I sensed Emma’s presence at the doorway behind me. I turned to glance back at her. She was clearly surprised by my excited reaction, studying me with both curiosity and concern. Gabriel’s reaction had been far more subdued than mine; he’d gone downstairs to inform the others what we’d learned.
“My vampire ancestor was a member of the Bathory family,” I said, turning back to face Abe. I took his hands and sat down with him on the bed, trying to speak calmly. “Generations ago, a human from my family fell in love with a vampire from the Bathory family. They had a child; that child is my distant relation.”
“Godsamme,” Abe whispered. His eyes strayed to Emma, as if seeking to confirm my claim.
“It is true,” Emma confirmed. “Mina’s mother knew…but it was a closely guarded family secret.”
“Many vampires are unable to consume the blood of their own kind—it makes them ill. But there is no vampire—no matter how powerful—who can consume blood from its own family line. It would be lethal,” I continued. “If Elizabeth Bathory drinks from me, my blood will poison her.”
The knowledge of my ancestry invigorated me…I was filled with a renewed sense of purpose. All the mysterious threads I’d picked up over the past few weeks had finally come together. Not long ago, I would have been sickened to learn that traces of vampire blood flowed through my veins; blood from one of the oldest and most powerful vampire families in Europe. Now, there was only acceptance paired with determination. If the blood of monsters flowed through my veins, I could use it to destroy them.
“Does Bathory know this?” Abe asked Emma, getting to his feet. He had paled at my words, his entire body rigid with anxiety.
“I suspect not. Isabel and her family didn’t speak of it to anyone outside the family. Isabel kept both Gabriel and Mina’s true identities a secret altogether. Elizabeth would have hunted them both down and killed them had she known. Like many members of the Old Families, she loathes humans—she would abhor sharing the same family line.”
“Do not tell me you are thinking of using yourself as bait,” Abe breathed, turning back to face me. “Not after what—“
“Of course not,” I interrupted. Emma still didn’t know that I'd been tortured at the hands of Aurel Skala; I suspected she'd try to stop me from continuing the fight.
But I was determined to use this knowledge to kill Bathory. At the thought of killing her, black rage pulsed through me, and I didn’t push it away. My fire had returned; the fire that had been temporarily extinguished by Skala’s torture.
Abe looked assuaged by my response as Gabriel appeared next to Emma in the doorway.
“I’ve told the others. They’re gathered in the salon.”
We entered the salon, where Anara and Seward were looking at me with the same expressions they’d worn when learning that vampire blood flowed through my veins…shock paired with mystification.
“When you entered my mind in that forest in Transylvania…I knew there was something different about you,” Anara said. “It was difficult to penetrate your mind. Even your scent was different. But I never would have imagined that you’re a distant relation of Elizabeth Bathory.”
“Neither would I,” I said. “This is good for us to know. Now we have a definitive way of killing her. If she drinks from me, she dies. I won’t do anything rash,” I assured everyone, at their looks of alarm. “But…we do need her to drink from me. My blood will kill her.”
“We will find another way,” Abe said. “The only way she would drink from you is if you were to lure her to you—and that will not happen.”
“We still need to get to her,” Seward said. “If we can’t even track her down…”
“It is imperative that we attend this masquerade,” Anara added. “Right now, it is our only way of finding her.”
“I will be able to secure your invitations,” Emma said. “But I will not attend that monster’s party. I will not try to stop you—though I think this plan is foolhardy. Francois keeps guards around him at all times.”
“Nor would we expect you to,” I said gently. “We know how dangerous this will be.”
Emma left the salon as we discussed our plan. The next day, Anara would go into the city to meet with Parisian members of the Order, whom Nikolaus had referred her to; we needed them to join us. We would ensnare Francois by one of the members of our group informing him that the Order of the Dragon was present, and requesting a private audience. Once Francois was separated from the party, we would attack him and his guards, putting him in thrall to determine Bathory’s whereabouts before killing him. It was an ambitious and daring plan; one I prayed we could succeed in carrying out.
It was the middle of the night by the time we’d finished our discussion. Abe reached for my hand and led me back to our guest room.
“You do not seem bothered at all,” Abe mused later, searching my eyes as we lay in bed. The moonlight that filtered in through the window illuminated his handsome features. “Weeks ago, you did not believe vampires existed. The very thought of them disgusted you. Yet now that you know you carry a trace of vampire blood in your veins…”
“I was in denial then,” I said, recalling my willful ignorance with shame. “For so long I was in the dark about who I truly was. Now that I know…I accept it. I'll use my knowledge to kill those monsters.”
Abe pulled me close, pressing his lips against my forehead.
“I wanted to kill Skala myself when we found you in that cellar,” he whispered. “To see you like that…so broken. Anara was on him before I could even reach for my stake. I should have been the one to kill him.”
“He is dead now,” I said, forcing the image of Skala out of my mind.
“We should have gotten to you sooner,” Abe continued, regret darkening his expression. “I was in such agony the entire time you were missing.”
He pulled me close, burying his face in my hair. We lay in silence, the only sounds that filtered into the room were ones of nature: trees swaying with the night breeze, crickets chirping, the occasional distant howl of a wolf.
Abe’s breaths soon grew deep and steady, but I was far too restless to sleep. I feared that when I did, nightmares of Skala would once again plague me. I slipped out of Abe’s arms, placing my cloak over my nightdress. Abe remained asleep, his chest rising and falling steadily as he breathed. I watched him for a long moment, leaning down to tenderly kiss his stubbled jaw, before padding out of the
room.
Carefully making my way down the dark hall, I wondered how this home had looked when my mother lived here. I tried to imagine her as a child, giggling as she raced down the same hall, reading stories with Emma, playing childhood games. When had she first learned of vampires, of the shadowy legacy of the Ghyslaine family? Had she been blissfully ignorant like me, or had she known all along what she would be doomed to face?
“I assume you cannot sleep?”
I turned, startled. I had made my way down to the salon, lost in my thoughts as I gazed out of one of its cracked windows. Anara entered the room behind me, taking off her cloak. Her face was flushed; she must have just fed.
“I fed on some animals in the forest,” Anara said as she approached. “When I do feed on humans, I do not kill. I did once, when I was an angry young vampire. Radu taught me that it is not necessary to kill when you feed.”
“It is not my business how you feed,” I said, though I was comforted by her admission.
“You may not fear us as you once did, but it may always be there…even now, knowing that you have vampire ancestry.”
“I no longer fear you nor my brother,” I protested. “I know that all vampires are not monsters.”
“I once thought all humans were monsters,” Anara said, after a brief pause. She looked away from me, training her gaze on the untamed weeds outside the window. “Before I became vampire…a group of humans raped and tortured me. They kept me prisoner for weeks. I was a thing to them, something to be toyed with. I begged them for death…anything to make the pain stop.”
I stared at her, horrified by her words. Anara had never shared any of her background with me. I could tell this was difficult for her to share, but she continued.
“Radu found me on the edge of death. He took pity on me…he gave me a choice. Did I want to die or become vampire? I chose to live as a vampire…not because I craved life, but because I desired revenge on those who had tortured me. Radu cared for me, loved me like a daughter of his very own. He healed me,” she said. “That is why I hated humans so. That is why I nearly killed you when I first met you in Budapest. The kukri knife was one of the weapons that was used on me.”
“Anara,” I murmured with sympathy. When I’d first met her, she displayed nothing but animosity and distrust towards us. Now I knew why. “Anara, I am so—“
“I do not tell you this for your sympathy,” she said sharply, still not looking at me, her eyes focused on a fixed point outside the window. “I did find the humans who tortured me. I killed them…slowly. I enjoyed every moment of it. I do not regret it. But…their deaths did not stop the nightmares of their torture. I could still see their faces and hear my screams…my pleas for them to stop.”
Now I knew why she was telling me this. I was still suffering from my encounter with Skala. Though I’d come back to life with the news of my connection to Bathory, Skala’s face still haunted my thoughts and nightmares. It was the very reason I dreaded sleep.
“How did you get past it?”
“I didn’t. Not truly,” she replied, and my heart sank at her words. “Sometimes…I still have nightmares. See one of their faces. When that happens, I force myself to stay in the present, to remind myself that what happened is in the past. It was a battle at first—sometimes it still is—but I no longer let those abhorrent memories dominate my thoughts. You will be able to as well. Do not let Skala hold your mind prisoner long after he is dead.”
16
The Promise
Anara’s words in the salon comforted me; that night I slept peacefully for the first time in days.
When Abe and I made our way down to the dining room the next morning, Emma and Anara had already left for the city; Emma to secure our invitations to Francois’ masquerade ball, Anara to meet with the Parisian members of the Order.
As I took my seat at the table, Seward studied me intently. I raised my eyebrows, giving him an inquisitive look.
“Do you feel any different?” he asked. “Not human? Bloody hell, I didn’t mean it that way—not necessarily. I just wondered if—“
“Jack,” Abe interrupted, frowning with irritation. “Mina is human. Will you cease your endless –“
“It’s all right,” I said, amused. “Yes, I feel human. I am human. It is strange knowing that there’s vampire blood in my line…but I feel mostly relieved. It’s as if a fog has been lifted.”
“If Abe were to perform an experiment on you, I wonder if—“ Seward began.
“I will not perform any experiments on the woman I love,” Abe interrupted. “Mina is not some sort of specimen.”
“It is fine. Truly,” I said, reaching out to touch Abe’s arm, a rush of warmth filling me at his words. “You’re a scientist…you understand curiosity. Seward is just curious.”
Abe relaxed, but kept his sharp gaze trained on Seward.
“What is the nature of your relationship with Anara?” he asked.
“Wh—what?” Seward stammered, his face going pale as he set down his tea.
“If you are going to ask questions about Mina, surely you can answer my question.”
“That’s different,” Seward protested. “I’ve never asked about your romantic relationship. I’ve already told Mina that I care for Anara. Anything further is none of you concern.”
“Abe, he’s right,” I said gently.
Seward gave me a grateful smile. I continued to study him as he returned his focus to his food, wondering how they had become involved. While Anara’s attitude had softened towards humans since she’d joined us, and our discussion last night confirmed her changed views, I still found it surprising she would enter into any sort of romantic relationship with a human.
Seward soon rose to his feet and excused himself, a flush spreading over his face at my unintentionally probing gaze. I had not been as subtle in my assessment as I'd assumed.
“I am going to take some air,” Gabriel said politely. He’d been so quiet during our exchange with Seward that I’d nearly forgotten he was there.
“Anara and Jack,” Abe mused aloud, once we were alone. “How odd.”
“Well. They do bicker as much as any couple. And Anara is beautiful," I added. I’d noticed a multitude of men giving her appreciative looks during our travels. "Has Seward courted anyone before?"
"Yes, but nothing serious. His focus was always on his work at Scotland Yard," Abe replied. "I am happy for him, I suppose. Hopefully she does not eat him alive."
"We shall see," I said with amusement, leaning in to kiss him before getting to my feet. “I’m going to talk to Gabriel…he’s been quieter than usual. I’m worried about him.”
I found Gabriel walking amongst the overgrown hedges that dominated the grounds behind the house.
“May I walk with you?” I asked, falling in to step beside him.
“Of course.”
“Are you all right?” I pressed, as we walked. “I know the news about Bathory is quite shocking, but it—“
“Bathory?” he asked, blinking. “No—that does not bother me. I am surprised, yes. I am not happy that we are related to those monsters. It is not that. It…it is about my father.”
“Your father?” I breathed. Ever since I’d learned of Gabriel’s existence, the mystery of his father’s identity had bothered me. What vampire had my mother fallen in love with? I could only imagine how much the mystery of Gabriel’s paternity affected him.
“I couldn’t rest last night, so I came out here to walk. Emma was awake as well; she joined me. I asked her if Mother ever told her about my father…and she had. His name was Aydin. His family hated humans and wanted no association with them. When their relationship was discovered, his family imprisoned him…Mother never saw him again. She discovered she was pregnant with me shortly thereafter. She wanted to keep me with her after giving birth, but the war was already brewing, and hybrid vampire children were not safe. She gave me to the human family that raised me, changed her name, and moved to London. That�
��s where she met your father years later.”
“Is your father still alive?” I asked, reeling from his words.
“Emma doesn’t think so. Mother only told her his first name, and that he had family in Constantinople. His family was so enraged by his relationship with Mother that Emma believes they had him killed.”
“My God,” I whispered.
“Emma doesn’t think my father would have let Mother’s death go unavenged if he was still alive. I…I had hoped to meet him…”
Gabriel’s voice broke. I stopped walking, reaching out to entwine my fingers with his.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “But you are not alone in this world…you have me. We are family.”
Gabriel gave me a tremulous smile. A sudden rush of empathy filled my heart. The isolation and grief he'd experienced in his early years could have turned him dark. Instead, he had become the kind and compassionate man I’d come to love.
“Mother should have never made you promise to protect me,” I continued, linking my arm with his as we continued through the maze of shrubbery. “You deserve to live your own life.”
“I wanted to,” Gabriel protested. “I am glad that I have come to know you.”
“You need to make me a promise,” I said, looking up at him.
“What?”
“When this is all over…you will make a life for yourself. I have no intention of sending you away,” I added hastily, when his face fell. “But I don’t want you to spend the rest of my years shadowing me. You will have a life of your own, Gabriel. Promise me.”
“I promise,” he said, after a long pause.
When we returned to the front entrance of the house, a carriage was dropping off Anara and several people I didn’t recognize.
Gabriel and I trailed them inside to the salon. Abe and Seward were already there, and Anara introduced the strangers as the Parisian members of the Order of the Dragon. They were three men and one woman—Noelle, Hugo, Marceau, and Sebastien—all vampires except for Sebastien.
The Mina Murray Series Bundle, A Dracula Retelling: Books 1-3 Page 43