“My influence. Be careful Gizella, I will only tolerate so much acrimony.”
“I just mean the child is easily led astray; she has a viciousness within her,” Gizella said dismissively. The door now opened for second time and the child’s father entered the room. When he saw Isabella he dropped the wood he was carrying and fell back against the wall. The man cried out at the top of his voice.
“I never touched her!” he said frantically.
“I know you haven’t. That is why you are still alive,” answered Isabella with a smile. Isabella’s granddaughter looked at the Vampire standing in front of her. She had not known until this moment why her husband’s attitude towards her had changed. Gizella’s heart softened slightly towards her grandmother’s namesake.
Isabella walked towards Gizella’s husband, who was shaking all over. She ran her finger over the scar that she had left him.
“It has healed well,” Isabella stated. The man batted Isabella’s hand from his face, a nervous almost involuntary reaction to Isabella’s touch. Katalin’s father was standing in front of the door. Isabella pressed her finger gently on the top of his left arm and pushed him out of the way. When she was outside the door she turned back towards him and said.
“Be good.”
“I will…I will,” he called to her fervently. As he did so, he tripped over the wood he had dropped and fell to the floor.
Isabella wanted nothing more from Vlad; she was intent on leaving the province without returning to the castle. She was not even tempted to retrieve her portraits. However, she could not resist one last look up at the castle before she left. There was no sign of life, not a candle in a window or even a glimpse of smoke coming from the chimney.
As before, Isabella travelled through Europe and as before whispers about plagues and the Black Death followed her, for Isabella was not one to curb her appetite. She now was starting to hear a new sort of rumour about witches and reformation. A fresh plague was crossing Europe, but this one was completely abhorrent and completely synthetic.
After a few months she found herself in France. She was walking through the streets on a dark, misty, near silent night with only the church bells echoing through the air. Isabella as always was looking for food. She was suddenly struck by the stench of death. Someone in one of these silent houses was dying, and where there was death there were always people. She heard whispers coming from the top of the house beside her. Isabella listened and waited outside. A priest was talking to a dying man.
“Until tomorrow,” the priest said.
“You will not find me alive at sunrise,” the man responded. This man would not be the only one who would be dead at sunrise, Isabella thought. She waited for the priest by the door. The priest came downstairs and saw Isabella with his failing eyesight and in the failing light the priest thought she was a nurse coming to look after the man inside.
“Thank goodness,” the priest said “for he is in a lot of pain.” The priest opened the door and invited the Vampire to enter the house. He did not know it but with this action he had saved his own life. Isabella went inside and climbed the stairs leading up to the dying man. The man was already asleep when she entered the room. Isabella crept towards him but he sensed her presence and awoke. He lit the candle beside his bed and peered around the room. His eyesight was declining but he still managed to see Isabella standing there in the shadows. He was terror-stricken by the sight of her
“The black angel has come for me!”
Isabella was intrigued by this response. “What do you mean?” Isabella inquired.
“I have seen you!” he gasped.
“Seen me?” asked Isabella.
“Visions of you, ever since I was a child,” he said, wanting her to stay and listen to him.
“Visions?” Isabella replied. The man was slowly starting to calm down. He had not expected the black angel as he called her to be so rational and articulate.
“If you tell me what you mean, I will spare your family,” Isabella continued.
The man settled down and motioned for Isabella to sit on the chair beside him. He believed her and he also was aware that if she wanted to kill him, nothing would stop her. Isabella sat down and listened to the dying man’s revelations.
“I have been a man of medicine for most of my life. When I was about eighteen I saw my first plague victim. They blamed the Black Death outbreak for the deaths in the village, but this outbreak was different. There were no visible signs of the plague but people were still dying before their time. I examined several of the victims. There were no signs of disease or decay on the skin. The other doctors I was with dismissed it as the Black Death. When physicians can’t explain what has happened to someone they blame the most prevalent disease of the time.
“After the tenth man of the village had died, I was left with the body and I went over to examine it. I saw no visible signs of disease, no sign of violence, either. I felt for a pulse on his neck, thinking maybe he was still alive, fearing that the other doctor I was with was completely incompetent. But there was no pulse.
“When I pulled my fingers away from his neck I noticed a couple of spots of blood on my fingers. I examined his neck more closely and suddenly a myriad of pictures fused together in my mind, coalescing into a vision. It was of you in that vision! I saw you creep into this man’s room, kiss him on his neck and then suck the life from his body. I knew at that instant that you would kill my future wife and children like this and that one day you would sneak into my room.
“People have said for years that I am a good physician, for if any outbreak like this occurred, I could usually stop it. But it had nothing to do with my medical knowledge on this occasion—in the vision I saw something. I saw you step away from roses that were by the dead man’s bed. From then on, in every potion I made, I crushed rose petals into it, to ward you off. Just in case it was not plague that people were dying of, but the touch of a Vampire.”
Isabella was amazed by this story. She had premonitions and could read people’s minds but she had never heard of a human being able to do the same thing. It scared her slightly; it reminded her not to underestimate anyone. Here was an old man who had held a clue to what could keep Isabella away from humans. Some roses were pungent enough to make her feel nauseous, and if one of her intended victims had consumed such flowers, she could smell it of them, she could taste it their blood. This man had probably saved dozens of lives.
“I won’t kill you,” she said to the dying man. “You will be dead soon enough. The stench of death fills this room. I would kill you if I thought you were going to survive the night, but as promised I will leave your family in peace.” As Isabella got up to leave the room the man grabbed her arm. Isabella drew back from him but could not quite relinquish his grip. A faraway look came over his face as if he was seeing something off in the distance, something harrowing. He began to speak.
“The one that will obtain government from the great seized, will be induced by some to execute ruin: The Twelve Reds will agree to soil the cloth, under murder, murder will perpetrate itself,” the old man said.
“What are you saying?” Isabella asked, for he was not making much sense.
“You will be there; you will see the reign of terror.”
“I don’t understand,” Isabella replied.
“You will be there,” he repeated.
“Be where?” Isabella asked, trying to make some sense of what this man had said.
“You will know when it happens,” the old man pleaded.
“When what happens?” asked Isabella, desperately wanting to know more.
“You have to stop it! Promise me you will?” His grip was tightening on Isabella’s arm and he pulled her in close to him. Isabella felt that this man believed that the whole world hinged on her agreeing to do what he asked. She was compelled to appease him.
“I will do what I can,” Isabella said. “But how can I stop anything if you do not tell me what it is?” The last breath
left his body and he did not say another word.
Isabella remained for another few days; she watched and waited for the man to be buried. The funeral was quite large; this man would be missed. Isabella decided to ask one of the attendees who he was. She wanted some clue as to what the man had asked of her.
“Whose funeral is this?” Isabella asked.
“Michel, Michel De Nostredame.” This was no help; Isabella left not knowing what his words meant; perhaps she never would.
A few years later Isabella found herself back in the woods near Vlad’s castle. She felt it her duty to check in with Katya’s family. Or rather, she told herself that this is what brought her back to her home country.
When she opened the door she was surprised to see no children in the house. This house had always been filled with the echoes of children’s laughter. The only person who now occupied this lonely and abandoned place was Gizella. Isabella’s entrance woke Gizella and she started to talk to the Vampire.
“It has been a long time,” she said. Isabella turned to face her. She could see that the woman standing before her had visibly aged.
Isabella answered her ward. “Has it been?” Isabella asked.
Gizella replied sadly, “Eleven years.”
“Eleven years? Time makes such visible changes to you humans,” Isabella remarked.
“Time is precious,” Gizella answered.
“Not to me. When you have so much of it, it seems less precious,” Isabella replied poignantly.
“I am sure it used to be precious to you as well,” Gizella inquired.
Isabella reflected on her life and said, “I am not sure any more what was precious to me…I can’t remember.”
Gizella looked at Isabella and replied thoughtfully, “You can remember. You’ll never be able to block it out; that is your curse, to be completely alone with your memories.”
“That’s enough!” Isabella declared. Obviously Gizella had not lost her contempt for her.
“Why are you alone? Where is your family?”
“My husband is dead; he had a bad heart,” Gizella said.
Isabella laughed. “I wonder what gave him a bad heart! Your daughter Katalin, where is she?”
“She married and left the village,” Gizella answered.
”To go where?” Isabella asked.
Gizella replied, “I don’t know.”
“You’re not in contact with her?” continued Isabella.
“No, not since she left,” replied Gizella.
“Do you need for anything?” Isabella asked.
“Nothing,” said Gizella.
“I will return before your life ends.” Isabella left the woman to her solitude.
One of Isabella’s favourite hobbies had become participating in court celebrations. She had started to hunt in more “noble” society; the rich could be such willing victims. They would invite anyone to their parties as long as they looked as if they belonged. She had gotten into a pattern of killing them and then stealing their possessions. After all, a woman with no independent means had to make a living somehow.
Isabella hid her tracks under the guise of a plague. There had been many outbreaks and disease was no discriminator of class. So with the added advantage of money she slipped back and forth, in and out, of elegant society, using different names and speaking in different languages. Nobody asked too many questions. In court they gossiped constantly, of course, but open accusations were never the norm. Isabella paid no heed to the gossip unless she wanted to influence them in her favour.
The few months succeeding Isabella’s last visit to Katya’s family home were spent in a Hungarian court. A fifteen-year-old girl was preparing to marry. The court was filled with the hustle and bustle that usually accompanied such occasions. The night before the wedding when most of the guests had gone to bed and the castle hallways were deserted, Isabella found herself walking through the great hall to look at the paintings. She was interested in the histories of such prestigious families. She heard footsteps coming down the corridor and the door swung open.
“Who are you?” asked the young girl who had just entered the room.
“A member of the wedding party, my lady,” Isabella said, making a small curtsey.
“I don’t think I have noticed you before.”
“I am not that noticeable,” Isabella answered.
“Oh, yes, you are. In fact, I would prefer my future husband not to see you.”
“You pay me too much heed, my lady; I pale in comparison to you.”
“You know that is not true.”
“Whether it is true or not, never let your insecurity show. That in itself is not very attractive,” Isabella stated.
“I am not jealous of you.”
“That’s good for there is no reason to be.”
“I am getting married tomorrow.”
“I know…you are very young to be getting married.”
“I am fifteen.”
“My apologies. You are so old,” Isabella said sarcastically.
“Oh, no, I am not old. I will never be old.”
“Age catches up with us all,” Isabella answered.
“Not with me, I will not allow myself to become old.”
“Why are you so afraid of becoming old?”
“I remember my mother. She was the toast of Hungary, the most beautiful of women, noticed everywhere she went, and then suddenly it stopped. Her hair had turned gray and her skin was not as smooth as it had once been. Men did not look at her any more. My mother, who had once been so generous and kind, became malicious; she scolded and beat me at every given occasion. That will never happen to me.”
“It does not have to happen to you. With age comes wisdom and that in itself is an attractive quality—your mother obviously did not acquire any.” These were just the prattlings of an inexperienced child. Isabella was growing tired of the discourse and decided to take it in another direction.
“So tell me about your husband, the Count Nádasdy?”
“In a few days I will be Countess Nádasdy.”
“Why not Countess Báthory? It is such an illustrious name in Hungary—why do you want to exchange it for a lesser name?”
“It is tradition that the wife takes her husband’s name.”
“It seems an archaic tradition. Do people of fashion not break these traditions? Why should a wife take the name of a husband?” The girl thought about what Isabella had said for a few seconds.
“Yes I think you right.”
“Erzsébet! Erzsébet!
The young girl could hear her mother calling her. She turned to see her mother coming up the corridor towards the open door and when she turned back Isabella was gone.
Isabella went downstairs to the servant’s quarters looking for food. She had considered killing the girl but decided that it would be very impolite to ruin the wedding that someone had so kindly invited her too. Only one servant was awake, washing clothes, and when Isabella came close she could see it was Katalin.
“What are you doing here?” she asked the laundry woman.
“I am catching up on my chores, madam.” This girl does not know me, Isabella thought; after all, she had only met her once when she was a child.
“Do you not know me, child?” Isabella inquired.
“No madam, should I?” Katalin obediently answered with her head bowed.
“I suppose not. You were only a child when you saw me last. You are Isabella Zelonka’s great grandchild. You are Katalin Kocur, are you not?
“My married name is Benecká,” stated Katalin.
“Your mother told me you had married,” Isabella replied.
Katalin, intrigued now, asked, “How do you know my mother?”
“Your grandmother was named after me.” Katalin was shocked by this revelation, dropped the sheet she was washing, and looked at Isabella.
“You’re the Vrolok?” she replied, stunned.
Isabella smiled. “I am,” she said.
Katalin just stared at Isabella for a moment and then replied in awe, “I thought it was just a story.”
“It is the truth. Why did you leave your mother alone?”
“I had to go with my husband.”
“I suspect that you are your own woman and go where you wish to go.”
“I wanted to get out of that house; three generations of our family have lived and died in that place.”
“I suppose no one can blame you for that. Are you safe here?”
“I am.”
“Do you think you will stay?”
“I do.”
“Well, I will tell your mother you are safe.”
“Thank you for your concern,” Katalin answered.
“Oh, make no mistake, it is not concern, it is obligation. I will return again to check on you.” The malevolence that Isabella had seen in the child was still there. It was a malevolence that covered her like a shroud. Isabella was now coming to the conclusion that this latent malevolence would someday cause great harm.
Another few years passed and Isabella returned to see Gizella had aged another few years and was obviously very lonely. Isabella was lonely as well but it was not in her nature to be sympathetic.
“I am glad you are here,” said Gizella.
Isabella was suspicious of this remark. No one in a long time had said that they were glad to see Isabella and this was the last person she expected to say it.
“Why?”
“No reason, just that I am glad to have company, even yours.”
Isabella laughed. As much as she hated to admit it, she was beginning to like Gizella.
“I am sorry to hear that you are lonely enough even to appreciate my company. How have you been?”
“Fine. I have something I should tell you though.”
“What?”
“It is about Vlad.”
“I do not want to hear.”
“I know; however, I think you should listen.”
“There are rumours that he has taken some Hungarian Countess away from her husband.”
“A Countess.” Isabella was upset by this, even jealous, but she had learned not to show her emotion. “He always did have expensive taste,” she quipped.
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