by Dacre Stoker
“He cannot get in, not unless invited,” Vambéry said. “I am more concerned about them.”
I followed his gaze and felt my heart jump at what I saw. Not one but two large wolves, both black as night, stared up at us from the corner yard with ruby-red eyes. One wolf walked over to O’Cuiv and sat at his side, not once taking its eyes off us. “Where did you put my gun?” I asked Bram.
“Bullets will do little good here,” Vambéry said. “Only one made of silver would serve any function, and only then if it pierced the heart. Anything less just slows them down, nothing more.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Sunrise is an hour away. Until then, we wait behind the safety of these walls,” Vambéry said.
Bram went to Matilda and wrapped his arms around her. “Do not look.”
Another scream.
This one came from Emily down the hall. Oh, why did we leave her?!? Even for a moment!
Vambéry was out the door immediately, pulling from his cane a long silver sword as he ran. Bram and I raced after him, with Matilda behind us.
We found Emily sitting up on the bed, the ropes that bound her only minutes earlier lying at her side unraveled. Behind her stood the tall man in black I had encountered Tuesday night, his face a deathly pale, his eyes burning red. He held Emily up, with one arm around her; the other holding her head to one side. My eyes jumped to the thin streams of blood oozing from the puncture wounds on her neck, both of which had been newly reopened. The man had blood on his lips, which I could see clearly in the moonlight as the red contrasted with the stark white of his unnaturally long teeth.
He hissed at the sight of us. This was the warning of an animal, not of a man, and the look upon his face reminded me of a feral dog.
“Release her!” Vambéry shouted. He swung his sword through the air, the silver blade catching the light as the tip missed the man’s face by mere inches.
With his free hand, Vambéry pulled the chain from around his neck, breaking the clasp and holding the small cross out in front of him. Again, the man hissed, an angry expulsion that catapulted bloody spittle across the bedsheets. With blinding speed, he released Emily from his hold and took a step back. Her unconscious body fell upon the bed in a limp heap.
Vambéry lunged, the tip of his sword targeting the man’s chest.
In the instant before the blade made purchase, the man burst apart—there is simply no other way to describe it. He exploded from his center mass outward in a burst of black—thousands of tiny fragments rushing outward in all directions. My arm instinctively covered my eyes as these projectiles pelted my body, bouncing off of me, painfully stinging me.
“Bees!” Bram shouted. “He’s transformed himself into bees!”
It was then that I heard the buzzing of drones, the room having gone from quiet to deafening.
As a child, I had been attacked by bees after disturbing their hive, and to this day I still recall the growing noise they made as they left the safety of their hive and pursued me—this faint buzz that grew louder until they were upon me. There was no build of that sound here—there was nothing, then in one instant it was as if I stood in the center of a hive.
I felt a razor-hot sting in my arm and swatted at the angry bee that had landed there. It then tore away, leaving behind its long stinger. Another bee stung my neck, feeling as if someone had plunged a knife into it.
I spotted the others swatting at the masses of yellow and black, Vambéry most vigorously. Somehow, the bees’ numbers seemed to be growing, each bee dividing in two, then dividing again. The swarm became so thick I could barely make out the other side of the room. Through pinched eyes, I found the bedroom door and started for it, each step more challenging than the last. Behind me, Vambéry began to shout, a prayer of some sort, his voice fighting to be heard over the cacophony:
“Almighty God, grant us grace that we may cast out the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which Thy son, Jesus Christ, came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day—”
His voice was abruptly cut off by a shout, this time from Matilda. I think a bee had stung her hand, but I couldn’t see for sure. She was favoring her left arm while wildly waving her other.
Vambéry repeated the prayer, this time louder, and the rest of us joined in, our voices growing over the buzz. Almost as quickly as they appeared, the bees mercifully flew through the open window and disappeared into the night. The room fell into silence then, punctuated only by our labored breaths.
I went to Emily’s bed.
She was unconscious but breathing steadily. Her closed eyelids were wildly a-flutter, caught in some dream. I pulled her legs out straight and positioned her head back on the pillow, then knelt down beside her, stroking her hair. I was oblivious to the pain of the half a dozen or so stings I had sustained. At this moment, there was only my love, my Emily.
Behind me, the others were carefully plucking stingers from their own skin and one another’s.
“How is that possible?” Matilda, the first to speak, finally said. She was visibly shaken but was attempting to conceal her fear.
Vambéry sounded exhausted. “I have heard stories of them transforming into mist or becoming various animals, but to become thousands of tiny bees and attack as he did, to attack us as one mind while also being many . . . Such a feat would require extraordinary power.”
“That was the man who followed me home from the hospital the other night, the one who was asking about Ellen, was trying to find her,” I said. Emily’s hand felt cold in mine; had she dipped her fingers in a bucket of ice, they would not have been this frigid.
“He is very old. He would have to be in order to wield such a skill,” Vambéry replied in awe.
“How did he gain entry to the house?”
“Your wife must have invited him. If not tonight, at some earlier time.”
There was a washbasin beside the bed. I reached for the towel next to it, wrung out the excess water, and used it to clean the wound on her neck. The two small punctures were no larger than before, but were clearly red and inflamed. Both were sealed, though, as if they had been healing for hours.
I pulled back her hair and inspected her forehead. “The cut on her cheek is gone. It was there only a few hours ago.” I glanced at Bram and Matilda. “You remember? I showed it to you.”
“I remember,” Bram said, his hand covering the place he had purposely cut on his own arm.
Vambéry gently lifted Emily’s hand and pushed back her sleeve. “The place where the cross burned her has healed, too.” He frowned worriedly. “We have not much time.”
“Can this man be ‘uninvited’?” Matilda asked.
Vambéry lowered Emily’s hand back to her side. “It no longer matters. Her blood has mingled with his; they are one and the same now. Her will is not entirely her own.”
“After Ellen bit me the first time,” Bram said, “I was able to hear her thoughts, and she could hear mine. We need to be mindful of our words around your wife, my dear brother. This man may be listening.”
“And now?” Vambéry asked. “Do you still share this connection with Ellen Crone?”
Bram shook his head. “Not like before. As a child, I believed I could track her across the world, and that she could follow me. I sometimes knew her thoughts as well as I knew my own. Something has changed over the years.”
“She can block you,” Vambéry explained. “The fact that you no longer feel the connection does not mean that she cannot.”
“I don’t think it works that way. In order for her to see into my mind, she has to open her mind to me—even if that door is opened for only a second. I don’t believe she can hide the connection from me. I felt her the other night in Clontarf in the moments before I went to her, I am sure of that now, as fleeting as that link may have been.�
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Vambéry pondered this revelation for a moment. “Are you able to block her as she blocks you?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is important information. You need to try. If you are somehow able to control it, we can use this to our advantage. If not, I am afraid she may use you to divine our intentions. That is something we cannot have,” Vambéry said.
Emily’s fingers tightened around mine, and her breathing grew shallow. Rather than taking long, deep breaths of sleep, she resorted to short, quick gasps. Her body tensed, and then her back arched.
“Hold her down!” Vambéry shouted.
I tightened my grip on her hand and placed my other hand on her shoulder. Bram and Vambéry both went for her legs. She knocked the three of us back as if we were some child’s toys. Her eyes snapped open, and a hiss escaped her lips as she sat up in the bed so quickly that her movement was but a blur.
Vambéry had the silver crucifix out again and he brandished it in her face. Emily averted her glance and curled up into a ball on the bed. A moment later, she was still again, her breathing normal, as she drifted back to sleep.
“She is trying to fight the infection, but it is a losing battle,” he told us. “She will turn soon.”
“What can we do?” I squeezed her hand, and though I didn’t think it possible, it was colder than before.
“Do you have garlic in the house?”
“Maybe in the kitchen or the cellar.”
“Fetch it. A mixing bowl as well.”
I ran downstairs and returned with a large bowl and braid of fresh garlic from the kitchen. He took the items from me and set them on the night table. I watched as he placed the garlic in the bowl, then retrieved a small bottle from his leather bag, along with a package wrapped in a green cloth. He held the bottle up to the light. “This is holy water from Saint Michael’s.” Vambéry made the Sign of the Cross, then uncapped the bottle and poured the contents over the garlic. I watched as he carefully unwrapped the green cloth.
“Are those blessed communion wafers?” Matilda asked.
Vambéry nodded. “The host, yes. Also from Saint Michael’s.”
These also went into the bowl.
Using the handle of a bowie knife, he crushed the contents until it became a white mash, added some holy water, and stirred it to form a paste. Vambéry carried the bowl over to the window, closed and locked it, then began spreading the paste along all the edges. “This should prevent that man from reentering. For now anyway.” He took the remainder of the paste and spread it around the bed with his fingers, encircling Emily. “She should not be able to trespass this barrier, either. It is not permanent, but it will suffice in safeguarding us through the wee hours of the night.”
I stared in awe at Vambéry, wondering what other secrets he harbored.
* * *
• • •
14 AUGUST 1868, 8:15 a.m.—The dawn crept in from the east and reached through my home with eager fingers. I would like to say I had found rest, but that would be a lie; I do not believe any of us did. Bram spent the night on the sofa in the library with Matilda curled up in the armchair at his side. She refused to go back to the guest room and did not want to be alone. Vambéry and I continued to keep our vigil over Emily. No other incidents took place; she slept soundly.
Vambéry’s coachman returned shortly after first light with word that a man named Oliver Stewart would arrive after dusk. Matilda tried to argue against this delay, pointing out the entire day would be lost if we waited, but Vambéry told her Stewart’s methods would not prove effective during daylight hours; Ellen was most likely at rest then and therefore could not be found.
When at last my brother returned to Emily’s side, his eyes were red and his brow creased with the shadow of sleeplessness. I imagine I appeared no better.
Last night, after Vambéry mixed his concoction of garlic and the holy water, he fashioned cruel bindings from four of my leather belts found in my chest of drawers. He employed them to secure my wife’s arms and legs to the bedposts in place of the rope I had previously utilized. When I asked if he thought the leather would hold fast, he informed me that yes they would, but his eyes shared a far different answer. Since the last incident, I also noticed his cane was always at his side. Although he returned the sword to the shaft, he had proven how quickly he could brandish the blade, and it was clear he would do so if threatened. What was not clear was whether he expected that threat to come from the window or from my wife, for he seemed leery of both.
While spreading the holy garlic mixture around the bed, Vambéry spilled some on Bram’s hand—the same hand wherein Ellen bit him. While I am sure this “accident” was meant as some kind of test, the deliberateness of the act was not lost on any of us. Vambéry’s hand tightened around the knob of his cane the moment he did it, and all of us turned to Bram to see what would happen. Bram thought nothing of it; he simply wiped the mess away and gave Vambéry a crooked smile. If Bram was infected, it was clear this disease impacted him to a far different degree than it had my wife.
Shortly after Bram arrived in the room, Emily’s eyes fluttered opened, and five words slipped from her lips: “Did the monster go away?”
Upon hearing her voice, I fell upon the bed and wrapped my arms around her. I wished to never let her go. She felt so icy! When my cheek pressed against hers, it was as if I leaned against a windowpane on a wicked winter night. I did not pull away, though; she needed to know she was not alone in this, she needed to know my love. She spoke coherently yet recalled but little of the previous night’s events. I had changed her bloody clothes some time earlier, and she made no mention of the mice, nor did we. Vambéry said it was good she spoke only of things that brought her strength and happiness, not those that would remind her of her illness.
Although we all knew she was ill, aside from her lowered temperature, there was little to remind us. In fact, quite the opposite was true. I had never seen her skin so perfect; she bore not a single blemish. Even her hair appeared fuller, with lively curls dancing throughout, and the color seemingly had deepened. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was ten years younger than her true age. I attempted to open the draperies, but Emily shrunk away from the light and claimed it hurt her eyes, so I closed them reluctantly. The room was grand in scale, but the walls seemed to move in on us a little more with each passing hour until I could bear it no longer and had to go outside and walk the grounds. The damp earth revealed no tracks—human, wolf, or otherwise.
At one point, Matilda brought my wife a tray of fruits and a pitcher of cold water as well as a cup of tea—chamomile, her favorite. Emily would have none of it. She insisted she had no appetite, but told Matilda to leave the tray beside the bed in case she changed her mind. It was then she also asked for her leather-belt bindings to be removed. Up until that moment, she had scarcely acknowledged them, and when she finally did, she did so in such a nonchalant manner I found it almost amusing. Vambéry pulled Bram and me into the hallway to confer about her request, and we decided it was best to remove the bindings for now, but they would be reinstated at dusk. Emily agreed to this proposition, even though she still had not shown any acknowledgment of the previous night.
We replaced the bindings as the sun began its descent. Emily did not protest. Although she slept most of the day, she grew more alert as night approached, yet she also seemed to retreat. She spoke less and seemed to sink into her own thoughts. I feared another episode was at hand. I could not bear witness to this eventuality, so I went downstairs to join the others.
As planned, the servants were dismissed early. There had been much whispering amongst them. None had been permitted to see Emily today, and while they knew my brother and sister, they eyed Vambéry with unease but did not ask me about him. I was not one to keep secrets from my staff, and recent events had clearly disturbed them.
Vambéry concoct
ed more of his paste and again sealed Emily’s windows, insisting that nothing could get in and that it would be safe to leave her to rest alone while we gathered downstairs.
Then Oliver Stewart arrived promptly at seven.
Vambéry let him in and led him directly to the dining room, where the table had been cleared in preparation for his visit. Rather than light the gas lamp, we set flame to candles and to incense all around the chamber so that it was filled with dancing light and an earthy, spicy aroma. Three of the chairs had been removed, leaving only five circling the round table. Stewart took this in and nodded. “This will suffice.”
Stewart had not shaken hands upon entering the room. When Bram attempted to do so, Stewart shrunk away and placed his hands behind his back.
Stewart was an unusual-looking man. He was no more than five feet in height, and Vambéry informed me he wore lifts in his shoes to gain another inch, along with a tall bowler hat. His face was squat and full, as if someone had pushed on his skull as a child and forced it to expand sideways rather than lengthwise. If I had to guess at his age, I would place him in his fifties. He wore white leather gloves, which he refused to remove, and thick spectacles that caused his beady eyes to appear far larger than they actually were. His gaze darted about, taking in every inch of the space, while making scant eye contact with the rest of us.
“Mr. Oliver is very sensitive,” Vambéry told us. “Simply touching another person can bring on an episode very similar to the one Bram experienced at the bog. It can be quite disturbing and disorienting. Therefore, please respect his wish to not come in contact with anything or anyone unless requested.”
“It is nothing personal,” Stewart said, his voice sheepish voice, his eyes riveted to the floor.