by Royce Prouty
Reluctantly, I fell in line between them and followed them out of the square. A couple blocks down the busy street, they stopped at a large German-made SUV shaped like a squared-off safari coach. It only took a couple minutes to exit town, and I recognized we were bound in the direction of Baia Sprie. Five minutes later, the SUV pulled off the highway at a place that looked familiar, the same route I had walked before. The vehicle steered into the driveway in front of the old structure that resembled a haystack.
The men got out of the car and opened my door. “You know the way.”
“The cemetery,” I said.
“The Braithwaite residence.”
I knew the way. Radu had picked the only place we both had visited. Across the road I found the small path that led over the old bridge and continued up the hill. At that point my senses registered that something was missing—the night was not filled with bats or birds or the sound of mosquitoes. Obviously he was not yet there. The path was dimly lit under a cloudless night and a sliver of moon. Stumbling over the stones, I turned east and entered the cemetery under its tree-lined entry, the summer having filled the limbs since my first trip there.
Recalling Braithwaite’s tomb was located about halfway across and in the back, I set out that direction, carefully avoiding stepping on headstones. I stopped when I heard something, looked up at the sky, and wondered what the hell I was doing. The sound of several mosquito clouds circled the graveyard periphery. Overhead a hundred bats convened, and I knew I had company.
With eyes adjusted to the dark, I spotted the lone cross perched atop the tomb of the late Loreena Braithwaite and walked that way with my eyes down, guiding my feet. Once there, I took out my GPS and memorized the coordinates and shone a light. The site was as I recalled it, with a cross (since repaired) at the head of the tomb and another laid onto the stone, giving the appearance of a strap. More mosquito clouds buzzed in the distance as I looked around trying to see them.
When I faced the tomb again, someone was sitting on it within arm’s reach. I jumped back so fast that I landed on the seat of my pants on the neighboring headstone.
“Why did you come here?” The man’s voice owned the same deeply aged quality of Dalca’s, but without the sneer.
I stood but kept my distance. From ten feet away I could see he had similar features to his brother’s, but carved more carefully of Roman design. Of course he had the thin mustache and swept-back straight hair, but his eyes were not set like an insect’s, and his nose was proportionately straight. Much like the photo of Tesla, he had the serious Slavic stare of answering a challenge. Like his brother, he had the signature smell, though perhaps not quite as acrid.
“Why did you come here?” he repeated.
I did not know which visit he was referring to, this one or the first time, so I answered in chronological order: “I thought that tomb held the remains of your brother.”
“To claim to know my brother is to suggest you know who I am.”
“I beg your pardon.” I looked down. “ mâna. numesc Joseph Barkeley.”
“Joseph Winston Barkeley.” He emphasized my middle name. “As you can see, this . . . young lady does not wish to be disturbed.”
“Yes, sir.” I bowed my head. “I made the mistake of disturbing her.”
“Tell me of this mistake.”
I looked up at him. It was difficult not to stare with his red eyes glowing like small lamps and his mouth open enough to reveal long teeth and a red tongue. “I was trying to do business with a foreigner, a stranger, and did not realize that I had interfered with his family’s business.”
“I see,” he said. “And why do you come this time?”
“Well . . . Should I succeed in finding what this foreign businessman is looking for, my usefulness to him will end, and I fear that I will be eliminated.”
“So you wish to make a deal for your safety.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Many a human have approached me to make deals over the centuries. Some of them hunters.” He spread his arms wide as if addressing a crowd. “They are scattered all about you.”
Then he made a sound that vaguely resembled a laugh, but came out more like a hiss. A bat swooped down and bounced off his arm as he swatted it away. He had huge, cartoon-proportioned hands. Before I could see him move he was off the tomb and standing behind me, and I heard him take in a long deep breath through his teeth as he smelled me.
“I smell . . . fear, desperation, weakness.” He breathed deeply again, his nostrils ranging from my right ear to my left. “I see you are one of us.” He held the last s through a hiss. “At least a drop or two.”
“My mother.”
“Lucia . . . Petrescu . . . Barkeley,” he said. “I knew of her, from a long line of Gratzes. Pity, that one. You carry your father’s filthy name as a burden.” I stood silently as he circled me, still sniffing. “Yes, Mr. Joseph, we know everyone in our little community.”
“Your community is not growing,” I said. “That is why I came here this time.”
“To join?”
I shook my head.
“I did not think so.” He was a tall creature, well over six feet. Now he was breathing directly in my face. “I smell . . . perfidy.”
“I have pledged no fealties to your brother.”
“Come now, human.” He turned in dramatic fashion and paced before me, passing his arm through the air like a lecturer in search of a word. “Perfidy is like . . . a wandering atom, for soon it will attach itself to another.”
“I come here to exchange, not to offer to be your slave.”
“What could you possibly have that I want?”
“Information . . .” I could barely get out my response. “About what you want most.”
His eyes started to glow a brighter red, and he leaned toward my face. “After your first visit here you should have discovered what I want most, or else I would consider you too stupid to deal with.” He circled behind me. “Now, human, just so we are in full understanding, tell me what I want most. Tell me.”
“What you want most is to know where your wife is.”
“Hmm. Yet you also must know that if you simply tell me where she is, you fear your usefulness to me will end as well.”
“I do not know where she is.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I know what you want second most.”
“Oh? Like a game . . . I see. You think you will set the rules and I am the contestant. Go on to the second round. Something like that?”
His eyes glowed bright red, and in a blink he grabbed me with one of his huge hands across my chest and lifted me in the air. He stepped toward the great stone sarcophagus, lifted its stone cover, and threw me in with the dead Miss Braithwaite, then lowered the top back over me.
I don’t know how long I was entombed. As soon as I understood what was happening, I took a deep breath, held it as long as possible, then let it out. A couple quick breaths, and then I held another deep breath. I was almost petrified as I realized that my worst fears were suddenly becoming reality. To be buried alive is an unspeakably hideous fate. Too tightly pressed to move, I could not even bring my hands up to my face. The stone was cold and the sides cramped, as I shared the small space with bones and dust and decaying cloth. Each breath sent dust into my nostrils and exhausted the small amount of oxygen remaining. I felt nonexistent bugs on my face and my skin began to crawl. The cold of the stone began to warm, and sweat poured from my body. I felt too frightened even to pray.
Then the stone lifted. As I went to raise myself out he pushed me back down. “Not yet, human.” He threw something in with me and lowered the stone again. I held my breath. Whatever he threw in began to panic and brush against my leg. I tried to kick it but my legs were too confined. When it squealed I realized it was a bat. I don’t know how long he left the cover
on, but it felt much longer than the first time. Our confinement afforded the bat the chance to bite my legs repeatedly.
When the stone moved again, the bat escaped and I called out, “ rog.” Please.
“You break easily, mortal.” He lifted me out of the box with one hand and lowered the stone cover.
“Thank you,” I said, brushing my face off and patting down my legs. I bent and gagged from the smell attached to my nostrils.
“Do not thank me, Christian. I only sought to show you what happens when you cross me. See, with my brother you will simply be tossed out of the tower and become a kabob. Splat . . . over quickly, and on to your . . . swift judgment.” He pointed at the tomb. “But when you cross me, this little box becomes your home.” He knocked on the top. “Oh, don’t worry about suffocating—we’ll drill a small airhole. And someone will come around every . . . twenty-eight days or so . . . to provide you with nourishment.”
He gave a most convincing, cruel smile, displaying large sharp teeth.
“I know better than to cross you,” I said.
“Save your blandishments, mortal. Only know this, that your fate will be the same as what my wife has been going through.” He inhaled, and a long hiss carried past his bared teeth. “For a very long time.”
“ .” I understand.
“And the bonus question is?” he asked.
“What you want . . .” I shivered as the chilled night air evaporated my sweat. “. . . second most is to know where your brother’s wife is.”
He studied me from a distance, swooping in for a couple sniffs. I assessed him to be less trustworthy, more mercurial than Dalca, for the Master had only one demeanor, contempt, which he doled out in varying measures.
“Hear me, mortal; I do not wish to repeat myself.” He stroked his chin and narrowed his red eyes. “My dealings with your kind suggest that if you have located my brother’s wife, then you have also found my wife. You would give me both, but first you wish for me to eliminate your most immediate obstacle. Then you have only one of us to scheme against, not two. And one who is doubly grateful for your help.”
The sarcasm was unmistakable, but I nodded. Several bats took turns diving toward him. He swatted them away, took another long breath next to my head. “I do not smell confidence,” he breathed into my ear. “You only think you know where she is. This I can tell.”
“I think I’m close,” I said, “but it’s only one of them . . . unless they are together.”
He stepped over to the sarcophagus and lifted the lid as if to invite me back in. I tried to speak but could find no words as I shook. Bats swooped about and he swatted another away.
“Now I smell the proper fear,” he said, lowering the lid. “That’s better.”
In the instant it took me to look downward, he was behind me with his mouth against my ear. “I do believe that you have come closest of the mortals to finding her. In fact, you would not be here in person if I could just go get her myself. Behind enemy lines, to use a human term. No, you think you are safe because you think I need you to find her. Think again. I only need to have you followed, for you will show me. I don’t need for you to tell me. Now, go back to your little house with the babaˇ, and maybe someone will come calling on you.”
My mind reeled. It chilled me that somehow Radu knew I’d been staying with Sonia. “How will I . . . ?”
He was gone, and with him followed the sound of a hundred mosquito swarms and thousands of bats.
I left the cemetery under my own power and stumbled my way back over the bridge. When I reached the old road I thought it would be easier for everyone if I just stepped out in front of the first truck that passed. But none did. While trying to decide if I should go into Baia Sprie and ask for sanctuary at the Catholic church or hoof it five-plus miles back to the hotel, I heard a voice from across the street. “Over here.” It was one of Radu’s two men who’d driven me to him. A quiet return ride to Baia Mare ensued. We exchanged no words at the hotel door.
When I awoke the next morning, I put on CNN News while preparing to leave. Just as I stepped from the bathroom, I heard my brother’s name.
“. . . here at the church where Father Bernhardt Barkeley is believed to have disappeared this morning before first services. The priest is the brother of Joseph Winston Barkeley, the man wanted for questioning in the brutal ritual killings last month of two people. Joseph Barkeley is believed to have fled to Europe, and authorities suspect that he may have been in contact with his brother . . .”
The fear of the previous night suddenly seemed trivial. Whoever orchestrated the murders in the States had obviously nabbed my brother. I struggled to shake my worst fears about his fate. Whatever it was, I prayed it would be swift. There is a passage in the Bible that speaks of the martyrs crying out to God from under an altar about justice for those murdered, and all I could think about was seeing his pleading face among the victims.
Again I thought: None of this would have happened except for me.
I learned that when you’re in trouble, your mind fills with tension while you yearn for an abrupt ending to the suspense. When someone you love is in jeopardy, anxiety is equally strong, but you feel less prone to hope for a quick end. Not knowing seems marginally better than learning the worst news possible. Such was my state of mind riding the train back to . En route I rehearsed what I would say to Luc. When I arrived he was at the station, and we headed toward the edge of town.
“What did you find?” he asked.
“I found a few local spots.” I bent the truth. “I’m going to have to do some excavating.”
Luc acknowledged this tripe with a suitably suspicious nod.
We took a quiet ride to Dumitra. Certainly I could not have told a convincing tale to Luc. My body felt strange as well, legs all numb, much like they had been inside that tomb, and each rush of breeze across my face felt like the opening of the lid. I shuddered several times reliving the experience. Rain began falling as we reached the village limits, and I told Luc I’d meet up with him in the morning. I ran the remaining distance to Sonia’s house. It was open, as she had told me to come and go as family, but when I stepped in she was not home.
I lay down to take a nap and awoke after dark to the sound of a thunderclap as lightning struck a nearby hill. I felt my way to the bathroom and turned on a light—Sonia was still not home. The house felt utterly empty without her, as would my life.
I washed up and looked around for what I might use as a raincoat when I heard the front door open. I ran into the front room just as Sonia walked in. I dispensed with the three kisses and went right to hugging her. I’m sure she could feel me shake as she held me tightly.
I helped her with her overcoat and took a seat at the kitchen table while she brewed coffee. Sonia looked at me, and her smile turned serious as she stared into my eyes. “I am sorry for what your heart goes through, draga mea.” My dear.
“Thank you. It’s my brother. I . . .” Words failed me.
“I know. I know.” After a moment, her thoughts reached mine. Your trip? Radu?
He was . . . how it feels to be confronted by Satan, I thought, trying to express in my thoughts how one’s footing on earth feels altered when confronted by a being of such superior power and intellect who holds your life carelessly suspended.
He is a monstru, worse than Dalca.
I nodded. Dalca was at least predictable.
When you are around him, do not think of his demise. He will smell it on you.
Again I nodded. When I conveyed to her my memory of being thrown in the tomb, she covered my hands and looked down; her eyes watered when she looked up. Then a feeling came through, as if she had projected to me what she felt, and it was not like a guardian, but something she had felt long ago.
I waited for her to straighten up before continuing. He did not respond to my offer.
That ma
kes sense. She paused with a thoughtful brow and downward look. He has human spies that can observe you, see if you give away your position.
She was right, of course, because if he thought that was his only opportunity to extract information from me, I would still be there. And if he believed that I knew where his wife, Luiza, lay, he would likewise have kept me.
I continued, He said someone would let me know. And he knows I have been staying with you. I did not relay that he referred to her as . Old woman.
It means you’ll be forced to trust a stranger.
Like Luc?
Your guide?
I nodded.
Well, Luc is human, she thought. So far you have been able to trust him, but like any human, he will let you down.
I sipped the strong coffee. I don’t know if Radu will call me to a meeting or if I’ll have to tell his messenger where she is.
Oh, he will not entrust such a thing to another. On this matter he will deal directly with you.
I closed my eyes and considered the risk. Then, rubbing my hand over my forehead, I thought, Whatever I choose holds risk for you.
The risk was mine when I tell where they are.
Can you leave and be safe?
“No place is safe,” she said aloud.
Several minutes passed. Have you considered the possibility that he will not show? That he will choose to make treaty with his brother instead of war?
Yes. I will still ambush Dalca, but I hope that Radu will not be standing by and allowing Dalca to get to his wife first.
You cannot plan for all contingencies.
I nodded.
Who do you think might be able to help you set up this ambush? Someone who might know of the tomb?
An image of the priest popped into my head, since he lived next to the church.
Correct.
How old is he?
A little older than the . She smiled weakly.