Karen Essex

by Dracula in Love (v5)

  We rode now in the dark, the countryside vaguely lit by the carriage lamps. A light mist had drifted in from the sea, and I saw only shadows and silhouettes as the Count pointed out sights and landmarks.

  “There is the great mountain Benbulbin. It sits on the earth like an anvil, and when it rains, the deep rivulets run with water as if the mountain is shedding tears.”

  “I barely see its outline,” I said, squinting to see what he described.

  “Ah, I forget that you do not see what I see. But you will, Mina, and you will be amazed at the secret beauty of the night,” he said.

  “There is the castle. Do you see it on the promontory at the top of the hill?”

  The monstrous stone structure, with a tall, thick watchtower, lorded over the headland, the walls slit by long, thin bars of yellow light emanating from its windows. The carriage began the long climb up the hill, where we gazed over the dark and glossy moonlit sea. At the top of the hill, we were turning onto the long curved lane that led to the castle, when I glimpsed its massive entryway lit by torches. As we came closer, I saw more clearly its two huge, turreted wings with long, tall windows, united by a great stone façade.

  A tall, thin woman in a plain black dress with a swirl of gray and black hair piled on top of her head greeted us as we alighted from the carriage. “My lord,” she said with a low curtsy to the Count.

  The Count nodded politely. “We are delighted to be in your care, madam,” he said, introducing her as Mrs. O’Dowd. She was not old, perhaps younger than Headmistress, and though her frame was bony, she had very correct posture, and her sallow skin was unlined. “This lady is from the clan of the fiercest warlords in Ireland,” he said, which brought a pleased look to her face, and I wondered if she was one of the Count’s kind and had been alive since the early days of her tribe’s existence.

  Awed by the sheer size of the castle, I let the Count take my elbow and guide me. Refreshments awaited us in the grand reception hall, where a roaring fire burned in a hearth as tall as a man. Immense animal heads crowned the room—big-toothed bears, elk, and an animal with jagged, tiered antlers that I could not identify. A tripaneled stained-glass window with English kings and imposing crests presided over the wide staircase that curved around on either side of the well and disappeared into the upper stories of the castle.

  I wanted to run about the rooms like a little girl and investigate this wondrous place, but Mrs. O’Dowd took my cloak and gestured for me to sit on the divan in front of the fire, where she poured me a cup of tea. She neither poured any for the Count nor offered it to him. “Shall I serve the young lady some food?” She did not address me, but asked the Count, who nodded his head. She selected an assortment of sandwiches and fruit, placed it before me, and then left the room.

  I ate while the Count told me some of the castle’s history, how it had originally been built in the last years of the twelfth century by a French knight who abandoned it some years later. “It went to ruin and was rebuilt again in the era of Cromwell, and modernized about fifty years ago by its present owner.”

  I was curious to know more of this mysterious owner, but the Count said that he had another story he would prefer to tell me. He took me by the hand through the castle to a parlor at its rear. I could not see much of the room in the dark except the glimmer of its chandeliers and the large gilded mirrors on the walls. From a bay window, in the distance, I saw a vine-covered ruin sitting beside a moonlit lake. Something inside me stirred. I felt dizzy, faint. I leaned against him.

  “Do you recognize it, Mina?”

  “I do not, and yet it is familiar.”

  “Come,” he said, taking my hand. He opened a door that led outside. The temperature had dropped, and the night was cold. He put his arms around me. “You will be warm,” he said.

  He picked me up and started to walk toward the ruin and the lake. In moments, he was no longer walking, nor was he flying, but we were moving at a rapid pace, as if gliding on an invisible track. I held my breath as the landscape sped by me and the castle drifted away. In another moment, time collapsed, and we blasted through a window of sorts and were inside the ruin.

  He put me down, and I held on to him while I caught my breath. “As your body adapts to mine, it will get used to that sort of travel,” he said. The room was very dark, but enough moonlight came through a big hole in the roof to illuminate its outline. It was a small room, bare but for some big logs that sat beside an abandoned hearth. The Count picked up a few and stacked them inside. He closed his eyes and held his hands over the logs. His long fingers, stretched out in front of him, seemed to pulsate and glow. Somewhere in the distance, an owl screeched, and wings fluttered madly in a tree, but I was too spellbound by his powerful shape in the moonlight to move or to utter a sound. He stood motionless until the glow in his hands intensified. I heard crackling noises coming from the logs, and suddenly, his hands ceased to glow, but flames started to shoot up in the fireplace, first in one place and then in another, until the hearth was dancing with fire.

  He took off his cloak and laid it on the floor for me to sit on. He smiled at my astonished face. “It is not difficult to summon a fire spirit,” he said. “I have seen you do it.”

  As soon as I sat down, the room started to spin around me. He knelt beside me, putting his arm around my shoulders.

  “I feel sick,” I said. My stomach was upset, and I thought I would throw up the food I had just eaten. He put his hand on my stomach. “Just breathe, Mina.” I did as he said. “You are not accustomed to rapid travel.” His hand grew warm as it sat over my belly, dissipating the uncomfortable feeling. “This room carries memories, and, as with any human life, not all that we shared here was good. Yet so much of it was glorious.”

  “What happened here?” I asked.

  “We lived here. You and I, together, long, long ago.”

  “I do not remember anything, and yet the place has an effect on me.”

  “As it would, because the memories are still here,” he said. “All time occurs at once, Mina. I have shown you that. In a place that exists just beyond a thin membrane that you cannot see, you and I are still living that life here together.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. My eyes welled with tears and I clenched my fists in frustration. “I want to understand but I cannot. This is all too much for me.” A few months ago, all I had wanted was a simple church wedding, a little home in Pimlico, and a baby. Now he was calling upon me to apprehend the secrets of the universe.

  He pulled me close to him and pressed his lips against my forehead, soothing me. “It has taken me centuries to understand it myself. I expect too much of you. You are probably still in shock from what happened at the asylum. Perhaps I should have waited until you were stronger to bring you here.”

  “I wanted a life that was secure and simple,” I said. “I yearned for it, and now it is all gone, and I must comprehend things that are beyond me.”

  “You cannot have that life because that is not who you are, Mina. You must be who you are, not who you wish to be.”

  He took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes, once again mesmerizing me, melting away my frustration and making me want only him—to understand him, to be a part of his world. “You asked me last night to tell you more of the story of my life before you and I met. I want you to know everything—everything in my life that drove me to you. It will help you to understand who you are—who you are at the very core of your being—and why you and I are here together at this moment in time.”

  He took his hands from my face and sat back, one knee raised, his arm resting on it, his elegant hand dangling. For a moment, he looked like an ordinary man, but he moved his face, and the firelight caught his skin, exposing his radiance and highlighting his fiercely strong cheekbones. “How we have arrived here is a long story.” He seemed to be breathing in the room’s memories. I had to draw my attention away from his beauty to listen to the words as he began to speak.

  “Af
ter a time with the Lionheart’s army, we fought and won major battles against the Saracens at Acre and Joppa, battles that went down in history and are still talked about today. By this time, we had become savage fighters. Our forbidden prayers and dark rituals seemed to have the magic that we had hoped for, and we believed more than ever that we were invincible. Our reputation spread through the land, not only for our courage but also for our preternatural strength and daring.

  “Now we were joined by a band of mercenary warriors—murderers, really—known in the lands of the Saracens as the Assassins, for hire by anyone who could pay the price. The Assassins had been terrorizing the Christian pilgrims by the hundreds on their way to the Holy Land, raping them, robbing them of everything including their clothing, and leaving them for dead. The Assassins entered the service of the Lionheart, who paid them to protect the pilgrims rather than destroy them. They were a fearsome group of men, animalistic, and yet also practitioners of mysticism. Though we considered them sinister and uncivilized, in fact, we shared many of their characteristics as well as their obsessions, and they fascinated us.

  “We heard rumors that in the dead of night, the Assassins practiced forbidden rituals, ancient secrets to awaken dark powers that would give them invincibility and immortality. We made it known to them that we too were a secret band with similar obsessions, and soon, we were communicating with them. We found that they made blood sacrifices to a heathen goddess of warriors called Kali by the mystics of India, who drained the blood of her enemies into a bowl and drank it. On Tuesday eves, they ate a substance called hashish, which made the real world disappear, and made sacrifices to this goddess. They claimed that she gave them the power to stop both time and death. They invited us to join them in this and in the ritual magic they practiced, which they called the path of the left hand. They taught us the seven hidden centers of the body, where power is stored and through which the life force may enter. In the rituals, we meditated on those hidden seats of power, and we were taught to stimulate the lowest and most powerful center in the genitalia, on ourselves and on each other, which brought ecstasy and climax. We learned to take in more energy and light with each ecstatic climax; and in time, our mental and physical powers grew stronger. We found that meditating on an event would influence it to happen or direct its unfolding. We believed that we had growing dominion over exterior forces as well as over our own beings.

  “Later, when some of these things were revealed, the Church proclaimed our practices satanic, but it was not the devil we worshipped. We devoutly believed in the word of Christ. The monks had taught us that the Holy Grail—the very promise of Jesus—was nothing short of immortality. We believed that Jesus confirmed this with His words and with the blood ceremony that He made the centerpiece of worship.

  “We were anxious to test our new powers in battle, but King Richard was more anxious for peace, and he signed a treaty with Saladin. That was the second day of September in the year of Our Lord 1192. Some of our members set off on a separate quest to find the sacred vessel carrying the immortal blood of Christ, which they believed still existed. Others went to Aquitaine and other parts of France and claimed the lands that were due them for their service.

  “But a small group of us had never forgotten the stories of the Viscount of Poitou and the daughters that he had from his union with the fairy queen. Intrigued with the idea of cavorting with immortals, we requested and received large grants of land in Ireland. Before I left him, the viscount came to me and warned me again of the danger of my quest. ‘You are like a son to me, so I must tell you something that I do not admit to other men, and that is the deep sorrow that comes with abandonment by an immortal lover. They cannot help themselves; it is in their nature to love and to leave. They tire of mortal life with its illnesses and vulnerabilities. As we grow older, they tire of us and they leave. But to the one who is left behind, all is dark. That is why I have buried my grief and loneliness in war. Once lost, nothing can replace the divine pleasures they gave. Few are those who have the privilege of their love, but the loss of them is unendurable.’

  “Because I was inexperienced in the ways of love, his words did not affect me. He saw that I would not be deterred, so he gave me his blessing and charged me with finding his youngest daughter. ‘She is special and dear to me,’ he said. ‘Of the three, she is the most likely to be human. She seemed to have a deeply human heart.’ He gave me a token to take to her, something precious that her mother had given to him for protection before he left France. I thanked him, and I took it with me. The next day, I set off with my cohorts for that foreign land.”

  He stopped talking and stared into the fire.

  “And did you find her?” I asked. Surely he was not finished with the story. He did not answer me, and I grew impatient. Did you find her?

  He slipped his hand into a pocket and pulled out something wrapped in a linen handkerchief. He handed it to me, and I was surprised at the weight of it—heavy and substantial. I untied the piece of string that held the package together and carefully unfolded the linen, revealing a silver Celtic cross inlaid with a mosaic of dozens of stones—amethysts, tourmalines, emeralds, and rubies. I stared at it, entranced by its glimmering beauty. The gems flickered and pranced in the firelight.

  I put the cross to my heart and fell into his chest, and the world around me disappeared.

  31 October 1193

  My sister and I help each other dress in the black robes we have made for the ceremony to honor the Raven goddess who rules over the night, the moon, and its mysteries; who flies over battlefields protecting her beloved ones and destroying their enemies. The dresses are thick and heavy because it will be frigid cold this evening under the full ice-white moon. We cross the panels over our breasts and then tie them tight around our bodies with silver sashes. Our long hair—mine, midnight black and hers, dark copper—spills down our backs in thick waves, offering extra protection against the cold and the wind that whispers incessantly through our valley. This is the evening of the year when the invisible barrier between the two worlds falls and the deities reveal themselves to their faithful; a time when mortals and immortals may take delight in one another, a time when mortals are rewarded not only by the fruits of their labors in the fields but by the immortal ones as they bestow favor. This is the eve when the fairy mounds open and the riotous, pleasure-seeking Sidhe cavort with their chosen ones who live on the earthly plane. On this evening, mortal men too are restless. Knights and kings prowl the land, hoping to attract the Raven Lady, who bestows victories in battle upon her lovers, or one of her ladies, who will pray to the goddess for them, or a Sidhe woman who will give them both pleasure and protection.

  We douse our necks with rose water because we know that the immortal princes who tonight may rise and come to us are attracted to the scent. My sister is betrothed to one of them, and tonight, she hopes that I will attract another so that we may remain together. The sweet fragrance fills my senses until I am dizzy with it. I am known to hear and smell and taste beyond what others do, even my sister, who is skilled in sorcery. We have made thick diadems of crimson roses to place on our heads. Careful not to prick ourselves on the thorns, we crown each other, and then slide our arms into the black gloves we have made with long talons at the fingers, turning our beautiful white hands into lethal weapons.

  We slip out into the night and walk along the stream, following its babbling path until we are in the sacred grove, hidden from the sight of men, where the others have already lit two great bonfires. They sit in a circle, an unkindness of ravens, each draped to the lengths of their fingers in black, the elders hooded and the maidens crowned with flowers. Some of the women wear wide ruffs of black feathers that cover their necks and chests; and our leader, the high priestess, wears a tall, feathered hood, reminiscent of the hooded raven that represents our Divine Lady. They are passing around a bowl, an infusion of magic purple moonflower seeds that we have nurtured all year in our secret garden. Every year, foolish one
s with no knowledge, curious about the tales they have heard of our powers, die from eating the poisonous blue and white moonflowers that grow wild. Little do they know of our sacred garden and the herbs and flowers that we cultivate for our brews.

  My sister and I join the circle of women and take our share of the bitter broth, made palatable with herbs and honey so that we can drink enough to lose our heads to the goddess. The bonfires, pyramids of peat and timber and flame, fueled and tended by two priestesses, grow taller, casting ghostly shadows on the majestic trees that shelter the grove. Three women beat goatskin drums, and we pass the bowl around again while the winds pick up, whipping and whirling the fires, the flames spitting up toward the heavens. I look up and see a swirl of stars twinkling in the sky. The silver moon hangs lightly in night’s dark gloss, and the women begin to chant:

  Come, goddess of the crossroads,

  The One who goes to and fro in the night

  With torch in her left hand and sword in the right,

  Enemy of the daylight, friend of darkness,

  Who rejoices when wolves howl and warm blood is spilt,

  Who walks among the phantoms and tombs,

  Whose thirst is for blood and who strikes fear into hearts mortal.

  Draw down the powers of the moon

  And cast your auspicious eye upon us.

  With the fires blazing at pinnacle heights, we stand one by one and walk nine times around the fires to honor the priestesses of times past, preparing to walk between the flames that will purify our souls and make us worthy recipients of the goddess’s grace and power. I am behind my sister, who is older than I and has stronger magic and goes first in all things to protect me. I have never done this before, but I am unafraid because the broth has made me bold. The flames are calling to me, and I want to feel their scorching heat on my ivory-white skin, because I know that tonight I am invincible. The women walk between the bonfires, dancing to the rhythm of the drummers, twirling in the places where the flames meet, defying the fire to work its power. We know that the goddess gives us immunity and we can therefore be unafraid.