by Jenn Bennett
I nodded. “Maybe that was just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. All the stories about Vlad’s insane bloodlust—all the impalements and dipping bread in blood—maybe when Vlad wore the three rings, he was . . .”
“An all-powerful killer who slaughtered tens of thousands?”
“The Impaler,” I said, heart beating rapidly with excitement. “All the people that Father mentions in the journal who’ve owned the ring over the years—mass murderers. The three bands together must activate its power and cause bloodlust in the wearer. Father’s research in the journal matches up with the description in my Batterman’s Field Guide—it was a war ring, originally intended to make Vlad’s father unstoppable on the battlefield in order to aid the Holy Roman Empire’s efforts to win land over the Ottomans. Maybe when Vlad’s ring made its way back to Turkey in the late 1800s, as Father says in the journal, that’s when the Turkish sultan had it divided into three bands, each one sent separately to different families in Romania. Separated, the ring’s power is diminished.”
Huck took the foil bands back from me and held them up in front of the fire. “Christ alive, banshee. How come Fox never saw this?”
“Maybe I’m smarter than he is.”
He huffed out a breath, amused, and crumpled the foil bands into a ball before tossing it into the fireplace. “Maybe you are. And Fox never heard the ring in Sighișoara like you did, or maybe he would have known it was real. Then we wouldn’t be stuck in this horror cabin with literal wolves at our door.”
I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me. Maybe he’d only said he believed me back in Sighișoara just to placate me outside the Drăculești museum? I stole a look at his profile, light from the fire dancing over his face, while my head swam with bone rings and wolves. It was enough to make me question it all myself. Had I heard heartbeats in the museum, or was I just suffering from exhaustion? Were there actually three rings that fit together like a puzzle, or was I grasping at straws? Had my father made the decision to track down the ring alone to lead Rothwild away from us, or had he selfishly abandoned us like unwanted luggage, uncaring about anything but the prize of another treasure?
I understood at that moment why people said worry is burden, because all of this felt heavy enough to weigh me down. I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Not where my father was. Not the rings. Not whether Huck and I felt the same way or if we’d be separated again. Any of it. I only wanted to get warm and stay that way. Basic survival. That was far easier to manage.
Mentally and physically exhausted, we used clothes from our luggage to construct a makeshift pallet on the floor in front of the fireplace, and we lay down in our coats side by side, trying to keep warm. After I closed my eyes, I felt Huck’s fingers between us, feathering over mine, gently urging. Asking. I turned my palm upward, and he twined warm fingers with mine. We clasped hands in silence, and then he tugged me closer.
“C’mere to me,” he murmured, gathering me against his chest, my head on his shoulder, the wool of his coat scratchy under my cheek. His arms wound around me, and he was warm and solid, and my God, he felt good! I was terrified he’d hear my heart thundering wildly—until I realized it was his heart I was hearing.
We clung to each other while the wind howled around the cabin, until a deep peacefulness spread through me. This was everything I needed, right here. This comfort. This tiny bit of joy. This light in the darkness that told me everything was going to be okay. We were going to be okay. Somehow.
But as I drifted off to sleep, a stray thought bubbled up to the surface.
Rothwild had one bone band. Did Sarkany have a second band, stolen from the Drăculești museum? And if there were, indeed, three bands of bone, and the final one was in the possession of the Zissu twins, that meant my father could be headed to them right now, unaware of all this.
I hoped to God we made it to him before anyone else did.
JOURNAL OF RICHARD FOX
July 15, 1937
Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, Kingdom of România
Being here has Elena in my thoughts again. She said in some ways this was more of a home to her than Brașov, because of all the years she spent attending university here and then doing fieldwork for the ancient history department. If it weren’t for that work, we may have never met.
Left the hotel earlier with the intention of going to visit Elena’s old mentor, Dr. Toma Mitu, her college archaeology professor, while Jean-Bernard was sleeping in late. Mitu has been writing me for months, pestering me for a telephone call. Said he’d been doing research on a side project and found something important. Granted, every history professor I’ve met thinks their research is earth-shattering, and it almost never is. Anyway, when I got to the university, I just couldn’t make myself go inside. Maybe I’m a coward. Maybe I just can’t handle listening to an old man dig up memories about Elena that I’d rather stay buried. Hurts too much. Isn’t that strange? All these years later, it still hurts as if she died yesterday. Grief is a rotten, stinking bastard of a thing.
When I got back to the hotel, I told J.B. that I was done with the whole damn chase for this ring. I wasn’t even convinced it existed, to be honest. So we’re leaving Romania today and heading down to Athens as we originally planned. Rothwild can keep his damn money. I’m out.
18
THE WOLF PACK NEVER RETURNED. Not that we knew of anyway. We both dozed off and on, taking turns adding logs to the fire when it died down . . . and returning to each other’s arms. But once daylight shone through cracks in the walls, we separated without a word.
We’d survived the night. Now we had to get out of the forest.
Huck bravely volunteered to step outside and check around the area to ensure we were alone as I watched from the door. No ghosts or rabid animals—no traps either, which was good, because I was worried our friendly skeleton had booby-trapped the area. However, after we both went in different directions to take care of nature’s call in private, what Huck did find was a rustic but passable bridge over the river, just past the cabins. So we gathered up our things and wasted no time using it.
Hiking through even a little snow isn’t easy; hiking through snow-covered bramble and underbrush was harder. We trudged along for a couple of hours, shoes soaked and feet numb with cold, and spotted seven red deer, ten squirrels, and one unidentified furry animal that may have been a marten or a weasel, or simply a large rat.
Just after nine o’clock in the morning by Huck’s wristwatch, we found a dirt road (no more brambles!) then a paved one—no more mud! And when we stepped around a sharp bend in the road, an entire city sprang to life as if by magic.
Cluj. Unofficial capital of the Transylvania region. Home to Romanian revolutionaries, a large Hungarian population, and Bohemian expats.
And what a city it was, one that teemed with history—baroque buildings, heroic statuary, and Gothic spires. Sunshine glinted off sloping roofs dusted in snow, and traffic along the streets was lazy. It wasn’t as big or bustling as Bucharest, but it had an old-world charm that was appealing.
We hiked through a neighborhood lined with quaint shops and restaurants that were just opening for the day, and on a not-as-quaint side street, I spotted a dark storefront with dirty windows. Big red letters were painted on the glass: AMANET. Pawnshop, last hope of the downtrodden and destitute. We didn’t have enough money to send a transatlantic cable to Foxwood to beg Father’s butler to wire cash, nor even to send a simple telegram to Paris—not to mention that it felt crude to ask Jean-Bernard’s man for money when his employer was on a hospital bed. No. We’d gotten ourselves into this situation and depleted our resources. Best to climb out on our own four feet.
So I did the only thing I knew I could do:
I pawned my precious Leica camera.
I clicked through half a dozen blank photos to finish up the roll of film inside, removed it, and relinquished the best present my father had ever given me, RIP. Maybe some local university student would buy it and take award-
winning photographs.
“I’m so sorry, banshee,” Huck said after we’d exited the shop with a handful of lei. “I know you loved that camera.”
But what else could we do? Even if the pawnshop owner gave us a quarter of what that camera was worth, the man was saving our rumps. And we were lucky he traded with us at all, because we looked like the devil’s own rejects, booted from the second circle of hell—Huck with his ripped clothes and me with my black eye. Because, oh, was it black. And bloodshot. I looked like a drunk racoon that had wandered out into the street and gotten clipped by a motorcycle.
Four down, seven letters: H-A-G-G-A-R-D.
No matter. We’d gained enough coin from the pawnshop to feel momentarily wealthy, and that was something.
After stopping at a tiny farmacia to buy aspirin for our aches and iodine for our cuts and scratches, we hiked several blocks to the central railway station, where we purchased bus tickets to Brașov—because the bus was cheaper and faster than the local train. Then we sent a telegram to Jean-Bernard’s house, inquiring about his condition. We had only a few hours before our train departed, but maybe we’d hear something. Promising the telegram window agent we’d return later, we walked across the street and found a window table inside a cozy and very warm café, where we ate a late breakfast: giant bowls of mămăligă, a creamy polenta dish, with cheese and a butter-fried egg on top. It was heavenly. I licked the spoon when I was finished; Huck ran his finger around his bowl. And when the dishes were being cleared away and we still had time to waste, something struck me.
“Father came here this summer,” I said. “It’s in the journal. He said he’d planned to go drop in on my mother’s old professor at the university, that the professor had something important to talk about, but Father changed his mind at the last minute. Maybe it’s nothing, but that was the entry before the torn-out page.”
“Huh,” Huck said. “Did Fox give a hint about what was so important that this professor wanted to discuss?”
“Something the professor was researching? He teaches history and archaeology. Father wrote in the journal that they’d been corresponding by mail, but he’s never mentioned that to me.” Then again, he never told me anything, so that wasn’t a big surprise. “Dr. Mitu—that’s the name of the professor—was my mother’s mentor. She practically worshipped him. Nice man. I haven’t seen him since . . . well, since my mother died. He came to New York for her funeral.”
“Could have been anything, I suppose,” Huck said. “If this man studies archaeology, he may have uncovered a lead about some hidden treasure or tomb somewhere that could interest Fox. Might be as simple as that.”
Perhaps. “Might be. Father apparently lost his nerve after making plans to visit him. Guess it dredged up old feelings for Mother.”
“Fox hates feelings.”
“Loathes them.”
“Unless they’re angry feelings. He quite enjoys grumbling and shouting.”
“Like it’s cake with buttercream frosting,” I agreed, repeatedly tapping my nails on the table. “It’s probably none of my business, whatever Dr. Mitu wanted to tell Father. Right? Nothing to do with Vlad’s ring. I mean, we already have a good idea about where Father is now, so speaking with Dr. Mitu wouldn’t give us any insight.”
“Don’t know,” Huck said.
“Then again, there’s the torn-out page in the journal. Could be to do with all of this mess. Might be something helpful to know. Can’t be that far from here . . .”
“Banshee?”
“Yes?”
“Would you like to go talk to this Dr. Mitu?”
I smiled slowly, flashing him my teeth. “We do have a couple hours before our bus, and he is an old friend of my mother’s—and when am I ever going to be able to say ‘I dropped in because I was just in the neighborhood’ again? Maybe never.”
“Grab your stuff,” he said, pretending to be put out. “Let’s find a taxi.”
The ride to the university in Old Town was a few short blocks down wet streets lined with snow-filled gutters. The campus, a pretty collection of classical buildings topped with sculpted marble friezes, was small but elegant, and after instructing the taxi driver to pull over so that I could ask a couple of students for directions to the archaeology department, we stopped alongside a golden-bricked building with arched windows.
After paying the taxi driver, we passed through a pair of elaborate ironwork streetlamps and entered wooden doors into the building’s threshold. It was dim and nearly deserted inside. Perhaps classes had already ended for winter break? We finally spotted someone who pointed us up a wide staircase to the second floor, and we took a long corridor to the history department.
“So strange to think that my mother walked these halls,” I murmured as we passed a line of old photographs from archaeological digs—all before my mother’s time. “She finished two degrees here, you know. Field archaeology and ancient history. She met my father after she graduated.”
“Seem to recall Fox saying that, yes,” he said in a low voice.
It was intimidating, being here. Felt as if decades of studious and serious academics were judging us inside the old walls. Like we didn’t belong. Perhaps this was one of the reasons my father had gotten cold feet. Then again, I couldn’t imagine him being intimidated by much of anything.
We found a small wooden door with an opaque glass window upon which was painted in gold:
DEPARTAMENTUL ARHEOLOGIE
DIR: PROF. DR. TOMA MITU
Heart racing, I pushed open the door, and we stepped inside a musty-smelling reception area with a sad potted plant and a few more photographs on the wall. I recognized the person in the largest picture: an older man in a dark gray suit, brimmed hat, and metal-rimmed glasses. Dr. Mitu.
But it wasn’t the professor at the reception desk. It was a dark-haired girl who didn’t look as if she could have been that much older than me. She looked up from a pile of graded tests and a paper cup of steaming coffee.
“Yes?” she said, looking us over critically. She had the kind of look in her eye that a bank teller might have when trying to decide if the customer who’d just approached could be a bank robber and she was considering whether to punch the panic button beneath the desk.
“Pardon me,” I said in Romanian. “We don’t have an appointment, but we were hoping to speak to Dr. Mitu? I’m an old family friend. Or rather, my mother was. She was a student here almost twenty years ago, Elena Vaduva.”
“Elena Vaduva?” The young woman’s face brightened. “I know her. At least, I feel as if I do. I helped Dr. Mitu work on a project, and she . . . that is, it concerned her. She was well known in this department. Practically a legend. First woman at the university to earn an archaeology degree . . . Dr. Mitu brags about her after all these years. You are her daughter? Your father is the American adventurer?”
I nodded, excited that she knew about my mother. And my father? Wow. My mother really must have been Dr. Mitu’s favorite pupil, all right. “Yes, that’s me,” I told her. “Miss Theodora Fox, and this is my, um . . .” I gestured toward Huck. I’d be damned before I introduced him as my brother again. Friend of the family? That didn’t sound right either. Boy who broke my heart? Love of my life? Best friend?
“Huck Gallagher,” he said simply when I took too long. Then he told the young woman, “I don’t speak Romanian. Sorry.”
“I speak English,” the woman said, switching languages. “I am Liliana Florea, Dr. Mitu’s graduate teaching assistant. Just Liliana is fine.”
“You’re a student?” I asked.
She nodded. “For five years. Like your mother was, I suppose,” she said, fanning her hand above the desk. Then her smile faded, and her brow wrinkled. “I’m afraid I have bad news, however. Dr. Mitu isn’t here. He’s at a dig in Egypt, outside of Memphis. He left two weeks ago.”
My heart fell. Not sure why, exactly. I suppose, unlike Father, I was hungry for connections with people who knew my mother—hungry f
or memories and stories, anything that kept her alive in my head.
“I’m disappointed to hear that,” I told Liliana. “He’d contacted my father, Richard Fox? My father mentioned that Dr. Mitu was doing some research, and I believe he was coming to see him this past summer but . . . got sidetracked.”
Liliana nodded, eyes bright with interest. “I know all about that. I helped Dr. Mitu—it was such an exciting project. He was so looking forward to seeing your father to share his discovery.”
“Really?” I said. “Do you mind me asking . . . what discovery was this?”
“Your father didn’t tell you? I’m quite certain it’s of interest, especially to you, since you’re part of the tree.”
I glanced at Huck. He wasn’t following either.
“Tree?”
“Family tree. Is that the right word in English? Dr. Mitu was researching Elena’s genealogy—her family’s lineage. He’s been attempting to trace it through historical documents. They started working on it when she was a student here. You didn’t know about his project?”
“Oh, right. That project,” I said, pretending I knew all about it. “The professor made a recent discovery about my mother’s family?”
She took a sip of hot coffee, holding the cup in both hands. “About the House of Drăculești.”
All the hair on my arms stood up. Huck made a small noise. “Vlad the Impaler’s house,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“The very one,” Liliana said brightly. “Dr. Mitu was going to send all the documents to your father, but he was excited to show him in person. You didn’t know? Vlad the Impaler was Elena’s ancestor.”
A wave of dizziness rolled over me. My legs stiffened painfully. I felt as if someone could push me over with the tip of their finger and I’d topple sideways to the floor like a captured chess piece.
“Her ancestor,” I repeated, licking dry lips. “You mean, in a general sense? As in Vlad Dracul was a kind of founding father of Romania?”
