by Ana Calin
Of course, I remain aware the prince could have hired anyone else, anyone he wanted. He sure has a secret agenda with me, which makes my skin prickle. Curiosity eats at me like crazy, and I wouldn’t miss the chance to feed it if it kills me.
CHAPTER III
Juliet
The whole contract thing has kept me at the office for two straight days. Been going through papers all night and all of today with Herald and the company lawyer. The train now lulls me to sleep with its swaying as it takes me to the periphery of Berlin, where I’ve lived with my sister Isolde since the pictures business—told myself all those reasonable things about the hacker and all, but I still can’t be alone at night.
Isolde is a caregiver for the elderly and people with disabilities, so she has a keen eye for signs of sickness and the like, which means she’s on my case as soon as I kick off my shoes.
“Jesus, Juliet, you look like you just broke out from the morgue.”
“Just another day in Paradise.”
On my way to the only bedroom I pass by a blur of her lean shape that resembles mine—basically a stripe in the landscape, firm bumps at the level of the chest and butt. Her hair is much longer though, so it flows down her body in bouncy waves that are as beautiful as a doll’s. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to secure her a guy’s long-term attention in cold Berlin.
I hit the bed face down and only open my eyes again twenty-four hours later, when I’m left with five more hours until I’m to embark on a plane that’ll take me from the Berlin airport down to what I’ve heard is no man’s land. Isolde has swapped her usual night shift with a colleague in order to assist me with my luggage and ask me a ton of questions, making me face stuff I really don’t want to deal with right now. Stuff I’d rather stay blind to.
“Have you considered that Herald could have dark reasons to put all of this on your shoulders? I mean, come on, it’s a huge deal, top secret, and if you screw up it can mean serious trouble,” she says while she stuffs sweaters into my luggage.
“It’s September, Isolde, go easy on the winter stuff.”
“You don’t know how long you’ll be there.” She glances at me from under the white-blond arches above her eyes. “And I have a hunch you’ll be longer than you expect. Anyways, what if Herald has—”
“Listen, Isolde,” I interrupt, holding up my hand. “This is a huge opportunity for me, all right? I don’t know who else would have trusted me with it at my age, and especially after less than six months experience in the media.”
“But that’s exactly my point. I know you’re ambitious Juliet, I admire that about you and I wish I was made of the same stuff, but don’t let the rush of a fast career blind you to—”
“Honey.” I walk around the bed and take her pretty face between my hands. “If I get what Herald needs on the prince, I’ll have all doors open. This will be the hardest, most vicious, most dangerous fight of my life, but it will also be the last, Isolde.” I square my shoulders, reassessing my situation and feeling good about it. “And I’m ready for it.”
She looks at me, pressing her lips together, unwillingly accepting that I’m doing this. “What about your feelings for Herald? Are you sure they aren’t playing a role in this decision? The main role?”
I don’t respond, just look steadily into her eyes.
Isolde shakes her head slightly. “As I said, I always admired your ambition and your brains, big sister, but when you’re in love, you’re downright stupid.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
But Isolde has already pushed my hands down from her face and gone on to pick more clothes from the wardrobe.
“Tell me more about the prince. What’s in the file you brought the other night? You fell asleep on it,” she explains, sorting clothes. “I would have looked inside if you hadn’t been sprawled all over it.”
“A good thing you didn’t.” I check my briefcase for the file. It’s there, tucked safely between other papers I’ll need. “This is literally the kind of business you don’t want to know too much about.”
“Uhuuhuuu, I’m scared.” She pretends to be bracing herself and tremble. “You sound like Corleone.”
“I’m not joking, Isolde.”
“At least do this for me.” She walks over, holding out her hand with a small gadget that I have to frown at to identify. “I know Herald said no technology because it’s easily hacked, especially by people as powerful as the prince.” She glances down to the small gadget. “But I’m pretty sure no one will take this seriously. Keep in touch.”
I take it and turn it in my hand, amused. “How did you even get the idea?”
She shrugs with a clever smile on her face. “There’s this thing about people with disabilities that no one considers—They think outside the box by default, and disregard all rules. They have the most innovative minds.”
I’m deliciously surprised. This is one of those moments when I wish I were a selfless, people-loving caregiver like Isolde, and marvel at the human genius where the entire world least expects it.
TURBULENCE HAS SHAKEN the plane often enough to make me pray for my life. I haven’t prayed since I was six. Just as I thought the worst part was over, dragging my luggage from luggage claim, I bumped into a boisterous family of gypsies that tried to steal my purse. Hadn’t the driver the prince sent for me intervened, I’d be stranded in No Man’s Land without papers or money.
“Better watch it, miss,” he says in a well-educated accent as he picks up my luggage and leads me to the car. He’s a very tall young man with ruffled curls, warm eyes and an overall friendly aura, tattoos coiling up his forearms. I think he’s a student who jobs around for college money. “You have better chance of surviving here without papers than without cash.”
This is another world, that much is certain. Everything seems old, the buildings withered and erratic, the people tired and angry, and the roads—don’t get me started on the roads. My organs shake inside of me from all the holes and ditches in the ground. After driving in a busy, hot and emissions-smothered ring around Bucharest, we emerge into the plains, the road a meager streak cutting through, industry buildings on each side.
“It looks like business is picking up in your country,” I say, watching the halls glide by through the window.
“Picks up, yes, but not in interest of the common man,” he says, and continues praising his country’s natural resources and beauties, which he’s been doing continuously since we left the airport. He keeps checking the expression on my face in the rear-view mirror, so I have a casual smile in place at all times, though he doesn’t persuade me. This place is exotic, yes, but not in that way.
I feel my jaw drop as we first pass a rickety cart trailing in the cloud of dust left behind by a racing Porsche. It’s almost disintegrating under a load of wood, pulled by two runt horses and topped by a drunken peasant with a lopsided hat and a mustache.
“What in the world is this?”
“Get used to it, miss. Plenty more picturesque items where this came from,” the young man says, laughing.
The next thing I know, we come to a stop, waiting for a shepherd as drunk as the man in the cart to steer his herd of sheep across the road. They’re slow and curious, some of them stopping and watching us leisurely with grass between their teeth, chewing slowly.
I’m shocked and thinking about Herald’s words—for all the money in the world that the prince would pay me, staying here isn’t an option. When I think that we’re still inside the European Union, I could burst into laughter, but I refrain, especially because I find the context to ask the driver about Prince Radek.
“Do you know the prince personally?”
“Prince Radek is a very private person. Very few people in town know him personally, but we all saw him on occasion.”
I tilt my head to the side, meeting his eyes in the rear-view mirror. “You’re a local from the prince’s town?”
“I live in Bran, the resort at the foot of his cas
tle.”
My brain swells as it wraps around the information. I grab his seat. “You mean to tell me we’re going to the Bran castle? Like the one from Bram Stoker’s novel? Like the one from the Dracula movies?”
“Yes, yes,” the young man confirms, laughing his pleasant, young laugh. “Excuse my amusement, miss, but you’re sweet.”
“But he can’t be living there, that’s one of your major tourist attractions.”
“That’s right, it is, but there are deeper layers to that story, miss. The prince has secretly bought the castle from the government years ago, yet he’s also agreed to keep it as a tourist attraction and let the government cash in a big chunk of the proceeds.”
“So hand in hand with the government indeed,” I whisper, eyes darting left and right as I make connections in my head. Sure he manipulates the right people in the right places, he probably also bribes them with money from all the prosperous business around Dracula’s castle. The driver doesn’t dispute the theory either.
“It’s not impossible, miss. The prince’s family has always been well connected.”
In my enthusiasm I grab even tighter to his seat. I’m greedy for information, and this opportunity is gold. “What else can you tell me about him? I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot to say, but—”
“You have a crush on him, miss?”
The blood rushes to my cheeks. “Where would you get that idea?” I squeak.
“Everyone who meets him in person falls for him. It’s almost like a curse. All the girls in town, maybe some of the men, too.”
I remember the prince’s exceedingly attractive face, then the moving pictures of him as a ghost that he’s had the hacker manipulate into my phone.
“To be honest, I think he’s a terrible person.” I lean back and cross my arms, looking outside. It’s almost evening, and we’ve reached the hills, the higher mountains shrouded in fog in the distance.
“This is indeed breathtaking.” I gawk at the sight.
“Wait until we reach the Carpathian heart,” the young man says like an eager accomplice. “It’s out of this world.”
“Out of this world is pretty much everything I’ve seen so far,” I mutter, but when he throws a “What?” over his shoulder, I’m grateful he didn’t catch it.
What I get to see of the forests until the night falls is dense and uniquely wild. So much unlike the woods with man-made feel from my travels. I let down the window and peer into what turns out to be a precipice so deep that I can’t see the bottom, all black and hollow, draught messing up my hair.
“Pull back,” the driver calls. Startled, I draw my head back into the car.
“Why? It’s not like—”
“Don’t put parts of your body out there, miss,” he admonishes. “You don’t expose yourself to the Carpathians like that at night. They’re ancient and dangerous.”
I can’t hold back a laugh. “Oh, come on. We’re not in some Dracula movie.”
His gaze stays fixed on me in the mirror, and I wonder if he shouldn’t be watching the darkening road instead. My heart shrinks in my chest, I feel uneasy. Some strange power seems to have taken over, the car seemingly driving itself and floating as if the holes in the ground have disappeared miraculously, replaced by the smoothest asphalt.
“You’re not here as a tourist, miss. If you were, you’d be seeing a backward region with nothing to hold your modern interests, and none of this would be happening. But you’re here as a guest of Prince Radek.”
None of this would be happening echoes in my head as the car slams into something front-on, the impact throwing me between the front seats. I manage to catch myself with hands against the dashboard and keep my head safe, so there’s no reason to doubt what I’m seeing through the slowly cracking windshield as I raise my eyes. I feel them widen in dread, my fingers gripping to the dashboard.
CHAPTER IV
Radek
The new one’s here. Juliet Jochs. It’s been a while since the last girl, so I plan to have my fun with her.
Juliet sits square-shouldered in the chair across from me at the long table. Her cheeks shimmer pale between the thick, dripping candles. Though she tries to mask it by holding her chin high, exposing a long, white swan neck, she’s clearly affected by me. On my end, the only ripple of emotion is the anticipation of doing with her what I’ve done with all the others.
Still, her special kind of attractiveness isn’t lost on me. Blonde, pale blue eyes, pale skin, she’s a vision of a swan-like virgin. Sure doesn’t sell well in the Western world she comes from, because she has the beauty of a woman to love, not a woman to just fuck, and men these days are only interested in the latter. I make no exception, but I’m twisted like that. I can’t wait to defile her virgin-like prettiness in a very sick way.
“Aren’t you enjoying your dinner, Miss Jochs? Forgive me if I made a mistake in the choice of dish, but I thought Germans loved marinated beef,” I say, aware of how my voice unsettles her, making her shift in her royal chair at the other end of the table.
“Uhm. No, I’m fine. It’s just the accident, I’m still, a little, just....” She blabbers, which makes me smirk. She’s giddy because of a pretty face. If only she knew the foul truth behind it. The thought makes me raise my chin, provoking her with a smile to take in the skin-deep beauty behind which the monster lurks. Her eyes flutter to my lips before she forces herself to look up at my eyes again.
I raise my glass of wine, inviting her to do the same. “Then perhaps something old and fruity to relax your muscles and loosen the mood.”
“I don’t know.” She eyes the glass and then, like a sneaking mouse, she grabs and drains it.
Then she just sits there again in the white, vaporous dress she found laid for her on the bed in her room, kneading her hands together on her lap, probably angry with herself for behaving so much differently from how she imagined she’d behave. I can tell what she’s feeling by the beating of her heart, the film of sweat breaking through her skin, the way she nervously cracks her knuckles under the table. The essences of her body smell really good.
“I really don’t know what to start with,” she says. “I have so many questions.”
“Questions are why you’re here, Miss Jochs. We don’t need to make small talk first.”
“I’m not even sure what I want to begin with: with how come you don’t have a single scratch after the car drove straight into you, or how those pictures of you looking like a zombie ended up on my phone.”
I stir the wine, breathing in the scent. “Maybe your smartphone sees beyond appearances. Maybe it’s a genius phone.”
“Don’t make fun of me, please.”
She keeps a straight face but her eyes begin to sparkle, moving around my face, and I pick up on the increase in her pulse. I can tell she finds me as compelling as the other girls before her, but then she looks away. This takes me by surprise. I’ve sat with dozens of women one on one at this table, and most have tried to take advantage of the intimate situation and attempted to impress me in some way, or directly seduce me. Not this one. I narrow my eyes, trying to x-ray through her motives.
“This castle,” she says, averting her gaze. “It’s a tourist attraction, yet we’re having the hell of a private dinner here tonight as if the place is a private home. How come?”
“This is an area of the castle that’s separate and unknown to the public.”
“An area unknown to the public?” She looks around. After the accident she was escorted directly to her quarters, where she got to freshen up and change clothes before she joined me for this very late dinner, but that’s all she’s seen of the castle so far.
“I don’t even know where I am inside the fortress,” she confirms my suspicions. “I can’t even believe that I’m actually in the famous Dracula’s lair.”
I laugh, and her eyes turn to me, startled. For a moment it slipped my mind that, when I don’t purposefully control myself, I sound like the beast inside. I clear my voice.
“Dracula isn’t here, Miss Jochs. That I can tell you for certain.”
She looks around again, making an attempt at sarcasm. “I’m not so sure, Prince, I must confess. This entire place with its long royal tables, dripping candles, even you with your long black cape.... You’re walking around like a vision of male perfection after you basically got run over by a car. This seems a dream, only it’s too lucid, and I haven’t even hit my head.”
I hold back a smirk at vision of male perfection.
“It was only an illusion, Miss Jochs. The driver just stepped on the brakes too suddenly, nothing more.” I sip from my wine.
“I don’t know if I believe that, Prince.” Then, quieter, “Given the dent in the hood.”
“He drove the car into a small pier. If you’re still thinking Dracula and vampires, I’m afraid the beasts in this place are far less sexy. This isn’t Hollywood.”
I expected that to scare her but, instead, cleverness flashes through her gaze as she narrows her eyes. For the first time in forever, pleasure runs through me. There’s a special kind of intelligence in her pale blue irises, sharpness specific to fast neuronal activity, the inquisitive and investigative kind. The white blond curls around her small head make me think of a hybrid between Medusa and Helios, a halo electrified from all the cerebral activity.
I stop to consider whether I find her more than just pretty. Pretty is but a mask that can hide monsters, I know that better than anyone, so I never held physical appearance in high regard. I actually despise anyone who grooms it—which Juliet Jochs doesn’t. She wasn’t wearing any make-up the first time I saw her at the press conference, and she isn’t wearing any now. She really isn’t trying to impress me, or anyone.
