"And you have spoken of this to no one?"
"No, Voivode." He paused. "But those Gypsy Szgany, I do not think they can be trusted, Voivode. Once they have taken the box from my Slovaks, they may dump it in the river to avoid the hard poling upstream."
"My Szgany are faithful servants," he replied. "They have served … my people for centuries, and they know what fate awaits them if they disobey."
"Yes, Voivode." He paused again. "And may I ask what further services you require of me? You said I would not be here in the morning when my Slovaks load the barge …"
"That is correct," he said, walking up to his agent. "You have another task to perform, a very important task." He reached out and grabbed Skinsky by the collar. "You must bleed, Skinsky, and you must die." Before the man could react to the swift movement, the Voivode closed his teeth upon Skinsky's throat and ripped it open.
Petrof Skinsky tried to scream, but the blood pouring from his throat turned the sound into a frenzied gurgle as he stumbled backward, clutching madly at the huge gash. Skinsky fell to his knees and then pitched forward onto his face.
The Voivode gazed down impassively at the bleeding body as it twitched and quivered in its death throes. "This must not be my fate," he muttered. I have cheated true death for four centuries. I will not, I must not end as a pile of rotting dust and bone. My heart must not be host to the wooden stake of the executioner. I must defeat them, destroy them, survive, triumph. I must!
He smiled in the darkness, amused at his own thoughts. What is this, Voivode? Are you nervous, Lord of Wallachia? You, who waged war upon the Ottoman Turks, are you now afraid of the miserable cattle who pursue you? Do you fear them, that aged German, that American barbarian, those effete Englishmen, that pathetic woman?
He walked quickly from the churchyard toward the wharves. He did not need to know precisely where Skinsky's warehouse was to be found, for his nostrils could smell the inviting warmth of his native soil. When he reached the warehouse, he dissolved again into mist and seeped through the doorway and then through the space between the box and the lid. Once inside, again safe upon the earth of his homeland, he resumed his physical form.
And then he slept and dreamed the dreams of the dead.
He heard the liquid sounds of the Slovak tongue when he awakened with the next sunset, but he steeled himself to remain within the box until the sun had again completed its circuit. He needed the Slovaks to ferry him to the mouth of the Siretul River, and he dared do nothing that might cause them to jettison their cargo with the dawn. He lay silent and motionless in his conscious state, and the hunger gnawed at him. I must have blood, he thought, and then told himself, no, no, tomorrow night, wait until tomorrow night.
Dawn. He slept. He dreamed.
Dusk. He awakened.
He gnashed his teeth angrily when he heard that the boatmen were still speaking Slovak, which meant that he was still on the Danube. Again he steeled himself against his hunger, again he lay motionless through the long night as his self-imposed famine gnawed at him. The hours passed slowly, torturously, and he was on the verge of losing control when dawn broke and he fell back into his death dreams.
At last, when his empty eyes again moved with the setting of the sun and he listened to the voices from without, the words he heard were in the language of the Szgany.
He seeped out as mist to find himself on an old barge, surrounded by his Szgany Gypsies, the terrified and obedient servants of his many years of mastery. He solidified in their midst, and they dropped their barge poles onto the deck and fell to their knees. He looked from face to face. "Where is Kurda?" he asked imperiously.
"He … he is dead, V … Voivode," said a young Szgany. "He died last week. I am his son, Miklos."
He nodded. "And you command here?"
The young man bowed his head. "You command here, Voivode."
He nodded, smiling. "Then my needs are known to you, Mikios Kurdescu."
The Gypsy scurried over to the rear of the barge and returned with a burlap bag. He undid the rope and then took the immobile body of a seven-year-old boy from the bag. He held the child out as if it were an offering to a bloodthirsty deity
He did not take the child from the Szgany. He smelled the blood but saw no signs of life. "If you know of me from your father, Miklos Kurdescu, you know that I am like unto the serpent, which does not devour the dead. If this child is dead, he is of no use to me, and one of you must serve in his stead." He could hear the frightened intakes of breath as he spoke these words. "Does the child still live?"
"Yes, Voivode," Miklos replied, praying in his terror that the bag had not suffocated the child, praying that he had not failed in his first service to the dark lord who had ruled his people for centuries.
"Then rouse him," said the Voivode.
Miklos knelt down by the edge of the barge and took a few handfuls of water to splash on the child's face. In a few moments the little boy began to squirm and whine. Miklos and the other Szgany emitted audible sighs of relief as he again held the child out to the dark lord.
He took the child in his dead hands and waited for the eyes to open. He smiled and spoke softly to the semiconscious little boy, seeming to coo soothingly. Then he placed his mouth over the unlined white throat and began almost gently to drink. The child moved his little hands slowly for a few moments as the life was sucked out of him. Slowly his eyes grew blank and empty, and the boy fell still. The fresh young blood of an innocent child, the Voivode thought. So sweet, so sweet. When the body was cold and bloodless, he tossed it callously into the gently rolling waves of the Siretul River.
He looked at the Szgany. If they had been horrified or repulsed by what he had just done, they did not allow it to be seen on their faces. "Return to your task," he commanded, and they quickly picked up the barge poles and began again to push the barge on its long upstream journey toward the junction of the Siretul and Somesul rivers. He turned to Miklos as the other Szgany labored against the current. "Miklos Kurdescu. Come here."
The young Szgany came closer to him and swallowed nervously. "Yes, Voivode?"
"Do you know what must be done?"
"We … we are to take the barge up the Siretul to the Somesul and then to the Bishta River, and we are then to go up the Bishta to the last dock, thirty kilometers from Oradea. Then we are to load the … cargo onto a cart and take it to your castle."
"Correct," he said. "There is more. Listen carefully."
The Szgany glanced over their shoulders at Miklos as he listened and nodded. They avoided looking at the eyes of the demon as they burned red in the darkness of the Carpathian night, for to look too deeply into the eyes of the Devil would be to lose one's soul. They continued to lean their weight against the ends of the barge poles, and the barge made its way slowly upstream through the pitch-darkness.
All through the night the Voivode stood at the bow of the barge, an unearthly captain of a stygian vessel. He looked behind him at the black river that wound its way back into the darkness of the Balkan night, and he could almost sense his enemies drawing closer to him. He knew that they were still far away, but his cold lips grew narrow and tense with the knowledge that each passing minute reduced the distance safety. "Faster," he ordered, and the Szgany strained at the poles in their effort to obey. He summoned his powers over the elements and called up a cold, biting wind to beat against the current of the river and aid him in his flight.
Is this fear? he wondered. It has been so long since I have feared …
When dawn approached, he again dissolved into mist and seeped back into the box. This would be the last day, he thought as he slipped into his death dreams. Within an hour the barge would leave the Somesul for the Bishta, and the Szgany would begin the arduous last stage of the journey. The dock nearest the border city of Oradea should be reached early in the afternoon, and thus he would be home by sunset.
Home, he thought as his eyes grew empty and his cold hands grew still. Home, where I will be safe agai
n. Home to hundreds of hiding places. Home to my wives and my noble coffin. Home to my grave.
The sun was high in the heavens when he stirred slightly in his undead sleep. He had a fleeting vision of the bearded, heavyset old man creeping quietly through the crypt of his ancestral home, and be saw him throwing back the lid of coffin after coffin. He heard silent screams of agony echoing from the distance as the stakes were driven through the hearts of the women who had been with him through all the long centuries since they had been killed by the Turks. He heard Magda's mind screaming "Voivode! Voivode!" as the wood invaded her body, heard Katarina and Simone shrieking as they were reduced to dust.
He lay in cold, mute, impotent fury. To lie here helpless as they invade my home and massacre my wives! Helpless, defenseless, weak! Damn them! Damn them all!
He awakened as the sun's rim kissed the turrets of his castle ruins. He felt himself being tossed and jostled roughly within the box as the cart sped along the pitted dirt road. He heard the cries of his Szgany as they whipped their horses for more speed, and he heard the almost deafening pounding of hooves upon the roadway. And then, drawing closer with each moment, he heard the sound of gunfire.
They had found him.
"No!" he screamed. "No!" In my own land, surrounded by my own people, not one mile from my castle, not one minute to sunset, and they are upon me!
It must not be thus! I will not have it thus!
He sent out a silent command to the wolf packs that dwelt in the crags, summoning them to his aid. The sudden chorus of howls and snarls mingled with the gunfire and the shouts of his Gypsies as the battle was joined on the cold Carpathian road. He hissed in anger and his red eyes blazed as the sun began to sink behind the mountains.
"Damn you, Van Helsing," he whispered …
"… In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on the one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the leveled weapons nor flashing knives of the Gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great chest, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. As Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to pry off the lid with his great Kukri knife, Mr. Morris attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.
"By this time the Gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no further resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountaintops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well.
"As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.
"But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.
"It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight."
Bram Stoker, Dracula
I
BLOOD RELATIONS
… visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me …
—Exodus 20:5
Chapter One
"Malcolm?" Rachel Rowland pounded insistently upon the bedroom door. "Malcolm! Get up and get dressed. It's after six o'clock in the evening. Father Henley will be here for dinner any minute." She waited a moment and then pounded again. "Malcolm! If you don't get up, I'm going to come in there and get you up!"
She heard a muffled and annoyed, "Okay, okay!" from within and frowned to herself. He has a lot of nerve, sleeping all day. "Why don't you get a normal, respectable job and get a decent, healthy night's sleep? Working all night, playing until the early hours of the morning, and then spending all day in bed … it just isn't proper, Malcolm!"
The bedroom door swung open and Malcolm Harker gazed at his older sister through bleary eyes. "Sis, get off my case, will you?"
"Don't you take that tone of voice with—" He slammed the door in her face and she began to pound on it again. "Malcolm!"
"All right, I'll be right down. Just go away!"
Rachel sniffed and harrumphed and then walked down the stairs to the dining room. Her husband, Daniel, was standing at the bar, and he looked over at her placidly as she marched into the room. "Prince Charming awake?" he asked.
"Spoiled brat," she muttered. "Yes, I suppose so."
Daniel Rowland shook his head. "How old is he now, twenty-six?"
"Twenty-seven," she muttered as she walked around the dining table, inspecting the place settings for the tenth time.
"Twenty-seven," he mused. "Why, when I was twenty-seven, I'd already made my first big killing in the market. Had a Mercedes when I was twenty-seven. Had a few CDs, a mutual fund, and a good stock portfolio, all before I was thirty."
She nodded. "I just don't understand that boy. He seems to have absolutely no ambition whatsoever, if he doesn't get himself straightened out, I don't know what's going to …" She paused at the sound of a slow shuffle at the doorway. "Oh, hello, Grandfather. Have a nice nap?"
"Couldn't sleep," old Quincy muttered as he walked slowly into the dining room, leaning heavily upon his cane. He shuffled over to the table and sat down awkwardly at the head. "Malcolm was having nightmares again. Kept talking in his sleep."
"I don't wonder," Daniel observed as he uncorked a bottle of wine and placed it in the middle of the table. "All those misfits and malcontents he's always hanging around with at that bar where he works …"
"Not that bottle, Danny," Rachel said. "That's the dessert wine. Open the white for dinner."
"White? Fish or fowl?"
"Cornish hens," she muttered as she marched into the kitchen.
"Oh, well," he sighed. Daniel Rowland was not overly fond of poultry—strictly a meat-and-potatoes man. "But he should cultivate a few respectable friends," he continued as he corked the bottle and began to uncork another. "Why, when I was his age, I had friends and contacts in all branches of industry …" A mutter from the old man interrupted him. "What was that, Grandfather?"
"I said I'd be content if the boy would just go to church," old Quincy repeated in the soft voice which, though weak and trembling with advanced age, was still precise and dignified. Though the family patriarch had lived in the United States for over eighty of his more than ninety years, he still retained some small vestige of his English accent. He sighed as he absentmindedly reached up to smooth back the hair which his bald head had discarded decades ago. "I wish I was strong enough to go," he said. "I've taken the sacrament every Sunday since I was a child. It bothers me, not going to church."
"Oh, Grandfather, don't be silly," Rachel said. "Father Henley or Father Langstone can come to the house to give you communion."
"Not the same," he insisted.
"Besides, you can't expect to hop out of a hospital bed and go running off to church. When you get your strength back, you'll be able to go."
"What makes you think I'll be getting my strength back?" Quincy asked with annoyance, the wrinkles in his face made all the more prominent by his frown. "I'm not immortal, you know, and I've already go
ne beyond my three score years and ten."
"And I'm sure you have many years left," Rachel insisted, not quite truthfully. Though the doctors had claimed that the prostate operation had been routine and successful, the ordeal had weakened the old man considerably, and he appeared to be slower of movement and wearier with each passing day.
Quincy glowered at his granddaughter as she picked up a perfectly clean fork and began to wipe it with a spare napkin. "Omniscient now, are we?" he asked.
"Now, Grandfather, don't get in one of your moods," she said briskly as Quincy continued to glower. "Don't forget, we have company this evening."
"How old are you now, Rachel?" Quincy asked, watching as she inspected the table obsessively. Rachel was austere and prim, the potential attractiveness of her high cheeked, narrow face and thin, aristocratic nose offset by the penetrating, judgmental, constantly disapproving eyes and the holier-than-thou demeanor. Her short brown hair was pleasantly styled and her clothing was always the latest in fashion, but there was nothing even remotely feminine about her. She was too cold, too hard, too humorless.
"Hm?"
"I asked how old you are."
"I'll be forty in December," she replied. "You know that."
The old man nodded. "That makes you sixty-five."
Rachel looked over at him. "Whatever are you talking about?"
"Twenty-five and forty make sixty-five," he muttered. "You've been acting like a forty-year-old since you were fifteen."
Rachel turned her head in her grandfather's direction and stared at him silently for a moment, her brusque austerity seeming to be softened by some unspoken sorrow as her face was briefly suffused with an uncharacteristic vulnerability. She swallowed hard before responding, "Yes, I suppose I have. Fifteen was a difficult age for me."
She continued to stare at him, and the old man sighed. "Now, Rachel, you know I didn't mean to say …"
"I know what you meant," she snapped, hard and unyielding once again. "And you know what I mean."
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