Only the old woman, sitting on a low stool by the fire and plucking a goose with a ferocity that Monsieur Emietter would have admired, appeared unphased. She smiled at me, a broad toothless grin, chuckling happily away to herself.
As I approached she threw the goose down at her feet and stood, holding her arms open.
“Welcome, welcome!” She laughed hard, like someone who hadn’t done so in a very long time. “Me Codrina! Also witch!”
“I knew it,” I said and wrapped her in a hug.
Retrieving Silvan from beneath the balcony was not at all plain sailing.
Codrina sent one of the chefs down to the nearby village to fetch help. He swiftly returned with a pair of strapping farm lads. The problem was, farm lads with huge muscles are not the best at abseiling castle walls. Nevertheless, we constructed a pulley system and I worked the sticky spell on them both so that they needn’t fear falling from the ropes. Fortunately it only took one of them to carry Silvan and the other was then on hand to help haul the pair up, ably assisted by myself, Codrina, several of the chefs—who seemed particularly keen to get one over on the vampires—and Paimon of course.
Silvan hardly seemed to know me. His teeth chattered and he cried out in pain when we lay him on the stone flags of the balcony. I caressed his forehead. “You’re going to be safe soon,” I told him. “Really soon.” I looked up at Codrina and she nodded.
“We take to village and hide,” she told me. “I organise.”
“Will they think to search there?” I asked, as worried about the villagers’ safety in the face of Grigor’s wrath as much as my own and Silvan’s.
“Not worry. Not worry.” Codrina waved my concerns away and spoke rapidly in her own language. The two farm labourers lifted Silvan to carry him inside. “Careful!” she snapped at them. “Important cargo.” She looked at me and winked.
I couldn’t help but smile at her cheekiness in spite of my concerns. “Very important,” I agreed.
While the chefs dismantled the harnesses and ropes we’d used I walked to the edge of the balcony and looked over. The Transylvanian landscape was bathed in sunshine, the snowy peaks of the Carpathians in the distance, sparkled.
Stunning.
But I couldn’t wait to get away.
As I turned back for the door, a subdued electronic bong caught my attention. I frowned and glanced about me. The noise came again. This time I caught the direction of sound, and when I redoubled my search efforts, something shiny caught my attention. Tucked under one of the columns that held the mantle of the balustrade, lying on a bed of spongy moss and ivy… was my mobile phone. The screen had cracked but was otherwise in one piece.
I grabbed a hold of it hastily, imagining it slipping out of my grasp once more and falling to the forest floor below never to be seen again. The screen lit up as I touched it. Still no signal and only a slither of battery life left.
I glanced up at the castle walls looming large above me. The phone had fallen from the turrets above and not smashed into smithereens? The goddess had been looking out for me, after all.
“Well I’ll be—”
I slipped inside the study and took a couple of photos of the large portrait hanging above the fire before my mobile died on me completely.
Time to see if I could charge it, find a signal and send these photos to Wizard Shadowmender.
“I knew your great-grandmother.” Codrina grinned toothlessly at me.
“You did?” That seemed unlikely to me. Gwyn had been dead for decades and I imagined Codrina was somewhere in her sixties. She had the appearance of a woman who had lived a hard life, working primarily with her hands, cooking and cleaning, and tending fires—with her magick of course. But then I hadn’t known that Gwyn had visited Transylvania in the aftermath of the First World War, let alone any time more recently. “When?”
“Was a long time ago. She was kind to me. A good woman.”
“She was,” I agreed. “‘Is’ in some ways. Her ghost lives with me back at home.”
Codrina laughed. She found everything hilarious. “She keeps grip on life even now? She still a fierce fighter.”
We were sitting in the back of a large flatbed pick-up truck, with Silvan on a hastily constructed mattress of cushions and blankets at our feet. He slipped in and out of consciousness and seemed entirely unaware of his surroundings. When I reached to calm him, he felt hot to the touch.
I’d bid Paimon a fond farewell and sent him back to wherever djinns hang out when they are waiting to be summoned. It had been short and sweet, but he’d proven his worth. After she’d taken care of more of the guards with a sleeping draught she’d pre-prepared, Codrina had then hustled us to climb onto the back of a flatbed truck in the courtyard. Her organisational skills were formidable, almost as though she’d recognised what would be needed well in advance of my appearance in her kitchen. Once aboard, we’d hidden under a tarpaulin until the truck cleared the guards by the drawbridge. I counted the seconds until we were well away from the castle and the immediate danger seemed to fade. At some stage, five minutes into the journey, the truck stopped, and the driver rolled the tarpaulin back so that we could breathe a little easier.
The jeep turned off the main road and took back roads for another thirty minutes. The going was slower, the terrain more challenging, and we rocked about in the back. Silvan groaned from time to time and Codrina soothed him with words I didn’t understand. The trees were dense and tall, and for the first time in days I breathed deeply and with relief. The forest was a friend to me, sheltering me in my time of need.
Finally we came to a tiny village—not much more than three houses and a few barns—and we slowed to a stop. A younger woman rushed out of one of the houses, wiping her hands on her apron, followed more slowly by two handsome and thick set young men. The woman spoke to Codrina in rapid fire Romanian. Codrina listened and nodded and turned to me.
“This is Irina, my daughter-in-law, and my sons Titus and Marius. They will look after your friend. I must return to the castle before the Master awakes.”
“Do you have a phone?” I asked her. “I have to get in touch with Wizard Shadowmender back in the UK. He’ll get us out of here.” We’d left the castle in such a rush I hadn’t even been able to go back to my room and grab my things.
“No phone.” Codrina frowned.
“We have cell phone,” Irina contradicted her mother-in-law.
“But no credit,” Titus chipped in.
I regarded them with silent amazement. How had these people not progressed into the twenty-first century? “But you do have a charger, right?” I asked, crossing my fingers they had a modern mobile phone with a universal charger.
I’d been hoping for a place at some cheery hearth while I waited for my phone to charge—the charger did fit mine, thank the goddess—but actually we were taken down into a small basement room, cut underneath a much larger one, generally used to store root vegetables.
“What’s this?” I shivered. There was no fire in here, and only a couple of oil lamps to give light. The walls ran with damp. Codrina’s sons had brought Silvan down here while I plugged my phone in upstairs. He’d been placed on a bier in the centre of the room, which in itself was disconcerting, but at least he was off the cold ground.
Archibald’s face twisted in slight disgust too, but he merely rolled his shoulders back in that kind of do-or-die way ex-members of the military have. No doubt he’d seen worse.
Irina regarded me solemnly with huge blue eyes. I guessed she was my age, but like her mother she lived a hard life here in the back of beyond. “For your safety,” she told me. “It is unlikely you’ll be out of here until tomorrow at the earliest. The Master’s rage will know no bounds. His people will search everywhere for you. They will come here. You cannot be found. If you are, none of us will be spared.”
I nodded and grimaced. That must not be allowed to happen. “Fair enough.”
Titus clumped down the wooden stairs; his feet, clad
in heavy work boots, were loud in the quiet room. He had an armful of blankets. Codrina followed him with a basket of supplies and a bucket of warm water. We set the supplies in the corner and then while Irina began to clean Silvan’s wounds and splint his fingers, I followed the old witch back up the stairs.
“I am sorry to leave you this way, but I must not be absent from the castle for long.”
“Thank you for all you have done.” I hugged her. “I’m certain we wouldn’t have made it without you.”
Codrina smiled. “Witches always look after their own. Remember me to your great-grandmother.”
“I definitely will,” I promised, waving as she jumped back in the truck next to the man who had driven us to safety. I nodded my thanks at him and stood back. They ambled away, heading for the horror of Castle Iadului once more, the forest swallowing them up.
Back in the farmhouse I checked my phone impatiently. The battery had revived but only minutely. I unplugged it and carried it outside, wandering around the clearing until a quiet ting told me I had a signal.
What should I say? How could I convey the urgency of the situation?
I needed to send the photos I’d taken, but Wizard Shadowmender didn’t have a phone or a computer. Rather, I’d have to send them to Penelope, or better still Ross Baines. I knew he’d recognise the urgency of the situation.
I scrolled through my contacts and found an email address I’d used for Ross previously, and quickly—channelling my inner Ethan Hunt once more—I typed, Require extraction of two persons. In daylight. Triangulate position. URGENT. I attached the best of the photos I had taken in the castle’s study and pressed send. I hardly dared to breathe until the screen confirmed my message had been sent.
Then it died again.
I cast a glance at the milky sky above my head, as the trees danced around me, leaves scattering on the wind. Send it home, I begged. Let them find us.
Back in the basement Silvan appeared to be sleeping peacefully. The bruising and swelling of his face distorted his natural good looks and I feared touching him in case I hurt him.
Nonetheless I leaned over him and brushed his long floppy fringe away from his eyes, and gently soothed his head. “We’ll be okay,” I told him. “Wizard Shadowmender knows by now.”
I sat back on a rickety old chair that Marius had brought down from the cottage above, every part of me ached or throbbed, and tears pricked at my eyes.
“He’s a lucky man,” Irina said, finishing up the bandaging of his left hand and laying it across his stomach. She smiled at me; her gentle face sympathetic to my plight.
“You think they could have killed him?” I asked, and my voice wobbled.
“Oh undoubtedly. It wouldn’t be the first time.” She turned and spat on the floor. “They’re butchers up there. Pure evil. Capable of anything. I’ve seen it time and again. But no—” she nodded at me. “I meant he is lucky to have you. Codrina told me what you did. You’re a superhero.”
“What I did?” I repeated. I thought back over the past few days, particularly the last twenty-four hours. Talking to Ambassador Rubenscarfe. My ‘trial’, such as it was. Escaping my bedroom. Hanging onto a ledge for hours. Hiding in a small opening in the rockface below a balcony. Conjuring a djinn. Taking out a dozen shadow guards. Locating the source of magick at Castle Iadului.
It had been nothing really.
I started to shake. Those memories—of clinging to the castle walls by my fingertips while the virtually blind and badly-injured man I thought I might be in love with followed me on a thankless quest—would remain with me for an inordinately long time.
Irina wrapped a huge furry blanket around my shoulders and squeezed my shoulder. “There is soup in a flask here,” she said, politely ignoring the tears streaming down my face. “You should take some sustenance and try and get some rest. Silvan will sleep. Dawn will bring good news, I’m certain.”
The problem was we had the evening and the night to get through first.
Shortly before twilight I climbed up the steps for one last breath of fresh air and to visit the plumbed facilities. For the next ten or eleven hours I’d be making do with a potty. While Irina replenished the basket with more soup and fresh tea, along with half a loaf of freshly made bread and a chunk of hard cheese, I took the opportunity to head outside to find a signal once more and grab a quick look at my phone.
Just the one message. But it was from Ross!
Received. Hang tight.
Hang tight? I grimaced. If only he knew.
It was so like him to be concise though. I knew he’d be beavering away behind the scenes.
With the light failing fast I figured I should return to the basement. I trooped back inside, glad of the warmth of the fire, intending to put my mobile phone back on charge. Irina however had other ideas. She unclipped it and handed it back to me.
“I won’t get a signal in the basement,” I said.
She shook her head. “No. But you can’t leave it here in case it is found.”
“You think they’ll actually come into the house?” I asked in alarm.
She nodded. “They don’t care. They come here. Fly from the castle.”
“As bats?”
“Yes. As bats. They land in the trees and slip down here and through any entry point they can find. They go where they like. No-one dares to challenge them.”
“That’s awful,” I lamented. I couldn’t live like that. “You should find a way to fight back.”
Irina smiled, radiating a calm confidence. “We’re not here to fight. Our families came here a long time ago. Our coven is spread throughout the forest that surrounds Castle Iadului. We keep an eye on what is happening and kerb their excesses. We help where we can and try to deter visitors. We’re not in a position to launch a full out war on The Vampire Nation. I hope we never have to.”
“That’s not what the Ministry of Witches in the UK wants to happen,” I agreed.
“Exactly. It would be costly and who knows how we could contain the overspill into the mundane world.”
“So you do what you can.” I nodded in understanding, thinking of my father Erik Daemonne and his ongoing battle with The Mori.
“We do.” Irina handed her basket over to me. “Go down into the basement. We will cover over the entrance to the sub-basement room. No matter what you hear, you must stay there all night. We will come for you in the morning.”
“But—” I started to say.
Irina shook her head firmly. “No buts. Your young man can only remain safe as long as you do.”
She had a point.
I nodded mutely, and tripped back down the stairs, intent on waiting out the night.
I slept on and off, slouching in my chair.
Time and again I would wake from troubled dreams, my heart beating loudly in my chest. Always Archibald—wakeful and watching—would give a little shake of his head. Still safe, that told me. We remained quiet, three little mice, scared of giving ourselves away.
I couldn’t be sure what time it was, but during the early hours I woke with a start once more, catching my breath as I tried to run from something chasing me. This time Archibald but his finger to his mouth and pointed upstairs. I eased myself out of my chair and slid across the floor to join him, straining my ears to listen to the events unfolding somewhere above us.
Angry shouts. Curses, but not of the magickal kind. A couple of men bellowing. That would be Titus and Marius. The banging of doors. Breaking crockery. More shouting.
If Codrina and her family had been through this before it must cost them a fortune in broken household items.
Unless this time it was different.
Had Codrina been found out? Were her family suspected?
Worried that I’d put them in danger, I began to climb the ladder. Archibald hissed at me, but I waved him away.
A thump directly overhead froze me in my tracks. They were in the root cellar.
Behind me Silvan moaned. Not loudly, but m
y stomach churned in sudden panic. We couldn’t be found. Silvan needed proper medical care. He was my responsibility.
The thump came again. As though someone was smacking the floor with a large heavy pole or something.
And again.
Hard enough that the ceiling shook, and dust and debris scattered to the floor. I darted a fearful look at the dark witch laid out on the bier behind me. I couldn’t betray our hiding place to help Codrina’s family. Instead, I scurried back down the ladder and across the floor and lay my hand on his forehead. “Hush,” I murmured on an exhaled breath into his ear. “Not a sound, my love. Not a whisper.”
He relaxed beneath my touch, and I lay my face next to his. Above us the vampires were rampaging. All we could do was hide out and wait.
At some stage around dawn, the hammering and shouting ceased. By then I’d slumped into an exhausted heap on the floor, but I jumped up with a start when the hatch was pulled open.
Titus poked his head through the gap and smiled at me, offering the thumbs up.
“You come,” he said and, after quickly checking on Silvan I sped up the wooden steps, through the basement room above and on again to the cottage. Much as I’d imagined the furniture had been pulled about, items smashed, and every cupboard and potential hidey-hole searched.
I stood in the middle of the big downstairs room and turned about in dismay. The cottage had been wrecked.
Irina appeared tired, but the gleam of triumph in her eye told me all I needed to know. “They’ve gone,” she told me.
“But the mess!” I commiserated.
She brushed that away. “Belongings mean nothing. Always there are new belongings. Everyone is safe. That’s what matters.
“I’ll help you clear up,” I offered, bending to pick up the shards of a broken vase at my feet. It seemed the least I could do.
Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8 Page 16
