by Edward Lee
“Dr. Aured used the word bastardized,” Vernon volunteered, “but I get it. Someone writing things without much actual knowledge of the languages.”
“Um-hmm. And the attempts at Romanian. I’d be interested in knowing Aured’s reaction to that.”
“Along the same lines. Words not quite right but right enough. Sentences not accented—something about an International Phonetic Alphabet.”
Fredrick nodded, eyes closed.
“As if these homeless girls, or whoever really is doing it—”
“Are half-faking it,” Fredrick finished. “Doing the best that they can with the available information source.” He looked at the next line and smiled. “‘Singele lui traieste…’ And if the impalements weren’t alarming enough, that line, ‘His blood is alive,’ most certainly smells of Vlad Tepes and his subsequent occult legend. Nor can we ignore the colors of the markings left at the scenes. Add all these elements together and you simply must have some sort of…” His words trailed off along with pipe smoke.
He doesn’t want to say it, Vernon presumed. “A gang of homicidal Dracula fanatics. A cult. It sounds too far-fetched until you look at the possibility more-more—”
“Concretely. Throughout history there have been many cults that kill in the name of what they believe in, devil worshippers and the like. Mostly just as a systematic rebellion against an oppressive church order. Today, on the other hand, it’s almost become a cliché: disgruntled youth with no direction in life, and defected by antisocial environments, drugs, and what have you—sacrifice animals and sometimes even people to the so-called devil. They’re delusional, of course. That boy in Oklahoma, and that group in New Hampshire, for example. And more clichés abound, the ‘Goth’ movement, an obsession with dark clothes, gloominess, pale skin, and last but not least, vampirism. It’s very true that there are vampire clubs and cults and social coteries that exist today and always have existed. There are people who believe not only that vampires exist but that they are vampires themselves. Where some men get together on Friday nights and play cards, and some women have their Tupperware parties, these people have gatherings where they drink each other’s blood. But of course…” Fredrick smiled.
“They’re all whackjobs.” Vernon got the gist. He’d read of such things many times.
“So why couldn’t such a group take the next logical—and psychopathic—step? In this day and age, it’s not at all outlandish that sick individuals obsessed with this topic could become killers, thinking of their murder as an offering that will bestow upon them good fortune in some dark afterlife.” Now Fredrick looked back at Vernon. “All these quotes, the details of the desecrations, and then the impalements themselves are, for lack of a better term, Draculian.”
Vernon let the strange word slip around his head. “I don’t quite follow you about the colors, though. You mentioned a specific detail that would require some historical research.”
The old man’s brows rose and fell; then he looked again at the morgue photos of Virginia Fleming and the black, green, and red lines streaking up and down her pallid body. “Well, in the vampire legend, Dracula wore a black cape but the real Dracula wore three capes: black over green over red. They’re specifically the colors of an order of knights—the Order of the Dragon—which is well known. But these colors? Not so well known. Red stands for the blood of Christ, green the color of the Holy Roman Empire, and black over it all to actually hide the first two colors: these knights were to operate incognito, so as not to solicit the sin of pride.”
“Now I see what you mean,” Vernon admitted. A haphazard glance to the shelf made him flinch, when he spotted a small bronze statue of a woman with multiple arms. Vernon shuddered once. “Vagabonds wouldn’t know that.”
“Unless somebody else told them, I suppose,” the professor added. “Cults of this nature often have a ringleader, so to speak, don’t they? ‘Jonestown,’ for instance, from the seventies, the Echols tragedy in Arkansas, that multiple-murder group in San Diego not so long ago. It’s mostly sheep who follow such leaders.”
Sheep. The figure of speech jolted him. Homeless women who are mentally unstable…following a leader …
The nun?
Vernon felt inept for not having thought of it so concisely. “That suggestion is very helpful, sir. ‘Sheep’ following a homicidal leader who is clinically obsessed with all this Vlad stuff.”
“It’s a thought,” the old man remarked. He retamped his pipe.
“And these women were seen once…with a nun.”
Fredrick’s eyes leveled in an inexplicable way. “You don’t say?”
“There’s also this odd coincidence,” Vernon continued, “that I really can’t explain but can’t help but think isn’t a coincidence.”
Fredrick smiled. “The fabled gut-feeling of the veteran investigator?”
Vernon laughed. “Sure. You’d be surprised how often they ring true in this business.” Again, he felt foolish. “Take a look at this,” he offered and reached into his briefcase.
He placed the boxed Noxious Nun on the scholar’s desk.
“This is a bit odd,” the old man admitted, noticing at once the weavy black, green, and red lines decorating the package. “The lines are quite like those found at some of the crime scenes.”
“Yes, sir. I still don’t know what the connection might be, but it does make me think. A nun witnessed with vagabond girls just before a desecration that involved black, green, and red lines drawn up and down on an altar cloth, similar lines on an impaled body, and now this novelty toy of a nun.” Vernon smiled. “Sounds like I’m reaching for—”
“Shit?” The professor smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. Why couldn’t the lines be the coterie’s emblem, the same way the Zodiac Killer left his own emblem?” Fredrick creaked back in his seat. “No, Inspector, it’s not that which rubs me the wrong way. It’s the nun.” He picked up the box for closer scrutiny. “This vampiric nun.”
Vernon was duped now by the expression on the man’s face. He seemed bristled by something.
“Dracula’s membership in the Order of the Dragon was inherited from his father,” the professor began. “Much has been written of this—too much, in fact. But just to give you some background, Vlad initially participated in the Order not so much for religious reasons but to potentially benefit his dedication to fighting the Turks and driving them out of Romania. Keep in mind, the Order was sanctioned by the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, neither of whom Vlad was keen on since they were Catholics and Vlad was Eastern Orthodox. Nevertheless, Vlad converted to Catholicism, more than anything to support his own agenda.”
“I don’t understand,” Vernon said.
“There are a number of explanations behind the Vlad legend; in other words, his vampiric curse. And one involves a nun…”
(III)
Father Rollin’s heart seemed to drop into his guts when he watched Cristina enter her studio. Good Lord. She’s found the cask. It’s all happening …He’d kept the hotel window’s drapes parted only wide enough for one binocular lens, and just as he’d been focusing on the rear studio window, his entire soul seemed to rust.
She was naked and glassy-eyed. She’d placed two objects down on one of the desks, one just out of view but the other all too visible.
The dog’s skull.
The identity of the other object he’d missed just as he was focusing in. Rollin knew now beyond a doubt that Cristina—as he’d feared—was growing more and more subject to the black, paramental will that had targeted her. She’s doing its bidding, just as was written. And of course she’d be naked, and highly sexualized, to mimic the blasphemer herself.
But…what was the other object?
It must be the cistern, and if she’s found that she may also have found—
Another woman entered the room, pausing in a mild shock before Cristina’s dull gaze and brazen nudity. The dark-haired one again, the friend, he knew. Now she was yelling at Cristina, shaking her bare shoulde
rs to snap her out of the hold that seized her.
It’s all happening. It’s all for real. And then the priest lowered the binoculars and fell to his knees to pray.
(IV)
Britt emotionally exploded when she stepped into the studio and found Cristina sitting naked in her work chair, staring at the wall. Is she catatonic? she feared at first but then, thank God, the eyes blinked and recognized her. Britt nearly shrieked when she saw what her foster sister had brought up from the basement: that yellowed dog skull, which she’d placed on a shelf right next to the Noxious Nun figure.
“Cristina! What the HELL is going on?” She grabbed Cristina’s shoulders and shook her till her head wobbled. “Are you drunk? Are you on drugs? What IS it?”
Cristina drooled, then blinked several times. Next, Britt slapped her in the face.
“Cristina!”
Cristina rubbed her face, took a deep breath. “Jeez…”
“Yeah! Jeez! You’re all fucked-up!” Britt shoved a blouse at her. “Put that on! The guys could be home any minute!”
Cristina roused as if from anesthesia, but eventually complied.
“It’s either booze or drugs, so just tell me. And no bullshitting!”
Cristina frowned. “Stop yelling. I don’t take drugs and I didn’t have anything to drink.”
“Then explain. You looked like you were in a vegetative state when I walked in here. Now I want an explanation, and it better be good ’cos if it’s not, I’m checking you in for a psych evaluation right away.”
The threat braced Cristina. “I’m all right. I just—”
“Just what?” Britt’s temper continued to boil. “You obviously went into the basement”—she pointed to the detestable skull—“and brought that thing up here! Why?”
Cristina sat up straight, buttoning her blouse. “I don’t know, it just occurred to me—”
“It occurred to you? It occurred to you to go back down into that goddamn basement—nude—and bring that gross skull up here? Cristina, do you know how crazy that sounds?”
“Stop yelling!” she whimpered. “I’m not sure what happened exactly.”
“Did you black out again?”
“No, no, this time—well, I remember feeling weird, after the cab dropped me off. And I was hot, so I took off my clothes and took a nap. Then I remember going down into the basement, and-and…it was because I just felt impelled to. I can’t explain it beyond that, Britt. It’s like something told me something else was down there.”
Britt sat down, still fuming. “Jesus Christ, that damn basement’s got you delusional. Something else down there? Cristina, you already knew that dog skull was down there. We all found it together, remember?”
Cristina thought through a stasis. “Not the dog skull. Something else. I found something else, and…you probably won’t believe it.”
Britt sighed. “Cristina, go ahead and try me. After all this, I think I can handle anything. So you found something else? Where? In the hole?”
“In the iron barrel. Something didn’t seem right about the depth so I looked at it closer and found a false bottom.”
Britt stared at her.
“Go look if you don’t believe me. There was a false bottom in it, to hide this.” Then Cristina reached into her desk and withdrew a foot-high object that looked like an old stoppered decanter.
Britt fell silent. She wasn’t quite sure how to assess this, or her friend. At her job she saw unstable women gradually become delusional all the time, but this?
“Didn’t you tell me a couple days ago that recently your recurring dream has taken on new details?”
Cristina nodded. “Yes, first it was just the nun with the bowl, and the colored lines. But then I’d notice other things in the dream that weren’t there before: a man on a stone slab, a”—she glanced to the skull—“a barking dog, and…some sort of a flask or decanter. Like this one.”
Impossible, Britt thought without saying it. But then so was the bowl. She either knew those things were down there in advance, or she has a psychic sensitivity. She decided to deliberate on that later. Instead, she picked up the decanter. It felt heavy. Full, she thought at once. But full of what? “Show me this false bottom,” she ordered. “Then I might believe you.”
Without a word, Cristina took Britt back down into the basement. The hole remained as they’d left it when the men had pulled the barrel out. Britt knelt and studied it, and saw a circular plate of rusted metal lain aside. She hefted it up, placed it in the barrel, and saw that it did not go all the way to the bottom. It left a good six-inch gap.
She’s not lying, Britt thought, uneasy now. “All right. I believe you. But Paul and Jess won’t. They’re going to think you knew about this in advance. They’re going to think you made it up to bring attention to yourself.”
Cristina looked down solemnly. “Do you believe that?”
“No.”
Britt didn’t know what to think now. Her eyes tracked along the floor without any forethought but stopped.
Most of the cement patchwork now lay in pieces; one piece, however, retained that odd imprint: the dragon strangled by its own tale, a warped cross branded on its back, and the words, O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL.
Britt flinched from a chill, then rose and grabbed Cristina’s hand. “Come on. The guys would go ape-shit if they caught us down here.” What am I going to do with her? she worried. And what the HELL is going on here? Back on the first floor, she urged Cristina toward her room. “Get dressed, sis. They could be home any minute.”
Cristina nodded meekly and disappeared into the bedroom.
Britt let out a long sigh, then poured herself a drink. That’s great. She’s nuts and I’m a drunk. Thank God for positive environments. But the alcohol softened her cynicism with the first sip. She strode back upstairs and looked quizzically at the decanter. Did she REALLY dream about this before she found it? Britt was well versed with liars but…Cristina’s never been a liar. What, then?
The decanter felt creepy with its dull clay surface, which felt similar to the clay that covered the bowl. Worse, though, was the decanter’s fullness. Was it wine? Old holy water? She squinted, then, and noticed tiny scratchlike writing around the decanter’s base.
KANESAE, ENAMOURER OF WLAD, CNIHT OF DRWGLYA
An inexplicable queasiness came to her stomach. Drwglya, she thought, and felt even sicker when she realized what that resembled. She gulped, put the decanter in a desk drawer along with the animal skull, and went back downstairs.
Cristina had dressed in jeans and a different blouse, and now sat quietly in the kitchen.
“I don’t know what to make of any of this,” Britt broke the silence.
Cristina couldn’t have looked more forlorn. “You said Paul and Jess would think I’m lying if we told them about this…”
Britt patted Cristina’s shoulder, then sat down. “They probably would. They’re men, Cristina, and they’re lawyers. That usually means they’re stubborn, intractable, and very close-minded. They only think inside their own box.”
A hopeful glint showed in Cristina’s half-teary eyes. “Then…let’s just not tell them.”
Britt nodded. “Maybe we will one day, but not any time soon. It wouldn’t do anybody any good. I put the decanter and that creepy skull in your desk. We won’t tell them anything.”
Cristina seemed relieved.
“When they get home, they’ll probably be half in the bag already, and that’ll work to our favor. We just have to act like everything’s normal, okay?”
Cristina nodded.
“You see, Cristina. Guys like Jess and Paul live in a black-and-white world. They can never see the gray…”
Some kind of cognizance came to Cristina’s face. “What is the gray? That’s really what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”
Britt sipped her drink and nodded, but didn’t look at Cristina.
“Britt? There’s something in this house, isn’t there?”
�
��I think…maybe. Yes,” Britt admitted her deepest thoughts. “And that, honey, is what we’re really talking about. It’s affected me several times, not to mention that it’s put you through a wringer. Let’s just not worry about it for now.” She gave Cristina a morose look. “Let’s treat it like we treat our childhood. Pretend it never happened, and who knows? Maybe we’ll figure it out some day.” Next, she uttered a humorless chuckle. “Yeah, it just might be that this dream house of yours is haunted.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
(I)
“A nun, huh?” Vernon questioned.
Did Professor Fredrick smile? “Oh, yes, but to understand her role, you must understand Vlad’s conception of the Order of the Dragon. The only reason he wore the Order’s colors was to appease the Holy Roman Emperor, who— after Vlad’s repeated victories over the Turks—promised additional troops to reinforce Vlad’s depleting ranks. But it was a false promise. No reinforcements were ever dispatched, and Vlad suffered a catastrophic defeat just south of Bucharest. His army was all but wiped out.”
The ultimate screwjob, Vernon thought.
“Hence,” Fredrick continued, eyes closed again, “Vlad felt so betrayed by the emperor and the pope that he maintained the pretense that he was still a knight of the Order while secretly despising what the Order stood for.”
