by Jan McDonald
Vasile’s presence was immediately felt, ending all conversation abruptly. Every head was turned towards him in a cocktail of curiosity and apprehension. To all, the invitation had felt more like a command. Alexis Vasilakis had taken the greatest exception to it and had wasted no time in sharing his opinions but – even he – had not been able to stay away.
Vasile bowed theatrically to the assembly of vampires of the Born. “The House of Tepes bids you welcome, friends. I am honoured to receive you and I trust you have been made comfortable.” It was a statement rather than an enquiry.
He moved into the middle of the company, the better to address them all. Vasile was almost beyond handsome, his shining ebony hair, that would never fade to grey, hung to his neck and draped his shoulders. His looks would have forgiven him adopting the exquisite, if ancient, clothing but he chose instead to prefer fashionable and finely tailored suits from Paris and London. His long, aquiline nose and dark, arched eyebrows replicated those of his great-grandfather and, should he decide to grow a moustache, the resemblance would be exact. The same cruel lips parted, giving a brief glint of sharp, long, white teeth in the candlelight.
CHAPTER TWO: LINWOOD HOUSE
Friendship between a demon hunter and a vampire is as unlikely as an alliance between Van Helsing and Dracula but, the bond that had grown between Mike Travis and Father Paul Beckett - Beckett to everyone - proved that anything was possible.
Mike’s story had begun as an RAF helicopter pilot shot down in Afghanistan, where he clinically died in the crash, but was brought back by the skills of the military medics – the only thing was, he had returned with a new ability; he could see ghosts and communicate with them. In an effort to try to understand this new phenomenon he became an avid investigator of the paranormal realm. As with all things, one investigation led to another, one spirit to another until finally – and perhaps inevitably – he found himself hunting and doing battle with high-ranking demons. Sometimes winning, sometimes not. Often not.
Unsurprisingly, delayed onset of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder hit him hard. Enter Beckett.
Father Paul Beckett – ex-Catholic priest-turned psychologist and psychotherapist-turned vampire – had issues. Of course he did, with that history. Back when his life was less complicated, as a Catholic priest in a relatively small parish, his sister Grace died horribly at the hands of a vampire and, what was worse, she rose again in the hours of darkness. Only the arrival of the beautiful and ancient vampire, Lane Dearing, saved his sanity that night. And it was on that night that he lost his faith; there could be no God, for no God would create such things and allow them to live and destroy. But they did.
He walked away from everything that night, stepping into years of study that had qualified him in Psychology and Psychotherapy – ‘heal thyself’ had been his mantra. It hadn’t worked.
So he turned his attention to others – and then it happened. One of his patients, Katerini Pappas, started showing alarming tendencies that Beckett had seen before. Little things to start with, but then crazy things; crazy things that he thought were works of fevered imaginations. Until he accepted the truth: that vampires exist and they are out there. He had failed to help Grace, and not only did he repeat his failure with Katerini but he became a blood-drinker himself after his efforts to save her ended with him being bitten, fed on, and turned, by the very one he tried to save. Only vengeance was left to him then.
He learned much as a vampire: that there was the possibility of God’s existence, although the jury did sometimes appear to be out on that; that revenge wasn’t the answer - justice was; and that praying over a departing soul, good, bad or evil, would help that soul to find peace. Some would say they didn’t deserve it – Beckett was still waiting for a sign. In the meantime, he served as priest to the vampire community and worked alongside Lane Dearing as a partner in her psychiatric practice. Of course Beckett had issues.
Enter Mike Travis.
And so their friendship grew in depth and quality as each helped the other find some kind of understanding. Now Mike’s wife, Beth, was ill – Beckett’s kind of ill.
“Tell me if I’m imagining it, Beckett. There’s something, a subtle something that I can only describe as ‘her’, my Beth. Just a glimmer, but it’s there. She’s there.”
Beckett’s smile reached his storm-grey eyes, a rare occurrence these days. “I think there’s every sign that we are getting somewhere. But, Mike … don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves … this is going to take a very long time. Yes, I agree, there is a subtle change, and that’s what we’ve been waiting for. But it’s way too early to expect full recovery and any attempt to push it would be disastrous … and we have to face the extreme possibility that we may never get her back.” He didn’t want to encourage false expectations in his friend, but honesty had always been something that was taken for granted between them. He smiled again, “I think we’re getting somewhere – slowly, but we’re getting there.”
They were sitting in a large bay window overlooking the immaculately-manicured lawns of Linwood House, the headquarters of The Strazca, in the Cotswolds as the sun went down. They had left Beth in her room, still blissfully at peace in her own world; a world of retreat and isolation where no demons existed and Hell wasn’t on the map.
Mike nodded. “How about you, Beckett?”
“Busy. When I’m not seeing patients, I’m at the Sanctuary.”
Mike didn’t miss the hint of wistfulness in the word ‘Sanctuary’. He had heard it mentioned between Beckett and his young assistant, Darius, on several occasions though he had never asked about it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know but, sitting there opposite Beckett, - who was casual in his jeans and open-necked shirt, looking ever-leaner - Mike could see the sadness behind the squall in his eyes.
“The Sanctuary?” he queried, and then, in an effort to make light of his ignorance, “Have you been clubbing, Beckett?”
That brought an involuntary laugh from Beckett. “You’re good for me, Mike. Sorry, I thought you knew about the Sanctuary.” He paused. “Does that mean they don’t know about it here? That’s hard to believe.” The degree of difficulty in belief was apparent on his face.
“If they do, I haven’t come across it. Yet. At least I don’t think so. Tell me.”
Beckett appeared to be contemplating something for several minutes before he said, “OK, come on, there’s nothing more to do for Beth today. Come with me, I’ll show you.”
Mike considered briefly finding Roman Woolfe – he was Beth’s benefactor, the owner of Linwood House and the head of a secret organisation known (to those that did know) as The Strazca. Mike thought about telling Roman where he was going, but his instincts told him that he would get a fuller explanation if he went as a friend and not in any official capacity. Beckett trusted Mike with his life, and vice versa; now was not the time to give any cause for doubt. Before bringing this home to Roman Woolfe, first Mike would get permission from Beckett. There were lines within friendship that you didn’t cross.
They passed the first part of the journey to Newport in intermittent bursts of amiable conversation, until Mike could hold off no longer.
“So, what is it, then? This Sanctuary. Sure it’s not a nightclub?” he teased.
Beckett didn’t look away from the road in front. “I’d rather show you, Mike. We’re almost there. Think about the meaning of the word ‘sanctuary’. It is a place of refuge, a place of safety, for anyone in danger from anything. My world isn’t pretty, Mike. Some of the worst of our kind are the worst of your imagination. They feed, they injure, they kill, and, sometimes they turn their prey. And then they leave them; lost, alone and with a ravening hunger that can be sated in only one way, a thirst that can only be quenched by one thing. And so it goes on, a never-ending cycle. More beget more.
“We have codes of ethics, Mike; codes that protect newly-turned vampires – and that’s where the Sanctuary comes in. You’ll see.”
Mike had to settl
e for that; he wasn’t in a hurry.
CHAPTER THREE: TRIP OF A LIFETIME
Lucy Eastman checked everything for the eighth time. Passports – check, flight tickets – check, joining instructions – check, though she knew them off by heart; Heathrow Airport, seven-thirty in the gallery opposite the TAROM check-in desk. There were eight in their party plus the tour guide and she had gained the impression, whilst paying for the tickets in an online auction, that the remainder of the group already knew each other, but it didn’t bother her. Everything was too exciting to think about details.
She hadn’t been able to believe her luck when her bid won the auction for the trip. She hadn’t wanted to spend as much as she’d eventually bid on them, but she’d been carried away with last-minute auction-frenzy. Still, it would be worth it, the trip of a lifetime; a Dracula Tour of Romania, taking in the sights, sounds and romance of Dracula’s homeland, visiting castles and dungeons and ‘living’ the Dracula fantasy in the footsteps of Bram Stoker’s Jonathan Harker.
Chalk and cheese could only describe Lucy and her partner, Dan. He was a science teacher – serious, intellectual and he believed only in what could be proven as well as seen. Folklore and empirical evidence were anathema to him, although he indulged Lucy’s obsession with vampires and all things Gothic to the point of allowing her several shelves in his bookcase but, this trip was almost a stretch too far. He had agreed to it on the condition that he wasn’t going to dress up as the Victorian Gothic and play, in his words, ‘silly buggers’.
Already lost in a whirlwind of images, she accepted the condition with a grin. They had foregone a wedding and exotic honeymoon in favour of a deposit for their small portion of suburbia and, now, two years later they deserved a break. “Something different,” Lucy had said, “something – oh, I don’t know – something adventurous!”
Immediate visions of safaris or hiking holidays through some obscure mountain region had created havoc in his head, so when she found the trip on the on-line auction site, it had been somewhat of a relief. Lucy would spend two weeks soaking up the atmosphere and the tourist set-ups, treading in the footsteps of the doomed Jonathan Harker of Bram Stoker’s imagination, playing vampire in the evenings with her impressive array of Gothic gowns which were all her own handiwork, while he soaked up the culture, the real culture, in the real world, and maybe took in a historic site or two. After all, two weeks would go quickly and perhaps it would be enough to overcome her obsession; all played-out.
At seven-fifteen and a few seconds, Lucy and Dan approached the appointed meeting place. A ‘Gathering of Goths’ was noticeable by its absence. Dan frowned, he was already feeling the wriggle of a tiny maggot of doubt about the whole thing but, his thoughts had no time to go anywhere as Lucy nudged him hard in the ribs. He exhaled loudly and bent forwards.
“Look, I think they’re coming over here.”
Dan looked up. Of course they were coming over there. A couple were sauntering towards them – long black coats, heavy black eye-liner, black jeans, pretty much black everything. His wriggling maggot morphed into a blow-fly. He pictured himself the odd-one-out of the party, an outsider, not party to their in-jokes and references. Maybe he should have watched one or two of Lucy’s vast collection of vampire movies, well … maybe one. This was a mistake.
Lucy had refrained from the Gothic look, as worn by the approaching couple, for two reasons. First, her restraint in that department had made Dan relax a little, and, second, she hadn’t known what to expect; full-on Goth or a variety of tastes on display. She wished she hadn’t refrained.
She smiled at the girl clomping towards her in boots that would survive the apocalypse. Had she caught her eye? No … maybe … yes … no. But that was OK, Goths weren’t supposed to smile, were they? She allowed herself a nervous glance over at Dan and quickly looked away when she saw his expression. Well, he would get used to it and she was going to fulfil her dream.
Lucy’s thoughts were in a tumble. Should they say hello first and introduce themselves? Or should they wait for the others to speak first. Say hello, yes; that was the best thing. But perhaps …
The girl leaned into her darkling partner and whispered something in his ear. He looked at them directly and said in his most menacing tone, laced with a Brummie accent, “Who are you bloody staring at?” This, muttered as they walked right on past, towards the exit.
Dan visibly relaxed and Lucy descended into a fit of giggling. She’d determined to have fun and it had started already.
“Hi. First to arrive?”
They spun around, surprised at the cultured voice from behind them.
The man looked to be in his early thirties and his well-manicured, outstretched hand erased the frown-lines from Dan’s brow.
“Hi,” the man said again, “Christian Iliescu, I’m your guide for the trip.”
Dan took the proffered hand. “Dan,” he said. “And this is Lucy, my partner. I’m afraid I’m not used to all this, Lucy is the one into all things fanged.” His relief was obvious.
“Dan Jarvis and Lucy Eastman,” Christian said, as he ticked their names off the list on his clip-board. “A culture vulture, is it? You won’t be disappointed, Dan. There is history and culture in spades in Transylvania. You’ll love it.” Dan noted a tiny hint of Eastern European in the professional, English speech. Christian continued, “I think you’re a pretty mixed bunch on this trip. It’s a small group as you know; a lot smaller than usual in fact but it’s the last tour of the season, so we ran it anyway.”
Lucy raised a questioning brow, “The season? I didn’t know there was a season for the tour.”
Christian smiled; a genuine one that came from behind the professional lip movement. “Just over two weeks from now, the snow will fall and the Borgo Pass, along with the main highway through the Carpathians, will be closed. If, like last year, the snow lies as heavily in the rest of the region, villages and towns will be cut off. For weeks.”
A moment of panic spread across Lucy’s face. “What if the snow comes early?”
Christian laughed. “Don’t worry, there are early warning signs of that. The people of the Carpathians know these things by instinct and they are saying three weeks yet, at least. You’ll be home well before the first flakes fall over the highest peaks and the wolves come down from the forest.”
There was something comforting in his voice; it had a deep, hypnotic quality that resonated on a different frequency, and yet Lucy had the fleeting feeling that he was making fun of her. She didn’t know if she liked it. Then, all was normal again.
“That’s a relief then,” she laughed. “Are the rest of the eight all couples?”
Christian scanned his list, even though he must have it memorised; it was a short list. “No. There are two other couples and two single ladies. That’s always awkward for the Masquerade Ball,” he said, in a mock-confidential tone.
His mention of the Masquerade Ball was enough to calm any anxieties Lucy still had. She pictured it: a castle hotel high on the mountain, driven there by horse-drawn carriages through the pass that was flanked by dense forest, to alight in her black satin ball-gown at the foot of the huge flight of stone steps leading into the castle hall and ballroom. Then her reality-check kicked in. They were a party of eight; hardly enough for a ball in anyone’s book. She would probably be wise to dial down her expectations.
But, just for a minute, she allowed her fantasy.
The rest of the group were, indeed, a mixture. The first thing Dan noticed was that he and Lucy were the oldest in the group – the rest being in their early twenties to his thirty-nine and Lucy’s thirty-one. As Lucy suspected, the others did know each other and it soon became apparent that they had taken the place of another couple from the group, one of whom had been unexpectedly posted abroad by his department at the Foreign Office. The Goths were indeed interesting people; interesting people from varied backgrounds, all with one thing in common, a love of Goth and metal music and culture, tempered wi
th a sense of fun and an encyclopaedic knowledge of every vampire movie to hit the big and not-so-big screens. Black eye-liner was in evidence but their mode of dress was fairly eclectic, from serious hippy, to jeans and t-shirt and back via the Gothic romantic. Dan allowed himself to relax even further. This wasn’t going to be so bad.
Introductions over, the group was herded towards the departure lounge to await their flight to Bucharest; Christian having already collected their passports and tickets and checked them in as a group, all they had to do was check in their luggage.
Dan and Lucy’s travelling companions included a teacher, a solicitor, a nurse, a conservationist (that would be the hippy), a writer looking for a story and a bank clerk. Most of them were on the trip for the Dracula experience but it was the writer that declared the cultural passion. His name was Trevor, and he and Dan hit it off immediately.
As they had been checked in as a group, they were sitting close together during the flight, where ice was broken and measures taken, with a consensus at the end of it that they would all get along well and enjoy the trip to the max.
Conversation during the three-hour flight centred around different locations on their itinerary: Bistrita, where, in the footsteps of Jonathan Harker, they would stay at the present-day version of the Golden Crown Hotel and dine on robber steak – chunks of bacon, onion and beef, seasoned with pepper, strung onto skewers and roasted over an open fire in the traditional way; Sighisoara, the birthplace of Vlad Dracula; the ruins of the real Castle Dracula at Poenari with its fourteen-hundred-odd steps to the summit of the peak where the ruins squatted like some long-forgotten, skeletal monster.
