Blood Ritual

by Sarah Rayne

  Ladislas went back to his attic eyrie, well pleased.

  He had not expected to get Hilary’s room at the first attempt and he did not do so. But he experienced an enormous feeling of power in levering each trapdoor up and peering silently down into the rooms. The nuns had narrow, rather comfortless-looking beds, made up with white, unbleached sheets and pillowcases, and covered with plain counterpanes. In the first two rooms were older nuns, who slept as their calling decreed: on their backs with their arms crossed. They wore cotton caps, covering their shorn hair, and the beads of rosaries were twined lightly between their fingers.

  But in the next room was a much younger figure, and Ladislas’s attention was caught. Hilary? Certainly the right age. She slept sprawlingly, the cotton cap tossed aside, her hair a close-cut cap shaping her head. Ladislas looked at her thoughtfully, his mind alight with sudden desire and, as he did so, the girl turned on to her back and opened her eyes. She blinked, as if unable to believe what she was seeing, and then her mouth opened in a soundless O of shock and fright. Before she could draw breath to scream, Ladislas had dropped through the trapdoor and was on the bed with her. His hands curled about her throat. Choke the bitch! Throttle her before she raises the alarm! Fierce joy scudded through his body.

  The girl struggled frantically, writhing against him and flailing with her hands, and Ladislas felt a huge rush of arousal. Achingly sweet. Elizabeth, was this what you experienced? Was this what you felt when you drained your pretty witless serving girls and your plump, blood-filled kitchen-maids?

  The girl’s struggles had almost ceased, and her eyes had rolled back in her head so that only a rim of white showed. A weak pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. Not dead, but unable to fight.

  Ladislas was by now barely aware of anything but the hard, insistent throbbing between his legs and the pounding at the core of his mind. The blood . . . He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for the knife. Switchblade knives they had once been called. Flick knives. He released the spring and the blade erected itself with a silken purr.

  As he propped the girl against the bedhead, she moaned and revived a little. Ladislas caught the whispered, ‘Aidemoi,’ and his mind accepted that this was not Hilary, even as his hands were closing about her throat again. It took only a very little pressure on her windpipe with his thumbs to silence her again, and she fell back, her head rolling on her neck. But the pulse still beat in her neck, and Ladislas stood back and glanced at the door. Was there a key? Yes! He turned it, and then, quickly and silently, threw off his jacket and shirt and stepped out of his trousers.

  Because the blood has to slide over the skin, my dears . . . He could hear Elizabeth whispering to him. The blood has to slide over the naked skin and it has to be warm . . .

  Ladislas drew his victim to a half-sitting position on the edge of the bed and knelt at her feet, between her thighs. It was child’s play to reach up and slide the glinting knife into the great blood-rich arteries at neck and wrist. It gushed at once, spattering the bed and the walls, tainting the small room with its coppery odour. Strong good blood . . . Warm . . .

  It was warm and fresh and in the moonlight it was almost black. Ladislas let it gush over his hands, and drew in a great shuddering breath. Elizabeth’s legacy. Virgin blood. Was there any chance that this one had been a virgin?

  The girl’s skin was marbling into cold whiteness and the blood was dripping in runnels. Indescribable. Purest ecstasy. It was soaking the sheets, dripping on to the floor at one end. He smoothed it between his hands, and smeared it across his chest and between his legs. The smell and the feel and the taste. Oh God, the sweetest thing you ever knew.

  The English writer, Stoker, had got it nearly right, but the real truth had so completely eluded him that Ladislas found it laughable. Not drink it, you fool. Bathe in it. Immerse in it. And then you will live for ever and then you will be strong and young and beautiful for always.

  For always? said a tiny treacherous voice within him. What about the gerons at Csejthe? Anna and Pál and the rest? What about the enigmatic Franz-Josef, failing after so many years?

  Years away. Centuries away. I have barely begun the journey. He looked back at the white, drained body on the bed, and Elizabeth’s hunger flared in his eyes.

  He had been aroused almost to fever pitch by the feel and the scent of the blood, and as he looked down at the emptied body, he felt himself more violently charged than he had ever been in his life. Mine. My own private ritual, not the travesty, the colourless, empty ceremony the Family permits itself four times a year. This was a true immolation, Elizabeth’s own ceremony. To be shared with no one.

  The girl’s flesh was cooling now and she was flaccid against his skin, but it would be the final sweet culmination.

  Ladislas reached forward to part her legs.

  Hilary was not completely asleep. She was in the comfortable in-between stage of being sufficiently awake to enjoy sliding into sleep. Sleep was the place where you did not have to think or make decisions. Where you could lay down whatever worry you might be carrying. A borderland world.

  Sounds were different in the borderland world. Abstract things took on substance and form. She could still hear her thoughts scuffling about somewhere outside – down the corridor, was it? Or had they moved to over her head? It was vaguely disturbing, because thoughts did not move like that. Thoughts were silent and invisible. They came and went on swansdown feet and nobody saw them and nobody heard them.

  Whatever was scratching and slithering was trying to be silent, but was not quite succeeding. Hilary pushed back sleep a little more and considered this. Whatever it was was no longer outside her room, but above it. Overhead. Something scuttling about overhead. Something in the attic. Something, or someone . . .?

  Someone in the attic. . .

  There was the scrape of wood being moved and then the rasp of hinges. The soft creak of a door being slowly opened. Hilary’s eyes flew open in fear and she sat up, her eyes going automatically to the door leading into the corridor. Closed. Then what—

  Then the gust of cold air from above pricked her to a different awareness, and she looked up.

  Framed in the yawning trapdoor over her bed was the head and shoulders of a man looking down at her. He was spattered with blood and his eyes glittering maniacally. As he began to climb through the small aperture, she saw that one hand held a dripping knife.

  The man she had seen talking with the corpse-creatures in Csejthe.

  Ladislas Bathory.

  And he was coming down from the dark attic to murder her.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Hilary sat in Reverend Mother’s office, trying to be calm. She thought she had certainly screamed – she could still feel the echoes spinning about her head – but she could not remember actually getting to the door of her room and rousing the others. Had she shouted for help in English or German? It had not mattered, of course, because the message had been clear in any language.

  Ladislas had vanished at once and Hilary had caught the sound of scrabbling footsteps over her head. The trapdoor was still open, showing a gaping black hole, but Hilary could not have gone up there if God and the entire hierarchy of His angels had told her to.

  Sister Clothilde had summoned police officers at once, using the emergency number – ‘Something I never thought I should do,’ – and there had been time to get properly dressed which made Hilary feel better. You could deal more easily with things like making statements and embarking on explanations when you were fully clothed.

  Reverend Mother was immaculate. It was inconceivable that Reverend Mother would receive anyone, leave aside policemen, other than impeccably gowned and veiled even at three-thirty in the morning. Sister Margaret had been requested to brew up a huge pot of coffee for everyone. ‘Real coffee,’ said several of the nuns, accepting their cups with half-guilty pleasure. St Luke’s was not an especially ascetic Order, but good coffee was regarded as an expensive luxury.


  ‘Well, Reverend Mother thinks we need something heartening after such a terrible experience.’

  Hilary cupped her hands about the hot mug of coffee and concentrated on describing to the thin, grey-haired detective exactly what had happened. Being sleepless; hearing vague sounds as if someone were moving about somewhere. Half falling asleep and then waking and seeing Ladislas looking down at her. The knife in his hand . . . She said, ‘Have you searched everywhere? There was blood . . . If he attacked someone—’

  ‘Be calm, Sister, a search is being made now.’ The grey-haired detective spoke very good English. He had intelligent eyes and a thin, tired face with an unexpectedly sweet smile. He looked at Reverend Mother. ‘You have not made a count of your nuns?’

  ‘A roll call? It didn’t seem necessary . . .’ Reverend Mother made a quick gesture, half anger, half impatience. ‘There was so much confusion, you understand. People were rushing to make telephone calls, trying to reassure one another, making sure that the patients in the infirmary wing were all right . . .’ Again the impatient gesture of her hands, quickly stilled. ‘We are unused to such an intrusion. If one of the sisters was missing we would not necessarily have noticed.’ She frowned. ‘Should we search—’

  ‘It isn’t necessary now, Reverend Mother. My men will do so.’ He turned back to Hilary. ‘You said you recognised the man, Sister?’ The question was courteously put, but the grey eyes were steely. Hilary drank coffee to give herself time to think. It was impossible to lie with Reverend Mother sitting behind the desk. She thought she would not have done so anyway. Not now. Ladislas had come here to silence her. The gerons had told him about her, and he had come to find her exactly as Michael had suspected. And because of it, someone might be injured . . .

  She took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts, and said, ‘There is rather an extraordinary story behind all this. You will have to know it all and you will find it—’

  ‘Surprising? Sister, we see and hear many very strange things in our profession.’

  Hilary regarded him thoughtfully, but only said, ‘I am afraid it will take rather a long time.’

  ‘Then,’ said the detective, whose name was Armand Wagner, and who was discovering that nuns were not quite what he had been brought to believe, ‘then perhaps the good Sister Margaret can bring some more of her excellent coffee to assist us.’ He glanced at Reverend Mother. ‘You permit? Good. And you shall tell us your story. Herr Gustav will record everything.’

  There was a sudden businesslike air in the little study. The plump Herr Gustav brought from his briefcase a small portable tape recorder and placed it on the desk.

  ‘It is easier to record your story at this stage,’ he said, smiling in a rather cosy fashion, as if they were all attending a friendly tea party.

  ‘It will not trouble you?’ said Wagner. ‘Good. Please to take your time. It is all quite informal as yet, you understand? No official statements. That can be done later. I shall try not to interrupt you, unless it is to clarify something.’

  The story sounded quite as improbable to Hilary here as it had when she had told it to Michael in the inn at Debreczen. It sounded even more improbable to tell it to police officers than to tell it to someone you knew was a friend. Nothing could be omitted. Csejthe, the gerons, Pál and Anna. The blood ritual. Hilary told it all, as clearly as possible, trying not to miss anything, trying to be unemotional. Trying above all, to push aside the terrible feeling of responsibility. That blood-stained knife . . . Another death to be laid at my door . . .?

  It was odd and rather shocking to hear her voice describing the dwarf Janos’s attempt to rape her and how she had brought her knee up to slam into his genitals. You did not use words like genitals in front of Reverend Mother; Hilary glanced at Reverend Mother and saw that her expression was one of absorption, and if she was shocked she did not show it.

  It was towards the end, as Hilary was explaining how she and Michael had escaped from Csejthe that one of the policemen knocked at the study door and pushed it partly open.

  ‘Well?’

  There was a significant glance at Reverend Mother. Wagner said, ‘You have found something, Bremner?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ The young man called Bremner eyed his chief levelly and Reverend Mother rose at once and moved to the door.

  Wagner put out a hand to stay her. ‘I don’t think—’

  Reverend Mother regarded him. ‘Herr Wagner, if one of my nuns has been hurt I must know. If it is more than – just hurt, then you should remember that death is not an enemy here.’

  Hilary saw Bremner’s involuntary glance at Wagner, and Reverend Mother at once said, firmly, ‘You will permit me to accompany you, Herr?’ Her eyes were quite as incisive as Wagner’s, and her manner held just as much authority, but Hilary caught the involuntary glance across the room.

  She stood up and said carefully, ‘Could I come with you, Reverend Mother? Would it be allowed?’ She did not say, Would it help, but Reverend Mother’s response was immediate.

  ‘That would be very kind.’ Was there even a trace of relief? But having swept aside Wagner’s authority, Reverend Mother could now afford to be gracious. ‘You permit, Herr Wagner?’ she said.

  Wagner said thoughtfully, ‘Sister Hilary may recognise something that would help us. And there is the matter of identification. Normally that is done . . . later, but the circumstances are not altogether normal here.’ He frowned, and then said, ‘Very well. You will be careful not to touch anything?’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was a grim journey they made to the nuns’ wing. Was this where it had happened? Had someone really been killed so easily? While they slept, had one of their number been butchered within yards – within feet of hearing? Hilary’s thoughts were chaotic. What are we going to see? And who? And worst of all: could I have prevented it? If Michael and I had told the full story in Debreczen, would this have been prevented?

  The corridor was alive with Wagner’s men, and there was a sense of disturbance on the air. And it is not just because a killing has taken place, thought Hilary. It is the masculinity of Wagner’s men disturbing the virginal ambience.

  Police equipment had already been set up in the corridor: Wagner’s men clearly worked swiftly. There were cameras and strong flashlights on stands, and attaché cases like medical bags standing about, most of them half-open to show bottles of chemicals and brushes. Two men were painstakingly dusting thin white powder over the doorframes of each room. Fingerprints? Would they all have to have their prints taken? That would flutter the dovecote even further. But he came through the trapdoor in the roof, not through the door, thought Hilary, confusedly. Or did he? Supposing he came silently along the corridor first, trying all the doors. She felt a shiver of horror.

  The young, keen-eyed Bremner had come with them, and the plump Gustav, exuding sympathy. Hilary noticed that he accorded Herr Wagner an alert deference.

  The door of the fourth room down was propped open. Sister Agnes? No, Sister Agnes was next to Hilary’s own room, with Sister Margaret beyond that. In any case, she had seen both sisters since it happened. Hilary felt as if her mind was refusing to function. It ought to be easy to remember which room it was. Only I can’t, thought Hilary in sudden panic. Is this what shock feels like?

  As they approached the open door, the first thing to assail her senses was the stench of blood. Hilary felt her stomach chum and bit down nausea resolutely. Please God let me not faint, and above all, God, don’t let me be sick.

  And then they were on the threshhold and Hilary felt her senses spinning again. For a moment her mind was unable to do more than repeat over and over the conventional phrases. This is a very dreadful thing that has happened. This is quite terrible. An outrage . . . Beyond that she could not go. Her mind was like a car with the gears jammed so that it was unable to move forward. A terrible thing . . . At her side, Reverend Mother murmured a prayer and, with the words, the stuck wheels of Hilary’s mind unlocked and s
he could think and reason again.

  The little room had been distempered in a bright sunny buttercup and there were yellow and white curtains at the windows. The rooms had been newly painted a week or two before Hilary’s arrival, and Sister Clothilde had still not got over the expense.

  Ladislas Bathory’s victim lay as he had left her, propped against the wall behind the bed, her head flopping forward, her legs sprawling in an ugly, obscene fashion. Hilary glimpsed the tangle of dark pubic hair, matted and smeared with blood and looked away at once. But her mind had already registered the gaping wounds at neck and wrist and groin, and her inner vision was printed with the image of the unnaturally white flesh. Emptied of blood. Drained and milked . . . And there is the stench of death and fear and of raw sexual greed in here.

  The blood had splashed the buttercup walls so strongly that it must have spurted from the bed in a great fountain; the bedclothes were soaked and stiffening and even the bright curtains were marked. The room is a touch frivolous – Sister Clothilde said it was – and now amidst it all is a corpse lying in its own gore, and there is the stench of too-ripe meat from the stale blood and the torn-open flesh . . .

  On the window-ledge was a small, ikon-type picture: a young smooth-faced woman wearing the close neat headband and veil of a Carmelite. St Teresa of Avila. Then this is Sister Thérèse’s room. Sister Thérèse, named for the fourteenth-century Spanish saint. Catherine’s friend.

  Hilary had not known Sister Thérèse very well, but they had talked briefly one evening at supper about the projected work on the other Teresa, which Hilary had found interesting, and they had exchanged good mornings each day as one did in any kind of community. It had been Sister Thérèse, as the convent’s treasurer, who had given Hilary a small amount of money prior to the journey to Varanno. ‘Petty cash,’ she had said, and smiled as if trying out a colloquialism to see how it sounded. ‘In case of anything unforeseen.’ Hilary had received the impression of considerable piety oddly blended with sharp organisational skills.