Mihail took another drink of water, handing the empty cup to Caleb for a refill. He stared into the fresh liquid for some time before continuing, “In Tîrgovişte, he used to frequent the book shop of Mr. Liliescu, so much so that the bookseller would invite us to his home for tea or dinner whenever we came to the city. It was there that Alexandru met the bookdealer’s daughter, Ana Maria.”
The old man glanced apprehensively at Caleb, gauging his reaction to the name. Mihail had not been present in the Great Hall for that terrifying and revealing meeting with Lamia, but he suspected that Caleb knew her. Caleb merely nodded, revealing nothing.
“She was seventeen, quiet—not shy by any means—and also a powerful wizard knowledgeable in magic as well as in many other subjects, history, astronomy, and the like. He was very taken with her and she seemed to love him, too. They were married a year after they met and she came to live at the castle.”
“Ana Maria got on well with Alexandru’s mother; she understood her health and moods. Mircea adored Ana Maria, following her around like a puppy. She tutored him, and they often played chess in the library or in the Great Hall. Alexandru continued to travel frequently. I think he was glad that his brother had some company.” Mihail paused for a drink and grumbled, “Too trusting, he was.”
“Whenever we returned from a trip, she helped sort the new volumes, and they talked long into the night about all the things in those books. Perhaps Alexandru was foolish to think that he could simply bring her here and continue his life of wandering. She never complained, but I saw the signs myself.”
“What do you mean?” Caleb asked sharply. He could not imagine Lamia as a teenager. Certainly she had looked young when he met her, probably much as she appeared when she first came to the castle, but she had acted like…anything but a young girl.
“She cried when she thought no one was watching. The maids told me that. And she would stay in her room, sometimes all day, and refuse to eat. Maybe later, after she had become…after she changed, we didn’t notice at first because she had always behaved that way.”
Caleb was seized by the desire to know what Ana Maria had been like. He tried to imagine Lamia as a human, as the girl who had come to the castle almost sixty years ago, but could not reconcile the images that battled inside him: Her harsh laughter in the Great Hall, fresh blood on her chin, clashed with her wordless cries as she clung to him in her tent. Which was real and which was a lie?
Perhaps he had glimpsed Ana Maria in the portrait gallery: a lonely and scared girl surrounded by the cold, unforgiving stones of Castle Arghezi. He felt a phantom of her last kiss on his lips; already she receded from him. Desperately, he hoped that he could at least hold on to her kiss, and to the hope that she had been human at the end.
The old man coughed, startling Caleb out of his daze. Mihail shook his head regretfully, continuing, “After they had been married for about a year, Cuza appeared, presenting himself as an old friend of Alexandru’s father. None of us had heard of him, but he knew a great deal about the old master and had a few items from him that he said were gifts from his valued friend. Whether Cuza had actually been a friend or was the wizard responsible for his death, I cannot say. After we left the castle, Alexandru tormented himself about this very question; he never knew the answer either.
“The family enjoyed Cuza’s company; he was very charming. That first time, he stayed for a week; afterwards, Ana Maria became very ill. No one connected the two events at the time. In fact, Alexandru and I left shortly thereafter for a trip to Prague that occupied us for more than a month. But before we left, he assured himself that Ana Maria had recovered from her illness. Oh, if only he had read the signs correctly!”
Mihail’s hands were now starting to shake and his voice took on more emotion. Caleb gripped the arms of his own chair tightly, knowing what was coming in the old man’s tale.
“While we were on that trip, Cuza came back to the castle on some pretense, worming his way into the family’s hearts and staying for the greater part of a month. He had just departed when we returned. Ana Maria seemed well when we saw her, although a little pale. Alexandru was preoccupied with the finds that he had made in Prague and got to work cataloguing all the new books with her help.”
“And by that time, Ana Maria was a vampire, wasn’t she?” inquired Caleb, compelled to ask what he did not want to know.
“Almost certainly. Was my master blind to the fact that his wife was now a vampire?” Mihail shook his head in puzzlement. “Of course, she lost her appetite and often asked to have meals sent to her room, but she had frequently done that before. Alexandru hoped that she might be with child; certainly his mother hinted that to him. Should I have read the signs better and warned them? I cannot stop wondering.”
“It’s useless to torture yourself so,” Caleb interjected forcefully, as much to himself as to Mihail.
The other sighed, staring into his cup for a time, then continued, “The same strange illness began to strike some of the servants, and Mircea was also ill. I suppose that Cuza must have been sneaking into the castle to be with Ana Maria. The castle was not protected magically as strongly as it is now.”
He held his cup out for a refill, his hand shaking so badly that half the water Caleb summoned did not make it into the cup, but splashed noisily on the stones below.
“It was a disease, a cancer, spreading through the castle,” Mihail continued after taking another deep drink. “Alexandru and his mother did not notice, but I saw the changes. I was slow to put a name to it and even slower to say something. Oh! I should have warned them sooner!”
“But would Alexandru have believed you?” Caleb wondered. Both men were silent. The rest of the tale lurked, a great sleeping dragon curled up just out of sight, waiting to bring itself to full height and attack.
“Tell me what happened then,” murmured Caleb.
“It was the autumn of 1935,” began Mihail slowly, his voice beginning to crack, “and Alexandru wanted to take one more trip to Bucharest before the snows buried the castle for the winter. His mother begged him not to go on that trip, even more than she usually did. Did she suspect that something was going on? I refused to go; something was not right in the castle. Soon after Alexandru left, Cuza came to the castle and Ana Maria welcomed him. Now I watched the two of them together closely and began to suspect what he was—and what she had become, too.
“And I became concerned for Mircea. He became ill again and Ana Maria nursed him back to health. I draped garlic around his bed, but someone kept removing all the garlic.”
“You protected yourself with garlic, too, no doubt,” Caleb said. The thought of the young Mihail, already draped in garlic, with probably a bit of wolfsbane thrown in for good measure, caused him to smile slightly.
“I knew they were in the castle and I protected myself. I heard their songs,” replied the old man, the anguish rising in his voice. “Some nights it was all I could do to keep myself in my room when they called to me. It was the same as yesterday, when she—”
“I know. I’ve heard that song, too.” Caleb interrupted hastily. Oh, Lamia, he thought to himself, how could you?
Mihail reached over and gripped Caleb’s forearm tightly. Caleb’s wounds screamed in pain, but the touch steadied the old man. “An early and unexpected snowstorm delayed Alexandru. He returned late one evening, exhausted from a difficult journey up the mountain in the snow, just as the household was about to retire. Both Ana Maria and Mircea were agitated, although for very different reasons, I know now. Mircea was still very pale and drawn. Something seemed to be preying on his mind. I heard him mumble something to his brother about being quite delirious with fever during his illness and having some residual nightmares.”
“Mircea must have known somehow that he had been bitten twice,” mused Caleb.
“…Or the sight of Ana Maria made him realize something,” concluded Mihail. “We never knew if she or Cuza attacked him first. Alexandru didn’t want to believe that
she was part of it, but I know she was.” The old man gave a snort of disgust, “In spite of all the monstrous things that she did after becoming a vampire, I believe he still loved her.”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Caleb asked softly. “I knew her, too,” he continued under the harsh gaze of the old servant. “I did not know at first what she was…or who she was. She never mentioned the castle…” Caleb halted as Mihail drew back his hand, making his scars sting afresh.
“I can understand how Alexandru felt,” Caleb continued. “She was…” What? How could he express the mixture of longing and frustration? Trying to understand her was like trying to put his arms around smoke.
Mihail eyed him suspiciously, but continued, “The family awoke to screaming, Mircea shouting incoherently. I rushed out of my room to see him fleeing down the stairs. He was by himself, crying for someone to go away. I saw no one—although there were undoubtedly bats trailing after him that I did not see. Alexandru shouted at me to take care of his mother and followed his brother through the entrance hall and up the steps of the tower. We thought that he had relapsed into his former illness, but that was not the case, of course.”
“The boy was about to be bitten for the third time, wasn’t he? And he woke up just before the act was committed.” Caleb shook his head in wonder, thinking of the poor boy Stefan, whom he and Alexandru had rescued from a third vampire bite. Now he knew fully the pain that wracked the old vampire-hunter to hear the boy scream.
“Do you know what happened in the tower?” Caleb asked.
“Later, much later, and only when he was in his cups, Alexandru told me what had happened that night,” replied Mihail heavily. “When he reached the top of the tower, he found Cuza, trying to put Mircea under his spell. When the boy saw Alexandru, the spell was temporarily broken, and he begged his brother’s forgiveness. Cuza attempted to draw Mircea to him, even as Alexandru raged at him. They fought and the vampire cursed Alexandru, knocking him down briefly. The vampire turned on Mircea and…finished what he had come to do.”
“And both Cuza and Mircea got away?”
“Yes, and we knew that our troubles were just beginning. Alexandru told me to get his mother out of the castle that very night, to take her to safety with friends in the village. I left with the rest of the servants, the ones who were still living, that is. Alexandru stayed to confront Ana Maria. I told him all that I had seen, and at last he believed me. He found her in the greenhouse near dawn. I do not know what they said to one another, but Alexandru became very angry. He tried to curse her, but she was as much of a wizard as he. She fought back, and then Cuza came crashing through the glass of the greenhouse. Alexandru could not win against the two of them. He was lucky to escape the castle alive.”
“And you went to America then?”
“Alexandru did not succeed in getting back into the castle that winter or spring. Cuza had assembled quite a circle of vampires around him, and they were too strong for one wizard alone. He could not muster enough support from the locals to drive them out. Also, the whole incident had greatly upset his mother. She had cousins in New England who invited us to stay with them. We went, but it was always his intention to return after seeing her settled. But she needed him, she said. Within a few years, the War had broken out in Europe and it was more pleasant for everyone to stay in Boston.”
“That’s where he met Jonathan Hermann?” Caleb asked, thinking suddenly of the little man who was probably still teaching Freshman Physics to bright-eyed young Einsteins on the East Coast.
“Yes. Mr. Hermann was Alexandru’s good friend. When Mircea appeared in New England, they hunted him together for several years. But by that time, Mircea was under the control of vampires even more powerful than Cuza. It wasn’t until the end of the war that Alexandru was able to contain these monsters in a locked and warded mansion. At last, the dreadful tale seemed to have ended, and I hoped to live out the rest of my days in peace.” Mihail’s chin quivered. “Why did we come back?”
Lamia had asked the same question. Why indeed? Either there was no answer to the question, or the answer was so dreadfully complicated that it would take years to unravel. Caleb could not see a path out of that thicket.
Mihail yawned loudly. The height of the moon peeking out from behind the tower told Caleb it was just past nine o’clock. Night had fallen without either man noticing, and it promised to be clear and cold.
“C’mon,” drawled Caleb sleepily. “Let’s get you to bed.”
He helped Mihail stand up and supported him as they shuffled across the brightly lit flagstones to the dark granary. Once inside, Caleb conjured a ball of fire, enough to see the piles of blankets and sacks of flour that served as their makeshift beds. He settled Mihail as comfortably as he could, kneeling next to him to wrap him up warmly in several blankets.
“I will find Mircea,” Caleb murmured dreamily. The old man’s eyes flew open and he clenched Caleb’s hand. “Alexandru asked me, before he—before the end,” he said as he took Mihail’s hand and tucked it under the blankets, “and I promised him. I will find Mircea.”
Epilogue
The thick oak door opened grudgingly, groaning like a ghost with laryngitis. The boy peered into the thick, dusty gloom of the entrance hall. He stepped inside and stopped, allowing his eyes time to adjust.
“Dad?” The word died in the high ceiling above him. He crossed the hall with caution, using his walking stick to probe the floor, remembering the traps. Something chittered to his right, and then scurried across the floor.
“Son of a rabid dog!” he cursed and skipped a step to avoid the…rat, if that’s what it was. If it wasn’t a rat, he didn’t want to know.
The boy avoided looking off to the right, because too many painful memories clung to the iron-bound door that led into what had once been a prison, and proceeded down the corridor that led to the Great Hall. Closer to the double doors of the formal entrance, the floor was littered with detritus: shards of glass, shreds of tapestries, and scraps of furniture. The doors themselves wouldn’t open more than a crack, blocked by a charred piece of beam that had fallen from the roof.
He thought he’d have better luck going through the kitchens. Seven months after that night, and none of the rubble had been cleared. Bela wished his own memories could be buried along with the fractured tiles.
Where the entrance hall had been stuffy and dark, what was left of the Great Hall was open to the wind and the sun. Parts of the roof and three of the four walls were largely intact, but the fourth wall, which had separated the Great Hall from the library and greenhouse, was a pile of stones and charred lumber.
“As bad as the cottage, this place is,” he murmured, looking up at the holes in the ceiling as if for the first time. “But those beams I could use…” he added with thinly veiled desire, his gaze dropping to the thick roof supports, now lying on the floor.
“You only came for the timber, eh? I hoped for a warmer welcome.”
The boy started at the familiar voice of dry amusement behind him.
“Da-…Caleb,” Bela said as he turned around. “If you don’t need them all…”
“Yes, I’ll let you know,” Caleb promised. He was wiping his hands on a towel and smiling that infuriating all-knowing smile. “I have been meaning to fix things up this summer.”
“We didn’t…you know, that night…tear off the ceiling, did we?” Bela asked, suddenly hesitant.
“No,” Caleb replied with caution. “It was the next day. After the vampires came. You were spared—you slept through what happened.” He put the towel he’d been holding on the back of one of two chairs remaining in the Great Hall.
“Mom helped, didn’t she?” Before now, he had never dared to ask for the whole story. He remembered Liszka calling to him, and he recalled locking the door magically with a bit of help from Grigore—but the noises that followed could have been figments of his fevered dreams.
“Of course she did,” Caleb smiled. “That surprised t
he vampires, and gave Alexandru and me a chance to recover our senses. Then…then it was a four-way battle for I don’t know how long—an hour, maybe longer. It was high noon by the time Cuza turned into a bat and Alexandru blew the ceiling apart trying to curse him. The bat didn’t like the sunlight, of course, and he was forced to transform back. Your mother—Liszka—was waiting for him with a mirror, while Alexandru tried to ambush him from behind.”
“Mom never talks about this,” Bela said with a mixture of awe and curiosity. “Did you kill the vampire?”
Caleb shook his head. “Not right away. Alexandru’s curse hit a stone pillar with not much left to support it, and a section of the roof came crashing down and killed him. All that’s ancient history.”
Caleb turned to the table next to the fireplace and began putting away the remains of his breakfast. “I didn’t invite you here so that you could raid what’s left of the castle,” he said, pointedly changing the subject. “And how did you get in? I’m sure that all the wards were set this morning.”
“The wards? Oh, those were easy to get through,” countered Bela with the bravado of teenagers everywhere.
“Hmmm….I’ve taught you well, maybe too well.”
“Picked up some on my own, too.”
“Well, that remains to be seen.” Caleb frowned for a moment, and then continued, “I asked you to come by today because the baker sent word that something’s in his barn. It’s upsetting his goats and eating his grain. It might be nothing, but if it turns out to be some creature…I could, well, I could use your help.”
“Monsters?” Bela couldn’t keep the excitement from creeping into his voice. Monsters had been scarce in the local mountains for the last few years, thanks to Caleb’s single-minded efforts. Bela had never seen so much as a hydra.
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