by Royce Prouty
He nodded. “Tell me what you’ve found.”
“Why should I? You couldn’t protect Mara.”
That halted the conversation as his lower jaw clenched and his lips tightened. Tension mounted as the moments passed until he reached for his cloth napkin and dabbed his eyes. The waiter set my food in front of me and left.
“Allow me to start at the beginning, Mr. Joseph,” he said.
I nodded.
“About a quarter century ago, my wife was watching television when she called me to come quickly. It was an American broadcast, and she repeated the names of the two boys being interviewed in a state-run orphanage in Romania.”
He paused to let me guess. “Joseph and Bernhardt.”
Mr. Bena nodded. “Petrescu Barkeley.”
It took a moment. “So you are my benefactor,” I said. A warm feeling enveloped me.
“Yes.” A long pause separated his words. “I have long-standing connections with the Catholic Church, and I was able to send someone to get you and your brother the next day. I flew to Chicago and met with Mother Daniela and explained things as best I could. She understood, and took you in.”
I pushed my food away and leaned on the table. “Why me? Why us?”
He pointed at me. “You need to know something.” Then he reached into a small briefcase and produced a journal, much like the one Mara had given me, and opened to a certain page before handing it to me. “Go ahead, read. Start at the end.”
It looked like a family tree, and my name, along with my brother’s, was at the bottom of the lineage. Above it were my parents’ family names, Petrescu and Barkeley, and the cities they grew up in. Dates of birth and death were listed. I recognized the left-handed writing. Then I noticed the tree only went up my mother’s side.
“What am I looking for?” I asked.
“Keep going up your mother’s side.”
With each generation I noticed very long lives of the women, but not the men. My mother was the exception, a mere forty when she died. Then my eyes landed on her grandmother’s grandmother, whose life spanned the years of 1688 until 1801. And her name was Contessa Gratz of Solingen. I knew the German city lay in the north Rhine region, and that I should know that name.
“I asked you about that name before,” said Mr. Bena. “Do you recall?”
Yes, I did. “Countess Dolingen of Gratz, sought and found death in 1801.” It was the name on the tomb in Stoker’s prologue.
“And you are her direct descendent. That’s how they know you.”
“I thought it was just a name lifted off a tomb.”
“Sort of,” said Mr. Bena. “It is why that part was left off the manuscript. She was a human slave, and passed their Noble bloodlines down to you.”
At that moment it made sense why I was being selected, for I had been followed since birth. It also would explain why my father chose to end the bloodline. I thought of Mara’s words and asked, “How does Mara fit into this?”
Again his eyes watered and it took a moment for him to answer. “My wife and I rescued her in similar circumstances many years before you.”
“You found her a safe place,” I said.
“Not safe enough.”
I felt infinitely sad for his loss, and said, “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, then continued. “I must ask you this, Mr. Joseph: Do you happen to know where the original manuscript is now?”
“No,” I said, “but my guide told me it is likely in the old wine cellar vaults in Castel Bran.”
He nodded. “You realize . . . there will come a day when you need to escape.”
I shook my head. “That’s going to be tough, considering my legal mess. You know I’m the suspect in those murders.”
“I know,” he said, and slid a key toward me on the table. “Take this.”
I looked it over. It appeared to be the key to a safety box with a number stamped—N279.
“That key opens a locker at the train station. There is only one bank of lockers, north wall. If you find the original manuscript and place it in the locker, my original offer still stands.”
“It was four million dollars from the family, but I don’t—”
“I know,” he interrupted, and held up a hand to halt me. “More importantly, whatever you find in this museum you will need to dispose of. Use that key. Inside the locker you will find a passport and some traveling money.”
I did not need clarification to know he meant a fake passport.
“May God be with you,” he said.
I nodded and held back several emotions. I had a lot to be grateful to him for. I whispered, “Thank you . . . for everything.”
Parting ways with him, I returned to the Excelsior, where I showered and stood out on the balcony to watch the storm. I replayed my visit with Mr. Bena repeatedly. I realized that I must have appeared to be anything but grateful.
First, I should have hugged him, for it’s not every day that you get to thank the person who saved your life. But I let him walk away into the night. True, I did not grow up in a home where people hugged each other, and certainly did not experience touch in my youth, so I grew up feeling something akin to static electricity jolts every time someone touched me. I keep distance. This time, however, I felt shame at allowing my benefactor to walk away.
As I replayed the conversation one last time, the connections became clear from my first meeting with him at Mara’s and his words at dinner. When he said his family had been at war with the Dracul family for centuries, it meant he was a vampire hunter. Either he was given long life and turned on his master, or he came from a family who did. The answer did not matter; it’s not like he carried around a business card spelling his vocation. What did matter was that he was there for me and my brother when we needed help the most, as well as for Mara, and for who knows how many other victims. Perhaps my upcoming conflict with the Noble family was enough repayment.
The storm progressed with the night. Trees bent, lightning crashed close by, rain splashed off the balcony, and the power flicked several times as midnight approached. Still I could not fall to sleep, thinking about the last box I’d handled, remembering the feeling that I had teetered on the verge of discovery.
I stood in the cool humid night air and smelled the aftereffects of a cleansing summer storm, while the horizon flashed a string of lightning strikes suggesting this was just a lull. Mist hovered over the trees in the park and the once busy street now echoed.
How differently people lived here. Oh, not just in language, but in mind-set. There is a sense of dark-horse fatalism whose roots are buried deep in Orthodox Christianity and its litany of superstitions, coupled with a sense of the small and rural and primitive that runs even through the big cities. Yet somehow the people hold dear their attachment to the land in some romantic way, proud regardless of who their conquerors are. One might remark that these people love their country dearly, while they wait to see who invades next.
And somehow I identified with their mind-set. I was trapped within borders, short on options, and resigned to the fact that my mortal fate rested in the hands of a superior enemy. Fatalism, indeed.
A chilling wind chased me inside, and I found an American cable newscast on television and felt a chill when I heard my name broadcast: “. . . Joseph Barkeley of Chicago is being sought as a person of interest . . .”
I had checked in under my middle name, Winston, but at that point I knew it was only a matter of time before some official would seize me. An innocent man never imagines life as a fugitive nor considers his freedom as a moment-to-moment condition. I had to finish this search as soon as possible, and I realized that for the foreseeable future, it would be wise to plan as if I might have to flee at any moment. How does one live that way? I hoped Mr. Bena would come through with the fake passport.
I grabbed my coat and left the roo
m as silently as I could, believing there was something in that box in the museum that held answers. I fled the hotel’s back exit and turned up my coat collar. Outside was chilly and the wind saw to the constant stirring of things. Lightning crashed in the park across the street. The neighborhood lights went out, then on again. It was just past midnight, and no one braved the streets. Halfway to the museum it started to rain in earnest, hurling uneven torrents to the pavement. The sound of splashing echoed off the buildings. I pulled my jacket over my head and every half block stepped into recessed doorways to catch a break. During one such delay a police car slowly rolled down the street and I stepped back into the shadows.
After another block I found a doorway where I could wait and observe the museum. As I adjusted my eyes to the shadows, I saw movement on the other side of the museum. A man came into focus, a tall thin man in a long dark overcoat with the collar pulled up, hands in pockets. He held no umbrella, and just stood near the corner, back in the shadow of the building behind him. I saw a tiny red glow in front of his face, yet was not close enough to see if he had red eyes or if it was a lit cigarette. He looked quickly both ways before gazing back my direction. I retreated in the doorway.
I stepped on something.
A man grumbled.
I looked down to see a homeless man pressing against the doorway for shelter from the storm. When I looked back across the street, the man in the coat was gone.
It was time to move. Thinking it best to circle the blocks around the museum, I pulled my collar against my neck and clutched my travel bag tightly like a football. As I stepped into the rain, droplets pelted my face. No sign of life around the first concentric block, nor the museum block, so after my second trip around I ducked into the doorway closest to the unlocked basement window. I looked inside and saw no red lights on the security cameras.
Without the nerve to simply walk up to the window and break in I thought it prudent to take the example of the homeless man and crouch in the doorway until judging it clear. During that half hour several cars drove by, a couple holding hands strolled leisurely by under an umbrella, and the man with the collared coat failed to reappear.
I saw a policeman on foot shine a flashlight in the doorway where the homeless man lay, then continue on. I waited another fifteen minutes before making my move. The heavy wooden window stubbornly gave way and I slid through the opening and onto the floor before springing back up to close it. The building felt quiet. Stepping over to the stack where I’d left off, I flicked on my lighter and found the weighty box unmoved. Something drew me back to it, a question unanswered lingering in my mind. I knelt, opened it, and grabbed the heavy Bible in its presentation box. A Bible in Tesla’s archive? I mused consciously for the first time. Why?
Suddenly a movement in my periphery froze me where I stood. Someone had just walked by the opposite-side window and stopped. Whoever it was wore a long coat with boots and bent to look in the basement. I continued kneeling and hoped he did not circle the building because I had not drawn the window completely closed. I heard my heart pounding in my ears and felt my pulse in my neck. Soon as the stranger passed, I stashed the boxed Bible in my bag, quickly returned the file box to its place, and hustled back to the window. There I looked both ways and, seeing no one, climbed out.
One block into my return trip I passed a darkened doorway and saw a man in a long coat standing back in the shadows. I could smell the tobacco when I passed and picked up the pace back to the hotel. By the time I got to the front door I looked back and saw him, or someone dressed just like him, standing at the corner watching me, a lit cigarette in his mouth. I entered the lobby and ignored looks from the desk clerk as I headed for the elevator. Upstairs in the room I washed away the chill and hung my clothes to dry before opening the Bible’s presentation box. Making the sign of the cross and kissing my crucifix, I lifted the leather-bound volume out of its aging wooden box. The hinges predated Colonial times.
The Bible jacket turned out to be a rather obvious false cover, revealing dozens of handwritten pages both in Stoker’s and George’s handwriting. First I took inventory—it looked like at least two chapters penned by the author, a marked-up typed manuscript, a stack of letters from Sonia to George, and several pages of George’s notes.
I looked at the clock. In seven hours, I’d make a punctual return to the museum. I brewed a cup of instant coffee and left it on the other side of the room for fear of spillage. What to read first? I started with what likely would go the fastest: George’s notes. Skimming the pages I found that George kept the sketches Stoker drew and made comments about their accuracy, along with lists of vampire traits, one column for the accurate ones and the second column for the fabled ones. Another page had the family tree of Vlad Dracul and his four sons. It was the same as in the journal I had taken from Mara’s place, except this one listed the sons’ wives.
Mircea was the oldest, and although no wife was listed, the space had been filled with a question mark. Vlad Dracula was married to Elizabeth; Radu the Handsome wedded Luiza; and Dalca’s bride was named Erika. Below the family tree were handwritten notes by both men. Stoker suggested that Vlad be reunited in the same crypt as his wife, and the assistant noted, Must never breed again.
Next Stoker wrote, Wife dead.
The assistant wrote, Not dead—undead. Below that a question mark in what appeared to be Stoker’s handwriting remained unanswered. Recalling what Sonia had said about vampires surviving dormant if not dismembered, the word undead became clearer.
In the following pages George’s notes mentioned an apparatus designed by Tesla intended to project a concentrated beam of light held so tightly together that it had properties sufficiently disruptive to disable electrical and mechanical devices. The idea was that light beam particles would hit a target with such force, it would disrupt any object at the atomic bonding level. I recalled seeing a similar description, though less specific, in his correspondence with President Wilson’s War Department. Obviously Tesla had been developing either laser and/or microwave technology long before it was known to the greater world.
George drew a sketch of the device pointed at a box shaped like a coffin with heat lines rising, as if he thought he might be able to cook a vampire in its sanctuary box. I recognized the sketch as similar to one in the journal Mara had given me.
On the next page was the sketch of what looked like a lens. Not just an ordinary lens; it was shaped like an insect’s eye, flanked by an exploded close-up view. They are not like mammals’ single focal point lenses, but rather a series of shutters, hundreds of them, each with a focal point that relays images to the brain. Rather than seeing something still, the eyes detect motion as it moves from shutter to shutter. Like standing in one of those fun house rooms filled with mirrors where images come from all directions at once. When an object is still you cannot detect its location, but as it moves you can follow its path.
I looked at the sketch again, in which it appeared that George intended to use Tesla’s laser beam to shine in the eyes of this creature to disable it. If a sudden bright light were to invade a dark mirrored room, it would appear to be coming from all directions, rendering the victim senseless until it looked away. That must have been what happened in the cemetery when my flashlight momentarily immobilized that creature while Dalca’s warriors moved in. A laser beam would presumably intensify that effect.
Perhaps that illustration represented the vampires’ eyes, and Tesla’s beam a method of disabling them. I read on.
Another page had a crude hand-drawn map that resembled the shape of the Carpathian Mountain footprint. Along the left boundary the letters MRC were printed with an arrow pointing west and southwest. The top had RtH printed with an arrow pointing north. An arrow pointing east in the right side listed Dlc, and the bottom had VIII and an arrow pointing south. Linking those initials to the family tree I assumed that to be the territories each of the warring brothers was
charged with guarding. Obviously Vlad III had the biggest job keeping the Ottoman Turks on the south side of the Danube and off the Wallachian Plain. Dalca’s territory faced the Moldavian Plain and was assigned defense against Asian invaders, while Radu the Handsome guarded the North Carpathians from Hun descendents. Mircea lorded over the western front and seat of the Hungarian Empire at the time, plus the part of the Balkans that eventually became Yugoslavia. No wonder there was a clash in the Baia Mare cemetery—it lay in the north sector, Radu’s territory. And Radu, if alive, would know that Dalca’s purpose was to exhume his wife.
I moved to the written correspondence, most of which Sonia had penned to George expressing her love, along with details of her progress building their house in his absence. She wrote of her fear for his safety, understandable in a dangerous industry such as electricity. Her last letter referenced his previous communiqué, and although I could not read all the Romanian, she seemed relieved he had taken care of something and that perhaps “maybe that was enough of a message that he will not repeat his mistake.” The date coincided with ashes smoldering at Constable & Co.
Another letter at the bottom of the stack lacked a postmark. As I unfolded the fragile paper, another page fell out. I picked it up and recognized Stoker’s handwriting:
April, 1897
London
Mr. Anton,
When I enlisted your assistance in a certain capacity relating to my manuscript I did so with the expectation that your role would be subordinate and that the totality of your suggestions would be just that, mere suggestions. It is neither warranted nor appreciated that you “insist” on any changes to my work, for at all times you are to remember that it is, after all, my work.
Be warned of this—I am aware you attempted to make contact with my publisher at Constable with claims of copyright violations. He knows better, as my relationship with him precedes your introduction. Future contact will not be . . .
There the first page ended, and I found none subsequent. Here it was, proof of their falling-out. By its date, the disagreement appeared to have taken place just as the original first editions headed to print.
