Stoker's Manuscript (17 page)

S
unrise Friday arrived with a newspaper, an aging
Chicago
Tribune
carrying the story of Doug Carli’s death on page two, including the obligatory smiling family portrait, plus another of the death scene—not the impalement, but the bloody aftermath. He had plunged more than ten stories. The article chronicled his financial rise and recent economic setbacks, plus a quarrel with a client earlier in the day, no names listed.

Details of Mara’s death followed on the opposite page. Neighbors apparently checked on her after seeing visitors leave her property and discovered her slain body, as my brother said, up in a tree in her backyard. However, my brother left out the detail that the treetop had been whittled to a sharp point and Mara placed thereon. The trunk had passed up through her body into her brain stem, and she was found in a sitting position like an angel placed atop a Christmas tree, with her arms wrapped around a weighted shoulder yoke.

I slumped in the chair and let the paper fall aside. Once the shock of the details passed, I realized I had had meetings with both victims the day they died, and both articles alluded to that detail without divulging my name. But that was not all, as only two surviving people knew of my mission: my brother and a stranger named Alexandru Bena. If Alexandru could not keep Mara from harm in Wisconsin, I concluded that I was on my own here.

Somehow I needed to warn my brother. But even if I had a way of contacting him, what could I say that he’d understand or believe? Graveyard encounters with warring vampire families, or our dismembered mother with a stake in her heart? Not likely.

One might hope that the murders of Doug and Mara would be compelling enough to force Berns to believe anything I told him. Yet Dalca’s people had cleverly framed me as the prime suspect. Doug could not have known how close to the truth he was when he suggested the term
family
in my dealings with the buyer, and the family was tying up loose ends before they became
too
loose.

I sighed and shook my head. In Illinois they send murderers to Stateville in Joliet, but they send the criminally insane to a place even the Stateville inmates fear.

At two, the door opened and Arthur led me through the halls, down the elevator, and out the front door to the waiting Suburban. It had been cleaned, and I took a backseat and watched the scenery pass, sites foreign only a week ago now familiar. Once in
, we continued to the east end of town and parked beside the highway. On schedule, the Gypsy arrived with his copper wares heading home to Dumitra, and Arthur got out and flagged him over for a conversation. Money changed hands and Arthur nodded my way, and as I climbed on the horse cart he informed me that this was my transport there and back, and that he hoped to see me again.

The ride over the hill was a silent one, while guilt only compounded my despair. Of course I had not impaled my friends, but I was the only reason they had died. I, who had deliberately lived a sheltered life, wishing to insulate my heart from such loss, now felt the full blow of it.

Traveling along the river, the Gypsy halted the cart and slowly reached back under his canvas tarp to retrieve something. The look on his face and a finger to his lips instructed me to silence. He pulled a crossbow from under a tarp, and with his other hand, reached behind his seat and produced an arrow from a leather pouch. Silently, quickly, he armed the bow, lifted it to his shoulder, and took aim at a small deer. In America it would be referred to as poaching. In remote Romania it is referred to as feeding your family. A single shot put the animal down. Observing the silent weapon ignited my curiosity, and I asked him several questions, as best as I could in Romanian, about its operation while he field dressed the animal. He was forthright with his answers, as much as our language barriers allowed, and with typical Romanian hospitality offered to instruct me in its use.

I helped him lift his conquest to the back of his cart and cover it with the tarp. Nothing more was said of the event.

The Gypsy stopped just as he turned into his drive and lifted his horseshoe to open the gate. He turned and pointed upward and said,
“Este
.”

“I know,” I said. “Full moon.
.
”

He made the sign of the cross and continued up his driveway.

I called to him and pointed at my watch to see what time he would be leaving in the morning.
“De
?
”

He waved me off; it was Friday.
“Luni.” Monday.

I walked through the village of Dumitra and received only sideways looks as adults corralled their children. Just as before, doors slammed, dogs barked, and everywhere the villagers made the sign of the cross. Even the dolls had been removed from their windows. The priest blessed me as I walked by, and while traversing the bridge I noticed that Sonia’s doors and windows were shuttered. It was only minutes from sundown, and I walked the stride of a man resigned to the gallows and swift judgment.

The hike toward Dreptu seemed farther than the first time, likely because of my diminished pace. The deeper into the woods I walked, the louder the sound of wolves, while birds by the thousands flew just over the treetops. Several times I heard the sound of female mosquitoes like the ones near the Baia Sprie cemetery, their hum a higher, faster, more rhythmic pitch than the males’.

I was jolted from my woolgathering by what looked like lights dancing in the trees in front of me. Realizing the light shone from behind, I quickly moved to the shadows and stood behind a tree. The engine sounded like a heavy truck, and as it passed I saw that it was an old school bus filled with people laughing and carrying on as if celebrating. Perhaps that was what Dalca’s invitation had meant by a birthday party? The passengers did not see me, but one man looking out a window appeared familiar. It was but a moment, yet I placed his face—the merchant who had identified my crucifix and its gemstone and sold me my brother’s gift.

The vehicle barely fit the tight path as tree branches scraped the roof and sides, bouncing along the uneven ruts. I followed it at a growing distance, smelling the trailing exhaust.

At the end of the path, I cautiously approached the turnaround circle, where the bus sat silently. I called out before stepping up inside to check for occupants. Empty. When I turned around to descend the steps, I was startled to see a man in a long coat standing in the shadows watching the door. He had a large jaw and red eyes, and without saying a word pointed a long spindly finger in the direction of the path toward the monastery. He grunted in disgust at the sight of my crucifix.

Up the stone steps and through the woods, the noise grew louder. When I reached the open field I heard laughter and shouting ahead, and saw thousands of bats joining the birds overhead. Through that last stretch of woods, light was coming from the direction of the monastery. Wolves howled above from cliff to cliff as the walls closed in on the box canyon. All about me the sounds of movement in the woods encroached; I was sneaking up on no one.

When the monastery came into view, it was not dim or fogged in like it had been on my first trip, but rather it appeared lit from inside. Red flickering firelight illuminated the center tower the way torch fire might. The moon had just crested the eastern Carpathian peaks and lit the outline of the great structure as the sounds of celebration continued to rise.

I smelled evil and stopped. Every sense I had said to leave. But I knew that if I was to defeat Dalca, much less extend my brother’s life expectancy, I would have to go inside.

A low voice sounded behind me: “You are expected.” I spun to see a man with a white beard and Caucasian features, his neck wrapped with a leather bandanna. He pointed at my crucifix and said, “You no need to show that since you arrive.”

He did not have red eyes. “Who are you?”

“
.” Guard.
“I am caretaker here. This time I show you inside.”

I recognized his voice as the one that had chased me away on my first trip to Dreptu. The guard opened the door and held it for me. I passed through the arch under immense stone walls and tried to grasp what I was looking at.

I stepped into the bailey, a great courtyard filled with tombstones, and saw the massive cylindrical tower in the center. Approaching it, I saw that its base sat not at ground level but at least three stories—perhaps forty feet—below ground in a huge reinforced hole lined with stone walls wrapped with a staircase. The vast structure did call to mind a chess set, with an enormous king lowered into a concrete pit. At the tower’s base was an opening, large double doors about a quarter of the way around the foundation. Next to the tower was a seating area with several tables facing one head table and one large seat, a throne. Hundreds of torches lit the area, and next to the seating area stood what looked like a dense cluster of flagpoles.