The Dead Travel Fast

“May God and all His Angels bless and keep the last of the Dragulescu dhampirs,” she intoned. She rose and lifted me into her embrace, her tears damp against my shoulder.

“There is no reward great enough for what you have done,” she murmured.

The countess left then, leaning heavily upon her stick as she retired. I sank back into the chair, looking at the shattered shepherdess as the door closed softly behind her.

“I am sorry,” I whispered. “I did not realise-”

He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “No one does. It seems mad that people can still believe such things, but they do. And the worst of it is they can make you believe it as well.”

I said nothing for a long moment, thinking on what Dr. Frankopan had told me of the two varieties of strigoi, the living and the dead. I looked at the smear of the count’s blood upon the mantel and thought of my first, impulsive rush of relief and wondered if a strigoi viu could still bleed like a mortal man.

“Do you really mean to leave?” he asked suddenly.

“Not before tonight,” I temporised. “I have given my word and I will honour it.”

“But still you mean to go,” he said, his voice harsh in the quiet room.

“There are things here I do not understand,” I began evenly.

He surged forward and took hold of me, his hands tight upon my shoulders. He lifted me from the chair and pressed me to the length of him. I felt the hardness of him, muscle and bone, through the layers of burdensome cloth, and a sob rose within me.

“You cannot leave me,” he said, and then he began to kiss me, my eyelids and my temples, raining kisses upon me as though I were the most precious and sacred of things.

I put my arms about his neck and twisted my fingers into his hair, opening my mouth to his.

He moved from lips to neck to brow and back again, feverish and rough, his fingers bruising my waist. “You cannot leave me,” he said over and again. “I will protect you. But do not leave me. Promise me.”

He traced my lip with his finger and I tasted blood, his or mine, I did not know.

“Swear to me,” he groaned, his lips to my ear.

“I swear.”

9

The rest of that day passed in the same quiet disorder that always follows unexpected death. Meals must be got, floors must be swept, messages must be sent. A semblance of normality must prevail, and yet there is always a moment when one is brought up sharply, caught fast between the pull of death and the mundane demands of life. It seems gruesome to carry on as though nothing at all has happened, but perhaps it is that very act of carrying on that sees one through.

Such were my feelings, and doubtless those of others, during that long and dismal day after Aurelia’s death. There was a sense that something had intruded upon this household, something dark and unnatural, and we moved through its shadows like sleepwalkers, barely speaking, making only a pretense at eating. Cosmina and I spent the day polishing silver in the dining hall, saying little, but glad of something to keep our hands busy. We had known one another long enough to sit companionably and not speak of the horrors we felt. But our silence was not entirely a comfortable one, for Cosmina roused herself from time to time to fret about the housekeeping-one of the spoons had been spoilt by Tereza and another piece had gone missing entirely-while I could not banish the image of that poor girl, lying white and bloodless upon the stone floor of the garderobe.

Both of us were sunk in dismal thoughts, and nature herself took some part in our deepening gloom. The sky had darkened as a fresh storm swept through the valley, raising the river to a tumbling sheet of grey silk over the jagged rocks. I watched it for a long while, thinking of the strange land I had come to. I thought too of Aurelia, carrying the old master’s child, and I wondered how it had happened. His son was a handsome and personable man. Had Bogdan possessed charms of his own? Had he, like his son, practised the seductive arts? Or had he taken her, roughly and without kindness, the price she must pay for being a servant girl in a noble household? How had she felt when she learned she had conceived? Surely she had been afraid. But I had seen for myself the self- possession, the annoyance with her tasks as a servant. Had she felt herself exalted then by his attentions? Had she nursed the hope that within her she carried the last child of Count Bogdan and a possible heir?

There was much to ponder that long, dreary day, not the least of which was my own part in persuading the count to rise to his duty in banishing the strigoi, a decision I was deeply afraid I should regret before the night’s work was done.

At the countess’s insistence, Dr. Frankopan had been sent for, and Florian seemed relieved to be given the task of delivering the message from the countess. He wrapped himself in a long coat of oiled leather and took up a wide-brimmed hat, promising to return with the doctor before we dined.

In fact, it was long after the meal had been served and cleared that they arrived. They had been delayed by an accouchement, then later a rockfall upon the Devil’s Staircase. We had not been a merry party at table in any event. We had picked at our plates, stirring listlessly the bowls of mamaliga and the cold meats Frau Graben had prepared. The count had looked at the food and shuddered, taking only a glass of wine. The countess had pressed her lips together and pushed her plate away, even as she encouraged Cosmina to try a few morsels. I managed a bite or two of cold roasted pork and an apple, nothing more. We moved into the library when Florian arrived with Dr. Frankopan, dripping with rain and bowed with the heaviness of the occasion.

Hushed greetings were exchanged, and almost immediately a discussion arose regarding what was to be done with the body of the girl.

“She has been put for now in the crypt with the family,” the countess told Dr. Frankopan. “We did not like to act without speaking to you.”

He nodded, his jovial smile absent for once. “You would do well to leave her there. If she is buried in the village, the gossip will only fester, and we do not want these stories spread abroad. One must stay out of the range of Vienna,” he said firmly. “One must give them no cause to come looking. The obergespan from Hermannstadt would never understand such things. In his capacity as sheriff, he would launch an investigation, poking and prodding for every evil he could find. He is far enough away that if we can manage matters ourselves, quietly, tales of this may not reach his ears. Bury her with the Dragulescus, give her sister enough gold to stop her mouth, and let the dead bury the dead,” he finished, almost angrily.

The count said nothing, but the countess cast an anxious eye upon the clock. “You speak wisely, Ferenc. It shall be as you say. It is nearly midnight. That is the hour this thing must be done.”

The doctor spoke again. “I must ask you if you are certain that this is the only way. This ritual could cause tongues to wag should anyone from the castle speak of it.” He looked from the count, who would not meet his gaze, to the countess. “I am the first to believe in the old ways, Eugenia, but this…to give in to the superstition of the peasants-”

“Our people,” she corrected sharply. “The Frankopans have been here for two hundred years. The Dragulescus have been here for a thousand years longer. Who are you to say to me this is what must or must not be done? I, too, know the old ways, Ferenc, and they are the ways of these people, my people. I ask you here not as a judge but as a friend, because I am weak and old and I am afraid of this thing we must do.”

She ended on a little cry-of rage or frustration or sorrow, I could not tell. The doctor bowed his head. “I am sorry, Eugenia. I only thought to speak sense and I have blundered. These are not times for friends to quarrel. Let us move forward as one and banish this evil from the castle together.”

I said nothing, but I studied him, surprised that a gentleman so entrenched in the rectitude of the Austrian empire would take part in this medieval rite. He might claim to believe in werewolves and vampires in the snuggery of his little cottage in the woods, but if word reached Vienna that he had been present for the dark things we were about to do he would become a laughingstock, a figure of fun for the sophisticated Viennese, acquiescing to the ways of mountain peasants instead of dismissing it as nonsense and sending for the proper authorities.