The Dead Travel Fast

But the more I considered it, the better sense it made for the doctor to participate in the ritual of banishment. It was a small village; it was entirely possible the peasants would begin to speculate about what had happened to Aurelia. I had learned from Frau Graben that the girls had no kin in the little hamlet, but these villagers were like those in any small town anywhere in the world. They gossiped, and clacking tongues could raise unrest. Dr. Frankopan was doubtless right to worry that the story of a strigoi at the castle would spread and fear would infect the peasants. But the deeds of this night could well assuage those fears and put the stories of a revenant to rest. There were few educated folk in the district from what I had gleaned. Once word passed among them that the doctor had sanctified the ceremony with his presence and that the count had cast out the murderous vampire, the valley-dwellers would be calmed and there would be very few to question whether a vampire had actually killed Aurelia. The castle folk seemed to take it as fact that old Count Bogdan had destroyed his paramour, and I realised that, surrounded by such conviction, it would not be long before I, too, was swayed into believing that some supernatural agency had committed this murder. It seemed so impossible that anyone else would have a cause to kill her, I reasoned, but the alternative-that a vampire had attacked her-seemed too fantastical to be believed.

And yet. People did believe it, I saw, looking about the room. Fear hung there, sour as old sweat, thickening the air. They were afraid, each of them-Florian, his hair still damp from the journey, his cheeks pale and hollow with black crescents shadowing his eyes; Cosmina, her hands twisting a handkerchief until it fell to bits in her fingers, her thumbs bitten and bleeding; the countess, on the verge of collapse, her face a mask of grim determination to do what duty demanded of her even as she worried her rosary beads. And Clara, stoic and dry- eyed next to her mistress, but her knuckles white with strain as she gripped her skirts. Then the good Dr. Frankopan, quietly sorrowful, wishing not to believe and yet conceding as we exchanged silent glances that it was just possible. And the count, his jaw set as he caught his cheek between his teeth, biting it, perhaps so he would not speak out even now.

Yes, fear was present in that room, and as my gaze fell to the rosary clutched in the countess’s hands, I understood why. The Christian faith, Roman and Orthodox alike, teaches that there are unseen worlds, that good and evil must exist together. If there is heaven and all its joys, must there not also be hell and all its torments? For every angel borne aloft on feathered wings, there must be something else, dark and loathsome, feeding upon fear and gorging itself upon destruction. Light and dark, good and evil, angel and demon. Two halves of a darkling moon. If we believed in the comforts of the one, we must believe in the terrors of the other. Perhaps the only thing that saved me from madness that night was that I did not believe in anything. I carried no faith in my heart, only questions, and in the end, it was the questions that saved me.

When the three-quarter hour chimed, the countess led the way to the great hall where Frau Graben was waiting. I was not surprised to see that Tereza kept to her room. There was no place for her here. The cook lit candles for each of us, thick church tapers smelling sweetly of beeswax. Gravely, Cosmina gave them out, keeping back one for herself. We stood in a circle, resembling nothing so much as some unholy coven as the candlelight played off our faces, throwing them into sinister half shadows.

The countess looked around the circle. “My friends, what we do this night is done to save the lives of those present and those not yet in danger. We do not do this lightly or easily, for it is a very old magic and it is a dangerous thing to force a strigoi back into the grave. If any of your hearts are not strong enough for this battle, you must stay behind, for I will not risk the lives of those who are so dear to me.”

She paused to look around the circle again, lingering on each of our faces, her expression one of sorrowful benediction. “Very well. Then I will pray to the good God who protects us all to lend us His strength and that of His Angels and saints and to help us do this thing that we must. Come now, my friends, and let us hope we will live to see the dawn.”

The words chilled me and the others too, I think, for I saw Cosmina shudder, and Florian crossed himself quickly. The countess led the way to a tapestry hanging upon the wall, a scene of the seductions of Jupiter stitched in silks. Florian stepped forward to wrestle the great panel aside. Behind the tapestry was a stout wooden door, and beyond that descended a stone staircase, wide enough to admit four men walking abreast. As we descended, the air grew quite dank and chill, and I shivered, as much from foreboding as the cold.

After several turnings, the staircase led us into an antechamber that opened into a wide room. It was fashioned of plain, heavy slabs of grey stone and looked as if it had stood for a thousand years-which it might well have, I thought, remembering the countess’s words to Dr. Frankopan. The ceiling over our heads was vaulted, the ribs ending in stout columns that punctuated the space. At one end was a high stone altar, the family chapel, I realised.

I stepped towards the altar, marveling at the detail. It was carved into intricate scenes and behind it was hung a triptych of Orthodox icons, heavily gilded and looking mournfully down from thick gilt frames.

To my surprise, the countess did not stop at the altar but proceeded to an iron door set behind it. In the stone lintel was carved a motto, so faint I could scarcely make it out: Non omnis moriar. I shall not wholly die. A horribly apt sentiment, given what we meant to do.

The countess paused at the iron door, stepping aside and bowing her head to her son-son no longer, for it was apparent that she honoured him in his role of dhampir. The count moved forward, steeling himself visibly. He opened the iron door, and it swung back silently upon its hinges. I would have expected a groan of protest, but the silence was more unsettling, as if the crypt itself beckoned in mute invitation. The rest of us followed in turn, passing through the door and descending a wide, shallow stone stair.

Unbidden, the lines of Byron’s poem “The Giaour” sprang to mind, each syllable marking another step as we ventured deeper into the crypt:

But first, on earth as vampire sent

Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent;

Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

And suck the blood from all thy race.

The air was thicker here, smelling of mould and wet stone and incense. This chamber had clearly been cut into the heart of the mountain, and at the very back of the room the wall was composed of the living rock of the Carpathians. Into the other walls were recesses of stone shelves, and upon each of these rested a stone coffin, some with elaborately carved effigies, some with simple entablatures. In one discreet spot a body had been placed, wrapped in linen and crowned with a coronet of basil. Aurelia, resting forever amongst the bones of the long-dead Dragulescus.

I shuddered and turned my attention to the centre of the chamber. There, on a bier of intricately carved stone stood a newer coffin of polished black wood. The lid had been removed, and inside I could see a shroud of white linen, a mouldering wreath of lilies resting atop. Candles had been fixed into iron holders in the walls, and a small table had been laid with a snowy white cloth and a collection of oddments including a sharp-bladed knife and a long wooden stake. A small brazier stood in the corner, sending up puffs of sweet, heady smoke, making the atmosphere close.

Without design, we circled around the coffin, the count at the head, I at his right hand. The count bowed his head and stood silently for a long moment. I felt the chill of the stone creeping through the thin soles of my shoes, reaching upward along my flesh with cold fingers. At length he lifted his head and said, his voice low and resolute, “We begin with a chant, to force the strigoi back to eternity.”

He began to chant then and we, one by one, took it up, intoning the words in Roumanian. I did not understand them, but it was simple enough to guess their meaning. It was a charm of banishing, a spell chanted to cast Count Bogdan from this place. We began to chant faster and faster and at a gesture from the count, we moved widdershins, walking three times anticlockwise around the corpse of his father-still lying immobile under its veil of purest white.

After we had circled the third time, we halted, warmer now and flushed from the movement, our clothes untidy and our hair disheveled. We looked like pagan revelers, and I was struck by the knowledge that we were performing a ceremony that had been unchanged for centuries, conjuring some benign magic to aid our purpose.

Just then the count reached out and dashed the wreath of lilies from his father’s body. It fell at Cosmina’s hem but she did not look down. Then, pausing only a moment, the count took up the corners of the linen shroud. I half