The night crossing to Hoek Van Holland was not an experience Vivienne cared to repeat. Nathaniel seemed unaffected by the violent pitching of the ferry, but she clung to the rail, wishing for death. She’d never liked ships, but at least her last voyage with Alec had been on a Trans-Atlantic luxury liner. The Richard Young was a 240-foot paddle steamer that waddled through the troughs of the Channel like a fat dowager with a gouty leg.
Half the passengers in the lounge were in a similar state and she couldn’t bear to listen to their retching, though it was freezing on deck. Nathaniel gamely kept her company, distracting her with amusing stories about country life, and Vivienne was very glad he’d come.
Once on the train to Munich, she collapsed into their first class compartment and slept until they changed for another line to Vienna, and thence to Buda-Pesth. The train arrived near to midnight and they spent the night in a hotel near the station, then caught a local to Brasov early the next morning.
Fields and forests raced by out the window, broken by the occasional medieval walled town. Vivienne had the sense of moving back in time to a land untouched by the modern world. She stretched, wishing for coffee, and dug out the book she’d taken from Anne’s room. It was a slim volume, bound in cloth with gold lettering.
Nathaniel had propped his long legs on the seat next to her and sat drowsing beneath the brim of his hat. Despite four days of constant travel, he somehow managed to look fresh as an English rose. Vivienne started reading and barked a laugh.
His sapphire eyes flickered open.
“Listen to this. ‘Transylvania might well be termed the land of superstition, for nowhere else does this curious crooked plant of delusion flourish as persistently and in such bewildering variety. It would almost seem as though the whole species of demons, pixies, witches, and hobgoblins, driven from the rest of Europe by the wand of science, had taken refuge within this mountain rampart, well aware that here they would find secure lurking-places, whence they might defy their persecutors yet awhile.’”
He raised an eyebrow. “One can hardly blame them. These poor people have been invaded by one army or another for centuries. I suppose clinging to the old ways is a tactic of quiet resistance.”
“They’re a proud people,” Vivienne agreed. “I’m glad they finally gained their independence. It can’t have been fun to live between the jaws of the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs. Not to mention the Mongols, Goths, Huns and assorted other hordes.”
Vivienne herself had met Genghis Khan briefly — and under inauspicious circumstances — when she and Alec were trying to close a Greater Gate to the underworld in Samarkand in 1220 and the Khan arrived to sack the place. It was another experience she’d not care to repeat.
“Do you think there’s any truth in it?” Nathaniel wondered. “Witches and hobgoblins and the like?”
“Of course there is,” she murmured. “They just have most of the details wrong.”
“Such as?”
Vivienne laid the book on her lap. “Ghouls are the spirits of restless dead who linger in the Dominion, the veil between the living world and what lies beyond. They have different names in different cultures. In Spain, they’re called brujas. Your medieval ancestors called them incubus or succubus. In the Philippines, mandurugo. In Germany, nachzehrer. There are literally hundreds of words for the same thing. But ghouls don’t appear randomly.”
“Let me guess. Necromancers.”
She laughed and dug out her Oxford Ovals. Nathaniel leaned over to light her cigarette with a match. “So you do know something.”
“I overheard Alec and Cyrus talking in the drawing room,” he admitted.
Vivienne blew a thin stream of smoke toward the window. “Yes, necromancers. Their power derives from human captives. When a captive dies, a ghoul comes through. Sometimes a wight. And when a necromancer dies, a revenant is born.”
“Revenant?”
She made a face. “They’re even nastier.”
“So … a large number of ghouls in a given area is a sign there’s a necro hanging about?”
“Often, yes, but not always. Once loosed, the creatures will travel until they’re caught and beheaded. But here’s the worst part. After they’ve consumed a few pints of blood, they gain the ability to mimic their victims. If you don’t know the signs to watch for it can be hard to tell the difference until it’s too late.”
“That’s what happened with the Queen?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Now there’s a special division of Scotland Yard devoted to hunting them down. The S.P.R. works as a consulting agency in tandem with the Dominion Branch.”
Nathaniel looked impressed. “Go on.”
“I wondered if there might be a necromancer behind the killings in Mara Vardac, but it doesn’t really fit their modus operandi. And ghouls drain their victims dry, but I’ve never seen one tear a throat out.”
His smile died. “That’s what happened in this village we’re going to?”
Vivienne nodded.
“What do you think it is, then?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure the locals have their own explanation.” She opened the book and flipped through the pages. “Here we are. The people of the Carpathians call ghouls nosferatu, blood-suckers. ‘The living vampire is in general the illegitimate offspring of two illegitimate persons, but even a flawless pedigree will not ensure anyone against the intrusion of a vampire into his family vault, since every person killed by a nosferatu becomes likewise a vampire after death, and will continue to suck the blood of other innocent people till the spirit has been exorcised, either by opening the grave of the person suspected and driving a stake through the corpse, or firing a pistol shot into the coffin. In very obstinate cases it is further recommended to cut off the head and replace it in the coffin with the mouth filled with garlic, or to extract the heart and burn it, strewing the ashes over the grave.’”
She closed the book. “That sounds like a standard ghoul. And I see they’re familiar with the head-chopping part. The garlic is nonsense.”
He patted the pocket of his greatcoat. “Well, I brought my Beaumont-Adams revolver in case we need to shoot up any coffins.”
Vivienne laughed. “I feel ever so much better.”
“Don’t mock, darling,” he said with a wounded expression. “I happen to be a crack shot.”
A few minutes later, the train pulled into the town of Satinari. Nathaniel and Vivienne collected their luggage and paid a lanky teenaged boy to guide them to a tavern near the station. Like many of the larger houses, the walls and window frames had been painted with intricate, colorful designs, giving the inn a quaint gingerbread aspect. A few men in long wool coats drank beer at tables inside, casting surly glances as they approached the mistress of the place. Her eyes widened a little at the sight of Vivienne’s brown skin, but she wiped her hands on her apron and bustled forward with a polite smile. Nathaniel greeted her in German, which she understood. But when he asked about hiring a carriage to go to Mara Vardac, she crossed herself and looked alarmed.
“Oh no, you mustn’t go there, sir,” she said in broken German. “It is a bad place. Very bad.”
Nathaniel glanced at Vivienne. “We know about the attacks,” he said gently. “We’ve come on official business. To help.”
She didn’t reply, only crossed herself again and turned away.
“Please, good mistress. A friend of ours disappeared. An English girl….” Nathaniel trailed off. The woman had retreated to the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.
He looked over at the men, who’d buried their noses in the mugs of beer.
“I have money,” he announced, pulling out a thick wad of Romanian banknotes. “Fifty leu to the gentleman who takes us to Mara Vardac.”
It was a princely sum. The men shifted, eyeing each other.
“A hundred.”
“I’ll take you.” The oldest of the bunch rose on unsteady legs. He had a red, bulbous nose and his coat was worn and patched. He spoke in Magyar, which Vivienne had a smattering of. She knew dozens of languages, and hundreds of local dialects, though she tended to forget the ones she didn’t use often.
His friends shook their heads. A low-pitched but heated argument broke out. The old man wouldn’t be dissuaded, tugging his sleeve from their grasping fingers. One of them muttered something about drunk fools and made a sign to ward off evil.
“They say it is too late in the day,” Vivienne murmured. “That no amount of money is worth being caught out after dark near Mara Vardac.”
Nathaniel frowned. “Well, it’s hardly noon. How far is it anyway?”
“Only seven or eight miles, I think.”
The man led them to a farm wagon behind the inn. He fetched a pair of roan horses from the stable and they all squeezed onto the bench. He cracked the whip and the cart lurched off at a brisk pace, passing through the town and up a narrow road that climbed into the foothills. The snows of late January had given way to a thaw and patches of green showed in the fallow fields and orchards. It was a spectacular countryside, riven by deep gorges and heavily wooded slopes of pine and spruce.
“Thank you for agreeing to take us,” Nathaniel said companionably in German.
The man grunted, staring straight ahead, the brim of his black hat pulled low.
“We plan to stay the night. I suppose there’s an inn?”
Vivienne translated the words to Magyar, though she knew he’d understood.
“Lock your door,” the driver muttered. “And pray to Saint George to preserve you ’til dawn comes.”
Vivienne relayed his reply to Nathaniel, who gave a respectful nod. “What do you think would disturb us?” he ventured.
The driver merely hunched his shoulders and gripped the reins with gnarled hands, driving the horses to greater speed.
The sun was bright, the sky blue, yet Vivienne felt a sense of foreboding as they left Satinari behind and ascended into the higher passes. The land grew more rugged and wild, the forests thick and dark. They passed above the thaw line. A blanket of snow covered the road with no sign that any other travelers had passed this way in weeks.
The driver kept glancing anxiously at the sun, cracking the whip above the poor horses’ heads as it began descending to the west. The cart raced along, taking the curves at perilous speeds. Foam flecked the beasts’ flanks, their breath plumed white in the air, and Vivienne was about to object that it would do them no good if the cart overturned when they rounded a bend in the road and Mara Vardac came into view. The driver let out a sigh of relief and slackened his grip on the reins.
At first glance, it looked no different from any of the other tiny villages Vivienne had seen from the train. Two dozen whitewashed houses with tile roofs nestled in an open valley, a vista of snowy mountains rearing up to the north. There was a small church and a smithy with smoke coming from the forge. But as they approached, she saw the village was enclosed by a palisade of sharpened stakes, the wood still green. Stumps at the edge of the forest signaled where the trees had been felled.
The driver passed through an opening in the palisade and guided the cart down the main street, pulling up abruptly in front of an inn. It was an ancient-looking building made of mortared stones with a sagging roof. Nathaniel jumped down and offered Vivienne his hand. Faces watched from the windows of nearby houses, but no children played outside and the whole place had a desolate air.
The driver helped unload their trunks in an obvious bid to see them on their way as fast as possible. He quickly saw to the horses, filling a bucket of water from the well and rubbing them down with a musty blanket, every movement fraught with impatience. The instant Nathaniel handed him the banknotes, he climbed back onto the cart, not even bothering to count them. The journey had sobered him up, and she saw pity in his eyes as he gave them a final glance.
“Isten vigyázzon rád,” he muttered.
God watch over you.
He shook the reins and the cart raced away toward the pass leading back down to Satinari.
“Charming fellow,” Nathaniel grunted, hefting a trunk in each hand.
“He meant well. He’s just frightened.” Vivienne looked around. The faces had disappeared, but she saw curtains twitch and felt sure they were still being watched. “They all are.”
The inn was dim inside and empty of custom, though a dozen tables and chairs were scattered through the common room. Heavy wooden beams, black with age, supported a low roof. The great hearth was cold and the place smelled of old wood smoke and beer.
“Hello?” Nathaniel called.
A door closed and footsteps approached. A middle-aged man emerged from a passage at the back, his dark hair shot through with streaks of grey. He stopped dead when he saw them, his face expressionless.
“Good afternoon,” Nathaniel said in German. “I am Lord Cumberland and this is my wife, Lady Cumberland. We’ve traveled hard from London.”
The innkeeper blinked. He glanced through the window as though hoping whatever conveyance had brought them here would still be waiting outside. When he saw the cart had left, his brows drew down in a frown.
“We’d like to take a room for the night,” Nathaniel prompted.
“I’m sorry, we’re full,” he said in heavily accented but fluent German.
Nathaniel looked around. There was no one else in the common room and no indication anyone was staying there. The man was obviously lying. Vivienne found her patience wearing thin.
“My ward lodged here,” she said curtly, taking the photograph of Anne from her pocket and holding it out. “Surely you remember her.”
The innkeeper barely glanced at it. “You must leave,” he said firmly. “Strangers are not welcome in Mara Vardac.”
“Now see here—” Nathaniel began.
Vivienne touched his sleeve. He followed her gaze through the window to the street, where a crowd was gathering in front of the inn. They were all men and most carried shotguns. The innkeeper crossed his arms.
“You can walk back to Satinari,” he said softly. “Or….” He shrugged, his face defiant.
The mob was swelling by the moment, its angry murmuring clearly audible. Vivienne reached into her cloak to produce her credentials just as the door banged open.
A roughly handsome man with thick, wavy black hair strode inside the common room. He was in his middle thirties, but grief lined his face, making him look a decade older. He hissed something in Magyar to the innkeeper, his eyes never leaving Vivienne.
She was used to hostile stares even in London, which at least had a small population of African descent. But here in the hinterlands of Romania, Vivienne guessed she was the first dark-skinned person this man had ever seen.
“We’re not here to cause any trouble,” she said calmly in Magyar. “If you’ll just let me—”
The man scowled. He gripped his shotgun loosely, but Vivienne had no illusions that he would hesitate to use it.
Nathaniel moved to stand in front of her, his face pale.
“If any of you lay a finger on my wife, it will be the last thing you ever do,” he snarled in German.
The newcomer gave no sign he understood — which was likely for the best. But then he forked his fingers at them in a sign to ward off the Devil, the watching crowd outside began to surge forward, and Vivienne felt the first stirring of true fear.
“What’s going on?”
A small man with a prosperous belly and hard eyes pushed through the mob. Vivienne thrust the dossier at him, forcing her hand to steadiness. His words had been spoken in Magyar and she replied in the same language.
“We’ve been sent by the British Crown, with the full approval of the authorities in Satinari.”
He eyed the papers with suspicion.
“Please, just take them.”
The man snatched them from her hand and studied them for a long minute. One bore the seal of Queen Victoria, mounted on horseback and holding a scepter. It authorized the bearer to act in her name on behalf of the Dominion Branch of Scotland Yard. That letter was in English, which she doubted he could read, but the second was from the constable in Satinari.
The man read it through several times. His face softened a bit. “It is Dobrescu’s mark. I recognize it.”
Both the innkeeper and shotgun-toter looked startled, then abashed.
“I am the mayor of Mara Vardac.” He handed the papers back. The tone was not precisely warm, but Vivienne sensed the tension ebbing. “I think we’d best speak privately. Excuse me for a moment.”
While the mayor went outside to settle down the villagers, Vivienne showed the innkeeper the photograph of Anne again.
“Miss Lawrence is my ward. I understand she stayed here.”
His shoulders slumped as he gazed at the cameo. “The English girl. Yes, she was here.” He sighed. “We already told everything we know. I am very sorry.”
Vivienne’s gut tightened. “Has she been found?”
He saw immediately what she meant and shook his head. “No, no. But my wife and I…. We fear the worst. You know what has happened in our village? The curse?”
Vivienne nodded.
“Then you understand why we are not trusting.” His eyes flicked to the picture again. “It was four weeks ago Miss Lawrence came. Such a nice girl, very quiet and respectful. She must have gone out on her own. We warned her not to.”
“No one saw her leave?” Vivienne asked.
Again, he shook his head. He beckoned them to a table by the window and sat down heavily. “She was interested in the old stories. She said she collected them.”
So Anne had not identified herself as an investigator of supernatural phenomena. No doubt a wise decision.
“Tell me all you remember of the day she disappeared.”
“Miss Lawrence took breakfast in the common room. Then she went up to her room. She liked to read her books there.”
“What was the weather like?”
“Snowing a bit, not very heavily yet. I went out to help the blacksmith shoe two of my horses. Elena was in the kitchen baking for most of the morning. Miss Lawrence must have gone out then, though we didn’t realize it until later. When she didn’t come down for supper, I knocked on her door. There was no answer. The storm outside had grown worse by then.”
He clasped his hands. “It made me worried when she wouldn’t answer so I fetched Elena. She knocked again, then went inside. Miss Lawrence was gone, but all her things were there. We thought she must have gone for a walk in the village. Her Hungarian was very good and she had a friendly way about her.”
Vivienne smiled. “Yes, Anne can be quite charming when she puts her mind to it.”
“We expected her to return at any moment. It was snowing so hard. When it began to get dark…. That is when we grew truly afraid. We went around the village, knocking on doors, but no one had seen her. We saw no footprints, but if she’d left early enough, they would have been covered by the falling snow.”
“But where could she have gone?”
“I do not know, Lady Cumberland. She said nothing to either me or my wife. By the next morning, the road was impassable. It was several days before we could summon help from outside.”
“What about the other deaths here? Did she ask about those?”
For the first time, he looked away, not meeting her eyes. “Yes, she did. She said she’d read a newspaper report about them. I told her it was wolves. That they get hungry in the winter and she should be very careful not to stray far from the village.”
“Have there been any more deaths since she disappeared?” Nathaniel asked.
The innkeeper crossed himself and shook his head. “Thank God, no. I still have her things, if you’d like them. The constable from Satinari looked them over but didn’t take them.” He looked up as two men entered with the mayor. “Ah, this is our priest, Father Cernat.”
The priest wore a black cassock and large silver cross on a chain around his neck. He had a bushy red beard and long, sharp nose.
“My son, Andrei.” The third was a young man in his mid-twenties with broad shoulders and his father’s dark eyes. He crossed his arms, barely suppressing a scowl.
“And my name is Alexandru Korzha,” the innkeeper said. He flushed. “I…I will help in any way I can.”
The mayor gestured to a long table near the hearth.
“Please, sit down,” he said.
Nathaniel held Vivienne’s chair, then took one next to her.
“I apologize for the disturbance, but the timing of your arrival….” He shared a look with the priest.
“I don’t understand,” Vivienne said.
“It is the full moon tonight. Miss Lawrence also disappeared on the day of the full moon. And the children….” The mayor swallowed.
Vivienne drew a deep breath. “Miss Lawrence is not only my ward. She works for an organization in London called the Society for Psychical Research, as do I. We have experience in dealing with creatures of the Devil. I might be able to help you find whatever it is that preys on this village.”
Father Cernat looked surprised. The son, Andrei, didn’t appear to understand German, for he frowned impatiently, muttering something to his father in Magyar. The innkeeper made a quelling gesture.
“So you have such things in England?” the mayor asked. “In truth, I didn’t expect you to believe.” He seemed about to say something more, but fell silent.
“Oh, I believe,” Vivienne replied dryly. “I’ve seen them myself. We call them ghouls. Spirits of the dead that return to plague the living.”
The mayor nodded. “Yes, here we call them strigoi. But—”
He cut off as a plump woman emerged from the kitchens. She wore a loose white blouse tucked into a colorful embroidered skirt. A scarf covered her dark hair.
“My wife, Elena,” Master Korzha said. “She has prepared an early supper for us.”
Nathaniel gave her a charming smile. “Thank you, Mistress Korzha.”
The innkeeper’s wife brought out grilled sausage and cabbage soup, followed by a pork stew flavored with garlic and onions. A dusty bottle of red wine completed the meal. The food was plain but delicious. Nathaniel ate with gusto, praising Elena’s cooking and declaring that he wished to bring the recipe back to his own cook. He did his best to make conversation, but there were few takers. Master Korzha wore a frozen, distracted smile. The mayor declined to eat anything, staring into his cup of wine.
Vivienne sensed mounting tension in the men, but it was no longer directed at her and Nathaniel. Andrei kept glancing out the window, his knee jittering beneath the table. The setting sun turned the sky a pale rose that tinted the snowy mountains and fields. Again, Vivienne was struck by the wild, desolate beauty of this country.
“Who found the children?” she asked gently, pushing her plate back half-eaten.
“Their father, the poor man,” the mayor replied.
“Might it be possible to speak with him? I don’t wish to intrude on his grief, but it’s important that I know every detail.”
The mayor seemed doubtful, but he nodded to Father Cernat.
“I will go ask them,” the priest said softly. He rose and went out the door.
“Perhaps we can see Anne’s room while we wait,” Nathaniel suggested.
Master Korzha nodded wearily. “You may stay there tonight. I left it as it was. I kept hoping she might return.”
He led them up a dark, narrow flight of stairs to the second floor and showed them into a surprisingly large room with a double bed and wardrobe. A wooden cross in the Byzantine style was fixed to the wall over the bed. A trunk sat against one wall. He pointed to it.
“That was hers. Please, rest and refresh yourselves.” Master Korzha left, closing the door behind him. They heard his footsteps retreating back downstairs.
“He seems a decent enough fellow,” Nathaniel said.
“He’s hiding something,” Vivienne replied, walking over to the trunk.
“Do you think he had something to do with it?”
“I don’t know. At least he’s human, though I wonder about the rest of them.”
Nathaniel gave her a sharp look. “How can you be sure?”
“Ghouls are crude facsimiles. They can pass, but only in dim light and if you don’t look too closely. They’re the weakest spirits, preying mainly on animals, children and the elderly. Wights are more evolved. They’re faster and stronger and a few can speak in their victim’s voice. Both can be subdued with iron.” She shrugged. “After you’ve encountered enough of them, you simply know.”
Vivienne unlatched Anne’s trunk and opened the lid. It held clothes and a toiletry case with a silver comb and brush, along with a stack of books. She piled everything on the bed and Nathaniel helped her sort through it. Knowing Anne’s fondness for hidden compartments, Vivienne ran her hands along the sides and bottom, but it was only an ordinary steamer trunk. There was no diary or half-finished letter hidden away — no clue at all as to where she went.
“That was a beastly journey, and an even beastlier arrival,” Nathaniel muttered, eying the bed with longing.
“I should have been better prepared for it,” Vivienne said with a wan smile. “But don’t get too comfortable, love. No rest for the wicked. Not just yet.”
A soft knock came on the door, summoning them back down to the common room where Father Cernat waited.
“The family will see you,” he said. “But we must go now, before full dark.”