A grin lit up her face.
I’ll go to Venice. That will show Elizabeth.
Elizabeth.
This time the aching loneliness left her curled up on the side of the road, weeping until dawn. She barely managed to get off the ground as the sky started to lighten, barely managed to find a barn to hide in. She dug a nest in straw—the darkest part of the hayloft and wept there until sleep took her.
She was hungry when night fell.
Elizabeth would feed me. Elizabeth loves me.
The thought made her weep again. She had cried half the night before the call of her hunger became strong enough to drive her from the barn. She opened up her mind. From the farmhouse, she felt only deep contentment of sleep—the farmer, his wife, his children. She let her mind range farther until, at the very edge of her reach, she felt rage and hatred and the desperate desire to kill.
She followed it to a forest glade, where a woman with a red-dripping knife in her hand stood over a naked, bleeding young girl.
“I told you!” The woman hissed. “I told you to stay away from him, you whore.”
“I didn’t want him to!” Tears streamed down the girl’s face. “He came in and did it, and I didn’t want him to.”
“Lying slut!” The woman raised the knife.
Then the woman screamed.
And gurgled.
And died.
“Who is he?” said Ruxandra as she dropped the woman’s corpse, “Tell me.”
An hour later, wearing the dead woman’s spare dress, Ruxandra knocked on a farmhouse door. The girl stood beside her, weeping. The farmer opened the door and stared blearily at them.
“Her parents are dead.” Ruxandra pushed the girl forward. “Take care of her.”
She vanished from notice before either of them said anything.
Two hours later, she broke down again.
This time it was more than grief and a hollow feeling in her stomach. This time her stomach erupted in pain, making physical the desperate loss she felt.
Elizabeth. I need to go back to Elizabeth.
NO!
I don’t want to go back! I won’t go back! I want to see Venice!
She lasted two more days.
Four nights later, Ruxandra arrived at Castle Csejte.
It was only by using all of her strength that she managed to keep on her feet when she reached the gates. She fought a desperate urge to fall to her knees and scream for Elizabeth. She wanted to crawl to the woman’s feet and beg her forgiveness.
Instead, she walked to the gate, her back straight and her mouth in a thin, hard line. She commanded the guards to open it and to tell her where to find Elizabeth. They did.
Ruxandra opened the dungeon door and found Elizabeth lounging back in the copper tub, her white skin covered in red. The room was filled with the rich smell of blood. Above the tub hung the bodies of three naked girls, all their orifices plugged, and the last of their blood dripping down their faces and hair. Elizabeth leaned her head back, letting the drops hit her face and hair.
“There you are,” purred Elizabeth.
Ruxandra’s knees wanted to give way. She wanted to grovel before Elizabeth and beg and plead for the woman to love her. Instead, she gritted her teeth together, locked her knees to keep them straight, and glared.
“What,” Ruxandra demanded, “have you done to me?”
“I?” Elizabeth smiled. “I have done nothing.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t think you need to know that.” Elizabeth lay back in the tub. “Suffice it to say that there are powers other than yours in the world.”
Ruxandra’s talons came out. She wanted to rend Elizabeth’s flesh to pieces.
“Don’t be like that, my dear,” Elizabeth said. “Hurting me will get you nowhere. It certainly won’t make me tell you why you came back.”
Ruxandra forced the talons back into her fingers. She stood there, shaking with anger and the fight to stay upright.
“Why are you bathing in blood? You don’t need to anymore.”
“I like blood, darling. It’s so naturally warm, and now it also tastes good.” She flicked a tongue out to catch a drop and laughed.
“You are a monster.”
“Aren’t I? Now, my dear, why don’t you visit the baths, then go back to your room. I want you clean, so we can celebrate your return. Oh, and walk through the great hall on your way. We had a little discipline problem, and I want you to see how I’ve dealt with it.”
Ruxandra growled in frustration and left. She stomped back up the dungeon stairs and went to the great hall.
Eighteen girls stood in the middle of the room, naked. Four of the new girls hung naked from chains bolted to the wall, their faces pressed against the stone.
The four on the wall were all bleeding from open welts and cuts on their backs. The others’ backsides were bright red from being beaten. Hanja and Agota were bleeding from fresh welts on their legs. Nusi and Sasa both looked ready to collapse. All the ones who had been there when Ruxandra left were so thin she could see their ribs and the sharp edges of their hipbones and cheekbones. The newer ones looked like they hadn’t eaten since arriving. They all looked cold and exhausted and terrified.
No one made a sound.
In front of them stood four men with whips in their hands, watching the line of girls. In front of them, Dorotyas strutted back and forth, her own strap swinging in her hand.
She had two holes in her neck.
Elizabeth bit her? Ruxandra listened hard. She could hear Dorotyas’s heart beat; hear the blood rushing through her veins. How is she still alive if Elizabeth bit her?
“I will ask again,” Dorotyas said. “Where is she?”
No one answered.
Dorotyas stepped forward. She stopped in front of a young girl—one of the new ones. Her face was still round with baby fat, her body still plump with youth.
Dorotyas slashed her strap down on the girl’s small breast. The girl screamed and fell to her knees, covering her head and chest with her arms.
“We don’t know!” she cried. “Please! We don’t know! We woke up this morning, and she was gone!”
“There are horsemen patrolling the woods.” Dorotyas’s voice echoed off the walls. “Soldiers who have orders to teach her what happens to sluts who run away. Do any of you want that to happen to her?”
The girls stayed silent. Dorotyas grabbed the young girl’s hair and pulled her up onto her toes.
“Perhaps you all need to see what will happen to her.” She threw the girl toward the closest man with a whip. “These four men were arrested for rape. We let them out of the dungeon for this occasion.”
“Please,” the girl whimpered. “Please no.”
“Agoston,” Dorotyas said. “Shove three fingers in her.”
“Enough!” Ruxandra’s roar filled the room. She stomped forward. “Get your hands off that girl!”
“The animal finally appears.” Dorotyas sneered. “Do it, Agoston. Now.”
The man kicked the weeping girl’s legs wide apart and reached down.
Ruxandra’s talons went through his wrist, and his hand hit the floor with a spurt of blood. Ruxandra’s other hand went through his throat before he could scream.
She caught Dorotyas’s strap before it could touch her and shredded it.
One of the men stepped forward, a knife in his hand. She twisted his neck until it snapped.
The girls stood in the middle of the floor, frozen in terror. The other two men threw their whips away and sprinted for the door.
Dorotyas threw a strong, fat fist at Ruxandra’s head. Ruxandra caught it and squeezed. Dorotyas face went white, but she didn’t make a sound.
“Girls,” Ruxandra said. “Go back to your rooms. Now.”
“Don’t you dare!” Dorotyas screamed, her pain making her voice ragged. “You will stay there until you tell me where she’s gone, or I will whip you all within an inch of your lives, do you hear me
?”
“Who is gone?” asked Ruxandra
“One of the girls escaped last night,” Dorotyas said between clenched teeth. “No one knows how she got out. Elizabeth has her men searching for her.”
“They’ve been standing here since this morning?”
Ruxandra looked again at the shivering girls. They looked ready to collapse. She squeezed Dorotyas’s hand tighter.
“Do you think hurting me will make Elizabeth let you go?” Dorotyas gasped.
“What did she do to me?” Ruxandra tightened the grip even more. A bone cracked in Dorotyas’s hand. Dorotyas yelped in pain.
“You came crawling back like a dog,” Dorotyas gasped. “Didn’t you? Like the little cowardly Beast you always were.”
“What did she do?”
“I will never tell you. Just know that you were made to come back. You will always come back. Now let go of me!”
Ruxandra looked at the sobbing young girl huddled on the ground, one hand covering her head, the other pressed against the gash in her breast.
She remembered Jana’s cries as Dorotyas opened up her flesh with the strap.
She remembered the prostitutes’ screams from the brothel, suddenly cut off as the roof collapsed in flames.
Her talons ripped through Dorotyas’s throat, and the woman fell to the floor, gasping. Ruxandra left her there and went to the wall. Four more slashes broke the girls free of their shackles.
“Pick them up,” Ruxandra commanded the girls. “Take them back to your rooms and care for them. Now!”
The girls rushed forward to get the four and ran from the room.
Dorotyas watched them go, her hands clenched tight on her throat, blood spurting between the fingers.
“I will get out of here and I will take them with me,” Ruxandra told her. “And you will die knowing you failed to stop me.”
She left Dorotyas to bleed out on the floor and went to the baths. The servants who saw her dashed to get out of her way. Ruxandra tore her clothes from her body and plunged into the first tub, not caring if it was warm or cold. The water turned pink with blood. Ruxandra surfaced, scrubbed her body clean, and made herself unnoticed. Naked she walked up the stairs to her tower room, opened the door, and locked herself in.
“I can’t see you,” Kade said from the chair by the fire. “Is that you, Ruxandra?”
She didn’t answer, just threw open the clothes chest. There was a plain dress and chemise there, and a clean strip of cloth to use as a towel. She picked it up and began drying off.
“If that is you, please show yourself,” Kade said. “Please. I have knowledge that you need right now.”
Ruxandra finished drying. She put on the chemise and slipped the dress over her head. Then she made herself noticeable again and sat on the bed.
“What knowledge?” Ruxandra felt so tired. She wanted to collapse but knew she couldn’t. “What could you possibly know that would be of use?”
“I’m the one who made you come back here.”
“YOU . . . WHAT?” The words themselves made sense, but the meaning wouldn’t sink into Ruxandra’s head. “How could you . . . You weren’t even there.”
“I am a sorcerer,” Kade said. “One of the very few alive today, thanks to the Inquisition.”
“What?”
“I came here five years before you arrived.” Kade leaned back in his chair. “I had heard rumors that Lady Bathory was in search of immortality. I offered my services to help her. I built the tub in which she bathes. But it wasn’t enough.
“Human sorcery has very limited effect on other humans. It can persuade, it can cause accidents, or magnify the properties of some things, like Elizabeth’s bath magnifies the rejuvenating properties of the girls’ blood.” He smiled. “On things that are not natural, human magic is much, much more powerful.”
Ruxandra’s eyes narrowed. “Things like me?”
“Exactly.” Kade leaned forward again, his face glowing with excitement. “I believe magic is God’s gift to humanity to ward off evil. Spells that have no effect on people can be devastating on unnatural creatures—like the binding I put upon you. It was even more powerful than I imagined it would be: you were—you are—utterly mesmerized by Elizabeth. Against a person, it does nothing.”
Ruxandra felt her hands clenching into fists. Kade didn’t seem to notice.
“There were rumors about a wild girl roaming through the forests, going back a hundred years,” he said. “I guessed what you might be and set the trap for you. My spells prevented you from seeing the nets or smelling the hunters. Once we had you here, I bound you to Elizabeth. It was so simple. Amazing because, you know, I’d tried it before so many times with people and it hadn’t worked. With you, though, you weren’t just bound to her. You loved her.”
Inside, the Beast began to growl. Ruxandra leaned forward, tension thrumming through her like a bow about to release an arrow. Her fangs and talons descended.
Kade didn’t move.
“How do I break it?” Ruxandra snarled the words. “How do I break free of her?”
“There are two ways,” Kade said. “The first is to kill me—”
Ruxandra lashed out, her talons reaching for his throat. Then pain—enormous, overpowering agony—erupted from her neck and engulfed her head. It felt as if the noonday sun were burning her skull. She fell to the floor, screaming and slapping at her head to douse flames that weren’t there.
Kade rose from his chair and stood over her. He waited until she stopped screaming and flailing before he spoke again.
“Of course, I took precautions to prevent you from attacking me.”
Ruxandra reached up for her throat and felt the cool silver of the necklace he had given her.
I forgot I was wearing it. I forgot I even had it.
She yanked on the chain, the links digging into her flesh. Once again pain engulfed her head, leaving her screaming.
“You can’t break it, and it won’t come off,” Kade said. “Not unless I die. Or if you make me a vampire.”
Ruxandra stared, stunned, at the man.
“Vampire magic and human magic cannot coexist. Human magic is part of the natural order of things, given by God. Vampires are outside the natural order. If I were made a vampire, the spell you’re under would disappear.”
“Never.” Ruxandra sat up, her head still aching. “I will never make anyone else a vampire.”
“Then you will never escape,” Kade said. “Elizabeth will never let you go.”
“Could you release me now?” Ruxandra asked. “On your own?”
“I could,” Kade said. “But Elizabeth promised that she would spend a month killing me if I do. And given the number of soldiers she has at her command, she would be more than capable of catching me if I flee. So you see, I do not have a choice in the matter.”
“Kade,” Ruxandra commanded. “Take this thing off me!”
“No,” Kade said gently. “Your commands will not work on me, so long as you wear the necklace. If you make me a vampire, I will release you.”
Ruxandra slumped back to the floor. “Why would anyone want to be what I am?”
“Immortality is reason enough,” Kade said. “The power to live life free from someone else’s command.”
Ruxandra shuddered. Under Elizabeth’s command.
“Now I take my leave,” Kade said. “Elizabeth will be visiting you soon, and I should hate to stand in the way of your pleasures.”
Her pleasures. Not mine.
When he left, Ruxandra got her feet under her. Her legs wobbled as she stood. The agony from the spell had drained her energy. The few steps to the bed seemed a mile. She collapsed on it and began swearing at herself. Adela had taught her a fair number of swear words when the nuns weren’t listening. She’d learned more in Vienna. She went through them all twice.
I am such a fool.
Everyone used me for their own ends. None of them care for me. They never did. I just wanted to think so. I
was so naïve I didn’t even realize my thoughts weren’t my own. I didn’t question how I could love someone who . . .
I did question it, but I thought . . .
Only Jana was my friend, and she is far away.
Thank God.
She stared at the canopy above, waiting, expecting Elizabeth. Morning came first. Ruxandra closed the shutters and curtains. She crawled into the bed, pulling the bed curtains tight shut, too. Ruxandra half expected Elizabeth to come in, to force herself on her again, even as the sun rose higher. Instead, Ruxandra lay there, staring at the canopy until sleep finally overtook her.
“Get up!”
Elizabeth yanked open the curtains. Ruxandra bolted upright and was met with a slap in the face. Ruxandra’s cheekbone broke from the force of it, and her jaw popped out of joint. She fell over, mewling with pain.
“How dare you kill Dorotyas!” Elizabeth threw back the covers and grabbed Ruxandra’s leg, pulling her half off the bed. “How dare you!”
Ruxandra’s jaw popped back into place with a noise that echoed in her head like a shot. She twisted and tried to sit up. Elizabeth lashed out again, hitting hard against the broken cheekbone. Ruxandra yelped and struck back. Her hand smashed into Elizabeth’s face, sending the woman to the floor.
Ruxandra rolled off the other side of the bed and came to her feet, talons and fangs out. Elizabeth got to her hands and knees. She shook her head as if trying to clear a fog.
I can hurt her. Ruxandra stayed in her crouch. I couldn’t hurt Kade, but I can hurt her.
Good.
That woman served me thirty years”—Elizabeth rose to her feet, her expression as hard as flint—“and you slashed her throat like a pig.”
“She was a pig. She was killing the girls.”
“She was disciplining the girls.”
“She was torturing them!”
“Be silent!” Elizabeth raised her right arm, holding up a short, three-tailed scourge. Sharp metal, braided into the leather tails, glinted in the dark room. “Take off your clothes and bend over the bed.”