Hunting Prince Dracula

  A quiet groan followed by an exhale of stale decay indicated Thomas had wrestled the door open. I prayed our pursuers hadn’t heard it. “Ah. That did it. Let’s hurry, shall we?”

  Remembering the door that housed vampire bats sent gooseflesh skittering over my skin. I was not keen on experiencing that delight again but saw no way out of it. If the Impaler or the Order was hunting us, I’d much prefer the bats. Light bounced from torches or lanterns, and hushed voices curled into this tunnel. It was time to move.

  We slipped inside the black chamber and closed the door, blind to what might be watching us. An acrid scent hung in the space, as if something there had rotted away a long time before. An eternity might have passed while we waited in the unlit room for our uninvited intruders to move along. Thomas must have reached out, his fingers getting caught in my hair.

  “Honestly?” I whispered harshly. “Must you paw at me now?”

  “While I’ve thought a great deal about groping you in this delightfully macabre setting, Wadsworth, I doubt my mind has the ability to will it into fruition.”

  “Do you swear?”

  “On the potentially empty grave of Great-Great-Great-Uncle Dracula, yes.”

  “Then who is, Cresswell?”

  Instead of answering, I felt Thomas step before me, his hands—invisible in the dark—slowly drifting from my bodice to my cheeks before he moved away. If they weren’t tangled in my hair, then who—or what—was? My heart thudded in a frantic pace. Swallowing my rising panic, I slowly eased the lantern on. The small glow filled the enormous space as if it were molten gold spilling across the ground. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and when they finally did, an illuminated, hideous face grinned wide before me.

  I inhaled sharply, almost dropping the lantern and forgetting about what might have touched my hair. My limbs went weak once I’d put together what I was staring at: a smattering of stalactites twisted in a half-circle along with some shadows cast by protruding rocks, which offered the odd impression of a demon giving us a sharp-toothed grimace. Beyond the hanging stones, I could see that the tunnel continued on for quite some distance.

  “I have a… I’m not sure. I think it’s a feeling. I must be coming down with something.” Thomas’s stance was as rigid as his clamped jaws, his joke an obvious attempt at lightening our situation. “It’s as if a bunch of snakes inhabited my body at once. Most unpleasant.”

  “Ah yes. But you’re experiencing feelings, Cresswell. That’s a vast improvement.”

  Continuing to play the light around the area, I noticed pale, silvery threads hanging between the stalactites. I broke away from Thomas, hoping to better inspect the sinister formation. A shadow twitched away from the ceiling and dropped to eye level.

  A spider almost as big as my fist peered at me through reflective eyes. Covered in thick black bristles, it boasted fangs almost as long as my thumbnail. Ice ran in rivulets down my neck. If the threat of being murdered or expelled hadn’t been so great, I’d have screamed until my lungs gave out.

  A drop of thin crimson liquid dripped from the tips of its fangs; whether blood or venom, I couldn’t tell. Deep inside, that scream was battling to emerge. Thomas held his hand up, taking a cautious step toward me.

  “Focus on how handsome I am. How much you want to press your lips against mine. And definitely do not panic, Wadsworth. If you scream, I’m going to join you, and then we’re both in trouble.”

  Everything inside me threatened to go dark. When someone warned a person against something, it usually meant that was precisely what they should be doing. Against my best judgment, I held the lantern up, arm shaking slightly, and spotted two more spiders dangling above our heads.

  “I wonder how often they get fed. Not much activity happening in these tunnels.” Thomas turned around and cursed. My attention slid behind him, focusing on the door we’d come through. It was practically a living organism, there were so many arachnids on it.

  “Thomas…” I nodded at the door, though he was already transfixed by it. “There have to be over a thousand of them. Every bit of its surface is alive with movement.”

  “Lycosa singoriensis…” Thomas muttered the Latin to himself, his focus more intense each time he repeated the words. His emotions had been discarded as one would remove gloves, replaced by that cool mechanical mask he sometimes wore. “It’s a Romanian tarantula.”

  “Wonderful. Are they venomous?”

  “I… I’m actually not sure.” Thomas swallowed hard, the only indication of how scared he now was. “I don’t believe so. At least not this breed.”

  “Are they all tarantulas?” I asked.

  He slowly shook his head, methodically inspecting each bit of movement. Of course they weren’t all tarantulas. Why would a castle filled with so many nasty ways to perish house only harmless spiders? My heart thrummed a panicked beat.

  We needed an escape plan, but a quick survey proved there weren’t many options. We couldn’t go back the way we’d come—too many spiders blocked our path. Arachnid eyes glinted from several hundred points in the near-darkness, obscuring any alternate exit.

  I took another hasty step back and tripped over a large rock. I cursed, then directed my light to the ground and saw I was wrong again. It wasn’t a rock.

  What I’d stumbled over was a milky white skull.

  “Oh, my goodness.” I nearly collapsed, terror pressing in from all angles. If there was a skeleton here, that didn’t bode well for our chances of escaping. “Thomas, we should…”

  Eight long legs slowly curled from the skull’s eye sockets while another eight crawled from open jawbones. Both impossibly large spiders stalked toward me, their movements as disjointed as an undead monster lurching toward its next meal. If the villagers told these types of stories to their children—tales of man-eating spiders lurking below the earth and then produced their carcasses—then no wonder they believed vampires existed, too. Why denounce one monster when there was proof of another?

  My vision swam with undulating black, and it wasn’t from the lack of oxygen making it to my brain. Spiders were pouring in from cracks and crevices, demons being called from their nether realms. We needed to move. Immediately.

  I handed Thomas the lantern and gathered both my skirts and wits. Something fell onto my shoulder and brushed my throat. I reached up and felt a spider tangling itself in my hair. I could handle removing organs from corpses, and rooting around inside the gelatinous innards of most deceased things. I was not above admitting that a spider burrowing into my hair was too much. Its legs scuttled down the exposed flesh on my neck. I screamed.

  Reason left me. I flung myself over, shaking my hair wildly, trying not to scream again as the spider crawled along my neck, darting away from my batting hands. Before I dislodged it, a sharp pinch pierced the skin near my collar. Panic swept over me in sickening waves. “It bit me!”

  Thomas dropped the lantern and was on me in an instant. “Let me see.”

  I was about to pull my collar aside when another spider fell before us. All I saw was Thomas’s mouth form an O of surprise before I yanked my skirts up to my knees and ran, forgetting all about being quiet. Let whoever was in the tunnels brave the tarantulas on their own.

  Muscles in my limbs shook so hard I could barely keep moving, but I ran as if the rumors about Vlad Dracula being a strigoi were true. At this point, I was willing to believe anything.

  I lost momentum for a fraction of a breath, tripping over my ruined skirts. Something sharp pierced my calf, and I staggered to the side. Pain shot up my leg as if someone had pricked me with several mortuary needles at once. “Ouch!”

  I choked on another yelp. It was impossible to tell if another spider had bitten me or if I’d sliced my leg on debris that likely consisted of more human bones. Stopping to check was an option I could ill afford. Thomas swept a mass of spiders off the doorknob, then pulled us through the door, the light swinging and causing the world around us to tilt. This was a circus ho
use that had lost its magical illusions. We sprinted as if our very lives depended on our escape. I hoped we weren’t leaving behind one horror for the next.

  Several minutes later, we emerged from the dark tunnel into another quiet space, bent over and wheezing. Thomas collected himself and held the lantern up; the dim light showed it to be an enormous stone room. I wanted to scan our surroundings, but couldn’t swallow enough air to steady myself.

  Before fully catching his own breath, Thomas placed the lantern next to me and sat on his heels, examining my wounds. His hands were cool and precise as they peeled my ruined stockings down. A crease of worry worked its way between his brows.

  “You’ve only been bitten by one spider—of the nonvenomous variety, from the look of it, no swelling or leeching to indicate venom—and cut your leg on a sharp rock.” He gently tapped the wounded area on my leg. “This needs to be rinsed. And a plaster would be rather nice.”

  “I left my medical supplies in my other dress. How inconvenient.”

  Thomas’s lips twitched, the first sign he was warming from that cold, isolated part of himself. He dug in his trousers and brandished a small roll of gauzy material. “Lucky for you, I remembered mine.”

  Without wasting more time, he cleaned my wound as best he could and wrapped it with mechanical efficiency. Once he had addressed that matter to his satisfaction, he stood and scanned the cavernous room. Several passages marked by numbers spread out before us. None of them correlated to the poems we’d read in class.

  “I don’t think we’ve been followed, or else we surely would have heard sounds of pursuit by now,” he said, holding the lantern up. “Which nasty little passage should we try first?”

  “I’m not—” A thought struck and I couldn’t stop myself from exhaling. I pointed to the narrowest tunnel. Above its arched entrance were the Roman numerals VIII. “It’s almost a clue within a clue, Thomas.”

  He raised a brow. “Perhaps it’s the dankness or the spiders, but I’m not exactly following the relation.”

  “The Roman numeral eight very well might be code for Vlad the Impaler. V Three. Vlad the Third. Prince Dracula.”

  “Impressive, Wadsworth,” Thomas said, turning his gaze to me. “If we weren’t about to face another terrible passageway filled with life-threatening danger, I’d take you in my arms this instant.”

  SECRET TUNNELS

  TUNELE SECRETE

  BRAN CASTLE

  22 DECEMBER 1888

  Once inside the passageway, I grabbed the lantern from Thomas and played the light around the space, spinning slowly.

  Words were hard to come by as I studied the walls. Instead of another forgotten tunnel far beneath the castle halls, this passage ended in a perfectly square stone room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in carved cross patterns a bit smaller than my hand. Jewels and tiles glinted in the lamplight.

  There were more riches in the glimmering mosaic than I’d ever seen. It reminded me of ancient temples where magnificent painters had spent a lifetime capturing each detail. What purpose such a chamber served here in Vlad Dracula’s former fortress was beyond me. Perhaps this was a secret meeting place of the Order of the Dragon. It certainly had a Crusader aura about it. I did not think it was another chamber of death.

  I walked toward the nearest wall and traced the outer ridge of stone. Each and every cross was identical. I scanned the chamber, surprised to see algae growing in patches along the top and bottom corners of the room.

  “This is… incredible.”

  “Incredibly suspect. Look there.” Thomas pointed to another carved Roman numeral, XI. “Will you read that poem?”

  “Yes, give me a moment to find it.”

  Thomas slowly rotated in place, taking in as much of the damp stone chamber as possible. I opened Poezii Despre Moarte and scanned the poem correlating to the passage we were now in. I had no idea how to decipher it the way Radu had done, nor any clue what doom might be waiting for us here.

  “Well?” he asked. “Is there anything more to it?”

  “No. It’s the same verse from earlier,” I said. “‘Lords weep, ladies cry / Down the road, say good-bye. / Land shifts and caves dwell. / Deep in earth, warm as Hell. / Water seeps cold, deep, and fast. / Within its walls you will not last.’”

  In the exact center of the room, a stone table stood about four feet high and was covered in more of the same cross carvings. A pang of anxiety struck as if it were a chime in my chest, but I breathed through the nerves. The table was likely an altar used for sacrifices.

  Knowing to whom the castle had belonged conjured ghastly images of torture. How many people had been brutalized in the name of war here? How many boyars tortured and maimed for the sake of creating a peaceful nation? There were no winners during times of war. All suffered.

  “I’m almost certain there’s a tapestry in the servants’ corridor that depicts a chamber like this one,” I said, cringing at how loudly my voice echoed. “The walls in that image seemed as if they were covered in blood, though.”

  Thomas glanced in my direction. An expression that could almost be interpreted as fear crossed his face before he blinked it away. “Covered in blood, or filled with it?”

  I conjured up a mental image of the artwork, the downward drips.

  “Raining with blood, actually.” My lip involuntarily curled at the distinction. “I didn’t study it too closely.”

  He moved across the room and pried an egg-size ruby from the wall, tilting it one way and then the next. It reminded me of a giant drop of crystallized blood.

  “You should put that ba—”

  A series of clicks and groans erupted as if a monstrous clock gear had been brought to life. Confusion, then panic, flickered across Thomas’s face. He tried shoving the ruby back in place, but the walls were now shaking and rumbling like giants waking from a long slumber. Bits of rock crumbled around the area he’d taken the precious stone from, ensuring the piece would no longer fit as it once had.

  I slowly backed away from the altar, barely missing a round stone that popped as if it were a cork from the wall next to me. Another cylindrical rock burst from the wall, then another.

  “Perhaps now would be a fine time for us to leave, Wadsworth. No need to stand around while the ceiling caves in.”

  I glared at my friend. “Brilliant deduction, Cresswell.”

  Without waiting for a response, I turned and was running for the passage, Thomas on my heels, when he grabbed me about the waist and yanked me back toward him. A steel door dropped from the ceiling like a guillotine, severing us from the world, sealing us in with a loud, reverberating crash. It nearly sliced my body in half. I shook so hard Thomas’s arms trembled.

  “Oh… we cannot get buried alive, Thomas!” I charged the door, first pounding it with my fists and then running my fingers along the smooth surface, searching for any latch to free us. Nothing. There was no handle or lock. No mechanism to release it. Nothing but a solid piece of steel that didn’t dent from the kicks I now assaulted it with.

  “Thomas! Help!” I attempted to push it back up, but it was stuck firmly in the ground. Thomas tried shouldering it open while I continued kicking. It didn’t so much as ripple. Rubbing his arm, he took a few steps away to survey our situation.

  “Well, at least this is the worst of our problems at the moment. Could be filled with snakes and spiders.”

  “Why? Why would you utter those—”

  A faint hissing started in the far corner. The noise grew louder, as if the chamber wall had been the only defense standing between us and whatever was on its way.

  “What in the name of the queen is that?” I quickly drew away from the door. The alarm in my voice pulled Thomas to me in a heartbeat. He subtly shifted his body close to mine, ready to protect me from the menacing sound. I latched on to his arm, knowing we’d face whatever was coming together. And then I saw it.

  The trickle streaming down the wall.

  I ran over to be
sure of what I was seeing. “Water. Water is pouring in—”

  More hissing erupted from holes in the floor, walls, and ceiling as liquid came gushing in on us. A hundred tiny cascading waterfalls poured white foamy water into the room. Within seconds, our ankles were covered. I stared, unblinking, at the floor. This couldn’t be happening.

  “Look for a trapdoor!” I shouted over the noise of the downpour. “There’s got to be a lever or some way out of this chamber.”

  I pulled my skirts up, then stooped low to the ground, hoping to locate an exit. But of course there wasn’t one. There were only more crosses chiseled into the floor. A mockery of whoever was unlucky enough to find themselves in this chamber of death. Or perhaps it was a merciful way of saying we’d be seeing God soon enough. If one believed in that sort of thing.

  This chamber cleansed those of their sins.

  My mind went utterly blank for a moment. This was the worst fate I could imagine.

  “Check the walls, Wadsworth.” Thomas shoved himself onto the table and ran his hands along the ceiling, searching for any kind of escape.

  I sprang back into action. “I’m trying!”

  Ice-cold water inched up to my knees. This was truly happening. We were not being buried alive, we were being drowned. My fear was nearly as cold as the water soaking my underskirts and almost as heavy to push through. If we were about to die, I’d not go easily.

  Running back to the door, I searched a second time for a hidden latch, running my hands frantically over every possible surface. My skirts were weights dragging me down, but I couldn’t get out of them by myself.

  Water reached past my thighs, making it difficult to move at all. Thomas jumped down into the rising pool, reaching me in seconds.

  “Here, Audrey Rose. Stand on the altar.” Thomas took my hand, but I slipped out of his grasp. There had to be a way to unlock the door.

  “I refuse to stand on a table and wait for a miracle—or, more likely, imminent death, Cresswell. Either help me remove my skirts, or stand back.”

  “We’re about to die and this is your shameless request?”