Dracula's Ghost: Apocalypse - Chapter 14
Part III: The Owl and the Dragon
Part III: The Owl and the Dragon
Me, sternly slain by them that should have loved,
Me doth no god arouse him to avenge,
Hewn down in blood by matricidal hands.
Mark ye these wounds from which the heart’s blood ran,
And by whose hand, bethink ye! for the sense
When shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,
But in the day the inward eye is blind.
List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue
The wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe
Your vengeful ire! how oft on kindled shrine
I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour
Abhorred of every god but you alone!
Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned!
And he hath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds;
Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,
Aeschylus, The Eumenides
I.
Dracula
Seven years, the legends say, but he cannot number the hours that have passed – whether a single year or a thousand – for he has lost all sense of time. He recalls few of his lessons, but the agony of each, driven into his brain through blood and fire and the lash, lingers in his memory, and the results are unquestionable. The secrets of divination and therianthropy and most importantly, necromancy – the magic of the dead – are at his fingertips, and he marvels at his new abilities, for when he returns to the wider world, the kingdoms of Europe are sure to bend the knee before him.
The other acolytes are long gone, though he does not remember the hour of their departure: one moment, he is poring over ancient texts as the others study by his side; the next, he is sitting alone by the lake. Its waters are dead now, brown and smelly, and nothing remains of the verdant green that lined the shore on the day of his arrival. He tries to remember when he last walked at the water’s edge.
“Your studies are complete,” the witch says, and he startles at the sudden presence. “The time has come at last.”
He smiles, even as a quaver of fear pulses within his breast, for he has poured out body and soul in anticipation of this moment. And yet… Even before the witch speaks, he somehow understands that things have gone badly wrong.
“They did well.” The witch points at his feet, where nine skeletons lie moldering in the dirt. “Soldiers, scientists, statesmen all, who wielded power in their own time. And now the final bill comes due.”
No! He opens his mouth to protest, for he has given everything for this moment, and to deny him now would be the gravest insult, the most insufferable betrayal –
“Every tenth scholar.” The witch’s features melt and shift through a kaleidoscope of images: a trail of acolytes meandering through the forest, the long-ago face of a murdered boy, and finally, the infernal gaze of something so dark and dreadful that he cannot bear to avert his eyes – his own face.
“With your own words and your own hand, you sealed your doom,” the witch says, and in desperation, he tries to remember the spell that will bring the boy back and reverse his fate. The red eyes stare into his own, and at the end, there is nothing to do but scream.
II.
Romania
1989
The staff car picked him up outside the gates, and Mihai Suta rode in the back seat, staring glumly through the window. A mile from the presidential palace, he dismissed the driver and began walking. The call from Iulian Vlad had come without warning, and Suta had spent two hours producing a hastily-typed report that, he was certain, had gone entirely unread.
“You have a meeting with the President this afternoon, and since you have been so helpful, I’ll give you a few words of warning. First, do not mention my name under any circumstances – if you tell him that I assigned you to the job, I will deny that we have met, and I will do everything in my power to see you inside a prison cell.” Suta replayed the Presidential drubbing in his mind – one directive, at least, had been fulfilled. “Second, do not overplay your hand. The president is eager to pursue criminals and traitors, but he dislikes bad news, and a lengthy discussion of the orphanages would be counterproductive.” The colonel swore at Vlad’s pedantry – everyone knew that the president lived in a fantasy world, but how could he do his fucking job without bringing up the crime? “Third, keep Acwulf’s name out of it. Right now, he has the boss’s favor, and if he falls from grace, it won’t be at the hands of a lowly army officer. Just tell him that you are chasing criminals and be as vague as possible.” Suta had been adamant in his objections, but the Director General had refused to budge, and Suta had followed the letter of his instructions, leaving Acwulf’s name out of the conversation even as he delivered the German’s file.
“Finally – and this is the most important thing of all – do not bring up Lucyna Wilk.” Suta acknowledged that it was a bad idea to anger the Director General, for he was entering a snakepit, and Iulian Vlad was pointing out the serpents that lay underfoot. Still, his patience had been at an end. Lucyna Wilk was the whole rationale for the investigation, and for God’s sake, why should he not bring up her name?
“Because her father was re-arrested two days ago.” The Director General’s voice was ice cold. “You have been devoting valuable state resources investigating the disappearance of a traitor.”
And yet I couldn’t help myself, Suta thought. I am finished – not today, and perhaps not tomorrow, but soon enough, I will be gone. A heresy wormed its way into his mind, and though the very thought was tantamount to blasphemy, Mihai Suta began to work through the problem. Revolutions often failed, and perhaps he would not live to see the end of this one, but the thought lingered pleasantly as he continued to walk.
Under the proper circumstances, perhaps Ceausescu can be gone instead.
III.
London
She sat on the balcony in mid-morning, a half-empty flute of Prosecco by her right hand. It’s not good to be drinking at this hour, Evangeline thought, but last night’s sleep had been even worse than usual, and she needed something to ease her jangling nerves. Returning from West Berlin, she had taken a detour to Amsterdam, and after a brief visit to the hospital (Sarah Spencer lay in a deep sleep from which Evangeline could not rouse her), she had dinner with Archie.
“Carfax Abbey – is it still standing?” She bristled that he would reopen old wounds, but Archie had raised the topic without recrimination, and she had made a throwaway comment that the decrepit pile of stones would likely be standing when they were both dead and gone. What are you up to, Spencer? Archie rarely asked questions without an end in mind, yet he had dropped the topic without another word.
She went inside and retrieved the shotgun from the bottom of a dresser drawer. Its single barrel had been cut to a criminally short length and its stock removed to leave only a pistol grip. She had used the shotgun once, killing a man in Metairie, Louisiana; three years later, the same man, carrying her old weapon, had reappeared in London, and for a second time, Evangeline had nearly died at his hands. The shotgun was a good-luck charm, the universe’s unspoken guarantee that no matter how bad things might be in the moment, she could work her way out of every scrape, and she felt a little better as she hefted it in one hand. Still, every good luck charm has an expiration date, she thought. You can only cheat death so many times.
IV.
25 km North of Râmnicu Vâlcea
Romania
Acwulf sat in the open doorway, and the bunker provided shade from the morning sun. He had not eaten in two days, and the unwashed shirt and trousers hung loosely from his thin frame. A corner of his mind, the remnant unpolluted by past crimes, warned that his very existence was unnatural, an obscenity against the larger ordering of the universe, but his conscience had atrophied through long years of disuse, and the small voice was easily stilled, its protests a mere formality.
All that remained was to wait for sunset.
They had arrived at the bunker just after midnight, and when he killed the headlights, the children swirled about the truck and watched with hungry eyes, for the American had whetted their appetite. They would tear me apart in a second, Acwulf thought with an odd sensation of pleasure, but they fell back, their hunger frustrated, as a larger shadow emerged from the darkness.
“It is good. We will rest here until everything is prepared.” A vein opened in the pallid neck, and though the smell was rancid, Acwulf had not struggled as his lips were forced to the dead flesh. Now, as the morning dew evaporated from the forest floor, his belly began to rumble, and though his body cried out with the misery of hunger, Acwulf found himself unwilling to rise. Someone has to guard the tomb, he thought.
A fine guard you’ll make if you starve to death.
The leaves beyond the threshold of the bunker began to rustle, and Acwulf peered into the forest. He could see nothing, for the morning sun hurt his eyes, but his hearing was sharper than ever, and he listened until he located the sound with pinpoint accuracy. Squinting into the sunlight, he studied the spot until he saw movement among the leaves. The sound repeated to his left and right, and when he understood the truth, he began to chuckle in spite of his aching body.
The forest was alive with rats.
They came on in dozens and hundreds, a disorderly procession of mangy fur and hairless tails that converged on the bunker from every direction. He had feared them as a child, for rat-infested ships had brought the Black Death to Europe, and when Hitler called upon the nation to cleanse the Continent of Untermenschen – the Jews, Poles, and Russians to Germany’s east – his fear had turned to disgust. In the war, we became rats ourselves, he thought, remembering the Eastern Front, the camps, the smell of death that lingered for days on hair and skin. The rats passed the threshold and vanished into the darkness of the bunker, and gradually their chattering grew silent. He sat alone at the threshold, still hungry.
Not quite alone. A straggler rummaged about the leaves, and when it looked at him with small, bright eyes, Acwulf held out one hand in a gesture of friendship. When it was near enough, he seized the rat and broke its neck before removing the knife from his belt.
You need to keep your strength up.
V.
Lake Snagov Natural Area
Colonel Suta stood on the shore and watched as the afternoon sunlight reflected on the water’s surface. He had not bothered to return to work that afternoon, for by the end of the week, he was certain that the president would order his arrest. Instead, Suta had reached out to a few officers of middling rank, trustworthy men who knew of the recent events in Poland and Hungary. “The old man is finished – a twitching corpse that doesn’t know he’s dead. When everyone figures out that the Russians aren’t coming to save him, what do you want to see afterward? If we don’t move quickly, some nonentity from the Securitate will set themselves up in the Presidential Palace, and Romania will be no better than she was before.” To Suta’s undying surprise, the speech worked, and though none committed themselves irrevocably, not one man placed him under arrest or drew a pistol to end his life.
The final contact was the easiest and the most difficult – easy because the clandestine meeting place had been prepared in advance, and a simple chalk mark at the dead drop was sufficient to notify his counterpart. Difficult because… Because he’s a young man, and I’ve exposed him to enough danger already. Soldiers were expected to charge into enemy gunfire; exposure to disgrace and humiliation was another thing entirely. The lake, twenty kilometers north of the city, was to be used only for the most sensitive communications, and he stared at its mirrored surface as the approaching footsteps grew nearer.
“My apologies for the late arrival, sir.” Lieutenant Bud had changed out of his uniform. “It took longer than I hoped because I couldn’t find gas for the car.”
“A shortage of gasoline in an oil-rich country.” The colonel’s eyes remained fixed on the water. “The only thing that we produce in abundance is repression.”
“I thought at first that I’d read the wrong signal,” the lieutenant said. “What’s happened?”
They spent the next fifteen minutes in conversation, with Suta going over the morning’s events –the call from Iulian Vlad, his meeting with the President, the afternoon’s work of illicit contacts. He left out nothing and changed only a few essential details, enough to ensure that the Lieutenant could not betray the others if captured. Albert Bud said little, nodding occasionally as his expression grew more grave, and when Suta finished, they were both silent for several minutes.
“Sir? The Director General contacted me after you brought me into the investigation. He asked a lot of questions about you – what you thought of the President, what you thought of life in Romania…”
“Don’t act so embarrassed.” The colonel smiled in spite of himself. “I’d have expected no less. What did you tell them?”
“I told him that you were loyal to the President, the Party, and the nation. He said I was a terrible liar and told me to keep an eye on you.”
“Then give him a call when you get back to Bucharest, and you will make his day.” His mood turned somber again. “Seriously, everything that I’ve said puts you in danger, and if the President finds out what I’m doing, I’m a dead man. I’m offering you the opportunity to get involved, but I’ll understand if you decline – just keep quiet until I have a chance to get out of the city.”
Lieutenant Albert Bud stood in silence, one hand tapping nervously against his thigh, and Suta let him wrestle with his conscience. In Romania, no one believed in the system anymore, but loyalty was drilled into every citizen from youth, and knowing that the system was shit made it no easier to loose the ties that had bound for a lifetime. President, Party, and nation, he thought with a jab of bitterness.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” the lieutenant blushed. “I knew that he’d be after you by now, so when I got your message, I called the Securitate and told them that you were headed for Constanta. They’ll figure out the lie eventually, but it will tie them up for several days as they search the ships departing for the Black Sea. Meanwhile, we can head north.”
“They’ll be watching the borders,” Suta replied.
“We aren’t going to the border.” The younger man’s face was pinched in concentration, and Suta marveled at the lieutenant’s courage. He’s not wrestling with his conscience – he’s working out a solution. “The Securitate has, what, five thousand men? Not enough to stand against the army.”
“The conscripts won’t fight,” Suta said, but the lieutenant’s eyes, large and blue, were filled with the confidence of youth.
“They will if they are properly led.”
VI.
The news spread quietly, and though the circle of plotters was limited by design – perhaps two dozen men were in on the secret – they were of crucial importance. By morning, they would be smuggling weapons from their storage depots and stockpiling food and fuel, and in the coming days, those men would find others who could be trusted. The Revolution, Suta thought, had begun to coalesce even before the first shots were fired.
The colonel pored over maps, searching for a stronghold to which they could retreat. The mountains to the north were high and inhospitable, and resistance to Communist rule had persisted for a long time in those jagged peaks. A note was appended to one old map, and Suta marked the site for later reference. An entire listening post went missing there in 1956.