beyond that hill. He would have hidden the heart there, before all these people died, not out here.”
They cross the village green and mount the hill. As they come to the crest, a large structure looms into view: a great marble tomb surrounded by dozens of stone markers.
MATILDA
ONE HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES UNTIL NIGHTFALL
“I don’t understand; why did she unpack the body?” Vambéry asks, staring at the tarpaulin on the table. “Would it not make more sense to get the heart and leave this place as quickly as possible? Go somewhere away from Dracul, someplace safe, then try to bring him back there?”
Matilda opens her mouth, prepares to argue, says nothing.
Vambéry continues. “Even if this works, and I am doubtful that it will, he can only be made whole again after sunset, probably with an infusion of large quantities of blood. Have you asked yourself where she is going to obtain that blood? At last count, her only viable sources are you and me or your brothers.”
“She won’t hurt us. She would never hurt us.”
“No? Not even to rescue the man she loves? Someone she has loved for hundreds of years? She has known you and your family for, what, twenty years?” He fiddles with his cane. He twists the top and pulls out the silver blade. “We should kill all of them and leave here, come back for Dracul another day.” He taps the top of the blade against the crate containing Maggie O’Cuiv.
“Put that thing away,” Matilda says.
He ignores her. “For all you know, she has marched us all to our deaths to save the only thing she really cares about.”
Thunder cracks outside, and Matilda startles.
Vambéry looks up through the hole in the roof. “If we leave now, we could probably beat the storm back to Munich. We could come back in the morning when we have the entire day to search. If you still wish to help her, that is.”
“It took us the better part of a day to get here. We leave now, and Dracul will take the heart, and Emily, and hide them both somewhere else. Someplace far away. He will never allow us this close again. It must end tonight.”
He taps his blade against Maggie’s crate for a second time. “In a little more than an hour’s time, these two will awaken, and we will stand no chance against the three of them—four, if you count Deaglan O’Cuiv. If we end this now, while they sleep, we can put their souls to rest. We can end this curse upon them.”
Matilda tightens her grip on the revolver.
Vambéry’s eyes widen. “You would shoot me? I am only trying to be the voice of reason. These decisions must be based on fact, not emotion.”
Matilda pushes past him and goes to the window. “Shut up,” she says. “I heard something.”
BRAM
ONE HOUR AND TEN MINUTES UNTIL NIGHTFALL
The marble of the mausoleum is as white as the fog that shrouds Clontarf Bay, and the entire structure seems decidedly out of place here. There are only half a dozen or so tombs aboveground; all the others are traditional in-ground graves, their stone markers leaning this way and that at irregular angles and eroded with time.
Ellen goes down the hill and enters the cemetery without hindrance. If the ground here had once been sanctified, it is no longer. She goes to the mausoleum and stares at the epitaph above the door:
COUNTESS DOLINGEN VON GRATZ
IN STYRIA
SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH
1801
The words are freshly engraved. Bram knows Dracul refers to Ellen as Countess Dolingen, but the meaning of the rest is unclear to him.
“Gratz is the capital of Lower Styria,” Ellen says softly, knowing Bram’s thoughts. “The man I was forced to marry, the one who left me for dead in that tower, he was from Gratz. It was customary for a wife to not only take a man’s name at marriage, but the place he called home as well.”
“And the year?” Thornley asks.
“That is the year I began planning my escape from Dracul’s castle.” She pauses for a moment, her words heavy.