is still alive, although barely. His clothing is riddled with tiny red blotches where the undead had attacked him, and the edges of Ellen’s cuts quickly turn red as blood begins to run freely, dripping over the body of Deaglan O’Cuiv. Bram considers trying to stop her, to spare this man, but he knows it is no use. He won’t survive his wounds; he’d either join the undead or meet his end with great suffering. This is merciful.
Then, above them all, soars the voice of Dracul.
“You amuse me,” he says, “your little quest, my lovely countess, so full of purpose and defiance.”
“I am not your countess,” Ellen says under her breath.
“You will always be my countess.”
Bram goes to the window and stands beside Thornley. He watches as Dracul turns to the sky, to the churning storm clouds, and with the wave of a hand brings hail to the rain, the storm growing more wicked at his touch.
“The castle has been so cold without you, so lonely. I had to dispatch the servants after you took leave, and I have yet to replace them.”
“You killed the servants, every last one of them. Do you think I would not learn of this?”
“Their blood is on your hands, my dear.”
“My God in Heaven,” Vambéry breathes.
Bram turns to find him staring down at the body of Deaglan O’Cuiv on the table, now saturated in blood from the Szgany lying atop him. Ellen is carefully circling the table, her eyes glued to them both.
Deaglan O’Cuiv, Ellen’s beloved, is somehow healing.
The tendons and veins of his severed head and limbs have been reconnected, and when Bram inspects them closely he can see blood pulsing through the repaired appendages. Far from whole, to be sure, but they are regenerating.
The Szgany is clearly dead at this point, the last of his life drained. Maggie yanks his remains from the table and discards the body in the corner of the room much as one would discard trash. “He needs more.”
It is then that Deaglan’s hand flies out from his side and snatches Bram by the wrist.
* * *
? ? ?
DEAGLAN’S FINGERS SQUEEZE Bram’s wrist with such strength that his long nails dig into the skin and draw blood. He pulls Bram close to the table, tugging him down with unnatural force until Bram’s neck is at his mouth. “I have died a thousand deaths, felt the pain of each and every one of them, yet the only thought to have passed through my mind every second of every minute, every day of every year, was of this hunger . . . the sweet blood that would satisfy it and the wonder of whose it would be.”
Bram feels a sharp sting at his neck, and the dry, chapped lips of this former man, this undead, as he sucks the blood from his vein. He tries to pull away, he tries to beat his fists against Deaglan’s chest. His empty hand, longing for the wooden stake he held just moments earlier but is now gone. There is nothing he can do, though; he is held fast in Deaglan’s merciless embrace, his body paralyzed, his mind swimming in a daze.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Maggie O’Cuiv, first at his side, then behind Matilda. It is as if she has traveled there in a blur, and when she falls still she is standing behind his sister with Matilda’s arms clamped behind her back, held fast in Maggie’s vice-like grip. Maggie is shrieking with laughter, knowing this was the plan all along, and she grins at Bram before biting down on Matilda’s neck.
Bram watches helplessly as Matilda’s shoulder and dress grow red with blood, as it drips from the wound and out from between Maggie’s hungry lips to the floor at their feet. Matilda tries to scream. Bram sees the pain and fear in his sister’s eyes and knows it wants to escape in a loud fury, but instead only a whimper leaves her mouth, followed by a gasp as the air leaves her lungs. He can do nothing as his sister grows deathly faint and collapses into Maggie’s arms where Maggie drinks still.