Lightning danced across the sky, illuminating the raindrops like gems on black velvet cloth. Seward knew he should move for cover, but he could do nothing except stare, entranced, at the exotic—and dangerous—beauty before him. Bathory’s fair skin contrasted sharply with her midnight hair, and she moved with the silent grace of a predator. Her icy blue eyes searched for any movement in the street as another flash of lightning brightened the grounds before her. When she turned toward the vineyard, he quickly threw himself into the mud to avoid detection.

There, he held his breath, trying not to move and ignoring the cramp in his legs. He desperately longed to glance up, but the lightning flashing on his pale face would reveal him immediately, and so he remained pressed to the ground, his nose a mere inch from the mud. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally allowed himself to look up, half expecting Bathory to be waiting next to him like a cobra ready to strike. But she was nowhere to be seen.

Fighting his rising fear, Seward freed himself from the mud’s grasp with a revolting slurp. Too loud. His eyes darted. He needed to move, but he had to wait for the blood to flow back into his legs. He felt like wet burlap, with his oversized clothes weighing heavily on him.

The wind whistled, and he turned with a start. Still no one in sight. Setting his resolve, he took a determined step toward the stone building—and felt wet mud soaking his bare foot. Seward looked back to see one of his shoes stuck in the mud. He cursed under his breath and nearly toppled over while balancing to replace it. He continued, stumbling, across the marshy laneway and tripped into a palm tree. Seward was certain he was making a terrible amount of noise but hoped the rain would drown it out. At last he reached the tree adjacent to the villa. He had been good at climbing trees when he was a schoolboy, but five decades later, that was hardly likely to be the case. But there was nothing for it. He took a deep breath and hauled himself up onto the lowest branch.

From the tree, he was able to hoist himself to the roof of the front walkway. The clay shingles were slick with rain. Seward steadied himself by gripping the decorative wrought-iron railing for support and glanced about, terrified that Countess Bathory was laughing in the shadows as he made a fool of himself. He spotted an awning over one of the second-story windows and scurried to its shadow for protection, taking a moment to catch his breath. He listened, and heard nothing except the pounding of rain beating in time with his heart.

He peered into the window and found that it overlooked what must have once been a grand ballroom. Now, devoid of life and full of shadows, it unnerved him. It was like looking into a museum at night. Or worse…a tomb.

His thoughts were interrupted by two glowing white figures moving across the ballroom floor. They glided effortlessly and seemed to be carrying something that resembled a crate or chest. Wary of staying in one place too long for fear of being spotted, he gripped the rails, hoisted himself from one balcony to the next, and edged his way to another window.

On this level, the only light came from a few scattered candles and the embers in the fireplace. It was enough for Seward to see that what had seemed like two spirits were in fact beautiful young women dressed in flowing, sheer white gowns. Where was Bathory? Seward still couldn’t get over the creeping dread that she was standing behind him.

His heart threatened to burst from his chest at the sound of the French doors flying open. Countess Bathory swept into the ballroom. Seward, relieved, shrank back into the shadows.

Bathory untied her cloak from around her neck and tossed it carelessly over her shoulder, revealing her full statuesque form. She was dressed in an evening jacket, complete with fitted, starched white, wing—collared shirt and black tie. In its severe lines, her tailor had found a way to accentuate her voluptuous feminine figure while projecting a masculine strength.

She strode toward the other two women. “My sweets,” she greeted them; and beneath the languorous tone of her voice, Seward detected something infinitely more sinister. He shivered as Bathory kissed each of these “Women in White” on the lips passionately.

“What toy have you brought me?”

The blond woman broke the heavy padlock on the captain’s chest with her bare hands, a shockingly casual gesture for one so delicate in appearance. She opened the lid with a flourish, like a waiter proudly presenting the main course. Inside the trunk was a young woman, bound, gagged, and clearly terrified.

Bathory reached into her boot and unsheathed a curved metal blade. Seward immediately recognized the knife: It was a medical amputation lancet.

The young woman’s eyes widened at the sight of the blade. In a movement too fast for Seward to see, Bathory sliced the lancet toward the young woman. The gag and the ropes binding her hands fell to the bottom of the chest. Bathory placed the blade’s tip under the girl’s chin. Seward gripped the handle of his silver throwing knife.

Instead of inflicting a bloody wound, Bathory used the blade to gently guide the girl out of the box. Seward relaxed his grip. The girl touched her face and wrists to feel whether the blade had cut her. There did not appear to be even the slightest scratch.

Seward watched the countess walk around the young woman, appraising her attire. She was dressed in a French teal wool dress, chastely covering her from her neck to her ankles. He felt enraged at the thought of what Bathory’s eyes must be seeing—a beautiful package just waiting to be unwrapped.

The girl kept perfectly still. The lancet sliced. Her dress and undergarments fell away like puzzle pieces, leaving her delicate skin unscathed. Despite the young woman’s frantic efforts to recover the fabric, more fell away until she was completely revealed.

Bathory’s eyes did not blink once as she drank in the sight. Shivering with fear, the girl pulled herself back into the shadows, covering her body. The Women in White laughed.

Seward moved to the next window to get a better view. Once there, he noticed Bathory’s eyes narrow. Flickering candlelight reflected from the small gold crucifix around the young woman’s neck. Bathory’s lancet flashed forward and back so quickly that Seward almost doubted it had moved at all. But there was no mistaking the

ting

of the cross hitting the marble floor, the broken chain gathering around it in a smooth pile. The young woman gasped in surprise—a small drop of blood glittered like a gem at the base of her throat. The Women in White leapt upon her like wild dogs.

“Mary, Mother of God, protect her,” Seward prayed, the words coming out as a plaintive whine under his breath. He watched in horror as the Women in White hoisted the naked young woman and hung her upside down by her ankles on a pulley system, suspending her from the ceiling. The dark-haired demon handed Bathory a black leather cat-o’—nine—tails, with curved metal hooks tipping each lash. The countess’s red lips curved into a humorless smile, her otherworldly eyes remaining focused on the single drop of blood now sliding down her victim’s chest. With a quick flick of her wrist, Bathory stung the flesh with the whip, watching eagerly as the blood began to flow more freely.

Seward turned away from the sight, but he could not shut out the screams. He clutched the cross around his neck, but it gave him no comfort. His instinct was to rush in to save this poor girl—but that would surely be a foolhardy decision. One old man was no match against these three. They would tear him apart.

No matter what you see or feel, nothing must distract you from your duty.

That had been the last message from the Benefactor. Seward finally gathered the nerve to look again though the windowpane into the depraved insanity of the villa.

Bathory was maintaining a steady momentum now as the metal lashes whined through the air. The force of each blow caused her young victim to sway like a pendulum. The blood dripping from the young woman had turned into streams. The Women in White, meanwhile, lay upon the floor beneath her, their mouths open to catch the precious crimson drops that fell like some hellish form of rain.

Seward knew that he was witnessing true madness. When the sun rose, these three creatures would be lying in their coffins, asleep and vulnerable, and it would be his only opportunity to rid the world of their evil. He would drive the silver-plated blade into their hearts, sever their heads, stuff their mouths with garlic, and burn the remains.

Yet he felt tormented by the guilt of standing idle while this innocent girl was tortured. He curled a hand around his blade, squeezing until drops of blood seeped from between his own fingers. If he could not spare this young woman her pain, the least he could do was share it. The girl’s screams had finally quieted—but they continued to echo eerily in his head, evoking painful memories of Lucy’s second death. A death that Seward himself had helped bring about. Again, the memories came rushing back to him: the anger he had felt at the desecration of his beloved’s tomb; the shock of discovering her body still warm and rosy, apparently full of life; the sight of Arthur driving the stake into her heart, as the creature that looked like Lucy cried out in bloodcurdling screams; and the tears he had quietly shed as he stuffed the monster’s mouth with garlic and soldered her tomb closed for good. Yet none of these emotions were as shameful as the one he had hidden all these years, even from himself—the secret satisfaction of watching Arthur lose Lucy. If Seward could not have her, at least no one else would. It was a horrible emotion, and every bit of the darkness that had fallen upon his life after this was well deserved. Accepting this final mission was his act of contrition.

He was drawn swiftly back into the present by the sudden silence. In the ballroom below, the young woman had passed out from the pain. He could see her chest still heaving, so she was not yet dead. Bathory threw down her whip, as irritated as a cat when the mouse will not play after its neck is broken. Seward felt hot wetness on his face, and touched his cheek only to realize that he was crying.

“Prepare my bath!” Bathory ordered.

The Women in White propelled the young woman across the pulley system’s metal track and thus transported her into another room. Bathory turned to follow, purposefully stepping on the gold cross as she did so, twisting her foot and crushing it beneath her heel. Satisfied, she continued into the adjacent room, stripping off her clothes one by one as she went.

Seward leaned out over the balcony to see if there was another window looking into the adjacent room. The rain pattered to a stop. Its din would no longer hide his footfalls on the clay shingles. Slowly and cautiously, he made his way over to the next window and peered through. The pulley system ended directly above a Roman-style bath. Dozens of candles now illuminated the sight of Bathory slipping delicately out of her trousers. For the first time, Seward had a clear view of her—without a stitch of clothing. She looked nothing like the prostitutes he had encountered in the back rooms of Camden district brothels. The wanton curves of her body, white and smooth as porcelain, would have distracted most observers from ever noticing the calculating cruelty of her eyes—but not Seward. He had seen a gaze like that before.

Yet nothing in the doctor’s bleak past could have prepared him for the macabre scene he witnessed next. The young woman, pathetic gurgles issuing from her throat, was suspended above the edge of the empty mosaic bath. Bathory stood at the bottom; arms outstretched, neck arched back, magnificently naked. She turned her palms upward. It was a signal. In that instant, the dark-haired Woman in White used her fingernail to slit the young lady’s throat and pushed her to the end of the track just above where Bathory waited. Seward saw Bathory’s fanged mouth open wide as she orgasmically bathed in a shower of blood.

Damn them all to hell!

His thoughts were inflamed as he reached into the false bottom of his medical bag for a small crossbow, loading it with a silver-tipped arrow. If this rash decision should be his death, so be it. Better to be dead than to allow this perverse evil to continue a second longer.

Seward aimed the crossbow between the wrought-iron bars and prepared to fire on Bathory. That was when he spotted something. His eyes widened in shock. There was a large advertisement poster lying on the desk by the window. The poster seemed to glow eerily as if it were painted by moonlight. The oversized embossed letters stood out:

William Shakespeare’s

“The Life and Death of King Richard III”

7 mars, 1912

Théâtre de l’Odéon

rue de Vaugirard 18

Téléf. 811.42

8 heures

Paris, France

Avec l’acteur roumain

BASARAB

dans le premier rôle

He took an involuntary step back, forgetting the incline of the roof. The tile under his foot cracked and slid down to shatter on the cobblestoned walkway below. He froze.

In the grand ballroom, the blond Woman in White spun at the sound outside. She flew to the door, her soulless eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of life. She saw no one. Remaining in the shadows, she moved around to the side of the house from where she had heard the noise. Again, she saw nothing and was about to return inside the villa when she spotted a broken clay tile on the ground—stained with a drop of fresh blood. Human blood. Its pungent aroma was unmistakable. She tasted it eagerly and immediately spat it out. The blood was polluted with chemicals.

With reptilian agility, she scaled the wall to inspect the villa further. On the rooftop, she spotted a bloodstained silver knife beneath one of the windows. Only an inexperienced vampire hunter would be naïve enough to carry a silver blade.

But the Woman in White knew that her mistress was no longer safe. They had to flee Marseilles tonight. She quickly scurried back into the house.

Seward knew that Bathory and her banshees would not stay in Marseilles this evening. They would assuredly flee to Paris and, once airborne, the dead travel fast. But thanks to the advertisement he had seen, Seward realized he once again had the advantage. He knew their plans. Countess Bathory and her companions would be at the theatre tomorrow night.

He allowed himself a grim smile.

That is where the battle will take place.

CHAPTER III.

“I charge thee to return and change thy shape,” cried out a young man in a bowler hat, arms stretched out imploringly, speaking in a determined yet trembling voice. “Such is the force of magic and my spells: No, Faustus, thou art conjuror laureat, That canst command great Mephistopheles:

Quin regis Mephistopheles fratris imagine.

”

A hiss. A wall of smoke. Then flames erupted out of thin air. From the surrounding gas lamps sparked an extra roar. The small crowd that gathered in the Luxembourg Gardens gasped in unison.

Quincey Harker, his back turned to his audience, felt a surge of pride at his ingenuity. With a whiplash smile as he threw off his bowler hat, stuck on a false goatee, placed a pointed hat upon his brow, threw a cape over his shoulders, and, in what seemed a well-practiced continuous motion, leapt up and spun around onto the edge of La Fontaine Medici. The perfect setting for a one-man pantomime of

Faust,

for the Medici family had been a prominent Florentine family, patron saints of avant-garde artists and long rumored to be in league with the Devil. Quincey, completely at ease on his makeshift stage, reveled not only in his performance but also in his cleverness.

He did what was known as chapeaugraphy—changing hats to change characters. It was a well-known but seldom-used performance technique due to the high level of skill required and was thus attempted only by the most talented actors…or the most arrogant.

Quincey used the shadow cast by the figures on the fountain to ominous effect as he spread his cape and held himself with poised menace and growled in a deep, devilish voice, “Now, Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?”

Quincey paused, expecting applause from his audience. There was none. This was odd. Quincey glanced up and was surprised to find the audience distracted. Something was drawing their attention to the north end of the park. Quincey tried not to let this momentary diversion throw off his concentration. He knew his talent was up to the challenge. He had performed this part at the London Hippodrome, and was so good that he’d even managed to secure the “deuce spot” just before the main attraction, Charles Chaplin, a master of physical comedy. Rumor had it that Chaplin was going to leave London to find his fortune in America. Quincey had hoped to win Chaplin’s spot. But Quincey’s overbearing father, Jonathan Harker, had smashed that dream by paying off the theatre manager and shipping Quincey off to a Paris prison with no bars—to study law at the Sorbonne.

Panic set in for Quincey as his meager audience began to disperse, heading off to investigate the commotion at the park’s north end. Checking his false beard to see if it was crooked, Quincey hurriedly bellowed one of Mephistopheles’ soliloquies as he ran down the fountain steps, in a desperate attempt to regain his audience’s attention. “I am a servant to great Lucifer, and may not follow thee without his leave: No more than he commands must we perform!”

For a moment, it appeared as if the power of his performance would recapture his audience, but all hope was lost when Mephistopheles slipped on the fountain’s wet stone, crashing onto his arse. Laughter erupted as the last of the crowd walked away.

Quincey pounded his fist on the ground and ripped off his beard, thankful for once that at the manly age of twenty-five, there were no whiskers beneath. That was when he saw him, laughing with that familiar sneer. That most loathsome waste of flesh, Braithwaite Lowery, Quincey’s fellow lodger at his digs at the Sorbonne.

What was he doing here? The clod had no appreciation for anything artistic.

Braithwaite peered over his spectacles at the few scanty coins the audience had carelessly tossed about the cobblestones. “Daft as a brush. Are you aware of how much a real barrister earns in a day, Harker?”

“I don’t give a fig for money.”

“That’s because you were born under the comfort and protection of an inheritance. I am the descendant of Yorkshire fishermen. I will have to

earn

my fortune.”

If only Braithwaite knew what Quincey had had to give up to secure his family’s financial support.

“What do you want?” said Quincey as he scooped up his earnings.

“This post arrived for you. Another letter from your father,” Braithwaite replied with venomous glee. The sod enjoyed watching Quincey squirm as he received the scolding letters from his father. “Do you know what I like about you, Braithwaite?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Neither can I,” Quincey said as he snatched the envelope from Braithwaite’s grasp with a flourish, and waved him away with the other hand.

LETTER, JONATHAN HARKER, EXETER, TO MASTER QUINCEY HARKER, THE SORBONNE UNIVERSITY, PARIS

29 February 1912

Dear Son,

I have received a most disturbing letter detailing your progress, or lack thereof, in your studies and have been advised that you are once again devoting far too much time to your extracurricular activities off campus. This is unacceptable. Though you have not been home these past three years, a fact that has injured your dear mother deeply, I should remind you that it is my money that is paying for your studies and lodgings. Should you fail this term, even my connections will be unable to prevent your expulsion. Of course this would mean the immediate termination of your per diem and

Quincey stopped reading. More and more people continued to hurry past him going northward, and he was only too glad for the distraction from hearing his father’s condescending voice in each typed word. His fingers rifled through the rest of the letter.

Blast! Thirteen pages!

The Harker family was famous for their voluminous letters, yet their dinner table was void of any conversation. Another gaggle of people hurried past. “Whatever is going on?”

Without breaking stride, a man called over his shoulder, “Basarab! He’s arriving. Here! Now!”

Basarab?

Quincey recalled reading some weeks ago in

Le Temps

that Basarab, the great Shakespearean actor who billed himself under a single name, was due to perform in Paris. And although he longed to see the world-renowned actor on the stage, he had put it out of his mind, knowing he could never justify the cost of a ticket on the expenditure report he filed monthly for his father to audit. He had lied so many times before that his father knew all of his tricks.

What good fortune! Or was it fate that Quincey should be here at the moment of Basarab’s arrival in Paris? Suddenly, he felt at ease, realizing that it was not his performance that chased away his audience. He had simply been upstaged by a true star. Forgetting his props and costumes upon the fountain, he found himself running along with the crowd, hoping to glimpse the magnificence of the great Basarab with his own eyes.

Quincey emerged from the park onto the rue de Vaugirard and found a throng of people crowding the street. They were turned toward the Théâtre de l’Odéon, a white building with Roman-style columns adorning the front steps. The moonlight made the brass-lettered name of the theatre glow as if illuminated from within.

Quincey tried to move closer and found himself trapped in the roundabout, pressed against the monument to French playwright Émile Augier. Undeterred, he scaled its pedestal to get a better look.

A Benz Tourer motorcar circled the roundabout toward the theatre’s front steps. It honked, clearing a way through the crowd. Quincey climbed higher. The car stopped short of the front steps, and the driver walked around to the other side of the vehicle to open the door for his passenger. During the two years Quincey had struggled as an actor, he had come to the realization that since Shakespeare’s days, the profession was considered the vocation of sinners, drunks, prostitutes, and vagabonds. Yet here before him was an actor who was regarded like royalty, and all of France seemed to have turned out for his arrival.

The dashing young Romanian stepped out of the car and stood on the ride rail. Quincey recognized the dark hair and chiseled features of Basarab from th

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