Brides Of The Impaler Read Free Page A

at the door, and it was probably deliberate the way she turned at the waist to elucidate her bosom. “Oh, and if you want any more wine, I left the other bottles outside to cool.”
    Fredrick frowned. “To
cool?
Where?”
    “In the stream, of course. You know—the stream where Vlad’s real body is probably buried…”
    “Go to bed!” Fredrick yelled.
    Janice scooted away, an echoic laugh in her wake. Fredrick thumbed his eyes, then got ready for bed himself.
    He tried to sleep but found himself totally jinxed now by the residual imagery of Janice’s banter. He caught himself wondering exactly where in the room Dracula had slept. A madman , he thought. A butcher . Had the prince of Wallachia and savior of Transylvania actually murdered anyone in this room as well?
    Fredrick slept in snatches, then dragged himself up. Damn it!
    He lit a candle to push back some of the darkness. Sleep was impossible under these conditions.
    He knew he was nervous about tomorrow, when the Romanian representative would come to tell him about the additional visas. I don’t suppose I’d want any Romanians digging in our historical sites , he considered. Was there really a difference?
    He redressed, tamped his pipe, and went downstairs andback outside. There were no night-sounds at all—save for the infrequent wolf-bays. No peepers, no cricket trills. The moonlight made the stagnant night look icy. He lit his pipe and rewalked the inner quadrangle. The fortress walls, twenty feet thick at some points, seemed monolithic now, the twilight cutting the ramparts in stunning black. He knew there were torture chambers on the grounds, below some of the older edifices or their ruined foundations. How many people had died here? he kept wondering. Only silence here now, but in the mid-1400s?
    Fredrick knew this fortress yard must’ve run rampant with screams—
    The academician’s hand flew to his heart when a shriek wheeled out into the night.
    Jesus! He turned and looked up, heart hammering. Candlelight flickered in one of the second-story windows, then a shadow moved.
    “Janice!” he bellowed. “Are you—”
    The younger woman appeared in the stone window frame, a sheepish smile on her face. She held her hands to her overspilling bare breasts.
    “Sorry,” she echoed down. “I hope I didn’t scare you.”
    “Well you did scare me! What’s wrong?”
    “I got in the bath too fast,” she admitted. “The water’s ice-cold.”
    “For pity’s sake!” Fredrick continued to yell. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
    She smiled down. “Thought it was a specter, huh?”
    Fredrick scowled.
    “I can’t sleep, either,” she said. “Being here is just…too exciting.”
    What am I going to do with her? he bemoaned. He relit his pipe and let himself calm down. “Go to bed,” he gruffed.
    Her voice floated and she pulled back from the window. “Pleasant dreams…”
    I will not let her spook me , he determined. Hadn’t she saidsomething about chilling some wine out here? The stream , he recalled. I guess a few slugs of that would calm me down …
    He retraced his steps and found it; he presumed the stream was spring-fed, since its source didn’t appear to extend past the north wall. A long sip of the icy wine quenched him, a strong fruity aftertaste glowing in his mouth. Just don’t get drunk , he warned himself. He took the bottle to a stone bench with cruciform inlays and sat down, but after another sip, he frowned, recalling Janice’s morbid remark at dinner. Vlad Dracula dipped his bread in blood? I doubt it …
    The alcohol buzzed him in minutes. Strong stuff .
    Or was it?
    It occurred to him that the monk’s bench was, almost imperceptibly, moving…
    He rubbed his face, then stared up at the rectory.
    My God …
    It seemed to be moving, ever so slightly.
    Either the Romanians make very strong wine or —
    The rumbling came next, felt first in his diaphragm, then much more obviously. Tremor , he thought, sitting poised.