The Count

"I am...Dracula."

For a second, Aubrey didn't know what to say. When her voice came back, all she managed was:

"Count Dracula?"

Another pause, one that for some reason made Aubrey nervous, as if she'd said something offensive. But the response, when it came sounded amused:

"I wouldn't expect anyone outside of my own country to use the old family title in this day and age. But yes, technically, I am the count; and you are Aubrey Chase, author of Grimm House and Witch's Knot. And now, I believe, you are writing a new book, one that deals very intimately with my family name."

It was not a question.

Aubrey's first instinct was to hang up; "Tell him you'll only talk through the lawyers," that's what Laura would say-scream, possibly. Instead, she said, "How-how did you get this number?"

"We have a great many friends in common, although I'm not surprised you don't know it-a low profile is critical for someone in my position. Needless to say, publishing is a small world, and word travels fast."

A rolodex of names spun through Aubrey's mind; who had snitched? Not Laura, surely, but who else even knew?

"In any event, you have nothing to worry about," the count continued. "This is not a call to intimidate you or-what's the charming American expression? 'Hold you up,' do people still say that?"

"If not, I'll put it in a book and they'll start again."

Aubrey was shocked at the words, both because they sounded arrogant and also because she hadn't thought them before speaking. The count laughed though.

"The truth is, when I heard about your new project I was delighted. I took the liberty of reaching you because I hoped I could offer to help in some small way."

Now Aubrey sat up straight in her chair; she pictured an imaginary antenna extending straight up from her head and tingling with the strength of this new signal.

"I've invested a lot in researching and illuminating our family history," the count continued. "I'd be happy to share anything we have with you-anything at all."

"That's-"

"In fact-if it's not too forward of me-I wanted to invite you here to visit the old family estate. If you were interested, that is."

The imaginary antenna began to vibrate. "Castle Dracula?"

"Yes."

"In Transylvania?"

"Yes. It's only a shadow of its old glory these days-but still, it might prove a useful muse for you. And you and I will be able to talk in person."

Laura's imaginary warning faded into the recesses of Aubrey's brain, like she was falling down a well. "Yes," she said. "Absolutely; anytime; as soon as it's convenient for you."

"Wonderful," the count's voice said. "Of course, I insist on paying for everything. My secretary will be in touch with the details."

"That's very generous. I don't know what to say."

She could almost hear the count smile through the phone. "I am sure you will think of something, in time."

***

The flight from LAX to Târgu Mureș Transilvania Airport took more than 30 hours, with stops in New York, London, and Budapest.

Aubrey read along the way; she'd read all of Stoker's diary by now, but she went back over it again and again. The pages sent to her covered the presumptive final months of his life, when he too had traveled to Transylvania to commit research for his book-just as Aubrey was now making essentially the same journey in order to research him.

Like most writers of his age, Stoker was an almost compulsive note-taker, and he recorded each leg of his trip in colorful detail. She suspected he was exaggerating a bit of it-actually, what she really suspected was that he intended for this journal to also serve as part of his Dracula novel, once it was done: The trek through 19th century Romania could easily be fictionalized into a fairly gripping opening chapter, or series of chapters. One part in particular stood out to her now:

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in peasant dress. She smiled and gave some message to an elderly man; he went, but immediately returned with a letter:

"My Friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land."

I found that my landlord had got a letter from the count too, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me, but he seemed somewhat reticent. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula and his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves.

Just before I was leaving the following day, the old lady came up to my room and said, "Tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway. Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?" She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect.

She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me, "For your mother's sake." Whether it is the old lady's fear or the many ghostly traditions of this place or the crucifix itself I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual.

It was the letter that preoccupied Aubrey; she imagined she could detect in its tone a certain familiar quality, but it eluded her. She entertained these ghosts for the entirety of the flight.

As promised, the count's secretary waited for her outside the airport gates, a reedy older man who introduced himself as Raeford (whether it was a first name or a last name was not clear). Although she discovered later he was hard of hearing, he spoke English with hardly a spot of an accent, as well as seemingly countless other languages. He offered to carry her luggage but seemed surprised that she only had one bag. "I like to travel light," she said. "And anything I need, well, I assume I can buy it here."

"Quite right," Raeford said. "Is this your first time in Romania?"

"I don't get to travel much, so this is a real treat for me. Are we going right to see the count?" She hoped she didn't sound too eager.

"I'm to take you to him directly. Unfortunately, the trip from here to Borgo Pass will take several more hours-it'll be past sunset when we arrive. You must be exhausted from your flight, so I hate to confine you further; hopefully the carriage car is to your liking."

It WAS to her liking, she discovered, a big, old-fashioned luxury car with a pillowy interior. Inside she discovered a bottle of wine (Golden Mediasch) chilling in a bucket of ice, and with it a hand-lettered card that read simply:

"Welcome,

-D."

Aubrey smiled.

"The master apologizes that he couldn't be here to meet you-business detained him," said Raeford, who it seemed was also to be her driver. "I'm afraid I won't be much company for you up here."

"I'm not the sort who needs a lot of fuss made," Aubrey said. "Did you say we're taking the Borgo Pass?"

"An antique name for it-but this is an antique country. Not Romania-that's still a new-fangled name, as some people have it. But Transylvania is a true old country; begging your pardon, but being an American I wonder if you'll know what I mean."

"I'm sure I'd love to find out," Aubrey said.

The black car took them to the outskirts of Târgu Mureș, an old city, a wonderful city, right on the banks of the Mures River and full of old baroque churches and a Great Synagogue and the sprawling Palace of Culture, which she'd read all about before leaving. But Raeford sped past these sites with hardly a pause, beyond the city the landscape opened up into rolling hills, dotted with distant green copses. As promised, it was already late-the sun was unable to penetrate the steely overcast and, defeated at last, it slunk toward the horizon with a despondent air.

Around the car spread a green sloping land with a bewildering mass of fruit blossoms. The road was rugged, but the old car took it with ease; Aubrey remembered something she'd read about the history of the region, that for centuries they intentionally neglected the roadways so that the Turks wouldn't find the idea of marching troops down them too inviting. Beyond the green swelling she could already see the caps of the mighty Carpathians themselves, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks. Which one, she wondered, was the one they called "God's Seat?"

Traffic was light, but when they did pass a car it was always a modern one that seemed somehow out of place next to the landscape and to the old-fashioned car they rode in. While they'd left the city behind speedily, the drive seemed sometimes to dawdle through this countryside, and Aubrey's research had not prepared her for the true beauty of the place.

Sometimes little towns or even castles appeared on the top of steep hills on the horizon, and sometimes they ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide, stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods, though each looked tame and tranquil now, perhaps aware that she was a guest. Here and there she was surprised also to see tall, old, leaning crosses on the shoulder of the road-wayside shrines for travelers, leftovers from a latter age.

As promised, Raeford did not talk much-later she learned he had trouble hearing her over the engine and could not read her lips effectively in the mirror. But after some time he did say, "The master is very excited to finally meet you-it's been practically all he talks about. Not that I said so, of course."

Now Aubrey could not stop a wide and sharp smile from breaking across her entire face. "I'm looking forward to it too. Is he always quite so...mysterious about things?" They had talked only once more since that initial phone call, and then only for a minute. When she'd tried to find information on him, little turned up-he kept a remarkably low profile for someone apparently so well-connected.

"He likes his privacy," Raeford said. "But you'll find him very welcoming when the time comes. It does my heart good to see him enthusiastic about something again-he's inherited the phlegmatic humor of his ancestors, and sometimes it gets the better of him. But he had a good heart, beneath it all."

As they came closer to the pass, dark firs stood out here and there, and the road cut through great gray pine woods that made Aubrey imagine all manner of fairy tale things. There were black, rolling clouds overhead, and the air felt heavy.

"I hope you're not too hungry," Raeford said after a while. "The master has arranged for a very thrilling repast when we reach the castle, but it'll be at least another hour yet."

"I'm very all right," Aubrey said. Then, "Do you always call him that?"

Raeford laughed, but in such a humorless way that it actually alarmed her. "A family custom: My father's father served the count-that is to say, the old count, in his day. I inherited some of his affectations along with the job. Do you ever find yourself taking after family that way?"

Pausing, Aubrey said, "Actually I've hardly ever had any family to speak of, so I'm afraid I wouldn't know."

"That's how I sometimes imagine America-as a place where you don't have to dwell under the burden of these legacies." And with that unaccountable comment, he said nothing more for the rest of the drive.

As the sun set, Raeford seemed to speed up, and soon he was taking the turns in the old road with such hellish abandon that Aubrey would have been scared if not for his glacially calm demeanor. For a while it seemed like he didn't even have the headlights on-but that of course must have been her imagination.

Somewhere nearby a dog began to howl, and then another and another took up the sound, carried on the wind that sighed softly through the pass. Once, Aubrey swore she saw a strange light through the trees, a kind of flickering blue fire-but it was gone as soon as she could look for it again, and she decided that jetlag must be getting the best of her after all-that or the count's wine.

She looked out the blackened windows of the car, searching for her bearings; the road rose and fell and rose again with the mountains, and now there was no other traffic in sight. Unwittingly, she thought back to Stoker's diary-"When the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway. Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?"

It was far from midnight now, of course. But for a moment Aubrey wondered-DID she know what she was going to? Hardly anyone in the world even knew where she was right now-only Laura, and even she didn't know the real story of where Aubrey was or why (she'd only have tried to intervene, after all), believing only that she was traveling for research on the new book and would be back in a week at most.

Everyone else knew only that she was out of town, but not to where or how long. In her haste to make all the arrangements, never had she stopped to consider whether any of this was safe. Never had she thought to ask-

But then suddenly the car crested one last horizon and, all at once, the dramatic silhouette of a broad and ancient castle rose up, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements spread like a crack against the night sky. The car pulled to a perfect and gentle stop in the old courtyard. "Home," Raeford said. "For the time being."

Here, many small, twinkling lights were strung-enough of them for her to see by, but each as meek and tentative as a firefly. As she climbed out of the car (surprising Raeford, who had been about to open the door for her), Aubrey was almost shocked to see that the courtyard was in utter ruins-the outer walls merely a shell, inside of which hardly any two stones still stood on top of each other.

Her gaze was drawn, magnet-like, to the man in the center of the courtyard: tall, fit, dressed in black from head to toe, without a speck of color on him anywhere except for his complexion, a curious combination of pallor and ruddiness. There was something very strange about that face-it seemed somehow flat and distant, like a mask. But he was handsome-intensely so, and when he spoke she felt a tiny thrill to recognize that unforgettable voice again:

"I bid you welcome," he said. And then, just as she might have imagined he would, he bowed to her, the smallest inclination of his posture, but a gesture filled with a potent sense of custom and respect.

For a moment, his words hung in the chilly night air-then Raeford stepped in and, with a tone of practiced diplomacy, he said:

"Ms. Aubrey Chase, please allow me to introduce:

"Count Dracula."

***

That night, after she finally retired, Aubrey took a few minutes to write down everything about her meeting with the count, attempting to freeze her recall in writing before precious details slipped through her fingers.

She had prepared herself ahead of time for his effusive politeness-the way he clasped rather than shook her hand, and his apologies at detaining her after she'd spent so long traveling and must be exhausted, etc. He had not had quite this theatrical a demeanor during their previous conversations, but she knew that these circumstances-he was her host, and also, though nobody would be so indelicate as to say so, above her station-demanded certain displays

She also recorded his visible discomfort with their surroundings-the state of the castle took her by surprise, and he felt embarrassed at not having prepared her for it. "Its greatest days are quite behind it," he said, leading her across the ruined courtyard. "But you have nothing to worry about-the kitchens downstairs have been renovated many times, as well as the rooms you'll be sleeping in."

A blush tinged Aubrey's cheeks. "I'm sorry-I must seem so ungrateful."

"Not at all," said the count. "I wish you could have seen my ancestral home at the height of its glory-but that was a long time ago."

The room he led her to was in essentially the same shape as the courtyard, and open to the sky on account of the old roof having long since collapsed. But in the center of it all was a long table laid out with an expensive tablecloth and gleaming silver trays. Expensive electric braziers drove away the dampness of the Transylvanian night, and Raeford uncovered the dishes and explained each as it was served: robber steak, paprika hen, roasted eggplant stuffed with horsemeat, and other unfamiliar but savory offerings.

The count watched her eat with obvious delight-and undisguised interest.

The food, the count explained, was prepared on-site, in the aforementioned downstairs kitchen, by a staff he'd had driven in from Predelut; the furniture had been in the family for at least 300 years but ordinarily rested in storage, and he'd had it brought here specifically for her reception. "This would have been the place and the manner my ancestors feasted visiting dignitaries-what better occasion to revive the custom?"

Even in the twilight, Aubrey was sure the purplish blush on her cheeks was visible.

The castle, she was surprised to learn, didn't actually belong to the count's family anymore. "My great grandfather willed it to the state governors, and since he died it's been something of a museum-an attraction for our tourists. That's why you'll find your suites to be quite comfortably updated; those tourists, they like to see the old medieval character, but not to sleep in it. The downstairs is quite a modern hotel-in fact it is quite highly rated."

"I didn't realize-but of course, it makes sense."

"On special occasions they permit me and my guests to stay here, out of respect for the family name, and gratitude for the gift. We don't invoke the privilege very often-as I said, we've been waiting for someone to make it worthwhile. And as I said, here you are."

Despite herself, Aubrey was practically wolfing down the food-she'd had nothing to eat for two days but airplane fare. The count ate barely anything. Outside the castle walls, the dogs were howling again-or were they wolves, she wondered? "What music they make," the count said idly.

They talked a little more about the castle-its history, its construction, the place the Dracula name held in the region. Most of these things she knew already from Stoker's notes, but she didn't let on, and besides, it was pleasant to hear the count speak.

"You talk like a real historian-as if you'd been there," she said after a while. Her plate was mostly empty now, but she sipped from the plum brandy that Raeford provided (the count declined a snifter of his own), letting it mingle with the rich food in her stomach.

The count made a self-effacing shrug. "Men in my position are expected to consume the family history. It's what keeps the blood flowing through our old lines. These days we are like this castle, just so many antiques in our museum; we only continue to matter if the people show interest-that's the real secret of houses like ours."

"Such as, if someone were to publish a book about it," Aubrey said. "Or at the very least, a book that used the family name and took a few...creative liberties with the history."

She hadn't meant to say it. Her plan had been to put off talking business until at least the next day, both because she felt it would be advantageous as well as for personal reasons. But once it slipped out she had no choice but to follow the stroke.

"You see right through me," the count said. "But we'll have time to talk about these things later." But then, almost immediately he added, "You know, I assume, that Bram Stoker came here once too, when he was to write his own novel-indeed, it was just before he disappeared."

"I did know that," Aubrey said, moderating her tone. She didn't think the count knew that she had Stoker's diary, and for the time being she wanted to keep it that way.