The Keep

But now it took on new meaning, as did so many other things. The walls seemed to press in on him as he stared at the little cross, allowing it to become the focus of his attention. Crosses were so like the banes used by primitives to ward off evil spirits. Eastern Europeans, especially the Gypsies among them, had countless banes, from garlic to icons. He had lumped the cross in with the rest, seeing no reason why it should deserve more consideration than the rest.

Yet Molasar had been repulsed by the cross ... could not even bear to look at it. Tradition gave it power over demons and vampires because it was supposedly the symbol of the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Cuza had always told himself that if the undead did exist, and the cross did have power over them, it was because of the i

Yet he had just proved himself wrong.

Molasar was evil. That was given: Any entity that leaves a trail of corpses in order to continue its own existence is inherently evil. And when Cuza had held up the cross, Molasar had shrunk away. Cuza had no belief in the power of the cross, yet it had power over Molasar.

So it must be the cross itself which had the power, not its bearer.

His hands shook. He felt dizzy and lightheaded as his mind ran over all the implications. They were shattering.

NINETEEN

The Keep

Thursday, 1 May

0640 hours

Two nights in a row without a death. Woerma

The keep was no brighter or cheerier. There was still that indefinable sense of a malignant presence. No, it was he who had changed. For some reason he now felt there might be a real chance of his getting back to his home in Rathenow alive. For a while he had seriously come to doubt the possibility. But with the hearty breakfast he had eaten in his room perking through his intestines, and the knowledge that the men under his command numbered the same this morning as they had last night, all things seemed possible—perhaps even the departure of Erich Kaempffer and his uniformed hoodlums.

Even the painting failed to bother him this morning. The shadow to the left of the window still looked like a gibbeted corpse, but it no longer disturbed him as it had when Kaempffer had first pointed it out.

He descended the watchtower stairs and reached the first level in time to find Kaempffer approaching the professor's rooms from the courtyard, looking more supremely confident than usual, and with as little reason as ever.

"Good morning, dear Major!" Woerma

"There's no evidence of his having done a damned thing!" Kaempffer said, his jauntiness disappearing in a snarl. "Even he makes no claim!"

"But the timing of the end of the murders with his arrival is rather suggestive of some cause-effect relationship, don't you think?"

"Coincidence! Nothing more!"

"Then why are you here?"

Kaempffer faltered for an instant. "To interrogate the Jew about what he has learned from the books, of course."

"Of course."

They entered the outer room, Kaempffer first. They found Cuza kneeling on the floor on his spread-out bedroll. He was not praying. He was trying to hoist himself back into the wheelchair. After the briefest glance in their direction as they walked in, he returned his full concentration to the task.

Woerma

Cuza seemed to know what he was doing. As Woerma

"What do you want of me?" he said when he had caught his breath. Gone was that staid, overly polite ma

"What did you learn last night, Jew?" Kaempffer said.

Cuza heaved himself over onto his buttocks and leaned wearily against the back of the chair. He closed his eyes a moment, then reopened them, squinting at Kaempffer. He appeared to be almost blind without his glasses.

"Not much more. But there is evidence that the keep was built by a fifteenth-century boyar who was a contemporary of Vlad Tepes."

"Is that all? Two days of study and that is all?"

"One day, Major," the professor said, and Woerma

"I did not ask for excuses, Jew! I want results!"

"And have you got them?" The answer seemed important to Cuza.

Kaempffer straightened his shoulders and pulled himself up to his full height as he replied. "There have been two consecutive nights without a death, but I don't believe you have had anything to do with that." He rotated the upper half of his body and gave Woerma

"Ah! Another night of your company!" Woerma

"I see no need for you to remain here even that long, Herr Major," Cuza said, visibly brightening. "I'm sure other countries have much greater need of your services."

Kaempffer's upper Up curled into a smile. "I shan't be leaving your beloved country, Jew. I go to Ploiesti from here."

"Ploiesti? Why Ploiesti?"

"You'll learn soon enough." He turned to Woerma

"I shall personally hold the gate open for you."

Kaempffer shot him an angry look, then strode from the room. Woerma