The Keep

"Imagine," she mused, "being loyal to Vlad Tepes."

"Don't forget that the world was very different then," Papa said. "Vlad was a product of his times; Molasar is a product of those same times. Vlad is still considered a national hero in these parts—he was Wallachia's scourge, but he was also its champion against the Turks."

"I'm sure this Molasar found nothing offensive in Vlad's behavior." Her stomach turned at the thought of all those men, women, and children impaled and left to die, slowly. "He probably found it entertaining."

"Who is to say? But you can see why one of the undead would gravitate to someone like Vlad: never a shortage of victims. He could slake his thirst on the dying and no one would ever guess that the victims had died from anything other than impalement. With no unexplained deaths around to raise questions, he could feast with no one suspecting his true nature."

"That does not make him any less a monster," she whispered.

"How can you judge him, Magda? One should be judged by one's peers. Who is Molasar's peer? Don't you realize what his existence means? Don't you see how many things it changes? How many cherished concepts assumed to be facts are going to wind up as so much garbage?"

Magda nodded slowly, the enormity of what they had found pressing on her with new weight. "Yes. A form of immortality."

"More than that! Much more! It's like a new form of life, a new mode of existence! No—that's not right. An old mode—but new as far as historical and scientific knowledge is concerned. And beyond the rational, look at the spiritual implications." His voice faltered. "They're... devastating."

"But how can it be true? How?" Her mind still balked.

"I don't know. There's so much to learn and I had so little time with him. He feeds on the blood of the living—that seems self-evident from what I saw of the remains of the soldiers. They had all been exsanguinated through the neck. Last night I learned that he does not reflect in a mirror—that part of traditional vampire lore is true. But the fear of garlic and silver, those parts are false. He appears to be a creature of the night—he has struck only at night, and appeared only at night. However, I doubt very much that he spends the daylight hours asleep in anything so melodramatic as a coffin."

"A vampire," Magda said softly, breathily. "Sitting here with the sun overhead it seems so ludicrous, so—"

"Was it ludicrous two nights ago when he sucked the light from our room? Was his grip on your arm ludicrous?"

Magda rose to her feet, rubbing the spot above her right elbow, wondering if the marks were still there. She turned away from her father and pulled the sleeve up. Yes ... still there ... an oblong patch of gray-white, dead-looking skin. As she began to pull the sleeve back down, she noticed the mark begin to fade—the skin was returning to a pink healthy color under the direct light of the sun. As she watched, the mark disappeared completely.

Feeling suddenly weak, Magda staggered and had to clutch at the back of the wheelchair to steady herself. Struggling to maintain a neutral expression, she turned back to Papa.

She needn't have bothered—he was again staring at the keep, unaware that she had turned away.

"He's somewhere in there now," he was saying, "waiting for tonight. I must speak to him again."

"Is he really a vampire, Papa? Could he really have been a boyar five hundred years ago? How do we know this isn't all a trick? Can he prove anything?"

"Prove?" he said, anger tingeing his voice. "Why should he prove anything? What does he care what you or I believe? He has his own concerns and he thinks I may be of use to him. 'An ally against the oulanders,' he said."

"You mustn't let him use you!"

"And why not? If he has need of an ally against the Germans who have invaded his keep, I just might go along with him—although I can't see what use I'd be. That's why I've told the Germans nothing."

Magda sensed that the Germans might not be the only ones; he was holding back from her as well. And that wasn't like him.

" Papa, you can't be serious!"

"We share a common enemy, Molasar and I, do we not?"

"For now, perhaps. But what about later?"

He ignored her question. "And don't forget that he can be of great use to me in my work. I must learn all about him. I must talk to him again. I must!" His gaze drifted back to the keep. "So much is changed now ... have to rethink so many things..."

Magda tried but could not comprehend his mood.

"What's bothering you, Papa? For years you've said you thought there might be something to the vampire myth. You risked ridicule. Now that you're vindicated, you seem upset. You should be elated."

"Don't you understand anything? That was an intellectual exercise. It pleased me to play with the idea, to use it for self-stimulation and to stir up all those rock-bound minds in the History Department!"

"It was more than that and don't deny it."

"All right ... but I never dreamed such a creature still existed. And I never thought I would actually meet him face to face!" His voice sank to a whisper. "And I in no way considered the possibility that he might really fear..."

Magda waited for him to finish, but he did not. He had turned inward, his right hand absently reaching into the breast pocket of his coat.

"Fear what, Papa? What does he fear?"

But he was rambling. His eyes had strayed again to the keep while his hand fumbled in his pocket. "He is patently evil, Magda. A parasite with supranormal powers feeding on human blood. Evil in the flesh. Evil made tangible. So if that is so, where then does good reside?"

"What are you talking about?" His disjointed thoughts were frightening her. "You're not making sense!"

He pulled his hand from his pocket and thrust something toward her face. "This! This is what I'm talking about!"

It was the silver cross she had borrowed from the captain. What did Papa mean? Why did he look that way, with his eyes so bright? "I don't understand."

"Molasar is terrified of it!"

What was wrong with Papa? "So? By tradition a vampire is supposed to—"

"By tradition! This is no tradition! This is real! And it terrified him! It nearly drove him from the room! A cross!"

Suddenly, Magda knew what had been so sorely troubling Papa all morning.

"Ah! Now you see, don't you," he said, nodding and smiling a small sad smile.

Poor Papa! To have spent all night with all that uncertainty. Magda's mind recoiled, refusing to accept the meaning of what she had been told.

"But you can't really mean—"

"We can't hide from a fact, Magda." He held up the cross, watching the light glint off its worn, shiny surface. "It is part of our belief, our tradition, that Christ was not the Messiah. That the Messiah is yet to come. That Christ was merely a man and that his followers were generally goodhearted people but misguided. If that is true..." He seemed to be hypnotized by the cross. "If that is true ... if Christ were just a man ... why should a cross, the instrument of his death, so terrify a vampire? Why?"

"Papa, you're leaping to conclusions. There has to be more to this!"

"I'm sure there is. But think: It's been with us all along, in all the folk tales, the novels, and the moving pictures derived from those folk tales. Yet who of us has ever given it a second thought? The vampire fears the cross. Why? Because it's the symbol of human salvation. You see what that implies? It never even occurred to me until last night."

Can it be? she asked herself as Papa paused. Can it really be?

Papa spoke again, his voice dull and mechanical. "If a creature such as Molasar finds the symbol of Christianity so repulsive, the logical conclusion is that Christ must have been more than a man. If that is true, then our people, our traditions, our beliefs for two thousand years, have all been misguided. The Messiah did come and we failed to recognize him!"