The Keep

"And yet what?"

"And yet tonight Molasar saved me from the hands of two fellow human beings who should have by all rights been allied with me against him."

The pupils in Gle

"Yes. Killed two German soldiers"—she winced at the memory—"horribly ... but didn't harm me. Strange, isn't it?"

"Very." Leaving the damp cloth in place, Gle

"No. He delivered me to my father." She watched Gle

"About Molasar?"

"No. Something else in the keep. In the subcellar ... something moving around in there. Maybe it was what had been making the scraping noise earlier."

"Scraping noise," Gle

"Rasping, scraping ... from far back in the sub-cellar."

Without a word, Gle

Magda told him everything she could remember up to the time Molasar deposited her in Papa's room. Then her voice choked off.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"How was your father?" Gle

Pain gathered in her throat. "Oh, he was fine." In spite of her brave smile, tears started in her eyes and began to spill onto her cheeks. Try as she might to will them back, they kept coming. "He told me to get out ... to leave him alone with Molasar. Can you imagine that? After what I went through to reach him, he tells me to get out!"

The anguish in her voice must have penetrated Gle

"He didn't care that I had been assaulted and almost raped by two Nazi brutes ... didn't even ask if I was hurt! All he cared was that I had shortened his precious time with Molasar. I'm his daughter and he cares more about talking to that... that creature!"

Gle

"Your father's under a terrible strain. You must remember that."

"And he should remember he's my father!"

"Yes," Gle

With her heart pounding in her throat, Magda allowed herself to be drawn nearer to him. She ignored the pain in her knee as she swung her legs off the floor and turned to face him. They lay stretched out together on the narrow bed, Gle

On impulse, she lifted her head and kissed him on the lips. He responded ardently for a moment, then pulled back.

"Magda—"

She watched his eyes, seeing a mixture of desire, hesitation, and surprise there. He could be no more surprised than she. There had been no thought behind that kiss, only a newly awakened need, burning in its intensity. Her body was acting of its own accord, and she was not trying to stop it. This moment might never come again. It had to be now. She wanted to tell Gle

"Someday, Magda," he said, seeming to read her thoughts. He gently drew her head back down to his shoulder. "Someday. But not now. Not tonight."

He stroked her hair and told her to sleep. Strangely, the promise was enough. The heat seeped out of her, and with it all the trials of the night. Even worries about Papa and what he might be doing ebbed away. Occasional bubbles of concern still broke the surface of her spreading calm, but they became progressively fewer and farther between, their ripples smaller and more widely spaced. Questions about Gle

Gle

But these were niggling little qualms. If she had discovered the hidden entrance to the tower years ago, there was no reason why he could not have found it, too. The important thing now was that for the first time tonight she felt completely safe and warm and wanted.

She drifted off to sleep.

TWENTY-TWO

As soon as the stone slab swung shut behind his daughter, Cuza turned to Molasar and found the bottomless black of the creature's pupils already fixed on him from the shadows. All night he had waited to cross-examine Molasar, to penetrate the contradictions that had been pointed out by that odd red-haired stranger this morning. But then Molasar had appeared, holding Magda in his arms.

"Why did you do it?" Cuza asked, looking up from his wheelchair.

Molasar continued to stare at him, saying nothing.

"Why? I should think she'd be no more than another tempting morsel for you!"

"You try my patience, cripple!" Molasar's face grew whiter as he spoke. "I could no more stand by now and watch two Germans rape and defile a woman of my country than I could stand idly by five hundred years ago and watch the Turks do the same. That is why I allied myself with Vlad Tepes! But tonight the Germans went further than any Turk ever dared—they tried to commit the act within the very walls of my home!" Abruptly, he relaxed and smiled. "And I rather enjoyed ending their miserable lives."

"As I am sure you rather enjoyed your alliance with Vlad."

"His penchant for impalement left me with ample opportunities to satisfy my needs without attracting attention. Vlad came to trust me. At the end, I was one of the few boyars he could truly count on."

"I don't understand you."

"You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience."

Cuza tried to clear away the confusion that smudged his thoughts. So many contradictions ... nothing was as it should be. And hanging over it all was the unsettling knowledge that he owed his daughter's safety, and perhaps her life, to one of the undead.

"Nevertheless, I am in your debt."

Molasar made no reply.

Cuza hesitated, then began leading up to the question he most wanted to ask. "Are there more like you?"

"You mean undead? Moroi? There used to be. I don't know about now. Since awakening, I've sensed such reluctance on the part of the living to accept my existence that I must assume we were all killed off over the last five hundred years."

"And were all the others so terrified of the cross?"

Molasar stiffened. "You don't have it with you, do you? I warn you—"