Darkness was playing tricks on my senses. I could have sworn that it felt us, watched every step we fumblingly took and delighted in our terror. Thomas swatted a spiderweb away before I could walk through it. Chivalrous, considering his fear. I thanked him and slowly continued down the passageway.
“Feels like a carnival with too many looking glasses. Doesn’t it?” I asked.
A few beats passed. I twisted, expecting a sassy response, but Thomas simply nodded, grin spreading wickedly. Then I remembered his vow to remain silent.
“You know what?” I asked. He raised his brows. “I rather enjoy seeing you without hearing all the nonsense spewing out. You should be quiet more often.” I allowed my gaze to inspect his chiseled features, pleased by the longing that lit in his eyes when my attention found his mouth. “In fact, I’ve never wanted to kiss you more.”
I quickly moved down the passage, smiling to myself as his jaw swung open. A bit of levity was what I needed to hold my unease at bay. I did not want to consider what we were about to see. Death never smelled pleasant, and the overwhelming odor now made my eyes water. Hope of coming across an animal carcass was dwindling.
Unless it was a rather large, human-size animal.
I wiped wetness from the corners of my lashes. This was how bodies smelled when they weren’t buried far enough below the earth. We hadn’t dealt with advanced decomposition too often in Uncle’s laboratory, but the few times we had had left memories that would be stitched within the seams of my brain for eternity.
Drawing closer to the lone torch, I distinguished two more tunnels forking off in opposite directions. At the point before they branched off, however, there was a thick oak door set to one side. Droplets of water seemed to leak from the porous wood. How very odd.
I took a few deep breaths, relishing the way the coldness now kept me alert. Here the passageway was wide enough for only one body to pass through at a time. My narrow shoulders nearly scraped against the walls as we inched our way toward that ominous door and whatever horror lay hidden behind it. Thomas twisted sideways to fit.
Glancing down, I was surprised to find rubbish. The scent of death was covering up most everything, but the greasy napkin at my feet appeared to be fresh enough. I swallowed, hoping whoever had deposited the garbage was long gone. It would be quite difficult to race out of this narrow passage without being caught.
I closed my eyes. I knew I was strong enough to handle whatever we were about to uncover. But the part of my brain still affected by the Ripper murders was filling my emotions with nonsense again. I only needed a minute. Then I would move.
Thomas tapped my shoulder, motioning that he wanted to pass by. I shook my head. In order for that to happen he’d have to squeeze past me. Before I could protest, he gently pressed me against the wall and slid over me, careful not to linger.
I reluctantly peeled myself off the wall, watching as he inspected the two tunnels. While he was busy calculating Lord only knew what, I focused on the door. He’d sufficiently distracted me from any growing fear, and he knew it. If I hadn’t been grateful for the outcome, I would have slapped him with my glove for taking such bold liberties in our unchaperoned state.
I faced the door again. A cross with flames at each end had been burned into the wood—a long time ago, from the faded look of it. A Roman numeral seven was carved below the cross. I traced my fingers along the symbol, then drew my hands back at the surprising warmth.
Maybe I wasn’t as free from my delusions as I’d thought. It would be best to open the door quickly, if it even would open. The suspense of who or what we’d find was only going to increase exponentially the longer I put it off.
Drawing in one more deep breath, I pushed with all my might, noticing again how hot the wood seemed for such a cold tunnel. That wasn’t scientifically possible, so I ignored the warning chatter of my bones. To my astonishment, the door swung open. The creak I’d been expecting never came. Someone obviously had taken great care to grease the metal hinges.
I poked my head in, barely a few inches, confused by the tropical heat that blasted from within the shadowy space, and squinted. The room appeared to be no larger than a small bathing chamber, but there was a mound of black in the center of the floor, and similar mounds along the high walls.
Which didn’t make sense—what could possibly be covering the walls? And how was it so disturbingly warm in here without a fire?
As if in answer to that very question, steam hissed from a crevice. There must be a source of heat somewhere close, perhaps a natural hot spring within the mountain or some sort of heating mechanism in the castle.
“Cresswell, hand me that torch, will you? I believe—” Something warm and furry smacked against my head. I reached up, but it was gone. Blood rushed in my ears, and every bit of reason left my mind as the mass of black lifted as one. “What in the name of—”
I jerked back, thrashing about as a hundred screeching bats swarmed and dived. Teeth scraped around the collar of my dress, then slid along the skin of my neck. It took every last rational thought I had to keep from screaming. If I broke now, someone would find us. I needed to be strong. I needed to not lose focus. I needed to—fight.
My hands connected with leathery wings. I swatted bodies from the sky and ignored the growing panic as blood dripped down my covered fingers, splattering on the floor.
We were under attack.
SECRET PASSAGE
PASAJ SECRET
BRAN CASTLE
5 DECEMBER 1888
Thomas was beside me a breath later, brandishing the torch from the wall as if it were a flaming sword.
He wasn’t the only one capable of steady action in the face of danger. I catalogued every detail of the room and scene I could manage between assaults. The mound in the center of the room was a body lying facedown. Bats had been covering it entirely, likely feasting on it.
Skirts indicated the victim was female, her skin whiter than freshly fallen snow where it wasn’t maimed by crimson bite marks. Her stillness left no doubt that she had perished. No one who still breathed could stay so motionless with that many creatures crawling over them. I ran to her side just to be sure.
“What are you doing?” Thomas yelled from the door. “She’s gone! Hurry!”
“One… moment,” I said, seeing blond hair beneath scarlet streaks. He could wield the torch, but I was determined to gather as much information as I could.
I tried to look for other details, but several bats dived on me at once, tearing through the lace of my gloves, drawn to the blood already leaking from my wounds. I hauled myself up, ran out of the room as fast as I could, and yanked the door shut. Thomas shoved the torch at the remaining assailants. His eyes were wild as they screeched and chittered, and dived for us once again.
After he’d chased the last bat off into the darkness, he plucked something from my shoulder and tossed it aside. “Are you all right, Wadsworth?”
We had just been attacked by a hellish nightmare turned reality. Warmth trickled down my neck. I had more cuts than I dared to think of at the moment. Instead of voicing all of that, I laughed. Surely this was something not even Poe could dream up.
Despite the horror, I felt flushed with the heat of excitement. Blood thrummed through my veins, amping up my heart, reminding me of how powerful I was. Of how wonderful it was to be alive.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to speak again unless I said the magic phrase, Cresswell.”
His shoulders slumped, dropping the tension he’d been carrying along with them. “Being attacked by vampire bats is a good enough excuse to break my own rule.” He frowned at the blood seeping through my gloves. “Plus, I already know I’m the most handsome young man in your life.” A rogue bat dived for him, and I swatted it away. “Those bats aren’t native to Romania.”
“I had no idea you were also a chiropterologist,” I said blandly. “Is this how you impress all the young ladies?”
He surveyed me with interest. “
Well, I had no idea you knew the scientific term for bat study.” He removed his long morning coat and offered it to me. It was warm and smelled of roasted coffee and fresh cologne. I resisted the urge to breathe in the comforting scent.
“Your brain is quite appealing. Even in the face of all this.” He waved at the closed door, grin fading a bit. “By far my favorite asset of yours. But yes. I’ve studied them enough to recognize those as vampire bats. I haven’t a clue who’d want to breed them.”
Even snuggled within Thomas’s coat, I loosed a shiver that had been teasing my flesh. This castle was more treacherous than I’d thought. “I wonder what other charming manner of wildlife we’ll find down those tunnels.”
My mind snagged on a detail from Moldoveanu’s conversation with Dăneşti. I described the entire exchange to Thomas as fast as I could, words tumbling out.
“Why would the book Dăneşti was talking about have anything to do with these passages? Do you think it contains hints to where all of the doors and tunnels lead?”
“Perhaps.” Thomas glanced from me to the two dark tunnels behind us. For once his expression was easy to read. We’d just found a body and were attacked by bats. Now wasn’t the time to wander this far below the castle without first arming ourselves with knowledge and physical weapons. “We should do some research. Come. I know the perfect place.”
We’d sneaked back to our rooms and scrubbed most of the blood from our faces. I had also returned Thomas’s morning coat, not wanting to elicit any unwanted questions or attention should we run into anyone at this hour. Now, in a shadowy hallway in the castle’s west wing, we stood before two oak doors that were carved in all manner of beasts, both mythical and all too familiar. Although no plaque had been erected in his honor, I imagined dracula’s bloody library in bold Gothic letters all the same.
Torches set into wrought-iron urns stood proudly on each side, both inviting visitors and warning them to behave while in the library. I spotted a few flying bats within the door’s design and tugged them open. “If I never see another one of those ghastly creatures again, I’ll die a happy girl.”
Thomas chuckled softly beside me. “Yes, but the way you slapped away the one attacking me was so valiant. Shame I’ll never get to witness such ferocity again. Perhaps we can go bat hunting at least once a year. But then we’ll have to set them free, naturally. They’re too adorable to harm.”
I paused before crossing the threshold. “They tried to drink our blood, Cresswell. ‘Adorable’ is hardly the word I’d use.”
I swept into the room, then halted, hand fluttering to my center. The ribbed vault of the cathedral ceilings made me think of stone spiders whose long legs crawled down the walls. Stone ogival archways housed aisles of books.
This was by far the grandest library in the castle; the one in which I’d found the book about mortuary practices was much smaller. Leather and parchment and the magical scent of ink on pages overwhelmed my senses. Wrought-iron chandeliers—made of the same design as the hallway urns—hung from the web of gray stone above them. It was foreboding and intriguing at once. Part of me wished to spend hours within its shadowy alcoves, and part of me longed to secure a weapon. Anyone or anything might be hidden within the gloomy nooks.
I closed my eyes for a moment. While addressing our cuts, Thomas and I had decided to delay notifying anyone about the body we’d discovered. It went against every fiber in my being to leave that poor girl’s remains in that terrible place, but I did not trust Moldoveanu. He’d likely punish or expel us for exploring the castle’s secrets. Thomas also argued that it might alert us to who else knew about the passages if her body was discovered. I’d reluctantly agreed under one condition: If her body wasn’t found by the next afternoon, we’d leave an anonymous note.
Someone sneezed several aisles away, the sound echoing in the vast chamber. My body froze. We weren’t doing anything wrong, yet I couldn’t stop my pulse from accelerating at the thought of encountering anyone.
“This way,” Thomas whispered, guiding me in the opposite direction. As if breaking from a trance, I moved forward, drinking in each aisle of books, shoving the vicious attack from my mind. They weren’t simply regular rows either: There were shelves from floor to ceiling crammed with tomes of every shape and size.
Thick books, thin ones, leather-bound and soft-cover: they were stacked together like cells composing a body. I wanted to run down each aisle to see if there was any end to them.
We could spend the remainder of eternity and not read every book housed there. Though, on a normal day, it would have been magnificent to simply sit with a cup of tea and a warm blanket and pluck new scientific adventures from the shelves like inked petits fours to savor.
There were books written in French, Italian, Latin, Romanian, English.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where to begin,” Thomas said, startling me from my book Utopia. “They’ve got the sections labeled, at least. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Are—” He waved a hand in front of me, lips curving upward as I swatted it away. “Are you paying attention to a word I’m saying, Wadsworth?”
I paused at an aisle labeled ştiinţă.
“Look at the science section alone, Thomas!”
I selected a medical journal from the nearest shelf, flipping through the pages and marveling at the anatomical drawings. An article by Friedrich Miescher caught my attention. His work with nuclein was fascinating. To think there were phosphorus proteins in our blood cells we’d yet to name!
“This is what they should be teaching us. Not vampire lore regarding a man who died centuries ago. Do you think it’s medically possible to open my cranium and stuff the pages inside? Perhaps the ink will leach in and create some sort of compound reaction.”
Thomas leaned against a shelf, arms crossed. “I’m strangely intrigued by that notion.”
“You would be.”
I shook my head but continued walking down the aisles. poezie. anatomie. folclor. Poetry. Anatomy. Folklore. Plush leather armchairs were set up in nooks with little tables meant to either write notes on or hold more reading material. It took every ounce of my will to not get distracted by the overwhelming urge to simply curl up in one of them and read about medical practices until dawn dragged itself across the sky.
“I know what to gift you with this coming Christmas,” Thomas said. I spun, skirts wrapping around my legs as if they were an ebony cocoon. His eyes glittered. “Medical journals and leather-bound tomes. Maybe I’ll throw in a shiny new scalpel, too.”
I smiled. “I’ve already got a few of those. I will gladly accept any and all books, however. A person can never have too much reading material. Especially on a fall or winter evening. If you’re feeling extra generous, you may include tea. I love a unique blend. Really sets the atmosphere for medical study.”
Thomas trailed his gaze up and down the length of my form, pausing until I finally cleared my throat. A bit of color rose around his collar. “Audrey Rosehips.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll have a signature blend made for you. A bit of English rose, perhaps some bergamot. A hint of sweet. And definitely strong. It’ll need petals, too.” He smiled. “I might have found my true calling. This is quite a moment. Should we commemorate it with a waltz?”
“Come on, tea connoisseur.” I nodded toward the waiting aisles, heart fluttering pleasantly. “We’ve got a lot of investigating to do if we hope to find any books with the layout of the castle.”
“And its many secret tunnels.” Thomas swept his arms out. “After you, dear Wadsworth.”
“Goodness! You scared me!”
Professor Radu emerged from the adjacent aisle, sending a shower of books to the floor. He swooped down to retrieve them as if he were a pigeon pecking at crumbs. “I’ve been searching for a particular tome on the strigoi for class tomorrow. Blasted library is too large to find your own nose in. I’ve been telling Moldoveanu for ages that we need to hire more than one librarian. That mali
ngerer Pierre is never to be found!”
I was still steadying my nerves. Radu hadn’t made a sound—an impressive feat for the clumsy professor. I retrieved a book titled De Mineralibus from the floor and handed it to him, noting its gnarled leather and old script. “Here, Professor.”
“Ah. Albertus Magnus. One of our next lessons.” He paused, large eyes blinking behind spectacles as he added the tome to his armful of books. “Have you seen Pierre, then? Perhaps you’ve sent him off for a book of your own. I did not mean to interrupt. Though this is precisely what I mean. More librarians, more knowledge. Why Moldoveanu insists on one is…”
Radu was so upset that he unthinkingly started to gesture with his arms, forgetting about the books currently occupying them. Thomas lurched forward and secured the stack before it collapsed on us.
“Blasted Pierre is never where you need him to be. Tell him I’ve found my own material, no thanks to him. Next I’ll be doing both his job and my own.”
Radu tottered off, mumbling to himself again about his lesson plan being in complete disarray and how he’d be speaking to the headmaster about multiple librarians.
“At least he didn’t ask why we’re out of our rooms unchaperoned at this hour,” Thomas said. “Poor librarian, however. He’s got his work cut out for him. Tending to an entire academy and Radu.”
“He’s fascinating.” I watched our professor walk into a stone column and bounce off it, arms too full to gesticulate wildly at the inanimate object. “I wonder how on earth he managed to get a position here.”
Thomas turned his attention back to me. “His family has always been involved with the castle. Generations back, from what I recall. The academy keeps him on because it’s tradition and they believe the locals enjoy knowing one of their rank can climb the social rungs.”
I knitted my brows. “But if that’s true… then his family has been doing this for hundreds of years. The academy hasn’t been around that long.”