House of Bathory(113)
Chapter 99
BATHORY CASTLE DUNGEON
HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA
DECEMBER 28, 2010
Stand up,” said a woman’s voice.
Daisy slumped on the carpet, against the foot of the bed. She struggled to open her eyes, rubbing her arm where the man had inserted the needle.
“I said stand up!” cried a woman with fuchsia hair.
Daisy rolled to her knees. The woman grasped her forearm and yanked her to her feet. She plastered Daisy’s face with cold cream. With a towel, she removed the white makeup with quick, hard strokes.
“You must dress. Put on shift. Put on gown. No sleeping!”
The woman ripped off Daisy’s clothes. Daisy spun clumsily on her feet as her garments were stripped.
“You! Pay attention. Put on shift.”
“Who are you?” Daisy mumbled. “What’s a shift?”
“We no have time. Put on shift. Put on gown, stockings, shoes.”
Daisy stared at the woman, not comprehending. Ona pulled the shift over her head.
“Sit down,” said Ona. “Put on stockings.”
“Stockings?” said Daisy. “I don’t wear stockings.”
Daisy’s eye wandered to a table with fruit arranged on a platter.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“Good,” said Ona. “Put on stockings, you get food. Do not, and I will whip you.”
“Whip me?” said Daisy.
What the fuck?
Ona smiled, her lips stretching a cold thin line across her face.
“I am very good with whip. You shall see. You must dress quickly. Soon you will not be able, when drug begins.”
“OK, OK,” said Daisy. “Whatever. Give me the stockings.”
“Good,” said Ona. “When dressed, meet other girls.”
“Just put her in the corridor,” said a guard. “The Count will want her soon.”
A man supported Daisy by her elbow, steering her toward a barred door. She stumbled, the drug affecting her motor coordination.
He pushed her through the door, swung it closed, and locked it behind her.
“Make some friends,” he called, laughing.
Daisy, dressed in seventeenth-century garments, approached a barred cell in front of her. Her steps were unsteady. She pulled a red apple from her sleeve, looked at it with puzzlement, and handed it to the filthy prisoner’s grasping hands.
“Who are you?” asked Draska, biting savagely into the apple. She shook in spasms as she chewed her first food in days.
Daisy frowned, looking down at her white lace apron. She rubbed the starched linen between her fingertips, shaking her head.
Draska noticed a thin streak of white makeup at the girl’s jawline.
“I—” said Daisy. “I know a way out of here.”
“But you no have key,” said Draska. “How can I follow?”
Daisy stared at her blankly. She gave no reply.
“What is your name?”
“She will kill you if you show terror,” Daisy said. “She feeds on terror. And on blood.”
“Who? She?” said Draska, swallowing the last of the apple.
“Countess Bathory.”
“Count Bathory. Is man!” corrected Draska.
Daisy’s confused look warned Draska that something was not right with the strange girl with the dyed black hair.
Daisy shook her head and walked aimlessly to the next cell.
“How did you get out?” asked a British voice. “Or are you one of them?”
“Get help!” hissed another voice. “You are the girl from the nightclub! It’s me, Lubena. For God’s sake, help us!”
Daisy’s eyes studied the steel bars. She touched them gingerly with her fingertips. “They are different,” she muttered. “The cages—they have changed.”
“She is as crazy as the rest of them,” muttered the English girl, starting to cry. “Look at her eyes.”
Chapter 100
BATHORY CASTLE
HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA
DECEMBER 29, 2010
Go away, now!” commanded the guard. “It is past midnight. I am warning—”
“Stop!” cried the Count’s voice on the intercom. “I am sending a car to the gate to fetch my guest. Miss—?”
“Morgan.”
“Slecna Morgan, do you have a surname?”
“Morgan will do,” she snapped. “Do you have my sister in here?”
Silence. Morgan heard the ice crystals pelt the window of the guardhouse, rattling the glass.
“Perhaps you should come and see for yourself, my dear,” he said at last.
“Run,” whispered the guard, his hot breath in her ear. “Run away while you still can. You don’t know—”
A black limousine appeared, its tires crunching the icy crust. Big wet flakes of snow were illuminated in the headlights.