House of Bathory(127)
Morgan’s clammy skin and distant stare betrayed symptoms of shock.
A gurgle rattled in the Count’s throat. Betsy turned.
“You are the last of the true line, Dr. Elizabeth Path,” said the Count, his voice hollow and rasping. He was on his knees on the stone floor. “The Countess’s daughter, whom Gabor tracked down in Transylvania. She was your ancestor. They planned to raise her together, he and the Countess, to be their legacy. The most deadly of us all.”
“You are insane,” muttered Betsy.
The Count watched his blood pool. He appeared not to hear her.
“After the Countess’s death, after Gabor’s death, destiny turned. The girl was forgotten, except for her Bathory name. Your father knew—”
The Count’s breath was ragged.
“Your father betrayed us all,” he said.
“My…father?” Betsy shot a look at her mother, tied and gagged. She needed to untie her, but she was suddenly too tired to move.
Instead her fingers fumbled with the zipper of her back pocket. She pulled out the ledger.
“What did my father have to do with this?” said Betsy, scrambling to her feet.
“Ah!” gasped the Count. “So he did find it after all.”
“What is this?” said Betsy, shaking the small book at him. “What does it have to do with my father?”
“My dear. That is why I had to kill him.”
Grace twisted hard in the chair, her feet thumping the stone floor. Her eyes were wide and white. She shook her head violently.
Betsy stared back at the Count. She zipped the book back into her pocket, her hands moving mechanically.
“You? You killed my father?”
Betsy could hear the thud of her mother’s shoes, her heels beating against the stone. A warning.
But the mention of her father pulled Betsy toward the man crouched on the floor.
“What are you talk—”
The Count snatched her ankle and brought her down. Morgan’s switchblade was in his hand.
Betsy struggled and kicked at the knife. “No, this isn’t for you,” he cried, surging to his feet. The knife clattered to the floor. “Bathorys die encased in stone, for eternity.”
With the strength of a lunatic, he dragged her by the leg toward the shadows of the room. A large opening loomed black in the corner. She felt the cold air, heard rushing water in the darkness below.
“This is how a true Bathory dies,” said the Count, rolling her off the edge. “Buried in the rock.”
John heard Daisy’s voice in the corridor below. He pushed past the butler, Whitehall, and the police officers, clattering down the stairs.
“Daisy! Where are you?”
“Down here!” she screamed. “Help us!”
Her voice trailed off. She had returned to the dungeon.
Daisy saw that Morgan was soaked in even more blood than before. Her hands were slick and crimson, her face splattered.
And the Count had disappeared.
Morgan’s eyes had a haunted look.
“He’s gone,” was all she said. Then she was silent.
Daisy touched her sister’s cheek. She put her arms around Morgan, rocking her against her shoulder.
“It’s all right, Morgan, it’s all right. You saved me again. Let me take care of you.”
Morgan stared glassy-eyed past Daisy’s shoulder.
Just steps behind Daisy, John rushed in.
“Where’s Betsy? Is she here?”
Daisy stood up. “No! She was here, John. When I ran to unlock the door. She couldn’t have left—she—”
They stared at Morgan. She flicked her eyes at the dark opening in the corner of the dungeon.
“Oh, my God” John said, running.
John threw himself on his stomach at the edge of the precipice. A cold draft of air chilled his face.
“Betsy! Betsy!” he called.
All he heard was his own voice echoing back, and the rush of distant water.
From the corner of the room, John heard sobs. He twisted around to see two policemen cutting the ropes and setting Grace free.
“Oh, John,” she said, stumbling toward him. “My Betsy!”
Chapter 117
BATHORY CASTLE UNDERGROUND CAVES
HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA
DECEMBER 29, 2010
The icy-cold water was beginning to numb the searing pain in her shoulder, but Betsy knew her situation was life-threatening. She had landed on a rock and she could feel the jagged edge of her broken collarbone just beneath her skin. For a moment, she closed her eyes and relived the terror of her fall and the moments after, as she slid down the rocks and into the eddying pool of the underground spring—and then the horror of watching another falling body blot out the light far above her, the echoing screams filling the dark space and stopping abruptly as the body hit, head-first, skull splitting against the stone.