House of Bathory(25)

Luis dug a house key out of his front pocket as they started up the walk. But as they approached the house, Ringo gave a low growl. Luis grabbed his muzzle, silencing him.

Daisy saw movement in the office window, beyond the aspen trees. She put a hand on Luis’s arm. “Someone’s in there!”

Luis’s body turned stone hard. He pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and snapped it open.

“You wait here and hold the dog.”

“The hell I will. I’m coming.”

They crept closer to the window.

A man in black stood hunched over Betsy’s desk.

“What’s he doing?” said Luis.

Daisy squinted in the darkness.

“He’s going through her papers,” said Daisy.

Ringo growled again. Luis tried to hold his muzzle, but the dog tore away and began to bark frantically. He leapt at the window, snarling.

Luis raced to the door, struggling with the key in the lock, leaving Daisy with the dog, which lunged at the glass, still barking.

The intruder looked up at the snarling dog. His eyes were the palest blue, the shade of a washed-out sky. His skin was ashen, with a bluish cast—the color of dead flesh.

He looked straight into Daisy’s eyes, as if he could see her perfectly in the darkness. And then he smiled.

She screamed so loud all Main Street heard her.





Chapter 13

DAISY HART’S JOURNAL

ASPEN, COLORADO

DECEMBER 6, 2010





After I saw the burglar, I was so freaked out all I wanted to do was talk to Betsy.

But she isn’t here. When I need her most. When she needs me the most, damn it! I got an eerie sense. Someone is out to hurt her bad.

That dude rifling through her drawers had looned-out blue eyes, the color of glacial lakes. A sinister blue. He was looking for something—I bet it wasn’t money.

I’m doing some research, trying to get a fix on Dr. Betsy, where she is taking me with all this journaling. I’ve been Googling Jung. He is wicked intense—like he was surfing the darkness when they were just inventing cars and stuff.

But I totally get it. I’m thinking of starting a blog, especially for Goths. Dreams, especially.

Ever since I started with Betsy, my dreams have become more…disturbing. I used to remember just bits of a night’s dream, weird fragments—a checkered tile floor or stones in the battlement of a castle. Red shoes.

Now the dreams are intense. The colors scream, and every detail sizzles.

There is one dream I will not share with anybody.

I dream of blood. Vats of blood. Human blood. A woman made of white marble slides into a shiny brass tub with wide bands of copper. A tub of blood.

Her body submerges shoulder deep and she sighs with satisfaction. Ahhh! she says. Ahhhhh!

Like she was in a freaking bubble bath.

She cups her hands and splashes her stony face, the red liquid clotting in her cuticles, coloring her fingertips.

It is so freaking Goth, but it totally creeps me out. I wake up bolt upright in bed, screaming my head off.

My mother runs in, shouting, “Wake up, darling, wake up!”

But I can’t forget the last image in the dream: the rock woman smiling, slowly gliding down into the bath until she submerges completely, disappearing into the blood.





Chapter 14

SOMEWHERE IN SLOVAKIA

DECEMBER 7, 2010





Grace felt a cold draft from an open door and heard the hollow echo of footsteps. Blinded by the hood, she focused her other senses and her wits. The echoing footsteps. The cold draft, despite the warm fire she could feel and hear crackling somewhere nearby. She must be in a large building—too cavernous to heat effectively. There was a smell, musty and rich—and cold. Beeswax, cedar, the tangy odor of ancient carpets and mildewing tapestries, damp from the humidity of constant rains. The scents of a castle.

“Are you ready to talk now, Dr. Path?” asked a man in fluent, if accented, English. Someone drew off the hood, making her gray hair stand on end.

She looked around the room. Three emaciated women stood, staring at her, their eyes sunk deep into their sockets. They looked pathetically unhealthy—starving and pallid.

She blinked, trying to focus her eyes. The women were wearing white face paint. There was a hunger in their eyes—starving beasts watching something to feast upon.

She turned to the speaker—and recoiled in surprise. It was the man who had bought her champagne for no apparent reason in Piestany an hour before she was kidnapped. The stranger, a tall man with white hair, had skin as pale as a corpse, except for his purplish lips.

“Why am I here? What do you want from me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I only want to meet your daughter,” said the man, folding his hands in front of him. “I believe she has something that rightfully belongs to me.”