“Who? Who did this?”
“I don’t know. There were three men. Two digging and one watching. They spoke this really weird language. I don’t know what it was—”
“You called the police?”
“Yes, right away.”
Betsy raked her fingers through her hair. “This is my cell phone number. If you hear anything, rumors, anything—”
“I’ll call immediately. Absolutely.”
“And…thank you, Daisy. Thank you.”
Betsy hung up the phone. She dialed John’s room. “Please come over, something’s happened.”
Then she whispered, “I need you.”
Chapter 47
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 23, 1610
If she had a headache,” whispered Zuzana, walking beside Janos in the dark hall, “it could be a symptom of the falling disease. Of course she had to excuse herself. Within minutes she might fall into a fit.”
“The falling disease?” said Janos.
Zuzana nodded. “It is a trait of the Bathory family. Something must have upset her deeply to bring it on. She has not suffered an episode in several years. The servants who accompanied her from Ecsed to Sarvar said it was much worse when she was younger. The Countess had frequent tantrums and fits when she was a young child—kicking, biting her tongue, her eyes rolling up into her head.”
“There is evil in her blood,” said Janos. “Evil in the Bathory blood.”
Zuzana nodded. “Her nephew Gabor…”
“The Nero of Transylvania?” said Janos, his eyes narrowing in disgust.
“Yes, so you have heard the rumors at Sarvar Castle. Not one but two children conceived with his own sister, Anna. He is obsessed with the Bathory bloodline.”
“Pah! The Bathory blood!” snorted Janos. “The siblings both should be congratulated on keeping the stock utterly pure.”
“The Countess’s mad aunt, Klara, practiced the black arts and sought lovers in the streets and alleys of Vienna. Woman or man, rich or poor, it made no difference. She had hundreds of lovers. But her fate was dark—she was raped by an entire garrison of Turks, and then smothered with a pillow.”
“Good riddance.”
Zuzana looked over her shoulder. “One more,” she whispered. “The Countess boasts of an ancestor from two hundred years ago. Vlad the Impaler.”
Janos narrowed his eyes. “The Impaler?”
Zuzana nodded. “The Countess is quite proud of him. She calls him the bloody defender of Transylvania. They say he impaled his enemies on spikes, to terrify the Ottomans, his enemies, and any of his servants who displeased him. A spike piercing their buttocks, emerging through the head.”
“Why would she be proud of such an ancestor?”
Zuzana shook her head.
Janos rubbed his hands together, stroking the side of his left hand with his right thumb. “It is uncanny how Countess Bathory emulates her ancestor,” he mused.
Zuzana focused on a milky scar at the root of his little finger.
“My father told me the family has been mad for centuries,” she said. “Az alma nem esik messze a fájától.”
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Chapter 48
HOTEL ARCADIA
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA
DECEMBER 23, 2010
Betsy and John filed a report with the police in Bratislava and contacted the American Embassy one more time before it closed for the Christmas holiday. But after that, they were too tired to do anything more than to go back to the hotel. They sat in her room, both a little dazed.
“I’m too exhausted even to sleep,” Betsy said.
“I hear you,” John said yawning. “Try to read a bit. I bet you’ll nod off.”
“Might as well check my e-mail,” she said, grateful for the hotel internet access. She opened her computer and let it whir into consciousness.
She checked her e-mail. Nothing new. Then she Googled Daisy’s blog.
After a while, John came and looked over her shoulder. “Does she talk about analysis on the blog?” he asked.
“It’s weird,” Betsy said. “It’s as if she was doing her own self-analysis…using The Red Book illustrations as a stimulus.”
“Kind of like you would do.”
“I have never used The Red Book with any of my patients. Why would I?”
“Seems like one of your intuitive methods, that’s all,” said John shrugging. “Don’t get all defensive. It sounded ingenious.”
Her back stiffened. “What do you mean ‘defensive’?”
“I just meant that you were always searching for innovative—unique?—ways to reach your patients. I meant it as a compliment.”