House of Bathory(86)
“No, he had a distinct Hungarian accent. He asked if I know the whereabouts of Dr. Path, that he was a research associate from Budapest. I told him I had never heard of the lady but would he like to leave a note for her in case she should come to the spa or restaurant.”
“He smiled at me. A smile that chilled my bones. ‘No message,’ he said. ‘I will find her.’”
John was digging for the rental car key in his pocket when Betsy’s phone rang.
“It’s Daisy,” she said.
“That’s all you need,” said John, looking back across the parking lot to the illuminated entrance of the Hotel Thermia Spa and Restaurant. Snow blew, intermittently obscuring the building.
“Get in the car,” said John. “I’ll start the heater up.”
Betsy listened in horror as Daisy told her about the stranger and being locked in the tower, how the room had been ransacked, but the ledger was safe.
“Daisy!” said Betsy, her words rushing. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Just dirty and banged up from climbing. You got my e-mail, right? I was cold, like totally shivering. But the hot shower helped a little.”
“You were probably in shock.”
“I’m OK.”
“Can’t you—could you promise me to stay in the hotel until we get back?”
“And when is that? I can’t just sit in a hotel room rotting away. And I want to catch that dick who locked me out on the tower.”
“NO!”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean—”
John grabbed the phone from Betsy.
“Daisy, you are going to have to believe Betsy. The strange old man who tried to trap you is a lunatic—and deadly.”
“Well, he is not going to keep me locked in a bedroom in Bratislava for days. He is just an old looney-tunes with pearly whites. Besides—I can go without my Goth makeup, put my hair in a hat, no one will—”
“What did you say he looked like?”
“He’s an old guy with a cape, white hair.”
“Did he have a cane? A silver-tipped cane?”
“Yeah! How did you know?”
“Just stay inside the hotel, Daisy. That ‘old guy’ could be more dangerous than you can imagine.”
Chapter 72
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 26, 1610
Janos was racked by a high fever. Convulsions shook his body. He lay delirious as the fever consumed his body, seized his mind.
“Oh, Janos,” murmured Zuzana into his ear. Erno Kovach had sent for her in the dead of night, thinking a woman’s touch might heal. After all, it had been Zuzana who had run for help, begging Guard Kovach to send a wagon to bring the delirious horsemaster back to the castle.
Zuzana sat beside Janos’s barrack cot all night. She rinsed her linen rag in a bucket of icy water, mopping his sweating forehead. Her hands were red with the cold.
“I told you that the river mists would freeze your blood and make you sick,” she whispered. “But you had to listen to the voices.”
She got the stable boys to help her and together they carried Janos to the barrack’s kitchen. Despite the burning heat of his fever, she knew he needed the warmth of the fire to fight the river chill that had attacked him.
Janos groaned, writhing on the straw pallet by the fire. His fists clenched and unclenched. Then he roared, throwing his head back against the rag-stuffed pillow, as if wrestling an invisible demon.
“Stand back, Slecna! He has the river devils within him,” said the cook, pulling her away. “The spirits come out at night in the mists, preying on the soul of a good man. Sure as do the witches.”
“I will not stand back,” Zuzana said, shaking the cook’s hand off her arm. She wet her towel and mopped again at Janos’s sweating brow, as he heaved ragged breaths. “He is my childhood friend!”
The cook grumbled and cursed but went back to his iron cauldron. He watched from the corner of his eye as the young woman with the poxed face soothed the delirious man.
Maybe the demons will leave her be, frightened by her pitted face, he thought. Anyone as ugly as that has no fear of witches.
An hour later, he handed her an earthen bowl filled with meat broth to spoon-feed her patient. Zuzana nodded her head at his kindness.
“You are indeed a good friend of the horsemaster,” said the cook.
She did not seem as homely as before. The light of the fire played a strange trick, coloring her face rosy and glowing.
It is her soul that shines through, thought the cook. He chastised himself for his earlier judgment.
“The horsemaster is blessed to have you at his side,” said the cook. “And I am an old fool.”