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BRAN CASTLE
4 DECEMBER 1888
Dragonlike flames roared against the cage of the fireplace in the small sitting room of my empty dormitory.
I watched them, half mesmerized, as my medical tome pressed into my legs, nearly making them prickle with numbness. Our part of Romania had dragons everywhere I looked. The sconces throughout the castle. Tapestries in the corridors. Sculptures in the village and insignias on carriages. I knew “Dracul” translated to dragon and assumed the designs were simply an homage to two fearsome leaders, Vlad II and Vlad III.
I made a mental note to ask Professor Radu if it also had anything to do with the mysterious Order of the Dragon. Perhaps the dragons held clues. To what I wasn’t sure, but it seemed a good lead to investigate. Maybe the Order was behind Wilhelm’s death. Perhaps it was targeting members of nobility or families who no longer upheld their Christian values.
I sighed. That was quite a stretch. I didn’t know if the Order was even still in existence. Maybe it was nothing more than peasant rumors and tales told to keep people behaving long after their beloved yet brutal prince had lost his head to the Turks.
I shifted my legs, hoping to regain some feeling in my toes. My mortuary-practices book was the size of a large house cat but was far less pleasant company. It neither purred nor issued a disdainful invitation to pet behind its ears. Instead it offered information and pictures I’d found disturbing.
Diagrams were done in black-and-white, showing exactly how to remove blood from the body as well as sew the mouth shut—requiring a ligature from
the chin through the gums and septum—for funeral purposes. One sketch even advised the use of petroleum jelly to keep eyelids from opening.
Grieving family members would probably collapse at the sight of their loved ones’ eyes or jaws snapping open as the priest delivered them from death to heaven. I wouldn’t particularly care to witness such a thing myself. A dried-out tongue would be quite ghastly, a dark slug left sitting for hours in a desert sun. It was better left to the imagination.
I’d seen enough corpses in Uncle’s laboratory to know well enough that most people would rather be spared such images, especially when it came to those they loved. I stopped lingering on thoughts of ones I’d lost, flipping to the next chapter of the book. The pages were thick and rough around the edges. It was a beautiful tome, despite its subject matter.
Unbidden, I imagined Thomas sitting with me, pointing out details most would never take note of as we studied these volumes. Though I’d permitted myself a few stolen glances, I had avoided him during both Radu’s folklore lesson and Moldoveanu’s anatomy exercise. He hadn’t appeared well in either class. Shutting out that line of thought, I refocused on my book. I wasn’t as familiar with mortuary practices as I was with postmortems, so I’d borrowed the volume from one of the libraries on my way up to my rooms after class.
According to undertakers, inserting a cannula—a long tube—into the carotid artery and then forcing liquids out by means of gravity was the best method of removing blood and other bodily fluids.
Morticians then moved fluids by massaging their way from the deceased’s feet toward their unbeating hearts. Which seemed an awful lot of work for someone to have accomplished while people were walking about busy afternoon streets in Brasov. I wagered there would have been a great amount of disturbance in the snow around Wilhelm’s body. Surely some fluids or blood would have splattered onto the ground. His body had to have been moved after the blood extraction. There was simply no other way for him to have gone through all that where he’d been found. I still very much believed that house with the unlatched shutter might hold clues.
I was becoming more convinced that a mortuary apparatus was the method used to drain his blood; however, it did not answer the question of how he died. If he’d been murdered, he’d have some sort of outward wound. Strangulation would have obvious signs—petechial hemorrhaging present in the whites of his eyes, discoloration around his neck. His body was free from all that. Except for the supposed bite marks, I couldn’t recall any concrete evidence that showed he’d been killed.
I doubted he would have stood by idly and allowed someone to drain his blood without a fight, so the “bite marks” likely weren’t the cause of his death. It didn’t seem out of the question to believe he could have been slipped opiates. Perhaps that sort of toxin would have caused his rash.
As my mind wandered back over the strangeness of my classmate’s bloodless body, my heart demanded that Thomas come and discuss this with me immediately. I told my heart to forget its plea. I would solve this mystery on my own. Even though I knew I was capable of accomplishing this task, I couldn’t deny the emptiness that lingered in the space around me. Daciana was traveling around the Continent already, and Anastasia was unable to come to my rooms because of a book she was studying. She claimed it might help with Wilhelm’s case. Ileana was busy with her tasks and I refused to put her position in jeopardy because I was lonely.
Where are you when I need you, Cousin?
I was still awaiting a return letter from Liza, hoping she might offer some much-needed advice on the matter between Thomas and myself. Romance was to her what forensics were to me, and I wished she could be here now to help me navigate this storm of emotion.
I despised being so distracted during a crucial time. No matter how often I commanded my brain to formulate scientific theories, it stubbornly pushed itself back to Thomas and the unrest I felt. I needed to resolve the situation, if only so I could concentrate. I sighed, knowing that wasn’t the exact truth of why I wanted to address the issue. I missed him. Even when I longed to strangle him. I didn’t care for this one bit, but it was far preferable to the other invasive thoughts I’d been having.
As if waiting to be summoned, memories of the Ripper’s most heinous murder assaulted my senses. The way Miss Mary Jane Kelly’s body had been torn apart… I stopped myself right there.
I closed the book and headed to my bed. Tomorrow I’d rise and begin fresh. Tomorrow I’d deal with the aftermath of our fight. For now, I’d tend to my own wounds. Thomas was correct about one thing: I needed to heal myself before I could address anything or anyone else.
I turned down the covers, about to slip into their warmth, when a knock sounded at my door. My breath caught. If Mr. Thomas Ridiculous Cresswell were calling at this indecent hour, especially after his reprehensible behavior…
Heart traitorously fluttering, I flung the door open, admonishments perishing on my tongue. “Oh! You’re not at all who I thought you’d be.”
Anastasia was dressed in solid black and there was a devilish slant upon her lips. “Who, pray tell, did you assume would be here at this hour?” She grabbed my hands and swung us around in a clumsy waltz. “Certainly not the dashing Mr. Cresswell… hmm? The intrigue! The scandal! I must admit, I’m envious of your secret life.”
“Anastasia, be serious! It’s nearly ten at night!” My accompanying smile did me no favors. “What on earth are you doing out of bed?” I took in her ensemble again, recalling a time when I, too, dressed in a mourning gown. “Actually, it seems I ought to be asking where you’re planning on sneaking off to instead?”
“We are about to investigate the scene of Wilhelm’s death.” She skipped into my bedchamber and removed a few dark pieces of clothing from my trunk. “Hurry. The moon is full and the sky is mostly clear. We have to get to Brasov tonight. Uncle told me he’s called for royal guards; they’ll be arriving tomorrow and will make sneaking about difficult.” She glanced at me over her shoulder. “You are still interested in searching that house, correct?”
“Of course I am.” I nodded, trying not to consider the creatures in the woods. Monsters were only as real as our imaginations. And mine was intent on populating the world with the supernatural. “Shouldn’t we wait until daylight? Wolves might be out hunting.”
Anastasia snorted. “Professor Radu is simply filling your head with worries. However, if you’re too afraid…” She allowed the taunt and challenge to hang between us. I shook my head, and her eyes lit with pride. “Extraordinar!” She tossed the dark clothing to me. “If we’re lucky, perhaps we’ll run into the immortal prince. A midnight stroll with the enchanting Dracula sounds delightful.”
“Delightfully morbid, you mean.” I slipped into my black dress and fastened a matching fur-trimmed cloak about my shoulders. Before we left, I snatched a hat pin from my dresser and stuck it in my hair. Anastasia smiled at me, bemused, but didn’t inquire about it. Which was good. I didn’t wish to say so aloud, but I certainly hoped we would not run into anyone who thirsted for our blood.
