(I)
“A nun, huh?” Vernon questioned.
Did Professor Fredrick smile? “Oh, yes, but to understand her role, you must understand Vlad’s conception of the Order of the Dragon. The only reason he wore the Order’s colors was to appease the Holy Roman Emperor, who— after Vlad’s repeated victories over the Turks—promised additional troops to reinforce Vlad’s depleting ranks. But it was a false promise. No reinforcements were ever dispatched, and Vlad suffered a catastrophic defeat just south of Bucharest. His army was all but wiped out.”
The ultimate screwjob, Vernon thought.
“Hence,” Fredrick continued, eyes closed again, “Vlad felt so betrayed by the emperor and the pope that he maintained the pretense that he was still a knight of the Order while secretly despising what the Order stood for.”
“Catholic doctrine?” Vernon guessed.
“Exactly. Like the late Templars who continued to wear the cross but engaged in atrocity, sexual abandon, and— some say—Satanism. Now here’s where history becomes besmirched by myth. Vlad had two legal wives, though he had little to do with them—his true love was a concubine and prostitute named Kanesae, who was quite diabolical in her own way. Vlad was so incensed by the emperor’s betrayal that he supposedly cursed God so vehemently that God condemned him. This is where Kanesae comes in; not only did she urge Vlad to become a heretic, she would assist him. Vlad would have her masquerade as a nun and actually commit sacrifices in the devil’s name. She would recruit other prostitutes to help her, and they would impale Christian women of childbearing age. There were rumors of rituals as well.”
“When does the vampire angle come in?” Vernon was curious.
“At the same time, toward the end of Vlad’s life. The favorite legend is that Vlad became a vampire by being bitten by one, but one of the older explanations from codices of Orthodox Romania claim nothing of the sort. It implies that on the night Vlad cursed God, he was visited by the subcarnate spirit of the succubus, who came bearing the blood of Lucifer himself. Vlad consumed the blood and then became the prince of the undead. The codices also bear out that the succubus was Kanesae. She was actually sent to Vlad, to do the dev il’s bidding.”
“A succubus masquerading as a nun.” Vernon tried to get it straight.
“Whose duty was to assist Vlad in becoming one of the most evil men in history.” Fredrick picked up the boxed figurine again. “Which brings me to this.”
“A vampire nun,” Vernon said.
“Um-hmm. Quite like Kanesae, especially when you consider the object in her hands.”
“Oh, the bowl with the three gems in it,” Vernon remarked.
Fredrick grimly appraised Vernon. “That’s not a mere bowl…”
(II)
Cristina didn’t ask the men about the bowl. Britt’s right. Don’t bring it up, and don’t mention the decanter. It made sense but she was curious. She wondered if they’d gotten the gemmed bowl appraised yet.
She could hear the others downstairs, laughing, digging into the fancy pizzas. Cristina had said she’d join them after doing a little more studio work but this was a lie. I need to get my head straight, she told herself at her desk. It was the decanter that bothered her most of all…
There’s no way I knew about it before it appeared in the dream—Another message appeared on her answering machine: Bruno again, but not to rave about preorders this time. His voice sounded strange. “Cristina, dear. I just received a peculiar call—regarding you. Call me as soon as you can.” But Cristina only sighed. I’ll call him tomorrow. Don’t feel like dealing with it now.
She opened the drawer, wincing right off at the macabre dog skull. Why would anyone do that? Then she reached past it and withdrew the decanter.
Dusk seemed to slip into the room as she looked at the odd object. Was it really wine? She held it up to the light, to discern some writing on it.
KANESAE, ENAMOURER OF WLAD, CNIHT OF DRWGLYA
Drwglya, she tried to pronounce the word in her head. Sounds like Dracula …The first word, though, disturbed her more.
Kanesae. Did I hear that word in a dream, too?
She turned quickly at the sound of a hiss. Was it just the air-conditioning blowing against the drapes? She revolved on her chair, then found herself staring into an open closet.
Her mouth slowly drooped as the darkness within seemed to form an outline—a figure.
An angled shape like a woman in a nun’s habit.
“Cristina!” Paul called out. “You better get down here before the pizza’s gone!”
The closet, of course, was empty. Just my screwed up imagination again, she knew. “Coming!”
She checked the closet more closely, then put the decanter away and headed downstairs.
(III)
“If it’s not a bowl, then what is it?” Vernon asked.
“It’s a relic, very rare, and only referred to in the codices I previously mentioned,” Fredrick said. Now he seemed puzzled and intrigued simultaneously. “Which is the oddest part of all. Very little has ever been written of this particular angle of the legend. It’s all the Bram Stoker stuff these days, which were just hearsay exaggerations from Romanian monks who’d fled to England during one of Vlad’s religious scourges. But the myth I’m referring to? It’s never even been translated into English.”
I’m losing him again, Vernon realized. “You mean this Kanesae woman, and this thing that looks like a bowl?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Then how do you know about it?”
“Because I read the actual codices myself, after I’d recovered from my injuries during the earthquake. My point is, their contents is hardly common knowledge, Inspector. They’re archived in a convent in the town of Dobruja.”
“In other words, it’s not like these texts are available at the public library,” Vernon speculated.
“Heavens no,” Fredrick replied. He kept eyeing the sinister figurine. “That’s why this is so surprising.”
Vernon tried to contain a rising aggravation. “I don’t understand, sir. The bowl is what’s so surprising?”
“Yes, yes, but not a bowl—it’s a chalice, or I should say the representation of a very evil relic mentioned all too rarely in the Romanian registries. It’s supposed to be the chalice that Vlad drank Lucifer’s blood from—a perversion of Christ’s Communion to the Apostles. Just as Christ gave his blood to the faithful, so did the Devil. The bowl was said to be the skullcap of Adam, set into clay from the Tigris River; hence, its talismanic power. And it was Kanesae—the subcarnate—who came to Vlad bearing the chalice.”
“Subcarnate?” Vernon queried.
“A demonic incarnation only half-flesh—only able to become palpable at night, and it was this entity, Kanesae, who then brought Adam’s skull as a mock chalice, filled to the brim with the blood of Lucifer himself. Just as God had abandoned Vlad on the battlefield, Vlad would abandon God in his heart…and he drank the blood. He sold his soul to become undead.” Now a partial grin came to the old man’s lips. “At least that’s how this version of the legend goes. Now, of course, you’re wondering how so many relative similarities can be not only found on your crime scenes, but who exactly is the person who designed this doll? How did he become privy to such obscure legend?”
“Not he, she,” Vernon said. “One of my investigators is trying to locate her through the manufacturer’s data on the box.”
Fredrick steepled his old fingers. “Would this woman be Romanian?”
Vernon shrugged. “I have no idea, sir. But a toy dealer did tell me she lived nearby.”
The old man paused. “This just gets stranger and stranger, doesn’t it? Ultimately, then, what do we have as far as you’re concerned? We have homicide evidence as well as an unrelated doll, which both reflect details of this myth.”
“A myth that almost no one knows about,” Vernon added. “But I wouldn’t even say the doll is ‘unrelated.’ I found another doll by the same designer at the first impalement.”
Fredrick sat through a timely pause. “It seems that your perpetrators are pulling an exceedingly well-researched series of copycat killings, and at the same time this bizarre doll seems equally well researched. They’re creating symbols that the boyar registries say will signal the resurrection of Vlad Dracula.”
Vernon felt thrown for a loop. “Pardon me?”
Fredrick eyed him, then winked. “Here’s how it works, if you believe the legend, and I’ll reiterate for clarity. Since 1476, Kanesae, as a subcarnate vampire, has been prowling the earth, protecting Vlad’s secret. What’s the secret? No one knows exactly, but we do know bits and pieces. It is said that upon the thirteenth lifetime of Vlad, Kanesae will initiate a series of sacrifices—your murder victims, for example. This will prime the rite of resurrection that Vlad orchestrated on the day of his death, and when this has fully occurred, Kanesae will bestow Vlad’s blood—secreted so long ago in a clay flagon—”
“A what?” Vernon frowned.
“A flagon—it’s like a flask, a decanter. A vessel for liquid. And Kanesae will bestow the blood upon a worthy successor. This blood—partly the Devil’s blood, remember—will revive Vlad’s spirit in the body of the heir. Then Vlad will walk the earth again in a new body, with Kanesae at his side, to resume his reign of vampirism and atrocity upon mankind.” Fredrick chuckled minutely. “That’s—like I said—if you believe the legend….”
Vernon winced. “How did his blood get in this flagon?”
Fredrick labored to rise, got a book off one of his shelves, and photocopied a single page. “For your interest, here’s a xerox of the only portrait ever produced of Kanesae, the mistress of Dracula.”
Vernon looked captivated at the reproduction of a crude wood-block print. One corner read NURNBORG 1498, the other: KANESAE, ENAMOURER OF WLAD, CNIHT OF DRWGLYA. I’m not liking this, Vernon thought. In the print’s center stood a fanged nun suspiciously similar to Cristina Nichols’s figurine. The likeness proffered a bowl with three small circles on it.
Not a bowl, Vernon reminded himself. A chalice.
A headless man lay on a stone slab in the background and at its base rested what appeared to be the severed head of a dog. Further off a crude castle could be seen, but surrounding the entire scene were dozens of impalement victims.
“What’s with the dog’s head?”
The old man sat back down. “Vlad’s body was said to be decapitated when it was discovered by a monk near Snagov Monastery but when the grave was dug up the bones of a headless dog were found instead. Vlad’s actual body was probably cremated nearby or dumped in Lake Snagov.” The professor pointed to the print. “And you’ll note the flagon containing Vlad’s blood.”
Vernon caught the detail: the modest carafelike vessel sitting beside the slab. “And the guy on the slab is Vlad?”
“Yes. His head was probably traded by the monks to Turkish soldiers in exchange for protection. The sultan of the Ottoman Empire—Mehmed II—had quite a bounty on that head. He needed to prove to his people that the dreaded Vlad the Impaler was dead.”
“So the monks who found the body cut off his head?”
“More than likely, and the reports that Vlad had been assassinated or killed in battle were invention.”
More confusion. “So the monks really killed him?”
“No, no. Vlad was already dead when the body was found. According to the legend, it was Kanesae who killed him. She bled him to death on the slab. She cut his throat.”
“So she put his blood in the flagon.” Vernon finally got it.
Fredrick nodded. “But to make things even more complicated, Vlad whispered a secret to Kanesae, with his last breath.”
Terrific. The block-print made Vernon’s eyes hurt. “Earlier, you said the legend tells of an orchestration, some supernatural strategy that would resurrect Vlad’s spirit after his thirteenth lifetime.”
“That’s right.”
“When is that?”
Fredrick leaned back again, obviously fatigued. “Well, since you asked…It’s right about now.”
(IV)
Please, no, she pleads but she knows that most of her means yes. The phantom faceless women stroke her glistening body as the all-but-nude nun holds the gemmed bowl. “Tara flaesc Wallkya.” The words crawl around the stone-lined undercroft. The colors, like vertical snakes of light, squirm and churn, and their movement seems to escalate as her passions rise.
“Serveste pe domnul!” The words fly batlike out of the dark while hot hands and mouths press more closely. A sound echoes amid the chamber: a barking dog …
She convulses as her orgasm quakes. Delighted squeals rise. Through slit eyes she sees the nun’s grin, the pink tongue tip between narrow fangs, and behind the churning light, she sees the stone slab and the decanter but this time no sign of the man in leather boots and strange armor. A streak of blood stains the stone where the neck would be.
“It’s time, it’s time!” voices chatter.
“Look!” And a finger points.
She rises, not knowing why, and suddenly she’s somewhere else. When she turns to look back at the nun and her wanton suitors, she only sees tiny white fangs—four sets of them— dissolve away in the dark.
Now she’s standing in a dense forest. It seems that between every tree is a tall wooden pole on which someone has been impaled, some through their hearts, some through their groins, some upside-down through their mouths. Some of the bodies are rotten, yet others still twitch with life, and the sound of moans fills the forest like the wind.
She walks naked between trees and pikes, moonlight shivering through the branches. Then she hears—
thwack! thwack! thwack!
—and in the moonlit drear she sees a monk wielding a sword, cutting the head off of a prone body. He grabs the head by its mane of dark hair—a man’s head, with a great black mustache—and he hands it to some men in turbans and long-handled axes. The men walk off in the other direction, steely-eyed, solemn-faced.
The monk looks up, looks directly at her.
She wants to scream but then realizes that the cloaked man doesn’t see her. He stoops and begins to drag the headless corpse toward the edge of a vast lake beyond which looms a walled monastery, and then she blinks—
—and—
“Kanesae!”
—she’s back in the dank undercroft, hypnotized by the churning black, green, and red light, and three wan faces hover above her as her body spasms and their grins fill with fangs, and then the faces plummet with glee and she can feel those long, narrow needle teeth sink into her neck, and the nun, now in her black habit and white wimple, says, “Blessed one, the wonder is nearly upon us but before you rejoice, you must take that accursed seal and break it to pieces,” and the words grow dimmer and dimmer as her blood is sucked and sucked and she prays, It’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s just a dream!
Cristina stood tensed, on tiptoes, as if about to fall from a highwire. Just a dream, just a—Her hands felt desperately at her throat where she was sure she could feel a raging, raw pain.
But there was nothing. No wounds. No blood.
Just a dream, came the allaying thought. Just that damn nightmare again.
She expected to find herself in the bedroom, but—
Oh my God …
She was in the basement. She crept up the steps, peeked around. Stillness. Dark. The mantel clock read just past midnight. Everyone must be asleep …Just to make sure, she put one eye to the gap in the bedroom door and saw Paul fast asleep. An ear to the guest room door revealed Britt and Jess moaning in unison. Good. No one’ll know.
Her nightgown felt drenched, strings of her blonde hair slicked to her face by sweat. I’m losing it, she thought. Britt’ll want to check me into a hospital…and I guess that’s what I should do.
Only then did she realize that she had something rough in her hand…
Several flat chunks of cement. She put them on the kitchen table, like puzzle pieces. What did I do?
It didn’t take long to recompose the strange seal that had been imprinted in the cement patch downstairs. She’d obviously fractured it with a hammer. Reassembled, she could barely make out the dragon strangled by its own tail, and the words O QUAM MAGNIFICUM, O DOMNUL.
Cristina dropped the pieces in the garbage…
(V)
“And you said Vlad was forty-five when he died?” Vernon asked.
“That’s right,” Fredrick affirmed.
“And this…reincarnation is supposed to occur after this thirteenth lifetime?”
The professor smiled. “Noting an irregularity, hmm? You must be a math whiz.”
Vernon had been, but that was a long time ago. He took out his cell phone and turned on the calculator function, fumbling with the tiny keys. “I knew that sounded a bit off. Thirteen times forty-five is two thousand sixty-six, Professor. That’s a ways off.” Vernon looked at him. Is this old guy pulling my chain? “Why did you tell me the time was now?”
Fredrick smiled like a wise grandfather. “You’re correct, thirteen times forty-five is indeed two thousand sixty-six…but not on the Diocletian calendar.”
“Huh?”
“That was the calendar used in Orthodox Romania back then. They’d always rejected the Julian calendar, and they didn’t accept the Gregorian calendar either, because of Pope Gregory’s use of mathematics by the astronomer Charles Rommes. Rommes was not just an astronomer but also, allegedly, an astrologer, which was considered sorcery by the Orthodox. Hence, many Eastern European states used their own pre-Gregorian calendar based on Diocletian—the first Roman emperor to ease persecution of Christians and also because he conquered Persia in the 300’s. Remember, Turkey—part of what was known as Persia—was Christianity’s greatest enemy eleven hundred years later in Vlad’s time.”
“Jesus,” Vernon muttered. “The Diocletian calendar. I knew you’d have an answer.”
Fredrick nodded. “So, based on that calendar, the thirteenth lifetime of Vlad is right around now. It seems your ritual murderers are apprised of this, and that’s why these crimes have occurred.”
“Because they think that Vlad’s spirit will be reborn,” Vernon said, more to himself. A pause. “You don’t believe it, do you?”
“Inspector? Do you mind if I have a glass of wine?”
Vernon laughed. “Of course not, sir. It’s your home.”
“And please join me. You can’t still be on duty at this hour…”
Holy shit, Vernon thought when he looked at his watch. It’s past midnight. I’ve blown this old guy’s entire day. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. Time got away from me.”
“Oh, believe me, Inspector. Your indulgence is my plea sure.” Fredrick awkwardly brought two glasses to the desk. “I seldom get a chance to talk about these things.”
Vernon looked at the dark wine. I never drink before ten o’clock, and…it’s past ten o’clock. “Thanks very much.”
“Did you know that Romania is the ninth largest wine producer in the world? This one’s from the Tarnave vineyards…in Transylvania.”
Vernon paused before taking a sip, then thought, Fuck the French. That’s damn good. “I just have a few more questions, if that’s okay.”
Now the old man seemed lulled. “Please…”
“It helps me to know what our killers actually believe. But I’m still not clear on Vlad’s death.”
“Understandable, since there are so many versions. Vlad’s vampirism and heretical atrocities were reported to the pope and the emperor. Vlad knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be assassinated by them, or by contractors hired by the Turks. So he circumvented it all by planning his own death, allowing Kanesae to bleed him to death. Think of this as the very beginning of a chain of events, the last of which—your killers think—are taking place now. But, remember, Vlad’s last words on earth were the words he whispered to Kanesae as his blood was drained into the flagon—the secret.”
“What was the secret!” Vernon raised his voice.
“Well, that’s subject to interpretation. Monks who had remained loyal to the true Order of the Dragon seized Vlad and cut off his head, to end his reign of evil. They were dumbfounded, though, when Vlad’s body didn’t bleed upon decapitation. They presumed that this was a symptom of his vampirism…but they were wrong.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“They never knew that Vlad had already set an occult rite into motion. The monks buried the flagon, along with the chalice, in the monastery’s stream, which served as the property’s water supply. Since this was consecrated ground, the stream ran with holy water, and this would prevent any malign entity—such as Kanesae—from absconding with it.”
Vernon frowned. “So this stuff is still beneath this stream in Romania?”
Fredrick shook his head, a grimness now in his eyes. “The flagon and chalice had been secured in an iron keg, but this keg was upheaved during the 1977 earthquake. Some men ran off with it, and I know this to be fact because I saw it with my own eyes.”
That’s right. His leg was crushed during the same quake, Vernon recalled. “Who were the men?”
“I’ll never know for sure but they may have been descendants of the original Order of the Dragon, since the rumor abounds that the Order never dissolved. Keep in mind, when I saw this I thought I was going to die; it could’ve been a near-death hallucination or something.”
Vernon thought things over. Impalements. Desecration involving the colors of the Order. And homeless women who believe in the spirit of a vampire nun …“You said that Kanesae recruited prostitutes?”
“To be her acolytes, yes. To assist her.”
Virginia Fleming and Scab both had rap sheets for prostitution, Vernon reminded himself.
Fredrick continued, “Allegiance in return for reward— an age-old symptom, Inspector. They believed that they would be granted immortality, as vampires. Supposedly, as Kanesae’s power peaks, and as she becomes more and more flesh and less and less spirit, her acolytes would become vampires as well.” The old man sipped more wine, relaxing. “Over the years, I’ve researched every angle of the legend, more by default than anything.”
“Sir?”
“Before the earthquake I had no professional interest whatsoever in fifteenth-century Romanian history. But after an experience like that?”
Of course. He was almost killed at the same place all this supposedly happened, Vernon realized.
“And so not to fully avoid your question of a while ago,” the professor began and smiled. He fired up his pipe again. “No, I don’t believe the legend myself.”
Sure, but somebody does. And that’s my biggest lead. They both jumped a little when Vernon’s phone rang. It was Slouch.
“Oh, good, I was beginning to think you’d been impaled.”
“What are you talking about, Slouch?” Vernon frowned.
“Well, you never signed off-shift, and nobody’s heard from you for about twelve hours.”
“I’m in the middle of a consultation with an expert on…” Vernon stalled. Forget it. “But I’m leaving soon.”
“So I can go home now?”
“Yes, yes! Did you get that—”
“—current address for Cristina Nichols? What do you think I am, a slouch? Of course I got it. Finally reached the company owner, a guy named Bruno von Blanc. He wasn’t too keen on giving up the info but then I sweet-talked him, you know?”
“Yeah, like you sweet-talked me for your last promotion,” Vernon said.
“She lives with a hotshot lawyer named Paul Nasher.”
“Yeah, but where does she live? That’s what I need to know.”
Slouch paused for effect. “Are you ready for this one?”
“Yeah.”
“No, I mean are you really ready?”
“I’m ready to transfer you to motor-pool duty. How’s that?”
Slouch laughed. “Cristina Nichols lives four doors down from the corner where all our bum-chicks have been seen.”
“You there, How?”
“That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”
“That’s a big hell yeah, boss.”
“Give me Nichols’s address.”
Slouch did so, then Vernon recited the information as he jotted it down: “1387 Dessorio Avenue…Jesus. That’s right down the street from that hot dog vendor.”
“Um-hmm. Strange, huh? But you’re not going there now, are you? It’s past midnight.”
“No, but I might drive by just to see the place, and see if any of these homeless women are out.”
“Okay, boss. But watch out for sharp sticks.”
Vernon hung up, intrigued. Another link, however inexplicable.
Fredrick had overheard. “So this Nichols woman is—”
“A novelty toy designer,” Vernon said. He held up the plastic nun again. “The creator of this.”