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“Oh, yes. Well…we shall deal with them,” Vlad answered, hooked his arm around my waist, and pulled me firmly to him.

“But you will not kill them,” I said.

“No, I will not. ”

I sighed with relief and closed my eyes.

We returned to the castle the next night. The sky was clear and beautiful. The cold stars glittered above us set in the soft velvet of the night sky.

Vlad looked more like the Prince of Wallachia than he had since we had departed. His hair had fully grown out and his mustache was quite thick. Dressed in clothes more suited for the countryside, I could see the old world warrior within him. He was in a pensive mood, quiet, and guarded. His green eyes glimmered with dark fires, so I dared not try to engage him in conversation.

I was dressed in my traveling clothes and felt nervous about returning to the castle. My life in Buda had made my life in the castle feel remote and surreal. My nights of dressing in flowing, skimpy gowns, my limbs laden with heavy jewelry seemed a distant dream. I wondered briefly if Vlad would demand that I once more dress as a part of his harem, but I suspected we had moved far beyond those roles.

We ascended Bârgãu Pass and I began to feel the pull of the sisters. I could feel their waning power reaching through the blood that connected us, crying out to me. Their hunger was so very strong and I looked to Vlad to see if he also felt it.

His profile seemed carved of stone as he sat in rigid silence beside me. If he heard them, if he felt them, he did not reveal it. Yet I am certain he must have felt their waves of hungry madness seeping through the night.

Far too soon, the castle loomed before us. I could see the flickering light of bonfires around the castle. I felt a sense of dread and glanced toward Vlad for reassurance.

“It is May first, wife. Walpurgis Night. When the devil walks the night,” Vlad said with a sardonic smile.

I let out a bitter laugh. “Dracula returns home on Walpurgis Night. How appropriate. ”

“Perhaps,” he answered wryly. “Many would say I am the devil. ”

As the carriage rattled up the pass to the great, broken castle, the bonfires became clearly visible, their flames twisting and leaping high into the air. The gypsies were dancing wildly to music around the fires and I could smell, even from a distance, that most were quite drunk. As the great dark carriage with its black horses clattered into the courtyard, the ribald music ceased and the gypsies rushed out toward us. I was not sure of their intentions, but Astir’s guards moved to protect the carriage. Vlad emerged quickly and the gypsies fell to their knees before him in shock and relief. I followed and saw Ilona cross herself as I stood beside Vlad.

The guards from the haven, imposing in their black uniforms, drew back their horses as Vlad moved through the crowd of gypsies, touching them one by one on the forehead. It was a strange, almost surreal moment, as the bonfires threw up fiery sparks into the night around us.

“You have returned,” Ilona sobbed when he touched her cheek. She kissed his hand eagerly.

Looking beyond the shadows and firelight that twisted and intertwined in an exotic dance, I saw the door to the castle was open. Slowly, I moved past the kneeling gypsies and drew my cloak firmly about me. Walking slowly, I moved toward the great black mouth that opened into my former home.

I felt tears, hot and fierce, sting my eyes as I saw at last my three sisters. They were in the doorway, hiding away from the flames, their long fingers gripping the edges of the door frame. Skeletal, frail, gray, and old, they huddled together. Ariana lay against the door frame, her head tilted so that she could see the blood filled gypsies that were beyond her reach. The women were tattered, shriveled crones. The horror of their condition enveloped me.

Ariana saw me and hissed, her hand trying to reach out toward me, but stopped by the ward of power Vlad had about the castle. Shrieking, she fell back, her body twisting in terrible spasms of pain.

Cneajna, her hair now white and brittle, bared her long teeth at me. I saw that her flesh had cracked along her cheeks.

I wept at the sight of my sisters and covered my face with my hands. I felt Vlad’s hand on my back and I turned to him. He kissed my brow, then whispered words I did not understand through my despair.

The Brides cowered at the sound of his voice and began to weep. They clung to one another, a twisted heap of bones and dried flesh, their tattered dresses lying limply over their desiccated forms. I cried out to Vlad to help them and he slid past me toward the doorway. Lingering just beyond their reach, he said their names one by one and they cried out as if it pained them.

“Bring him,” Vlad ordered a guard near him.

Confused, I turned to see the guards move back to the carriage. They pulled off a large trunk and opened it. Gruffly, they yanked out a man in clothes that were mere rags. He reeked of fear and piss. Vlad must have had him asleep until this point for I had not even been aware of him. Dragging the man between them, the guards approached the castle.

“I do not suffer fools who dare try to steal from me,” Vlad told the man.

The man looked at him in terror then at the hag-like women in the doorway. He tried to scream through his gag.

“He attempted to steal one of our bags off the carriage. The guards caught him,” Vlad explained to me.

I knew what was to come and looked at Vlad with distaste. But then again, who was I to dictate any sort of decorum when I had killed so easily the night before?

Vlad took hold of the man by his arm. “This is your justice,” he snarled, tossing the man into the arms of the women.

Their savagery was beyond anything I could have imagined. They did not only take his blood, but his flesh. Huge gouts of blood sprang from their terrible bites and they feasted hungrily upon him. They did not eat his flesh, but made wounds large enough to plunge their faces into his body to drink. It was horrible, yet I could not look away. Blood splattered their grotesque bodies and the ground. I watched mesmerized as the blood sank into their flesh and slithered along the cobblestones to slide up their skin into their mouths. They feasted desperately and before my eyes I saw their skin began to flush with life and their hair turn from gray to rich dark brown, golden blond, and raven black. Their milky eyes grew cold and jewel-like, vibrant with color and fire. They consumed every last bit of his blood and licked it from their faces with long, red tongues.