Dracula: The Un-Dead. Ian Holt
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was a prisoner in her own life.
“What is it, mistress?” the pale-haired Woman in White asked, concerned. Her touch startled Bathory back to the present.
She said nothing, but as her rage boiled, she was haunted by the lie of the blissfully ignorant, raven-haired girl running in the painting above. They say blood will have blood, but everything in its time. My vengeance has just begun.
Could it really have been nearly two days since Seward had last taken his “medicine”? His hands shook violently. Time was running out. He needed his fix soon, or he would be too ill and weak to mount an effective assault on Bathory.
He was grateful to find that the Benefactor had left a complimentary ticket for him—a seat in the orchestra section, under his name at the box office. The Benefactor must have received the telegram and anticipated his needs. In his deteriorating condition, sneaking into the theatre would have been impossible. Alas, in spite of the excellent seat, he would not have the luxury of enjoying the play as a spectator. He was sweating profusely and felt nauseated as he stumbled up to the door beneath a sign: “Personelles du Théâtre seulement.” It was locked. He was about to search for another door leading backstage when he spotted Bathory and the two Women in White at the back of the theatre.
He was not ready! He peered from behind a Romanesque column, his clammy hands clutching it for support. He saw Bathory staring at the ceiling and he followed her gaze to a magnificent Renaissance-style painting. One pale, painted figure caught his attention. She was taller than the other women in the scene, with piercing blue eyes contrasting with her flowing black mane. A dark-haired Aphrodite, the perfect stand-in for Bathory. It seemed that Fate had decreed this theatre to be the ideal setting for the immortal to meet her end.
The sound of rattling keys startled him. He turned to see a short man approaching, carrying an envelope adorned with red illustrations. The man looked nervous as he unlocked the door and went inside. Seward slipped his toe in the door before it closed again. Making sure no one was watching, he strolled through as casually as if he belonged there.
Half-dressed performers dashed about. Men carried papier-mâché boulders to the stage. A seamstress sewed a costume onto an actor as he did vocal exercises. Seward had to find a safe place before he was discovered and thrown out.
“What are you doing back here?” a Russian-accented voice called. Seward spun so quickly that his eyesight momentarily blurred. Had he been caught?
His teary, bloodshot eyes focused on the Russian, who stared down at the small man with the keys—obviously the head usher. Seward was safe…for now. Not wanting to press his luck, he ducked into the shadows behind a high-backed prop throne.
The head usher looked up at the large Russian and said, “I have a delivery for Monsieur Basarab. He is supposedly expecting it.”
“I will take it to him.” The Russian snatched the decorated envelope. He stalked toward a door marked with a star and the name Basarab carved in it as the head usher scurried back the way he had come. The Russian knocked and slid the envelope under the door. Seward, near the point of passing out from the need for drugs, remained hidden by the throne. His strength quickly ebbing, he looked up into the rafters, which were filled with ropes, pulleys, and sandbags. He would await Fate’s fortune above, but first he needed a fix.
He thought of a fitting quotation from the play that was about to begin as he quietly drew his medical bag from under his overcoat. “Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use.” Safely obscured on the floor behind the throne, he withdrew a leather belt and tightly cinched it around his sagging bicep. He filled a glass syringe with morphine. Only half a dose this time. Merely enough to quell the nausea. Seward knew that doping up was a gamble, but he could no longer function without the morphine. He felt the drug surge through his veins. It took only a few minutes for him to regain control of his body, and once he felt his legs were steady enough, he began his climb into the rafters.
While the War of the Roses played itself out on the stage below with wooden swords and fake sugared blood, Seward would set the stage for the truly bloody battle. He drew his weapons from a hidden compartment in his coat. The pieces were set, and now the game was in motion.
It was now twenty minutes to nine. Only two minutes had passed since Quincey last pulled on his watch fob and checked the time. Curtain was supposed to be at eight o’clock sharp, and the audience was growing restless. Having spent time working in a theatre, Quincey was well aware of all the possible complications that could delay curtain time. Terrifying thoughts crept into his mind. What if Basarab couldn’t perform? They could be refitting Basarab’s costumes onto some poor understudy. Under usual circumstances, it was a stroke of luck for the understudy, but tonight the audience had paid to see Basarab. Quincey had paid dearly to see Basarab. A substitute would be most unwelcome. If the actor were unable to perform, it would all be for naught.
A gentleman complained to his wife in French, a language Quincey knew well: “This Basarab is as bad as that Englishwoman Sarah Bernhardt. I saw a performance of hers when she began almost an hour late. A Frenchman would never…”
Quincey was about to say something in defense of British performers when the houselights flickered off, section by section, and the theatre was plunged into blackness. Quincey expected a spotlight to appear, but nothing happened. The audience fidgeted in their seats. Still nothing happened, and Quincey strained his eyes in the hope of seeing into the darkness.
Without any warning, a soft baritone voice reverberated throughout the Coliseum-like theatre: “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.”
A single footlight sparked to life, illuminating the pale face of Basarab with an eerie glow from below. His piercing black eyes fixed on the audience from under his dark brows. Quincey was in awe of the impressive transformation of the handsome actor into the hideous Richard III. He was, of course, dressed all in black, his left arm withered, sporting a hump on his back. Despite the heavy costuming, his mannerism and tone left no doubt that the figure on the stage was an aristocrat.
“But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, nor made to court an amorous looking glass…”
The stage light slowly grew brighter. Quincey could see the pain in Basarab’s eyes. He was not merely reciting Shakespeare’s words, but rather drawing forth the thought and meaning behind them.
“I, have no delight to pass away the time unless to spy my shadow in the sun and descant my own deformity.”
Basarab stopped, focusing his attention on one of the box seats. Quincey glanced over, immediately recognizing the dinner-jacketed woman from the lobby. “And therefore—since I cannot prove a lover—I am determined to prove a villain…”
Bathory was surprised to see Basarab looking so intently in her direction. With the luminous stage lights blinding him, could he actually see her, or was it pure chance? She stared coldly back at the actor. The dark-haired Woman in White whispered, “Is it he, mistress?”
“It is he,” an unblinking Bathory replied. She ran her fingernails across the arm of the seat, causing tiny wood shavings to fall to the floor, as she realized that the arrogant bastard was doing the unabridged version of this horrid play. Having to sit through four hours of this tripe was going to be far more torturous than any device she had acquired from the Spanish Inquisition. The actions of the actors on the stage hit far too close to home.
Ferenc Nádasdy was not an intelligent man. Elizabeth soon learned that he had no thought that originated from above his waist. It was this flaw in his character that ultimately enabled her to outwit him. She lulled him into a false sense of security by pretending to enjoy his sexual sadism and violent debauchery. Three years after they were married, in the hope of ridding herself of him forever, she had used his vanity against him and manipulated the count into taking command personally of the Hungarian troops