Beautiful Freaks (26 page)

Soon
a carriage came towards them bearing the crest of the
Astarot
hous
ehold. Within the hour, their
carriage had been moved and Eve and her father were settled into the rich interior of Count
Astarot
’s
. The C
ount
, who
Eve knew as Eli
,
sat opposite her, smiling. She wondered if her father could read her blushes.

Count Eli’s carriage travelled at a much greater speed
than their own
. The horse’s familiar
ity
with the path
made them
swift. This side of the crossroads
,
the landscape was dramatically different and Eve felt as if they had crossed the line into another reality. The road plunged down into a pass; towering walls of mountain granite flanked either side so that it felt as they were travelling through a wound cut into the stone. The sunlight had difficulty penetrating to the depth of the road. It was too dark to do anything other than observe each other.

Eli’s amber eyes ran over her skin luxuriously, drinking in every contour. She was careful to avoid
connecting with his
eyes, knowing wha
t power lie in them. She starred at his
shiny black leather shoes and moved up over his black fine wool suit. His waistcoat was a jewel blue and his cravat a paler shade, the exact colour of
her own
silk dress. She dared not
let her eyes roam
higher than his neck for fear of captivation
,
and so let her eyes fall to his hands. They were the hands
that could only belong to some
one extraordinary.

“It is lucky I came by,” Eli purred. “You could have been there until nightfall.” He let out a laugh, “One thing
is
for certain,
you
wouldn’t have still been there by sunrise.”

Eve shuddered. The feeling ran down her spine like a finger tracing her nerves.

“No?” her father replied.

“No! The wolves around here are man-eaters. Terrible mess they make too.”

“Wolves,”
Doctor Valentine
snorted a tense laugh, “I was worried you were going to warn me of dark demons or maybe … vampires.”

“No,
Doctor
, you can rest assured the only thing
you
need to worry about is the wolves.”

There had been a subtle but definite emphasis on the word ‘you’ which made Eve gasp with a sudden dread. Eli turned to her and raised his eyebrow, questioning what it was that should make her startle so. He flashed her a smile and she convinced herself that she had imagined the hidden meaning.

“Ah, here we are. Castle Astarot.”

The castle was pretty. Roses grew around the door. Count Eli Astarot was the sixteenth generation who had lived in the castle and was the only surviving member of that long line. Time, it seemed, had not been kind to the Astarot bloodline.

*

They’d already spent several weeks at the castle. Most days Eve’s father left for the village just after breakfast and returned just before supper. He was completely absorbed in a local village legend linked to the carvings Eve had discovered on the wall of the church. Despite begging her father allowance to accompany him, he insisted that she spend her days relaxing in the grounds and luxury of Castle Astarot.

It didn’t take many days of requests before she willingly gave up the idea of following after her father. She’d found a much more wondrous way to spend her time. Eli, it seemed, had little else to do with his charmed existence than provide an endless stream of entertainment for Eve. He taught her how to play billiards, load a shotgun, play chess, and how to make birds from paper, which they then spent a whole afternoon setting free from the window of the highest turret.

They were happy days, although exhausting. It seemed that falling in love was a draining experience. And if the days didn’t tire her out, the vivid nighttime dreams of Eli did. They were wild and passionate, fuelled by a crazy unstoppable force, a drive towards the very essence of life.

Eli was charming. He offered her gifts of garden roses, and poems written with deep purple ink crushed from amethysts. He was an unbounded energy, impulsive and as much as Eve seemed to fade with the energy of love, Eli seemed to charge.

*

Doctor Valentine watched his daughter pale. Saw her change from a strident, independent woman to a frail, fragile creature he did not recognise. It was clear she was in love, and that Eli loved her too. But if this was love, then he did not wish it for his daughter.

And if all this did not worry him enough, his investigations into the village had brought him to some disturbing conclusions. Everyone he’d spoken to, regardless of position or education, believed that a demon lived among
them
. Yet no matter whom Doctor Valentine met, and he believed that over the weeks he had met all of the village inhabitants, there appeared to lurk no demon amongst them. Yet, the village graveyard was full with the bodies of young and beautiful women.

There were many things strange about the graveyard. Doctor. Valentine had noted that all the gravestones of the young women, untimely deceased, were uniform in their angelic headstones. He also noted how each sibling-grave had a fresh red rose tied with black ribbon placed on it at three-day intervals. Doctor Valentine had attempted to stake out the churchyard in the hope of spotting who amongst them might be the secret guardian of the tombs. He’d sat for four days and yet no one came; no one, not even the bereaved relatives or a ground’s man, which explained the slightly unkempt look of the whole place. The villagers came to the church but they never crossed the salt-lined path into the graveyard. When the doctor had asked the vicar about the salt, he told him that they had a problem with slugs – a perfectly reasonable explanation, but one that the doctor didn’t entirely believe.

The Vicar did, however, provide a more interesting explanation of the tableau on the side of the church. The burning castle in the picture had once sat on the other side of the ravine, facing the Castle Astarot; two great and powerful houses, standing like sentinels over the principality. They towered over the small villages that nestled deep in the
valley,
truly making the owners of the great houses seem like gods. It had belonged to the House of Alucard. It was a dark place. Hewn from the dark, black granite of the mountain range, it looked like a black demon crouching on the cliff top. The Alucard family had a history of cruelty and they worked their people far past the point of misery. It was a far cry from those under the care of the Astarots, who lived a fair and pleasant life.

There were rumours rife amongst the villagers that the Alucards weren’t human – that they fed off the blood of their people. It was believed the Count was even able to change his form and that he ran through the forest in the shape of a giant black wolf. The villagers became fearful to the point of frenzy and eventually they stormed the castle, murdering every member of the Alucard family. It had been a bloodbath and savage in its brutality. Each head of the Alucard family had been placed on a wooden spike, their bodies quartered and buried across the forest. 

Despite the slaughter of every man, woman, and child in the Alucard House, there was a belief amongst some of the villagers that the Alucard line had not been entirely destroyed. There were rumours that an illegitimate heir to the bloodline laid like a cuckoo in a crib at Castle Astarot.

The people of the village had watched the little Cuckoo Count Astarot carefully, waiting to see if the Alucard blood and cruelty ran through his veins. For eighteen years they waited, fearful of the demon’s emergence but it didn’t seem to happen. He married a pretty young woman and the Astarot family name, if not bloodline, continued – son after son was born and it came to the point where the villagers almost forgot the rumours of Alucard blood being seated at the castle. Then came along the Count Eli Astarot, and the villagers were reminded of their ancestral tales.  There was something about Count Eli that made the villagers nervous. A certain look about the boy that could not be mistaken for anything but the look of an Alucard.

“But the young Count Eli turned eighteen a year and a half ago and all seems to be well,” the Vicar concluded. 

‘
Except for the deaths.
Except for the quiet fear that surrounds you all
,’
Doctor Valentine thought. He looked across the churchyard. “How many young women have died in the last eighteen moons?”

“There have been four, one about every three months. A terrible tragedy for the family; they were sisters and cousins, linked through blood. It’s thought there is some disease that runs through their line. Why do you ask?” The vicar pushed his glasses up onto his nose and twitched. “Do you think it is connected?”

“Do you?” Dr Valentine asked.

The vicar didn’t reply but responded with a small shrug.

“Was there any reason to believe they didn’t die naturally?”

“No! There were no marks, no reason to believe that there had been foul play; certainly no sign of any vampire activity – they just faded away.”

The vicar’s words cut deep into Doctor Valentine’s conscience.

*

That night the doctor declined the invitation to dine with Count Astarot and instead spent the evening pouring over the chapter on psychic vampires by the Romanian folklorist Mistuviac. Mistuviac’s journal had become the equivalent of Doctor Valentine’s bible during the last week and he couldn’t believe how he’d failed to understand the terrible situation right from that very first night he’d caught Eve dancing in the moonlight as if she were bewitched.

Doctor Valentine thought on his daughter and Eli, and then his thoughts turned to the tombstones in the village churchyard. There was nothing dark about Eli that he could see. He didn’t fit the profile of a malevolent demon; the boy walked about in sunlight, he danced and laughed. By all accounts he was a beautiful young man, more than worthy of his daughter’s hand.

Doctor Valentine’s hand reached out in the candlelight and felt the cold hardness of his pistol. He knew that he was about to destroy something exquisite, something that would make the world just a little less beautiful.

He was also about to destroy his daughter’s heart.

He got up from the table, suddenly aware of all his sixty-four years. He tucked the pistol into the back band of his trousers and covered it with the tails of his jacket. He knew where he would find them; they’d be dancing in the moonlight on the lawns by the rose garden.

*

This was how they spent their evenings, walking side by side through the formal gardens. Tonight was like all the other nights, except for the slight autumnal chill that stole its way around the ankles and over the shoulders. Eve wished that she could stay here with Eli forever and she believed that Eli felt the same. She wondered at which point he would talk to her father about her hand in marriage.

“Are you happy, Evangeline?”

“Yes, I am happy – happier than I could ever imagine,” she replied.

“And the dreams? Are they still stealing your sleep?”

Eve laughed and a deep blush crept over her cheeks. “They are so beautiful that I can hardly wait to retire to bed and let them come.”

“What do you dream of?”

“I dream of us,” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

Eli smiled and his eyes sparkled. For all their intimate conversations, wild dancing, and hours spent luxuriating in each other’s company, they had never so much as kissed.

Eli stopped, turned to a rose bush, and plucked a perfect red bloom. He handed it to Eve. Although very beautiful, the rose was riddled with needle-sharp thorns; one pierced her finger causing her to let out a small animal-like cry and bring forth a small, perfectly formed tear.

Eli shuddered and let out a heavy sigh. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. He reached up and wiped the tear away from her cheek. “So beautiful.”

Eve found herself spellbound, aware of nothing but Eli. Their lips connected. He kissed her and she kissed him back. She felt the air from her lungs carry every thought of love and every fear into his. The ground beneath her feet melted away. She was on the edge of a dark, yawning space and she was falling. Falling backwards through time.

Then all at once she hit the ground. It was the same moment the sound of a pistol shot tore apart the quiet of the night. Her eyes fluttered open to see her father, with a smoking gun in his hand. Eli was bent over, staggering backwards into the blooms and cruel thorns of the rose garden.

“No!” Evangeline cried but she was too weak to be heard.

Her father followed Eli into the roses, trampling them under foot so that the air was filled with a rich and sweet perfume. Violent voices erupted and Eli roared. 

On hands and knees, with sharp thorns burying their vicious fangs into her soft flesh, Evangeline crawled through the carnage, desperate to save them both. Through her tears she saw her father and Eli wrestling. Each was covered in thin red scratches, giving the impression that they were laced in blood. Barely unable to watch the unfolding horror in front of her, Evangeline closed her eyes and prayed to God. When she opened them, Eli’s face was turned to hers.
His eyes wide with death.
A thin trickle of blood escaped from between his perfect lips.