Authors: Romina Nicolaides
By early dawn she’d had enough; she’d punctured her fingers more times than she could count and wanted a break. Reluctantly putting down the dress she thought it best to go in search of Báthory's next victim and then return to continue the gowns later. The time was just right, the market would be coming to life with servants and merchants preparing for their day and the light was still dim enough to not completely hinder her.
She covered her head with a scarf which she wrapped round the lower half of her face and went off in search of a hapless girl. She hoped that this way there was less possibility of anyone recognizing her, especially as her eye color had altered in the days since her Affliction. The market was just beginning to buzz. There were fishermen setting up their catch, milk maids with buckets, flower girls, a butcher, a rat catcher, the priest from the nearby church and several women inspecting the arriving goods. It looked like it was going to be an overcast day for which she was grateful. She pretended to look at some wool blankets at a cloth merchant’s stand and waited for the right moment. Each smell and sound was assaulting her senses: the fish, the meat, the horse dung, the treatment in the wool, the clip-clop of the horseshoes on the gravel, the chatter from all the people, everything was so intense!
As she turned her face away from the smells she noticed a girl of no more than thirteen making her way out of the market and she decided to follow her. She was alone and seemed unfamiliar with the area. When the girl was far enough from the market and there were no more people around to muddle the scent, Kati thought she could detect an unknown smell about her, like from cooking foreign to the area. With a knot in her stomach she called out to her, "I’m sorry to bother you miss, but are you going far?”
The girl hesitated for a moment but when she realized Kati wasn’t much older than she was, she relaxed. “I have to get back, I have a long walk and my mother hates it when I’m late.”
“I won’t take much of your time, I promise, I just need you to mind my little sister while I go into town for a few moments,” she said, thinking on her feet and trying to stop her voice from quivering. “Please I beg of you, it’s not safe for her where I’m going and I don’t want to leave her alone. Normally the neighbor watches her at home but today she fell ill. She’s just there behind those trees.” The girl looked unconvinced and Kati fumbled in her apron pocket for anything that would distract her. She felt a hard round form and looked down to realize that one of the pearls from the dresses she was repairing had found its way in there. Showing it to the girl with a slightly trembling hand she said, “I’ll even give you this for your trouble, my mistress has many and she won’t miss it.” Mesmerized by its beauty the girl shook her head in agreement, dreaming of how pretty she would look with the pearl round her neck.
As Kati led her into the small wooded area, her eyes filled up with tears with the knowledge of the end this girl would meet. “She’s just here,” she said and let the girl walk ahead a few paces. Before she could turn around and enquire about the child, Kati was overcome by her hunger and bit into the girl’s right shoulder right behind her clavicle, tearing her flesh and drinking a little of her blood, which flowed slowly. As soon as Kati’s teeth were sunk into the girl, she fainted and dropped the pearl. Kati assumed it was from the shock and the pain and kept licking. After about a minute she stopped slurping, collected the stray pearl, wrapped up the unconscious girl in her own shawl and headed back to the castle taking all the unfrequented shortcuts she knew for fear she might be seen. All the while she got vague images of the girl’s past. Mainly scenes out of doors and an older woman’s angry face. She cried all the way back to the castle but knew that she would pay with her own life if she didn’t deliver a girl like she’d been told. She also hoped that no one had seen her and that the girl’s family would assume she was taken by vagrants on the way back to her village.
She made her way into the castle by the secret dungeon door and put the still unconscious girl in the cage as instructed. She was slight, with delicate features and freckles on her cheeks. She looked so beautiful and peaceful as she lay there asleep, oblivious to what lay in store for her. Making sure the coast was clear, Katalina went to the kitchen to fetch her some food and put it on the floor for when she would wake up. She locked the gate and sat on the ground next to her, mainly out of sheer exhaustion but also out of a need to comfort her, asking God to forgive her for condemning an innocent child.
The kick to the ribs was sufficient to shake Kati out of her slumber. Grabbing her by the hair the Countess dragged Kati into the cage and forced her to look at the prisoner’s damaged skin where she had taken a bite.
“Clearly I’ve been too lax with you to make you think that I would tolerate you eating from my humans. Now you have taken her blood there is less for me!” She barked through that crazed look in her eye, the crystalline green of which was at its most intense.
“I bestow so much grace on you girls and yet you disappoint me by not appreciating it, I enjoy disciplining the disobedient but am disappointed that I have to. Do you understand me?”
“Yes mistress,” mumbled Kati through gritted teeth.
“Didn’t I tell you to put her in the shackles?”
Kati remained as calm as she could in the contorted position she was forced to maintain while holding onto the base of her scalp to minimize the pull exercised by the Countess. “Yes you did mistress, I’m ever so sorry, I don't know what came over me. Please forgive me, I would never presume to take anything that is yours.” When the Countess released her grip, Kati fell to the floor where she remained crouched, with her face buried in her knees still clutching her scalp. The Countess secured the girl in the shackles. Kati looked up when she heard the Countess approach her only to be kicked in the ribs again; she felt one crack and blacked out as the wind went out of her.
She came to her senses some hours later, surrounded by a familiar set of events. The girl’s mutilated remains hung by the shackles, emptied of everything that had kept her alive. The only thing missing, or that there should have been more of, was the blood. Some stained the ground but doubtlessly most of it had been consumed by the Countess. The girl was facing down and Kati was grateful she couldn’t see her expression. She wondered why Erzsébet needed to exhibit such cruelty when experimenting on the girls if she was only looking for a cure, but she wasn’t going to ask her. Perhaps she simply thrived on despair. Kati caressed the girl’s head before releasing and taking her away.
At least I have the keys this time,
she thought to herself and wondered what to do with the body, lamenting the fact that this poor child had been alive hours earlier and that she'd been the absolute cause of her demise. She wished she could just put the body in a box and take it to Pastor Barosius as was the norm when people died in these parts, but the Countess had warned her not to.
She realized that she had no idea what time it was. The last two days of constant wakefulness and the knock to the ribs had only served to confuse her. It was dark but she didn’t know if it was the same day or the next. Her own injury had healed and, judging by the stiffness in the girl's body, she presumed a whole day must have passed.
When she was finished with the body Katalina did her best to cover up the makeshift grave in order to discourage any smells that might come from it. She would need to come check on it from time to time to make sure it stayed secret. She said a silent prayer for the girl’s soul and without meaning to she remembered how delicious the taste of her blood was. Silently berating herself she thought of the hunger that she now constantly felt. She wondered if she could go in search of some human blood but without hurting anyone and without getting herself in trouble. The staff at the castle were out of the question so she thought she might go into town and see what she could find, hopefully without the Countess realizing she was gone. She wouldn’t kill anyone like Erzsébet, only drink a little blood. She promised herself she would never hurt anyone badly.
Walking in the streets in the little town was tricky for she did not want to be seen by anyone who knew her. People might see her and ask questions she was unable to answer, and it might all get back to her mother. The thought of her brought tears to Kati’s eyes. She missed her more than she could describe and the pain was augmented by the fact that she would probably never be seeing her again. Her heart would break if she knew what Kati had become. Despite the Countess’s reassurances Kati was not convinced about this Affliction of hers. What if she was contagious and she gave it to her mother? What if the hunger became so strong and she bit her without wanting to? She hated what she'd turned into, a being driven by a literal bloodlust, looking at people like a walking meal. Women on their period were particularly hard to ignore, the smells wafting from them constantly invading her thoughts.
She pulled the shawl over her head upon hearing the approaching couple and looked towards the wall in case they saw her. They walked past oblivious to her existence and she breathed a small sigh of relief. She could hear church bells and walked towards them. Standing outside the church she smelled only three people inside, the priest on the pulpit
, a
woman at the front and a man towards the back. She peered in briefly and realized that she could not approach the woman without being seen by one of the other two. The man she could probably bite in theory but if he made a sound she would be caught in the act which was too risky. The church was clearly not a viable option so she walked on.
The revelers in the tavern down the road offered the perfect opportunity, however. She approached it and carefully looked through the window to see several men drinking happily. A clearly inebriated one was pulling on his hat and preparing to leave. She hid in the alcove and waited. When he came out she followed him and for quite a while they walked together, he oblivious to his shadow, until the moment was right. When nature called he stopped against a wall and began to unfasten his trousers. The road was dark enough and nobody else was around.
She knew she didn’t have very long and part of her hoped that he would be done quickly, pull up his trousers and leave, a divine intervention of sorts, stopping her from hurting someone else and from giving in to her beastly nature, but nothing happened. He stood there half asleep relieving himself for the longest time, until unable to resist any longer and virtually hearing his blood pump, Kati seized her chance and bit him on his neck. Luckily he was short and rotund. His height was enough that she could do it quickly without the need to disable him. His skin was rough and sunburned
and he stank of sweat and alcohol, but his blood tasted good and felt so satisfying flowing down her throat. She had not hit the jugular but the beer made it flow quite well with little need to suck and made her hazy for a brief moment. Just like before she got glimpses of the man’s life: his neck was red due to the time spent out in the fields ploughing the land and his wife was fat with an aged face. Her head was slightly too small for her body and her teeth were blackened and dirty which he hated. Before she could take in much else, however, he collapsed to the ground with his trousers round his knees and Kati was forced to stop drinking, unable to hold his bulk. She checked his pulse. Thankfully he was still alive but unconscious. She pressed her fingers to where the bite marks were for a few minutes to stop him bleeding any more and when she was certain he was stable she left him to come to his senses in his own good time. She’d had enough to drink and was thoroughly satisfied, happy in the knowledge he hadn’t seen her and she’d stopped well before the thirty breaths.
On the way back to the castle she was puzzled by the fact that the man had collapsed when she bit him. The same thing had happened to the girl she bit to Erzsébet’s orders as well as the little one the day before. It was so instant that it was before any of them had the chance to grow faint from the blood loss. She'd assumed that the girls had blacked out from the shock but the man had not seen her coming and with some luck he would wake up with a hangover and attribute the lost time to that. She wondered if this was something that was caused by the Affliction and set out to test the theory once again.
This time she hid in an alley and waited for someone else to walk past. After a brief time a bosomy woman with bright red lips rushed past in a wool cloak and Kati followed her. A few minutes down the road the woman went into a dark house and closed the door behind her. Unperturbed, Kati went round the back to find a different way in and managed to unlatch the back door and enter into a small kitchen area. She could only smell the woman in the house so she felt encouraged to go searching for her. As quietly as she could she climbed the few stairs to where the sleeping area was and found the woman undressing with her back to the door. Seizing her chance, she approached her silently and swiftly bit into her neck. Within a few moments the woman also collapsed to the ground just as Kati got visions of her with her dress pulled half way up and her legs round the waist of a man. Shocked and embarrassed by what she had seen, Kati dropped her, unable to stifle a giggle. On leaving the house she thought that the woman would have a harder time explaining this to herself in the morning than the man.
She left the house as carefully as she had come in, checking that nobody saw her come onto the street, and quickly made her way back to the castle. Puzzled by the effect of her bite on people, she wanted to talk to the groundskeeper about it. Did it happen to everyone? Did the Countess have this ability too?