The Bathory Curse (33 page)

“That was wonderful, thank you,” Renata said,
rejuvenated.

“Yes, though I like my feedings to be a bit more,
erotic.” Sabine laughed then nodded to the gardener out the window,
“won’t hunky boy be jealous?”

“No, he is a new Strigoi, and thankfully hasn’t
formed any sort of attachment.” Renata stared at him for a few more
minutes and then her attention was back to Ion, “you said you had
news for us.”

“Yes, while in Italy several years back I came upon
a passage in a book from when Rome conquered Greece, I think it may
answer your questions.”

“Tell us!” Sabine exclaimed.

“It was a tale about when Hercules slayed the Golden
Hind, when the blood of the Hind fell, it soaked into the ground
and from then on the valley bloomed with golden flowers. The myth
stated that, though never used, it was thought these flowers could
be brewed into a tea to kill the Gods.”

“Oh my Gods, Ion you are a genius!” Nea hugged him
again, he sounded embarrassed.

“What’s the catch?” Renata was wary.

“Catch?” Sabine raised an eyebrow.

“There is always a catch in mythology, like why
hasn’t anyone entered this valley and used these flowers?”

“You are quite right,” Ion nodded at Renata, “the
catch is that no mortal has seen the valley in hundreds of years. I
remembered there was a map and stopped by Italy on my way here. I
copied it down, but as far as I can tell there is no valley where
it says there should be, it is just a mountain. The valley is also
said to be guarded, but I couldn’t find out by what.” His shoulders
slumped.

“Do not feel bad Ion, this is much more information
than we had even ten minutes ago, you are brilliant.” Nea reached
out a hand
and Ion put the map in it. She studied
it for a few moments before letting Sabine and Renata see
it.

“This is several miles from here, but I know this
place. I think we should go look.” Renata rolled the map up and
started hunting around the room, grabbing a few objects and shoving
them all in a little sack.

“Now?” Sabine asked.

“Why not? We don’t need to sleep,” Nea agreed, “but
I think a change of clothes might be in order.”  They all
changed into outfits a little more suitable for outdoor activities
and within the hour they were standing at the base of a small
mountain, insignificant and kind of ugly, it blended in with the
rest of the Greek countryside.

“Do you feel that?” Nea took a few steps closer.

“Feel what?” Sabine tilted her head.

“It feels like…death and trepidation.” Nea walked
until she started up the side of the mountain, there was a tiny
path, almost overgrown with plant life, she could feel it in her
boots, the ground was saturated with fear.

“It is unpleasant, like I shouldn’t be here,” Sabine
said, suddenly at her side.

“The locals call this place The Mountain of Tremo,
dread,” Renata said from behind them.

“Aptly named I think.” Ion cocked his head, “I can
hear something, unnatural as well, like singing, but horrible.” He
trembled. They made their way up the mountain and it only got
worse: darker, like something horrifying lay in wait around every
corner. Nea had goosebumps on her arms and her never fearful best
friend was digging her nails into Nea’s hand so hard there were
probably going to be marks.

They rounded a small corner and the side of the
mountain became a bit hazy, almost as if they were seeing it
through water.

“That’s no hillside, it’s a mirage,” Sabine
breathed.

“How has no one noticed this before?” Nea was
shivering.

“Because the humans that do make it this far
probably don’t live to talk about it, I can’t imagine a mortal
braving an unknowing sense of fear,” Ion explained, using a
handkerchief to wipe the evidence of his own fear from his neck and
forehead. Nea looked behind her to acknowledge his words only to
find herself alone. She glanced around, she was still on the
mountain, but all her friends were gone, she wrapped her arms
around herself.

“Sabine, Renata! Ion!” she called, the bracing wind
ripped her words from her and flung them in all directions until
she could hear the echo of her cries, surrounding her.

“Just had to stick your nose in, didn’t you…where it
didn’t belong.”

She turned at the familiar voice and found herself
inches from Anna Bathory, Elizabeth’s mom.

“What are you doing here?”

“I have no idea, but here I am.” Anna lit up a cigar
and began to puff away on it, “have you ever thought that my death
was your fault, had you not interfered I wouldn’t have gone bad and
you wouldn’t have HAD ME KILLED,” she yelled the last part, sucking
the smoke deep into her lungs she began to cough.

“I agree with mother.”

Nea whipped around to see Elizabeth sitting on the
ground, lounging, “You really should have just left us all alone,
told Bendis no and made her turn you over to the afterlife.”

“I would have wound up in purgatory like my mother
and Mariska,” Nea defended.

“Would that have been so bad, we could have been
together, but you were selfish, like always, an ungrateful
child.”

Nea gasped as her mother appeared before her, “No
mama, don’t say that, you’ve always been supportive, what changed?”
This couldn’t be happening.

“Probably too many hundreds of years listening to us
downstairs.” Gryzelda Bathory was leaning up against a rock, Nea
could feel her hatred from feet away.

“No, you have this all wrong. I am trying to SAVE
you, I don’t want you all to be crazy and miserable forever, I have
to stop the curse!” Panic was building in her chest, a horrible
pressure like something was sitting on her lungs, refusing to allow
air in.

“Please, selfish like always, bad wife, bad mother…”
Those words were hurled at her by a vicious looking Katalin.

Nea’s head felt like it was going to explode, her
arms were numb and painful to the touch.

“Maybe we could just embrace it instead,
Grandma.”

“Yes, it is because of you my own mother couldn’t
even raise me.”

Nea blanched as Stasi and Daniela came around the
bend to confront her, both looking the way they had the last time
she’d seen them.

“Oh my darlings please don’t say that.” Nea began to
defend herself again, her head pounding, it was getting so hard to
breathe. She fell to her knees, but then she saw Stasi and Daniela,
staring at her with such contempt and the fog cleared out of her
brain; this wasn’t real.

“It’s not real,” she said out loud, testing the
words, it couldn’t be…She KNEW her children and granddaughter loved
her….KNEW IT.

“What?” Anna coughed.

“This isn’t real, none of you could possibly be
here.” Nea felt like she could breathe again.

“What are you talking about, of course we are real,”
Gryzelda spat.

“No, you are not.” Nea began to spin around, “oh you
are good, I grant you that…but I am better….you can stop the
charade, maybe that worked on humans but I am not human! End this
and show yourself!”

At her last word the women around her all
disappeared. Nea saw Sabine, Renata and Ion trembling on the
ground, Renata and Ion were awake, helping each other sit up, but
Sabine was still in the throes of her own nightmare.

“Are you alright?” Nea asked.

“Yes, what was that? It was awful.” Renata dug into
her bag and brought out a flask, she shared it was a traumatized
Ion.

“A test, I think and we all passed.”

“What about Sabine?” Ion said, concerned, Sabine was
muttering “no” over and over again. Nea went to touch her.

“She has to pass on her own, you won’t be able to
wake her,” a new voice said. Nea glanced up and perched on a rock
near them was what looked like a sixteen year old girl. Her hair
was in two braids, long and pitch black, her eyes were a vortex of
black and blue and her skin was gray like a corpse. She smiled
showing pointed yellow teeth under dark blue lip stick. She was in
an outfit Nea couldn’t even describe, chains and leather with
animal fur, skin tight.

“Who are you?” Nea asked.

“And why are you a punked out Goth?” Renata rolled
her eyes, using terms Nea didn’t understand.

“Ah, one of you is from the future.” The girl
giggled, jumped off the rock, and got into Nea’s face, smelling of
graveyard dust, “To answer your question I am Phrike and I was
assigned to protect this place. I haven’t had a visitor in about
fifty years and no one has ever passed the test my brother set up
for me.”

“Phrike, the embodiment of horror?” Nea was glad she
had done all that reading the past week.

“At your service.” She bowed with a smirk on her
face, “like the trap that Deimos set up for me? It’s been killing
people for what…a thousand years now?”

“Your brother,” Nea swallowed, “is fear?”

“Sure. Who’d you think I was talking about Lust or
Music? I make the mountain scary and his trap kills anyone who gets
this far, but you guys, you are something different. I’m not sure
what to do with you,” she circled Nea.

“We passed your test so let us through,” Ion
demanded.

“Oh I will, but only if you ALL past the test, that
one isn’t doing so well,” Phrike giggled again.

“So now what?” Renata asked.

“We sit and wait, if she doesn’t make it you can
trust all of you will die in the most horrific of ways.” She jumped
back up on the boulder, unwrapped some sort of candy on a stick and
began sucking away.

They sat for what felt like an hour, but was
actually minutes, before Sabine shuddered and her eyes popped open,
Nea hurried to her side and helped her stand.

“Are you ok? I was so worried about you!”

“Yes, it just took a while to understand it wasn’t
real….my father and my brothers...” She closed her eyes tight,
quivering in Nea’s arms and then took a deep breath, “I’m
fine.”

“You guys sure have been entertaining, I guess you
deserve a prize. Now remember, you can take two things only, if you
lose them or get greedy it’s on you. Once you have found this
entrance to the valley you won’t be able to again.” Phrike
fluttered sticky fingers at them and disappeared. The hazy part of
the mountain cleared showing a narrow path between two cliffs.

“Let’s get this over with.” Renata grabbed her sack
and they went in. The path was only a few feet long, they entered
the valley and stood for a moment mesmerized. Ion had to stay
tucked into the cliff side in the shadows because the valley was
full of sunlight and bright blue skies, even though it was night in
the real world. There was a clear brook burbling through the middle
and hundreds of plants that either shouldn’t have been there or no
longer grew anywhere on Earth.

“Good, something to drink,” Sabine started
forward.

“No, Sabine don’t!” Renata halted her, “Phrike said
we could only take two things, I think we should be literal about
that, drinking water may constitute taking.”

“Oh, yeah, that little harlot,” Sabine pouted.

“Look!” Nea sprinted over to a large patch of
flowers that seemed to be dipped in gold, “these must be them, do
you see anything else that looks like golden flowers?”

“No, but let’s be certain.” Renata and Sabine spent
a good fifteen minutes combing through the valley, making sure they
chose the right plant. Nea picked two that were the fullest and
healthiest and Renata placed them between the pages in a small book
she had brought.

“They are pretty.” Sabine leaned down and sniffed a
bloom, “yuck!” She reeled back.

“What?” Renata asked.

“They smell like gore.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Surprised the hell out of me, let’s leave this
creepy place.” Sabine walked back towards Ion.

“I wish I could take a picture,” Renata sighed.

“Yes, maybe I can sketch it decently enough for
Mihail to paint it.” Nea straightened and they left the valley, all
relieved to do so, the feeling of fear and being watched never
truly left them until they were away from the Mountain.

When they arrived back at Renata’s villa it was to
see Mihail waiting for them. Ion excused himself to retire before
the dawn came and Nea thanked him again for his help, before seeing
her son.

“Mihail, what’s wrong, I thought you were with your
father?” She took his hand and led him to a bench to sit down.
Renata and Sabine left to give them some privacy.

“I was, but I am so angry and so worried, I had to
see if I could come help you.” Mihail ran a hand through his dark
hair.

“You cannot. We know what we have to do, we have
found flowers that need to be made into a tea, it will kill Bendis
and the curse will be lifted.”

“Well, let’s do it right now! Summon the bitch and
let her drink her tea!” Mihail stood up and began pacing.

“Oh my dear heart it’s not that simple. I had hoped
this would be a quick process, but Mariska told us when Daniela and
I went to see her and my mother…she told us that Daniela had to
brew the tea and give it to Bendis.” There she had said it.

“No, that’s too much, she’s just a little girl!”
Mihail sat down again, heavy hearted.

“I agree, Mariska also mentioned she had to be 8
years older, so 18. Which means we will have to wait the years
out.” It was hard for Nea to say the words, hard to think of not
seeing her granddaughter for a long time.

“What are you saying?”

“You can still see Stasi, explain to her what must
happen so that she can prepare Daniela. When she is 18 she will be
a grown woman, capable of making such a choice, for it is her
choice.”

“Eight years.” Mihail hung his head in grief.

“I know it seems like a long time, but you can do
it, I did,” Nea said softly, thinking of how long it took for her
to see Mihail again after her death.

“I think I hate you a little for this.” Mihail looked
up at his mother, tears in his eyes.