The Vampire's Mirror: Gothic Mysteries of Dracule Book I

Chapter IX

The ruined castle wasn't easy to find this time. Snow made the land uniform in its whiteness, obscuring the pathways and hiding treacherous sinkholes. The winds blew flurries into Stefan's face, bothered the horse. Mist rose up. Stefan took that as a sign that he was getting close, for the demon world was said to reside behind clouds of steam that rose from the fires of the underworld.

He kept thinking of Analise, her once lush body, wasted as a whore's, then miraculously filling out again on a tide of sexual desire. A terrible feeling washed over him. It seemed impossible that she was still a virgin. Someone had gotten to her, taken her, stolen what rightfully belonged to him. Could vanity alone have the power to make a girl give herself away? Was Analise so sure of Stefan's love that she thought she could dupe him into thinking she'd been true?

His mind played back to Analise on the bed, remembering every nuance of her form and behavior. He'd wanted her; it was all he could do to wrench himself away. But he didn't want it to be like this. Not with Analise. Not with his Analise.

Why hadn't he listened to Cornu? The mirror was obviously cursed. In the satchel falling against his knee, it seemed to burn. He saw it in his mind's eye, scintillating with dragon fire. Perhaps it would guide him back to its lair. The sun was going down. He had to find the castle soon.

He tried to think of other things, such as the wonderful town house that had been within his grasp, now surely gone off the market. Perhaps there was something better waiting for he and his bride.... Was his beloved Analise mad, or did the castle, indeed, take shape within the mirror? Perhaps he would find it there.

With a leather-gloved hand, Stefan pulled the mirror out of his satchel and looked into the glass. All he saw was his own worried face. He wanted to keep looking, to see what else might appear, but his cold breath frosted the mirror white. The horse whinnied and jerked at the reins as if it wanted to flee. Stefan wiped the glass with his sleeve, but it fogged up again. The handle was getting too hot to hold. Perhaps he should just drop the blasted thing in the stream and have done with it.

Suddenly, he saw the regal gates leaning open as before, inviting him into the broad courtyard now dusted with bright snow. Moonlight blazed up behind the trees that rose among the crumbled remains of the towers. He dismounted, tied the horse securely to a branch, and walked through the gates toward Castle Drag.

As night fell, a marvelous thing happened. The moon, round as the Devil's scrying glass, appeared above a bastion of tall towers. Once ruined walls regained their structures and stood firm, lights flickered in a thousand windows, casements opened on rooms of splendor where shadowy figures danced.

"The castle resurrects itself," Stefan muttered.

The horse whinnied its distress. Stefan was about to run, when he saw, glowing like a fallen star, a lady approaching through the dark. In close proximity, she proved to be a girl with long pale hair, plaited in the fashion of a century ago. She was too lovely for this place.

"Who are you?" she asked.

Knowing better than to give a demon his name, Stefan said. "That is of no importance. Who are you?"

"Giselle."

"Giselle..." Stefan nodded and hung his head. Something about the girl saddened him: a fallen innocence, a flower faded before its bloom. Blood trickled from her scalp, down her neck, to pool in her collarbone and drip over her heart.

"Are you returning my mirror?" she asked.

"I have a mirror," he said. "Perhaps it is yours."

"Give it to me." Her face was fierce. Stefan couldn't imagine what she, in her present state, could possibly want it for.

Unclasping the satchel, Stefan's hands shook. He did not take the mirror out.

"First, I need some instruction from you. My lady gazed into this mirror too frequently and long. She fell under an evil spell."

Giselle watched Stefan's hand resting on the satchel, her eyes staring with ferocious impatience.

"The mirror is a window, and a door," she said.

A door... Pain ran its bayonet through Stefan's heart. He understood. The mirror had waited centuries of time to snare his Analise, and it was he, Stefan the fool, who, like a tinsel-dazzled magpie, had delivered it to her.

Giselle drifted closer as if to share a secret with Stefan. Her blue eyes glowed so intensely that the lower part of her face fell into shadow. Stefan flinched. He made ready to run, but at five feet away, the girl stopped.

"What do you want?" she demanded. "In return for my mirror?"

"Tell me how to save her," he said.

The ethereal form of Giselle shimmered with a sense of satisfaction.

"Give her the comb. The comb made of gold and rubies. The one you stole with my mirror. When she wears the comb, the spell will end."

Stefan exhaled sharply. "The comb. I'd planned to give to her it as a wedding gift. Now, I fear she will not live... long enough... to marry."

"She will. Give her the comb to wear on her wedding day. It will break the enchantment that binds her. After that, she will never be untrue."

Untrue? The word gutted Stefan. Was the demon suggesting that Analise had been untrue? That her love for him was a lie?

It was said that spirits like Giselle could see below the surface of things, and even foretell the future. Stefan mulled. Perhaps Analise didn't love him. Perhaps she saw him merely as a means of escape from her prison. Their love, once filled with warmth and promise, had grown as fragile as a pane of ice.

"Thank you," he mumbled. "I shall do as you suggest."

Swallowing his grief, Stefan took the mirror out of the satchel and laid it at Giselle's feet. Then he ran.

A terrible scream rose up, but Stefan did not look back. He knew what had happened when Giselle looked into the glass, knew full well what she had not seen.

***

Stefan backtracked through the forest like one pursued. In his mind he saw the girl, Giselle, shining like iridescent gold, lying on the ground as if dead. But she was not dead. One such as she could never die.

As he rode among the snow-burdened evergreens, he began seeing things: a door opening into blackness, a red-robed figure on the path bowing low before him, then vanishing; a disembodied hand saluting him with a glass of black-red wine.

Stefan's stomach wallowed. He spurred his skittish horse forward. It tried to gallop, but something held it back. Pushing against a force intent on keeping its rider in the orbit of Castle Drag, the horse cried, reared-up, and then fell into a slow, nervous walk.

Stefan dreaded what new evils he might have unleashed by entering Castle Drag again, but he was sure the encounter with Giselle had been worth it. She'd given him the antidote. The comb. It had to work. It was Analise's only hope.

With that thought, the force field that held Stefan back broke as if it were nothing more than a vapor. The horse tossed its head and trotted faster. The edge of the forest was in sight.

***

Every window in the House of cel Mare was lit up, glowing like patens of gold in the morning twilight. Emerging from the forest, Stefan saw this as a warm welcome, and drove his horse a little faster. They must have stayed up all night, the cel Mares, waiting for him. He looked for Analises's window above the garden wall, glad to see it, too, was burning.

She would wear the comb and all would be well. The comb would drive the evil out of her, and she would be, once again, the pure, lovely girl he fell in love with.