Chapter 8

The massive castle’s western wall took on a yellow cast to its gray stone as the sun began to sink behind the mountain to the west. On the southern face of the massive stone structure, a woman stepped up into the casement of a sizeable broken bay window, tossed out a yellow bundle, then watched it fall to the river below her.

The bundle rushed through the channel, spilling over the falls, tumbling to a second waterfall, and then to the waterway below it. Jane Hanson lingered, pondering the wisdom of her decision. She heard bare feet running down the hall outside the library. The scratching of the door and creaking of hinges as the boys pulled it open.

“No,” Boian said.

“Please, we don’t need to feed tonight,” Cristian added. “Don’t leave us.”

“Sweet boys,” she said, jumping from the window. She held her arms to her chest as she plummeted the 40-foot drop, her feet hit the water, and her body went under the surface. The pain engulfed her as the river swallowed her. The beautiful, wasted woman descended deep into the dark waters, her body lifted upward toward the surface.

The two brothers ran to the window, they saw where she hit. Look as they might, they didn’t see her surface, nor did they see a dead body bob in the waves of the river. They watched the water, hoping to see her, staring into the darkness. At last, the trio moved away from the window.

“Whatever shall we do now?” Cristian asked.

“I suppose we shall learn to hunt,” Boian said.

Alexandru entered the room, “We shall go hunting, yes, indeed. But we will bring the prey here and keep them and suckle on their sweet nectar, not take a mouthful, and let them go free. We will grow strong, like Mistress Drago. I thought Mistress Jane was to rule. But now, in our Mistresses’ absence, we are the rulers.”

Putting his hands on the younger children of Lilith, he smiled as he looked out the window. Her body bobbed to the surface, flip-flop over the waterfall. Alexandru wondered if a possibility existed, she’d survive such a drop.

“I wonder, is this also part of the Countess’s plan,” Boian said.

“Perhaps,” Alexandru said. “Perhaps, we shan’t know.”

The old monk walked by the bank of the river, pondering the mystery of God and forgiveness. Stopping, he bowed his head and said a prayer as the sun rose over the mountain and cast its bright light across the small valley. Raising his head, he exclaimed a rejoicing shout to the new day.

“Hosanna, in the highest.”

The young postulant walking behind the monk said, “Look, Brother Gregory.”

On the bank, where the water whirled around the bend in the river, amongst the reeds, lay a woman. The monk ran to her, bent down, and felt for her pulse on her neck.

“She lives, but only just,” the old man said. “Oh, my Lord, she has the mark of the Countess and her children.” Pointing at the many feeding scars on her exposed neck and shoulders.

The woman’s eyes opened; she saw the old man’s kind face gazing at her. She could see the concern in his expression. Tears flowed from her eyes, and she whispered something to him.

“What?” he asked her.

“Leave me,” she repeated, only slightly louder. “I wanted to die.”

Scooping the woman into his arms, the old monk stood, turned, and walked back toward the monastery.

“I’ll find a doctor,” the postulant said.

“No,” the monk said. “She either lives or dies. Cut me a thick limb from an oak tree, three feet long, char it on one end and shave it to a sharp point, just in case she does...,” he paused for several moments, “neither. I had dealings of this kind many years ago and miles from here. If I had the courage in those days, I’d have ended this sickness. I’ll not let this spread from here.”

Excerpt from Brother Thaddeus’s Journal

Monday, September 16th, 1901

With pen in hand, I struggle to put down the strange story of the woman in the river. Brother Gregory and I found her on the bank, where the river bends around the mountain and flows by our Priory, the Lady of Eternal Sorrows, where Monks and Nuns seek a closer union with God.

On her lovely shoulders and neck, she bore the marks of the Countess of Blood. Her name is Doctor Jane Hanson, the most beautiful of all that humanity has produced. Soon after, she recovered, and the Priory fell into wicked ungodliness. The contamination of the blood followed. Doctor Hanson, a novice named Sister Ruth, and I are the sole survivors of the dreadful plague, which befell the Priory. Life is in the blood...