Read Online Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett - Free Book Online Page B

the ways of my kind. The sunlight will not harm me, nor will that crucifix. I intend to step out for some air whether you come or not; this hateful little place reminds me too much of the dungeon where I breathed my last as a living thing. This is the place where Walter Scott had that poor nun suffer a similar fate in Marmion, if I am not mistaken.”
    Stoker searched his memory of Le Fanu’s document. Elizabeth Bathory, known as the Blood Countess for her habit of bathing in the blood of murdered young women to extend her youth. For her crimes she had been bricked up in her rooms in Csejte Castle in Hungary. Sometime in 1614, he thought he remembered. He blanched. Two hundred and seventy six years ago. He stammered, “You are well read, Countess.”
    She smiled, showing those fearful fangs again. “I have had plenty of time to read, Mr. Stoker. And not just the classics. Why, I read in the newspaper you had been helping the local constabulary with their inquiries into the mystery of the ghost ship that fetched up on Whitby beach, did I not?”
    “You did,” said Stoker. Bathory grasped the handle of a wicker basket and moved toward him. He pressed himself against the cool stone wall, and she passed by him and into the grounds of the abbey.
    Gathering his things, he followed, to find the countess laying out a gingham blanket on the unruly lawn, now painted silver by the fiercely glowing moon high above. Bathory sat down with her legs beneath her and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “I always loved the smell of the sea.”
    Warily, Stoker circled around her. She began to lay out items from her basket: cheese, bread, and wine, just as she had said. “Please do sit down, Mr. Stoker. You are quite making me nervous with all this hopping around.”
    Stoker crouched on the corner of the blanket. He surveyed the food and raised an eyebrow as Bathory tore off a chunk of bread and began to nibble on it.
    “I thought . . . blood . . .”
    Bathory sighed and lay down her bread. “Mr. Stoker, you require water to survive?”
    “Of course.”
    “So it is with vampires and blood. But just as you do not entirely subsist on water, so we do eat other food as well. Life would be rather dull if I had to only drink blood.”
    “Life?” said Stoker, pulling a face.
    She shrugged. “Unlife. Undeath. Call it what you will. But mark this: I never felt more alive before I crossed over.” She paused. “Lesson two. Sunlight does not cause vampires to shrivel and burn. It weakens me, yes, and it can hurt my eyes. But I am quite capable of walking in it. I enjoy the sunshine, Mr. Stoker. Number three, your crucifix means nothing to me, so please put it away. My kind may have been cast from the Kingdom of Heaven, but by men, not God. Men are not always right, you know. In fact, I find they rarely are at all. Are we not sitting on consecrated ground? With no ill effect to myself?”
    “Garlic?” asked Stoker, rather hopelessly.
    “I like it, in moderation,” said Bathory. “This cheese is made with a small amount.”
    “A stake through the heart?”
    Bathory smiled. “I dare say if I hammered a wooden stake through your heart, Mr. Stoker, it would sting a little.”
    His shoulders slumped, and he sat down properly on the blanket. Was all Le Fanu’s lore useless? He could recall only one other fact. “Running water,” he announced. “Vampires can’t cross running water, can they?”
    She gave him the look a schoolteacher might direct toward a particularly dull pupil. “I arrived by boat, Mr. Stoker.”
    He sighed. “That you did, Countess.” He paused. “Do you mind if I have some cheese? I am dashed hungry, after all.”
    It was quite the most unusual dinner he had ever had. He said. “I must say, you are rather not what I was expecting.”
    “What were you expecting?”
    “A man, for one thing. Count Vlad Dracula of Transylvania, to be exact.”
    A cloud passed over Bathory’s flawless face. “My husband,”
    she