DARKNESS
VISIBLE
by
PiperMerlyn
Chapter 4
The Chapters
In the sudden silence, a wolf howled – a low, mournful sound that seemed to vibrate directly to the bones. There was a crash of thunder that felt as if it rattled every candle in its holder.
Frank stood up, studying Dorian intently. "What do you mean, help?"
"I'm being stalked. He's ruthless, undeterred regardless of the situation." Dorian jabbed a thumb in the direction of the windows where the storm seemed to have renewed its fury, branches scratching at glass panes like skeletal fingers. "And he's out there."
Joe looked unsettled as he gazed out the window. Lightning lit the scene outside like a strobe light, making the landscape a study in black shadows and pale ghostly light. Thunder crashed again, sounding as if it were right above them. "Out there?"
Fiala growled low in her throat. "He's been hunting Dorian these past few months. Always just one step away. First, Alia – the housekeeper – and now Walter." She glanced over her shoulder. "The medics are taking him to hospital, Dorian. He may lose some feeling and range of motion in that arm."
Joe glanced at her, seeing how upset she was. "Is he a friend?"
"He is my most trusted employee. He knows more of me and my life than anyone else. He has been with me for nearly fifteen years, long from a human standpoint." She tossed her long dark hair and spared a glance of her own at the windows. "He hunts like the common creature he is."
A wolf howled, not far away, a long drawn-out sound now. Joe shook his head. "No. You can't be serious."
Frank looked over at his brother, either not catching on or refusing to believe himself. "What?"
"First...vampires...now werewolves?" Joe shook his head again. "No."
"Don't be ridiculous..." Frank's voice trailed off as he looked at Dorian. "You believe he's a werewolf?"
"I know." Dorian turned away and shuddered. "If you had seen Alia..." He took a deep breath. "She was savaged, her throat ripped out completely."
Joe rolled his shoulders and stepped clear of them both. "Next you'll tell me Dr. Frankenstein lives just down the road and he's discovered a new idea," he muttered sarcastically.
"You find this amusing, then?" asked Fiala. "My chauffeur is critically injured, Dorian's housekeeper dead a month now. It is funny?"
Joe shook his head. "No. I don't find this amusing. Actually...vampires and werewolves? That's myth, legend, the basis of quite a few horror movies."
Frank looked over at Dorian. "You were serious about what you were talking about earlier – about Judas Iscariot and your...theory."
Dorian turned around. "I was. In this day and age, due to your cinema, people use the term vampire and Dracula interchangeably, as if all vampires are also Dracula. That is not true. Dracula was one man, a vile man, but only one."
Joe narrowed his eyes. "So...instead of Van Helsing...it's Buffy?"
Fiala frowned. "I am still not familiar with terminology used now. What is a Buffy?"
Frank didn't quite groan. "A popular television show about a vampire slayer named Buffy. It was her mission in life to rid the world of vampires."
Dorian sighed, sounding rather sad. "It is that attitude that we fear most."
"But she fell in love with a vampire," said Joe. He cocked his head to one side. "Now that I think about it, you kind of look like him – the guy who played Angel."
Dorian arched an eyebrow. "Indeed. Should I be flattered?" At their curious looks, he managed a smile. "It has been a very long time since I have seen my reflection."
"Oh." Joe cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "But...why do you need our help? Why?"
Dorian stared down at the faded carpet. "I grow weary of battles, I am sick to death of fleeing. I merely wish to live here in peace, with the woman I have loved for centuries by my side if she is content to do so. I bring harm to no one, I only wish for my sanctuary—" He gestured around the room. "Here."
Frank and Joe shared a long look. They were unsettled by what they had learned, still floored that it could all be real. Joe took a deep breath. "So...that's why you own a chain of blood banks?"
"Is it not the simplest way?" Dorian managed a tight smile. "I am not particular about blood type, so whenever there is excessive amounts of one or more, the packets are shipped here."
Joe swallowed hard. "Um...if they come in packets...why are bottles in the pantry?"
Dorian frowned. "Bottles?" He shook his head. "I do not resort to such theatrical staging, I can assure you. Why would I, when all I wish is to be left alone with Fiala?"
"And the lights going out in the kitchen? Was that staged as well?" asked Frank.
"No."
There was another wolf howl. But this time it sounded like it was coming from inside. Dorian's dark eyes went wide. "Damn his worthless hide."
Joe frowned. "How could he have gotten in?"
Dorian shook his head and motioned the boys and Fiala toward the grandfather clock. Fiala balked but he pulled her along nonetheless. "Please, Fiala, if for no other reason than showing the boys the secret passageway."
Fiala muttered something under her breath but opened the bottom door of the grandfather clock, touched something and the panel with the clock attached swung outward. She gave Dorian a hard look and then stepped inside, Joe right behind her. Frank studied Dorian for another moment. "You know him, don't you."
Dorian gave a start and looked over at Frank. "Please, go. Fiala will show you a way to get to safety."
Frank glanced over his shoulder as an odd shuffling sound came from the corridor outside the study. He caught the slightly sour scent of wet fur and then heard a low, angry growl. "You ask for our help and now you abandon yourself to what you think is your fate?"
Dorian gave him a surprised look. "I'm trying to secure your escape."
"Then come with us."
Dorian glanced at the doors which were shut at the moment. There was a heavy wet thump as if the creature on the other side had slammed its body against the wood. Dorian gave a jerky nod and followed Frank into the secret passageway, pulling the panel shut behind him. There was a click as the panel locked automatically.
Frank turned to move but collided with something warm. "Joe?"
"Some brain forgot the light."
Frank bit back a grin. "Would that be you?"
"Ha, ha."
There was a snick and the faint glow of a flame. Dorian held up the cigarette lighter, so they could at least see where they were. It was a narrow corridor, barely wide enough to allow one person through at a time. Dorian reached up to place his hand on a high ledge, blindly feeling for something. A moment later, he pulled down a small package. "Emergency candles."
Frank took the package from him and opened it, handing out candles and Dorian quickly lit each one. He nodded to Fiala. "Lead the way."
She let out a soft grunt. "It's been a good century or so since I've had to use these bloody passageways. It turns up here to the right?"
"Yes."
The storm was muted in here, barely audible over their breathing and footsteps. Twice the passage turned to the right and once led down for nearly half an hour before they reached an incline. Joe didn't know how much time had passed in reality, but it was beginning to feel as if he'd been in this cramped corridor for hours. "How much longer?"
"We're almost there," said Dorian softly.
Joe grunted. "We'd better be. I'm starting to have flashbacks to every long road trip we ever went on with Mom and Dad."
Frank rolled his eyes. "Only because you kept asking, 'Are we there yet?' every ten minutes or so."
There was a hissing sound that stopped the four of them in their tracks. Fiala nearly let out a squeal. She took a deep breath. "Damn it, Dorian, why'd you ever decide to let them roam at will?"
Joe looked over Fiala's shoulder to see a pair of glowing eyes. It took him a minute to realize it was a solid black cat. He gave Fiala a long look. "Um...you're afraid of cats?"
Fiala snorted, sounding quite unladylike. "Me? A respectable Victorian lady? Heavens, no." As if to lend credence to her words, the cat walked to her, meowing softly. It wound itself around her legs as if greeting a long lost friend. Fiala patted its head. "No. Dorian said it would keep the mice out if the cats had access to the entire structure. He should have known cats with their nocturnal habits and love of secret hideaways would haunt the secret passages."
Frank nudged his brother. "What kind of question was that, anyway?"
Joe sighed. "You're sorely lacking in your horror movie education, Frank. In the movie Sleepwalkers, they were deathly afraid of cats."
Fiala eyed Joe for a moment. "You like horror movies, I gather?"
Joe started to nod. "I'm not sure at the moment. I may swear off of them forever."
"Don't make promises, you can't keep, Joe," said Frank, just the hint of a smirk in his voice.
Joe rolled his eyes. "Very funny, big brother. Don't make me crash your computer."
"We're nearing our exit," said Dorian. He nodded to their right. "Just past this joist."
Fiala pressed on a knot hole and a panel swung outward, into the room. It was large, with several doors and not a single window. A large, heavy four-poster bed sat in one dim corner, with dark red curtains hanging around it. In the opposite corner sat a well-worn upholstered chair and a gleaming silver flat-screen plasma television the size of a large painting.
The corner nearest them held a large desk complete with the latest model of computer and printer. Frank took it all in and then looked at Dorian. "This is your room?"
"Yes." He motioned them to enter and once everyone was out of the passageway, he shut the panel.
Joe didn't like the fact there were no windows, although he'd never considered being claustrophobic. "So...what do you do in here?"
"Whatever I wish. When I am restless, unable to sleep, I surf the Internet or watch the twenty-four hour news channels." He pointed to the door nearest the bed. "That leads to a bath chamber. That one is the walk-in closet."
Joe pointed to the one set in the wall near the computer desk. "And that one?"
"It opens onto a maze. One has to transverse the maze to get to the rest of the castle. It also prevents people from coming to this room."
"So...you're saying the wolf won't be able to find you here." Frank looked around the large room. "Unless he was able to get into the passageway and tracked you."
Dorian went white. "That is a possibility."
Fiala took Dorian's arm. "The panel locked. We both heard it. You are safe here."
"And if he isn't?" asked Joe quietly.
Fiala shook her head. "Do not borrow trouble."
Something in the way she said it made Joe realize who she reminded him of. "I know you make me think of – Casi."
Frank looked over at his brother and then studied Fiala. "Same auburn hair, same brown eyes. I can see the similarities."
Dorian carefully disengaged his arm from Fiala's hands. "You are referring to Cassandra MacFairlaigne?"
Joe's jaw dropped and he took a step away from Dorian and Fiala. "No. No way. She cannot know a vampire."
"It's not like she would have told you," said Frank.
"That's beside the point. I swear, Frank, she knows everyone."
"I'm sure that is an exaggeration," said Dorian, looking puzzled.
Joe shook his head. "I swear everyone we've met lately seems to know her."
Dorian arched an eyebrow and walked over to the upholstered chair. He very nearly fell into the chair as if his legs could no longer support him. He let out a long sigh. "I encountered her three years ago, late in the month of October. She reminded me of...the past, of the woman I loved so fiercely. I was jealous at first, learning her heart belonged to another but..." He gave a slight shrug. "Then Fiala came back into my life."
A distant crash startled the four of them and Fiala cursed under her breath. "My house..."
"This is your place?" asked Frank.
Dorian nodded when Fiala didn't reply. "My estate is in Brasov."
Joe arched an eyebrow. "So's Dracula's."
"Joe," Frank said with a shake of his head. "Let it go."
Joe looked over at Frank. "What? Vlad Tepes' castle is in Brasov."
"He is correct," said Dorian, closing his eyes and letting his head fall against the back of the chair.
A thump sounded against the door that led to the maze. A weak-sounding scream came from the other side of the door, drowned out by a spine-tingling guttural growl.
A warm metallic smell filled the room and Fiala swallowed hard. "Vlad," she whispered sadly. Frank felt a chill sweep down his spine as a red stain spread into the room, coming from under the door.
Dorian pushed himself wearily to his feet just as the door burst open. A tall blond man with long gold hair and hard brown eyes dropped what was left of the butler in a bloody heap. He was wearing a shredded shirt and ripped jeans. "Thayer," said the man in that same guttural growl.
Dorian scowled and squared his shoulders. "Ezekiel Wolff."
Joe's blue eyes widened as he looked from Dorian to the man. "You know him?"
"He should," said Wolff, his brown eyes narrowing. "He killed my mother."
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Disclaimer
The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.