Elisabeth Kostova - The Historian

“This was easier to answer, and I let Helen go first. ‘He is not here, evidently,’ she said in her nastiest voice. ‘You may examine the tomb.’ At this the little bureaucrat took a step forward and seemed about to speak.

“‘Stay with them,’ Ranov said to Géza. Ranov moved carefully forward among the tables, glancing around at everything; it was clear to me that he’d never been here before. The dark-suited bureaucrat followed him without a word. When they reached the sarcophagus, Ranov held up his lantern and his gun and looked cautiously inside. ‘It is empty,’ he threw back to Géza. He turned to the other two, smaller sarcophagi. ‘What is this? Come here, help me.’ The bureaucrat and the monk stepped obediently forward. Stoichev followed more slowly and I thought I saw a light in his face as he looked around him at the empty tables, the cabinets. I could only guess what he made of this place.

“Ranov was already peering into the sarcophagi. ‘Empty,’ he said heavily. ‘He is not here. Search the room.’ Géza was already striding among the tables, holding his light up to every wall, opening cabinets. ‘Did you see him or hear him?’

“‘No,’ I said, more or less truthfully. I told myself that if only they didn’t injure Helen, if they let her go, I would consider this expedition a success. I would never ask life for anything else. I also thought, with fleeting gratitude, of Rossi’s delivery from this whole situation.

“Géza said something that must have been a curse in Hungarian, because Helen nearly smiled, despite the gun aimed at her heart. ‘It is useless,’ he said, after a moment. ‘The tomb in the crypt is empty, and this one is also. And he will never return to this place, since we have found it.’ It took me a moment to digest this. The tomb in the crypt was empty? Then where was Rossi’s body, which we’d just left there?

Ranov turned to Stoichev. ‘Tell us about what is here.’ They had lowered their guns at last and I drew Helen to me, which made Géza give me one sour look, although he said nothing.

“Stoichev held his lantern up as if he had been waiting for this moment. He went to the nearest table and tapped it. ‘These are oak, I think,’ he said slowly, ‘and they could be medieval in their design.’ He looked under the table at a leg joint, tapped a cabinet. ‘But I do not know much about furniture.’ We waited, silently.

“Géza kicked the leg of one of the ancient tables. ‘What am I going to say to the Minister of Culture? That Wallachian belonged to us. He was a Hungarian prisoner and his country was our territory.’

“‘Why don’t we quarrel about that when we find him?’ Ranov growled. I realized suddenly that their only common language was English, and that they loathed each other. At that moment I knew whom Ranov reminded me of. With his heavyset face and thick dark mustache, he looked like the photographs I’d seen of the young Stalin. People like Ranov and Géza did minimal damage only because they had minimal power.

“‘Tell your aunt to be more careful with her phone calls.’ Géza gave Helen a baleful look and I felt her stiffen against me. ‘Now leave this damned monk to guard the place,’ he added to Ranov, and Ranov issued a command that made poor Brother Ivan tremble. At that moment, the light from Ranov’s lantern suddenly fell in a new direction. He had been raising it here and there, examining the tables. Now his light slanted across the face of the dark-suited, severely hatted little bureaucrat, who was standing silently by Dracula’s empty sarcophagus. Perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed his face at all if it hadn’t been for the strange expression it wore-a look of private grief suddenly illuminated by the lantern. I could see plainly the bone-thin face under the awkward mustache, and the familiar glitter of the eyes. ‘Helen!’ I shouted. ‘Look!’ She stared, too.

“‘What?’ Géza turned on her in an instant.

“‘This man -’ Helen was aghast. ‘That man there-he is -’

“‘He’s a vampire,’ I said flatly. ‘He followed us from our university in the United States.’ I had barely begun to speak before the creature was in flight. He had to come straight toward us to get out, barreling into Géza, who tried to seize him, and pushing past Ranov. Ranov was quicker on his feet; he grabbed the librarian, they collided hard, and then Ranov leaped back from him with a cry and the librarian was in flight again. Ranov turned and shot the hurtling figure before it was many feet away. It didn’t falter for a second-Ranov might have been shooting into air. Then the evil librarian was gone, so suddenly that I wasn’t sure whether he’d actually reached the passage or vanished before our eyes. Ranov ran after him, through the doorway, but returned almost immediately. We all stood staring at him; his face was white, and where he grasped the torn cloth of his jacket, a little blood was already trickling between his fingers. After a long minute Ranov spoke. ‘What the hell is this about?’ His voice trembled.

“Géza shook his head. ‘My God,’ he said. ‘He bit you.’ He took a step back from Ranov. ‘And I was alone with that little man several times. He said he could tell me where we could find the Americans, but he never told me he was -’

“‘Of course he never told you,’ Helen said contemptuously, although I tried to keep her quiet. ‘He wanted to find his master, to follow us to him, not to kill you. You were more useful to him this way. Did he give you our notes?’

“‘Shut up.’ Géza looked inclined to strike her, but I heard the fear and awe in his voice, and I quietly drew her away.

“‘Come.’ Ranov was herding us with his gun again, one hand on his wounded shoulder. ‘You have been of very little assistance. I want you back in Sofia and on a plane as soon as possible. You are lucky we don’t have permission to make you disappear-it would be too inconvenient.’ I thought he was going to kick us as Géza had done to the table leg, but he turned instead and ushered us brusquely out of the library. He made Stoichev walk ahead; I guessed with a pang what the old man must have been through, in the course of this coercive chase. Clearly, Stoichev hadn’t intended for us to be followed; I’d believed that from my first glimpse of the misery in his face. Had he made it back to Sofia before they forced him to turn around and follow us? I hoped Stoichev’s international reputation would protect him from further abuse, as it had in the past. But Ranov-that was the worst of it. Ranov would probably return, infected, to his duties with the secret police. I wondered if Géza would try to do anything about this, but the Hungarian’s face looked so forbidding that I didn’t dare to address him.

“I looked back once, from the doorway, at the princely sarcophagus that had lain here for nearly five hundred years. Its occupant might be anywhere now, or on his way to anywhere. At the top of the steps we crawled one by one through the opening-I prayed none of those guns would go off-and there I saw something very strange. The reliquary of Saint Petko sat open on its pedestal. They must have had some tools, to open it where we had failed. The marble slab underneath was back in place and covered with its embroidered cloth, undisturbed. Helen shot me a blank look. Glancing into the reliquary as we passed it, I saw a few pieces of bone, a polished skull-all that remained of the local martyr.

“Outside the church, in the heavy night, there was a confusion of cars and people-Géza had apparently arrived with an entourage, two of whom were guarding the church doors. Dracula certainly hadn’t escaped that way, I thought. The mountains loomed around us, darker than the dark sky. Some of the villagers had gotten wind of the arrivals and come up with lighted torches; they fell back at Ranov’s approach, staring at his torn and bloody jacket, their faces strained in the uneven light. Stoichev caught my arm; his face bobbed near my ear. ‘We closed it,’ he whispered.