Alex Archer - Bathed In Blood

Annja sighed, though she made sure to do it away from the phone where he couldn’t hear. “I can explain, Doug.”

“I’m waiting,” he said.

Doug wasn’t much younger than she was, but he knew next to nothing about history, or the state of the world, for that matter, which had a tendency to drive her nuts. He didn’t care about the facts, he often said, but about the ratings. Always the ratings. He had no qualms about “enhancing” an episode with some creative special effects if he thought it would keep viewers from changing the channel. More than once Annja had been forced to threaten him with bodily harm—in a loving way, of course—if he mucked about with her carefully constructed on-screen performances. Over time they’d become friends, and Annja knew that, in the end, she could count on Doug.

She filled him in on what she was doing in Hungary and how she’d planned to surprise him with an episode on Elizabeth Báthory. Then she told him about getting caught up in a police investigation when she’d stopped to rescue the woman who’d been thrown over a cliff and...

“Wait, wait, wait!” he said, finally interrupting her stream of explanation. “Elizabeth who?”

Annja sighed again. “Báthory. Elizabeth Báthory, also known as the Blood Countess.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she liked to bathe in the blood of virgins. Thought it would keep her from aging and give her immortality.”

There was sudden silence on the other end of the line.

“Doug?”

Nothing.

“Doug?”

An intake of breath, and then his voice came thundering down the phone line.

“You’re over there filming an episode about a woman who liked to bathe in the blood of virgins and you didn’t tell me about it first? Are you insane?”

Annja wasn’t sure what to say. Not that it mattered, since Doug wasn’t finished.

“Not just blood, but the blood of virgins. Probably beautiful ones, at that! For heaven’s sake, Annja, what were you thinking? We need to jump on this right away!”

“Ah, Doug, jump on what?”

“The reenactment, of course! We’ll have to get someone good to play this Liz Batha-whatever woman and surround the bathtub with all the virgins and...”

Annja couldn’t take it anymore. “The virgins were dead, Doug. How do you think she bathed in their blood?”

As usual, the facts didn’t bother him in the slightest. “Well, of course they were, at some point. But not right away. And we can use that. We can most definitely use that. When will you be back with the footage?”

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea, Doug. Remember last time you tried...”

“Ancient history, Annja. We can’t face today thinking about the mistakes of the past. If we’re going to back you on the episode we need to be thinking about the audience. Now answer the question—how long?”

Figuring she could deal with any of Doug’s so-called improvements to her episode once she was back in the States, Annja focused on getting the resources necessary to make it all work. “I need a few more days to get the right shots of Csejte Castle and then...”

“See-what?”

“Csejte Castle. The Báthory family estate here in Slovakia.”

“Right, right. I knew that.”

“So I should probably stick around for another three, maybe four days. I can get by on my own, no need to send anyone else, but it would help if the show kicked in some funding.”

At the mention of funding, Doug’s over-the-top enthusiasm was suddenly replaced with a miser’s attention to details. “Funding? For what?”

“I need to eat and sleep, Doug.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll wire you some money tonight. Where are you staying?”

She told him.

“Three days. That’s all you’ve got. After that I want you back here in New York with the footage so we can have the boys in the editing suite start putting it all together.”

Three days. That should be good enough.

“Thanks, Doug. Got to go.”

“Annja, I want...”

She hung up the phone before he could finish the sentence. The less she heard about what he wanted, the better. She could get back to the episode tomorrow; right now she needed to see what Detective Tamás was doing to solve the woman’s murder.

Putting the phone back on the nightstand, she took a quick shower before getting dressed and headed out the door.

Annja was halfway across the parking lot before she remembered that her SUV had been confiscated. She went back into the hotel, asked to use the lobby phone and spent the next half hour explaining what had happened to the rental car, finally cajoling the clerk on the other end of the phone into sending another vehicle to her hotel until the first one was released by the police. When the car finally showed up it was a beat-up-looking sedan that spouted small clouds of gray exhaust at regular intervals like a mechanical whale spitting water through its blowhole. Annja didn’t care; all she wanted was something to get her from one place to another.

She signed the paperwork, handed it to the clerk and settled behind the wheel. A crank of the key, a sputtering rasp of the engine until it caught and then she was wheeling the car around and dashing out of the hotel parking lot, retracing the route she’d driven so frantically last night.

Annja was fully expecting to come upon the police combing the cliff side, so she was surprised to make it almost all the way to Csejte Castle without coming upon the crime scene. Thinking that perhaps she’d gotten the distances mixed up in all the excitement of the rescue, she continued driving, only to find herself entering the village of Čachtice less than five minutes later. She hadn’t seen a single police car or found anyone standing watch by the side of the road.

What on earth was going on?

She glanced at her watch, noting that it was almost 10:00 a.m.

Could they have come and gone already?

She didn’t think that was possible. It should have taken them hours to search the surrounding area. Perhaps they’ve only done a cursory inspection and intend on coming back with a full crime scene unit?

Scowling, she pulled an abrupt U-turn. This time she drove slower, watching for the brightly colored climbing rope she’d left behind with the rest of her gear. It didn’t take that long to find; the rope was still anchored to the tree, and its orange color stood out starkly against the dull gray of the tree trunk.

Annja drove well past the scene, not wanting to disturb any evidence, and then she parked by the side of the road. Getting out of the car, she stood by the driver’s door for a moment, surveying the area.

There wasn’t a police officer in sight.

Shaking her head, Annja hurried along the side of the road until she reached the tree she’d used to anchor her climbing gear. She looked over the edge, toward the spot where she’d rescued the injured woman.

It took a moment, things looking a bit different in daylight, but eventually she spotted the rocks that had trapped the woman’s arm.

There wasn’t any evidence that anyone besides her and Csilla had been here.

For a moment she considered undoing the anchor, coiling her rope and taking it and the rest of her gear, but then her good sense reasserted itself. Touching anything at this point would be interfering with a crime scene, and that was just as much a felony here as it was back in the States. While the gear was expensive, it wasn’t that expensive, and it would be easy enough to replace. She had to believe the police would eventually take a look at the scene and they were bound to wonder how the heck she’d gotten down the slope without any gear. Best to leave it right where it was, she concluded.

Frustrated with how the morning was going, she headed back to Nové Mesto. Annja hoped she could see Detective Tamás and ask what was going on, but when she arrived back in town she found a small crowd gathered in front of the police station. She parked down the street and hurried back on foot to see what was going on.