Alex Archer - Bathed In Blood

“Yes, sir.”

Semtész glared at him, but he ignored her, his thoughts on who he’d take with him into the dungeon for Elizabeth’s arrest and who he would leave behind to guard the prisoners.

He never got the chance to make a decision. Cries for help erupted from down below.

Thurzó didn’t hesitate; gripping his sword, he rushed down the steps. The stamp of booted feet on the stone behind him let him know that several of his men were following. At this point it didn’t really matter who it was, just that he had some backup.

Torches burned in sconces set into the walls, lighting the way before them, and the group of men quickly found themselves standing in a narrow passageway with rows of cells on either side.

The cells were full of women.

Some held the living. Some held the dead. Some held a mix of the two, and it was often difficult to tell the difference given the terrible state many of the prisoners were in. One glance was all it took to recognize that the women had been tortured. They had been beaten and battered and in some cases bitten, though by whom or what Thurzó didn’t know.

He had his suspicions, though, oh, yes.

Unlike the women they’d found upstairs, some of these prisoners needed immediate assistance, and he couldn’t just pass them by without giving aid. Leaving the dead to fulfill their mission was one thing; abandoning the living was something else entirely.

Thankfully the doors to each cell were made of wood, rather than iron. That meant there’d be no need to wait for a blacksmith. Thurzó had anticipated the need to smash through a few doors once they were inside the castle, so several of his men were carrying battle hammers.

“Break them down!” he called to his men. “Break them all down. Get these women upstairs and give them what aid you can!”

His men immediately got to work, the wood resisting at first and then splintering beneath the repeated blows. The noise drew the other half of his party from the halls and chambers upstairs, where they’d been searching for the countess, and the added manpower made the job go that much quicker.

Soon his men were entering the cells, leading those who could move up the stairs and into the great hall, where they received as much care as Thurzó’s men could provide. Those who were too injured to walk were carried upstairs by one or more of his soldiers; the gentleness these hardened warriors showed to the wounded struck Thurzó deep in the heart.

When the last of the prisoners were upstairs, the bodies were carried out of the cells and lined up in the passageway one after another. Thurzó stopped counting when he reached forty-three.

He’d checked the first few corpses—those that were reasonably intact, at least—and noted the same kinds of injuries as they’d discovered upstairs. They’d been bled dry like animals brought to the butcher’s for slaughter.

His disgust now in full bore, Thurzó stood back and let his men work, his mind wandering to all-but-forgotten days, trying to figure out just where the countess was hiding.

The upper floors were vacant, and they had covered every inch of the lower floors, as well. Lady Báthory had been inside these walls when the night had begun, and Semtész’s behavior seemed to indicate she was still here somewhere.

But where?

He cast his thoughts back, back to the days when he and Ferenc had run wild through these tunnels, and as the images rushed through his mind, one stuck out. A faint memory of Ferenc showing him a hidden door in one of the cells, a door that led to an unfinished tunnel...

Thurzó slipped away from the others and entered the cell in question. Holding a torch, he walked over to the back wall and pressed on it several times, trying to remember how his childhood friend had done it all those years ago.

Something about putting pressure on the right slab while standing...just so?

The wall slid open silently, revealing the passage he remembered from his youth. At that time, the tunnel had led to a dead end, but he could see now that improvements had been made over the years, widening the tunnel and lengthening it, as well. Torches had been lit at regular intervals. The tunnel took a couple of sharp turns and then opened up into a wide chamber.

In the center of the room, a large rectangular sunken bath was surrounded by half a dozen braziers. Each had a fire blazing inside, no doubt to help ward off the room’s chill.

In the flames’ lurid light, the bathwater had an unusual crimson tint.

Thurzó stepped forward, moving closer, and as he did so the smell finally hit him.

A thick, coppery scent—one he was intimately familiar with from the time he’d spent on the battlefield.

With slowly dawning horror, Thurzó realized the bathwater wasn’t truly water at all. It was blood, a vast pool of blood hot enough to give off steam.

He’d never seen anything like it.

And while he stood there, the surface of the pool suddenly rippled and a figure rose out of its depths, shocking him so much that he stumbled backward.

A hearty laugh—a laugh he recognized—filled the chamber as the woman rising from the bath caught sight of him.

“What’s the matter, György? Surely you’ve seen a naked woman before?”

Elizabeth!

He stood there staring—he couldn’t help himself. The countess stood thigh deep in the tub, the fluid slowly sliding down her curves and back into the bath, allowing her pale skin to peek out from the crimson flow. Her usually raven-black hair was highlighted with streaks of color, and her blue eyes peered out of a face that seemed to be camouflaged in red paint.

When she licked her lips, he was reminded that it wasn’t paint at all, but blood.

Human blood.

“My God, Elizabeth, what have you done?”

She laughed again, longer and harder this time, and he realized that asking what she hadn’t done might have proved a more useful starting point.

Even so, her answer surprised him.

“What have I done? I’ve found the very thing man has spent centuries searching for, the very thing he thought forever out of reach. I’ve found the secret to immortality!”

Thurzó couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Immortality? You’re insane! Look at yourself, Elizabeth. You’re covered in blood, for heaven’s sake!”

“Yes, look at me, György. Look at me!” she exclaimed, spreading her arms to draw his attention to her body. “I’m fifty years old and I look like a girl of twenty-five! I’m getting younger with every treatment.”

Thurzó was looking; as morbid as the scene was he couldn’t take his gaze off her. He told himself he was looking for evidence to back up her claims, preposterous as they were, but deep down he knew the truth. Countess Elizabeth Báthory was a beauty, even as she appeared now; Thurzó couldn’t deny that. He’d found her attractive when they were younger, when she’d been betrothed to his friend, and the years had only done her justice.

He looked because he wanted to look. It was as simple as that.

Rounded wounds, like those caused by a pike or an auger...

The thought slipped in like an enemy from the shadows, reminding him of just how the countess and her companions had obtained all the blood currently steaming in the sunken bath and Thurzó was suddenly ashamed.

He focused his gaze just beyond her, so he could see her movements but wouldn’t be so tempted to stare. Thurzó tried to figure out just how many bodies it must take to fill a tub of that size. And she had mentioned multiple treatments...

“I don’t care what you claim to have discovered,” he said through a jaw stiffened with anger and distaste. He waved with his free hand at the bath before him. “You should be struck down where you stand for this... this abomination !”