The woman exhaled a long scratchy breath, like a hushed growl.
She tightened her grip and pushed Igor even more against the wall, so much that he could barely breath. He knew that opposing would have been useless or even detrimental! He tried to keep quite, but after less time his chest seemed on the verge of going to shutter and, when the oxygen began to scarce, his muscles began to trigger by reflex. In the precise moment he felt he was going to suffocate she gripped his jacket and threw him onto the floor, upside down, between the blood and the pieces of glass, where she was less minutes before.
The crash was hard, but the sensation of the air filling his lungs was a relief. He was still alive and evidently not by chance: she was dragging things out.
She approached with fast and heavy pace.
«Get up!», she roared.
The man sat, moving slowly. He had to take time.
«GET UP!», she repeated shouting and roaring louder than before. This time he jumped up like a good little soldier and remained there bent and mute, waiting for the next attack.
After a long moment of silence the attack arrived. And it had the sound of a slap.
A violent slap. Well, not so violent, since she could have thrown him against the wall, breaking some of his bones, with the same gesture, but enough to make his left cheek burn and pulse. It wasn't exactly what he was waiting for.
Immediately after, she hold her own face in her hands and began to cry.
«Why Igor? Why?», it seemed she was having a breakdown. «Why am I not able to forget?». Her words broke through the tears and the sobs.
Also the last time he'd seen her she was crying. One hundred and forty-six years before.
Comforting people wasn't Igor's best ability but it was in his own interest… and, to tell the truth, somehow, he was actually sorry for what happened at the time.
He stretched out his hand to touch her shoulder, but no sooner did he approached when another slap arrived on his face. A backhand. On the other cheek.
«Don't touch me». She turned evil. Again.
She opened her arms and immediately the butler was pushed back against the wall, like if a strong powerful wind had come out of her gesture.
She reached him with an incredibly fast movement.
«You disgust me! You miserable!», she hissed grinding her teeth.
The butler kept his gaze down. He cringed feeling and seeing her hands, gaunt and clawed, leaning on his chest and crawling up to his face.
«Look me in the eye, Igor», she whispered lifting his chin with her thumbs. She was less centimetre shorter than him, but this didn't subtract a hair from the terror her figure instilled. Her eyes were two terrifying spots of a dark red, almost black. Her skin, pale like wax, laid on the now skinny face, her lips almost cyanotic: there wasn't much of human in her anymore.
«I can smell your fear...», she continued, in a gelid murmur, getting her face closer to his. «You wouldn't be in this situation if you'd have given up your fucking manias for once. You know that, don't you?»
The butler wasn't even able to speak.
«ANSWER ME!», she shouted in his face, making him startle. An indefinite number of different voices had shouted simultaneously, someone sharp and metallic like a blade, someone bass and profound like a huge sinkhole opening in the ground, someone human and feminine…
«Yes… you are right… it is… it is my fault», answered the man. He was shaking, sweating, he felt like crying and almost throwing up for fear.
«You wasted your whole life serving evil, playing with life and death», she grimaced with pain, «what will happen to your soul, Igor? Have you ever asked yourself?».
He never used to think about the afterlife, but now that he was looking his death right in the face made, that thought anguished him more than death itself.
Once the vampire felt his terror, her face suddenly took the features of the pain again and tears came to her eyes. She was jerked by to opposite forces: sadness, weakness… anger, violence…
«I don't want to hurt you… how could I?», she looked straight in his eyes.
Her face was more demoniac than human by now, more dead than alive, deformed by the thirst, by the smell of blood and the exasperation of feelings. But then in those vacant eyes there was still the pity.
The tears rolled over that monstrous face, in an absurd way.
*Sbam!*.
«OPEN THE DOOR!». It was the Count.
Everything felt silent inside the room. The woman got away from Igor but this last didn't dare to move, despite the insistence of the Count that kept shouting and punching the door.
-
Immediately after having read Igor's letter, he had rushed to the lab. He not even wondered what he could have done to save the girl, since it seemed that a dramatic end was already decided, in any case.
«OPEN! I'LL DO WHAT YOU WANT! DO YOU HEAR!? I'LL DO IT!», he even told, just to see that door opening.
He was in a panic. He punched the door dozens of time until his hands were hurting but, hearing no answer, he stopped for a moment and thought. He was Count Duckula, what the hell! He was so used to refuse what he was, that he never considered the advantages: he got away from the door, he made his black cape flutter and dissolved in a cloud of black smoke, reappearing than inside the lab.
Silence.
He frowned.
There was a woman with her back turned and the face covered with both her arms. And then there was Igor: he was all upset, pallid, shuddering. He was looking with two staring eyes. His master has never seen him in such a state of shock…
He looked at the woman again.
On her dress there was a huge blood stain, at the abdomen level. He lowered his gaze and realized that also on the floor there was blood, and pieces of glass. He felt like he was going to faint, but the adrenaline was so much that he stood upright.
That woman…
"Carmen?", he wandered? The physique was her own and also the dress was the same she was wearing the last time he saw her, in his bedroom. The hair were different but… could she be someone else? Everything was surreal. She was giving to him a horrible sensation. Why was she covering her face?
«Carmen?», he dared.
He wanted and, at the same time, didn't want to see. The woman slowly made her arms slip away from her face and slightly looked back.
The Count opened his eyes wide. It was her. And yet it wasn't.
She was almost unrecognisable for how her face was inhumane: more dead than living, deeper, pale like wax… her eyes: completely filled or dark red, devilish and sad.
A look of horror appeared over the Count's face, she was disgusting.
«My God!», he exclaimed looking the other way and covering his mouth.
As soon as she saw his expression she turned and hid herself again.
«NO!», she cried. «Don't look at me!»
What an idiot he had been! Probably she was suffering already and all he had done was confirm the fact that she was… she was a monster.
"It's Carmen! Come on! Go closer!", he told to himself. He swallowed a lump: yes, it was her but… what did she was now?
He gathered all his courage and decided to approach but, as soon as he forward the first step, she suddenly moved and disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, just like he himself had appeared before, leaving behind her only the echo of a roared "NO!" that reverberated in the little room for a split second.
That short moment and the silence immediately after had the sound of loss and delusion: all his hopes and dreams disappeared in a split second.
The rage took its time to fill up.
«What did you do to her!?», he yelled to Igor.
His servant looked around and inspected each centimetre of the room, standing glued to the wall, and didn't say a word.
«Would you stop with that, Igor?!», yelled the Count, unnerved by his silence: he looked shocked, but who cared? If something bad happened to him… well, he had it coming! He and his manias!
«I'm sick and tired of you! I will never forgive you! I… I…», the vampire get closer with a menacing manner to the servant, who, crawling against the wall, distanced himself in terror.
The Count stopped. He was so flabbergasted that, for a moment, forgot the rage.
«Igor, it's me! Don't you recognize me?», he quietly exclaimed, trying to calm down the butler. «I'm harmless, innocuous… you remember, don't you?».
Igor looked a little more relaxed. He approached is master, still watching here and there, as if the devil himself was hiding in the shadow.
«Milord, let's get out of here! I'll tell you everything, but please…»
Mister Torture escaping terrified from the Chamber of Horrors. What else for that night?
The Count headed toward the stairs; Igor quickly picked up the wig from the floor – it was the only tangible evidence of the woman's culpability – and than followed his master, like a puppy with its tail between its legs.
They sat in the kitchen. After having recovered, Igor tried his best to convince the Count about what had actually happened. Only thanks to the wig he succeeded…
«Carmen never existed. We were mislead from the very beginning», concluded solemnly the butler.
The Count felt his own heart hitting the ground and noisily splitting like a heavy ceramic furniture. He stood still for a long moment staring at the shards that were lying around his feet. He picked them up and tried to reassemble them roughly.
Igor noticed it and breathed a sigh of relief.
«She fooled me», he admitted to himself, with a sadden whisper.
He recalled all the moments spent with the woman he felt in love with: what was she actually thinking when he was opening his heart to her, when he blushed and trembled in front of her? Was she having fun? Everything was fake. Fake! He was aghast. His heart had been desecrated.
The sadness slowly disappeared and made way for the outraged pride. He put his patched heart back in his chest and repeated: «She fooled me!». But this time his voice was full of disappointment. «I can't believe! How did she do that!? I mean, fooling me? With a wig and a pair of glasses? There must be more, don't you think?». Igor opened his mouth to answer, but his master didn't even considered his attempt and continued with the speech. Everything just went back to normal. «There must be more! She must had been… a master of disguise! A professional! A spy working for some big shot! But the most important question remains unresolved: why!? Sure not for the sake of it! Who knows which big criminal organization is plotting against me?! Igor, I must investigate, assemble the evidences, examine each one of her actions during her permanence here in the castle! I always said there was something strange! Just think, for example… that time, when she…». The butler begun to feel sorry not to be killed by the woman. Indeed, die of exsanguination would had been more decent for him than die of boredom, for one of his master's famous monologue.
«Wait a minute! WAIT A MINUTE! I got it! Do you remember that time, when we saw her talking with Von Goosewing? Actually, we don't know what they were telling to each other! And if the argument was no other than a big act? And if actually they were plotting something? Yes, it must be the answer! Finally, it's all clear! Once again, Count Duckula, the great and perceptive master of-»
«Von Goosewing plotting with a vampire? It sounds quite farfetched!», cut short the butler, using a higher tone of voice.
The Count felt silent.
«A… a vampire?»
«Indeed, she is a vampire. She had always been a vampire: I did nothing to her, as I told you before!», declared the butler. «I was assuming it was clear, Sir... After having seen her in the lab»
He swallowed a lump: that vision of her in the lab disturbed him so much... so, a vampire in his worst form did look like that? Or there was something worst.
«There had been a vampire in the castle for all this time and I didn't know...». The Count felt his knees giving out, thinking about how many times they found themselves alone.
«Two vampires, to be precise»
«Two… Two v… Oh! Yes… Yes, Igor, very funny! Very funny, I must say!», answered the Count sarcastically. «Don't try to distract me from the real question: you mind tell me what did a vampire – and not the vegetarian one – was doing in my castle for all this time!?»
«I don't know, Sir»
«You don't… Oh! Come on! Don't be ridiculous! You hired her! And, as I have already told you, since the first time I saw her I thought that there was something unusual in your choice»
«In fact, there was something unusual». Igor recalled the strange sensations he felt during the job interview. Her behaviour, the story she told, all the details, the things she said about the castle… even her low-cut blues and the beautiful curves of her neck! She perfectly knew his weakness and she worked him very well that time. But this time his master was right: there was something more…
«A wig and a pair of glasses do not suffice to trick me. She used mind control and she also lightly changed her features. Wonderful things that some of the Duckula were able to do»
The Count crossed his arms and frowned.
«Ah! So finally the truth comes out! So she's one of my beloved relatives! How great!», he sarcastically said.
«Yes, a close relative», repeated the butler with a smirk over his face.
«What do you mean?»
«I mean what I said: she is a relative»
«No! No! The way you told "close" and you lifted an eyebrow and you did that thing with the angle of your mouth! That thing you use to do, you know what I mean! Listen,it's late and this matter is becoming to long for my tastes! Tell me everything you know about her, now and quickly»
«Of course, M'lord». He cleared is throat and began:«It was the year 1780. It was a dark night, the moon was non other than a thin clove, hidden by the-»
«IIIGOR! I believed I said "quickly"».
«As you wish, M'lord», the man rolled his eyes and breath a sigh of resignation: «That woman was the bride of the penultimate Count Duckula. She lived in the castle, at his side, for eighty-eight years. I was sure she had dead the same day your predecessor died, one hundred and forty-six years ago, but evidently…»
The Count's jaws dropped.
«Eighty-eight… one hundred and… the penultimate», he stuttered talking to himself, than he loudly exclaimed: «So she's my mother! I have a mother and you never told me!»
«Speaking of "mother" have no sense, because the one I call, for convenience, your "father" actually is non other the previous yourself».
The Count stopped, feeling a sense of derealisation and vertigo, «My Igor, you're telling…» the situation was even worst.
«You're telling that she is my wife», he exclaimed even louder than before with a desperate expression on his face. «I'm married with a woman that is at last two thousand years older than me! And… she is a vampire! She's a monster! No! No! NO! This is the worst nightmare ever!»
«Milord… also speaking of "wife" have no much sense in your position, because she was bond with that particular reincarnation. And it's a unique case in all the bloodline, I must say! A very strong bond», added Igor with his pathological enthusiasm for past time stories. «You could say she was one with the master – even a little too close for my tastes – flesh of his flesh and, literally, blood of his blood. And I say "literally", because their blood-»
«For God's sake, Igor, spare me the details! You're making me sick!», whined the Count, becoming paler and paler. The butler interrupted, but it was to late.
«Married… with… a vampire», he mumbled. Than all become black.