Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Harriet
We’re all on our feet, weapons in hand.
A massive figure stands silhouetted against flickering torchlight behind him—impossibly still, utterly dark. He strides toward us with the fluid grace of a predator. Well over six feet tall in an impeccably tailored suit that hugs the contours of his large form.
Every instinct in me screams to run. To hide. But somehow, I can’t move.
We all watch, frozen, as he comes into the light, peering at us with coffee-colored eyes. Thick, dark hair tumbles over his right brow, lending him a wolfish asymmetry.
I feel mesmerized. Awestruck.
I shake my head as if I can shake the awe out of my mind, because clearly, this is the architect of our current travesty. He deserves no awe—none whatsoever!
And also, the slow door opening? Are we back to the Dracula-theme-park situation?
“I don’t know what your game is, but you can’t hold us here,” I say.
“I’ll do as I please, human,” he says, voice like the notes on a cello, rich with vibration. His accent is British. Maybe he’s from Britain, or maybe he learned English there.
I narrow my eyes. “Human?”
“Interpol knows where we are,” Magda bites out. “They’re going to come for us, and you’ll be in much trouble.”
“Yes,” he says. “Very well.”
Though we’ve taken up arms, none of us makes a move to attack him. I think it’s a combination of his old-country gravitas and the fact that, let’s face it, the four of us are bespectacled scholar types, not brawlers.
My breath catches as he strolls past me to the shelves. “All in order?” he asks.
“Depends on what you mean by order,” Stefan says, which is as good an answer as any.
He continues to examine our work, large fingers moving with stunning grace.
And then he crouches in front of the row of tall ledgers and pulls out the first one.
Wildly, I wonder if he’ll have comments on my decision-making. Will he see the sense behind why I put the triangle thingy with two dots in front of the circle symbol with the cross hatches?
I shake myself out of this line of thought and look over at my siblings. Are we going to attack now?
Magda speaks up. “Detaining individuals against their will constitutes false imprisonment under the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 5. Even Karsovia, despite its... unusual legal history regarding castle autonomy, ratified these protocols in 1994.”
Attacking on the grounds of illegality wasn’t what I was thinking, but…
The man pulls out another ledger.
“Was this some kind of twisted test?” I demand.
“Are you the one who killed Magda’s and Irina’s stepfathers?” Stefan asks. “Are you a Renfield?”
The man stands and regards Stefan with a dark look. “My name is Miramonte,” he says in his clipped British accent. “Renfield was my servant for over a century.”
I exchange glances with my siblings. Sounds like our father is dead. Even more notable: for over a century?
“Renfield’s resourcefulness, his organizational systems, his sense of duty.
.. were all second to none,” the man continues.
“Once his health and mind began to fail, I directed him to breed another like him. As my diligent servant, he produced the four of you, shaping your life events to mirror his own in hopes that one of you would be fit to take his place.”
Stefan gasps. Magda swears. I grip Irina’s arm.
“That’s what this is all about?” Irina demands. “You did monstrous things to our families to shape us into servants?”
“Only one of you will serve,” he says.
“How about none of us,” I say, sliding my knife back into my belt scabbard. “Will that work out? None of us? Because that’s what you’re getting.”
“You will release us this instant, and mark my words, you will pay for this,” Magda says. “The hospital for the criminally insane is too good for you, though that’s where you clearly belong.”
He turns to me. “Harriet Renfield.”
“Not my name,” I snap. Like that’s the main issue here.
He draws closer. “It is you who will serve me.”
I straighten into my full height, which, being 5’3”, is not that impressive. Nevertheless, I inhabit the whole 5’3” of me and look him square in the face. “I wouldn’t even serve you a microwave pot pie. Congratulations—your deranged experiment failed. Now let us go.”
He gestures toward the heavy door, which swings open with a slow, groaning creak. Remote control? “The rest of you are not needed.”
My siblings exchange wary glances.
“Screw that. Come on, Harriet!” Irina takes off toward the hall.
“Let’s go!” Magda follows, then Stefan.
I follow.
A voice from behind me. “Harriet Renfield, don’t you want to know about the ledgers? What purpose they truly serve?”
I slow.
“Their deep and inscrutable purpose,” he adds.
Inscrutable. I generally find that word to be pretentious, but I need to know.
And fine, their purpose is inscrutable!
I turn and find myself caught in the gleam of his dark eyes. He’s built like a predator made for long hunts, the kind of size that should belong to furs and chainmail—but the suit fits him just as easily. He’s larger than life, or maybe it’s only the intensity of his madness.
“Harriet!” Magda’s voice is sharp now. “Hurry!”
What am I doing? I tear myself away with a shake.
I spin and head for my siblings, who are waiting at the door.
That’s when the floor vanishes beneath them.
They’re gone in an instant—except for the screaming that echoes into the dark below.
I run to them, but the floor seals up before I reach it.
“What the hell?” I drop to my knees, frantically feeling along the seams for a latch, a lever, something.
“Hey!” I yell, pounding on the floor. “Can you hear me?”
Another scream from way far below. God, how far did they fall?
I spin around. “What the hell? Let them out!”
“They are redundancies.”
“You will let them out right now!”
“I will let them out, of course. I will choose one of them every month. Their blood will sustain me, and in that way, they’ll live on.”
“You are out of your mind!”
“Come, Ms. Renfield.”
I pull my blade from my scabbard and fall to my knees, trying to use the thing to pry up the section of floor that seals them in. “They haven’t done anything to you.”
“They’re Renfields,” he grits out.
“You don’t even know them!”
“I know they’re Renfields.”
I run the blade along the outline of the panel, but I can’t get it in far enough to start prying. I work on one side and then another as he watches, cold and darkly luminous.
Will he really try and eat them or suck their blood or something? Is this his thing? I suppose the human body can ingest just about anything, and cannibals are apparently real. Why not vampire wannabes who drink blood? There’s probably a subreddit.
I slide the small sword back into the scabbard and examine the floor panel with my fingertips. I can hear somebody crying down there—Irina, I think.
I look back over at Miramonte, who looks... bemused... as though he can’t comprehend why I’d be upset about people in a hole. Not a good sign.
I’m thinking he must have a remote control in his pocket or something—the timing was too perfect with the floor swallowing up the three of them and sealing back up the second I got there.
I stand. I need to get the remote from him.
“It’s not like we can help who our father is,” I say, trying to cobble together a plan. “You couldn’t help who your father is, right?”
He watches me with those deep brown eyes, not bothering to answer.
“I mean, come on. You need to end this. Look, I’ll talk to Magda about the whole mental-institution-for-the-criminally-insane threat if you let us all go.”
“It is not to be,” he says. “Come, we have work to do.”
“If you think I’m going to be your assistant—”
“Servant—you are to be my servant.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening, mister.”
He comes near to me, now, his strange presence washing over me. “You will call me Alexandru.”
My mind races. Alexandru will not be giving up the remote without a fight. I have a blade and the element of surprise, but he has his beastly size and his madness. They say seriously deranged people can sometimes lift cars.
“I have chosen you. It is done,” he says sternly. “I have your desk prepared. Everything you’ll need.”
Because I’m the “chosen one.”
I’ve watched enough true crime shows to know that being the chosen one is never a plus when you’re dealing with a psycho.
I also know that the murder victim usually has one last chance to get the upper hand before the point of no return, and this is it. Right here. Right now.
Needless to say, I’m thinking about the small sword in the sheath at my belt.
Can I do it? I’m not a violent person, but those are my half-siblings down there, and I’m all they have. My legs tremble. My mouth feels dry.
I put my hands on my hips. “Why me?”
“I knew you were the one from the moment you set foot in the castle.”
Discreetly as I can, I move one of my hands along my belt, feeling for the jewel-encrusted handle. “Uh-huh.”
“Your connection to the ledgers and your impressive organizational skills only cemented that knowledge. You are far superior to the others.”
I nod energetically, working the thing from the scabbard as he goes on about my mental tenaciousness and intellectual prowess.
Finally, it’s free, hidden behind my back. It feels like a miracle that he didn’t notice my machinations, but then again, the man is clearly not the picture of mental health.
I move nearer to him, rambling about my résumé, steeling myself. I’m five feet away. Three feet away.
I’ll probably only get one blow in, and it’s going to have to be a good one. A killing blow.
I picture myself plunging the blade into the side of his neck—the jugular, ideally.
I stop in front of him. Everything seems surreal as I whip out the blade and plunge it into the side of his neck, pushing past some faint resistance that has me thinking about words like tendons and gristle.
And he just... allows it.
Just stands there, amused.
I push it deeper into his neck. Why is he not stopping me? Doesn’t it at least hurt?