Bathed In Blood

“You said earlier you thought Miss Polgár had spotted the victim’s upraised hand while hiking down the road and flagged down the first passing vehicle for assistance, which happened to be you.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“So what made you believe Miss Polgár was traveling alone, instead of with the victim? Couldn’t she have easily pushed the other woman over the edge?”

Annja distinctly remembered wondering if the two women had been traveling together, but she didn’t mention that to the detective. There didn’t seem to be much point, given that the injured woman was found nude. If it had been an accident, the woman would have been dressed in her hiking clothes. Annja said as much to Tamás.

“Not if Polgár knocked her unconscious and then stripped her before pushing her over the edge,” the detective replied. “Polgár had several sets of clothing in her backpack, including another pair of hiking boots in a different size than those she was wearing.”

Annja thought about it for a moment and then shook her head. “I didn’t get that sense, Detective, sorry. She appeared genuinely concerned for the injured woman and was extremely helpful during the rescue.”

“What better way to throw the authorities off her trail than to assist in the rescue of the woman she attacked and left for dead, no?”

The cynicism inherent in that line of thought made Annja happy she didn’t have the detective’s job. Still, she just couldn’t see that young woman as the culprit.

“Thank you for your patience. We appreciate your help with this investigation. Will you be staying in Nové Mesto much longer?”

“I have at least another day of shooting at Csejte Castle, and then some archival research at the state museum in Bratislava, so I’ll be here for a few days yet.”

Tamás nodded. “Please be sure to leave your contact information with the desk sergeant so I can get in touch if any more questions arise.”

“Of course, Detective. I’m happy to help in any way I can.”

“I appreciate that, Ms. Creed. Good day.”

A uniformed officer escorted her down the hall, past another interview room where Polgár was being questioned by two plainclothes detectives. At the front desk a sergeant took down her cell phone number, the name and room number of her hotel, and asked her to keep them informed of when she intended to leave the country. Annja agreed to do so and five minutes later was standing on the steps of the police station, suddenly exhausted from her ordeal.

It had been a long day and night. It was time to get some sleep.

That, however, was easier said than done, as her rental car had been confiscated by the police as part of the murder investigation.

The rental car company was going to love this, she thought as she flagged down a cab for a ride back to her hotel.

6

Annja awoke the next morning with an uneasy feeling in her gut. The comments Detective Tamás had made during her interview lingered. She understood why he’d considered her and Csilla suspects—ninety percent of all violent crime was committed by someone known to the victim, and he’d thought she and Csilla knew each other or the woman they’d found. But once he’d learned the condition of the body and heard both of their statements, his attention should have shifted elsewhere. The idea that either of them had anything to do with the woman’s death was ridiculous. The fact that he might actually think she and Csilla had brought the victim in for medical treatment in order to deflect suspicion was, well, crazy.

He hadn’t seemed to be in a hurry to chase down the cause of death and that, too, set her nerves abuzz. She didn’t need to be a CSI or NCIS fanatic to know that the best chance of catching a killer was in the first forty-eight hours after the crime had been committed. Leaving the crime scene, and whatever evidence it might contain, to the mercy of time and the elements while he waited for word from the medical examiner was asking for trouble. He should have had a crew out there last night.

Maybe he did, she thought. She didn’t know what happened after her interview. Maybe they’re still out there combing the rocky slope.

Easy enough to check, wasn’t it?

She got up, made herself some coffee—wishing all the while it was hot chocolate instead—and picked up the phone. She needed to call Doug, and it was probably best if she got it over with now. Doug’s mood didn’t tend to improve with time.

The phone rang a couple of times, and then he picked it up.

“Doug Morrell.”

“It’s me,” she said.

“Me? Me, who? This wouldn’t be the infamous Annja Creed, would it? Wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-without-even-an-apology Annja Creed? That one?”

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.

As she drew closer, she discovered that a press conference had just gotten under way. Detective Tamás and a few others were standing on a small platform near the front door. A podium had been set up to his left, and an overweight man in a dark suit was standing behind it, speaking from a set of notes.

Four or five reporters, most likely from the local television affiliates, stood directly in front of the platform and held their microphones up. Behind the press were roughly twenty to thirty members of the general public.

Annja looked out over the small crowd, then stepped next to a young woman of about eighteen.

“Excuse me,” she said, “can you tell me what he’s saying?”

The girl glanced at her, then looked back at the speaker. “He’s talking about that woman they brought in last night.”

“I don’t speak Magyar. Could you translate for me?”

She nodded. “The old guy is Sándor, the—how do you say—police inspector?”

Annja guessed she meant police chief but didn’t bother to correct her.

“He’s saying the case is important and that he has his best detective, Alexej Tamás, on the case. He’s going to give the microphone to the detective, let him speak.”

Sándor stepped away from the podium and Tamás took his place. The detective looked as if he’d had a good night’s sleep, which irritated Annja.

He should’ve been up all night, combing that ridgeline for evidence, she thought sourly. She was starting to dislike Detective Tamás, and what he said next only served to irritate her further.

“The detective claims they are putting the proper resources into place to investigate this tragedy,” the girl said. “He says they’re still uncertain as to whether it was an accident, a crime or a suicide, but they hope to have more information in the next twenty-four hours.”

“Accident?” Annja muttered, feeling her fury rising. “What on earth is he talking about? There’s no way it could be either an accident or a suicide!”

The girl looked at her again, but this time her gaze lingered and Annja recognized the gleam of interest in her eyes.

“You know something, don’t you?” she asked.

Annja grimaced, realizing she’d said more than she’d intended, but perhaps she could turn this to her advantage.

“Keep translating and I’ll fill you in on what I know afterward.”

“Promise?”

“Scout’s honor,” she said, holding up three fingers. The fact that Annja had never even thought about being a Girl Scout was completely beside the point.

There wasn’t much more after that, however. Tamás spoke for another minute—mostly platitudes about doing all they could to get to the bottom of things—and then took a few questions from the press. They still hadn’t identified the woman and asked for the press’s help; photographs of the woman’s face were circulated through the crowd, and Annja took one for herself.

When the press conference wrapped up, she was more frustrated than when she’d arrived.

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

Annja turned to find the girl staring at her, studying her features more closely this time.

“I don’t think so,” she told her, looking away.

But the girl would not be denied.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I have! You’re that woman from the TV show, the one that was just filming in Prague.”

Annja glanced around, afraid one of the journalists would overhear and take an interest in what was making the girl increasingly excited. She needed to get off the street.

“Not here,” she said, grabbing the girl’s hand and pulling her through the crowd. “Come on.”

Annja led the girl to a café a short distance down the street. They settled into a table in back. Annja ordered coffee for both of them; she really didn’t want any but knew the waitstaff would hover until they ordered.

When she turned back, she found the girl grinning at her, holding up her cell phone. A picture of Annja working with the film crew outside Faust House was displayed on the screen.

“You’re Annja Creed, from Chasing History’s Monsters,” the girl said triumphantly. “My friend is a huge fan, so we went to watch you filming your show in Prague.”

Annja couldn’t deny it now, not with her own picture staring back at her, so she went with the flow, hoping to learn something useful from the situation. The girl had helped her after all.

“You’re right. You’ve caught me. I’m Annja. Nice to meet you,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Brigitta,” the girl replied, shaking Annja’s hand. “My friend is going to flip when I tell her I had coffee with you.”

“Yes, well, about that...” Annja began. “Perhaps you can wait a few days before doing so?”

Brigitta was watching her closely. “You’re not here on vacation, are you? You’re working, and whatever you’re working on has to do with the woman from the press conference, doesn’t it? That’s why you know what happened!”

Brigitta was no slouch, Annja had to give her that.

“Yes, I’m working. And it might have to do with the woman they were just talking about. I’m not sure yet, though, and that’s why you can’t tell your friend about meeting me. If word gets out that I’m here, I’ll have a difficult time finding the information I need.”

The girl’s eyes had gotten wider as Annja spoke, and now she leaned forward.

“It’s the Blood Countess, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. “She’s come back, just as legend claimed.”

Annja was shocked. That was twice in less than twenty-four hours that she’d heard Báthory’s nickname floated about. Granted she was in Báthory country, but still...

“What legend is that?”

Brigitta laughed. “Right. Like the host of Chasing History’s Monsters doesn’t know the legend of the Blood Countess’s return?”

“Humor me,” Annja said with a smile.

“After she was tried and convicted of bathing in the blood of all those women, the king had her walled up inside her own bedroom suite as punishment for her crimes. You know about that, right?”

Báthory hadn’t gone to trial, was never convicted and was walled up inside her bedroom at the request of her own family, but that was beside the point, apparently. Annja just clenched her teeth and nodded, seeing no need to correct her companion.

“She lived for four years—four years, can you imagine that!—before they found her dead on her bedroom floor.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Annja said. “But that’s nothing new. Most people who know anything about Elizabeth Báthory’s history know that.”

“Yes, but what they don’t know is that Báthory wrote a message in blood on her bedroom wall before she died.”

Uh-huh, Annja thought. Aloud she said, “And that would be...?”

The girl’s eyes gleamed. “I’ll be back,” she said, in what was quite possibly the worst Austrian accent Annja had ever heard.

As Annja sat there, staring at her without expression, Brigitta burst into laughter. “I had you! I totally had you!”

Annja wasn’t amused. “Right. Well, it was good meeting you, but now I’ve...”

“Wait! Wait!” the girl said between giggles, reaching out and grabbing Annja’s arm to keep her from leaving. “I’m sorry. I was just joking around. I’ll tell you the real story. Honest.”

Grudgingly Annja let herself be persuaded. Something about the girl called to her, and she had learned to trust such instincts since possessing the sword. There was information to be learned here; she was certain of it.

“I wasn’t kidding. The countess did write on the wall of her bedroom before dying. She used candle wax to do it, though, not blood. They even found the candle in her hand.”

“I see.” Annja eyed her skeptically.

“No, seriously,” Brigitta protested. “The family tried to cover it up but word leaked out. Some say it was through the countess’s lover, though how anyone could love a woman like that, I don’t know.”

Growing tired of all the chitchat, Annja said, “Can you please get to the point?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. The countess wrote amikor vissza on the wall above her bed.”

“Which means?”

“When I return. How creepy is that? Maybe she’s come back. Maybe it was the countess that killed those girls after all.”

Annja was about to thank her for her time and get the heck out of there when the word Brigitta had used hit her like a shovel over the head.

Girls.

Plural.

Annja settled back into her seat and stared at the teenager sitting across from her.

“What girls?” she asked.

7

The phone rang seven times before it was answered. That wasn’t a good sign; it meant she’d considered not even taking his call. She only did that when she was annoyed with him, and her annoyance would make the news he’d called to deliver that much more dangerous. He was going to have to be careful.

When she finally answered the phone, all she said was, “Yes?”

“We may have a problem.”

“I pay you to handle the problems. Why are you bothering me?” she asked.

“This one’s a little different.”

“I’m listening.”

“Something went wrong with the latest disposal. The subject was recovered by two women and brought to the hospital in Nové Mesto. The police were notified.”

There was a pause and then, “And?”

“The subject was neutralized as per our usual containment plan. Arrangements have been made and the investigation will take its usual course.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“One of the women who recovered the subject is an American media personality. The host of a popular television show.”

“Who is she?”

He checked his notes. “Her name is Annja Creed. She’s the host of a program called Chasing History’s Monsters.”

There was a chuckle from the other end of the line. “How interesting. Was she alone with the...subject?”

“For a brief time, yes.”

There was another pause, a much longer one this time.

“Did they speak?”

He sighed quietly. “It’s hard to say. I don’t believe the subject was able to do so, but I could be wrong.”

Then he held his breath. This was the moment. If she told him to deal with it, he was all right. He would do as required and that would be that. But if she said she needed time to consider the issue or that she was sending someone else to handle the problem, then he would need to cut and run as swiftly as possible. The cleanup crew would have orders to eliminate any potential threat or loose end and, given what he knew, he would be priority number one for both.

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