The Van Helsing Legacy: Dark and Hungry Graves

Chapter 4

My mind reeled. Who was Arsenie Apostol? Geordie did not speak of his family, not even to name them. He had told me he would have nothing to say about them until the curse on all of them could be broken. It was a masculine name, wasn't it? So Arsenie might be his father, a brother, an uncle, a cousin... No, I was unusually close with my own uncles and cousins, and I would be devastated if something were to happen to any of them, but a telegram would suffice. This woman, who seemed to know Geordie and his family, had travelled—from the Continent?—to bring the news. Arsenie was a very close relative.

Close enough to use a familiar name, like Ghiţă?

Could he have been the one behind the attacks?

I looked up at Geordie, but he did not seem to be taking the news poorly. Not as I would have. He regarded the woman for a beat in silence, processing, his expression more confused than dismayed.

'How did it happen?' he asked her. Then his too-dark eyes flicked to Mrs Ralston, who was still barring the woman's path, and down to me, to my knife. He blinked thrice, confusion deepening, and then his eyebrows rose in understanding. 'Oh. Oh! Mrs Ralston, Meg, this is Miss Mathilde Klein, of the Order of the Shield of Saint Michael. Miss Klein, Mrs Celia Ralston and...'

He didn't know how to introduce me.

My father's surname didn't make waves, but I wasn't certain about this Miss Klein, so I used my legal one, for the sake of the clout it carried. 'Meg van Helsing,' I supplied.

Mrs Ralston moved out of the way, and Miss Klein stepped inside. Only one step, then stopped, straining visibly to keep control over herself.

'You shouldn't have come here,' Geordie repeated softly. 'You should have written. I don't need delicacy. You shouldn't have... Dumnezeule, Mathilde, I'm sorry.'

She looked away and shut her eyes, but shrugged. I put my knife away. She was a problem, though I did not understand quite what sort, but she was not a threat.

'How did it happen?' he asked again.

Her forehead creased. 'An accident. His automobile went into a ravine.'

That didn't sound like the usual sort of thing to kill a fell sorcerer, but it would do. For all their fearsome power, they were flesh and blood, like anyone else.

Geordie nodded slowly, his expression distant.

The hall clock ticked softly. I heard five or six drops of rain tap against the window, but that was all.

'I think I'd like to return to London,' he murmured. And he turned and vanished suddenly up the stairs.

I stared after him for a fraction of a second before turning back to the woman in the doorway. Miss Klein. She was already beginning to recover, now that he had left the immediate vicinity, and she was measuring her breathing, much as I did. I would not have been surprised if she was counting.

Mrs Ralston shut the door. 'Perhaps you ought to sit down,' she said tentatively. 'Just for a moment or two. Could I offer you a cup of tea? Cocoa?' She paused. 'Brandy?'

'Thank you, I will sit.' Slowly, Miss Klein removed her hat and peeled off her gloves and followed me into the parlour. 'But I think I should not stay too long.'

He'd said she shouldn't have come. Why? She seemed to feel him quite strongly, but they knew one another, and he'd said one might become accustomed to his effect with time. Had it just been too long? And I thought perhaps he could feel her, too. I was certain he'd known who was there before he saw her, before he heard her speak. How?

She dropped onto one end of the settee and shut her eyes.

I leaned close to Mrs Ralston. 'Perhaps a spot of tea wouldn't go amiss, after all. Would it be all right if I...'