Regarding the House of Bathory

Collinsport. Nicole Collins has returned from a singular moment in which she has traveled through time to witness the murder of her best friend’s parents. During this brief temporal anomaly, she overheard one of the murders, a vampire, indicate that he was working for the House of Báthory. Having returned to the present, Nikki is at filled with anger at the thought the killers may have been allied with her mother, Erzsébet Báthory. Unable to meet with her until the following night, Nikki’s anger has given way to a growing anxiety concerning what truths she may finally be told by her mother – truths that both of them have so far been content to leave unsaid.

Obscured by clouds, the moon is but a soft focus glow in the night sky. From out of the shadows, Nicole Collins suddenly appears and slowly saunters along the ancient stones of a sidewalk, which had been laid long ago, beside the cobblestone street of Frenchman’s Lane. She is well aware that this uneven patchwork of sidewalk and cobblestones has been designated the heart of the new Historical District by the Collinsport Historical Society. Among the newly renovated buildings there now reside well-protected derelicts. Slowly deteriorating ruins of once fashionable shops and businesses. Where some might have found a growing trepidation as they walked this late along a dimly lit street flanked by the starkness of an neglected and long abandoned buildings, Nicole finds the way quite familiar. For Frenchman’s Lane leads off the central Rotary from which if one were to take the leftward veer directs one straight into the commercial district of East North Main and New Station Road; whereas, the rightward veer brings one to this darkly, architecturally eclectic, Lane. It is also upon this self-same Rotary that the old law offices of Matigan & Wiley, which now houses Collins Investigations, stands halfway between the modern commercial and historic halves of Collinsport – and so, this darken stroll is one that she has taken many a night before.

It is also where her mother has taken up residence.

Nicole’s heels now silently strike the stones as she leisurely strides through the warm summer night. Although the rage of the night before has dissipated somewhat, she finds herself still seriously displeased and very annoyed that her mother had seen fit not to come to her office – but rather, she has chosen to meet here at the park at the end of Frenchman’s Lane.

Effortlessly, she glides up the stone steps leading to the landing that if traversed to its end would bring one to the original waterfront. The scent of the sea is in the air. And although she cannot feel it, the summer night has cooled, and the breeze blowing in from the Atlantic stirs the limbs of the trees near the café to her right. Her heighten sense of hearing catches the cacophony of conversations. Her nocturnal vision recognizes in the distance, beneath the yellow-orange wavelength of soft sodium streetlights hazily glowing down upon the ornate, iron benches, which the City Council had only recently installed as part of the renovation to historic Collinsport and Frenchman’s Lane, a raven-haired beauty . . . her mother, Erzsébet Báthory.

Quietly, sitting alone, she turns to watch her daughter’s approach.

Nikki steps off the ancient stone of the sidewalk and strides across the uneven cobblestones toward her.

The night before she had been so very angry – livid, as she had let the unnatural rage of her vampirism take control – and she had called her mother a bitch. She had even threatened to decapitate her. But now, with the invigoration of the night; after the hibernation of her daily regeneration, her daily sojourn from the sun – she has regained control.

Oh, the anger was still there – as well as the anxious trepidation of what she may hear her mother say – admit – and the fearful apprehension in what she might, what she may do, if she did in fact . . .

“It is a mild, mild night my dear.” Erzsébet’s voice is melodic, mesmerizing. “I do so enjoy being out in its darkness.”

“Rather than coming to see me in my office?” Nikki replies coldly; her blue eyes arctic.

Erzsébet sits calmly and looks up at her daughter, “What pray do you think I have done now to warrant such anger.”

Nikki runs her fingers back through the intentional darken roots of her blonde hair as she sighs heavily, “I need to know something – I need to ask you a question. And,” she fights the urge to give in once more to her vampiric nature, to allow her canine teeth to distend, to give herself over to the anger. “And you know that you cannot lie to me. I will know if you do. So don’t even try.”

“I would not think of it.” Erzsébet says serenely as she looks into the suppressed fury in her daughter’s eyes – just as capable of reading her daughter and knowing now that she suspects her of . . . “You suspect me of – murder?”

“Do you – or have you ever known anyone named Stanislaw or Casimir?”

“Nichole I am over 400 years old, those names are a bit common in and about my homeland. Why, what is it that you suspect, what is it that you think you know?”

Nikki shifts to stand hip-shot, crossing her arms, “Something happened last night. I – I discovered that the parents of my best friend were murdered by two monstrously brutal vampires – and in so doing, they indicated that they worked for the House of Báthory. Was that—is that you!”

Erzsébet runs the long, slender fingers of her left hand slowly down along the top of her crossed leg as she sighs; she has known that this discussion has been long in coming – it is why she has chosen this rather isolated spot to meet—having heard the tone in Nikki’s voice — uncertain how her daughter may react to certain truths she has steeled herself to reveal and so she’s chosen this spot not only for the isolation it affords but also in seeking for herself the solace of the night. “Perhaps I should ask you. You are of the House of Báthory.”

Nikki’s anger is barely suppressible now – “And this is your answer!”

“I say this so that you may understand.” Erzsébet explains, her composure does not wavier as her eyes lock with those of her enraged daughter, “You come here tonight because you think you shall kill your mother if I answer saying yes—and so, you see my dear, you are a Báthory! Else you could not think such things. It is in our blood.”

Evasion—Nikki’s suspicions mounting now with her anger, “Did you or did you not have anything to do with the murder of Esther’s parents.”

Erzsébet’s azure eyes narrow, “No, my dear I did not.”

“But—there is something –” Nikki suggests quickly, “Just now . . . it crosses your mind.”

“Then why ask the question?”

“Who then is Stephen?”

Erzsébet places her hands in her lap. “My maternal uncle. He was once King of Poland. He, as we, are the only vampires remaining in the Báthory line.”

“Just now, when I asked you about these two – Stanislaw and Casimir – you thought of him.” Nikki says pointedly as she arches a brow, “Why? Is he the one? Is he the House of Báthory for which these monsters worked?”

Erzsébet sits quietly for a moment looking at her daughter. “Perhaps. You see Stephen was a good King – perhaps the best Poland ever knew. But he too was turned, as was I.”

Nikki steps closer and looks down at her mother.

“He used his powers to try many times to restore the glory of Poland – but circumstances, history, fate, whatever you wish to call it intervened. And he allowed his vampire nature to take more control of him. It is easy to do, as I can attest.”

“Seeing as how they seem to be such popular names – did he have any servants working for him named Stanislaw or Casimir?” Nikki asks sardonically, “And, what has Norway to do with anything?”

“I don’t know.” Erzsébet says softly, “There is a gap in the time of my existence. From 1912 until 1969—and so I do not know what he may or may not have done as a consequence of the wars that took place.”

“A gap of time?” Nikki thinks now of the bookcase—the mysterious properties it seemed to posses in regards to time. “From 1912 to 1969 – how is that possible?”

Erzsébet does not understand why she is thinking of a bookcase as she continues to look up at Nikki standing before her, “My cousin . . . Basarab, he who it was that came to me and turned me . . . “ And then she looks down for a moment, “He enraged me so – what with him succumbing to that clerk’s wife and bringing those who learned far too much of our kind into Transylvania, bringing that Dutchman’s army seeking, vowing, a holy war upon us all, so that on two occasions I tried to bring unto him the true death he deserved.”

“Basarab?” Nikki’s brows furrow, “Was – is he too a Báthory?”

“No,” Erzsébet shakes her head; “You would know of him as Vlad. As Dracula –“

Nikki nods, well aware that she and Medri Harker share in that grotesque bloodline. “But, what does any of this have to do . . . ”

A far distant look crosses the face of Erzsébet as she remembers the pitched combat in which she almost killed her cousin, “We—we battled and he took from me my heart.”

“Your heart?’ Nikki’s confused – she knows her mother to be as she, a lesbian.

“Not figuratively, my dear. But physically. He reached inside and wretched my heart from my chest and held it before me – still beating – and in that moment I saw what my anger – what my rage had wrought—what should have been my true death.” She looks at Nikki her eyes still reflecting the cold memory, “But, alas – a powerful necromancer, here in this obscure little village, this Collinsport – he summoned me at that instant and held me bound in a spell that – that somehow held me between two points in time – until he was able to . . ..”

Nikki’s eyes darken – as she can see two girls . . . yes. Two young girls, both of them very pretty – captives, brought to a house by the sea – brought there to be murdered: their throats slit. “He murdered two young women!”

But for what reason? To use their blood. Yes! For a brief moment see could see them – see them being murdered – could almost see the man whose hand held the knife but now for some reason Erzsébet is blocking her from those memories.

“So that I may survive.” Her mother continues, “So that you may exist.”

Two innocent young girls – just like Esther’s parents. Innocent victims. Only they were expendable – a means to some necromantic ends. God – they are all such monsters – and Lord help her she too is one of them.

“Who was this necromancer?”

Erzsébet looks at her steadily, “Nicholas Blair—“

Nikki is startled to hear the name: “Blair? And you did not think to tell me this until now?”

Erzsébet looks away.

“Oh, my God! It’s because there was another! ” Nikki now snatches the thought before she can mask it once again—

“What good is it that you should know?” She asks her, the blue eyes warming slightly, “The sins of your other mother.”

Nikki runs her fingers through her hair . . . Is it is so obvious, how could she be anything other than what she has become – oh, she had known about Angelique’s transgressions – she had read all about them in her father’s journals, but now, she is so very cognizant of the fact that she was not only the daughter of the Bloody Countess, Erzsébet Báthory, said to have killed, God only knows how many, but she was also carried in the womb of a woman that if not a murder was at the least a willing accomplice to one.

No wonder she is such an abomination – she is the daughter of abominations!

“You must, Nicole, sooner or later, reconcile yourself to what you are.” Erzsébet says softly. “You are not a human.”

“That is an excuse? It allows you all to wash away your sins!” Nikki can feel herself loosing control as she can feel her canine teeth begin to extend. She puts a hand to her mouth and looks away. “God, look what you are doing to me. What you did to me!”

Erzsébet closes her eyes – and Nikki does not see the heartache she feels watching her daughters anguish.

“I could not – I could not let you die.” Her mother says – and Nikki hears the strain, the almost crack of emotion she has never heard from that mesmerizing vampiric voice.

And standing there in the night – a creature of it – she looks back into her mother’s eyes – those blue eyes – the same blue eyes that she has – and she knows, has known for some time, Erzsébet is right – she must give up this futile obsessive spiral of her self-pity. It has gone on far too long! She knows, and it is long past time for her to admit, that unlike those two hapless young women, unlike Esther’s parents, she was not, nor ever was, innocent. She is nothing more nor less than what she truly deserves. She is a vampire—that is a fact . . . and nothing is ever going to change it – no amount of endless, self-obsessed, self-indulgent, incessant fixation on her own misfortune is ever going to change that fact—

And what right does she have to condemn Angelique? Wasn’t she also a victim of the horrible transgressions of her father and without a doubt the absolute abandonment by her mother – didn’t Anastasie Roulet tell her that Angelique had been given to Judah Zachery to do with as he pleased, for nothing more than a godd****ed book!

The godd**ned Books!

Did they not curse them both?

And where was her mother?

What torments did she suffer at the hands of that sorcerer?

Erzsébet’s eyes downcast, ashamedly, “Of all the things I have ever done in my miserable existence – you must know – of the pain that I feel . . . that I will feel for eternity—knowing what you think of me for what I did to you.”

And what does she really know of Erzsébet’s past – have they both not skirted for so long around that delicate topic.

How did she become what she is . . . Nikki tries to relax the stiffen muscles of her neck as she shifts her head to the right and straightens her shoulders – exhaling a long, sad sigh as she slowly, resignedly, steps over to the bench and sits down beside her mother, “And so, this happened in 1912?”

“It was 1912.” Erzsébet looks up, “And then, I was not 1912 . . . but rather here in Collinsport and it was 1969.”

“Because Blair summoned you?”

She nods, “It was in part owing to his conspiracy to interfere with an experiment – the one to which your father was restored briefly to normality.”

“This experiment, it was the one father tried to replicate. Later, to cure my—”

“Mother. Your, other mother. Yes,” Erzsébet looks over at her, “And so, as you can see, I have no existence between those two points in time, and thus – I have no idea what Stephen may or may not have done during those years.

“And since?”

“Well, I have worked as you would say for the other side—“

“The Diogenes Club.”

“And so, our paths have not yet crossed.” She says evenly.

“Would he murder two innocent people—” Nikki cuts a sideward glance at her mother, “Would he employ two butchers who think of humans as nothing more furniture.”

Erzsébet sighs, “My dear, of this you must try to understand, for this is your heritage, this is of your blood line. We are the blood of warriors. We are quick to anger and resort to violence; it is in our nature – long before either of us was recombined with that which lives within us. You must understand, Nicole, our homeland was forever in a state of war. We Magyars fought the Bulgars. We defeated the Franks, the Moravians, the Bavarians, the Saxons. We attacked the walls of Constantinople. We reached as far as Spain. We fought the Hapsburgs. We fought the long and bloody war of the Turks. We repelled them from Europe. Our land is soaked in blood. Our blood as well as the blood of our enemies. And so, if he thought it necessary – then yes, I am more than certain he would do such things.”

Nikki looks at her.

“I do not condone it, I am merely explaining.”

“Why” Nikki asks amazed, “Why would a good King, as you say, perhaps the best King Poland has ever known . . . why would he order the murder of two innocents?”

“Do you know them to be innocent?” Erzsebet asks. “I know of your friend Esther and yes, she is, but what do you know as to why this terrible thing was done? You must understand Nichole, Stephen and I are of noble blood. We think as nobles. We shall always do so. We do things—we do what to some may be considered horrible things in the name of our honor. I do not know that this is why – but I am trying to explain to you . . . if he did order such a thing, why he well may have.”

Nikki sits in silence – shockingly aware now that her mother is telling her that she believes there are those who are beneath her – that there are those who are nothing more than mere peasants . . . and that she believes so even still, and to them . . . anything can be done.

This is nobility?

“Mother—I can not believe you still believe in this—in this right of nobles. You are here and now in the 21st century. You are a member of the Diogenes Club and yet . . .”

“I still think of myself as Countess Bathory? That I am of noble blood? Yes. And you cannot walk away from that either—as enlightened as you wish to be. You have my blood in your veins. You are of noble birth my dear. Even your father was of the British aristocracy. Do you not see how you walk; how you hold yourself. With grace and pose. Your comportment? You are, by blood, whether you wish it or not, my dear—you are a Countessa.”

“You are wrong mother, I am not any better than anyone else.” Nikki tells her – even as she is suddenly cognizant that she is truly of noble origins – that she has the blood of princes and kings, something she has never even contemplated.

“I do not think less of these you so worry about any more than I think less of them as humans. For we are of a race now far older than them.” Erzsébet tells her calmly.

“Mother—“

“You are young and you have not lived as long as I. You have not as yet reconciled yourself to that which co-exists within you – “

In the distance, the high-pitched, almost imperceptible sound of a bat is heard, followed quickly by another.

“What you . . .” Only, she does not finish her statement as she suddenly arises and looks back out over the night shrouded storefronts of Frenchman’s Lane, “We are not alone. There are others of our kind.” She whispers.

Nikki rises and feels now the presence, hears the bats in the distance.

“There are two.”

“Yes.” Nikki nods.

“They know we have detected them—they even now cloud themselves from our minds.” Erzsébet now cuts a sideward glance at Nikki standing beside her as she holds up her long fingered hand so the tips of her fingers touch to her temple, “ You and I have the power—but you will find those of our kind can mask their thoughts when they detect us . . . and these are strong, long-lived.”

“There are other vampires here in Collinsport?’ Nikki looks over to her mother.

“It would seem.” She nods as she still stares out into the darken storefronts.

“Could it . . .. “

“Be the one’s you seek?” Her mother finishes the thought for her – and Nikki is so amazed now at how they do not even need to speak as they can read one another’s thoughts so easily—or at least her mother is not masking them so that she can. “It is possible. Your friend Esther – they most assuredly allowed her to live for a reason.”

Nikki now looks at Erzsébet – something else she had not even considered.

In the low sodium light of the street light her mother turns to look at her – an anxiety in her eyes: “I know it haunts you – my history. What they say of me.”

“The Bloody Countess . . .” Nikki nods, her brilliant blue eyes looking into the azure of her mother’s in which one could so quickly become lost – God she is so powerful.

Erzsébet looks at her, “You still wonder. You still have doubts. And now you need to know the truth – now more than ever—about all that you have heard regarding the House of Báthory. About that Hungarian Whore.“ She turns to face her, “You need to know whether or not I murdered 600 girls for their beauty? Whether or not I tortured and killed 600 girls because they were not of noble blood? Because, as you believe, I thought of them as nothing more than mere peasants? To do with what I will. To bathe in their blood?”

Nikki fears the answer.

“I have told you, no, I did not. That I was condemned because of political power and various nobles and princes owed vast sums of money to my estate. To be noble born my dear is only yet another form of temptation to evil.” Erzsébet’s azure eyes once again seem to look past Nikki as if she were looking now beyond the street lights of Collinsport, looking back through the veil of time. “These facts are of a truth—but—you do need to know more. You need to know the whole of the truth.”

Nikki wants to close her eyes – wants to put her hands to her ears – she has so longed to know the truth – concerned as she has been because Erzsébet has kept this part of her memories, her thoughts, concealed – which has only nourished her doubts and let her suspicions grow.

“In that which transpired—the deaths of some. Was I complicit? Was I tempted by evil? Did my vanity seek eternal youth? Yes.”

Nikki’s eyes remain closed.

“Was I enchanted, corrupted by the books I read in my Aunt’s library? Enticed into the occult? Did I bring alchemists and witches to Cachtice? Yes. Of this, I am guilty.”

“Books?” Nikki’s eyes open, “Alchemists and witches?”

“Were terrible and grotesque things done in my name? Yes. Did I succumb to irresistible temptation?” The raven-haired woman’s face now reveals a sadness that Nikki has never seen, “Yes. Did I allow their servants to practice unnamable rites? Did I allow them to call upon names that should have never been spoken? Did I seek him to whom ispast, present, and future are beyond all time in hopes of finding immorality? Yes.”

Nikki’s eyes darken as she suddenly begins to realize who and what she is talking about.

“Did I allow them to call upon The Darkness and bring him to my estates? Yes.”

“Mother!”

She turns to look at her daughter, “It was not until I saw the depths of his depravity—the horrors that he had unleashed in the transcended hearts of those whom he had seduced, to those who had made even more grim and terrible sacrifices in his name that I understood what I had allowed to transpire.”

“Him?” Nikki feels her fingers tightening into a fist, “You mean—Nyarlathotep?”

“Yes—in my vanity I allowed Yog-Sothoth to sent The Messenger to tempt me even as he now tempts you. But you must be stronger than I. We are both of the undead by his hand. We are both entangled in some grand stratagem of his devising, as yet unrevealed. A stratagem that reaches back for hundreds of years.”

“Oh, mother – tell me . . . please tell me your name is not in his book.” She feels red tears beginning to well up.

She looks at her—and Nikki can see in her thoughts how close she came. “No. When I saw – saw what they had done, what madness he had infected them with—I rebuked him. To which he merely laughed and for my rejection he then saw to my ruination – the destruction of my name – to my being imprisoned, walled up in my room. Alone – for years before he finally turned me into what I am – so that he could wait for centuries to amuse himself by watching as I was forced into turning my own daughter into what he made of me.”

Nikki’s anxious fingers comb through her blonde hair and hold the strands tightly between her fingers: The sins of the mother and the daughter.

Erzsébet’s eyes now widen.

“I had so longed for my parents – I read books – so many books . . . evil, evil books . . . I sought those who knew how to use their knowledge – I – I did something . . . “ Tears now about to fall – she has never spoken of this to any one, Erzsébet can now read – she can see—

“Oh God! Mother – I did something . . . something horrible . . . I unleashed . . . I-I created a rift between two worlds . . . I spoke to him who is the way and the gate . . .”

“Nicole?”

“And it all lead me to the messenger—even thought at the time . . . I did not know it was him . . . and he tells me now that your coming to me, being forced to do what you did so that we are now together, was all in answer to my desires – that it is all part of some deal—a bargain I never knew I made – with him.”

“He is a liar my dear!” Erzsébet hisses, “That is what he does best.” She immediately reaches over and takes her daughter’s hand and holds it tightly – and for a moment Nikki thinks she detects the glint of a redden dampness in her mother’s eyes, “You—you did not . . .”

“No—” She shakes her head, “No, my name is not in his book.”

“He will never stop in his endless endeavors and grievous trickery to find ways – you know that.”

“I know.”

She is suddenly comforted as Erzsébet Báthory unexpectedly reaches out and hugs her tightly and whispers in her ear, “I am here and I shall always be here to help you. You are not alone.”

Nikki feels all of her earlier anger at her mother flowing out of her.

“Now,” Erzsébet’s fingers brushing back Nicole’s hair, “I will see what I can find out for you about Stephen. But I warn you, if he does not wish me to find him, I shall not. He is and always was very brilliant.”

“Thank you.”

“But, you my dear. You need to look back into the past. You must find out for what reason these two came for her parents.”

“Yes,” Nikki nods.

Erzsébet looks back down the dimly lit cobblestone street of Frenchman’s Lane, “And most importantly your friend she must beware for it is a certainty they will be coming back.”

Nikki’s eyes darken as she follows her mother’s gaze, “If he did do this. If he was involved, then—the death of Esther’s parents was done by a member of my family.”

“Yes.” Erzsébet raises an eyebrow, “And if so what shall you do?”

“Why mother,” Nikki says regaining her composure, “I will kill them. I will kill them all.”

Erzsébet’s lips curl into a wicked smile, “Precisely, as a Báthory should do.”

Cue Music End of Episode