Work Text:
When that lovely vision of a woman appeared on our doorstep all those weeks ago, begging Sherlock Holmes to find her fiancée, who had gone missing two months prior whilst employed in Romania, I believed she would be turned away by the great detective with a languid wave from the depths of his armchair. For all outward appearances, her case was, from Holmes's perspective, one of those commonplace little incidents that were beneath his great powers; some vulgar intrigue with a local woman at best, or murder most foul at worst. Perhaps our client's husband had simply come to mischief as he explored the surrounding forest, for it is not unfathomable that a stranger to that land roaming the woodlands after nightfall should come afoul of predators.
The last outcome I expected was for Holmes to take the minutest interest, yet something in the details she succinctly laid out before him roused his curiosity, those keen grey eyes glittering beneath hooded lids as he listened to her unhappy account. She explained that even before this mysterious vanishing, she had been overwrought with concern, for he sent her a series of epistles which she swore were penned in his own hand, though not writ by him.
"You suspect he took dictation, Miss Murray?" Holmes queried, hands pressed together as he leant forward with repressed excitement.
"I am certain of it, Mr Holmes. He would never compose a letter to me in so formal a manner. Here," said she, handing him a packet of letters tied with red string, "are his final missives to me, along with others he has written during our courtship. Surely you must see his affection pours through even when he is constrained to brevity!"
"Dear me, this is most curious, indeed," remarked Holmes, glancing over the letters. "Watson, do make a long arm for the index labelled 'C', there's a good fellow."
For some moments, he skimmed though the index before rising to cross reference it with another volume, then another. "It is just as I supposed," said he, gravely, after returning all three books to their place on the shelf. "Your fiancée is not the first person in that region to seemingly be swallowed up by the very earth beneath his feet, for all the vestiges which remain after they are gone. Reports of mysterious occurrences in that area have reached my ears for longer than I can recall, yet I had assumed them to be yarns spun by the simple minded… now, I wonder. You are not averse to a long and arduous journey, Doctor? Capital! Then we leave on the morrow for what promises to be a most intriguing affair."
With those ominous words of parting, Sherlock Holmes ushered our client out the door, and, turning to me with that unmistakable gleam of adventure which overtook him on puzzling conundrums such as this, declared that the game was once more afoot.
***
Nearly a sennight was spent on the not altogether unpleasant journey eastward, for our private compartment afforded us an incomparable view whose charm and splendour only increased as we left Prussia in our wake. Due to the inconsistency of the railways, we were forced to spend a night in Budapest, to my delight and Holmes's chagrin. Whereas I veritably drank in the history, Gothic architecture, and that intangible essence emanated by any city whose roots trace back so deeply into the past, my friend brooded over the delay and eventually sulked off to our hotel in a morose and inconsolable humour.
Had he accompanied me throughout this excursion, perhaps our situation might not at this hour be so grave, for it was sampling the local ale at a timeworn stone tavern that I was first forewarned of the preternatural beings, the incarnations of evil which stalked the countryside from time immemorial. Or perhaps not, for I am every bit a man of science as Holmes, and whilst the earnest way in which these peasants spoke of malevolent forces did elicit a shiver, I viewed them as does one an exciting ghostly tale, and had quite dismissed from my mind such fanciful talk when once the next round of ale was served.
We reached our destination three days later, just as the clock struck the midnight hour, so utterly exhausted from our relentless schedule that my friend relented without so much as a grunt of protest when I suggested we locate an inn before commencing our investigations. Yet the hostility in this lonely village towards strangers was of a profound, almost superstitious nature, several residents making the sign of the cross at the mere sight of us before promptly shutting and bolting their doors.
"You would think we appeared in the guise of the devil himself, from the warm way these peasants have received us," said I after the ninth door had slammed in our faces, nearly clipping Holmes's nose in the process.
"Possibly, we do," said Sherlock Holmes abstractedly. "Well, well, since we can expect no aid in the form of a dog cart or roof over our heads, we might as well seek shelter at the estate wherein our client's fiancée was last heard from."
"You cannot be serious!"
"Come Watson," he called out, headed already towards the woodlands. "For unless I am much mistaken, those answers we seek shall be made explicitly clear upon our arrival."
With an ejaculated curse I had set off to follow my companion, when a firm grip on my wounded shoulder stopped me cold. The lateness of the hour and the gloomy atmosphere of this atavistic village from another century, unnerved me to the extent my hand curled still about the handle of my revolver even as the shriveled old crone who had so startled me shuffled over to face me.
"English?" said she in a broken approximation of the aforesaid language. "Herr Englishman?" she repeated with no little agitation when I did not immediately reply.
When I stated the affirmative, she seemed to be overtaken with a fit of hysterics, and in a strange amalgamation of German, English and what I assume was some local dialect, implored me not to venture into the woods, repeating a word which she seemed to give great weight to, and which sounded like 'vrolok'. This she asserted over and over again, as though speaking it aloud would hinder me from taking another step forward.
I offered her such soothing words as I was able in the sparse German I am possessed of, but when it became clear I meant to break away from her hold and join my friend despite her warnings, she went down on her knees and implored me not to go. As I made to assist her up, she suddenly slipped a silver crucifix from around her neck and offered it to me. As a gentleman, I could not refuse her gift, not if it had the effect of assuaging her anxieties.
***
"Vrolok?" said Sherlock Holmes with a wry grin as we rambled along an ill-defined trail, a dark lantern thankfully packed in with the remainder of our luggage lighting our way. "You would swear that is the precise phrase she spoke?"
"I ought to be able to do so, for she repeated it incessantly," I laughed, albeit uneasily, at the old woman's credulity.
"Most fascinating. But what is this? Our destination, I fancy, if this blasted fog would have the kindness of dissipating so that I might decipher this inscription," said he, raising the lantern so that the dim beam of illumination passed over the lofty gates of the castle we practically stumbled into, as the brume that coated the forest grounds was becoming denser by the minute.
A distant, mournful howl rang out in the distance, and yet, the longer we stood in this place, the more I preferred to turn back and take my chances with the prowling wildlife.
"Holmes," said I, taking him by the elbow. "Surely it would be better to call upon this household in the morning light."
"You worry unnecessarily, my dear fellow," said he, diving the true reason for my hesitation. "After all, what is the worst that could happen?"
"I suppose you are right, as always," said I, reluctantly, for the fog was blowing away in the wind, and the unimpeded vision of the gates and that ancient structure looming on the hilltop above it chilled me to my very soul.
"Ah, here we are, Watson… Castle Dracula."