The Avenger 33 - The Blood Countess Read Online Free PDF

IX

The Ruined Temple
    “I never quite get used to it.” Elizabeth was holding onto Dick Benson’s arm as they walked along a forest path.
    Some ten yards behind them, one of the girl’s guards was tramping through the afternoon forest.
    “The bodyguards?”
    “Yes, and especially Weiner. He’s the one huffing and puffing along in our wake,” said the girl. “I was brought up to believe everyone had his own guardian angel. But they were supposed to be invisible, and they didn’t have big feet.”
    “Despite the noise, you should feel secure.”
    A bright-colored bird went flickering overhead.
    “They really don’t do much good, all the guards.”
    “What do you mean? Do you think someone could get through them?”
    “Yes, someone has.”
    “Who?”
    “Me,” she replied.
    Up ahead, now fragments of the ancient temple showed—great blocks of yellow stone, grayed by time and tangled with vines.
    “You’ve been giving your guards the slip?” the Avenger asked.
    “I think so, Dick. I . . . I’m not really sure.”
    He watched her pale face for a moment as they drew nearer to the ruined temple. “This has something to do with what you couldn’t talk about yesterday,” he said. “I think you’ll have to tell me now, Elizabeth.”
    There had once been wide stone steps leading up to the central room of the temple. Roughly half the steps remained, a thick blue-green moss growing in the cracks and ruts. Most of the main building still stood, a squat thing of giant stone blocks. Each of the blocks was carved with likenesses of long-forgotten gods and depictions of blood rituals.
    The girl slowly mounted the ancient steps. Seating herself on the topmost one, she said, “We’ve already talked a little about these spells I’ve been having. I have stretches of time I simple lose.”
    Benson sat beside her.
    Weiner, the burly guard, halted down in the forest and leaned, arms folded, against the trunk of a tree.
    “This has been happening how long?” Benson asked the girl.
    She replied, “Months now. It started in Europe after I was freed from . . . after I was freed. Since we’ve come here, things have grown much worse. It’s funny . . . I wanted to spend time here at the castle because I thought it would be relaxing.”
    “About these spells, what exactly happens?”
    “I seem to jump from one part of time to another. I mean, it’ll be ten at night and then it’s three in the morning.” She laughed, though not with amusement. “Yes, I know that’s what happens when you go to sleep. This is nothing like that.”
    “It always happens at night, though?”
    “Yes, since we’ve been at the castle, anyway.”
    The Avenger said, “There’s more to it than just blacking out, though, isn’t there?”
    “I think . . . I think I get out of the castle at night. I sneak out and do terrible things. I seem to have memories . . . very faint . . . memories of killing and blood. Always blood.”
    He put his arm around her slender shoulders. “You’ve obviously heard about the murders in this area. Probably you’re imagining—”
    “There was blood on my clothes yesterday, clothes I must have worn. And mud, still damp, on a pair of shoes,” she told him in a soft, deliberate voice. “Dick, I really think I must have murdered Leonard Rodney. Rodney and all the rest. I’m some kind of . . . I don’t know what.”
    “Look, Elizabeth, if you were going out of that place at night, someone would see you. The guards, your housekeeper. Certainly Erika would be aware of it.”
    “That’s a very old castle. There are all kinds of ways to get out without being seen,” said Elizabeth. “As for Erika, I think maybe she has seen me leaving.”
    “Has she said so?”
    “No, because it’s her job to protect me. She knows something about me, I’m sure. Something awful.”
    Benson was silent for a moment. What the pale girl was telling him, it all tied in with what Dr. Bouchey had been saying earlier today. But