H.M.
INGRID PITT


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Countess Dracula (1971)


"Ilona?" ventured Imre. His eyes appealed for an explanation. The Countess
looked back at him pityingly, but said nothing. Imre gazed about the room
to see what other horrors it held. He saw a black dress lying discarded on
the floor. It was the dress the old Countess had been wearing. A new and
terrible thought occurred to him.
"Where's your mother?" he demanded urgently. "The Countess Elizabeth, where
is she?"
Ilona shook her head.
"Forget her," said the beautiful young Countess coldly. She's no longer
important."
"Where is she?" Wildly Imre stepped forward and took hold of her, pulling her robe off her
shoulders. A smear of caked blood lay guiltily on her breast. He looked
back to the silver vessel of blackly congealing blood. This is
unbelieveable, he thought. She's been bathing in the Countess's blood...
"You've killed her!" he accused, "You've killed your own mother and you're
bathing in her blood!"
It was impossible, nightmarish, yet the evidence was all about him. The
room reeked of blood, and memories of the charnel horrors of the battlefield
returned to mock his brain.
"No. You're quite wrong." The young Countess watched him coolly.
Slowly, she drew closer and took his hand in her own. He stared down at
her hand.
"I am Countess Elizabeth," she revealed. "The old woman you never even
noticed when you came here."
Confused, Imre stared at her. He shook his head in disbelief, rejecting
the madness of her claim.
"Look at me," she ordered, "my face...my body...hold me...love me..."
She slipped his hand beneath her robe and slid it caressingly over her body,
down to the core of her hot desire.
Imre tore his hand free and stepped back.
"No...all that blood...whose blood?"
He felt he was going insane. His voice rose shrilly to a scream. "Tell me!
Whose?"
The Countess watched him fearfully. He was beginning to frighten her. Why
was he so blind? Could he not see she had done it all for him? For love
of him?
Softly she said, "A virgin's. No one of any importance. Just some peasant
girl Dobi found."
She saw the revulsion in his brain and quickly added, "I needed the blood
for you, my darling. Don't you see? To please you."

Michel Parry, Countess Dracula (Redemption Books)

(Thanks to Greg Turnbull for letting me use the above photo from his fine
Hammer Glamour site.

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