It took Beheim the better piece of an hour to backtrack his way to the passage mouth where he and Giselle had experienced Vlad. He advanced probably right away, however with expanding certainty—not really settled not to be shocked once more. When the component of shock had been eliminated, he didn’t accept that the vermin who occupied the profundities of Banat would be any counterpart for him. Every once in a while he heard woozy yells and giggling resonating somewhere out there, and as he gravitated toward the passage mouth, looking to one side along a cross passageway, he detected a reflected gleam of torchlight. He made a beeline for the light and before long transformed into another passageway whose far end was stained by a flashing rosy glare. A weak jibber jabber of voices conveyed to him, as did the aroma of blood. There may be, he assessed, upwards of thirty individuals assembled. Enough to introduce a significant risk, should they be of bound together reason. Be that as it may, he forged ahead, driven similarly by a red craving to stand up to Vlad as by any desire for discovering Giselle. At the point when he arrived at the wellspring of the light—a half-open entryway, gigantic chunks of oak bound with iron groups—he looked into a room so restricted it may have been an inconceivably prolonged storeroom. Sixty feet in length or more, with a high curved roof, lit by lights set in iron sections. The space had been slashed from the stone on which the palace was established, the dividers of shimmering, unmortised dark stone finished with brilliantly shaded personifications of bone-white, deathly people with barbarous carmine mouths and ludicrously stretched appendages and overstated teeth. Detestable kid’s shows presented in perspectives of danger, every fifteen feet high or somewhere around there. Pictures so clearly delivered, they appeared to be fit for becoming animated, of stripping up from the stone and submitting two-dimensional violences. There were not really many individuals in the room as Beheim had assumed. Just twelve or somewhere in the vicinity, all wearing hooded robes like that well used by Vlad. The vast majority of them were packed about Giselle, who was shackled to the divider, stripped and clearly oblivious, her skin washed orange by the torchlight. New injuries dirtied her thighs and arms. Vlad was remaining next to her, his hood tossed back, conversing with a stout silver haired lady. Like clockwork he would contact Giselle on the shoulder, the hip, in an easygoing style that made Beheim think he was utilizing her as an illustration in his discussion; at whatever point he grinned, his teeth sparkled with unnatural splendor, and this upgraded the ratlike part of his unshaven face. A few others were sitting about, analyzing the wall paintings, every so often projecting looks toward Giselle, as though they anticipated that something should occur. Beheim dreaded the lights, however he realized that in case he planned to act, he would need to do as such rapidly, before they set about whatever it was they expected. Strides sounded farther along the passageway. Somebody strolling at a fast speed toward the room. Chuckling came from significantly farther away, more profound in the maze of halls. Beheim smoothed against the divider, and when a beefy robed figure drew side by side of him, he held onto the man from behind and broke his neck with a fast bend, interfering with his objection. He pulled the body farther into the murkiness, into a specialty that may whenever have been utilized for a guard post. There he peeled off the man’s robe and, disregarding its foul smell, pulled it on over his head. As he was changing the hood to shroud his face, two additional men came stepping along the hallway, talking joyfully, and went into the room. Beheim stood stressing his ears. Subsequent to holding up a couple of moments more to take into account any further late appearances, he, when all is said and done, entered, stepping in among the little popping fires and the rich smell of blood. Gone was each hint of his kindhearted respect for humans. He didn’t feel anything however outrage and hatred. As he passed in among them he witnessed mottled faces and dull eyes and expanding mouths. A few individuals from the array, he saw, were brandishing shoddy teeth: bended containers of roughly fashioned metal that fitted over their canines.