Soon afterwards, she is kidnapped by a forward party of Turkish troops, and he learns that she, Teuta, is not undead, but the living daughter of the local Voivode, who is currently returning from a visit to America. She had fallen into a trance, and was declared dead, but then revived, and the local leaders and clergy spread a story of vampirism which was more acceptable than the truth to the uneducated locals, after the (mistaken) news of her death. Living up to this story, she had spent her days in the coffin in the crypt, but during heavy rain when the crypt flooded, came out seeking warmth in the castle in which she had grown up, and knew all the secret entrances, and hence her meetings with Rupert behind locked gates.