Blood of the Impaler (21 page)

"He who loved you best," he replied. Was it his imagination, or did an almost human light pass briefly over her eyes as he spoke those words? If it did, it passed almost instantly. "I pulled the stake from your chest and washed the garlic from your mouth. I gave you my own blood, to bring you back. You have lain in decay and death for a century."

"Time has no meaning to us," she spat, "and if you have indeed done what you say, do not expect my thanks!"

"I do not expect your thanks," he said simply.

She moved out of the shadows, closer to the flashlight beam, though still out of its range. "Why have you done this?" she asked angrily.

"I need your help. I have questions. I need answers, information."

She stepped back into the darkness and laughed bitterly. "You need my help? You need
my
help! What help can I render to you or to anyone?"

"Listen to me. I will explain."

"I must feed!" she shrieked.

"You will hear me out," he repeated, "and then perhaps I will allow you to draw sustenance from me."

Another bitter laugh. "Your blood is like unto
his
blood. You can give me no nourishment, even as I can do you no harm."

"You begin to understand," he sighed. "Now, listen . . ."

Holly stared ahead of her, terrified and fascinated, as Malcolm related to the creature the events of the past few weeks. He spoke calmly and intelligently, mentioning every
detail, omitting nothing of importance, seeming calm and unruffled, as if he felt comfortable talking with her, as if now, facing the reality of his situation with the full light of knowledge, he was no longer worried or upset. He was standing in a tomb, conversing with a vampire, and he was acting as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Holly shook her head in wonder at his attitude and demeanor.
How can he be so calm? Why isn't he frightened? Why isn't he running, screaming, from this tomb? Why is he acting as if he feels so totally at ease, almost as if he has known this creature for years?

And then she remembered something that Malcolm had forced her to read, something from Mina Harker's later diary.

When little Quincey Harker had run away from home and had finally been captured at the door to this very tomb, he had been seeking entrance for reasons that neither Mina Harker nor Jonathan Harker nor Abraham Van Helsing nor John Stewart could fathom. And when Van Helsing and Mina had entered and had opened the grave to make certain that Lucy Westenra was still blissfully dead, the child had broken free of John Stewart's grip and had run into the tomb, had jumped onto the open coffin, screaming, "Mother! Mother!"

Holly Larsen shuddered and her blood ran cold. She realized what the child had meant by his frenzied cry. He had not been pleading for maternal protection, had not been crying out for Mina Harker to help him.

He had not been speaking to Mina Harker at all.

Chapter Nine

A
s Malcolm Harker finished his narrative, the creature remained silent, attentive but impatient. The white points of her elongated canine teeth glinted slightly in the dull glow of the misdirected flashlight. At last Malcolm fell silent and stood waiting for her to respond.

"A pretty tale," she hissed, "for all the interest it is to me. Now tell your little friend with the crucifix to stand away from the door and let me pass. I must feed."

"I told you," Malcolm said, "that if you need blood you can drink from me. I cannot allow you to leave this place."

"But I cannot stay," she replied. "I have no need of your blood, for it gives me nothing which I do not already have."

"It gave you life," he pointed out.

A horrible laugh burst from her dead mouth and echoed through the tomb. "Life! Life! This is not life, you little fool! If you know as much as you say, then you must know what you have done to me! I was
dead
,
I was truly, blissfully
dead
!
I was free of the pain, free of the needs, free of this life in death, and you, you selfish idiot, you wrenched me from my peace!"

Malcolm would not be swayed. "Nonetheless, you may not leave this place. You may drink from me, but—"

"Are you deaf as well?" the creature screamed. She walked toward him menacingly. "I have no need of you. Your blood is not what I need."

Malcolm reached out and grabbed her by the arm, saying, "Stop! I will not allow you to injure anyone." He released her arm almost immediately, shivering slightly. Her flesh was hard and cold, like the skin of a swamp reptile. "I have questions—"

"I have hunger!" She glanced at Holly and then turned back to Malcolm. "Tell her to stand aside!"

"No!" he said firmly. "If you wish your peace, your repose, I can return it to you. When the sun rises, I can give you back your death."

"You fool!" she spat. "Do you understand nothing? No one cursed as I am willingly submits to the stake! You have returned me to this, you have given me back my hell, and I shall keep it! The need drives me, the hunger drives me, the evil drives me!"

"I need your help—"

"Be damned, you and your needs! I have my own needs!"

He paused thoughtfully. Then he said, "Very well. What can I give you to gain your help? What can I do for you to make you willing to answer my questions?"

She began to hiss her reply, but then her face went suddenly blank. She stood motionless, her red eyes clouding
over and fixing on a nothingness in the distance, as if she
were hearing something that neither Malcolm nor Holly could heart. A few silent moments passed, and then her gaze focused upon Malcolm, and she smiled at him, an odd, mocking smile. "Mina and Jonathan married, did they? How sweet. Your great-grandparents! And their son is living yet, and he was named after my old friend Quincey Morris. Remarkable!"

"Tell me what you want," Malcolm repeated.

She rasped a laugh. "Very well, little Harker. I want your friend to stand aside and let me pass. I will feed, and then I will return here before dawn and speak with you."

Malcolm shook his head once again. "I cannot allow you to infect anyone else. I need information from you because I want to end this thing, not spread it."

"The choice is yours," she said, laughing. "You can keep me here until dawn if you wish to. You have the power, with your crucifix and your, ah, rather commendable willpower, if that is your choice, I will be at your mercy with the sunrise, and you can return me to true death." She paused and her red eyes narrowed wickedly. "But keep in mind, my dear boy, that I and I alone can cure you. I and I alone can rid you of the plague which you carry in your body. And I shall do nothing to help you if you do not let me pass."

Malcolm stared at her, half of his mind disbelieving what
she had just said and the other half needing to believe it desperately. "You know how to cure me?" he whispered.

"Yes," she hissed. "An even trade, a fair exchange. Your freedom for my own. And I am not a fool, Malcolm Harker, so do not delude yourself into thinking that you can entrap me here with the sunrise and then dispatch me at your leisure. I shall make provisions for my rest elsewhere."

He looked at her long and hard before asking, "How do I know that I can trust you?"

She shrugged. "Why should you not?"

"That isn't an answer," he responded, shaking his head.

"No," she said softly, "I suppose it isn't. Perhaps I feel an inclination to help you because you are Dracula's bastard descendant, even as I am his morganatic wife. Or perhaps it should suffice to say that I am bound by the limitations of my own being. I cannot enter a building unless invited to, for example. If my exit from this place is made possible by your willing acquiescence, then I am bound by the terms of the agreement to which I willingly adhere."

He shook his head again. "I've read a good deal about you creatures, and I've never heard of anything like that."

"Live and learn, little Harker," she replied, mockery in her voice.

Malcolm continued to stare at her. Then, without taking his eyes from her, he cocked his head in Holly's direction and said, "Stand away from the door."

Holly was certain that she had not heard him correctly. "Wh . . . what?"

"Let her out, Holly," Malcolm said firmly. "Stand away from the door and let her out."

Holly Larsen's mouth dropped open with astonishment and disgust. "Malcolm! You can't! You can't! She's going to go out there and attack someone, kill someone! You can't go along with this! It's . . . it's inhuman!"

"Inhuman!" Lucy chuckled. "You are the only human being in this room, or had you not noticed that?"

"That's not true!" Holly said angrily, her anger momentarily transcending her amazement and terror. "Malcolm is sick, he's ill, he's—"

"He is Dracula's bastard," Lucy said evenly. "From what he has told me, the Count's blood is strong in him, stronger than it is in his grandfather, stronger perhaps than it was in his father. If he does not give heed to my words and do what
I tell him to do, when he dies, he will become as I am." She smiled bitterly. "And after that, of
course, he
will probably come looking for you."

Holly went white. "This is impossible!" she whispered, her body beginning to tremble violently and her eyes darting madly around the dark room. "I must have lost my mind!

"Stand aside!" Lucy hissed.

"Holly," Malcolm said soothingly, "please. Please let her out. It's my only hope."

Holly gazed at him numbly as Lucy crouched and moved toward her with slow, deliberate steps. Holly's blank eyes shifted to the creature that seemed to be creeping toward her, and then in a burst of resolve Holly held the crucifix out in front of her and said, "No!"

Lucy Westenra's red eyes glowered at her, and then in an instant too brief for either Malcolm or Holly to prepare themselves for it, Lucy dropped to her hands and knees. Before her hands hit the floor, she was changed into a growling, salivating wolf. The wolf snarled and feinted a charge at the terrified woman. Holly screamed and instinctively jumped away, thus removing herself and her crucifix from the doorway of the crypt. The wolf ambled slowly and warily over to the door and rose up on its hind legs, changing once more into Lucy in conjunction with the movement. She smiled at the two people and said, in a voice dripping with mockery and amusement, "Thank you, my dear. Wait here for me, Malcolm. I shall return before dawn." She slipped out the doorway, seeming to drift like mist between the still-closed iron grates, and was gone.

Holly and Malcolm stood in silence and stared at the door for what seemed a long while, and then Holly turned to him and said, "Do you realize what you've done?"

"Yes," he sighed. "I realize what I've done. I've taken a risk in the interests of self-preservation."

"She's going to go out and infect someone, Malcolm! An innocent person!"

"And what am I guilty of?" he shouted at her. "What great sin did I commit to be stuck with this thing!"

"That's not the point—"

"It
is
the point, it
is
the point! I know what she's going to do, but if my theory is right, she's going to drink from someone, not make them drink from her. I mean, why should she? Why should she want to create more vampires?"

Holly buttoned her coat. "I'm getting out of here," she said, her trembling voice nonetheless somehow firm and determined. "I'm not going to stand around here, waiting for her to come back. I'm going back to the hotel and I'm going to call the police."

Malcolm began laughing, and his laughter was unkind and humorless.

"What's so goddamned funny!"

"You're leaving," Malcolm said, laughing. "You're going to walk out of here, walk out into a cemetery in the middle of the night, knowing that there's a vampire out there somewhere!"

"I'm not afraid of her!" Holly said defensively.

"Of course you are," he said, suddenly angry. "You'd be an idiot if you weren't. Hell, she can't do anything to me, can't give me any injury that I wasn't born with, and I'm still afraid of her." Malcolm took Holly by the hand, and she recoiled slightly from his touch. "Think, Holly, think. That creature was once a beautiful, kind, loving girl, just like you are. And what she is now is what you could end up as if you walk out of this crypt." He dropped her hand and walked back over toward Lucy's empty coffin. "You're not going anywhere."

Holly was silent for a moment. "Okay, then, I'll stay here until dawn, but then I'm going to the police."

He nodded approvingly. "Okay. Just make sure I have the address of the asylum before I leave England. That's where they'll stick you, of course."