Blood of the Impaler (22 page)

Holly started to weep. "Malcolm, this is horrible! What are we going to do? We can't just leave her free to spread this! She'll create vampires, and then they'll create vampires, and so on and so forth until there will be thousands of them, millions of them."

"No." He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"You don't think so!" Holly exclaimed. "You don't think so! How can you take it upon yourself to take a chance like that?"

"Think about it, Holly," Malcolm said. "Dracula lived for centuries in the Carpathians, and he must have killed hundreds of thousands of people. And yet when Van Helsing killed the vampires in his castle, there were only three of them, only three."

"Wh . . . what do you . . . ? I don't understand."

"And when he came to England, again there were only three people he infected, only Lucy, my great-grandmother, and the madman, Renfield. Maybe it's only three at a time. For all we know, maybe only Dracula can do it! Maybe Lucy can't create new vampires! Maybe the blood has to come directly from Dracula himself!"

"So everything's okay, then?" she asked bitterly. "So all she's going to do is run around at night killing innocent people, but it's okay because when they die they stay dead?"

He rubbed his eyes. "I don't know, I don't know. If she can help me, I'll worry about everything else later. I'm not worrying about moral implications right now."

"Well, maybe you should be! How can you—"

"Holly, be quiet," he said wearily. "I don't want to talk anymore. What's done is done. Let's just wait for her to come back." He sat down upon the cold stone floor, and Holly, after a moment's hesitation, sat down beside him. He placed his arm around her shoulder and they sat there in silence as the hours passed slowly.

It was nearly dawn when she returned. The telltale glow of the rising sun was just barely skirting the edges of the horizon when they heard the cold voice say from outside the crypt, "Malcolm Harker! Come here."

He rose to his feet and walked to the doorway. "Why don't you come in? It's almost dawn, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said, laughing, "but I have time enough before I must sleep, and I'll not allow myself to be trapped in there. You come out to me, you and your friend with you."

Malcolm held his hand out to Holly and she took it as she stood up. She held the crucifix tightly as they stepped out into the dew-laden mist of early morning.

Lucy Westenra looked different. Her face was rosy and healthy, her eyes wide and clear, and her voice liquid and pleasing, though the underlying inhuman coldness had not departed. Malcolm moved the flashlight beam up and down the creature, noting how the flesh, which had such a short time ago been pale and cadaverous, was now pink and robust.

Holly noticed the difference also. "What's happened to her?" she whispered.

"She has fed," Malcolm replied evenly as he walked forward.

"Stop there, little Harker," Lucy said firmly, and then
smiled. "Tell me, do women in this age really wear such clothing as this?" She gestured downward at the faded dungarees, the dirty tennis shoes, the bulky, oversized sweatshirt. "Is this regarded as attractive?"

He ignored her question. "Where did you get the clothes?"

"They came with my meal," she said, laughing.

"My God," Holly said. "She's killed someone. You killed someone, didn't you!"

Lucy shrugged. "I haven't eaten since I don't know when! I suppose I made something of a glutton of myself," she chuckled.

"Jesus, Malcolm, Jesus!" Holly said, and turned away from the creature. She placed her hands over her eyes and wept.

"Will you answer my questions?" Malcolm asked, choosing to ignore what he knew had just happened.

"I shall," Lucy said, "out of the, ah, goodness of my heart, and because . . . well, Mina was my friend."

"In your state, you still have human emotions?" Malcolm asked. "You can still feel friendship?"

"I do not feel it, but I remember it." She glanced at the horizon. "Ask your questions, and be quick about them."

"Okay." He took a deep breath. "First question is this: How can I be sure that what you're going to say is reliable? What is your source of knowledge?"

"My source of knowledge!" she exclaimed. "Why, the same source as your own, though you are unable to use it."

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

"The blood, my dear, the blood! The blood speaks to me even as it speaks to you, but only dead ears can hear it. The blood tells me everything I need to know. It is instinct and education combined."

He took a moment to assimilate this idea, then he nodded. "Very well. Second question: Is there any truth to the idea that Dracula somehow altered his own body chemistry to create this condition?"

She frowned and shook her head. "I don't understand the question."

"Let me put it this way. What is there about the blood that makes the dead walk? What is the source of the blood's power?"

"Such easy questions, Malcolm!" She smiled. "It is obvi
ous, is it not? The blood has power because of whose blood it is!"

"That's not an answer," he insisted. "You can't tell me that Dracula's blood has power because it is Dracula's blood. That just leads the question around in a circle."

"It is not Dracula's blood," Lucy said. "It is Satan's blood. It is the Devil's blood."

He stared at her for a moment. Then he said, "I need rational explanations, not supernatural nonsense. If I am to—"

Peals of laughter erupted from the creature and she drowned out his words. "After what you have seen and what you have done, after finding out what you
are
,
you say that supernatural reality is nonsense? Oh, poor Mina, poor Jonathan, to have spawned a family line of idiots." Her laughter went on and on, then stopped abruptly. Her mirthful face clouded over with sudden anger. "Now hear me well, Malcolm. I will give you answers and share with you my knowledge, but I will not argue with you. I know what I am and I know why I am what I am. If you want to hear, I will speak. If not, I shall leave you." She glanced again at the horizon.

"Okay, okay," he said hurriedly. "Tell me how Dracula became a vampire."

"It was a pact, as in the old tale of Faust. Continued existence, century after century, a perpetual life in death, living on and feeding on the blood of the living, spreading terror and misery and sorrow and death. All of this pleases the Devil. The Count received the Devil's blood, the Devil filled his dead heart with it, and gave him his Undeath."

Malcolm thought this over. "I think I see. So when the stake is driven through the heart, the blood is released and the vampire is free of the curse. Correct?"

"Absolutely not, my dear Malcolm," she said impatiently. "You must think poetically, my boy, symbolically. Why was the master in his life called Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler?"

He understood immediately. "Of course. He impaled people upon wooden stakes."

"Precisely. And you may have read that we cast no reflection in mirrors. Have you never wondered why?" She waited for an answer, and when none was forthcoming, she went on, "Who is the mirror image, the polar opposite as if were, of the Prince of Darkness?"

The answer became simple as soon as she had given him
the clue. "Yes, yes," he said, nodding. "The Prince of Light. Jesus Christ."

"Who was impaled upon a piece of wood," Lucy finished for him. "For these reasons, the wooden stake frees the vampire from the pact with the Devil." She paused. "For the Count it was a pact. For all others, it is a curse."

"And yet you do not wish to be free from it."

She shrugged. "The dog grows to love the leash. The slave grows to love the lash."

"And what of the rest of the legend?"

Her eyebrows rose.

"The facts, then," he said quickly. "What about garlic?"

"It burns. The smell burns into our brains and makes us mad with agony."

"And the crucifix? The consecrated communion wafer, the consecrated wine?"

"Water quenches fire, little Harker. The sun dispels the moon, the light overcomes the darkness, life denies death."

"Opposites," he observed.

"Eternal enemies," she corrected him. "Before the infinite, everything finite falls. And even the Devil himself is finite." She glanced again impatiently at the horizon. "Hurry with your questions. It is not more than thirty minutes before the sun breeches the darkness."

"Okay," he said. "Next question: Are there other vampires, other than you?"

She smiled wickedly. "Not yet!"

"But you can make more?"

"I
shall
make more."

"Three more?"

The precision and accuracy of his question seemed to startle her. "Yes, three. How did you know that?"

He allowed himself a smug grin. "Three women at the castle in Transylvania. Three people infected in England a century ago: you, my great-grandmother, and the lunatic Renfield."

She laughed. "Clever, but incorrect. The Count could make as many Undead as he chose. It is only we, his creations, who are limited. We can give forth enough of the Devil's blood to make three others like ourselves. But Dracula's heart was like a bottomless, fathomless well that tapped the veins of Satan. He could give of it endlessly and remain undiminished."

"But now he is gone," Malcolm said. "So you alone are left as a vampire, and you can only create three others."

"Yes,
I alone am left. I and you and your family, my dear Malcolm."

He shook his head. "I'm infected, but I'm not like you are. I'm still alive."

"At the moment," she said, smiling.

He ignored the remark. "What of the three you create, if you do create any? Can they then create others?"

"No," she said. "The farther removed from the source of the power, the weaker the blood. The Count sucked on Satan's teat. He could have created a multitude of vampires, had he so chosen. I can create but three, and my creations can create none."

"I don't understand," Malcolm said, frowning. "You say the blood's power weakens as it is removed from the source. Then why is it affecting me at all? I'm three generations removed from Mina Harker."

"You're not listening to me, you little idiot," she hissed. "The blood speaks to you when you are dead. It only influences you just slightly when you are yet living. Mina gave birth to a son and passed the blood on to him. It rested in him and fed on his blood every moment that it coursed through his veins. It still does. He passed the blood on to his son, and his son passed it on to you. It is only when you die that the power of the blood will assert itself"

He took a moment to think this over. "So my danger will come when I die. Now, while I live, it is still manageable."

"Yes."

"By regularly taking the sacrament."

"Yes."

"But it burned me. I mean, the last time I took communion, it burned my mouth and my stomach."

"Because you have allowed the blood's power to gain an advantage. You told me that you had stayed away from church for a long while. Anything wears off, even sanctity."

"And if I take communion regularly from now on . . ."

"The pain will diminish and eventually disappear, and the power of the blood will be reduced."

"But not eliminated," he said.

"No," Lucy agreed. "Not eliminated. There will still be danger for you after you die."

Not with my veins filled with embalming fluid
, he
thought a bit smugly. He did not share his thought with her. "And if I ever have children?"

"It will pass to them, through the generations." She looked nervously over at the rose-tinged horizon. "Quickly. I am being kind to you by giving you this much time, but you must hurry."

"Okay," he said. "One more question. I don't just want to control this, I want to end it. I want to lift this from myself and my family. Can it be done? Is there any way just to eliminate the power of the blood completely?"

"That, I cannot say for certain. But I have a feeling, an intuition, if you like. It speaks to me but unclearly."

"Tell me what you can," he said.

She paused for a moment. "The Devil is tied to the blood, and the blood is tied to the Count, and all three are tied to the soil of the Count's native land." She stopped speaking, as if this cryptic remark contained all the information he needed.