Blood of the Impaler (46 page)

"Jerry—" Malcolm began.

"Forget it, Mal," Jerry said, his voice trembling. "I'm not letting go of this stuff until I'm back in the car."

Malcolm opened his mouth to speak, but the soft sound of laughter, coming at once from everywhere and from nowhere, silenced him. He looked around and saw to his great discomfort that the fog was growing rapidly thicker. His sister and his friend drew close to him, and they stood together as if in an oasis of clarity in a desert of mist.

"Malcolm!" Rachel said, her voice filled with feat "What's happening here? Is it . . . is Grandfather . . . ?"

"Mal, let's get out of here, okay?" Jerry begged, his voice as tremulous as his hands. "Let's just go home or to the Strand or someplace else
,
anyplace
else!"

"There is nowhere you can go," Quincy Harker said as he stepped out of the fog. He smiled kindly at his grandchildren and their friend. "Just go home, Malcolm. Go home, Rachel—and Jerry, go with them. Go home and rest. We will come for you at the appointed time."

The three living humans stood in frightened, wary silence, looking at the undead creature. Quincy was wearing a dark black suit, the style of which matched nothing in his wardrobe, and the depth of the blackness accentuated the pallor of his flesh and the demonic glow in his eyes. Malcolm was gazing in wonder and fear at the walking corpse when Jerry tugged on his sleeve and said, "Mal! Look! Over there!

He turned to see the fog parting as Holly Larsen and Lucy Westenra emerged into the oasis of clarity, each dressed in soft, flowing, transparent white gowns through which their nipples showed black as night; and as Malcolm gazed at them, and as if in response to his observation, the women' nipples grew suddenly red as blood. "Hello, honey," Holly said sweetly. "It's
so
good to see you again."

Malcolm held Rachel tightly to his side and Jerry tried to huddle in between them. "You can't win," Rachel said, trying to sound brave.

"We've already won," Lucy responded, her long, blonde hair seeming to blow in the absent wind. "And in any event, you have no idea what we are planning to do."

"We'll track you down," Malcolm said.

"Hide and seek," Holly said, and laughed. "We'll be waiting for you."

"Waiting for what?" Rachel asked bitterly. "Waiting to destroy us? Well, here we are. What's stopping you? It's three to three, and you are all the stronger for it being night. Why don't you attack us now?"

Lucy stepped forward and shook her head as if with patient and amused exasperation. "Attack you! Destroy you! Why, my dear, you misunderstand us. Your destruction is the
last
thing we want!"

"You want us to join you, to be as you are," Rachel said. "Well, I—"

"Nor that," Lucy interrupted. "Your grandfather's joining our little company was an accident, and certainly not one which I had anticipated . . . not that he isn't welcome, of course." Quincy Harker laughed quietly as Lucy continued, "I needed our sweet Holly for a variety of reasons, which I don't believe I will share with you just yet, and I needed that little fool"—she nodded at Jerry—"as an assistant for a time." She grinned. "Travel can present some difficulties for us, you see. But I certainly have no desire to see either of you become like we are, my dear Harkers."

"Of course not," Malcolm said to Rachel without taking his eyes from the creatures. "They want to awaken the blood in us so that their creator can live on in us, live on
through
us."

"Oh, Malcolm!" Lucy said. "You are such a little dolt. That's not my intention either!"

"But it must be!" Malcolm protested. "What else could you want? If that isn't it, then why are you here? Why did you follow me back to America? If you don't want us to be like you and you don't want the Count to exist in us, then what the hell
do
you want?"

Lucy laughed loudly and withdrew into the fog. "Hide and seek, little Harker, hide and seek!"

The fog enveloped her, and Quincy Harker along with her, leaving only Holly Larsen remaining. She very slowly and seductively ran her hands over her body from breast to belly as she whispered, "I'll see you soon, Malcolm, darling. And when I do, I'm going to just love you to death." Then the fog enveloped her as well, and she was gone.

The fog dissipated suddenly. It did not blow away, it did not thin out, it seemed merely to vanish. Malcolm, Rachel, and Jerry stood alone before the fresh, empty grave of Quincy Harker, and none of them spoke for what seemed a long while. Then Malcolm sighed, "Oh, Holly."

"Very well," Rachel said firmly. "So the worst has come."

Malcolm shook his head. "They haven't killed us yet, Rachel, and for all we know they're out creating more vampires at this very moment. We're nowhere near the worst yet."

Rachel smoothed back her hair and straightened her skirt. "Think like a defeatist and you'll be defeated, Malcolm. We still have to find them and kill them while they are helpless during the day, just as we had planned to do before. The only difference is that now there are three of them, not two of them."

"One," Malcolm said quietly. "There's only one. There has always been only one."

She nodded, understanding. "Yes. And it is his power that we must destroy, by destroying them. Our grandfather is dead, Malcolm. So is Miss Larsen. And so is that other poor creature. They are already dead, and we must steel ourselves to the task of freeing them from undeath."

"Uh, I hate to be a wet blanket here," Jerry said, his voice still quivering, "but we have absolutely no idea where to look for them."

"Three of them," Malcolm muttered pensively.

"Yes, and who knows how many more before—" Rachel began.

"No, no, you're missing the point," Malcolm interrupted. "Three of them, three of us."

Rachel and Jerry considered this for a moment, but neither was able to see where Malcolm's observation was leading. "Yeah, okay, three to three," Jerry said at last. "So what? Even odds? Is that what you mean?"

"No"—Malcolm frowned—"the odds are never even. If it were one vampire against a hundred of us, at night the odds would be in the vampire's favor. And if there were only one of us against a hundred vampires, we'd have the advantage during the day." He paused. "Of course, she killed Holly before she knew what would happen to Gramps, so maybe it's just a coincidence that it's three to three. Maybe she just needed at least one other."

"Malcolm, get to the point," Rachel demanded.

"Hey, can we finish this conversation back in the car?" Jerry asked. "I
really
want to get the hell out of here."

"Sure, Jerry," Malcolm agreed. As they walked back toward the cemetery gate, garlic and crosses at the ready, he went on, "Lucy said that she needed Holly for something. What could she need her for?"

"As an ally?" Jerry suggested.

"Of course, as an ally," Rachel snapped. "Malcolm's question is, as an ally for what?"

"If she were dealing with us all by herself, would she need an ally? Wouldn't she be able to escape from us if we went after her?"

"Most likely yes," Rachel answered without hesitation, "unless we had crosses or consecrated hosts and managed to corner her in a sealed room at sunrise."

"Which would probably be real easy for her to avoid," Jerry said.

"Right." Malcolm nodded, then lapsed into thoughtful silence as they reached the car. Malcolm started the engine and drove out through the cemetery gate just as the grounds keeper was preparing to shut and lock it. They were driving back down Queens Boulevard before Malcolm said, "I think she needs the three of us all together, all at once, in the same place."

"She just
had
all three of us together in the same place," Jerry pointed out.

"Yes, but we were ready for her, we were in control. I think she needs to get all three of us together when
she's
in control."

"Why, Malcolm?" Rachel asked. "I don't follow your reasoning at all."

"It's simple. Remember what Stewart wrote in his diary about the night when Dracula attacked our great-grandmother. He immobilized our great-grandfather Jonathan and then attacked Mina. But when Stewart and Van Helsing broke into the room—"

"Dracula fled," Rachel finished for him. "So?"

"So why would Lucy need an ally unless she anticipated having to control more than two people at one time? If
Dracula didn't feel confident in a situation like that, Lucy
certainly wouldn't. And also, remember that these creatures don't feel the same need for companionship that living beings
feel. Whenever they intentionally create another vampire, there's always some sort of logical reason for doing it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't help but think that whatever she's planning to do involves having the three of us at her mercy simultaneously."

"But why?" Jerry asked. "If she wants to get rid of us or make us like they are, why not do it one at a time?"

"She just told us she didn't want to do either of those things, Jer. If she wanted to kill me, she could have done it in
Rumania. If she wanted to kill you, she could have done it
right after you helped her get into the country. She could have followed me to the hospital the night Gramps died and gotten any one of us when we left the hospital room. Think
about it, Jerry. Have we three ever been together without some sort of weapon we could use to protect ourselves against
her? The answer is no. Whatever she wants to do has to be done to all three of us at once, not one at a time, with Lucy in control of the situation."

"Assuming what you say is true," Rachel said, sighing wearily, "what does it mean for us? How can it help us plan?"

"Yeah, right," Jerry added. "If Lucy's waiting for me to be unprotected, she's gonna have one hell of a long wait. I mean, I ain't goin' nowhere without garlic for the rest of my life! Hell, I'm even gonna wear a cross, and I'm Jewish!"

 
"What it means," Malcolm said slowly, "is that we have to separate."

"What?" they asked in unison.

"Yes, separate." Malcolm's hands clenched the steering wheel tightly. "Look, we can't beat them by doing what we've been doing. We'll never get the upper hand on them at this rate. I think we're safer apart than together."

Rachel shook her head angrily. "Malcolm, that's ridiculous. We have to search for them, and when we've found them, destroy them. It would be foolish to separate."

"Is it?" he asked. "We can't find them and destroy them because we don't know where they're sleeping during the day, and New York City is just too big a place to look for them. We can't do anything to them at night because when they're conscious they're too powerful and too shrewd. All we can do for the time being is wait for them to make the next move, keep ourselves protected at night, and keep away from each other so that they can't trap us all together. I don't know what Lucy's plans are, and neither do you. So we separate, we protect ourselves, and we wait."

"We wait!" Jerry said. "We wait for what?"

"We wait for them to do something," Malcolm replied. "We wait for something to happen so that we can try to figure out what to do. We stay away from each other until they act, and then, and only then, we'll rejoin and face them."

They sat in silence for a long while. Malcolm was waiting for them either to agree or to argue further, but when Rachel and Jerry continued their silence, he said, "We have to figure out a way to keep in touch without letting each other know where we are."

"We could keep in touch by phone," Rachel suggested, her suggestion implying agreement with her brother's idea.

"No," Malcolm said. "Remember how Van Helsing tracked Dracula down? Mina Harker was tied to him by the blood, and by hypnotizing Mina, Van Helsing was able to get sense impressions from the mind of the Count. We're tied together by the blood, we three. We can't let each other know where we're staying, what our phone numbers are, anything at all that might provide a clue to our whereabouts. If one of us is captured, the other two could be found the same way Van Helsing found Dracula." He paused and thought. "How about this. We each go . . . wherever were going, and then find phone booths somewhere near enough for us to get to them, but not near enough to give our locations away. Then we call the Strand and leave the numbers with . . . what's her name, the girl who works the Saturday afternoon shift?"

"Jennifer," Jerry replied.

"Right. We leave the numbers with Jennifer, and then call each other daily at around noon."

Rachel nodded.

Jerry, seeing her gesture, shrugged. "Well, okay. If you two want to separate, I don't have any choice. I think it's dangerous, but . . ." and he shrugged again.