Daniel shook his head. "I'm sorry, Malcolm, but I don't have any choice."
It was only when Daniel spoke these words that Malcolm realized why his brother-in-law was wearing a turtleneck sweater. "That sweater hiding the wounds on your throat?" he asked in a furious, trembling voice.
"Yes." Daniel nodded.
Malcolm stared at him, his anger unabated, feeling no pity for Daniel even though he was yet another victim of the Harkers' ancestral curse. "How long?"
"Lucy took me two months ago. She wants you alive, Malcolm, but she told me to kill you if I had to, and if I have to, I will." He took a pair of handcuffs from his pants pocket and nodded in the direction of the stairs. "Go sit on the bottom step and put your hands on either side of the newel post." Malcolm did not move to comply, and Daniel cocked the hammer of the pistol. "Now, Malcolm."
His eyes blazed with anger as he moved to the base of the stairway and sat down slowly, his eyes shifting back and forth from Daniel's face to the revolver to the handcuffs. He put his right hand between the final banister spoke and the thick newel post that served as the terminus of the banister, placing his left hand on the other side of the post. I can't let him kill me. If I die now, I'll be undead in a few hours. Delay, think, calm down, plan. He gritted his teeth. Plan! Plan to do what? She's beaten me, she's won.
He's won. That bastard has won.
Daniel Rowland kept the barrel of the gun pointed right at Malcolm's forehead as he slapped the cuffs shut on his wrists. And when Malcolm heard the snap that bound him to the thick wooden post that he knew was sunk into cement, he had to fight to repress his panic.
After checking to make sure that Malcolm was securely locked onto the banister, Daniel proceeded to tie Jerry's hands behind his back and then bind his feet and knees.
When he was finished, he stood up and sighed. "Now we wait until sunset." He looked at Malcolm. "I'm sorry, I truly am. But I'm like Renfield was. I have to obey."
"Like Renfield," Malcolm muttered. "I assume then that you've read Stoker's book."
"Yes," he said softly. "I've read Stoker's book."
"Renfield rebelled," Malcolm said. "When Mina Harker was endangered, Renfield rebelled." He awaited the response, which was not forthcoming, then asked bitterly, "How did they find Rachel?"
"Oh, Lucy knew where all of you were. You couldn't hide from her for long."
He frowned. "But how … ?"
Daniel sighed. "It's the blood, Malcolm, the blood that ties all of you"—he paused—"all of us together. When she wants to, she can hear your thoughts over a great distance."
"Damn it!" Malcolm said. "I thought she'd have to actually physically have one of us with her to do that, like Van Helsing had Mina with him."
"She isn't Van Helsing," Daniel said softly. "Van Helsing was a human being." He turned from Malcolm, sat down in a chair against the wall, and closed his eyes wearily. Malcolm looked around the basement, seeking something, anything that might help extricate him from his situation. There was nothing.
A few desultory moans were all that came from Jerry Herman and Rachel Harker. Neither of them awakened as the hours passed in slow silence, as Malcolm wept softly and the sun sank down toward the horizon. He was trapped, defeated, hopeless. He was a dead man.
Worse than a dead man.
Chapter Twenty-one
"My goodness, it's warm in here!" Lucy Westenra said conversationally from the top of the stairs. Malcolm snapped his head around, startled at her sudden appearance behind him. He had been watching the coffins with trepidation ever since sunset, waiting for the lids to open and the undead to emerge; but the lids had remained motionless, and the silence in the basement had remained undisturbed.
"How … I didn't see …" he stammered.
"You didn't see me get out of the coffin?" she finished for him amicably. "Of course not, little Harker. I wasn't in one of these coffins."
"But then, what …"
She ignored his unfinished question. "Why is it so warm?" She frowned, perplexed, and then smiled, the points of her fangs glistening in the lamplight. "Oh, of course! Consecrated host! You really are such a clever boy, Malcolm!" She swung her legs over the banister gracefully and seemed to float down to the basement floor below. "Not clever enough, of course, but clever, nonetheless."
"Hi, Mal, honey," Holly Larsen said from above him. He looked up to see her floating slowly along the ceiling of the basement, moving from the door at the top of the stairs to the center of the room before descending to the floor. Malcolm's attention was drawn by movement to his side, and he turned to see Quincy Harker crawling along the wall like a spider. His grandfather passed by him and then hopped down to stand beside Holly.
"Our dear Malcolm has some consecrated host with him," Lucy said calmly. "He thinks that it will protect him from us."
"And it would," Holly nodded, smiling, "if he could get his hands on it." Her cadaverous mouth smiled with amusement. "In your shirt pocket, is it? Well, fine. Let's just leave it there, shall we?"
Malcolm looked from creature to creature, simultaneously terrified and infuriated. They were just as they had been in the cemetery a few months before, the women in the same diaphanous gowns, the old man in the same black suit. Their faces wore the same mocking, sardonic smiles, and their voices had the same cruel, sadistic tone. The dead flesh was chalky white, and the inhuman eyes glowed in the dimly lit basement. Malcolm did not speak to them, for he had nothing to say. To plead and beg would only be to invite ridicule, and to attempt to reason with them would be futile. All he could hope for now was a death that was permanent, and he had little cause to hope for even that.
Quincy walked over to the open coffin and lifted Rachel from it easily, almost as if she were weightless. He took the gag from her mouth and then slapped her face gently a few times. She rose slowly to consciousness. "Rise and shine," her grandfather whispered.
All of the successive emotions that Rachel experienced as she gathered her wits about her were mirrored in her eyes. Confusion as she awakened; pain and discomfort from her bonds; confusion again as she stared into her grandfather's malevolent face, confusion turning to pity and anger and panic; fear as she looked around; hope followed by despair when she saw her brother handcuffed to the banister, "Malcolm," she said hoarsely.
"I'm sorry, Rachel," he whispered. "They tricked me."
"Yes, and it was oh, so difficult to do." Lucy laughed. "Almost as difficult as enlisting the unwilling aid of this fat fool in getting you all here." Daniel stood nervously in the corner, his eyes downcast, terrified and ashamed.
Quincy Harker tore the ropes from Rachel's arms and ankles and then pushed her toward Holly Larsen. Holly caught her and held her fast by the wrists. Rachel tried to break free of the cold hands that held her, but Holly's supernatural strength was not even remotely challenged by the mortal's struggle. As Rachel collapsed to her knees in front of Holly, Quincy walked over to the stairway and ripped the handcuffs from Malcolm's wrists. The instant his hands were free, Malcolm made a quick gesture toward his pocket, hoping to be able to grab one of the consecrated wafers; but Quincy grasped his grandson's hands before Malcolm even came close. "Not so fast, boy," Quincy said, smiling. "You heard what Holly said. Let's just leave them where they are for the time being." He looked at Lucy. "What about Herman?"
"We'll wait until after," she said. "I'm not hungry yet." Lucy looked around the basement and frowned with mock distaste. "My goodness, but it's filthy down here!" She took a broom from the closet and began to sweep the floor in a hideous parody of Victorian domesticity.
Malcolm felt rage rise up in him as he sought in vain to escape from the two dead hands that were like vises on his wrists. "God damn you!" he shouted at Lucy. "God damn you to hell!"
She laughed. "He very well may. Or He may not. This is all the Master's doing, you know. It really isn't any one of us who is responsible." She walked toward him and leaned forward, smiling into his face. He could smell her fetid breath as
she said, "We're dead, after all. And the bargain between the Master and the Devil was struck five hundred years ago. We made no bargain, he did." She stood up and walked to the center of the room, chuckling. "Contemplate the theological implications, my dears. Sin without guilt, transgression without culpability, crime without punishment. Why, it's enough to turn a prelate's miter!"
"God's justice will come in its own time, in its own way," Rachel said coldly.
"It will, no doubt," Lucy agreed. "At the Day of Judgment, the Master will have much to answer for. But right now, the judgments of our lord … our lord, not yours … are the only ones that matter." She lay the broom against one of the coffins and then turned toward Jerry Herman, who was beginning to stir. "And another player enters the stage."
Jerry, lying against the wall, moaned loudly and then opened his eyes. When he tried to sit up, he became aware of his bonds. He struggled to a sitting position, and the tableau before him told him everything he needed to know. Daniel, silent and servile; Malcolm and Rachel, captive; Lucy and Quincy and Holly, triumphant. "Shit!" he muttered, trembling with fear.
"Good evening, lover." Lucy smiled. "You've awakened just in time for the best part of the evening. But where was I?" She paused and pretended to think. "Oh, yes. We were talking about how poor Malcolm just isn't clever enough, weren't we?"
Malcolm's face was red with frustration and anger. "Lucy, I swear … I swear I'll—"
"Oh, don't be pompous!" she snapped, as if he were an irritating child. "We've all reached the end of the charted course, Malcolm. You'll do nothing but bleed."
"What do you mean, 'charted course'?" he demanded.
"Why, surely you know that this has all been carefully planned," she answered. "I needed to gather up the Master's dust, and so I sent you to Rumania. I needed to get into the United States, and so I, shall we say, conscripted Jerry. I needed at least one assistant of my own kind for this evening's endeavor, and so I invited Holly into our rather restricted company. I could have completed what I had already begun with Jerry, but he was already on guard against me, and so Holly was the next-best choice. I needed a few months to make a few other preparations without your interference, and so I sent you three in different directions. And when I needed to gather you all together, I used Daniel."
"Bullshit," Malcolm said. "I made some stupid mistakes, but mostly you were just lucky, that's all. This plan of yours would have unraveled any one of a number of times if I had made the right decisions, drawn the right conclusions. You wouldn't have been resurrected in the first place if I hadn't made mistakes."
Lucy shook her head and smiled sadly. "Oh, my dear, I think I was wrong. You aren't the slightest bit clever. You're really rather stupid. Why, you haven't even figured this all out yet, have you! You still think that the plan was mine, that I arranged everything. It wasn't my plan at all. It was the Master's."
"What are you talking about?" Rachel demanded.
"It's all so simple," Lucy said, turning to her. "I'm not all that surprised at Malcolm's obtuseness, but I had expected better from you."
"What are you talking about?" Rachel repeated, trying again to pull herself free of Holly's iron grasp. "You said you didn't want to destroy us, didn't want to make us like you, didn't want the Count to live on within us. So what in God's name are you talking about?"
Lucy turned back to Malcolm. "I'm talking about Malcolm's stupidity. Your basic problem, Malcolm, my dear, is that you aren't observant, you don't think, you don't remember things! You don't remember what a vampire's powers are, you don't remember how we can be killed and how we can not be killed. You don't even remember how to bring us from death to undeath, even though you did it once yourself."
"Don't be ridiculous," Malcolm said. "Of course I remember that. I did it to you …" His eyes went wide with the shock of realization.
Holly Larsen's rippling laugh floated through the basement. "Getting the picture, sugar?"
"We have the Master's dust," Lucy went on. "All we need now is a generous helping of his blood, and he will rise again, just as I rose again." She looked from Malcolm to Rachel, smiling wickedly. "And guess who has been keeping his blood safe all these years?"
Rachel closed her eyes. "Sweet Jesus," she muttered.
Quincy laughed softly. "There were three of us, but I inconveniently died. You and I were here in America, Rachel, while Malcolm was in Europe. She couldn't use his veins to nourish the Master's dust while we were still free to figure out what had happened. That's why she had to bring the remains here before restoring the Count."
"My own blood is useless for such a purpose, of course," Lucy said. "I can visit the curse upon a mortal, but only such a mortal can nurture and nourish the blood that can restore the undead. The blood in the Master's veins can do it also, of course, but his blood is more potent than mine."
"And so you needed us," Rachel said softly, shaking her head sadly.
"Oh, I could have done it in Rumania with just Malcolm, I suppose, but it would have been unwise. The Master values security and caution. He might have returned no better off than he had gone, with his existence known and his enemies aware of it. Besides, the blood had to awaken fully before its power could be raised to its greatest level." She smiled. "That's why you had all of your delightful dreams, dear Malcolm. The Master's blood was waking up after a century of slumber."
"Where are the remains?" Rachel asked, her voice shaking.
Lucy pointed to the pile of dirt that she had just swept up on the basement floor. "Behold the lord," she said with genuine reverence.
As Malcolm gazed at the dirt he was so astounded that he almost laughed. "On the floor? You dumped his remains on the floor!"
"Of course," Lucy replied. "When you were searching for the dust, did it occur to you to look on the dirty floor of a musty basement?"
Malcolm shook his head slowly.
"Even so," Lucy said with satisfaction. "Really, Malcolm, you are so terribly dense."
"But … but it could have been swept up and thrown out, stuck to the soles of our shoes when we walked on it …"
"Yes," Lucy agreed, "and it could have been blown away by the wind a hundred years ago after the Master was stabbed. It doesn't take much of a wind to move dust, after all." She smiled. "But it did not blow away, and it could not be swept up, and walking on it would not disturb it in the least, because it is, shall we say, a particular, special kind of dust."
Malcolm looked up from the pile of dust and stared into Lucy's flaming eyes. "This doesn't change anything. You were still lucky. Okay, maybe I was stupid, maybe I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, but you were still lucky. If I hadn't made the mistakes I made, you wouldn't—"
"Oh, Malcolm," Lucy sighed wearily. "You just don't understand, do you?" She turned-to Daniel Rowland. "Daniel. Give me Holly's copy of that silly book." Daniel took the dog-eared paperback from his pocket as he scurried over to Lucy and handed it to her. "Where is it, Holly?" Lucy asked.
"Two pages before the end," Holly Larsen replied.
Lucy thumbed through to the back of the book and then said, "Ah. Here it is. Listen carefully." She began to read from the final scene of Bram Stoker's Dracula. "But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight." She looked up. "Understand?"
Malcolm glared at her. "Understand what?" He waited for the reply, which did not come, and then he shouted. "Stop this goddamned cat-and-mouse game! We're here, we're in your power, and you've won, okay? So what the hell are you trying to say?"
Lucy shook her head and then held the opened book in front of Malcolm's eyes. "Read it for yourself, and then think about it, little Harker."
Malcolm struggled to ignore her condescension and repress his own fear as he read
the passage over and over again, seeking some clue that would make sense of what the vampire had been saying. He read and he thought and he read and he thought, and he saw nothing, nothing …
… Wait a minute …
Malcolm's brow furrowed.
… Wait a minute …
"'… on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife …"
But no … no, that's not …
"'… Mr Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart …"
Malcolm Harker slammed his head furiously against the wooden newel post. "My God!" he shouted. "My God, my God!"
"Malcolm, what is it?" Rachel screamed.
"You never noticed, did you?" Holly asked. "When I was alive, I never noticed. That book was published a hundred years ago, and no one ever noticed."
Rachel looked from Holly back to her brother. "Malcolm, what is she saying? Malcolm? Malcolm!"
Tears were running down Malcolm Harker's face as he turned to his sister. "Don't you see, Rachel? You can't kill a vampire with a knife!"
Rachel's mouth hung open for a moment. "But … no, wait, Malcolm, no. We've read the original manuscript, the original documents. We both know what happened when Quincey Morris and our great-grandfather killed the Count—"
"Oh, Christ, Rachel, that's just the point!" Malcolm cried. "They didn't kill Dracula! You can't kill a vampire with a knife!"
"The knives were blessed, they must have been!" she countered. "Van Helsing must have poured holy water on them or—"
"St. Peter himself could have wept on the blades, and it would have made no difference," Lucy said lightly. "Malcolm has figured out part of the truth, my dear."
"No," Rachel said again, shaking her head. "They killed him. I know they killed him."
"Rachel, you know how these things work as well as I do," Malcolm insisted. "Face it! You can't kill a vampire with a knife!"
"They saw him die, Malcolm!" Rachel shouted. "Jonathan ripped through his throat and Quincey stabbed him in the heart, and his body rotted away. He had been dead for four hundred years, and what would have been four centuries of decay struck him in an instant." She looked at Lucy, her tear-filled eyes narrow and hateful. "You're lying to us. You're trying to heap humiliation onto our sorrow, you damned filthy bitch!"
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 243