A Coldness in the Blood (The Dracula Series)

by Fred Saberhagen

  Maybe, Joe Keogh told himself hopefully, maybe the discussion could still be postponed until some future year. It wasn’t like any of the family, including Joe, saw Uncle Matthew frequently—in fact, Joe realized now that years had gone by since their last meeting. The old people, Kate’s parents, had rarely met Maule, and never dreamt of the truth about him, let alone Maule’s nineteenth-century relationship with Mina Harker, their own great-grandmother. Chances were they never would. But the equally mundane youngest members of the family were in a somewhat different situation. Sooner or later, they were bound to notice that their “uncle” didn’t age—at least not in any sane, linear way, like people were supposed to.

  The trouble was, he didn’t know whether Andy and his sister could be relied on to keep it quiet. Well, suppose they didn’t … probably, Joe wanted to believe, probably all that would happen would be that “Uncle Matthew” would permanently drop out of all their lives. What would it feel like, Joe wondered, to know that the friendly old vampire was permanently gone? Trying to picture the departure, he experienced a strange mixture of relief and loss.

  After being acquainted with the old man for more than twenty years, Joe would not have been at all surprised to learn that Maule had another identity or two in reserve, just waiting to be stepped into, like a spare pair of shoes. In five hundred years and more, a clever man would be able to come up with an awful lot of tricks to help him make his way in the world.

  Andy was still gazing out the car window, apparently lost in thought.

  Joe Keogh, having met a few vampires over the last few decades, had no particular liking for them as a group. But when he owed another man his life—in this case a lot more than his own life—then whether that man was a vampire or not, when he in turn stood in need of help, Joe was going to be there, and not picky about fine points of law.

  Besides—and this trumped everything else—now Andy had somehow (accidentally, Joe was sure) become involved with the darker side of the nosferatu world. Joe could hope and pray that his son had had only glancing contact with that mode of existence. That Andy had only touched it and bounced away, so to speak, and that he was going to keep on getting farther and farther away as time went by.

  Now Joe was inwardly angry with himself for suggesting Andy when Maule had called to say he needed a tutor in the arcane subjects of computers and the Internet. Even though Joe trusted Maule implicitly, at least where the safety of family members was concerned, still it hadn’t worked out.

  But, damn it (he could already hear in his mind the argument he was going to have with Kate), teaching someone about computers and the Internet had just sounded so harmless and innocent. So it would have been, Joe supposed, but something unforeseen had interrupted.

  Besides, the kid was practically grown up now. Hell, he was grown up, old enough to join the army if his inclination had taken him that way. Soon Andy would be sinking or swimming in the world entirely on his own.

  But whatever he told Andy would have to wait, at least until he was sure the kid was over this latest episode and thinking straight. Then, sooner or later, Joe and his offspring were going to have to have a serious talk.

  Shaking his head, he resumed the imagined conversation: You don’t realize it, guys, a lot of it happened before you were born, but the man we call Uncle Matt has done more for us, for me and your mother and others in our family, than we can ever repay. (Here he would pause to make sure his kids were listening.) The thing is, a lot of the time he just doesn’t live in the same world we do.

  By that time Andy and Nell would be looking at him incredulously. Dad, are you trying to tell us Uncle Matt is gay? Or he does drugs? I don’t think so.

  Joe didn’t think so either. Uncle Matthew’s unconformities were nowhere near that easy to explain. Well, the difference did have something to do with sex. All right, it had a lot to do with sex.

  Does Uncle Matt like girls?

  Does he ever. But talk about alternate lifestyles. There had been a period, fortunately brief, when Joe was firmly convinced that this old friend of the family was a homicidal lunatic—that mistake, thank God, had been cleared up years ago. Maule lived in a very strange world, but he dealt with it sanely, honorably, and realistically. And, as Joe had gradually come to realize, Maule’s world was part of the same universe that everyone else had to share. Which made the whole thing very weird.

  Over the past twenty years John Southerland had also learned something about vampires, and he was intimately aware of the family relationship with this one. He could feel himself going a little pale as he began the cleanup job in the bedroom, but not because of the mere presence of a murder victim. He was trying not to notice his mute companion, but the real problem was that, like his brother-in-law, John was being unhappily reminded of the affair of Valentine Kaiser.

  Vampire trouble again, John Southerland was thinking with an inward sigh as he peered in through the open door of the last bedroom at the end of the hall. He had finished the job and put away his tools, and now he was ready to leave, but he just wanted to check once more on the thoroughness of his cleanup. Entering, he went over the room methodically for the last time, making sure he hadn’t missed any spots.

  Just damned bad luck that the kid had happened to be here in Uncle Matt’s place when, apparently, another delegation of the old vampire’s enemies arrived on the scene. It seemed to John that Maule’s enemies tended to show up at unpredictable intervals, like earthquakes, or killer tidal waves. Maybe it was just the normal thing for a nosferatu of Matthew Maule’s age to have accumulated a set of deranged acquaintances, most of them also non-breathing. Trouble was, whenever these incursions happened, members of the extended Southerland family seemed to get caught up in them. Well, it might be worse—so far, trouble had struck only a few times in a generation.

  John thought of Angie and his own two kids at home, and was beginning to be worried about them. Angie was as well acquainted with the truth about Mr. Maule as was John himself, and it was good for him to have someone he could talk to on the subject.

  Now that the situation here seemed to be well in hand, for the time being at least, John decided that the time had come for him to call home and set his wife’s mind at rest. Angie had been very worried when John told her where he had been summoned; but she hadn’t tried to stop him.

  The phone was answered on the first ring. John hastened to be reassuring. “Everything’s under control here. For the moment, anyway.”

  “Fine.” Angie wasn’t going to ask, on the phone, for any details. “How soon are you coming home?”

  “Looks like I’m almost out the door. How are the kids?”

  “They’re fine.” Then her voice faded as she had to turn away to deal briefly with a questioning child. In a moment she was back. “Your son always looks forward to a chance to talk to Daddy on the phone.”

  “That’s great, but tell him it’ll have to be next time. See you in a couple of hours. Probably.”

  As John hung up the phone, Uncle Matt appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking thoughtful. Ignoring the corpse, he gazed absently at the telephone. “Ah, dear Angie. I trust she and the children are well?”

  “Quite well, thanks.” It came as no surprise to John Southerland that Uncle Matt did not regard the presence of Tamarack’s dead body in his apartment as a serious difficulty—only another chore, bothersome and time-consuming. John began a routine reassurance that everyone in his own family was fine, but Maule interrupted, carrying on his own train of thought.

  “John, are you a student of taxonomy?”

  “I’m sorry?” Wondering if he had heard correctly, John shot a bewildered glance toward the corpse.

  Maule showed some teeth in a thin-lipped grin. “Taxonomy, my young friend, not taxidermy. I do not plan to have Mr. Tamarack stuffed and mounted. Instead I make reference to the science of naming and classifying living organisms.”

  “Ah, no sir, I wouldn’t say that I know anything about that.”

>   “Nor do I—not much, that is—but I intend to learn.” Looking at the body, Maule added: “I do not know if the creature or creatures I am seeking are human or not. If human—I would say certainly of the subspecies Homo dirus.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “There is no need for sorrow on your part. I have come to hold the opinion that we nosferatu form a subspecies of modern humanity—we are not precisely Homo sapiens, or thinking man, but Homo dirus, ‘man inspiring dread.’”

  “I guess I’m the wrong one to be asking about that.”

  But Uncle Matt had turned away. Moments later, in his own room, he was putting a few clean clothes and other items into a small traveling bag, obviously getting ready to head out. “Now, for my part of the cleanup.” He smiled. “I shall probably not return until some time late tonight, or tomorrow.”

  John cleared his throat, and looked at Maule uncertainly. “How will you—? I mean, you’re just going to—carry—?”

  Maule smiled. “No one will pay much heed to a man carrying, among other things, a large plastic bag. To casual observers it will not appear heavy enough to hold a body.”

  He did not mention to his breathing ally the slight possibility that he might amend that plan, decide to retain the corpse somewhere on the banks of the Sauk for additional study.

  It crossed Maule’s mind, in the form of one more irritation, that now all of his electronic concerns, including the possibility of a Homo dirus web site, would simply have to wait.

  Going into another room, he obtained from an inconspicuous storage place a suitably large, opaque, heavyweight plastic bag. It was one of those items that a well-run household rarely required, but whose unavailability when needed could result in serious inconvenience.

  Taking a last look at Tamarack’s blank face, drained of blood and life, Maule said to John: “Beyond the fact that this one, like the missing Flamel, was Dickon’s partner, I know almost nothing about him.”

  “Partner in what?” John asked. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  Maule shrugged. “Some effort in alchemy, as I understand it.” The vampire sighed faintly, seeing the blank look on John’s face. “An attempt to turn lead into gold. That is a fool’s project, and few in these days can take it seriously. But somehow it seems to have earned him a terrible enemy.” He fell silent, brooding.

  John glanced for the last time at the dead face and cleared his throat. “Can you tell me this much? Has all this anything to do with—things that happened that last time? Five years ago, Valentine Kaiser? Right here in this building?”

  “I do not see how there could be any connection. That chapter is closed.”

  “That’s a relief.” One that he could feel in his gut. “Joe’ll be relieved too.”

  Maule opened the plastic bag and, treating the deceased without either reverence or rancor, nudged the body’s sprawling arms and legs into a more compact configuration, to make packaging easier.

  John kept his back turned, worrying at a couple of practically invisible spots, while the encapsulation was in progress.

  Still, Maule reflected that the situation, awkward as it was, might have been worse. He had a feeling, an instinct, about Tamarack: that whatever else the man might have been, he was an otherworldly wanderer with no close family to be concerned about his fate.

  Now Maule considered whether he should dispose of Tamarack’s bits and pieces of alchemical paraphernalia, along with his body; and soon decided that would probably be an excellent idea. He moved about the room doing a thorough pickup. Spare shirts, aspirin tablets, all went into the big bag.

  At Maule’s request, John had already repackaged in plastic wrap the dusty remnants of the shattered statue and its peculiar contents, then put the package in one of the drawers. He had handled the debris with gloves, and refrained from unnecessary breathing of the dust.

  Maule had warned him: “Not that I have any specific reason to believe it dangerous, but—”

  “Just to be on the safe side. Right.”

  Looking at the drawers now, Maule could tell, though his eyes could discern no visible mark, into which one John had dropped the package. He pulled the drawer open and there it was. He had a strong feeling that the little broken statue was, somehow, the key to the whole situation.

  Instinct told him that the strange wooden panel was important too, and that feeling had kept him from sending it away with Joe. But now a strongly contrary premonition, that Maule did not stop to try to analyze, made him decide to rid himself of it, and he shoved the footsquare painted tablet decisively back into the bag holding the dead body. Away with it!

  If, despite his intuition, the panel should turn out to be vitally important, he would know where to go to recover it again.

  Thanking John again for his cleanup efforts, Maule casually hoisted his burden and was off, thinking he might take the service elevator this time. As an afterthought he returned to the living room, to take down the remaining wooden spear from its wall mounting—he supposed the point had probably been dulled on the one stuck in the wall. In the remote years of his early breathing life, he had on occasion used primitive firearms, but had never felt entirely at home with them.

  He left his apartment carrying the spear and his small traveling bag containing clean clothes, along with not one but two plastic bags.

  One of the bags was only lightly loaded, with dry and crumbling earth—he would probably, now that he thought about it, be prolonging his visit overday, and being able to rest on some of his native soil would afford him a comfortable trance.

  ~ 4 ~

  Sliding into the driver’s seat of Mr. Tamarack’s vehicle, with all that was mortal of the late owner neatly bagged up in the trunk, Mr. Maule applied the ignition key, and began very skillfully to drive. Because of the length of his wooden spear, it had to ride in the passenger cabin, rather like an old-fashioned fishing pole, angled from low in the right front seat to high in the left rear. But it was not fish that he had in mind.

  Full daylight hit him with its expected shock as soon as he pulled up and out of the subterranean garage, but on he went, squinting through dark sunglasses at sundrenched pavement and the lancing reflections from other vehicles. Sooner or later he would have to get out of the car and face the sun. A broad-brimmed straw hat lay on the passenger seat beside him, and he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. In the trunk were his two plastic bags, the smaller one long and flat, of the size to contain a suit.

  Tamarack’s auto was not new, but it handled well. Presently Maule was swooping north on Lake Shore Drive, looking for a turnoff that would lead him handily to the Kennedy Expressway.

  Maule’s destination today was a place he had not visited for several years. He was fully aware that drastic changes in appearance might have taken place, but he thought it highly unlikely that anything essential would be greatly altered. Too much magic had been applied, quite recently as time regarding such things was measured, and much of it must still be permeating the very earth, making several acres of black and fertile Illinois soil into something like a military minefield, pocked with possible surprises. Of course, in contrast to the minefield, not all the surprises would be nasty. Since Maule had been the great magician’s ally, this water and land ought to be still hospitable to him in many ways. This would be by far the safest, most propitious locale for him to dispose of an unwanted car and corpse. He thought he could depend upon the river to engulf his discards in its muddy coils like some great enchanted serpent, and never give them up.

  In another hour the four-lane highway had given way to a narrower one, and suburbs to early summer crops and pastures, interspersed with almost-European hedgerows and ravines too steep-sided to be anything but small preserves for wildlife.

  Soon it became possible to see in the distance, when the road topped certain gentle hills, a fold of the broad, winding Sauk.

  It was still a little before noon when he came to the remembered, unmarked turnoff from the highway. Gratefully he observed t
hat a large summer thundercloud had materialized to give him some relief from the sun’s relentless hammering through the lightly tinted glass of the car windows.

  The building now looked rather like a farmhouse, though somewhat oversized. The last time Maule had visited this site, it had supported a real castle, utterly incongruous in Illinois, imported decades ago from Europe by a means no more magical than money.

  When he made the proper mental effort, Maule could still see, faintly against the sky, the outline of the castle, alternating with the image of a huge Gothic farmhouse. To see either one properly required concentration on his part; Maule himself had never been a truly fine magician—few vampires were—and he had almost resigned himself to the fact that he never would be.

  Some more shingles were missing from the farmhouse roof since the last time he had been here. As he drew nearer, the structure regained, in his perceptive gaze, the dominant appearance of a castle. Now there were stone walls and a hint of battlement. Maule suspected that the several acres of land surrounding formed the remnant of some much larger holding, established more than a century ago.

  Maule was surprised to see that this summer one side of the property was being encroached on by a vast field of tall summer corn, separated from enchantment by a prosaic fence, and well cultivated by some neighbor who evidently hoped for a high price per bushel in the fall. At one point the tall stalks were no more than about forty yards from the house. Maule wondered what a farmer in the cornfield would see, looking toward the house, or castle. Quite possibly the vision of a mundane breather would now see no building there at all, but only an inland view of trees growing thickly along the top of the riverside bluff.