A Coldness in the Blood (The Dracula Series)

by Fred Saberhagen

It even briefly crossed Maule’s mind that he might try to use the panel in the same way Sobek had. He had no way of telling where it would bring him out—but it would be a bold way of seizing the initiative.

  Or, perhaps, of landing himself in some disastrous fix. Nor was he at all sure such a mode of travel would even be possible for him. It would mean assuming mist-form first, and then …

  Conceivably, using it would bring him out through the false door of some exhibit at the Field Museum!

  Only belatedly did it occur to Maule to wonder how many false doors might currently exist in the Chicago area, and how many of those might Sobek be using to travel to and fro, perhaps to the far corners of the earth. But then he reminded himself that this strange mode of transporting himself was not the real key to the great Crocodile’s nature. Maule decided he must not allow himself to be distracted by it.

  Having determined not to try to use it, what good would it do him to have the portal, the false door, in his possession? None at all, Maule soon decided. Taking the panel in his two hands, he completed the ruin that muddy water had already begun, snapping the flat wood in two, then crushing each half in turn, reducing it all to fragments. His powerful fingers broke it easily, but he handled the splintering wood with appropriate respect; it was one of the few materials in the world whose sharp points or edges could do a vampire serious damage.

  Now, he decided, it was time for him to return to Chicago. Moving quickly, Maule covered the first few miles running cross-country as a wolf. Then, when farm dogs began to pay undue attention, he altered his form again and flew on as a bat.

  After traveling a few more miles, he paused, well concealed among the trees of an apple orchard, and briefly resumed his human shape, for the sake of possessing fingers, a voice, and a pair of trousers, one of whose pockets contained a small but efficient cell phone.

  A few seconds later, he was calling Joe Keogh’s house.

  Before the third ring, a familiar voice came on. “Keogh here.”

  “I have met the intruder, Joseph, and I have survived.”

  Joe sounded relieved. “Good. What else?”

  “Unhappily, he—or it—survived as well. He told me that his name is Sobek. I assure you that he is formidable indeed.”

  “Nosferatu, I presume.”

  “I think not. In my experience, to become a vampire one must first be unequivocally human. What I encountered today was something else, a type of being that I have never met before. He is at least my equal in many of the powers that we share, and I have no doubt he is my superior in others. He may also possess capabilities of which I am unaware.”

  Joe felt a chill, and for a full ten seconds he had nothing to say. The best he could come up with, finally, was the practical: “So what do we do?”

  “I do not know.” Maule sounded almost careless about the lack. “Oh, on one point I did gain some reassurance. It seems highly unlikely that Andy will ever again be bothered by the monster—as long as he keeps out of its way. In my opinion the young man should now return to his normal life.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Yes. Even Sobek’s interest in me is apparently only incidental. I do not believe he takes me seriously as an enemy. His sole purpose in invading my apartment was to punish Mr. Tamarack, and examine a certain object in Tamarack’s possession.”

  “The statue, like we thought. Why was it smashed?”

  “In an attempt to discover whether the Philosopher’s Stone was concealed inside it.” Briefly Maule outlined what Sobek had told him about the ancient thief and his supposedly priceless loot.

  Joe said: “Come to think of it, when I fell asleep this afternoon, I had a dream … about some situation like that. Running through the streets, someplace that was dry and hot, with people chasing me.”

  “I am not surprised.”

  “But the details are all fuzzy.”

  “Try to recall them, Joseph, if you can; they may eventually prove useful. But to return to Tamarack’s statue—the Crocodile assured me that it held no treasure, and so the search goes on for the five remaining. Now I am invited to share the monster’s labors.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It seems I am to become its slave.”

  Joe thought he had never met a less likely candidate for involuntary servitude. Now he truly didn’t know what to say. Kate, standing only a few feet away, was looking at him anxiously, but he could only signal to her that he was at a loss.

  At last Joe managed: “I take it you declined the job?”

  It wasn’t often that Joe had heard Maule laugh at anything. This time it was a surprisingly normal sound. “Should I ever find my spirits flagging, Joseph, and myself in need of encouragement, I will come to you.”

  “I’m flattered. So, how’re we going to take this guy if he’s so tough? What else can you tell me about him?”

  “Almost nothing.”

  “All right.” Joe considered. “Let me tell you what I found out about the strange little wooden panel: My contact at the museum confirms what I told you. Of course he couldn’t determine from the photo if our object is genuinely old, but he says it definitely looks like a magical device called a ‘false door.’

  “They were very common in ancient Egypt, but usually they were carved in stone, as part of the wall of a tomb. Seeing one on a wooden panel is odd but not unique. It was—how did he put it?” Keogh consulted his notebook. “‘A spirit-permeable membrane, separating the living world from the world of the dead.’ The idea was that the relatives and friends of the deceased would leave offerings, food and so on, at the tomb. Then the occupant, or his spirit, was supposed to be able to get at the goodies by coming out through the false door.”

  Maule was staring gloomily into the dusk gathering around him, the litter of small green apples on the ground. “I wonder how frequently such traffic actually took place.”

  Joe hesitated. “I don’t get what you mean.”

  “If there are false doors at the museum, then we have evidence to suggest that someone—or some thing—may be actually using them, from time to time. But the current user is not, I am reasonably sure, one whose convenience the doors were intended to serve.”

  Joe still hesitated. Maule went on: “Probably I should have given you my report first. I have now met my enemy face to face.”

  “What happened?”

  The vampire made a low sound that might almost have been a laugh. “For now, I am well content merely to have survived.” He went on to bring Joe Keogh up to date.

  In the background Joe could see Andy still watching the movie, with some appearance of interest. The kid was used to his father getting business calls, sometimes very strange ones, and as a rule paid them no attention. Kate had drawn near to Joe and was listening. Joe gave her a smile meant to be reassuring. From where he was standing, phone in hand, he could still see the dusty Hollywood horror dragging itself painfully across the television screen.

  Maule’s voice on the phone said: “It will be easier, perhaps, to tell you more of what we discussed. We spoke of the Great Work and its object, and exchanged opinions about the value of crocodiles in the great scheme of things.”

  “Little dried-up crocodiles?”

  Kate, who had been hearing only one side of the conversation, sure didn’t know what to make of that. She seemed on the verge of giving up.

  Maule said: “My enemy himself has something of that reptilian shape, and he is neither little nor dried up. When he broke off contact and moved away I was preparing an attempt to kill him. I doubt that I would have succeeded; I do not flatter myself that he was either frightened or forced into a retreat.”

  Next Maule explained to Joe what Sobek had said about the false door. “No doubt your client’s difficulties at the museum can be explained by the monster’s occasional coming and going there. But probably by now the great reptile has satisfied himself that what he seeks is not to be found in the Field. Of course he must have other means of travel a
vailable to him as well.”

  “So what should I be telling my client?”

  “I believe you can offer reassurance. I hardly think the remaining statues are to be found at the Field, so its guards and administrators will probably not be much bothered in the future.”

  Joe went on to tell Maule about his afternoon visit to Old Town.

  “The manhole cover had been moved. I see. Possibly significant. Probably I shall go there tonight and have a look around. Anything else?”

  “A little. I started one of my people doing research on people named Flamel, and the first one she turned up was a recent death in County Hospital.”

  Joe passed on the few details his agent had so far found out. “This Nicolas Flamel was the third partner, with Dickon and Tamarack.”

  “That much I had heard.”

  “And he seems to have had a granddaughter, who came every day to see him in the hospital.”

  “That I did not know.”

  “They said the old man called her Dolly.”

  There was a pause. Then Maule asked: “How did he die?”

  “Natural causes. My condolences, if he was your friend.”

  Maule sounded regretful. “Almost certainly it was he. Had I known of his reduced circumstances, I could have been of some help … but it is too late to worry about that.”

  Joe said: “The granddaughter claimed to be his only relative.”

  “Was she his only visitor as well?”

  “As far as the hospital people could recall. Said she couldn’t afford to claim the body, though.”

  “The Crocodile mentioned the existence of a list of names, but was very imprecise regarding who might have it. Very likely if it does exist it will be in the hands of this granddaughter.”

  When the call was over, Maule resumed his journey, proceeding by a bizarre form of hitchhiking he had perfected over recent decades. This involved remaining in man-form, and on two legs jumping unseen aboard speeding trucks, or fast trains when that was more convenient. Another variation consisted in assuming bat-form, then matching speeds to get aboard one truck after another that seemed to be bound toward the city.

  The straight-line distance from the center of the strange domain near Frenchman’s Bend to the heart of the city was a little under a hundred miles. Maule’s distance from Chicago speedily diminished. Gradually the massive sky-glow of cloud-reflected lights grew nearer.

  By about three hours after sunset on Wednesday night, Maule was back in town. His first stop was at his own apartment. Everything seemed in order, and there was no sign that any further intrusion had taken place. He inspected the rooms carefully, making sure that the last traces of violence (except for the spear-hole in the wall) had been cleaned up, and that no telephone messages awaited him.

  After that, he went out into the city streets. There were one or two things he wanted to look at.

  The first was an investigation beneath the streets and alleys of Old Town. Maule located without trouble the manhole cover Joe Keogh had described, near the mouth of the alley beside the burned-out building. Sinking in mist-form into the subterranean darkness beneath the metal lid, Maule spent an hour in observation and contemplation before deciding there was no trail here that he could follow.

  He wanted eventually to pay a visit to County Hospital, to learn what he could of the last hours of his old friend, and if possible pay his respects to the remains of Nicolas Flamel. But that could wait. Dawn came early at this season, and Maule had to decide how much he would attempt to rest, and where, during the daylight hours of Thursday. Obviously his apartment was no longer safe.

  On Thursday morning the first brightening of the eastern sky found him in a remote portion of the Cook County Forest Preserves, a belt of largely undrained and muddy land that more or less ringed the city. Some years ago Maule had buried another cache of his native earth in this lonely spot, in anticipation of just some such emergency as this.

  ~ 7 ~

  When Joe Keogh got home late Wednesday afternoon, following his explorations in Old Town, he was relieved to see that Andy seemed to have recovered completely from whatever might have happened to him at Uncle Matt’s.

  Joe had called home with the news that he was on his way, and dinner was almost ready when he arrived, featuring home-cooked hamburgers, and potato salad from the nearby suburban deli.

  Conversation lagged. Joe wanted to tell Kate something about his experiences in Old Town, but it could wait, and with Andy present it was going to be impossible to discuss the possibilities of vampires. Someday soon, Joe thought, he would really have to get around to making revelations. But he also thought that today was not the day.

  A somewhat awkward evening loomed. After looking through the cable listings, it fell to Andy to suggest what the family was going to do. His choice might have been subconsciously affected by hearing his father offhandedly mention a recent business visit to the Field Museum.

  “How about The Mummy’s Curse?” Andy suggested.

  Kate looked at Joe. “Why not?” he agreed.

  A chiming phone interrupted the Keogh family at dinner. Dark shadows, in which a mummy was lurking somewhere, filled the television screen. Joe pushed back his chair. “I’ll get it.” In a moment he had picked up the nearest receiver. “Keogh here.”

  “I have met the intruder, Joseph, and I have survived.”

  Joe felt relief at the sound of the familiar voice. “Good. What else?”

  “Unhappily, he—or it—survived as well.”

  When the long and somewhat unnerving phone call was over, Joe gave his wife a vaguely reassuring smile, the best he could manage at the moment. As soon as they were alone, he would fill her in completely. Phone calls about odd business were not uncommon in this house, and Andy remained incurious about this one. He seemed oblivious to the tension affecting his parents, while they finished up their dinner and afterward.

  The mummy in the movie had not begun life as a crocodile, Joe Keogh observed, but as a man. As a result of a really nasty curse, the poor slob had been turned into a shuffling monster muffled in bandages that after a few thousand years were starting to come unwrapped. And he was no longer a nice guy, if he ever had been. Joe supposed the poor guy’s grimness might be due in part to the fact that he was so slow-moving. In his new career as a monster, he had every reason to be discouraged. It was a wonder he ever managed to catch up with any of his victims.

  That night Andy went to bed fairly early, in his old room, and slept normally, except for another vaguely troubling dream that he forgot almost as soon as he woke up.

  It rained hard but sporadically during the night. Early Thursday morning, the sun had burned its way through the clouds, and was turning the wetness of the city into steam. Andy was feeling fine, and when he announced that he was returning to his own apartment, neither of his parents could see any reason to talk him out of the idea.

  Though Andy said nothing about it to his parents, he was still bothered by his memory, or rather his lack of memory, of what had happened on Tuesday evening. Now he began to worry that he had somehow offended Uncle Matt, who had been too polite to say so. Something funny, in the sense of strange, must have happened there, but he had somehow missed it. Had he been walking in his sleep? Not being given to useless fretting, he soon ceased to worry about the possibility. When he saw Uncle Matt again would be time enough to try to find out.

  Joe left the house a little after nine on Thursday morning, delaying his departure in hopes of avoiding the worst of the rush-hour snarl. He offered Andy a ride back to Andy’s own apartment, and before he left he told Kate as much as he thought practical regarding the next steps he meant to take regarding the problems of Mr. Maule.

  He had kissed her and turned and started away, when Kate called him back, wanting to know when she could expect to hear from her husband again.

  “Soon. When I get a chance.”

  “And what if I don’t hear from you?”

  “You will. Can’
t tell you any more than that.”

  “I better hear from you, before too many hours have passed.” Kate reached out with both arms. “Joe, come here a minute.”

  He went to her, and she held him, and he could feel her quivering.

  “I have to go,” he said. “It’s broad daylight out there now, see? And I know what I’m doing.”

  “I know, I know. But things can happen in broad daylight too.”

  Just as he pulled out of his driveway, Joe asked his son: “Were you planning to see Uncle Matt again any time soon?”

  “No. No, we didn’t set anything up. Not that I can remember, anyway.” Once more Andy frowned. He did remember promising Uncle Matt, just as they were leaving, that he’d try and find him the name of someone who might qualify as an expert on ancient Egypt. But his father wasn’t asking about that.

  “Maybe it would be best if you didn’t bother him for a while. He seemed to have other things on his mind. I think he might be in the process of moving. Changing his address.”

  That was puzzling. “He didn’t say anything about that. But okay. Sure.”

  Andy’s father dropped him off right in front of his apartment, in the North Side neighborhood of Thomas More University, not far from Old Town. Not until Andy had let himself in through the building’s small front lobby, and was climbing the stairs to the second floor, did he remember the name of the person that Uncle Matt, for whatever reason, was keen on finding: Flamel, that was it. He couldn’t recall if Uncle Matt had said anything about male or female, or given a first name.

  Well, Andy would see what he could do.

  He’d only been away from the apartment a day and a half, but already the rooms had an unlived-in look and feel about them, despite the casual litter. Andy’s two housemates, who were at least in theory equal payers of the rent, were away on summer visits to their respective families, and neither was expected back for several days. So there was no one to wonder where he had been. Andy stuck his head into his colleagues’ rooms, looked for notes on the kitchen bulletin board, listened to two or three casual phone messages, thought them not worth saving, and wiped them out.