“Oh, the young man? The son of Joseph Keogh? He was perfectly healthy when I saw him last. That was only—only a couple of days ago.” Connie didn’t want to say she had spoken with Andy within the last few hours.
“Really? He’s unhurt?” Dickon desperately wanted to believe that. “Oh, that is good news. Are you telling me the truth?”
Connie was suddenly indignant. “Little Andy is all right, I tell you, but no thanks to you. Do you now consider, Dickon, that you may bear any responsibility for endangering the young man’s life?”
“I, responsible? I tried to tell our beloved Mr. Maule, truly I did, that the creature endeavoring to kill me was deadly dangerous. But he—he …” He let it die away.
Connie had absolutely no fear of Dickon, knowing what a coward he was. If he did let her in, she meant to box his ears. “Were you not in the habit of crying wolf at every puppy, he might have believed you then.”
Dickon made a wordless sound of misery.
“Dickon? What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know! How can I know?” Dickon was in an agony of indecision, which, as Connie had observed, was quite a common state—she supposed it went with being always fearful.
Connie now told him about the statue smashed in the house of Nicolas Flamel, down south in New Mexico. “Do you realize how your trusted partner was trying to cheat you? You know that Mr. Maule is someone you can trust.”
“Shocking,” said Dickon, absorbing the news about the image fragmented in Albuquerque, and found to be devoid of any prize. “That is truly shocking.”
And he meant it too. Even as he spoke, he was staring at an object resting on his floor—actually one edge was on the floor, while another was leaning at an angle against one of the thick log posts that supported the one-room cabin’s exposed roof beams. The object was a FedEx shipping box, received here almost a month ago but still tightly sealed. Since Dickon’s return to the cabin a few days ago, he had looked at the package often, even as he was looking at it now. But the recipient of this swift shipment had yet to touch it.
No need to open the box to find out what was inside—Dickon knew that perfectly well, for he had shipped the package to himself, under the name in which he owned the cabin. He had left a note tacked to the door, directing that all deliveries should simply be set inside. When the truck actually approached, Dickon had heard it coming in the distance, and went out, leaving his door unlocked. And when it arrived, he had been watching carefully from behind some trees only a few yards away, making sure the box was safely delivered.
Now that he had heard the fate of Flamel’s statue, Dickon knew that his own must be the last unbroken copy. And he could be virtually certain that it contained the prize.
The evidence was now clear that each of his late partners had independently taken a similar step, reserving a single copy of the statue for himself. That, of course, had been before any of them had quite realized that the little figures were much more than simply magical aids that might be helpful in creating the Stone. In fact, the Stone had already been created, thousands of years ago, and actually lay hidden inside one of the figures. Sobek, the dreamer and sender of dreams, already gifted with divine power, had been the first to grasp that point … .
Each of Dickon’s partners had intended to work secretly with his stealthily obtained statue, in hope of gaining the secret of the Stone all for himself. Dickon himself had done the same. And now Flamel and Tamarack were both dead, their statues smashed and worthless.
For once, it seemed, the goddess of fortune, whoever that might be, had smiled on Dickon. Unless Sobek and all the others were completely deluded about the way the great gem had been hidden, the treasure was now here, in Dickon’s hands the moment he reached out for it. Power even beyond what Sobek wielded, power that Dickon could scarcely imagine, lay on the floor of his rude cabin waiting for him, for anyone, to simply open the package.
But so far, even before he had been absolutely sure of what the package must contain, Dickon had been too afraid to open it, too timid even to hold the statue in his hands.
The truth was, he feared the power of the Stone in his own hands almost as much as he dreaded to think of it in the hands of any other.
Now, Connie. Did she suspect he had a statue here in his cabin? Quite possibly. Almost certainly, in fact. Could she somehow even know he did?
Dickon couldn’t tell.
Of course he had locked the package in his cabin when he went back to Chicago. Then when he had returned here, only a few days ago, it was with considerable relief that he found the box still waiting for him just as he had left it, unopened, untouched, undiscovered by any of his enemies. After Sobek had nearly killed him in Chicago, Dickon had gone to earth here in his secret place. Hunting in the woods at night provided all the mammalian blood he needed. Under the worn wood floorboards lay a substantial store of the black earth of Dickon’s native Britain. Like the statue, it had taken him some time and trouble and ingenuity to get the necessary soil conveyed here in small parcels.
But the sensation of relief did not last long—for Dickon pleasant feelings never did. Out of his ghostly throng of chronic worries, a new dread always came pushing forward, ready to dominate his existence.
Possibly Connie did not guess that the Stone was here, but the Crocodile was a thousand times more cunning than she. Dickon could not shake his apprehension that Sobek had somehow discovered his secret stronghold, that the monster had learned the prize was here, and was on his way to claim it at this very moment.
As a god, the Crocodile needed no help from lesser beings.
Connie had now completed her slow walk all around his house, and was back on his porch, where she seemed to be trying to peer in through the keyhole—of course he had made sure that was covered.
But her sweet voice could get in. “Do you know what your trouble is, Dickon? If you think that everything in the whole world is just too frightening to think about, then you have to spend your life just trying not to think about one thing after another.”
He wasn’t going to try to sort that out. “What is Maule doing now? What do you know of Sobek?”
“What would you expect? The two of them are contending to see who can get control of the Philosopher’s Stone.” She sighed and sounded mournful. “I think dear Mr. Maule would be better off if he could allow himself to show a little fear.”
Dickon’s worst fears, or one set of them anyway, were thus confirmed. Sooner or later Maule and the monster were probably both going to show up at his door. Trying to be logical, he told himself fiercely that the Stone itself, once he held it in his hand, would probably reveal to him the means of using it. It would grant him such power that he would need to be afraid of nothing and of no one. Ah, by all the gods, to be free of fear, utterly free of fear at last …
But even the prospect of courage and freedom carried its own anxiety. Any ordinary human, breathing or unbreathing, who possessed such a treasure must stand in terror of losing it. And Dickon had been so terribly frightened for so long, his soul so soaked and saturated in terror, that fear now occupied the core of his being.
Clinging to the inside of his front door, pressing his mouth almost against the wood, he whispered: “Connie? It is terrible. If I were suddenly to cease to be afraid … I don’t know who I would be, then.”
The contempt in Connie’s voice was plain, even through the thickness of the door: “I see now you are afraid of becoming brave. And that is the worst cowardice of all.”
“Are you never afraid? Or are you like him, the great—great—”
“No, I am not much like Vlad Drakulya—he is one of a kind. I am afraid of some things. Many things, I suppose. The Crocodile, for one. I wish he would not send us all these ugly dreams. Do you get them too?”
“Yes, oh yes. The scene in ancient Egypt. The five little statues. Then the thief runs on, eventually out into the hot sun again …”
Connie was not listening, she was airing he
r own complaints. She knew that as a nosferatu she stood in much greater danger than any breather of being eaten by the great Crocodile, more or less alive.
Trying to keep himself from thinking about that, Dickon soon interrupted, tremulously posing a question: “Tell me, with regard to this great contest between Maule and Sobek—how are they going about trying to find the statue? How will either one of them discover where it is?”
“Oh, how should I know? They each have their magic, I suppose.”
From Billings the small convoy of two vehicles headed west on Interstate 90, in the direction of Butte. Andy was driving the SUV, with Maule, once more wearing hat and sunglasses, seated beside him, and Dolly in the next row back. The conversation had taken a turn back to the strange events with which the adventure had begun.
Andy was saying to Uncle Matt. “As far as I can remember—I was working on your stuff there and I just fell asleep. Really crashed, right in my chair.”
Maule nodded. “As I did, in mine. But in each case the crash, as you call it, was by no means accidental.”
“I thought we were both just tired. But …”
Maule was shaking his head. “Death passed us by, quite closely, on that night.” And, with Dolly listening wide-eyed from the next seat back, he went on to relate the basic facts regarding the murder of Tamarack.
After the fantastic events of the past few days, Andy was prepared to believe the story.
“So by the time Dad got to your place—and I woke up—there was this murder victim lying in a bedroom down the hall?”
“There was indeed. And both you and I were fortunate not to share his fate. Do you remember anything else about that evening and that night, anything at all?”
Andy shrugged his shoulders, as best he could, keeping his hands on the wheel.
After only a few miles on the Interstate, they reached their turnoff, at a place called Laurel. Now they were on the two-lane Beartooth Highway, which over the next few dozen miles made repeated crossings of winding streams. Andy saw signs identifying first the Yellowstone River, and then Rock Creek. His father, driving the other vehicle, came on the radio to comment on the fact.
Maule had hitched around in his seat and was once more hypnotizing Dolly, who reported that the Crocodile’s movements had become shorter and slower, more and more erratic.
Uncle Matthew nodded slowly. “The most likely interpretation is that he is very near his goal.”
After passing a few small settlements the little convoy had come to Red Lodge, which looked to have about two thousand people in it, small houses surrounding a one-street business district about six blocks long. Rock Creek ran right through town. There were several promising hotels, and a few shops selling antiques and curios, including one whose sign offered good deals on buffalo skulls, wholesale and retail.
“It could be in one of these shops,” Joe commented.
Maule had his doubts. “Possibly, but I think not. Our enemy has already progressed upstream from the town.”
Joe decided it would be a good idea to have some facilities lined up, in case they wound up spending the night here. The neatest-looking hotel was right on Main Street, and fortunately had a sufficient number of rooms available.
All his life Vlad Drakulya had trusted his instincts when in great peril—and following that course had kept him alive for more than five centuries. Now his instincts told him that a final battle was coming soon, perhaps within a few hours. He could feel it like an impending storm.
The shadows of the summer afternoon were lengthening. Andy and his dad were strolling the short Red Lodge business district, having sworn to Maule that they would stray no farther than a block from their hotel. Both men marveled to see a pickup truck yield the right of way to a mere pedestrian.
Andy saw pepper spray prominently displayed on sale in a local store, labeled as bear repellent. Talking to the storekeeper, Andy learned it was a common belief among the citizens of Red Lodge that on cold nights in spring and fall, bears came into town. And not the common, backwoods-variety black bears either: these were grizzlies. Or so the story went.
Tonight, thought Andy, there might well be something even stranger than a grizzly prowling. Looking wistfully at the pepper spray, he tried to imagine that it might be of help.
After hearing the latest report from Dolly, of slow but seemingly purposeful movement by the Crocodile, Maule quickly but unhurriedly gathered his troops. In a few minutes, they were in their vehicles again, following the narrow highway west out of Red Lodge. This time Maule was at the wheel of the larger SUV, while Joe followed, driving the smaller one.
After a few miles, with the serious foothills of the Beartooth Range beginning to bulk around the road, Uncle Matt called for a conference, and turned off on an unpaved lane.
After briefly conferring with the vehicles parked side by side, Maule dispatched Joe and John in their Jeep to take a position about a mile ahead. There, according to their most recently acquired road map, the lightly traveled lane that they were on once more came close to a bend in the creek.
Maule pointed with a dangerous-looking fingernail. “The monster is now in the creek somewhere between here and there, and when you are in position, we will have him between us. I mean to approach him, slowly, from this direction, and challenge him—I think I can wait no longer. Which way he will move next, if he moves at all, I do not know. But I will have my phone—though I may turn it off if I believe I am near the enemy. If you see him, in the stream or on land, call me instantly.”
As soon as Joe and John had driven off, Maule moved the SUV a little distance, then parked it offroad in a quiet place. Then he got out, withdrawing the spear from its resting place in the middle of the cabin.
He told Andy and Dolly that he was going to leave them for a time. “The best way to protect you now, and to protect the rest of the world, is by eliminating the source of danger.”
Andy gestured with his empty hands. “What do we do?”
“I cannot give you precise orders, for I do not know what may happen. Probably you will do best to remain in or near the vehicle, and drive quickly away if immediate danger threatens. Of course the radio may be of some benefit.” Maule turned and glided noiselessly away, spear balanced in his hand.
“Protect yourself,” Dolly called quietly after him.
Maule raised his spear in a silent wave of acknowledgment, and vanished into the shadows between tall trees.
Andy and Dolly were left alone. They had nothing to do at the moment but wait, taking in the beginnings of a sunset show. Clouds in the west concealed the sun, but night had not yet fallen.
There was still plenty of daylight to see the lone figure, certainly not Uncle Matthew, that came walking toward them out of the woods.
“Who in the hell is that … Connie?” Andy heard his own voice go high with the release of tension. It was the camouflage suit and combat boots Connie was wearing that made her hard to recognize. Now he rolled down his window.
Moving briskly up on the driver’s side of the SUV, Connie acknowledged Dolly’s presence with a nod of greeting. But when she spoke she seemed to be talking only to Andy. “I have something to show you, young man. I have promised someone, very solemnly, that I will never show it to Mr. Maule—” A smile, a tiny, wicked giggle. “—but of course if you should show it to your uncle sometime soon, that will not be my fault, will it?”
He moved awkwardly in the driver’s seat, wondering what was she talking about.
“No, do not start your engine. And leave the headlights off. Dear Andee, you should come with me on foot, this way, for just a moment. The young lady will excuse us.”
Andy looked at his companion, who shook her head in puzzlement. He sighed, and opened his door. “Be right back,” he told Dolly.
“I’ll stay in the truck and keep an ear on the radio.” Then she raised her shotgun, hacked-off barrels high. “Want to borrow this?”
“No, you keep it.”
With
Dolly waiting alone in the SUV a hundred feet or so away, out of sight behind some trees and brush, Andy and Connie were for the moment utterly alone. From somewhere along the bottom of the wooded slope in front of them came the muted roar of Rock Creek, dealing with the boulders and outcroppings that ever tried to hold it back. Twilight was definitely approaching.
“What is it you want to show me?”
Connie folded her pretty hands, almost as if in prayer. “Ahh, Andee, the true answer to that question is that I would like to show you the ways of love. You may think you know something of those ways, dear young man, but in truth you have no idea.”
And with a smile unlike any he had ever seen before, she reached out and patted him on the cheek. “Has dear Uncle Matthew been telling you things about me? Has he warned you against me, how terrible I am because I am like him? They call us the ‘undead,’ you know. But what is one to make of such a word? What can this ‘undead’ mean, except we are not dead, and still alive? Aren’t you just as much undead as me?”
Andy swallowed. He wanted very much to take this woman in his arms, combat fatigues and all, and see what happened next. Maybe someday.
Connie laughed softly. “Are you worried of what dear Vlad will think, if you and I make love? Ah, I can only hope that he is still alive when that time comes. He understands, my dear. Only if you were somehow cruel or unpleasant to me would he be upset—and I am sure you will never be cruel.”
For a moment, the vampire looked almost the perfect type of helpless maiden. “You don’t think he could be jealous, do you? You must understand that he and I have gone beyond being jealous of each other. He takes lovers, as I do. What persists between the two of us is certainly love, if that word means anything at all. And the love between us is still very strong—stronger than you can imagine. But it no longer depends on—what is the preferred way of putting it, nowadays?—no longer depends on the exchange of any bodily fluids. That has been impossible for us for many years, since both of us are nosferatu. So you need not worry that your uncle will be jealous.”
A Coldness in the Blood (The Dracula Series) Page 27