An Old Friend Of The Family (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 3), Fred Saberhagen [best large ereader .txt] 📗

the visitor fetched an inward sigh. “I am aware that in that year dear Mina ceased to breathe. That she was then consigned to her tomb…but we are straying from our business. Pray tell me, just what is the nature of this family difficulty which reddens every eye, and populates the house with such discreet policemen?”

   The tale came out in a hurried, exhausted fashion. The grand-daughter found mysteriously dead, yesterday morning. The grandson kidnapped last night, and mutilated for the pure hell of it, as it might seem; there was not even a ransom demand as yet.

   Then someone exists who does such things to folk whom Mina loves. He nodded, showing little of what he felt. He might have been considering a strange problem in chess. “There is no doubt that the finger in the little package was cut from your grandson’s hand?”

   “They said it was—”

   “What?”

   “Not cut. More like—oh God, more like it had been torn from his hand. I didn’t see it. But they had no doubt that it was Johnny’s finger. He—he had a distinctive wart on it.”

   At least, mused the visitor, he is now free of that.

   “And the police say that they believe that it was taken from a living hand. They have their scientific tests.”

   “To be sure. The finger must still be in their possession?”

   “It must be. Yes.”

   “And the girl’s body, too?”

   “In the Chicago morgue, the medical examiner’s office, whatever they call it. They’re supposed to have the best facilities there for tests.”

   It was now time to be nice, and he startled Clarissa away from the brink of collapse by reaching across the little table and reassuringly pressing her fingers between his own. “It is a good thing that you and Judy called me.”

   “Good?”

   “Yes, yes. I should have been angry if I were not called on in such a matter. Evil people have, for whatever reason, launched an assault upon your family. But soon it will be the turn of those wicked folk to be unhappy.”

   Although he smiled as he whispered those last words, wanting them to be comforting, she pulled back.

   He looked sharply over Clarissa’s shoulder in the direction of the door. Two seconds later the door opened.

   “Gran? Sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

   He hardly heard the girl’s words, though. He found himself on his feet, with no memory of having risen, and staring at her uncontrollably. The first impression, which struck him like a club, was that Mina herself stood before him, young as when he had first met her, in the first flush of warmblooded, breathing life.

   Yesterday’s vision of his summoner had been no more than a passport photo, compared to this reality. The girl’s clothing and hairstyle were of course of the late nineteen-seventies, not of eighteen ninety-one. But the face and the sturdy body and the bearing were Mina’s—although at second glance, of course, not quite.

   The girl was staring at him also—small wonder, given his reaction to her entrance. How long had it been since anything had caused him so to lose his self-possession? But thank heaven she did not seem frightened.

   Clarissa had also risen to her feet. When she spoke her voice was calmer than the visitor had expected. “Dr. Corday? This is my granddaughter Judy. Judy, Dr. Corday has known the family for some time. He’s just flown in from London.”

   “Your servant, my dear,” the visitor murmured, smiling, and took the young girl’s hand. He would have felt the slightest pullback in her fingers, as he bent to kiss the air above them in the old European style. But pullback there was none.

   Some surprise, though, showed in her voice. “You say that as if you meant it.” Her voice was jarringly American. Well, what else?

   “I do.”

   Her brown eyes, Mina’s eyes, probed at him delightfully, trying to puzzle him out. “Doctor Corday? Did I meet you in England, maybe? We were over there in 1967. I’m sorry if I’ve forgotten, but I was very young at the time.”

   “Of course you were. But we did not meet,” he said, releasing her hand regretfully. “It is impossible that I should not remember if we had.”

   Oh, those eyes of hers were, naturally enough, not Mina’s after all. So young and brown though, and filled with puzzlement about him, and grief for her mysteriously ravaged family. Intriguingly, he could not find in them the personal fear that marked the older women of the family.

   Judy asked him gravely: “Are you staying with us? I hope you can.”

   Clarissa rather lamely began to second this offer of lodging, which the visitor declined with polite firmness. “I shall be staying for some days in the neighborhood, however, and I look forward very much to visiting with you—with both of you. But right now, child, I have a few minutes more of urgent business with your grandmother…and, Judy, dear? If your father is in the house, would you ask him if he can spare a minute or two to talk to me? Tell him his time will not be wasted—thank you, Judy.”

   Watching the young girl leave, he marveled once more at her likeness to his beloved. Then, with an energetic clapping and rubbing-together of his lean hands, he turned back to Judy’s grandmother even as the old lady sank into her chair again.

   “Now, my child,” he whispered to her, bending closer to her ear. “How have your dear son and his lovely wife managed to acquire such demonic enemies? You can tell me—you must tell me—the truth.”

   At this Clarissa began to weep. Which, as the visitor could see, was not something she did easily or frequently. “You must believe me,” she told him between gulping sobs. “I have no idea.”

   He looked at her closely, and patted her hands again. “I do believe you. And now, can you arrange for me to have a word in