A Question Of Time, Fred Saberhagen [best fiction books to read .TXT] 📗

were,” he answered truthfully. “But you are leaving me in a hell of a state of ignorance.”

      Strangeways shrugged, a businesslike gesture. “Regrettably I must, being still in that state myself. But I foresee no disaster here tonight. No problem, as I say, beyond your considerable competence to handle. But I do advise you to exercise restraint and caution until I return, which will be in as few days as I can manage it. In the meantime, commit no rash acts. In particular I advise against your attempting to track this particular vampire to his earth—not that I really think you mean to do so, or that you would find it possible.”

      Joe nodded. Then he blinked. The path beside him was suddenly empty of any human presence, emptied in a way that had nothing directly to do with gathering darkness, or with fog. He had seen nosferatu come and go in similar fashion often enough so that it was no longer really a surprise; but even so it was always something of a shock.

* * *

      Meanwhile, up in the house, Maria was telling Mrs. Tyrrell, truthfully, what a lovely place she thought the house was, how wonderful it must have been to be able to live here.

      Old Sarah smiled understandingly, and thanked Maria, but it was plain that the old lady did not completely agree. Although she admitted it was a lovely house, and had cost Edgar a great amount of work to build.

      “Each room has its own fireplace, and these are still the only means of heating. The Park Service has made a few changes; they put in simple basic plumbing decades ago.”

      According to Mrs. Tyrrell, much of the furniture in the House dated from the thirties. Some of the simple chairs, tables, and benches were fairly valuable, she told Maria, because Tyrrell had built them with his own hands.

* * *

      A minute or two after his extraordinary colleague had disappeared—Joe thought it highly likely that the man calling himself Strangeways was already on his way, by one mode of transportation or another, to England—Joe cautiously made his way over to where Bill Burdon was posted, just to see how Bill was doing.

      “Everything under control, chief. Did I hear you talking to someone else just now?”

      “Strangeways. He’s gone now.”

      Bill shook his head, impressed. “He can sure move quietly.”

      Joe let that pass without comment. “I’m going back into the house now. Someone will be out to relieve you in an hour or so.”

      “Check.”

      Moving as quietly as he could, Joe climbed the trail leading up under the house. He had more questions to ask, and Bill had so far given every indication of being steady and reliable.

      As Joe approached the house from below, he murmured into his radio. Moments later, looking up from the foot of the ladder, he saw Maria open the trapdoor for him. On the level above her a door was standing slightly open inside the house, letting enough light through from the upper floors for Joe to see to climb.

      “Anything new?” he asked Maria, as she closed and latched the trapdoor behind him.

      “Only that this house contains about a thousand fossils, and a million Indian arrowheads and things. When you look at it closely, it’s quite a museum, though I guess none of the stuff that’s left here is really valuable.”

      “Must have been here for decades.”

      “Joe?”

      “Yeah?”

      Maria looked around as if to make sure that they were quite alone. “About your brother-in-law?”

      “What about him?”

      “Just that I noticed both of his little fingers are missing.”

      “You’re observant.”

      “Well, it’s none of my business, of course, but I was just wondering how that happened.”

      Joe gave the young woman a level, thoughtful look. “A vampire pulled them off,” he told her at last. “When John was sixteen.”

      Maria’s lip curled slightly. “All right, Boss, just asking. I admitted it was none of my business.”

      “Ask John if you don’t believe me.”

* * *

      Following a silent Maria back upstairs, Joe noticed a few trophy heads of big game, deer and mountain lion primarily, like those decorating the lobby at El Tovar.

      In a small room on the middle level of the house they encountered another scattering of Indian artifacts, pottery and arrowheads and little figures woven of twists of bark.

      Sarah joined them here. “Well, Mr. Keogh?”

      “We’re watching the house, front and rear, Mrs. Tyrrell.”

      “My nephew will be relieved. Now, I think, we can begin to discuss the matter of my grandniece.”

      “Yes, I think we’d better.” Joe leaned against a log wall, watching the old lady carefully. “Mrs. Tyrrell, did you leave your husband or did he leave you, back in the thirties?”

      “I left him,” Sarah answered after a moment.

      “Why?”

      “You should ask, rather, why I stayed with him so long.”

      “All right, why did you?”

      “I loved him, I suppose. Do you know, Mr. Keogh, the age of the oldest rocks in the bottom of the Canyon?”

      “I have no idea.”

      Maria, obviously not understanding any of this, was still watching and listening carefully.

      Sarah Tyrrell said: “Some of the oldest exposed rocks on earth are down there—notably the Vishnu Schist, almost two billion years old, metamorphosed from ocean sediments. That intrigued Edgar from the start, you see; something that had been made an infinity of ages before there ever was a Canyon.”

      “Mrs. Tyrrell, does this have something to do with—?”

      “Yes, it does, Mr. Keogh. The whole matter is a question of time, you see, and of the efforts people make to deal with time and to control it. In that Edgar is far more successful than most.”

      Maria was squinting at the old woman in total incomprehension.

      Sarah went on: “Down there is also something called the Great Unconformity—not a layer of rock, but rather an absence of layers, somewhat more than half a billion years old, that might be expected to be present. In among those absent strata, somehow, is where Edgar built another house—and in that house I refused to live.”

      Joe was nodding, as if he understood at least partially. “Did you have any children?”

      “What does that