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

place?” Her breath momentarily forgotten, the question fell into a mere soundless mouthing of the words. Then she drew in a gasp of air. “I know where I am. I know what this is.”

    “I am your friend,” the old man said with iron will, “and you are safe.”

    Words, even from him, were not going to be enough. Kate screamed and leaped in mad panic from her shelf, a corner of the sheet trailing like a cape. She landed awkwardly, but with catlike new strength supporting unsprained ankles. Without a pause she sprang toward the single door of the mausoleum.

    Before she reached it, though, the old man was beside her, and had an arm around her waist. Despite the new strength with which she struggled, he drew her back and soothed her like a child. “No, no. You do not understand the dangers yet.”

    A moment longer Kate fought for her freedom. Then she slumped in his grip, her eyes crazed. “I want to go home.”

    His clasp was almost tender. “I think you know,” he said, “that you are as close to home right now as you are ever likely to get.”

    A few seconds passed. This time the movement she made to free herself was deliberate an almost calm, and so he released her. She moved a few steps off and turned to face him, now fully aware—and horrified. “I heard a policeman say that I was dead.”

    “Very likely you did.”

    “You can’t convince me that I’m dead!”

    “My dear girl, I have no intention of trying to convince you of such an absurdity. Neither of us is dead except to our old, breathing lives.”

    “Then—what—?”

    “You have been through a great change. And understanding it is going to take some time.” Acceptance and understanding, the old man knew, did not often come fully on the first day out of the grave.

    Kate was frowning down at her swathing sheet.

    “Where are my clothes?”

    The old man walked to one of the crypts and tugged open it’s bronze door. The interior was empty save for two bags, one a white laundry sack, the other somewhat smaller and elegant black. He brought both of them back to Kate. “You have some choice of apparel, though I am not sure the outfit in the white bag is complete.”

    Wonderingly, Kate reached into the laundry sack and extracted from it first her warm blue jacket, rolled up small; then blue pants and a sweater. She looked at the old man with narrowed eyes, then dug into the other bag. Out first came brown slacks, then a brown sweater, shoes to match, a small mass of soft undergarments. “These are mine.” There was more sharpness than fear in her voice now. “But I was wearing the blue. Where did you get these?”

    “Ah, memory is firming up. Good. The brown clothing I obtained very early this morning, from your home.”

    “My home. You’ve been there. What did you tell them, what—?”

    “Gently, Kate, gently. Your family thinks that you are dead.”

    She shook her head. She backed away from the old man a step, her lips forming another word.

    “He thinks so, too. For the time being, at least, it is better so. Later, there will be decisions you must make, regarding those you love. But that must come later, when you know more. Now I am going to look out the window while you dress. Then will we discuss what must be done.”

    When he turned from squinting at the snow, he found Kate garbed in brown. He took from her the blue clothing, including the warm jacket she no longer needed. These garments he put back into the empty crypt, the only convenient drawer this dwelling-place afforded.

    Challengingly, Kate followed him. He smiled to see in her something of her younger sister’s bravery. “Now,” she demanded “I want to know who you are, really. And what has really happened to me.”

    “Very well.” He looked steadily into her eyes. “I am a vampire, Kate. Because Enoch Winter exchanged his vampire blood with you, you have become a vampire also. I am sure that there is in your mind much superstitious nonsense regarding our race, which you must now begin to unlearn. We are not all as bad as Enoch Winter.”

    The girl first tried to laugh at him. Then she tried to look indignant, that he should offer her such nonsense. He could see her wondering what she should try next. He could see also that the energy of terror was fading; a normal daylight trance should overcome her soon.

    “But why,” the old man mused aloud, “has the infamous Enoch Winter done this? Under other circumstances we might merely ask why any rapist does what he does. But there is also the attack on your brother to be considered. There must surely be a connection.”

    “What attack?” Kate didn’t completely believe, yet, anything he’d said. But already she was swaying on her feet.

    “Time to discuss that later.” He picked her up, gently; it was almost a matter of catching her as she began to fall. One of her pale hands pushed feebly at his chest in protest, but her eyelids were closing, and she could do no more.

    Now she should sleep, until the night at least. But before he put her in a resting place, he stood for a moment, listening intently. A motor vehicle, a small auto whose sound he thought he might just possibly recognize, was drawing near over the cemetery’s unplowed drives.

* * * * * * * *

   Joe Keogh’s rabbit crunched to a stop in snow unmarked except for a few tracks left by the fur-bearing variety. He supposed the bunnies had a good thing going in a cemetery,