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

    “No! Do not be sorry for calling me. Even if I should be destroyed—which I do not for a moment mean to be.”

    “If you know who these enemies of yours are, we ought to let the police know too.”

    “It would not be easy to impress the truth upon the police. Nor would it be wise. This is a private feud, best settled privately. We have made a start, one of our enemies is dead already.”

    “You mean the young man out at the house where Johnny was. I heard the police talking about all that. They were guessing about some strange kind of cult.”

    “I tried to explain something of the situation to Joe. He did not understand. But I believe you do. At least in part.”

    That guy deserved to be killed!” Judy burst out. “When I think about my brother…you know we took Johnny to the hospital, under guard and all, and he still cried when I left him. Didn’t want me to go. Was afraid they were going to get their hands on him again. Whatever happened to that fellow with the gun, he had it all coming to him.”

    Showing a little of his former energy, Corday got up to pace the floor. “We have at least three more foes who must be eliminated. And two of them are indefinitely more dangerous than the one now dead, who was only their tool. I warn you, you who will at least begin to understand, that they have powers beyond anything you will expect a human being to possess.”

    “Not beyond yours.”

    He stopped in his pacing and they looked at each other silently. She could no longer see him as an old man. She felt torn between an impulse to jump out of bed and run to him, and a deeper urge, an inner warning even, to stay where she was.

    He said: “In you I see…a fragment of my earlier self. And a young love.”

    “A young love? Is she still alive?”

    “She?...ah yes, very much alive. In England.” His teeth flashed in a smile, and the starlight or moonlight made it appear for a moment that something had gone wrong with their shape. “Will you know your own great love, when he appears?”

    “At first sight, you mean? Oh, I’m not so foolish as to think that.”

    A little silence fell between them once again. The instinct that had warned Judy earlier now seemed to be signaling that the crisis, whatever it had been, was past. Under the covers she could feel her legs relaxing now, trembling slightly at the knees.

    “I beg your pardon, Judy. I should not have spoken so patronizingly.”

    “I think you’re a gentleman, Dr. Corday. You know, what people used to mean when they said someone was a gentleman. I don’t know if I’m saying it right.”

    “I think I understand. I thank you.”

    “I’m glad I called you here. I don’t understand how it worked, but I’m very glad I did.”

    “I also am glad.” The tall figure in the gloom moved just a little closer. “Be brave, and we will win. I do not tell you not to be afraid.”

    “Are you ever afraid?” Then Judy shook her head. “I suppose that when fear ends, life is over.”

    In the dimness the expression on the tall man’s face showed great tiredness, and now for a moment infinite sadness as well, so that for a moment Judy was frightened after all. And in the next moment, her visitor was gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

   The police artist just packing up his sketch pads and getting ready to leave when Joe shepherded Judy and Clarissa past Johnny’s police bodyguard in the hospital corridor and into the private room. The artist was chuckling a little as he packed, having evidently just made some little joke—or maybe Johnny was the joker, for here the kid was, sitting straight up in bed and looking well, or almost well, just as his mother and father had so thankfully described him.

    A drift of vased and potted flowers and plants was mounting up at one side of the room, and two bedside tables were almost covered with cards and notes, along with some half-finished sketches that the artist had evidently abandoned. Johnny’s hands were both heavily bandaged, and he held them out awkwardly behind first Judy’s back and then Clarissa’s when the women hurried to hug him.

    When they took chairs at last, Joe moved up closer to the bed. “Well, buddy, you look a hell of a lot better than I expected.”

    “I feel real good, too.” John appeared to pause to think about his feelings seriously. “Mom and Dad said I shouldn’t have a bunch of visitors, but I hope you guys can stay a while.”

    “Cops have been bugging you with questions, I suppose.”

    “Oh, yeah, about the people who kidnapped me. They say the guy who stayed with me in the house is dead. They showed me a Polaroid of a dead man, and it was him, all right.”

    The kid seemed to be able to talk about it all quite lightly now. Wait, Joe thought, a reaction will hit him later. Nightmares at least. A little craziness of some kind, probably. The family will have to watch for it. He asked Johnny: “Who were the rest of them?”

    “There were at least two other men, and one woman. And once, I swear, they had like a party going on. Whole bunch of people, talking in some weird foreign language.”

    “Huh.”

    “Yeah, I don’t think the police and the FBI believe me either. They probably think I was delirious. But one night all these people were in the house, all