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

It took him a full ten seconds to undo all the alarms and fastenings armoring the door, and then he swung it wide. Kate walked in at once. Before he did anything else he locked the door completely up again. Then he turned to look at her.

    She certainly looked real and solid enough, and her confused state was even plainer than it had been through the viewer. Her face was paler than he remembered it, her hands kept rubbing each other nervously her eyes jumped erratically about the kitchen, looking everywhere but straight at him.

    Abruptly she began to speak in a staccato voice. “This place where I’ve been staying—you see, he broke in there today, while it was still daylight. Cloudy, but still so bright when I ran outside that I thought I was going to die.”

    “Huh.” He studied Kate’s face desperately, trying to make sure that it was real. If he fired his pistol at it, what would happen? “Somebody broke in on you somewhere, huh?”

    “Enoch Winter.” Her empty blue eyes flicked at Walworth, then past him at the stove. “He was looking for the old man, I know. He said—he said Joe had told him where the old man might be sleeping. He looked in all the vaults, I think.”

    “Joe,” said Walworth, just to be saying something.

    “Yes.” Kate’s eyes fixed on him suddenly, “Do you know where Joe is?”

    “I don’t know any Joe, lady,” he said, suddenly remembering who Joe must be.

    “I have the feeling that Joe has been here recently.”

    “Why in the hell should Joe be here?”

    “Joe shouldn’t be in hell,” Kate answered instantly—making as much sense, Walworth thought, as anything else that she had said so far. She appeared to stop to think. “I don’t know why he should be in this place, then,” she went on. “But he was here.”

    “My God.” Walworth was speaking to himself again. “I think it really is Kate. Then there must have been someone who looked just like her in the morgue—someone they found in that rooming house—I don’t know. God, what a day and evening this is turning out to be.”

    Kate nodded at him, a wise-old-woman sort of nod that made her look crazier than ever. “You speak of God a lot, don’t you? They can, too, you know. It’s not really like it is in the stories. They can handle holy things. They’re no worse than we are, really.”

    “Sure, whatever you say.” Suddenly Walworth remembered leaving the phone off its cradle, back in the other room. Immediately he felt pleased with himself for having his head on so straight now that he remembered that. “Excuse me one second,” he said, and left the kitchen.

    Sure enough, there was the loose phone; score one for the consistency of the world and the dependability of his brain. He hung it up, not bothering to find out if there was someone on the other end of the line now or not. He could call back later for help if it was necessary, but right now it looked like maybe he was going to fly home from this trip on his own.

    On his way back to the kitchen he hoped fiercely that his visitor was still going to be there. She was, he saw with considerable relief, and she still looked like Kate. But a Kate still really out of it, staring now with great apparent interest at the icemaker on his refrigerator door—

    Why couldn’t he see her reflection in the chrome?

    Some trick of angles—

    Going up to the girl, Walworth quietly touched her on the elbow. She started, not at all the way a phantom ought to behave, and turned her quietly wild gaze on him.

    Those eyes of hers made him shaky. “Kate, d’you know what? Everyone thinks you’re dead. Hey, now, don’t start flying around outside the windows, or do anything silly like that, hey?” He could hear the real pleading in his own voice, and it disgusted him.

    She looked at him with a total lack of intelligence. “What?”

    “I’m just telling you, don’t do anything silly until I have the chance to show the world that you’re still alive and in one piece. That’s going to get me off one hook, anyway. Now you really are here, right?” He squeezed her jacketed elbow. “Sure you are.”

    “I’m here. Of course I am.”

    “Great. What brings you to my place tonight, anyway? Not that I mind.” His hand, falling back to his side, brushed the butt of the gun still stuck in his belt, and he wondered if it would be smarter now to put the weapon away. He decided to carry it with him a little longer, just in case…in case of what, he didn’t exactly know.

    “I must find Joe.” Kate’s fine forehead creased in puzzlement. “I went to his apartment tonight, right after sunset, but he’s not there. He’s been here, I can feel it.”

   She raised both her hands to her head. “Oh, those people drugged me, that night when I was here…maybe you…but you’re not one of them.”

    “No, no I’m not.”

    Kate let her hands drop to her sides, and her speech fell back into its earlier lifeless tone. “I think I left something here…I didn’t have any money with me when I wanted to go shopping.”

    “Shopping. Sure.” Walworth stared at her for a little while. “My God, they really dosed you good, didn’t they? Well, welcome the club. I knew they were giving you something good that night…how many days ago was that? Almost a week, I bet, and you’re still wandering. I hope it’s not the same thing they gave me. God.”

    She looked at him as if she were trying hard to understand.