Séance for a Vampire, Fred Saberhagen [win 10 ebook reader txt] 📗

I was pleased to observe that telephones were as readily available as in most parts of britain. All of the best hotels and other important buildings, had at least one instrument installed, and I was told there were many thousands of subscribers in Russia.

Our business in the city was facilitated by the fact that several of our party understood the language of the city’s common people. Holmes spoke a little Russian and understood more–this knowledge, as he explained to me, being one of the fruits of two years of travel in Tibet. And Prince Dracula soon demonstrated fluency in the tongue of Ivan the Terrible, though Holmes told me there was much that was old-fashioned, even archaic, in Dracula’s speech. The prince said that he had never visited St. Petersburg before; I admit being somewhat awed by the realization that he was considerably older than the city.

Armstrong, during the past year having spent several months in St. Petersburg, had a smattering of modern Russian.

Of particular help to me was the fact that every cultured person in the capital spoke French, some of them by preference over their native tongue; in addition, a fair number spoke English.

On our first evening in St. Petersburg, some of our party visited a certain basement cafe called the Red Jingle, rather a bohemian establishment. Under a poster advertising last season’s performances of Anna Pavlova, we discussed our next move.

We intended to learn who might be Kulakov’s special friends and associates in St. Petersburg, and Cousin Sherlock had been able to come up with some clues along that line. Everything we had learned so far tended to confirm that our quarry probably did not have many intimate associates, here in St. Petersburg or anywhere else.

We still did not know whether Kulakov had yet forced his fangs upon his latest victim and hostage. Personally I thought it probable, though I admitted there might be reasons for him to do otherwise.

Meanwhile I was congratulating myself for having managed to bring Sarah along, though the stern demands of duty kept me from seeing anything like as much of her as I would have liked.

Getting a black look from Watson now and then, I condescended to assure the good doctor that he need not be worried about Sarah’s becoming a vampire. With a little restraint on the part of both parties involved, such an outcome could be delayed for a long time, and most of my love affairs did not end in that result.

Gradually our slowly growing network of contacts in the city began, like a tangle of grapevine, to bear fruit. Within two days we learned that in the higher social circles where he was known, Kulakov planned to present Rebecca as his new wife, acquired in England. In recent years he had been known in St. Petersburg as a widower, his last reported wife having died some years ago.

Insofar as we could discover, it had never been the count’s habit, before his latest trip to England, to mix much in St. Petersburg society, but he was on fairly intimate terms with a few of the nobility. Though appearing socially from time to time, he mainly tended to keep to himself, spending most of his time on his extensive country estates.

Martin Armstrong was still being tormented by his mixed feelings toward the dead Louisa. His beloved was, or had been, one of the undead. Having some difficulty in believing that Louisa was now truly departed, Armstrong was also anticipating a similar fate for becky. He brooded sleeplessly upon her fate, the unbearable fact that from now on, she might be compelled to spend her days, or many of her daylight hours, sleeping in her tomb. And he had learned from the party of vampire-hunters the uses of the wooden stake.

Who would her lover be, when she had become a vampire? Not Kulakov any longer–vampire and vampire did not bed together.

No, Becky’s new lover would have to be a breathing man. And there could be no future in society–any form of human society, as Martin thought–for such a couple.

Sarah Kirkaldy, as Dracula’s lover, had, by the time we left for Russia, been brought to a certain practical understanding of vampirism. by this time Sarah, though her grief for her brother and her desire for revenge were genuine enough, was beginning to wonder, perhaps to calculate, how such powers as had been revealed to her might be turned to a medium’s professional advantage.

Every witness–there were not many–who reported seeing Kulakov since his return to St. Petersburg, said that the man gave evidence of some kind of mental or physical infirmity. We wondered whether this infirmity had provided him with one strong reason, perhaps really the only reason, to come back to St. Petersburg. “Is it possible that he comes here in hopes of getting relief from these symptoms?” I asked. No one answered.

The beautiful white nights, persisting well into July, made a favorable impression on the breathing visitors, but somewhat hampered the visiting and native vampires alike.

Holmes asked Martin Armstrong for confirmation that Rebecca Altamont did not speak Russian. Then the detective mused that this lack would doubtless add to the girl’s sense of helplessness and isolation, and make it harder for her to attempt an escape unaided, even if she were able to contemplate such a course.

In engaging our hotel rooms, we had particularly asked for a suite equipped with a telephone. In the first two days of our stay, the instrument seldom rang; but toward the end of the third day, I answered a call and heard, to my great astonishment, the voice of a distraught woman whom I could only gradually, and with some uncertainty, recognize as Rebecca Altamont.

I will not repeat in detail all that the mesmerized and terrorized woman said, or elaborate on my futile attempts to interrupt and offer her some hope. Suffice it to say here that she cursed us, one and all, for interfering with her happiness, and warned us