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

Next I detected the sounds of four human feet casually approaching, bearing with them two sets of breathing human lungs, one male and one female. They were coming down the hallway on my right. I waited, confidently, to confront whoever might appear.

I waited, I say...

Ahhhhhh.

I warned you at the start... now you must be patient with me for a moment or two.

Thank you for your patience. Now we can proceed.

The unknown man who now came strolling into my sight was accompanied by a woman equally unknown to me, who appeared to be jealous of her escort’s attention, and was trying to engage him in conversation. She was perhaps thirty-five or forty, attractive and bejeweled, obviously a member of the upper classes–and what suddenly riveted my attention was the fact that she was walking worshipfully at the side of a man who obviously belonged to a much different stratum of society.

I was startled, to put it mildly, to observe that the man who drew such worshipful attention from this countess–for such she might have been– appeared to be a peasant. His long shirt, boots, and trousers were all peasant garments, though of fine fabrics never seen on any farm, and he looked about him with bold, piercing eyes. He carried with him, like a wave, strong olfactory evidence that his body had been long unwashed. I found this apparition disconcerting. He wore on a chain around his neck a large pectoral cross of gold.

This peculiar stranger was also carrying, in one massive, thickfingered hand, some kind of crystal cup, half-filled with wine. He held the vessel not in the manner of one serving drinks, but of one consuming them. He savored the contents of the valuable goblet, then almost contemptuously tossed it away empty.

The Russian woman with him continued incongruously and–some would say–shamefully hanging on the peasant’s arm, and at one point, she addressed him as “Holy Father,” which startled me again. besides the large pectoral cross, there was nothing about him to suggest that he might be a member of the regular clergy.

I thought that there were only bedrooms down the hallway in the direction from which the couple came. The suggestion was inescapable, to my experienced eye, that this lout and his fair companion–I even wondered whether she might be the lady of this house–had just been engaging in debauchery. I am not very easily shocked, as you may well imagine, but here roaring peculiarities demanded to be noticed. She was hanging on her consort, obviously tolerating his odor and his strange appearance, now laughing–with him, not at him–and taking obscene liberties with his person.

Perhaps I should mention, even though I am a gentleman, that the lady was somewhat the worse for drink.

The man said something to her again, speaking in crude, peasantsounding Russian, and I caught the name of Kulakov. He seemed to be trying to explain to his companion that he had an appointment to meet Kulakov and have a talk with him.

Then suddenly the man broke off, having become aware of my presence where I sat pretending to be smoking in the shadows. At once he grew interested in me. Something about me–even in the dim light– caught his attention sharply.

Gently but firmly the peasant put his fair companion aside. As he released her, he made a gentle gesture with his broad hand, a wiping motion with the palm out. The hand did not touch the lady, but her eyelids sagged and she sat down on the edge of a big chair, then pitched softly forward to lie partially on a bearskin rug, in which position she fell asleep. Her fair breasts, almost escaping from her low-cut dress, seemed to be menaced by the dead fangs of the white bear.

My gaze lifted to the eyes of the man, who was standing motionless, regarding me. I was being challenged. Deliberately I crushed out my cigarette upon the marble floor. Perhaps this burly, impudent peasant was going to try to stare me down. A great many years had passed since anyone had seriously attempted that.

My eyesight, as you might suppose, is excellent even in dim light. I saw before me a powerfully built man, perhaps a little above the average height–he was not really tall, but he carried himself like a tsar and gave the impression of being tall. His age was in the early thirties. He had long dark hair parted in the middle, and a beard stained with the remains of several meals. His boots and clothing were cut in the peasant style but, as I have already remarked, made of richer materials than ordinary peasants ever saw.

However, all these matters were peripheral, as was his rancid, goatlike smell. It was the man’s eyes that really counted.

Taking a step or two toward me, he put out a broad, strong hand and said in his peasant Russian: “blessings, Little Father. I am Gregory Efimovich.”

Something was happening; I knew that, even as I got to my feet, but was not alarmed. I suppose I must have murmured something in reply. He accepted whatever I said as a fair greeting.

The hypnotic spell that had already begun to engulf me was very subtle, so subtle that I–I, Dracula–was scarcely aware of it at first. In my own defense, I can plead that I was already tired and that many days’ exposure to feeble northern sunlight had been a strain. At any rate, I must confess that I was well on my way to being overcome before I even realized that anything was wrong. To this day I am not sure whether I succumbed to a deliberate assault on the part of Gregory Efimovich, or whether it was only the way he was, part of his nature... for him, as automatic as drawing breath.

Suddenly, whatever the cause, at the suggestion that I might be tired, I was tired, and felt strangely content to sit back in my