Blood of the Impaler (18 page)

"Okay, so if it's a local nickname, how come the people here have never heard of it?" Holly asked.

"This is why," he said, holding out an old edition of the local newspaper. "The whole area was devastated by German bombs during the Blitz . . . you know, World War Two."

"I understood the reference," Holly said dryly.

"The point is, when the Germans were trying to bomb England out of the war, they concentrated a lot of their missions on
ports
,
and Whitby is a
port
!
In the process of trying to destroy Whitby, they blew up Carfax! That's why nobody's ever heard of the name! If you're fifty years old, like those cops seem to be, you'd have been an infant during the war!"

"Mal, why are you calling it Carfax?" Jerry said, a hint of exasperated anger creeping into his voice. "I mean, look at your logic, man! What it comes down to is that you're calling it Carfax simply because it isn't called Carfax. That's nuts!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Jerry, look at the goddamn bill of sale, will you!" He grabbed it from the tabletop. "Look here, right here. Who was the agent for the sale? What does it say?"

Jerry looked down at the page that Malcolm was holding. "Okay, so it says John Hawkins. So what? So Hawkins was a
successful solicitor and he did some work up here. Again, so what?"

Malcolm paused. "So look at the name of the witness to the buyer's signature. Look at it!"

Jerry looked again. "Okay, your great-grandfather. Mal, we already knew that Jonathan Harker worked for John Hawkins. That still doesn't mean—"

"Look at the buyer's signature. Look carefully."

Holly and Jerry took turns trying to decipher the almost illegible letters. "Looks like an abbreviation," Holly said at last.

"Yeah," Jerry agreed. "Just letters. But none of them is a
D."

"Okay, okay," Malcolm said as if he were speaking to a couple of unusually slow children. "What are the letters?"

"They're . . ." Holly began, squinting at the scrawl, "they're . . . WL . . . WAL . . . WOI . . . I think."

"Will Walwoi?" Jerry said, trying to make auditory sense of the letters. "Will Walwoi? You're trying to tell me that you can get the name Dracula out of Will Walwoi!"

"Damn it, Jerry, that was his name, his real name!" Malcolm shouted.

"Good thing he changed it," Jerry mused. "Who could take a vampire named Will Walwoi seriously?"

"Jerry . . . !"

"Will Walwoi, Prince of Darkness! Curse of Will Walwoi! Will Walwoi Meets the Wolfman! Abbott and Costello Meet
Will Walwoi!
" Jerry began to laugh. "Can you imagine Bela Lugosi saying, 'Good eeevening. I am Will Walwoi!" At this, Holly started to giggle.

Malcolm's jaw clenched as he grew red in the face. "Will you two shut up!" They did, startled into compliance by the sudden intensity of his anger. "Listen to me, both of you! In languages that use the Roman alphabet for writing, the letters
U,
V
and
W
are often interchanged. This
W
is a
V.
"

"
Okay," Jerry said, starting to laugh again, "so it's Vill Valvoi, Prince of Darkness."

"This isn't funny, goddamn it!" Malcolm shouted.

Jerry quieted down and listened, trying not to think of other amusing movie titles, knowing that this was a matter of deadly seriousness to his friend.

"The
W
is a
V
" Malcolm went on. "You've read the book, like I asked you to. Where did Dracula come from? What was his title?"

"The
novel
,"
Holly said, "calls him a Transylvanian count."

"Right, as far as it goes," Malcolm said, still red in the face from his anger. "But the word 'count' is an English title, or maybe it's French. The point is that it isn't Rumanian. What was his Rumanian title? What was the Rumanian name for his province, not where he lived when my great-grandfather met him—"

"Your great-grandfather did
not
meet him!" Holly said.

"—but the province he ruled historically, back in the fifteenth century," he said, ignoring her objection.

"Mal, who the hell knows?" Jerry said. "I didn't memorize the flucking book, you know!"

Malcolm glowered at him. "He was called Vlad Tepes, which means Vlad the Impaler, when he ruled the province of Wallachia as prince, or in Rumanian, voivode." He jabbed his forefinger hard on the signature. "WlWalWoi. Vlad of Wallachia, Voivode."

Holly shook her head. "I really think you're reaching here, Malcolm."

"Oh, come on, Holly! Admit it! It's proof positive! This guy's father was called the Dragon by his people, and he was called the Little Dragon, Dracula. But his name, his real name, was Voivode Vlad of Wallachia." Malcolm sat down heavily at the table. "This clinches it. Dracula bought Carfax Abbey through my great-grandfather and Mr. Hawkins, shipped boxes of native soil to England through Carter, Patterson and Company. It's all real. Van Helsing, Stewart, Wellington, Carfax . . . it's all true!"

Jerry looked at Holly. "Tell him what you told me outside."

Malcolm looked up excitedly. "Tell me what?"

Holly repeated her theory and Malcolm listened attentively, skeptical at first, but becoming increasingly thoughtful as she pressed her point with insistence. She concluded her argument by saying, "You have to admit that it would make a lot more sense than all of this supernatural stuff, wouldn't it?" He nodded, not convinced but desperate to be convinced. "It's possible . . . it's possible . . ."

"Of course it's possible," Jerry said casually, as if it were obvious to even the most benighted intellect. "I mean, the alternative is impossible, so this must be the truth."

Malcolm continued to nod his head but then said firmly, "There's one way to settle it once and for all. I told you what I was going to do if everything else checked out as real."

Jerry moaned as Holly said, "Malcolm, you are
not
going to start opening people's graves looking for wooden stakes!"

"Holly, I have to—"

"No! I'm putting my foot down here!" she said petulantly. "Jerry and I have gone along with you this far, but this is it! This is the end!"

"She's right, Mal," Jerry added. "We've checked the obits and all that stuff, and there's no reference to Lucy Westenra anyway."

"So we go to Hempstead and look for her grave," Malcolm said.

"No, Malcolm!" Holly said. "I've just about had it with this nonsense! We've driven all the hell over the place ever since we got here; my eyes are probably damaged from reading all these faded old documents; I've inhaled enough dust to make me feel like a coal miner. Enough, Malcolm! Enough!"

His eyes narrowed as he stared at her, and she felt herself shivering slightly. There was a coldness about his look, something unfamiliar and alien, and when he spoke, his voice was hard and bitter. "You promised me," he said. "You both promised me. I have to find out the truth, and I don't want to have to do it alone. You say that you're my friends, and yet . . . and yet . . ." He paused and looked from Holly to Jerry. "You promised me, both of you."

Holly looked to Jerry for support, but she saw that he, too, had been nonplussed by the strangeness of Malcolm's aspect. She turned back to Malcolm and said, "I didn't mean to yell at you, honest I didn't. I know how upset you are, and . . . well . . ." She stopped speaking and looked again to Jerry.

"Look, uh, Mal," Jerry said tentatively, "how about this: We go to Hempstead tomorrow and look around the graveyard. If we don't find the grave, we go back to London and party like crazy for the week we have left. Will that satisfy you?"

Malcolm nodded slowly. "And if we do find the grave?" Neither of his friends replied.

"And if we do find the grave?" he repeated. "Remember
what I said back in New York. If we find Lucy Westenra's grave, we open it up and examine her remains. Right?" Again, no response.

"Right?" he said again, slowly and forcefully.

Jerry nodded. "Yeah,
sure. Sure, Mal, sure."

Malcolm looked at Holly.

After a moment she said, "Okay, Malcolm."

He nodded. "Good." Then something of the customary melancholy warmth returned to his face, and he smiled as if slightly ashamed of his attitude of a moment before. "You have to bear with me. This whole thing is eating me up inside."

Holly was relieved at the sudden disappearance of the stranger, and she smiled as she squeezed his hand. "You know what I think?"

"What?" he asked.

"I think we'll leave here bright and early and get back to southern England by the afternoon. We'll go to Hempstead, find the churchyard, look around, and not find a thing. It's one thing to write a book using your friends' names just for a laugh and using real places and all that, and it's something else entirely to use the name of a real person as a murder victim. Believe me, Malcolm, there just simply was no Lucy Westenra."

"Couldn't have been," Jerry agreed.

Malcolm considered their statements. "You both seem pretty certain."

"I
am
certain," Holly said confidently. "Aren't you, Jerry?"

"Not a doubt in my mind," he replied.

"I hope you're right," Malcolm said, nodding softly.

Jerry laughed. "Of course we're right, Mal, and by this time tomorrow, not only are you going to realize how silly this whole thing has been, but Holly and I are going to be making you the butt of more jokes than you'll be able to count!"

They left Whitby the next morning with the dawn. By four in the afternoon they had reached Hempstead. By four-fifteen they had found the old churchyard.

At four-thirty they were standing silently before the Westenra mausoleum.

M
alcolm Harker gazed out the window of the room he had taken in the King Edward Hotel in Hempstead, watching as the sun sank slowly down toward the distant hills. He did not hear the gentle tap on the door, and thus he did not turn to see Holly Larsen enter his room. "Malcolm?" she asked. "Can I come in for a minute?" He did not respond. He was staring at the ruddy orb pensively, silently. "Malcolm?" she repeated. "Are you okay?"

He spun around quickly as if startled, startling her in turn with the rapid motion. He gazed at her for a moment and then smiled. "Oh, Holly. I'm sorry I didn't hear you come in."

She moved farther into the room and closed the door behind her. "I think we have to talk, Mal."

He nodded. "Yes, we do. I've been thinking this whole thing over, and I have a few ideas I'd like to run by you."

"That's not what I mean, Malcolm," she interrupted. "I'm not interested in this nutty fantasy of yours, and I'm starting to wonder if . . . well, if maybe . . ."

He sighed. "If maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore, once we're back in the States?" She assented with her silence, and he walked over to the bed and sat down, not looking at her. "I can't say I blame you. There's no reason in the world why anyone would want to stay with someone who has the kind of problem I might have."

"Damn it, Malcolm!" she said angrily. "You don't understand at all, not at all! Your only problem is that you believe this stupid horror story, and that's what I'm concerned about!" She sat down beside him and took his hand in hers, "Listen, Mal, I'm not really sure that we should break up. It's just that I've had just about as much of this nonsense as I intend to take, you know? You have to get yourself together, Malcolm, you really do."

Malcolm nodded. "I know I do, I know I do." Then, changing the subject, he asked, "Where's Jerry?"

"Out hitting the pubs. He's fed up, Mal."

He sniffed. "Great friend."

"He
is
a great friend," she insisted with an adamance she did not truly feel. Were the truth to be known, she had not quite forgiven Jerry for leading Malcolm into the ill-fated tryst with Vanessa; but Jerry's skepticism and common sense were allies in her struggle against Malcolm's delusions, and so she defended him. "You've gotten so wrapped up in this crazy idea that you've forgotten how this looks to me and Jerry Malcolm, this is nuts."

He looked over at her and then nodded as he squeezed
her hand. "Maybe so. We'll know tonight, one way or the other."

Holly gritted her teeth and sighed. "Malcolm, you are
not
going to break into someone's grave!"

"I have to."

"You
can't
!"

He rose to his feet and began to pace back and forth, saying, "Listen to me, Holly, listen to me carefully. A lot of very strange ideas have been popping into my head ever since we found Lucy's grave, ideas so weird that they almost scare me, but the ideas keep coming anyway, and the more I think them over, the more sense they make."