Blood of the Impaler (33 page)

D
awn found him stumbling past the fountain in the piazza before his hotel. The old priest, a man of care and compassion, had not summoned the police but had rather attempted to minister to the obviously disturbed young man as best he could. He had hugged Malcolm to him soothingly as the young man wept, saying words of comfort. Malcolm, still racked with pain, had stumbled out of the church and wandered aimlessly around the city, coming at last to the door of his hotel as the sun began its ascent.

He ignored the desk clerks and the porters as he made his way up to the room he and Holly had taken for the two
days they would be in Rome, and he put his key into the latch with scarred, trembling hands.

Holly awaited him within, her face a study in sorrow and concern. "Are you all right?" she asked softly.

He shook his head slowly. "Last night . . . last night . . ."

"Don't think about last night," she said, not realizing the heinous act to which he was referring. "It doesn't matter. Just tell me if you're all right."

"I burned myself," he rasped through his scalded, blistering throat. "At a church . .
 
. communion . . ."

She nodded, understanding what he was trying to tell her. "Do you want to go to a hospital?"

He shook his head. "No help . . . no help . . . Holly, I . . ."

"Stop, Mal," she said, her voice quite serious and even. "As long as you're not injured seriously, then I have something to say." She seemed to take a deep breath. "I'm going home, today, if I can arrange it, and when I'm home, I don't think we should see each other anymore. It's just too much, Mal, it's just too much. I feel guilty, like I'm leaving you in a lurch or something, but I'm sorry, I just—" She seemed to be struggling against herself not to cry.

"Holly . . .
"
he said miserably.

"No, Malcolm, please don't say anything. I just can't take it anymore, I, just can't."

"Holly . . ." he repeated, and was then interrupted by a knock on the door. He opened it and a bellboy bowed slightly to him as he handed him a folded piece of paper. Malcolm closed the door, forgetting the tip that the bellboy so obviously expected to receive, then unfolded the paper and read it silently. He began to shake his head and mutter, "Stupid, stupid ass! My God, he can't mean it!"

Holly walked over to him. "What is it, Malcolm?"

He handed the paper to her and then sat down on the bed, weeping and pressing his clenched fists to his forehead. Holly looked at the paper, allowing her eyes to drop down to the scrawled signature before reading the body of the message. It was a note from Jerry Herman, which began without a salutation and was obviously written in haste:

She found me last night near the Colosseum. She's been following us, she's been with us all along. I have to help her, I don't have any choice. I'm sorry, I don't have any choice. She wants to ship English and Rumanian dirt to New York, she wants to go to America, I have to help her get there, I don't have any choice. She says that if I help her, she'll release me, let me go, take her blood out of me somehow. It's my only hope, don't you see? I'm sorry, I don't have any choice.

Holly sighed. "Poor Jerry." She looked over at Malcolm. "She isn't telling him the truth, is she."

"Of course not," he said, "She's enslaved him, and she'll keep control of him until he dies, and then he'll become like her, he'll become like
us
!"

She frowned. "What do you mean, like us?"

"You see what she's doing, don't you? It's my family, me and my sister and my grandfather.
They're
in New York,
they're
the ones he wants!"

"The ones he wants?" she echoed with confusion. "The ones who wants? Jerry?"

"Dracula!" he shouted. "He still exists, in Lucy Westenra, and in me and my grandfather and my sister! He's reaching out from beyond his own death to avenge himself on my family, to take revenge upon my great-grandparents." He fell suddenly silent, and as he stared down at the burns upon his hands, his face grew suddenly strong and determined.

Holly stared at him apprehensively, and at last she asked, "Malcolm? What are you thinking?"

"Then that's what it shall be," he whispered to himself, not hearing her question. "I know where she's going, and why. I know where his blood is leading her, and I know why it is leading her there." He began to walk to the door. "My great-grandparents and their friends destroyed him once. He
can
be beaten! He
can
be beaten!"

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To church," he replied, "to any church. I'm going to take the sacrament all day, all night, too, if need be. In a city
like Rome there must be hundreds of churches, and they
must say thousands of masses each day. I'm going to take communion until the pain stops, until I've purged myself, until I've brought this damn thing under control. Lucy is going to America, and I have to be ready for her. I have to be ready for
him.
"

He closed the hotel door behind him, leaving the sad, frightened young woman in the room alone. He did not ask
her to come with him. He did not want her to come with him. The image of the woman he had attacked was burned into his memory, and he wanted to pose no threat to Holly.

She did not understand this, of course. As she sat and stared morosely at the closed door, she thought,
poor Malcolm. I wish I could help him. I wish I could love him
.

She sighed inwardly.
But I just can't take any more of this
.

T
he taxi ride from Kennedy Airport in south Queens back to Forest Hills was as strained and as void of conversation as had been the long transatlantic flight from Europe. Holly had made her decision, and much as it grieved him, Malcolm understood. They were not wed; no vows had been exchanged; marital obligations of support in all things "for better or worse" did not bind her. And even if they had, Malcolm would have understood her reluctance. This was not a matter of conventional disease or the normal vicissitudes of fortune; thanks to Malcolm's misdirected efforts, a bloodthirsty monster was probably trailing them at this very moment. And Holly was of course aware of the fact that any children whom Malcolm might someday beget would inherit the same terrible legacy with which he was afflicted.

Thus he did not attempt to win her back or woo her with soft words and sweet promises. He did not tell her what he had done that night in Rome, but neither did he attempt to minimize the severity of his problem. They spoke but little all the way from Da Vinci Airport to Kennedy, and in the taxi that took them back to Forest Hills, they spoke not at all.

As they drew near Continental Avenue, Malcolm coughed and said, "I think maybe my grandfather would like to see you, say hello, something like that, if you don't mind. I'll walk you back to your apartment afterward."

"Sure, Mal," she said quietly. "Your grandfather's a kind old man. I'd like to say hello to him, too." Malcolm leaned forward to give a brief instruction to the cabdriver, and they turned toward Granville Place. It was early evening, and the streetlamps had just switched on as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Malcolm noticed what he thought was a chill in the air, unusual for midsummer; but then upon reflection he realized that it was he, not the air, that was cold.

The realization unnerved him. He was certain that the pain he had suffered that last day in Rome, when he had consumed the consecrated host hour after hour in church after church until at last the pain receded and then ceased, had restored to him the dominance of his own humanity over the pollution in his veins. But he was still weak beneath the sunshine and vigorous beneath the moon. He still felt no great hunger pangs when he should have, still had to force himself to eat food. The chill in his bones was unnatural and threatening.

The cab pulled to the curb before Malcolm's home, and he and Holly went quietly up to the front door. The driver walked behind them, carrying the two suitcases, assuming that anyone living in Forest Hills Gardens would likely be a big tipper. He was not mistaken, for Malcolm absentmindedly handed him a twenty-dollar bill and then turned to unlock the door, ignoring the driver's instinctive motion to make change.

Malcolm and Holly entered the oddly silent foyer of the large house. This early in the evening old Quincy should have been sitting in the den, watching the news, but there were no sounds whatsoever. They walked into the sitting room and found Malcolm's sister slumped down in a large easy chair, staring pensively off into space. Rachel turned as she heard their footsteps, and she rose as they entered.

Malcolm came up to her and looked closely at her face, at the tear-reddened eyes, the lined, sorrowfully downturned mouth. He had spared but little time for thought about Rachel over the past few weeks, and he felt now as if he were seeing her for the first time. All these years, while he was growing up in blissful ignorance, she had borne the burden of their terrible secret. She had guarded him, fretted over him, and loved him, all the while he had indulged in adolescent rebelliousness and insensitivity. As he looked into her eyes now, he felt an emotion combining guilt and love and understanding, and he knew that he needed her as much as she needed him. They were bound together by the curse, heirs of the selfsame plague, siblings of unnatural descent.

Something seemed to break in Malcolm's throat as he tried to speak, and he was unable to restrain himself from weeping. Rachel took him in her arms and hugged him
tightly, stroking his head as she pressed it down upon her shoulder, whispering to him through her own tears.

Holly stood aside quietly and respectfully. Feeling the tears welling up in her own eyes, she fought them down. After a few moments Rachel looked over at her and smiled sadly. "Hello, Miss Larsen," she said. "I'm sorry you lad to become involved in this."

"I know," Holly replied softly. "And I'm very, very sorry, too, Rachel. I'm sorry for the things I said to you."

"Where's Gramps?" Malcolm sniffed. "Where's Daniel?"

Rachel sighed. "Grandfather is in his room, resting. He's very ill, Malcolm. I think that the worry and tension ever since you left has, well, weakened him beyond recovery."

Malcolm sank down into a chair and shook his head, thinking,
he's going to die. And it will be my fault
.

As if sensing his thoughts, Rachel added, "He's a very old man, Malcolm. You mustn't reproach yourself. This time would have come eventually anyway."

Malcolm nodded, not wishing to argue about it. "And Daniel?"

Rachel sat down also. "He's gone. Left me. Walked out." Her face was a stoic mask, and only her brother could have seen the hurt and anger that she hid behind it.

"But why?" Holly asked. "You and he seemed so . . . well, so good together."

Rachel laughed bitterly. "You know most of the truth about our family, Miss Larsen, so you might as well know it all. I resolved early in my life that I would never have children, never pass this . . . this
disease
on to anyone else. I had an operation years ago, a tubal ligation, so that there would be no chance of my becoming pregnant. I met Daniel at church, and as we got to know each other, I learned that he didn't want children. Perfect for me—in other words. I married him because I wanted companionship. He married me because I'm affluent and come from a respectable family." She laughed again, softly. "A respectable family!" She shook her head, amused at the irony, then continued, "We never loved each other, not in the way that . . . well, not in the conventional sense. Ours was a marriage of convenience on both sides."

"But why did he leave you?" Malcolm asked.

"Why do you think?" she replied bitterly. "After you called us and told us what had happened with Lucy Westenra, I decided that Daniel best be told the whole truth. I expected
him to be shocked and disturbed, but he was furious, outraged. We argued terribly, and he said some absolutely horrible things to me. And then he packed his bags and left."

"So much for the 'better or worse' stuff," Malcolm muttered. Holly felt herself growing angry for Rachel. "That bastard!" she said.

"Yes," Rachel agreed. "We've been married for ten years. I expected better of him than this."

Malcolm closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, truly I am. This is my fault, too. It's all my fault." He pounded his fist angrily onto the arm of the chair.

Rachel reached over and placed her hand on his arm. "Malcolm," she said kindly, "stop all this nonsense. None of it is your fault. It's all that monster's fault, that damned beast's fault!" Her voice became suddenly tremulous. "I pray that God tortures him for all eternity!"

"Rachel, please," Malcolm said quickly. "We can't afford to get upset, not now. We have to be calm, rational." He was attempting to be strong, though his own anger and sorrow were overwhelming. "We have another problem."