"Okay. So what?"
"Well, there are a couple of things I learned about the funeral business from those experiences. It's all part of consumer protection and all that stuff."
"Jerry," Malcolm said heatedly, "what the hell are you talking about?"
"Funeral homes only embalm people in this state if the family specifically requests it," Jerry explained, handing the bill to Malcolm. "Look. No embalming charge."
Malcolm looked at the bill and then jumped to his feet. "Holy shit!" he screamed. "Those stupid assholes!"
"Malcolm, it's the law," Jerry said quickly. "Your grandfather arranged his own burial in advance. He probably didn't want to spend the money on embalming, and since it was a closed casket anyway, the funeral home never even mentioned the option to you."
Rachel's face had lost every bit of its color. "Then he . . . then Grandfather . . ."
"'Fraid so," Jerry said. "Damn it, I thought the sunlight had taken care of him. It never occurred to me—"
"Christ Almighty!" Malcolm shouted. "It's almost night! He's going to come back, he's going to come back!"
"He won't come here," Jerry said, trying to calm his friend. "He doesn't know where I live."
"Sure, and Lucy didn't know what hotel we were staying in over in England, but she found you and attacked you, didn't she? Do you think that was a coincidence?" he shouted. "And that's not the point, anyway! He's going to kill people tonight, and we have to stop him!"
"Yes," Rachel said, strangely calm. "We have to get to the cemetery before the sun is down—"
"The goddamned sun is setting right now!" Malcolm Said.
"Then we have to leave right now," Rachel said, getting to her feet. "I have a crucifix in my purse. We can buy some garlic at a fruit stand along the way. All we have to do is contain him, just for tonight, and then we can . . . well, I don't know, but whatever we can do, we'll do tomorrow."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Jerry said as Malcolm and Rachel grabbed their coats and went to the door. "You don't go vampire hunting after dark! That's nuts!"
"We don't have any choice, Jerry," Malcolm said. "Are you coming with us?"
Jerry paused. He had no desire to go to the cemetery and wait in the darkness for the emergence of the undead, but neither did he relish the thought of waiting alone in his apartment with the knowledge that the vampires might know where he was.
"Come on, Jerry, make up your mind, will you?" Malcolm said urgently.
"Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I'll come," he said miserably, following them out the door of the apartment. This is wonderful, he thought. This is just great.
Rachel had parked her BMW on the street outside Jerry's apartment building, and after unlocking the passenger door, she handed the keys to her brother, indicating that she wanted him to drive. Malcolm drove off even before Jerry had pulled the car door completely shut.
It took a scant two minutes for Rachel to run into a fruit stand and buy some garlic while Malcolm double-parked outside the store, and they drove up Queens Boulevard toward Kew Gardens at breakneck speed. As they reached the still-open gates of Maple Grove Memorial Park, the last rays of the sun were fading behind the already glowing skyline of Manhattan. Malcolm parked the car just inside.
The sign on the driveway gate warned all visitors that the cemetery was locked up daily at sunset, as is customary, and that meant that they would have to get to Quincy's freshly dug grave quickly, hoping that the caretaker and the security patrol would not see them before they were able to place the garlic and crucifix onto the mound of earth. They were not certain that this would keep their grandfather imprisoned beneath the ground, but they had to try.
"Let's go this way," Malcolm said, leaving the paved road and walking up onto a grassy knoll to the left of the entrance. "We'll be less likely to be seen if we aren't on the road."
"Good idea," Rachel said, following him. The entire expedition seemed like a bad idea to Jerry, but he trailed behind her in disgruntled silence. He stopped when Rachel stopped. "Malcolm," she said softly.
"What?" he asked in the same hushed tone, turning to her.
"Look"—she pointed into the distance—"over there."
He followed the direction of her finger with his eyes. "What are you pointing at? I don't see anything."
"Over there, near Grandfather's grave. It's all foggy." Malcolm looked again. He could see the oblong mound of freshly turned dirt where Quincy Harker had been buried earlier that day, and it was in fact quite misty there. He shrugged. "So what? The weather is always weird in cemeteries. It doesn't mean anything."
"Except that vampires can turn themselves into mist," Rachel pointed out. "I've read the Stoker book also, you know, long before you did."
Malcolm looked hard at the distant fog. He clutched the garlic tightly in his hand and took a deep breath. "Well, let's go see." He walked ahead. Rachel followed him and Jerry walked beside her, not wishing to be isolated in the rear.
They reached their grandfather's grave site and stood for a moment as the fog swirled about them. Then Malcolm stepped over and placed the fresh, acrid plant onto the mound of dirt. Rachel placed the crucifix upon the mound also. They turned and looked at Jerry, who was holding his portion of the garlic close to his chest, and Malcolm said, "Come on, Jerry."
Jerry shook his head. "No way, man. I've got this stuff with me, and I'm keeping it!"
"Jerry—" Malcolm began.
"Forget it, Mal," Jerry said, his voice trembling. "I'm not letting go of this stuff until I'm back in the car."
Malcolm opened his mouth to speak, but the soft sound of laughter, coming at once from everywhere and from nowhere, silenced him. He looked around and saw to his great discomfort that the fog was growing rapidly thicker. His sister and his friend drew close to him, and they stood together as if in an oasis of clarity in a desert of mist.
"Malcolm!" Rachel said, her voice filled with feat "What's happening here? Is it . . . is Grandfather . . . ?"
"Mal, let's get out of here, okay?" Jerry begged, his voice as tremulous as his hands. "Let's just go home or to the Strand or someplace else, anyplace else!"
"There is nowhere you can go," Quincy Harker said as he stepped out of the fog. He smiled kindly at his grandchildren and their friend. "Just go home, Malcolm. Go home, Rachel—and Jerry, go with them. Go home and rest. We will come for you at the appointed time."
The three living humans stood in frightened, wary silence, looking at the undead creature. Quincy was wearing a dark black suit, the style of which matched nothing in his wardrobe, and the depth of the blackness accentuated the pallor of his flesh and the demonic glow in his eyes. Malcolm was gazing in wonder and fear at the walking corpse when Jerry tugged on his sleeve and said, "Mal! Look! Over there!
He turned to see the fog parting as Holly Larsen and Lucy Westenra emerged into the oasis of clarity, each dressed in soft, flowing, transparent white gowns through which their nipples showed black as night; and as Malcolm gazed at them, and as if in response to his observation, the women' nipples grew suddenly red as blood. "Hello, honey," Holly said sweetly. "It's so good to see you again."
Malcolm held Rachel tightly to his side and Jerry tried to huddle in between them. "You can't win," Rachel said, trying to sound brave.
"We've already won," Lucy responded, her long, blonde hair seeming to blow in the absent wind. "And in any event, you have no idea what we are planning to do."
"We'll track you down," Malcolm said.
"Hide and seek," Holly said, and laughed. "We'll be waiting for you."
"Waiting for what?" Rachel asked bitterly. "Waiting to destroy us? Well, here we are. What's stopping you? It's three to three, and you are all the stronger for it being night. Why don't you attack us now?"
Lucy stepped forward and shook her head as if with patient and amused exasperation. "Attack you! Destroy you! Why, my dear, you misunderstand us. Your destruction is the last thing we want!"
"You want us to join you, to be a
s you are," Rachel said. "Well, I—"
"Nor that," Lucy interrupted. "Your grandfather's joining our little company was an accident, and certainly not one which I had anticipated . . . not that he isn't welcome, of course." Quincy Harker laughed quietly as Lucy continued, "I needed our sweet Holly for a variety of reasons, which I don't believe I will share with you just yet, and I needed that little fool"—she nodded at Jerry—"as an assistant for a time." She grinned. "Travel can present some difficulties for us, you see. But I certainly have no desire to see either of you become like we are, my dear Harkers."
"Of course not," Malcolm said to Rachel without taking his eyes from the creatures. "They want to awaken the blood in us so that their creator can live on in us, live on through us."
"Oh, Malcolm!" Lucy said. "You are such a little dolt. That's not my intention either!"
"But it must be!" Malcolm protested. "What else could you want? If that isn't it, then why are you here? Why did you follow me back to America? If you don't want us to be like you and you don't want the Count to exist in us, then what the hell do you want?"
Lucy laughed loudly and withdrew into the fog. "Hide and seek, little Harker, hide and seek!"
The fog enveloped her, and Quincy Harker along with her, leaving only Holly Larsen remaining. She very slowly and seductively ran her hands over her body from breast to belly as she whispered, "I'll see you soon, Malcolm, darling. And when I do, I'm going to just love you to death." Then the fog enveloped her as well, and she was gone.
The fog dissipated suddenly. It did not blow away, it did not thin out, it seemed merely to vanish. Malcolm, Rachel, and Jerry stood alone before the fresh, empty grave of Quincy Harker, and none of them spoke for what seemed a long while. Then Malcolm sighed, "Oh, Holly."
"Very well," Rachel said firmly. "So the worst has come."
Malcolm shook his head. "They haven't killed us yet, Rachel, and for all we know they're out creating more vampires at this very moment. We're nowhere near the worst yet."
Rachel smoothed back her hair and straightened her skirt. "Think like a defeatist and you'll be defeated, Malcolm. We still have to find them and kill them while they are helpless during the day, just as we had planned to do before. The only difference is that now there are three of them, not two of them."
"One," Malcolm said quietly. "There's only one. There has always been only one."
She nodded, understanding. "Yes. And it is his power that we must destroy, by destroying them. Our grandfather is dead, Malcolm. So is Miss Larsen. And so is that other poor creature. They are already dead, and we must steel ourselves to the task of freeing them from undeath."
"Uh, I hate to be a wet blanket here," Jerry said, his voice still quivering, "but we have absolutely no idea where to look for them."
"Three of them," Malcolm muttered pensively.
"Yes, and who knows how many more before—" Rachel began.
"No, no, you're missing the point," Malcolm interrupted. "Three of them, three of us."
Rachel and Jerry considered this for a moment, but neither was able to see where Malcolm's observation was leading. "Yeah, okay, three to three," Jerry said at last. "So what? Even odds? Is that what you mean?"
"No"—Malcolm frowned—"the odds are never even. If it were one vampire against a hundred of us, at night the odds would be in the vampire's favor. And if there were only one of us against a hundred vampires, we'd have the advantage during the day." He paused. "Of course, she killed Holly before she knew what would happen to Gramps, so maybe it's just a coincidence that it's three to three. Maybe she just needed at least one other."
"Malcolm, get to the point," Rachel demanded.
"Hey, can we finish this conversation back in the car?" Jerry asked. "I really want to get the hell out of here."
"Sure, Jerry," Malcolm agreed. As they walked back toward the cemetery gate, garlic and crosses at the ready, he went on, "Lucy said that she needed Holly for something. What could she need her for?"
"As an ally?" Jerry suggested.
"Of course, as an ally," Rachel snapped. "Malcolm's question is, as an ally for what?"
"If she were dealing with us all by herself, would she need an ally? Wouldn't she be able to escape from us if we went after her?"
"Most likely yes," Rachel answered without hesitation, "unless we had crosses or consecrated hosts and managed to corner her in a sealed room at sunrise."
"Which would probably be real easy for her to avoid," Jerry said.
"Right." Malcolm nodded, then lapsed into thoughtful silence as they reached the car. Malcolm started the engine and drove out through the cemetery gate just as the grounds keeper was preparing to shut and lock it. They were driving back down Queens Boulevard before Malcolm said, "I think she needs the three of us all together, all at once, in the same place."
"She just had all three of us together in the same place," Jerry pointed out.
"Yes, but we were ready for her, we were in control. I think she needs to get all three of us together when she's in control."
"Why, Malcolm?" Rachel asked. "I don't follow your reasoning at all."
"It's simple. Remember what Stewart wrote in his diary about the night when Dracula attacked our great-grandmother. He immobilized our great-grandfather Jonathan and then attacked Mina. But when Stewart and Van Helsing broke into the room—"
"Dracula fled," Rachel finished for him. "So?"
"So why would Lucy need an ally unless she anticipated having to control more than two people at one time? If Dracula didn't feel confident in a situation like that, Lucy certainly wouldn't. And also, remember that these creatures don't feel the same need for companionship that living beings feel. Whenever they intentionally create another vampire, there's always some sort of logical reason for doing it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't help but think that whatever she's planning to do involves having the three of us at her mercy simultaneously."
"But why?" Jerry asked. "If she wants to get rid of us or make us like they are, why not do it one at a time?"
"She just told us she didn't want to do either of those things, Jer. If she wanted to kill me, she could have done it in Rumania. If she wanted to kill you, she could have done it right after you helped her get into the country. She could have followed me to the hospital the night Gramps died and gotten any one of us when we left the hospital room. Think about it, Jerry. Have we three ever been together without some sort of weapon we could use to protect ourselves against her? The answer is no. Whatever she wants to do has to be done to all three of us at once, not one at a time, with Lucy in control of the situation."
"Assuming what you say is true," Rachel said, sighing wearily, "what does it mean for us? How can it help us plan?"
"Yeah, right," Jerry added. "If Lucy's waiting for me to be unprotected, she's gonna have one hell of a long wait. I mean, I ain't goin' nowhere without garlic for the rest of my life! Hell, I'm even gonna wear a cross, and I'm Jewish!"
"What it means," Malcolm said slowly, "is that we have to separate."
"What?" they asked in unison.
"Yes, separate." Malcolm's hands clenched the steering wheel tightly. "Look, we can't beat them by doing what we've been doing. We'll never get the upper hand on them at this rate. I think we're safer apart than together."
Rachel shook her head angrily. "Malcolm, that's ridiculous. We have to search for them, and when we've found them, destroy them. It would be foolish to separate."
"Is it?" he asked. "We can't find them and destroy them because we don't know where they're sleeping during the day, and New York City is just too big a place to look for them. We can't do anything to them at night because when they're conscious they're too powerful and too shrewd. All we can do for the time being is wait for them to make the next move, keep ourselves protected at night, and keep away from each other so that they can't trap us all together. I don't know what Lucy's plans are, and neither do you. So we separate, we protect ourselves, and we wait."
"
We wait!" Jerry said. "We wait for what?"
"We wait for them to do something," Malcolm replied. "We wait for something to happen so that we can try to figure out what to do. We stay away from each other until they act, and then, and only then, we'll rejoin and face them."
They sat in silence for a long while. Malcolm was waiting for them either to agree or to argue further, but when Rachel and Jerry continued their silence, he said, "We have to figure out a way to keep in touch without letting each other know where we are."
"We could keep in touch by phone," Rachel suggested, her suggestion implying agreement with her brother's idea.
"No," Malcolm said. "Remember how Van Helsing tracked Dracula down? Mina Harker was tied to him by the blood, and by hypnotizing Mina, Van Helsing was able to get sense impressions from the mind of the Count. We're tied together by the blood, we three. We can't let each other know where we're staying, what our phone numbers are, anything at all that might provide a clue to our whereabouts. If one of us is captured, the other two could be found the same way Van Helsing found Dracula." He paused and thought. "How about this. We each go . . . wherever were going, and then find phone booths somewhere near enough for us to get to them, but not near enough to give our locations away. Then we call the Strand and leave the numbers with . . . what's her name, the girl who works the Saturday afternoon shift?"
"Jennifer," Jerry replied.
"Right. We leave the numbers with Jennifer, and then call each other daily at around noon."
Rachel nodded.
Jerry, seeing her gesture, shrugged. "Well, okay. If you two want to separate, I don't have any choice. I think it's dangerous, but . . ." and he shrugged again.
"It is dangerous, Jer," Malcolm agreed. "It's very dangerous, because I could be completely wrong in this. But let's face it, we've passed beyond the point of being able to avoid danger."
Rachel gave her brother a sad but affectionate smile. "You're getting rather good at this, Malcolm," she said softly. "Very farsighted and very logical."
"Yes," he sighed, returning her smile. "I wonder if I'm finally developing a marketable skill!"
Blood of the Impaler Page 32
