Napoleon handed the gentleman's stick back to him with a slight bow, and addressed him tentatively in French. "My compliments on the footwork, my friend. Do you often have occasion to practice?"
"Only the last few days," said the other, in moderately accented English. "My knowledge of the art was mainly theoretical until I chose to return to my homeland. Your handling of—was that karate?—is quite professional."
Illya broke in. "You can compliment each other later. Come over here and listen to these two."
He had both old gentlemen pinned down, and neither of them was acting particularly gentlemanly. Both were using words far outside Napoleon's Hungarian vocabulary, but he gathered from the few cognates he caught that their speech was even worse than their behavior. Illya tried to question them as to their motives, but it was obvious nothing more could be gotten out of them.
At last Illya gave up, shook them both soundly, and set them down on the pavement with their friend. He patted them each lightly on the cheek, and said, "Remember in the future, when you gang up on someone, be sure you have a large enough gang." He turned to their rescued friend and said, "Can we take you somewhere?"
He shook his head, and said, "My hotel is but a few streets from here. These peasants will not molest me again."
Napoleon looked at the figures scattered about the sidewalk and said, "I hope you weren't planning on staying very long. They probably have friends."
"No, I am flying to Bucharest Tuesday. I am returning to my ancestral home after a great many years." He sighed. "I fear it will not be the same land I left."
Now at last Napoleon got a clear look at his face under the streetlight. He looked about thirty, and had deep-set black eyes of the type described in another part of the world as "eyes that could see through a brick wall." His cheekbones were high and his lips thin, and his head was carried proudly. Probably some small Count, Napoleon thought automatically. A lot of young sons had been displaced by the war, and the political situation following it, and had been filtering back over the years to view their ancestral acreage.
"Pardon me," he said before turning to go, "but may I have the pleasure of knowing your names?"
Napoleon and Illya introduced themselves, and he repeated their names, and thanked them. "I hope we may meet again," he said. "Until we do, remember Zoltan, whom you saved from an embarrassing circumstance this night." He bowed, and strolled off down the street.
The two U.N.C.L.E. agents looked at each other, and shrugged. Elena was the first one to speak. "We are too late for the last show," she said unhappily.
Napoleon laughed. "Now really, didn't you think our show was better than anything they could put on a stage?"
"Well...yes, but it was over so quickly I could hardly tell what was happening."
"We promise to reënact it all in slow motion for you sometime," he promised. "But I think right now we had better be going, before our antagonistic citizenry rouse themselves and take it into their minds to find out who we are and cause trouble for us."
They loaded into the car again and Illya took them around two or three quick corners and back into the Andrassy Avenue. As they rolled back towards the U.N.C.L.E. office, Napoleon said thoughtfully, "You understand the language better than I do. Did the old boys mention any reason for trying to run down Zoltan?"
Illya shook his head. "They just called him—and us—a lot of bad names. Nothing particularly original or edifying."
Napoleon thought a while longer. "What was that the old man said that got Zoltan so steamed up? 'He is—something—that is enough.' Val...? Volko...? Vlkoslak—that was it. What does 'vlkoslak' mean?"
Illya looked straight ahead over the steering wheel at the street. "I can only think of one definition," he said hesitantly. "It must be a slang use."
"Vlkoslak?" said Elena. "It's not any slang that I know of. It's a peasant word for the wampyr—a kind of flying ghost that attacks their herds at night."
"Wampyr?" said Napoleon, an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"Vampire," said Illya, without a flicker of expression.
Chapter 3: "The Natives Believe Many Strange Things."
They left Budapest by train Monday afternoon, and went to sleep that night while the flat farmlands of the Alföld were rolling endlessly past their windows. They were awakened about dawn by an apologetic conductor, who told them the border check was approaching and requested them to have their passports ready for the inspectors.
The scenery hadn't changed, except for the addition of a few trees to the grasslands, but when the train rounded a curve Napoleon could see the dark shadows of mountains rising far ahead of them against the soft gray sky.
It was still not full day when the train whistled to a stop at a station. The change in motion reawakened both U.N.C.L.E. agents, who had gone back to sleep with their passports in their hands. Illya yawned widely, stretched, and looked out the window. "Border check," he said.
Napoleon saw the name of the city, and smiled. "We are at Curtici," he said. "I hope they live up to their name."
"Not 'courtesy,' Napoleon," said Illya patiently. "Kur-teech."
Napoleon shrugged and leaned back in the seat. He felt sticky and unpleasant, as he always did after sleeping in his clothes. The car was cold, and he had slept poorly. The only source of heat was a burner in one corner with two adjustments—off and on—and they had decided about midnight that freezing was preferable to asphyxiation. Napoleon's only comments had been, "I'm glad we waited for first-class accommodations." Illya had made no comment.
The guard who checked their passports entered with a truculent air which Napoleon fully understood, considering the hour, and requested their papers. He looked closely at the diplomatic passports they gave him, and his face lit up when he saw their names. "Ah!" he said in English. "You are told to me by the telegraph. You do a good work here. People thank you many much. I am pleasure to..." He groped for a word. "... to write your passport." And he rubberstamped the proper place on their visas, touched his hat brim, and went out.
Napoleon looked at his partner with canted eyebrows. "Nothing like secrecy in every operation," he said. "I wonder who told us to him by the telegraph."
"Probably Brasov Securitate," said Illya. "They've got a messy job on their hands, and we are taking over for them."
The Securitate is not exactly a secret police; these are mostly things of the past in Europe today. Their existence is as widely admitted and advertised as is that of the F.B.I., and their avowed purposes are much the same, though their methods may differ. They keep watch over problems which affect the whole country; they are available to assist local law enforcement; they take special responsibility for tourists, especially those from the West. And now they had an American murdered, or at least committing suicide under highly unusual circumstances. It was not a good thing for their reputations, and if the victim's own people were willing to take the burden of the case, it would be relinquished to them with pleasure.
"It's a relief to have them on our side for a change," said Napoleon, and he meant it. All but one of the few times he had been in Rumania, his actions there would have appeared highly questionable, not to say illegal, to the established authorities. And Napoleon Solo was not one to prefer bucking the tide of public opinion. Coöperation, whenever practical, was his motto.
As the day expanded across the sky, and breakfast came and went, the terrain grew rougher. The mountains were on both sides of them now, but still a respectful distance back from the river they were following. There were more trees now, too, between the open farmlands and climbing up the blue hazy slopes that edged the valley.
When they stopped for lunch, Illya noticed a clock in the station and pointed it out to Napoleon. "Set your watch ahead an hour," he said. "If I hadn't been half asleep at the border I'd have remembered then. Hungary is on the same time as the rest of Europe, but Rumania is on Turkish Standard."
"Marvelous," said Napoleon. "Have you ever thought of hiring
on as a professional guide?"
"That's all right, Napoleon," said Illya comfortingly. "You'll feel better with a hot bath and some fresh clothes. We'll be arriving in Brasov about sundown, and a short drive back into the mountains will have us at our destination."
"You drive," said Napoleon. "You know the country."
"Eclary will be meeting us in Brasov with the car," said Illya, "and he will drive us both."
"That's the technician who was working with Carl, isn't it? Did you pick up any data on him?"
Illya shrugged. "Young, but reasonably competent. Native of the area, educated in Cluj, no particular politics. Training in history and folklore—all this according to Djelas. The competency is my own opinion, based on the fact that he has not been found sitting in the woods bled dry by this mysterious menace that got Carl and two other natives of the area who should have known better."
"At least he hadn't when we left Budapest," said Napoleon. "When he meets us at the station, I'll be confident in him."
* * *
About mid-afternoon they crossed the Rosul Pass amid dark pines and craggy rocks, and shortly before dusk they came down from another mountain towards Brasov. Away to their left ran grasslands and another range of foothills; but close on their right the Transylvanian Alps rose to rugged white-topped peaks.
It was dark when they left the train and looked around for their host. Some minutes passed in the waiting room of the station and Napoleon was on the verge of calling him on the U.N.C.L.E. transceiver when a light voice behind them said tentatively, "Domnul Solo? Domnul Kuryakin?"
He turned, and saw a girl with bluegray eyes and an uncertain smile which came and went like a light bulb that was not snug in its socket. She was casually dressed and wore a black beret at a jaunty angle on her short, dark hair. She came about up to Napoleon's chin.
"Da," said Illya. "Were you sent by Domnul Eclary?"
Her eyes widened. "Domnul Eclary? Oh, I see what you mean. No, I am Domnisoara Hilda Eclary, if that is what you mean. I was working with Carl on this vampire problem."
Napoleon decided he liked her. She was the first person he had talked to since this had started last week who openly and casually spoke of what everyone else seemed unwilling to think about. He smiled at her. "Do you call it that in your reports?"
She snorted. "Of course not. My superiors in Bucharest are very wise in the ways of their world, and would make everything fit it. But here it is a vampire. Your job is to find that it is really something else, so that Bucharest, Budapest, Geneva and New York can find the proper heading to file it under. Here and now, we are dealing with a vampire. Do you have a better or more descriptive name for it?"
Napoleon looked at the question for a while, and finally said, "Well...I guess not."
"Bring your luggage," she said. "The car is out here." And she started briskly towards the door.
* * *
Twenty minutes later they were rolling south through the outskirts of the city, towards the mountains. The old black Poboda was laden with three suitcases and a trunk full of items which were not only somewhat more than standard for tourists, but which would have given any customs official in Europe heart failure.
The headlights splashed yellow across the narrowing road which wound up into the night. The stars were sharp and clear, but there was no moon. There would be none for another few days. Pine trees rose as black shapes along the road and flicked by like telephone poles. There were no other cars.
As the last of the houses slipped behind them and the mountain darkness rose ahead, Illya asked, "How far it is it to Pokol?"
"It will take us about three hours," said Hilda obliquely. "The road is narrow and sometimes we must go slowly."
"Well," said Napoleon, "we've read the reports that were filed on your investigations here. And one impression I felt more than any other was that they omitted a great deal. You didn't dare tell Budapest that you thought you were up against a vampire..."
"Would you?" she asked. "I like my job."
"If I really believed we were after a vampire, I would tell New York. I would tell them why, and..." His voice trailed off doubtfully.
"... And they would suggest you needed to be replaced. No, Mr. Solo, I do not believe you will find a wampyr, one of the undead, when everything has been learned. But in these mountains, with what has happened, do not be ashamed to think of it as a vampire until you can prove something else. The village is not far from the city in miles, but it has been out of the tide of the present for long years. The old ways are strong in Pokol, and it is easier to do as your father did than to think of new ways."
"I can see this," said Illya. "It is often the same way in our country. But do they still cling even to their old bogies?"
"The natives believe many strange things," Hilda said. "Perhaps it is the country, perhaps it is the mountains. Perhaps it is the mass of unquestioning belief that sets eyes in the darkness and strange things in the forests at night. But do not make fun of the people who live here and know the place until you have lived here, and seen and felt what they see and feel."
The road was quite narrow now, and the pines were a black wall pressing close along the edge of the headlights. The road rose and turned, following a wandering route deep into the heart of the mountains. Napoleon looked up at the night, craning his neck to see the stars, frosty sharp and clear.
"It's cold for April," he said conversationally.
"Not for here," said Hilda. "It could very well snow again anytime in the next month. Remember, we are high in the mountains and getting higher, and we have no Mediterranean near to keep us warm."
The night was so clear, the starlight showed Napoleon little patches of white under the trees. Probably patches from the last snowfall, he thought. There was a moment of nerve-end tension when he saw what looked like the figure of a man with a rifle crouching beside the road, and another moment of relief when the car turned suddenly and the headlights showed it to be a bush. Napoleon looked closely at it as they passed, but saw no indication that it had ever been anything else.
The night seemed darker, for some reason, and the woods looked somehow menacing. Napoleon suddenly felt how large the darkness around them was, and in a brief mental picture saw as if from an airplane the great area of the mountains, with a tiny speck of light lost in the loneliness like a buoy in the middle of the boundless sea.
It seemed a long time later that Hilda spoke again. "Domn Kuryakin, there need be no reference to the country of your birth. The passport with which you have been supplied lists you as American. Let it stand. Pokol is far from the modern world, but not so far that they know nothing of her latest rulers. There is little love for the conquerors here. These are simple people, and direct. They love, they hate, they fear. But they continue to live. We have been a conquered people many times in the past—but this is not something one can come to accept. Before Rumania began, we were conquered by Attila the Hun, who used this land as a base while he sacked the treasure-houses of Europe from the North Sea to Rome. Ancient legends put his treasure stores in these mountains. But Rumania is not a rich country. Wealth only flows through to line the pockets of those who rule us."
She sighed. "Please forgive me. I am talking to myself. Please think nothing of what I have said." She paused, and glanced around. "Perhaps it is the night and..." She stopped. Her two passengers were asleep.
Chapter 4: "Well, It Looked Like A Huge Bat...."
They awoke when the car stopped, and the motor was turned off. Napoleon lifted a head and looked around. He could see the edges of the village both ahead and behind him, and a large brick building stood beside the narrow street where they had stopped.
Hilda noticed his movement, and said, "It will be necessary for you to check in with the local head of the Securitate at once. He will give you the necessary coupons for a room at the inn and meals there."
The brick building was post-war, and included in its decoration busts of noble, bearded figures of re
volutionary history. Here and there waited an empty niche where some forgotten hero no longer resided and had not been replaced. Lights flowed warm and yellow from the windows.
Illya stretched and yawned. "I presume this is the City Hall?"
"Yes," said Hilda. "Satul Contru. The lights are on in Gradatul Hanevitch's office. We will be going in to see him. Leave your luggage in the car, but have your coats buttoned up. It is cold tonight."
The frosty air stung Napoleon's nose as he opened the car door and inhaled, but the scent of the pines was sharp and clean. "Ah!" he said. "The great outdoors." He got stiffly out, followed by Illya, and started up the steps to the big wooden doors. Hilda followed them in.
Gradat Hanevitch sat behind an ornately carved wooden desk littered with papers. He wore an untidy uniform, with the hat hung on the back of his swivel chair, which was tilted to its fullest extent. He had a broad face and a bushy red beard, with twinkly blue eyes and ruddy cheeks above it. He was ignoring them as they entered, concentrating on a cork target hanging on the side wall some ten feet away. Resting on the desk at his elbow was an assortment of letter-openers of various sizes and types, and three more nested in various quarters of the target. As they watched from the doorway, his wrist flipped, and a fourth one appeared near the center. Without turning his head, he greeted them.
"Domnisoara Eclary, I presume these are the two gentlemen you told me about. Introduce us and be seated."
"Gradat Hanevitch, this is Napoleon Solo and this is Illya Kuryakin, of the U.N.C.L.E. office in New York. You will remember, that is where Domn Endros was from."
"I remember," said the officer, and flipped another letter opener. Then he turned in his swivel chair to face them. "You will be the men to save my reputation and my job. I have represented the Government in this village for over thirty years, and now my position is no longer a sinecure. This cursed vampire has started people talking all along the mountains, and whenever my name is mentioned it is with ridicule." He sat upright and placed both hands on the desk, palms up. "What am I supposed to do? I am a faithful servant of the powers of the law, but the law tells me plainly there is no such thing as a vampire. If I ask them for advice on how to rid my village of such a thing, I will be ignored. Worse, I shall be suspect from then on."
06-The Vampire Affair Page 3
