06-The Vampire Affair

by David McDaniel

  He started up the walk at a trot, with a rather puzzled Ackerman close behind him. "What's going on here?" he was asking.

  "You'll find out when you meet Zoltan," Napoleon promised. "Right now we've got to get him out of here."

  "But..."

  Napoleon was fumbling in his pocket. "Can you drive a Poboda?"

  "I can drive—what's a Poboda?"

  "Look for the big black car. Looks like an old Plymouth, sort of lumpy. Here are the keys. Just get in and get the motor running. We'll be along in a minute."

  They came off the end of the walk as he handed Ackerman the keys and pointed him towards the car, then headed off in the direction of the growing sound.

  The mob was no longer in full cry, but it was still approaching. Across a wide lawn and the street, Napoleon realized with a slight shock that some of them actually were carrying torches—tightly rolled cylinders of newspaper, from the way they flared, but torches nonetheless. The whole thing seemed almost fantastic, as he watched the mob hunting a man they must have sincerely believed to be a vampire. It didn't seem real—more like some dream after a double-feature horror film. But it probably seemed pretty real to Zoltan, Napoleon realized, looking about him. He should be somewhere around here....

  "Zoltan!" he called softly. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

  Silence answered him. But he had been running this way—could they have caught him? No, he would have heard their shouts of success. Perhaps they were close to where he was hiding, and Napoleon was not. He went closer, ducked into some bushes and called again, in English.

  After a moment there was an answer from some twenty feet away, and above him. He looked up. There was Zoltan, crouching on a tree limb, almost hidden by foliage.

  Napoleon addressed him severely. "Come on down and let's get out of here. If they saw you up there they'd just set fire to the tree, and forget about the stake through your heart."

  Zoltan frowned, then chuckled ruefully and swung down. "What do you think they would have done," he asked, "if they had found me hanging head-down by my knees from that branch?"

  Napoleon didn't bother answering, instead concentrating on leading them through the underbrush towards the car. In the darkness they heard the continuing mutter of the searching crowd.

  Zoltan stopped short at the edge of the parking lot, and took Napoleon's shoulder. "Watch out," he said. "There's someone in the car."

  Napoleon laughed. "Don't worry. I've found a student of some of your family history, and enlisted his aid. He doesn't know who you are yet, though, and I think he'll be terribly impressed when you tell him."

  "What's his name?"

  "Ackerman—Forrest J no period Ackerman. He's an American, intelligent, and trustworthy as near as I can tell. Sharp, too; he recognized my name from somewhere and knew I work for U.N.C.L.E. He knows about the murders, but not about Endros' death."

  "I see no reason to keep him waiting any longer," said Zoltan, striding forward. "If he knows much about vampires, he will be able to see a glance that I am innocent. If he knows nothing of vampires, he will not be afraid of me." He paused and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the street and the fading sound of the crowd. "It is only those who know a little about vampires that are frightened at my name. Sips of knowledge intoxicate the brain, while deeper drinking sobers it again, as some English poet or other put it."

  "You're close enough," Napoleon said, opening the car door. "Forry Ackerman of America, meet Count Zoltan Dracula of Pokol."

  Ackerman's mouth dropped open. "Really?" he said. "Well, how about that!" He extended a hand. Zoltan took it, and Ackerman looked closely as they shook hands.

  Zoltan followed his glance, and laughed. "Yes, my second and third fingers are quite different lengths," he said. "You'll also find my canine teeth to be normal, and my face to be reflected quite clearly in the rear-vision mirror. Nor have I any aversion to silver, crucifixes, or garlic. Are you disappointed?"

  Forry seemed to be having a little trouble with his speech. At last he said, "Well, I'm not really sure whether I'm disappointed or relieved. It's just a surprise meeting a real-life Dracula."

  "He's better than that," said Napoleon, "and we'll be glad to tell you about that over dinner. Do you have a car here?"

  "No; I came by taxi."

  "Fine. Can we drop you somewhere?"

  "You can be my guests at dinner," said Forry positively. "I wouldn't miss an opportunity to get an interview with the real Count Dracula for my readers." He glanced up. "I presume you eat solid food?"

  Zoltan smiled. "Yes, and I even like my steak well-done."

  Chapter 8: "Begone, You Fiend of Satan!"

  Illya and Hilda spent a pleasant afternoon in the woods with Colonel Hanevitch. Illya found the spot where the car had been left, with little trouble, and the path was still there. But distances are deceiving in the fog, and he was unable to decide where the cave had been.

  At first he led them back along the path as far as he thought he and Napoleon had come—and found himself in the middle of a little hollow, with no hillside nearby. Then he began casting about in both directions, and came up with three or four likely-looking hillsides over about half a mile, but none of them seemed to contain a cave.

  Illya sat down on a rock and scowled. He could recognize no landmarks; the rich green depths of the forest in clear afternoon sunlight were completely alien to the fog-shrouded mysteries of the night before. His memory supplied him only with the outline of the cave mouth, and the gray fingers of fog growing about the edges of the rock. Even the exact contour of the path had been hardly visible at their feet.

  "This is the path," he said at last. "There's not another one we could have turned off of. Therefore the cave must be in one of these hills. It couldn't have been filled up overnight."

  "Perhaps it never really existed," said Hanevitch in a tone which was meant to be comforting, and failed. "Sometimes when one has been working very hard, one's mind plays tricks."

  Illya looked up at him without a word, but his expression said very plainly that he knew what he had seen, even if not precisely where he had seen it.

  "Perhaps it was covered up," said Hilda, hopefully.

  Illya shook his head. "There is nothing here to cover it with. No bushes, not even heavy grass."

  Hanevitch patted him heavily on the shoulder. "My dear young friend," he said sympathetically, "come back to the village with us and we will await the return of Domn Solo from Brasov. Perhaps the two of you can determine between you what is to be done about this mysterious cave you remember."

  Illya rose suddenly and brushed off the Colonel's hand. "We have a few hours of daylight left," he said brusquely. "I will go over the path again. If you wish to return to the village you may."

  The Colonel sighed a deep and patient sigh, and followed Illya off down the path again. This time the Russian's eyes searched carefully every part of the path, looking for some trace of their flight to the car. The surface was hard-packed dirt, but he thought there should have been some marks in the softer earth on either side.

  They were almost to the car when Illya stopped so suddenly that Hilda almost bumped into him. He knelt down on the path and looked closely at the ground. Then he turned slowly and started to crawl back along the path on hands and knees, studying the ground intently.

  The Colonel looked down at him with a deeply concerned expression. "Domn Kuryakin," he said uneasily, "are you feeling well?"

  "Quite well," said Illya impatiently. "Look." And he pointed to a slight depression in the dirt.

  "At what?"

  "At the footprints Napoleon or I left last night. The path was too narrow for us to be able to stay on it constantly in the dark—our feet often left impressions beside it. We were running here, if not farther back."

  He rose slowly to his feet, but his eyes remained on the ground. The brush was thick here, and they passed between the bushes single file. On the other side, Illya studied the ground a
gain. A slow satisfied smile spread across his face, and he looked back towards the brush.

  "Come with me," he said to Hilda and the Colonel. "I believe we have overlooked something."

  They had. On the far side of a clump of flowering bushes there was another path, and after a few moments' examination Illya rose to his feet and said, "Footprints. At the end of this path we should find our cave."

  Hanevitch shook his head. "But the bushes have grown across the path. How could you and your friend have come through them last night without being aware of them?"

  "I don't know yet," said Illya. "But we must have."

  "We'd better hurry," said Hilda. "There's only about an hour of daylight left."

  They hurried. Now Illya was confident, and it was not long before a corner of the hill which came right down to the path looked familiar. But the path wound about it for several hundred feet, and brush was thick all along it. Illya looked at it, then shook his head.

  "There is a cave under there. If bushes could appear or overnight to conceal the path, they could also conceal the cave. Colonel, I ask your help. Will you start at the other end of the hill while I take this end? Just pull up the bushes enough to see definitely whether there is solid rock behind them. Hilda, you take the middle third."

  Hanevitch opened his mouth as though to register a complaint against the whole situation, then looked at Illya's face again and decided not to. "Very well," he said, "but I leave when the sun does."

  "And that's not long," said Hilda.

  "All the more reason to hurry," said Illya shortly, and started to pull aside the bushes.

  He was still searching when the shadow of a mountain peak to the west crept across the trees, and he felt a chill gust of wind. It was followed closely by Colonel Hanevitch, dusting off his hands.

  "The sun is gone," he said, "and there is no sign of your cave."

  "There is still daylight," said Illya, "and I want to find this cave. For all I know it may move if we leave it again."

  The Colonel went reluctantly back to work, and the sky grew slowly darker. At length Illya came to the place where Hilda's search had started. He shook his head in frustration, and hurried to catch up with her.

  The light was failing now. Illya looked around the corner of the hill in search of Hilda, and saw Colonel Hanevitch twenty or thirty yards away, hurrying towards him. They met, and the Colonel spoke first.

  "Where is Domnisoara Eclary?"

  "I thought she was with you," Illya answered, "or somewhere between us."

  There was a giggle from behind them, and the Colonel spun around. "Cine-i?" he barked. "Who's there?"

  Then the bushes parted, not ten feet away, and Hilda's face looked out with an impish grin. "I found your cave," she said. "I wondered how long it would take you." She pushed the bushes back and stepped out, revealing a tall narrow crevasse in the rock which Illya recognized instantly.

  "Your little joke has cost us time," he said. "I have no special desire to stay here after dark, but I intend to investigate that cave as fully as possible in the time remaining." He held out his hand to the Colonel. "Flashlight?"

  The Colonel unclipped it from his belt and handed it over. Illya pulled the bushes aside and stepped into the cave. And as he did so, all three of them heard the howl of a wolf far back in the forest. Illya only paused for a moment, then went on into the cave.

  "Ah, Domn Kuryakin..."

  "Yes, I heard it. But I intend to see where the gentleman we met here last night came from, and where he returned to when he left us so abruptly."

  There was a rustling sound from the bushes behind them, and a moment later the Colonel and Hilda were standing beside him. "We'll help you look," Hilda suggested brightly.

  Illya went on towards the back of the cave, carefully examining the wall on his left as he went. The cave was not deep, and he reached the end in seven paces. He spent some time examining the back wall, and then began working his way along the other side towards the entrance again. At last he stopped, facing Hilda and the Colonel with a look of frustration and puzzlement.

  "It looks solid," he admitted grudgingly.

  In answer there was another wolf-howl, closer than the last. "And that sounds solid," said the Colonel quickly. "Domnul Kuryakin, I intend to return to the village at once. I would not like to have your death on my conscience, so I must request you to accompany me."

  "Please, Illya," said Hilda. "There's nothing in this cave."

  "There was last night," said Illya stubbornly. "That man we saw was as solid as you are. And he didn't come through a rock wall." His eyes flicked around the cave one more time. His words were definite, but his voice had just a trace of doubt as he said, "He couldn't have come through a rock wall...."

  * * *

  Illya spoke Rumanian without a trace of an accent, and that evening he inveigled some of the regular customers of the inn into conversation about the recent goings-on. Most of them, it seemed, were inclined to shrug off the fuss about vampires in the forest. Only one or two of the old men nodded shaggy wolf-gray heads and said, "Yes—the old Voivode is back again. He will kill a few fools and then go back to sleep."

  "Fools?" said Illya.

  "No man grows old who is not wise. And no wise man would go into the forest without a silver crucifix about his neck—especially at night. Young man, you may not see or hear of vampires in the city. They do not like the bright lights, and the noises are strange there. But here they come once in a while, and we learn to keep ourselves safe from them."

  Illya looked around the room at the other men and women who sat unconcernedly about the fire, mugs of beer and glasses of wine in their hands. Only the old folks seemed to have their tales and fears, but...

  "Ask anyone, young man. Oh, these young people have so much modern nonsense poured into them they are ashamed to do what they know is right—but they wear the cross, and they stay home at night. And I'll wager there's not a house in the village that hasn't a few bits of garlic along the windowsills and doorstep."

  "Garlic won't stop wolves," said Illya. "Neither will a crucifix."

  The old man peered at him through time-dimmed eyes. "Aren't you the young man who was chased by the wolves last night? Heard about that. You met the old Voivode too, didn't you? You were lucky, young man. Either he thought you were one of his own, or he had just fed.

  "Now, wolves won't bother you if you've got sense enough to stay out of the woods after dark. Oh, sometimes they come into town, but they won't come through barred doors, and their master, he won't go in past silver and garlic. So we don't worry about it much. No sense in getting fussed; take care of yourself and you'll be safe enough." And he returned to his wine.

  Illya was discussing this some time later that evening with the Colonel. Hilda had gone to bed back in her own room, and they were seated in the room to which the U.N.C.L.E. agents had been moved after the incident which had welcomed them to Pokol two nights before.

  Illya shook his head. "They seem to think vampires are the same sort of natural menace as rats or mosquitoes," he said wonderingly. "You kill them if you get a chance, and the rest of the time you protect yourself against them and hope they go away."

  "Not an unreasonable attitude," said Colonel Hanevitch. "To these people they are very real, and it would be foolhardy not to take precautions. But they see no reason to become excited and frightened of something which they have known about all their lives, just because it is closer than usual. It cannot harm them if they are careful. Only people who know little about the vampire are frightened by him."

  "But it is unreasonable," said Illya. "Because if it's not a vampire, but someone masquerading as one, then when you least expect it he will prove invulnerable to your crosses and your garlic, and you will not have your guns and handcuffs ready to take him."

  There was a heavy thump from the next room, and both heads swiveled to stare at the wall as though it might become transparent. The noise was not repeated, but after a moment
Illya rose silently to his feet, his U.N.C.L.E. Special gripped in his right hand. He moved to the door, opened it, and peered cautiously out into the deserted hall.

  Suddenly he heard Hilda scream in terror.

  In three quick steps he was at the door to Hilda's room, Hanevitch behind him with his thumb on the hammer of his Tokarev, which was now on full-cock. Without pausing, Illya threw the door open wide and leaped into the room.

  The light from the hall fell on a blood-chilling sight. Hilda was lying on the floor beside the bed, her hair disarranged and framing her pale face. She had fainted. The window behind her stood open, and the freezing night wind ruffled her nightgown. And she was not alone.

  Standing over her, looking down on her with a fearful smile of triumph on his face, was the being they had met in the cave—Voivode Tsepesh Stobolzny. Now there could be no doubt of his identity. The thin lips, the high narrow nose, the heavy-lidded eyes which now stood wide open, staring at the door—all these were very clear to see.

  He straightened up from a crouch over the girl's body as the door slammed open, and now his cloak billowed about him in the wind from the opened casement. His face was a ghastly white, with his mouth a scarlet gash against it. His eyes seemed to gleam as he looked at them and saw Illya's automatic. His lips parted, and a horrible dry rasping chuckle came from them.

  The gun thundered and bucked in Illya's hand before he was conscious of the act of firing. The Count was rocked for a moment by the impact of the slug, but then he stepped forward again, over Hilda's body towards them. Illya fired again without effect, then leaped straight for the vampire.

  Stobolzny struck at the U.N.C.L.E. agent, and Illya went spinning to the floor, where he lay dazed from the blow. Hanevitch fired one around from his Tokarev, then dropped it and sprang to one side.