The Craghold Legacy

by Michael Avallone

  There was only the excitement of Guy Warmsby’s kiss.

  And contemplating what it might mean.

  And considering what it meant to herself.

  And wondering if it was merely flirtation and another arrow into the heart of her new-found friend and confidante, Katharine Cowles. It was a bit too much. Like everything else at Craghold—too fast, too soon, too incredible to assimilate on such short notice.

  As she prepared for bed, brushing her teeth absent-mindedly, laying out the Japanese robe and her pajamas—for it was cold—she was incapable of arriving at a sensible opinion or conclusion about anything. Boston had not prepared her for the onslaught and effect of a Guy Warmsby. The kiss had driven all fears and uneasiness from her mind.

  The Warmsby charm had accomplished that much, at least.

  Trembling with inner thoughts that had nothing to do with the proprieties of Nice Society, Anne Fenner turned out the room lights, crawled feverishly into the big four-postered bed, and hugged the crazy-quilt blanket to her chin, her mind alive and restless on the high cliffs of Romance—intoxicated by the rarified atmosphere.

  She was too nervous and exhilarated to think of anything but Guy Warmsby. How he looked, how he talked, what he had said and done.

  She was feeling far too womanly to have any thought of being afraid. To even consider legends, curses and hexes.

  Not even a terrifying ghost can compete with the flesh-and-blood reality of a thoroughly attractive man. A veritable Prince Charming.

  Number Seventeen lay in silence as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. There was not even the sound of a breath of wind from outside. Nothing stirred. Nothing so much as whispered.

  Save the beating of her own heart.

  In Number Nineteen, Peter Cowles was very busy.

  He was still fully dressed, rummaging in the drawers of the bureau near the door of the room. There was something desperate and plunging about his movements, though he was making a concerted effort to be quiet. His Cupid’s face was set in sterner lines than any of his closest acquaintances would have called usual for him. In fact, it was very difficult to believe that Peter Cowles had had too much brandy in the main room downstairs. All his gestures and deft and nimble activity gave the lie to the sight he had presented to the others, reeling drunkenly into this very room only a few moments ago.

  In point of fact; he was as sober as a judge.

  A judge of his fellow man—and woman.

  Soon he found what he had been looking for in the chest of drawers. His fingers closed over something in the third drawer of the bureau. He made a small cluck of satisfaction in his throat and shut the drawer softly. As he walked back to the bed, the lights of the room clearly showed the object in his right hand. Even Anne Fenner would have recognized it for what it was—a .32 calibre, ivory-handled automatic. The ivory gleamed once as Peter Cowles deftly spun the weapon in his hand before dropping it gently into the side pocket of his rumpled blue blazer.

  His eyes were not quite right.

  The poet had nothing of esthetic beauty and intellectual truth and creativity shining out of his watery blue orbs.

  There was more of the peasant showing now.

  The coarse, uncouth, brutal, violent peasant.

  One who tramples growing things, rather than one who raises things to tender loving care upon them.

  Within Peter Cowles’ brilliant mind, strange visions were whirling—dancing—twisting—in a carousel of self-torment.

  Daring him to act.

  And act—now.

  Number Twenty’s occupant could not sleep, either.

  Katharine Cowles, her stunning beauty of face and form entirely splendid in a floor-length, silvery robe, was restlessly pacing the length of the room. Clouds of cigarette smoke traced her passage. She was chain-smoking fanatically, her mind a riot of conflicting emotions. She could play the good sport in public, she could be witty and charming and fatalistically female, but alone in her room was another thing entirely. She was seething with rage. She had seen Guy Warmsby turn on all the faucets, sending cataracts of charm down on gullible Anne Fenner’s head, and the sight had sickened her. It was amazing that she could still like Miss Boston despite her own intense jealousy and fury with Guy. What to do? How to manage it all gracefully? And with charm and sensible-headed reason and logic? Katharine Cowles believed in being civilized. Being right.

  She did not believe in the law of the jungle, for all her excellent claws and skilled art of being entirely female. She did not want Anne Fenner to get hurt. But she didn’t want to be hurt herself, either. Hence, the dilemma.

  Damn Guy Warmsby. Damn him, damn him, damn him!

  Damn him for acting like a cad, damn him for archaeological passion rather than the proper kind. Damn him for his Caves of Hex—

  On the phrase, Katharine Cowles stopped pacing.

  She took the long filter-tipped cigarette out of her mouth and frowned very thoughtfully. The brows above her almond-shaped eyes met in a V of sudden, furious concentration. A deep scowl.

  It was all so clear to her.

  Yes.

  Why not?

  Tomorrow.

  The Caves of Hex.

  The four of them, off in the woods together. Alone. Far from prying eyes. Why not indeed? It was practically a made-to-order situation. Nobody could ever question anything that might happen on a trip such as Guy Warmsby had planned for all of them.

  Warmsby’s Expedition into the past.

  It might well turn out to be Kathy’s Quest.

  More relaxed now, the thought of future contentment and fulfillment of her own wishes and dreams made Katharine Cowles stub the dying cigarette out in a glass ashtray on the table at her bedside. She undid the lovely robe and carefully slung it over the deep chair by the window. In her two-piece, canary yellow silken pajamas, she seemed more stunning than ever. She had undone the bun of black hair, and now it streamed past her shoulders, as glittering and shining as the rest of her. Smiling softly to herself, the compleat female creature, all feline and purring and perfect, Katharine Cowles reached for the chain cord on the night lamp and plucked it down very slowly. The room plunged swiftly into blackness.

  The moon was still hidden behind racing clouds.

  Yet, for the woman reclining on her back, staring up at the ceiling, the brilliance of her own plan for tomorrow seemed to light up the darkness. Like Anne Fenner, Katharine Cowles was also far too excited and exhilarated to fall asleep right away.

  Not so the men in their lives.

  Down the hall in Number Twenty-Four, Guy Warmsby was at the window, holding the drapes apart, staring down at the ground below. His attitude and demeanor suggested watchfulness and waiting—as though he were expecting something. Or somebody. There was nothing casual or easy-going about the aspect of his tall figure. He too was still dressed as he had been upon entering the room. Anne Fenner would have fondly recalled the feel of the rough sportscoat against her body as he kissed her with surprising suddenness. Recalled it all too well. Guy Warmsby, however, was not thinking about young impressionable ladies from Boston and quick romantic kisses. He was too intent on the panorama beyond his window, on the ground below. It was as if he was keeping guard, or trying to spy on somebody or some thing without himself being seen. He had not turned on the lights when entering the room but had immediately gone to the window. Suddenly he stirred, and a fierce intake of breath exploded in the comparative silence of the darkened room.

  He had stepped back, letting the drapes close a bit further. It was then that from outside came a long, high, wailing sound that could only have been uttered by an animal of some kind. A dog or a wolf, perhaps. The sheer, lonely, baying quality of the wail made Guy Warmsby curse in the darkness. A curt, tense oath.

  The howl ended as suddenly as it had begun.

  Guy Warmsby strained at the window, eyes searching the dark night outside. The intervals between appearances of the moon had widened immeasureably; it had been at le
ast ten minutes since the last show of the shining oracle of light. Warmsby crouched in darkness—baffled, uncertain, a little afraid. And at that moment of searching, seeking, he received a genuine shock to his senses—senses that were scientific, a mind well acquainted with hard rock-bound facts. He recoiled from the window, flailing with his arms, even though there was a thick pane of glass between himself and the shadows of the night. An object—a loathsome, blackened, irregularly outlined phantom, small but nonetheless frightening—had come wheeling up to the window, all aflutter and flapping and terrifying. Two gleams of tiny eyes seemed to pierce the blackness. Guy Warmsby swung his arms again, and magically, the silhouette screamed with a low, rodent-like cry and heeled over on its side, banking to the left of the window and vanishing into the darkness—just as the moon shone through once more, again flooding the night world with illumination. Guy Warmsby rubbed at his eyes, frantically exploring the ground and sky beyond his window. He saw nothing but the ghostly, solemn contours and masses of Craghold House, the wall of trees, the hard and dismal earth. Then the moon was hidden again, and darkness closed over everything once more. Guy Warmsby shook his head, attempting to rid it of cobwebs, fears and impossible conjectures. And sudden terror.

  But, God help him, he had seen what he had seen.

  A bat.

  A black bat.

  Another one of those “children of the night …”

  That filled and haunted the pages of everything he had ever read in the field of Vampirism.

  Could such things really be?

  Even Guy Warmsby, for all his sophistication and armament of intelligence and knowledge, could not have said for sure.

  Cries In Terror

  The moaning sound in the night, so long and almost a keen, roused Anne Fenner from a sleep that was not too deep. Excitement had kept her consciousness close to the surface, and now she bolted awake in the darkness, suddenly alert. She blinked her eyes against the blackness, her heart loudly beating, but now the sound was gone, as if it had never been. But the damage had been done. She was awake, and the idea of going back to sleep was not only far-fetched, it was highly unlikely. Still absorbed in the mystery of whatever it was that had made such a startling, unearthly noise, she quickly got up from the bed and went to the window. Visions of inhuman creatures and memories of last night’s red-hazed incredible phantom at the window still filled her. Even so, she did not think of turning on the room lights. Not just yet, anyway.

  She could see absolutely nothing from the window.

  The curtain of night was almost impenetrable, and only by straining her eyes could she barely make out the outline and silhouette of the massed tree wall and the dim conformation of the sloped rooftop that joined her room at such a weird angle. She waited for the full moon to show. It didn’t. Yawning awake completely, her mind freshly alive and wondering, she remained at the window ledge, trying to coordinate her thoughts. What a dismal place this country was to be in after nightfall! The hotel itself, for all its somber trappings and atmosphere, was essentially a cheery interior. But without—it was enough to give anyone the creeps. She imagined that even a battle-hardened Marine would have difficulty enjoying his sleep in Craghold House after dark.

  Anne Fenner relented in her vigil at the window. The moon had gone out of sight, possibly for the remainder of the night, and without its glare nothing could be seen.

  Sighing, she turned and padded across the floor of the room to switch a light on. She had some paperback novels in her luggage somewhere, and she might as well read the night through. Or at least until she fell asleep again. She had no notion of the time, either. She thought only of the copy of Love Story she had picked up in the train terminal in Boston. This was no night to read one of the mystery novels she had picked at random for some light reading! The mere idea was too laughable. Why feed the fires of imagination?

  She had just crossed the room, finding her way in the gloom, hand stretching toward the light switch, when she very suddenly realized—suddenly was horrifyingly aware of the fact—that someone was in the room with her.…

  The thought was like a blow to her soul.

  A teetering, tottering, dancing step toward the rim of stark terror and insanity. For a fraction of a second, the darkness, the unearthliness, the horror of such an idea—the sheer weight of the impossible fantasy and what it might mean in terms of her own safety and well-being made her senses reel, her heart climb to the roof of her mouth. Desperately, Anne Fenner batted on the light-switch and whirled to one side, putting her back up against the wall of the room—the wall by the door.

  The room sprang into focus with electrifying swiftness.

  Anne Fenner gaped across the floor of the room. Toward the window. Toward the horror.

  And her heart stood still.

  Her mouth opened wide, and a great soundless scream made the tendons and veins in her lovely young throat leap into stunning life. For another gasp of eternity her lips worked, her jaws moved, and her numbed brain responded—to what her eyes were trying to say.

  The thing at the window, the sight that her eyes would not, could not accept, uncurled from a crouch, great wings extended, and stalked toward her. It came slowly, eyes burning, talons extended, glittering sharp teeth exposed in a cavernously red mouth which seemed to yawn like the gates of Hell. The Inferno of madness.

  Anne Fenner screamed.

  And kept on screaming.

  The rising, shattering din of her terror seemed to echo and re-echo within the corridors and rooms of Craghold House.

  Loud enough to wake the living.

  And the dead.

  She was crying piteously when they reached her. Drawn by the terrifying screams, the two men had put their shoulders to the door, and each fresh spurt of vocal fear spurred their efforts. Guy Warmsby and Peter Cowles, both in robes as if they had been startled from sleep, plunged into the room. They found nothing but Anne Fenner, curled like a child alongside the door, sobbing to herself, a dazed look in her eyes, and staring across the floor at the window, which stood latched and shut against the night air. There was no one in the room but Anne Fenner, and as Warmsby and Peter Cowles exchanged baffled glances, Katharine Cowles, tousled and alarmed, came running into the room. As she blurted out queries and cries of empathy, her “two men” gathered Anne Fenner in their arms and carried her to the bed, where they laid her down very gently. Anne Fenner seemed to see Guy Warmsby for the very first time. Suddenly, she hugged him desperately, burrowing into his arms as if she wanted to hide—like a child afraid of the dark. Peter Cowles shook his head, his usually cynical face now contrite and crumpled—like another child’s might be, a boy who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar or jam on his face. Katharine Cowles was trembling now, too, hugging her own elbows as if she were extremely cold. Guy was doing his best to soothe the terrified young woman on the bed.

  “Easy now, Anne. We’re here. All of us. You screamed, Anne. What was it—a nightmare?”

  His tone was low, masterful, the sort of voice one would use with the child afraid of a dark room. Anne Fenner wagged her head despairingly, plucking at the collars of his robe. Her mouth worked, and the words came out in halting, tremulous shudders.

  “No—no—I heard a noise—I got up—turned on the light. I saw a man. At the window. There——” Suddenly she broke off, sobbing fitfully again until Guy urged her to control herself. Katharine Cowles’ lovely eyes were filled with tears, too. “Only it wasn’t a man—” Anne Fenner said in a stunned voice. “It looked more like a—like a—oh, God! It’s not true. It isn’t possible. Such things can’t be—”

  “What can’t be?” Peter Cowles snapped peevishly from behind Guy Warmsby’s back. “Give, lady. What did you see?”

  “Shut up, Peter,” Kathy Cowles rapped harshly. “This is no time for your brutal directness. Can’t you see the poor girl is half out of her head with fear?”

  “Quiet, both of you,” Guy Warmsby commanded softly, returning his attent
ion to Anne Fenner. “Go on, Anne. You saw—?”

  “A vampire,” Anne Fenner said with a dull aching tone, as if she knew none of her listeners would accept that, would buy the truth.

  “A vampire,” Guy Warmsby repeated.

  “Yes—yes!” she blurted. “With a cape and fangs and hands like claws, and he came through that window—”

  “The window is locked, Anne,” Guy Warmsby said slowly. “From the inside. How could he have gotten in here and gone out that way? The door to the room was bolted, too. You can see what we had to do to get in here. Break it in. Nobody passed us in the hall.”

  Anne Fenner shuddered. A tremor of memory.

  “Oh, Guy,” she wept. “I saw him, I tell you. As plainly as I see you. Oh, what’s going on in this terrible place?—”

  “Carteret playing games.” Peter Cowles’ laugh was a short, hard bark. “Either that or you did have a nightmare, Annie girl. Come on, now. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Peter—” Katharine Cowles said warningly.

  Anne Fenner managed a brave smile, shaking her head at Kathy.

  “It’s all right, Kathy. I know how he feels—and thinks. And I can’t blame him. There are no such things as vampires, are there? Or ghosts? Didn’t I say so myself—”