Blood of the Impaler (16 page)

"Honey," she said, "you don't take any of this stuff seriously, do you? I mean, really!"

He rubbed his eyes. "I don't know, I don't know. It all seemed so stupid when Gramps and Rachel were talking about it, but after I read the papers, it all seemed to make sense."

"Mal," Jerry said, laughing, "I wish you could listen to
yourself. I mean, you're talking about being cursed with the blood of Dracula, for crying out loud!"

"I know, I know, it sounds absurd," he agreed. "I hope that it is all nonsense. But God, Jerry, can you think of any other explanation for what's been happening to me?"

"So what's been happening to you?" his friend asked. "You have insomnia, you're off your feed, and you couldn't get it up a couple of times. So what?" He shook his head, laughing again. "I really don't think that if you went to a doctor and described those symptoms, he would shake his head and say"—and Jerry's voice shifted into a very bad imitation of Bela Lugosi's—" 'We are dealing here with the curse of the Undead!"

Malcolm did not laugh. "So explain what happened in that place you took me to."

This sobered Jerry up and he became a bit defensive. "Hey, I don't know what happened in there. You and that Swedish gorilla got into a fight, that's all."

"Jerry, you told me that the girl was bleeding from the neck and that I was trying to get at her, and I don't remember anything about it."

"Okay, okay," Jerry said hotly, "so you're a fucking nut case, okay? You belong in a rubber room or something, but don't give me any of this vampire shit!"

"Jerry!" Holly said sharply. "Don't say things like that! Can't you see how upset he is?"

"He may be right, Holly," Malcolm said. "I hope he's right
. I'd almost be
relieved if I were just having a breakdown or something like that."

"Well, you're not having a breakdown and you're not turning into a vampire!" Holly said emphatically. "Mal, honey, I'm not even going to bother trying to make you see how silly this whole thing is. If you ask me, your grandfather . . . and I like him, don't get me wrong . . . is a senile old man who doesn't know what he's talking about. And this sounds to me like your sister is going along with it just as a way of breaking us up. She doesn't like me, you know!"

"I know," he agreed, "and she's a jerk, I know that, too. But . . ."

"No buts about it, man," Jerry said. "Listen to her, will you? This is crazy, Malcolm! Absolutely nuts!"

"You can't believe any of it, Mal," Holly added. "It isn't even worth talking about."

"Look, I didn't call you two up and ask you to meet me here just to argue about it," he said firmly but without rancor.

"I know it sounds ridiculous, and I know there are probably a hundred other explanations for what's been happening to me . . . though I can't think of one that would explain what happened when I took communion last Sunday."

"You have an ulcer," Jerry muttered.

"Maybe so," Malcolm said, nodding. "And maybe not. In any event, I have a plan. I have to prove to myself either that it's true or that it isn't. I have to know, one way or another."

"It isn't true," Holly and Jerry said in unison, after which they exchanged amused glances.

"Well, there's one way to find out," Malcolm went on. "It's the original text of Stoker's book
Dracula.
He names
people and places and all that in the book. I'm going to
England as soon as I can arrange it, and I'm going to see if the places he mentions exist. I'm going to see if there really is
a town called Whitby and a house called Carfax Abbey. I'm
going to check records and archives and see if there ever was an asylum run by a doctor named John Stewart, see if there ever was a mental patient named Renfield. I'm going to see if a German professor named Van Helsing ever visited England . . ." He paused and looked off into space. "Abraham Van Helsing," he muttered. "My father's name was Abraham. I'd always assumed he was named after Lincoln or something like that, but maybe . . ."

"Malcolm, listen to me for a minute—" Jerry began, but Malcolm cut him off as he returned to the description of his plan.

"I'm going to check to see if there ever was a Duke of Wellington whose fiancée, Lucy Westenra, died of acute anemia, if there ever was a man named John Hawkins, Esq., who arranged a real estate purchase for a Rumanian nobleman—"

"Damn it, Malcolm, will you listen to me?" Jerry said forcefully. "You're talking about spending an awful lot of money just to prove the falsehood of something that a ten-year-old kid would know isn't true!"

And besides," Holly added, "there's a better, cheaper way to go about it, if you're determined to do it."

"What do you mean?" Malcolm asked.

"What do you know about research procedures and sources in England? Nothing, not one thing. You—"

"I've done extensive historical research, you know," he said a bit defensively. "I mean, I did get a degree in classics, after all!"

"Sure, fine, so you know your way around the New York Public Library," Holly responded. "Malcolm, if you want to do research about all of this nonsense, then you should hire people in England to do it for you, not go there and try to do it yourself!"

"Of course, man!" Jerry agreed. "With the amount of money you'd be spending on airfare and hotels and all that, you could hire a whole team of researchers." He paused. "And besides, you could probably look up most of that stuff right here. I mean, the New York libraries have books and maps!"

Malcolm shook his head adamantly. "No, Jerry, no to both objections. I have to do this myself. I can't hire anyone else to do it, and I can't rely on local information."

"Oh, Malcolm, why not?" Holly asked with exasperation.

Malcolm seemed to lapse into pensiveness as he said, "I can't really explain it. Last night, as I was reading my great-grandmother's diary, the idea just sort of came to me, and it just seemed to make perfect sense."

"How can such a half-assed idea make perfect sense?" Jerry asked.

"It just does," Malcolm insisted, and then smiled. "I even dreamed about it, dreamed about searching for the truth, dreamed about being in England . . ."

"Well, I've dreamed about that myself often enough," Holly muttered. "I think everybody dreams about going to Europe."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Malcolm said, looking from Holly to Jerry. "I want the two of you to come with me."

"Are you nuts!" Jerry exclaimed. "I can't afford to go to Europe!"

"Don't worry about money," Malcolm reassured him. "I've discussed this idea with Gramps, told him what I want to do and why, and he thought it was a great idea. He's agreed to pay for all three of us. He'll foot the whole bill." He turned to Holly. "Can you come?"

"I think so," she said, suddenly very pleased with the idea. "I haven't taken a vacation in two years, so I'm sure there won't be any problem at work." Visions of Harrods department store and the boutiques and shops along Carnaby Street and King's Road began to drift through her mind.
A European vacation with Malcolm! London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Windsor Castle! The pubs, the antique shops, the theaters! What a delightful idea!

And
, she noted as an afterthought,
absolutely free. My favorite price!

"I don't have to ask you if you can make it, Jerry," Malcolm said to his friend. "You and I were planning to go to the Bahamas together this month anyway. I know you can take off, and it won't cost you a cent."

As visions of English shops were drifting through Holly's mind, visions of brown, nubile women in string bikinis were vanishing from Jerry's. "Oh, well," he sighed. "Sure. What the hell, why not."

"There's one more thing I want to do . . . I have to do," Malcolm said seriously. "And if the idea doesn't sit well with either of you, I'll understand. I don't want to force anybody to do anything they don't want to do."

"What is it?" Holly asked.

Malcolm, with a melodramatic flourish, held up the paperback copy of
Dracula.
"I picked this up today at Waldenbooks on Continental Avenue. I wanted to have a copy for reference, one I could write in and stuff like that."

"Of course," Jerry said, sounding a bit tried and bored.

"Listen to this," Malcolm said, flipping through the book, searching for a specific part. He found it and began to read aloud to his friends:

Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action, his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as best we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked, I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.

The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, bloodcurdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together until the lips were cut and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. And then the writh
ing and the quivering of the body became less. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over.

"Yeah, creepy," Jerry said. "What about it?"

Malcolm paused before speaking. "That's how the book describes the death of a woman named Lucy Westenra. According to the book, she was my great-grandmother's best friend. She was killed by Dracula, turned into a vampire after death, and had a stake driven through her heart by the guy she was going to marry, a nobleman named the Duke of Wellington, though Stoker calls him Lord Godalmung."

"That's what the novel says," Holly said pointedly.

"That's what the book says," Malcolm corrected her. "I can't call it a novel until I know for sure that it's all fiction."

"Okay, okay," Jerry said impatiently. "So you're gonna look for her grave, right? See if she really existed?"

"I'm going to open her grave," Malcolm said. "I'm going to look at her remains. According to the book, after they drove the stake through her heart, they cut off her head and stuffed her mouth with garlic, then placed a piece of consecrated host on her stomach. If we open her grave and find a stake or a severed skull . . . well, then, I'll know for sure."

"Mal," Jerry said, laughing, "you know you can't go around digging people up! It's against the law!"

"No digging involved," he said. "The book says she was put in a mausoleum."

"Well, whatever," Jerry said. "You still can't go around messing with dead bodies, even real old ones. You'll get arrested."

"I know, I know," Malcolm said, nodding. "That's why we'll leave it for last. If there's no Whitby, no Carfax Abbey, no Dr. Stewart's asylum, no Renfield, no Van Helsing, we'll just forget about her. But let me be clear on this point: If the other stuff checks out, then we go to Hempstead and look for her grave. And if we find it, we open it. Agreed?"

Holly leaned forward on her forearms and looked him straight in the eye. "Malcolm, I'm going to agree to all of this, for one simple reason. Do you know what the reason is?"

He smiled a bit sheepishly. "Because you love me?"

"Not at all," she replied, not smiling. "I do love you, you know that. But there are limits to anything, and this nonsense of yours is pushing it. No, Mal, I'll agree to this for the simple reason that I'm certain that we'll go to England,
investigate this, and not find a damned thing. This whole idea is just so stupid!"

"But what about these documents?" Malcolm asked. "If there's no truth to any of this, why does my grandfather have all this stuff?"

"Maybe," Jerry answered, "just maybe your great-grandfather was a book collector and he bought Stoker's manuscript at an auction or something. Maybe he even knew Stoker and got the manuscript and stuff from him. Maybe all of this handwritten stuff is a private joke by your grandfather! Maybe somebody copied over parts of the book for . . . I don't know, some kind of fraud or hoax or something. There are lots of maybes here, Mal, and 'maybe my best friend is turning into a vampire' is not very high on the list."

"Right," Holly agreed. "So I'll agree with everything you want, I'll even agree to opening Lucy Westenra's grave, because I'm certain that she never existed. If by some bizarre coincidence your great-grandparents had the same names as a couple of characters in the novel, well, then, all it is, is a bizarre coincidence."

"What about the other names?" Malcolm asked heatedly.

"What about them? All you've told us is that there are two different sets of names for some of the characters, and the same names for some of the others. So what? That doesn't mean anything. I mean, really, Mal! The Duke of Wellington? Come on!" She put her arms around his neck and smiled at him, her eyes laughing at him and mocking his foolishness and fear. "I'll agree to anything you want, because it won't mean a thing. It's fiction, Malcolm, just fiction."