Stalking the Vampire (26 page)

“Nothing that complicated,” said Mallory. He placed the buckets on the floor next to the coffin. “I want the two of you to scoop all the dirt out of the coffin and put it in here.”

“Then what?”

“Then I'll tell you what to do next.”

“I hope you know what you're doing,” said McGuire, grabbing the dustpan and beginning to scoop the soil out of the coffin. “That makes two of us,” said Mallory.

It took the dragon and the vampire about five minutes to complete the job.

“Now what?”

Mallory pulled two business cards out of his wallet. On the back of the first he scribbled an address.

“Now you take the buckets
here
,” he said, handing the card to Nathan. “Someone will be waiting for you and will tell you what to do with them.” 

“What about Felina?”

“If she hasn't made herself sick already, she can come back to the office with me. Otherwise she can spend the night here.” “You're going back to your office?” said Nathan.

“Yeah,” said Mallory. “Your story needs an ending, doesn't it? And I might as well play out the final chapter where the whole thing began.”

“All alone?” said the dragon with a puzzled frown.

“I won't be alone,” said Mallory, and with that, he leaned over and laid the other business card face up on the floor of the coffin.

It took Mallory fifteen minutes to get back to his office. Felina had gorged herself on the fish, and he left her at the Hills of Home.

The first thing he did was check the answering machine. His message to Winnifred had been erased, so at least he knew she received it. He looked around for some sign that she'd done what he asked, and finally he found it: a small “Paid” receipt placed carefully beneath his
Racing Form.

“Hey, Periwinkle,” he said, “are you awake?”

“I am
now
,” grumbled his magic mirror.

“I've been up all night. Show me something that'll keep me alert.”

“With or without pasties and g-strings?” asked Periwinkle.

“Spare me your sarcasm,” said Mallory. “I need something fast-paced and exciting.”

“To which I repeat: With or without pasties and g-strings?”

“I have a feeling that Wings O'Bannon has spoiled that particular form of entertainment for me, at least for a few days. How about a nice cheerful musical?”

“Perhaps
Pygmalion?
” suggested Periwinkle.

“You mean
My Fair Lady.
”

“I mean
Pygmalion
, the musical that Rodgers and Hammerstein were commissioned to write. Lerner and Loewe wrote
My Fair Lady
only after Rodgers and Hammerstein abandoned the project.”

“Yeah, I suppose that could be interesting.”

“You don't seem wildly enthused,” noted the mirror.

“I'm just killing time.”

“Until what?”

“You'll see soon enough,” said Mallory.

“If you need to get your adrenaline flowing, I could show you a particular
1949 Roller Derby in which Tuffy Bresheen put three girls from the opposing team into the hospital.”

“That's before I was born,” complained Mallory. “Why do you always insist on showing me Tuffy Bresheen?”

“She was my ideal,” answered Periwinkle. “One hundred sixty pounds of muscle and savagery. Give me fifty like her and I could conquer the world.”

“I got a feeling I could use all fifty of them before sunrise,” said Mallory. He lit a cigarette.

“I thought you were trying to give those up,” said the mirror.

“Tomorrow. Right after I start my diet.”

“Yes, of course. And now, since you seem unable to decide upon an entertainment, I'm going back to sleep.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” said Mallory. “I'm sorry I disturbed you.”

Periwinkle made no reply, and Mallory assumed the mirror was already asleep. He checked his watch. It was 6:27.

He walked over to Winnifred's desk, picked up a book, and thumbed through the pages. It concerned the coming of age of a young woman in nineteenth-century London. Mallory was sure it was a fine book, filled with historical accuracy and brilliant insights, but somehow he had a feeling he'd be more comfortable with a Wings O'Bannon adventure.

He went back to his desk and checked the time again: 6:41. He looked out the window. The sun would be up in less than an hour.

He picked up a magazine, thumbed through it, studied the center spread with a practiced eye, admitted to himself that he didn't really buy it for the articles, and replaced it in a desk drawer.

Suddenly he heard wings flapping in the next room. He didn't have to look to know what it was. He had left the window open about a foot, big enough for a large bat to get through. Then he heard something that was far too large and too heavy to fit through the window land on the floor.

Mallory swiveled his chair so that he was facing the room in question. A moment later a man of moderate build, clad all in black, entered the room.

There was something strange, something
dead
, about his eyes. His skin was gray and wizened, his hair black with gray streaks on the side, his nose thin and aquiline, his lips also thin, his mouth broad, his teeth—even his
large canines—yellow with age and lack of care. He stood and walked as if each movement caused him discomfort if not pain, yet he exuded an air of power.

“I have come for that which is mine,” he said in a voice that seemed too strong for his body.

“You have come because I sent for you,” replied Mallory.

“And why
have
you sent for me? I have never seen you before. Your name was unknown to me prior to this morning.”

“Yeah, well, your name is not unknown to me. One of them, anyway. Welcome to my humble office, Vlad Dracule.”

“So you know,” remarked the vampire. Then he shrugged. “It makes no difference. It is a piece of knowledge that will die with you.”

Mallory looked out a window. “The sun's coming up in about forty-five minutes. I know where
I'm
sleeping.” He turned back to the vampire. “Do you know where
you're
taking your next nap?”

“So
that
is what this is about,” said Vlad. “What do you want for the return of my soil?”

“It's not for sale.”

Vlad Dracule frowned. “Explain yourself.”

Mallory stood stock-still for a moment. Then he heard the sound he had been waiting for from the next room, and he turned his attention back to the vampire.

“I don't want your money,” said Mallory. “You are an evil, unclean
thing
who killed the wrong person—the young man you first bit on the
Moribund Manatee.
”

“I think we must come to an understanding, John Justin Mallory,” said the vampire. “I am very old, older than I think you can imagine. I was here before Prague and Budapest, before Rome, even before Troy. Look at me, Mr. Mallory. My skin is like parchment, my bones frail. I am tired of living, yet the life force remains strong within me. For many decades now I have wished I could die, just lay down the burden of my years and my millennia and cease to exist, but that was not to be. I am what I am, and I am here for the remainder of Time, for better or for worse.”

Even as he spoke the years seemed to melt off Vlad Dracule's body, and
when he was finished, he faced Mallory, awesome and frightening in his newfound vitality and strength.

“Do you do card tricks too?” asked Mallory, trying to sound much less impressed and frightened than he felt.

The vampire half hissed, half roared his rage. “You know what I've come for! I cannot be killed. Now give me that which you have stolen or suffer the consequences!”

“Keep your threats to yourself,” said Mallory with more confidence than he felt. “That is, if you want to know where your soil is.” Mallory studied him. “And you
do
want to know, don't you? I don't know why a night's sleep is so valuable to you—I haven't had one, and I'm still going strong—but it's obvious that you need it.”

Vlad made an almost physical effort to control his rising anger.

“You are meddling in things that you know nothing about, areas that can be of no concern to you,” he said. “Give me the soil this minute and I may let you live.”

“You're in no bargaining position,” Mallory pointed out. “I have something you want. You have nothing that is of any interest to me.”

“Then what
do
you want?”

“I want you to return to Transylvania and never come back here.”

Vlad Dracule drew himself up to his full height, which seemed considerably taller than only a moment earlier. “I come and go where I please.”

“Save it for people who don't have any bargaining chips,” said Mallory. “I've got your soil, and if you didn't need it back, you wouldn't be here. Let me know when you're through making empty threats and are willing to talk business.”

“You have already stated your demand,” said Vlad. “It is unacceptable. Give me what I came for or prepare to suffer the consequences.”

“I can't give it to you,” answered Mallory.

“Why not?” thundered the vampire.

“Because it is currently in a coffin aboard a ship bound for Eastern Europe.”

Vlad Dracule emitted a roar of fury. His eyes narrowed, his face became elongated, and suddenly he was exposing truly phenomenal canines.

“Prepare to die!” he thundered.

“If I die, I won't die alone,” said Mallory. “Now shut up and listen.”

The vampire glared at the detective, but remained where he was.

“Let me tell you what your options are,” said Mallory. “First, you can kill me, but if you do you're never going to learn the name and location of the ship that's about to leave with your coffin.”

“I will find it,” growled Vlad Dracule.

Mallory shook his head. “You can't even leave this office without my help. Do you remember what you felt like when you ripped the dialysis center apart earlier tonight? While I was at the cemetery, my partner treated all the doors and windows with a much stronger solution, courtesy of a gentleman named Odd Peter. If I don't open the door for you, you're stuck here.”

“Fool!” rasped the vampire. “How do you think I entered?”

“You entered through the one untreated window, which I left open for you. But my partner was standing outside the building, and the moment she saw you fly in, she closed the window and treated it. But don't take
my
word for it; go see if it's still open.”

Vlad raced to the window in the next room. His roar of anger when he saw it was closed was almost deafening.

“Your second option,” said Mallory when the vampire returned to the office, “is to agree to my terms. Swear to me that you will never return to this country, and I'll let you out.” He looked out a window. “I think you'll have time to make it to the ship just ahead of the sun.”

Vlad Dracule stared at him with more hate than Mallory had ever seen on a face, human or otherwise.

“While you're considering which option to choose, it's only fair that I tell you that I have two friends aboard the ship who have been instructed to seal your coffin the moment you're in it, and the ship's personnel have orders not to unseal it until it has been returned to Transylvania.” Mallory met the vampire's gaze. “Now it's up to you. Are you really as tired of living as you say, or would you like to take your chances in the old country?”

“How little you know of things!” hissed Vlad Dracule. “You cannot kill me.”

“Maybe so, maybe not,” replied Mallory, “but I can keep you in this office until they tear the building down. And while I don't know quite what your need for that soil is, I know that if we talk for another couple of minutes, it's gone and you're stranded here without it.”

The vampire stared at him curiously. “You have absolutely no fear of me, have you?”

“Wings O'Bannon has no fear of you,” said Mallory. “And he'd have been dead five minutes into this case. Me, I'm scared to death of you. That's why I took all the precautions I took.” He glanced out the window again. “The sun's up in another few minutes. What's your decision?”

For just a moment Mallory thought Vlad was going to pounce on him and tear him apart. Then all the vampire's energy seemed to vanish, and he was once again the old and wizened man that had first entered the office.

“We have an agreement,” he said. “Now let me out. I
must
reach that ship before sunrise.”

Mallory walked him to the office door and opened it.

“Go to the same set of docks where you arrived last week,” said Mallory as they walked out onto the street. “At Pier 66 you'll find a ship called the
Cryptic Corpse.
Go to the cargo hold—there will be a window opened to accommodate you—and you'll find your coffin.”

“I will not thank you,” said Vlad Dracule. “But I will give you a piece of advice.”

“Yes?”

“If you should go abroad in the future, stay out of Transylvania.”

“Words to live by,” said Mallory sardonically.

“Precisely,” said Vlad—and suddenly there was a pile of black clothes at Mallory's feet, and a huge bat was flying south and east across the night sky.

As he returned to his office, Mallory heard a familiar voice say: “Not bad, John Justin Mallory. Not bad at all. Next week we shall be at hazard again, but in honor of your accomplishment I hereby declare a one-week truce.”

“So I got rid of the vampire
and
impressed the Grundy,” said Mallory as he sat down at his desk. “Let's see Wings O'Bannon pull
that
off.”