Séance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen (top ebook reader TXT) 📗

wife and Sarah, was, of all the people round the table, actually nearest to the apparition when it came in, but with his back turned to it. Now Altamont, straining against the pull of those to right and left who gripped his hands, had twisted halfway around to confront this visitor with whom his wife was pleading. Against the background of the westernmost pair of French doors I could see the man’s dim shape rising partially from his chair, and I heard him utter a dreadful, hoarse, incoherent cry.

A moment later the father, wrenching his hands free from the grip of those holding them, stood fully erect and went lurching toward the figure in white. He succeeded–as he reported later–in touching Louisa’s hand. At this moment also, he was able to look closely into her face, and to hear her voice, perhaps murmuring words bearing upon some secret that he and his elder daughter alone had shared.

Altamont called her name, hoarsely, again and again. He was obviously overwhelmed by the conviction that after all, against all his beliefs and expectations, this was truly his daughter, restored to him by some miracle of spiritual power.

When the voice of the apparition replied to him, I thought that it had changed, become notably less forced and unnatural. “Father, I’m all right, really... except I... I can’t...” She added more, but nothing that I could hear distinctly.

Moments after the circle of clasping hands was broken by Altamont’s defection, it had utterly disintegrated. I jumped to my feet, with the final orders given me by Sherlock Holmes still ringing in my ears–we had discussed in advance what ought to be done in the case of some chaotic development like this.

My first effort was simply to turn on the electric chandelier. I had taken careful note of the position of the switch, on the wall to my left, beside the door leading to the hallway. My original intent, however, proved impossible to achieve in the darkness and confusion. Colliding blindly with other people and stumbling over fallen chairs, I found myself somewhat disoriented, groping over a blank wall after a switch that seemed to have perversely moved itself.

The night was full of cries and shouts in both men’s and women’s voices. Martin Armstrong, who had been sitting between Rebecca and Mrs. Altamont, later recounted that he had found himself stunned, confronted with the staggering fact that the woman he loved was not dead after all, but rather that she stood living, here in the same room with him. Martin had drawn his feet under his chair, in preparation for an all-out leap toward Louisa. He was filled with a mighty determination that he would at all costs not allow her to escape–

In the middle of all this, Abraham Kirkaldy cried out in a changed and terrible voice: “Stop! I see–” his words broke off at that point, his utterance degenerating into a hoarse cry of sheer horror. but a moment later his voice rang out clearly again: “Stop! A thing from hell is here among us!”

This declamation was followed by other sounds from other members of the gathering, groans and protests, and a howl that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

Next young Kirkaldy shouted that the visitant should “Go back to your grave!”

I heard Martin Armstrong cry out like a man caught in the grip of a sudden and terrible new emotion, raising a desperate shout that rose clearly above the other confused noises in the room.

And I could distinguish the voice of Sherlock Holmes, masterful and incisive, urging calm, urging those present to let the figure alone. but alas, none of the others who heard him were paying much attention.

Armstrong, as he told me later, actually succeeded in reaching the visitant and attempted to prevent her getting away, meanwhile shouting for lights. but with a strength beyond the human, and a determination that Armstrong found inexplicable, the slender girl twisted and pulled herself free.

By this time, both of Louisa’s parents were also clutching at the mysterious intruder, struggling with a terrible earnestness to hold her, as if they would by their own efforts cheat Death of his prize after all.

The girl’s voice in the dark was heartrending. “Mother. Father...”

Listening, I received the impression that the undead girl was striving in agony to accomplish something. It was not a mere physical effort, but an attempt to convey to her parents that there was something that must be done before the recently undead, she herself in particular, could rest. Something that Louisa’s parents must do–for her benefit.

“There is an ancient wrong which must be righted.” And Louisa– increasingly I felt convinced that this was she–as if under some great compulsion, kept repeating a refrain of words to this effect: “What was stolen must be returned...”

Then suddenly the voice of the spectral figure broke off. And in another moment, surrounded and beset by the very people who had most loved Louisa Altamont during her breathing life, it abruptly turned and tore itself away.

The object of all tearful outcries and entreaties fled. I saw, in near darkness and yet with a convincing clarity, how her departing form made a ghostly, half-transparent image at the window-doors, white in the delicate illumination which crept in round the edges of the dark drapes. None of the three French doors opened, yet somehow, without so much as stirring one of those heavy folds of cloth, she had in a moment gone past them and was outside the house.

A moment later, the most easterly set of curtains was ripped aside, as Martin Armstrong, floundering in darkness, in desperate pursuit of his beloved, reached the French windows and found himself stopped there by latches and solid glass.

I could hear Armstrong, still calling the name of his beloved in an agony of hope, fumbling with the unfamiliar catch to get the window open, but failing to do so.

For a moment longer, the form that he pursued was clearly visible just outside, where light