An Old Friend Of The Family (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 3) by Fred Saberhagen (interesting books to read for teens .TXT) 📗

seemed consequential. A couple of imperfectly draped windows let him peek into a couple of rooms, which were empty of furniture. He did see some new-looking paint and shiny floors, as if some remodeling or refinishing project might recently have been completed; but it was too dark inside to be sure of even that much. It might be that the owners had moved out during the remodeling, but had left the heat turned on to protect the water pipes and the new plaster.

    His circuit of the house completed, Joe approached the front step again, thinking; one more knock, so I can say I really tried. When we get back on the highway, I’ll check the name on that mailbox—just to be thorough.

* * * * * * *

    Fiercely Judy hissed the words, almost in the ear of the old man who sat in the seat ahead: “He is in that house!”

    “I do not doubt that, Judy.” Lean fingers on the door handle beside him, the old man was staring ahead with serpent-like intensity. “But neither do I think that Joe is going to discover him. He is an honorable policeman, who will not dream of exceeding his authority on grounds no stronger than those which we have given him.”

    “We can’t go away and leave Johnny in there!”

    “We certainly cannot. Especially since this visit must alarm his captor. You say you see only one man with him, now?”

    “Yes.”

    “I think you are right.” And with the movement of a lithe twenty-year-old, Corday was suddenly out of the car. He held the door open, his tall form bending beside it, looking in at her. “I am going to take action. And you…but no.”

    “What is it?” She had never seen eyes like his…they were so dark. And they were old no longer.

    He said, eyes glittering: “I was about to order you to stay here in safety. But this is not the world for safety, is it? Nor are you and I the people who prize it above all. So, will you enter battle with me? In all the world are very few whom I would sooner ask.”

    The man who spoke to her seemed to have been transformed, to have grown larger than life. And it seemed to Judy that she was transformed too. The young woman who stepped out of the car was a fit companion for heroic deeds. Yet she was still herself, perhaps more truly herself than ever before.

    “What must I do?” she calmly asked.

    “Come this way at once. Joe is returning.” Her companion’s voice had altered too, and there were hints of drums and trumpets even in its softness.

    She followed him as quickly as she could, along the edge of the drive back in the direction of the highway.

    “Now jump this way,” he ordered. “Leave no tracks.” The best spring of her young legs took her sideways from the drive, to an area of matted leaves and brown grass that had been blown free of snow. From one snowless patch to the next she followed her companion, who moved ahead now like an acrobat, reaching back a hand from time to time to steady her. He led her through grass and bush and briefly along the top rail of a split-log fence, in a curving path that brought them into some bushes from which they could just see the car.

    Crouching there motionless, with Corday’s hand upon her arm, Judy could see the alarm in Joe’s face as he came trotting the last yards to the vehicle, shocked by the realization that they were gone. “Corday?” he called out, almost threateningly. Then, louder: “Judy!”

    In a moment he had spotted their footprints in the snow, leading back along the drive. Swearing, he started after them on foot, and promptly lost the trail where the snow gave way in spots to leaves and grass. Red-faced and muttering, Joe jumped into the car. Spinning wheels in snow, he got the Volks turned round and headed back to the highway. The sound of it died away.

    “Now, my girl.” Corday—this youthful stranger she had known as Corday—stood up straight, raising her by both arms to stand beside him. “Before I can enter any house, I must be called, invited, by someone inside. Do not ask me to explain just now, but it is so. So you must get into this house, somehow, and then call to me. If no one answers the door for you, break in a window.”

    “I will.” Around Judy the woods were growing minute by minute dimmer, darkness oozing up into them from the ground. But for the moment she was not at all afraid.

    “Only call me, and I shall come. But you must call.”

    Life sang in Judy’s blood, life of an intensity that nothing in her memory could match. It forced her to a knowledge that she had earlier refused. She breathed: “I called you once before. Didn’t I?”

    The man before her nodded quickly, his timeless eyes joyful that she understood. “But ask no question now,” he said. With a light pressure of his hand he sent her on her way.

    Fear did not begin until she was out of the woods and well along the drive toward the house, where all the windows were utterly dark in the swiftly gathering twilight. The snow under Judy’s booted feet was marked now with Joe’s tracks, going and returning. And now she could see where someone, probably Joe also, had circled the house.

    On the raised step under the protective overhang of roof that sheltered the front door, the snow was not as deep as in the open yard. It was much trampled by Joe’s feet, but an unbroken white grommet remaining between door and threshold showed that the door had