The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen (best black authors TXT) 📗

a tiger cub tied mewling in the forest at night, whilst concealed men with electric lights and heavy weapons ready ring the spot about, waiting in silence for those great green glowing eyes to come, that bear a full hand’s breadth of separating night between!

      Yes, they might be willing to let her roam at night until I came to her. They might expect me there to teach her vampire lore, receive a pledge of fealty, or demand some other service from her. They might be cold and cruel enough to risk a breathing child or two … or had any children been attacked at all? Might the whole series of newspaper stories possibly be no more than a cunning fabrication, designed to draw me into the snare?

      I looked round me swiftly. At the moment I could see no one; but inside one of those mausoleums eyes might be looking out and there might be a Kodak taking photographs, its operator protected by those walls and bars so strong that twenty men could not, bare-handed, tear them free.

      It is well for the world’s vampires that I am not the chief huntsman on their trail. Actually there was no effective plan against me at the time; in making the hasty retreat from the cemetery that I did I was an overcautious general for once. Meanwhile Van Helsing, on his part, was perhaps a little overconfident. He had been keeping a desultory eye on the cemetery, and had read the newspaper accounts of Lucy’s activities, but that evening he did not approach her tomb until after dark. He brought with him a marveling and hesitant Dr. Seward, to whom he had begun to unfold the truth about Lucy’s condition. The professor now intended to open Lucy’s coffin and demonstrate to his younger colleague the incredible truth that he was trying to get across. Of course Van Helsing came well equipped with religious paraphernalia and garlic, expecting thus to be adequately protected, against Lucy at least; he had something of the mentality of his contemporaries, the American Indian Ghost Dancers, who earnestly believed that the signs and symbols of their faith would stop the bullets of the cavalry.

      I was nowhere near Lucy’s tomb that night, but only read of their expedition in Seward’s journal later. Leading his skeptical friend along, parrying his whispered questions with mainly enigmatic and portentous words, Van Helsing entered the tomb — he had obtained the key at the funeral, under pretext of passing it on to Arthur — and opened the coffin. He cut through the sealed inner, leaden box, which was once more empty. The absence of a corpse was certainly startling to Seward, but not enough to convince him that dear Lucy prowled on Hampstead Heath with bloody fangs. Nor was he totally convinced of such an outrageous fact, even by a white figure that later in the night gave the doctors the slip amongst the trees and tombs, and from the path of which they recovered a small child, abducted but still fortunately unharmed.

      And, whilst the doctors prowled and argued, where was the evil count? On September twenty-seventh I was engaged in moving some of my furniture — by which I mean of course nine boxes, the size of large coffins, each half filled with weighty earth — from Carfax to a house I had just bought in Piccadilly. With the idea of making things more difficult for potential hunters who might attempt to trace my movements, I chose on this occasion not to deal with a regular firm of carters and instead struck out on my own to make the acquaintance of a suitable laborer.

      After several interesting experiences in the pubs of the East End I hired one Sam Bloxam, who had a cart and single horse at his disposal. With this equipage two trips were needed between Carfax and the heart of the city, and the entire day was occupied. I might have speeded up matters somewhat by loading and unloading the boxes myself, but did not want to lift them unaided in sight of Mr. Bloxam, who understood in his bones just how heavy they were. So we hoisted them on and off the wagon between us, he puffing and blowing with the forty percent or so of weight that I allowed him to feel at his end.

      At length I grew impatient, and in Piccadilly enlisted three itinerant laborers off the street to help Bloxam bring the boxes up the high steps of the house. This created a new difficulty, for when I inadvertently overpaid the men, with shillings instead of pence, they grew surly rather than grateful, and demanded even more. Perhaps some instinct informed them that the job for which they had been hired was one that their employer desired should be kept as confidential as possible. Their self-appointed leader, the largest of them, actually grew blustery with me. I took him by the shoulder and looked close into his eyes, and counseled moderation; and then I heard no more from them till they were several houses down the street, when they gave vent to oaths.

      So I was still going peaceably about my own affairs, not seeking conflict with those who were determined to be my enemies. I felt very domestic in my Piccadilly house and considered rigging up a night-bell, or a day-bell rather, with a wire, and rejoiced that there were no manservants in my pantry to give concern for immorality. On that same day, unknown to me of course, Van Helsing and Seward were back in the boneyard, where the professor intended to make another demonstration for his doubtful student. They mingled with the mourners at some stranger’s funeral, then slipped away to an unpeopled corner of the cemetery where they laid low until the sexton had closed the gates. Then, using their key to enter the Westenra tomb for a second time, they naturally found Miss Westenra at home, though perhaps not in shape for receiving callers