A Matter Of Taste by Fred Saberhagen (best reads .TXT) 📗

Kaiser, Maule had little doubt what his chief opponent’s true name must be. Valentine Kaiser—the name in itself was a kind of pun on the truth, which tended to confirm his insight.

      So far, he had communicated his theory of the foe’s identity to no one. It could not make any difference to the young couple heroically defending themselves in his apartment. But he intended to tell Joseph when he found him.

      If he should not be too late to find him…

      Descending from the remoter heights of the skyscraper with the nocturnal rush of an owl or a bat, moving swiftly and all but invisibly, Maule made good time, traveling airborne over a mile or so of city, to the Southerland condominium.

      The building was a modern high-rise not unlike his own except for being much smaller. He arrived at the condominium in less than a minute and tapped at the door. A moment later Joseph Keogh, exhibiting great relief, undid the bolts and locks and let him in.

      “Man, am I glad to see you!”

      “And I to see you alive and well, Joseph, I assure you. Have you been besieged?”

      “Since I holed up here? No. Nothing.”

      “Welcome news, on the face of it. Yet somehow I find it ominous.”

      “What’s going on?”

      Maule brought him up-to-date as completely as possible in a few sentences. “And now I think we had better return, swiftly, to my apartment.”

      Joe was ready in a minute. “What about John and Angie? Are they still coping with all this?”

      “As well as can be expected.”

      “And where the hell is this Valentine Kaiser now?” “That is what I am trying to find out.”

      In another minute they had descended to an underground level of the building, a buried garage where a car, belonging to the Southerland company, was available to Joe. Maule, to be on the safe side, conducted a swift search for bombs and other unpleasant surprises before allowing Joe to touch the vehicle.

      Then they were on their way. As Joe drove, the two men continued to compare notes.

      Joe explained the course of evasive action he’d employed, using taxis and the subway briefly, to get from the Art Institute to the Southerland condominium before nightfall. Since he’d been holed up he’d called the overseas phone numbers that could have put him in contact with Mina Harker, but so far he’d only been able to leave messages.

      Maule nodded in approval. In turn he explained to Joe some of the essential facts about the drug with which he and now two other vampires had recently been poisoned: What happened to breathing people when they swallowed the stuff, what happened to vampires when they bit those breathing people, and how he himself had been able to recognize the taste, although it was disguised by garlic, before he had taken enough to disable him for a long time. Luckily he had been able to regurgitate some of the blood he had already swallowed.

      Then Maule related how he had induced Angie to take a dose of the same drug when it looked like she was going to be captured.

      “Clever move,” Joe admitted.

      “Yes—because it worked. I myself have tasted the Borgia sugar at least once before, in the year 1492. I must tell you about that sometime. It will be in the next book.”

      “I’m looking forward,” said Joe absently.

      “I wonder,” Maule murmured thoughtfully, “where the man now calling himself Kaiser obtained his supply? The question opens interesting possibilities, but for the time being we can leave them open.”

      “You know him under some other name?”

      “Indeed I do. As Cesare Borgia. When there is time for leisurely discussion I will speak to you about him.”

      Vaguely Joe thought he could remember hearing the name of Borgia somewhere. Something in history, something villainous. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference to the present situation.”

      “No, I think not.”

      Discussion moved on to the enemy’s general strength and capabilities. Of course one always had to allow for possible miscalculation in such matters; but by now Maule thought he could be fairly sure that the ranks of Borgia’s auxiliaries had been drastically depleted. One vampire woman dead, fallen this morning to Joseph’s wooden bullets. Two more nosferatu gallantly eliminated by John and Angie in Maule’s apartment. One breather, Mr. Stewart, even more recently departed. There was at least one more vampire woman remaining, besides Valentine himself, the lady Joe had seen up on the maintenance floor. And an indeterminate number of breathers also; but Maule thought those would pose no problem once their master had been rendered inactive.

      Maule came back to the remaining enemy vampire woman. “From your description, Joseph, I think I know her. There are not that many vampires currently in the world, you know, and most of them I think are known to me in one way or another. I expect she will pose no danger, once her leader has been rendered harmless.”

      “And how are we going to do that?”

      “I am not yet sure. What apartment number is he in?”

      Joe provided the information.

* * *

      They drove into the tall building’s underground parking facility, fortunately now emptied of most of its daytime users. Joe had no difficulty in finding a space.

      “I must say, Joseph, that the absence of the man you know as Kaiser seems to me increasingly ominous. We had better first look in on John and Angie before we set out to attack the enemy.”

      “Sounds like a smart idea to me.”

      Mr. Maule felt a special responsibility for those two young breathers. They had been his guests when hell began to envelop them, and he had plans to hold a strict accounting with the man responsible for that onslaught. Of course, if the villain was who Maule thought he was, that accounting could hardly be as strict as it really ought to be…

      They reached Maule’s battered door, and Joe tapped on it and called. To his relief, and Maule’s, Angie and John were still snugly and safely fortified within. They reported having seen nothing of the enemy since Maule’s departure only minutes ago.