Dracula 01 - The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen

Author:Fred Saberhagen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 1975-01-17T07:00:00+00:00

He raised both hands and held them forward as I drew near. Let him think his toys would stop me, if he really believed such rot. I wanted the chance to talk. We eyed each other for some moments above the little crucifix.

"Count Dracula." He made a tiny bow. His nerve was high, his mouth smiling a little now.

"At your service," I replied, and gave him back his bow.

He tipped his head in the briefest nod toward the silent tomb. "You may not have her longer," he said, continuing to smile. "She is no longer yours."

"My dear young sir, she never was." Van Helsing's face at that time bore more agelines than my own, but he understood. "Not in the way you seem to think."

"You lie, king-devil Dracula. Ve know you, better than you realize."

"Very well, Van Helsing, we will have bluntness. I know your name, but nothing good of it. What are your intentions now?"

"That the so-young Miss Lucy shall have rest, and peace."

"And as regards me?"

"If it so may be," he said with a grim, measured determination, "that you shall trouble none other as you have troubled her."

I turned away and strolled about a little among the tombs, my hands behind my back and beneath my cloak, somewhat in the way that I have seen Napoleon walk when deep in thought. "Why?" I asked, stopping to face my antagonist once more.

And then I saw in his face, in his eyes, that he probably really did not understand my question.

"I mean why, Professor, do you persecute and torment us? I know of one vampire that you have slain near Brussels, and two more, a man and wife, near Paris…"

"Man and wife!" He was outraged. "If there are marriages not in heaven, as the Scripture say, then surely not in hell either!"

"And we are hellish, of course; more so than other folk, I mean. Tell me, Van Helsing, if I took that cross from out of your grasp and hung it 'round my own neck, would you still be so certain that I came from hell?"

His pudgy fingers tightened on the gold. "By your works I know you, Dracula. I fear there is much power to you, and that you may play tricks with crosses, and the other things of holiness. In Brussels where I did my work of mercy I heard your name, and in Paris too; and I have read the journal of young Harker, from his stay at your damned castle, from which the powers of heaven so blessedly delivered him."

"Ah! And is Jonathan well, and back in London now?" As I spoke I recalled the notebook with Harker's ciphers in it. "I would be pleased to know that he is well, but saddened if he found my hospitality so hard to bear as your grim tones and looks imply."

Van Helsing now held silent, regretting perhaps that he might have given something away by mentioning Harker at all. Utter loathing was in his eyes, which remained fixed

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