The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel

Author:David McDaniel [McDaniel, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

Section III: "Into The Darkness Where The Undead Wait."

Chapter 9: "The Only Way Out Is Through."

Napoleon and Zoltan arrived long after midnight, and Napoleon crept into his room at the inn quietly so as not to awaken his partner. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he noticed a dark-haired figure in his bed, and he halted half-way across the room.

"It's Hilda," said the soft, wide-awake voice of Illya from the next bed. "She made up the couch for you, in case you came back tonight after all."

Napoleon recognized her face now in the darkness. As he turned to the couch she suddenly rolled over and came awake with a stifled scream.

"Oh! Napoleon, I didn't recognize you in the dark."

He sighed deeply. "Okay, what did I miss tonight? Did Illya break a window this time?"

"Nothing so simple, I'm afraid," said his partner. "Colonel Hanevitch and I were in here talking, Hilda had gone to bed, and we heard her scream. When we came in, the Count was standing over her—leaning over her, actually, just about to sink his fangs into her throat. I fired point-blank at him twice, and...well, perhaps I missed. Then he knocked me down. Hanevitch drove him away"—Illya's voice seemed to catch, but he continued steadily—"with two silver knives forming a cross. He went out the open window, and disappeared into the night."

There was several seconds' silence while this sank in, and then Napoleon spoke. "Well...outside of that, how was your day?"

"Napoleon, this is past joking," said Hilda, with a tremor in her voice. She sat up in bed with the covers pulled around her and one flannel-clad arm resting across her knees. "I don't know what almost happened to me tonight, but I'm not ashamed to admit I'm terrified." She pointed at the windows. "Look."

Solo moved quietly across the room as Illya turned on his bedside lamp. There were garlands of some kind around the frame, and as he came closer, he could smell the odor of garlic. Then he saw the buds interwoven with the whitish flowers and nodded.

"It's like the old story of the man scattering strips of paper from the train in Vermont," he said. "He told his seat-mate it would keep elephants away. 'But there aren't any elephants in Vermont,' the other guy said. 'Yes—effective, isn't it?'"

Illya snorted a little. "What happened to you in Brasov? Suddenly you're cynical again."

"I found out a few things, mostly background on our mysterious Count Tsepesh. And Zoltan got himself chased by a mob again—one of these days they're going to catch him. And we met a gentleman by the name of Ackerman. American, knows everything worth knowing about vampires, and doesn't believe in them for a minute. Very intelligent, very entertaining, and a fine host. As soon as he heard Zoltan's name, he insisted on buying us dinner, and we talked vampires all through it. Historical backgrounds of the legends, a few real blood-fixated psychotics, real vampire bats, and so on. I feel much better about the whole thing now.

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