Barbara Hambly - 01 Those Who Hunt The Night

The thing shook its head. Another shred of hair fell from its balding scalp, drifting like milkweed to the broad tweed shoulder.

"Not in the daytime, surely," Asher remarked.

"Not vampires, no," Blaydon said. "But they might well have hired other humans than you, James. Though how decent men could bring themselves to alliance with murderers..."

"I think your own house has a bit too much glass in its construction for you to start chucking stones about," Asher replied thinly, and Blaydon's mouth tightened with a sudden spasm of rage.

"That's different!" There was the edge to his voice of a man pressed too far, almost to the verge of hysterics.

Asher was too weary to care. "Isn't it always?"

The voice slipped up into the next register. "You know nothing about it!" With an effort, the pathologist got a hold on himself again; the vampire, behind him, spared him not a glance, but Asher was uneasily aware of that greedy, vicious gaze on his unprotected throat. Blaydon's voice was shaky, but quieter, as he said, "It isn't his fault. It was my doing, my experiment, you see."

Asher shifted up onto one elbow, his eyes narrowing. "Yourwhat? " The vampire stepped forward to stand at Blaydon's side. The old man got to his feet; for all his height, the thing loomed over him still, only a few inches taller, but monstrous in its breadth and bulk, incon-gruous in tweed jacket and flannel bags. Its arms hung grotesquely from the jacket sleeves, and the clawed hands Asher remembered were par-tially wrapped in bandages, stained dark with the oozing infection be-neath.

"Don't you recognize him, James?" Blaydon asked, his voice thin and curiously soft. "It's Dennis,"

"Dear God." Even as he whispered the words, Asher was conscious that, now that he knew who it was, he could recognize that short, straight little nose. It was certainly all that remained of a godlike beauty-that and the lobeless ears. The vampire was several inches taller than Dennis had been. That, too, must have hurt. Asher felt stunned, as if he had been struck over the head, not knowing what to do or say-pitying, horrified, and aware of the baleful glitter of hate in Dennis' eyes.

"You're glad, aren't you?" The deformation caused by the growth of his fangs caused Dennis to mumble almost unintelligibly. With his blot-ted handkerchief he patted at his chin again. "Glad to see me like this. You hope Lydia will see me like this, too, don't you? But she won't. She's not going to see me 'til I'm better."

"Of course she won't, Dennis," Blaydon said reassuringly. "And you'll be better soon. I'll find a serum to make you better..."

Slowly, the shocked stillness seemed to break in Asher's veins with the horrible throb of stirring blood. "Where is she?"

"That won't matter to you," the vampire said. "You're never going to see her again."

Asher heaved himself up, his whole body screaming in pain, and reached to catch Blaydon's lapel.

"Where is she?!"

He was slammed back against the floor as if he'd been hit by a swing-ing anvil before he was even aware Dennis had moved. Darkness blurred in front of his eyes, and he tasted blood in his mouth and nose. Somewhere he heard Blaydon say sharply, "Dennis, no!" like a spinster calling off a savage dog, and felt the dark crush of Dennis' mind on his, as he had at Grippen's. Shadow blotted the light above him; that dim, barking voice went on, "He's concerned about her, of course he is..."

"I want him."

He was fighting unconsciousness, the reek of decaying flesh filling his nostrils as the thing bent over him.

"And you'll have him, of course you will." It was strange to hear the fear in Blaydon's voice-Blaydon who had always been ready to spit in Satan's eye or God's. "But I need him now, Dennis. Let him be."

"He'll tell us where the others are," Dennis growled, and a drop of something-drool or pus-fell on the back of Asher's neck. "You said we needed to trap him so he'd tell..."

"Yes, but we have a live vampire now, Dennis..."

"When can I have him?" Eagerness suffused the slurring voice. "I'm hurting, Dad, the thirst is killing me. That girl last night wasn't near enough, and you got most of it. Dad, I can smell him through the coffin wood, smell both their blood..."

"Please, my boy. Please be patient." Blaydon's voice came closer, gently drawing his vampire son away. "I have another plan, a better plan, now, but your getting well depends on both of them being alive, at least until tonight. I-I- Do what you need to do to-to make yourself comfortable-but please, don't touch either of them."

The voices faded and blurred as Asher slid toward darkness. He heard Lydia's name, "... perfectly safe, you know I'd never do anything to hurt her. Now fetch me some brandy, please. I'm sure James needs it."

Sinking into unconsciousness, Asher was sure James needed it, too.

The taste of the brandy revived him, coughing. He'd been propped up against the coffin again-Blaydon, glass in hand, was staring at the red teeth marks still visible on his throat through the open collar of his shirt. Dennis stood by the closed door, a cut-glass decanter of brandy in his knotty fingers. Asher supposed he should be flattered that they con-sidered him still capable of rushing Blaydon.

Without speaking, Blaydon lifted Asher's left wrist and pushed back the torn shirt sleeve to study the wounds there among the blackened finger marks of Dennis' grip.

"What did they do to you?"

Asher drew a deep breath and disengaged his hand to wipe at the blood trickling from his nose into his mustache and down the side of his face. "It was a misunderstanding."

"What did they do to you?"Blaydon seized his arm, shaking him urgently. "Did they only drink your blood-or was it something more?"

His dewlaps were quivering with the trembling of his chin; Asher stared up at nun, eyes narrowing. "If it was anything more, I'd be dead now."

"Would you?" His voice lowered, but he could not keep from it that unholy eagerness, that sudden urgency barely restrained. "Your spe-cialty was comparative folklore, James. You know about such things. Is it true that if your blood is drunk by a vampire-a true vampire-you become one yourself when you die? Is that how it's done?"

Something about the greedy gleam in his eye raised the hackles on Asher's neck. "I should think Dennis could tell you that," he said slowly. "What do you mean, 'a true vampire'?" His eyes went past him to Dennis, monstrous, deformed. "Why do you say it is your doing that Dennis is as he is?"

A flush crept up under Blaydon's pasty skin, and his little blue eyes shifted quickly away.

In a low voice Asher went on, "What is it you want with a vampire's blood? Why draw it out with a needle as well as letting Dennis drink of it? Why is Dennis as he is and not like the other vampires? Did Calvaire or whatever vampire made Dennis have some infection that he passed along? Or...?"

"It is in the blood, isn't it?" Blaydon said, still not looking at him. "The organism or constellation of organisms, virus or serum or chemi-cal, that causes vampirism. Isn't it?" His voice rose, verging once more on a cry. "Isn 't it?"

"Lydia thinks so."

Blaydon's mouth tightened up like a trap at the mention of Lydia, and his eyes shifted nervously under Asher's silent gaze. "She-she recognized me, you see. At theDaily Mail offices, when I was looking for clippings and clues. I'd run out of clues about the whereabouts of the other vampires. I had to have more. She'd read my articles, too. She was already looking for a doctor. She said it was obvious I'd be pre-pared to believe in a vampire as a medical phenomenon where others wouldn't. Dennis said he saw her once in London, while he was follow-ing that fledgling of Calvaire's. He couldn't follow her then, but when she came snooping about here... Dennis caught her..." He laughed like a crow cawing. "Slip of a schoolgirl, and she's cleverer than the lot of us. She guessed at once what I'd done."