The Vampire Affair - McDaniel David - Страница 16

"Zoltan!" he called softly. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Silence answered him. But he had been running this way—could they have caught him? No, he would have heard their shouts of success. Perhaps they were close to where he was hiding, and Napoleon was not. He went closer, ducked into some bushes and called again, in English.

After a moment there was an answer from some twenty feet away, and above him. He looked up. There was Zoltan, crouching on a tree limb, almost hidden by foliage.

Napoleon addressed him severely. "Come on down and let's get out of here. If they saw you up there they'd just set fire to the tree, and forget about the stake through your heart."

Zoltan frowned, then chuckled ruefully and swung down. "What do you think they would have done," he asked, "if they had found me hanging head-down by my knees from that branch?"

Napoleon didn't bother answering, instead concentrating on leading them through the underbrush towards the car. In the darkness they heard the continuing mutter of the searching crowd.

Zoltan stopped short at the edge of the parking lot, and took Napoleon's shoulder. "Watch out," he said. "There's someone in the car."

Napoleon laughed. "Don't worry. I've found a student of some of your family history, and enlisted his aid. He doesn't know who you are yet, though, and I think he'll be terribly impressed when you tell him."

"What's his name?"

"Ackerman—Forrest J no period Ackerman. He's an American, intelligent, and trustworthy as near as I can tell. Sharp, too; he recognized my name from somewhere and knew I work for U.N.C.L.E. He knows about the murders, but not about Endros' death."

"I see no reason to keep him waiting any longer," said Zoltan, striding forward. "If he knows much about vampires, he will be able to see a glance that I am innocent. If he knows nothing of vampires, he will not be afraid of me." He paused and glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the street and the fading sound of the crowd. "It is only those who know a little about vampires that are frightened at my name. Sips of knowledge intoxicate the brain, while deeper drinking sobers it again, as some English poet or other put it."

"You're close enough," Napoleon said, opening the car door. "Forry Ackerman of America, meet Count Zoltan Dracula of Pokol."

Ackerman's mouth dropped open. "Really?" he said. "Well, how about that!" He extended a hand. Zoltan took it, and Ackerman looked closely as they shook hands.

Zoltan followed his glance, and laughed. "Yes, my second and third fingers are quite different lengths," he said. "You'll also find my canine teeth to be normal, and my face to be reflected quite clearly in the rear-vision mirror. Nor have I any aversion to silver, crucifixes, or garlic. Are you disappointed?"

Forry seemed to be having a little trouble with his speech. At last he said, "Well, I'm not really sure whether I'm disappointed or relieved. It's just a surprise meeting a real-life Dracula."

"He's better than that," said Napoleon, "and we'll be glad to tell you about that over dinner. Do you have a car here?"

"No; I came by taxi."

"Fine. Can we drop you somewhere?"

"You can be my guests at dinner," said Forry positively. "I wouldn't miss an opportunity to get an interview with the real Count Dracula for my readers." He glanced up. "I presume you eat solid food?"

Zoltan smiled. "Yes, and I even like my steak well-done."

Chapter 8: "Begone, You Fiend of Satan!"

Illya and Hilda spent a pleasant afternoon in the woods with Colonel Hanevitch. Illya found the spot where the car had been left, with little trouble, and the path was still there. But distances are deceiving in the fog, and he was unable to decide where the cave had been.

At first he led them back along the path as far as he thought he and Napoleon had come—and found himself in the middle of a little hollow, with no hillside nearby. Then he began casting about in both directions, and came up with three or four likely-looking hillsides over about half a mile, but none of them seemed to contain a cave.

Illya sat down on a rock and scowled. He could recognize no landmarks; the rich green depths of the forest in clear afternoon sunlight were completely alien to the fog-shrouded mysteries of the night before. His memory supplied him only with the outline of the cave mouth, and the gray fingers of fog growing about the edges of the rock. Even the exact contour of the path had been hardly visible at their feet.

"This is the path," he said at last. "There's not another one we could have turned off of. Therefore the cave must be in one of these hills. It couldn't have been filled up overnight."

"Perhaps it never really existed," said Hanevitch in a tone which was meant to be comforting, and failed. "Sometimes when one has been working very hard, one's mind plays tricks."

Illya looked up at him without a word, but his expression said very plainly that he knew what he had seen, even if not precisely where he had seen it.

"Perhaps it was covered up," said Hilda, hopefully.

Illya shook his head. "There is nothing here to cover it with. No bushes, not even heavy grass."

Hanevitch patted him heavily on the shoulder. "My dear young friend," he said sympathetically, "come back to the village with us and we will await the return of Domn Solo from Brasov. Perhaps the two of you can determine between you what is to be done about this mysterious cave you remember."

Illya rose suddenly and brushed off the Colonel's hand. "We have a few hours of daylight left," he said brusquely. "I will go over the path again. If you wish to return to the village you may."

The Colonel sighed a deep and patient sigh, and followed Illya off down the path again. This time the Russian's eyes searched carefully every part of the path, looking for some trace of their flight to the car. The surface was hard-packed dirt, but he thought there should have been some marks in the softer earth on either side.

They were almost to the car when Illya stopped so suddenly that Hilda almost bumped into him. He knelt down on the path and looked closely at the ground. Then he turned slowly and started to crawl back along the path on hands and knees, studying the ground intently.

The Colonel looked down at him with a deeply concerned expression. "Domn Kuryakin," he said uneasily, "are you feeling well?"

"Quite well," said Illya impatiently. "Look." And he pointed to a slight depression in the dirt.

"At what?"

"At the footprints Napoleon or I left last night. The path was too narrow for us to be able to stay on it constantly in the dark—our feet often left impressions beside it. We were running here, if not farther back."

He rose slowly to his feet, but his eyes remained on the ground. The brush was thick here, and they passed between the bushes single file. On the other side, Illya studied the ground again. A slow satisfied smile spread across his face, and he looked back towards the brush.

"Come with me," he said to Hilda and the Colonel. "I believe we have overlooked something."

They had. On the far side of a clump of flowering bushes there was another path, and after a few moments' examination Illya rose to his feet and said, "Footprints. At the end of this path we should find our cave."