somewhat befuddled state, I had come this far with no firm plan of revenge in mind. Perhaps chief among my mixed feelings at the moment was disappointment. I had naturally wanted to catch Ronay in full possession of his faculties. Now, on the contrary, I was sure that the fool must be totally delirious to imagine that I had come from anywhere but solid earth. I was no evil spirit, but Drakulya, a man. Though slain, a live man still, because I had refused to die.
I, of course, was conscious of no effect upon myself from all of Ronay's terrified onslaught of commands and curses. Certainly it would have been hard to find anyone less qualified than he as a spiritual authority. The dagger he brandished was only a crude cross, a sacred symbol held by an evil man. I could have lunged forward and snatched it away from him. But I did not. Nor did I speak. I only resumed my advance—very slowly.
'Come not to me! You don't want me!' Now the wretch was almost sobbing. He had no energy remaining to drag himself away. 'It was Bogdan who planned your death. He who tortured you, not I! Seek Bogdan! I am innocent!'
I spoke at last, quite naturally, as I thought. 'Oh, Bogdan's turn is coming, I assure you. And Basarab's. But yours has come already.' And at this pleasant thought I smiled.
This coward who had conspired to murder me was gasping continuously now, trying and almost failing to draw breath. And now he threw down his useless dagger and, like a child, tried to hide his eyes. To make the bad dream go away. Standing over him, filled with disgust, I reached down and snatched him up. To me he felt even lighter than a child. I tried what I might do with my grip upon his shoulder and could feel the bones there begin to snap, quite satisfactorily, beneath the pressure of my fingers.
Of course with all the noise of falling arms and armor he had made, we were bound to be interrupted. Having just completed the mangling of one of my victim's shoulders, I was about to begin upon another joint when I heard behind me a shout of mingled rage and horror. Turning, I beheld a robed monk, who gazed back at me with astonishment, fear, and fury mingled in his countenance.
Before anything else could happen, several more monks came running in and, on finding their patient in the grasp of such an apparition, added their voices to the shouts of the first.
If they were going to do no more than shout, I could ignore these intruders for the moment. I turned my attention back to the subject of my justice. Ronay in my grip looked corpselike, his eyes half-open, breath suspended. I was gazing at him closely to determine whether or not he was already dead when to my surprise I felt my arm seized from behind. The monk who had run in first, a small man foolhardy in his bravery, was interfering. I shook him off with irritation, and he flew back to sprawl across an empty bed.
To my great disappointment, close inspection confirmed that Ronay was dead. No doubt about it. Loss of blood and shock combined had done the job, and what good were all my nascent plans for vengeance now? I hurled the corpse away, and was just growling my irritation at this development when a great blow smote me from behind. Such was the savage impact that I imagined for a moment I had been hit with a mace; fortunately the force was mainly distributed across my upper back and left shoulder, falling only slightly on my head.
Recoiling, I spun around to face this new challenge. It came from the courageous little monk, and the weapon he had swung at me, and was preparing to swing again, was the great wooden crucifix that a few moments ago had been hanging on the infirmary wall.
Hissing and growling, I wasted no time in beating a retreat. My object in invading the monastery had been accomplished—insofar as it ever could be—and I judged it would be blasphemous to treat either monk or crucifix as my first impulse had suggested when one struck me with the other.
Even as I passed out of doors, it crossed my mind to wonder what stories, of my monstrously transformed existence, the monks would now begin to tell. But for the moment I felt little concern over what stories might be told. Ronay had now paid for his treachery, as much as he would ever be made to pay for it in this world. It was time for me to seek out his two villainous companions.
But first, new instincts urged me; there was something else that I must do.
What was it?
The answer came to me with an inner certainty, beyond all questioning: Time now for me to go—home.
As I was climbing the outer wall of the monastery, somewhere not far away a rooster crowed. The sky in the east was turning gray as the dark surface of the lake passed softly and swiftly under me again. First the water gurgled and chuckled beneath the softened ice I trod upon. And then the open water drifted beneath my feet as I passed on my way home.
Presently, with the gray eastern sky now brightening almost unbearably, I found myself once more in the glade where I had awakened. Stretching my suddenly weary body out to rest, upon the surface—as I then thought —of that most attractively disturbed patch of earth, I surrendered to dreamless and innocent slumber. Only dimly was I aware, without any particular concern, that I was sinking like so much gentle rain into the earth. I was fast asleep long before the first direct rays of the sun appeared above to touch the barren tops of winter trees.
This time my slumbers were prolonged. My second post-mortem awakening did not take place, as I now believe, until sometime in the early spring of the year of Our Lord 1477. Again I found myself standing, at night, in the clearing above my secret grave. Again I fed, quite ravenously, upon the blood of the firstmammalian creature I encountered—it chanced to be a sheep this time.
I understood, vaguely and without knowing how, that a considerable period of time had passed, and that doubtless my surviving enemies were still beyond my reach. Again I slept. Other periods of lucidity and mobility followed, at seemingly random intervals of a few days, weeks, or months.
Among the many aspects of my episodic new life that puzzled me intensely was the fact that I never saw the sun. Actually I could no longer even imagine myself directly confronting the intensity of that solar fire. Could I have feared anything, it would have been the sun. Also more than I could understand were the recurrent, lengthy periods of deathlike torpor in the comforting darkness under-ground, and the fact that blood—only animal blood, so far—was all the sustenance I craved.
As more time passed the pain of my wounds steadily diminished, until they ceased to hurt at all. Healing progressed, and even the scars, at least the ones that I could see, began to fade.
Even in the face of all these oddities, even with the memory of my own burial to contemplate, the idea never seriously crossed my mind that I had died a true death, that I might now be really dead. Gradually, however, I was forced to admit that neither was I alive, at least according to my old, mundane way of looking at things. This mode of existence, for which I still lacked a name, or was unwilling to assign one, was indeed something new.
There came an awakening different from all that had gone before. Someone, in the middle of a spring night, had discovered my grave. And now the unknown, rhythmic spade, working with benefit of a full-throated nightingale accompaniment, was industriously digging up my coffin.
Chapter 5
Angie, retreating into the guest bedroom to get away from that soft terrible sound at the front door, turned on the tape machine again. For one thing, she was terrified at the idea of falling asleep; and for another, she had an urge to hear more of the fantastic story on the tape. Her urge was perhaps illogical, but really it was not as crazy as the nightmare into which she and John had fallen during the past few hours. She had a feeling, strong though impossible to justify, that the tape might tell her something that would be useful in getting out of the bad dream again.
Some fifteen minutes later she turned the tape player off again. Unable to resist a horrified fascination with what might be happening at the front door, she returned to the living room.
Here all was silent. No one beat at the front door or pushed the bell. The viewer was still turned off. John, sitting in one of the armchairs, looked up, hollow-eyed, when Angie appeared. Clutching the arms of his chair, he said: 'The pounding stopped a few minutes ago.'
Feeling compelled to look, Angie went to the viewer near the door and turned it on.
The screen showed that the hallway outside was deserted.
John had got up to stand behind her, staring over her shoulder at the viewer. Now he let out pent-up breath in an exhausted sigh. 'They may have let her go,' he said.
Angie didn't answer.
'We couldn't have helped her, Angie. With you in here I couldn't take a chance on letting them get in.' Then
