Séance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

the middle of the cemetery. There stood the Altamont family mausoleum, a moss-grown structure as big as a small house, round which the indications of recent visitors were heaviest. This mausoleum was readily identifiable by the family name carved in the stone, and it, like the ruined chapel, was partially covered by the tall climbing vines.

Dismounting from our rented trap, Dracula soothed the restive horse with a few murmured words and a stroking of the animal’s neck. He then silently approached the sepulcher on its most shadowed side. The prince leaned against the stone wall, first with both hands and then, after removing his hat, with his pale forehead. After remaining in this position for a moment or two he turned away to inform me calmly that he had detected definite evidence of vampire activity within. He added that he perceived no trace of Holmes still living, in either the breathing or undead state.

I shuddered inwardly to think of my old companion become a vampire, or imprisoned in a tomb.

The prince, frowning, put on his hat again and backed away a step from the Altamont mausoleum, looking about him keenly.

“We must expand our search a bit, I think,” he remarked, and started to walk slowly away. Then he turned back to me as if in afterthought. “You were certainly right about one thing, Doctor. There is a young girl who even now is sleeping–quite breathless, but not truly dead–inside these walls.” And he stretched out a long arm to touch the old stone once more with a white hand.

I could not entirely repress a shudder. “Louisa Altamont?”

Dracula shrugged. “Very likely. I cannot tell her name. Later perhaps we will awaken her and ask. but that will best be done after sunset; and first we must find Cousin Sherlock, while we have grounds for hope that he is breathing still.”

Several other charnel houses stood scattered about the half acre which, a century ago, must have been an active country churchyard, small but yet well-tended. None of these other mausoleums were quite as large as the Altamonts’. Some were older and some newer, but in general, none showed any sign of having been disturbed for years, or even decades. A variety of smaller stone monuments and headstones shared the area and the same condition of general neglect.

Prince Dracula made the round of graves and tombs, evidently testing each, through some procedure that was invisible to me. His search was without result, though he paused several times, once for a full minute, to stare down at a tangle of vines, long undisturbed, beneath his feet.

During this part of his search, he bent swiftly and, with a grunt of speculation, straightened up, holding an object that glinted a bright yellow in his hand. It was a golden pin, set with some greenish stones which I took to be not emeralds, but perhaps jade, aquamarine, or garnet.

“That,” I announced, “may well be one of the pieces of jewelry taken from the house on Wednesday night, while the sitting was in progress or shortly afterward. All were moderately valuable. but why is it here?”

Dracula only shrugged, handed the golden thing to me, and once more concentrated upon his search.

I inspected the pin briefly before dropping it into my pocket for eventual delivery to the police. It was a family heirloom sort of thing, and no ordinary burglar would have thrown it away; on the other hand it certainly did not represent the kind of treasure whose loss might be expected to provoke a thirst for vengeance lasting for more than a century.

I considered this find a possibly helpful development. but of course it could not be allowed to distract us from our main goal.

Dracula seemed already to have forgotten it. “None of the others who lie here are restless,” the prince murmured at last. Then he raised his head, fixing his gaze in steady contemplation of the ruined chapel standing on its little hill nearby.

Moments later, we had climbed the wooded hillock together and Dracula was leading the way into the now-roofless structure. Scarcely had he taken three steps across that old pavement, which still bore in places broken fragments of mosaic decoration, before he paused in an attitude of listening, one hand upraised in my direction, commanding silence.

The pause was only momentary. Quickly my companion darted ahead, and as quickly stopped. “Here, Doctor Watson. Under the floor!” He stamped his foot lightly on a stone slab that must have weighed at least a quarter of a ton. “Sounds of breathing. And a heartbeat, slow but still strong.”

If there was indeed a cavity beneath that ancient floor, the mass of stone was too great to resound hollowly from the impact of a boot. I hesitated. “Then we must get tools–”

“You need bring only the tools of your profession, from the trap. be quick!” And already the prince was crouching, digging and probing with nervous, bony fingers at the edges of the slab. Stone flaked and crumbled under those long nails which seemed able to bite and penetrate with the force of steel tools.

Hesitating no longer, I ran, stumbling through weeds and over gravestones, back to the trap, and as quickly returned with my bag to the chapel. In those few moments Dracula had made astonishing headway in loosening the stone, which did not appear to be mortared in place, but fitted almost exactly the space in which it lay. barehanded he had chipped away an opening beside it, and was now lying at full length on the old pavement, reaching with one thin arm underneath the slab, which as yet he had not attempted to remove.

He chuckled–a thoroughly delighted and unpleasant sound. When he spoke, his voice sounded much more pleased than outraged. “As I thought... very pretty... a snare for the unwary. Any incautious effort to lift the stone would cause it to slip and fall straight down upon the victim in the cavity beneath.”

I shuddered. “How did you know there was such a snare?”

His