The Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

   “Tut. I see by your earthen baggage that you are a foreigner, and brought your means of sustenance to England with you. The clothing and coins in it tell me what part of the world you are from. I have heard from witnesses of your accomplishments here, and have seen more evidence of them with my own eyes. Anyone who knows the slightest bit about vampires, Count, must know you by name and reputation; I might possibly have been wrong about your name, but now that I can look you in the eye, I have no doubt.”

   “I am flattered. But very few breathing folk know anything of vampires. And of those few, most have the truth of the matter quite thoroughly confused with their damned superstitions. They waste good powder on silver bullets. They assault me with crucifixes, as though I were a devil and not as much a creature of the Earth, a child of God, as they are.”

   “I shall not make that error.”

   “I believe you. Well, what now?” Looking about the queerly furnished room, I made a careful, empty-handed gesture. “This does not look like my idea of Scotland Yard.”

   “No more am I of the official police. Nevertheless you will be well advised to answer my questions. What of Frau Grafenstein?”

   “What of her?”

   My foe took a half-step toward me, righteous anger rising in his voice. “Do you still think you can play games with me? I tell you I know very much—that you killed her, and that you drank her blood.” He paused; when he went on, his voice was no longer impetuous, but inexorable. “I know, also, that no prison built can hold you for trial or execution. Therefore I stand here as your sole judge and jury—it is fortunate that there is probably no other man in England so well qualified to do so.”

   I took in breath to make a sigh. “Very well—no more games.” As I spoke I tested the fingers of my wounded arm, and was gratified to find them movable. Expected pain came with the effort, but not the wetness of fresh bleeding. As a rule we heal with great rapidity even when hurt by wood, if the damage be not immediately fatal and the weapon not held in the wound. “I killed the woman because she had attempted to kill me. Also, I was in need.”

   “Of—?”

   “Of nourishment, of course, as well as of revenge. Is there not some old British saying, about killing two birds with one stone? I really hope that she was not a friend of yours.”

   “Scarcely that.” He paused to study me in silence, his brows knitted with thought. There was something terribly vital he wanted to say to me—perhaps to ask—but he had not yet decided how.

   I gave him half a minute, then interrupted his pregnant silence. “And how is Sally Craddock? I sent her to your police to keep her safe.”

   A shadow crossed Holmes’ face. “I regret very much. Count, that the girl is dead.”

   “Ah. I should have brought her to you, instead of to the police, for safekeeping.”

   Holmes looked at me strangely. “The thing that drove her running, screaming, to where her enemies could reach her—was the sight of my face, Count. Or should I say, our face?”

   “I do not understand.” But then I did, even as I spoke, and suddenly much was clear to me. For example: Watson, rushing to my aid in that strange room filled with smoke and noise. And again: Matthews, in the cellar, sneering Mr. Great Detective.

   “Ah, yes,” I answered. “As you doubtless understand, I have not been permitted the luxury of mirrors for some centuries. But the resemblance is actually that close?” My foe was nodding. “So it must be. And that means that there is some...ah.”

   “Family relationship—unquestionably.” We had come to the nub of what was bothering Holmes. “What remains to be determined is its exact degree.”

   The aim of his revolver had never wavered in the slightest, and he had already proven his marksmanship and iron nerve; one false twitch on my part, I knew, and the great true death would greet me in that room. I may have already mentioned somewhere in these pages that I am—though not all vampires are, by any means—immune to fear, having exhausted at a tender age my whole life’s allotment of that arguably useful lading. Yet honor and love of life alike forbade me to perish without a struggle.

   “Mr. Holmes, my first visit to England took place but six years ago. The relationship you propose—well, doubtless it exists, since you are so certain of it. But it cannot be very close.”

   “The date of your first visit to England is quite irrelevant.” Holmes paused again, then spoke distinctly. “My parents traveled on the Continent, in the year preceding my birth. To my certain knowledge, my mother was long unfaithful to my father; and it is equally certain that one of her paramours was of your race.”

   “My race, sir, is the human race.”

   “I think you know what I mean, Count.” Holmes considered for a moment. “I have—or had; I do not know if he is still alive—a twin brother, vampire from his beginnings. You will pardon me for saying I felt an inexpressible relief on finding your trunk and thus demonstrating to my own satisfaction that you, the killer of the woman on the docks, could not be him. Since my childhood I have loathed and despised all that he stood for. All the things of the vampire world, that haunted my own early years like some—some nightmare made real. All that you are and stand for, indeed.”

   “Indeed.”

   “Indeed.” And with that the vanishingly faint humor of these unplanned repetitions occurred, I think, to both of us. Not that either of us went so far as to smile, but the air had