B007JJU92E EBOK, page 13
A wash of headlights fell over me as the Cushing’s chauffeur pulled the big Rolls into the carriage circle and grandfather, father and son climbed into the spacious back seat.
“Treat the place as your own, Eddie!” Lester winked from the back side window through a pal of dust and fumes, “including any entertainments you might find in my room!”
I watched a moment as the red tail lights dwindled down the long stretch of drive connecting the property to the main road, then turned to the kitchen entrance.
The spacious galley was empty except for the fat, always cheerful cook, putting away and hanging the last of the dinner pots and skillets.
“Good evening sir!”
“Reggie. Good help hard to find these days?”
The rosy cheeks smiled. “Always give the kitchen a final turn myself before bed! Like to find things when I need them, if you take my word, sir!”
“You needn’t call me ‘sir,’ Reggie, I’m just part of the help, like you.”
Reggie stretched to hang a gleaming, aluminum whisker. “Not from the way I’ve seen you and Master Lester have bonded! Practically part of the family, I’d say, and a good thing too!”
“Thank you, Reggie. Do you think it’s a good thing?”
“I do indeed, sir. Master Lester has too few friends in the vicinity. I’m quite happy he’s taken such a shining to you!”
“Excuse me for saying so, Reggie, but he’s a little old to still be called ‘master,’ isn’t he?”
“Force of habit, sir! Known him since he was in knickers! What can I fix you for you tonight, Mr. Magee? Nice brandy. Bit of pudding, perhaps?”
“It’s ‘Ed,” Reggie and I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
I craned about the big kitchen. “Haven’t seen Mitzi about, have you?”
“Mitzi, sir?”
“My poodle.”
“Ah, Biscuit! Let me see now…she snubbed her supper, as usual—“
“She very picky, Reg, don’t worry about that.”
“—I believe I saw her go out just after the Colonel and company left the house.”
“Making her patrols, eh?”
“I imagine so, sir. Wonderful dog, supernaturally intelligent!”
“Interesting way of putting it. Think I’ll take a short constitutional myself before I turn in.”
“Splendid idea. I’ll leave a glass of sherry on the dining room table in case you change your mind!”
* * *
“Mitzi!”
I was halfway around the south wing with no sign of the poodle.
“Mitzi!”
It was dark and chill and the British—these British, at least—didn’t employ rooftop safety lights around the estate’s perimeter the way even some modest American homes do these days. Stable boy and terrorists or not, crime in Great Britain must still be low on the list of safety priorities.
“Mitzi!”
Nothing.
I paused for a moment somewhere (I thought) near the west wing, though all I could see now was a black loom of edifice against the slightly less black night.
That’s all I could see. But not (I thought, again) all I could hear.
Were those footfalls behind me? Just slightly rustling the dry leaves around the mansion?
If they were, they’d stopped now.
Stopped almost the same moment I’d stopped walking. Almost. But I’d heard something coming stealthily along behind me.
I turned and looked back.
Which as the same as looking forward: blackness.
Stupid. I should have borrowed a flashlight from the cook. A ‘torch’, as the British call it.
“Is someone there--?”
I didn’t really expect an answer.
So I walked on another few yards, then stopped again abruptly in mid-step. The footfalls behind me stopped an nth of a second later.
I turned again. “Who is it? Who’s there?”
Stillness.
The lonely keen of wind from invisible branches.
Another few steps ahead—another halt—another sound behind me halting just a second too late.
“Please, whoever you are, I’m a guest of this estate. Please identify yourself!”
“It’s a black panther.”
“Mitzi?”
“Going to leap on your back. Going to rip out your ball sack, make you a soprano.”
“Where are you?”
“It’s a bear! A big brown Kodiak, and it’s very hungry!”
“A Kodiak in England. Right.”
“Okay…it’s the Hound of the Baskervilles! Stalking your stupid Yankee ass!”
“Where the hell are you? You sound extremely distant…far away.”
“You sound extremely redundant, scared to pissing.”
“Are you in the damn kennel, Mitz?”
“I am not in the damn kennel, I am not in the kitchen with Dinah, I am not anywhere near the estate, old Sport, and can be of absolutely no help in defending off whatever it is stalking you.”
I’d stopped moving but I heard again a crackle of leaves behind me, closer this time.
“Mitzi, are you fucking with me? Because this is not the place or time—“
“It ain’t me who’s going to be fucking with you, Eddie-kins. You’re on your own, kid.”
I was abruptly sweating heavily in the cold air, which somehow made the cold air colder.
“Why are you breaking up? Why are you fading on me?”
“Because, Einstein, I’m moving away from you. Duh.”
“Where are you?”
“Well, you know, I’d like to tell you that, but I haven’t the least idea, old man!”
I shuddered violently. “You’ve been kidnapped!”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, no...”
“Will you quit me cutesy-cryptic and tell me what the hell’s going on!”
“Can hardly hear you now, Sport—almost out of thought-range—almost out of breath, come to that!”
“Is someone after you!”
“Someone’s after you, Sport!”
“Can you see who it is? Mitzi? Can you see who’s behind me? Hello? Mitzi!”
“…ound…illes…”
“What? I didn’t catch that! Turn up your transmission!”
But only silence followed.
Only not quite. The crunching sound began again behind me. Something moving directly toward me in the dark over the dry, fall leaves.
“Count--?”
But I knew it wasn’t him.
No gun, no knife, no flashlight. Idiot!
I stood rigidly, braced for flight. Why in God’s name had I come out here in the first place? Crunch crunch crunch…and then a massive object began to form out of the darkness and mist. The Hound of the Baskervilles…
Big Bob sauntered up, grinned up at me and slobbered on my hand.
“Jesus, Bob, you scared the living piss out of me!” I stroked the big head, rubbed under his floppy neck. “I…uh…don’t suppose you’d know the way back to the kitchen--?”
* * *
I lay on my back in bed, arms folded behind my head, staring up at the dimly visible ceiling.
I couldn’t sleep, hadn’t so much as dozed for the better part of two hours then.
Every five minutes or so I’d send out a thought transmission to Mitzi but got no response. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so utterly alone, so completely helpless. I kept thinking of the plane flight to Iraq, of how I’d handled those two goons, how I’d—almost effortlessly—taken care of that guy in the restaurant before that. How I’d even managed to hold my own against Alicia, Queen of the Vampires…
Yes. And almost certainly some small part of The Count’s vampire blood had flowed through my veins then...
Well, none of it flowed there now. If even a drop of it had, I was sure I’d be able to make contact with Mitzi, wherever she was. But I couldn’t. So-called Sender or not, I was nowhere near her level or even Clancy’s. I was just a dumb human, thousands of miles from home and way out of my depth. If Mitzi was really was lost to me, I’d never forgive myself. And I’d probably never find Clancy without her. And I’d even more probably never survive until the end of the week.
I sent out a final thought-message to the poodle, then pushed out of bed.
Sleeping was useless. Maybe I’d go downstairs and see if Reggie had really left that glass of sherry for me; God knew I could use it.
Halfway down the hall I fell suddenly against the ancient wall, blindsided by a sudden horrific conviction: they’ve killed Mitzi! Lester helped them! Just like they killed me in The Count’s dream! That’s what the dream had meant!
I clung sagging to the wall, heart hammering so hard I was sure it would burst.
Mitzi said she’d smelled vampires on the grounds! Now they’ve detected her—know she’s a vampire herself—bound and muzzled her and taken her out to the woods to shoot and stake! That was what tonight’s business was all about…and why I hadn’t been invited along!
I leaned against the wall trying to get my breath.
…and when they were done with Mitzi…when they come back here to the estate…
A weapon.
I needed some kind of weapon. Something made of wood and sharp, like a pike of some sort. Maybe in Lester’s room…
His door was opened invitingly.
“…including any entertainments you might find in my room…”
I hesitated in Lester’s doorway. Was it a trap? Had he directed me here to be ambushed?
But the longer I stood there the more insane the whole thing began to sound, the more outlandish. Even if I didn’t trust Lester completely, I felt I knew him, and an ambush wouldn’t be his style. If he or Nigel or even the Colonel were going to have me offed, Lester would insist on doing it himself. Enemy or not, I knew he liked me, I could feel it.
I closed the door to Lester’s room discreetly behind me, locked it.
The idea of finding some kind of sharped pikes in there was million to one, but we both knew there was only one thing in there I’d find the least bit ‘entertaining.’
I felt behind the bedpost, found the little red button and depressed it. The shelf of books revolved inward and the secret game room was mine.
How I wished I’d spent more of my youth playing video games. Maybe then I could have recognized a modicum of the kind of sophisticated technology Lester had somehow secreted into his little den of iniquity, but my philosophy then was fundamentally what it remains today: for every hour spent chasing an avatar around a display monitor, I could have been reading a good book. This was before the days of Kindle, of course. If Angry Birds had been around in my college days would I have been tempted to the digital side of life?
Some of the equipment I recognized—or thought I recognized—were rendering devices, computers capable of producing wire frame images from your own imagination and bump mapping them into real-as-life looking people or creatures, depending on the computer’s memory power. These were no doubt how Lester had changed Zombie Holocaust into Death Duties Holocaust and created his Death Duty, Land Baron and Soul Taker avatars to control the game with.
I stayed strictly away from the rendering devices, terrified I’d push a button and implode the whole computer, wipe out the whole room.
Wandered over to the re-invented Zombie Holocaust monitor, I picked up the controller and began scrolling through the rules and gameplay at random, trying to decide which I rather be, a Death Duties vampire or and estate holding Land Baron. I’d have to be one of the two to defeat the ever present Soul Takers.
I was in the midst of making my decision when I pressed the yellow button and was sent to what was an apparently unfinished gaming device or avatar that was so far mostly just a squiggle of wire frame lines, no bump mapping, or real detail, just some pre-rendered figures. They were humanoid in character, but not defined enough to tell much else. The only possible help was the potential names Lester had presumably given these new beta figures: Shape Shifters and Were-bots had been crossed out before the word, Philos.
“What the devil is a philos?” I thought out loud.
“Caught you!”
Lester’s entry was so silently abrupt my fingers twitched reflexively on the hand controller and I shut the game down.
Lester laughed roundly and stumbled to the bookshelf doorway with the support of both hands. “Nearly tipped your hand, old stick! Almost discovered if you were a vampire or a land baron!”
I turned to him calmly, ignoring my racing pulse. “And you nearly tipped yourself into the bookcase and found out what a good head-splitting feels like. You, sir, have been drinking!”
Lester laughed harder, nodded rapidly and swung into the room, enfolded me in his arms out of either affection or the need for something to cling to. “Edward my lad, I am drunk! I am eloquently drunk, lovingly drunk and pugnaciously drunk! How does that sound, old stick!”
I held him up. “Like Sinclair Lewis.”
“How’s that--?”
“Elmer Gantry, 1927, as you damn well know. Testing me, Lester? Seeing if I’m a real man of letters?”
Lester breathed bourbon on my neck, granted me a familial pat on my chest, clinging to my collar with his other arm. “Eddie, your veracity was never in question. Why else should I divulge to thee the darkest secrets of my hidden rooms! Eddie? Are you listening, Eddie…?
“Still here, despite your dragging weight.”
“Eddie, dear boy, I am in love! Eloquently, lovingly, pugnaciously in love!”
I steadied us both in a short waltz. “That’s nice, Lester, but I don’t put out on the first date. How ‘bout we put you down, old stick?”
I tried to lift his legs—gave that up in about half a second—bent and threw him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry through the secret door and into his room where, with labored grunt and flagging strength, I dumped him onto his bed. I shut the bookshelf door sensibly behind us.
Lester lay sprawled and supine on the duvet as I worked off his shoes, making little air drawings above his lidded face. “If I could but describe her beauty…”
“I’m sure.”
“…her grace…”
“You dad and granddad, they made it back in one piece, I presume?”
“…the lilt of her—yes, they’re fine, drunk as lords—the lift of her…of her…her…”
“Her what?”
“…her lilt! The pink of her eyes…the green of her skin…”
“Thought that was a business meeting.”
“Business?”
“Yes, you said—“
He caught at my hand as I loosened his tie. “Mankind is my busy-ness!”
I nodded. “Fine. So we’re doing Dickens now—A Christmas Carol?”
“She is my business! And I hers! Together we make it our business to love each other for eternity, to spread that love throughout the land and all mankind! Do know what we’re doing tomorrow, Edward my friend? Have you any idea what we’re doing?”
“Forming a business together?”
“We are, my dearest friend and confident, joining friends and Vicar alike in that holiest of holy ceremonies!”
I yanked off his shirt, did a double-take. “Marriage--?”
“Marriage! Can you imagine anything so ethereally sublime! To join hands at a wedding only hours after you’ve met your true love!”
I flopped in the nearest chair. “Lester, I realize we haven’t known each other that long, but—“
“You are my dearest friend, Edward!”
“That’s very sweet, but I really doubt either your father or grandfather will allow you to—“
Lester sat up quickly, wild of hair and eyes. “You’re coming! You must be there tomorrow! I want you to meet her, Eddie! You of all people!”
I sighed. “Lester, your father and grand—“
He waved an enormous wave at the air in front of him, the inertia of which carried him backward to the mattress again. “I don’t give a hang about them! It’s you I want there! Promise me, Eddie, promise me now…hand over heart…make a solemn vow…I will attend this wedding tomorrow—“
“Lester, don’t you think—“
“I will attend the wedding tomorrow! Pledge it!”
I threw up my hands. “Sure, kid. Whatever you say.”
His smile threatened to touch both ears. “You are a prince among men…”
“Uh-huh.”
“’Good-night, sweet Prince…may dreams of’…something-something…I forget…” And he was snoring…
I threw a blanket over him. “Lester? Hey, before you nod off I need to ask you something! Who’s Philos?”
Snoring louder.
I shook my weary head, turned from the bed.
“That’s sweet,” Mitzi said from the doorway, “very sensible of you two, waiting for the wedding night to consummate the thing…”
“Mitzi!”
“In person, Sport. And have I got a muzzle full of dirt!”
I put a finger to my lips, nodded at the sprawled Master Cushing. “You’re not supposed to be up here!” I transmitted silently, “This is no-dog’s land!”
“Don’t sweat it, everyone’s gone to bed. They’re all faced to the gills. Gave me a chance to sniff around the old man’s place a bit.”
“And--?”
The poodle shook her head uneasily, gave Lester’s room a perfunctory sniff. “Can’t say with real certainty. There’s vampires afoot alright—or were—but it…I don’t know, it’s like they’re kind of here and kind of not here, you know?”
“No, I don’t. And that’s wonderfully helpful info, Mitzi.”
“Hard to explain. It’s like my sensors are getting blocked or something. Hey, give me a break here, will you! Aren’t you even glad to see me?”
“I don’t know, you look like a walking dust bin. Where the hell have you been? Have you been rolling in the garbage again?”
