An Old Friend of the Family d-3 Read online

  While being carried to the bathroom and back he could hear Carol and the other people chatting, off somewhere in other rooms. He could see no one but Poach. The apartment was still mostly in darkness. There were lamps but no one had bothered to turn on more than a very few of them. Rusty water ran into the toilet when it was flushed, as if the fixture hadn’t been used in a long time.

  Back alone in his chill room, bound as securely as before, Joe thought he could hear more people arriving. There were more voices, and the voices were getting somewhat louder, as they tended to do at any party. And now Joe imagined that he could hear them talking in Latin. At least he might have called it Latin, if he had been forced to take a guess.

  Latin was bad, because it made him remember Johnny. Johnny in his closet, losing fingers. Then reporting the Latin conversations which nobody quite believed. . . .

  Somewhere in the outer air, between Joe and the distant streetlight, moved something that was larger and thicker than a snowflake but just as silent as the snow. There was no way that he could see what it had been.

  The box that the dead woman had climbed out of was completely open now, lid beside it on the floor. He had been hallucinating. If he looked into that box now, he would see something ordinary. But he wasn’t going to try.

  “But, why do we not speak English now?” said Carol’s voice, not far outside the storeroom door. “Some of you in the past have chided me for using the old tongue too much. Poach, I think there are more guests on the roof, go up and ask them in.”

  “Thank you,” said a man, not Poach. “English will certainly be more convenient for most of us. I suppose half of us at least have been born on this side of the Atlantic.”

  “And many of the rest,” a woman put in, “have been here a hundred years or more. Long enough to forget a great deal of the Old World.” Other voices murmured polite agreement. There was a nervous little female laugh.

  Poach was back, saying something. With him came a man and a woman, new arrivals, for various greetings were exchanged. When that was over, Carol talked. She had become a public speaker now, addressing a gathering.

  “I trust you have all had a tolerable journey, weather notwithstanding. Let me assure everyone that this storm is perfectly natural, at least as far as I and Poach are concerned. Our whole energies have been directed elsewhere.”

  Someone commented: “It’s a great night not to be a breather.” It had the sound of a quoted proverb. Again there was a scattering of nervous laughter.

  When this had died, the hostess resumed: “As you know, this meeting was originally called that I might solicit your support in a struggle for our freedom.” She paused. “That, I say, was the original purpose.”

  Another pause. The room they were all gathered in was suddenly extremely quiet.

  And the shadow in front of Joe’s streetlight was back again. Its presence was continuous now, but it was not still—there was a shapeless outline, shifting with some kind of movement. It was only the snow. What else could it be?

  Abruptly Carol’s voice rang out: “Your support in that struggle is no longer necessary, for victory is ours. This afternoon our enemy overreached himself. He attempted to attack Poach in his earth.” This last was delivered as an indictment, made with disgust, as of an offense that was not only criminal but represented some ultimate breach of decency. “That ancient, evil . . . I scarcely know what to call him. That tyrant had evidently been taking his own publicity too seriously. He overestimated his own powers, and underestimated those of Poach.”

  A few moments of silence intervened. Then Carol, in a harder voice, continued: “Surely no one here regrets this turn of events?”

  Another woman eventually answered. “It is only that we are—surprised.”

  Someone else murmured a faint question.

  “No, he is not yet dead,” Carol replied. “But he is firmly in my hands, awaiting judgement.”

  A man’s voice, stammering a little but with more boldness than any of the others had yet shown, asked: “And who is to sit in judgement on him then? Of what is he accused?”

  “Of—what—accused?” Carol whispered back the question as if incapable of believing that it had been asked. “Of what? To begin the catalogue, of attempting to murder Poach—but I can’t believe that you are really serious.”

  Another man’s voice put in: “I am older than any here, I think, except yourself, lady. If judgement is to be rendered on a nosferatu, a tribunal of seven is called for by the law. At least five are necessary, if seven cannot be found who—”

  Now Carol’s young voice snapped like a whip. “I warn you, I warn you all, things are going to go hard on his secret sympathizers. His crimes are legion. Even the breathers’ histories document them. Do you think he is milder now, less murderous, less oppressive, than he was in the fifteenth century?” She paused. “Some of you, I think, do not yet appreciate the positive aspects of today’s victory. What it is going to mean in terms of freedom for all of us. No more are we to be a powerless minority on the face of the earth, always hunted and in hiding.”

  A woman replied tremulously: “I think—I think we will all come to understand it better, in time. Can you explain it to us more fully, Morgan?”

  “If necessary.” Carol’s—or Morgan’s—voice went on. “That foul old man has had some of you completely brainwashed for centuries. That must be changed. When I call him old you know I am not speaking of mere spins of the Earth. He has been selfish and unchanging in his thought, blind to all our needs. Insisting that all of us be fettered by what he calls his honor. Not to use the breathers who swarm about us, not to taste their blood unless they give consent. Not to remove those who give us offense or stand in our way. Not to enjoy the treasures of the earth, that by rights belong to us as superior beings . . . but today a new world has been born. All that is changed.”

  There was a little silence. The speaker’s voice was bright and confident when it continued. “Have any of you any more questions? Yes. Dickon?”

  The pause dragged on before one of the men’s voices dared: “I was only . . . I still think it would be better if we . . .”

  “Poach, it seems we have an agent of the old man’s here among us. Place him—”

  “No, Morgan! I did not mean to dispute your authority in this. It’s nothing to me, really. He—he whom you call the old man is nothing.”

  When Morgan spoke again, her voice had grown even more light and cheerful. “Then enough of business, I think, for the time being. Would any of you care for some refreshment?”

  Maybe if a man had to, if there were nothing else, he could break ropes with his arms. Even if his arms were numb. If he really gave it all. . . .

  TWENTY

  As soon as the couple that Kate had seen descending through the air were out of sight, she flew again. This time she landed on the roof of the building into which they had somehow vanished. There she crouched in woman-form again, straining all her senses to locate Joe.

  She knew he was very near now, somewhere below her, somewhere inside. His presence felt strongest when she approached a certain window. When she hung her head and upper body downward from the edge of the roof this window let her see into a large, unfinished room or area of some kind in which workmen’s tools and building materials lay scattered. Joe was still not visible. But, as Kate looked into this window, her attention gradually became centered on a door at the far side of the unfinished space. It was a plain door, with a glass upper panel, leading to some kind of small, dark room beyond. Gradually she understood that Joe was there.

  The window she was looking through was barred with heavy metal-and-wood grillwork, and wired with electrical alarms. But these gave Kate no trouble. Once inside, she moved straight across the empty, unfinished space, solidifying her body again as she came to the glass-paneled door. Joe, doubled over and bound, lay on the floor inside it, amid a confusion of stored boxes. His eyes were closed and he was motionless. But she was certain he was not dead. />
  Wanting to keep her senses at maximum alertness if she could, Kate did not pass through the closed door but retained her solid form and gently tried its knob. It was not locked, and swung smoothly outward. She rushed in silently to Joe’s side—

  She willed to rush to him—

  The threshold, or something in the air above it, caught her like an invisible, impalpable steel net. She could feel no solid barrier opposing her, yet she was unable to reach even a finger into the room.

  Kate shifted forms. The solidity of her body gone, she tried again. The doorway was as impervious as before.

  In woman-form again, she stood just outside the open doorway, biting her nails and trying to think. The old man had said something about this. The room that she was trying to enter was living quarters, part of someone’s dwelling. He had said it would be impossible now for her to enter any such space uninvited. Listening to the old man, back in the mausoleum, she hadn’t really understood or believed what he was trying to tell her. Now—

  She must rouse Joe, get him to call to her, invite her in. But she could hear other voices now, including the voice of Poach, just beyond the storeroom’s inner door. They would certainly hear her if she called to Joe.

  Again and again she pressed her body, in alternate forms, against the barrier. But it was like a breather trying to go through a wall. She tried urgently to force her thoughts into Joe’s mind. But his stupor was too deep.

  If only the old man were here. But even he would not be able to drive his way in uninvited.

  Six feet away from her, she could feel Joe’s life gently ebbing.

  There were tears on Kate’s face. She would have sobbed or screamed, but those in the apartment must not hear her.

  The old man had told her something else. That whatever powers any human being could seize beyond nature came from the will, not through diabolism or magic. That if the will were strong enough, very little in this world need be impossible. That if—

  Kate closed her eyes. She stood on the threshold, leaning forward. But she was not pushing any longer. That had proven useless. This was something else.

  Is this what it means to pray? she wondered briefly. And then she ceased to think at all about what she was trying to do, or what was happening to her. Her self was entirely forgotten. There was only Joe, and his need, and the help that had to reach him, somehow.

  Prayer, or giving birth. Or could they sometimes be the same—

  —and something, some agony, was over. Kate came to herself lying face down on the concrete floor. Air, cold and unaccustomed, was filling her lungs with repeated pain, and it took a great effort to manage this labored, almost sobbing breath in silence. The birth, some kind of birth, was over, and the thin cry floating in Kate’s mind was not a baby’s but her own, unvoiced. She saw that she was lying halfway across the threshold. She crawled forward, arms trembling with a sudden weakness, the weakness of the newborn. With fingers that suddenly seemed almost powerless she began to work to remove the cords holding Joe’s hands. He was still alive. His breath and hers were mingling in the air.

  She whispered his name. That, or the tugging at his arms, made his eyes open presently. His eyes saw her, and yet they did not see; his mind had not reacted to her presence yet.

  In her new relative weakness she was not going to be able to carry or drag him very far. So he was going to have to walk, and perhaps climb, and so she was going to have to free his legs. His hands were now free at last; numbly he moved them in front of him, trying to get the fingers working.

  “Kate?” His voice was weak, yet loud enough to present a danger.

  “Shh! Yes, I’m here. It’s going to be—”

  “Kate?”

  “Oh, love, be quiet!” She pinched his lips together with her fingers, then closed them with a kiss. And now the last bindings on his legs were coming loose. And now—

  The inner door of the room swung open suddenly. Enoch Winter stood there in dark evening dress. The difference between his face as Kate now saw it and as it was in her memory lay less in the new scar on his forehead than in the dumbfounded surprise with which he looked at her.

  Kate leaped to her feet, but would not flee alone. Winter’s loud voice burst out with some exclamation; in another moment his massive fist had somehow collected both of her wrists within its grip. Other people came flooding around, gabbling their astonishment. A young-looking, red-haired woman barked orders. Kate was dragged stumbling out of the storeroom, into luxurious though badly lighted living quarters. At the moment it seemed that the last of her strength had been used up. Joe, looking worse off than she, his wrists gripped in Poach’s other hand, was pulled along staggering at her side.

  * * *

  Joe didn’t really begin to come out of his faint or stupor or whatever the hell it was until he was already on his feet. At that point Poach had him, was drawing him along to what Joe thought must be some kind of final confrontation with his enemies. Joe understood at once that Kate was now with him again, and in a way it seemed quite natural that she was. They were both of them now dwelling in the domain of ultimate things, of life and death. The trivialities making up what was usually called ordinary life had all been left behind—by Kate some days ago, by Joe himself only during the last few hours. Now they were in the land of life and death together.

  Together they were pushed up against the edge of the massive worktable, on whose top Joe had earlier been drugged and then bound. The bonds were gone now, and he could stand. His arms were still so numb that he could barely move them.

  “Bring her closer to the light.” That was Carol—no, Morgan was probably the right name, Joe remembered.

  Now Morgan was inspecting Kate’s face closely. “She’s certainly breathing steadily enough,” Morgan pronounced a moment later. “I really don’t think she’s faking it.” A murmur went up from the people gathered in the circle of shadow just beyond the table’s light. Now Morgan was pushing back Kate’s upper lip, as if inspecting a horse, then tilting back her head to examine the smooth skin of her throat. “This is Kate Southerland?” she snapped at Poach.

  “Yeah, sure.” Poach blinked. “Hey, at least it’s the one that Walworth introduced me to.”

  “You assured me that when you were through with her, she had been changed.”

  In the silence, all of them seemed to be watching Kate’s breath, steaming faintly in the room’s chill air. Joe’s breath steamed too. But he noticed now that no one else’s did, except for the briefest momentary puffs with speech.

  Besides Joe and Kate and the woman called Morgan, there were about a dozen other people present. Looking at their shadowed faces now, Joe could see that they were divided about evenly between men and women. Judged by surface appearances, the gathering might have represented a cross-section of middle-class America. A couple of people were black, one Oriental. Most were dressed in clothing that might have been worn to the office, a few outfitted as for a casual party. One sturdy, young-looking couple wore denim jeans and jackets that had the look of real work clothes. One of the older-looking women, rather beefy, almost motherly, was already gazing at Joe when his glance fell on her. She gave him a sharp-toothed smile, and in the middle of it her tongue came out and licked her lips.

  Before he could start to think about that, his attention was caught by the girl who stood next to the beefy woman. She had been dead in the box in the storeroom when Joe first saw her. A blond girl, thin and nervous, as well dressed—he saw now—as a fashion model. Her eyes were resting on Joe too, and she was smiling.

  “I have heard of this, but never seen it before.” The speaker was a gray-haired man, the oldest-looking of the group. “A girl, or a young man, changed unwillingly. Then a few days later a spontaneous relapse to the breathing state. What the breathers, I suppose, would call a spontaneous cure. It happens under intense emotional stress.”

  “I have seen it, Dickon,” Morgan mused. “But only once before . . . this is a genuine reconversion, it would ap
pear. Her blood will again be good to drink.”

  There was a silence, while each from his or her own viewpoint considered this. Looking past Morgan, who stood on the opposite side of the large table, Joe could see a vista of semi-darkened rooms and halls, ending at a large, draped window, through which some exterior light sent in a filtered glow. If he could tear free, run on his half-numbed legs, leap, cry for help as he crashed outside . . . on Morgan’s left as Joe faced her, a great fireplace held cheery embers. There was a tang of aromatic woodsmoke in the air. Above the fireplace was mounted a lone diagonal spear.

  As if struck by a sudden thought, Morgan bent across the table to look keenly at Kate once again. “Did any send you here, child?” Then she appeared to think better of the question. “Never mind. It does not matter.”

  “Who would have sent her?” asked the gray-haired man, Dickon. He looked round at all of them, then back at Morgan. “What did you mean?”

  Morgan returned his gaze through narrowed eyes. “It was in my mind that there may be others who still cling to the old man’s faction. A remnant who have not accepted the fact of his destruction.”

  “Destruction?” Kate’s voice was as clear and loud as it was unexpected by them all. “She’s told you that the old man’s dead? She lies!”

  Poach did something to Kate’s arms behind her back, so she cried out and bent forward over the table. Joe tried to struggle; in a moment he was face down on the table too.

  “What does the girl mean?” asked Dickon in a shaky voice, looking round at all of them again.

  “Mean? To prolong her life, if she can manage it,” Morgan answered calmly. “What else?”

  A woman spoke up now, with timid reluctance, but speaking up to Morgan all the same. “Where is your prisoner being held?”