Mildred nodded. “Yeah, we are, Doc.”
Krysty shook her head. “Can you two stop this triple-stupe game and tell the rest of us what you suspect. Gaia! It might affect Ryan.”
Doc bit his lip. “Yes, I am very much afraid that it might, Krysty. It might.”
RYAN WAS BEING CARRIED down a fight of stairs that he now guessed led from the attics above the corridor where he and his companions had been settled.
He was certain that the man carrying him was Thomas Cornelius, and that it had been Thomas who’d attacked him in the corridor the night that Johannes Forde had been butchered.
Though Ryan had made a token effort at struggling when he’d been picked up from the bed, he’d known immediately that he was wasting his time. The man had enormous, unearthly power, holding him tight to his chest, walking effortlessly along, whistling under his breath. Again, there was the faint sound of whispering material, like hissing silk or rustling feathers.
And the same revolting graveyard breath.
“Just who the fuck are you?” Ryan panted. “Or should that be what the fuck are you?”
“Don’t waste your breath, Ryan.”
“You’ll tell us tomorrow all about yourselves?”
“Probably.”
“If you hadn’t drugged me before making me making me fuck, then I’d have chilled all of you.”
“Talk is cheap, Ryan. But as a man of your coinage knows, the price of action is colossal.”
Despite the helpless absurdity of his position, Ryan couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “I reckon that I’ve heard Doc say exactly the same thing.”
Thomas stopped as if to let someone move past him. “There is something about every one of your friends that fascinates us. And we shall find uses for all of you.”
“Uses?”
“Wait.”
Ryan had a ferocious headache, and the rocking movement was making him feel sick.
They had gone through the door and were now, he was sure, on the landing. There was a sudden flash of silver-gold light that seemed to burn his retina, and he winced, wondering what it was that he’d seen.
Thomas had stopped, his grip tightening. “Close that bastardly drapery, Sister. It’s blinding me.”
“Sorry, Brother. I brushed it open as I walked by. Here’s Ryan’s room.”
“First check that all of the draperies and shutters are closed inside.”
Mary’s voice came faintly from inside the room. “All right. It’s safe and dark.”
The man lowered Ryan onto another bed. “There,” he said. “Home again, home again.”
Ryan lay still, glad that the swaying had finally ceased. Though he was trying with all of his might to see out of his damaged eye, there didn’t seem a trace of light or a hint of any movement near him.
The woman’s hand was on his cheek. “It was amazing, Ryan. Of all the others, you were so much the best. I knew when I first saw you that night that it would be something very special for me and for all of us.”
Anger pulsed in Ryan’s mind, anger at the casual way they’d taken advantage of him, something that would never have happened if he’d had his sight.
And if, by a miracle, he ever recovered his sight, one of the first things he’d look forward to seeing was the face of Mary Cornelius and her depraved family staring at him over the sights of the SIG-Sauer.
“We’ll leave you now,” the man said in his hoarse whisper. “And we’ll make sure that Norman tells your friends that you’re back here again.”
“Yeah.” Ryan tried to make himself comfortable, still wondering about the amazing strength of the Family, how and when they became so bizarrely mutated.
Once again the woman touched his face, and he managed not to pull away, recognizing his own damned weakness and the importance of trying not to offend them.
The door closed and Ryan was left alone with his thoughts and his shame.
THE CONVERSATION in the library had been interrupted at a crucial stage by the appearance of Norman, carrying a chased silver tray with goblets of orange juice.
“Newly squeezed by my own fair hand,” he said, giggling. “Fresh as tomorrow’s sunrise.”
“And the eggs you serve tomorrow are still inside the hens,” Mildred added.
“Oh, you’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself. You must have been sleeping in the cutlery drawer.”
“The drink drugged?” J.B. asked, sniffing suspiciously at one of the glasses.
“Of course not. The very idea of it! I can see that I might have to slap you on the wrist, John Dix.”
“Try it and I’ll whack you,” the Armorer said. “Thanks for the drinks, now get out.”
Norman pulled a pettish face and flounced out, closing the door firmly behind himself.
“Think safe?” Jak also picked up one of the drinks and touched it to his lips. “Tastes good.”
“If there’s drugs, you’ll probably spot it in the aftertaste,” Mildred said, sipping at the juice. “Seems all right to me.”
Doc hadn’t moved from where he stood staring out of the window at the frothing river, far below the house. Finally he turned to face the others. “So?”
Mildred nodded, solemn. “I guess we both suspect the same about the Family.”
“I believe that we do.”
To J.B., Dean and Jak, he said. “Dr. Wyeth and I believe that we are in a household of vampires.”
Chapter Thirty-One
J.B. was particularly scathing about their vampire idea.
“Look, I’ve seen some bits of old vids and read predark comics and books. So I know what their ideas were on vampires. There was some writer who had big sellers about vampires, but it was just fiction. All of it was made up.”
“I find your argument strangely unpersuasive, John Barrymore Dix. If you will forgive me for saying so, the idea that someone has written fiction about a subject means that the subject doesn’t exist in reality is absurd.”
“Course,” Mildred agreed. “Man writes a novel about the Civil War. According to your theory, John, that means that the War between the States never happened. That what you’re saying? It can’t be, can it?”
The Armorer shrugged. “I’ve traveled the old battlefields, MillieAntietam, Chancellorsville, Manassas, Shiloh. Load of them in our travels with Trader. Course they existed. But I never met anyone who saw a real ghost or a vampire. Reason is, they don’t exist.”
Jak had been standing by the fireplace. “Folks in bayous believe ghosts, J.B., and see them.”
“Vampires?”
The albino shook his head. “Don’t know vampires. Voodoo believes them. Walking dead like zombies. Suck blood. Kill with stake in heart. Or silver bullet. Or cut off head. Or expose in sun. Vampires don’t like sun.”
J.B. sniffed. “You’re all crazed. Been browsing among the locoweed for too long.”
“What do you think then, love?” Mildred asked. “You got a better explanation?”
“For the Family? I don’t deny for a moment that they’re mutie freaks. But vampires?”
Doc stood with legs slightly apart, thumbs hooked in the buttonholes of his vest, looking as though he were about to begin a lecture on The Place of Romantic Poets in a Schismatic Society.
“Their skin and reluctance to appear in light. That’s one. The locked cellars and attics. Unusual strength. Rotten breath like moldy earth. That’s two and three.”
“And four,” Dean said, grinning at having caught the old man out.
“Right. The fact that they don’t appear on the film of poor Johannes. It was a well-known fact about vampires that they didn’t leave a shadow or cast a reflection in a mirror. The blurring of the film stock is a modern version of that.”
“And there was that strange research section, locked away up at the redoubt. Could be that has something to do with them,” Mildred stated.
“The pallor and weakness of so many of the poor devils from Bramton.” Doc pointed a gnarled finger at J.B. “Oh, ye of little belief! The evidence is so strong. What we should do is try and find where in this rambling pile the Family go for the rest from their evildoing.”
“I saw a comic, Doc, where some vampires with pointy teeth lived in coffins filled with the dirt from a graveyard and drank blood from girls with big tits. Sorry, Mildred and Krysty. But they did have”
Krysty held up a hand. “All right, all right. I think we get the picture.”
It was at that moment that Norman had appeared from a door hidden behind rows of books to announce the news about Ryan being back in the room upstairs.
RYAN HAD BEEN DOZING, still under the influence of the drug, when they all burst into the room.
He woke with a start.
“Fireblast! What’s?”
“Hello, lover,” Krysty said, sitting on the side of the bed, reaching and holding his hand. She noticed without comment that Ryan jumped nervously and started to pull his fingers away from her touch.
“Hi. Don’t feel great. Head’s like the inside of a lumberjack’s ass.”