Later, in his room, he paced and fantasised, growing ever more angry with himself and fretful as the hours slipped by. For the third or fourth time since supper he took out the half-dozen volumes he’d brought with him on vampirism, read through the relevant passages, put the books away again, out of sight in a suitcase. According to legend, one must never accept any invitation from a vampire; and, equally important, one must never invite a vampire to do anything! In this the conscious will of the victim (by accepting or making an invitation) was all-important. It meant in effect that it was his decision to be a victim. The will was like a barrier in the mind of the victim which the vampire was reluctant, even unable, to surmount without the aid of the victim himself. Or perhaps, psychologically, it was a barrier the victim must surmount: before he could become a victim, he must first believe …
In Dragosani’s case it was a question of the depth of his belief. He knew the thing in the ground was there, so that didn’t come into it. But as yet he did not know what power – or the extent of the power – the creature could exert externally. Perhaps even more important, now that he had ‘invited it in’, as it were, he didn’t know the limits of his own resistance, or if he would be able to resist at all. Or if he would want to …
Well, doubtless he would find out soon enough.
The hour between midnight and 1:00 a.m. passed incredibly slowly, and as the trysting time approached Dragosani began to hope that Use would think better of it and stay away. She might be sound asleep even now, with no intention of meeting him here. It could simply be a game she played with all of her father’s guests – to make them look and feel foolish! In fact, she might well feel the same way about men as Dragosani – until now -had been caused to feel about women.
A half-dozen and more times that thought had come to him, that she was making an utter fool of him, and each time he had gone to the open window to close it and draw his moon-silvered curtains. But on every occasion he had paused, something had stopped him, and he’d snarled silently at his own incompetence in this thing and gone back to sit on his bed in the darkness of the room.
Now, at two minutes past the hour, cursing himself for a buffoon and rushing to the window yet again, he was on the point of slamming it shut when – down there in the moonlit farmyard, making its way like a shadow amongst shadows, a figure, dark and gauzy, fleeting – and Use Kinkovsi’s bedroom window open a little way, seeming to smile up at him with her face, her knowing eyes. She was coming!
God, how Dragosani needed the old one now! And how he did not want him. Did he need him, really? But . . . dare he make do without him?
Elation vied with terror in Dragosani and was very nearly overwhelmed at the first pass. Terror born not alone of the tryst itself, nor even the purpose of the tryst, but perhaps more out of his own ability – or inability? -to carry it through. He was a man now, yes, but in matters such as this still a boy. The only flesh he had known, whose secrets he had delved, had been cold and dead and unwilling. But this was live and hot and all too willing!
Revulsion climbed higher in him, coursed through him like a flood. He had been a boy, just a boy . . . pictures filled his head in bestial procession, which he had thought were forgotten, thrust out… the visit to his aunt’s house … his cousins . . .the beast-thing which he knew had been only a rutting man! God, that – had – been – a -nightmare!
And was it to be like that all over again? And himself the lusting, slavering beast?
Impossible! He couldn’t!