The Historian

The Historian Page 21

Saint Mary's Church, my father said, was a homely little piece of Victoriana that lingered at the edge of the old section of campus. I'd passed it hundreds of times without ever going in, but it seemed to me now that a Catholic church was the right companion for all these horrors. Didn't Catholicism deal with blood and resurrected flesh on a daily basis? Wasn't it expert in superstition? I somehow doubted that the hospitable plain Protestant chapels that dotted the university could be much help; they didn't look qualified to wrestle with the undead. I felt sure those big square Puritan churches on the town green would be helpless in the face of a European vampire. A little witch burning was more in their line - something limited to the neighbors. Of course, I would be at Saint Mary's long before my reluctant guest. Would she even show up? That was half the exam.

Saint Mary's was indeed open, fortunately, and its dark paneled interior smelled of wax and dusty upholstery. Two old ladies in hats sprigged with fake flowers were arranging real ones on the carved altar up front. I stepped in rather awkwardly and settled myself in a back pew, where I could see the doors without being seen at once by anyone who entered. It was a long wait, but the quiet interior and the ladies' hushed conversation soothed me a little. I began to feel tired for the first time, after my late night. At last the front door swung open again on its ninety-year-old hinges, and Helen Rossi stood hesitating for a moment, looked behind her, and then stepped in.

Sunlight from the side windows threw turquoise and mauve on her clothes as she stood there. I saw her glance around the carpeted entrance. Seeing no one, she moved forward. I watched for any kind of cringing, for an evil shriveling of skin or color in her firm face - anything, I didn't know what, that might show an allergy to Dracula's ancient enemy, the church. Perhaps a boxy Victorian relic wouldn't ward off the forces of darkness anyway, I thought doubtfully. But this building apparently had some power of its own for Helen Rossi, because after a moment she moved through the radiant colors of the window toward the wall font. With a sense of shame for my voyeurism, I saw her remove her gloves and dip one hand into the basin, then touch her forehead. The gesture was tender; her face from where I sat had a grave look. Well, I was doing it for Rossi. And now I knew absolutely that Helen Rossi was not a vrykolakas, however hard and sometimes sinister her appearance.

She came into the nave and then drew back a little, seeing me get to my feet. "Did you bring the letters?" she whispered, her eyes fixing me accusingly. "I have to return to my department by one o'clock." She glanced around again.

"What's wrong?" I asked quickly, my arms prickling with instinctive nervousness. I seemed to have developed some sort of morbid sixth sense over the last two days. "Are you afraid of something?"

"No," she said, still whispering. She clenched her gloves together in one hand so that they looked like a flower against her dark suit. "I simply wondered - did someone else come in just now?"

"No." I glanced around, too. The church was pleasantly empty except for the altar-guild ladies.

"Someone was following me," she said in the same low voice. Her face, framed by the roll of heavy dark hair, wore an odd expression, mixed suspicion and bravado. For the first time, I wondered what it had cost her to learn her own species of courage. "I think he was following me. A small, thin man in shabby clothes - tweed jacket, green tie."

"Are you sure? Where did you see him?"

"In the card catalog," she said softly. "I went to check your story about the missing cards. I simply was not sure I believed it." She spoke matter-of-factly, without apology. "I saw him there, and the next thing I knew he was following me, but at a distance, on Elm Street. Do you know him?"

"Yes," I said dismally. "He's a librarian."

"A librarian?" She seemed to wait for more, but I couldn't bring myself to tell her about the wound I'd seen on the man's neck. It was too incredible, too strange; hearing that, she would certainly give me up as a mental case.

"He seems suspicious of my movements. You absolutely must stay out of his way," I said. "I'll tell you more about him later. Come, sit down and be comfortable. Here are the letters."

I made room for her in one of the velvet-cushioned pews and opened my briefcase. Immediately her face was intent; she lifted out the package with careful hands and removed the letters almost as reverently as I had the day before. I could only wonder what kind of sensation this must be for her, to see on some of them the handwriting of the alleged father she had known only as a source of anger. I looked at it over her shoulder. Yes, it was a firm, kind, upright hand. Perhaps it had already made him seem faintly human to his daughter. Then I thought I should stop watching, and I got to my feet. "I'll just wander around here and give you whatever time you need. If there's anything I can explain or help you with - "

She nodded absently, eyes fixed on the first letter, and I walked away. I could see she would handle my precious papers with care, and that she was already reading Rossi's lines with great swiftness. For the next half hour I examined the carved altar, the paintings in the chapel, the tasseled hangings at the pulpit, the marble figure of the exhausted mother and her squirming baby. One of the paintings in particular caught my attention: a ghoulish Pre-Raphaelite Lazarus, tottering out of the tomb into the arms of his sisters, his ankles gray-green and his grave clothes dingy. The face, faded after a century of smoke and incense, looked bitter and weary, as if gratitude were the last thing he felt on being called back from his rest. The Christ who stood impatiently at the tomb's entrance, holding up his hand, had a countenance of pure evil, greedy and burning. I blinked, turned away. My lack of sleep was clearly poisoning my thoughts.

"I'm done," Helen Rossi said behind me. Her voice was low, and she looked pale and tired. "You were right," she said. "There is no mention of his affair with my mother, or even of his traveling to Romania. You were telling the truth about that. I cannot understand it. This must have been during the same period, surely the same trip to the Continent, because I was born nine months after that."

"I'm sorry." Her dark face hadn't asked for pity, but I felt it. "I wish I had some clues for you here, but you see how it is. I can't explain it, either."

"At least we believe each other, don't we?" She looked directly at me.

I was surprised to discover I could feel pleasure in the midst of all this grief and apprehension. "We do?"

"Yes. I don't know if something called Dracula exists, or what it is, but I believe you when you say Rossi - my father - felt himself in danger. He clearly felt it many years ago, so why not a return of his fears when he saw your little book, an uncomfortable coincidence and reminder of the past?"

"And what do you make of his disappearance?"

She shook her head. "It could have been a mental breakdown, of course. But I understand what you mean, now. His letters have the mark of" - she hesitated - "a logical and fearless mind, just like his other works. Besides, you can tell a great deal from a historian's books. I know his very well. They are the efforts of stable, clear thought."

I led her back to the letters and my briefcase; it made me nervous to leave them alone for even a few minutes. She had put everything neatly back in the envelope - in its original order, I had no doubt. We sat down on the pew together, almost companionably.

"Let's just say there might be some supernatural force involved in his disappearance," I ventured. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but for the sake of argument. What would you advise doing next?"

"Well," she said slowly. Her profile was sharp and thoughtful, close to me in the dim light. "I cannot see that this will help you very much in a modern investigation, but if you were to obey the dictates of Dracula lore, you would have to assume that Rossi has been assaulted and removed by a vampire, who would either kill him or - more likely - pollute him with the curse of the undead. Three attacks that mingle your blood with that of Dracula or one of his disciples make you a vampire eternally, you know. If he has been bitten once already, you will have to find him as soon as possible."

"But why would Dracula appear here, of all places? And why abduct Rossi? Why not just strike him and corrupt him, without making the change noticeable to anyone?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "It is unusual behavior, according to the folklore. Rossi must be - I mean, if this were all a supernatural occurrence - he must be of special interest to Vlad Dracula. Perhaps even a threat to him somehow."

"And do you believe my finding this little book and bringing it to Rossi had something to do with his disappearance?" "Logic tells me that it is an absurd idea. But - " She folded her gloves carefully in her black-skirted lap. "I wonder if there's not another source of information we're overlooking." Her mouth drooped. Silently, I thanked her for that we.

"What's that?"

She sighed and unfolded the gloves. "My mother."

"Your mother? But what would she know about - " I had only begun my string of questions when a shift in light and the breath of a draft made me turn. From where we sat, we could see the church doors without being seen from them - the vantage point from which I'd chosen to watch Helen's entrance. Now a hand inserted itself between the doors, then a bony, pointed face. The strange-looking librarian was peering into the church.

I can't describe to you the feeling I had in that quiet church when the librarian's face appeared between the doors. I had the sudden image of a sharp-nosed animal, something stealthy and sniffing, a weasel or a rat. Beside me, Helen was frozen, staring at the door. Any moment now he would be catching our scent. But we had a second or two left, I calculated, and I gathered the briefcase and stack of papers silently in one arm, grasped Helen with the other - there was no time to ask for her permission - and drew her from the end of the pew into the side aisle. A door was open there, leading into a small chamber beyond, and we slipped in. I closed it quietly. There was no way to lock it from the inside, I noted with a pang, although it had a big iron-lined keyhole.

It was darker in this little room than in the nave. There was a baptismal font in the middle, a cushioned bench or two along the walls. Helen and I looked silently at each other. I couldn't read her expression, except that it seemed to hold as much alertness and defiance as fear. Without words or gestures, we moved cautiously behind the font, and Helen put a hand on it to steady herself. After another minute, I couldn't stay still any longer; I handed her the papers and went back to the keyhole. Looking carefully through it, I could see the librarian moving past a column. He did resemble a weasel, his pointed face thrust forward, glancing around at all the pews. He turned in my direction, and I drew back a little. He seemed to study the door to our iding place, and even took a step or two toward it, then stepped away again. Suddenly a lavender sweater moved into my field of view. It was one of the altar ladies. I could hear her voice, muffled. "Can I help you?" she said kindly.

"Well, I'm looking for someone." The librarian had a sharp, whistling voice, too loud for a sanctuary. "I - did you see a young lady come in here, in a black suit? Dark hair?"

"Why, yes." The kind woman looked around, too. "There was someone by that description here a little while ago. She was with a young man, sitting in the back pews. But she's certainly not here now."

The weasel swiveled this way and that. "Couldn't she be hiding in one of those rooms?" He wasn't subtle, that was clear.

"Hiding?" The lavender lady turned our way, too. "I'm sure there's no one hiding in our church. Wouldn't you like me to call the priest? Do you need some help?"

The librarian backed away. "Oh, no, no," he said. "I must have made a mistake."

"Would you like some of our literature?"

"Oh, no." He backed down the aisle. "No, thank you." I saw him peer around again, and then he passed out of my range of vision. There was a heavy click, a thump - the front door closing behind him. I gave Helen a nod and she sighed noiseless relief, but we waited a few more minutes there, glancing at each other over the font. Helen looked down first, her brow furrowed. I knew she must be wondering how on earth she'd gotten into such a situation and what it really meant. The top of her hair was glossy, ebony - she was hatless again today.

"He's looking for you," I said in a low voice.

"Maybe he is looking for you." She indicated the envelope I held.

"I have a strange idea," I said slowly. "Maybe he knows where Rossi is."

She frowned again. "None of this makes much sense anyway, so why not?" she muttered.

"I can't let you go back to the library. Or your rooms. He'll be looking for you in both places."

"Let me?" she echoed ominously.

"Miss Rossi, please. Do you want to be the next disappearance?"

She was silent. "So how do you plan to protect me?" Her voice held a mocking note, and I thought of her strange childhood, her original flight to Hungary in her mother's womb, the political savvy that had allowed her to travel to the other side of the world for academic revenge. If her story were all true, of course.

"I have an idea," I said slowly. "I know this is going to sound - undignified, but I would feel better if you would humor me about it. We can take some - charms - with us from the church here - " She raised her eyebrows. "We'll find something - candles or crucifixes or something - and buy some garlic on the way home - I mean to my apartment - " The eyebrows went up further. "I mean, if you would consent to accompany me - and you could - I may have to leave for a trip tomorrow, but you could - "

"Sleep on the sofa?" She had her gloves on again and now she folded her arms. I felt myself flushing.

"I can't let you go back to your rooms knowing you might be pursued - or to the library, of course. And we have more to discuss, I think. I'd like to know what you think your mother - "

"We can discuss that right here, right now," she said - coldly, I thought. "As for the librarian, I doubt he would be able to follow me to my room, unless - "

Did she have a sort of dimple on one side of her stern chin, or was that sarcasm? "Unless he can turn himself into a bat already. You see, our matron doesn't allow vampires in our rooms. Or men, for that matter. Besides, I'm hoping he will follow me back to the library."

"Hoping?" I was startled. "I knew he wouldn't talk with us here, not in the church. He is probably waiting outside for us. I have a bone to pick with him" - that extraordinary English again - "because he is trying to interfere with my library privileges, and you believe he has information for you about my - Professor Rossi. Why not let him follow me? We can discuss my mother on the way." I must have looked more than doubtful, because she suddenly laughed, her teeth white and even. "He is not going to jump on you in broad daylight, Paul."