The Vampire Affair - McDaniel David (читать книги без TXT) 📗

Hanevitch shook his head. "But the bushes have grown across the path. How could you and your friend have come through them last night without being aware of them?"

"I don't know yet," said Illya. "But we must have."

"We'd better hurry," said Hilda. "There's only about an hour of daylight left."

They hurried. Now Illya was confident, and it was not long before a corner of the hill which came right down to the path looked familiar. But the path wound about it for several hundred feet, and brush was thick all along it. Illya looked at it, then shook his head.

"There is a cave under there. If bushes could appear or overnight to conceal the path, they could also conceal the cave. Colonel, I ask your help. Will you start at the other end of the hill while I take this end? Just pull up the bushes enough to see definitely whether there is solid rock behind them. Hilda, you take the middle third."

Hanevitch opened his mouth as though to register a complaint against the whole situation, then looked at Illya's face again and decided not to. "Very well," he said, "but I leave when the sun does."

"And that's not long," said Hilda.

"All the more reason to hurry," said Illya shortly, and started to pull aside the bushes.

He was still searching when the shadow of a mountain peak to the west crept across the trees, and he felt a chill gust of wind. It was followed closely by Colonel Hanevitch, dusting off his hands.

"The sun is gone," he said, "and there is no sign of your cave."

"There is still daylight," said Illya, "and I want to find this cave. For all I know it may move if we leave it again."

The Colonel went reluctantly back to work, and the sky grew slowly darker. At length Illya came to the place where Hilda's search had started. He shook his head in frustration, and hurried to catch up with her.

The light was failing now. Illya looked around the corner of the hill in search of Hilda, and saw Colonel Hanevitch twenty or thirty yards away, hurrying towards him. They met, and the Colonel spoke first.

"Where is Domnisoara Eclary?"

"I thought she was with you," Illya answered, "or somewhere between us."

There was a giggle from behind them, and the Colonel spun around. "Cine-i?" he barked. "Who's there?"

Then the bushes parted, not ten feet away, and Hilda's face looked out with an impish grin. "I found your cave," she said. "I wondered how long it would take you." She pushed the bushes back and stepped out, revealing a tall narrow crevasse in the rock which Illya recognized instantly.

"Your little joke has cost us time," he said. "I have no special desire to stay here after dark, but I intend to investigate that cave as fully as possible in the time remaining." He held out his hand to the Colonel. "Flashlight?"

The Colonel unclipped it from his belt and handed it over. Illya pulled the bushes aside and stepped into the cave. And as he did so, all three of them heard the howl of a wolf far back in the forest. Illya only paused for a moment, then went on into the cave.

"Ah, Domn Kuryakin..."

"Yes, I heard it. But I intend to see where the gentleman we met here last night came from, and where he returned to when he left us so abruptly."

There was a rustling sound from the bushes behind them, and a moment later the Colonel and Hilda were standing beside him. "We'll help you look," Hilda suggested brightly.

Illya went on towards the back of the cave, carefully examining the wall on his left as he went. The cave was not deep, and he reached the end in seven paces. He spent some time examining the back wall, and then began working his way along the other side towards the entrance again. At last he stopped, facing Hilda and the Colonel with a look of frustration and puzzlement.

"It looks solid," he admitted grudgingly.

In answer there was another wolf-howl, closer than the last. "And that sounds solid," said the Colonel quickly. "Domnul Kuryakin, I intend to return to the village at once. I would not like to have your death on my conscience, so I must request you to accompany me."

"Please, Illya," said Hilda. "There's nothing in this cave."

"There was last night," said Illya stubbornly. "That man we saw was as solid as you are. And he didn't come through a rock wall." His eyes flicked around the cave one more time. His words were definite, but his voice had just a trace of doubt as he said, "He couldn't have come through a rock wall...."

* * *

Illya spoke Rumanian without a trace of an accent, and that evening he inveigled some of the regular customers of the inn into conversation about the recent goings-on. Most of them, it seemed, were inclined to shrug off the fuss about vampires in the forest. Only one or two of the old men nodded shaggy wolf-gray heads and said, "Yes—the old Voivode is back again. He will kill a few fools and then go back to sleep."

"Fools?" said Illya.

"No man grows old who is not wise. And no wise man would go into the forest without a silver crucifix about his neck—especially at night. Young man, you may not see or hear of vampires in the city. They do not like the bright lights, and the noises are strange there. But here they come once in a while, and we learn to keep ourselves safe from them."

Illya looked around the room at the other men and women who sat unconcernedly about the fire, mugs of beer and glasses of wine in their hands. Only the old folks seemed to have their tales and fears, but...

"Ask anyone, young man. Oh, these young people have so much modern nonsense poured into them they are ashamed to do what they know is right—but they wear the cross, and they stay home at night. And I'll wager there's not a house in the village that hasn't a few bits of garlic along the windowsills and doorstep."

"Garlic won't stop wolves," said Illya. "Neither will a crucifix."

The old man peered at him through time-dimmed eyes. "Aren't you the young man who was chased by the wolves last night? Heard about that. You met the old Voivode too, didn't you? You were lucky, young man. Either he thought you were one of his own, or he had just fed.

"Now, wolves won't bother you if you've got sense enough to stay out of the woods after dark. Oh, sometimes they come into town, but they won't come through barred doors, and their master, he won't go in past silver and garlic. So we don't worry about it much. No sense in getting fussed; take care of yourself and you'll be safe enough." And he returned to his wine.

Illya was discussing this some time later that evening with the Colonel. Hilda had gone to bed back in her own room, and they were seated in the room to which the U.N.C.L.E. agents had been moved after the incident which had welcomed them to Pokol two nights before.

Illya shook his head. "They seem to think vampires are the same sort of natural menace as rats or mosquitoes," he said wonderingly. "You kill them if you get a chance, and the rest of the time you protect yourself against them and hope they go away."

"Not an unreasonable attitude," said Colonel Hanevitch. "To these people they are very real, and it would be foolhardy not to take precautions. But they see no reason to become excited and frightened of something which they have known about all their lives, just because it is closer than usual. It cannot harm them if they are careful. Only people who know little about the vampire are frightened by him."