The other undead could not understand where their associates kept disappearing to. They had not been in such peril since the Prince Elector of Bohemia sat beside the Count Palatine. Some were in constant excitement, running from one grave to another without being able to eat any corpse. Finally they decided to appeal below for help.
The Vampire-Colonel’s expression somehow reminded the inspector of the way his father used to smoke his long pipe. It was a long way down if one wished to see this worthy, but when he overheard some of his depraved and disgusting friends agreeing that it was high time to make that pilgrimage, the inspector volunteered his company, at which they wrinkled their bloody lips at him, half prepared to reaffirm his treachery, but after whispering together they agreed that he could come. What did they admire in him? Richter von Lochner, I regret to say, had never considered him save in the light of a tool; Father Hauser kept him at an ever greater distance, due to the offensive stigmata of decay which he now presented; as for the undead, it is all too plausible that even they saw him as no more than a convenient companion for their debauches; and presently even the inspector himself began to wonder who he was. Down a greasy tunnel they sped, until it had gotten substantially warmer, and even brighter with a blue light to which the inspector supposed he could get contentedly accustomed, if he ended up having to spend eternity down here.
His friends urged him forward. They asserted the necessity for a second interrogation of this peculiar individual, for they could find no one else among them to blame; he himself continually reinfected them with the cunning fallacy that Trollhand and Father Hauser were managing these persecutions entirely on their own.
Why did you come to us? demanded the Vampire-Colonel. From this first question he could see that this too was to be a pro forma questioning; at which, as so often before, it struck him that people became stupider after death.
I died, he answered.
Prove it.
Here’s my death-wound.
I’ll give you another, just to be sure — and, blowing a skullheaded whistle, the Vampire-Colonel summoned two rats who gnawed away. It didn’t hurt at all. After that, the company courteously assisted him in refastening his head on. I am told that they keep very good mastics in those subterranean realms. After all, many glues and gums can be made from dead things.
Well, said the Vampire-Colonel, it appears that you truly are dead. And a good business, too.
Again the inspector began almost to pity his adversaries in their ignorant weakness.
Now, what are you all doing here? their host demanded.
Taking the errand upon himself, the inspector explained: Half the population of our graveyard has been rubbed out in the past year. It’s that damned priest and Hans Trollhand.
All right, said the Vampire-Colonel. I know them. I’ll get my legions together before the moon wanes. On the first completely dark night, we’ll go out through the crypt and tear those two apart. Now inform me about the church? Does it serve any purpose?
Sentimental attachment, said a troll.
That’s all? No store of items to pollute and deconsecrate?
We’re afraid to go there, said the inspector.
We’ll smash that place.
The next day, the inspector sneaked over to the church. Father Hauser informed Judge von Lochner, who sent to Prague, and come the dark of the moon a squad of Holy Bohemian Dragoons stood ready with garlic-shooters, buckets of holy water and arquebuses loaded with silver bullets every third one of which had been blessed by the Pope. When Hans Trollhand lifted up his fungoid ear from the floor and raised his forefinger, they all knew that the evil souls were marching in cunning, silence and speed.
The flagstones trembled. Two engraved marble memory-stones began to swing aside, and there were black shapes like reflected tree-limbs trembling in dark green water. From underground came deep voices singing the following:
Up, up, you doughty ghouls, to aid the groaning dead
And tear apart the pious ones who boiled us in lead!
The dragoons took aim. Trollhand lowered his pike. A knight’s marble tomb-effigy, cracked across his grin, so that his head was nearly bifurcated, began to tremble even as he lay rigid, with his delicate marble hands crossed upon his sword, and then he swung sideways. First out came the Vampire-Colonel, as one might have expected. They riddled him with consecrated silver, and he exploded. From the other two tunnels spidery things convulsed in hatred. Launching garlic and holy water down into hell, Christ’s army brought forth many a screech and a wail. At dawn they descended with candles to clean it out as far as they dared, finding nothing but a few troll-scales, clots of greenish blood and promiscuous scatterings of human bones.
Throughout this operation the inspector kept wisely aloof.
So the undead had to go deeper, right down to the King Vrykolakas. The inspector kept them company again, of course; for I promise he will be loyal to everyone throughout this hateful story. After the oozy earth-guts there was a lovely winding stair, all stone, with shells of unknown mollusks laid out as if by design, and a soft glow of yellow-green light from the landing below, or perhaps from the landing below that, which might have been hell. They reached a crouching corpse, now fallen forward in its decay. When they got down twice as far as where the Vampire-Colonel used to dwell, they began to hear a sound of chuckling which was actually roaring, coming up through the ground
The King Vrykolakas lay faceup in a wine-cask full of blood, snoring, gurgling, drinking and vomiting all at once. He was as fat and brown as a roasted pig; he was as absurdly large as a mountain of hay which must be carried by two oxen. He had fangs halfway down to his knees, fingernails like sickles and toenails like a vulture’s claws. When he opened his eyes, the inspector saw that the whites were yellow, the irises were red and the pupils were blackish-green like frogskin.
You see, said the vrykolakas. I know what you’re up to, inspector. All the rest of you, leave us alone, please. I’ll send a rat to get you when you’re done. Now, tell me which is worse, inspector — to find malignant beings such as we are, or to find nobody in here? Wouldn’t it get lonely in here if it were just you and a few skeletons that couldn’t even chatter their teeth hello?
When you put it like that, said the inspector, I see that there’s a third possibility. Why not wish for a cemetery full of angels?
Oh, so that’s what you want. One of those is just down the road, in Neinstade. For your reward, after you finish destroying us, why not get Father Hauser to rebury you there? There’s a cute little winged Cecelia with a marble-white bottom; I used to let her suck my fangs. But I don’t know how much joy you’ll get from people like her. They’re not as open-minded as we. All cobwebbed up with hymns, you know. Unless you’re one of them, they won’t even smile at you. But go and see for yourself.
The inspector kept quiet.
The great vrykolakas sucked in his cheeks and scratched bloodclots off his chin-bristles. He said: Now see here. Do you suppose we’ll be better off when Trollhand drives a stake through our hearts?