Up ahead the tunnel turned sharply to the right, and Woermann stopped to listen. The scraping noises were louder still. So close he could almost imagine them originating around that next turn. Which meant he had to be very careful. He had to find a way of seeing what was going on without being seen.
He would have to turn his light off.
Woermann did not want to do that. The undulating layer of rats on the ground and on the walls made him fear the dark. Suppose the light were all that kept them at bay? Suppose ... It didn't matter. He had to know what lay beyond. He estimated he could reach the turn in five long paces. He would go that far in the dark, then turn left and force himself to take another three paces. If by then he found nothing, he would turn the flashlight back on and continue ahead. For all he knew there might be nothing there. The nearness of the sounds could be an acoustical trick of the tunnel... he might have another hundred yards to go yet. Or he might not.
Bracing himself, Woermann flicked the flashlight off but kept his finger on the switch just in case something happened with the rats. He heard nothing, felt nothing. As he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he noted that the noise had grown louder, as if amplified by the absence of light. Utter absence. There was no glow, not even a hint of illumination from around the bend. Whatever was making that noise had to have at least some light, didn't it? Didn't it?
He pushed himself forward, silently counting off the paces while every nerve in his body howled for him to turn and run. But he had to know! Where were those bodies? And what was making that noise? Maybe then the mysteries of the keep would be solved. It was his duty to learn. His duty...
Completing the fifth and final pace, he turned left and, in so doing, lost his balance. His left hand—the one with the flashlight—shot out reflexively to keep him from falling and came in contact with something furry that squealed and moved and bit with razor-sharp teeth. Pain knifed up his arm from the heel of his palm. He snatched his hand away and clamped his teeth on his lower lip until the pain subsided. It didn't take long, and he had managed to hold on to the flashlight.
The scraping noises sounded much louder now, and directly ahead. Yet there was no light. No matter how he strained his eyes, he could see nothing. He began to perspire as fear reached deep into his intestines and squeezed. There had to be light somewhere ahead.
He took one pace—not so long as the previous ones—and stopped.
The sounds now came from directly in front of him, ahead ... and down ... scraping, scratching, scrabbling.
Another pace.
Whatever the sounds were, they gave him the impression of concerted effort, yet he could hear no labored breathing accompanying them. Only his own ragged respirations and the sound of his blood pounding in his ears. That and the scratching.
One more pace and he would turn the light on again. He lifted his foot but found he could not move himself forward. Of its own volition, his body refused to take another step until he could see where he was going.
Woermann stood trembling. He wanted to go back. He didn't want to see what was ahead. Nothing sane or of this world could move and exist in this blackness. It was better not to know. But the bodies ... he had to know.
He made a sound that was almost a whimper, and flicked the switch on the flashlight. It took a moment for his pupils to constrict in the sudden glare, and a much longer moment for his mind to register the horror of what the light revealed.
And then Woermann screamed ... an agonized sound that started low and built in volume and pitch, echoing and re-echoing around him as he turned and fled back the way he had come. He rushed headlong past the staring rats and beyond. There were perhaps thirty more feet of tunnel to go when Woermann brought himself to a wavering halt.
There was someone up ahead.
He flashed his beam at the figure blocking his path. He saw the waxy face, the cape, the clothes, the lank hair, the twin pools of madness where the eyes should be. And he knew. Here was the master of the house.
Woermann stood and stared in horrified fascination for a moment, then marshaled his quarter-century of military training.
"Let me pass!" he said and directed the beam onto the cross in his right hand, confident that he held an effective weapon. "In the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of all that is holy, let me pass!"
Instead of retreating, the figure moved forward, closer to Woermann, close enough so that the light picked up his sallow features. He was smiling—a gloating vulpine grimace that weakened Woermann's knees and made his upheld hands shake violently.
His eyes... oh, God, his eyes... Woermann stood rooted to the spot, unable to retreat because of what he had seen behind him, and blocked from escape ahead. He kept the quaking light trained on the silver cross—the cross! Vampires fear the cross!—as he thrust it forward, fighting fear as he had never known it.
Dear God, if you are my God, don't desert me!
Unseen, a hand slipped through the dark and snatched the cross from Woermann's grasp. The creature held it between his thumb and forefinger and let Woermann watch in horror and dismay as he began to bend it, folding it until it was doubled over on itself. Then he bent the crosspiece down until all that was left was a misshapen lump of silver. This he flipped away with no more thought than a soldier on leave would give to a cigarette butt.
Woermann shouted in terror as he saw the same hand dart toward him. He ducked away. But he was not quick enough.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Magda drifted slowly back to consciousness, drawn by rough prodding at her clothing and by a painful pressure in her right hand. She opened her eyes. The stars were out. There was a dark shadow over her, pulling and pulling at her hand.
Where was she? And why did her head hurt so?
Images flashed through her mind—Glenn ... the causeway... gunfire... the gorge...
Glenn was dead! It hadn't been a dream—Glenn was dead!
With a groan she sat up, causing whoever was pulling at her to scream in terror and run back toward the village. When the vertigo that rocked and spun the world about her subsided, she lifted her hand to the tender, swollen area near her right temple and winced in pain when she touched it.
She also became aware of a throbbing in her right ring finger. The flesh around her mother's wedding band was cut and swollen. Whoever had been leaning over her must have been trying to pull it off her finger! One of the villagers! He had probably thought her dead and had been terrified when she had moved.
Magda rose to her feet and again the world began to spin and tilt. When the ground had steadied, when her nausea had faded away and the roaring in her ears had dimmed to a steady thrum, she began to walk. Every step she took caused a stab of pain in her head but she kept going, crossing to the far side of the path and pushing into the brush. A half-moon drifted in a cloud-streaked sky. It hadn't been out before. How long had she been unconscious? She had to get to Glenn!
He's still alive, she told herself. He has to be! It was the only way she could imagine him. Yet how could he live? How could anyone survive all those bullets... and that fall into the gorge...?