He slumped to one elbow across the bed. His eyes were four inches from those mildewed pages, his nostrils reeked with the stench of them.

He skipped long paragraphs of pedantic jargon on theology, he scanned brief accounts of strange, blood-eating monsters, _vrykolakes_, and leprechauns. He read of Jeanne d'Arc, of Ludvig Prinn, and muttered aloud the Latin s.n.a.t.c.hes from _Episcopi_.

He pa.s.sed pages in quick succession, his fingers shaking with the fear of it and his eyes hanging heavily in their sockets. He saw vague reference to "Enoch," and saw the terrible drawings by an ancient Dominican of Rome....

Paragraph after paragraph he read: the horror-striking testimony of Nider's _Ant-Hill_, the testimony of people who died shrieking at the stake; the recitals of grave-tenders, of jurists and hang-men. Then unexpectedly, among all of this monumental vestige, there appeared before his eyes the name of--_Autiel Duryea_; and he stopped reading as though invisibly struck.

Thunder clapped near the lodge and rattled the window-panes. The deep rolling of bursting clouds echoed over the valley. But he heard none of it. His eyes were on those two short sentences which his father--someone--had underlined with dark red crayon.

... The execution, four years ago, of Autiel Duryea does not end the Duryea controversy. Time alone can decide whether the Demon has claimed that family from its beginning to its end....

Arthur read on about the trial of Autiel Duryea before Veniti, the Carca.s.sonnean Inquisitor-General; read, with mounting horror, the evidence which had sent that far-gone Duryea to the pillar--the evidence of a bloodless corpse who had been Autiel Duryea's young brother.

Unmindful now of the tremendous storm which had centered over Timber Lake, unheeding the clatter of windows and the swish of pines on the roof--even of his father who worked down at the lake's edge in a drenching rain--Arthur fastened his glance to the blurred print of those pages, sinking deeper and deeper into the garbled legends of a dark age....

On the last page of the chapter he again saw the name of his ancestor, Autiel Duryea. He traced a shaking finger over the narrow lines of words, and when he finished reading them he rolled sideways on the bed, and from his lips came a sobbing, mumbling prayer.

"G.o.d, oh G.o.d in Heaven protect me...."

For he had read:

As in the case of Autiel Duryea we observe that this specimen of _vrykolakas_ preys only upon the blood in its own family. It possesses none of the characteristics of the undead vampire, being usually a living male person of otherwise normal appearances, unsuspecting its inherent demonism.

But this _vrykolakas_ cannot act according to its demoniacal possession unless it is in the presence of a second member of the same family, who acts as a medium between the man and its demon. This medium has none of the traits of the vampire, but it senses the being of this creature (when the metamorphosis is about to occur) by reason of intense pains in the head and throat. Both the vampire and the medium undergo similar reactions, involving nausea, nocturnal visions, and physical disquietude.

When these two outcasts are within a certain distance of each other, the coalescence of inherent demonism is completed, and the vampire is subject to its attacks, demanding blood for its sustenance. No member of the family is safe at these times, for the _vrykolakas_, acting in its true agency on earth, will unerringly seek out the blood. In rare cases, where other victims are unavailable, _the vampire will even take the blood from the very medium which made it possible_.

This vampire is born into certain aged families, and naught but death can destroy it. It is not conscious of its blood-madness, and acts only in a psychic state. The medium, also, is unaware of its terrible role; and when these two are together, despite any lapse of years, the fusion of inheritance is so violent that no power known on earth can turn it back.

3

The lodge door slammed shut with a sudden, interrupting bang. The lock grated, and Henry Duryea's footsteps sounded on the planked floor.

Arthur shook himself from the bed. He had only time to fling that haunting book into the Gladstone bag before he sensed his father standing in the doorway.

"You--you're not shaving, Arthur." Duryea's words, spliced hesitantly, were toneless. He glanced from the table-top to the Gladstone, and to his son. He said nothing for a moment, his glance inscrutable. Then,

"It's blowing up quite a storm outside."

Arthur swallowed the first words which had come into his throat, nodded quickly. "Yes, isn't it? Quite a storm." He met his father's gaze, his face burning. "I--I don't think I'll shave, Dad. My head aches."

Duryea came swiftly into the room and pinned Arthur's arms in his grasp.

"What do you mean--your head aches? How? Does your throat----"

"No!" Arthur jerked himself away. He laughed. "It's that French stew of yours! It's. .h.i.t me in the stomach!" He stepped past his father and started up the stairs.

"The stew?" Duryea pivoted on his heel. "Possibly. I think I feel it myself."

Arthur stopped, his face suddenly white. "You--too?"

The words were hardly audible. Their glances met--clashed like dueling-swords.

For ten seconds neither of them said a word or moved a muscle: Arthur, from the stairs, looking down; his father below, gazing up at him. In Henry Duryea the blood drained slowly from his face and left a purple etching across the bridge of his nose and above his eyes. He looked like a death's-head.

Arthur winced at the sight and twisted his eyes away. He turned to go up the remaining stairs.

"Son!"

He stopped again; his hand tightened on the banister.

"Yes, Dad?"

Duryea put his foot on the first stair, "I want you to lock your door tonight. The wind would keep it banging!"

"Yes," breathed Arthur, and pushed up the stairs to his room.

Doctor Duryea's hollow footsteps sounded in steady, unhesitant beats across the floor of Timber Lake Lodge. Sometimes they stopped, and the crackling hiss of a sulfur match took their place, then perhaps a distended sigh, and, again, footsteps....

Arthur crouched at the open door of his room. His head was c.o.c.ked for those noises from below. In his hands was a double-barrel shotgun of violent gage.

... thud ... thud ... thud....

Then a pause, the clinking of a gla.s.s and the gurgling of liquid. The sigh, the tread of his feet over the floor....

"He's thirsty," Arthur thought--_Thirsty!_

Outside, the storm had grown into fury. Lightning zigzagged between the mountains, filling the valley with weird phosph.o.r.escence. Thunder, like drums, rolled incessantly.

Within the lodge the heat of the fireplace piled the atmosphere thick with stagnation. All the doors and windows were locked shut, the oil-lamps glowed weakly--a pale, anemic light.

Henry Duryea walked to the foot of the stairs and stood looking up.

Arthur sensed his movements and ducked back into his room, the gun gripped in his shaking fingers.

Then Henry Duryea's footstep sounded on the first stair.

Arthur slumped to one knee. He buckled a fist against his teeth as a prayer tumbled through them.

Duryea climbed a second step ... and another ... and still one more. On the fourth stair he stopped.

"Arthur!" His voice cut into the silence like the crack of a whip.