Chapter Thirty

Mildred had become bored with the latest puzzle when it became clear that there were several pieces missing, including the head and arm of the tinker who leaned on the wall in the foreground of the picture, surrounded by mournful cattle with extraordinarily long horns and shaggy coats. J.B. had also given up and found a tattered paperback.
Mildred left him deep in the book while she wandered out and across the hall, passing an elderly woman in a mobcap lethargically polishing an elm bench.
She climbed to the second floor, where most of the rooms were locked and bolted, giving the impression that they hadn't been opened for a hundred years.
Mildred nearly passed a room without noticing it, as it was concealed by a long tapestry, so faded that it was impossible to tell what its subject had been. But it moved slightly as Mildred passed, giving the clue that it hid a doorway.
Glancing around to make sure that she wasn't being observed, the woman slipped behind the dusty hanging and tested the brass door handle, which moved with a certain reluctance, as though it were resisting the stranger.
The open door revealed a musty chamber, lined with books, its shutters bolted shut. Mildred saw a number of oil lamps standing ready, each with a supply of self-lights at its side. She closed the door behind her and fumbled to strike a light and illuminate the room.
The oil-soaked wick caught, and Mildred slid the glass chimney over it, quickly trimming it down so that it gave off a steady, golden glow.
The books seemed to be in far better condition than most of those on the first floor. Mildred walked around, holding the lamp raised in her hand, examining the titles as she went. The collection seemed to be split into two distinct halves, both equally well thumbed.
The more modern books were textbooks, by publishers familiar to Mildred. Most of them seemed to deal with the subject of genetic engineering. Manipulation of DNA, Reversing the Helix and Molding the New were just three typical titles from the collection.
But it was the older books that Mildred found more fascinating. Many had full morocco bindings, or were beautifully calf-bound with superb marbled endpapers. They smelled of age, and a significant number were dated before 1800, with deckle-edged paper and f's for s's .
A Perfon of Night had a frightening frontispiece of a gibbering demon with scaly wings, tearing the living heart from a human baby. Almoft the Future seemed to be about reading tarot cards.
Virtually every book in the large section covered some aspect of mysticism, every classic title that Mildred had ever heard of, plus hundreds that were grotesquely arcane.
Of course there was a copy of the Necronomicon , by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, bound in human skin, bearing the imprimatur of the University of Miskatonic. Mildred opened it cautiously, breathing in the chill wind that blows between the worlds, the angular printing on the yellowed parchment seeming to blur and shift its nameless shape under her eyes.
There was the work of the renegade priest, Buebo of Ishmailia, some privately published and singularly vile poetry from H. P. Lovecraft, an unexpurgated copy of short tales by Monk Lewis and a long-banned novel from Cecilia Pewcell, a Victorian mystic who had been found dead in a locked room with her throat torn open by razor-sharp teeth.
Mildred shuddered, feeling cold, wiping her hands down her pants to try to remove the clinging damp stickiness. She picked up the lamp and walked back toward the door.
"There are some seriously sick people in this house, Millie," she whispered to herself.


DOC, DEAN AND JAK had just found their way back to the room with the puzzles as Mildred reentered. Krysty was already there, sitting on the edge of one of the long sofas, hands clasped around her knees.
J.B. had finished skim-reading the paperback and was standing by the empty fireplace. He looked up immediately as Mildred came into the room, standing and walking to her side, taking her hand. "You all right? "he asked.
"Been better. Found this library of some, well, strange books. Science at an advanced level from the very end of the last century, just before the final war. And some ancient volumes on witchcraft and devil worship and all kinds of obscene black magic. Nasty stuff."
He squeezed her hand tightly, then turned back toward Doc and the others. "Find anything down there in Bramton to prove your theory?"
Doc sat in a deep armchair, sighing. "Quite a hike, that trail from down by the river. I fear that I'm getting too old for all this tarry-hooting."
Dean sat on the floor, leaning his back against the sofa by Krysty. "Some kids nearly shit themselves when they saw Jak. Thought he was a member of the Family out hunting soft meat."
Doc nodded, his face grim. "Our young friend here may not know it, but I suspect that he might have put his finger on the heart of the matter."
"It's like what saw when down with Johannes," Jak said. "Real fear. Nobody'd talk proper about Family."
"And there is this strange zombielike slowness about them all." Doc rubbed at the stubble whitening his cheeks. "So pallid, all of them."
Mildred cleared her throat. "Everything points one way, doesn't it, Doc?"
"Yes, it does, Dr. Wyeth. I noticed that everyone wore high collars and long sleeves."
"What's that mean, Doc?" Dean asked.
"It might mean that they're trying to conceal something from us."
"Like what?"
"Bite marks."
Jak looked up, glancing at Dean. "Hey, remember when was sick?"
"Sure."
Mildred looked at the albino. "What're you talking about, Jak? I remember Dean being ill one morning. Real tired. I looked to see if anything had bitten him on the neck, but there was nothing there at all."
"Not neck," Jak said. "Elbow. Puncture mark there."
Doc coughed. "Then I think that we are being forced to a bizarre explanation, are we not?"
Mildred nodded. "Yeah, we are, Doc."
Krysty shook her head. "Can you two stop this triple-stupe game and tell the rest of us what you suspect. Gaia! It might affect Ryan."
Doc bit his lip. "Yes, I am very much afraid that it might, Krysty. It might."


RYAN WAS BEING CARRIED down a fight of stairs that he now guessed led from the attics above the corridor where he and his companions had been settled.
He was certain that the man carrying him was Thomas Cornelius, and that it had been Thomas who'd attacked him in the corridor the night that Johannes Forde had been butchered.
Though Ryan had made a token effort at struggling when he'd been picked up from the bed, he'd known immediately that he was wasting his time. The man had enormous, unearthly power, holding him tight to his chest, walking effortlessly along, whistling under his breath. Again, there was the faint sound of whispering material, like hissing silk or rustling feathers.
And the same revolting graveyard breath.
"Just who the fuck are you?" Ryan panted. "Or should that be what the fuck are you?"
"Don't waste your breath, Ryan."
"You'll tell us tomorrow all about yourselves?"
"Probably."
"If you hadn't drugged me before making me making me fuck, then I'd have chilled all of you."
"Talk is cheap, Ryan. But as a man of your coinage knows, the price of action is colossal."
Despite the helpless absurdity of his position, Ryan couldn't stop himself from laughing. "I reckon that I've heard Doc say exactly the same thing."
Thomas stopped as if to let someone move past him. "There is something about every one of your friends that fascinates us. And we shall find uses for all of you."
"Uses?"
"Wait."
Ryan had a ferocious headache, and the rocking movement was making him feel sick.
They had gone through the door and were now, he was sure, on the landing. There was a sudden flash of silver-gold light that seemed to burn his retina, and he winced, wondering what it was that he'd seen.
Thomas had stopped, his grip tightening. "Close that bastardly drapery, Sister. It's blinding me."
"Sorry, Brother. I brushed it open as I walked by. Here's Ryan's room."
"First check that all of the draperies and shutters are closed inside."
Mary's voice came faintly from inside the room. "All right. It's safe and dark."
The man lowered Ryan onto another bed. "There," he said. "Home again, home again."
Ryan lay still, glad that the swaying had finally ceased. Though he was trying with all of his might to see out of his damaged eye, there didn't seem a trace of light or a hint of any movement near him.
The woman's hand was on his cheek. "It was amazing, Ryan. Of all the others, you were so much the best. I knew when I first saw you that night that it would be something very special for me and for all of us."
Anger pulsed in Ryan's mind, anger at the casual way they'd taken advantage of him, something that would never have happened if he'd had his sight.
And if, by a miracle, he ever recovered his sight, one of the first things he'd look forward to seeing was the face of Mary Cornelius and her depraved family staring at him over the sights of the SIG-Sauer.
"We'll leave you now," the man said in his hoarse whisper. "And we'll make sure that Norman tells your friends that you're back here again."
"Yeah." Ryan tried to make himself comfortable, still wondering about the amazing strength of the Family, how and when they became so bizarrely mutated.
Once again the woman touched his face, and he managed not to pull away, recognizing his own damned weakness and the importance of trying not to offend them.
The door closed and Ryan was left alone with his thoughts and his shame.


THE CONVERSATION in the library had been interrupted at a crucial stage by the appearance of Norman, carrying a chased silver tray with goblets of orange juice.
"Newly squeezed by my own fair hand," he said, giggling. "Fresh as tomorrow's sunrise."
"And the eggs you serve tomorrow are still inside the hens," Mildred added.
"Oh, you're so sharp you'll cut yourself. You must have been sleeping in the cutlery drawer."
"The drink drugged?" J.B. asked, sniffing suspiciously at one of the glasses.
"Of course not. The very idea of it! I can see that I might have to slap you on the wrist, John Dix."
"Try it and I'll whack you," the Armorer said. "Thanks for the drinks, now get out."
Norman pulled a pettish face and flounced out, closing the door firmly behind himself.
"Think safe?" Jak also picked up one of the drinks and touched it to his lips. "Tastes good."
"If there's drugs, you'll probably spot it in the aftertaste," Mildred said, sipping at the juice. "Seems all right to me."
Doc hadn't moved from where he stood staring out of the window at the frothing river, far below the house. Finally he turned to face the others. "So?"
Mildred nodded, solemn. "I guess we both suspect the same about the Family."
"I believe that we do."
To J.B., Dean and Jak, he said. "Dr. Wyeth and I believe that we are in a household of vampires."