“The others were moving into the room now, encircling the table, their faces grim as they looked at us.
“ ‘But where do these vampires come from!’ I whispered. ‘You’ve searched your cemetery! If it’s vampires, where do they hide from you? This woman can’t do you harm. Hunt your vampires if you must’
“ ‘By day,’ she said gravely, winking her eye and slowly nodding her head. ‘By day. We get them, by day.’
“ ‘Where, out there in the graveyard, digging up the graves of your own villagers?’
“She shook her head. ‘The ruins,’ she said. ‘It was always the ruins. We were wrong. In my grandfather’s time it was the ruins, and it is the ruins again. We’ll take them down stone by stone if we have to. But you… you go now. Because if you don’t go, we’ll drive you out there into that dark now!’
“And then out from behind her apron she drew her clenched fist with the stake in it and held it up in the flickering light of the candle. ‘You hear me, you go!’ she said; and the men pressed in close behind her, their mouths set, their eyes blazing in the light.
“ ‘Yes…’ I said to her. ‘Out there. I would prefer that. Out there.’ And I swept past her, almost throwing her aside, seeing them scuttle back to make way. I had my hand on the latch of the inn door and slid it back with one quick gesture.
“ ‘No!’ cried the woman in her guttural German. ‘You’re mad!’ And she rushed up to me and then stared at the latch, dumbfounded. She threw her hands up against the rough boards of the door. ‘Do you know what you do!’
“ ‘Where are the ruins?’ I asked her calmly. ‘How far? Do they lie to the left of the road, or to the right?’
“ ‘No, no’ She shook her head violently. I pried the door back and felt the cold blast of air on my face. One of the women said something sharp and angry from the wall, and one of the children moaned in its sleep. ‘I’m going. I want one thing from you. Tell me where the ruins lie, so I may stay clear of them. Tell me.’
“ ‘You don’t know, you don’t know,’ she said; and then I laid my hand on her warm wrist and drew her slowly through the door, her feet scraping on the boards, her eyes wild. The men moved nearer but, as she stepped out against her will into the night, they stopped. She tossed her head, her hair falling down into her eyes, her eyes glaring at my hand and at my face. ‘Tell me…’ I said.
“I could see she was staring not at me but at Claudia. Claudia had turned towards her, and the light from the fire was on her face. The woman did not see the rounded cheeks nor the pursed lips, I knew, but Claudia’s eyes, which were gazing at her with a dark, demonic intelligence. The woman’s teeth bit down into the flesh of her lip.
“ ‘To the north or south?’
“ ‘To the north…’ she whispered.
“ ‘To the left or the right?’
“ ‘The left.’
“ ‘And how far?’
“Her hand struggled desperately. ‘Three miles,’ she gasped. And I released her, so that she fell back against the door, her eyes wide with fear and confusion. I had turned to go, but suddenly behind me she cried out for me to wait. I turned to see she’d ripped the crucifix from the beam over her head, and she had it thrust out towards me now. And out of the dark night
mare landscape of my memory I saw Babette gazing at me as she had so many years ago, saying those words, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ But the woman’s face was desperate. ‘Take it, please, in the name of God,’ she said. ‘And ride fast.’ And the door shut, leaving Claudia and me in total darkness.”
“In minutes the tunnel of the night closed upon the weak lanterns of our carriage, as if the village had never existed. We lurched forward, around a bend, the springs creaking, the dim moon revealing for an instant the pale outline of the mountains beyond the pines. I could not stop thinking of Morgan, stop hearing his voice. It was all tangled with my own horrified anticipation of meeting the thing which had killed Emily, the thing which was unquestionably one of our own. But Claudia was in a frenzy. If she could have driven the horses herself, she would have taken the reins. Again and again she urged me to use the whip. She struck savagely at the few low branches that dipped suddenly into the lamps before our faces; and the arm that clung to my waist on the rocking bench was as firm as iron.
“I remember the road turning sharply, the lanterns clattering, and Claudia calling out over the wind: ‘There, Louis, do you see it?’ And I jerked hard on the reins.
“She was on her knees, pressed against me, and the carnage was swaying like a ship at sea.
“A great fleecy cloud had released the moon, and high above us loomed the dark outline of the tower. One long window showed the pale sky beyond it. I sat there, clutching the bench, trying to steady a motion that continued in my head as the carriage settled on its springs. One of the horses whinnied. Then everything was still.
“Claudia was saying, ‘Louis, come…’
“I whispered something, a swift irrational negation. I had the distinct and terrifying impression that Morgan was near to me, talking to me in that low, impassioned way he’d pleaded with me in the inn. Not a living creature stirred in the night around us. There was only the wind and the soft rustling of the leaves.
“ ‘Do you think he knows we’re coming?’ I asked, my voice unfamiliar to me over this wind. I was in that little parlor, as if there were no escape from it, as if this dense forest were not real. I think I shuddered. And then I felt Claudia’s hand very gently touch the hand I lifted to my eyes. The thin pines were billowing behind her and the rustle of the leaves grew louder, as if a great mouth sucked the breeze and began a whirlwind. ‘They’ll bury her at the crossroads? Is that what they’ll do? An Englishwoman!’ I whispered.
“ ‘Would that I had your size…’ Claudia was saying. ‘And would that you had my heart. Oh, Louis…’
And her head inclined to me now, so like the attitude of the vampire bending to kiss that I shrank back from her; but her lips only gently pressed my own, finding a part there to suck the breath and let it flow back into me as my arms enclosed her. ‘Let me lead you…’ she pleaded. ‘There’s no turning back now. Take me in your arms,’ she said, ‘and let me down, on the road.’
“But it seemed an eternity that I just sat there feeling her lips on my face and on my eyelids. Then she moved, the softness of her small body suddenly snatched from me, in a movement so graceful and swift that she seemed now poised in the air beside the carriage, her hand clutching mine for an instant, then letting it go. And then I looked down to see her looking up at me, standing on the road in the shuddering pool of light beneath the lantern. She beckoned to me, as she stepped backwards, one small boot behind the other. ‘Louis, come down…’ until she threatened to vanish into the darkness. And in a second I’d unfastened the lamp from its hook, and I stood beside her in the tall grass.
“ ‘Don’t you sense the danger?’ I whispered to her. ‘Can’t you breathe it like the air?’ One of those quick, elusive smiles played on her lips, as she turned towards the slope. The lantern pitched a pathway through the rising forest. One small, white hand drew the wool of her cape close, and she moved forward.