“It was so low no mortal could have heard it. And it did not come from the ruins. It came from far off, not the long, meandering way that we had come up the slope, but another way, up the spine of the hill, directly from the village. Just a rustling now, a scraping, but it was steady; and then slowly the round tramping of a foot began to distinguish itself. Claudia’s hand tightened on mine, and with a gentle pressure she moved me silently beneath the slope of the stairway. I could see the folds of her dress heave slightly beneath the edge of her cape. The tramp of the feet grew louder, and I began to sense that one step preceded the other very sharply, the second dragging slowly across the earth. It was a limping step, drawing nearer and nearer over the low whistling of the wind. My own heart beat hard against my chest, and I felt the veins in my temples tighten, a tremor passing through my limbs, so that I could feel the fabric of my shirt against me, the stiff cut of the collar, the very scraping of the buttons against my cape.
“Then a faint scent came with the wind. It was the scent of blood, at once arousing me, against my will, the warm, sweet scent of human blood, blood that was spilling, flowing and then I sensed the smell of living flesh and I heard in time with the feet a dry, hoarse breathing. But with it came another sound, faint and intermingled with the first, as the feet tramped closer and closer to the walls, the sound of yet another creature’s halting, strained breath. And I could hear the heart of that creature, beating irregularly, a fearful throbbing; but beneath that was another heart, a steady, pulsing heart growing louder and louder, a heart as strong as my own? Then, in the jagged gap through which we’d come, I saw him.
’His great, huge shoulder emerged first and one long, loose arm and hand, the fingers curved; then I saw his head. Over his other shoulder he was carrying a body. In the broken doorway he straightened and shifted the weight and stared directly into the darkness towards us. Every muscle in me became iron as I looked at him, saw the outline of his head looming there against the sky. But nothing of his face was visible except the barest glint of the moon on his eye as if it were a fragment of glass. Then I saw it glint on his buttons and heard them rustle as his arm swung free again and one long leg bent as he moved forward and proceeded into the tower right towards us.
“I held fast to Claudia, ready in an instant to shove her behind me, to step forward to meet him. But then I saw with astonishment that his eyes did not see me as I saw him, and he was trudging under the weight of the body he carried towards the monastery door. The moon fell now on his bowed head, on a mass of wavy black hair that touched his bent shoulder, and on the full black sleeve of his coat. I saw something about his coat; the flap of it was badly torn and the sleeve appeared to be ripped from the seam. I almost fancied I could see his flesh through the shoulder. The human in his arms stirred now, and moaned miserably. And the figure stopped for a moment and appeared to stroke the human with his hand. And at that moment I stepped forward from the wall and went towards him.
“No words passed my lips: I knew none to say. I only knew that I moved into the light of the moon before him and that his dark, wavy head rose with a jerk, and that I saw his eyes.
“For one full instant he looked at me, and I saw the light shining in those eyes and then glinting on two sharp canine teeth; and then a low strangled cry seemed to rise from the depths of his throat which, for a second, I thought to be my own. The human crashed to the stones, a shuddering moan escaping his lips. And the vampire lunged at me, that strangled cry rising again as the stench of fetid breath rose in my nostrils and the clawlike fingers cut into the very fur of my cape. I fell backwards, my head cracking against the wall, my hands grabbing at his head, clutching a mass of tangled filth that was his hair. At once the wet, rotting fabric of his coat ripped in my grasp, but the arm that held me was like iron; and, as I struggled to pull the head backwards, the fangs touched the flesh of my throat. Claudia screamed behind him. Something hit his head hard, which stopped him suddenly; and then he was hit again. He turned as if to strike her a blow, and I sent my fist against his face as powerfully as I could. Again a stone struck him as she darted away, and I threw my full weight against him and felt his crippled leg buckling. I remember pounding his head over and over, my fingers all but pulling that filthy hair out by the roots, his fangs projected towards me, his hands scratching, clawing at me. We rolled over and over, until I pinned him down again and the moon shone full on his face. And I realized, through my frantic sobbing breaths, what it was I held in my arms. The two huge eyes bulged from naked sockets and two small, hideous holes made up his nose; only a putrid, leathery flesh enclosed his skull, and the rank, rotting rags that covered his frame were thick with earth and slime and blood. I was battling a mindless, animated corpse. But no more.
“From above him, a sharp stone fell full on his forehead, and a fount of blood gushed from between his eyes. He struggled, but another stone crashed with such force I heard the bones shatter. Blood seeped out beneath the matted hair, soaking into the stones and grass. The chest throbbed beneath me, but the arms shuddered and grew still. I drew up, my throat knotted, my heart burning, every fiber of my body aching from the struggle. For a moment the great tower seemed to tilt, but then it righted itself. I lay against the wall, staring at the thing, the blood rushing in my ears. Gradually I realized that Claudia knelt on his chest, that she was probing the mass of hair and bone that had been his head. She was scattering the fragments of his skull. We had met the European vampire, the creature of the Old World. He was dead.
“For a long time I lay on the broad stairway, oblivious to the thick earth that covered it, my head feeling very cool against the earth, just looking at him. Claudia stood at his feet, hands hanging limply at her sides. I saw her eyes close for an instant, two tiny lids that made her face like a small, moonlit white statue as she stood there. And then her body began to rock very slowly. ‘Claudia,’ I called to her. She awakened. She was gaunt such as I had seldom seen her. She pointed to the human who lay far across the floor of the tower near the wall. He was still motionless, but I knew that he was not dead. I’d forgotten him completely, my body aching as it was, my senses still clouded with the stench of the bleeding corpse. But now I saw the man. And in some part of my mind I knew what his fate would be, and I cared nothing for it. I knew it was only an hour at most before dawn.
“ ‘He’s moving,’ she said to me. And I tried to rise off the steps. Better that he not wake, better that he never wake at all, I wanted to say; she was walking towards him, passing indifferently the dead thing that had nearly killed us both. I saw her back and the man stirring in front of her, his foot twisting in the grass. I don’t know what I expected to see as I drew nearer, what terrified peasant or farmer, what miserable wretch that had already seen the face of that thing that had brought it here. And for a moment I did not realize who it was that lay there, that it was Morgan, whose pale face showed now in the moon, the marks of the vampire on his throat, his blue eyes staring mute and expressionless before him.
“Suddenly they widened as I drew close to him. ‘Louis!’ he whispered in astonishment, his lips moving as if he were trying to frame words but could not. ‘Louis…’ he said again; and then I saw he was smiling. A dry, rasping sound came from him as he struggled to his knees, and he reached out for me. His blanched, contorted face strained as the sound died in his throat, and he nodded desperately, his red hair loose and disheveled, falling into his eyes. I turned and ran from him. Claudia shot past me, gripping me by the arm. ‘Do you see the color of the sky!’ she hissed at me. Morgan fell forward on his hands behind her. ‘Louis,’ he called out again, the light gleaming in his eyes. He seemed blind to the ruins, blind to the night, blind to everything but a face he recognized, that one word again issuing from his lips. I put my hands to my ears, backing away from him. His hand was bloody now as he lifted it. I could smell the blood as well as see it. And Claudia could smell it, too.