The Keep

"Very well, then. Since we have no other sources of information open to us, I think we should abandon the keep immediately."

Kaempffer made no reply; he merely continued puffing and strutting back and forth across the far end of the room.

Papa cleared his throat for attention.

"Stay out of this, Jew!"

"Let's hear what he has to say. That's why we dragged him here, isn't it?"

It was gradually becoming clear to Magda that there was a deep hostility between the two officers. She knew Papa had recognized it, too, and was surely trying to turn it to their advantage.

"I may be able to help." Papa gestured to the pile of books on the table. "As I mentioned before, the answer to your problem may lie in those books. If they do hold the answer, I am the only person who—with the aid of my daughter—can ferret it out. If you wish, I shall try."

Kaempffer stopped pacing and looked at Woerma

"It's worth a try," Woerma

Kaempffer dropped his cigarette butt to the floor and slowly ground it out with his toe. "Three days, Jew. You have three days to come up with something useful." He strode past them and out the door, leaving it open behind him.

Captain Woerma

"I will manage, Captain. Thank you."

"Wood," Magda said. "We'll need some wood for a fire."

"It doesn't get that cold at night," he said, shaking his head.

"My father's hands—if they act up on him, he won't even be able to turn the pages."

Woerma

"And then again," Magda said, "you may not." She watched his face carefully. Was he really offering them hope?

Captain Woerma

After ordering wood brought to the first-level rooms, Woerma

He suddenly realized he was being watched. He could not say how he knew, but the feeling was definitely there. It was a sensation he would find unsettling in the most pleasant surroundings; but here, with the knowledge of what had been happening during the past week, it was u

Woerma

Still the feeling of being watched.

He turned toward the steps, trying to shrug it off, hoping that if he moved from this spot the feeling would pass. And it did. As he climbed toward his quarters, the sensation evaporated.

But the underlying fear remained with him, the fear he lived with every night in the keep—the certainty that before morning someone was going to die horribly.

Major Kaempffer stood within the dark doorway to the rear section of the keep. He watched Woerma

He did not want to be alone tonight. Behind him was the stairway up to his own quarters, the place where just last night two dead men had walked in and fallen on him. He dreaded the very thought of going back there.

Woerma

Woerma

Kaempffer turned and re-entered the rear structure of the keep. There could be no rapprochement with Woerma

Still ... Kaempffer needed a friend tonight. And there was no one.

Hesitantly, fearfully, he began a slow climb to his quarters, wondering if a new horror awaited him.

The fire added more than heat to the room. It added light, a warm glow that the single light bulb under its conical shade could not hope to match. Magda had spread out one of the bedrolls next to the fireplace for her father, but he was not interested. Never in the past few years had she seen him so fired, so animated. Month after month the disease had sapped his strength, burdening him with heavier and heavier fatigue until his waking hours had grown few and his sleeping hours many.

But now he seemed a new man, feverishly poring over the texts before him. Magda knew it couldn't last. His diseased flesh would soon demand rest. He was ru

Yet Magda hesitated to insist that he rest. Lately, he had lost interest in everything, spending his days seated by the front window, staring out at the streets and seeing nothing. Doctors, when she could get one in to see him, had told her it was melancholia, common in his condition. Nothing to be done for it. Just give him aspirin for the constant ache, and codeine—when available—for the awful pains in every joint.

He had been a living dead man. Now he was showing signs of life. Magda couldn't bring herself to damp them. As she watched, he paused over De Vermis Mysteriis, removed his glasses, and rubbed a cotton-gloved hand over his eyes. Now perhaps was the time to pry him away from those awful books and persuade him to rest.

"Why didn't you tell them about your theory?" she asked.

"Eh?" He looked up. "Which one?"

"You told them you don't really believe in vampires, but that's not quite true, is it? Unless you finally gave up on that pet theory of yours."

"No, I still believe there might have been one true vampire—just one—from whom all the Romanian lore has originated. There are solid historical clues, but no proof. And without hard proof I could never publish a paper. For the same reason, I chose not to say anything about it to the Germans."

"Why? They're not scholars."