Chapter 79 Chapter 78

Barry and I looked at each other, with my mother's postcard in front of me.Like my father's letters, they cut short and failed to help me make sense of what was going on. "He went to the convent," I said. "Let's go," he said. "She won't survive a fall from such a height," I said, throat clenched. "yes." "It never occurred to my dad - at least not in the letter - if someone pushed her." "Not really mentioned," Barry said, putting his hat back on. I was silent for a while, the words I didn't want to say, but they came to my lips by themselves. "Professor Rossi said that a man who commits suicide may become a—become—"

"I remember that," was all Barley said. I wish I hadn't said it.Now the road winds up. "Maybe someone is driving," he added. But without a car, we walked faster and faster. After a while, we stopped talking and just panted. As we turned the last corner and emerged out of the woods, the walls of the monastery surprised me.We saw a sign - closed for renovations this month.This warning does not slow us down. "Come on," Barry said.He took my hand. Scaffolding has been installed on the walls on either side of the gate.A mobile cement mixer blocks our way.

We carefully pushed aside the chain and went in. At this moment, we heard a voice—chanting, coming from the church on the other side of the corridor.The door was closed, but we clearly heard the church going on inside, accompanied by silence from time to time. "They're all in there," Barley said. "Perhaps your father is there." But I suspect: "If he's here, he's probably down—" I stop, looking around the yard. It had been almost two years since my dad and I were last here - my second time, I know now - and I couldn't immediately recall where the entrance to the basement was.Suddenly I saw its door, which seemed to have opened without my knowledge in the wall near the cloister.Now I think of the stone-carved monsters around it: griffins and lions, dragons and birds, and a mixture of good and evil that I can't name.

We tiptoed across the yard, toward the basement.At first, it was dark everywhere, and then I saw a light flickering at the end of the vault, and I was terrified.Barry gripped my hand so tight it made my arm go numb.At the bottom of the steps was the curved stairwell, and we turned the last corner my father had said, and here was the nave of the original church, with the great sarcophagus of the dean.In the ancient amphitheatre, with its indistinct crosses and low vaults, it is the only surviving example of early Romanesque architecture in all of Europe. However, I didn't care about this, because at this moment, on the other side of the sarcophagus, a dark figure broke away from the thicker shadow and stood upright: a man with a lamp.It's my dad.In the flickering light, he had a vicissitudes of life on his face.

The moment we see him, he sees us. I let go of Barry's hand, walked around the sarcophagus, and ran to Baba. He put his arms around me. "God," he ruffled my hair. "You shouldn't be here." "Get out of here," he said, and hugged me tighter. "No, it's too late—I don't want you guys out there alone. It's a few minutes before the sun goes down. Here you are"—he plugged the lamp in for me—"Hold on, you"—pointing to Barry— "Push the lid off for me." I saw Baba leaning against a long pointed stick against a nearby wall, surely prepared for the long-sought terror in the sarcophagus, but not for what he actually saw.

I held up the lamp for him, wanting to look but not daring to look, but we all looked down at the empty sarcophagus and the dust together. "God," he murmured. "I thought I had finally found the right place and the right time—I thought—" Before he could finish, a figure unlike any we had ever seen came from the shadows of the ancient transept. figure.My light caught the foot, the leg, an arm and a shoulder, but not the face in shadow.I shrunk toward Dad, and so did Barry. The figure stepped forward slightly and stopped, its face still in the shadows.By now I could see that it was a man's figure, but it didn't move like a person.

In that horrifying first glance, I saw his fingers pale against the black clothes, one of which had a jeweled ring on it.Something flickered where it must have been a face—red eyes?teeth?Smile? ——Then, he spoke. I have never heard such a sound from a human throat. It flowed out, like many languages ​​mixed together, and like a strange language that I have never heard before.After a while, the voice translated into words that I understood, and I followed them by intuition rather than by ear. "Good evening. I congratulate you." Hearing this, Dad seemed to come to his senses.I don't know how he had the courage to speak up.

"Where is she?" he cried.Fear and anger made his voice tremble. You are an outstanding scholar. For some reason, at that moment, my body seemed to involuntarily move slightly toward him.At almost the same moment, my father raised his hand and grabbed mine, the lamp shook, and frightening lights and shadows danced around us.In that shining moment, I saw a little bit of Dracula's face. "You are the most steadfast of them all. Come with me, and I will give you the secret of eternal life. Come with me, or let your daughter come." "What?" my dad asked me almost silently.Only then did I realize that he couldn't understand Dracula, or at all.He was answering my cry.

"I have been waiting for a long time to find a scholar as talented as you." The voice was softer now, but it contained endless danger.A darkness seemed to flow from that shadow, covering us. "Follow me willingly." Dracula twitched his shoulders, shifting his horribly heavy body from one leg to the other.His body is like the reappearance of death, but he is alive and moving. "Don't keep me waiting. If you don't come, I'll come to you." My dad seemed to gather all his strength. "Where is she?" he called. "Where is Helen?" The figure towered, his inhuman hand clenched.I had a horrible feeling that the animal was crouching, ready to pounce, and I felt him pounce on us before he even moved.

Then there was the sound of footsteps on the shadowy ladder behind him, a fleeting movement which we thought was in the air because we couldn't see it. I raised the lamp with a scream that seemed to come from outside me.I saw Dracula's face--a face I will never forget--and to my astonishment, I saw another figure, standing just behind him, the silhouette of a living person.The man moved quickly, holding something bright in his hand. But Dracula already knew someone was there, and he turned around, reached out, and pushed the person aside.We heard a dull thump, then a groan. Dracula looked around in panic, first at us, then at the moaning man.

Suddenly, footsteps were heard on the steps again, someone searched quickly, raised an arm, and fired a shot. Instead of dashing through the sarcophagus towards us as I had expected earlier, Dracula fell, first back, his sculpted white face reappearing, then forward, then further In front of him, he fell on the stone slab with a bang, making the sound of bones breaking.He twitched for a while, and finally remained motionless.His body crumbled to dust and vanished into nothingness, while his ancient garments rotted and withered under the chaotic lights. Baba dropped my hand and ran around the mess on the floor toward the flashlight. "Helen," he called—or rather, murmured the name in tears. Barry grabbed my dad's lamp and ran on.A fat man was lying on a large stone slab, the dagger was beside him. "Oh, Elsie," broke English.There was a little dark blood oozing from his head, and when we looked at him in shock, his eyes gradually froze. Barry flung himself down beside the broken body, into the dust.Shock and grief suffocated him. "Professor James?"