Breathlessly he turned back a second page, saw a chapter headed,
_Vampires_. He slumped to one elbow across the bed. His eyes were four inches from
those mildewed pages, his nostrils reeked with the stench of them. He skipped long paragraphs of pedantic jargon on theology, he scanned
brief accounts of strange, blood-eating monsters, _vrykolakes_, and
leprechauns. He read of Jeanne d'Arc, of Ludvig Prinn, and muttered
aloud the Latin snatches from _Episcopi_. He passed pages in quick succession, his fingers shaking with the fear
of it and his eyes hanging heavily in their sockets. He saw vague
reference to "Enoch," and saw the terrible drawings by an ancient
Dominican of Rome....

Paragraph after paragraph he read: the horror-striking testimony of
Nider's _Ant-Hill_, the testimony of people who died shrieking at the
stake; the recitals of grave-tenders, of jurists and hang-men. Then
unexpectedly, among all of this monumental vestige, there appeared
before his eyes the name of--_Autiel Duryea_; and he stopped reading as
though invisibly struck. *       *       *       *       *

Thunder clapped near the lodge and rattled the window-panes. The deep
rolling of bursting clouds echoed over the valley. But he heard none of
it. His eyes were on those two short sentences which his
father--someone--had underlined with dark red crayon. ... The execution, four years ago, of Autiel Duryea does not
     end the Duryea controversy. Time alone can decide whether the
     Demon has claimed that family from its beginning to its end....

Arthur read on about the trial of Autiel Duryea before Veniti, the
Carcassonnean Inquisitor-General; read, with mounting horror, the
evidence which had sent that far-gone Duryea to the pillar--the evidence
of a bloodless corpse who had been Autiel Duryea's young brother. Unmindful now of the tremendous storm which had centered over Timber
Lake, unheeding the clatter of windows and the swish of pines on the
roof--even of his father who worked down at the lake's edge in a
drenching rain--Arthur fastened his glance to the blurred print of those
pages, sinking deeper and deeper into the garbled legends of a dark
age....

On the last page of the chapter he again saw the name of his ancestor,
Autiel Duryea. He traced a shaking finger over the narrow lines of
words, and when he finished reading them he rolled sideways on the bed,
and from his lips came a sobbing, mumbling prayer. "God, oh God in Heaven protect me...."

For he had read:

     As in the case of Autiel Duryea we observe that this specimen
     of _vrykolakas_ preys only upon the blood in its own family. It
     possesses none of the characteristics of the undead vampire,
     being usually a living male person of otherwise normal
     appearances, unsuspecting its inherent demonism. But this _vrykolakas_ cannot act according to its demoniacal
     possession unless it is in the presence of a second member of
     the same family, who acts as a medium between the man and its
     demon. This medium has none of the traits of the vampire, but
     it senses the being of this creature (when the metamorphosis is
     about to occur) by reason of intense pains in the head and
     throat. Both the vampire and the medium undergo similar
     reactions, involving nausea, nocturnal visions, and physical
     disquietude. When these two outcasts are within a certain distance of each
     other, the coalescence of inherent demonism is completed, and
     the vampire is subject to its attacks, demanding blood for its
     sustenance. No member of the family is safe at these times, for
     the _vrykolakas_, acting in its true agency on earth, will
     unerringly seek out the blood. In rare cases, where other
     victims are unavailable, _the vampire will even take the blood
     from the very medium which made it possible_. This vampire is born into certain aged families, and naught but
     death can destroy it. It is not conscious of its blood-madness,
     and acts only in a psychic state. The medium, also, is unaware
     of its terrible rôle; and when these two are together, despite
     any lapse of years, the fusion of inheritance is so violent
     that no power known on earth can turn it back. 3


The lodge door slammed shut with a sudden, interrupting bang. The lock
grated, and Henry Duryea's footsteps sounded on the planked floor. Arthur shook himself from the bed. He had only time to fling that
haunting book into the Gladstone bag before he sensed his father
standing in the doorway. "You--you're not shaving, Arthur." Duryea's words, spliced hesitantly,
were toneless. He glanced from the table-top to the Gladstone, and to
his son. He said nothing for a moment, his glance inscrutable. Then,

"It's blowing up quite a storm outside." Arthur swallowed the first words which had come into his throat, nodded
quickly. "Yes, isn't it? Quite a storm." He met his father's gaze, his
face burning. "I--I don't think I'll shave, Dad. My head aches." Duryea came swiftly into the room and pinned Arthur's arms in his grasp. "What do you mean--your head aches? How? Does your throat----"

"No!" Arthur jerked himself away. He laughed. "It's that French stew of
yours! It's hit me in the stomach!" He stepped past his father and
started up the stairs. "The stew?" Duryea pivoted on his heel. "Possibly. I think I feel it
myself." Arthur stopped, his face suddenly white. "You--too?" The words were hardly audible. Their glances met--clashed like
dueling-swords. For ten seconds neither of them said a word or moved a muscle: Arthur,
from the stairs, looking down; his father below, gazing up at him. In
Henry Duryea the blood drained slowly from his face and left a purple
etching across the bridge of his nose and above his eyes. He looked like
a death's-head. Arthur winced at the sight and twisted his eyes away. He turned to go up
the remaining stairs. "Son!" He stopped again; his hand tightened on the banister. "Yes, Dad?" Duryea put his foot on the first stair, "I want you to lock your door
tonight. The wind would keep it banging!" "Yes," breathed Arthur, and pushed up the stairs to his room. *       *       *       *       *

Doctor Duryea's hollow footsteps sounded in steady, unhesitant beats
across the floor of Timber Lake Lodge. Sometimes they stopped, and the
crackling hiss of a sulfur match took their place, then perhaps a
distended sigh, and, again, footsteps....

Arthur crouched at the open door of his room. His head was cocked for
those noises from below. In his hands was a double-barrel shotgun of
violent gage. ... thud ... thud ... thud....

Then a pause, the clinking of a glass and the gurgling of liquid. The
sigh, the tread of his feet over the floor....

"He's thirsty," Arthur thought--_Thirsty!_

Outside, the storm had grown into fury. Lightning zigzagged between the
mountains, filling the valley with weird phosphorescence. Thunder, like
drums, rolled incessantly.