Trade Ch 4
Oh, dear God. Not Samuel. Not his child.
The prayer repeated and repeated as they searched through the house. No sign of Sam, but also no blood; Abraham didn't know whether to accept that as a blessing, or whether it was something more sinister. How had the vampire gotten free? Had it been released? By whom?
A quick check revealed the keys gone from their hiding place, and his heart sank. Sam...and the touseled hair and gap-toothed grin of his child's face loomed in his mind's eye...Sam. Ever-curious, ever-daring, his beloved son had gone into the basement. And the vampire had eaten him.
The beast had not been fed since it had managed to lure a sailor to its coffin on the boat, months ago. He didn't doubt it was starving...and what the fate of his son had been. He simple knelt on the floor by the desk, the empty cavity showing him what had happened, and wept.
"Abraham. Abraham...what is..." Seward's voice trailed into silence as he saw the empty cubbyhole in the desk.
"Sam must have taken the keys. He wanted to explore the basement. I told him no. And he...Dracula." Abraham's voice was broken as he continued, tears rolling unheeded down his cheeks. "Dracula hasn't eaten since we brought him here. Sam...my son...he wouldn't have known, opened the door." Arthur Holmswood and John Seward each knew what would have happened, must have happened, when the child found the vampire, and their hearts broke for the Van Helsings. They'd been fond of the child themselves, his sturdy good-natured spirit and rambunctious boyish ways had been endearing, and they'd played the roles of uncles to the child with a tolerance that had rapidly changed to pure enjoyment.
He'd been a delightful child...and the vampire had taken him.
Seward was the first to realize what that might mean. "Abraham...if Dracula...your son might have been bitten." He refused to state that the child had been bitten, though he held out no hope. But the boy might now be a ghoul, and animated or not, the body was waiting down in the dark and cold. If a ghoul, they needed to act quickly to destroy the corpse before the contagion spread.
Forcing down his emotions, moving like a wooden puppet with tangled strings, Abraham rose and checked his pistol with the other men. They'd go down together, putting an end to the ghoul if it was there, and if not, retrieving the body. John had wanted Abraham to stay behind, but a man on his own was simply bait for a vampire, especially as damaged as Van Helsing was. And two men was not enough to go into a basement alone, even with gaslights...not if there was a ghoul.
It was a tragic, yet determined, party of three that went down the stairs to find the ghoul that had been a bright, happy boy a few hours ago, and reduce it to dust.
It was a shocked and frustrated and terrified and protective set of men that rounded a corner, turned up the gas light...and saw the vampire grinning at them from the end of the corridor, a tear-streaked child held hostage against him. The vampire's grin only grew larger as they realized their impotence to remove the child, the grin hidden briefly though the eye rolled merrily at them as Dracula turned and twisted down, sniffing delicately at Sam's hair.
"I'd wondered if I'd be eating alone tonight after all." Sharp, slightly crazed laughter rocked through the basement, and the vampire lounged comfortably in its corner, as though it had no care in the world, Sam's arm held tight in its hand, the boy's miserable and tear-streaked face begging them to save him.