Earl Peirce

“ With forced determination, and a ludicrous lift of his eyebrows, he said,
"Cecilia is dead, and her silly superstition is dead also. From now on, Dad, we're going to enjoy life as we should. Bygones are really bygones in this case."
Doctor Duryea closed his eyes slowly, as though an exquisite pain had gone through him.
"Then you have no indignation?" he questioned. "You have none of your aunt's hatred?"
"Indignation? Hatred?" Arthur laughed aloud. "Ever since I was twelve years old I have disbelieved Cecilia's stories. ”

“ Not until he reached his father's suite on the sixth floor did he make an audible noise, and this was a mere sigh which fell from his lips like a prayer.
The man who opened the door was unusually tall, his slender frame clothed in tight-fitting black. He hardly dared to smile. His clean-shaven face was pale, an almost livid whiteness against the sparkle in his eyes. His jaw had a bluish luster.
"Arthur!" The word was scarcely a whisper. It seemed choked up quietly, as if it had been repeated time and again on his thin lips. ”

“ His voice cut into the silence like the crack of a whip. "Arthur! Will you come down here?"
"Yes, Dad." Bedraggled, his body hanging like cloth, young Duryea took five steps to the landing.
"We can't be zanies!" cried Henry Duryea. "My soul is sick with dread. Tomorrow we're going back to New York. I'm going to get the first boat to open sea. . . . Please come down here." He turned about and descended the stairs to his room.
Arthur choked back the words which had lumped in his mouth. Half dazed, he followed. . . .
In the bedroom he saw his father stretched face-up along the bed. ”

“ Henry Duryea drew his hand away.
"I'm sorry," he said, and his eyes looked straight over Arthur's lowered head. "This thing must be thrashed out now. I believe you when you say that you discredit Cecilia's stories, but for a sake greater than sanity I must tell you the truth behind the legend—and believe me, Arthur; there is a truth!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ An old, somewhat emaciated man lies in bed, tied by the upper arms to the headboard. A younger man in a dressing gown stands behind the bed, recoiling with one arm over his mouth. An avian or bat-like shadow is cast behind the pair. "He lay like a waxen figure tied to his bed."
A cloud came over Doctor Duryea's features. "What did you expect, Arthur?" he demanded quickly. "An evil eye? A shaven head and knotted jowls?"
"Please, Dad—no!" Arthur's words clipped short. "I don't think I ever really visualized you. I knew you would be a splendid man. ”

“ But I thought you'd look older, more like a man who has really suffered."
"I have suffered, more than I can ever describe. But seeing you again, and the prospect of spending the rest of my life with you, has more than compensated for my sorrows. Even during the twenty years we were apart I found an ironic joy in learning of your progress in college, and in your American game of football." ”

“ I'm a man now; do you understand that? A man, with a man's sense of logic."
"Yes, I understand." Henry Duryea threw his cigar into the fireplace, and placed a hand on his son's shoulder.
"We shall forget Cecilia," he said. "As I told you in my letter, I have rented a lodge in Maine where we can go to be alone for the rest of the summer. We'll get in some fishing and hiking and perhaps some hunting. But first, Arthur, I must be sure in my own mind that you are sure in yours. I must be sure you won't bar your door against me at night, and sleep with a loaded revolver at your elbow. ”

“ Those books she showed me years ago, and those folk-tales of vampires and ghouls—they burned into my infantile mind like acid. They haunted me day and night in my youth, and caused me to hate you worse than death itself. ”

“ 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 lode grated, and Henry Duryea's footsteps sounded on the planked floor.
Arthur shook himself from the bed. ”

“ I must be sure that you're not afraid of going up there alone with me, and dying——"
His voice ended abruptly, as if an age-long dread had taken hold of it. His son's face was waxen, with sweat standing out like pearls on his brow. He said nothing, but his eyes were filled with questions which his lips could not put into words. His own hand touched his father's, and tightened over it. ”

“ He dropped to one knee, and his hands gripped Arthur's arms.
"My son, I can say no more to you. I have told you the truth as I alone know it. I may be, by all accounts, some ghoulish creation of Satan on earth. I may be a child-killer, a vampire, some morbidly diseased specimen of vrykolakas—things which science cannot explain.
"Perhaps the dreaded legend of the Duryeas is true. Autiel Duryea was convicted of murdering his brother in that same monstrous fashion in the year 1576, and he died in flames at the stake. ”

“ 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. ”

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