Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 12 (1943-07).djvu/71

70 door. She shuddered convulsively, but offered no resistance. Dimly she sensed that Limerick was too terrified to realize how cruelly he was bruising her flesh. Through the door he dragged her, his breath rattling in his throat.

"His number is up, Nancy,” he wheezed. "Empty is putting the squeeze on him.”

Nancy’s lips twisted but no sound came from them. She had caught a brief, hideous glimpse of the vampire writhing beneath Cummings on the floor. Cummings had pinned the foul thing down with his knees and was driving the long, wooden arrow deep, deep into its quivering body.

For an instant through the doorway she saw its dark blood gushing out over Cummings’ hands. Then the merciful dimness of the corridor enveloped her, blotting out the sight.

Briefly she saw crude wooden crosses waving in the dim corridor light and smelt the sickening odor of garlic. Then the white, terror-convulsed faces of milling students swam close to her and coalesced into an enormous gray smudge which swooped and swirled and spilled over her until she went utterly limp in Limerick’s arms.

It was curious how seldom a girl fainted in just the right pair of arms. When awareness came sweeping back the first person she thought of was Freddy.

She felt very sorry for Freddy—poor kid. She had foolishly imagined that she was in love with him. It was just her maternal instinct running away with her, she realized that now.

Lying on a sofa in the reception room of the girls’ dormitory, staring up into Cummings’ anxious blue eyes, she realized that there was only one man for her in all the world.

"Thank God we heard you scream in time, Nancy,” Cummings said. "We never thought it would try to get into the femme dorm.”

Nancy smiled wanly. "I’d rather not talk about it, darling,” she said. "Not just now.”

"Darling!”

"I said darling.”

For an instant she thought that Cummings was going to pass out from shock. She had to reach up and pull his head down and kiss him on the mouth to bring back even a little color to his face.

"I don’t think so much of your bedside manner, darling,” she said.