Lord of the Vampires (24 page)

Again, I kept a respectable length between us, and strengthened my invisibility as best I could. What I now report I saw from beneath a great sycamore a whole rolling grassy lawn away. From there, I put my immortally keen vision to good use and witnessed the following:

The bat hovered at a dark second-story window,
the
sash raised to let in the cool, damp air and release the days heat. There the handsome creature lingered but a moment before transforming itself into the handsome, dark-haired Vlad, who slipped easily through the gap without awaiting an invitation to enter. This was a house he had visited before.

Though the room was dark, I could see inside with ease. Upon a white, lacy (and no doubt virginal) bed lay a young lady with waving sand-coloured hair and a pretty enough face. Apparently her sleep had been unrelentingly restless, for she had kicked off her coverlet and lay so tangled in the twisted sheets that one could not judge where they ended and her frilly white night-gown began; from beneath them both a pale, curving thigh peeked scandalously.

As Vlad approached the bed, she wakened drowsily and, upon recognising him, sat up and opened her arms to him, as the biblical man must have welcomed his prodigal son. He stepped into the embrace and held her, golden-brown waves cascading over his armsand drank. (Almost fifty years ago, he did the same for meand how well I remember the sweetness of it still!)

At the moment his lips found her tender neck, I turned and fled back to Carfax at the highest possible speed. I had seen what I needed, and knew the way back to Hillingham; now I was obliged to conduct a swift search of Vlads new and dreary home.

What did I find? Dust, dust, and dust, and scores of inhospitable ratsbut certainly no gleaming parchment with golden script. I looked inside the box where he had lain and found nothing within but mouldering earth that I suspected had been dug from the chapel floor in Transylvania. (Elisabeth is right on one accounthis superstitions are strange indeed!) All fifty of the boxes had been recently pried open, and I looked into every one.

Dust and vile-smelling dirt. I searched a few places elsewherein a cabinet built into the wall, and the lone table that stood near the entrywaywithout success. Yet I dared not linger; thus I made a swift tour of the house and the grounds, and departed for home, fearful of being discovered.

Now I am home, and although Elisabeth is solicitous to an annoying degree, I have stolen a moment of privacy to sit with my beautiful hound and cockatoo (the poor things, how they tremble at my very nearness, and when I speak tenderly to them, they are undone by confusion). I must write this all down and think hard in terms of strategy. I am alone in this and can trust neither Elisabeth nor Vlad; Van Helsing I might believe, for though he means me harm, he is not given to deceit. If I could only find him, I would question him first and kill later.

As for tomorrow, I can see no way around it: I must take a deadly risk.

* * *

26 AUGUST.

Elisabeth was very moody today, and though she tried to master herself, she snapped at me irritably. Then she pressed a wad of pound notes into my hand in lieu of apology, and bade me go shopping.

So I and my handsome coachman drove through the city, and at one point, I ordered him to wait for me outside a fine dress-shop. Once inside, I made myself invisible and rode the wind the short distance to Hillingham.

It being shortly after mid-day, I was altogether unsure that I would catch Vlads victim alone; but I knew that she would be too weak to stray far from home. Daylight gave the estate at Hillingham a far cheerier air; the gabled stone house no longer seemed grim and sterile, but quite cheerful with its red door and eaves and white lace curtains. Upon the deep green lawn, black and tan terrier pups gambolled whilst their weary mother watched beneath the shade of a tall ash; nearby, a servant tended a perfumed garden of roses.

Gone, too, was the dark blue miasma that marked Vlads presence, and that was perhaps the most cheerful sign of all.

I located at once the window where Vlad had entered, and peered inside. The sash was closed today, despite the glorious warm breeze, but the young lady was exactly where I had expected to find herin bed, propped up upon pillows, reading, with the covers drawn up as far as possible, as if she feared a chill on this, one of the warmest days of the year. She was quite a pretty girl, really, with light green upward-slanting eyes, sculpted cheekbones, and a small, thin nose, all of which gave her a rather feline look; and she wore a lovely dressing-gown of embroidered linen eyelet, pale sea-green to enhance her eyes. Whilst she tead, a chambermaid stood beside the bed, devotedly brushing out the ladys long, waving hairwhich, in the dappled sunlight, looked the colour of sand gilded here and there with gold. Lying against the pale-green gown, it looked like a shimmering shore beside the great ocean.

As I watched, a kitchen maid entered with a tray bearing a modest luncheon and tea; her young mistress sighed and shook her head, but the servant pressed her case, and left the tray on the table beside the bed in case the young ladys appetite improved.

The instant the servants had gone, closing the door behind her, I drew nearer to the window and materialised just enough so that I could tap my fingernails against the glass. As I had hoped, the girl looked up from her reading, and tilted her head, curious; I drummed harder, harder, projecting my aura outward as a fisherman casts a net, luring her until she could resist no more. She pulled back the covers and rose languidly; slowly (pausing once to close her eyes and press a hand to her forehead as if dizzied) she made her way to the window, and with great effort pulled up the sash.

This was my invitation. I lunged forward, thinking to leap through the open window into the bedroom, as Vlad had done the night before.

But something held me back at the instant I ducked my head beneath the glass. A talisman, something fastened above or below the window which made my skin tingle, then sting, then burn fiercely, as if I were attempting to swim through water which had been infused with ever-increasing amounts of acid until it was pure vitriol. I cried out at the pain, recoiling; my invisibility should have prevented the girl from hearing any sound, but she must have sensed something, for she frowned in puzzlement and peered farther out before shutting the glass.

This was Vlads doing, I decided, and silently swore to him that I would not be so easily discouraged. Thus I went round to other windows until I found one unencumbered by any spellthe dining room, where I found the same serving-girl setting a long table for only one. Again, I tapped upon the window and mesmerised her quite easily; she pulled open the window without an instants hesitation.

I wasted no time with her, but made my way directly upstairs to her young mistress room. There I knocked, and was obligingly admitted entry by her call: Come in

There is one moment when we vampires lose our ability to hide ourselves: at the moment of feeding, not because of any limitation imposed on us by the Dark Lords bargain, but because the act of drinking blood overwhelms us as utterly as it does our victim. Thus our mental concentration, so necessary for manipulating the aura, fails, and we are visible to those who nourish us.

So it was that when I stepped over the threshold into her chamber, I saw no point in veiling my presence; she would see me soon enough in any case.

When I appeared all at once in the entryway, pulled the door shut behind me, and locked it, she sat straight up in the bed and lifted a pale hand to pale lips with a look of intense curiosity tempered by gentle fear. She might well have cried out for one of the maids, but she was a gentlewoman, schooled in civility, and so she asked, with as much courtesy as she could summon in the face of such a surprise:

Who are you?

I smiled, and within me felt immortal beauty rise up and flower; felt, too, my magnetism instinctively increase and surge out through my eyes to the young ladys, drawing her irrevocably to me. Deep, deep behind the green ocean of her gaze, I saw the faint glimmer of indigo. I would have to strike quickly; I would have to keep my own mind as blank as possible. Even so, the danger to me was still great. Who knew the limits of Vlads power? How could I be sure that even during the day, he would not reach out through this lethargic young creature and smite me?

A friend, come to help in time of need, I said, crossing over to stand beside the bed. At once I became keenly aware of diluted vitriol tingling upon my skin, and glanced up to find over the single window a tiny silver crucifix. Impossible that I should be affected by it anymore, now that Elisabeth had shown me the truth unless, of course, it had been charged by a powerful and educated magician: Vlad.

The young lady distracted me then from that miserable thought; she sighed and pressed a hand to her heart whether to protect it or bring it forth to offer up to me, I cannot say, but her startled gaze became one of ecstatic love, and her lips parted in sensual recognition of the event to come. You are so beautiful, she whispered, tilting her face upward towards mine, revealing a long white neck partially covered by a velvet band.

My smile grew ironic. Mary had uttered the very same compliment, but hers had been sincere (if not altogether lucid), and had touched me to the core; the girls came as a result of her being thoroughly mesmerised, and so held no pleasure for me.

I bent for the kiss, and pushed the band of velvet down until I found the marks. I put my lips to her neck there, and licked the skin, feeling the tiny punctures with my tongue so that I might place my eyeteeth exactly upon them. There I briefly hoverednot from a desjre to savour the moment, but from trepidation.

Knowledge is ofttimes carried on the blood; to drink is also to learn of the victim. But at such moments, it is impossible for us to hold back; our auras surge forth to mingle with those of our prey. This is generally of no concern, for when the victim is thoroughly entranced, all she learns is forgotten upon waking, while the psychic tie to the vampire remains.

Thus Vlad can know her thoughts, her feelings, her images, to a limited degree (unless he more thoroughly ties her to him by an exchange of blood, at which point he can know almost anything he desires). And if I joined with her when she was mesmerised, and most open to his thoughts, I would know them.

But would he also know mine?

The reward outweighed the risk. I closed my eyes as my teeth sank slowly into the path already cleared for them, and tried to focus my mind solely on the sound of the girls breathing and her beating heart.

The blood rose up to meet me, and I drank.

Image of a plump, buxom womanall breasts and belly, with no neck, thin greying hair swept into a scanty pompadour.
Mother is looking ill these days, poor thing
.

Am I dying? Arthur

A young man with a riot of golden curls and a long, distinctly equine face.

The lines are six, the keys are two. The damned key! It
must
be here

Image of the shining parchment, emblazoned with gold beneath Vlads youthful hands; I could decipher the letters now.

To the east of the metropolis lies the crossroads. There lies buried treasure, the first key.

A burst of searing forcea force more blinding than lightning, more deafening than thunder, more powerful than the deadliest whirlwind, a force that apparently originated from Miss Lucy Westenra herselfsmashed me backward into the wall. I reeled, impossibly dazed by the blow; only when I heard the maids crying out, Miss Lucy! Miss Lucy! and running up the stairs did I come to myself and gain control of my aura. By the time the maids arrived, discovered the door was locked, and began to bang frantically on it, I was invisible; by the time the aforesaid Miss Lucy opened aforesaid door, I had already slipped through it and was fleeing the way I came.

I returned to the prim dress shop, where Antonio still waited with the carriage. From there, we returned to the relative security of Elisabeths house; I was grateful she did not see me enter, as I was too exhausted after the strange attack to shield myself a minute longer from the gaze of others. Nor was I in a mood to hide my dishevelment or my shaking hands. I went straightway to my private sitting-room (private because Elisabeth so despised animals she would not enter it), where my white, bejewelled prisoners cringed at the sight of me. The cockatoo raised its crest and recoiled as I approached, and the Afghan retracted its tail and tried to slink awaybut I was in too great a need of honest comfort. I picked the poor dog up and set it beside me on the sofa, then buried my face in its soft fur and we two trembled together.

Vlad had become acutely aware of my interference with Lucy Westenra. Indeed, he had very nearly killed me an impossible thing for one vampire to do to another,
yet
the shock that had surged through my supposedly impervious body had nearly torn me apart. Even now, as I write this, I am so shaken my hand can scarce hold the pen. What has made him so strongand why is Elisabeth now so weak?

Speaking softly to the hound, I raised my face to his
his
, I say now, not
it
, for despite his dreadful innate fear, he sensed my own, and looked back at me with dark eyes so full of compassion for my own suffering that I could not hold back tears. They coursed down my cheeks, and that blessed creature gently licked them away with his tongue which only made me cry all the harder. God Himself cannot convince me that this animal has no soul; indeed, his is infinitely worthier than mine.

After a time, we both calmed and ceased our shivering, and I think he honestly came to enjoy my caresses. I leaned my head against his thin shoulder, listening to the rapid beating of his heart, and wound my arm round him where he sat; when at last I grew too engrossed in my own concerns and ceased stroking him with my free hand, he nuzzled it tenderly.

I had never even thought to give him a name, for I had seen him only as a pretty ornament instead of a living, feeling being; but now I call him Friend. Indeed, he is my truest. Through my entire existence as an immortal, I have never met with such unbiased and unconditional acceptance and love.