The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (53 page)

“Forgive me if I am wrong, Dottore Gladstone, but I was under the impression you had already figured most of that out.” lb my surprise, the voice that had once been a smoky contralto was now deep and rumbling, and a rich Italian accent had blossomed within it. I was about to speak when something equally mysterious occurred. A quaver passed through our host’s frame. For the briefest of instants his head tilted back, his eyes rolled psychotically, and the large hands flexed and trembled. The seizure passed.

I looked in the face. I had previously assumed that Dr. von Neefe had been Lodovico. That is to say, I had believed Dr. von Neefe and Lodovico to be the same personality and that he or she had only put on different superficial character traits. But at long last it dawned upon me that this was not the case. The creature who sat before us was not the same personality who had pretended to be Dr. von Neefe. I wondered, was this what sixteen centuries had wrought, a chimera, a cultivated schizophrenia? Was it possible that when it reached a certain stage of complexity the human brain could not be considered to possess one personality? Like all things surrounding the vampire I realized this was but another mystery in an endless chain of mysteries. Even in my welling of emotion I appreciated that we were witnessing a mental phenomenon that if presented to the world at large would have shaken the very foundations of the fields of psychology and human behavior. But somehow none of this was mattering anymore. I was reaching a point where it seemed increasingly meaningless to try to understand the vampire according to any human labels. I no longer cared whether it was one personality or a dozen occupying that ancient frame. I was content merely to know that at this moment something different occupied those eyes, something that was neither male nor female.

“You took Camille because you wanted to lure me away from the virus. You wanted to drive Ursula mad. You wanted to torment her until she destroyed both the virus and herself’

Ursula’s eyes widened and our host placidly turned his blazing gaze in her direction. “It is not true,
signorina,
” drawled the voice. He looked back at me. “It is true we wanted you to destroy the virus. It is true that we used your little Camille to lure you away, but we had no intentions of bringing about the demise of this lovely young woman. In our game of manipulation and deceit we only resort to that option when it is our final option.” The large hands spasmodically gripped the chair.

“If you recall, Dottore, from the very beginning I begged you openly to destroy what you now hold within your coat. We took you prisoner in Paris, not to draw Signorina Gladstone into our game, but only to provide ourselves with time. As your daughter so readily explained to Niccolo,
Camillus influenzae,
like all naturally occurring varieties of influenza, will not survive forever. Every ten or twelve years the influenza virus undergoes a mysterious and inexorable mutation. In ten or twelve years that deadly demon that you now clutch so dearly behind your lapel will itself mutate into simply another harmless strain. We recognized in you something that is not present in most mortals, a thirst, a voracious passion for a more ornate world. We had hoped you would be happy in the home of Monsieur des Esseintes. We had earnestly wished that for ten or twelve years the world would have forgotten about Dr. John Gladstone, that through neglect or spontaneous mutation the deadly
Camillus influenzae
would pass harmlessly out of existence.”

“But Cletus interceded,” I filled in.

“Yes,” he returned, another tremor passing through his hands. “Dottore Cletus Hardwicke blindly placed himself in the midst of things.” Lodovico sighed and at the same moment it seemed another sound issued from beyond the doors at the far end of the corridor. The vampire paid it no attention.

“You see, Niccolo made extensive notes on Signorina Gladstone’s character and psychological constitution, and if left alone we were certain she would allow the virus to pass out of existence through neglect. Not so with Dottore Hardwicke. We had studied him as well, you see. We had studied all of the people in your life before we made our move, Dottore Gladstone. Il Pensieroso, that one. A pensive man, tortured by his own self-hatred. He would have released the virus upon the world within six months.”

I was stunned. I had been so shocked when Ursula had abandoned the virus. I had been so blind, and yet the mind behind the furnace of those eyes had seen it in a glance, had kiiown my own daughter better than I had.

“So you drove Dr. Hardwicke insane?”

“We persuaded him to find his own insanity.”

“How?”

“The same way we almost persuaded you, Dottore Gladstone. As Niccolo told you in the very beginning, there is a loathing in the human heart for the vampire. It may lie dormant, but it is always there. Actually, it has nothing to do with the vampire, really. It is a loathing and a fear that all humans seem to have for anything that is not exactly like them or the way they have been taught to be. If you visit one of your fine British schools you will discover even your children treat any child who is unusual or different with medieval cruelty. It does not matter if the child is different because he has been raised in a different world, or possesses some genius. If he does not fit into the pecking order of brutality and sadistic courage, he is judged an outcast. It is because human beings are such miserably insecure and frightened creatures. You may garb your world in decorum and social grace, but you are still just apes beneath your frock coats, territorial and fear-driven. It was a simple matter to convince Dottore Hardwicke that there were dark forces at work that hated his race even more than he himself did. We pretended to be after the virus and he crumpled beneath the weight of his own fear.”

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad, is that it?” I inquired acidly.

“Most poetic, Dottore,” he replied with clinical disregard.

“Is that what you did with all the others, with Dr. Chiswick and the physician in Liverpool?”

“Yes.”

“And everything, the war with the vampire, the train chase, the capture of the man from the
società
in Florence, it was all a game, an elaborate deception intended to make me destroy the virus and perhaps myself in a paranoiac frenzy?” I was so filled with fury at such a treacherous and dispassionate imposture that I shouted out the words, causing Ursula to turn toward me in alarm. Even little Camille was affected and she hugged my legs forbearingly. Only Lodovico remained motionless, unblinking—gripping the arms of his chair like a Cumaean Sybil.

Again I became aware of a sound coming from the corridor. It was a clumsy sound, as of something dragging over the floor. Ursula heard the sound as well, for she looked toward the door with dread. Whatever it was, it was approaching. We both remained frozen, watching the resplendent carved white doors of the grand salon and wondering what freakish brute maneuvered beyond. It moved indolently. A nail scratched against the floor. There was a thud.

I looked at Lodovico with consternation, searching for some clue as to what was about to happen. But his expression was stony, almost dazed. Something pressed against the door.

I turned again, watching with Ursula, as the white door crept open. It moved so slowly I was almost unaware of it, save that the space between the door and its frame was quietly widening. Again there was a slothful scratching and both of our eyes followed the space down to the floor, where we were met with an unexpected sight. There on the floor was a large Galapagos tortoise. To our further surprise, as it slowly moved through the door we saw that it was inlaid with gilt and completely encrusted with jewels. Every inch of the carapace of its back glimmered with rubies, emeralds, diamonds, topazes, opals, and pearls. Furthermore, attached to the bejeweled back was a golden tray sparklingly laden with cordial glasses and a decanter of an unknown liqueur.

“This is Artemidorus,” Lodovico introduced. “Would you care for an aperitif?”

Before we could answer, the door at the end of the corridor opened and closed and footsteps, this time distinctly more human, padded down the hall. Artemidorus, the gilt-and-liqueur-laden tortoise, had barely made it to the middle of the room when the door swung open and in strode Monsieur des Esseintes in his pea-green waistcoat and holding his beribboned straw hat in his hands. His expression was solemn, more solemn than I had ever seen in his pale and bony face. He bowed before Lodovico and then turned and gazed at us.

“
Bonjour, monsieur... mademoiselle
.”

He turned back quickly toward Lodovico and muttered something in an unknown Eastern-sounding tongue. It might have been ancient Babylonian or Sumerian. I did not know. Then he snapped his knuckles and clicked his fingernails in a rapid and crackling succession. At des Esseintes’s appearance the older vampire appeared strangely relieved and lapsed even further into his peculiarly lethargic mood. Although he seemed on the verge of drifting into an almost narcotized state, his mind was still clearly cognizant of what was transpiring. He closed his eyes. His head tipped back limply, but one of his large hands lifted from the arm of the chair and issued a complex staccato of clicks in reply.

The gilded and bejeweled tortoise stopped before Lodovico’s chair and turned its head torpidly in our direction. It blinked its large and woeful eyes at us as if wondering if we did indeed want an aperitif. Pondering the life span of the giant tortoises, I wondered how long this priceless monstrosity had been in the older vampire’s possession.

“
Oui
,” replied Monsieur des Esseintes, taking up the conversation exactly where Lodovico had left off. “Everything that Dr. von Neefe told you about vampire hunters was a fabrication. There is a Dr. Weber at the University of Vienna, but he, too, is one of our kind. The abduction of the man from the
società
was staged merely for its psychological impact. In truth, the gentleman you saw taken into the carriage in Florence is one of the servants in this grand house. He works in the stables.”

“I still don’t understand,” I said. “All along, from the very beginning, when Lady Dunaway entered my house until we came to Massa Marittima, all you ever wanted was for me to destroy the virus?”

“
Oui,
Monsieur le Docteur.”

“But the time and money you invested. Why such endless sleight of hand? Why didn’t you just have Niccolo torch my laboratory, or why didn’t you just take the virus from me?”

Monsieur des Esseintes stood looking at us for many long moments as if he were reluctant to answer.

Again the older vampire, who was now deep in some unknown mental state, lifted his hand and emitted a series of clicks. Monsieur des Esseintes turned to us again.

“
Helas, monsieur
,; this will come as profoundly unbelievable to you, but we have been more truthful with you than you’ve suspected. When Niccolo first revealed to you that he was a vampire, he told you we disdained killing. I have never dwelled upon the matter, but that is more true than you can ever know. We have lived the bloody pageant of history. There is not one in our number who has not seen a loved one tortured or dismembered at the hands of you and your kind.” For the first time since I had known him, Monsieur des Esseintes shuddered. “Books could be written,” he said slowly. “Children have had their eyes gouged out. Throughout history the methods of disemboweling, hanging, beheading, breaking with the wheel, burning, flaying, trussing, flogging, cutting off of the ears, hands, breasts, and genitals boggle the imagination.” He paused for a moment, once again enveloped in his familiar unutterable calm. “My own wife, Noemie, was tortured to death during the French Revolution in 1792.”

He conveyed the remark simply and factually, as if it were the time of day or a passing amenity, but I suddenly realized that the endless depictions of the woman in farthingales, the numerous statues, and the carefully tended altar of purple orchids conveyed a deep and sustaining bereavement even if the Frenchman’s countenance did not. I wondered what vast and unsuspected rancor still coursed through the unmanifested thinking processes of the vampire.

He took a slow step forward.

“It is true that we could have set the torch to your laboratory or murdered you and taken your work, but, believe it or not, Monsieur le Docteur, we are a race more moral and ethical than any species you have yet encountered. Unlike our human ancestors, and you are our ancestors, as distant from us as you yourselves are distant from the lower primates, we have evolved, we have passed into an awareness that is still many centuries from the grasp of your species. We have had enough of violence and killing. We have reached a state where we have realized that force, no matter how morally justified, will only beget force. For a while you believed that we wanted the virus because we wanted to destroy you. I must tell you that for untold centuries we have had the alchemical knowledge to destroy your race, but we would never do that. We see only aboriginal idiocy in the notion of an eye for an eye. Even if the day comes that you hunt us down, that you kill us every one, we will never use our knowledge to destroy you.

“I have told you that there are things you would not understand. It is with little hope that I tell you we would die proudly before resorting to violence, for we have set our sights on a more distant vision. We are lucidly aware that achieving through mere physical force establishes the rules of a game from which there is no escape. When one grants oneself the moral justification to use force, one cannot logically deny it in one’s enemies, for all moralities are relative. The dissimilarity between different human cultures alone suggests that one cannot establish universal goods and evils. The enormous disparity between mortal and vampire makes such values a farce. In the end, if we see the wisdom in a world without violence we must be willing to take the first step, to refuse to resort to physical coercion, no matter what the costs.

“That is why we go through such an involved game. You see, we are creatures of pure intellect. We have chosen a weapon we are fully prepared to allow our enemies to use as well—words and illusion. We always play fairly with our enemies. We employ a set of tactics that never forces them or restricts their free will. We are of the opinion that through guile and bluff we can trick an opponent into killing themselves. We do not use airships or guns. Our only weapons are misinformation and confusion. Our only battlefield is the mind.”