Vamparazzi (24 page)

His round, bearded face was creased in a disapproving frown, and there was a steely tone of offended principle in his normally warm, gentle voice.

“Huh?” As was often the case, I had no idea what Max was talking about.

“I hadn't intended to say anything, since I've no wish to appear unenthusiastic about your participation in a popular theatrical production, let alone ungrateful for your kindly securing me a ticket to see it. And I assure you, the inaccuracies which I anticipate encountering in
The Vampyre
do not in any way mitigate the eagerness with which I contemplate seeing your performance today!”

“Uh-huh.” I knew that he would get to the point if I waited long enough.

“But . . .” He sighed. “I read Dr. Polidori's story nearly two centuries ago, when it first became all the rage. And there's no denying that his acquaintance with the facts was extremely scant, at best—”

“The facts about
what?
”

“Vampires,” Max said. “It was evident to me, when I read ‘The Vampyre,' that Dr. Polidori's interest was not in conveying an accurate rendering of such beings, but rather in metaphorically exorcising his grievances against his former employer Lord Byron. As well as exploring his own ambivalent feelings about, er, other things.”

“So vampires aren't undead creatures who prey on the living and survive by draining our blood?” I asked hopefully.

“Oh, he was more or less accurate in that respect,” Max said dismissively. “But, as I tried so fruitlessly to explain to Stoker many years later, the undead are
not
articulate, well-dressed aristocrats.”

“Stoker?” I said blankly.

“However, Dr. Polidori's enduring vision of the vampire as an elegant, intelligent seducer had by then already taken too firm a hold of Stoker's imagination. Perhaps he should not be blamed—he was Irish, after all, and they are a poetic, fanciful people. And the result of
his
vision is still with us today, alas.”

“Wait a minute,
Bram
Stoker?”

“Which is not to say, by any means, that I would ever imply that his work was careless or slipshod. No, indeed. He was a dedicated, almost obsessive researcher.”

“Bram Stoker, the author of
Dracula?
”

Max nodded. “Moreover, his interest in the subject of vampires was unquestionably sincere and serious. I must also confess that I was genuinely flattered by his inquisitive enthusiasm with regard to my own experiences as vampire hunter.”

“Whoa! Max, you're a
vampire hunter?
”

“Oh, not anymore, certainly. That would be completely inappropriate.”

“It would?”

“But before ratifying the Treaty of Gediminas, yes, I battled the undead in Serbia for nearly three terrible years.”

“Serbia?” I said. “Wait. No. We'll come back in a minute to battling the undead. Max, you knew Bram Stoker?”

“Yes. And I would just like to clarify that despite the claim that he based the character of Dr. Van Helsing on me, my English was
never
that bad.”

“Oh.” I had read
Dracula
in college, and I vaguely recalled skimming over Van Helsing's dialogue, too impatient to wade through the stilted, awkward syntax that Stoker had assigned to the novel's foreign-born vampire hunter. “No?”

“I attended Oxford University, for goodness sake!” Max sounded a trifle exasperated. “I had been speaking English for more than two hundred years by the time I met Stoker. Oh, I still had a bit of a continental accent then, as I do now, but I was never
unintelligible.
”

“Of course not,” I said. “Wow! He really based Van Helsing on
you?
”

“Well, I suppose Oscar could have fabricated that merely to test my reaction. He could be quite devilish that way.”

“Oscar?”

“Wilde.”

I sat bolt upright. “You knew
Oscar Wilde?
”

“By the time
Dracula
was written and published, I had not seen Stoker in many years, and I never had the opportunity to ask him myself. Oscar claimed Stoker had told him that I was the inspiration for the character.” After a pause, he added, “Oscar also claimed that the resemblance was unmistakable. Hmph.”

Recognizing my cue, I said, “Well, it
is
unmistakable, Max. Oh, never mind Van Helsing's awkward dialogue. That's just dramatic license. And the character is, er, Dutch, after all. But he's the hero of the story! Van Helsing arrives on the scene when the other characters are lost and frightened, preyed upon by Evil, and have no idea what's going on or what to do. And
he,
in his wisdom and experience, gives them a clearer picture of the situation, organizes them, and courageously leads them into victorious battle against their powerful adversary.” Realizing I meant it, I said, “Of
course
you were the inspiration for that character, Max.”

“Oh,” Max was blushing bashfully. “Oscar was probably just teasing me when he said that. We shouldn't take it too seriously.”

Although it was a distraction from the problem at hand, I nonetheless had to ask. “Max, what was Oscar Wilde like?”

“Hmm.” He thought back to his memories of a man who had died more than a century ago. “Brilliant in some ways and surprisingly foolish in others. Very good company when the occasion was right and rather trying company when it was not.” Max smiled and shook his head. “We were acquaintances rather than friends.”

“And Stoker?”

“Well, like so many novelists, he was often more engaged by what was inside his head than by what was right in front of him. He was a decent, civilized man, and on the occasions we met, we found a great deal to talk about—mostly because of his interest in vampires and my experiences in hunting them.” Max added with another touch of exasperation, “So, really, considering our interviews, you would think he would have gotten
something
right in his novel.”

“Er, just how inaccurate is it?”

“So inaccurate that its far-reaching influence as an authoritative tome on vampirism has misled generations of the living about the nature of the undead,” Max replied sadly.

I began to realize that when we each used the word “vampire,” Max and I weren't even talking about the same thing. I was apparently talking about something that didn't exist; and I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Then Hollywood filmmakers subsequently took up the story,” Max said. “At which point, even the faintest remaining resemblance to reality entirely vanished.”

“That's what usually happens in Hollywood,” I noted.

“Thus we have long since reached the point where people actually think,
incredible
as this seems, that a vampire is an immortal, befanged, elegant creature of the night who tidily drains people's blood by biting them in the neck.” Max snorted, making his white moustache flutter. “It would almost be amusing if it weren't such a deadly serious matter.”

“Let me make sure I understand,” I said. “Vampires are real, but everything I know about them is wrong?”

He beamed at me. “That's an admirably succinct summation, Esther!”

“Thank you,” I said. “Now that I know what a vampire is
not
—i.e. Lord Ruthven, Count Dracula, and the like—can you be equally succinct in explaining what a vampire
is?
”

His face scrunched up briefly as he sought a way to reduce his normally loquacious descriptions to as few words as possible in this case. “A vampire is a mystically animated undead individual driven by mindless, voracious survival instinct to prey upon the living for sustenance.”

“Ah. So Polidori and Stoker did get that part right.”

“In essence,” Max conceded. “But unlike their portrayals, the vampiric undead are not beings whom you'd ever meet at a social gathering. And they certainly don't make engaging quips about not drinking . . . wine.”

“I gather they'd stand out in a crowd?”

“Being undead isn't just a matter of lacking a pulse,” Max said. “An undead vampire is always in some stage of decomposition, and this is, er, quite noticeable.”

“Without going into detail about that,” I said quickly, “do you mean they gradually disintegrate and return to the elements? Like dead people who are
actually
dead?”

“Not necessarily,” Max said. “Well, not
soon,
anyhow. Blood is the essence of life—the mysterious internal river of our own animation, if you will. The more human blood the vampire consumes, the slower the rate of decay and the longer the creature can prolong its existence. The undead aren't consciously aware of this equation. They are consciously aware of very
little,
in fact. But it does mean that they are primally driven to attack and consume prey. It also means that the most violently aggressive vampires are consequently the most enduring ones.”

“So I guess you also wouldn't find one of them running an estate in Transylvania or hiring a British solicitor ?”

“Indeed, no.”

“It sounds like they're essentially rabid animals,” I said.

“Another succinctly accurate summary, my dear. But they are far more terrifying and dangerous than that. Infused with dark mystical power, they are ferociously strong, instinctively cunning about hunting and being hunted, and very challenging to dispatch. They are also,” he said with a shadow of dread that I sensed had followed him across the centuries, “horrifyingly prolific. Their numbers multiply with appalling rapidity.”

I gasped in revulsion. “As in ... vampire sex?”

Max blinked. “Good heavens, no. I didn't mean—However . . . Hmm. I did occasionally observe, er, physiological phenomenon among vampires which would certainly support a theory that they are capable of sexual activity. But I never saw or heard any evidence that they were interested in it, let alone that they were capable of procreation.”

“Oh. Good.” I added, “Based on your description, it really doesn't sound like a vampire could get a date, anyhow, never mind get lucky.”

“They are truly repellant creatures,” Max said with feeling.

“Quite a stretch from my posturing, womanizing, leather-clad costar who claims to be a vampire,” I said. “Also quite a distance from Lord Ruthven's flowery monologues about honor, betrayal, pleasure, pain, yada yada.”

“Oh, the undead don't make speeches,” Max said seriously. “They're not capable of it.”

“I was amazed before now that posing as a vampire got Daemon Ravel laid so much. After what you've told me, now I'm flabbergasted.”

“Yes, the eroticization of the undead has always puzzled me,” Max said. “Then again, I suppose I am the only person alive who actually experienced the Serbian vampire epidemic during the reign of Emperor Charles VI.”

Although I had no idea who Charles VI was, I said, “Yes, I'd say that's certain, Max. But if they don't breed and make little vampires, then how does their tribe increase ?”

“Their fatal predation—which sates their hunger, extends their existence, and kills the living—
also
infects their victims with the same dark magic, turning them into vampires, too.”

“
Whoa.
That
is
efficient,” I said, realizing why he dreaded even the memory of his vampire hunting days. “In other words, as soon as you've got one vampire in the neighborhood, you're well on your way to having an infestation of the things.”

“It takes a little time, of course,” he said. “A vampire doesn't rise the moment the living person dies. There's a process of mystical transformation. It can take anywhere from a single night to several days for the deceased to rise as a vampire.”

“Hang on.” I thought over what he had told me, then said with relief, “In that case, we
don't
have a vampire on our hands. The cops have found exsanguinated murder victims, not vampires. I know Lopez can be a little rigid about these things, but I think he would definitely notice and be interested if any of the deceased had risen from the dead.”

Max disappointed me by saying, “Oh, I should have been clearer in my explanation. The victims
can
rise from the dead, and all too often do so. Well, too often for
me,
anyhow. But mystical transition to undeath is not a certainty. In many instances, and for a variety of reasons, the vampire's victim stays dead. Vampiric transformation is inhibited, for example, if the exsanguination was more or less total at the time of death.”

“Oh.” I thought of Adele Olson, aka Angeline.

“Or if the vampire consumed major organs or body parts upon committing the murder. Particularly if the creature ate the head, the liver, the intestines, the feet, the—”

“I don't need the whole list,” I said faintly.

“No, perhaps not,” he agreed. “However, this knowledge turned out to be significant in vampire hunting, since the undead, for reasons which have never been quite clear, are particularly attracted to the consumption of intestines.”

“Oh.
That's
why you asked about that.” I rather wished he hadn't explained it to me.

“While this habit leaves behind a dreadful mess for the living to clean up—”

“I can imagine.”

“—it does have the benefit of ensuring that the victim doesn't become a vampire.”

“Oh. If so, then why don't vampires, you know, control themselves and skip dessert? So to speak.”

“Infecting their victims with vampirism isn't a conscious goal or intent. It's merely a diabolical side effect, if you will, of the vampire sating its mindless craving for human blood.”