Prisoner of Midnight

by Barbara Hambly

  ‘I hope – I trust,’ the princess went on earnestly, ‘that Father Kirn has taken what steps are necessary, to guarantee that this poor child, this poor girl, do not themselves become nosferatu—’

  ‘Is that true?’

  Lydia could almost hear the clicking of wheels as the millionaire turned his intent gaze on her again.

  ‘That those the vampire bites, become vampires in their turn?’

  She bit back, Of course not! There’s more to it than that! but realized that was something else that she herself wouldn’t know.

  Natalia nodded vigorously. ‘Unless they are staked through the heart, and their heads cut off; their mouths stuffed with garlic or with the earth from a graveyard—’

  Where in Heaven’s name would you get that on shipboard? ‘Father Kirn seemed to think,’ Lydia interposed diffidently, ‘that putting a rosary around their necks, and a piece of the Host in their mouths, would have the same effect …’

  She paused, as William returned once more, with new pears, a clean spoon, and – obviously having waited on Mr Cochran before – a fresh napkin.

  ‘In any case,’ she added, remembering some of the more melodramatic incidents of Dracula – and the burn on Don Simon’s narrow wrist – ‘I should think if the victims had been … been transformed …’ She just stopped herself from saying infected, ‘the Host and the Cross would have burned them, and it didn’t.’

  The princess nodded, much struck by this argument, and Cochran couldn’t hide his look of discontent. Whether this was because he suspected he wasn’t getting accurate information, or at learning that vampires couldn’t be propagated like sweet potatoes – or because the pears still weren’t to his liking – Lydia couldn’t determine. Dear Heavens, I hope he doesn’t take it into his head to see if that business of walking about in the daylight is true!

  ‘Will you help me?’ The millionaire looked from Lydia’s face to that of the princess, almost straining with the effort of making a request instead of either a demand, a threat, or an offer of money. ‘It is imperative that we – as educated believers in these terrible fiends – find this thing before these ignorant peasants do. Why, if these things do multiply just by a bite – if this priest of yours can’t get to them in time – the consequences would be terrible!’

  You mean, thought Lydia, the consequences would be terrible if Gospod Vodusek and his mates do manage to get up a mob and find the vampire before you can bring it under your control as you’ve brought poor Simon.

  ‘We know it must be hiding somewhere on the lower decks.’ The princess stirred her tea, tasted it, and grimaced. William materialized like a genie at her shoulder, murmuring how it must be cold and could he get Madame a fresh cup? When he’d gone, she went on, ‘Tania has made many friends among the children, and their parents as well. The girl Ariane Zirdar, seems to have taken it upon herself to organize them – the children, I mean – to keep together, and she and Tania speak when Tania goes down to F Deck. Tania can tell me all of what is being said.’

  ‘Good!’ Cochran turned his attention on Lydia. ‘You said you were down there this morning, that you spoke to the girl’s mother, and the parents of this boy who’s supposed to have killed the bohunk girl. And this Father What’s-His-Name …?’

  ‘Father Kirn.’

  ‘Do you speak their lingo? Enough to overhear what they say to each other?’

  ‘Only French, and a little German.’

  The man grunted, and sipped his mineral water. ‘You know, Mrs Asher,’ he said slowly, ‘it was foolish of you to speak to that man Heller. And it is Heller, I know it is, and to hell with what his papers say. He’s lying to you. He’s wanted in Germany for robbery, rape and murder. While I doubt he’d be so stupid as to commit one of his crimes on-board ship, myself, I don’t trust any man who’s too lazy to work for his living – much less one who goes around blaming everybody else for how tough his life is. You want to be careful how you deal with him.’

  Lydia widened her eyes. ‘How dreadful!’ she gasped. ‘And he was so good about translating what the others said! Perhaps, after all, I’d best not go down there …’

  ‘No, no,’ Cochran reassured her hastily. ‘I’m sure you’ll be perfectly all right dealing with him. It’s perfectly safe to use him, to get on with our greater cause. Just – um – be careful around him. And don’t believe a word he says.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lydia nodded with an expression of relief. ‘Oh, I see.’

  Natalia looked as if she would have protested at that. And no wonder! reflected Lydia indignantly. Not the coarsest of the soldiers she’d known at the Front would have urged her to associate with a man known to be a rapist and a killer, not if there were a hundred vampires breeding like rabbits in the coal-bunkers. For as long as it took Lydia to drink another cup of tea and Cochran to snap his fingers for William and order another portion of pears, she listened to the American’s further animadversions on Socialists: their ruthlessness, their treasonous alliance with Germany, their attempts to cripple America’s industries and sabotage its railroads and mines.

  After ten minutes, Aunt Louise entered the Willow Grove and made her way purposefully towards their table. ‘Good grief, look at the time!’ Cochran jumped to his feet. ‘Your Majesty –’ he turned to the princess – ‘would your good Mrs Izora be available this evening, for a consultation about this? We shouldn’t neglect even the irrational, in search of this abomination. You’ll both remember what I said?’

  He divided his glance between the princess, Lydia, and the speediest route away from Aunt Louise. ‘We must find this thing – and we must find it before those dago ignoramuses in Third Class do. It’d probably be best if neither of you breathed a word to them about what we’re doing – hunting for this thing.’

  Lydia said, ‘Of course!’ and Natalia Nikolaievna nodded decisively.

  ‘Bien sûr! The Slavic soul has great intuition, and mystical powers of perception, but it is undisciplined. As we have seen in my poor country, their hearts are pure, but one cannot always count on the actions of the ignorant among them. Not a word!’

  Aunt Louise was getting close and Mr Cochran strode off on a course that would keep at least a couple of tables between her and himself. He left no tip.

  ‘Irrational indeed!’ The princess scowled after that well-tailored back. ‘So American! And those teeth! Barbare! Yet it is good to have an ally in our search for this monster. We will find it,’ she added. ‘We must find it, while it is still here, in this small space. While the magnetism of the ocean still binds its powers and renders it helpless.’

  ‘We will,’ agreed Lydia softly, and looked out through the long windows at the ocean; sapphire-black and endless under a chilly, endless sky.

  If we’re not torpedoed first.

  FOURTEEN

  Lydia spent the remainder of the daylight hours giving her daughter’s doll a guided tour of the ship, while Miranda herself provided Mrs Marigold with instructive but odd glosses upon Lydia’s statements: ‘They braid hair from unicorns’ tails into the ropes,’ she informed the doll, after Lydia had pointed out the locker where the cables were kept (could a vampire hide in there?). ‘Unicorn hair can’t be broken.’

  Lydia wondered where on earth her daughter had acquired this piece of lore – is love of folk tales hereditary? ‘Then how do they cut the cables to the length they need?’ she inquired.

  Miranda regarded her with slight surprise and an unspoken, anybody knows that. ‘They burn them, with a candle.’

  ‘It is very wrong of you to encourage her,’ Aunt Louise informed her, when she came into Lydia’s stateroom (without knocking) later, as Lydia was changing for dinner. ‘Superstition makes children light-minded and impairs their ability to concentrate. I daresay she’ll become addicted to novels, like Lavinnia’s girls. I instructed Mrs Frush to break the child of the habit and she has reported considerable progress even in the past two days.’

  Lydia had heard all about Mrs Frush from Miran
da, who said the nanny would tell only one bedtime story per night and those, the dullest the child had ever heard. ‘All about little girls who got to go to parties because they didn’t get their dresses dirty. I’m glad she only tells me one.’ Lydia and Miranda had had story time already that afternoon, sitting in a nook behind the lifeboats.

  ‘It wouldn’t be nice to ask her for another one,’ Lydia had pointed out. ‘She may only know just enough for one a night all the way across the ocean.’ Miranda had nodded, understanding. Story time – since Lydia had never seen the point of bedtime stories and didn’t know even enough for one a night – had always consisted of Miranda telling her mother stories, about princesses who ran away to live with bears, and fish who blew bubbles to help bees collect honey from underwater flowers. (‘The bees had to pay them in honey, but you get better honey from underwater flowers than you do from the ones that grow in gardens.’)

  But Lydia had discovered that, dearly as she loved her child – or perhaps as a result of the afternoon’s intimacy – even Miranda’s company had not served to distract her mind, the way vampire hunting had done, from the danger of submarines. From nearly any point on the promenade deck, she’d been able to see the lookouts in their tall crow’s-nests (‘They’re watching for submarines,’ Miranda had confided to Mrs Marigold. ‘They’re going to torpedo us, because of the war.’). She had been frightened, poking around in the deeps of the hold, even with Heller at her side: she knew how quickly vampires could strike. The thought of Miranda drowning in those freezing sapphire-black depths visible beyond the deck-railings made her sick with terror, and sometimes almost blotted all other thought.

  Not Miranda …

  Maybe it’s because I’ve dealt with vampires, she thought, as Ellen gently worked the skin-tight lilac kid of her glove over her powdered fingers and Aunt Louise continued her monologue about the proper way to raise children. The Undead were terrifying, swift and pitiless and almost unstoppable, but she knew them.

  Submarines were like the guns at the Front.

  One moment you were talking to a man in the sandbagged deeps of a trench, and the next you were trying to stop the bleeding of torn arteries on his screaming, half-dismembered torso for the two minutes and forty-seven seconds (she’d clocked it even while applying tourniquets) that it took him to die.

  First Class dinner was at eight. The First Class passengers began to gather in the glass-domed foyer at about seven thirty, to chat – chat being the chief occupation of an ocean voyage, Lydia was finding out. Near the frosted-glass doors she glimpsed Captain Palfrey, enmeshed in conversation with a young couple named Allen (‘The trick, you see, is to put your money into a holding company to get around all those regulations …’), whom she’d seen on the promenade. Closeby, Aunt Louise was discoursing to the fascinated-looking Dr Barvell about the countries and races which existed on the inside of the Earth, which was hollow, with secret entrances at the poles. Dr Barvell always appeared fascinated when any woman of sufficient wealth spoke to him – Lydia had seen him hang breathlessly on every word while Mrs Cochran described a bridge hand.

  Mr Tilcott fetched her a glass of very excellent sherry, and proceeded to enlighten her on his family’s contributions to American higher culture, and the precise sources of his family’s income. (‘Papa would never touch the kind of shady holding companies that Cochran hides behind.’) The moment he turned his head to answer young Mr Oliver Cochran’s greeting, Lydia excused herself and darted through the double doors and out into the cold darkness of the deck.

  As she walked quickly along the promenade she donned her glasses, and pulled tight around her arms the beaded silk wrap which had been warm enough to get from the Promenade Suites to the foyer. Through breaks in the cloud-cover crystal-cold stars were visible, arching down to an ink-black horizon; the wind was bitter. Anything, she thought, gazing at the shifting blackness, could be out there.

  The vampire – the other vampire – can’t get up onto First Class … can it?

  Not if it’s been hiding down in the grease and soot of the lower decks. Stewards were posted – discreetly – near every gangway that led to Decks D, E, F, and lower, and at ten, Lydia knew, the wire grilles at the tops of these gangways would be locked.

  It’s nowhere near midnight.

  The thought brought no reassurance. Even without illusion, the Undead could move unnoticed as cats in shadows. The still face of the girl on the refrigerated slab returned to her; the child on the bunk in that crowded cabin. The bruised, pinched look of the torn flesh of their throats …

  ‘Mistress.’

  And there he was. Don Simon Ysidro, his white shirt front like a shred of ectoplasm in the shadows of the furled sunshades.

  His hands were icy when she gripped them, even through his gloves and hers.

  ‘Did he let you out?’

  ‘You had been proud of me, Lady –’ the scarred side of his face pulled askew with a momentary, bitter smile – ‘to witness how I abased myself to his will.’ In his expressionless tone she caught the bitterness of a man who has bowed to no one in his life.

  ‘He believed you, then?’

  ‘I have seen men enough, when the Inquisition broke their wills, to know what to say, and how to say it convincingly. Proud men, until they were shown the instruments.’ The shrug was barely a flex of his lips. Vagrant breeze stirred his long hair. ‘And indeed, where on this ship can I go? I must needs return to Barvell for antidote, ere many hours pass.’

  Lydia studied his face in silence. His true face, she reflected. The one he needed the vampire ‘glamour’ to conceal. A skull barely masked by the stretched white skin, eyes sunken and fangs visible with each word that he spoke. She barely noticed it now, save to remark whether he was using his skills to conceal his true nature or not. Undead face or the features of the man he had been, he was what he was.

  Vampire. The terrified passengers in Third Class would need no urging from the likes of Vodusek and Father Kirn to tear him to pieces and drive a stake through his heart.

  No wonder vampires avoid mirrors.

  ‘Did he command that you find this other vampire?’

  ‘E’en so. As it is impossible for me to walk among the living passengers – being unable to mask myself from their eyes, save for the minutes on either side of midnight – I shall engage myself thus through the deep of the night. I would take it as a kindness – nay, as a help nigh indispensable – if you would join me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Know you where the two victims lie? The young girl and the child?’

  ‘They’ve put aside one of the pantry’s refrigerator compartments for them. Father Kirn went in this afternoon, I understand, and – I suppose one could say he vampire proofed poor Pavlina’s body, with holy oil and a cross and a piece of the Host in her mouth. It’s all … It is all bosh, isn’t it? The whole idea of someone turning into a vampire just because they’ve been bitten? You’ve told me vampires are made by master vampires, and that they must consent …’

  ‘’Tis, as you say, Mistress, bosh, though I daresay the families of the girl and the child – not to speak of all the other passengers of Third Class – will sleep sounder because of it. If any can sleep sound,’ he added quietly, ‘who have lost one so beloved. Know you if they keep vigil? Good.’

  She had shaken her head. But something in his expression – in the pinch of pain in his brows – made her ask, ‘What is it?’ It was the first time she had heard him speak of the parents, the friends, of the victims of the Undead, save as potential avengers. As possible threats.

  ‘Naught.’ One finger moved dismissively. ‘Can we get into the cold chamber, once the kitchen staff finish their work? Excellent. When midnight nears –’ he took her hand, as the faint, mellow note of the dinner-gong sounded in the distance – ‘bring John Palfrey to me, here, that I may reassure him and devise some means of communication that will not entail his seeing me thus.’

  ‘I’ve set up a letterbox,
as Jamie would call it. Far right end of the second shelf on the right-hand side, in the Second Class library.’

  ‘Excellent woman!’ He brought her hand to his lips. ‘Bring him to this place at a quarter of midnight – ’twill give you ample time to attend this séance of theirs – and afterwards, you and I can search the lower decks, when all sleep. We shall find this creature yet.’

  ‘That’s what Cochran said to me this afternoon. Simon—’

  Her hand tightened on his, when he would have withdrawn it and vanished. Only he could not, she realized, simply vanish, the way he usually did, masking himself from her eyes or making her think she’d only seen a dissolving shred of mist. He was, like herself, a prisoner of his flesh, closer to his days of living manhood than he had been in three centuries.

  ‘Lady?’

  She had meant to ask him, what that flinch of pain had been a few moments before, when he’d spoken of those who had lost one they loved, to the need – or the greed – of the Undead. But she found she could not.

  ‘What would a vampire be doing here?’ she asked instead. ‘On a ship, where it’s all but helpless, even without submarines and torpedoes thrown in? Why leave Europe, when it could simply go to the Front and … and revel in death.’

  Don Simon, looking quietly into her eyes, shook his head. ‘This is another of the many things I find most odd about this situation.’

  ‘I can’t even see that it has a servant on board – the way you’ve always gotten someone to travel with you, to deal with problems during the daytime. It’s powerless, the same way you are, save for those minutes just around midnight, which must be when it makes its kills. If the ship is torpedoed, even by night it could only survive in a lifeboat until first light. By day, if the ship gets sent to the bottom, it will have to go with it, entombed and conscious …’

  She shook her head, cold with horror at the thought. Entombed and conscious forever …