Vampires Don't Cry: A Mother's Curse

by Hall, Ian

  “I don’t want this!” Valérie snapped. “You!” she spat the word, and Constance flinched. “Hugs and kisses! It’s too late!”

  “My dear,” Constance began, her hand had crept to Valérie’s side. “It’s never too late.”

  “You left me alone…” Valérie’s voice trailed off, seemingly lacking the strength to complete her admonition.

  “On the contrary, when I eventually caught up, you were in the throes of leaving Amos. Your plan of feigning death proved an excellent one, and I aided wherever I could.”

  “You helped?”

  “Of course,” Constance swept her hand slowly through Valérie’s hair. “When you became weak, I furnished you with strength. When you broke free and ran, I directed you to Gheorghe Kovács. I sent Ivan to him, you had been deprived the proper training a vampire needs. It was time to make amends.”

  I could see Valérie coming out of the funk she’d fallen into, her face gaining strength. “You manipulated me.”

  “Oh, no my dear, you are far too discerning to be manipulated.” Constance’s hands now framed Valérie’s face, “I merely provided the means to be saved. You still had to perform the actions. I also sensed the bond between you and Miss Scholes. Although you may have missed the similarities, you are almost twins in every way. You were made to be together. Look.” She glanced between us. “You would be assumed sisters, but under the right conditions, and with the right make-up, you are twins.”

  Engrossed as I already was, this made me sit up and pay more attention. I wondered at my own vampire history and how far back she’d started her manipulations. I nodded internally at my choice of word, because no matter how Constance played it, we’d been pawns in her game for a while. Not that I sat complaining; my situation now felt far better than under Amos Blanche.

  Before I knew it, Constance stepped the last foot, and embraced Valérie. Boy that was the wrong move. Valérie pushed her away, and poor Constance almost fell over the sofa. Valérie’s face leered at her mother, her eyes unfocussed and red with tears.

  So much for a happy ending.

  “Vampires ne pleure pas,” Constance said, her French thick and slurred.

  “This one does.” Valérie smiled in defiance.

  “So it seems.” Constance sat back on her sofa, and lifted her glass from the table. “Shall we celebrate? Parce que armes sont pour les morts, et certainement nous ne sommes pas morts.”

  “Translation please?” I asked, conscious of my first words for some time.

  To my surprise, Valérie answered, lifting her wineglass from the table. “Vampires don’t cry, because tears are for the dead, and we’re certainly not dead.” She inclined her head to her mother, who nodded the translation’s accuracy.

  Valérie Lidowitz, March 1959, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York

  I know why I went with her. Probably because it made sense, and partly because I wanted to rant at her, tell her of all the indecencies waged against me that she could have saved me from.

  And yes, I started on her almost as soon as I’d laid eyes on her. I threw my barbs, hoping one of them would wound her fatally. Then at each of her words, her emotions came to me unchecked.

  “I seem to have a few points to clarify,”

  Guilt…

  “To begin, Valérie, my dear, I did not leave you to die. I had just been turned into a vampire. Ivan told me you were well taken care of by the servants in the alley.”

  A mother’s guilt…

  “Blah, blah, blah…”

  An excuse, most of her words passed by unregistered.

  “I had given my word. For your father and I, that was enough.”

  Oh my God, how lame that excuse seems…

  “Because of my standing in France, I was immediately seized by the Council. I had been ripped into the vampire life, and now they spent many years making me in their mold. I did not get released until you’d already been taken to America. It took me many years to find you, Amos is not an easy man to trail.”

  I spent half my life finding you…

  My fingers tingled in anticipation of closing round her neck and putting her out of commission.

  Then she stood up, and started to walk towards me. “And we shall wreak our vengeance on Saturday. Amos will die.”

  I shook my head, not wanting her to come any closer; I feared what my murdering hands would do. “I don’t want this.”

  “Want what?”

  Confusion. She doesn’t want Amos to die?

  “I don’t want this! You!” I wanted my skin to crawl. I almost begged her to be repugnant to me. “Hugs and kisses! It’s too late!”

  “My dear, it’s never too late.”

  Honesty… Sincerity…

  I could feel her breath on my face. I could smell the wine, the grape, the sun-kissed hillside on which the grapes ripened. “You left me alone…” But I couldn’t finish the sentence. Tears had welled in her eyes, large round beads, shaking in the corners of her eye sockets.

  “On the contrary, when I eventually caught up, you were in the throes of leaving Amos. Your plan of feigning death was a good one, and I aided wherever I could.”

  Georgie…

  “You helped?”

  “When you became weak, I furnished you with strength. When you broke free and ran, I directed you to Gheorghe Kovács. I sent Ivan to him, you had been deprived the proper training a vampire needs. It was time to make amends.”

  I could sense only truth and love from her words. “You manipulated me?” I asked, seeing myself as the stringed Pinocchio, handled from on high.

  “Oh, no my dear, you are far too discerning to be manipulated. I merely provided the means to be saved, you still had to perform the actions. I also sensed the bond between you and Miss Scholes. Although you may have missed the similarities, you are almost twins in every way. You were made to be together.”

  I glanced across at Finch, saw my own tears mirrored in her face.

  Then she went to hug me, and I tell you, sparks flew in my head, violent ones. I pushed her from me with all my strength.

  She thought she could take me from stranger to daughter with just a hug?

  I railed against her finger’s touch and threw her across the room, the tears now falling unabated. I struggled even to think of a retort, I just stood and cried.

  “Vampires ne pleure pas,” she looked far too vulnerable, crouching on the sofa.

  “This one does.” I smiled at her, wiping the wetness from my eyes and cheeks.

  “So it seems.” Then she had the gall to actually toast me with her wineglass, “Shall we celebrate? Parce que armes sont pour les morts, et certainement nous ne sommes pas morts.”

  The only reply that came to mind was ‘Fuck off’, but for some reason I held my tongue.

  “Translation please?” I heard Finch’s question.

  As I lifted the remaining wineglass from the table, I felt the flood come from a place in my mind I hadn’t known existed. I turned to Finch. “Vampires don’t cry, because tears are for the dead, and we’re certainly not dead.” Mother unnecessarily nodded the translation’s accuracy. God, even that small detail irked me.

  I suddenly needed details, just to fill in the blank spaces, but I didn’t need a whole evening of it. “You have ten minutes of my time. After that I leave, and I’ll be waiting in place for the fight against Amos. I won’t be side-lined again.”

  Mother’s eyebrows shot into her forehead in shock.

  It took her a moment to gather herself, but she managed it. “Well, Ivan saved me from death in the alley, then raced my body from the scene. On the shores of Lago d’Iseo, near the small village of Sulzano, he nursed me, and told me of my new condition. Because of my wealthy upbringing in France, he took me to the Council, who expressed a great interest in my current humanly status. It seems the Council is easily impressed and they miss no opportunity to recruit from the aristocracy.

  “I stayed with the Council in Romania for twenty years, until
I’d worked up to their upper levels. At night, I dreamt of you, my lost child, of the life you would have had. But I had been informed that you’d died in that damnable alleyway and it was not until many years into my dealings with the Council that your thoughts began to manifest in my head.

  “Once released by the Council I searched Florence, but your father had died, and the household scattered.

  “Then, some seventy-odd-years later, I clearly heard your voice as you prayed for Amos to let you die. As you summoned the strength to get through the ordeal, you automatically took strength from me. And that led me to America. And here to you.”

  The Yellow Velvet Plant

  Theresa Scholes, March 1959, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York

  It didn’t matter if I believed her completely or not, it seemed Valérie did.

  Constance looked both genuinely warm and emotionally contrite, and Valérie swallowed it.

  Then she tried to convince us of the importance of the deal in Texas, and I sensed it was just to get us out of the picture again, and to my eternal thanks Valérie refused completely. We’d trained far too hard to be kept out in the cold.

  We talked and drank the finest wine, and when we left, I think Valérie’s head was in a better place than we arrived.

  The next morning rose like any other over the streets of New York, and I lay on my bed contemplating our journey to Philadelphia, planning our attack on the information I’d studied the night before at Georgie’s.

  Then, in a shower of wood shards, the motel door exploded inwards, slamming back on its breaking hinges.

  I was rolling off the bed before the first shadow appeared at the doorway. My Căluşari roll was on the dresser, and I shimmered invisible as I tumbled onto the floor between the two beds. I heard shouts outside, military style, barked orders. I grabbed the roll of leather, but as I turned, the room already unfocused because of the invisibility, I saw a host of hands at the door.

  “Fire!”

  I swear a hundred darts shot into the room, one catching me in the side of my nightdress. It stung like blazes, its bright red feathery end twitching as I shook my body, trying to stay invisible through the depths of my rising fog.

  But I got nothing.

  I heard a smash of glass, and then I had to place both hands on the dresser just to hold myself up, talk about drunk. Black, shadowy figures raced around the room, their voices too high in pitch for me to comprehend. It seemed to take ten minutes just to raise my head.

  Then I felt another jab, this time in my leg, and slowly looking downwards, saw the same colored tipped dart sticking into my thigh.

  I tried to focus, but my mind seemed to be operating in some kind of jello, its processes lethargic and annoyingly unordered.

  Then those fleeting figures pinned my arms to my sides and rolled me rapidly into a dark roll of fabric. I fought for each breath before I came to the realization that I didn’t need one.

  With a calm determination to wreak vengeance on these annoying large insects, I closed my eyes in contemplation of my fate.

  Valérie Lidowitz, March 1959, Motel, New York

  As I opened my eyes, the first thought in my mind was of my mother. I had dreamt of her story, embellished a thousand times. My own childhood, so different in my dream, had a princess type quality.

  As I opened my eyes, I focused on the cracks on the ceiling, working them into a map, basically daydreaming.

  We’d been trained for months, but I swear it was instinct that made me dash to the small restroom as the door smashed open. I twisted my body inside, slamming the door closed. I knew the only window was small and barred, but I smashed it anyway, standing on tiptoe to peek outside.

  Four darts flashed through the black bars past my face, their hissing launches confusing for a second, landing with a clatter on the far wall. At least ten men stood outside, some reloading, some aiming. I ducked down, and shimmered invisible, seemingly my only way out of this.

  Then I head a shower of clicks from the bedroom, and hoped Finch had somehow gotten away. Footsteps in the room. Damn this was happening fast.

  I readied myself for flight, then opened the door.

  “Surrender now!” a voice said, his tone crisp, commanding.

  I flashed from my temporary shelter and raced into the bedroom, immediately buffeting a dark figure, sending him flying into a wall. The doorway was barred by two men, wedged into the opening, fully expecting me. I turned towards the curtained window and launched myself at it. Sheets of fabric and lace dragged at my face as I pushed past, smashing through the glass and outside. I landed in a crescent of black-uniformed men.

  Then I heard the hissing again, and a sting in my chest. Ouch, that hurt. Then came the world that I can only call syrup: a slow-motion dream state, so badly portrayed in the movies. My body refused to work for me. Every effort afforded little visible result. I don’t think I put two steps together and I found myself unable to even vibrate my body to stay invisible any longer.

  “There she is!” The words low, and dragged out into a long sentence. A second dart high on my leg, annoyingly close to my pussy. I looked down at its gaily feathered end. I felt the juice seep inward from its long sharp tip.

  Oh, even in my drugged state, I could tell its effects. My leg froze more. Then my body racked with pain as the invading substance surged upwards, into my torso and chest.

  I even began to wonder if my heart would stop beating.

  Mother. Even in my drugged cloying state, my mind registered that my mother had somehow done this.

  Hands pulled me, holding my arms by my sides.

  Then I was rolled into a soft black tube that cut off all other senses.

  I lay in that black cocoon, knowing that when I eventually came out of the other side, someone would pay.

  Theresa Scholes, March 1959, Unknown Location

  The lights above me were oppressive, all white and shiny, far too bright for my liking.

  I blinked, then became suddenly aware that the dream world that I had lived in for so long had diminished slightly. I could blink. And the action didn’t take half an hour.

  I took stock as I let my eyes become accustomed to the light. A soft bed under my back, perhaps my nightdress had survived. I flexed my neck, finding a thick binding holding it tight, similar bonds held my wrists, waist, knees and ankles. I smelled antiseptic. A hospital then, or laboratory; a rat pinned on the dissection table. Slowly I opened my eyes, turning my head as much as I could to either side. Apart from me, the room lay completely empty. The only feature on the whitewashed walls was the white door. Silver, aluminum handle.

  I raised my head, straining against the leather. I wore a white hospital gown that reached almost to me knees. The bonds that held me were brown, thick leather, with large silver clasps.

  I rested my head and waited.

  Before too long I heard footsteps outside my door, muffled conversations. Then the door opened and a thin man entered, followed by a white-coated doctor. I watched them carefully. The man had almost walked out of history; his tweed clothes looked strangely old, almost Hollywood pre-war old. Even my granddad didn’t dress this way anymore.

  “Good morning, Miss Scholes,” he said, his voice clipped and formal. I ignored him.

  “Can she hear me?” the man asked the doctor.

  He nodded. “The effects of the coagulant are almost surely over.”

  “Miss Scholes,” he bent over me. I sniffed the air before I’d even realized I’d done it, I got nothing. Not human, not vampire. Nothing. “I know you can hear me, we are quite proficient at these matters. We have been studying your kind for some time.”

  My kind.

  “Where am I?” I managed. My voice croaked considerably, a painful rasp made me gasp.

  The doctor produced a plastic bottle with an arched straw. He placed the end at my mouth, expecting me to open.

  “It’s just a bath for your throat, dear. If we wanted you asleep, or even dead, we could have alr
eady done so.”

  I opened my lips and allowed him to put the plastic tube into my mouth. He squeezed the bottle, and a sweet mixture coursed down my throat, immediately soothing.

  “Where am I?” I repeated, my voice now much clearer.

  He held his fingers to his mouth, as if considering the question. “Why you are in Helsing Central, my dear.”

  I remember Ivan mentioning the name.

  “Vampire hunters,”

  “Why yes, dear. It’s what we do.”

  Shit.

  Valérie Lidowitz, March 1959, Unknown Helsing Location

  “Miss Berthier is a classic case among vampires.” I heard the voice say. I’d heard the man approaching for a while, but now it cut through the fog of my senses. “She has been a vampire since birth, one of the earliest cases.” The voice was now so close, I could smell his breath. I kept my eyes closed, my body ready to strike. “She has aged to approximately twenty years old, before some hormone kicked in stopping her growth.”

  I lunged, to find myself completely bound to a table. “Bastards!” I snarled at the white-coated occupants of the room. I felt my canines snap into position, and I growled again.

  “Now, now, Miss Berthier, that’s hardly the way to show your gratitude.”

  I lay back on the table, panting, my body obviously not quite up to the effort yet.

  “Why should I be thankful?”

  The man in charge was maybe sixty years old, and held a kind of old-guy handsomeness about him, almost a mellowness that exuded from his expressionless face. In fact, it seemed as if Basil Rathbone had materialized in my hospital room, and Sherlock Holmes asked the questions.

  “Because we have not harmed you in any way.”

  “And for that I should give thanks?”

  “In this establishment, it is uncommon for a vampire to last this long.”

  As we’d talked, I had flexed every muscle, and tested every bond as hard as I could. I’d been trussed up quite efficiently. The effects of the yellow velvet still lingered in me, I felt slightly sluggish. “What do you want from me?” I tried to control my anger at him, and the situation.