Call Me Ismay

by Sean McDevitt

  Lillith gulped slightly, for a moment seeming to struggle to regain her voice. “I- I do. I can.” Langston reached into his coat pocket for his diary. “Please don't take any notes down,” she protested, her eyes darting around the cold, desolate garden. “If we are seen today, we must be seen as only two people meeting for an exchange of words, nothing more. You will remember every word, you will not need to write it down, I promise you.” Langston somewhat reluctantly relented, leaving his diary in his coat.

  “I will be honest, sir. You asked that I be frank. I will be. I will be short, but you will be able to benefit from everything that I am about to tell you.

  “Mr. Lyons took me into His employ about three years ago. At first, I was delighted. I was going to be working for a powerful man, someone who had served with distinction in the Royal Navy, someone that I thought had great character and charm. My view began to change when, six months in, He first put His hands on me...”* She gazed at Langston very intently. “I was surprised but not unwilling. Mr. Lyons was a handsome bachelor- He still is- but as I was to learn, He had many women that He called special. Very many. So many women who called themselves suffragettes were very enthusiastic about keeping His company, caring very little about women's rights or even their own dignity. He courted me the most often, but there were so many others....” Her voice trailed off as Langston concentrated on her, spellbound. “I was to learn though, that it wasn't all genuine interest coming from Him, not even for me.

  “Mr. Lyons and that horrible little man who works for Him- Bartholomew Gidley- strut around like martinets and pound Their hairy chests, claiming that women must be allowed to vote in the name of human dignity... but it's nothing to do with rights, Mr. Langston. And this is where I have something real for you to follow.

  *The use of capitalization of certain words is deliberate strictly within the dialogue of the vampires. The intent is to emphasize the self-importance of the male vampires when discussing themselves or each other (We, You, etc.), while any mention of the lone female vampire is never capitalized. Likewise, the female vampire's dialogue goes into capitalization whenever there is mention of the male vampires, but not of herself. This is meant to symbolize the imbalance of men and women at the time of the story, when the suffrage movement was in full force.

  “Lyons and Gidley are headed out west, for America, probably in April. They've no intention of staying here in Britain. They're going to claim Their fortune in a place called Utah. Bingham, Utah. They say They're going to claim Their riches in mining for silver and gold, and that They've already got a ranch with cattlemen prepared.”

  Langston blinked several times, sitting in stunned silence. “Utah?” he asked, finally. “Utah, of the United States?” Langston was incredulous. “Out west, like you said in your letter?” Lillith silently nodded. “But that... that's extraordinary, that has to be nonsense. MPs are technically forbidden to resign, and Lyons has spent years building a powerful base of support in Kingston!”

  “And He wants all of it to come with Him, Mr. Langston,” Lillith replied. “He now knows that His allies will turn on Him if the truth about Him comes out, and He could lose His hold on so many women; now He wants His followers to leave Our country with Him. It will be gradual, not all at once. I've already been notified that I will be among the first women to leave with Him. Apparently, I'm one of His many favorites. He tells me I'm the 'New Eve', but of course I don't believe Him.” She looked away, at once ashamed and resigned.

  “Taking all of the support with him? Is that what you meant by... an independent republic?” Lillith nodded once more. “He's taking to America...” Langston struggled to do the political math in his head. “He's creating a republic of like-minded women with himself as head?”

  Lillith stared into the distance, her eyes slightly moist, her young vulnerability heartbreaking to Langston. “I'm told that, in Utah, they are understanding if a man takes more than one wife.”

  “Polygamy?” he gasped.“Is that what Lyons is after?” Langston's eyes darted about, taking in the barren garden that surrounded them. “But your letters make no mention whatsoever of polygamy, it's only about vampires and necromancy...”

  “The letters were to draw attention, and maybe some assistance, to the greater danger. People getting into plural marriage are not necessarily a threat to society, at least I don't believe so. Women having the right to vote isn't a danger either, but it's His methods and His reasons in supporting suffrage that frighten and sicken me. Maybe I wouldn't mind it so much if He didn't want women to vote for Him, and only Him alone. He thinks it's a realization of the Argued Prophecy, it's an idea that He and Gidley have been fighting over for years.”

  “Lillith, please tell me what that information is about,” he pleaded in a whispering voice. “A prophecy? Does Edward Lyons really fancy himself as some sort of evil messiah?”

  She stood up from the bench, adjusting the dark shawl upon her shoulders, then addressed Langston quietly. “There are now certain people no longer walking about because they disagreed with His interpretation of the Prophecy.” She paused. “Let me just say that the vampire... problem,” she whispered, “is only going to get worse if He doesn't start to get what He wants.”

  “Worse?” Langston exclaimed. “Worse in what sense?”

  “Whatever is necessary in accomplishing His goal. There's more than one way to gain followers, Mr. Langston,” Lillith visibly shuddered as she spoke. “That stupid bloody Argued Prophecy has brought nothing but destruction to anything that it touches. Ever since it was introduced it has brought confusion to both Our kind and to those not directly affected, but its effect has always been the same for anyone connected to Edward Lyons- they can either be uplifted and inspired to join Him, or seduced into destroying themselves along with Him. That's why I started to send letters to the Chronicle, writing them late at night whenever He was sleeping after one of Our little... sessions,” Lillith sighed. “He'd leave one of His rings on a night valet and I would dip that into candle wax whenever I sealed a message I had written.” Langston's eyes widened. “Such an ostentatious thing for a man to wear. I was hoping somebody would see it on His hand when He was out making one of His speeches, and make the connection.”

  “Of course!” Langston leaped to his feet, taking a quick moment to glance around, ensuring that no one was within earshot. “Anglo-Saxon Lodge, Number 343, it's not recognized by the regular Freemasons, and you were trying to tell me- tell someone- that he is part of a fringe order! Dear Lord!” Langston put his hands to his head. “Miss, I admire your courage and your resourcefulness, really I do, but I must ask you- why have you subjected yourself to all this dreadful knowledge? Couldn't you have left the MP at some point? Certainly there's no shortage of politicians in our city who can't put off for one moment being waited on hand and foot...”

  Lillith adjusted her shawl once more, her sad eyes never wavering from their fixation on Langston. “I just couldn't. I can't.”

  “Miss, surely now, this man has been terrorizing not only you- and you are, no doubt, a true suffragette at heart- but also so many others; at some point couldn't you have approached us at the Chronicle in a much more direct fashion?”

  “It is... it is too late for me, Mr. Langston,” she replied, one of her hands finding its way to her collar.

  “Too late? Miss Lillith, I can directly confront Lyons with this specific knowledge, of him possibly abandoning his responsibilities here in Britain- you might not have to work for this beastly man much longer.”

  “No, no, it's too late, sir,” she replied nervously, her hand starting to caress her collar.

  “What do you mean? If we can prove that Lyons does in fact have intentions of abandoning his office, we can put a stop to this terror...”

  “No no, you don't understand me, it is too late, sir,” she pleaded, her fingers slowly spreading across her neck in an odd fashion.

  Langston hesitated. There was a terrible moment of silence as he g
azed upon her, his hot agitated skin now creating an irritating contrast to the damp coldness that surrounded both of them. As she stood still, her hand clutching for her collar, he wondered, in horror, if she was about to reveal a bite mark on her neck. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Lillith threw her head back, her mouth open- and for an instant, Langston could plainly see two fangs descending down from the top row of her teeth, sharp and clearly defined by the blackness in her mouth- and then just as swiftly they retracted, out of sight.

  Langston suddenly felt the old familiar pain in his intestines, and his knees buckled. Lillith began to weep.

  “That, sir, is what I mean.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  April 19th, 1912

  Deck chairs and frozen bodies were being pulled out of the cold and impersonal North Atlantic by the dozens on this Friday morning. Meanwhile, back on land, many respectable newspapers were circulating sentimentalized reports that Titanic- the greatest, most luxurious ship in the world- had foundered in a stately, dignified manner. Crew members on board the cable repair ship Mackay-Bennett, however, knew otherwise.

  As one of the first ships chartered by the White Star Line to search for the remains of the deceased, they had recovered floating travel trunks, and blocks of carved wood that had been splintered from the Titanic's glorious Grand Staircase. Dozens of bodies were badly bruised and crushed beyond recognition. Those onboard the Mackay-Bennett carried out their duties in collecting Titanic's victims in horror and fascination. The disaster had claimed lives from all corners of the human experience while granting them a grim sort of equality. The bodies were disfigured from both the violence of the sinking, and the presence of sea-life. Many of the dead had rivulets of blood on their skin that had frozen from the cold, making them look as if they had been brushed by a crimson spiderweb.

  In the few days since the sinking, J. Bruce Ismay, whether he knew it or not, had now become the disaster in humanized form. As public interest swarmed and swirled around anything remotely connected to the disaster with the greatest of intensity, Ismay now found himself literally surrounded by reporters standing shoulder to shoulder as he took a seat at a conference table of the East Room of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. He was to be the very first survivor officially debriefed on the sinking. Immediately after arriving in New York via the Carpathia, he had been ordered- under senatorial authority- to divulge anything that could shed light on the tragedy, and was now awaiting the arrival of the lawmakers who would be publicly questioning him. Although impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit, a close examination of his person revealed a waxy complexion, reddened eyes, a voice slightly hoarse- all signs of a personal elegance that had been unquestionably damaged. The newspapers spared no detail in describing Ismay, including how he occasionally stroked his moustache with a shaky hand that bore a glittering ring on his little finger. The room was packed with spectators, silent but urgently energized, their faces appearing to Ismay as angry and expectant.

  As he remained seated in the hushed but very crowded room, Ismay felt a disquieting sense of hollowness, of nagging but unspecified despair. The enormity of the disaster had confounded and overwhelmed him to the point that he didn't know how to react, where to look, what to say. An occasional cold shudder in his bones had been bothering him ever since he had stepped into the Waldorf-Astoria that morning, and as the few senators that were to interrogate him finally arrived and sat at the opposite side of the table, the reason for his startling unease started to become clear. He gradually realized that the East Room, where he had been waiting, bore an uncanny resemblance to the first class dining saloon of the Titanic, with its gleaming white woodwork and crystal chandeliers. Indeed, the day the Titanic sailed from Southampton, Britain's Guardian newspaper had compared the ship's elegance to the Waldorf-Astoria, even going so far as to state that the Titanic actually surpassed the hotel in size and luxury.

  Anything white in colour had been agitating him for days. The mere sight of a blank wall or a sheet of paper or even a handkerchief sent a jolt of pain coursing through his eyes, feeling as if it had crashed a wall of waves clear into the back of his head. He had mentioned this affliction to no one, fearing he'd be taken for a madman. While getting dressed for that morning's testimony, Ismay suffered through a deepening despair, wondering when- and if- this dreadful unease would ever lift. He could only assume that the pearly white icebergs of the North Atlantic- strangely beautiful in their own way- had seared their way into his memory, refusing to melt away. Until that previous Monday morning, Ismay had never actually seen an iceberg.

  Senator William Alden Smith, the populist Republican from Michigan, was to be the first to question Ismay. Smith, as a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, had cynically been characterized by some as a shameless politician up for reelection seizing upon the opportunity to investigate the internal working of shipping trusts. In reality, his chances of not being victorious in 1912's elections were never in doubt. As he took his position as inquisitor, he was holding a few cards very close to his chest.

  Unbeknownst to anyone at the proceedings, six years before the Titanic disaster, Senator Smith had taken a journey across the Atlantic on board the Baltic, one of the White Star Line's ocean liners. The captain of that voyage was none other than Edward James Smith- a man he had dined with onboard that vessel, a impressively experienced mariner who had given him a personal tour of the ship's bridge. The senator found it impossible to reconcile that the man he had once met had been at the figurative helm of such an awful catastrophe.

  Another matter was close to Senator Smith's heart- or, more accurately, his wallet. Within his billfold, for more than ten years, he had kept a small, yellowed newspaper clipping. It featured a darkly worded poem that had strangely moved him for some reason when he first read it. It made sinister mention of a ominous shipwreck:

  Then she, the stricken hull,

  The doomed, the beautiful,

  Proudly to fate abased

  Her brow, Titanic.

  This is a historical fact.

  The senator was not about to divulge either bit of information to anyone- not his colleagues, including Senator Newlands from Nevada, now seated at his right, and certainly not the press. However, it remained never far from his thoughts as he began the questioning.

  Tapping a gavel, Senator Smith spoke loudly and clearly. “For the purpose of executing the command and direction of the Senate of the United States, the inquiry in which we contemplate will now begin.”

  Surprising those present with no further prologue, the Midwesterner immediately started to grill the Englishman. “Mr. Ismay, for the purpose of simplifying this hearing, I will ask you a few preliminary questions. First, will the deponent please state your full name?”

  “Joseph Bruce Ismay.”

  “And your place of residence?”

  “Liverpool.”

  “And your age?”

  “I shall be 50 on the 12th of December.”

  Suddenly, from the far side of the room, two camera flash-lamps went off simultaneously, punching the room with an instant garish glare, and sending small clouds of smoke to the ceiling. A sergeant-at-arms, rattled but swift in his reaction, lunged at the two news photographers who had just insured that Ismay's nervous visage would now be flung across the country, and indeed the world.

  “Get the photographers out of here!” Smith hollered, as the newsmen were noisily hustled out of the room. “Immediately! This inquiry is not for entertainment- and I will not tolerate any further attempt by anyone to disrupt its course!” Smith could be a formidable orator when the occasion called for it, and indeed he now quickly rose from his seat in righteous anger.

  “This is an unfortunate catastrophe, a disaster that demands a proper understanding, and no gratuitous or meddlesome attempt to interrupt these proceedings will be allowed. I want this to be fully understood by everyone within the sound of my voice.”

  Ismay bowed his head meekly, a
lready uneasy in his role as the first witness to be questioned. For a moment he pondered whether the senator's convincingly stern tone could be what he should expect for the next hour or so.

  “We will resume.” The senator retook his seat. “And your occupation?”

  “Ship owner.”

  “Are you an officer of the White Star Line?” Despite being seated only a few feet away, the senator did not make eye contact with Ismay, as he was busily taking down notes.

  “I am.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “Managing Director.”

  “Where did you board the ship?”

  “At Southampton.”

  “At what time?”

  Ismay shifted in his chair, slightly rattled by the senator's rapid-fire style of questioning. “I... I think it was nine-thirty in the morning.”