All throughout that year Carol was in touch with Rene.
“Are you discouraged yet?”
“Yes and no. I’m not giving up.”
“How are you feeling? Physically.”
Carol sighed. “I work out—I’ve got weights in the van now—and jog every day. And I’m taking mega doses of vitamins and herbal extracts to build my immune system.”
“You haven’t answered me.”
“I’ve had a few colds this year.”
“Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“What’s the point?”
Early on she had decided to work at maintaining her health. She made sure she ate and slept properly. If she was going to find her Michael—the name she’d given to her son—she couldn’t afford to get seriously ill, and worries about the virus were always at the back of her mind.
But her life was exhausting and she often felt she just existed rather than lived. Other than to obtain information, she talked with few people. There didn’t seem to be much to say. Besides, being single-minded—obsessed, really—unless someone could help her, she wasn’t interested in them or their small talk. She slept in the day and searched after dark; now that she had faced those memories, darkness no longer terrified her. In fact, she found the night comforting—it hid her more despondent face from the world.
She also read books, researching any subject that might be useful: lock picking, zen meditation, the psychological effects of meeting a birth child. She also read up on vampires.
Vampires had been sighted in every country throughout recorded history and mentioned as early as 2,500 B.C. in the Epic of Gilgamesh, lending credence to the idea that the myths are based on fact. And despite speculation about those prematurely buried, blood-drinking anemics, and sado-masochistic sexual practitioners, some incidents just could not be explained away. The more she read, the more likely it seems that there were other species walking the earth who are not strictly human but who can pass.
After France and Spain, Carol went to Germany. She tried bustling Berlin first and then the outskirts. When Berlin had been exhausted, or rather Carol became exhausted with Berlin, she searched Munich and after Munich, Bonn, and then smaller cities and towns.
Eventually she reached the Scandinavian countries followed in the fall by Italy and Greece. She felt certain they would avoid countries where there was a chance of war, or where they would stand out. For those reasons she did not move east just yet.
Before she left Philadelphia, with Rene, she had remembered the name ‘de Villiers’. Everywhere she went she checked phone books, residents’ directories, newspaper libraries, birth, death and marriage records. She looked up all the spellings she could think of, hoping that she might stumble on Jeanette or Julien. But there was nothing, not a trace. It was as though all of them had been apparitions, figments of her imagination. And in her gloomier moments that’s exactly what she thought—I’ve dreamed this all up. I must be really crazy. There were times when only Rene’s voice kept her cemented to reality.
“You didn’t imagine this, Carol. You’ve got to hold onto what you remember. These people used and abused you. Now, whether or not you want to give up the search, that’s a different matter.”
“I’m not giving up. I can’t.”
A year elapsed. Carol’s money had dwindled at a pace she could not have anticipated. Her spirits were often low. Physically she felt her energy dimming. She could wander through Europe aimlessly and never find them. They could be anywhere on the planet. Out of desperation she went back to Bordeaux.
Inspector LePage had retired. She obtained his home address and managed to stumble onto him ‘by accident’. He was reluctant to talk with her but she persisted.
They sat together on a varnished-wood and iron park bench just inside la Terrasse du Jardin public. It was December, the trees bare, the air crisp. The policeman blew streams of cigarette smoke through both nostrils. Seemingly uninterested in Carol’s pleas, he stared across the grass at the half dozen children bundled in snow suits, playing.
“Please, I know you’re under their control. They’ve hypnotized you as they have everyone else they come in contact with. But you’ve got to help me. They have my child. If you feel any human decency, you’ll try to remember.”
“Mademoiselle Robins, I should never have helped you in the first place and now you want my help again, which can only lead to catastrophe.” The white hairs on his head outnumbered the brown.
“Please. I don’t have anyone else to turn to. If you know anything, if you can remember, tell me.”
“What I know I cannot tell you and what I do not know would fill la bibliothèque.” He inhaled deeply on his cigarette.
Carol looked at the children too. Her son, Michael, would be nine years old soon. A boy who could have been him, a slender child with dark hair and rosy cheeks, ran full out, blue jeans and a plump red jacket and matching hat. He bumped into and then hugged a woman, likely his mother. The woman laughed and kissed the boy. Carol sighed.
“I’m running on empty,” she said, more to herself than to the policeman. “I’ve been empty for a long time. What’s driving me, it won’t let me stop until I find my son. It’s taken on a life of its own.”
She looked at LePage. “Do you have children?”
He crossed his legs and glanced at her, then away. “I have two sons, and a daughter. They are grown. My sons are married, with sons of their own.”
Carol looked away from him too. She felt so completely sad, so hopeless. She knew she would never give up the search. She also knew that Michael could be anywhere in the world. Her money was disappearing. Her health would go soon; she felt that coming as much as she felt snow on the air. Where at first she had searched methodically, with a plan, full of energy and enthusiasm, now she was planless. She would look haphazardly, at random, because there wasn’t anything else she could do. In an instant her future flashed before her eyes—a worn out person, destroyed at the roots, wandering the world alone, obsessed, until fate or God or some divine providence pitied her, drawing the last breath of life from her, bringing her the only peace she would know.
Inspector LePage must have seen something similar. “Mademoiselle, I am not under their control.”
Carol looked at him. He would not meet her eyes. “You’re saying you’ve protected them by choice? All these years? Why?”
LePage stared across the park. He lit a fresh Gitanne. “My daughter, she is one of them.”
Carol couldn’t speak.
“Our eldest. She was dying of leukemia. They saved her from death.”
“Are you the only one who knows?”
“My wife also.”
“Where is your daughter now?”
“I do not know. My wife and I, we see her several times a year; she tells us where to visit her. She looks the same, always, even as we and her brothers age.” The creases in his face deepened.
“Do you regret it?”
“Perhaps I should. Cheating death, it is not natural, at least as we understand nature. But I do not regret our decision and she does not blame us.” He turned to Carol. “I love my daughter.”
“But they’re killers!”
“Elisse, she has killed no one.”
“But the others have.”
“I do not know.”
“What about the old man by the docks?”
“I told you then Mademoiselle as I tell you now—the carpenter, he died of a heart attack. I do not begrudge André for taking blood from a dead man when he needs it to survive any more than I begrudge my daughter. One must have charity when dealing with them.”
Carol felt stunned. All this time he had known. And kept the truth from her. “Inspector LePage, please. I’m begging—”
He held up a hand. “All I can tell you, Mademoiselle, and of course I should not tell you even this, is that I once overheard my daughter mention Mürzzuschlag, which I know to be in Austria. The context was that an important visitor was coming
from there to Bordeaux. Who that visitor was, whether one of us or one of them, I cannot say. I may even be leading you on a chase after a wild goose, as you say in English. It is all I know and if I were you I would dismiss it immediately. And if you cannot dismiss it, then may God help you, and may God protect them.”
That night Carol left for Vienna. She drove continuously and arrived two days later. The first thing she did was to obtain a map of Austria and then decided she might as well check out the name de Villiers before she left the city. She was stunned when she found it. ‘De Villiers’ was an old name dating back many generations to the middle of the 16th century. She was shocked again when she discovered Julien and Jeanette listed as living in Mürzzuschlag, just like ordinary citizens. And it was only when she had calmed down that Carol remembered clearly Jeanette saying, “Julien’s back in Austria with Claude and Susan.”
As soon as the call was put through, Carol said, “Rene, I’ve found the de Villiers. They’re in a town not far from Vienna. I’m in the city now.”
“Carol, wait! Don’t do anything foolish. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Carol paused. “I don’t know if it’s the connection or not, but Rene, somehow it’s coming through in your voice that you believe me. Why do I have the feeling that this might be the first time?”
There was a pause from the other end. “You’re right. I think I went along with all this believing you’d never find them. Now...”
“You still don’t believe they’re vampires.”
“I... I don’t know what to believe. They’re definitely real and they’re involved in the abduction of the child they forced you to bear, that I don’t doubt. But vampires? Beings who enjoy eternal life, or at least eternal youth... What are you going to do?”
“Find my son.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As the sun set, Carol drove up the steep mountain incline towards a medieval castle that looked Spanish in design. She wondered just what would happen here. Now that she was on the verge of finding them, she felt almost depressed, which surprised her. But she sensed fear underneath. She was getting near, very near, she could sense that. But she had to remember that there were still major hurdles to overcome. The de Villiers might be travelling. They probably wouldn’t help her. Likely they would warn André and the others. And above everything she had to keep in mind that they were vampires, all of them—they too drank blood, and might drink hers; they had no reason not to.
She drove to the end of a dirt road; she’d have to travel the rest of the way on foot. It was cold out here, in the always snowy mountains, so far from a more populated area. She zipped her short wool jacket to the top and pulled the hood over her head then closed the van door and made her way along the cinder path to the door. Firmly she brought down the large knocker shaped like the head of a wolf. Within seconds the handsome young man she’d seen at the château opened the door. He looked hungry and he eyed her first with that intent. A split second later surprise washed over his face.
Immediately behind him the young girl appeared, then Jeanette, who did not look exactly startled to see her.
No one said anything for several seconds. Finally Jeanette said, “Come in Carol. I’ve been expecting you.”
They entered a massive living room. Within half a minute Julien joined them, a large black Persian cat with green eyes the same shade as Jeanette’s trotting on his heels. The five sat by the walk-in fireplace, which more than heated the room. Immediately the cat leaped onto Julien’s lap and the harsh-looking vampire began to stroke it.
The room was enormous, very old, with high cavernous ceilings and stone walls. Bookcases crammed with antiquarian volumes filled one entire wall and carried on into another room. Finely knotted Oriental carpets covered the floor, on top of which sat dozens of pieces of antique furniture, much of it in excellent condition. A beautiful veneered lowboy with exquisitely carved faces on the legs caught Carol’s eye.
Seeing the de Villiers again made her realize just how much time had passed. A decade ago she had thought of Jeanette and Julien as much older than her. Now she knew that she looked only slightly younger, and far older than Claude and Susan.
“How did you know I was coming?” Carol asked. She noticed the four of them were all pale, hungry looking.
“The cards,” Jeanette answered.
Carol nodded. “I need your help.”
No one said a word.
“I’ve got to find my baby. Please, tell me where he is.”
The boy Claude said something in French, but a dialect she couldn’t make out. And then the young girl spoke quickly, animatedly, also in French, although it was obviously not her native tongue. Carol could only decipher a few words.
Finally Jeanette said, “Carol, we can’t help you. We can’t betray one of our own.”
“And you are here,” Claude said. He turned to Julien.
“We cannot let her leave.”
Carol’s heart jumped in her chest.
“She’ll tell people about us,” Susan added. The girl looked frightened. She stared at Jeanette and then Julien, as if looking for reassurance.
“No one knows your address but me. I won’t tell anyone,” Carol said.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Jeanette said. She too looked at Julien. “What are we going to do with her?”
Julien’s dark eyes had never left Carol’s face. She could feel their intensity even when she wasn’t looking at him. But now she did. She remembered his eyes; they had been there with her throughout Michael’s birth. The two of them had shared that experience, but she knew it didn’t mean they shared anything else.
More minutes of dead silence crept by. Suddenly Julien deposited the Persian onto the floor, got up, walked to the lowboy, and took a pen and paper from the drawer. He wrote something down. He came to Carol and held the paper out to her. She took it and glanced at what he had written. Immediately she looked back up at him. His eyes were the darkest black she’d ever seen and Carol sensed that if she stared into them too long at such close range she would completely vanish.
“They’re in Québec? Canada?” she managed to say.
He said nothing, just kept looking at her, studying her.
Behind Julien the girl Susan jumped to her feet. In a high voice she said, “You’re not giving her their address, are you?”
Claude said, “You cannot do this!”
Jeanette was clearly troubled. “Julien, in all your centuries of existence you’ve never betrayed anybody, let alone one of our kind. Why?”
“I betray no one.” His eyes still bore into Carol’s.
“But I have no intention of hindering destiny.”
Part IV
“The world will change less in accordance with man’s determination than with woman’s divinations.”
Claude Bragdon
Chapter Twenty-Four
Carol landed in Montréal’s Pierre Eliott Trudeau Airport at three in the afternoon. The weather made her wish she had a warmer coat. She decided not to buy one; she wouldn’t be here that long.
It was all she could do to keep from heading right for the address that Julien had given her. But she forced herself to stay calm as she took the long taxi ride downtown. She booked into a hotel, arranged to rent a car for the following day, gathered the supplies she would need, then ate a light dinner at a pleasant bistro. The minute she returned to her hotel room, she phoned Rene at home.
Carol felt jet-lagged; the call was strange, their conversation out of sync.
“Carol, call the police.”
“No. André and the others are too good at hypnotizing the police, and everybody else.”
“I’m going to fly up there. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Rene, don’t be ridiculous. I need to do this quickly, get in there in the daytime when they’re vulnerable and get out with my son before they wake.”
“Are you forgetting they kidnapped you? And your son? There are four of
them and you are one. You’re completely outnumbered. What makes you think you can get away with this?”
“They could only do what they did because I didn’t really understand what they are. Now I do and I know how to beat them at their own game. I’m going to get my son.”
“And then?”
“And then I’ll fly back to Philadelphia.” It was a lie. She had no intention of flying to Philadelphia—it was the first place they would look for her. She didn’t want to tell Rene everything right now.
A sound, like ice in a glass. “Carol, give me their address. Someone has to know where you are.”
She hesitated. “If you promise not to phone the police or come here.”
Now Rene hesitated. “Unless I don’t hear from you by tomorrow night.”
“No, Rene, not at all. I need to find out what the situation is. I don’t know if Michael’s still alive... I don’t want this complicated.”
Another pause. “Alright. But give me the address. Just in case.”
“You have to promise not to interfere.”
“I’ll give you a week. That’s more than reasonable. You have my word. After that, though, I’m calling in the Marines.”
Carol gave over the information. Again, that sound of Rene drinking something. All these years Carol had assumed it was ice water, but now she wondered, especially because Rene was slurring a few of her words.
“You know, Carol, I never thought I’d say this, but I think you’re on to something.”
“I’m not following you.”
“I mean, what if they are vampires? The undead.” She paused to sip from her drink. “They don’t grow old. Do you have any idea what that means? There are so many people who would think of that as a miracle.”
“That may be the only benefit of their condition.”
“Benefit? That’s putting it mildly. They have what all of us are searching for—life without end.”
“I’m not searching for that, I’m searching for my child. And I have to get some sleep. Wish me luck? I’ll need it.”
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