by Jim McDoniel
Anne curtsied and left to fetch the mob.
Yulric lay down in his grave, resting his head at such an angle, with the back against the wall and his chin on his chest, so as to make it appear disconnected. It would have been a strain were any of the muscles in his neck intact. As it was, only the still-connected spinal cord could give the game away, and that was easily hidden with a flimsy piece of skin. Done arranging himself, he folded his hands, affected a dead stare, and waited.
In his mind, Yulric smiled. Everything was going according to plan.
Chapter 3
Thunder. Fire. Pain. And then . . .
Yulric Bile, the thousand-year-old vampire, lay on his back surrounded by pink carpet. He was not entirely certain how he had found his way to the floor, only that it had hurt and he was not eager to repeat the experience. For now, he was content to remain where he was and stare up at the ceiling while he tried to remember the past few seconds. He’d misted his way through the window, glided across the floor, gone in for the kill, and then . . .
Somewhere beyond his feet, there was stirring. Despite a collapsed lung, Yulric sighed. He had to move. Lying in one convenient place was an invitation to his own demise. Without the use of muscle or gravity, Yulric floated up, turned toward the bed, and then . . .
A soft shag broke a surprising amount of his fall. Carpeting certainly had come quite a ways.
He lifted his head ever so slightly and received a glimpse of a scantily clad young woman, kneeling on her bed, holding silver in her hands. And then . . .
At least this time, the pain came at an angle. The force of whatever struck him managed to knock him onto his stomach. It also caused his jaw to fly off and bounce away beneath the bureau. No longer fettered by the confines of a traditional mouth, Yulric’s tongue detected a dusty tang in the air; one he associated with sieges and sea battles.
“Is that a pistol?” The question came out as an incoherent garble of vowels. He had forgotten he currently did not have a jaw.
“Why won’t you die?” came the reply as another shot rang out. This time Yulric was prepared, dissolving into a black mist. The bullet passed through him, shattering the window and lodging itself in the railing. Triumphant laughter erupted from the disembodied fog in the middle of the room, though a lack of pain wasn’t really something worth celebrating.
Now what? thought the fog as it coalesced just this side of human form. On the one hand, Yulric did not want to be shot again. It wouldn’t kill him, but it still hurt like hell. On the other, he was loath to pass up his first meal in ages.
A little prudence, perhaps? he concluded, disappointed. He had hoped to enjoy some primal gluttony before rational forethought took hold.
In an instant, the girl on the bed was engulfed in tendrils of smoke. They wrapped around her, not quite solid but more than air. She let out a gasp of desperation as she tried to bring her gun to bear. Darkness filled her vision. She prepared for the worst. And then . . .
• •
Amanda opened her eyes. The fog had once more taken form, a form that was absentmindedly clicking its reattached jaw into place and examining something smooth and silver. She looked down at her now-empty hands and gulped. Carefully, she moved from the edge of the bed, back toward the pillows. Without taking her eyes off the creature, she felt beneath them and came back rearmed with a spritzer bottle and butter knife.
“Get out of my room!” she demanded, her voice filled with a confidence she didn’t much feel. The figure stopped looking down the barrel of the gun and focused on her, the strong, independent woman ready to make him damp and butter his toast. Old World politeness kept it from laughing outright in her face, but the patronizing smile sunk her self-assurance lower.
“I mean it,” she said. She let out a spray of mist and turned the knife so it glinted in the moonlight.
He stared at her and sniffed, the air now filled with perfume of a very specific buttercup. He looked at the knife, finely polished and ready to spread, then at the weapon in his hand. He fumbled with it for a moment, pressing things at random until he managed to eject the clip. It clattered to the floor, and the figure knelt to examine the gun’s death-filled payload. Its silver death-filled payload.
“You believe me a werewolf?” Yulric asked.
“Yes,” Amanda answered.
The two of them stared at each other in silence.
“A werewolf?” he said again.
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Me?” he asked incredulously.
“What do you think you are?” Amanda said.
“A vampyr,” Yulric answered. Amanda giggled. “I don’t think so.”
“’Tis true,” he growled.
“Okay . . . ,” she agreed condescendingly.
“I am!” he barked.
This time it was her turn to display the smug, patronizing smile. Amanda enjoyed the irony. Yulric failed to see it, since the situation was not particularly ironic.
“The sign downstairs gave a vampyr leave to enter this room. Why would a werewolf respond to an invitation so clearly meant for a vampyr?” asked the supposed vampire.
“Because werewolves hate vampires. Everybody knows that.”
This was news to Yulric. He had always gotten on quite well with werewolves. They were good for a laugh, knew the latest drinking songs, and made for very convenient scapegoats.
“What makes you think I am a werewolf?” he inquired.
Spritzer bottle at the ready, she rattled off her list, “It’s a full moon. Your clothes are in tatters. Your appearance is grotesque. Big claws, big ears, big teeth. All the better to eat you with, my dear.”
Amanda gave herself points for quipping under pressure. Her satisfaction, however, was short-lived under the unresponsive gaze of her assailant.
“All the better to eat you with?” she repeated. Nothing. “‘Little Red Riding Hood’?”
“What does riding wear have to do with eating?” asked Yulric.
Now it was Amanda’s turn to stare. Her hands dropped to her sides, the potential danger having been overcome by surprise. Not that it mattered. In Amanda’s mind, nothing this stupid could possibly be dangerous.
“You don’t know ‘Little Red Riding Hood’?” she said in disbelief. “Grimm’s Fairy Tales?” Yulric did not respond.
“‘Snow White’? ‘Hansel and Gretel’? Violent tales watered down to make animated musicals?”
“Are we still discussing the red hood?” asked Yulric.
Amanda let out a huge sigh. “‘Little Red Riding Hood’,” she quickly summarized, “a story of a little girl in the woods. She talks to a wolf. The wolf goes, eats her grandmother, and dresses in the old woman’s clothing. The girl arrives. What big teeth you have. The better to eat you with. He eats her, too. Sometimes they escape. Moral, kiddies, don’t talk to strangers. Or don’t have sex. Depending on your age.”
It took a while for the rattled-off story to sink in with Yulric. Even when he’d finished going over it in his mind, he had to ask, “And how is this pertinent?”
“It’s a wolf,” blurted a frustrated Amanda. “A wolf like a man. A werewolf. It’s a werewolf story.”
Amanda received no reply. Deep inside Yulric’s mind, a heated debate raged. One side logical; the other side less so.
One side pleased; the other outraged.
This is perfect, said the logical Yulric. She thinks us a werewolf. Kill her and be done.
We are not a werewolf, said the less logical Yulric.
I know we are not a werewolf, and you know we are not a werewolf, but this stupid girl does not know we are not a werewolf, so . . .
We are not a werewolf, said illogic.
But we could be, argued logic. We could be a werewolf. Others will come and try to slay us, as she has, with these silver musket balls, which, while painful, yes, will not kill us. And so we continue.
The less logical side did not have a response, so logic went on.
All those cen
turies, the escapes, the elaborately faked deaths, convincing entire continents that a stake through the heart was all anyone needed to do to kill a vampire. What was it for if not this?
“What, indeed?” Yulric mumbled to himself. The entire debate had taken but a moment, which was good, because the girl was already looking at him funny.
He tossed her the ammo clip.
“The silver musket balls did not kill me.”
Musket balls? Amanda rolled a set of internal eyes in mockery. Determined to win this argument, she retorted, “They’re probably fake.”
He rushed her with such speed that she let out an involuntary squeak. His hand closed on hers and the spritzer bottle sprayed him full in the face. “The wolfsbane potion does not keep me at bay.”
“I bought it at a Renaissance fair,” she said, as if this explained everything.
“I transformed into mist.”
She was far too stubborn to give in. “It could happen.”
“Indeed. And this also could happen.”
The light remained the same, yet shadows passed over him. His form contorted and twisted. Shoulders buckled. Hips sucked in. His entire body collapsed in on itself until finally, where once stood a six-foot-tall corpse, now flew a three-foot-long bat. It hovered in the air for a moment before soaring out the broken windows and into the night. Amanda ran after it, onto the balcony,1 where she pondered the odds of a werewolf also being a werebat.
Yulric, meanwhile, flew through the night. Finally free after so long underground, he could not help but indulge himself, wheeling high through the air before diving low to the ground.
He was the master of his domain. All the blood in all the veins from here to the horizon was his for the taking. He had the power. He had the will. Nothing could stop him.
And then . . .
Light. Screeching. Pain.
• •
Amanda found him early the next morning crawling back into the six-foot hole in her cellar, from which he’d emerged. Both his legs broken.
“What happened?” she asked.
He looked at her in wide-eyed terror. “There are . . . things out there.”
He passed out. Amanda looked down at his tattered remains. This was definitely not going according to her plan.
Chapter 4
The mob of Shepherd’s Crook, 1680 edition, stormed the home of the demon, sorcerer, and suspected vampyr Yulric Bile. As mobs went, it was a pretty good one. No elder went without a torch. No young man went pitchfork-less. Women wept and gnashed their teeth. John Farthing brought his new gun. John Cross had forged some chains. Benjamin Moss broke down the door to his one hundredth citadel of sin, with some assistance from his son, John. Cider was drunk, hymns were sung, and a fine time was had by all. The only blemish on the otherwise superb revelries of condemnation was the man who had arranged it all: the witchfinder, Erasmus Martin.
Little was, is, or will likely ever be known about one Master Erasmus Martin. It was said that he had traveled to the Far East to learn ancient secrets in ancient temples before burning them to the ground for heathen practices. It was said he’d made a deal with the devil and now sought redemption for his damned soul. It was said he was a milliner’s son. Whatever the truth, it cannot be denied that he was very good at his job.
The villagers of Shepherd’s Crook didn’t know where (England), how (a ship), or why (to hunt the vampyr) Martin had come. He had simply appeared as a passing traveler one dark, dreary day a year ago, before the house—not yet pink—had been completed. He had asked a few questions, inspected the construction, and generally milled about, much to the chagrin of everyone who found him far too competent. It wasn’t until he had the gall to seek advice from the native savages that the elders asked him to leave. He had done as they requested, and everyone had tried to forget about him.
That was six months ago. Before children went missing and old people died. Before the blood plague, the animal attacks in the far woods, and the peculiar neck wounds that appeared overnight. Before some women’s husbands came home looking altogether too pleased with themselves.
Before Yulric Bile.
Letters had been sent to nearby churches in Salem, Arkham, and even that den of sin and iniquity, Boston. They spoke of the evils faced and pleaded for aid in vanquishing the devil’s servants. The hope, ultimately, was to attract the famed preacher Increase Mather to town. He could sign copies of his books, give sermons, condemn a few local ne’er-do-wells of gross negligence, and, if there was time, also rid them of the vampyr.
That was what they had hoped. What they had received was Erasmus Martin riding back into town.
Wherever the witchfinder walked, the mood of the crowd sobered. Conversations hushed. Children stopped playing. Cider was sipped more quietly. That season, the Puritans invented their own word for buzzkill and it was Erasmus Martin.
Still, there was no reason they couldn’t have a good time. So the Puritans continued with their grand displays of piousness and let Master Martin get down to the business at hand, which, in the opinion of the gathered crowd, he was slow to do.
Martin stood before the maw of the house’s doorway, weighing his options. Inside, his quarry waited. Based on its history, the witchfinder assumed whatever followers the creature had acquired were already dead. You never could count on this, though, and he had no desire to face a room full of fanatics wielding axes.
Again.
Then, there was the house. Who knew what traps lay in wait for those not privy to its secrets? Rush headlong inside and you would not have a head for long. Martin chided himself for the joke and pledged to flagellate himself later.
The house, the followers, and the creature itself—all dangers to be considered. All reasons for Erasmus Martin to pause. He hadn’t lived into witchfinder old age2 by being reckless. Nor, though, had he earned his reputation by simply setting everything ablaze and hoping for the best.
He took a step forward. The crowd cheered. He looked at them and they stopped. Cheering was not the Puritan way. Contentment was not the Puritan way. Unnecessary hardship, unwavering resolve, and a detailed condemnation of any sexual act, that was the Puritan way, and if Martin was going to do this, by God, he was going to do this as a proper Puritan.
Into the darkness, across the threshold, alone but for God.
Once inside, he exchanged his Bible for a stake. He may have been a man of faith, but he did feel better with a weapon in hand. The inside of the house was much like any other lair or den of unspeakable evil. It was dark, dimly lit by a few candles here and there to accommodate the eyes of mortal followers. There was very little furniture, a chair or two, but no paintings, no accoutrements. Nothing to show that anyone lived there, except perhaps a bookcase covered in worm-eaten, leather-bound volumes. Martin approached with trepidation and flipped through a few tomes. The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the Vermis Mysteriis, Pnakotic fragments, The Book of Flies, these were darkest, most vile of grimoires—further proving the absence of life in this rotting edifice. He moved on, making a note to burn those hideous texts once his work was done.
On the second floor, he found the vampyr’s followers, or what was left of them. He knew now where the pastor had disappeared to and why the magistrate and his brother had been absent from their homes. Inevitably they would go down as mere victims of the creature. Those with influence were always cleared of wrongdoing when the official records were written, regardless of the truth. Martin didn’t like it, but then, liking it wasn’t his job. His job was to vanquish this abomination, and with the death of its minions, that had become one step easier.
From outside, a noise rose up that was not righteous: self- or otherwise. Martin stepped over the schoolteacher’s body and onto the balcony. Outside, a crowd had gathered around a pair of figures.
“John Starling, what goes there?” Martin called down.
“Master Martin, we caught Anne Stevens coming out of the cellar,” answered the young man, holding her closer than was st
rictly necessary. “She says she has killed the vampyr.”
“Indeed,” replied a skeptical Martin. “I will be right down.”
It was only then, as he turned away from the window, that the witchfinder saw what he had missed during his initial scan of the room: a piece of paper pinned to the far wall. It may have been yellowed and worn with age, but for all that, its subject matter was no less clear. Seared upon this leaf was the image of some unknown, tentacled monstrosity, its great mass undulating with evil as its glowing red eye peered out from beneath a throng of slimy feelers. It sat atop a mountain of human skulls, and, on either side, a pair of angels were depicted descending into gibbering madness. So horrible, so lasting, so utterly indelible was the image that Martin wondered why he had not noticed it before. He could suppose only that it was because then, unlike now, the picture had not been oozing toward him.
Tendrils of ink and ectoplasm climbed their way out of the paper, as if it were a tiny window, and fell to the floor with as much squish as thud. The great red eye blinked and dilated, its gaze spinning frantically around the room before settling on Martin with what was, at best, malice and, at worst, hunger. What passed for ropy arms writhed across the floor as the rest of the beast’s great bulk unfurled from the drawing. When the appendages came in contact with the remains of the Puritan cultists, they convulsed excitedly, engulfed their food, then moved on, with the corpses clearly visible through its translucent skin.
When, finally, the last part of this ancient and unkillable creature—its sanguine eye—released itself from the paper prison, a shriek that had very little to do with vocal cords or ear canals roared inside the minds of every living thing within sixty miles. Only then, as the quivering, gelatinous horror from beyond slunk forward to envelop him, did the witchfinder notice the message written in blood above the paper.
You did not think I was going to make this easy, did you?
• •
Several minutes later, Erasmus Martin strode across the grass, covered in a putrid slime and surreptitiously stowing a small hatchet up his sleeve. The crowd backed away, partially because of the horrible sounds they had heard, partially because of the smell, but mostly because he was the witchfinder, and they didn’t like him very much. In this way, Martin found himself with an unimpeded view of the girl who’d been caught.