That night in Charleston was one of the memories Baka worked so hard at keeping away by staying busy. Words could not describe how much he hated the hands and teeth that had killed those women. His hands and teeth.
After Baka's personality fully reemerged, he had become insistent about atheism. Of course there was not a god in the sense of a compassionate, caring being with enough power to influence the suffering of the world! If there was, the vampire virus would never have been allowed to mutate, grow, and spread. It delivered atrocities to its victims and desolation to its hosts, creating hell on earth. He was fond of saying. "There may be a supreme dark one, but certainly there is no counterpart. If you don't believe it, look around you."
Baka liked Charleston and spent as much time there as he felt was prudent before moving on. He had heard a lot about New Orleans and wanted to go there, but he didn't want to go overland if he could help it. So he arranged guest passage on a small clipper to take him down the coast, around the Keys and to New Orleans by way of the Gulf of Mexico.
New Orleans had more vampire than he'd ever seen in any one place. That was especially odd since there were no underground accommodations anywhere in the city - not even for graves. But many made good use of crypts, sometimes renovating to the extent of clearing out remains and making themselves as comfortable as possible.
It was a good place for vampire because it met several of the extant criteria: concentrated population, night time pedestrians, and plenty of women.
After a few months Baka had seen what there was to see in New Orleans. He became restless and was ready for a change of scenery and pastimes. He missed Europe and was curious to see what they had been up to in his absence. In 1819 he returned to Angland by steamship.
The SS Savannah left the port of Savannah for Liverpool. The entire trip took less than a month. The journey was so fast and the ship held so many people that he was actually able to make the crossing without eating every woman on board. Times were indeed changing.
***
CHAPTER_9
Stagsnare Dimension, Present Day.
Archer turned to Rothesay. "Are they sure this is necessary?"
Rothesay gave Archer the stony, blue-eyed scowl that never failed to make his underlings hope he didn't notice them. It was his gift.
"You're questioning the leadership that got us this far?"
"No. It's just that the price could be the lives of Ralengclan and we started this thing believing in the proposition that every life of a clan member is precious."
"I think you overstate the risk. The last three batches of prisoners sent through the device were returned unharmed."
They had been using the prisoners of war as test subjects for the reconstruction of the interdimensional transport. The first few attempts had been disastrous, but they had finally reached the point where they could send people on a round trip and bring them back alive.
"I'm not just talking about the risk of transport to another dimension. There's no way to guarantee that nothing will go wrong with a mission to assassinate a Laiwynn royal - if she's even alive - and we don't have any reason to think that's true."
"No reason? You know they have a way of being both resourceful and resilient. And we can't afford to take the chance that any of them lived."
"It's one girl. How frightening can she really be?"
Rothesay laughed softly, but without humor. "It seems it doesn't take long to forget what life under the Laiwynn is like, does it?"
Archer turned away. "It's moot anyway, isn't it? My opinion isn't going to be taken into consideration. I'm just the mechanic, right?"
Rothesay thought about feeding his ego some gornishit about being an invaluable scientist, but decided that would be a waste of time and there were more important things to do. "Right." Rothesay opened the door and twelve soldiers filed in.
Archer recognized one of them and smiled. "Did your wife get her flute back?"
Rystrome grinned. "Yes, sir. Well, she got a flute and says it's as good as the one she had before. I like the way it sounds, but what do I know?"
"Didn't you mention having children?"
Rystrome looked suddenly uncomfortable. "I did. Yes."
Archer turned to Rothesay with a questioning look. Rothesay just shrugged. "It's a volunteer mission. Pays really well."
Archer stood in front of Rystrome. "You do know there's some risk?" Rystrome nodded. "What could be so important that you'd be willing to risk leaving your wife widowed and your children fatherless?"
Rystrome blinked, but looked Archer full in the face. "I want my children to go to school."
Archer stared at him for a few minutes thinking that a new society that could travel between dimensions should be able to come up with a way to provide an education for all its children. He sighed, nodded, and turned toward the controls wanting to ask Rystrome if he had thought to make that provision in his contract unconditional on outcomes.
He had calibrated the machine to look for a life signature match with Thelonius M. Monq. Thankfully they'd had the foresight to save some of his DNA.
From the remnants he'd retrieved from equipment mangled and mostly wiped, he gathered that Monq planned to hide the princess in a dimension with a counterpart of his own, counting on the belief that a similarly astute and nimble mind would believe her, accept her, and protect her.
Although he had no way of proving it at this stage in the research of interdimensional travel, he theorized that a "placeholder" was required for each life signature in a particular dimension. If the princess survived the trip, she would have gone to a dimension where there was a life signature that matched Monq's, and a "placeholder" for her; in other words, someone who matched her life signature, but was deceased.
Archer also conjectured that, if his theory was correct, and he sent someone to a dimension where the matching life signature was occupied, they would simply cease to exist - as in vanish or disappear. The thought of that was so chilling to him that he would rather step in front of a lumber train than transport into a dimension with calibration set for other factors. He was forbidden to share his suspicion with the volunteers since it was only theory. His stringent petition to abort this mission had also been denied because he had no proof.
Sometimes he wondered if the new authority was really any better than the old authority. All he could do was operate the controls and hope that the only fatality was the last surviving member of the Laiwynn royal house. That is if she survived. To Archer, it seemed like way too big an "if" to risk twelve good Ralengclan men.
Each of the dozen men was carrying a backpack with weapons, communications devices, and all weather gear along with a few gold bars. Archer reasoned that any similar dimension would value gold regardless of how their currency was formed. Most importantly, they each had been issued a new Yacht Timer Chronograph watch and given a week to test it for accuracy. They set times according to Archer's instructions and were reminded that they had to return to the exact point of entry at the exact time Archer would reverse the transport or they would miss their ride home and become permanent resident aliens.
Archer looked at the faces, all between twenty and thirty-five, all certain they were serving a noble cause. He sighed and started the cylinder's rotation.
"Good luck."
***
CHAPTER_10
BLACK SWAN FIELD TRAINING MANUAL Section VII: Chapter 3, #7
Vampire shall be dispatched upon contact. Take no prisoners.
Baka wondered what Heaven was doing at that moment. She might be sleeping. He had no reference to keep track of time. He sometimes wondered if he'd been there for hours or days. One thing was certain. He had no idea whether it was day or night.
Had she even noticed that he hadn't come into work? Would she care if he lived or died?
"Stupid," he said to himself. Of course she would care. She'd be glad if he died, but would be too ladylike to show it outwardly. It would be just his luck if his very last thought w
as about her and how much she hated him.
He pulled on his chains for the thousandth time while chanting the adage that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action again and again expecting a different result. He knew his wrists were raw and bleeding. He could feel the sting where the skin was broken and he didn't have to be a vampire to smell the blood. If only it was painful enough to be a sufficient distraction for his mind.
He had tried every trick he knew. Everything from singing until his voice was raw, reciting everything he could remember from "The Lady of the Lake" to the multiplication tables. He tried to focus on each person he knew well and recall their features so that he could draw them in his mind. But his mind was doggedly persistent about wanting to show him his past and the memories kept returning. Relentlessly.
The thinsulate jacket was better than nothing, but it wasn't nearly enough to keep the cold out when sitting, or standing, in one place. He tried concentrating on being cold and miserable. He tried concentrating on the dank smell of the Underground and the unmistakable feeling that the place was "alive" with the ghosts of souls who were angry about the way they had died. Each new tactic did work, for a few minutes, but nothing could withstand the onslaught of the horrific presentation. Some force wanted him to see it all. Again.
He saw himself leaning on an alley wall on a warm night eavesdropping on cafe conversations and remembered that he'd done that nightly. It was the Montmartre section of Paris in 1922. The usual vampire amusements had become tiresome and he'd found that he enjoyed listening to people talk about books and politics and, especially, art.
For a time he had been following a young Spaniard who had been in Paris for a few years, enough to learn the language and be understood. He lived in an attic flat with a French girlfriend and their relationship worked on several levels. She sat for him when he wasn't busy with the commissioned portraits that provided money to live, she fed his gargantuan ego, and expanded his natural inclination to be sexually adventurous.
It was a good time for the young artist. He was in Paris at a time when the world prized and celebrated art. He was in love. He had friends who were exciting and fascinating like Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. The very air around the romantic district where he lived and worked seemed to shimmer with the vibration of creativity.
One night he left his lover sated and sleeping. He slipped away gently closing the door latch and quietly descended the stairs to join his friends at a nearby cafe for late night banter. Gertrude liked to hold court at her salon, but a couple of times a week she would venture into the arms of 'the people' and patronize ordinary neighborhood cafes.
He had grown aroused while painting his lover who was becoming mistress of his heart. She had deliberately set out to experiment with her charms and learn if she held enough sexual currency to draw him away from his art when they were supposed to be working. She did. He had dropped his brushes into the thinner jar and practically leapt upon her as she welcomed him in triumph laughing, legs falling open wide.
Baka was across the narrow alley where the painter rented a north facing attic room. He would never have stood a chance at getting a glimpse of the vampire because, after several centuries of practice, Baka was masterful at melting into shadows and becoming one with the darkness.
After the young painter left, Baka slipped upstairs to the attic room, curious to see what was on the canvases within. He closed the door behind him and went straight for the large painting propped on an easel, illuminated by the soft light of an oil lamp turned down low. It was almost finished; a nude, reclining portrait of a young woman with a loose bouquet of colorful flowers strewn across her torso.
Baka found it captivating, stunning in the starkness of its frank and accurate realism. It was then that he heard a woman's sleepy moan coming from the bed in the corner. He jerked his head toward the corner where a three-quarter bed was shoved against the wall to leave maximum space for the studio. He had been so intent on the art that he hadn't been aware of her presence.
When he heard the seductive sounds of a young, live, female food source, his fangs descended instantly, involuntarily. He had lost so much interest in living he hadn't even realized he hadn't eaten. Knowing that the sound came from the figure in the painting revived his interest. He grew hard as he began to salivate. The blood called to him, her pulse grew louder beating a rhythm that was compelling and annoying at the same time.
When the naked Jonaviev felt the bed move beside her, she turned smiling without opening her eyes, and murmured a welcoming purr.
Baka was amused. The winsome smile that had captivated the hearts of girls when he was a young man had been made hideous by yellowed fangs and an unmistakable glint of cruelty in his eyes.
"Ah, you welcome my kiss, Cherie."
The artist's model came fully awake, but the scream that originated in her mind froze in her throat as the vampire sank his fangs into her neck severing her vocal cords, one of the first tricks he had learned from Lefrik.
The act reminded him of his late partner and made him reminisce. Good old Lefrik. He hadn't thought of him in ages.
"You should be more discriminating, beauty. My kiss is sweet, but it comes with a bite."
His hands tore at the scant, filmy sheath she slept in as his fangs ruthlessly tore at her jugular. There was no satisfaction in the rape, certainly no pleasure. It was a natural drive prompted by the body, cousin to pissing, nothing more. The pleasure he had once gotten from causing, or witnessing, pain - the way he had sometimes found it comical and sometimes stimulating - had faded away to nothingness and left him feeling simply hollow.
However horrible Jonaviev's initial shock and pain must have been, she had left her body long before Baka was finished with it. When she died from blood loss, it simply felt like she drifted to sleep.
Baka was not careful with the wounds. Why should he be? No one had ever heard of a woman surviving a vampire's attentions. He struck at the body repeatedly until he was full.
As he refastened his pants and licked his lips, he glanced dispassionately at the mess he had made of a young woman. His eyes then wandered again to the portrait. In comparison he noticed how different it seemed now that the subject was his victim.
Stopping in front of the canvas he had a strange urge to pick up a brush. It felt familiar in his hand. He knew he had been an artist at one time because he'd seen flashes of those memories. But that was long ago. And may as well have been someone else.
Looking from canvas to corpse and back again he decided the painting might be enhanced by aspects of the body's new "look', the blank stare of her eyes, and, perhaps, by the addition of the subject's blood. He smiled at his own wit as he thought it would be a variation on bleeding for art's sake.
Taking palette in hand, he attempted to dab blood onto the brush, but found that it had coagulated and become thick and useless. He looked around for something to use to get blood flowing again. Surely there was enough left to refine a painting.
Baka looked around the room for a sharp object and found nothing of that description except for a palette knife which, really, should never have been called a knife at all since it was not designed to cut. Still, he suspected he could persuade flesh to part under the pressure of the palette knife whether designed for that purpose or not.
So he cut Jonaviev to create the grisliest sort of medium and applied it liberally to the painting. After a couple of hours he was satisfied with his work. The artist's lover was a gruesome patchwork of cuts. He left her glassy eyes open and staring thinking they were too pretty to close.
When Picasso returned to the flat, it took several minutes for his brain to make sense of what he was seeing. When his mind was able to grasp the scene, he sank to his knees as his mouth worked silently, unable to produce any sound for the longest time. Just when it seemed he would never breathe again, his body jerked as his lungs filled involuntarily.
He sat on the floor the rest of the night staring at the canvas and
the body of his lover. When light began to come through the windows, he went to the police and told them what had happened. When the police were convinced that he was not a suspect, he spent a couple of days walking or sitting by the river. On the third day he went to his friend, Max Jacob, who took him in. He never went back to the attic room.
When he began painting again, his art was drastically and permanently changed. People began to say he was sullen and withdrawn, easily irritated by people who would question him about the change in his work and irrationally temperamental.
Baka left Paris shortly thereafter. He realized that changes in scenery were keeping him occupied for shorter and shorter periods. He was afraid that, if the trend continued, he would reach the point where he would be bored with a place before he even arrived.
He decided to give the colonies another try, see what they were up to. Supposedly, they were in the middle of a cultural revolution and it sounded worthy of personal investigation. He wouldn't use the word interesting because he was afraid that he couldn't remember what interesting was.
Ocean sailing had continued to progress. He could scarcely believe how it had changed in just a few hundred years. He booked passage on the Mauretania, one of Cunard's fabulous steam turbine vessels that could accomplish the transatlantic crossing in just five days. He could manage that without a single feeding if he wanted to.
A Summoner's Tale - The Vampire's Confessor (Black Swan 3) Page 9