A Summoner's Tale - The Vampire's Confessor (Black Swan 3)

by Danann, Victoria

  The eighteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned alcohol and named the era "Prohibition". Naturally those who could participate in the business of providing illegal booze either experienced greatly increased prosperity or death at the hands of rivals.

  Women were behaving outrageously. They were wearing dresses without corsets and bustles. Hemlines revealed ankles and, sometimes, legs all the way to the knee! Some began smoking, wearing makeup, staying out late at night, and dancing in lewd, suggestive ways. It was a vampire's paradise.

  New York was hardly the outpost Baka had visited a hundred and fifty years before. Wall Street had become crowded with Model T's. Baka decided it was time to learn to drive. Since money was no object, he bought a magnificent, yellow Stutz Bearcat, a warehouse to keep it in, and a guard to sleep on a cot and watch over it. He hired a woman to teach him how to drive it and thanked her for it by taking her blood and dumping her body into the Hudson River.

  The subway system had been in operation for eighteen years. He was fascinated by it, partly because of the marvel of moving people around underground and partly because of the idea of a place with no light to hurt pale vampire eyes and little, if any, chance of being hunted down by Black Swan knights. After five hundred years of running, the prospect of staying in one place for a while was very appealing. He had concluded that boredom was more tolerable than constant running.

  The subways didn't run at night so he took the opportunity to take a full lantern and explore. In the process he discovered that there was a maze of tunnels that had been excavated and then abandoned because of a new or different plan for the system. For the first time since he'd become a vampire, Baka became interested in something besides a mindless pursuit of a pleasure that would always elude him.

  After a few months of study and exploration, he came up with a plan to create a suitable home for vampire. Perhaps not as comfortable as the Warwick, but what is comfort without a feeling of security?

  He mapped out which tunnels would be part of the system and where to place entrance and exit points. He outfitted a chamber for his own use, then, to be certain that no one would divulge any information related to the project, he killed the construction workers he had hired and left the bodies on the subway trains to be found the next morning. After a few instances of early morning corpse discoveries, rumors began to spread that going into the tunnels at night might cost you your life.

  A few anonymous and well-placed protection payments to city officials insured the abandoned tunnels would remain permanently abandoned.

  Baka had never gotten over his very healthy respect for the Black Swan knights. He also learned the lesson that there is safety in numbers. After all, he was able to get away that night in Paris because two of the knights were busy with poor Lefrik. He reasoned that surrounding himself with vampire would create a line of defense, more or less.

  That was his intention. The result, however, was that he became king of New York vampire; at least to those admitted to his tunnel system in New York City.

  He never had to hunt again unless he wanted to. He just ordered a meal in and someone brought her to him, then took care of clean up as well. Certainly he didn't need any more money, but he thought it did the other vampire good to contribute so he assessed a reasonable charge for using his underground territory and, soon, he was as rich as a railroad baron.

  One morning he was just finishing a meal when the chemical that had acted as conscience inhibitor and served the vampire so well for five hundred years receded, dipping to a level that allowed Baka's own personality to come raging forward and take control. He looked down to see that he was holding a woman covered with blood, wheezing with blood gurgling in her throat and making a shallow fount that flowed from her mouth with each heart beat. She was attempting to drag in one last breath. His first instinctive act was to place his fingers over the holes in her neck that were spurting blood in a feeble attempt to save her life.

  It was far too late for that. Her life was forfeit the minute she was nabbed by one of Baka's flunkies. Within seconds the victim had gone perfectly still and quiet. He shoved her away from him and sprang back in horror. He had never seen a murdered person, certainly had never seen so much blood, and was so disoriented.

  One of the vampire who served his personal needs walked past the chamber and took in the scene. "Is there a problem, sir?"

  Baka's gaze jerked toward the speaker. The man was speaking Anglish. Did he know Anglish? Yes. He did. How was that possible?

  He looked around the room that had been lavishly designed in the elaborate styling of art deco. It could not have been more alien or disturbing to Istvan Baka. "Where am I?"

  He ran his hand through his hair before realizing that hand was covered in blood. As he looked at his hand every single abominable deed slammed into his consciousness at once, knocking the breath out of him.

  All his memories of life as a human had slowly been restored, but they had been viewed through the amoral filter of the vampire. Now he was forced to confront the loss of his human life at the same time he saw the images of thousands of gruesome murders, committed with the most callous cruelty, by his own hand.

  He saw the face of Lefrik, shirt untucked, covered with blood and laughing. He was confronted by the unspeakable atrocities that gave the vampire the closest thing it would know to real pleasure, even though it was a pale shadow of the true, vivid, sense-engaged pleasure known by humans.

  The other vampire barely moved out of the way before he was run over. Baka fled from his luxurious underground den without a lamp. He didn't need it. His humanity had returned, but he still had the eyes of a vampire along with other extras.

  He found one of the exits, climbed the black and white tiled steps, and emerged at street level at mid day. It was cloudy, but the brightness of daylight, even filtered daylight, still made him squint and caused his pale eyes to water. He held his hand up to his face to shield his eyes wishing with all his might that the sun would burn him to ash right there on the spot.

  The street was crowded with pedestrians who were horrified by his appearance. Most simply gave him a wide berth then forgot about him as soon as they'd passed by. One man, thinking Baka was injured - a logical conclusion given the sight of all that blood - tried to insist he go to a hospital and offered to accompany him. Baka finally shoved the 'Good Samaritan' away forcefully enough to punctuate his refusal.

  In Baka's mind, he had just blown out a candle at the monastery, satisfied with his day's work, and pulled his heavy wool cloak around his body before starting down the path to his cottage. His body was tired, but his heart was light, knowing what awaited him: laughing children and a chestnut haired beauty who would welcome him with a hot meal, open arms, and a place beside her in a warm bed.

  As he walked he smiled to himself thinking about how she would ask about his day out in the world. What sort of thing was he working on? He became a little aroused when his mind anticipated being with her later than night. Her soft, pliable curves would conform to his body like a mold when she greeted him under the covers and eagerly pressed against him.

  He heard a sound and stopped still on the path.

  The next thing he knew he was holding the ruined body of a bloody woman seconds before her death. Confused and disoriented, he ran from that gruesome scene to find himself standing on a city street in the bright light of noonday with more people than he imagined were in the entire world, with monstrous things on wheels whizzing by at speeds up to twenty miles per hour, and the memories of centuries of life on earth while his body was possessed by a demon.

  The noise was deafening. The machines were terrifying. The numbers of people were overwhelming. His first reaction was an assumption that he had died suddenly and been sent to hell which made sense because he was certain that's where he belonged.

  He wanted to bury his face in Helena's bosom and cry. He wanted to feel the comfort of her body and hear the comfort of her voice and be reassured that this wa
s a very bad dream from which he would awake safe in their bed. But he didn't wake.

  He was alone. Everything he loved was gone. Everyone he loved was gone. He was a simple man, a good man, a family man, who woke one day to find himself with centuries of memories of the misdeeds of a fiend.

  It was so much more than a mind can process. He threw his hand up to protect his eyes from the harsh light then began to bang his head against the stone wall behind him, hoping to stop the rush of nightmarish pictures.

  As people rushed by, he leaned his back against a building on 7th Avenue, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes, crying like a baby, tortured by the parade of horrific images that continually passed across the screen of his mind.

  Someone stopped in front of him and, in a voice that was at once deep, gravelly, and angelic said, "Vampire. What are you doing?"

  Baka stopped beating his head and opened his left eye a sliver, just enough to see who asked. He then realized he was not in hell, but about to be dispatched there. His reaction was to thank the god he had denied for so long that he was about to be delivered from his torment. "Black Swan?" He grabbed the stranger's coat lapels in his hands. "Thank you. Thank god. Take my life. I will not resist."

  The stranger's gaze was intelligent and piercing. "Walk into the shadows of that alley, out of the view of the public." He indicated a direction with a tilt of his chin. "I will follow you."

  Baka did as he was told. A few yards into the alley he stopped and turned toward the angel that god had sent to deliver him from the evil he'd done. "Here?"

  The stranger stared at him without emotion, appraising.

  Baka went to his knees and folded his hands in prayerful supplication. With tears streaming down his face he waited, but the knight did not strike. Perhaps the man needed absolution.

  "Please." Baka pleaded with his eyes as well as his words and impressed upon the heart of the man that he was bearing witness to an extraordinary, perhaps miraculous, event.

  After a few seconds the stranger seemed to make up his mind. "Bite me. And I shall."

  Gradually a look of horror replaced Baka's tears.

  "No." He shook his head to punctuate the resolve behind the word.

  "Why not?" asked the stranger.

  "I... cannot."

  "A vampire who cannot bite?"

  "Vampire." Baka said it so quietly it was almost a whisper. "Make me a corpse, Angel. Lend me your mercy and you will be commended by the god. Let me join those I have sent to their deaths."

  As it happened, Baka was lucky enough, or unlucky enough, to encounter a Black Swan knight named Rudyard Hallows who was running a jewelry errand to assist him in the pursuit of a lovely, but somewhat aloof Flapper. He thought an emerald bracelet might relax her ladylike determination to keep her knees locked together at all times.

  The vampire was a riddle worthy of being sidetracked. The more it begged for death the more Ruddy's resolve that the poor devil should not be killed solidified. No. The vampire would be taken in tow and transported to the new facility at Fort Dixon for a verdict by someone wiser than himself.

  Needless to say, the knights of Black Swan were surprised when Sir Hallows arrived at Jefferson Unit with the most infamous vampire in the annals of The Order. In a taxi. Ruddy paid the driver then grabbed the coat sleeve of the miserable vampire, who had never ceased talking to himself for an instant, and pulled him from the car.

  There was no holding cell. Who could have guessed they might need one? By the start of the eighteenth century, The Order had gained all information possible as the result of holding vampire captive. At that time they wisely amended the policy to 'take no prisoners'.

  Of course Ruddy was familiar with the policy, but Black Swan knights are not automatons. As second sons, they are born rebels who know there is a time to follow rules and a time to think for oneself. This proved to be one of those times when The Order was pleased that their knights recognized that the rules were put into place as guidelines to serve them and not the other way around.

  They finally decided the best solution would be to temporarily house the freak vampire in an infirmary room with teams of four knights guarding him on eight hour rotation until they could decide what to do with him.

  The vampire was in such a state of misery and confusion that even the most calloused of the battle hardened knights felt twinges of pity after spending several minutes in his pitiful presence. To each other, the knights said that listening to his tears and talking to himself about his sins was, by far, the worst duty they had ever pulled and they dreaded reporting for guard change.

  She had sat on the carpet in a quiet corner of The Chronicles stacks until she had lost partial feeling in her rump. It was a room that didn't get much traffic which was why Heaven knew it was a good place to go when she wanted to spend some time alone. As usual, she hadn't seen or heard another soul during the entire time she'd been there reading.

  Most of the room was sublevel basement, but two feet at the apex of the high ceiling were above street level so that there was some natural light that came through the shallow wrought iron windows. As she rose to get a cup of coffee she looked up toward the windows and saw that the day had turned gray.

  Pulling her intelliphone out of the pocket of her knee length, cable knit cardigan she looked to see if she might have missed a call or a message. Nothing.

  She replaced the phone, fixed her coffee with extra sugar since she was skipping lunch, and walked around until the feeling was fully restored to the derriere she believed was far too ample.

  Setting the coffee down carefully in such a way that she could be certain it wouldn't spill, she reclaimed her space on the floor. People were assigned to scanning copies of the documents and making them available on computer, but considering the age of the organization and its commitment to record keeping, it would be years before that project was completed. It wasn't like they could pick up the phone and get temps from a staffing agency. Even a liberal estimate for completion depended on nothing more pressing taking priority which, let's face it, happened often at The Order.

  Settling back into the nest she had made with three large books open on the floor, she began to learn about Istvan Baka's first days in captivity. Tears formed in her eyes when she read the interview account given by Sir Hallows concerning his capture of the vampire, caught in broad daylight on a busy street, who not only refused an invitation to attack, but called him 'angel' and pleaded for a mercifully swift end.

  Subsequently she began to read the journal notes logged by the team assigned to study him, along with random comments by the knights assigned to guard him. The research team apparently consisted of several Order associates brought over from Edinburgh for the specific purpose of uncovering the mystery behind the uncharacteristic behavior.

  The vampire, whose name is Istvan Baka, is a most curious case. His moods range from spells of mute melancholy to fits of screaming while begging to die. We have been managing the latter with sedatives, but have no remedy or treatment for the former.

  During brief periods when he is relatively lucid, he says he was possessed by a demon for many centuries, but that, one day the demon was simply gone, leaving him with the memories of everything it had done while controlling his body. He states that he cannot continue to live with visions of the demon's sins in his head, that the depravity of the deeds performed using his body without his knowledge or consent is more than he can stand.

  The cycle then begins anew, the vampire alternating between pleading with us to execute him and praying to his god to crush him and cast whatever remnants remain into the oblivion of the abyss. He prevails upon us to end his suffering and, even the most experienced vampire hunters, seem to be affected by his condition.

  So far he has refused all offer of sustenance. If he doesn't ingest something life-sustaining within the next few hours, we shall have no choice but to force him to drink the animal blood we have procured for this purpose.

  As Heaven read
the eye witness accounts of Baka's torment, she was filled with compassion and the shame she felt for her behavior toward him was redoubled. It was one thing to be presented with an idea intellectually and something else to internalize it emotionally. She began to realize that he truly had no more control over the vampire virus than a person who contracts pneumonia; that holding him accountable, as she had been doing, was a textbook case of blaming the victim. And may have even been cruel. Something she never would have thought might be said about her.

  She wondered why she hadn't read these sections when she had studied his biography as an intern.

  When Baka realized that the Black Swan knights who had chased him throughout the whole of Western Civilization were not going to kill him, he also realized that there was more than one way to end a vampire. He would not take any of the blood they brought him. He allowed it to become cold and congealed without ever being touched.