She resumed contact with reality, hearing the voice of Silvo.
"Excuse me, I was distracted. You were saying?"
"I am going to try to interview some congeners of Delatour."
"I doubt they will confide in you."
"But, knowing that one of them is in danger, or rather their secrets, maybe they will help us."
"Yes, you're right. It's a good idea. I'm coming with you."
"You should maybe go and talk to your grandmother. Together you may have an idea."
"Silvo, I have more means than you to defend me against vampires."
He breathed a fatalistic sigh. "I know. But it is not useful to draw the attention on you. They know that I am aware of their existence, that I am not a threat for them. And I am not alone. I do not take a risk. I would prefer you to take care of your grandmother. I'll contact you if I find anything. I will pass your home tonight. Okay?"
Mystie nodded, made a small sign to Silvo and left the office in silence. As soon as she closed the door, Silvo asked a member of his team to follow her, to ensure that nothing would happen to her on the road. She was too affected by the disappearance of Delatour and the discovery of his past. He was afraid that, as the vampire, she may act on a whim and without support.
Having to negotiate with the vampires did not enthuse him, but it was his only plan for now. He would see what the position of Delatour's community was. And, if possible, he would limit the possible effects, by stopping them from the very beginning. He doubted his influence but at least he would have tried.
CHAPTER - 16 -
Silvo knew few things about the hierarchy of vampires. Delatour, as usual, remained very evasive on the subject. He knew that their regime was relatively feudal, and very hierarchical, managed according to clans, where the number of members was as important as their abilities. This backward-looking organization was disputed by the young recruits. But the power of a vampire being mostly proportional to his age, it persisted.
He did not know where Delatour stood in this classification. But he assumed he had a relative importance considering his seniority.
He gathered the documents that Porkelevitch had sent, added the translation, slipped them into a plastic sleeve and put it in his bag. He added a flashlight, a compass, blue overalls and a pair of gloves.
He ignored the welcome he would receive. After a hesitation he finally decided to do this alone. He donned a pair of boots and slipped his moccasins in a bag. He put under his arm a safety helmet. After a last look as to make sure that he had forgotten nothing, he closed the door of his office and went out to the parking lot.
Paris was a real Swiss cheese. Throughout its construction, to satisfy its material needs, the city had operated many limestone quarries, at first open-air and then underground. About forty percent of the city rested on these former mining, not always backfilled. And that was without counting the two hundred miles of tunnels that were a real maze. Part of this network, the catacombs, was even visited by tourists. The plans of the underground, listed since Louis XVI, were continuously updated, but no one could claim to have comprehensive maps except perhaps the vampires. Some had even participated in their construction in a distant time. Since their creation, they were strengthened by the vampire community, and developed for their own use. Thereby, according to Delatour, they were making a work of general interest in preventing their collapse.
Silvo knew only that by way of catacombs he could join one of their rooms they called Council Chamber. He did not know how to make an appointment. There remained only hope there was someone on duty.
Silvo equipped himself in his car, covered his head with the safety helmet and went into the Parisian basement by a subway entrance. After pulling a heavy iron door, he entered into the dark tunnels.
He paid no attention to the magnificent sculptures of plaster and gypsum, or sediment that sometimes appeared in the beam of his lamp. He followed the long dark and wet corridors, taking care not to slip or scratch on cable trays that formed a threatening harrow. His descent was gradual but perceptible. Here and there, he could read information on the leveling, sometimes in meters and sometimes in feet depending on the seniority of their engravings.
His steps sometimes echoed under the archways of limestone. In some places, he waded into the cold water up to his knees. In the winter, the temperature of the catacombs seemed almost pleasant, and he began to sweat in his clothes.
He sought bearings, signs that adorned by place the labyrinths, indicating the names of streets on the surface and sometimes even the street number. Some directions were written in German, memories of Paris occupation during the last world war.
The silence, the feeling of being lost at the bottom of an abyss, in an everlasting labyrinth after what seemed like hours of walking, made him uncomfortable. It was not claustrophobic, but he missed natural light and fresh air. Attentive to the slightest noise, he consulted his compass at regular intervals, when street signs were being too rare.
Fortunately, he met no visitors who could have slowed him in his progression. He paused to make sure he was alone. They were many people, fans of catacombs, who ventured into this network. But only the sound of water reached him. It was omnipresent in these passages, trickling to form limestone sculptures.
***
He checked his map and pursued his progress on sixty-five feet. The entrance of a small dead end hall appeared on his right. Nothing differentiated it from other caves he had crossed, but a mark made by the police in shape of P confirmed him that he had reached the correct location.
Police catacombs had made reports of strange behavior. Their men, when they ventured into this room, reappeared at the surface, unable to remember how they came out of mazes. The answer was simple for Silvo. There was vampire activity down there. They seemed to take perverse pleasure in playing with people's minds when they approached them a little too close. On the occasion of a discussion, a few months later, with Delatour, the vampire had mentioned the existence of a former Council Chamber with multiple entries, among which, some were inside the catacombs. Knowing the intricacies of existing crossings, listed or not, he did not think of giving any precise indication as well. But Silvo had only to be patient, and link the information.
He hoped not to have made this journey for nothing and find himself back on the surface before having completed his mission. Should he be discreetly observed, he announced aloud.
"I am a member of the police department. My name is Silvo. I want to contact your Council for an important and urgent matter!"
No one answered his call. But at least he was still there. On the left, the water runoff had carved into the limestone what could pass for a throne. The other walls were bare. The room was very small and he made it around quickly. The beam of his lamp was creating scary chiaroscuro but lit no passage, no crevice large enough to slip in.
He illuminated again, methodically, walls at different angles, progressing as slowly as possible to avoid missing any man-made mark. Even vampires needed to find their way, right? But nature sometimes seemed to enjoy geometric shapes, and he had only vain joys.
He began to get discouraged, and reached back again the entrance, resumed for the third time his light scanning. Finally he saw, written in stone, a tiny drawing of a bird whose beak was heading down. The outlines were not very clear, and perhaps it was just an illusion, but he wanted to try his luck. The passage should be there, indicated by this symbol that the old quarry workers used to find their way. The bird represented the surface, the direction of its beak was the way to follow. All he found at the base of the bird was a large block of limestone. Carefully he pushed it, and was surprised by the ease with which it moved. The rock was on a tiny rusted metal rail, and carried away by its own weight, it returned alone in position after having been pushed aside. Silvo illuminated the revealed entrance.
The cat flap was very narrow. Even in crawling, he was not sure to slip forward and groaned at the prospect. His lamp did not a
llow him to see what was behind the narrow passage. Maybe it was just a hole in the wall. Yes, but in this case, why this rail?
He repeated aloud the announcement of his arrival and crawled to get into the passage.
His head hit the edge of the hole. Luckily his helmet absorbed the shock, but he had the intense desire to rub his head to clear the pain. He stood motionless, eyes closed forcefully while it faded. His booted feet slipped on the wet ground. He feared getting stuck, feeling the rock sinking into his abdomen. He should not have come alone, he knew it. It was against the most basic measures of safety. He might get lost, hurt without being able to transmit his position (one hundred feet underground mobiles got no network). Not to mention the risks of diseases transmitted by rats, such as Leptospirosis, although the pair of rodents that had crossed his way tended to flee when they heard his approaching. It would be the last straw, if he waded in the urine of rats infected by the disease!
But the danger of an incursion in vampires nest was even greater.
He threw his briefcase through the hole. Forcing all his strengths, assuring his grip as he could on the limestone, which crumbled off in an imperceptible mud, he finally extricated himself from this trap. He slipped on the other side, head first and took a deep breath, stretched at full length in the mud.
The beam of his lamp lit a new labyrinth of galleries punctuated with rooms that all looked alike. Here and there, human bones appeared, embedded in the walls. At the end of the eighteenth century, for sanitary reasons, the three hundred parish cemeteries of Paris had deposited their bones in these quarries, which were, at that time, still outside the city. At least, Silvo hoped that those there were not gruesome memories of vampiric activity.
He walked through a narrow maze, barely wide enough to pass. The only lighting came from his flashlight.
The corridor seemed to have no end, and he was becoming claustrophobic, underground, without any other help than his compass. His breathing became difficult. It was due to fatigue, but also a probable lack of ventilation in these secret tunnels at high rate of humidity.
The corridors were constantly crossing, going in all directions, and he took out his compass to avoid going round in circles. He believed he would discover the boardroom behind the cat flap and did not expect to find a new maze. No indication of the walls allowed him to find his way. There was graffiti in some places but he was unable to understand their meanings, if they had any. He gave himself an hour of research before making a U-turn. He should not be far off the mark, but he had no desire to remain trapped in these corridors and serve as input to the collection of bones that surrounded him.
He had the satisfaction to notice, a hundred yards after, that the passage went back gently to the surface. There were even traces of steps worn by time and corroded by humidity.
The passage widened. It was less dark and dim light was not artificial. When he saw a metal door at the end of the corridor, he heaved a sigh of relief. He was exhausted and wanted to get out of these galleries, which looked too much like a tomb for his taste.
Silvo pushed open the heavy door with difficulty and found himself in a large stone room. He had no idea of where he was, probably in the cellar of a house. The ceilings were high. The stone arches were magnificent with their cover of limestone. In fact he had rather the impression of being in a castle. The place was thirty feet by twenty. The capitals of the arches were carved in gargoyle shapes. Purple drapes covered part of the walls, which were fixed crossed lances. Facing him a wrought iron gate opened onto a stairway leading to the surface. He tried to push it but it was locked.
They overdo into caricature, Silvo thought. Only missing is the man dressed in the cape, with pale skin and protruding fangs, going out of a coffin, and the picture would be complete.
If this decorum was supposed to impress to potential visitors, they were wasting their time. Silvo had rather the feeling of moving in a bad B-movie. Furniture was non-existent apart from a big wooden table in front of the huge fireplace in which Silvo could have stand up without stooping. The cleanliness of it showed that it was there too, only for the decor.
"Anybody?" Silvo cried.
"What are you doing here?" A voice, unctuous tone, answered behind his back, making him jump.
CHAPTER - 17 -
Silvo swallowed. He was always in the cliché but this time he was impressed. The being in front of him was frightening thinness. His skin had a chalky color, as the underground Silvo had gone through, but without having the opacity of it. His eyes were milky white. Silvo wondered if he had pupils, before realizing that they were so depigmented, that they were barely visible. He kept on his skull some long tufts of gray and dirty hair. Under the flask skin, the drawing of the skeleton could be distinctly seen. His body was partially covered with a long woolen coat with a hood, sleeveless, of an indefinable color mixing blue and black. The size of the garment accentuated the fleshless appearance of his emaciated body.
It looked like a corpse. It stank like a corpse. Moreover like a decaying corpse. Silvo refrained from showing his disgust. He felt that the man in front of him, or what remained of him, was rotting on the stalk. Indeed, weren't it worms that seemed to swarm around his neck?
"Wise decision, Mr. Silvo. It would be out-of-place to come to offend me on my territory while I've let you venture there. I can take a more human appearance if you so desire. A single blood donation will make it."
He was now close to Silvo who had not seen him coming. More than a super speed, Silvo thought that the vampire had played with his spirit, and he really did not like that. The vampire burst into raucous laughter, releasing a fetid smell through his rotten teeth. Silvo nearly fainted from stink, and opened his mouth in search of oxygen. The smell of the body, of the mouth, it was too much for Silvo’s stomach, which threatened to empty. Silvo carefully avoided looking at the neck of his vis-à-vis. He feared a close impression would cause a return of his breakfast in the face of the vampire. This one would probably not appreciate this type of projections, although they would be less pestilential than the stench of his own body.
But what did he say? Blood?
Silvo had the fleeting image of the standing corpse piercing his carotid artery.
The vampire laughed again. "You know nothing. I have no need to puncture your carotid artery. I can just bring your blood to me. You see?"
Silvo felt his heart beating at top speed. He heard nothing else but its beats. A heavy, cavernous, jerky, fast sound. He could not even hear the utterances of the vampire whose lips moved yet, a sign he was talking to him. He was breathing through the mouth, in a faster and faster, chopped way. He was hyperventilating. He knew he absolutely had to calm down.
His mouth was dry, his hands trembled, his legs went weak beneath him and he feared collapse. His body seemed crossed by electric shocks. He refrained from screaming, but could not stop the tears flooding his face. The suffering had risen to its paroxysm in a few seconds, unbearable. If he were not facing a vampire, he would have let go to unconsciousness. He would not have to fight against the torture, for no longer suffering. He just wanted it to end. But the vampire was just at the beginning.
The top of Silvo left arm hurt him, as if compressed by a tourniquet. By reflex, he massaged it with his right hand, but there was no link to be removed to relieve the pain. His left hand was invaded by tingling, more and more painful. He waved his fingers in vain, the pain persisted. He saw them inflating, the blood began to pearl through his pores, a notch appearing. He no longer controlled his body, shaken by spasms and he collapsed to his knees. Nausea seized him, irrepressible, and he vomited on the stone floor. He was so weak that it was with difficulty that he refrained from finishing on the floor, in his own excrement.
"Stop this. I beg you!" he said in a breath.
The pressure released, and he regained consciousness from where he was. His head was buzzing. He was exhausted. He forced himself to breathe slowly. His heart rate was still too fast, fueled by his
fear. The vampire's manipulation had stopped. But his anguish that such a thing could start again, had taken over. He still did not regain control of his body, shaking with tremors. He vomited again, moaning in pain. His stomach had nothing to reject anymore. His crotch was wet. He did not know if it was when he waded into the mud or if he had urinated on himself. And at this point, he did not care. His body would not withstand another assault, he knew it.
"I don't care about your few pints of blood. You insult me by belittling me as a shark, which would lose control at the smell of blood. Yet, you know that we use it merely to maintain our body and as you can see I do not care. This is just one anchor point. Yours will be good at it. And you have much more to lose than your blood or your miserable mortal coil."
"I'm here to talk with you," Silvo began in a whisper.
"I know why you came. But you were wrong to come on my territory without invitation. I like the hunting, then defend yourself! This is the only reason for which I let you take our galleries. At stake, is your soul. Oh, I'll even give you a tip, assuming you know how to exploit it, to make the fight more exciting, because you are a mediocre opponent. Do not think with your brain. Think with your soul. Are you ready?"
Without noticing it, Silvo pressed the crucifix hanging from his neck.
"Pathetic!" the vampire murmured. "You disappoint me."
Silvo was unable to think. He was not prepared for a psychic fight and would never be. He was going to die, he knew it. With difficulty he drew himself up. His clumsy body did not seem to answer him anymore. Slowly he knelt down, and then stood up. Thus he wanted to die, not bent to the ground like a pig in the mud.
The Parchment (The Memory of Blood) Page 14