The Mammoth Book of Vampires: New edition (Mammoth Books)

by Stephen Jones

  The two cousins laughed together, Stone with genuine mirth, Callender with a wheezing bitterness that ended with an offer of sorts. “I suppose you can stay, cousin, if you’re willing to rough it.”

  “Rough it? I’ve done nothing else for ten years. We’ll do fine together, eh? And buck up! It’s only a matter of days.”

  “Days?” Callender asked sharply. “What day is this? What is the time?”

  “Eh? It’s Thursday, isn’t it? And the last clock I passed said just after six, as near as I could see it through this damned fog.”

  “Thursday at six! Damn! I’m to dine with my fiancee in an hour.”

  “Your fiancee! Well, you are a fortunate fellow. And to think that I should find you in such a state.” Stone paused and subjected his cousin to careful scrutiny. “You know, old fellow, you’re really in no condition to meet a lady, or even a constable. You need a wash and a shave at least.”

  “Shave?” barked Callender. “With this hand? I might as well cut my throat and be done with it.” The fingers he held before Stone’s face were visibly trembling.

  “I see. A case of the shakes. Well, we’ll have to think of something else. I think I could do a bit of barbering, and I have a razor right here in my bag. You have some water? And a log for the fire. We must cheer you up, cuz. I mean to dance at your wedding.”

  “If there is a wedding.”

  “What? Something wrong?”

  “Much. I’m half afraid I’m losing her. That damned spiritualist!”

  “Eh? Someone out to lure her away from you? We can’t have that.”

  “It hasn’t come to that, I think,” said Callender. “At least not yet. But he has some kind of hold on her, filling her head with stories of spooks, and spirits, and other worlds. I don’t know how to fight it, but I feel he’s changing her.”

  Nigel Stone’s face was suddenly grimmer than Callender had imagined it could be. “That’s a bad business,” Stone said. “Very bad, fooling about with spirits.”

  “And what would you know about it?” sneered Callender.

  “I didn’t spend ten years in India for nothing, cuz. I may not have made any money, but at least I learned a thing or two. The whole country is rife with superstition, and what might be more than superstition. Men go mad believing in ghosts and demons there. They kill each other and they kill themselves, and some fall under spells that are unspeakable.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “And I tell you it’s not rubbish! These things can happen, cuz, and even if they don’t, just thinking about them can do the worst sort of harm to body and soul. We must do something for this girl before it’s too late.”

  “You do it, then,” said Callender. “She only laughs at me when I try.” He paused, and contemplated Stone with new interest. “You look like you could do with a good dinner.”

  “I could indeed.”

  “Then come along with me tonight, will you? See if you can scare this nonsense out of Felicia before it injures her. I always end up trapped with her accursed aunt anyway.”

  “Has she an aunt?”

  “Yes, a spinster, and about your age, cousin, but don’t even think of it. No man could bear her. You stick to the niece. And as for now, do you remember where Uncle William’s wine cellar is?”

  “Downstairs somewhere, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the idea. Fetch us a bottle of port, will you? Then it will be soon enough for the fire, and the water, and the razor, don’t you think?”

  “As you say.” Nigel Stone hesitated for a moment at the thought of the wine, since Callender clearly had no need of it, but he decided he could stand a drop himself, and that this was justification enough for a descent into the cellar. With one backward glance he started out on his first task as the unpaid valet of the impoverished cousin he hoped would soon be a rich relative.

  In the midst of what might have been a pleasant dinner, Stone tried to convince himself that the drop he had shared with his cousin really could not have made much difference. For Reginald Callender, helping himself to every decanter in sight, was as drunk as the lord he undoubtedly wished himself to be, and his increasingly erratic behavior interfered at least a bit with Stone’s delight in the food, the drink, and the company.

  Stone found the girl, Felicia Lamb, as pretty as a picture but not much more animated. Her aunt Penelope, however, was a lively, bird-like little woman who not only kept his plate and his glass filled, but had the courtesy if not the good taste to hang on his every word. For a man long cut off from polite society, such a dinner partner was a positive delight, and the luxury of her surroundings fulfilled the hopes that he had held for his Uncle William’s house. Stone grew expansive, but he also remembered his promise to his cousin.

  “I understand you take an interest in spiritualism, “he said to Felicia.

  “I do,” she replied evenly.

  “Did it never occur to you that it might be dangerous?”

  “Dangerous? You betray your kinship with Mr Callender, sir. I refuse to accept the idea that my search for wisdom is a threat to me.”

  “No? You could be right, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to contradict a lady, but some of the things I saw in India would be enough to make a man cautious. Or even a woman.”

  “Do tell us about it, Mr Stone,” purred Aunt Penelope. “I’m sure it’s fascinating.”

  “Yes,” interrupted Callender. “And informative, too. You listen to this, Felicia.” His fiancee stiffened noticeably while he clumsily poured himself another brandy, spilling as much on the tablecloth as he did into his glass.

  “Well,” Stone began uncomfortably, “I don’t want to make too much of this. Some of what goes on there is just tomfoolery, I reckon, like the fellows who send ropes into the air and then climb up ’em. No harm in that unless the rope breaks, eh?” He laughed, but only Aunt Penelope joined him. “I think it’s just a trick anyway. What I mean to say is that some of ’em start out like that and then go on to do things that might hurt them badly. They think some of their gods or spirits are watching over them, so they feel free to walk on burning coals or lie down on beds of iron spikes. I’ve seen it! And they seem to be unharmed, too, but what if something went wrong, eh? What if the spirits weren’t there when the fellow decided to take a nap? What then?”

  “I’m sure I’m not interested in spikes, Mr Stone,” Felicia said.

  “No, my dear young lady, I’m sure you’re not. But neither were these chaps, once upon a time. Do you see what I’m driving at? Nobody’s born thinking of such things, but they’re led into them by degrees.”

  “He’s right, Felicia,” said Callender. His speech was slurred, and she did not deign to reply.

  “Then these things are really true?” asked Aunt Penelope.

  “Damned if I know. Oh, pardon me. My point, though, is that it doesn’t really matter if they’re true or not, as long as people believe in ’em. Take the Thugs, for instance.”

  “Thugs?” asked Aunt Penelope. “Are they some sort of monster?”

  “They’re only men, but I suppose you could call ’em monsters too. They’re a cult of murderers, men, women, and children. Whole families of ’em, whole villages, maybe even whole cities, all mad from believing in the spirits of the dead and some goddess of the dead that wants them to kill. They prey on travellers. Wiped out a whole caravan I would have been on if I hadn’t been ill, just as if the earth had swallowed ’em up. Lord Bentinck hanged a lot of these Thugs, I’ve heard, but there are more, you may be sure of it. That’s what thinking too much about the dead can do!”

  “I only wish to learn of the secrets of the dead,” said Felicia, “not to add to their number.”

  “The dead know nothing!” roared Callender. “Learn from me! Life!”

  “Really, Reginald,” said Felicia coolly. “And shall I learn by example?”

  “Example? And what’s the dead’s example? Lie down and die yourself, I suppose?” Callender, drunk and angry, was half way up from
his seat when Aunt Penelope tactfully interrupted.

  “Please, Mr Callender. Let us hear Mr Stone out. And you be still, too, Felicia. It’s not polite to argue with a guest, especially one who has travelled half way around the world to give us the benefit of his experience. Do tell us more, Mr Stone.”

  “Thank you, dear lady. What I mean to say is that if there are spirits, and you call them up, you can’t tell what you’ll get. If there are spirits, there must be wicked ones, don’t you think? In India, they tell tales of an evil spirit. It’s called a Baital, or a Vetala, or some such thing. It gets into corpses somehow, and makes them move about, and it draws the life out of every living thing it touches. Would you like to call up one of those? Could you put it down again?”

  “It sounds like a vampire,” Felicia suggested.

  “Vampire? Oh, you mean that old book by Lord Byron. Read it when I was a lad. Quite made my hair stand on end. I suppose it’s the same sort of thing.”

  “Please forgive me for contradicting you,” said Felicia with excessive sweetness, “But The Vampyre was written by Lord Byron’s physician, Dr Polidori. I know a gentleman who met them both.”

  “Really? No doubt you’re right. Not much of a literary man myself.”

  “She reads too much,” mumbled Callender, but he was ignored.

  “And take the ghouls,” continued Stone.

  “What?” demanded Callender.

  “Ghouls. Not the kind we have here, not grave robbers exactly. The Indian ghouls are creatures who tear open graves and, well, they feast on what they find there.”

  “How horrible.” Aunt Penelope shuddered cheerfully.

  “Isn’t it? Of course, we eat dead things ourselves, don’t we? I hope the sheep who provided this excellent mutton has gone to its reward, eh?”

  “Oh, Mr Stone,” laughed Aunt Penelope. “You’re a wicked, wicked man.”

  “What’s all this talk of robbing graves?” Reginald Callender was on his feet, a brimming glass of brandy in his hand. “You see what she does?” he shouted. “She turns us all into ghouls!” He whirled to face Felicia, and the brandy splashed over the front of her gown.

  “Damn!” shouted Callender. He snatched up a napkin and applied it vigorously to her bodice.

  “Your hands, sir!” cried Felicia.

  “Mr Callender!” gasped Aunt Penelope.

  “My word!” said Nigel Stone.

  Felicia Lamb jumped up and gathered her skirts around her. “I believe it’s time that we were all in bed,” she announced. Her ordinarily pale face was flushed a hot pink.

  “Fine!” roared Callender. “Let’s all go together!”

  Felicia, her head held high, swept from the room. Callender laughed harshly and sat back into his chair, barely conscious of his surroundings.

  “Oh dear,” said Aunt Penelope.

  “Time to go home, old fellow,” said Stone, pulling the comatose Callender to his feet. “My apologies, Miss Penelope. He took our uncle’s death very hard.”

  “Goodnight, Mr Stone. I hope you will call on us again.”

  “Nothing would please me more,” said Stone, grunting over the weight of his burden as he backed toward the door. “Good night.”

  Almost before he knew it, Nigel Stone was in the street. He might as well have been at sea. The thick, yellow fog made London look like a spirit world, one in which the misty glow of the street lamps revealed nothing but their own iridescence. His cousin was on his feet, but not much more. They had walked to dinner from Uncle William’s house, and Stone knew that it could not be far away, but he was a bit worse for the wine himself, and not really sure of his bearings.

  He longed for a cab, and he wondered how lost he was. Callender said “Sally” several times, but this only confused his cousin more.

  Helping Callender across an intersection, Nigel Stone heard a horse snorting, and he dragged his burden back to a spot only a few feet from Felicia Lamb’s house. Later, he convinced himself that he hadn’t spoken to the driver because he realized they hadn’t the money to hire a ride. What really decided him, though, before he even thought of his purse, was the sinister look of the driver. He was gaunt and pale, with dark hollows for eyes, and down the left side of his face ran a horrible scar.

  VII. The Bride of Death

  Felicia Lamb heard the old clock downstairs strike midnight before she thought it safe to rise from her curtained bed and begin to dress. It took her some time to prepare herself, but she was determined to do everything with exquisite care, for this was to be her ultimate rendezvous with the unknown.

  She held neither lamp or candle when she slowly pulled open the door of her bed chamber and slipped out into the dark hall, but she had lived in this house all her life, and had no need of light to show her the way. Her only fear was that she might be detected, and that her aunt or even the servants might try to protect her from what could be considered danger, but which she knew she had desired from the day of her birth. So that she could be sure of silence, her feet were bare.

  She tiptoed quickly down the carpeted staircase, her hand resting heavily on the bannister so that her tread would be light, then walked confidently through the hallway toward the door that led to the world beyond the home of her father and mother. She felt for the bolt, moved it with a practiced hand, and opened the door. Yellow fog drifted in to meet her and she stepped out into its embrace. She pulled the iron key from her bosom and locked the house behind her so that all within it might be safe. Then she stepped out into the shrouded street, wrapping her hooded cloak around her.

  The coach was where she was told it would be waiting. Neither she nor the driver spoke a word, and the hooves of the horses had been muffled. There was hardly a sound to disturb the sleep of London as the coach rolled unerringly through the impenetrable mist.

  Felicia still held the key clutched tightly in her fingers, but when her conveyance had rounded several corners, she threw her key into the gutter. It would never be recognized, and she did not intend to use it again.

  She sat back quietly and waited to reach her destination, not even bothering to glance out the windows until the horses came to a smooth stop. She alighted without a moment’s hesitation and stood almost blinded in thick clouds that might have been born in heaven or hell. A figure materialized beside her, almost as if it had drawn its substance from the fog; it guided her through a doorway and into darkness. Something shut behind her.

  The two moved forward together, through a passageway which held at its end a globe of luminescence. Felicia felt that she was in a dream. The light resolved itself into a glowing ball of crystal, resting on an ebony table with chairs at either end, and casting its pale yellow light on an all-encompassing shroud of black velvet curtains. She was in the consulting room of Sebastian Newcastle, and he stood at her side.

  He moved away from her and seated himself at the far end of the table, his face aglow in sickly light. “Will you not remove your cloak and sit with me, Miss Lamb?”

  Felicia did neither. She was suddenly hesitant, suspicious. “Is this what you have promised me?” she said. “Only another seance?”

  “Might it not be better so? There is much you could learn as you are, and much more that you may not wish to know.”

  “Then you have lied to me, sir?”

  The light before Sebastian Newcastle’s face flickered and dimmed. “Will you not wait, Felicia? What you seek comes soon enough, and lasts forever.”

  “Another seance, then? Will you call upon the dead for me? Will you call the shade of anyone I name?”

  “I shall do what I can.”

  “Then call for me the spirit of a wizard. A master of the darkness, one who mastered death and reckoned not the price. Call for me the spirit of your double, Don Sebastian de Villanueva. Can you do it, Mr Sebastian Newcastle? Do you dare?”

  “I can. But do you dare to let me?”

  “Have I not asked it of you?”

  “You have,” he said. “You have asked
too often to be denied. And yet the blame will be all mine.”

  “I absolve you,” said Felicia Lamb.

  “Spoken like the angel you so fervently desire to be,” Sebastian said. His voice was almost brutal. “Will you do me the courtesy to sit down?”

  “You can hardly hope to frighten me with gruff tones when we have come so far,” Felicia said.

  “No. Nothing will frighten you but what you cannot change. And when that terror comes, will you be brave enough to bear it, or brave enough to put an end to it?”

  “Surely I shall be one or the other,” she replied as she seated herself at the table. “Shall we begin?”

  “I warn you because I care for you,” Sebastian said.

  “I believe it,” she said. “Now show me who it is that cares for me so much.”

  She reached out for his cold hand, but he drew back. He did not speak. He crossed his arms before his face, and the light in the crystal was snuffed out in an instant. The black room was entombed in ebony.

  Felicia stared ahead, her hand at her heart, more frightened than she would have admitted under torture. Something was about to happen, and she had longed for it, but she was half afraid that she would be ravished and murdered in the dark. Was that what she had demanded?

  She hoped for a vision, but instead she heard a voice. It might have been human, indeed it must have been human, but the low, echoing, senseless syllables sounded more like an animal in agony. It ended in a note that was a hollow song of pain.

  Sebastian’s face appeared abruptly in the gloom. The flesh glowed with the pale blue light of putrescence, and the flame of decay grew brighter until the features burned away and left only a gleaming silver skull beneath. It spoke to her.

  “What is worse than death, my love? Flee from it!”

  The mouth that moved was full of unnaturally sharp teeth that gleamed like swords. The skull screamed, and then burst into flame. A dull and rusted blade dropped from the ceiling and sundered the skull from whatever held it erect. The flashes of fire turned cold blue as it rolled across the table toward Felicia; the hollow sockets where its eyes had been bubbled up with globes of glistening jelly, while locks of black and silky hair sprouted from the burnished surface of the silver skull.