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

by Stephen Jones

  Then he was staring at the ceiling. His head throbbed with each repeated blow on the door downstairs, but Callender only cursed quietly and waited for the noise to stop. He wondered what day it was, and even if it were day at all. He raised one crusted eyelid and saw a stray shaft of sunlight break through the drawn curtains. Then he went back to sleep.

  The next time he was disturbed, there was no putting it off. Someone had him by the shoulders, and was shaking him more savagely than the aftermath of drink could ever do. A splash of cold water hit him in the face. Callender shouted, sputtered, and looked up into the ruddy face of his cousin.

  “God damn you, sir,” Callender roared. “Have you gone completely mad?”

  “You call me mad, do you? It’s Monday morning. Where have you been for four days, eh? Do you know what’s happened to the girl you’re going to marry?”

  “What? Sally?”

  “Who’s Sally? What are you talking about? I mean Miss Lamb!”

  “Felicia. Of course. I went to see her . . . when was it? But the servants said that she was not at home to me.”

  “She wasn’t at home to anyone, my dear fellow. She has been missing for the best part of a week.”

  Callender pulled himself into a sitting position. “How long has she been gone?”

  “Since last Thursday. The night we had dinner at her house. The night I came to visit you.”

  “It’s been a short enough visit, then, hasn’t it? Where have you been ever since? And where’s that bottle? My head!”

  Callender felt under his bed and came up with what he sought.

  “I thought you’d finished all the brandy,” Stone said.

  “So I did. But there’s plenty of port. And now there’s cause to celebrate as well. Felicia could never have read that letter, could she?”

  “Letter? What letter?”

  “A note from someone who wanted to drive us apart. Hasn’t anyone seen it?”

  “Who cares for letters at a time like this?” demanded Stone.

  “No, of course not.” Callender took a drink of wine. “And you say Felicia’s gone?”

  “Well, we did have some word of her.”

  “We?”

  Stone’s face turned a bit redder. “I’ve been with her aunt. Miss Penelope. She’s terribly concerned, of course.”

  “Oh? You’ve been busy. The wealthy niece is missing, and all at once you’re lodging in an elegant house with her spinster aunt.”

  “I’m doing what should have been done by you,” Stone replied defensively. “Have you been locked in this empty house for all these days?”

  “Of course I’ve been here,” said Callender. “Where else would I have been?”

  “That’s what I decided, finally, even though those fellows from Scotland Yard were here more than once and said there wasn’t a soul about.”

  Callender nearly dropped his bottle, and after he caught it he took a long drink. “Scotland Yard?”

  “We naturally called them in when we couldn’t find the girl, and they just as naturally sought to make inquiries of the man she’s going to marry. I think they were a bit suspicious of you until they got some information.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Callender. He sagged back on the bed. “Then I’m not suspected.”

  “Of course not! Look here, cousin, what’s wrong with you? You don’t seem to care what’s happened to Felicia. Don’t you want to hear what’s become of her? She’s been seen.”

  Stone paced indignantly across the room while Callender attempted to collect his thoughts. “Then she’s safe?” he asked.

  “I suppose you could say that, according to the law, but if you ask me I’d say she was in mortal danger. She was seen with that man Newcastle.”

  Callender leaped from the bed, still half dressed in trousers and a soiled shirt. “Newcastle!” he shouted. He grasped his cousin by the collar and stared wildly into his eyes. “What has he done with her?”

  “I don’t know, I’m sure,” said Stone as he disengaged himself. “But the constables said she was wearing what she called a wedding gown.”

  “Didn’t they stop her? Didn’t they take her away with them? My God!”

  “Well. They said there was no law against a girl getting married if she had a mind, or taking a walk with her husband in the night air, if it came to that. Even if it was in a graveyard. And I think he did something to frighten them.”

  Callender snatched up a coat that had been thrown over a chair and began to rummage through its pockets. Half of a broken walking stick rattled to the floor, but he ignored it. At last he found a bedraggled little book and waved it at his cousin with an air of triumph. He sat down heavily in the chair and began turning pages with intense concentration. “He’s done for me,” he muttered. “And now I’ll do for him.”

  “Look here, Reggie,” began Stone.

  “Be quiet, you fool! Can’t you see I’m reading?”

  “I can see I’m no use here,” said Stone, more baffled than ever when he saw his cousin reach down for the broken stick and clutch it triumphantly. “I’ll let myself out. When you come to your senses, if you do, perhaps you’ll do something to help us save Miss Lamb.”

  He strode from the room, and was halfway down the stairs when he heard Stone raving at him, or at the world.

  “Save her? I’ll save her! I’m the only one who can! I’m the only one who knows how!”

  Nigel Stone never looked back. He locked the front door behind him and stepped out into the afternoon, the first he had seen with even a touch of sun since his arrival in London. He was content to take it as an omen. Elopements there might be, or even abductions, and madness certainly, but what did they matter? He was on his way to meet Miss Penelope Lamb, and for his own part he was happy.

  A few minutes later, Reginald Callender came out of the same door and squinted into the same sunlight. His hair was disheveled, his cravat awry, his gait unsteady. He tried to hail a cab, but the first two drivers merely glanced at him and then passed by. A third pulled to a stop a few yards down the street, and Callender staggered after him. The cabman looked down from his perch.

  “Let’s see the color of your money before you climb aboard,” he said.

  Callender was obliged to go through his pockets once again. He pulled out Sally’s penny dreadful, one half of a broken stick and then the other. A small flask completed the catalog of his possessions.

  “Looks like you’ll be walking,” said the cabman as he trotted off.

  Callender hurled Varney the Vampire after the retreating cab. “I don’t need this anymore,” he screamed. “And I don’t need you!”

  He was suddenly aware that he had attracted the attention of several passersby, and that he was standing in the middle of a tranquil street wailing like a fishwife. He recognized a neighbor who had been accustomed to tip his hat but now looked ostentatiously away. Callender saw the two sharp sticks and the flask that he had been waving in the air. He thrust them back into his coat and hurried away.

  It was a long walk to All Souls Cemetery.

  Callender’s mind raced faster than his feet could carry him, but his thoughts ran in circles. He had lost everything: his fortune, his mistress, his bride, and her fortune too. The list ran through his mind like a litany, so that he began to suspect that he was losing his senses as well. In fact, he thought that he might welcome it if he could go completely mad, when his only alternative was to live in a world where he was besieged by devils.

  At least he knew who was to blame. Newcastle had even produced his uncle’s ghost, and by this time Callender was more than willing to believe that somehow the spiritualist had plundered his uncle’s estate as well. But Newcastle wasn’t a spiritualist, of course. He was a vampire.

  The explanation seemed so simple to Callender now. Hadn’t he heard Felicia holding forth on vampires just before she disappeared? Still, the one he really had to thank was Sally Wood, whose lurid little books on the subject had revealed not only
the cause of his troubles, but a remedy for them. And if not a remedy, then at least revenge. Callender felt a twinge of pity when he thought of Sally now; he wished he could have killed her quickly.

  His next killing would have to be quick whether he wished it or not. As he approached Newcastle’s house, he saw that the sun was low in the sky behind the trees of All Souls. Could it really be that the dead would rise soon?

  He hurried toward Sebastian Newcastle’s house, but what he saw there disturbed him even more than the setting sun. Before the entrance stood a man dressed in a long blue coat with brass buttons. Clearly the house was under the surveillance of Scotland Yard.

  Callender hesitated. His plan had been to ransack the place, find Newcastle’s undead corpse, and bury his broken cane in it, but this would hardly be possible under the circumstances. He might get some information from the constable on guard, but he hardly liked the idea of presenting himself to the law when he was a murderer himself. Should he risk it, or should he run?

  His mouth was dry. He found the flask in his pocket and drained most of the port; the rest of it spilled down the front of his coat. The drink gave him courage enough to approach the house, and find out what he needed to know. He made an effort to regain his dignity, walking very carefully as he approached the lair of his nemesis. He decided as he took the last few steps that aggression might be more effective than supplication.

  “What’s going on here?” he said. “Where’s Mr Newcastle?”

  “That’s what we’d like to know, sir. What’s your business with him?”

  “He’s eloped with my fiancee. Is that business enough?”

  “Are you Mr Callender? We’ve been wanting to talk to you. What do you know about all this?”

  “Nothing but what I’ve been told. I quarreled with Miss Lamb, about nothing really, and now I hear this man has spirited her away. Have you any word of her?”

  “No more than that, sir. She was seen with him once, in that graveyard yonder, but only then, and only for a moment.”

  “And have you searched the house?” demanded Callender.

  “From top to bottom, sir.”

  “Are you certain? This is a strange house, you know,” said Callender. “One night when I was here, the very walls seemed to dissolve into a fog.”

  “Indeed, sir! I’ve had nights like that myself. You seem to be having one now, if I may say so, and it ain’t even night yet.”

  Callender ran the back of his hand over his dry lips. “How would you feel?” he asked. “What would you do? If I find this man New-castle, I’ll kill him.”

  “Well, sir, as to that, if a man ran off with my old woman, I’d buy him a drink! Eh? We mustn’t take these things too serious.” The constable paused, and squinted at Callender as if seeing him for the first time. “You wouldn’t kill a lady, would you, sir?”

  Callender swallowed hard. “Whatever do you mean?” he stammered. “Of course not!”

  “Sometimes gentlemen lose their heads, in a manner of speaking. And Miss Lamb can’t be found, you know.”

  “You’re a fool,” said Callender, turning on his heel.

  “That’s as maybe, sir,” the constable shouted at Callender’s retreating back. “Will we find you at home, if something should turn up?”

  Callender hurried off without bothering to reply. He could hardly have controlled himself for another second, especially when the talk of killing women started. The man seemed to be an ignorant commoner, but who could tell?

  As he passed the cemetery once again, Callender noticed that the gates were open. He paused before them and peered in. This was where Felicia had been only a few hours before. If she and Newcastle were not in the house, might they not still be here? Callender entered All Souls.

  The place was peaceful in the twilight, almost like a park with its green grass and gently rolling hills. Birds sang in the trees and perched on figures of white marble. This was like a city of the dead, and Callender hardly knew which way to turn in it. Rows of effigies and headstones stretched in every direction; in the distance lay clusters of white mausoleums.

  Almost helplessly, he moved along the streets of marble toward his Uncle William’s tomb. There his torment had started; perhaps it would end there, too. He had a vision, half inspired by Sally’s cheap fiction, of rushing to that pale edifice and finding Felicia imprisoned there, the victim of a villain he could vanquish with one blow of his ebony stick. He longed to be a hero almost as much as he longed for another drink. He prayed to be free of his nightmare.

  When he reached his goal, however, he found an avenging angel posed before it. Sitting in front of his uncle’s final resting place was another man dressed in blue. His left hand was wrapped in bandages.

  “Mr Callender,” he said. “Paying your last respects?”

  “I don’t know you,” said Callender as he backed away.

  “We should be better acquainted, then. What brings you here this evening?”

  It took Callender some time to find his tongue. “I’m told Miss Lamb was seen here,” he finally said.

  “At this very spot? Who told you that? None of my men, I’ll warrant you.”

  “This is the only spot I know,” said Callender. “My uncle is interred behind you.”

  “I see. And does he lie alone?”

  “Is there someone else?” gasped Callender. “Felicia? Newcastle?”

  “Neither of those, sir,” said the chief constable.

  “Then where are they?”

  “We don’t know yet.” The chief constable stood up. “But we do know there are two bodies in that tomb that don’t belong there, both of them horribly mutilated. The bodies of two young boys. What do you make of that, Mr Callender, sir?”

  Callender backed away, almost convinced that this was another of his drunken dreams. The man from Scotland Yard just stared at him. Callender wheeled around and ran.

  Running suited him, Callender decided. His lungs rasped, his heart thumped, and his stomach churned, but he was leaving everything behind him. When he glanced back, the immobile man in blue had dwindled to a tiny figure, no more threatening than a toy soldier.

  Still, under darkening skies, Callender ran. He ran past monuments and mausoleums, through iron gates, then down streets where living men and women walked who scattered at the sight of him. He tumbled into the gutter once, and when he rose he was face to face with a lamp-lighter on his rounds. “So soon?” screamed Callender as he raced on.

  He knew that he must be home before night fell.

  He could hardly believe his good fortune when he reached the ugly, empty house that was his sanctuary. He fumbled for his key, and howled in agony when it was nowhere to be found. In panic, he pounded on the door, then to his amazement felt it open for him. Dimly he recalled that he had never had his key, and never locked the house. He slammed his door on the sunset and turned the bolt behind him. He was safe.

  Callender sank to his knees in the dark hallway. He was ruined, and he acknowledged it. He wandered through the hollow rooms while the last rays of the day died outside. He was on the verge of tears, and he hated himself for that. The tears might have been for Felicia Lamb, or for Sally Wood, or even for his Uncle William, but all these had betrayed him. Callender wept for himself.

  It made no difference.

  He beat his hands against bare walls; he cursed the universe. It did not care.

  At length his desolation brought him to himself, which was all that he had left to him. It was not enough. He could at least have a bottle to keep him company.

  In the last week he had learned the way to the wine cellar. He thought he might take residence there, among the dusty bottles and the crates of cloth his cousin had brought back from India. He could make a bed for himself in the worthless textiles, and the wine would be close at hand. The idea pleased him. He made his way through the kitchen, and the pantry, where he found the stub of a candle to light his way.

  The dark stairs were old friends to him, a
nd the dark vault that he had reached was refuge. He found the shelves where the old port rested, and picked the best vintage left to him. He broke the top off the bottle and poured the rich, red liquid down his throat. He had to spit out a chip of glass, but at least it had only cut his lip.

  He sat down in the dust and looked around. He drank again, but at the same time he noticed that something had been disturbed. One of the heavy boxes from India had been removed from the pile and set in the middle of the cellar. Its lid was loose.

  Callender approached it cautiously. He left the candle on the floor, to keep both hands free. And as soon as he touched the top of the box, it clattered to the stones below.

  There seemed to be nothing more inside than bolts of dyed cotton, but Callender was dissatisfied. He pulled the colored cloth aside. Beneath it was the face of Sebastian Newcastle.

  Callender was too stunned to relish the sight, but only for a moment. He had found the lair of the vampire in the foundations of his own house. Felicia might be anywhere, in any state, but at least her betrayer had betrayed himself. Callender chuckled at a clever ruse that had gone awry. No doubt the vampire had imagined himself ingeniously concealed; he had not realized that Callender’s thirst was as ravenous as his own. Callender tossed more cotton to the floor, and saw Sebastian Newcastle naked to the waist. The sight of this nude seducer drove him into a frenzy.

  There were shadows all around him, and Callender knew that the sun had set. He knew the monster might leap up and devour him. He pulled half of the broken cane out of his coat; one end was needle sharp. He needed something to strike the fatal blow, and he needed it at once. The heavy butt end of the wine bottle would do.

  Callender felt his own heart beating wildly, and this helped him to select the precise spot where he should strike. He placed the jagged point against the cold smooth skin. He smashed the shaft down with the heavy glass.

  The ebony ripped through the yielding flesh, and a high pitched wail was forced from the corpse’s lips, startling Callender into striking again and again. Each blow produced a delicate moan that made his skin crawl. The death agonies were uncanny. Something was wrong.