Thirst

by Pyotyr Kurtinski

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  He has lived, undead in time and space, master of darkness, servant to none.

  A soulless being cursed by the sunlight, exalted by the night’s embrace, he stalks his human prey with little danger or retribution.

  As old as evil, as wicked as sin, he has the power to strike as a bloodthirsty man or a vampire bat. And he will attack again and again, always hoping to quench his boundless … thirst.

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  Who is Pyotyr Kurtinski?

  Copyright

  One

  The giant bat flashed across the face of the moon at supersonic speed; then it swooped down to circle the silent castle standing high above the dark, wide river. The moment its claws touched the topmost tower of the castle, it was transformed into a man.

  A little later, William Van Diemen dipped his pen into the inkwell, preparing to write the first sentence of his autobiography, when the telephone rang. He looked at the instrument with distaste and let it ring. His book was not to be an autobiography in the usual sense. His intention was to write a selective account of his life, to set down his ideas, to reexamine his beliefs, and in that way to create a personal history. He had been thinking about the book for a very long time, and at last he was ready to begin. The telephone continued to ring, but he didn’t answer it. Still, he thought, it wasn’t as if he was pressed for time. He had all eternity—and perhaps longer. William Van Diemen was 218 years old, and he would live forever. He was a vampire.

  Van Diemen lay back in his chair and listened to the annoying jangle of the phone. He knew it could be no one other than his attorney, Bradford C. Wilcox, on the line. He’d make Wilcox wait. The lawyer wouldn’t hang up quickly, and then he’d try again in fifteen minutes. Van Diemen pushed a button and the importunate sound was replaced by a tiny red light that pulsed rather than flashed. The telephone was fitted with a scrambler device, and when Van Diemen answered, Brad and he could talk freely, confident that no one could listen in. So special was the telephone that no one could call Van Diemen without the right code. There was never a wrong number.

  The red light continued to pulse, so it seemed as if Bradford had something really important on his mind. Brad was a bit of an ass, but he was one of the best lawyers in New York City. He was shrewd, cautious, discreet, and rich enough to be honest, and if he ever wondered about Van Diemen’s peculiar lifestyle, he kept his questions to himself. Above all, he never asked irrelevant questions. If his reclusive client chose to conduct his business by scrambler telephone, so what? If his client refused to answer that telephone during the daylight hours, so what? Of course, the fees charged to the Van Diemen estate made Wilcox one of the biggest earners in his law firm.

  Finally, Van Diemen picked up the phone and said, “Good evening, Brad.”

  “Good evening, William,” Brad replied, then he went on without any preliminaries. “There’s been another offer for your property. I know you won’t sell at any price, but I think you should know about this offer.”

  Van Diemen sighed, already bored. His property consisted of an early nineteenth-century castle standing at the highest point on forty hilly acres. The estate overlooked the Hudson River in northern Riverdale in the borough of New York City called The Bronx. Geographically, Riverdale was part of Westchester County; politically, it was ruled by the city. Three centuries earlier, Dutch patroons and wealthy British merchants had lived there like royalty on their fine estates. After them had come American railroad and dry-goods millionaires wanting a place in the country. At present, in spite of some inevitable change, Riverdale, the safest and most exclusive district of the barbarous Bronx, was the favored residence of politicians, record company executives, high-ranking policemen, gangsters, and other members of the moneyed class.

  “What is so special about this latest offer?” Van Diemen asked. The silence had been peaceful in the library before the telephone had begun its clamor. The lights were shaded and soft.

  “It’s special because it was made by a lawyer named Jack Landau. He represents a number of real-estate speculators, some of them international. These are high-powered people, very large money.”

  Large Money. Van Diemen smiled. Bradford C. Wilcox, a sixth generation Wall Street lawyer, a partner in a firm that bore his family’s name, liked to use breezy expressions, and instead of speaking with an eastern-establishment accent, which would have been natural, he had chosen to growl the way Nelson Rockefeller did back in the days when the politician was running for office and trying to sound like a regular guy.

  “What makes Landau so different?” Van Diemen asked.

  Brad paused, putting his words together with care. “Landau is a very high-powered person himself. He has the reputation of getting things done, no matter what the obstacles.”

  “Is he a crook?” Vampire or not, Van Diemen subscribed to the popular belief that all lawyers were thieves except when there was more to be gained by being honest. And that practice in itself was dishonest.

  Even on a secure phone, Brad Wilcox balked at calling Landau a crook. A lawsuit could ruin him. “Landau was a friend and associate of Roy Cohn. You know who Roy Cohn was? All right. Does that answer your question?”

  “It will have to do. Should this knowledge cause me some concern?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Wilcox said hastily. “But I think you know what I mean?”

  Van Diemen was tolerant of his lawyer s ridiculous evasions, at least for the moment. That night’s feeding had been particularly satisfying. He had drunk his fill of rich red blood, and he felt its strength within him. Of course he knew who Roy Cohn was and the disgrace Cohn had brought to the legal profession. As a diligent and sometimes amused reader of the tabloids as well as the Times, Van Diemen even knew Jack Landau by name. Landau had been involved in some Roy Cohn scandal of yesteryear, but he’d managed to escape indictment.

  “You mean Landau is a heavy hitter?” Van Diemen said. He was familiar with the slang of two centuries, and he enjoyed reading of its origins and usage. Slang could be so expressive. “Do you have any idea who his client might be?”

  “I’m afraid not. The offer was made just this afternoon. But I’m working on it.”

  “It wouldn’t be Mr. Trump, by any chance?” Van Diemen was amused to think that Donald Trump might want to buy his property. Now there was a plump, well-nourished fellow.

  “I hardly think so,” Wilcox said. “Donald has enough on his plate right now: that West Side project, pressure from the banks. Still, it’s possible. As I said, I’m working on it.”

  “How much was the offer?”

  “Four million. A single payment in cash.”

  In cash—those magic words were meant to bedazzle. “That’s absurd. Four million for forty desirable acres and a castle in good working order.” Van Diemen smiled.

  “I told him so. But he said they didn’t want the castle. It’ll have to be demolished at considerable expense.”

  “Of course you told him the whole thing was out of the question. He’s wasting his time.”

  “That’s what I told him, William.”

  “Then why are you calling, Bradford?”

  “Because he was so insistent. He asked me to contact you as a courtesy to him.”

  Van Diemen thought Wilcox sounded a little tired, a little apprehensive, and it wasn’t like good old Brad to be anxious. A chub
by, comfortable forty-eight, a lover of golf and sailing and all the good things, he had rather a sunny nature, and Van Diemen liked him as much as he could like any mortal. Five years earlier, when Bradford III had died and Bradford IV had taken over the Van Diemen account, the lawyer had in his breezy way asked Van Diemen if he might call him Bill, while he would be pleased to be addressed as B.C. or Brad. Van Diemen hadn’t said no to that; he hadn’t said anything at all. However, bending a little, he had gone so far as to allow the lawyer to call him William, but he’d be damned to eternal sunlight before he’d use any abbreviation of the man’s name. It was all very tiresome, the sort of thing Americans worried about.

  “Bradford,” he said. “Can you give me any assurance that this is the last I will hear of Mr. Landau? It’s most important that you do.”

  Van Diemen meant what he said; his voice was sharp. Bradford should not have called him at all. His writing tools were laid out on the desk in front of him. The beautifully shaped quill pen, the stack of handmade paper, the blackest of India inks—all provided by the venerable Boston stationery company that had served him over the years. He wanted to be done with this real-estate nonsense.

  “I’ll tell Landau that you won’t even consider this offer or any other,” Wilcox said. “But I can’t guarantee that he won’t try to contact you by mail. I have no control over that.”

  What was wrong with the man? So careful, so evasive, Van Diemen started to think he was frightened. And that didn’t suit him at all. Bradford C. Wilcox was part of the power establishment of New York, the so-called secret rulers of the city: the bankers and the lawyers who told the mayor what to do. Some of that nonsense was true, or true enough, so what was bothering the chubby yachtsman? The answer was simple and obvious: Landau was bothering Wilcox or, more to the point, the men Landau represented.

  Wilcox was waiting for Van Diemen to say something. “Exercise what control you can, Bradford. Tell Mr. Landau that I want nothing to do with him—absolutely nothing. I don’t care if he offers four hundred million instead of four.”

  “He won’t do that,” the lawyer said.

  “Please allow me to finish,” Van Diemen said. It was time to let Bradford know who was boss. Usually that wasn’t necessary; now it was. “Tell Mr. Landau that if he writes, his letters will be disregarded. Tell him that if he makes a nuisance of himself he will be reported—by you— to the grievance committee of the bar association.”

  Wilcox made a sort of barking sound, so unlike his usual hearty guffaw. “I’m sure you don’t want it to go that far. Anyway, the grievance committee knows all about Landau and his pushiness. So I don’t know how much good it would do. People are always making complaints against Jack Landau, but nothing has ever come of it.”

  “I am not people, Bradford.”

  “Of course not. Let me talk to Landau and explain your position. If he writes in spite of that, just forward the letters to me. No need to get the bar association involved in this. Let’s hope he won’t bother you after I’ve explained things to him. Keep in mind that, if you make a complaint, even through me, you will have to appear in person at some point. And I know how much you hate to leave your splendid isolation.”

  “I’m perfectly willing to appear if it’s necessary.” Van Diemen smiled at the lie. It wasn’t true, as people believed, that a vampire couldn’t go out in the daylight without being destroyed by the rays of the sun. But night was his natural element, the time when he became truly alive. To sit in a stuffy hearing room and be questioned by some wretched lawyer was unthinkable, though not impossible.

  “I think you’re making too much out of this,” Wilcox said, offering as much resistance as he dared. “Landau is a pushy Jew, but that’s how they are. Don’t take it too seriously.”

  Van Diemen had great respect for the Jews and their scholarship. When he was a boy in Amsterdam, so long ago, a cluttered bookshop run by an ancient Jew had been one of his favorite haunts. Anti-Semitism in any form was distasteful to him.

  “Anything that threatens my privacy must be taken seriously,” he said. “All I’m asking is that you keep this man off my back.”

  “Ha-ha,” Wilcox barked. It always surprised him when William Van Diemen was anything less than formal. “I’ll get on it first thing in the morning. You want me to call you back?”

  “No,” Van Diemen said. “Good night, Bradford.”

  It was such a relief to put down the phone, to cut off all communication with the outside world. Van Diemen was no stranger to the world beyond the walls of his estate; indeed, there wasn’t a night that he didn’t go out. He had to in order to survive. Let a day, rather a night, pass without feeding on the blood of some victim, and he would become weak and listless. That hadn’t happened for nearly two hundred years, since he’d first become a vampire, and unless he suffered some unimaginable catastrophe, it would never happen.

  Van Diemen picked up his pen, knowing it would take some time to regain the concentration he needed to write. Damn Bradford C. Wilcox! Damn the telephone! He had looked forward to such a pleasant night. It had been planned in such an orderly way. He was a Dutch vampire, after all, so he liked things to be orderly. Wanting to get his night’s feeding out of the way, he had gone out a little earlier than usual. Out over the city he’d flown, at a speed that made him invisible. People might sense the presence of something frightening, something beyond their capacity to understand, yet they could not see him until once again he assumed the shape of man. By then, of course, it was too late.

  The plump Puerto Rican had been so surprised to find someone standing beside him on what a moment before had been an absolutely deserted street. A short, narrow avenue in the best part of Riverdale, cobblestoned and overhung by trees, dark where the streetlights didn’t penetrate the shadow of the trees. The few big houses on both sides of the street stood on their own grounds, and they had the look of money.

  Van Diemen could understand the Hispanic lad’s wanting to break into one of them, but hadn’t the punk heard about the silent and loud alarms, the snarling dogs, the sudden lights that would brighten the area like a thousand suns?

  Startled though he was, he had shown some presence of mind. “’Scuse me, sir,” he said. “I am lost.”

  “You’re lost all right,” Van Diemen had said before springing at him.

  The young housebreaker was strong, but Van Diemen was stronger. His need to feed was more pressing than the felonious youth’s will to live. The kid knew he was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. Van Diemen’s sharp teeth sank into his jugular and he clamped his mouth over the wound before the rush of blood could stain his clothes. With the plump body pinned against a tree, Van Diemen drank his fill before he let the dying youth slump to the ground. When a car with its high-beams on turned into the street, Van Diemen disappeared.

  Shaking off the sweet memory, he dipped his pen in ink. He drew an elaborate headstone with the name Landau chiseled into its face. Irritated by what he found himself doing, he stuck the pen back in the inkwell, threatening to break its delicate point. Instinct told him the business with Landau wasn’t going to end with a firm refusal. Wilcox’s nervousness told him that, if nothing else, there was trouble ahead, but for the moment all he could do was wait and see what shape it came in.

  Van Diemen was a vampire, a being possessed of extraordinary powers. Unfortunately, none of these powers enabled him to foretell the future. Once he knew what he had to face, however, he would take decisive action, untroubled by fear of the law or the pangs of conscience. Best of all, he was free of the fear of death—a sleeping and waking nightmare that haunted most of mankind. Immortality was the great advantage he had over the most formidable enemies who might seek to disrupt his tranquil life, his pleasant, uneventful existence. He could kill anyone he decided to kill, while he himself could not be killed. That wasn’t completely true, of course. A vampire could be killed by fire if his enemies were clever enough, quick enough, and especially daring
enough to seize and overpower him. A vampire could be killed by prolonged exposure to strong sunlight, but then what man or mortal could not. None of that would ever happen.

  No longer fretful, Van Diemen began to write.

  My name is William Van Diemen—a Dutch name, of course. My first name was Willem in Amsterdam, Holland, where I was born on 4 July 1776, which makes me 218 years old; and if my birth date does not make me a Yankee Doodle Dandy, like Mr. Cohan of song-and-dance fame, it does have an American ring. But I am no flag-waver or super patriot, and I do not love the United States or the country of my birth. A vampire had no country, but I do have a special regard, a sort of affection for the United States. It is truly the freest country in the world. A vampire needs as much freedom as possible—freedom from nagging officialdom, all the restraints and restrictions, the police permits and identity papers of the Old World. I came to America in 1799, when I was twenty-three years old, and it has been my home ever since. I had been a vampire for seven months at the time of my arrival in the raw, young republic.

  I was the only son of Cornelius Van Diemen, an Amsterdam banker of uncertain fortunes, a toady of a man immensely proud of his wealthy relatives in America. The Hudson River Van Diemens, as they were called, were a tight-knit clan of bankers, lawyers, ship-owners, landowners, and merchants. Despite their contempt for the British, who had shattered their dream of a Greater Holland Beyond The Seas, they had remained neutral, or as neutral as the times permitted, during the Revolutionary War, from which they emerged wealthier than before. The head of the family at that time was Jacobus Van Diemen, richest of them all, a man of advanced years who had retired to his grand estate far up the river. Away to the west of the river were the Kaatskill (now Catskill) Mountains, blue and purple when the weather was fair, fog shrouded when it was not. The more fanciful of the early Dutch settlers called them the Fairy Mountains.

  But I am getting ahead of my story. Let us go back to the Amsterdam of 1799. My father, then suffering the worst of his business reverses, had for years been in correspondence with old Jacobus Van Diemen, who had in extreme age become estranged from the majority of his clan. When Jacobus suggested that what the effete American Van Diemens needed was an infusion of new blood—specifically me—my father was only too glad to be rid of me.