Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “I thought so,” she said. “You’re one of the vampires.”

  “You could be too, my dear,” I replied, throwing all of my charm and the full force of my will behind the words. “I can make you immortal, a creature of the night, eternal and powerful.”

  Telzey made a disgusted face.

  “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I can’t really see spending all eternity living like a dog tick, thank you.”

  “It’s not like that!” I protested. “My dark kiss will make you my bride. We will hunt the night together, remaining young, powerful and beautiful forever. My kind are not like the cattle all around you. We’re the only ones who are truly alive. Join me and no dark pleasure will be denied you.”

  “No, thank you!” she said. “Living off of other people’s misery and death sounds beastly. Besides, you vampires have frightful breath.”

  I had to admit, given the choice, I would have made the same decision. Vampire life is not as glamorous as the Elders like to make it sound. Our society is a parade of self-absorbed tedium. broken occasionally by pretentious cruelty. All things considered, I had much more fun as a Cossack.

  “Do you really believe in that symbol?” I asked indicating the cross. “I ask because you seem more the scientific sort of person than religious.”

  “The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” she replied. “I know plenty of scientific people who believe in some sort of higher power.”

  It seemed to me that she didn’t seem to be including herself in that group, so I decided to take a chance. I lunged at her, intent on slapping the cross away and making her my prisoner.

  Before I could grab her, Telzey touched a button on the side of the holy symbol. It began to glow with a deep blue light and I felt as if my skin was on fire. I fell backwards and tried to scramble away.

  “It’s ultra-violet,” she explained. “That’s the part of the Sun’s spectrum that the Doctor told me affects the undead. I don’t want to hurt you. If you’ll promise to be my prisoner, I’ll shut this off.”

  “I promise!” I croaked.

  As soon as she turned the light off, I threw one of my shoes at her. It was the sort of tactic that Vseslav considered beneath a vampire’s dignity, but I couldn’t think of anything dignified that would work. I knocked the cross from her hand.

  I was on my feet in an instant and caught the girl’s shoulders.

  “I’m not going to bite you,” I said. “I just need to take you with me.”

  “I don’t think so!”

  The new voice came from a large, dark-complexioned peasant who had come up behind me while I was preoccupied. I let my eyes flash green and showed him my fangs. That is usually enough to send would-be rescuers running off into the night. Unfortunately, this man didn’t look impressed.

  “Maciste!” Telzey cried with obvious delight.

  “I’ll warn you once,” the big man said. “Let the girl go and I’ll let you leave.”

  He looked as strong as a bull, but the Elders are all in agreement, brute strength is useless against the undead. I shot out my right hand and caught his throat in a steely grip.

  Maciste still didn’t look impressed. With no apparent effort, he tore my hand free, breaking the bones of my forearm in the process. That was painful, but a vampire can repair damage like that in a few moments. Unfortunately, before I could heal myself, the big man reached out and broke my other arm in two places.

  I bared my fangs defiantly. Maciste responded by shoving a ham-sized fist against my face. The impact tossed me backwards and damaged the stone wall. I tried to stand up, but found I didn’t have the strength. I settled for spitting out a few teeth. They would grow back, but I would be a laughing stock without my left fang until then.

  Fortunately, Maciste was ignoring me for the moment while he checked on the girl. I heard her thank him and say that she hadn’t been in any real danger. That stung my pride but it also gave me the impetus to struggle to my feet. I loped away, my mouth bleeding and my arms dangling uselessly. It was humiliating, but at least I was free.

  I rounded the corner of the inn and nearly collided with the Captain and old Solomon. The younger man drew his curved sword with a smooth motion. I felt a quick bite of pain in my neck as the blade passed through. The next thing I knew, my head was bouncing along the cobblestones.

  I realized that the worst was yet to come.

  I–which is to say my head–was tucked under Maciste’s arm. This gave me a good view of the Captain and Solomon stuffing my body into a gilded coffin. I struggled as best I could but controlling one’s arms and legs is considerably more difficult when one is not attached to them.

  “Please tell me again, why are we doing this?” the Captain asked. “This is my coffin after all.”

  “When a vampire is gravely wounded, it is compelled to travel to Selene,” the Doctor answered. “Our friend here will take us with him.”

  I tried to say something, but no words came out.

  “What do we do with this?” the big man asked, holding my head out like a ball. “Shall I tuck it in the coffin?”

  “Let me have it,” said the hunchback. “I would like to perform some experiments to determine the most effective means of killing his kind.”

  “Doctor!” Telzey gasped. “That’s inhuman.”

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” the old man said. “We aren’t going to kill this vampire, or even experiment on him. We’re best served keeping head and body separate for the moment, but we won’t be cruel. I think I can even make something that will allow him to speak.”

  The Doctor’s invention was a squat cylinder with a place to mount my head on top. When I spoke. it would release a stream of air across my vocal cords. I tested it by hurling all of the worst Cossack curses at my captors. When I calmed down, I told them my name and agreed to be their guide to Selene in return for the Doctor’s promise that he would restore me to my body and set me free. I felt slightly embarrassed about my lack of loyalty to my own kind. I consoled myself with the thought that I would betray the Doctor and his group just as happily.

  Doctor Grost, as the little man with the bent back was called, was unhappy with this arrangement.

  “You can’t let him go!” he shouted. “He is a vampire and will surely kill again.”

  “The Doctor is right my friend,” the Captain said. “By releasing one, we gain the chance to kill many.”

  “Is that your purpose?” I asked. “To slay everyone in the Vampire City?”

  “Would that it were,” the Puritan replied.

  “We’re going to recover a piece of technology that belongs to me,” the Doctor said. “That is, it comes from the same... the same group of which I am a member. It is a chronon nodal point generator.”

  “A what?”

  “It is a component for a time-travel device,” he explained. “Have you ever wondered how it is a normal clock will chime 13, 14, 15 times and all the way up to 24 when vampires are present?”

  I shook my head.

  “Logically,” he continued, “vampires must either have some power that affects clocks–which would be absurd–or which affects the nature of time. Using the chronon nodal point generator, they can converge two parallel streams of time. When they do this, things seem to double. You hear twice as many chimes, not because the clock is defective, but because the chimes occur in two separate time streams. I believe this is also the technology that allows vampires to make doppelgangers of themselves and their victims.”

  I felt like shrugging but was deprived of shoulders.

  “I just thought it was one of the odd things vampires do,” I said. “Like the ability to float upriver, feet first.”

  “If all goes as planned, it is a trick they will not have much longer,” he replied.

  The trip was not terribly pleasant, though Telzey made me as comfortable as she could. The others mostly ignored me, except for Grost. When no one was looking, he would poke me with silver pins, or dab garlic juice on my skin,
or some such thing.

  One evening Solomon, Grost, the Captain and Telzey came to get my opinion on a matter they had been debating.

  “What are the origins of your people?” the Captain asked. “Are you a lost race of man which traces its origins back to Lilith or to Cain?”

  “I contend that you are human beings afflicted with disease microbes of some sort,” the hunchback said. “The disease changes you into bloodthirsty fiends who cannot abide sunlight.”

  “I say you are humans who have been condemned by God for your sinful ways,” Solomon added. “Though I have also heard you may be a servitor race created by the Old Ones who ruled the Earth in times primordial.”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “Well, what do you think?” Grost demanded. “Vampires must have some idea of their own origins.”

  “I have heard the Elders say that the Moon is the fatherland of vampires.”

  “What does that mean?” the Captain asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It sounds like something the Doctor once told me,” Telzey offered. “He said that the vampires come from a different planet. When they spread through the universe, they founded a scientifically-advanced colony on the Moon where they were ruled by three powerful and malicious space gods. After many millennia, one of the Moon-vampires used the chronon nodal point generator to revolt against the gods. The entities retaliated by stripping away the Moon’s atmosphere. Most of the vampires were killed and the survivors were forced to flee to Earth. They built their city, and named it Selene in memory of their lost homeland.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “That was what he said,” she replied, “but I don’t remember if that applies to this time-stream or to another.”

  After a time, all of them drifted off to bed, except for the Captain who was on watch.

  “I’ve told you what I know of my origins,” I said. “It seems only fair that you tell me of yours?”

  “Your kind murdered my family,” he responded. “Now I live to kill them.”

  “What of the Doctor and Miss Amberdon?”

  “Travelers in the Aether.”

  “And Solomon?”

  “Cursed.”

  “That’s rather vague.”

  “He believes that he’s doomed to live until he can kill the Queen of all vampires.”

  “Ah! And what of Maciste?”

  “He’s the strongest man in the world.”

  “I wouldn’t care to argue the point,” I admitted, “but how did he come to be so strong?”

  The Captain shrugged and took a puff of his cigar.

  “He was born that way, I suppose,” the Captain said. “All I know is that he’s always used his strength to fight for the common folk. He is said to have turned back the Mongols...”

  “The Mongols?” I interrupted. “But that was 700 years ago!”

  He shrugged.

  “I suppose you’ll tell me that he also is cursed with immortality?”

  The Captain smiled at my sarcasm and offered me a puff. I accepted but didn’t particularly care for the cigar. Not having access to my lungs might have had something to do with that.

  “Perhaps he simply rises from the Earth when his strength is needed,” the Captain suggested.

  “Captain,” I said, “your stories remind me of a man I met once. His name was Munchausen.”

  “I’m not so great a liar as that,” he said with a grin, “and you, Yvgeny–one who lives in a city of vampires–shouldn’t be so skeptical.”

  We passed through Semlin and started up the Danube on the old road to Peterwardein. During the day, my head was kept in a metal cylinder to protect it from the Sun so I couldn’t see the lush vegetation give way to grey bleakness, nor the gradual darkening of the day.

  On the other hand, I could feel the oppressive gloom that surrounds Selene, and the strange sense that each step towards our goal left us farther away. I felt, rather than saw, the total darkness that suddenly enfolded the group.

  “Keep moving!” I cried, fearing what would become of me if they stopped. After several moments, I felt a change. We had arrived.

  It took the group a little while to remember to take me out of my canister. This is understandable for the city is more fabulous than anything built by the hands of mortals and they were awestruck.

  Selene is designed like a wheel, with six broad avenues radiating out from a central hub. The vast bulk of the city is composed of tombs to put King Mausolus to shame, but the center is more spectacular still. A columned peristile which surrounds the great courtyard is filled with statues. These are made from the petrified bodies of beautiful maidens taken from the outer world. I heard young Telzey gasp with pity and Maciste growl angrily, and guessed that they had seen the look of helpless terror on the face of one of these. (In all honesty, I agree with them that the statues are in poor taste.)

  In the center of the courtyard stands the vast tower which is the temple and ruling palace of the vampire race. It is taller than any human structure I’ve ever seen.

  “How grand!” I heard the Captain breathe. “And the architecture is like that of Cathay and Japan.”

  “It seems to me more like the palaces of old Carthage,” Maciste responded.

  “No,” came Solomon’s voice. “ ’Tis more like the cyclopean structures of the lost city of Negari in Africa, or perhaps the Tower of Babel.”

  “Doctor!” Telzey’s voice was filled with wonder. “This looks like the architecture of Lessur...”

  “All illusions!” the old man replied. “The distortions of time and space shape this place to our expectations. It’s part of the effect of the chronon nodal point generator. That’s why it’s always night here, even when it’s only a little before noon outside. That is also why the air is so still and the water of the fountains is frozen in place. We exist between seconds of time.”

  His voice was interrupted by the tolling of a bell which seemed to come from the very air.

  “Hurry!” the Doctor snapped. “We must get inside the tower before the 24th stroke!”

  I found myself jostled uncomfortably as Maciste threw the coffin with my body over one shoulder and tucked the can holding my head under the other arm. The bell tolled 13 more times before we came to a halt.

  “Open the casket!” the Doctor commanded. A moment later, I found myself lifted from the container and set back on my own shoulders at long last. Though I was weakened from lack of blood, it was only a moment before I knit my parts back together.

  I saw that we were inside the atrium of the tower on the ground floor. The building was made of porphyry, as translucent as amber and tinted a delicate green. In the center of the room was a dome of obsidian, as round as a colossal pearl and pulsing with a faint light.

  “Open it, Yvgeny!” the Doctor commanded. “Hurry!”

  “How?” I cried.

  “If the blood of a vampire is spilled on the altar, it will open!”

  By now the bells had tolled 19 times. At 24, the city would awaken. If I stalled, the vampires would overwhelm them and I would have saved my city. Of course, I would also be tortured for the next millennium or so as punishment for having led them here in the first place.

  On the other hand, if I refused the Doctor’s command, these vampire hunters would gladly find a different way to spill my blood.

  I gashed my hand with my good fang and let the blood dribble onto the black surface. The fluid soaked into the stone like water into a sponge. A crack opened and the two halves of the dome rolled away to reveal a shining device floating over a deep shaft.

  “Stop!”

  All of us turned at the sound of the voice and saw the Lord and Lady of Selene as they entered. Baron Iscariot was regal in his robes of black. Baroness Phryne was bewitching in her daring cloak of scarlet.

  I slid down behind one half of the dome and hoped that they hadn’t noticed me.

  Outside the tower, the undead had awakened and were ra
llying to the call of their rulers. The air was alive again, the water in the fountains was flowing, and I could sense the door of every tomb in the city opening. Outside the tower, we could see the shadowy army advancing.

  “Dear guests,” the Baroness’ musical voice rang out. “Do not desecrate our holy altar. Throw down your weapons and let us welcome you.”

  They say that, in life, Phryne was a courtesan whose loveliness no man could resist. That beauty, combined with the powers of a vampire queen, made her too much for even these vampire killers. They stared, their minds empty of all thoughts except her.

  “Don’t listen to her!” Telzey cried. Though not fully immune to the Baroness’ beauty, women tend not to be as powerfully affected, and Telzey had mental defenses of her own. She ran from one to another of her companions, trying to shake them out of their trance.

  “Doctor! Captain! Maciste! Please come to your senses.”

  It was old Solomon who responded. He shook his head as if to clear it.

  “This place is Babylon indeed,” he growled, “and you are its scarlet woman!”

  He stamped his staff on the ground and a wave of green light swept through the room. When it struck the Baron and Baroness, their beauty melted away, leaving two mummified horrors. With the illusion gone, the Baroness’ spell was broken and the men came to their senses.

  “Hold them off!” the Doctor cried. “I only need a few moments to remove the device.”

  Solomon raised his staff high and charged at Phryne. Powerful as she was, she did not want that weapon to strike her. With inhuman speed, she eluded him, laughing all the while.

  The Baron took a more direct approach. He transformed himself into a wolf, as huge and terrible as my master Vseslav. He lunged at the Doctor, but the Captain stepped between them, firing silver bullets from both pistols. The Baron howled in pain but he still moved. The vampire killer drew rapier and katana and advanced on him.

  Maciste hoisted a half-ton slab of the greenish stone and used it to push back the vampires in the entryway. Grost followed him with a brace of pistols and a flask of holy water to deal with any who slipped past.