Verse of the Vampyre

by Diana Killian

Her death might have appeared to be the result of a violent impulse except for the detail of the vampire bite. That mutilation implied planning, but surely more lay behind her murder than the wish to make it look like a vampire was running amuck in Innisdale?

  One thing for sure, it was obvious that Theresa was not the random victim of a maniac.

  “If someone is trying to sabotage the play,” Grace said, breaking into the others’ conversation, “who do you think it is?”

  Catriona and her spouse exchanged a strange look.

  “The old witch herself,” Catriona said.

  “Miss Coke?”

  Catriona laughed. “Not that old witch. Lady Vee.” She mimicked Lady Vee’s ultraposh accent. “Lady Venetia Brougham, my deah!”

  Fog damped out the sun, sponging all color from the landscape. The occasional tree or signpost appeared like a ghost, then vanished. The scarlet and black jackets of the field were vivid against the twilight world the Innisdale Pack rode through.

  It was a smaller field than previously, subdued in spirit. Even the hounds seemed irresolute, starting, then abandoning, one trail after another.

  Grace noticed that the chief constable was not present—off hunting bigger game, no doubt.

  She controlled the mare’s eager tugging against the bit. The hounds were still uncertain, casting near and far, whining in frustration. The mare tossed her head, snaffle bit jingling.

  “Easy, girl,” Grace murmured, and Allegra, riding a few feet away, glanced at her sharply. In this gray void a snapping twig was as loud as a shot.

  Everyone was on edge. Even Catriona looked surprisingly solemn. Sir Gerald looked ill, Grace thought. His face was puffy, and there were bags beneath his bloodshot eyes. Well, that was why she had chosen to ride: to see how those most closely connected to Theresa were taking her death.

  The hounds broke into a lope, and the rest of the pack cantered after, crossing a broad empty pasture. Grace was dimly aware of other riders as the field spread out around her, though they did not appear to have a line yet.

  The miles melted away. The mist separated into patches of autumn sunlight and blue sky. The checkerboard fields of a farm loomed into view.

  Mallow, Grace realized. They were nearing the property of the late Sam Jeffries.

  And then one of the hounds gave voice. The others joined in, and they were off in full cry, racing across the land followed by the tattoo of drumming hooves.

  “Yoi over!”

  Far ahead, Grace saw the fox slip under a fence. The hounds poured after in flashes of white and brown. A rider cantered up to the gate, unlatching it, while other riders sailed over the fence. The less daring or “hilltoppers” filed through the gate.

  Grace spotted a clear stretch and guided the mare toward it. Feeling the animal’s approval, she kicked her forward. The mare flew at the fence as though she had wings. They landed solidly, cantering back to rejoin the others.

  Grace found herself riding with Sir Gerald and Allegra. They appeared to be in some kind of old fruit orchard. The gnarled trees looked aggressively ancient, all bare knuckles and pointing fingers.

  “Bloody hell!” exclaimed Sir Gerald. He halted and held his crop up, signaling the rest of the field to hold hard. “Smell that?”

  “Garlic,” said Allegra.

  Sir Gerald began swearing. Yards ahead, Milliken turned to face them, arms spread in a gesture of defeat.

  “What’s happened?” Grace asked Allegra.

  “These bloody saboteurs! They’ve sprayed the ground and foliage with garlic to ruin the scent.”

  Garlic? Garlic, which was used against vampires? Was there a weird connection here, or did Grace have vampires on the brain?

  “They can’t have sprayed the entire valley,” Sir Gerald fumed.

  Milliken blew the hunting horn in staccato blasts.

  “Yo hote, Yo hote,” urged the Whipper-in. The hounds began to zigzag, snuffling the leaf-buried ground frantically.

  Slowly they advanced through the orchard.

  The fog had followed them; it billowed languidly, shape-shifting through the trees.

  “We don’t have permission from the Shogun,” Allegra said quietly to Sir Gerald.

  Sir Gerald sputtered some dismissal, finishing, “I’ll be damned if an Englishman needs permission from a bloody Jap to ride on English soil.”

  Charming, thought Grace.

  If Allegra had a response, she never made it.

  A shot rang out. Someone screamed. There was another shot.

  Pandemonium ensued. There were shouts and cries; horses reared, appearing briefly before plunging back into the concealing fog. The hounds went mad.

  Heart hammering, Grace flattened herself to her horse’s neck and tried to place the direction the shots were coming from. The mare was fighting her, and Graced decided to rely on the animal’s hearing, giving her her head. The bay was off like a shot.

  “Retreat, retreat!” That was Sir Gerald. He charged past Grace, heading back the way they had come.

  Catriona flew past, her hair whipping back from her white face. Another rider narrowly missed colliding with Grace. The wooden fence materialized out of the fog.

  A crowd of horses and riders labored over it. Grace clenched her jaw and let the mare choose her spot. They were up and over—and away. The mare thrust out her neck and lengthened her stride. The miles dissolved beneath her hooves.

  “There’s something about a woman with a whip,” Peter remarked as the gallery door opened, and Grace, dressed in full riding kit, entered.

  “Someone shot at the hunt,” she said. Proof of her agitation, she took a couple of steps into the shop and sat down on the nearest chair, a valuable Chippendale. She put her face in her hands.

  “You’ve got to be joking.” She clearly wasn’t. Peter gave a low whistle and came to her.

  “All right?” He knelt, and Grace lifted her face out of her hands.

  Not many men could pose on one knee without losing either their dignity or balance, but Peter managed. His eyes were concerned, his expression serious. It was gratifying, to say the least.

  “What the hell happened?”

  “Someone fired shots—actual shots—at the hunt. No one was hurt, but…”

  “Sabs?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what everyone is saying.”

  His dark brows drew together. “But you think otherwise?”

  “It did disrupt the hunt,” she admitted. She shook her head. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  Peter rose. “Come on. Upstairs. You need a drink. I’m buying.”

  It occurred to Grace that it was the first time she had seen him since their encounter in Sally Smithwick’s garden. She supposed it said something that he was the one she turned to when disaster struck. Then again, since he seemed to be involved in most of the disasters striking her, maybe it wasn’t so amazing.

  She let herself be coaxed upstairs and plied with alcohol.

  “Who rode today?” Peter asked absently, sitting beside her on the red leather sofa. His fingers found the pins holding her hair in place and removed them. He began to massage. Shivers of sensation rippled over her scalp.

  “It was a smaller turnout. Sir Gerald rode. Allegra.” She couldn’t help the caustic note that crept into her voice. “Catriona.”

  No comment from Peter.

  “Derek wasn’t there. That’s not surprising. I think his real interest was Theresa. Lord Ruthven never rides. Oh, and the chief constable wasn’t there.”

  “No,” Peter said dryly. “He was here.”

  “Oh.” His long, strong fingers were working magic with the knotted muscles in her neck and at the base of her skull. She took another sip of brandy. “What do you know about Sam Jeffries?” she asked abruptly.

  “Nice chap.” Peter shrugged. “Rotten luck.”

  “But what was he like?”

  Peter swallowed brandy. “Why?”

  “Why not? Why does everyone c
lam up when I ask about Sam Jeffries?”

  “Do they?” He lifted his shoulders in dismissal. “I can’t speak for others, but I know you. I know what happens when you get inquisitive.”

  She loosened her stock. “You’re still avoiding the question.”

  Peter sighed, sounding bored. “Sam Jeffries? He was one of these hearty man’s man types. Fishing, hunting and pubbing with Sir Gerald and his merry band. Popular with the ladies.”

  “He owned Mallow Farm?”

  “Correct.”

  “So he was wealthy.”

  “Relatively speaking.” The blue eyes appraised her. “Come on, Miss Marple, give.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Grace admitted. “But Miss Coke apparently had it in for Sam. We were on Mallow property today when we were fired on. That means we were only a few miles from Miss Coke’s.”

  “It would be just about impossible to arrange a foxhunting accident unless you knew which way the fox was going to run, and how could you?”

  “By dragging a false scent,” Grace said. “A lot of hunt clubs do it if they don’t want to actually kill a fox. Sabs do it. It’s another method of disrupting a hunt.”

  “And she got Jeffries’ horse to agree to miss its jump? Who is she, Dr. Doolittle?”

  “Did anyone see the accident? Were there witnesses?”

  “Half the hunt, I imagine. As MFH, Sir Gerald gave witness at the inquest. He swore there was nothing unusual. It’s a dangerous sport. People die foxhunting.”

  “It’s awfully convenient that two people on Miss Coke’s hit list are dead.”

  “Accidents do happen, as the poets say.”

  “Theresa’s death was not an accident.”

  “There is that,” admitted Peter.

  12

  When Grace got in her answering machine was blinking. The first message was from Chaz asking her to meet for dinner. That was followed by Chief Constable Heron’s deep voice requesting her presence at the police station. There was one last message from an alarmed-sounding Chaz, who had just heard about the shooting incident.

  Grace chose police interrogation.

  The chief constable looked weary as he closed his office door behind her and sat down at his desk.

  “I understand there was trouble at the hunt.”

  Grace gave her version of the shooting. Heron listened without comment. Grace knew he was probably comparing her story to the others he must have heard that afternoon.

  “So you did not actually see anyone?”

  “The fog was too thick.”

  “Were you able to form an opinion as to which direction the shots came from?”

  “Not really.” Grace was apologetic. She was annoyed with herself for being too flustered to pay closer attention.

  Impulsively, she said, “You’ll probably consider this another off-the-wall theory, but it’s just occurred to me that Lady Ruthven, Catriona, has had a run-in with almost every member of The Vampyre cast.”

  “You think Lady Ruthven is picking off cast members?”

  I wouldn’t put it past her, Grace thought. She said only, “I told you about how she nearly fell through the broken trapdoor at the theater?”

  “You did.”

  “That’s not all,” Grace said. “Catriona’s saddle girth broke during the season’s first official hunt. If she had been jumping at the time, she could have been seriously injured. I don’t know how she wasn’t.”

  Unless she was staging these accidents for some reason of her own?

  Heron said nothing. Another thought struck Grace. “I suppose Sam Jeffries’ billet straps were examined after his accident?”

  To her surprise Heron chuckled. “Give us a little credit, Grace.”

  Grace blushed, realizing how officious she must sound.

  “Everyone is saying hunt saboteurs opened fire on us.”

  “I’m aware of local opinion.”

  “But you don’t agree?”

  “I don’t disagree,” Heron said. “I don’t know enough about the incident to have an opinion yet.”

  “What if it’s not sabs? What if it has to do with Catriona?”

  “Both incidents you’ve described would be imprecise methods of murder.”

  Grace made a face. “I know. It’s probably coincidence.”

  “Most likely.” Heron’s shrewd eyes met hers briefly. After a significant pause, he added, “It is interesting that Lady Ives was wearing a cape similar to Lady Ruthven’s when she was killed.”

  “I don’t understand this whole vampire thing,” Chaz was complaining.

  He had attended rehearsal with Grace, and now they sat at the pub talking quietly to escape the notice of the other cast members who had stopped by for a pint.

  It had not been much of a rehearsal. Theresa’s death was a blow to the production, as much for psychological as practical reasons.

  “You don’t find vampires sexy?”

  “Of course not. Have you ever seen Nosferatu? What’s sexy about teeth like that?”

  “Oh, but the modern concept of vampire is based on the Byronic vampire. Polidori’s Ruthven, which he based on Lord Byron, is sort of the grandfather of all the vampires who followed, including Dracula.”

  “Bela Lugosi,” Chaz agreed. “Now there was a sexy guy!”

  Grace chuckled. “But think of all those half-naked Hammer Studio vampire ladies. They were supposed to represent a kind of unleashing of female sexuality.”

  “Evil female sexuality.”

  “Some people find evil sexy.”

  Chaz said glumly, “I know all about good girls seduced by bad boys.”

  Grace decided to ignore that. “Long before Lestat was a twinkle in Anne Rice’s eye, the beautiful man with a dangerous secret was a staple of Gothic fiction. Heathcliff is sexy—even according to my jaded tenth-graders. Mr. Rochester is sexy. And by all accounts, Byron, who was, after all, the role model for all those Byronic heroes, was pretty darned sexy.”

  “None of them were vampires.”

  “Well, I guess there are a number of erotic elements to the vampire legend. What could be more intimate than the symbiotic relationship of the vampire and his chosen? I mean the victims that they turn into other vampires.”

  “Uh, vampires don’t actually exist, Grace.”

  She made a face. “It’s the whole symbolism. The vampire seduces his victim, feeding on the life force until he ultimately kills the thing he loves. And think about it: orgasm is sometimes referred to as the ‘little death.’ ”

  “By whom?” Chaz was plainly disapproving.

  But Grace was on a roll, resting her elbows on the table in her enthusiasm. “Lovemaking involves the exchange of vital bodily fluids, and so does vampirism.” She shrugged. “For whatever reason, it’s very attractive to some people. You should see the Internet sites devoted to vampires. I don’t mean academic research; I mean clubs and lifestyle.”

  “It just doesn’t seem like your kind of thing, Grace.”

  She was startled. “It’s not.”

  “I don’t mean vampires, I mean getting involved with this play, with these weirdos.”

  Peter had said almost the same thing about the fete. Did she really seem so stuck in her ways?

  “I don’t know if it’s my kind of thing. Isn’t that what life is about, growing, changing, becoming?”

  Chaz’s face wrinkled as though he found it hard to hear her. “I just don’t know what you’re doing with all these nuts. And what’s with the Honorable This and Lord That? Everybody in this one-horse town has a title. It’s…I don’t know…”

  “Un-American?”

  “Hey, you’re an American,” Chaz said. “Don’t forget it.”

  “I don’t forget it. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate another country’s culture. Especially since my grandparents were English.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Why didn’t you? Grace wondered. Why did we never truly know each other? We went out for
years, but in many ways we’re still strangers. Grace had been no better than Chaz. She had been satisfied with smooth surfaces.

  The irony was that, while no place on earth seemed more picture-perfect than Innisdale, it was here that Grace was learning to understand about the danger that sometimes lurked beneath the placid surface.

  An ormolu-and-sphinx-decorated standing clock dominated the marble entrance hall of Lady Vee’s domicile. Grace had a brief wait before the butler returned to usher her into the royal presence. She listened to the clock ticking down the minutes. It sounded unnervingly loud in the still house.

  The room, like its owner, seemed to be a relic from another age, right down to the Empire furniture and gold-starred, black portieres. There was a gigantic portrait of a beautiful woman with ebony hair cut Egyptian style. She wore a sheer green gown and held a plumy fan, sort of like a flapper Cleopatra. Lady Vee in her younger days, Grace deduced.

  Lady Vee, exuding lukewarm cordiality for Grace’s unexpected visit, broke out the sherry bottle. It was probably excellent sherry, if you cared for sherry, which Grace did not. She murmured, “Lovely,” and got to the point. “It may seem like an odd question, but I wanted to ask you how I came to be invited to join The Vampyre production.”

  “The only oddity is why it’s taken you so long to ask that particular question,” the old charmer retorted, refilling her own glass.

  Grace worked it out. “Meaning that my presence wasn’t necessary?” Or welcome apparently.

  “It was necessary to someone, it would seem.”

  “The Ruthvens?”

  Lady Vee smiled, looking uncannily like the sphinx in the main hall. “Won’t you stay for luncheon, my deah?” she invited.

  Wednesday’s meal turned out to be a Sunday roast with all the trimmings. The beef was marinated in cider. It was served with a celeriac-and-potato bake topped with Gruyère cheese.

  Over watercress soup Grace again brought up the subject of the Ruthvens, asking how they had become involved in the Innisdale Playhouse production.

  “I’ve no idea,” Lady Vee said. “Allegra would know. Allegra convinced me to support this project.”

  “Allegra has been active in the local theater for some time now?”