“Gentlemen,” Iago greeted. Dante regarded them warily. “Admittedly, I was expecting you, but I am surprised to see you walking among men so early in the night.”
“It is true that our powers are not at their peak until night is completely upon us, but still we may walk among you now,” answered one bloodsucker. He was the scrawniest of the four—the runt of the litter, Iago supposed.
The brawniest of the four stepped forward. He bared his fangs. “Are you Iago Wick?”
“Indeed.”
“Hmm,” he grunted. “We hear you won’t cooperate with our queen.”
“And she is more than our queen,” said another. Iago could tell he was freshly-turned. He still had a bit of a lisp with his teeth bared.
“She is our mother,” said the final vampire in the rumbling tones of a disgruntled grizzly bear.
Their mother. Oh, that made the whole affair a bit unsettling. Vampire hierarchies were so terribly incestuous.
“Ah, but gentlemen, you know the rules. A contract with Hell is unbreakable. Iron-clad, I’m afraid. I am sorry she was unable to claim the man’s soul. Truly, I am deeply sorry, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do,” Iago explained.
It was not entirely true. There were processes, hoops through which he could jump, appeals to be made, but Hell was not known for restoring souls. There had to be extraordinary circumstances, and the Powers Below would not be inclined to restore a soul just so that it could serve as some vampire queen’s snack.
“We don’t believe you, and neither does Lady Eustacia,” Grizzly Bear growled.
“And it is our duty to defend our queen,” said the scrawny bloodsucker. “Our mother.”
“Our mother,” sighed another in amorous echo.
“Please stop saying that,” Iago said.
“Everyone has their weakness,” Grizzly Bear insisted, and he stepped forward. He had a thick beard, smooth and well-combed. “We don’t wish to exterminate you. Where is the fun in that? It’s much more enjoyable to make you miserable. You’ll relinquish his soul eventually. Maybe we’ll find your friend here while he stalks the streets at night, and maybe he’ll have a bit of an accident involving holy water.” He looked darkly to Dante. “A shame… he has a pretty face.”
“These matters do not concern him,” Iago said gravely. “I’m the one who has, in dear Lady Eustacia’s mind, wronged the Morgan family.”
The brawniest of the vampires looked like a circus strong man. Perhaps he had been, before Lady Eustacia sank her teeth into him. He gave a booming laugh. “You have crossed the wrong family, demon. I suggest you reconsider now before the battle begins.”
“Battle?” Iago spat. “Are you really going to dedicate that much time and that much effort to what amounts to little more than a tiff? I was merely doing my duty, gentlemen. In no way did I overstep my boundaries.”
Iago stood tall—as tall as he might in comparison to the towering Grizzly Bear—but he was being forced to admit to himself that this business with the Morgans might get a bit sticky. If he had known the vampire in question was the matriarch of the Morgan family, would he have so brashly intervened?
Of course.
“You’re a proud, stupid thing,” Strong Man laughed.
“If words are the only barbs with which you’re armed, I suggest you go home. Crawl back into the hole from which you came.” Iago added sweetly, “And be sure to give Lady Eustacia my regards.”
There was nothing else to be had that evening. With a collective snarl, the four men leapt into the air, dissipating into dark clouds of fog that drifted away into the darkening sky.
Dante released the breath he had been holding. “My dear, did you just start a war with one of the oldest and most prominent vampire families in the nation?”
Did he? “Oh, Dante. They are all smoke and no fire. You know that. They’re simply defending the honor of their queen. They’ll grow weary and move on. Their nature will necessitate it—vampires are constantly forced to move.” Dozens of disappearances and brutally murdered locals proved to be a bit conspicuous. Who would have thought?
They were no real threat. The more Iago thought it, the more he believed it. He looked to the sky, but the vampires were long gone. The same feeling of being watched tingled at the back of his neck again.
“All the same, Dante,” Iago sighed, “I think we should invest in a bit of garlic, don’t you?”
Michael Locksley did not often read. Books took the reader to worlds which were better and more exciting than his own, and really, Locksley found that to be terribly disheartening. Because of this, he had never before set foot inside the Marlowe Book Shop.
But upon that day, he decided that his life had, if possible, become more interesting than some of the lives chronicled in the great novels. He would need help in his endeavor to win his lady love, and people who worked at book stores were surely knowledgeable about a variety of subjects, correct? Perhaps the topic of vampires was one of them. It had just started to rain as he opened the door to the shop, the light tinkle of a bell sounding above him.
Locksley brushed a few stray raindrops from his coat. The room had the pleasantly musty perfume of old books, and the dusty scent reminded him of Lady Eustacia. “H-Hello? Is there anybody here?” he called out.
A tall, lean young man emerged from the back of the shop. He was blond with a thin moustache and a look that suggested Locksley was nothing more than an inconvenience. “Yes?” the blond man said in a flat, tenor tone.
“I, um… I need a book, I think,” Locksley said.
“How fortuitous you should find yourself in a book shop, then,” the man said.
“I… I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
“Read a book?”
Locksley blinked. “What? Oh! No. No, no. I have read books, of course. I mean, I’m… well, I’m writing one. I need a book so that I might research my chosen topic. I’m afraid I know nothing about it,” he explained. He had never seen the thin young man in front of him before. He was well-dressed, of good carriage. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know you. My name is Michael Locksley. I work as a clerk at Englewood’s General Store.” At least, he thought he still did. He hadn’t reported to the store in days.
“Yes. I’ve seen you there,” the man said and hesitantly shook Locksley’s hand. “My name is Thomas Atchison. My wife and I have not lived in Marlowe long.”
“Ah. You’re married.”
“Yes.”
Locksley tried not to think of Lady Eustacia, but his heart strings were sufficiently plucked once more. “You must love her.”
“That is obvious. I married her. What is the topic of this book you are writing?” Thomas Atchison asked. What a strange young man, Locksley thought, but he had much larger problems with which to concern himself.
“You see,” Locksley said, “I’m interested in writing a book of fiction. I want to tell a story—a very scary story, I might add.”
“And?”
“And I was wondering if you knew anything about… vampires.”
That word conjured a spark in Thomas Atchison’s clear, blue eyes. “Why?”
“I told you. I want to write a terrifying story.”
“Yes, but why vampires?” the young man asked.
“They’re… they’re terrifying?” Locksley said hopelessly. “The idea has always frightened me, I should say. The concept of someone preying upon a human being in so gruesome a fashion is quite alarming.”
Thomas Atchison arched a single pale brow before quickly walking from behind the counter. “Follow me.”
Locksley stumbled to follow. The young book seller smelled of a strong and peppery cologne, a scent which trailed behind him as he led Locksley to one of the towering bookshelves along the back wall. A tall and spindly contraption was locked onto the front of the bookcase from top to bottom, a giant metal bracket of sorts. There was a crank at the bottom, and after rolling the contraption just slightly to the right, Thomas At
chison began to turn the crank. He spun it to the right, a pair of metal talons sliding upward until they had reached the top shelf. Atchison snapped a lever, and the talons grabbed one book. Then, he turned the crank in the opposite direction, and the book came clicking down the contraption, held in place by the talons. He snapped the lever backwards again, and the book was released.
“Remarkable,” Locksley said.
“Thank you. I made it. I invent. It’s… fun. I do believe it’s the reason Mr. Frye hired me in the first place,” Thomas Atchison said and, without taking a breath, continued, “This is the finest and most accurate book on the subject of vampires that I know.”
Locksley took the book. The worn brown cover was blank, but within was a title page which read: The Vampyre and Instructions for Hunting and Tracking with Introduction and Copious Index by The Great Frederick Faust. It was surely a hundred years old. “Accurate, you say?”
“In terms of the lore, of course,” Thomas Atchison said with a snort. “They’re not real, Mr. Locksley. The vampire is a creature which fascinates man, and so, many stories have been written. It’s not the case with other monsters which… supposedly… stalk the night. We speak very little of ghouls, demons.” There was something strange in Thomas Atchison’s voice, as though he regretted the lack of demonic reading materials. Had he not been preoccupied, Locksley might have scheduled a meeting between the inventor and the man in gray. “You have chosen an excellent topic, if I may say.”
Michael Locksley nodded. He paid the strange young man, bid him good day, and wandered back into the spring rain. It was cold upon his skin as he rushed home. He had not reported to the general store since he met the man in gray. They were surely unhappy with him. Locksley thought of the money hidden in his chest of drawers and of the beautiful Lady Eustacia. He was no longer in need of a position at the store, anyway. He had his happy ending in sight.
Unfortunately, someone had Michael Locksley in sight, as well. A man with a large black umbrella and a markedly stiff manner of walking followed Locksley at a distance. He held a cane in his other hand, which he leaned upon heavily. He did not truly need it, but it created the illusion of a man who was perhaps a soldier or a hardworking—and one hundred percent human—civilian injured in his line of work. Humans were always so fascinated with cybernetic men. They crowded them, asked them insipid questions. The Morgans’ mechanic was a student of Julius Weiss. He had made every servant look remarkably human already. The cane allowed the black umbrella man to walk a bit stiffly without garnering unwanted attention.
He turned his head to watch Locksley cross the street. The black umbrella man’s eyes had failed him years ago, but the Morgan family had furnished him with a better pair. He could see every rain drop with perfect clarity.
In spite of the rain, a sudden ray of sunlight broke through the clouds. It was raining and sunny at once as the man followed Locksley. The servant thought Locksley a rather pathetic whelp, but as in a clock, even the smallest piece had a part to play.
Change was coming, and though he did not know it, Michael Locksley was an integral cog in that machine.
It rained for an entire day, and upon the morning of the following day, the people of Marlowe, Massachusetts were muttering and whispering among themselves. They had stories, theories to share. A murder. It was so bloody, they say. So gruesome! The husband of that suffragette, Molly Harker. Such a frightening emptiness and horror in his eyes when they found his body. Looked as though an animal attacked him and ripped out his throat.
Iago Wick, with bulbs of garlic buried in his pockets and strewn about his apartment, knew that it was no animal attack. Vampires did not often come to Marlowe, but when they did, they always felt the need to put on a show. They were maddeningly dramatic creatures—not that a demon could comfortably criticize anyone for that.
“It is a shame,” Iago heard Dylan Courtwright say at the table beside him in The Raven’s Nest Dining Room. Courtwright was a local property owner who sat proudly upon a family fortune. His breakfast guest, a feeble gentleman by the name of Wilburn Cox, nodded vaguely. “Lyle Harker was a fine man. But something would have happened to Mrs. Harker eventually. I don’t mean to sound so grim… but she is so terribly vocal. Shrill. I have no doubt this was due to her opinions on the vote. Yes… something would have happened regardless. She was inviting it upon them.”
“Tragic,” Wilburn Cox said half-heartedly as they left the restaurant. Courtwright and Cox were foul men—this Iago knew, and he knew they gathered with the other men in The Fraternal Order of the Scarab in Courtwright’s study to plan their foul deeds. It was perhaps required, according to The Unsavory Secret Organization Handbook, that such groups engage in nasty and occasionally evil plans, but their sins would catch up with them eventually. They always did.
Shortly thereafter, Iago left the dining room. As a precaution, he stepped behind The Raven’s Nest and donned invisibility. The vampires had not acted on their promise yet, and though they were unable to follow him in daylight, he knew their cybernetic servants would be out and about.
Dante was preoccupied with his upcoming disaster aboard The Miss Margaret, and so, Iago resolved he would stay at home in an apartment which, for all the garlic upon the walls, was beginning to smell like an Italian eatery.
There was a stairwell behind Willard’s Cigar Shop which Iago used to reach his apartment on the second floor. A slight chill on the air promised more rain, and Iago found himself eagerly anticipating an afternoon at home accompanied by a glass of scotch and a good book—anything but Le Fanu’s Carmilla.
Once he was inside, Iago dropped his invisibility and walked down a narrow hall to the door which led to his small but impeccably neat room. He reached into his pocket for the key.
Iago arrived at the door.
He stopped.
He felt it in his guts, a profoundly unpleasant sensation—the feeling that he was not welcome there.
Iago slid the key into its hole. His skin crawled.
Something fierce and frightening and unseen enveloped him then. Deep within his black heart, where he was no man but only demon, he felt a sickening, primal terror, and it turned his blood to ice. He could not leave that hallway quickly enough, and he hurried away and walked back down the stairs again.
He walked until he felt safe upon the sidewalk, across the street and down a few buildings from the cigar shop. He looked up to the window of his small apartment. From where he stood, it didn’t seem changed, and yet, the idea of entering repulsed him.
“Having some difficulty, Mr. Wick?”
Iago jumped and turned to face a man leaning heavily upon a cane. A servant of the Morgan family; Iago knew it immediately. It was so terribly chilling, he thought, the way he looked into their eyes and saw nothing, heard not a single thought humming in their minds. They were such empty creatures after the vampires had their way with them and turned their minds and bodies into well-oiled machines. There was something like a smile on his slick, gray lips. How much of him is original? Iago wondered.
Despite the emptiness in his eyes, the servant appeared seamlessly human. Human-made androids and cybernetic men—even those used by the authorities in technologically progressive cities such as Boston—were never as perfect as Lord Weiss’s creations, though they were their brothers. Indeed, many of man’s technological advancements stemmed from pre-existing supernatural achievements. The androids and cybernetic men of human society were crafted by hobbyist vampire hunter Phineas Lowell after he pilfered early and unfinished plans from Lord Julius Weiss. Weiss ensured Mr. Lowell perished tragically and hideously, but not until Lowell had already unleashed his subpar machines upon the human world.
Vampires may have flirted openly with humanity more than any other supernatural species, but they were not about to stand for their creative property being stolen. Fortunately for their pride, the man-made android policemen and laborers in Boston were nothing like Weiss’s finished creations. If the blatant mechanical
limbs did not give them away, the sparks or various fluids leaking at impolite moments certainly did. Though Marlowe was stuck in the past, many humans were not shocked by such pseudo-men these days… but they would have had some difficulty identifying the vampires’ cybernetic men as being cybernetic at all.
“You’re a servant to the Morgans,” Iago said.
“Indeed. My name is DeGracey. I think I smoked cigars once. Many years ago,” he answered wistfully. “The smell seems to bring such memories I cannot quite grasp.”
“You’re quite forthcoming for a servant. What have you done here?” Iago asked.
“I am only following my queen’s orders, Mr. Wick,” the servant answered. “She isn’t happy with you.”
“So I’ve gathered!” Iago spat. “What did you do to my room?”
“I am still human enough to call upon the Earth,” the strange man said. “I was reborn at the hands of the Morgan family. They gave me a new life. And when I woke, I knew things I did not know before, wonderful things.”
Iago pursed his lips and drew a deep breath through his nose. “What sorts of wonderful things?”
“Skills I did not possess before. And I honed these skills. All sorts of spells which draw upon the Earth and sky. But also different magic,” the servant DeGracey explained. “Black magic. White magic. Gray magic.”
“Gray magic?” Iago scoffed.
“It’s not quite white, and it’s not quite black, you see. Moral ambiguity, you know.”
“…Ah. Naturally.”
“You see, I am not afraid of sunlight,” DeGracey said, “nor was I afraid of the garlic you have strung about your room. It was easy for me to enter and place a benediction spell upon the room.”
Iago blinked. “Pardon me?”
“Your room is as pure and holy as the grandest chapel now, an old spell which wards off demons. Lady Eustacia could never achieve such magic because she is a creature of darkness like yourself, but I can. I can serve her, and I serve her well,” the servant said smugly. Iago wanted to hit him. “And so, I am here to tell you, Iago Wick, that you will not enter your apartment.”
Iago Wick and the Vampire Queen Page 3