Vampyre Labyrinth

by G. P. Taylor

  ‘I am surprised that a breather has heard of the place,’ Karlstein said as she straightened the crumpled sleeve of her jacket.

  ‘I thought it was just a legend …’

  ‘Where is it?’ Biatra asked, not giving Henson the chance to finish his words.

  ‘No one knows exactly where. It is a guarded secret,’ Henson answered as he slowly got to his feet.

  ‘The cave of the Black Moon cannot be found easily. It will be a place you will never see,’ Karlstein said as she looked at Biatra. Taking her by the chin she held her tightly. ‘I never realised how pretty you really are. I might ask the Maleficarum if I can keep you for myself.’

  ‘Touch her and I will kill you,’ Jago shouted as he kicked the chair away from him.

  ‘Have I struck a nerve? Do I sense love?’ she asked.

  ‘I promise you, Karlstein. If you ever touch Biatra, I will track you down,’ Jago said, seething the words through his teeth.

  ‘You make rash promises, Jago Harker. I would love to see the day that you tried,’ she answered.

  ‘Enough,’ Henson shouted. ‘There is no need for any of this. Please give us time alone with Jago so we can say our goodbyes. Even a Vampyre as cold-hearted as you can understand that?’

  ‘If you insist,’ she said softly with an arrogant smile. ‘I hope it will help.’

  They waited as Mina Karlstein walked up the stairs to her room on the landing above. Henson nodded towards the drawing-room door.

  ‘We should be safe in there,’ he said quietly, hoping that Karlstein wouldn’t hear him.

  ‘We can’t let them take Jago,’ Biatra said as Henson closed the door to the room.

  ‘You have no choice,’ Jago answered. ‘They will kill you both if I don’t do what they say.’

  ‘We have to think of a way. What if they decide to kill you?’ Henson asked.

  ‘Then that will be that,’ Jago replied, as if resigned to his fate.

  ‘How far is the cave of the Black Moon?’ Biatra asked.

  ‘I thought it was just a legend. When I was searching for the killer of my wife, I had heard there was a place where the Vampyres would imprison those who stood in the way of the Maleficarum. I was told that Luna Negri could only be found on the darkest night of the month, just before the new moon.’

  ‘Then we could find Jago if they take him there,’ Biatra said.

  ‘We would have to escape from Mina Karlstein,’ Henson added.

  ‘We have done it with others before. She is no different,’ Biatra said as she held Jago by the hand.

  ‘I think it is the place where they have taken Hugh. Karlstein spoke to me when she found me in the library,’ Jago said as he slipped the papers from inside his shirt. ‘I found these under the floorboards.’

  ‘What are they?’ Biatra asked as she looked at the faded papers with their torn edges.

  ‘They are deeds of sale and a letter. That is the handwriting of Ezra Morgan,’ Henson said. ‘I would recognise it anywhere.’

  Jago handed the papers to Henson. He read them quickly.

  ‘He sold Hawks Moor a hundred years ago,’ Biatra said as she read the first line of the deed.

  ‘More than that,’ Henson answered. ‘All the money was placed in the Bank of Perazzi in London. And here,’ he said as he pointed to a single line written in an almost illegible scrawl. ‘Hawks Moor is to be the dwelling place of the Morgan family until they are all dead.’

  ‘Why would he want to sell the house?’ Jago asked as he looked at the other papers.

  ‘That I don’t know, but it now makes sense. If Morgan did have the Oracle diamond then the Maleficarum would want it. A device to know the future would be highly prized. With you and Hugh out of the way, they can do what they want.’

  ‘And are we just to let him go? Couldn’t we escape now?’ Biatra asked as Henson looked at the letter again, his eyes scanning the parchment feverishly.

  ‘I would not have you risk such a thing,’ Jago answered.

  ‘It is the address that is interesting. Ezra Morgan was living abroad when it was written. Look – Chateau Cap Estel.’

  Outside the window, a long black car drew up. The doors slammed angrily as two men in leather coats got out and looked about them.

  ‘They’ve come for me,’ Jago said as the shadows crossed the window. ‘Take the papers, hide them.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Biatra asked.

  ‘I will have to go with them. There is no other way,’ Jago replied.

  The door to Hawks Moor opened. The men came inside and stood by the fire.

  ‘Mina! Mina!’ one of them shouted as Jago walked from the room.

  ‘So you must be Jago Harker?’ the man said as he took off his fedora hat and smiled. ‘We have come to take you away. There is no need for you to know our names. We will not be doing much talking.’

  He nudged the other man and they both laughed. Jago looked at them both. He could tell instantly that they were companions. They did not have the look of the Vampyre. Their clothes were old and threadbare, their shoes unpolished and tatty. Each man looked as if he had not shaved, and as they stood by the fireplace Jago could smell their cold sweat.

  ‘You are late,’ Karlstein said as she walked down the stairs. ‘Have you said your goodbyes?’ she asked Jago.

  ‘I am ready to go,’ he answered as he looked back at Biatra and Jack Henson. He could see that Biatra wanted to cry. She kept gulping her breath and squeezing her hands tighter and tighter.

  The man nearest the fireplace took out a pair of silver handcuffs and let them dangle from his fingers.

  ‘There will be no need,’ Karlstein said as she stood next to him. ‘We have come to an arrangement.’

  She looked at Jago and he nodded, the agreement complete.

  ‘We will see you again,’ Biatra said as she reached out for his hand.

  ‘For that I will pray,’ he answered as their fingertips touched briefly.

  ‘That is to be seen,’ Karlstein said as she pushed his shoulder. ‘Is everything arranged?’

  ‘Just as you said,’ the man answered as he took hold of Jago by the scruff of his sleeve. ‘You weren’t thinking of trying to run, were you?’

  ‘Where to?’ Jago answered. ‘This was my home.’

  ‘And now the fox has nowhere to lay his head,’ the other man joked as he opened the door and looked back at Biatra and Henson. ‘We will take good care of him.’

  ‘Don’t trust them, Jago,’ Biatra shouted as he was led outside.

  ‘They won’t harm him,’ Karlstein said as she pulled Biatra back from the doorway.

  The two men dragged Jago across the gravel to the black sedan parked near the drawing-room window. The taller, shabbier man opened the back door and pushed Jago inside. He looked back to the doorway and waved at Mina Karlstein as she held the old brass handle and stared out.

  ‘We will call you from London,’ the man shouted as he got into the car and started the engine. ‘Hotel Julius.’

  ‘The Vampyre hotel,’ Henson muttered under his breath. ‘Thought as much.’

  ‘You know so much about our ways, Henson. You must be a very bitter man,’ Karlstein said as she stroked his face mockingly.

  ‘I suppose you have never lost anyone you have loved,’ he answered honestly.

  ‘I have never loved and that makes life a whole lot easier,’ Karlstein replied. She smiled at Biatra. ‘Although I could make an exception …’

  Biatra stepped away from the woman and took one last glance out of the open door as the sedan drove off. As the car turned on the gravel drive she saw Jago looking from the back seat of the car, the house reflected in the glass. Biatra waved as she caught his eye. Jago smiled. Deep in his pocket, he still had possession of the Vampyre compass, and he also had the key given to him by Hugh Morgan.

  ‘Soon,’ she whispered, hoping he could hear her.

  ‘Looks like a puppy on his way to be put to sleep, Karlstein laughed as she slammed
the door. ‘You won’t be seeing him for a long time – if at all.’

  [ 7 ]

  Hotel Julius

  IN ROOM 203 of the Hotel Julius, Madame Arantez stared up from the bed and traced the jagged crack across the ceiling with her eyes. She wondered what was on the other side and who was in the room above. She had heard their footsteps throughout the night.

  She had lain awake, listening to Walpurgis talking in his sleep as he relived an old nightmare. Arantez had watched the hands of the clock move from hour to hour as she waited for him to wake. She had traced her fingers over the smooth contours of his chin and down his neck and yet he still slept. Above, a door had slammed and she had heard whoever was in the room drag a heavy case across the wooden floor. It was obvious that, like her, they hadn’t slept.

  Walpurgis stirred, and she closed her eyes and made out she was asleep. He got up from the bed and went into the bathroom.

  Light broke in through the plain wooden slats that shuttered the window from the noise of the street. She knew it was late; Walpurgis had slept in and Ozymandias would be furious with her. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter, she thought to herself, as she heard the sound of hot water pouring from the tap and splashing the white porcelain tiles of the ornate bathroom.

  ‘You have been ages,’ she shouted to Walpurgis as he began to drone out some old song. Wafts of steam billowed into the bedroom in ghost-like clouds. ‘How long will you be?’

  ‘It’s only the second bath I have had in over five years. There was no running water in the prison camp,’ Walpurgis shouted back as he wallowed under the shower, chest deep in water. ‘I ordered breakfast before we came up from the lobby. It should be here soon.’

  ‘I don’t eat,’ she answered coyly.

  ‘They didn’t have blood on the menu,’ he said as he submerged himself in the hot water and washed the soap from his hair.

  ‘Ozzy is frugal with that. He rations all of us so he is in control. I think he likes it,’ she answered as she got up from the bed and slipped on a long white robe that trailed on the floor. Walpurgis didn’t hear. He was under the bathwater, holding his breath and counting the seconds. ‘Am I that boring?’ she asked as she looked into the bathroom and saw his rugged outline beneath the water.

  She turned and walked to the window. Opening the slats of the wooden blinds, she looked down on the street below. There was the usual scurry of working people snaking in and out of Dean Street. A woman in a red dress stood on the corner of Old Compton Street and looked nervously back and forth. Arantez studied her for a while, wondering what she would taste like and if she would be hard to catch. It was always the same when she had the hunger. She would begin to see people as prey. The veins in their necks would pulse like fascinators. Arantez would study them intently, looking for any sign of weakness. It was a feeling that came from within, an ancient desire to drink blood.

  Even now, when she looked at Walpurgis she had to steel her mind not to want to rip out his throat. Five years in a prison camp had toned each muscle of his body to fine sinew. He looked like a well-worked horse, the veins visible under the skin, running over the layers of muscle. He hadn’t aged as much as she thought he would have done. When Walpurgis had vanished in 1939, Arantez believed she would never see him again. He had come into her life for three weeks and then early one morning had told her he was going on another expedition in search of an artifact. He had packed his rucksack and walked out of the door without looking back.

  ‘Looking at the menu?’ Walpurgis joked as he stepped from the bathroom wearing just his trousers. ‘Do you ever look at me that way?’

  ‘Every moment I am with you,’ she replied as she smiled at him, her eyes focused on the crystal pearls of water that trickled down his neck.

  ‘Do you feel different since …’ he asked, not really knowing how to ask the question.

  ‘I am glad it happened,’ she replied eagerly. ‘I never thought I would see the world in such a way. Everything comes to life – the colours, the sounds. I even know how people are on the inside, especially if they are frightened.’

  ‘And how am I?’ he asked as he stood next to her, an arm hooked over her shoulder as he looked into the street.

  ‘Do you ever get frightened?’ she asked.

  ‘When you have no fear of death, what else is there to be scared of?’ he answered as he pulled away. ‘I don’t like spiders, enclosed spaces, Vampyre women and shaving,’ he joked as he walked back into the bathroom.

  ‘In that order?’ she asked, her eyes following him closely and counting the pulses in his neck.

  ‘Well, I suppose Vampyre women are an exception,’ Walpurgis said as he gave her a broad smile.

  She thought he had American teeth. They were perfect and bright white. His smile dazzled against the sunburnt skin and broad lips.

  ‘Ozzy insists that you read everything that is in the envelope,’ she said as she heard him take the razor from the box and sharpen it on the leather strap that hung behind the door. ‘He wants the Oracle diamond more than anything else in the whole world. He told me to get you to read the papers.’

  ‘He didn’t need to pay me, I would have gone after Hugh Morgan anyway. I hate getting cheated out of a deal,’ Walpurgis replied as he lathered his face with a badger brush and then pulled the sharp steel across his face.

  ‘He told me he couldn’t understand how you could hate Vampyres so much and still trade with them,’ Arantez said as she sat on the bed and watched him in the reflection of the mirror.

  ‘You go where the money is. I got paid a thousand pounds a year as a lecturer at Cambridge. I can make twenty times that much selling some old bit of stone to a delusional fool that drinks blood.’ Walpurgis grunted the words as he wiped the blade on the towel. ‘I get them what they want and they pay me well.’

  ‘Then you kill them if they cheat on you?’ she asked.

  ‘When I found the Oracle diamond, Ezra Morgan promised me as much money as I wanted. He went back on the deal. I am only getting what is mine. If I don’t fulfil the contract then all the others will think I have gone soft. Before I know it, every one of them will be ripping me off.’

  ‘Found the diamond? I thought you stole it?’ she asked.

  ‘Found? Stole? Appropriated? They are just words that mean the same thing.’ Walpurgis finished shaving and wiped the remnants of the soap from his face.

  Arantez watched him put the blade neatly on the glass shelf and wash out the brush and place it precisely an inch from the razor.

  ‘Still like everything just so?’ she asked.

  ‘Has to be that way. Can’t sleep if I know something is out of place.’

  Before she could answer there was a knock at the door. Walpurgis looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Must be breakfast. Would you …?’

  She opened the door and was thrust aside by a waiter pushing a tall trolley filled with steaming teapots and covered dishes that smelt of eggs and bacon. He held out the pad and asked her to sign as his eyes darted about the room.

  ‘This is Room 203 – Walpurgis?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Arantez answered as she tried to work out his accent. He wore a crisp linen shirt and shiny leather shoes.

  ‘Just thought …’ the waiter’s voice trailed off as he backed out and closed the door.

  ‘Times are changing,’ Walpurgis said as he looked at the breakfast tray. ‘He didn’t ask for a tip.’

  ‘Perhaps he knew you were so mean and would kill him for a dollar?’ she said as she took the silver lid off a plate of eggs and bacon and allowed the aroma to swell around them.

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ Walpurgis replied as he put on his shirt. He took a bite of toasted bread and then wiped his fingers on the towel.

  ‘Looks disgusting,’ she said as she watched him chewing.

  ‘I remember you said to me you would never become like them and that you would always remain a companion.’

  ‘That was before. Ozymandias paid me well fo
r my blood. I thought that’s how it would always be.’

  ‘And the Oracle diamond – what is he going to do with it?’ he asked.

  ‘I heard him say that he would use it to take over the Maleficarum. He wants to rule us all like some ancient king. He’s even bought himself a Scottish baronial title. If he knew the future then he would have something that no other Vampyre possessed.’ Arantez pushed a slice of bacon with the tip of her finger as if it was some hideous thing.

  ‘I have something no other Vampyre has,’ he answered quietly.

  ‘What? More strange artifacts?’ she asked.

  ‘You,’ he replied even more softly.

  Arantez closed her eyes, not wanting to look at him.

  ‘Dangerous words, Heston,’ she answered as he kissed her. Arantez pulled away and walked across the room.

  It was then that there was another knock on the door. It was urgent, demanding, and came again and again. ‘Let me look,’ she said before Walpurgis could stop her. She put her eye to the circular lens in the centre of the door. ‘It’s just the waiter …’

  It was the last thing she said. The wood splintered as a long silver blade pinned her to the door. Walpurgis saw it twist as it was pulled back and the wood cracked and groaned. Arantez looked at him through dead eyes, glazed and unseeing. She sighed as her body slumped back.

  ‘Arantez!’ he shouted as he grabbed the handle.

  The door burst open as the waiter kicked at the lock. With great strength, the man pushed the body of Arantez out of the way with his foot. He stood in the doorway holding the sword in his hand.

  ‘Heston Walpurgis?’ he asked as he glanced momentarily at the dead body next to him.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I was told to tell you that you are a cheat and a liar. Then I was asked to kill you. Understand?’ the man asked in a broken accent from the farthest edges of Europe.

  ‘Who do you work for?’ he asked.

  ‘The Oracle,’ the dark man answered, twisting the sword back and forth in his hand.

  ‘Then I will tell them how you died,’ Walpurgis answered as he stood his ground.