by G. P. Taylor
‘Then tell me what you want?’ she asked. ‘Was it you on the hillside when I was out with the car?’
‘Did you see me?’ he replied in a half laugh.
‘I could feel your presence. Another skill we Vampyres have over you mortals,’ she joked as she walked to the fireplace and warmed herself. ‘I would be glad of the company. This is a lonely house and filled with death. Sibilia Trevellas and Julius Cresco both died out there. Did you know them?’
‘I knew Sibilia by her reputation. Did she teach piano or was it French?’ he asked, not caring what the answer was. ‘How did they die?’
‘There is a Vampyre who does not know the reason for loyalty and why he is truly here,’ she answered as she reached for the fire poker and set it neatly on the iron rest.
‘Jago Harker?’ he asked, his voice unsurprised. He waited to see her response.
She swallowed deeply. Her throat churned as she sucked in the breath. ‘You have heard of him?’
‘His name has been spoken by everyone I have met since returning to England. It seems he has caused much pain to many people. Where is he now?’ he asked calmly, knowing she was trying to see what he was thinking.
‘It would all depend on why you want to find him.’ She was unable to see behind the junket of thoughts that blocked out what he was really thinking.
‘I want to kill him – why else should I seek out a Vampyre?’ Walpurgis said as he moved uncomfortably in the chair. ‘I believe he caused the death of Madame Arantez.’
Mina Karlstein looked surprised. Her eyes widened as she looked at him.
‘When?’ she asked.
‘Not long ago … On the night I first got back to England.’ He looked at her and thought how much she reminded him of his mother. ‘Someone came to our room in the Hotel Julius and there they stabbed her to death.’
‘I knew her well. She was the companion of Ozymandias. They lived not far from here.’ Walpurgis could see her eyes as they flickered around the room search for something on which to anchor her thoughts. ‘I can’t understand …’
It was as if they had been close and Mina had lost someone that she cared for. Walpurgis could hear it in her voice and see the shock on her face.
‘I am sorry to bring you such news,’ he said. ‘She and I were going to be married,’ he said, his voice insistent.
‘Married? Arantez? Married?’ she asked quickly, not sure she had heard him correctly. ‘But you hardly knew her. She told me.’
‘I was going to ask her on my return. She was in my mind all the time I was locked away. Ezra Morgan saw to that. He had me arrested by the Gestapo. All over the matter of a diamond.’
Mina ignored what he said. Walpurgis could tell that this was the case. She tightened her lips across her teeth and she breathed deeply and looked out of the window. ‘I think it was the diamond that you asked me about in Cambridge. I regret the day you introduced me to him.’
‘It was business,’ she said as she snapped from her daydream. ‘It was what I did before the war. He paid me well for the information and didn’t he get the diamond?’
‘Morgan got the diamond but didn’t pay me the money. I left England and was then conveniently arrested by the Gestapo before the payment could be made. He told them where I was and how I could be found.’ Walpurgis got up from the chair and walked across the room. He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it tightly. ‘Did you know anything about that?’
She looked at him and then turned away.
‘I think you should come with me. I could have the answer you are looking for,’ Mina said as she walked away from him.
Walpurgis followed. They took the broad stairs that led to the upper floors that were lined with paintings. Mina told him who each one was as they walked by. They soon came to a narrow door at the end of the dark passageway. It smelt musky, as if the place had never seen the light of day. ‘That is Jago Harker,’ she said as she pointed to a small portrait of a young boy in a school cap. ‘It was painted by Julius Cresco. We found it in his apartment after he had been killed. Strange to be murdered by someone you have taken care of all their life.’
‘Is that what you brought me to see?’ he asked, unsure why she should show him someone he already knew.
‘No. Sorry – you asked about the diamond. This room is where Ezra Morgan kept all of his papers. There may be something that could help you in there,’ Mina said apologetically. ‘You go in and I will make coffee. Milk?’
Walpurgis nodded as he turned the miniature brass handle of the door and pushed it open with a creak. Mina walked back down the passageway, her boots clattering on the wooden boards. ‘I think we have some food – I will bring what we have,’ she shouted as she went down the stairs.
Walpurgis stepped into the room. It was like a large cupboard stacked with shelves. A slit window with thick glass was in the far wall. He flicked the switch to the electric light. A single glass bulb burnt dimly and cast his shadow across the room and the wall. He stared at cases of papers. Some were written on vellum, others on old parchment. Each box was labelled with the years. Closing the door, he took off his hat and hung it on the hook, then he brushed back his hair and instinctively licked his teeth.
From outside, he heard Mina walking back along the corridor more slowly than before. She must be carrying coffee on a tray, he thought. There was a click of a lock. The door was shut fast.
‘What are you doing?’ he shouted.
‘Stand back from the door,’ she answered coldly.
Before he could speak, an iron gate dropped from the ceiling to the floor. It slid into place on two steel beams that dropped from the ceiling and stuck into the floorboards at each side of the door.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.
‘I know why you are here. It has nothing to do with the diamond,’ she shouted.
‘Let me out,’ he said.
‘You’ll be dead in the week. You could always eat the papers – perhaps that would help you live longer.’ She laughed as she walked away.
‘One thing,’ Walpurgis shouted through the door, hoping she would hear him. ‘Did you send the assassin?’
‘Not I,’ she replied. ‘But I know who did. You are dealing with forces beyond your control and they are not frightened of you, Heston Walpurgis.’
Her footsteps trailed off into the distance. Walpurgis reached into his bag and took out a long-bladed knife. Pressing it between the boards, he had soon lifted the end of an oak plank. He dug his hands under the board. The nails lifted easily from the old wood. One by one he lifted the planks and then stared into the dark void beneath the room. He could see the ceiling of the room below. Taking his fedora hat and pulling it tightly on his head, he looked down. Then, like a man leaping from an airplane, Walpurgis jumped into the void.
His feet crashed through the ceiling plaster. Walpurgis hung momentarily, caught by the strap of his bag on a rusted nail. He looked down at the drawing room where he had talked with Mina. She stared up disbelievingly as she gripped the door.
‘What a surprise,’ he said as he fell suddenly to the floor, smashing the table beneath him. Mina Karlstein ran from the room as Walpurgis got to his feet, clutching the knife in his hand. From the look on his face she knew he would kill her. ‘Come back, you bitch,’ he snarled, eyes glazed with anger.
By the time she had got to the fourth step of the stairs he had caught her. Grabbing Mina by the ankle, he dragged her back.
‘It wasn’t me. I loved her as much as you,’ she screamed as Walpurgis grabbed her throat.
‘Then who sent the assassin?’ he demanded as she twisted and fought like a strangled cat in his grip.
Mina Karlstein kicked out. She pushed him back with her foot and Walpurgis fell against the wall. Breaking free, she ran up the stairs. He chased after her. Again Walpurgis caught her by the hem of her jacket and pulled her back. She fell down the stairs, hitting each tread as she bounced from step to step.
‘Leave me be!�
�� she screamed as she got to her feet and made ready to fight.
Walpurgis smiled as he walked towards her. He held out the knife knowingly, the blade glinting in the light.
‘Then you will know what death tastes like – silver-bladed and sharp as glass,’ he said as she backed away. ‘I am faster and stronger than you, Mina Karlstein. I can get to the door before you do.’
She looked at Walpurgis and then to the door as she measured her chances of escape.
‘Then you have me at a disadvantage. Will you let me live?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he answered slowly. ‘You have walked the earth for too long. Now is your time.’
‘Then I have nothing to lose.’ She set off at a pace, running through the door of the dining room and slamming the door behind her.
Walpurgis kicked the door. The room was empty. The door to the garden was open. Standing his ground, he waited. It didn’t seem right.
Mina Karlstein fell from above him. She kicked Walpurgis out of the way and the knife dropped from his fingers as she ran to the door. Picking it up from the carpet, he gave chase. They were soon across the drive and into the garden.
Mina ran faster than she had ever done before. Walpurgis could feel his wound burning as he tried to keep pace. The mist swirled about them as she ran towards the cliff.
Then she stopped. Mina could go no further – the high cliff fell away to the sea. She had nowhere to run.
‘Looks as if this is it, Mina,’ Walpurgis said as he rolled the knife in the palm of his hand. Seagulls and gannets soared and swooped through the mist to the sea far below. ‘You wouldn’t want to take the chance of this knife cutting you and the sea is two hundred feet below – what shall it be?’ he asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’ she said, hearing waves slap against the cliff like the sarcastic laughter of old wives.
‘Are you in the Cult of the Oracle?’ he asked.
‘I would not tell you if I was,’ she said as she turned her face from him.
‘It would help you at a time like this. An afterlife for the Vampyres, a heaven, a land of milk and honey. I hear they believe in an Oracle that will tell the future, a Vampyre that is really God. That you were made in its image and every Vampyre would live for ever even if they were killed – as long as they believed.’
‘Do you enjoy this, Heston? Is there no way we could make this right?’ she pleaded as she looked at the drop below her feet.
‘I don’t think you would ever want me again,’ he answered sheepishly. ‘And I would certainly never want you.’
‘Then I would like the right to choose my own way to leave this world,’ she answered. She looked at him and then the drop to the sea. ‘You will never stop us. There will be one who can come against you. Vampyre-hunters are all the same. You are fascinated by who and what we are but don’t have the guts to live our lives.’
‘Shut up, Mina. You preach like a harpy. What’s it going to be? Blade or sea?’
Mina Karlstein didn’t answer. She looked at Walpurgis – a monster, hated by all her kind, but there was something of him that she found mesmerising. She thought how beautiful he was. The lines of his face, his sun-darkened skin, his bright eyes.
‘I am glad you will be the last thing I see before I die,’ she said as she smiled. ‘Arantez tasted as sweet as you and never preened herself in the mirror. She told me that you were the vainest man she had ever known.’
Taking a final glance, she stepped from the cliff.
Walpurgis rushed forward and watched as she fell to the water below. Mina Karlstein dropped like an arrow, her body spiralling and twisting as she went down and down. She never made a sound.
Walpurgis watched and silently counted the seconds as she plummeted towards the lapping waves and then crashed into the dull grey sea. The water consumed her, the waves took her, and all was again silent. Walpurgis waited. He looked down from the high cliff, hoping he would see her body. There was no sign, no fragment from of her clothes, nothing to be a memory of her. The seabirds fell silent as he called her name.
‘Mina … Mina … Mina …’
[ 16 ]
Chateau Cardonne
THE TRAIN FROM PARIS had taken three hours to get out of the city. It had steamed through the countryside as far as Avignon. Then Jago had sat in the back seat of an old taxi next to a wooden crate filled with chickens. Lana Karlstein had laughed as she looked back and saw him huddled on the tattered seats, a chicken pecking at the sleeve of his coat. The car drove slowly on the wide avenues as it left the town. Everywhere were the abandoned tanks of a retreating army, rusted and bullet-ridden. Some were stained with blood; others had cut flowers placed against them like shrines to unnamed heroes.
They drove through the village of Sarrians and turned onto the long road that led to Chateau Cardonne. Jago looked out of the window of the car and saw the Chateau shining in the sun of the late afternoon. Twenty windows hung against the white walls like silver plates reflecting the light. Surrounded by tall, graceful trees, it looked like it had been there since the beginning of time. He saw two holes cut into the ground at the beginning of the avenue of trees that led to the house, and next to each hole was a new tree, a sapling not more than four years old in a gigantic terracotta pot. But he thought nothing of it as Lana Karlstein spoke to the driver in fluent French. He pulled embarrassingly on his black moustache and muttered a reply into his nicotine-stained hand.
‘He thinks we are lovers,’ she said as she translated what the man said. ‘He wanted to know if we had run away together.’
Jago couldn’t understand a word of what he said. Lana nodded and laughed, touching the man on the arm several times as the car drove along the avenue of trees to the front of the Chateau. She seemed to have forgotten what had happened in Paris, but Jago couldn’t get the thoughts of the lynch mob from his mind; he could still smell the acrid smoke and hear the cries of the men in the car.
‘War finished,’ the man said in broken English as he turned and shook Jago by the hand. ‘Your people helped us against the Gestapo. We all know that.’
The man stopped the car at the doors of the Chateau. A woman stood on the steps in a long dress and knitted coat. She looked homely, kind, with an open face and soft smile. Her silver hair looked out of place on such a young face. It was roughly tied back in a small knot at the back of her head and held in place by several pins.
‘Good to see you,’ she said as the door opened. ‘I am so glad that you can stay with us.’
‘Madame Camargue, it has been such a long time since we last met,’ Lana said as she greeted her with an embrace.
‘Fifty years I think,’ the woman answered. ‘That was when Chateau Cardonne was just a house. Since the war we have had to take in paying guests.’
‘People?’ Lana asked abruptly, like a dog whose hackles were raised.
‘Tourists, travellers … and of course old friends,’ the Madame answered apologetically. ‘There are not so many old friends as there used to be. I am sure you will understand.’
Lana looked at Jago, and he held out his hand to introduce himself. ‘Jago Harker,’ he said, his voice optimistic.
‘So there really is such a one as you,’ Madame Camargue answered, holding back her hand and keeping it close to her side. ‘I never thought I would ever see the day when it would happen,’ she said as she turned to Lana. ‘So it is true, he really exists.’
Lana gave him an uncomfortable stare, knowing she would have to explain what the woman had meant.
‘It has been a long day. Could we have coffee?’ Lana asked.
‘I forget myself. Of course. It is already in your room. Just as arranged. One room overlooking the avenue with a full window,’ the woman said as she took them into the Chateau.
There was no reception, just an old table with gilt legs and carvings of pigs. Everything in the chateau smelt of flowers. Vases stood at the entrance to every doorway; they were filled with roses and other flowers that Jago coul
dn’t recognise. He knew the names of roses; Julius Cresco had always bought them for his mother. Every Friday when he came home from school there would be a bunch on the table. They were always blood-red and tied together with silk. Each type had a name and although at first they looked the same there was always something different about them. Even the colour of red petals was never identical. Cresco would tell him what they were and where they had come from.
‘Beautiful and yet dangerous,’ he often said as he cut off the thorns with a pair of silver scissors, leaving only one thorn on every stem. ‘I do that to remind myself that there cannot be beauty without pain.’
Madame Camargue took them through the house, up the stone staircase and along the landing to their room. She handed Lana a long iron key.
‘Keep it locked,’ she whispered as she gave a slight bow. ‘I will bring you some fresh clothes. I believe we have some from your last visit. Fashions never change so they will do.’
Then she spoke in French, her words quick and direct and spoken eye to eye. Lana Karlstein stepped back as if she needed to space herself from the onslaught. She answered quickly, her hands moving to emphasise each word.
‘Typical, they always worry about being paid,’ she said when they had got into the room and locked the door. ‘I haven’t seen her in all those years and now she complains.’
‘I think you are lying. It was about me. I know it,’ Jago said as he sat on the window seat and looked down the long avenue of trees back to the road. ‘What did she mean about me when we were at the car – she said I really exist …’
‘She was confused,’ Lana answered as she took her hairbrush and dragged it through her tangled hair.
‘Every time you lie, you close your eyes.’ Jago looked at her reflection in the mirror of the dressing table.
‘Then I shall always keep them open,’ she answered, and she put the brush down.