“Thou goest to doom,” Vorvadoss said ominously. “But thy son sleeps in Bel Yarnak, and I shall have a worshipper when thou art vanished. Go therefore fearlessly, since god cannot conquer god, but only man who created him.”
SPEAKING thus cryptically Vorvadoss withdrew, and the Sindara, after pondering, continued his journey. In time he came to that incredible abyss from which men say the nearer moon was born, and at its edge he fell prone and lay sick and shuddering, peering down into mist-shrouded emptiness. For a cold wind blew up from the gulf, and it seemed to have no bottom. Looming far in the distance he could just discern the further brink.
Clambering up the rough stones came he whom the Sindara had set out to find; he came swiftly, making use of his multiple appendages to lift himself. He was white and hairy and appallingly hideous, but his misshapen head came only to the Sindara’s waist, although in girth his spidery limbs rendered a shocking illusion of hugeness. In his wake came the souls he had taken for his own; they were a plaintive whispering and stirring in the air, swooping and moaning and sighing for lost Nirvana. The Sindara drew his blade and struck at his enemy.
Of that battle sagas are still sung, for it raged along the brink for a timeless interval of eternity. In the end the Sindara was hacked and bleeding and spent, and his opponent was untouched and chuckling loathsomely. Then the demon prepared for his meal.
Into the Sindara’s mind came a whisper, the thin calling of Vorvadoss. He said: “There are many kinds of flesh in the universes, and other compounds which are not flesh. Thus doth the Eater of Souls feed.” And he told the Sindara of the incredible manner of that feeding, of the fusing of two beings, of the absorption of the lesser, and of the emergence therefrom of an augmented halfgod, while the uncaged soul flew moaning in the train of those who served the being. Into the Sindara’s mind came knowledge and with it a grim resolve. He flung wide his arms and welcomed the ghastly embrace, for Vorvadoss had also spoken of the manner in which the doom might be lifted.
The thing sprang to meet him, and an intolerable agony ground frightfully within the Sindara’s bone and flesh; the citadel of his being rocked, and his soul cowered shrieking in its chamber. There on the edge of the Gray Gulf of Yarnak a monstrous fusion took place, a metamorphosis and a commingling that was blasphemous and horrible beyond all imagining. As a thing disappears in quicksand, so the being and the Sindara melted into each other’s body.
Yet even in that blinding agony a sharper pain came to the Sindara as he saw across the plain the beauty of this land over which he had ruled. He thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as this green and joyous land of his, and a pain was in his heart, a sense of empty loss and an aching void which could not ever be filled. And he looked away to the black evil eyes of the Eater of Souls that were but inches away from his own, and he looked beyond the being to where cold emptiness lay gray and horrible. There were tears in his eyes and a gnawing ache in his heart for the silver minarets and towers of Bel Yarnak, that had lain naked and beautiful beneath the glowing light of the triple moons, for he should never see that place any more.
He turned his head again, and for the last time, blinded with his tears and with his doom upon him. As he leaped forward he heard a frightful despairing shriek, and then half-god and man were spinning dizzily downward, seeing the precipice rushing up past them. For Vorvadoss had said that thus, and only thus, could the spell be lifted.
And the cliff wall curved inward as it swept down, so presently it receded into the dim gray haze, and the Sindara fell in empty mist and into final unstirring darkness.
I, THE VAMPIRE
Dark horror settled down like a fog on Hollywood, the world’s film capital, as an evil thing from overseas preyed on the celebrated stars of filmdom—an odd and curious story
1. The Chevalier Futaine
THE party was dull. I had come too early. There was a preview that night at Grauman’s Chinese, and few of the important guests would arrive until it was over. Indeed, Jack Hardy, ace director at Summit Pictures, where I worked as assistant director, hadn’t arrived—yet—and he was the host. But Hardy had never been noted for punctuality.
I went out on the porch and leaned against a pillar, sipping a cocktail and looking down at the lights of Hollywood. Hardy’s place was on the summit of a hill overlooking the film capital, near Falcon Lair, Valentino’s famous turreted castle. I shivered a little. Fog was sweeping in from Santa Monica, blotting out the lights to the west.
Jean Hubbard, who was an ingenue at Summit, came up beside me and took the glass out of my hand.
“Hello, Mart,” she said, sipping the liquor. “Where’ve you been?”
“Down with the Murder Desert troupe, on location in the Mojave,” I said. “Miss me, honey?”
I drew her close. She smiled up at me, her tilted eyebrows lending a touch of diablerie to the tanned, lovely face. I was going to marry Jean, but I wasn’t sure just when.
“Missed you lots,” she said, and held up her lips. I responded.
After a moment I said, “What’s this about the vampire man?”
She chuckled. “Oh, the Chevalier Futaine. Didn’t you read Lolly Parsons’ write-up in Script? Jack Hardy picked him up last month in Europe. Silly rot. But it’s good publicity.”
“Three cheers for publicity,” I said. “Look what it did for Birth of a Nation. But where does the vampire angle come in?”
“Mystery man. Nobody can take a picture of him, scarcely anybody can see him. Weird tales are told about his former life in Paris. Going to play in Jack’s Red Thirst. The kind of build-up Universal gave Karloff for Frankenstein. The Chevalier Futaine”—she rolled out the words with amused relish—“is probably a singing waiter from a Paris cafe. I haven’t seen him—but the deuce with him, anyway. Mart, I want you to do something for me. For Deming.”
“Hess Deming?” I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. Hess Deming, Summit’s biggest box-office star, whose wife, Sandra Colter, had died two days before. She, too, had been an actress, although never the great star her husband was. Hess loved her, I knew—and now I guessed what the trouble was. I said, “I noticed he was a bit wobbly.”
“He’ll kill himself,” Jean said, looking worried. “I—I feel responsible for him somehow, Mart. After all, he gave me my start at Summit. And he’s due for the D.T.’s any time now.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can,” I told her, “But that isn’t a great deal. After all, getting tight is probably the best thing he could do. I know if I lost you, Jean——”
I stopped. I didn’t like to think of it.
Jean nodded. “See what you can do for him, anyway. Losing Sandra that way was—pretty terrible.”
“What way?” I asked. “I’ve been away, remember. I read something about it, but——”
“She just died,” Jean said. “Pernicious anemia, they said. But Hess told me the doctor really didn’t know what it was. She just seemed to grow weaker and weaker until—she passed away.”
I nodded, gave Jean a hasty kiss, and went back into the house. I had just seen Hess Deming walk past, a glass in his hand.
HE TURNED as I tapped his shoulder.
“Oh, Mart,” he said, his voice just a bit fuzzy. He could hold his liquor, but I could tell by his bloodshot eyes that he was almost at the end of his rope. He was a handsome devil, all right, well-built, strong-featured, with level gray eyes and a broad mouth that was usually smiling. It wasn’t smiling now. It was slack, and his face was bedewed with perspiration.
“You know about Sandra?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m sorry, Hess.”
He drank deeply from the glass, wiped his mouth with a grimace of distaste.
“I’m drunk, Mart,” he confided. “I had to get drunk. It was awful—those last few days. I’ve got to bum her up.” I didn’t say anything.
“Burn her up. Oh, my God, Mart—that beautiful body of hers, crumbling to dust—and I’ve got to watch it! She made me promise I’d watch to ma
ke sure they burned her.”
I said, “Cremation’s a clean ending, Hess. And Sandra was a clean girl, and a damned good actress.”
He put his flushed face close to mine. “Yeah—but I’ve got to bum her up. It’ll kill me, Mart. Oh, God!” He put the empty glass down on a table and looked around dazedly.
I was wondering why Sandra had insisted on cremation. She’d given an interview once in which she stressed her dread of fire. Most write-ups of stars are applesauce, but I happened to know that Sandra did dread fire. Once, on the set, I’d seen her go into hysterics when her leading man lit his pipe too near her face.
“Excuse me, Mart,” Hess said. “I’ve got to get another drink.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding him. “You want to watch yourself, Hess. You’ve had too much already.”
“It still hurts,” he said. “Just a little more and maybe it won’t hurt so much.” But he didn’t pull away. Instead he stared at me with the dullness of intoxication in his eyes. “Clean,” he said presently. “She said that too, Mart. She said burning was a clean death. But, God, that beautiful white body of hers—I can’t stand it, Mart! I’m going crazy, I think. Get me a drink, like a good fellow.”
I said, “Wait here, Hess. I’ll get you one.” I didn’t add that it would be watered—considerably.
He sank down in a chair, mumbling thanks. As I went off I felt sick. I’d seen too many actors going on the rocks to mistake Hess’s symptoms. I knew that his box-office days were over. There would be longer and longer waits between pictures, and then personal appearances, and finally Poverty Row and serials. And in the end maybe a man found dead in a cheap hall bedroom on Main Street, with the gas on.
THERE was a crowd around the bar.
Somebody said, “Here’s Mart. Hey, come over and meet the vampire.”
Then I got a shock. I saw Jack Hardy, my host, the director with whom I’d worked on many a hit. He looked like a corpse. And I’d seen him looking plenty bad before. A man with a hangover, or a marijuana jag, isn’t a pretty sight, but I’d never seen Hardy like this. He looked as though he was keeping going on his nerve alone. There was no blood in the man.
I’d last seen him as a stocky, ruddy blond, who looked like nothing so much as a wrestler, with his huge biceps, his ugly, good-natured face, and his bristling crop of yellow hair. Now he looked like a skeleton, with skin hanging loosely on the big frame. His face was a network of sagging wrinkles. Pouches bagged beneath his eyes, and those eyes were dull and glazed. About his neck a black silk scarf was knotted tightly.
“Good God, Jack!” I exclaimed. “What have you been doing to yourself?” He looked away quickly. “Nothing,” he said bruskly. “I’m all right. I want you to meet the Chevalier Futaine—this is Mart Prescott.”
“Pierre,” a voice said. “Hollywood is no place for titles. Mart Prescott—the pleasure is mine.”
I faced the Chevalier Pierre Futaine.
We shook hands. My first impression was of icy cold, and a slick kind of dryness—and I let go of his hand too quickly to be polite. He smiled at me.
A charming man, the Chevalier. Or so he seemed. Slender, below medium height, his bland, round face seemed incongruously youthful. Blond hair was plastered close to his scalp. I saw that his cheeks were rouged—very deftly, but I know something about make-up. And under the rouge I read a curious, deathly pallor that would have made him a marked man had he not disguised it. Some disease, perhaps, had blanched his skin—but his lips were not artificially reddened. And they were as crimson as blood.
He was dean-shaved, wore impeccable evening clothes, and his eyes were black pools of ink.
“Glad to know you,” I said. “You’re the vampire, eh?”
He smiled. “So they tell me. But we all serve the dark god of publicity, eh, Mr. Prescott? Or—is it Mart?”
“It’s Mart,” I said, still staring at him. I saw his eyes go past me, and an extraordinary expression appeared on his face—an expression of amazement, disbelief. Swiftly it was gone.
I turned. Jean was approaching, was at my side as I moved. She said, “Is this the Chevalier?”
Pierre Futaine was staring at her, his lips parted a little. Almost inaudibly he murmured, “Sonya.” And then, on a note of interrogation, “Sonya?”
I introduced the two. Jean said, “You see, my name isn’t Sonya.”
The Chevalier shook his head, an odd look in his black eyes.
“I once knew a girl like you,” he said softly. “Very much like you. It is strange.”
“Will you excuse me?” I broke in. Jack Hardy was leaving the bar. Quickly I followed him.
I touched his shoulder as he went out the French windows. He jerked out a startled oath, turned a white death-mask of a face to me.
“Damn you, Mart,” he snarled. “Keep your hands to yourself.”
I put my hands on his shoulders and swung him around.
“What the devil has happened to you?” I asked. “Listen, Jack, you can’t bluff me or lie to me. You know that. I’ve straightened you out enough times in the past, and I can do it again. Let me in on it.”
His ruined face softened. He readied up and took away my hands. His own were ice-cold, like the hands of the Chevalier Futaine.
“No,” he said. “No use, Mart. There’s nothing you can do. I’m all right, really. Just—overstrain. I had too good a time in Paris.”
I was up against a blank wall. Suddenly, without volition, a thought popped into my mind and out of my mouth before I knew it.
“What’s the matter with your neck?” I asked abruptly.
He didn’t answer. He just frowned and shook his head.
“I’ve a throat infection,” he told me. “Caught it on the steamer.”
His hand went up and touched the black scarf.
There was a croaking, harsh sound from behind us—a sound that didn’t seem quite human. I turned. It was Hess Deming. He was swaying in the portal, his eyes glaring and bloodshot, a little trickle of saliva running down his chin.
He said in a dead, expressionless voice that was somehow dreadful, “Sandra died of a throat infection, Hardy.”
Jack didn’t answer. He stumbled bade a step. Hess went on dully.
“She got all white and died. And the doctor didn’t know what it was, although the death certificate said anemia. Did you bring back some filthy disease with you, Hardy? Because if you did I’m going to kill you.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “A throat infection? I didn’t know——”
“There was a wound in her throat—two little marks, close together. That couldn’t have killed her, unless some loathsome disease——”
“You’re crazy, Hess,” I said. “You know you’re drunk. Listen to me: Jack couldn’t have had anything to do with—that.”
Hess didn’t look at me. He watched Jack Hardy out of his bloodshot eyes. He went on in that low, deadly monotone:
“Will you swear Mart’s right, Hardy? Will you?”
Jack’s lips were twisted by some inner agony. I said, “Go on, Jack. Tell him he’s wrong.”
Hardy burst out, “I haven’t been near your wife! I haven’t seen her since I got back. There’s——”
“That’s not the answer I want,” Hess whispered. And he sprang for the other man—reeled forward, rather.
Hess was too drunk, and Jack too weak, for them to do each other any harm, but there was a nasty scuffle for a moment before I separated them. As I pulled them apart, Hess’s hand clutched the scarf about Jack’s neck, ripped it away.
And I saw the marks on Jack Hardy’s throat. Two red, angry little pits, white-rimmed, just over the left jugular.
2. The Cremation of Sandra
IT was the next day that Jean telephoned me.
“Mart,” she said, “we’re going to run over a scene for Red Thirst tonight at the studio—Stage 6. You’ve been assigned as assistant director on the pic, so you should be there. And—I had an idea Jack might not tell
you. He’s been—so odd lately.”
“Thanks, honey,” I said. “I’ll be there. But I didn’t know you were in the flicker.”
“Neither did I, but there’s been some wire-pulling. Somebody wanted me in it—the Chevalier, I think—and the big boss phoned me this morning and let me in on the secret. I don’t feel up to it, though. Had a bad night.”
“Sorry,” I sympathized. “You were okay when I left you.”
“I had a—nightmare,” she said slowly. “It was rather frightful, Mart. It’s funny, though, I can’t remember what it was about. Well—you’ll be there tonight?”
I said I would, but as it happened I was unable to keep my promise. Hess Deming telephoned me, asking if I’d come out to his Malibu place and drive him into town. He was too shaky to handle a car himself, he said, and Sandra’s cremation was to take place that afternoon. I got out my roadster and sent it spinning west on Sunset. In twenty minutes I was at Deming’s beach house.
The house-boy let me in, shaking his head gravely as he recognized me.
“Mist’ Deming pretty bad,” he told me. “All morning drinking gin straight——”
From upstairs Hess shouted, “That you, Mart? Okay—I’ll be down right away. Come up here, Jim!”
The Japanese, with a meaning glance at me, pattered upstairs.
I wandered over to a table, examining the magazines upon it. A little breath of wind came through the half-open window, fluttering a scrap of paper. A word on it caught my eye, and I picked up the note. For that’s what it was. It was addressed to Hess, and after one glance I had no compunction about scanning it.
“Hess dear,” the message read. “I feel I’m going to die very soon. And I want you to do something for me. I’ve been out of my head, I know, saying things I didn’t mean. Don’t cremate me, Hess. Even though I were dead I’d feel the fire—I know it. Bury me in a vault in Forest Lawn—and don’t embalm me. I shall be dead when you find this, but I know you’ll do as I wish, dear. And, alive or dead, I’ll always love you.”
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