by Baker, Scott
"If you try to kill me and fail, you and Dara will be punished—and there, too, the family tradition is long and rich. And if you succeed in killing me—remember, as a dhampire you can only command the vampires of your parents' generation, and through them the preceding generations. You're helpless against a vampire of your own or a succeeding generation. Which means that by killing me you'd be creating a vampire over whom you'd have no control and whose greatest desire would be to add you and Dara to the long list of Bathory vampires."
"What happens if I kill myself?"
"Like Aunt Judith?" He was silent a moment, thinking. "It wouldn't do you any good. There are ways of dealing with the death of a nonreigning dhampire, the same ways father used to deal with Judith. Besides, your first victim would be Dara, not me. Which means that as long as you know that I'm keeping her alive I don't have to be afraid that you'll try to get at me by killing yourself."
"Unless what you do to her is worse than being a vampire."
"Perhaps—but by the time you're ready to make that decision you'll have learned that you're no different from the rest of us, David. You won't hate us any less, but you won't do anything to hurt the family, either."
He paused again, waiting to see if I was going to say anything else, then asked, "Do you have any other questions that need answering? I don't expect you to trust the information I give you but I'd hate to see you do something damaging to yourself or to Dara out of simple ignorance. Or because someone else was misinforming you."
"I don't have any questions at the moment, no, Michael."
"When you do, feel free to ask me."
The librarian found me asleep in the library, where I'd passed out while making a last attempt at finding my way through the hidden door. He pulled me out of the fireplace and shook me awake. I had him bring me some breakfast, then locked myself in my bedroom and went back to sleep.
I was awakened by a loud knocking.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"Nicolae, sir."
I looked out the window, saw that it was still a few hours till dusk. Besides, I had Michael's promise of protection, for whatever it was worth.
"Just a second." I unlocked the door, returned to my bed. "Come in."
"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but if you're feeling a bit better now your father's lawyer, a Mr. Abernathy, has been waiting to see you since noon, and since he has to be back in Chicago early tonight—"
I was feeling much better but I was still weak. And very, very hungry.
"Send him in," I said. "And as soon as he leaves have supper brought up to me. A sixteen-ounce steak, rare."
Mr. Abernathy was a tall, prudent-looking man with a rather florid face, a slightly receding chin, and blond hair running to gray. We shook hands and he took a seat, moving his chair close to the bed so we could talk more easily.
"I'm here to discuss your father's will, Mr. Bathory. I've already spoken with the other members of the family. But if you're feeling too sick today I can come back next Monday."
"Thank you, but I don't think that'll be necessary. I've been skimping on food and sleep for a few days and it caught up with me this morning, but I'm fine now."
"Good. In that case, Mr. Bathory, here's a copy of your father's will. Would you like to read it yourself before I go over it with you or would you prefer to have it read to you?"
"Just summarize it, please." I took the heavy manila envelope he'd handed me and put it unopened on the chair. "I'll read it later and get in touch with you by phone or in person if I've got any important questions."
"Well, the will states that you are to receive the sum of one hundred thousand dollars immediately, plus a lifetime income of four thousand dollars a month and two thousand dollars every year on your birthday. In other words, fifty thousand dollars a year. In addition, you have cotenancy of this house, which was left to your brother Michael.
"Your uncles, Peter and Stephen Bathory, are to receive five hundred thousand dollars apiece, and there are various minor provisions for members of your father's household staff. Your brother Michael is to get everything not specifically provided for otherwise.
"However, your father also left three million, five hundred thousand dollars for the construction and maintenance of a temple to the Hindu god Shiva in downtown Chicago. Upon your death whatever money remains in the trust fund set up for you also goes to the temple, as does the total inheritance of any beneficiary attempting to contest this will in court."
"How did the rest of the family react to the last provision?" I asked.
"I couldn't tell what your Uncle Peter's reaction was, but both your Uncle Stephen and your brother were quite upset. Nonetheless, as you'll see when you examine the will for yourself, there's nothing either of them can do about it. I drew the will up myself and to the best of my knowledge it's airtight."
"How much was father's estate worth?"
"The cash and securities amounted to something a little over seventeen million dollars and the house and grounds are worth at least that, though they've yet to be completely appraised. I have the exact figures for the cash and securities here, if you'd like to look at them."
I said no and thanked him. He rose to go.
"There is one last thing—" He took a sealed envelope from the breast pocket of his coat and handed it to me. "Some weeks ago your father entrusted me with this letter. His instructions were to deliver it to you personally and confidentially as soon as possible in the event of his death."
I thanked him again. We shook hands and he left. I locked the door behind him, sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the letter.
* * *
Chapter Twenty
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Dear David,
By the time you read this I will be dead, a suicide, and you and Dara will be in great danger. I will not try to pretend you owe me anything for having been your father, nor that the hatred you have felt for me for so many years is in any way unjustified, but I ask you to set aside your feelings until you have read this letter and verified the information in it with Dara. For many years both you and Dara have been under my protection but now that I am gone you .will have to learn to protect yourselves, and to protect yourselves you will have to understand the dangers facing you.
You are in danger because you are both Bathorys and to survive that danger you will have to understand what it means to be a Bathory. What I tell you here I have learned for myself and I know it to be true.
though it contradicts much that the family has always believed.
The Bathorys have been for centuries a family of vampires and dhampires. Dhampires are the living children and grandchildren of vampires; under certain conditions they can command their undead ancestors. All of my ancestors are now vampires, and so I am a full dhampire. When I, too, have become a vampire you will become a full dhampire, as will your brother Michael and your sister Dara.
A vampire is a life-thief, a parasite preying on the living. But he is also a dead man, and nothing he can do can alter the fact that he remains a dead man: the life he steals can never replace that which he has lost and for which he hungers. Yet he is incapable of understanding that the life he steals can never satisfy him; he thinks the answer is more, always more, and it is a part of his condition that he can never free himself of this delusion. It is a delusion that the living Bathorys have shared with their undead ancestors since the sixteenth century.
The vampire is no less intelligent than he was in life, but that abstract intelligence is limited by his total inability to imagine or care about anything beyond his present night's hunger. He is incapable of drawing conclusions from his previous nights' failures to satisfy his hunger, equally incapable of imagining the long-term consequences of his actions. Since his hunger is insatiable there is no point at which he can stop himself, and without a living dhampire to restrain him he will always overreach himself and betray himself by killing those whose deaths cannot help but lead others to first suspect his existence, an
d then to seek him out and destroy him.
Vampire and dhampire form one being, a being both living and dead. The life that the vampire steals from his victims goes to the dhampire, for only the living dhampire can truly assimilate the life the vampire steals. The vampire has at most a brief taste of that stolen life before it drains from him into the dhampire.
The vampire hates the dhampire, since the dhampire takes from the vampire the life which the vampire has stolen to meet his own needs. The vampire believes that if he could drain the dhampire of life and blood he would regain that which he needs and which should be his and his alone; and though the satisfaction he would gain would not outlive the moments it would take for the dhampire's life to pass through and from him, he would at least have freed himself from the one person whose presence continually threatens the illusion upon which his existence as a vampire is based.
But the dhampire is the vampire's only true extension into the world of the living. How can the vampire, who so lusts after life, not love that part of his greater self which is truly alive? So the vampire loves as well as hates the dhampire. But the vampire is empty; he has nothing to give; he can only take; and his love is no different than his hunger.
Since it is the dhampire who receives and benefits from the life that the vampire steals it is in the dhampire's interest that the vampire not be stopped or destroyed. The dhampire can command the vampire, and he uses his power of command to limit the insatiable vampire for their mutual good—and for this, too, the vampire hates the dhampire.
Though the dhampire knows that the vampire hungers for his life and blood above all else, he also knows that whatever vitality the vampire possesses the vampire is in the process of losing to him, so that in a contest between them the vampire can only win by stealth or surprise. And to destroy the vampire would be to destroy the source of his own powers. So the dhampire is caught between fear and greed, as the vampire he fears had been caught before him, and superior though his strengths are, he has the limitations of his living flesh, while the vampire has the strength of his eternal hunger.
A Bathory who is aware that he is a dhampire knows that he will someday become a vampire, so that what is in the best interests of the vampires he rules is also in his own best interest. But seduced by the stolen vitality he derives from his ancestors he is as incapable as they are of comprehending the insatiable futility of their hunger. If he does realize it, he either resigns himself to it, accepting it as the necessary price of his powers and pleasures or, perversely, he embraces it.
Yet in our family—and we are the only surviving vampires and dhampires in the world today, as the result of a process of extermination and intermarriage which has occupied us for hundreds of years—there are two further motives which animate living and dead alike: a sense of destiny and lust for power. For centuries the family has believed that it is its mission and its destiny to rule all mankind as, briefly, it once ruled Wallachia. As deluded as the vampires they ruled, sometimes eagerly awaiting the moment when they, too, could join their ancestors, the Bathory dhampires have sought for centuries to extend their dominion, working slowly, in fear of awakening new knowledge of their existence in a world that has forgotten that vampires are anything more than an outgrown and discarded superstition.
In each generation there is a single male dhampire who commands his undead ancestors. I was the reigning dhampire in my generation. To become a reigning dhampire you must first defeat your undead parents in a contest of will. Then, working through them, you must gain dominion over those vampires formerly controlled by your father, for each reigning dhampire becomes a sort of "focus" for the wills of his ancestors when he dies and becomes himself a vampire.
A dhampire can only control those vampires in his parents' and preceding generations; he has no power over a vampire of his own generation. But there is a period of forty days between a dhampire's death and his resurrection as a vampire, and there is a way of prolonging this period indefinitely. For years after Judith's suicide I kept her in this state and so preserved my security and power, but your brother Michael has released her and though I can protect myself from any physical attack she may make on me, yet through her the massed wills of my ancestors are driving me to suicide.
They are driving me to suicide not only because of the hatred that they have for me, but because they know me to be their enemy. I have been working to defeat them, using my knowledge and powers and authority over them to destroy them. With your help I can still defeat them.
But if you reject my help, you will be the one defeated and destroyed. Because you will be fighting not only your family but the power behind that family, and it is from Satan that the vampire derives the strength with which he seeks to satisfy his hunger.
But I am no longer the willing and devoted servant of Satan that I was when you learned to hate me. I have renounced my allegiance to Satan and pledged myself to Shiva and His consort Kali—or rather, to the reality that lies within and behind Them.
Satan and His other half, His puppet Trinity, are only one possible manifestation of the Godhead, and an incomplete, fragmented manifestation in which Christ and the Christian Heaven exist only as bait, as lures which Satan uses to trap men within His system. It is vital that you understand that all gods are creations of the human mind, forms imposed on…
There was a knock on the door. "Yes?" I said.
"Your dinner, sir."
"Leave the tray on the hall table," I said. "I'll get it in a moment."
"Certainly, sir."
I put the letter under my pillow, waited until I could hear his footsteps descending the stairs, then made myself unnoticeable and cautiously unlocked the door. The hall was deserted. I brought the tray back to my bed and gulped down the steak as rapidly as I could cut it into chunks, barely chewing it, eating as though I'd been a carnivore instead of a strict vegetarian the last five years.
I felt much better when I'd finished. I put the tray on one side and returned to the letter.
… the reality of the Godhead, but Satanism/Christianity is a particularly flawed and unbalanced creation. It is unable to grasp the reality of the world in the way which the worship of Shiva, who is both creator and destroyer, makes possible. The vampire is a creature, in some ways perhaps the ultimate manifestation, of Satanism/Christianity.
It is only by making a pact with Satan that a vampire gains the powers with which to try to satisfy the hunger for life and blood opened in him by the combined wills of the already existent vampires during the forty days of his transformation. And although I have as yet made no pact with Satan, I know that during that forty days I will lose whatever strength of will might have enabled me to resist Him. Once I have submitted to him I will become your worst enemy.
You and Dara could, perhaps, protect yourselves against me for what remains of your lifetimes. It is fairly easy to keep vampires away: garlic and wild roses of the type that grow here will do it, as will holy water, crucifixes, and any of a number of other religious objects which it has pleased Satan to make efficacious. It is somewhat harder to resist vampires when they have the help of human agents such as your brother Michael and your Uncle Stephen, harder still when they have the help of such persons as your late wife, who was your brother's lover before she was yours. But it is nonetheless conceivable that you and Dara could preserve yourselves from me as long as you live.
And it is not necessarily true that as a dhampire you, David, will become a vampire when you die. Certain conditions, such as death by suicide, a prior pact with Satan, or having been the victim of a vampire, must first be fulfilled. But the conditions of Dara's birth were such that as long as there are vampires to infect her with their hunger there is no way she can escape becoming a vampire.
Your mother, Saraparajni, was a Naga, one of a race of serpent people who live in an underground realm where they worship Shiva—or, rather, That which manifests Itself to human beings as Shiva—in the form of Shesha, Lord of Serpents. It was from your mo
ther that I finally learned to free myself from my hereditary delusions about our family and its destiny.
But when Saraparajni left the Naga realm she became mortal, and soon after you were born she contracted a form of plague from the rats that live in one of the caverns beneath this house. When I realized that her sickness would kill her I arranged her death so as to ensure her rebirth as a vampire.
Vampires, like gods, are creations of the human imagination, and the laws which govern them were determined by the traditions and beliefs of the tiny principalities of what is now Hungary and Romania in which vampirism first appeared. As a -result of those beliefs—and specifically, of the distrust and hatred of all foreigners which the people of these principalities felt long before they found themselves the West's shield against the invading Turks—a vampire confined to his coffin for seven years will regain his humanity for five years if he can emerge from his coffin onto the soil of a different country where a different language is spoken.
After Saraparajni's transformation was complete and she had emerged from her coffin a vampire, she allowed me to seal her back into her coffin for the required seven years. She accepted her confinement without protest, without having made any attempt to satisfy her hunger for life and blood: though the fact that she was a Naga did not prevent her from becoming a vampire, it gave her the strength to resist her vampire's hungers in a way that would have been impossible for a human being.
During Saraparajni's five years of renewed human life Dora was conceived and born. Then Saraparajni returned to the Naga realm and so escaped the death that would have been inevitable at the end of her five years of renewed life had she been human, though at the cost of eternal exile from all human realms. But because Saraparajni had been a vampire before Dora was born, Dara will become a vampire when she dies. That is, she will become a vampire if there are other vampires in the world to infect her with their hunger for life and blood.