Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  ‘I am not the one,’ she whispered, ‘who has been drinking from your friend. I have no need of anyone’s blood. You do believe me, don’t you, Jack?’ She kissed me. I imagined I was dissolving on her lips. ‘You do believe me?’

  And of course, I did. I pressed myself closer against her and felt the softness of her breast against my side, smelled the perfume on her skin. We were still walking. Ahead of us stretched a long, dark passageway. There were animals around us, birds above our heads. I remembered it from before, when Suzette had left us, running across the stones, leaving Lilah and myself alone for the first time. And now we were still alone, but it was we who were walking down the passageway. We came to a door. Lilah opened it. Beyond, the crimson-hung bed was waiting for us…

  I woke again, naked and alone as before. The room was still dark; the candle still burned beneath the picture on the wall. I dressed, then left the room; Sarmistha was waiting with my coat in her hands. She handed it to me and fled, and though I pursued her she was lost in the dark. I returned and left the warehouse. Outside, I found that a whole day had passed. But I was safe. Unharmed. What danger, though. If Huree is even half-right – what danger!

  And yet… her words are in my ears, in the whorls of my brain. ‘It was not I who has been drinking from your friend. I have no need of anyone’s blood. You do believe me, don’t you, Jack?’ Yes. And I still do. Why? Can there be any reason other than my infatuation? Any reason at all? I need to think. I need to clear my head.

  I will visit Huree now. He evidently has much to reveal to me. Will take his letter and peruse it in the cab. Cannot dismiss it out of hand.

  Letter, Professor Huree Jyoti Navalkar to Dr John Eliot.

  26 August.

  Jack–

  Where the bloody hell are you? Not with that bloody woman, I hope. Because if you are, you’re a damned bloody fool. Oh please, dear God, you have not gone there, and if you have, you will come back safe and continue unharmed. If you read this, come to me at once. By night – my room in Bloomsbury. By day – the Reading Room of the British Library, Seat N4. I have been reading much. There is a good deal I have to reveal to you.

  Because, Jack – I know who she is! I know who – or rather what – we are fighting against. It reduces me, I confess, to a state of near despair. I have become a nervous timid creature who shakes all the time. What hope do we have? We creatures of day – of mortal flesh and blood! But I am losing my thread. Please – I must remain philosophical. We die; we are born again; we flow towards God. Let us be brave, then, and great-souled. But I am sorry – I am losing my thread again. Let me start at the beginning – the coin I found hanging from Lucy’s neck.

  You never told me it was from Kirkeion. I suppose it did not seem important to you – an unknown Greek town, vanished for ever from the history books – why should it have done? But to me, Jack, Kirkeion is not unknown at all – dear me, no. It is not in the history books you should have been looking, but in the legends of the Greeks, in the hermetic records of the ancient mystic rites. Search amongst the forbidden texts, smuggled from the library of Alexandria – there you will find mention of Kirkeion.

  It was a town of the dead, Jack, where men lived as the slaves of the Goddess, lost for ever to the flow of mortal life, in agony because they knew this themselves, yet on the rack of remembered pleasure too, for they had seen the face of the Goddess as they fed and so, for all the horror of their fate, could not regret the things they had become. What these things were, you may guess when I tell you the Goddess’s name. She was spoken of in the epics, in the Odyssey, and yet Homer did not know the whole truth, for he was drawing on rumours for his portrait of the sorceress, Circe the terrible, transformer of men. You will remember your Classics, I am sure, and the island that Odysseus visited, idled with strange animals, his own men amongst them, reduced to rutting swine. Please, Jack – do not think me mad. Do not go all damned sceptical on me again. You think it fantastic that a place such as Kirkeion should have truly existed? Well, don’t! Damn it, Jack, don’t! Apply your damned laws of observation if you wish. Do as you have always done – extrapolate from the evidence you have studied yourself. There are animals in Rotherhithe, are there not, and humans twisted into strange, distorted shapes? There is Lucy’s coin, with the name ‘KIRKEION’ stamped around its edge. And above all, Jack – above all – there is Lilah… Circe… call her what you will.

  For she has had many names. She was known in China and Africa; in the voodoo rites of the jungle glade; on the blood-smoked pyramids of Mexico; in her honour, the queens of Canaan and Phoenicia would prostitute themselves; for her, the walls of Troy were toppled into ash. As Amestris, she watched the only breasts on earth more beautiful than her own cut from her rival’s living flesh; as Yielâ, she was known to Jericho and Ur, the first cities in the world, and yet already she was older than them, as old as man himself. Her cheeks are the colour of the blossom of pomegranates; her lips as red as blood; her eyes as deep and timeless as space, Lilah, you call her. Do you not hear the echo, as you pronounce the syllables, of the most terrible and ancient name of all? rrrb it is written in the Hebrew – Lilith. In Jewish myth, she was the first wife of Adam before Eve was made, expelled from Eden for her terrible crimes, and preying on humanity in revenge ever since. Why, in some traditions, Jack, she was the wife of God Himself.

  Lilith, Jack, Lilith – eternal harlot, bather in blood, queen of the demons and the succubi. Avoid her. I know you must think I am raving – and yet just pause, and remember what you have experienced and seen for yourself She is all the legends I have described above, and something more – a principal of darkness, active in the world, beautiful, seductive, terrible. I fear for you, Jack. I fear for us all. Come to me as soon as you humanly can.

  May our assorted gods be with us, and all those we love, as my own thoughts, dear Jack, are with you now.

  HUREE.

  Letter, Dr John Eliot, to Professor Huree Jyoti Navalkar.

  Surgeon’s Court.

  11 p.m.

  Dear Huree,

  I was convinced, if not that you were raving, that you were a little drunk at the very least Lilah as Circe, transformer of men? I was going to call on you, to sober you up. However, yet again I must apologise. Coming to visit you, I put on my coat again. I slipped your letter into an inner pocket. As I did so, I felt a second slip of paper against my fingertips, only a scrap ready, but not one I could remember having put there. I took it out. I read it; and as you will understand when you have done so yourself, I realised I could not come and call on you tonight I have a more pressing visit to make.

  The implications of this letter are evident; not just for the theory you have outlined in your own letter, but for the whole course of the investigation. I see now how culpably blind I have been. Dear God, Huree, pray we are not too late.

  I will write to you again as soon as possible – tonight, I hope. Before anything else, I must corroborate what George says and rescue him if I can.

  The handwriting, by die way, is undoubtedly his.

  Get Stoker.

  JACK.

  Attached to the above letter.

  Jack – it’s me – for God’s sake – the girl – the one who met you at the door, who hands you your coat – it’s me. How? I don’t know. I was taken – Polidori came – and then … no. Horrible, Jack – horrible. But it was over at last. Opened my eyes. Brown skin – I lifted my hand – God, Jack – breasts – there on my chest. I screamed – screamed and screamed. Couldn’t believe it – how could I have done? – kept waiting, wake from the nightmare, be myself again. But no change. Weeks have gone, and I’m still here, and I’m still – a girl – me, George Mowberley, Minister for India – some bloody wog girl. Lilah’s joke, I suppose. Not funny, though – terrifying, Jack – God, I’m always so bloody terrified. Afraid my brain is going too, you see – can’t think straight – can only work – scrubbing, serving, tending Suzette – otherwise, the terror comes back – unbearable. T
ried to escape once; almost paralysed, the terror grew so great. Forced myself, though – stole a boat – got across the Thames to the docks. You remember, Jack? You followed me there one night. Where the gentlemen go – cheap whores – fuck them. All there again that night – the gentlemen – looking for their whores. One of them got me – couldn’t escape – God, Jack – no – no. Save me, Jack. You have no idea. Lilah wants to send me back. Fucked for coppers. The filth – inside you – violated – the pain of it – damp. Better though, perhaps, than Suzette. Calling me now. Weight on my stomach, forces me on to the floor – her teeth, Jack – sharp – tiny razors – a child, Jack, God, a child – sucking on my breasts – no milk, though – blood – draining my blood – her sucking lips – my blood.

  She’s coming now. Terror again. Help me – please. My God. My God. Help me!

  Letter, Dr John Eliot to Professor Huree Jyoti Navalkar.

  2 a.m.

  Dear Huree,

  Excuse illegibility – am writing this in the back of a cab. I am safe – other news though, I am afraid, grim. Arrived in Rotherhithe – found streets to warehouse without difficulty. They were dark and empty – as I followed them, however, could hear the faintest sound of skipping feet, a young girl’s, ahead of me beyond each turning. Occasionally, on the wall, a shadow, nothing more. Arrived at the warehouse doorway. Tried to enter, but the door was locked; hammered, shouted – no response. Then saw bundle, discarded in the gutter.

  It was a woman’s body. I turned it over. Recognised Sarmistha at once – George, I should say – George. George was dead. No fluids – drained dry. Tongue withered, a tiny stump in the back of the throat; hair thin and white; body a sack of rattling bones. Tried to lift the corpse. Felt it start to crumble, the arms turning into powder in my hands. Stared at the face. It was no longer Sarmistha’s – for a brief second it was George’s again – I recognised my friend. Then gone. Nothing but dust. A mound of ash and rags on the side of the street.

  Tried to scrape up the dust – useless. Rose to my feet. Turned and walked, then began to run. A child’s voice, singing some rhyme over and over, ahead of me. Again, though, no sign of the singer – no sign of Suzette. Terrified. Worse than Kalikshutra. Reached the main street at last. Hailed the cab. Shad never go back.

  Are you with Stoker at the moment? The cab will have dropped me at the end of Grosvenor Street; the driver has instructions to take you there now. I shad be in the doorway of the Shepherd’s Arms, directly opposite the Mowberleys’ house. Come fast. We are drawing into Grosvenor Street as I write this.

  You still have your revolver, I trust?

  JACK.

  Bram Stoker’s Journal (continued).

  … Not a fortnight after the dinner party I had held in her honour, Lucy fell sick; and in circumstances so remarkable that I at once began to harbour the darkest fears as to the nature of her malady. Her symptoms seemed to parallel all too closely an illness studied by Eliot in India, which he had first mentioned to me during our pursuit of Sir George, and which he had never thereafter discussed without expressions of the utmost horror. Delirium, catalepsy, severe loss of blood: all these marks of woe, first observed by Eliot in the Himalayas, he now found reproduced in poor Lucy, and I could tell from the urgency of his manner that he feared the worst. Yet still he would not draw me into his confidence: instead, he preferred to stay closeted with Professor Jyoti, an acquaintance from his Indian days and an expert, it seemed, on Lucy’s mysterious disease. These two men appeared to be preparing themselves for some great adventure; and remembering how it was I who had previously been Eliot’s confidant, I cannot deny that I felt a little undervalued. I was deputed to guard Lucy in her illness – a task I willingly fuddled! – but I could sense that she was menaced by some yet greater threat. It was this danger I longed to tackle and, indeed, for which I started to prepare myself; for I could not believe in the final reckoning that my assistance would not after all be required.

  The summons finally came one hot August night. Professor Jyoti arrived alone to call me from my bed; despite my demands for an explanation, however, he continued as inscrutable as before, and would repeat only that Lucy was in the utmost danger. I dressed hurriedly, frustrated but intrigued; then, having kissed my dear wife farewell, I climbed with the Professor into the back of his cab and accompanied him back to his rooms in Bloomsbury. Once arrived there I began to press him again; but still he would speak only of some dark and terrible danger, before asking me if my assistance could be counted upon no matter how great the horror. Naturally, I replied that it could; but I also pointed out with some force that I would be better prepared if I knew what the horror might be. The Professor stared at me, his pudgy face frozen suddenly into an expression of the utmost seriousness. ‘We are hunting a woman,’ he said. He then asked if I remembered a dream I had reported, in which a veiled form had appeared to lap at Lucy’s blood.

  ‘We are hunting a dream?’ I exclaimed in disbelief.

  The Professor smiled wryly. ‘It is something more than just a dream, I am afraid. You are a man of the theatre, Mr Stoker. Remember Hamlet. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth” etcetera, etcetera.’ He chuckled suddenly. ‘Not everything in fiction is fictional. Prepare for the worst, Mr Stoker. Prepare, if you like, for the impossible.’

  These were scarcely encouraging sentiments; yet I felt a surge of excitement at confronting the stuff of an adventure tale again. I asked the Professor about Eliot, whether he would be accompanying us; but at that very moment there was a knocking on the door, and the Professor rose at once and hurried me outside. There was a cab waiting for us; the Professor greeted the sight of it with relief, although he had evidently been expecting it, for he did not bother to give the cabby instructions beyond shouting at him, as before, to drive with the utmost speed. He began to read a letter, which I supposed the cabby must have delivered to him; he frowned; once he had finished it, he screwed it up and flung it away. He leaned forward again, and again urged more speed. Our journey, however, was not very long; we were soon passing through the streets and squares of Mayfair, and just by the entrance into Grosvenor Hid the Professor instructed the driver to turn aside and halt. We climbed out, and the Professor led me through the shadows towards the doorway of an inn. ‘You inquired after Dr Eliot,’ he said. He smiled and gestured with his hand. ‘Here he is, Mr Stoker, waiting for you.’

  Eliot was pleased to see me, I was gratified to observe. But his face seemed even thinner than before, and something in his wasted expression told me that his nerves were at their highest pitch. He turned to the Professor. ‘You did not tell Westcote anything?’ he asked.

  The Professor shook his head. ‘There was no need. He is watching over Lucy tonight. He will be of more use there, I think – especially if our quarry knows we are on her track.’

  ‘Which she may well do, I’m afraid,’ said Eliot. He turned and glanced up at a house on the opposite side of the road. ‘You see how her windows are dark. I have been unable to catch a hint of movement from them,’ He turned again, and glanced at a bulge in the Professor’s jacket. ‘You have brought your revolver, I see. You have one for Stoker as well?’

  The Professor nodded and handed the weapon over to me. ‘Keep the revolver hidden, Stoker,’ Eliot whispered. ‘We do not wish to be mistaken for burglars.’ Then he walked up die front steps and rang on the bed.

  There was no answer. Eliot rang the bed again, hard, pulling on it for upwards of thirty seconds. At length he paused and we heard footsteps approaching us from the hallway inside. The door was unbolted and opened; a man peered out at us, a sleepy frown on his face. ‘Dr Eliot!’ he exclaimed, with a sudden start. ‘What on earth is your business at this hour?’

  ‘Your mistress,’ Eliot asked, ‘is she in?’

  The butler – for such he clearly was – frowned again and shook his head. ‘I am afraid not, sir. She left this evening, to join Sir George in the South of France.’

  ‘And the child …’ E
liot paused and swallowed. ‘Mrs Westcote’s child – Arthur – did Lady Mowberley take him as well?’

  The butler looked puzzled. ‘Yes, sir. It was all agreed with Mrs Westcote. Did she not tell you?’

  Eliot struggled to control his expression, but his disappointment and anguish were evident. For a second his shoulders slumped, as he stood bowed in thought. ‘The cab,’ he said suddenly; he turned back to the butler. ‘You ordered it, I assume?’

  The butler nodded.

  ‘Can you give me the address of the company?’

  The butler hesitated; then he nodded again. ‘A moment, please.’ We waited on the doorstep, Eliot stretching his thin, nervous fingers one by one and then glancing at his watch. At length the butler returned and gave us a card. Eliot seized it with a quick dart of his hand, and without a further word hurried down the street. The Professor and I followed him. As we went, I struggled to marshal the implications of all I had just heard. ‘We are pursuing Lady Mowberley?’ I finally asked, not bothering to conceal my disbelief.

  Eliot glanced at me. ‘Her husband was found murdered this evening,’ he said. ‘He had been abducted from his house, a crime which was then concealed from me for almost a month by Lady Mowberley. His disappearance, if not his subsequent death, could only have been committed with the full connivance of his wife. Do not worry, Stoker. The case against her is watertight.’

  ‘But why should she have taken Lucy’s child?’

  ‘That,’ said Eliot impatiently, ‘is what we are trying to find out.’

  ‘And where would they have gone?’

  Again, Eliot glanced at me impatiently. ‘Why do you think we have come to the cab stables?’ he asked. He turned his head, and I saw that we had arrived at the address given on the butler’s card; Eliot began to pull on the bell, and after a second lengthy wait we again heard footsteps coming downstairs. The door was opened to us, most grudgingly, and we were met by a volley of proletarian abuse. Eliot prevailed upon the doorman’s better nature, however, by insisting on the importance of the case in hand; and indeed, his mood of urgency was evident. A ledger was taken down, studied; the record of the evening’s business was found. ‘Here,’ said our man, ‘ten o’clock. A cab was called to Grosvenor Street. Number Two.’