Supping With Panthers

by Tom Holland

  ‘Dr Eliot,’ she cackled. ‘Ain’t you looking smart?’

  ‘Good evening, Polly,’ I said.

  Her breath stank of gin. It would be swilling about inside her now, in her stomach, her bladder, her liver, her blood. Rotten – every putrid, stinking organ, every putrid, stinking cell. The legs of the insect on my brain were now like claws.

  ‘You have a disease,’ I said. I smiled. ‘Let me cure it,’ I reached into my bag. She never had a chance to protest. The knife sliced through the windpipe, and the blood came pumping out in a crimson, glorious stream. I knew at once, ripping her throat from ear to ear, that I had done the right thing. As her life ebbed away, my own came flooding back. The wash of blood was so sweet and good. My anger was dead: I could feel the insect shrivelling, its legs becoming straw; I laughed as it dropped off from my brain. I looked down at Polly. Her severed gullet was oozing and flapping. I cut the throat again, back to the spine …

  I stared up to see Lilah. ‘Jack,’ she murmured, kissing me, ‘my darling Jack. What a wonder I have made of you.’ I laughed. I was drunk on her kisses, and the life that I had shed. I returned to the corpse and continued to slash. Lilah held me tighter; I melted on her touch. I cannot describe what she gave to me; words cannot approach it. But I did not need words. I merely opened, and accepted it.

  A long time it persisted. The glee was still with me as we stood in the dark afterwards, watching the constables puffing on their whistles, the scurrying of the doctors, the nervous, eager crowds. How I laughed when someone fetched Llewellyn, my very own assistant, to certify die cause of death. If only he had known! And there I was behind him, with Lilah, unobserved!

  We breakfasted that morning at Simpson’s, raw oysters and blood-red wine. Back in Rotherhithe, die pleasure was a glow which stayed with me for days – days, I say, translating it into the equivalent that you would understand, for to me, with Lilah, there was no such thing as time. There was only feeling, and so I judged by what I felt – the slave of ad I had sought to repress. Dimly I knew this, for beneath the fog my reason and my old self still endured. As the contours became clearer, so my horror began to grow; the more I understood what it was that I had done. Soon I knew nothing but abject self-disgust; it crushed me, paralysed me; I could scarcely bear to stir. And yet I was at last myself again; and knowing that, I could finally act.

  I knew I had to escape. I left, not across the river but towards London Bridge. No one sought to bring me back. I was not deceived, of course. I doubted that Lilah would let me slip her clutches for long. But in the meantime, there were those whom I could try to alert. ‘Whitechapel,’ I ordered my driver as we crossed London Bridge. ‘Hanbury Street.’ I had to warn Llewellyn; I had to tell him, before my reason was extinguished again, of what had been done to my brain, of the monster I had become. But my reason was already fading, the further I journeyed from Rotherhithe; the insect’s legs were starting to crawl through my mind a second time. I clenched my fists, I shut my eyes; I fought to clear my thoughts of the stabbing pain. But remorselessly it grew; and with it, my desperation for the cure.

  At last we reached the turning into Hanbury Street. The driver would take me no further; he was a decent man, he told me, and it was very late at night. I nodded, scarcely understanding him; I thrust ad the money I had into his palm, then staggered like a drunken man into the dark. The pain now was searing; but I knew there was only a short way to go. I would do it. I glanced at a woman leaning against a street lamp. It was fortunate, I thought, that I was so close now to the surgery; otherwise I would never have passed her by. I stopped, I stared at her. How ugly she was. She smiled at me. like the other one, she stank of unwashed crevices and sweat. The thought of her body, its life, made me shake. I wanted to shriek, the pain was so intense. One step at a time. One step at a time. I would do it. I was walking, after ad. I was moving down the street. It wasn’t very far.

  ‘How much?’ I asked.

  The woman grinned at me; she gave me a figure. I nodded. Over here,’ I said, pointing towards the dark. ‘Where we can’t be seen.’

  The woman frowned. I realised I was shuddering, and struggled to control myself. She must have misinterpreted my eagerness, however, for she smiled again and then took my arm. So she ready imagined that I wanted her! Wanted to explore her stinking, oozing slit! The very idea redoubled my disgust. The pleasure of killing her was almost greater than before. I hacked her throat to shreds; ripped the stomach, then pulled it apart. The intestines were still fresh to the touch; with what relish I scattered them over the ground! – tissue on dirt – dust to dust! I sliced free her uterus. How delightful it was, to see it flopping and sliding like a landed fish! There was no chance of life being grown within it now. I slashed at it a few times, just to make sure. Putrid and turned into dung, though, I thought suddenly, it might blossom with flowers- I pictured them in my mind’s eye: white, and sweet-smelling, and delicate – a pretty bloom to spring from such a source! I would take the uterus, present it as a gift. Lilah was at the end of the street. She received my offering with laughter and a kiss.

  We returned to Rotherhithe. The pleasure persisted as it had done before. No other mental function could counter the delight; memories of the world beyond the warehouse walls were blotted out by it, and details of my life there now seemed hopelessly remote. I only truly understood this after meeting with Lady Mowberley again – Lady Mowberley, I say, for I could barely recall her true identity at first, nor even how I had known her or ever seen her face. It appeared before me one evening, though, as I was staring into the flames of an incense burner, tracing patterns of blood in the fire; suddenly I could see her before me, this barely-remembered woman, risen it seemed from a world of my dreams.

  ‘Jack,’ she whispered. ‘Jack.’ She smoothed her hand across my brow. ‘Do you not know me?’ she asked.

  I frowned. She seemed a phantom, unreal. But slowly I did indeed begin to remember her, and how desperately I had once searched for her, and at the memory of that I had to laugh. Was it ready true that I had fought her in the cause of preserving human life? Of preserving it?

  She assured me that it was true; then she joined in my laughter. ‘I apologise,’ she said, ‘but as you find now for yourself, there are certain needs we have no choice but to obey. Do not blame me, Jack, and do not blame yourself. We are Lilah’s toys. I fought it once too, on the mountain peaks of Kalikshutra, so long ago now, it seems, so long ago, when I first felt her teeth and lips against my skin, and her thoughts inside my brain – my Lilah – my beloved, bewitching queen…’ She paused; and reaching out for me, stroked my cheek gently with her nails. ‘Yet now,’ she murmured, ‘if I had the choice – I would not return to being mortal again. I have learned too much – felt too much. Why – I have toys of my own. You remember Lucy?’ She smiled. ‘I am sure she would want to send you her regards,’ She paused; but I did not understand; for my brain felt too dizzy to recall Lucy’s name. My companion frowned; then smiled, as though she had understood. ‘I am sorry, Jack,’ she whispered, ‘that I deceived you for so long – and yet I – you – we cannot help ourselves,’ She kissed me on the lips. ‘We cannot be but what we are made.’

  ‘You deceived me,’ I echoed suddenly, in puzzlement.

  She frowned. ‘Why, do you not remember?’ she asked.

  I glanced past her at the flames of the incense burner. Faintly a memory stirred, of another fire in another room. ‘You came to me,’ I murmured. ‘We sat in chairs beside my hearth. Is that not so?’

  Lady Mowberley, or Charlotte Westcote as I could now remember she was called, smiled at this. ‘We wondered how long it would take you,’ she replied, ‘to suspect the client who had hired you on the case.’

  ‘We wondered?’

  ‘It was not I who devised the game.’

  ‘Game?’ I stared at her wildly. ‘It was a game?’

  Charlotte inclined her head.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Surely you can deduce tha
t?’ she asked. ‘No?’ She laughed, then turned and gestured. ‘Why, La Señora Susanna Celestina del Tolosa.’

  I looked and saw Suzette – not the little girl, but the woman I had glimpsed before: graceful, haunting, beautiful. ‘No,’ I whispered, shaking my head. ‘No … I don’t understand …’

  Suzette smiled. ‘But you will, Doctor – you will.’ She crossed the room towards me. ‘You are scarcely yourself at the moment, after ad. But when your pleasure fades – then you will remember, and for a brief while be Jack Eliot again.’ She took my hands, stroked them. ‘You should be proud; you entertained Lilah and myself a great deal.’

  ‘Entertained?’ I struggled to remember through the fog. A story somewhere? In a magazine? Something she had talked of and persuaded me to read? I began to ask her, but Suzette rose again and with a gesture cut me off.

  ‘Over the centuries,’ she told me, ‘I have composed many enchantments – many games. You gave me the chance, though, to practise something new. We were certain, you see, that you would eventually discover the trouble George was in. Your old friendship with him – your powers of observation – your experiences in Kalikshutra … yes; it was inevitable that the case would attract you in the end.’ She glanced at Charlotte, then smiled and took her arm. ‘When Miss Westcote learned of you from George, we were initially disturbed by the reports of your background and your powers. We had spun a tight mesh around Mowberley, you see; and yet you, it now appeared, might untangle it again. I wondered whether to dispose of you – and then, I happened to chance on Beeton’s Magazine. Surely you remember it, Doctor? Sherlock Holmes? The first consulting detective in the world?’

  I nodded. Yes – I could recall it ad quite clearly now.

  ‘I recognised in it,’ continued Suzette, ‘the inspiration for a wholly novel type of game – suitable to this new age of reason, this scientific century, before whose sceptical gaze all superstition must die. Lilah was quite entranced by the idea. We set you on the case; we observed your progress; we followed each turn you took through our maze. You did very wed – it was a privilege to watch – but you faded, of course, in the end, to understand,’ She smiled, and turned away. ‘As I had always known that you would,’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have already said. You are a child of your century, of your rational age.’

  I stared at her blankly.

  ‘It was the single most intriguing aspect of the game: to test your arrogance, and see it fad.’ She handed me something. ‘Do you remember this?’ she asked. It was the card I had found in the opium box.

  I nodded. Yes, I did remember it. I read it out aloud: ‘How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?’ I shook my head, then laughed wildly as I tore up the card. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘you were right – what arrogance.’ I laughed again. ‘How could I have been so blind before?’ I asked. ‘How could I not even have suspected the truth – what possibility might be … or pleasure … or experience? But now, thank God’ – I raised my hands, and looked around me – ‘thank God, I do.’ I laughed again, hysterically. Thank God, indeed! I had never known such a happiness, I had never felt so boundless – so blissful – so free. What limits could there be on anything?

  I started to remember, though, very soon afterwards – just as I had done after the first murder, like a painting cleansed of its accretions and dirt, my guilt was reappearing again, dim at first, then with ever greater clarity; and as it did so, the palace around me was slowly transformed back to a gaol. I knew better now, of course, than to attempt to escape it; and so I remained with the other captive beasts adorning die menagerie, an amusing trophy set amongst the rest. I was privileged, I realised, looking around me, to have been permitted to retain my human form; I could have been a monster, a spider, a snake. As Suzette explained to me, Lilah took inordinate pleasure in choosing the form to which her victims were reduced. ‘Always something apt,’ she smiled. ‘A punishment crafted to fit the crime,’

  ‘Crime?’

  ‘Yes … of boring her. For she will always be bored in the end by human love – though she also loves and feeds on it. The dwarf, for instance – a French vicomte from some two centuries ago, exceedingly handsome but dangerously vain. The panther – an Ashanti girl, arrogant and cruel, who sought to stab Lilah in a jealous fit. Sir George’ – she smiled – ‘wed … you saw him for yourself.’

  ‘But you killed him; you bled him to ash.’

  Suzette turned away. ‘I am a vampire,’ she said at last. ‘I must have blood.’

  ‘Must?’

  She glanced back at me coldly. ‘You should understand the need to kid.’

  ‘Should I, though? Is that what I am – a vampire, like you?’

  Suzette frowned, then shook her head slowly. ‘Perhaps not,’ she murmured. ‘I had assumed you were. But Lilah can make her victims into anything. Perhaps you are a killer and nothing more. For if Lilah had transformed you into a vampire, then believe me – you would recognise your own taste for blood.’

  ‘I like to shed it,’ I replied, ‘sometimes.’

  ‘But not to drink it?’

  ‘No.’

  She shrugged. ‘Wed, then – you are not a vampire,’

  ‘But you?’ I pressed her. ‘Was that what Lilah made of you?’

  She turned back to me, and there was not a trace now of the child in her woman’s face. Terrible it was, radiant with intelligence and loveliness. ‘When Lilah met and seduced me,’ she said at last, ‘I was a vampire already.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  A trace of my old wonder stirred, my forgotten disbelief that such things could be. I swallowed. ‘How long?’ I asked.

  ‘In the courts of the Moorish kings of Spain,’ she replied. ‘A thousand years ago – eleven hundred, perhaps …’ She turned away from me again. ‘It is so hard to remember now.’

  ‘And Lilah – that is where she met you? In one of those kingdoms in Spain?’

  Suzette nodded shortly. As she gazed into the distance of the night, she stroked back her hair – her elegantly braided woman’s hair. ‘I lived,’ she murmured at length, ‘when I first met her, amongst the fountains and courtyards of Andalucia, where learning and ad the arts of civilization flourished as they had rarely done before. My mother was a Jew, my father a Christian; I lived amongst the Arabs of the Caliphate. The different cultures were mine to sample, for I belonged to each one and none of them; and with this displacement came its birthright – mockery of them ad. Knowledge was my passion – and amusement the perpetual condition of my mind, Lilah I loved, for she seemed to share these qualities of mine, yet infinitely amplified so as always to challenge and fascinate me. We left Spain. Across the whole world we roamed for two – three – however many centuries. Always, though, we would return to her favourite shrine, her kingdom amongst die Himalayan peaks, which is her one true home, and which, as you have witnessed for yourself, she will always defend. Others she has abandoned, to empires, cities, the various encroachments of man … but never Kalikshutra. She – and I with her – have lived there far too long.’

  ‘Yes,’ I exclaimed, remembering suddenly, ‘I saw you, a statue, in the jungle shrine. You were standing by her throne,’ And then I frowned, staring at her, seeing not the girl but the woman still. ‘When the statue was made, though…,’ My voice traded away. ‘You must have already been transformed by then

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her smile both self-mocking and sad. ‘It happened in the end, of course. I came to bore Lilah,’ Suzette paused. ‘Just as she bored me. I told her that I intended to leave. Her demands for amusements, for perpetual entertainments – they had started to fatigue me, to wear me down. I was tired of games; I wanted something more,’ She smiled again and turned away. ‘I told her, as I left, that she was like a little child.’

  There was a long silence. At length she glanced round. ‘So you see,’ she murmured,
gesturing wide with her arms, ‘she came after me. I did not escape her after ad.’

  ‘You are a prisoner here too, then?’

  Suzette didn’t answer.

  ‘You could leave if you wanted to, surely?’ I pressed. I swallowed. ‘Surely … I mean, your powers … you couldn’t be stopped?’

  Suzette turned from me and gazed out at the stars. We had been climbing the staircase towards the dome of glass; now we passed through it and beyond, into the night outside. ‘Look at me,’ she whispered, and I stared. Once again she was a little girl. I sought to find the woman beneath the plaits, the ribbons, the pretty party dress. But she was gone. I suddenly remembered the creature from the boat; his former self had been absent as wed, when I had looked at him out on the river and searched for his past in his present face. I swallowed. Sweat was starting to form on my brow.

  I stared at the crimson glow of London spread out before me. I could feel the prickle of anger again, borne on the breeze. The marks of my own change were returning to me. ‘I must get inside,’ I muttered. As I turned, I staggered; Suzette smiled and took my arm. We passed back through the door. As we did so, die prickling ebbed and died away. When I looked at Suzette, she was a woman once again.

  ‘So there can never be escape,’ I pressed my forehead against the glass. ‘Never.’

  ‘You can leave,’ replied Suzette. ‘But what she has made you here – no – you can never escape that.’

  ‘And that is true for ad of us, then? In this …,’ I paused, and stared about me. ‘In this … place – this prison.’

  ‘Prison?’ Suzette laughed. ‘You think this is a prison?’

  ‘Why? What do you think it is?’

  Suzette shrugged. ‘What you were promised. What, in the end, you grew so desperate to find: a sanctuary from the laws of probability, where human science would no longer apply. Hasn’t that been your goal ad this time? And now you have it – you exist in it.’ She paused, gazing at the dome of light above our heads, the blaze of stars. ‘Wherever she lives,’ she murmured softly, ‘wherever in the world, she recreates this dimension for herself. The finite is ad around us – but here, where we live, is infinity.’