The Best New Horror 7

by Stephen Jones

  In time, the loop will run out, and Delacorte will raise himself up off the bench, and he will return to the office, squaring the knot of his tie, ready to sit behind his desk and take his telephone calls and revise his brief well into the night. But you: You are alone, and although you are waiting and you are watching, there is nothing left to be seen.

  When what your last quarter bought you winds down to blue, then nothing, you lean your forehead against the monitor, feel its light and warmth fade into black. Your eyes, trapped in the vanished picture, look into the darkness and offer their plea. But there is no escape.

  You sit in booth 7 and you watch the black screen, waiting for the shadow to move, the shadow to shift from darkness into light and then never find the darkness again. You realize then how very much you want to cry, to find the way that tears are made, but of course, as always, your cock has wept for you.

  You take the fold of Kleenex from your pocket, wipe the red and swollen tip of your penis and then your hands. In the moment before you stand, ready to open the door and step back into the world, you let the Kleenex fall to the floor, where the life that was inside you trickles down a crack in the cold concrete.

  BRIAN STABLEFORD

  The Hunger and

  Ecstasy of Vampires

  BRIAN STABLEFORD WAS born in Shipley, Yorshire. He lectured in sociology at the University of Reading until 1988, wrote full-time from 1989–1995, and is currently employed as a part-time lecturer at the University of the West of England teaching courses in “The Development of Science in a Cultural Context”.

  He has published more than forty science fiction and fantasy novels, including The Empire of Fear, The Werewolves of London, The Angel of Pain, Young Blood, Salamander’s Fire, and The Hunger and Ecstasy of Vampires (Mark Ziesing Books, 1996). A prolific writer about the history of imaginative fiction, he was a leading contributor to the award-winning The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, and has written numerous articles for Clute’s Encyclopedia of Fantasy. His other publications include anthologies and volumes of translations relating to the French and English Decadent Movements of the late nineteenth century.

  The short novel which follows is an audacious amalgam of science fiction, horror and detective fiction . . .

  Prologue

  AS DAWN’S FIRST light tinted the sky Duval and Uzanne walked across the lawn to meet Mourier’s seconds. One of Mourier’s men opened the box to display the ancient pistols resting within. The other took Duval to one side, saying: “Is all this necessary? Monsieur Mourier had no intention of causing mortal offence. His mention of the girl’s name was not intended to insult Monsieur le Comte.”

  “Monsieur le Comte has been pursued by evil rumours through half the capitals in Europe,” Duval replied. “He is able to ignore jests of an ordinary kind, but he will not hear Laura Vambery’s name mentioned in this connection. He feels that unless he responds to your friend’s carelessness others might feel comfortable in making such insinuations.”

  Mourier’s man sighed. The pistols were offered to the combatants, and the selection made. The two gentlemen took their measured paces. Monsieur le Comte was not the taller of the two, but he seemed to Duval to be the more commanding figure. He was said to be an accomplished mesmerist, and in spite of the fact that there was nothing intimidating about his gaze Duval found it easy to believe. The man seemed to be in a kind of trance, as if his mind had slipped into some uncommon mode of consciousness which permitted absolute concentration. The manner in which he turned to face his opponent was smoothly mechanical.

  Mourier did not even bother to raise his arm to the horizontal. He discharged his pistol harmlessly. No flicker of a smile passed across the face of Monsieur le Comte. His own pistol was raised, and pointed at his opponent’s heart, but he let the barrel fall until it was pointing at the spot from which the two men had stood back-to-back. He fired.

  Mourier fell, clutching his throat.

  Duval could not restrain a moan of astonishment. Even when he realized, belatedly, that the missile must have struck a stone, he could not help but wonder whether Monsieur le Comte might actually have aimed at the stone, calculating that the ricochet would strike his opponent. It was impossible – and yet, Monsieur le Comte seemed quite impassive. Neither surprise nor alarm was evident in his stony expression.

  Mourier’s seconds ran forward, and vainly attempted to stem the flow of blood from the wound which had opened Mourier’s windpipe. As Duval ran to join them one looked up, and said: “Go, you fool! Get your man out of Paris. It matters not that the killing was an accident – there will be hell to pay, and if your friend does not want the name of Laura Vambery bandied about in open court, he had better not set foot in France again.”

  Dazed and fearful, Duval obeyed – but it took all of his and Uzanne’s strength to drag the man away. It was as if the reputed mesmerist had himself been mesmerized by the sight of his victim’s coursing blood.

  The only word Monsieur le Comte spoke, as his seconds bundled him into his carriage, was: “Laura!”

  I

  “Do you know Edward Copplestone?” Oscar Wilde asked me, as he sipped absinthe from his glass. We were dining at Roche’s in Soho, but our host made no objection to the absinthe, which I had smuggled in from Paris. An Ideal Husband had just started its run, to universal acclaim, and Wilde could do no wrong within those or any other walls.

  I had been less than a month in London, and knew hardly anyone, so I denied it almost without thinking.

  “He dines here sometimes,” said Wilde, “but he cannot really be considered a member of our set. He is a great traveller, and tells extravagant tales of his adventures in parts of the world of which most of us have never heard. Some of his stories may even be true, although that hardly matters. He is the only man I know who can speak with casual familiarity about the hinterlands of Siberia and the Mongol lands.”

  That struck a chord. There was another man I knew who was widely travelled in the Far East, and was overfond of telling dubious traveller’s tales.

  “Perhaps I have heard the name,” I conceded, uncertainly.

  “You will find it extensively acknowledged in the notes and bibliographies of Tylor’s Primitive Culture and Frazer’s Golden Bough,” said Wilde, airily – although I suspected that he had read neither book. “He is a self-supposed expert on primitive religion and magic, with particular reference to shamanistic cults, but by no means a Dryasdust. Quite a dreamer, in his way. Rumour has it that he is no stranger to the opium dens of Limehouse, and rumour can usually be trusted – except, of course, when it turns its attention to me.”

  This news was mildly reassuring. It was entirely probable that such a man might know Arminius Vambery, but Vambery was unlikely to have gone out of his way to pour out his troubled heart to a man reputed to be a dope fiend. Like most sober madmen of impeccable reputation Vambery had little tolerance of delusions born of conscious artifice or those accused of courting them.

  “Why do you ask whether I know Copplestone?” I enquired.

  “Because he has written me a curious letter saying that he has a very strange report to make and would be grateful for my presence. He says that he considers me one of the very few intelligent and open-minded men in London – I cannot imagine who else he has in mind – and that he would prize my opinion of what he has to say most highly. He requests me, if possible, to bring an acquaintance as wise and as imaginative as myself. It is a description which could hardly apply to Bosie or Robbie, and so I thought of you. Will you come with me, if you are not busy? The invitation is for tomorrow evening.”

  “You hardly know me,” I murmured. “How do you know that I meet the stated requirements?” I suspected that Wilde had only “thought of me” because I happened to be dining with him that evening.

  “I was impressed the first time we met, in Paris,” he said. “You seemed to have a view of the world of men so clear and so cynical that I could hard
ly believe you were part of it. It is true that we have never talked at length about deep matters, but I am always impulsive in my judgements and I am very rarely wrong. Will you come?”

  I agreed to go with him. How could I possibly have refused? In any case, I was becoming hungry for new amusement. London seemed unbelievably dull after Paris, which I had left with such a sudden wrench. It is never a good idea for an individual of my kind to stay in one place for long, but I never regretted leaving a city more than I regretted leaving Paris. On the other hand, London was not entirely devoid of advantages. One could buy a slumgirl for a shilling, and a passably pretty one at that; we who are obliged by restless nature and the harassment of vile slanders to be forever on the move must be grateful for every opportunity which a city has to offer.

  “Who else will be there?” I asked, curiously.

  “I really have no idea. The only other name Copplestone mentions in his letter to me is Bram Stoker’s – and that is only to say that Stoker is in Ireland just now, and cannot possibly come. Copplestone does not explain why he thinks Stoker might have been a suitable candidate for inclusion; personally, I have always considered his mind to be conspicuously second-rate.”

  I had laid down my fork rather abruptly at the first mention of Stoker’s name. Wilde must have observed my reaction.

  “Do you know Stoker at all?” he asked, curiously. “He is Henry Irving’s factotum.”

  “I have never met him,” I said, in a neutral tone.

  “I have seen little of him lately myself,” said Wilde, “although I was a regular visitor to his home when he first moved to London. He was at Trinity before me, you know. He was still working in Dublin when I went up. My father befriended him, and even my mother condescended to like him a little, but he married a girl of whom I was exceedingly fond and I was never able to forgive his temerity. The fact that we are now in rival camps, theatrically speaking, only serves to add new insult to the old injury.”

  I was not in the least interested in the petty politics of the English theatre. I knew, though, that Bram Stoker was one of the people Vambery had talked to when he was in London; if he and Copplestone were acquainted, that considerably increased the probability that Copplestone was another. After what had happened in Paris I wanted to steer well clear of anyone who might have occasion to mention the name of Laura Vambery – but I had already accepted Wilde’s invitation, and it seemed that Stoker would not actually be present.

  I thought it best to change the subject.

  “Shall we share a carriage?” I asked. “I would be happy to collect you, if you wish. Where does Copplestone live?”

  “On the south side of Regent’s Park. Yes, I’d be grateful if you could collect me from the Haymarket; it will be easier to tear myself away from my friends, duties and admirers if I know that I am eagerly awaited by a stern aristocrat. We are expected at eight. I do hope that it will be amusing. Travellers’ tales have become far less interesting since Stanley let so much dismal light into the delicately dark heart of Africa, and the steady march of geographical science is slowly strangling the spirit of wild romance, but if there is any forgotten corner of the globe still rich with gorgeous mystery Ned Copplestone is more than likely to have found it. If he intends to test our credulity, we may be reasonably sure that it will be well and truly tested, hopefully to destruction.”

  I put my reservations firmly aside, and resolved to do my very best to play the part which had been allocated to me: that of a man of the world, clear-sighted and open-minded. I little suspected what unprecedented demands that role would make of me in the nights which followed.

  II

  I called for Wilde at the appropriate hour but he was – as always – late. I had to sit in my carriage for a quarter of an hour, watching the crowds go by.

  The famous London fog had condescended to leave the city unblanketed for once, and the frost had not yet begun to glitter upon the pavements. The chestnut-roasting season was well past by now and most of the brazier-men were hawking baked potatoes, whose odour was not quite so astringent. The crowd was as good a quality as one could expect to find in London out of season, but they seemed a tawdry gaggle by comparison with the excited throngs of Paris’s Latin Quarter. My mood was such that they seemed more than usually like cattle trooping to the barn, or laying hens milling about their carelessly scattered corn. I was glad when Wilde finally consented to appear.

  As we bowled along Regent Street, Wilde lost himself in some interminable anecdote, and for once his brilliance seemed slightly off-key, but he was in such good heart that he slowly roused me from my torpor of indolence. By the time we reached the fringes of the park I was ready to face the challenge of the long winter night. Inevitably, we were the last to arrive, although my coachman had contrived to make up some of the time we had lost by showing his usual scant regard for the convenience of other road-users.

  Wilde’s enthusiasm seemed to falter slightly when he saw the remainder of the company gathered in Copplestone’s waiting-room. He wondered aloud what judgements had been made of their intelligence by way of polite enticement, but he hastened to introduce me to Copplestone.

  Mercifully, the professor showed no flicker of recognition at the mention of my name.

  Copplestone was a tall, gaunt man who had doubtless been more solidly-built in his younger days but seemed to find the advancing years uncommonly burdensome. His complexion seemed curiously jaundiced and his handshake was far from firm. Politeness forbade me from saying so but he really did not look well, and I wondered whether he ought to have postponed his story-telling until he had recovered more of his colour and strength.

  I had to concur with Wilde’s unvoiced judgement that our fellow-guests did not appear at first glance to be a coterie of the most intelligent and open-minded men in England. They seemed, in fact, to comprise an assembly of eccentrics – but there were probably some among them who felt that Wilde and I increased the bizarrerie of the gathering. Wilde proved, once he had removed his coat, to be dressed as flamboyantly as usual, although the green carnation in his lapel was made of silk and crêpe paper. Being a foreigner, and a count to boot, I needed no artificial aids to appear exotic in English eyes.

  While Copplestone introduced me to the others I searched anxiously for any sign or symptom which might testify to the arrival in London of scurrilous gossip, but there was nothing. If any of them had heard of the Mourier affair they were models of discretion.

  The first man to whom I was presented was a stout and stolid doctor who had served in India. He seemed a man of common sense rather than exceptional cleverness, but he was the only man present who had been long acquainted with Copplestone, who referred to him as an “invaluable supporter” and “unwilling collaborator”. I gathered that the doctor had his own reservations about our host’s physical condition.

  Like Wilde, the doctor had been invited to bring a companion, and the man who accompanied him was tall and distinguished, though not particularly well-dressed. He seemed grave to the point of melancholy, and I was struck by the apparent acuity of his grey eyes. Nothing was said concerning his station in life.

  I was then introduced to two young men. The first was a study in contradictions; he was not thin, but the peculiar softness of his flesh gave the impression that he had recently been very lean indeed and was now filling out for the first time. His complexion was naturally pale, but he pinked very easily, and a hectic flush seemed to be continually ebbing and flowing from his cheeks. There was a feverish glint in his eye which suggested that he was not entirely well, although he was by no means as debilitated as our host. It was evident that Copplestone had never clapped eyes on him before, and that it was his companion to whom the professor had actually written.

  The other young man was dark and curly haired, with perhaps a touch of Creole about him. Copplestone explained that he had but recently returned to London after spending some time as a schoolmaster in Derbyshire, but that Wilde knew him slightly and would
doubtless be glad to see him again. Wilde obediently pantomimed the pleasure of an old acquaintance joyously renewed, but it did not seem to me that their friendship could ever have been intimate. Wilde met so many young men. I judged from snippets of their conversation that the two young men were not very well acquainted with one anther, but that they had many interests in common, including biological science. Both had now chosen to devote themselves to the precarious life of the pen.

  The one man in the room who presented incontrovertible evidence to the naked eye that he was older than Copplestone seemed to be in his mid-sixties; his flowing beard was white, but he was still healthy. He was a man of science whose name I ought perhaps to have recognized, but science has always seemed to me to be very much a day-time product, and those who invariably keep late hours – as I do – tend to be thrust more often into the company of men of Wilde’s stripe. Copplestone did not say whether his title was a baronetcy or a knighthood earned by public service; he did, however, mention that the old gentleman was as well-known for his exploits in association with the Society for Psychical Research as for more material work.

  The final member of the party, who had been brought as a companion by the white-haired man of science, was a dark-haired man of similar vocation. Copplestone seemed to think that we might get along famously together, presumably because we both had European accents, but it was obvious to the two of us, if to no one else, that we came from nations which had so little in common as never even to have fought a war. In any case, the man explained that he was an American by adoption, and had renounced his European identity in order to give his allegiance entirely to the American spirit of free enterprise. I was not sure exactly what this implied, but I gathered that it had something to do with the profits one could make out of the sale of patents.