“So, I want that world opened up to me.”
I straightened. “That would be quite impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because phototropic leucocythemia is not contagious.”
“Mr. Cavalanti says it is. He says we could transfer it to me in the same way we infect the rabbits in your laboratory, by injecting a little of his blood into my veins.” I stared dumbly at the round, pale face, the dark red hair tumbling gently over the kimono.
“Oh, Father, I want to see the world as Mr. Cavalanti sees it. That is the change I want to go through this May Eve.”
I was horrified. I had not realized it before, but there was an undiscovered dread within me. The thought of someone I knew becoming a vampire, my own daughter, supping on crawling things, her face transformed like a rat or viper, carnivorous and necrophilic, filled me with sudden disgust. “Ursula, I can’t allow it—”
She seemed shocked. A question trembled on her lip. “Why? Is it not my own decision?”
“No,” I said falteringly. “No, it is not.”
Anger flushed her face. “Why?” she demanded again, and then her expression changed. The rapid scanning of her eyes revealed a tumult of thoughts, thoughts perhaps even she did not realize she possessed. “Is it because it’s all right for you to be different, for you to help Mr. Cavalanti escape from the hospital when everyone feared him, but it’s not all right for anyone else?”
“That’s not true,” I said, realizing Niccolo had been talking to her.
“It isn’t?” she continued, still possessed. “It isn’t true that you married Mother because you wanted to be different, but then you turned around and punished her for it?” Her face became unusually cold and hard. “You know why you’re so against my infecting myself with Mr. Cavalanti’s disease? It’s because you’re jealous. You’re hurt that he’s opening up a world to me that he’s closed off to you. You’d infect yourself if he gave you the opportunity, but you’d damn me if I did the same.”
I was shocked and hurt by the attack, but I struggled to maintain my composure. “I think you’d better consider what you’ve just said,” I advised. “It’s true that phototropic leucocythemia intensifies the senses, but we know very little about the disease, about what untold physiological and psychological side effects it may have. It would be completely out of the question for you to be a guinea pig for such an experiment.”
Ursula crossed her arms defiantly.
“One more thing,” I said as I turned toward the door. She regarded me scornfully, her white knuckles gripping the hawthorn.
“I don’t want you leaving the house during May Eve,” I stated with all the self-restraint I could summon.
For the next several days I spent most of my time working in the laboratory. I tried not to think of Ursula’s words, but simply allowed myself the luxury of feeling a blind and unarticulated hurt and anger. As for Ursula, when we passed each other in the halls, and even when we sat across from each other at the breakfast table, we remained completely silent. Even though her quiet contempt was agony for me, I took some solace in the fact that she wouldn’t be feeling such anger if she didn’t intend to obey my wishes.
It was shortly after sundown on the eve of May that I went into my laboratory and discovered for the first time Niccolo in the act of indulging in his fiendish practice. He stood facing the door with his face buried in the nape of the neck of one of the brown rabbits I had provided for him. The rabbit’s sable eyes were wide with terror, its mouth agape with the rictus of approaching death. As I entered, the vampire looked up, the blood still moist upon his canines.
“Niccolo!” I gasped and then stuttered, not knowing what to say.
“Dottore,” he apologized, “there wasn’t time for me to finish before you came in.”
“It’s all right,” I said, trying to calm myself. “It’s just the first time, I guess, I’ve actually seen you—”
“Killing something,” he filled in, and I thought I detected a slight smile when he realized how revolted I was. He gently placed the animal upon the counter, and then removed a hair from between his teeth, smugly and with aristocratic delicacy. The rabbit twitched. It was not quite dead.
“Poor thing,” he comforted and stroked its fur. “At least it’s lost enough blood so that it’s deep in slumber.”
I shuddered as I approached the counter and made some semblance of looking busy. “Niccolo,” I finally began, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
He looked in my direction.
“I don’t like what you’ve been doing lately.”
He remained expressionless.
“Come now, Niccolo, you know what I’m talking about. You’ve been playing some sort of game with Ursula, for my benefit, to get back at me for my accusations.”
“Ahh,” he said and casually padded over to the glass cubicle containing a gray-and-white rabbit. The brown one that had had Camillus influenzae had long since died, and the gray-and-white one was the newest living receptacle for the deadly virus. “Well, Dottore, I’ve noticed that you’ve been taking it that way, but trust me, I did not consciously intend to cause you any discomfort. My only motive was to—”
“I don’t trust you,” I interrupted angrily.
Niccolo abruptly glanced in my direction.
“I’m tired of you lying,” I said in desperation. “You may calmly and coolly deny everything, but damn it, you’re up to something.”
“You see!” he shrilled. “I warned you. I warned that the day would come when you would turn against me.”
“Yes, Niccolo, but not because I am one of the superstitious rabble, as you so eloquently put it. You’ve used that ploy to keep me in a state of constant indecision, but it won’t work any longer?’
“Just like all the others!”
“‘Just like all the others!’?” I mimicked harshly. “‘Just like all the others!’? Then why did you tell Ursula you would infect her with your disease?”
“You’re the one who told her I have a disease,” he countered. “I was just playing along.” And then, in a flurry of exasperation, he turned to me. “All right. You are correct, Dottore. It was a parlay, a stratagem in a game, and now that you have confronted me so violently with your suspicions, you have forced my hand.”
His words struck me like a sword against my flesh, and for a few moments I stood stunned. “What do you mean?”
His eyes widened with fury, but then a strange smile crossed his face. “I am leaving,” he said simply as he lifted the brown rabbit up to his lips and finished it with gusto. As I shrunk back he turned to me one last time. “I am leaving and going back to my own world, my own kind,” he ended as he stormed out the door.
I stood there for several minutes after he had left, trying to sort out my thoughts from the confused emotions of the situation. At first I felt only elation, as if some danger had passed and I could finally breathe easily. But then I became filled with a growing sense of remorse and profound disappointment. If only I could have handled it differently, I thought, and once again made some feeble attempt to go about my work. As I continued, as each painful minute passed, I became more and more aware of the implications of Niccolo’s leaving. What an opportunity I had allowed to pass through my hands. No... I corrected myself, not just an opportunity, an entire unexplored world. Finally, and almost without thinking, the anguish became too much and I found myself racing to his room to see if he had left yet.
When I arrived I discovered I was too late. Niccolo was gone. The wardrobe was empty and on the neatly made bed was a crisp hundred-pound note and a gracefully written message. It read: “The money is some meager payment for all you have done. The end has come.”
I uttered a little cry of pain as I crumpled the message and stuck it into my pocket. I walked blindly into the hall and along the balustrade overlooking the foyer, and almost didn’t notice that Cook was standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Lord Almighty,” she gasped. “Are
you in another world, sir?”
I glanced dazedly at the puckish red-cheeked face with its tousle of white hair. “What?”
“I’ve called to you several times,” she continued. “I said, ‘You ’ave a visitor. ’E’s in the drawing room.’ Shall I tell ’im you’ve taken ill?”
“No, no,” I said, shaking my head and wondering who it could be. Cook cast me a worried glance as I descended the stairs.
When I pushed the massive walnut doors aside I noticed the familiar odor of Egyptian cigarettes. Then I saw Cletus’s dwarfish form silhouetted in the light from the streetlamps shining through the French windows. The sounds of a crowd could be heard faintly from the street below.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“Quite a mob forming out there,” he said, motioning toward the window.
“You didn’t come here to talk about May Eve.”
“No... no, I didn’t.”
“So why?”
“I’ve been thinking, that’s all”—he bit off the end of his cigarette and spit it into a parlor palm—“about Niccolo.” He said the name with a peculiar rise in his voice.
“What about Niccolo?” I mimicked.
“Oh...” he said as he paced around the gilt and rosewood pianoforte and casually tapped a solitary note, “I was just thinking, if his metabolism were truly as, shall we say, preternatural as it seemed to be, you might have been very interested in—”
“Studying him,” I filled in and gazed sternly at the little gremlin. “I might as well save us both a lot of fancy footwork and tell you that I helped Niccolo escape from Redgewood. But so what? He left of his own free will. He just wanted to get out without anyone knowing when he was leaving or where he was going.”
“So!” Cletus snorted “If he did have something to do with Chiswick’s disappearance we might have been able to have extracted some information from him about the matter.”
I threw up my hands. “You bloody fool, how often do I have to point out to you that there’s nothing to tie Niccolo with the disappearance of Chiswick? Indeed, I foolishly allowed myself momentarily to become persuaded by your wild suspicions, but when I confronted Niccolo he was completely shocked and denied everything.”
Cletus eagerly hung on to my every word. “And what is this young man, this Niccolo?” His voice became very low. “Is he something—?”
I regarded the little man with complete sincerity and calm. “He is a vampire,” I replied simply.
“Oh, come now.”
“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.”
Cletus raised a bristling eyebrow as his face revealed he was searching my eyes for the truth. He puffed rapidly on his Egyptian cigarette and I could tell the machinery was working full speed behind his fierce little eyes. “Where is he?” he said without a hint of his acceptance or disbelief. “I want to see him.”
“You can’t.”
His lip quivered truculently. “Why not?”
“He’s gone. We had an argument today and he left.” In self-righteous anger I explained the entire story, Niccolo’s refusal to allow me to take any blood samples, how I told Ursula he had phototropic leucocythemia, the way he toyed with her, and hew our friendship finally disintegrated in a strange interchange of mistrust and cruel games. There was nothing Cletus could do now and I wanted him to share in the helplessness I felt. In my telling, I wanted to rid myself of the little man once and for all.
After I finished I slowly walked over to the French windows and gazed out at the expanse of Bond Street. Branches of hawthorn had been attached to most of the gas lamps, and lengths of ribbon and brightly colored swatches of flannel formed a macabre spiderweb over the street. People milled about everywhere, and the crowd of dodgers and tawdry women formed an odd contrast against the somber and stately façade of Mayfair. Here and there children bandied effigies of witches, and raffish men carried torches. I knew that somewhere in the distance a huge bonfire was being built. “What else?” Cletus finally interrupted.
I turned around.
“Something else is bothering you. What is it?”
“It’s Ursula,” I said, unable to fight any longer. “She had a dream a couple of weeks ago that she was a Druid during the ancient rite of May Eve, and that she was sacrificed in the fire.”
“So?”
“So, she’s certain that something is going to happen to her tonight. She was convinced, even hoping, that Niccolo would infect her with his disease.”
Once again Cletus raised an eyebrow. He was about to say something when we both became distracted by the muffled strains of a familiar chant. “Through the rowan and through the keep, spare the horse and spare the sheep.”
“May Eve,” he huffed disdainfully and flicked an ash into the palm. “In any case, I trust you set Ursula straight.”
“Of course,” I retorted. “I told her that under no circumstances was she to leave her room tonight.”
“Spare the fox and spare the hen,” the litany continued. “And you’re completely certain she’s there now?”
“Well, of course—” I began, but then a strange sensation crept over me. I thought I was sure. But as Cletus stood there holding me down with his tigerish gaze, I became uncertain. It was true I hadn’t seen Ursula since well before my blowup with Niccolo, but I couldn’t fathom she would go against my word. “Come and I’ll show you,” I said as I opened the huge walnut doors.
As I gripped the balustrade on my way up the stairs I realized my pace was unconsciously quickening. There was even a trace of sweat on my palms. Cletus hobbled behind me. When we reached the boudoir I tapped loudly on the door. No answer.
“Ursula,” I called, and there was still no reply.
I flung the door open and a gust of wind caused the heavy rose velvet curtains to billow on either side of the window. The room was empty. As I glanced about madly at the mahogany bureau and the black lacquer chairs I became aware of something else. It was then that I noticed the broken vial and the small glass rod on the table of fretted teak. The air was redolent with the smell of lily and palm.
“No!” I cried as I pushed Cletus aside and raced down the stairs. I ran headlong into Cook.
“Ursula,” I exclaimed, “have you seen Ursula?”
“She went out,” Cook gasped in surprise. “Well, my goodness, it’s the May Eve—” She swung around in addled confusion as I ran by her and out the door.
Outside, the street was a swarming mass of shouting and frenzied people. Some were brightly dressed with garlands and scepters of ribbons and flowers. Others were shifty and ragged. Many of them carried cattails soaked in paraffin and set aflame. The multitude of little fires cast grotesque shadows on the looming buildings.
“Through the rowan and through the keep,” they chorused and a cry rose from the mob as one young doxy was hefted upon the shoulders of several rowdy men. As I burst through the crowd a horse reared, and I realized I had blundered directly into the path of a shiny black barouche filled with fashionably dressed people. A monocled gentleman shouted something at me but his voice became lost in the din of the celebration. I became dimly aware that Cletus was struggling to follow me, but I soon lost him in the turmoil of the crowd.
I ran and ran and here and there people oblivious to my panic tried to catch me up in their circles as they laughed and danced. “Spare the horse and spare the sheep!” I pulled away from them madly as I tried to discern the flow, the inexorable ebb of the crowd as it swirled and eddied through the streets and slowly made its way to the bonfire.
At last I saw the conflagration, a swirling pillar of yellow and vermilion engulfing an abatis of trees and broken chairs as the swirling, sooty mass twisted up into the inky blackness of the night. The bonfire crackled and roared and all the faces of the crowd were lit in the flickering yellow light. “Spare the fox and spare the hen, but throw the woman in!” they shrilled as they flung the crumpled straw body of a witch into the flames. “Aye, and throw the woman i
n!”
I turned about in a frenzy and then at last I saw. Standing amid the Doric columns and white portico of a Georgian mansion across the square was Ursula. She wore a long white dress and the garland of hawthorn was slightly askew upon her head. In the bright circle of light from the inferno I could tell that her expression was silent and dazed and she peered into space with a glassy stare.
“Ursula!” I screamed as I rushed to her side and sharply turned her shoulders about. “Where’s Niccolo?”
She remained blank for a few seconds as if she hadn’t even heard the words, and then suddenly her expression crumpled and she burst into tears. “He’s gone,” she sobbed. “Oh, Father, I knew he was a vampire. He asked me to meet him here and I begged him to make me a vampire, too, but he refused. He just said good-bye and then he left.” She buried her face in my chest and continued to cry. I hugged her tightly and led her through the crowd.
On the way back to Bond Street I was so swept up with relief and the emotions of the situation I didn’t even stop to wonder why Niccolo had to call Ursula out into the celebration to say good-bye, or why he erroneously left the vial of aromatic oil in her boudoir. When we arrived home Cook came running out to greet us and I noticed that she, too, was frantic and crying.
“Oh, Dr. Gladstone,” she gushed, “they came while you were gone.”
“Who?” I asked with a puzzled expression.
“Mr. Cavalanti and another gentleman, a little older, with the most penetrating and frightening eyes. It was ’orrible.” She shook her head madly. “Simply ’orrible. They rode in a ’earse, of all things, a Neapolitan ’earse, windowed in black plate glass with black-plumed stallions!” She flung herself at me as if making some pitiful gesture for mercy.
“Why, Cook, what is it?”
“They took hex;” she gasped and gazed up at me with her china-blue eyes. “I tried to stop them, but they took little Camille.”
* * *
Book Two
* * *
Hespeth
The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life Page 12