Renfield grunted, unable to shut his eyes. Blood splattered the rim of his porcelain jaw. Squirming, but being held in place by Ben's weight.
"Why? Why? Why did you do this? Did I really wrong you so badly?" Ben shouted, spittle flinging from his mouth, tears pouring down his face. Soaking into the dust.
Renfield shuddered, flexing his body. He coughed and hissed, "I—hate you." And with that he fell limp, lungs deflating as he exhaled.
"Hate..." Ben whispered, looking at his now dead friend. Glancing back at Helwing—motionless and bloodied. And at the headless vampire who had been Oliver.
"Hate...?" Ben whispered again.
Of course, he hates you.
It was your idea to join the army.
He didn't want to serve. You did.
He fell in love.
You encouraged it.
And he was hurt.
Wounded beyond imagination.
You took the only thing he had left.
You took—
"Mina!" Ben stood, jerking away from Renfield's corpse.
"Mina!" he shouted and started sprinting back to the farmhouse, silver blade still in hand. He ran and ran, legs pumping, burning, but he ignored the pain. Lungs desperate for air, he pressed, harder and harder.
Dust and dirt flew past him. Red eyes blurred in the dark—but he paid them no mind. He ran. And he ran.
And there she was—standing on the porch.
She wasn't alone.
She was being held by some other creature's embrace.
A thing he had never seen before—nor would ever want.
Similar to the vampire in the Argonne Forest, this one was cloaked in a flowing black shroud. Bald with a misshapen animal like face—nearly beautiful in its own perverse way. Two massive incisors sticking out like bucked fangs. Death-white skin and pale, bloodless lips. Yet, somehow this one seemed feminine—and taller, much much taller than the rest. This was a giant standing on the porch, holding his wife hostage with an elongated talon nail resting on the cliff on her chin.
"Mina!"
"Ben!"
"Its going to be okay—Mina...it's okay to be okay, baby," Ben tried to reassure her—or himself, he wasn't sure. He kept the silver blade in one hand, and with the other, began coaxing, gesturing for the vampire to calm. From his peripheral, he could see all the many red eyes surrounding him, like an army of floating dark ruby orbs in the black night.
"Please, let her—"
Hissing, thunderous, a loud crackling silenced Ben. He clutched at his ears, moaning between clenched teeth. Eyes squinting against the onslaught.
And then a voice came from the cloaked creature. Ancient and low—yet feminine in a way. Not human. "Mr. and Mrs. Harker. So sweet. So helpless. Do you feel the cold on you? Do you feel death—can you taste my breath on her, Mr. Harker?"
Ben shivered, still desperately clinging to the silver blade. His hands trembled terribly. He glanced at Mina—her face contorted in agony and fear. He looked back to the large vampire, the black hood and robed cloak fluttering around it as if the fabric were alive. He'd thought they were just animals—feral things from legend and folklore, mindless killers. And yet this one talked, it—commanded.
"Who are you? What do you want?" Ben whispered, his thoughts boiling in his skull.
The vampire turned its head, as if considering the question. It glared with glowing red eyes. "Death, Mr. Harker—" It picked Mina by her chin, talon piercing flesh.
Mina whimpered, her feet dangling.
"Please. Don't. I'm begging you! She's pregnant." Ben came forward, tossing the blade away, hoping against everything his gut was telling him that maybe It would show mercy.
The tall giant creature—this timeless vampire regarded him, gazing down from up high on the porch. Hissing, clicking its throat. "I know your kind, Mr. Harker. When men meet a force they cannot destroy, men destroy themselves. What a plague you are—lashing out in the dark, clinging to the light. I come from an older world." Squeezing Mina's neck, the vampire laughed—a laugh born of lonesome places, a laugh festered in a tomb. "I come from a world where an eye earns an eye, and a tooth earns a tooth. You took my flesh—do you remember? No matter. I shall take yours."
With one quick motion, Mina's neck was broken. The snap echoed like a large branch being cracked.
"Mina!" Ben dove for the silver sword.
But then the giant vampire was gone.
Vanished. Along with her ilk. One by one, the red glowing eyes faded away.
Mina's body tumbled to the porch floor.
Ben ran to her. Falling beside her. He cradled her head in his lap and rocked, moaning, whimpering, pleading for her to be okay—to wake up.
He sat with her like that for hours, until the sun rose on the horizon and the rain—after so many long years, finally began to fall.
Later, he buried her and his unborn child in a grave near the farmhouse.
He found Helwing and buried him as well.
As for the rest, he burned them in a shallow grave.
Third Interlude
2044
"If you wonder why I'm near you
Even though I've been denied
I'm inclined to be a little
On the sentimental side
I suppose I should forget you
If I had an ounce of pride
But I guess I can't help being
On the sentimental side,"
— Billie Holiday.
"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee,"
—Annabel Lee [excerpts], Edgar Allan Poe
Chapter 31
"I'm sorry, Mr. Harker. I didn't know..."
"How could you know."
Clyde looked at the old man—unsure of what to say. When he had first heard of Benjamin Harker, tall tales his grandfather used to tell him, they painted an image of this unbroken hero, like one of the classic reels of John Wayne or Gary Cooper, men who the mud and muck of life never seems to stick to.
Mr. Harker's heroism notwithstanding, he had been broken, Clyde imagined many times this aged black man had bathed in and been forced down into the worst this world has to offer—to lose one's wife and child in such a way, right in front of him...all thanks to a friend too, and to also lose a mentor, a teacher. How could one man stand after having so much taken? He supposed a man could take plenty if he only had the strength to walk that kind of road. And Mr. Harker, though impossibly old, was more than strong enough.
"I cannot imagine how it must feel, being betrayed by such a close friend." Clyde shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
Harker simply nodded. His eyes dry and weary looking, tired perhaps.
Clyde had suspected he might be more emotional, had he lived through something like that and was asked to bring it back up over a hundred years later—he himself would certainly be more forthcoming with emotion. "What happened in town? Were you still a suspect?"
Benjamin laughed, more in mockery than jovial. "Suspect? How much was left after the incursion to suspect me? Especially not with my own wife—and child perishing. No, young Bruner, what remained of Champagne believed whatever they could to hide away what their instincts
told them was true. Most, including that bumbling fool of a reporter...what was his name? From the Champagne Herald, he wrote about the dust storms—that the Dust Bowl had claimed all those people. Even James believed it was true."
"James survived?"
"He did, the only miracle to come out of that ordeal."
"And he didn't believe you?"
"That vampires killed those people—murdered Mina and our unborn child?"
Clyde nodded. Swallowing hard. He could sense the frustration in the old man's voice, an old grudge boiling to the surface. Old hate perhaps long coagulated now beginning to thaw.
"No, young Bruner, though like many of those who survived kept their suspicions of such a thing, an evil, that goes bump in the night. No, he could not fully accept a world in which fantasy infects reality, but he stayed with me, becoming a caretaker of sorts of this house...all those many years as I came and went hunting...Her." Mr. Harker trailed off, distracted perhaps by a passing memory.
Silence fell between them.
"There is a queen, then," Clyde said in a low voice—he looked away from the old man, immediately regretting he'd said anything at all.
"Yes, young Bruner, there is a queen. As I said before." Benjamin rocked in his chair, building momentum, and then stood. Catching his breath, he shuffled to the Victrola. The record with Fats Waller had stopped. Picking up the vinyl, he pulled another from the cabinet and placed the needle down. Cranking the shaft, huffing and wheezing as he did, another song began to play—an airy, pop sort of jazz with piano and horn and a snap of snare drum. Looking exhausted, but smiling all the same, the old man turned and went to his chair, falling back down into it.
"What's this?" Clyde asked, thankful in part for something else to talk about—another way to brush past the death of Harker's wife and unborn child at the hands of the Queen, of the betrayal of his best friend and murder of a mentor, or at least a respite, for there were more questions to be asked before the night was done.
Breathing deep and long, Harker said, "Duke Ellington. He played at the Cotton Club in Harlem. I saw him perform once on my way passing through New York before boarding a ship for Europe. 1944, I believe it was."
Frowning, Clyde asked, "You went back to Europe?"
Benjamin nodded, leaning back in his recliner. Withered hands resting across his chest. "Of course. As I said, for a long time I travelled back and forth, hunting the vampyre, to use the tongue of Professor Helwing. I'd heard on the radio what was happening over in Germany and Poland. I knew that Hell Bitch would be there—somewhere. The professor had said as much, the vampyre are a locust, a leech. How could they resist such bloodshed? And there was the letter to do with."
"Letter?"
"From Cambridge. After a decade they presumed Professor Georg Von Helwing to be deceased. And when they read his Last Will and Testament, he had left some items for me to collect."
Combing his slick hair back, Clyde chewed on his lip, thinking.
"You're wondering how he knew, aren't you?" the old man asked.
Clyde nodded. "It doesn't make sense. How did he know? Did he know? You said you had parted ways, you wanted out of hunting. If so, why would he leave you anything at all?"
Harker closed his eyes, breathing deep, exhaling in a sort of rattle breath.
"Are you okay, Mr. Harker?" Clyde asked, now at the edge of the couch, praying internally that the ancient man wasn't having a heart attack from the strain of storytelling—that he wasn't after 144 years finally deciding to die.
"Thirsty," Harker croaked.
"I'll get you another glass of water." Clyde stood.
"Coffee, please."
"Coffee?"
"Yes—use the kettle. Grounds are in the second upper pantry. No sugar. No cream. Just black."
"Okay." Clyde turned toward the kitchen.
"And young Bruner."
"Yes."
"Make it strong—all this talking...I'm feeling as if I could fall asleep as soon as taking another breath." Benjamin leaned back, eyes shut, his breath still rattling as he exhaled.
The younger man regarded him for a moment, feeling sorry in a way. To live such a long life, to survive so much and still find oneself alone in the end...
Shaking away his thoughts, Clyde went into the kitchen and started a pot of water on the kettle. In the second upper pantry, he found a jar of Folgers. Leaning against the sink, he waited for the whistle to blow. On the kitchen table, something glimmering in the low overhead light caught his eye. Lying across discarded newspapers, some local, others from far away, lay a cane with an ornate hawk handle. Approaching cautiously, as if the object emanated power in some way, he reached out and took it. In one drawn out motion, he unsheathed the blade—a silver blade from the cane—Professor Helwing's cane.
Moments later the kettle screamed.
He poured two mugs and returned to the living room with the cane tucked under his arm pit. He handed one mug to Harker and the other he set on the coffee table. Holding both hands out, as if presenting the sword, he asked, "Is this—"
"Professor Helwing's? Yes. I kept it. And hunted with it, in his honor." Harker eyed the cane as he took a sip from his mug. "Not bad, young Bruner. Very strong. Very good." He smiled, the wrinkles of his face coiling, nearly sucking in his eyes.
Clyde flopped back down and crossed his legs, resting on the couch cushions. He glanced out the window, at the fading purple light of the sun as it gave a last kiss on the horizon of golden wheat. Turning back to the old man, he asked, "In Cambridge, what did the professor leave you?"
"Oh, were we talking about that?"
Clyde frowned. "You mentioned a letter?"
"Yes. You're right. Forgive me. My memory...I've lost more than I'd like to admit. Yes, he left me his research, all his books and notes and sketches and photos, all that he had collected and written down concerning the vampyre. And I used those notes to hunt. To hunt Her..."
Did you find them? Did you find...Her? Or where She came from?"
A snarled grimace creased Benjamin's wrinkled face. "The professor once told me, there was power in naming things. And, according to his notes, he almost had it. I found out from that Devil's own lips. She called itself Countess Lamashtu."
"Countess?"
"Self-proclaimed, I'm sure some time, long ago, she may have ruled somewhere, someplace. And to your last question, no, I did not find her in Europe. I was too late. Too late to face the vampyre, but what I found in Her wake was ten times more horrifying—the leftovers of war and disease and hatred and malice. Human suffering on a scale the world is shy to see again. Industrialized murder."
Nodding, Clyde said, "You mean the Nazi Concentration Camps?"
Benjamin smirked. "Your schools even teach about that?"
"Sadly no."
"Thought as much—your grandfather then? He taught you?"
"Yes—history was his favorite subject. He believed without it we are doomed to repeat our mistakes."
Laughing now. "I'm sorry to tell you, young Bruner, as a species we are doomed to repeat our mistakes no matter how much we learn from them. I've lived long enough to recognize the circular nature of history." At this, Benjamin reached to the table beside him and began stuffing tobacco into his corncob pipe.
Clyde stood and struck a match, leaning down so that Mr. Harker could light his pipe. White smoke soon blew up around him. Satisfied, he sat back down on the couch.
Harker gazed at him, his pipe clenched between yellowed teeth. Two small brown beads, sparkling in the low lamp light, tracing him, penetrating him, searching for—God knows what.
Clyde cleared his throat, "But we have to try and do something, or else what is the point of any of this?"
More chuckling between wisps of smoke. "Oh, to be young again. I was like you, once. Idealist and proud and full of a fury that could not be quenched."
Smiling awkwardly, Clyde asked, "She told you her name, I'm assuming you faced Her again at some point, correct?"
"Oh. Well. Let's see. I came back following my failure in Auschwitz. I built that covered porch with James," he gestured just outside, "and for a time it was simple living, farming. But the nightmares were horrendous back then. I still have them, from time to time, but I've grown old and have forgotten more than I care to admit." He paused, taking a long drag from his corncob pipe. "And then another war broke on the news—on this hideous Westinghouse television set." He smacked his lips, making a sour expression.
"And did you go? I'm assuming you mean the Korean War." Clyde was on the edge of the couch now, listening intently to every word.
"You know your history, young Bruner. Very good. And no, I did not. James convinced me not too. The idjit. But maybe he was right. The signs were not there, and the war did not last long enough for the vampyre but to be much of an appetiser. And if it was, well...Vietnam proved to be the main course. When things started heating up and the world was watching—the signs were everywhere."
"Signs?"
Harker exhaled a large cloud of smoke, coughing. "You have to read between the lines, young Bruner. And you have to know people willing to share what they see. I had such a person. There was a boy in town who had survived the massacre in Champagne. He was young, but old enough to remember. At that perfect age where reality is really what you make of it. He witnessed what happened to this town, his family, and he believed. Much to James's distain, the boy and I had many talks. He was... What was his name? What was it? You know, I can't quite remember. But he got a new name when he became a priest of the Roman Catholic variety—Father Raymond Bishop. He came to me with an incredible story about a unit of Lerps (LRRP) who had gone out into the jungle near the border of Vietnam and Cambodia—only one returned, and the story he told...well, men see things in war, tricks of the light or the dark. Who would believe such a tale? Who indeed." At this the old man smiled, biting down on his pipe.
"What did the soldier see?" Clyde watched the old man carefully, itching to hear the rest, wanting to know more—more of this ancient man's tale. What did he see? How did he survive? And more importantly, is there a way to kill the vampyre—too eradicate them forever? And not through fire and beheading, but to truly end them?
The Last Hellfighter Page 18