Until now my plan had seemed so flawless, my revenge so perfect. Obsessed, maddened, I had never stopped to consider beyond its completion. But now it was all too clear. It was hopeless. After what I had done, how could she, knowing all, do anything but hate as I had hated? How could she do other than hate me forever?
Her lips quivered and her body shook. She made a few inarticulate gasps of anger, and I prepared myself for her rage and loathing. But what she said, screeching through the black empty streets, left me more aghast and horror stricken than anything I could have believed possible.
“My father – my brother. They will come after us. They may find us. They are dangerous. You should have killed them!”
XI
Together we walked back to the house, and as we went she talked without cease, as if she needed to convince herself finally that all this was real and no dream. Unfortunately, I needed no such assurance.
“If you only knew,” she babbled, “how long I’ve dreamed of the day I might escape from my father and that stinking bloody mausoleum of a house. The time I’ve been walled up there like a prisoner having to listen to him and my halfwit brother drivelling on about Christ and salvation. How many times I’ve prayed to get free from them. Oh! Why didn’t you kill them?”
She threw back her head suddenly, laughing hysterically. Then her eyes grew wide, her voice fell to a whisper. “That man. The one back there. The one you gave me. God! God! I could have killed him. I felt his life. I had it in my arms and felt it… felt it just fading away. Oh! It was… it was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. That power. Power beyond reason. The excitement. He was nothing. His life was nothing. I could have snuffed him out. It would have been so easy… but you stopped me.”
She turned to me, at first bewildered, then she frowned, her cheeks flushed with anger and blood. But at once she grinned again and prattled on as if she were drunk. “When I was at school… there were men. Just village boys. With grubby clothes and rough hands and manners like pigs. But we used to creep out and meet them secretly when we could. It was exciting. Well, it was exciting then. But it was nothing. Children’s games. All nothing, I see that now. Nothing compared with this!” And she began to laugh again, stretching out her arms as if to embrace the night.
I walked on, staring blankly into the darkness ahead as I told myself again and again:
“She is mad. She is totally insane. And God help me. I have given her power. I have made her madness eternal.”
The days which followed served only to confirm my worst fears. She learned to control and use her powers with a speed that was alarming, as might be expected in a nature that knew repression but no restraint. Night after night she went out, to return flushed and full, her skin feverish, her eyes glazed and voice slurred. Then she would come to me and sit beside me, drawing me into a loathsome intimacy where she related in whispers the details of her newest excesses: of the many diverse ways she had discovered to find pleasure in death, as if seeking my encouragement and approbation.
“It fascinates me,” she would say, her lips brushing lightly against my ear and cheek. “It fascinates me when they die. I like to watch them die. Sometimes I can’t decide whether I most want to feel them die or just sit back and watch. Sometimes I kill just to watch. Just to see death. I like that when they’re young and strong. And beautiful. I like to watch them die when they’re beautiful. I like that best of all.”
And I would sit, silent and expressionless, enduring all this. I deserved it. It was perfect justice. It had all been my fault, everything from the very beginning. And though I had terrorized and destroyed rather than admit this to myself, it was too horribly true to be denied any longer. Helena’s death, and every calamity that had followed it – the guilt was mine. The direct result of my blind, wilful passion for this abominable girl. I had failed Helena utterly. I had failed myself. Then I used revenge – a revenge Helena herself would never have wished – as an excuse to take what I had wanted all along. And when I looked at Elizabeth, saw her grinning and giggling, drunk with power, I told myself:
“Well! You had her life. And now you have her. And she is everything you deserve!”
Sometimes when I went out in the evenings she would come and walk with me awhile before she went off on her own. And as she strolled beside me she drew attention from all around. Men would walk nearby, staring and smiling; as enthralled by her beauty as I had once been. And she would look coyly back at them, her great blue eyes so appealing. Who could resist her? She was perfection. I had created the perfect instrument of death.
I questioned myself much during this time. How could I try to repair the wrong I had done? How could I begin to teach her moderation and control, as Helena had taught me? Once I even considered taking her to Maximillian, to repeat for her my lesson with him. But I dismissed the idea in alarm. She might soon have found things to teach him! But how could I presume to teach her anything? After the evil I had done how could I even try? She would assuredly laugh in my face. And who could blame her? There also existed in my mind the nagging fear that I might even be responsible for her disposition. That the fury and madness that had possessed me when I made her like myself had in some way infected and deranged her.
Soon we moved down to London. I hoped my state of mind might improve far away from the scenes of my crimes. But of course it did not. Plagued by guilt and loneliness there were even times when I came to fear the extreme dark; for it sometimes seemed as I sat alone I saw shapes there in the gloom; horrible visions, shifting nightmare forms and vague malignant images of damnation. I sometimes saw myself and felt myself a soul in Hell, amidst a thousand wailing others, tormented by black leering devils far above us. And though I loathed and feared those devils, my only wish became finally to crawl to them and join their numbers; to escape my pain, to turn and torment the multitude of wretches I had left behind – to be oppressor rather than oppressed. I was going mad. Occasionally the knowledge struck me like a thunderbolt. But madness terrified me. And I would fight to shake off these morbid notions, push my way back to reality. Only to find that sanity frightened me no less. There even came times when I half-wished for total insanity, and the release it promised.
One night as I sat in the property I had rented near Richmond, Elizabeth returned home rather earlier than usual. She seemed in high spirits. She came and stood before me, her face beaming, and said:
“He is dead. My father. I managed to find out.” And she smiled as if the news should bring us both joy.
For months I had endured her ways in silence, giving no indication of the pain and revulsion they brought me; regarding it all, I suppose, as some kind of just punishment. But now, at this final outrage, all my control left me. I rose, thrusting out my arms, shoving her aside.
“Get out of my way,” I cried, stamping to the door, throwing it open. “You would have killed him in time. If he had known you, if he had really known you, he would have died of grief and shame.” I glared at her, my face twisted with anger. And she just looked back at me astonished. “How much more of you do you think I can endure? I don’t want to speak with you. I don’t even want to look at you. You disgust me. I cannot bear to be near you.”
I turned and left, slamming the door behind me.
Throwing on my coat I went out and wandered the streets for a time until my anger cooled. I finally returned home a couple of hours before dawn. Elizabeth was still in the room where I had left her, sitting in the chair I had vacated. She looked up when I entered but said nothing, her features cold, impassive. I sat on the opposite side of the room, facing her.
“Elizabeth,” I said at last. “We must talk. There are things I must explain to you.”
She did not answer. And I went on to explain my life to her, telling her of Helena, of all the things she had taught me, and of the understanding we had sought together.
“I know what it is,” I assured her quietly, “to watch like gods humanity swirling beneath us. To know we may take at wi
ll whoever and whatever we choose. The power is exciting. But do you not see? This power, it does not make us masters of humanity. It makes us slaves. While we indulge it we are not even masters of ourselves.”
But even as I spoke I knew my words were empty. They carried no conviction. I had so little conviction left in anything. And Elizabeth just sat and stared at me as if the things I said were incomprehensible or insane. At last she rose and left the room without a word. Any regard she felt for me died that night. And the knowledge of this brought me some sense of relief.
* * *
The next night I went out, and came back late. As I climbed the stairs I saw a shaft of light shining from inside one of the bedrooms, the door of which hung slightly open. I crept to it softly, glancing inside. Elizabeth sat on the bed, wearing only a thin white slip, unfastened almost to her waist. A young man was with her. He was naked, his clothes in a heap on the floor. He stood above her, lithe and muscular with handsome, sensual features, his body trembling with passion. Then he reached out, running his hands over her hair, her shoulders, then down onto her half-exposed breasts. She sat, rigid and unyielding, her face blank and her eyes cold and expressionless as a statue. Her practice, as she had once confided to me, was to find two separate victims. From the first she would drain just enough to dispel the cold and pallor of her skin. Then, more often than not, she would indulge her vile tastes and watch the unfortunate man or woman bleed to death. Then she would go and find another and, still tinged and disguised with human warmth and colour, practise these bizarre and deadly games.
“That way,” she had told me with a smile, “they never know. Never. Until it is too late.”
Now he pushed his hands back onto her shoulders, pulling off her slip. And he sank down to his knees before her, kissing her neck and her breasts with intense ardour, beginning his love display to this exquisite creature who truly could be enjoyed by no man; who was cold and sexless as a stone and whose only desire was death. I looked on grimly, knowing what must come next, waiting dully for the final moment. But Elizabeth appeared intent on prolonging the game. She leaned up suddenly, throwing her arms about his neck, pulling him to her. And he rose up, poised above her, his body rippling, throbbing with excitement. She slid her hands along his back, stroking his lean smooth flanks, her body at last responding to him but her eyes hard and blank as before. The room was alive now, charged with invisible yet tangible power. And he jerked forward, thrusting at her, but at the last she rolled aside, depriving him of that pleasure she could not attain – that was dead in her. Cursing, he toppled clumsily down beside her. Then he sprang up again, his face hard with anger. Elizabeth lay quite still on the crumpled sheets and regarded him silently.
“Whore!” he said through clenched teeth. He seemed drunk. “Damn cold bitch!” And he lashed out slapping her hard across her face. She just lay there and smiled at him slightly. He swore and struck her again.
Alarmed I went to move to her defence. But then I held back. A foolish impulse. It was hardly she who needed protection.
Now she raised her head, her face red from the blows. And she looked at him and laughed.
“You’ll have to do better,” she said in a whisper. “You’ll have to work harder, before I reward you.”
And he laughed too, grabbing her roughly, more passionately even than before. Elizabeth gasped suddenly and her eyes at once grew wide and crazed. And in this moment they seemed overcome, each blind to all but their separate desires. And the intensity of their desire, the power it created, and my own confused feelings at once unnerved and frightened me. For the instant I felt some sense of secret jealousy. Not, I must explain, the jealousy of a husband for his wife’s lover. I could no more have envied that man in her arms than I could a beast led to slaughter. And besides, any physical desire I had felt for Elizabeth died naturally when her body became like mine, cold and barren of the human energies that gave me life and warmth. No. This vague jealousy was for Elizabeth – for her power to find release and pleasure without the tortuous burden of conscience. I almost sobbed with shame, despising this bitter truth; but all this was fleeting, swallowed up at once by a stronger, more definite emotion. Remorse. A remorse so great it crushed my soul beneath it. Remorse for making Elizabeth what she was – for all the things that had led to it – and for this young man, sentenced by my actions to die; and for all the countless others that must follow him through ages to come.
In despair I closed my eyes. But the demons of my imagination allowed me no escape. For it seemed I saw them still, far, far away, beyond the darkness in my head, as if they lay at the end of a long black tunnel. And as they writhed in each other’s arms I shuddered, for it appeared that a macabre transformation was taking place. That their skin was beginning to wither from their bodies, their hair to drop out, their eyes to bulge then fall from the sockets, until at last they were no more than two twitching masses of muscle, tissue and pumping organs. And then these things in their turn shrivelled away, blackening and dissolving into nothing until at last only white bones remained; two skeletons locked together in a fearsome embrace, still intent on spending their deathly passions. And it was as their awful lipless mouths met in the grinning parody of a kiss that there jolted through my brain the fear that again I tottered near the brink of some awesome madness. My eyes opened. I saw them both, whole once more, sprawled on the bed. Elizabeth lay staring up at the ceiling. The young man was still in her arms but now his body looked rigid, his skin white and wasted.
“It’s all right,” she called out suddenly, “you can come in now.”
She had known I was there all along. I should have guessed it. This whole grim scene had been planned in spite and revenge; a wilful act of defiance against my pleas for restraint. I entered the room slowly, anger swelling in me. The scent of blood was strong and heady. It unsettled me. Elizabeth raised her head now, looking at me and laughing faintly. I should have preferred not to have risen to her taunts, but I was much too incensed to hold back.
“How dare you!” I told her, glaring at her. “How dare you bring this depravity here!”
“I had nowhere else to go,” she shrugged. “I found him in a very exclusive nightclub up West. Though you would never think so to go by his manners. Positively frightful, to strike a lady. But anyway. I wanted him. And I get tired of killing in dark alleyways, it’s all so clumsy and hurried. We couldn’t go to his place, you see. He lives with his family. He thought they would be shocked.” She giggled. “I think he was right, don’t you? But if the rest of his family look nearly as good as he does, perhaps I’ll pay them a visit one evening.”
She turned to the young man now, staring hard at his still, handsome profile, ploughing her fingers through his thick black hair. Now she smiled, stretching out lazily, taking obvious relish from my distress. Next she took the young man’s expensive looking cigarette case from the bedside table, lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke towards me.
“You sorry old relic!” she said at last. “You belong in a museum. Or locked away in an attic somewhere, like the family idiot of whom everyone is ashamed. Didn’t you know, darling? This is the twentieth century. Morality is so old fashioned. Really, no one who is anyone bothers with morals any more.”
She reached out, caressing the soft growth of dark hair that covered the bare white chest beside her with infinite tenderness. I was about to say something when the man stirred with a weak groan. Elizabeth stubbed out her cigarette then nestled close to him and whispered:
“Open your eyes. Open them. Look at me now. Hear what I say.”
His eyes opened slowly. He tried to speak but he had no strength.
“Quiet. Be quiet!” she told him gently. “Save your energy. You only die once so why hurry?” He looked back at her dully. “But then,” she went on, “I could let you live. I could even make you immortal.” Her eyes met mine for a single moment. “Oh yes, I could do that.” She turned back to him. “How would you like it? To keep those looks forever?
It is my decision. Now! Will you live? Or will you die?” She paused, as if carefully weighing the matter. “But no,” she said at last with a shake of her head. “I can’t let you live. Really I can’t do it. My friend here” – she turned to me with a ghastly grin – “he wouldn’t like it. Oh, no. He wouldn’t approve at all. But remember, it is his fault that you are going to die. Not my fault. It is all his fault.”
How much the unfortunate victim understood of any of this I cannot say. But Elizabeth kept up her awful charade until the final moment. “Ah,” she said. “Just one last thing.” And she lashed out, striking him hard in the face, giving a contented smile before she fell on him, and his faint groans of mixed pain and pleasure grew more intense, then faded away as violent convulsions shook her, and she rolled back gasping, throwing his body aside.
I stood by, devastated again as I thought of everything Elizabeth had been to me in those few months since the first time I saw her. To begin, an object of desire, then an instrument of revenge, but now, finally a reflection of my own dark nature; a living reminder of my evil, that was no longer contained in me but unleashed and embodied in her, forever beyond my control. The worst of my fears was realised. All along I had used her, manipulated her to my purpose. Now she made it clear that I would never do so again. And with total despair I knew that everything I had struggled to find with Helena was gone; discarded and lost forever.
Now Elizabeth sat upright, staring at me insolently, a single drop of blood rolling down her lip onto her chin. Suddenly I was acutely aware of her nakedness. I stepped forward, snatching up a sheet from the bed and throwing it at her.
“Cover yourself,” I told her through set teeth, looking away. For a moment she just gasped in sheer disbelief, then she fell back screeching with laughter. I shook my head, feeling utterly foolish, knowing how ridiculous I was. And then I saw that about her neck she still wore the crucifix I had taken from her brother and put there. It horrified me. It seemed the ultimate profanity.
The Revenants Page 14