The London Vampire Panic

by Michael Romkey

  "Even someone completely indifferent to the passions of worldly experience—a monk, a nun, a Hindu hermit—would have been overwhelmed with the incredible richness and sensuality of what it is like to hear and smell and taste and see and feel as a vampire. Every sound, every color, the touch of a bit of velvet against my cheek—words are too small to describe how acutely we experience. This is what merely being alive in the world is like for a vampire.

  "I knew then that I, an overly passionate village rector's daughter, had arrived at my destiny. And by such a strange and circuitous route! If it was not God's will, what was it?

  "For the longest time I lay in bed, drinking it all in. The cotton sheet beneath my fingertips. The soft drum of the spider's feet against the bottom of the chair pushed against the far wall. The patter of rats playing in the wall. The conversation of people in the other apartments. The welter of cracks in the ceiling over my head in the dark room—I can see very well in the darkness, as all vampires can—the whole of the world around me was so much more complex and wonderful than I had realized. And touching, feeling, seeing, smelling—so sensual is the vampire's life that even these simple things are like making love.

  "I also remember feeling a profound gratitude. I had been blessed with something very special and precious. My lover, my benefactor, my father in blood, how could I repay the kindness he had shown me? I owed him more than my life for he had given me more than life—an infinity of lifetimes was his gift, and the power to live them to a degree you mortals can scarcely comprehend.

  "As I smelled food from the other apartments—potato soup, a bit of cold mutton from the rear of the building, an apple rotting in a desk drawer next door—I gradually became aware of my Hunger. I was ravenous. It was not ordinary food I craved but rather that most precious substance creatures of my sort require. This was my first experience with the Hunger. The headaches and nausea I felt if I went too long without my opium pipe were but an insubstantial whiff of wanting, a momentary craving, compared to the all-consuming need that filled me. The Hunger is more than a mere physical need. It was as if my immortal soul itself was in desperate need of sustenance. But still I do not come close to describing it! You cannot imagine the need, gentlemen.

  "I sat up and swung my legs out of bed. I was as weak as a baby. Panic flooded into me. My Hunger was strong, but my body hardly had the strength to sit up: How could I hope to get what I needed to quiet the howling rising from within?

  "There was a girl outside selling flowers. I could smell the fresh bouquets tied in fragrant bundles, gathered in a wicker basket. All of this I divined, gentlemen, without rising from my bed to look out the window. How did I know it was a child, a girl, with big brown eyes and a basket nearly as big as her? I sensed her, gentlemen, the way a hound apprehends the presence of the fox hidden in the covert, using mysterious perceptions designed by a God who created the tiger as well as the lamb.

  "I got slowly to my feet, shaking, my balance uncertain, and looked about me, marveling that I could see so perfectly even though it was dark. My room was in what had once been a fine house. Now, the only signs of its former greatness were the decorative molding where the walls joined the ceiling and a fireplace with a carved marble mantel, cracked from age or misuse by an angry drunken tenant. How sad the remnants of former glory we find hidden within the dross and refuse of life! The wall next to the bed was pitted with holes my fists had made during my febrile seizures.

  "I walked to the window and pulled back the moth-eaten curtain an inch or two. She was there—the flower girl—just as I had known she would be, importuning passersby to buy a penny's worth of flowers. Poor child. She was hungry, too, and the people ignored her offer to sell them a small handful of fragrance and beauty. It was then that I realized the sweetness I breathed in with every breath was only partly from the violet nosegays. It was her blood that smelled so sweetly to me—as fresh and new as flowers brought from the Haymarket less than an hour before.

  "Merely sensing my craving was enough to cause the girl to look in my direction. She could not see me. I remained hidden behind the dirty curtain in my unlighted room, unsteady, hungry, filled with fear. I somehow knew I could use the power of my thoughts to bring her to my door to meet my need. Spare me the cold looks and even colder thoughts, gentlemen. I am not the monster you think me. I could have had the child into my room and drained her to the dregs in half an instant, but I resisted. For perhaps the first time in my life, I found the strength to resist the urge to surrender what would have been a most delicious experience.

  "This, gentlemen, is the true measure of the power of the vampire. I did not kill the child, though I knew it would have brought me pleasure beyond anything I had ever experienced.

  "I waited. I cannot say I waited patiently, but I managed to hold the Hunger at bay just a little bit longer while I waited for the sort of person to come along that I could drain of blood without regret. A most underappreciated emotion—regret. Is there a more persistent source of emotional pain than regret for what we did, or should have done but didn't?

  "Fortunately, I did not have to wait long. I heard footsteps coming down the street. A great many footsteps, to be more accurate—men, women, children, fat, thin, young, old. The things you can tell about someone from the sound of their footsteps! These particular footsteps were quite familiar as I heard them enter the house and pound up the stairs. I somehow knew that my first communion as an immortal was in the process of delivering itself to me. I crabbed my way to the door. My head was pounding, or maybe it was just the sound of a big red fist beating upon the door. How my jaw ached! My blood teeth were pushing their way through the bone in my upper gum for the first time, splitting me from the inside out. The door swung open. It was not locked. And a good thing, too, because I doubt my fingers could have turned the skeleton key in the latch.

  "Angus MacGregor, big as a house, angry as a bull, filled the doorway, side-to-side as well as up and down.

  " 'Where ha' you been, ye bloody cow?' he roared.

  "I was not ready when he hit me, though I should have been, for beatings were the chief type of authority Angus knew how to exercise over his girls. He caught me off balance—my balance was precarious enough—knocking me to the floor. He kicked me in the belly, sending me rolling toward the bed. Before I knew it he had grabbed me by an arm and thrown me against the wall.

  " 'I wager you've been laying up here, hitting the pipe like a stinking Chinaman,' he said. 'You owe me, lass. You owe me for the lads you would have had, had you been at the house, making your living on your back proper like. You're going to work off the debt, but first you'll get the thrashing you so richly deserve. It'll help ye remember not to run off again, assuming you survive.'

  "Angus's hands were huge, like the rest of him, with big scarred knuckles. He did not employ rough boys to keep the peace in his house, you may know. If there was anybody that needed being clobbered, Angus did it himself and saved the expense. He drew back his fist, fixing to knock me into next week. I think I was as surprised as he when my small hand shot out and grabbed his wrist before he could strike. That's when his eyes went cold and dead, like a serpent's. Whatever happened then was fair enough for me, because it was plain as the nose on my face Angus intended to beat me to death. As God is my witness, gentlemen, what I did to Angus MacGregor, I did in self-defense. If he'd had the strength to turn the tables on me, I'd be sleeping in my grave now instead of him."

  (Kate Woolf pauses and looks at Lord S., who finally nods, as if agreeing with the contention she is innocent of whatever happened.)

  "So I stand there, Angus's great tree-trunk of an arm caught in my tiny fist. It took him a moment to recover, but then he tried to pull himself free. But his arm stayed put. Mighty Angus MacGregor, who had once gone forty rounds bare-knuckled in a heavyweight bout, lacked the strength to overcome me! Angus brought his head sharply forward, smashing his brow into mine, like a ram butting heads with a rival. I saw a moment of bright light but
felt no pain. Angus MacGregor was somewhat the worse for it. If I hadn't held him up, he would have dropped like a felled oak. He recovered quick enough. His years in the ring had made him as used to getting beatings as giving them. He grunted and tried to pull free again, but he was caught snug as a badger in a trap. The harder he struggled, the tighter I held him, until the anger in his face became pain. I swear I did not mean to do it to him. There was a snap, a sharp snap, like someone breaking a piece of dry wood. That's when he began to howl. I'd broken his arm.

  "It was then that I saw the other girls the whoremonger had killed—girls who crossed him badly enough, or had the misfortune of running afoul of him when he was drunk or in an ill temper. He'd beaten three to death. One he'd strangled. He'd slit another's throat. There were more, but I couldn't stand being in his brute mind long enough to find out. The desire burning within me was sharpened by a sudden taste for retribution.

  "I threw him against the wall, filled with a sudden exultation. In that moment, I felt as if I were a part of God's own divine justice. The brute was about to receive his reward.

  "My blood teeth came down out of my upper gum with a sort of click, Professor Cotswold. They are very sharp. I was careful to keep my tongue back so I didn't cut myself. My mouth was already filled with the warm, salty taste of my own blood.

  "Angus begged me with his eyes, but by then I couldn't have shown him mercy if I'd had a mind to—which I most certainly did not. The Hunger had grown too strong in me to resist its insistent demand. I grabbed his thick red hair and jerked his head cruelly to the side, exposing the skin on his dirty neck.

  "It was blind instinct that told me what to do next.

  "I will not try to describe the ecstasy that flooded into me with the first taste of mortal blood. I heard Angus moan beneath me. I realized he was sharing my bliss, even though I was draining him of his life. I know, in the way that vampires know unusual things without understanding how or why, that I did not need to drink much of MacGregor's blood to satisfy my want. Yet the blood was so delicious to me, at once so exciting and deeply satisfying, that I did not want to stop drinking from the well of life. Why stop myself from enjoying the immortal wine that flowed from this fountain? I continued to drink swallow after swallow of Angus MacGregor's blood as he slumped to the floor, drinking it even though I knew I was killing him a little more with each mouthful, drinking until there was nothing left to drink.

  "When I was finished with him, I stood up, my body and mind singing as if the sacred vibrations of the planets and stars were alive within me and I in them. I looked down at Angus. His body had a sunken look around the eyes and a slight pucker to his thick lips.

  "Perhaps you think Angus did not deserve to die for his crimes, at least not at my hands, with no judge to pronounce the verdict and a proper hangman to execute the sentence. Be that as it may, I will tell you what I think about the death of Angus MacGregor. I looked down on his crumpled body, only a few minutes earlier so large, so animated with life, and I felt exactly nothing. I felt no more remorse than I would feel stepping on a spider.

  "And then, my dear gentlemen, I wiped the blood off my face and went out into the night in search of more."

  * * *

  23

  Oranges

  THUS I COMMENCED my career as a vampire in earnest. The rough life I'd lived in London provided the perfect education. I had the skills to be quite at ease with what I had to do. The streets have everything I need, and a pretty dress and an easy smile are all I use to get them. I did not return to Madame Le Beau's establishment. That, I feared, would have led to unpleasant complications.

  "Professor Cotswold is wondering about my hunting practices.

  "Dr. Van Helsing has you convinced I creep into bedrooms like a succubus to prey on the helpless as they sleep. Pure slander. Until the unfortunate episodes last night, when I reacted out of self-defense, I have never taken an unwilling lover—for they are lovers, the men who feed my Hunger. And I assure you they do not suffer. The vampire shares her bliss with her partner. I am particularly well qualified to testify on this point, gentlemen. While I was still mortal, I experienced for myself this most unique brand of intercourse. Had I not been willing to proceed to the deeper level and undergo the great change, I would have been no worse for the experience after regaining my strength—and in the bargain I had enjoyed a level of pleasure most humans never know.

  "You know I am capable of killing. What happened last night was, as I said, an act of self-defense. But I will not lie and say I have not killed before. Angus was the first. After that, I killed because I could not control the Hunger. The rush of ecstasy one gets is so incredibly intense—it is impossible to stop. As my strength grew, so did my will. I learned to slow the act, to savor it, to linger over the delirious pleasure each swallow of this immortal communion brought me.

  "For the past week or two I have been experimenting with not killing the people who feed me. Though I feed at least once nightly, I let several of my lovers live as a way of proving to myself a vampire is not compelled to kill. Indeed, I have concluded it is unwise to kill. What Professor Cotswold is thinking is exactly right: The survival chances for a vampire who kills his or her hosts are not as strong as they are for the vampire who is discreet and quiet in his habits. I doubt I will continue to kill after last night."

  (Vampire laughs, though it clearly is no laughing matter.)

  "After all, gentlemen: You see where killing has gotten me.

  "Ah, yes, Captain Lucian, your moral argument is also appropriate. It is indeed wrong to take another life. At first I could not help myself, but now I agree that it would put an indelible stain on my soul to continue the murderous behavior of my fledgling nights. What's that. Captain? My soul is already indelibly stained? Could you not say the same about us all? We are all of us sinners, since man's fall from grace. The difference is in grace and redemption. But perhaps I am beyond that. And perhaps you are, too. I pray that is not the case for either of us.

  "To this I would only add, gentlemen, that we vampires are hardly the only ones who resort to lethal violence, depriving others of their lives. Only one lover have I given the change, bringing him across the border separating the world of mortal and vampire. A handsome man adored by many women in the London theatre world. The mob chased poor Edmund Castle into an abandoned house on the heath and burned him alive. So pray do not look on me with such an air of high moral authority, Captain. There are far more human killers abroad in the world than there are vampires.

  "Professor Cotswold is wondering about the Hunger. It has never been very strong in me, except during feeding that first night, because I do not let it become strong. My benefactor told me I could go as long as a fortnight without feeding the Hunger, though I cannot imagine what would make me want to refuse myself the pleasure. Besides, one denies the Hunger at a risk. Left to grow too strong, it will take possession of me and, as its slave, I would behave without discretion. Far safer, I think, to keep it at bay.

  "I have used my special abilities to attract beautiful lovers. Or men whose wallets are especially fat. I have not given up my dream of an elegant carriage and a beautiful house, though after this it will have to be in Paris or Venice. I already have enough for a wardrobe and first-class transport anywhere in the world. I will go where I am unknown and set myself up as a lady. None shall know my past or suspect me, and I will be able to live in high style and amuse myself as I see fit without anyone being the wiser. I may even take a gentleman in marriage, but only for a few years. My husband will grow old, but I, immortal, will remain forever young. And so I will move on again, perhaps in ten years' time, to another exquisite house in another exquisite city, surrounding myself with beauty and luxury and art and all of the things that are now mine for the taking. And who can say? I may actually fall in love. Perhaps I will share the gift with my husband, keeping him forever young, forever in love.

  "Why, Captain Lucian, you surprise me! Hearing me speak of an undying
love softens your heart a little toward me. You should let the world see more of your sentimental side. It's far more appealing than your pose as a stern young officer."

  (C. asks for more detail about her ability to read minds and so forth.)

  "Perceptive of you to ask about the other changes, Professor, for I have a very strong sense they are more significant than this unusual need to drink blood. I believe I am only beginning to see the outlines of the vampire's powers. I learned to read thoughts first. Then I learned to control bodies—to make people come here or there, to bend their head just so to give me easy access to their throats, or to look in the other direction as I slip by unnoticed.

  "Recently, I have been learning to put thoughts into people's minds. A useful trick, that. To make Lord Shaftbury order me released from this prison, and to have him be convinced it is his own decision."

  (Not bloody likely, S. responds.)

  "Not today, but perhaps tomorrow—who can say for certain? It was easy enough to get out of here the first time. You must not hold my guards responsible, either for my first escape or the second, for which you will not have to wait long. You can look as stern and determined as you like, gentlemen. These pathetic steel bars cannot hold someone like me.

  "You are aware our numbers are growing in London. Whatever is 'exponential growth,' Professor Cotswold? Mathematics was not my strong suit."

  (C. doesn't answer, but the vampire nods as if she's stolen the information out of his mind.)