The London Vampire Panic

by Michael Romkey

  "I returned to the conservatory, where my teachers soon determined it was time for my first public recital. I performed mainly Beethoven, out of homage to the Maestro, who remains to this day at the Abbey of St. Stephen, as far as I know. I caused something of a sensation at the end of my performance by impulsively adding a piano interpretation of the final section of Wagner's opera Gotterdammerung, departing from the text of the music—I was playing without a score, at any rate!—for a long, improvisational exploration of tonal and harmonic colorations. The audience—which included Archduke Rudolf, the son of Franz Josef, King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria—applauded until I thought the concert house would collapse. They would not be satisfied until I played an encore. I choose Liszt, of course—The Mephisto Waltz.

  "Both of the pieces played as mere impulses—Gotterdammerung and the Mephisto—turned out to be prescient. Although it was hardly on the magnitude of Twilight of the Gods, my family's brief interlude of happiness was about to come to a crashing end, not with the glorious immolation of Siegfried, but in the explosion of an anarchist's bomb. The trouble that followed us home to London has been nothing but one prolonged waltz with Mephistopheles, though I will tell you more about that soon.

  "But for that brief moment, I had my triumph. The reviews in the next day's newspapers proclaimed an incomparable genius had been transferred from the vessel of the teacher—the great Liszt—into the smaller, younger, prettier vessel of the student. One review proclaimed that I was the first woman since Clara Schumann to have completely distinguished herself at the keyboard. This was heady stuff for a girl who had just turned eighteen and had not yet been presented to London society. The future seemed blindingly bright for a brief, shining moment, even with strains of Gotterdammerung and the Mephisto echoing in my head.

  "And then, like the light when you blow out a candle, everything golden was gone, except for dear little Andrew.

  "Andrew and I returned to London with his governess, Karol Janos, buried Mama and Papa, and took up residence in Moore House. I did not go near the piano. But for my brother, the light had gone out of my life. I rather thought the Maestro might write, especially after my parents' death, but there was nothing. Brother Michael had told me the Illuminati would have no contact with us until we proved we were worthy of the gift that had been bestowed. Only then, for better or for worse, would they reach out to us. How I dreaded what that might mean as London cowered through the worst of the Vampire Panic. Though we were not directly responsible for any of that, I have lived in fear that one of their avenging angels would call on us to take back the gift over which we had proven to be imperfect stewards.

  "I need to make one thing perfectly clear: I take responsibility for the terrible things that happened. If the authorities were capable of dealing with the truth, I would have gone to them at the first. But where would that have left Andrew? He would have become an instant object of fear. Under the circumstances, I had no choice but to deal with things as best I could.

  "But I get ahead of myself.

  "On the night of November first this past year, I had the unhappy occasion to attend a friend's funeral, leaving Andrew at home in Janos's care. The tot has developed a passion for Homer, of all things, an interest his governess indulges but does not share. Janos fell asleep in the nursery, reading the Odyssey to Andrew, although not in the original Greek, of course, which is what he loves best. The boy got up and found his way to Annie Howard's bed. She was always one of his great favorites, probably because she had a passing resemblance to poor Mama. He snuggled up beneath the covers with the girl, with a child's natural and innocent affection. But the blood speaks powerfully to someone who has made the change. It was very nearly Andrew's time, and the Hunger called out to him. The child did not mean to harm Annie. But without me there to help him control the appetite for what his body craves most, there was a regrettable accident. I am embarrassed to admit that we moved poor Annie's body to the kitchen to make it look as if an awful intruder were responsible for the attack.

  "As if that wasn't tragic enough, something else happened about this time that was to have even greater consequences.

  Unbeknownst to me, Janos was letting Andrew use her to satisfy his Hunger at odd intervals. These feedings weren't necessary, mind you. They were comfort feedings, the way you might give a child a glass of milk and piece of cake before bed to make him feel full and satisfied. The consequence of this was that she became weakened enough for the change to take hold in her.

  "Janos did not share her secret with me. I could have easily seen it in her, and I should have, but I was too distraught with grief and guilt and fear that we would be found out after what happened to poor Annie that I didn't pay much attention to anything during those first dangerous weeks.

  "Left to her own devices, Janos made an unfortunate mistake. The first was to lose control of herself with her friend Fannie Turner, the first time the Hunger called to her. Janos had no idea what to expect or how to control herself. The result, as you know, was tragic. That was the second death on my conscience

  "Janos fell into a black mood after that, as you might well expect. I feared she would try to take her life. I managed to educate her about what I had learned from Brother Michael, and advised her that the only way to make amends for what had happened was service, prayer, contrition, and atonement. She was able to turn the corner, thank God I don't know what I would do without her.

  "Unfortunately, Janos made one more mistake. Our man Ballantine had formed a certain attraction to Janos and had been pursuing her, although this also came as a complete surprise to me, when I found it out. There is far more to running a London household, I have discovered, than ringing a bell when it is time for the servants to bring in tea. Apparently, Ballantine's affections were not entirely unrequited. Unfortunately, when all was said and done Janos had unwittingly passed the gift on to Ballantine.

  "Despite the mask they present to the world, some people are basically good in their hearts, and others aren't. Ballantine belonged to the latter category and immediately gave himself over to the worst possible excesses. Lady Margaret Burke was the first woman he pleasured himself with."

  "That cur," Lucian said.

  "In doing so, he proved himself lecherous, murderous, and guilty of having designs far above his station. As the Prince of Wales's boon companion and equerry, Lucian, I need hardly tell you that His Royal Highness had maintained an intimate friendship with Lady Margaret Burke."

  Olivia glanced at Lucian and saw he was blushing. Apparently he did not entirely approve of Prince Edward Albert's merrymaking.

  "Ballantine was also a fool. He could hardly have picked a more dangerous person to prey upon. Her death aroused not only Scotland Yard but the attention of the government. As you know, it took no time at all for Lord Beaconsfield to impanel the special investigative committee to swoop down on Mayfair to protect our next king's reputation, if need be, and run the malefactor to the ground.

  "My suspicions about Ballantine were not aroused until the terrible killing spree in the East End on New Year's Day. Only then did I overhear the servants whisper that he was in the habit of patronizing the fallen women who haunt the streets, gin mills, and opium dens in that part of the city. I would have never imagined that a servant in our household could take perverse pleasure in inflicting pain and death on these poor creatures, but when I looked at Ballantine—when I really looked at Ballantine—it all was immediately self-evident. I called him and Janos into the parlor, shut the door, and asked them both some very impolite questions. It didn't take many minutes for me to get the truth—the bloody, horrifying truth."

  "What did you do about Ballantine?"

  "What could I do, Lucian? By the time all of your eyes were scrutinizing Moore House, I was so distraught I could scarcely draw a breath without twin blades of anxiety and guilt stabbing into my heart."

  Olivia stopped and gripped Lucian's arm the way a floundering swimmer might cling to a rescuer. For the
first time since beginning her story, her carefully maintained composure began to desert her.

  "What else was I to do in the end, Lucian?'' she cried. "I had no choice. Ballantine had passed the gift on to one of the prostitutes he frequented. The killings were spreading out in a circle I could not control. The city was on the verge of open panic."

  Olivia felt Lucian's gloved hand beneath her chin, raising it until their eyes met. They were almost back to Collingsworth. The house's portico framed Captain Lucian's body, making his shoulders seem even more broad and strong.

  "What happened?" Lucian asked in a flat, controlled voice.

  "The police couldn't stop Ballantine. I mean no disrespect, Lucian, but the government couldn't stop him. Cotswold, with all his knowledge of science, couldn't stop him. And Van Helsing—well, surely you realize by now he was a complete fraud. He couldn't stop Ballantine."

  "So what did you do? Or did you do nothing?"

  "Janos wanted to try, but I doubted she would be a match for him. The old Magyar steel is still in her eyes, but she has come close to breaking down over everything that has happened. Still, something had to be done. Ballantine had gone completely insane with his power. For someone like him, blood is the most powerful of drugs. He could not resist it. He reveled in it, in the perverse exultation it gave him to subjugate and torment those he took it from, draining them until their hearts stopped and their empty flesh grew cool beneath his touch. He was a monster, Lucian. I had to do something."

  "You mean you…"

  Olivia drew herself upright and looked at Lucian directly, toe-to-toe, face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

  "I killed Ballantine."

  "Good God!" Lucian gasped.

  "I committed murder, but as terrible a deed as it was, what choice did I have? Certainly the courts would have condemned him to die. I only did what they never would have been able to do. And I did it before he was able to claim another life. I burned the body and scattered the ashes. No trace of the fiend will ever be found."

  He gave her a hard look. "Are there other vampires in London?"

  The question made Olivia's heart sink. It sounded as if he had decided his ultimate responsibility belonged to his Special Committee. The Captain was a military man, she thought, a man of honor sworn to do his duty, a proper Englishman.

  "At this point, I believe the beacon of your attention need shine no farther than Moore House."

  Lucian nodded gravely.

  "But there is yet another problem," Olivia said. "And a very serious problem at that."

  "Can I help?"

  Her face brightened. Maybe he hadn't decided to despise her for her complicity and her crime. "It is Lord Shaftbury. He has shrewdly worked it out that Moore House is the epicenter of the London Vampire Panic. It might surprise you to know he employs a private cadre of spies. They brought him information he did not share with the rest of you."

  That made Lucian frown, though Olivia could tell it did not entirely surprise him.

  "If Shaftbury plans to arrest you, I cannot prevent it," Lucian said. "The most I might hope to do is help you get across the Channel with Andrew and Janos."

  The words brought a rush of hope fluttering back into Olivia's heart. "That you still care for me enough to consider such a thing is more gratifying than I can possibly say, dear Lucian. But the situation is more delicate than it appears. Shaftbury does not want to arrest me. Not if he can get me to help him."

  "Help him how?" Lucian asked slowly, sensing he was about to learn something he would just as soon not know.

  "Lord Shaftbury is not interested in justice or the public's safety or even revenge," Olivia said with a bitter smile. "Certainly you know as well as I that Lord Shaftbury is a lustful, ambitious man. Beneath his pose as a virtuous public servant lies a man interested in only one thing: power. He lives it and breathes it. He worships it the way the Israelites in the desert turned away from God to pray to the golden calf. Shaftbury has seen the vampire's power. More than anything else he covets this power for himself. And he will stop at nothing to possess it.

  "After supper last night you saw us having a tête-à-tête by the backgammon table. I could tell by the protective look in your eyes you suspected Lord Shaftbury was making an improper suggestion to me. And he was, but not the kind you think. What Shaftbury was saying, in the low, whispering voice he uses to make offers and threats, is that he wants me to give him the gift. He's blackmailing me, Lucian. If I refuse him, he vows to have my entire household, including myself and Andrew, arrested and executed in secret without trial."

  "Then the man is a complete blackguard!" Lucian said with anger. "He thinks he can force you into having Andrew or Janos change him into a vampire?"

  "No, my dear, he wants me to change him."

  Lucian stared at Olivia with stunned incomprehension.

  "When we were at the Abbey of St. Stephen, I promised Brother Michael I would watch over Andrew as he grew into manhood, teaching him to respect and fear his powers, and to put them to good use for the service of mankind. But the only way I could ever hope to keep up with the child was by making the change myself, Lucian. During Andrew's feedings, I let him slowly introduce the disease into my blood. I was very sick for a long time, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make so that I could take care of him. Although I have proven inadequate to the job, I will do better in the future, if we can just get past the present trouble."

  "I never could have imagined…" Lucian said, and stopped, as if unsure he'd really heard all that had been confessed to him.

  "The other complication in this matter is you, dear heart," Olivia said. "I had not counted on falling in love. I had fully intended to turn you away, to forego any chance of real happiness in my life, the better to care for Andrew. I also wanted to spare you my private horror. I have done you a very great disservice in telling you these things, but I feel as if I had no choice. I am very much in need of your counsel, Lucian."

  Lucian nodded, his mind beginning to catch up with it all.

  "What am I to do about Lord Shaftbury? That Mephistopheles is the last sort of person on earth who should be given this power. If you can still find it in your heart to love me even a little, please tell me what to do."

  "And what you say is true? You are really one of them?"

  "Yes, my love," Olivia said as gently as she could. "I am a vampire."

  * * *

  PART IX

  Terminus

  * * *

  42

  1920

  NOW IT ALL ends, forty years after the London Vampire Panic, with my intense private satisfaction to finally understand what happened. God knows that is a rare enough occurrence in this world. The older I get, the greater my sense that life is an impenetrable mystery.

  I have just been sitting here, staring out the window at the rain, wondering about why it is that some events become notorious and famous, while others are forgotten. I doubt a year goes by that the papers don't carry some lurid recount of Jack the Ripper's spree of disembowelment and cannibalism. There are no like stories about the London Vampire Panic. In 1880 the government still had the authority to keep distasteful things from being reported in the press. The Vampire Panic, infinitely more chilling in its details and implications than the Ripper's brief career, has been virtually forgotten.

  Lord Beaconsfield, as Disraeli was styled after being made a peer, lost the election to his old enemy Gladstone. When he went into retirement, his Special Committee simply ceased to be, along with countless other supernumerary committees, study groups, and investigations.

  I am one of our group's two last surviving members, now that Cotswold is gone, killed by the fever last summer while digging fossils in Africa. (Of all the damnable things to be doing at his age!) I will be the last to go. Shaftbury, the pompous old devil, was first, killed in a fall while horseback riding that weekend we were all last together at Collingsworth.

  There never was a definitive close to our committee's investigati
on into the London Vampire Panic. Had the murders continued, no doubt the investigation would have gone on, but they stopped as abruptly as they had started and with as little explanation. Bit by bit, like winter easing into spring, the Vampire Panic dissipated and we went on to other things, none quite so horrific.

  How strange, then, in my eightieth year to have the sum of it all presented to me, tied up as neat and tidy as a package as I sat one morning at the desk in my study, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Sunday Times before putting the finishing touches on my memoirs. There it was on page one, the final bit of the puzzle. The Times's Paris correspondent filed a report on the return of tourists to the City of Light in the aftermath of the war. The photograph accompanying the piece showed a crowded cafe on the Champs Elysées. Sitting at one of the tables, oblivious to being photographed as they looked lovingly into one another's eyes, were Lady Olivia Moore and Captain Lucian—Lord Lucian, I should say, since he's succeeded to the lairdship of his family's vast estate in Scotland.

  The delicious Olivia and Lucian were married in the spring of 1880 and went off to Scotland together with Olivia's young half brother, Andrew. I was at the wedding. It was a smallish affair held—I looked this up in an old date-book—March 28 in St. Agustin of Canterbury Church. Until I sat down to work on these memoirs, I had not thought of Olivia and Lucian for years. One knows so many people in London society. They come, they go, and one loses track.

  And now, after not seeing them for forty long years, there they were. Lord Lucian and Lady Olivia, sitting in a Paris cafe, obviously still very much in love. This was astonishing enough, since love and marriage tend to be mutually exclusive terms in the upper tier of British society. But what stopped me stone-cold was the fact that, in the Paris photograph, neither Lucian nor Olivia looked one day older than when I last saw them at their wedding, or the time before that, at the weekend house party at Collingsworth, when Lord Shaftbury fell off the horse and broke his damn fool neck.