“I see.” It was maybe just then occurring to her that the only thing worse than finding someone who didn’t believe her vampire story was finding someone who did. “At this time I am wondering if you are a madman, sir.”
“And you the madwoman, for claiming to have seen a vampire.”
“Indeed. And I question my own rightness of mind. But while I’m in close communication with my own intellect, yours is a worry.”
“We can be lunatic in tandem, if you’d like. But it would be an excellent idea if we were to practice our lunacy in a different location. This alley will soon sprout ears and eyes. I can recommend a tavern not far from here if you’d like to accompany me at least that far.”
* * *
As it happened, the tavern I had in mind took us along the same path my new friend had followed on her way to the alley of disrepute, and with a little convincing I got her to agree to retrace her steps first. She was reluctant. I assumed that was because the path was supposed to terminate at a dead body.
Vienna is reasonably grid-like in design, as are most cities that were built to be cities. A distressingly large number of roads became roads after livestock decided on a particular path, meaning most of the older ones were effectively designed by cattle. I hate learning my way around those kinds of cities, but at the same time I greatly prefer them to the rigidity of a grid. There’s no charm in a grid.
An uncomplicated city plan does have uses, though. In this instance, getting to what Anna insisted was a crime scene involved little more than heading to the end of the alley, crossing a busy thoroughfare, and then going straight down another alley. From there we stepped into a corridor that led to a private garden.
It was a private garden with a notable dearth of bodies.
“He was here,” she said, pointing to a lovely collection of flowers.
“The dead man?”
“Yes. His body was right here.”
“And now it isn’t.”
“It was.”
I squatted down next to the bed. The flowers were mostly local, and well tended-to. Whoever owned the garden knew how to take care of plants. They made the man-sized indentation of crushed stems and broken flower heads that much more obvious. It was still absent a corpse, however, and corpses don’t often get up and walk away. And if they were in the habit of doing that, they still tended to leave behind blood, and this one hadn’t.
It might have been feasible that her friend had turned into a vampire after being killed—and possibly picked up all of his own blood at the same time—but that seemed unlikely.
I’m not privy to the process that turns a person into a vampire, but I’m powerfully dubious as to the accuracy of the claim that vampires are some manner of living dead things. They’re obviously living; otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to kill them. It’s just that their life isn’t one that can be measured in the same way as the lives of humans. People make these things so much more complicated than they have to be.
“And you chased this vampire down the alley and across the carriageway.”
“Yes. When I crossed the main road, I lost sight of him for the briefest of seconds while ensuring I wasn’t trampled by a horse. In that moment, he must have turned to fog. Or a bat.”
“Indeed.”
“You still don’t believe it was a vampire.”
I stood up from the edge of the flowerbed and brushed dirt from my knees. “Not based on that description, no. Vampires can’t do either of those things.”
She cocked her head and treated me to a faint but unmistakable smile. Bemusement was something she granted only sparingly, I could tell. But she was neither afraid of me nor actively disdainful, which I considered great progress.
“You know this how?”
“I have a few vampire friends.”
She waited a beat, to see if I had a punch line to go along with this. “You’re being serious.”
“I am. They’re very nice. Not always the best company, and they have no interest in drink, which is often all I’m interested in, but they’re okay. Hang around with me for long enough and I’ll introduce you to one, if you like.”
“Do you think you’re a vampire?”
I laughed. “No, of course not.”
Anna couldn’t have known this, but I get mistaken for one all the time, which is what happens when you’re immortal, especially when there isn’t anyone else like you. My uniqueness, as the only immortal man on Earth, is probably the most interesting thing about me. But aside from not getting older and never getting sick, I’m pretty much all human. Real vampires are always confused and disappointed by this. People are too, on the rare occasion I tell someone and they believe me.
She shook her head, but in a cute sort of way. “I’m trying to understand what it is about you that makes me think you might actually be speaking the truth.”
“I’m not a particularly gifted liar. To compensate, I’ve become exceptional at telling the truth.”
She sighed grandly.
“Where is this tavern again?”
* * *
It was actually a Heuriger, which only served local wines and no ale or beer. It was not the sort of place I would have preferred to be—I love wine, but Austrian beer is really excellent and I can get good wine in a lot more places than good beer—but it was where it made more sense to bring a woman. This particular woman could assuredly handle herself in a less savory establishment, but I saw no reason to burden our conversation with the constant threat of violence.
We found a small table in a quiet corner where it was possible for both of us to face the room. This is something I’ve learned to do on days when I’ve pulled out my sword. It’s a good habit.
With a jug of wine between us we drank in silence for a time, waiting for the warmth from the alcohol to set in and for Anna to calm down a little. Her hands had a tiny shake to them, which was entirely normal. I’ve been in more combat situations than I can recall, and after nearly all of them I ended up in a corner somewhere, waiting for my hands to stop shaking. Sometimes I was also vomiting and discovering wounds I didn’t know I’d gotten. It depended on the battle. Adrenaline, I believe, is the culprit, although of course I wouldn’t have put it that way back then.
“I’m Christoph,” I told her. This was one of the names I had been using at the time. The other was Eliahu, which I employed when it was to my advantage to be taken for a Jew. They were both new, and as I said I hadn’t bothered to devise last names for them yet. I’d only recently stopped using the British name Reginald Bates, both because I didn’t feel like being taken as an Englishman while in Europe, and because I’d had that name for a little too long.
I can only keep full names for about twenty years. Any longer than that and people figure out I’m not aging. The name I’m using now—Adam—might stick around for longer, because the only people I give that one to already know how old I am.
“My name is Anna,” she said. “I should probably apologize for earlier. You were good to step in with those men, and I appreciate your help with the… other thing. You’ve been very patient.”
“Well, as far as the men are concerned, I think I did them a much greater favor than I did you.”
“Maybe so. But this clothing slows me down. If they had a mind to assault me with some coordination I could have been had.”
“Those clothes would slow anyone,” I said. I decided not to offer to help her out of the clothing. “Dress like this is meant to keep a woman still, and breathing shallow. It’s a wonder you were able to run without succumbing to a lack of air.”
She laughed. It was a tinkling sound, like sanctuary bells.
“You’re dressed above your usual station, I gather,” I said.
“And you are dressed below yours. That’s Damascus steel, isn’t it?”
“You have a good eye. There aren’t many people who would recognize it.”
The sword was by then a rare and valuable antique, since people had stopped making pro
per Damascus steel weapons a hundred years earlier.
She hesitated for a moment before deciding I was someone she could trust at least this much, then drew the dagger I’d seen her wielding earlier. She placed it on the table.
Damascus steel has curious whorls and swirls in it, a consequence of the smelting process that makes every blade unique. Her dagger was marked in this way.
“Persian,” I said. “Based on the grip.”
“Very good.”
“Fake.”
Her eyebrow expressed surprise for the rest of her face. “Very, very good. How do you know?”
“It’s possible to recognize a blade that has been etched after forging, but it would be difficult to explain exactly how. It’s a quality fake, though. And I’m sure nobody stabbed by it would much care.”
“I’ve not received any complaints yet,” she said. “And I’ve had many offers to buy from people who ought to know a counterfeit.”
“You knew it was fake, though.”
“I did. I made it.”
I laughed. “Blacksmith’s daughter?”
“Something like that.”
I handed the blade back. As she slid the knife into whichever one of her layers it was housed, I leaned over my cup, and in a quieter voice, said, “Why don’t you tell me about the vampire?”
She nodded. “All right, what do you want? A description?”
“That would be a start.”
“He was pale. Large teeth, long fingers, bulging eyes. And his mouth…” She shivered. “Like a great animal.”
Vampires have been around for a really long time, which I know mainly because I’ve been around for longer. I don’t know all there is to know about them, but what I do know is that about 99% of the mythology—and there’s a ton of it, dating back to before the Greeks even—is completely wrong. I never took the time to parse the mistaken for something else wrong from the somebody just invented that wrong, but there’s a lot of both.
What Anna described was a version of how most people in this era thought vampires were supposed to look. Like Nosferatu, basically. I couldn’t tell you where the depiction came from, and if asked a few hours earlier I would have said it was an entirely invented monster. But she saw something, and she didn’t strike me as the type of woman who was prone to hysterics.
“What was it doing?”
“Ripping out the man’s throat with his teeth.”
This is also not tremendously vampire-ish behavior, but it’s closer. A really hungry one will commit all sorts of brutality, but indiscriminately, and with little regard for subtlety. I knew of one who dismembered a small village after he’d been locked up in a tomb for several months.
If there had been a killing spree in the middle of Vienna, though, I imagine I would have noticed.
“The man he killed was your friend?” I asked.
“We had business together,” she said. Her eyes darted around the room, as if what she’d just said aloud was something that should have attracted attention. “I scarcely knew his name.”
It was my turn to arch an eyebrow. “Business off an alley in a private garden?”
“Not that kind of business, sir.”
“Of what kind?”
“I can’t share that with you.”
“The more we know about the dead man, the better we’ll understand why someone wanted to eat him.”
She sat back and looked me over once again. “You aren’t Viennese. What’s your business here?”
“I have no business here.”
“A free merchant of some kind, I expect. What do you peddle?”
“It looked like a nice city, that’s all. I’m not here to pursue any particular interest.”
Again, I don’t recall why I was in Vienna. I do recall being well off financially while there, which is a state I find myself in periodically. It’s cyclical.
“I have been a merchant, certainly,” I said, “but just now I have only the funds I’m traveling with and the freedom to do as I wish.”
“You’re royal, then. But not English. French?”
“I’m what you would call a jumped-up peasant. If I become bored I may at some point in the future consider a new business or title, but I’m not driven by either pursuit.”
“You can devise a better lie than this, sir.”
“I probably could, if I were lying. Here, let me offer a solution to our current standoff. You’ve already told me you are dressing above your station in life. I expect you’re doing this because it opens doors for you that wouldn’t otherwise open.”
“You could say this about most women.”
“I could, but you’re not looking for a husband or a benefactor. You want to be on the other side of those doors because that’s where important people are having important conversations. You asked me what my trade is and I’m telling you the truth when I say I have none at present. But you do. I would wager your trade is in secrets.”
She smiled. “As you can imagine, sir, if this were so, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“True, but let me build upon that assumption anyway. As a person who traffics in secret information, I can’t imagine a better place for you than Vienna, where the value of secrets is at a premium. Now, I have seen you neither read nor write, but assuming you can do both of those things—and I do—I believe somewhere on your person is a letter divulging secret knowledge. This letter was supposed to be going to the man in the alley, up until he was killed by a creature you call a vampire. How am I doing?”
“I’m beginning to wonder if your trade is divination.”
A letter found its way from her bosom and onto the table. She kept her hand on it.
“How do you know these things?” she asked.
“I pay attention. But here’s the solution I promised: I don’t care. I don’t care what’s written in that letter or who it concerns, how you got it or who it was meant to go to beyond the fact that all of these things may have gotten your contact murdered. I have no interest in politics.”
“Only a fool doesn’t concern himself with politics.”
“I concern myself only insofar as it’s a better way to solve problems than having a war. But in the larger picture nearly all politics is petty and inconsequential, and I’ve lived long enough to learn not to care overly much about it.”
“You’re not so old as that, sir.”
“My age would surprise you. Now can we move ahead? If you had failed to meet up with this man, what were you supposed to do?”
“There was no alternative plan.”
“I know something of espionage, milady. There’s always an alternative plan.”
“I had no other plan. My cohort may have had one, but I must assume whatever he had worked out didn’t include his own murder. I was told to complete my business with him and only him, and I’ve already violated that control by discussing this with you.”
“You haven’t told me anything,” I said.
“That hasn’t stopped you from getting very far purely on deduction. Do you truly have no stake in the outcome of the proceedings?”
“The proceedings?”
“The congress.”
“Oh, that. I’m not here for that. I think I probably had some business in the city and decided to stay once it was concluded.”
“That was unconvincing to a staggering degree.”
“It’s a nice city. And this was probably many months ago. I recall seeing snow.”
“Oh my God, you’re an idiot.”
“No, just a drunk. So?”
She sighed some more and rolled her eyes, and I don’t know what it is about exasperation in women, but I find it adorable. Then she removed her hand from the envelope on the table.
It was unsealed. I picked it up carefully, slid out the letter, and unfolded it.
“Interesting,” I said.
“Can you read it?”
It was in Romansh, a Swiss language that came with multiple dialects. This was, I believe, the Sutsilva
n dialect, but Vallader wasn’t out of the question.
Regardless of the dialect, they’re Romance languages, and I can read and speak pretty much all of them with only a little effort. Not because I’m especially gifted, I just have a lot of time to practice everything. Plus, languages have root tongues—Latin, in this case. Once you know your way around the root you can navigate most of the descendants, especially if you update yourself from time to time. I do, mostly because it’s easier to get food and shelter and women if I’m fluent in the local language.
“I can,” I said. “But I wasn’t supposed to be able to, was I?”
“No. And I don’t believe you. Tell me what it says.”
I was about to do just that, but then a thought came to me. “You don’t know what it says, do you?”
“It was handed over by a man I was told to never speak to again, to be delivered to a man I never met before.”
“And who are you, Anna, to be entrusted with such a vague and yet specific undertaking?”
“I am… nobody important. I can get in and out of certain places because of my…”
“…your charms.”
“Yes. That makes me valuable to certain people. But I’ve never had to deal with a letter such as this, and I’ve never had to worry about a vampire.”
“It wasn’t a vampire.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Was this letter unsealed when it was handed to you?”
“It was. I assume the language it was written in provided its own safeguards.”
“Or the one who gave it didn’t want to put his seal on it.”
“He was not the sort of man to have a crest of his own.”
“No… I imagine he wasn’t.” I was skimming the letter while talking, when I should have been giving it my full attention. The problem was, I didn’t follow much of the text because it involved people I didn’t know, doing things I didn’t understand.
I have basically stayed out of politics since the invention of politics. Part of the problem is that political concerns are generally local and extremely time-specific, and I am very much about the long-term. Learning all there is to know about a regional political reality is somewhat like learning a new language, except the knowledge isn’t useful for longer than a generation, which makes it just about useless to me.
Regency Immortal (The Immortal Chronicles Book 5) Page 2