The Vampyre

by Tom Holland

  ‘“This time,” I whispered, “I will not miss.”

  ‘“No!” the Pasha screamed suddenly. He struggled with the sword, his single hand cutting itself as he tried to push away the blade’s edge.

  ‘“Goodbye, Your Excellency,” I said. I pushed the sword down. I felt it puncture the soft sack of his heart.

  ‘The Pasha shrieked. Not a human cry, but a terrible unearthly wail of pain and hate. It echoed through the pass, across the ravines, and everything was stilled by it. A fountain of blood spouted up into the sky, bright scarlet against the deeper reds of the horizon, and then it began to pour down upon my head, like rain from a bloated crimson cloud. It fell as softly as a blessing, and I raised my face to welcome it. The shower ended at last, and when I moved, I realised that my skin beneath my clothes was wet with blood. I looked down at the Pasha. He lay in the stiffness of his death agony. I reached for dust, and scattered it over his face. “Bury him,” I said. “Bury him, so that he never walks again.” I found Viscillie, and told him I would wait for him in Missolonghi. Then I mounted my horse and without looking round, left the pass, that place of death.

  ‘I rode through the night. I felt no tiredness, only the most extraordinary desire for experience. The shower of blood had cooled my thirst, while my powers, my senses, my sensations, all seemed heightened to an extraordinary degree. I reached Missolonghi at dawn. The light gave me no pain now. Instead, the colours, the interplay of the sky and the sea, the beauty of the sun’s first rays - all ravished me. Missolonghi was not a beautiful place, just a straggling town perched on the marshes’ edge, but to me it seemed the most wondrous place I had ever been. As I cantered across the mud-flats, staring in amazement at the streaks of colour to the east, it was as though I had never seen a dawn before.

  ‘I entered Missolonghi and found the tavern where Hobhouse and I had agreed to meet. The tavern keeper, after I had knocked him up, stared at me with horror - I was wild-eyed, and my clothes, of course, were still caked with blood. I ordered fresh linen, and hot water, and the pleasure of my freshness, once I had washed and redressed, was again like nothing I had ever known. I clattered up to Hobhouse’s room. I picked up a pillow and threw it at him. “Hobby, get up, it’s me. I’m back.”

  ‘Hobhouse opened a bleary eye. “Damn it,” he said. “So you are.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Well, old fellow, what have you been up to?” He smiled. “Nothing interesting at all, I suppose?”’

  Chapter VII

  He had a fancy for some Oriental legends of pre-existence, and in his conversation and poetry took up the part of a fallen or exiled being, expelled from heaven, or sentenced to a new avatar on earth for some crime, existing under a curse, predoomed to a fate really fixed by himself in his own mind, but which he seemed determined to fulfill. At times, this dramatic imagination resembled a delusion; he would play at being mad, and gradually get more and more serious, as if he believed himself to be destined to wreck his own life and that of everyone near him.

  LORD BYRON’S GRANDSON, Astarte

  What did you tell him, then?’ Rebecca asked.

  Lord Byron looked up at her. He had been staring into the darkness, a half-smile playing on the edge of his lips. He frowned. ‘Tell?’ he asked.

  ‘Hobhouse - did you tell him the truth?’

  ‘The truth?’ Lord Byron laughed. ‘What was the truth?’

  ‘About your transformation.’

  ‘Into a vampire?’ Lord Byron laughed again, and shook his head. ‘Hobhouse had caught the sun, you know, while he’d been away from me. He’d always been red-faced, but now he was puce. Then, that evening, he had indigestion as well. Spent the whole night glowing in the dark, groaning and farting. And Hobby was never the most credulous of people, not at the best of times. So no, Miss Carville, I did not tell him - the man was practically afloat on his own wind. Not the moment to make a dramatic revelation.’

  ‘But even so, he must have guessed.’

  ‘Yes, that something had happened, of course. But what exactly? - I wasn’t sure of that myself. Hobhouse was so damned alive, you see.’ Lord Byron smiled, and for a brief second, something like fondness seemed to warm his eyes. ‘No - a couple of hours with Hobby, grumbling and scratching and complaining about his wind, and it was hard to believe in vampires at all. Even harder, of course, to believe that I could have become one myself. I began to doubt everything that had happened to me - wonder if I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing - except that all the time, quite indisputably, there was the numbness in my heart, the numbness of an aching sense of loss. I was alone, and Haidée was not with me; I was alone, and Haidée was murdered, drowned beneath the waters of Lake Trihonida. And something - something - had happened to me - something strange - for my senses, as I’ve told you, no longer seemed my own, but like some spirit’s, some angel’s, so that I could feel things which mortals have never felt. Just the breath of air on my face, the merest whisper, and sensations would flood me, passions of extraordinary beauty and strength. Or I would stroke the skin of my arm - hear the scraping of a chair - smell the wax of a candle, stare for hours at its flame - tiny things, but they ravished me - yes - gave me a pleasure that was . . .’ - he paused, then shook his head - ‘indescribable. ’ He smiled again, and stroked his forearm, reliving the memories. ‘Everything seemed changed,’ he whispered softly, ‘changed utterly. And so I wondered what had happened - to the world - or to me - to give birth to such a state of mystery.’

  Rebecca stared into his face, so pale, and beautiful, and melancholy. ‘But you knew,’ she said.

  Lord Byron slowly shook his head.

  ‘But - you must have known.’ Instinctively, Rebecca reached for her neck, to stroke the puncture marks. ‘How could you not have done?’ She realised that Lord Byron was staring at her scars, his eyes as brilliant and cold as jewels, and she lowered her arm. ‘The blood lust,’ she asked quietly. ‘I don’t understand. What had happened to it?’

  ‘I didn’t feel it,’ said Lord Byron after a pause.

  ‘But you’d felt it before - on the mountains - you said you did.’

  Lord Byron nodded imperceptibly. ‘But it was that,’ he said softly, ‘which I came to believe had been a fantasy. I would smell the life all around me, in humans, creatures, even the flowers - yes, and be intoxicated - but still have no hunger. Once, riding by the Gulf of Lepanto, I saw an eaglet flying above us, and I felt the rush of desire then - the mountains on one side of us, the still waters on the other, and this beautiful living thing between. I felt the aching lust for blood - not for its own sake, though, but because I too wanted to soar and be free like the bird - because I wanted it to be a part of me, I suppose. I had a gun with me. I shot the eaglet, and watched it drop. It was only wounded, and I tried to save it, its eye was so bright; but it pined, and died in a few days; and I felt a terrible sickness at what I had done. It was the first creature I had killed since the death of the Pasha; and since then, I have never attempted - and hope I never will attempt - the killing of another animal or bird.’

  ‘No.’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘I just don’t understand. ’ She remembered the body of the tramp, laid out by Waterloo Bridge; she remembered the soft flow of her own blood. ‘An eagle? Why feel remorse for an eagle?’

  ‘I explained,’ said Lord Byron, a coldness in his voice now. ‘I wanted it to be a part of me - it was so alive - and in killing it, I destroyed what attracted me.’

  ‘But isn’t that what you have done throughout your whole existence?’

  The vampire bowed his head. ‘Perhaps,’ he said softly. His face was shadowed; Rebecca couldn’t tell how angry he might be. But when he looked up again, his face was impassive; and then, as he talked, it seemed gradually to lighten and grow almost warm. ‘You must believe me,’ Lord Byron said. ‘I felt no thirst. Not in those first months. There were only sensations - desires, whole universes of them, hinting at still further delights, far beyond my dreams. At night, when the moon was full and the air
ghostly with the scent of mountain flowers, eternity would seem all about me. I would feel a calm that was also a fierce joy in my veins, just from the delight of having consciousness, of knowing myself to exist. My nerves were sweet to the touch - the faintest experience would brush them, and send shivers of pleasure out through my flesh. Sensuality was in everything - the kiss of a breeze, the scent of a flower, the breath of life in the air and all around.’

  ‘And Haidée?’ Rebecca tried not to sound caustic, but failed. ‘Amidst all this unalloyed happiness - what about her?’

  Lord Byron rested his chin on his fingertips. ‘Misery,’ he said at last, ‘can sometimes be a fine and pleasant thing. A dark drug. The joy least likely to betray its faithful addicts.’ He leaned forward. ‘I still mourned Haidée, yes, of course - but rather in the way that I would take a lengthy bath. It disturbed me, this inability to feel true pain - I sensed, I think, that it was a mark of how much my humanity was altered, and yet at the same time, for all that I tried to weep, I could not regret it. That was to change, of course . . .’ He paused. ‘Yes - that was to change.’ He studied Rebecca, almost, she imagined, as though pitying her. She stirred uneasily, and as she did so, found herself caught again in the ice of his stare. Lord Byron reached out a hand, as though to touch her cheek, or stroke her long hair - then he too froze. ‘The time was to come,’ he whispered, ‘when I would grieve cruelly enough for Haidée. Oh yes - the time was to come. But not then. The joy of my new state could not be fought. It was a madness. It drowned all else.’ He smiled. ‘And so even my misery enchanted me.’

  He nodded. ‘It was in such a mood that I became a poet. I had started a poem that was something quite new - not like the satires I had written in London, but wild and restless, full of romantic despair. It was called Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. In England, it was to make me famous, and a byword for melancholy, but in Greece, where I wrote it, the gloom it expressed gave me nothing but delight. We were riding at this time past the mountain of Parnassus, on our way to Delphi. I wanted to visit the oracle of Apollo, the ancient god of poetry - I offered him a prayer, and the next day, we saw a flight of eagles, soaring high above us past the snow-clad peaks. I took it as an omen - the god had blessed me. I stared at the mountains, and thought of Haidée, and my wretchedness grew ever more splendid and poetical. I had never felt half so elevated before. Hobhouse, of course, being Hobhouse, claimed that the eagles had been vultures, but I damned him cheerfully, and rode on, gloomy in my poetry, exultant within myself.

  ‘It was late in the year now - but we continued to travel - and on Christmas Day, from a rugged mountain track, we had our first glimpse of Athens. It was a glorious sight - the Attic plain, the Aegean, and the town itself, surmounted by the Acropolis, all bursting upon our eyes at once. But it wasn’t the archaeology which delighted me - Athens had charms far more vital and fresh than dead rock. We took rooms with a widow, a Mrs Tarsia Macri - she had three daughters - they were all lovely, but the youngest, Teresa, was a pouting little houri fresh from paradise. She served us our first meal, and she smiled and blushed as though she had been trained to it. That evening, we settled with the widow for a stay of several months.

  ‘Later, in the dead of night, I fell on Teresa like a thunderbolt. Had I forgotten Haidée? - no - but she was dead - and my desire for Teresa seemed to have risen suddenly like a fountain from a desert, so powerfully that it almost frightened me. Love, constant love?’ - Lord Byron laughed, and shook his head - ‘no - not even for Haidée - though I swear to you, I did all I could. I walked in the yard, to cool my blood, but the soft little whore was waiting for me, and promising myself still that I wouldn’t consent - I consented, of course. There was no help for it - none at all - she was far too delicious and alive. The veins beneath her skin were so delicate, and her bare neck and breasts so inviting to kiss - and the pleasure - when I fucked her - was like the rush of a drug. We crushed winter flowers beneath us, while above gleamed the impassive sky, and the spectral marble of the Parthenon. Teresa moaned with exultation, but there was terror as well in her eyes, and the emotions, I could sense, were inextricable. I explored inside her, felt the deep warmth of her life. My sperm smelled of sandalwood - she, of wild roses. I took her again and again, until morning rose behind the Acropolis.

  ‘Nothing else in Athens was to compare with that night. Yet our stay in the city passed delightfully enough, and winter began to melt into spring. Hobhouse raged around the countryside after antiquities; I rode my mule, haunted by the mythic beauty of the land, but making no notes, asking no learned questions. Instead, I gazed at the stars, and ruminated, and felt my dreams take wing until they seemed to fill the sky. But profundity could be tiring - and then I would return to more voluptuous pursuits. My Maid of Athens was insatiable - fortunately, for she needed to be - my own need for pleasure raging in my blood like a disease. At last, though, I grew tired of Teresa - I looked around, and took her sisters instead, apart at first, then en famille - and still my desire prickled endlessly. Something was missing - some pleasure that I hadn’t contemplated yet. I took to wandering the streets of Athens by night, as though searching for it, the fulfilment, the to kalon, as the Greeks would say. I haunted the squalid alleyways of the modern town, and the pale relics of the glory that was lost, shattered marble, altars to forgotten gods. Nothing. And then I would return to the Macri sisters’ bed, and wake them, and make them perform again. But still that hunger - for something - but for what?

  ‘One evening, early in March, I was to find out. Friends of ours, both Greeks and fellow travellers, had come to dine with us. The evening started off silent, then talky, then disputatious, then drunk - and for the final hour, all seemed happiness. My three pretty concubines danced attendance on me, and the wine cast a rosy veil across my thoughts. Then, gradually, through its warmth, the hunger began to scream at me again. All of a sudden, I was shaking, at the nakedness of Teresa’s throat, and the glimpse of the shadow that marked out her breasts. She must have seen my expression, for she turned away coyly, and flicked back her hair in a way that made my stomach clench. Then she laughed, and her lips were so moist and red, that I rose unthinkingly, and reached out to take her arm. But Teresa laughed again, and danced back, and then she slipped, and the bottle of wine she had been carrying was shattered on the floor. There was a silence. Everyone turned to look at her; Teresa slowly raised up her hands and we all saw that they were wet with blood. Again, in my stomach, I felt the clenching of desire. I walked across to her and held her in my arms, as though to comfort her. She held up her hands to me, and I took them - and suddenly, with a naked thrill of certainty, I knew what my hunger had been for. My mouth was watering; my eyes were blind. But I lifted Teresa’s hands to my lips, and I kissed them gently, and then I licked. Blood! The taste . . .’ Lord Byron swallowed. ‘What can I say? - the taste was that of the food of paradise. Blood. I licked again, and felt lightness and energy in a wash of radiant gold, staining my soul with its purity. Greedily, I began to drink from the deepest wound. With a sudden scream, though, Teresa pulled her hand away, and at once, there was silence across the room again. Teresa looked for her mother and ran to her, but everyone else was staring at me. I wiped at my mouth. My hand, when I pulled it away, was smeared with blood. I brushed it on my shirt - then I touched my lips again. They were still damp. I licked them, and stared around the room. No one met my eyes. No one said a word.

  ‘Then Hobhouse - my dearest, best friend Hobhouse - rose and took me by the arm. “Damn it, Byron,” he said, in a loud, ringing voice, “damn it, but you’re drunk.” He led me from the room; as I walked out, I heard voices behind me starting to murmur again. I stood on the steps that led up to my room. The realisation of what I had done struck me afresh. My legs seemed like flowing water. The taste of the blood came back to me - and I staggered, and fell into Hobhouse’s arms. He helped me upstairs, and left me in my room. I slept at once - the first time for over a month - but it was not an easy sleep. I dreamed t
hat I had never been a living thing at all, but instead a creature manufactured by the science of the Pasha. I saw myself laid out on a dissecting table, exposed to lightning at the summit of his tower. I had no skin. I was wholly naked to the Pasha’s touch. He was creating me. I longed to kill him, but I knew that whatever I did, I would always be his thing. Always, always . . .

  ‘When I woke at last, it was to find myself lying in a putrid stench of matter. The sheets were caked with my own filth, just as the rocks had been by Lake Trihonida. I leaped to my feet, and stared down at the stuff which had once formed my living self. How much residue was there left in me? And when it had all gone - what would I be then? - alive or dead? - or neither, perhaps? It had been the blood, I knew, the blood I had drunk, it was that which had made my body sweat like this. I began to shake. What was happening to me? I didn’t care to pause and think. Instead, I washed and dressed, then ordered Fletcher to burn the sheets. I woke Hobhouse. “Get up,” I told him. “We’re leaving at once.” Hobhouse, to my surprise, didn’t grumble even - just nodded, and staggered out of bed. We left Athens like thieves. Above us, as we reached Piraeus, the dawn was bleeding across the sky.

  ‘We took a ship across the Aegean Sea. The captain was an Englishman, whom we had met a few days before, and he saw to it that we both had our private berths. I kept to mine, for the thirst was starting to plague me again, and I was afraid of what it might lead me to do. In the evening, Hobhouse joined me; we got ragingly drunk; for a second night, he saw me to bed. But I didn’t sleep; instead, I lay on my couch, and remembered the forbidden, golden taste of blood. The craving grew worse; at last, just before dawn, I reached for a razor, and sliced my own arm. Only a thin line of blood rose up from the wound, but I drank it greedily, and the taste was as rich and delicious as before. Then I slept, and dreamed, and imagined I was a creature of the Pasha again, a mass of skinless limbs beneath his anatomist’s knife. In the morning, my bedclothes were stiff with the familiar filth.