Uncle Cheroot

by Alan Jansen

  ‘All right, Mademoiselle, all right. I sadly concur with your decision, although I will say one thing. What care I if the blood kills me? I’m a very old man, and it would be an honourable death, much more preferable to painful or wasting illness. And why fear death? This world existed for billions of years before I entered it. I was dead all that long, long while and did not suffer for it. Why should I fear being dead now in this fractional period of time I am alive? But enough now of this grave matter. I will continue as I said and look into my books and things this very evening. I will try to locate your uncle, but just promise me one thing – a promise you can keep. Promise me that when you have found your uncle and when you have confirmed that the blood exchange ritual gives eternal life – promise me then that you will visit me and let me know. … Perhaps then you will sorry for an old man and give me this gift too. For this probability I will defy my doctors and live on in the hope that you will return to me. Come to me tomorrow at six in the evening and I will have, I’m sure, a great deal to tell you.’

  I saw and sensed a peaceful aura emitting from the old man. As I have said before elsewhere in this book’s chapters, I have gradually developed a sort of sixth sense – the ability to sense a benevolent human or a bad one. The professor projected a strong vibe of empathy and goodness mixed with something else I couldn’t identify. I knew he was a good human being, and perhaps his desire to live on with the blood gift was really exactly for the purpose he claimed it – to be able to continue his great research on the occult.

  I spoke to him gently. ‘I used to be sentimental and mawkish in my childhood and as a young adult, Professor, but I assure you that I have become a very hard woman. Although my youthful looks might project great benevolence, I am not as altruistic as one might imagine. If I have the gift to perpetuate life, then rest assured I will not give it away freely to anyone. However, I will make an exception in your case. If I ever discover my true identity, what I am, what I have become, and where I am heading, I promise you, Professor, I will search you out, and even if what I possess is a gift or a curse, I will help you as you suggest – if you still want to be helped, that is …’

  I left Uncle’s two diaries in the care of the professor so that he could read first-hand of the things I had revealed and much more. I told him strictly that they were to be returned to me the next time we met. I then left the professor and drove back to my chateau, fully intent on coming back the next day as the professor wished. The stab wound in my hand had completely healed, although it set me thinking, my thoughts racing … What if I was stabbed in the heart or deep in my head, into my brain? Would I miraculously survive even then? What if I were in an explosion? Would the shattered pieces of my body and bone assemble together again like a giant jigsaw? Was I really indestructible?

  The next day at six in the evening sharp, I presented myself at the professor’s immense apartment, eager and quivering with excitement to know what he had found out.

  ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,’ opened my new-found learned friend eagerly in French. He then bade me a hasty ‘Welcome’ in English. ‘Firstly, let me assure you that your story and its conclusions are not what you English would refer to as “a mare’s nest”. All of it I firmly believe to be true. Your uncle most certainly isn’t human – not entirely human anyway. I can place your uncle’s age at around four hundred and fifty years. The Great Plague he mentions in his diary, which occurred at a time when he was supposedly “made”, must have been the very same that started in London and then spread to York and then to many parts of England. He mentions that the King had fled London with his court to Oxford, and this must surely have been 1665, when the bubonic plague, or the Black Death, reached England and King Charles the Second fled London. The old man he had encountered in the woods was in all likelihood a very powerful Druid wizard, probably a “special one” who had sensed that your uncle was chosen in some way. Whoever or whatever he was, that being was your uncle’s progenitor.’

  Here I interrupted the professor, expostulating rudely, ‘What special one? Who are these? Druids I know of, but who are these “special ones” you speak of?’

  The professor looked at me reproachfully before answering. ‘Don’t be hasty, Mademoiselle Southton. Let me finish my discourse; ask questions after I have finished.’ He continued, saying, ‘Yes. Your uncle must have survived the horror of the plague while everyone else in his village succumbed. I believe the blood of Merlin ran in that ancient Druid, or special one, and that the “blood gift” given your uncle made him what he has become. Ancient Roman, ancient Greek, and Eastern European history often contains accounts of blood ceremonies and blood drinkers. There are also histories of “physic vampires” who live off the life force and vitality of people, or the “chi” as it is commonly called in the East. Evidence of Celtic Druid culture appears in Britain from the second millennium BC, and it is even suggested that the Celtic priesthood could have been responsible for the Stonehenge temple, built around 2000 BC. Merlin was no myth either. He was indeed a great Celtic Druid wizard, or a “special one” with cavernous and unspeakable powers. And as incredible as it sounds, he still lives on. Don’t ask me how I know this, but I do know. … Before the Roman invasion of AD 43, the Druids were a ruling priesthood that controlled most of Britain. They were a part of the Celtic world that included France, though Britain always remained their headquarters. The great oak tree on your farmyard in the Cotswolds must have indeed protected your uncle from Drakenwund his enemy. The oak was sacred to Druids, and many mysterious ceremonies took place beside or in the hollowed parts of large oak tree trunks. Julius Caesar himself noted some of the Keltoi [Druid] practices that included blood sacrifices where victims were drained of their blood in ceremonies we know little of today. It is unknown if the Druids really drank blood, but I suspect that some sort of blood-exchange rites may have taken place. Regarding the “bloodstone” your uncle possessed, it could have been a stone cut out from dark crystal containing mysterious energy that may have caused the laser-like ray that hit Drakenwund and killed him. Bloodstones are soaked in legend. The ancients believed these stones could cure illnesses and heal wounds. In modern times they were classified as a mineral called heliotrope, or rather a variety of jasper or chalcedony – a rare crystal that is found deep in the ground and in caves. The ancient Greeks and other civilizations believed that heliotrope could cure illness and heal wounds. At a glance, heliotropes are not blood coloured but greenish with specks of red intervened in the stone. You say your uncle’s stone was red in colour, which makes me wonder if his stone was not a heliotrope but a stone formed from the blood of Christ himself. I am not over-religious, but a school of thought in occult circles says that these stones were created when the blood of our Saviour gushed out and penetrated the earth as the Roman soldiers ran nails through his hands and feet. The blood mixed with the soil and caused rare stones, or rather crystals, to be formed that actually were blood red in colour, or so they say. Others say they were formed by the blood of a great Druid saint and alchemist who turned out at least a dozen such stones. I suspect that this ancient alchemist was Merlin himself, for we students of the occult do know that Merlin is no myth, as I mentioned previously. However, is your uncle a Druid wizard or a vampire, or a hybrid of the two, or possibly even something else? Could the bloodstone give him nourishment – actual blood? The bloodstone is also described in vampire circles as a stone that has limitless quantities of blood within it, allowing “peaceful” vampires to suck on them and not attack humans or animals when the great thirst is upon them. Nobody really knows. Perhaps your uncle will tell you, and then again perhaps he will not. But is your uncle Nosferatu? By your own account and the contents of your uncle’s diary, he wasn’t fond of sunlight, although he tolerated it; he wasn’t fond of eating meats and fowl, although he did eat some, often retching afterwards; and he could read minds and do other strange things. He had at least the strength of three men as aptly demonstrated when he lift
ed the engine block of your father’s vehicle single-handedly. Then again, he couldn’t be a genuine vampire because, as you observed, he drank great quantities of champagne and wine, and vampires are known never to drink anything other than blood. Your uncle never ages. He tried to make your mother, Julia, one like him through some strange blood ritual (he says he drained her too much in his diary), but he didn’t succeed. He forced you to drink his blood and swallowed yours when Drakenwund’s sharp scale almost severed your jugular. This accidental exchange, I believe, made you one like him. But why did he succeed with you and not with your mother? These matters puzzle me immensely, putting into perspective what you told me yesterday. How can I be sure a similar blood exchange will work for me? Nay, Mademoiselle, these things we will never know until you find your uncle. Maybe he hadn’t the answers long ago when he tried to make your mother immortal, but I believe he knows them now. I know for sure we humans as an intelligent race are not alone on this planet. The “special ones” walk this world century after century, never ageing, never falling ill – now in one place, later in another. They are always nondescript in appearance. You might pass them on the street without reacting, but after you do, you will have an image of that person in your mind for days on end without being able to shake it off. Why? I don’t know, but it has happened to me on three occasions. I know for sure now that at least two such creatures live amongst us here in Renee. We old observers of the occult do not often agree upon most matters, but we all are unanimous in our belief of the “special ones”, or rather those who live on. … They hide not completely, for as I said, you can meet a few on the streets, but they do live in isolated houses or high above in penthouse buildings which are bought outright in another’s legal name. They have no post, no bank balances, and no need for money – this last requirement being totally unnecessary since they take what they want in any shop without being detected by electronic device or human watch. No matter what human likeness they adopt, the blood that runs in them is not human blood. What their purpose or mission here on this planet is, we don’t know, but I do know that they have been here for a very long, long time. I’m not saying your uncle is one of them, but I suspect he is an offshoot – a hybrid, if you like – and that there are a few more hybrids like him in this world. You, Mademoiselle, have become one. That’s why I begged for your blood …’ The professor paused here to gather his breath before continuing. ‘As for the vast sums of money your uncle has left you … The vampire Akawander left him his entire collection of gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables, even his castle. That alone would have made your uncle an oligarch, maybe even the wealthiest man in Europe in his time. Vampires are notorious treasure hunters and accumulators of treasure. Akawander must have been given the treasure by another like him and probably added to this treasure through ventures and excursions of his own. During early May, on the eve of St George’s Day especially, vampires go on the prowl looking for certain blue flames that glow in the dark and indicate treasure. No European, especially an Eastern European, dares to go out on the night of the eve of St George’s Day, as it is on this day at the stroke of midnight that all evil things are allowed sway and a free hand to do what they want. Vampires dread not these evil ones, but ordinary humans do. Akawander’s treasure must have steadily grown over the centuries.’

  ‘How very remarkable, Professor.’ I gasped in supreme amazement at his flow of information. All his talk of gods and ‘special ones’, however, couldn’t but help me form my next question. I was never a practising Christian, but was I curious to learn this amazing man’s views on a subject I had long since wondered about …

  ‘You speak of special ones, Merlin, Romans, and Druids. No doubt the Romans and the Druids had their gods, and possibly the special ones you speak of are godlike too, but what about Christ and Christianity? The old gods have gone and the Christian church has many followers in the world, as do the Islamic, Buddhist, and other faiths. I know nothing of the last two religions, but is the Christian God Christ, whom I grew up to believe in, also a passing phase?’

  ‘No, child, not a passing phase, but a God as the gods before him. There is always a God. Is Christ the true God or the Son of God as he proclaimed? As a Christian I may be somewhat biased, but I do believe he is. His message is love, and violence isn’t his way. I believe Christ was sent here by God for a purpose. Without Christ, we humans may have even sunk into being worse humans than what we have already become. His death and resurrection is like that of Osiris and Dionysus and other deities before him, but with a difference. The Virgin Mary is the good mother, worshipped as a protector of this earth –as the Roman goddess Diana was worshiped long ago. They are symbolic as protectors of women and childbirth – the essence of this planet. Christianity rose on the ashes of a pagan world, and Christianity gave us a new God in another guise, including a mother God. If Christ is indeed the Son of God, who then is the Source? I only know we can never contact such an all-powerful one. As in the lyrics of an ABBA song, God may indeed have a mind as cold as ice. Love is a human emotion and perhaps just confined to humanity. Our human fate seems to be written in advance, as the Arabs say, and cannot be changed, although I have a great suspicion that for some humans nothing is written. … Humans have implored gods for thousands of years, but their cries were, and still are, in vain. There is a wall several universes thick between us and God. Perhaps Jesus Christ is different from the Source. After all, he preached love, compassion, and forgiveness. Perhaps there are three Gods in one as my own Catholic Church claims.’

  I decided to end this conversation about gods. Not a theologian, I inwardly despaired of this world’s many gods and religions. There is not a single conflict in this world that has not been influenced by religion and humans’ shouting out that just ‘their’ God is the true God. I moved on directly to matters at hand. ‘No more talk of gods, Professor, please! Let’s move on to Uncle. … If he is indeed the person you suspect he is, then surely he lives on and didn’t perish in that flying accident so many years ago. Oh, wise professor! Please, please tell me … where can I find my uncle? What do your inquiries lead you to? Do you have any inkling as to where he is or where I can search for him?’

  The professor smiled. ‘Yes, you do well not to dwell all too much on gods. I myself believe in a Creator and stop there, for our partially evolved minds cannot conceive anything beyond what science tells us – and science cannot find room for a God. If a God made this universe, then who made the God who made the universe? It’s an endless circle. As for your uncle, I have searched all my records, gone through every iota of information from the days of the English Black Death. There are records of a powerful alchemist living in the west of England in a village at the foot of the Cotswold Hills. Local legends are hard to decipher, but this man was talked of throughout a whole century before he disappeared. Druids and Druidry were widespread and thrived in England and even here in France. Your uncle’s base at the time he visited and lived with you all at the farm was France. His business interests were in France, as were his chateau and his driver. Even his French accent spoke for itself. He introduced himself to Lady Janet Plutney as a French nobleman, falsely or truthfully. Even you would agree that France is where one should look for him.’

  I interjected rather sharply at this point, a bit irritated at his stating the obvious. ‘I know all this, Professor. That’s why I am here. But where in this large country is he?’

  ‘Patience, Mademoiselle. Fret not! You must look at the clues. Like your mythical Sherlock Holmes, you must detect and then try to put the puzzle together. You say your uncle drank and enjoyed great quantities of champagne, and that he even loved wine. His business could have been in that direction. I do not think, though, that he had his own vineyard, for it would have made him conspicuous – betrayed his true identity. He must have acquired his taste for champagne first in France, for the drink was not known to you English until the late eighteenth century or so. Even then it was not
freely drunk in your country. No, I believe your uncle lived a great part of his life in France in the famous Champagne-growing district in the north-east. I narrowed my search to the commune of Épernay. You might think it absurd to look for your uncle there just because he drank champagne, but there is something else … My records show that there was a series of dark events in the town of Reims, where animals brought for slaughter were found to be lacking in blood volume upon slaughter. The duke of Bullion ordered an inquiry resulting in a church ceremony that was performed to drive away ‘evil’, as written in the church records. A certain Count Voldemar was named in several documents, suggesting he was behind it all and that he was in league with the Devil. I am guessing your uncle is connected to this count, or maybe even is the same person. Voldemort, if it indeed was your uncle’s true name, is very close to Voldemar. Perhaps your uncle even changed his name for his own impish amusement; for you say right along that he had a keen sense of humour. Voldemort translated directly means “Volde is dead.” The north-east and Épernay is also towards the border of the Eastern European countries. Your uncle wrote in his diary that he had befriended the vampire Akawander while in Luxembourg and got the bloodstone from him. It would be quite possible that your uncle bought and owned a property close to the border between France and Luxembourg, where he could travel and visit what was probably his only friend at that time. I have narrowed down your search for you and found three remote areas close to the Luxembourg border which I suggest you explore with a fine-toothed comb. You speak perfect French and German. Talk your way through. … Ask pertinent but carefully probing questions from innkeepers and shopkeepers, who are more free-talking than most. Besides, my countrymen, given their amorous reputation, will be more than willing to talk to an attractive woman like you. I am sure something will emerge. Whatever happens, don’t forget my warning. Your uncle was, by his own accounts in his diary, a being who took any woman he wanted, even descending to hypnotize them like he did his friend’s daughter Emily – rob them of their minds. I would safely say that he does indeed have a dark nature. True, he did good deeds too, but that could be because of his hybrid nature. I am not saying your uncle is a vampire, but he certainly has some of the undead qualities. Even if he is a hybrid, he might not welcome you with open arms. Like his friend Akawander, he is likely to avoid humans as much as possible. His stays with you and your family on the farm in the Cotswolds was an exception, only because he had hoped to make your mother one like him. When that hope disappeared, he left you all for good, faking his death.’