The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (48 page)

Were their eyes upon us now? I looked at the dusty satchel swinging casually at the end of my arm.
Knuckles too tight.
That was just the sort of thing they would be looking for. I relaxed. They would also be looking for two of us. I allowed Dr. von Neefe to draw still farther ahead.

The woman with the hat of egret feathers brushed by us, now accompanied by a little girl in puffed sleeves and a straw boater. I paused at a newsstand and pretended to be interested in a notice. My head was facing the paper, but my eyes gazed beyond. Across the concourse the Punjabs had begun to edge toward the pier. Was it they? The boarding whistle blew and I glanced up to see that Dr. von Neefe had reached the train.

I too made my way toward the platform.

In my casual efforts to maintain a lookout I bunglingly walked right into one of the hussars.

“Sorry, sir,” he said.

I nodded in apology. I searched his eyes suspiciously as I walked quickly away. Gentle periwinkle eyes.

And then through the crowd I saw him, a massive gentleman. Bowler hat. Patriarchal beard. Gold watch chain and a panatela in an amber holder. So des Esseintes had been scrupulous enough to post the photographs weeks before. The massive gentleman’s gaze was fierily determined, even trancelike. He strode with incredible speed and grace for his size, weightlessly, like a wraith swiftly cutting through the crowd. He might have been any arbiter of elegance were it not for the eeriness of his gait.

Dr. von Neefe did not visibly glance at the fellow, but her own increase in speed indicated she was aware of his approach. She lifted her skirts and paced rapidly by the waiting passenger cars. I too had reached the train and hastened my step. Until we stepped up into the cars he had no way of being certain we were taking this particular train. I looked behind and saw he was closing the remaining thirty feet between us. The final whistle sounded. We continued moving along the pier as the gentleman bore down upon us. I turned to see he had cut the distance in half. The engine driver opened the valve to clear the boiler, and every sound in the station was blotted out by the rushing screech of escaping steam. The train started to move.

His gaze remained unchanged. Dr. von Neefe stepped up on the train. He was only a few steps behind me. It would soon be too late. In an instant I leaped upon the accelerating train and turned, expecting to see hands closing in upon me.

But the gentleman maintained his forward gait as we swiftly passed by him.

It was an odd reprieve. Was he truly unconcerned, just a peculiar gentleman in the crowd? Or had he simply maintained his demeanor; not wanting us to realize he had failed? Not knowing was even more psychologically devastating than if we had actually seen his fangs, or felt his icy grip upon our flesh, for we were forced into an unreasoning paranoia. We had to work from the premise that the portly gentleman had been a vampire, and they now knew which train we were on. It would be easy for them to wire ahead and have us intercepted at the next stop. We were not even sure that the man with the panatela had been a vampire, and still we had to dodge every suspicious stranger.

The leering and shining-white face of a passing conductor interrupted my thoughts. “Beware ’a card sharps on this train,” he intoned.

What if they were on this train? What if the portly gentleman had been a decoy to keep us from seeing someone else who stepped upon the train farther down the platform? It was impossible to use my rail key to lock us in our compartment, for we were forced to share it with other people. I say other people, and yet I did not know. One was a woman furiously doing petit point, her hands moving like the spinnerets of a spider. The other was a gentleman sitting and reading a small religious tract. We sat down uneasily, I keeping my hands on the satchel containing the virus, and Dr. von Neefe keeping her eyes on our fellow passengers.

It was on the train that I began to entertain several troublesome thoughts. With all their superior knowledge and worldwide exchange of information, why did the vampire have to resort to stealing scientific discoveries? Was it that they lacked the human passion necessary to love investigation for its own sake and could not carry through with the boring mechanics of discovery itself? After all, des Esseintes was a great mind, but in the final analysis he was a dilettante. Or was it an even more basic component of their being? Just as they were incapable of producing their own blood, was it necessary for them to vampirize knowledge as well? The second thing that troubled me was the fact that they were bent upon destroying the human race. Didn’t they need us, not only to feed upon, but also, given their inability to reproduce, to ultimately replenish their ranks? One possibility was that they felt their household servants would fulfill all of their requirements. Even more sobering was the possibility that they intended to establish farms, domesticating us, as it were, to supply all of their culinary and reproductive needs.

At the first stop outside of London we waited until all of the disembarking passengers had gotten off the train before we stepped down. We saw, or at least recognized, no one. Every stranger’s glance filled us with dread. We changed for a train headed toward Portsmouth. It was out of our way, but we hoped that if we hadn’t been followed we might be somewhat safer taking a more indirect route. Every landmark outside the speeding train was portentous: The moonlit fields, the sleeping villages, every black town and glowing furnace underlined the fact that we were in their time. At long last the first faint amethyst traces of dawn enshrouded the horizon. When we reached the ferry the sun was shining in full. For a while we were safe.

Or were we? I could not help feeling that we had gotten away too easily, that somehow the vampire knew our every move and were just biding their time, knowing full well that when the moment came they would act swiftly. Did they have a group of human followers who were assisting them? Considering the unassuming and dull-witted human servants we had encountered thus far, I thought it unlikely. The vampire, like the English with their dogs, seemed to prefer stupid and obedient servitors. However,, I realized this notion was born of a desperate hope. If there was a human alliance after us as well, all was lost. There would be no hour of safety. The terrible truth was that we had to consider every contingency. I still could not dispel the awful feeling that through some unknown means they knew exactly where we were.

From the ferry we sent out a battery of wires. Several to Dr. Leberecht Weber elaborating upon the seriousness of what was transpiring and begging for some news of Ursula’s safety and whereabouts. I bitterly regretted that I had allowed Ursula to attempt such a thing, and was ripped apart with worry. We instructed Dr. Weber to wire his reply to the train station at Le Havre addressed to an assumed name. We sent other wires to various colleagues of Dr. Weber’s and Dr. von Neefe’s throughout Europe—all members of the network of vampire hunters.

As I have said, the network consisted largely of scholars and a few wealthy eccentrics. As such, they were little more than a network of correspondents. It would be exceedingly difficult to organize them into any effective body. To begin, most of them held the view that Dr. von Neefe had held, that the world of the vampire was a realm of enchantment. It would be a task in itself to awaken in them any awareness of the true dangers of the forces now amassing. Second, even if we did succeed in obtaining their support, there was little they could do. They were ardent in their studies, but their jurisdiction was largely academic. They had no real means of countering an enemy from within.

All of these obstacles weighed down heavily upon both our shoulders, but the weight was especially telling on Dr. von Neef. She had spent her life scrutinizing the vampire without recognizing what she must now understand to be their true nature. I suspected she felt extreme guilt over trying to inhibit our escape from des Esseintes’s, and she was now pouring all of her concentration into a desperate attempt to amend her past blindnesses. She was certain Dr. Weber would believe her, and with the aid of his academic stature he might convince some of their other colleagues. But most of her hope she put into a
società
based at the Museo Gregoriano in Rome. The
società
was a small organization of fanatics devoted to the opinion that since time immemorial the vampire had been conspiring to bring about the end of human civilization. Until now they had been generally disdained by the rest of the network as misguided zealots. Little was known of their activity, save that there hung about them the same aura that hung over many Italian secret societies, tales of assassinations and secret handshakes. Such gossip had been viewed as infamous and inconsequential until now. The change in opinion wore grievously in Dr. von Neefe’s countenance. The time of the
società
had come.

Throughout the morning we gave different porters a series of wires to send to the Museo Gregoriano. We entreated that all replies be wired to the Stazione Termini in Florence and left under a fraudulent name. If possible, it was our passionate hope that someone from the
società
might even meet us at the station and somehow assist us in our final attempt to find Camille. We offered a password that would enable both parties to identify each other with certainty.

When we reached Le Havre we found a number of wires from Dr. Weber waiting for us. Expectedly, they were tormented and confused, but through the terse fragments of the mode of communication we pieced a coherent picture. Ursula had followed Niccolo to Florence, where he had hired a carriage and vanished into the night. He had headed west, toward the seacoast. She had inquired at the stables where the carriage had been hired and discovered its destination was the tiny village of Massa Marittima.

Massa Marittima. The meaning of that information did not have to be explained to us. Somewhere near the village was Lodovico’s villa, close enough to Florence that he could have trafficked with the Medici, but secluded enough within the rolling green hills of Tuscany that he could live out his centuries in privacy. It was from there that he was orchestrating everything. It was there that Niccolo had returned, and it was there that I knew we would find little Camille. In another wire Dr. Weber told us Ursula had proceeded to Massa Marittima and was making further investigations. Were there any wealthy
padrones
who were only seen at night? Had any of the major landowners acquired a reputation for being reclusive or eccentric?

In Dr. Weber’s last wire he advised us that we had one hope. He offered the grim and reluctant suggestion that Dr. von Neefe had already anticipated, that we contact the dread
società
in Rome and beg for their assistance. From Le Havre we sent off two more wires, one requesting that Dr. Weber make Ursula remain in Massa Marittima until we reached her, and the other a reiteration of our plea to the
società
at the Museo Gregoriano. Again we requested the replies to these be made at the Stazione Termini in Florence.

Once aboard the train we locked ourselves in our compartment and tried to get some sleep.

It was high in the Pennine Alps that the train stopped unexpectedly. At first we thought it was fallen snow upon the tracks, but the conductor soon put that hope to rest. It was
politiques.
Several black sleighs had appeared in the mountain pass and some mysterious gentlemen were talking with the engine driver. We were speechless. I looked out the window to try to determine what was happening. It had been dark for several hours. A light snow was falling in the moonlight, and beyond, at the head of the black train, stood a number of dark figures speaking and gesturing with the engine driver. On our side of the train most of the passengers had opened their windows and were looking out. In the distance the figures turned and scanned the passenger cars. I did not have to be told what they were looking for. Could they spot our faces among the crowd? Did their inhuman senses reach out and discern which hearts had stopped?

I don’t know what they said and did. Perhaps they simply bribed the engine driver. Perhaps they had somehow procured the necessary papers to intimidate him, but somehow they gained access to the train. As we watched in horror three of them boarded and the train lurched forward once again.

We were trapped. We could not leap from the train in the middle of the frozen mountains. We had no choice but to sit and wait for them to come to us. How had they found us? I looked at the map and saw that there were three probable train routes we might have taken without going hundreds of miles out of our way. Was it possible that they had watched each pass and stopped each train as it went through?

We heard voices coming from the front of our car. They were here. In French I heard the conductor tell them they had no authority. A reply, insidiously calm, told him they had no intention of bothering the passengers, but were simply making a few observations. There was a rustling of papers, and by bribe or intimidation they quieted the conductor. He shuffled off.

“Pretend to be sleeping,” I whispered to Dr. von Neefe. The footsteps approached. She had no time to argue, but turned away from the door and pulled the traveling rug tightly around her. I dropped to the floor and inched toward the door, holding the canvas Batchel firmly at my side. From the scuffing of the carpet it was apparent they were at the compartment directly adjacent to us. I looked at the windows of our compartment directly above me. The door was locked and the curtains were drawn, but as is the way with trains they never quite covered the panes. A figure loomed at the crack.

I held my breath.

From my vantage I had only a fragmentary and distorted image of our pursuer In the dim light it was difficult to tell, but he seemed swarthy. Was it Hatim? One of the Punjabs? I could only see the black of his hair and the jet black of his Russian sable collar. Eyes inspected the room. Dr. von Neefe’s breathing continued relaxedly,as she pretended to be unaware of the intruder. From the shifting of his weight it seemed that he was about to continue on when something else piqued his senses. I felt a rush in my spine. Did he see the quiver? Was it disturbed, betraying my exact location in the room? He returned to the narrow crack between the curtains and the door frame. My lungs were about to burst. And then I realized. Even if he did not perceive the quiver he could sense my presence. Just as Niccolo had been able to hear the rabbit’s pulse within the glass cupola, so this vampire could hear the beating of two hearts within the compartment.