by Hall, Ian
Of course, mom and dad were worried about me; I’d just witnessed a murder from what they’d been told. But I couldn’t tell them anything about it; those were the U.S. Marshall’s rules. Georgie played his part like Tyrone Power; he even flashed a silver shield. U.S. Marshall.
Even Henrietta seemed glad to see me, except she did seem quite put out by the sudden change of surroundings. She walked back and forth in the house, meowing constantly.
In two weeks, dad had a new job in a small engineering firm that he took to quite happily. A bit like his old one, he said, but more responsibility, more challenge.
I settled back home, and for a while wallowed in the comfort of normality again. From the frenzied existence under Amos, Georgie’s demands were light. Lend a hand here, drive a car here, deliver a package; nothing taxing and certainly nothing debauched and disgusting.
Then every two weeks or so, he’d take me to dinner or we’d go trolling for fresh blood down by the harbor. I didn’t mind the regular ‘taking’ of a human; it was either me or them, but Georgie never took unnecessarily. He kept his victims on the illegal side, or simply rid the city of a known crook; no one questioned when one of those went missing. I mean, I know it was wrong to do the stuff we did, but we did it the best way we could.
~ ~ ~
It was the next summer, 1959, that I was introduced to Ivan, a very good looking older guy, maybe forty, maybe. I shook his hand and immediately felt my pulse race.
“Ivan Vyhovski,” Georgie smiled, “Miss Theresa Scholes.”
“Delighted to meet you,” His accent was not thick enough to be misunderstood, but it sounded decidedly Russian. I grinned, as he looked a mixture of Yul Brynner with hair and Tyrone Power, both favorites of mine. I felt born to fall in love with him, and of course, I did a bit.
But after our initial banter had died, I found out the meeting had not been accidental.
“We’d like to bring you into our fold permanently, Theresa.” Georgie said.
“Sorry?” I forced my eyes away from Ivan.
“Ivan is very old.” Georgie continued. “Ivan is a Strogoi, from the High Council in Romania, a teacher, one of the very best. I have been given his services for a year, and I’d like you to be the first one he trains.”
I couldn’t believe it. I would be working with this delicious man, and not only that, the boss approved. “So what is it you teach?” I asked.
“I’m a teacher of the inner arts of the vampire.” Even that first sentence held so much promise. “There are so many untapped skills that we can be taught, so many talents that we hide in our barbaric bodies. One is the art of the Wisp. Basically I teach invisibility to the vampire. It’s an art of self-control, the ability to override all senses, all emotions, all previous teachings.”
I was instantly intrigued. “The art of the Wisp?” I took a sip of my wine and looked deep into his eyes. “What exactly are we talking about here?”
“I erase your old memories, I erase your old ways of thinking, I erase the old you.”
“You can erase my memory?” I wasn’t sure that I was ready for that. “You mean, I just don’t remember?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. Inside you’ll know that these things happened, and you will know that they happened to you, but you’ll feel detached. Your emotions will no longer be triggered by this old you. This is a big step Theresa, and Georgie thinks you’re ready.”
I looked at Georgie. “What’s it all for?”
“For want of a better expression, it’s taking vampirism to a higher level. The Council want to develop new couples, new vampire families, that can operate invisible to the vampire radar. I’m looking for spies, but not just ordinary vampire spies. Ivan will teach you to lose your accepted vampire ways. He’ll teach new skills, new ways to operate; methods to slip under the vampire radar and infiltrate existing vampire territories.”
I wasn’t absolutely sure this was for me, but Ivan himself swung it. Just working with him would be wonderful. “Okay, I said. I’m in.”
Georgie clapped his hands above his head, grinning as he did so. A blonde girl at the table to my right rose and turned around. She was slim and seemed about my age. I gave her a bemused smile, as if I should know her, but had somehow forgotten. As she sat at the table and smiled across at me, the penny dropped, and I gasped. Her hair was now brown, and much longer than I remembered, but her identity was certain.
Valérie Lidowitz.
Growing Tired with Life
Valérie Lidowitz, 26th July, 1939, Philadelphia
As I turned eighty years old, news began to filter through to America of the struggle of the Jews in Germany, and my thoughts turned introspective, and I found myself thinking increasingly of my mother and father, both now long dead. My father had been Russian, and my mother French, both countries now standing on the brink of war. No sooner had I began my series of ruminations, when they were cruelly interrupted.
I lay taking a leisurely bath, when I heard the sound of breaking glass outside in the hallway. I did not have time to react before the bathroom door burst open, and two strange men filled the doorway. One looked hardly more than a teenager, but the other stood tall and striking in a long black coat that fell to his knees. “Get out!” I screamed, anger boiling instantly in my veins.
They vanished, but reappeared looming over my bath, the younger one holding my arms by my side, the other pushing my head and torso under the water, his strong hands clasping over my windpipe. His long straggly hair fell down round his face, and touched the water. His cold blue eyes fastened on mine, his pupils mere pinpricks in the hypnotic aquamarine sea. His hands closed tighter, slowly crushing my neck, I struggled against them, but to no avail. The bathwater clouded with fragrant salts that stung my eyes, but as I fell into darkness, I knew I was being murdered by two vampires.
Two strangers.
It wasn’t the first time I’d died. Sex with Amos lay fraught with such danger, and many times I’d passed out under him, his fingers squeezing my esophagus as this stranger had done. But this would be the first time I’d drowned, and it felt quite alarming.
I awoke with a loud gasp, throwing myself upright in the now cold stagnant water, and throwing myself over the side of the bath I emptied my lungs onto the tiled floor. Sick and water cascaded from my lips in such a volume, I wondered how much a body could hold. When I sat back, exhausted, the house remained quiet, and the low yellow light of evening passed limply through the single window. I rose, shivering from the cold water, and donned my thick toweling robe. One figure lay in the corridor, his head completely removed, his features turned against the dark oak trim. I walked slowly to the main room of the house, ready for flight. Two more bodies lay there, both beheaded, both discarded recklessly to the floor. One lay almost pristine, obviously just newly turned, the other had decayed mostly to dust.
I headed for Amos’s room, to find him tied to the bed, his head still on his shoulders, a long knife embedded in his chest. He lay dead, the dagger having passed through his heart. A letter sat on his belly, and I crossed the room to read it.
Amos Blanche.
You have been served a warning.
We are a patient species, and have no need to bring attention to our kind.
Your latest foray into the public consciousness has been stopped.
Do not let it happen again.
G.
I folded the letter and placed it on the bed. Then I pulled the knife from Amos’s chest. Blood sputtered from his mouth as he gasped his first. I rolled him to his side until his convulsive breathing quieted, fearing he might choke on his own vomit. Never before had I seen Amos Blanche the way I saw him at that moment; curled on his side, blanket clutched in a white fist. With misplaced sympathy I reached for his shoulder, comforting him. As he rolled again to his back I saw a dark light burning in his eyes. Immediately I realized he did not need my pity.
“Survivors?” he demanded, a feral rasp to his voice.
; “Only you and myself from what I’ve seen.”
Amos’ lip curled into a snarl, “Good. We rebuild again- this time a thousand fold more deadly than before.”
My fingers presented the small piece of paper to Amos with trembling hand, “They say this was just a warning. If we continue to push…”
“If?” he spat the word at me. “There is no ‘if’, my dear Valérie. We will rebuild.”
I rocked back in shock. “Who’s ‘G’?”
“Pah,” Amos spat. “An immigrant Romanian upstart from Miami, thinks he knows how to run a vampire cadre. He doesn’t know shit.”
I thought of the man who had choked me; his handsome face had looked somewhat Romany.
Amos proved as good as his word. Brick by brick he laid a new foundation. Taking lessons from his previous forays, Amos Blanche no longer opened his door to strays, accepting whatever the ruin of humanity stumbled his way. He actively sought out his conquests, devoting valuable resources to their finding, looking for humans who boasted a darkness as natural to them as blood thirst to vampires.
Amos proved he had a good eye for the work. Over the next ten years, he boasted added despicable acquisitions to our ranks.
Hannah and Barton Lynch were a husband and wife team from Cambridge. From what I gleaned, Barton had murdered three young boys, and Hannah had helped in every way she could. Taking these monsters off the street had done society a service, but they did form the backbone of our punishment squad.
Sheldon Newell had done prison time before he’d turned sixteen. I hated my part in turning him, feeling reviled as he thought he dominated me, but he remained a faithful servant to Amos.
Alan Rand was the pretty boy of the bunch, the new James Dean. As he was groomed to bring a new influx of women to our group, I felt Amos distance himself from me. I didn’t mind one bit.
In my mind I questioned the validity of every one, but they shared one basic quality, hearts of purest black.
During that time a young, charismatic womanizer by the name of Donny Kelp became entangled in Blanche’s net. It turned out that Donny had courted a friendship with a certain politician’s daughter, and Amos required leverage.
Amos announced his new drive for power as his Philadelphia Crusade, and held secret meetings with politicians who hated Amos’s new mafia look, but loved the cash that came with his friendship.
But as Amos’s cadre grew, I knew that the time had come to leave the man. I moved my attentions in one direction; getting out from under Amos’s jackboot.
For some time I had known of the ability to make men see what I wanted them to; almost a hypnotic capacity which I had honed. When I sided with Donny against Amos, and he punished me by taking my blood nightly, I knew my time had come.
I could run at any time, not being beholden to anyone, but to get away from Amos on a permanent basis, I had to convince him that I’d actually died.
It took me sixty-one days to disguise my physical state to the degree of atrophy I needed for my biggest deception. From day one, as Amos drank from my neck, I held back some of my strength. By the end of the second week, I feigned half strength, but actually grew in both power and vitality.
As Amos drank each night, he reveled in his supposed triumph, and allowed to reveal the chinks in his armor that I needed; cracks that let my veil cover his eyes, those dull conceited eyes. I wept inside for Donny, forced to witness my apparent destruction, but I knew that I needed the partnership between Amos and Donny to be complete for me to put my plan into action.
Each night I clenched the muscles in my neck tighter, stymying the flow of blood to his lips. By the end of the month, hardly a trickle passed into Amos’s mouth, but still he sucked, trying to drain me completely.
By the end of fifty days, I had to be dragged from my bed to my place of punishment.
Each night, as Amos reveled, his gaze locked to Donny’s, I clouded his eyes more, my control over him becoming stronger. Sometimes as he nuzzled my artery for more, he came so close that I could breathe directly up his inflamed nostrils, my power growing each day. Not that I ever thought I could defeat the man in a straight fight, I just needed his eyes to be elsewhere when I performed for the final night. I needed Donny to play his part. I needed the performances of a lifetime.
On the sixty-first night, Donny leant close to our embrace, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, his skin a deathly grey. I knew that this would be the evening of my escape.
I breathed into Amos’s face, then did the same to Donny. “I die.” I said repeatedly. “I crumble to dust.” I whispered softly. Their attention so rapt on my declining condition, neither heard me. “I crumble to dust.” I gave a gasp, then fell limp in Amos’s grasp. “I crumble to dust.”
With every skill I had, I thrust the image of my body crumbling into their minds.
Amos stood up, letting me fall to the wooden floor. Donny gave a gasp of disgust, and stalked from the room in a dark temper. For a moment Amos looked down at me, and I held my breath, too frightened to move. Then he shrugged and walked away, the footsteps in the hall getting quieter as he returned to his den.
For minutes I lay in silence, not entirely convinced that I’d gotten away with it and deceived the old man. I listened with all my might, but the dull chorus of the horns of faraway trains proved the only sound, their long plaintive tones announcing my victory. I allowed myself the beginnings of a smile; I’d achieved success over one of the oldest vampires alive. I silently got to my feet, and crept to the door, stealing a look out into the corridor. The dark hallway beckoned, and my feet took to the left, away from Amos’s room. I couldn’t take the chance of saying a proper goodbye to Donny, but silently wished him well, and with a trembling hand, gripped the handle of the main door.
~ ~ ~
Looking for a Romanian vampire in Miami proved a simple enough task; we do have the keenest of senses, and we also emit a subtle musky aroma. In two days I located a small Romanian restaurant. Small round tables, covered in white and red checkered cloths, filled the room. I looked around for the face that had drowned me, but I recognized no-one.
The room was busy, but I had caught the eye of one man, who stared at me across the clouds of cigarette smoke. He rose and weaved round the crowded tables, sitting opposite me. His dark features held no trace of recognition, but his brown eyes bore into mine. “What brings you to Miami?”
I knew that I spoke to the boss. I gave him a genuine smile, and hoped it would ease the tension between us. “I thought I’d catch some sun. You know, it gets kinda wet in Philly.” I extended my hand over the table. “My name is Valérie Marneffe Berthier Lidowitz.”
His brows furrowed slightly. “A mouthful indeed,” He shook my hand carefully, his grip loose and wary. “Gheorghe Kovács. I run things down here. You can call me Georgie.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I smiled.
“Did Amos send you?”
My smile deepened. “Let’s just say Amos and I no longer see eye to eye.”
“But you are beholden to him; he turned you.”
“I was a vampire from the moment I was born,” I said, clasping my fingers together on the bright tablecloth. “I was never beholden to him or any other.”
As I looked around the restaurant, I looked for the man with the long hair and blue eyes. He’d drowned me, and he wasn’t going to get away unpunished.
Training Begins in Earnest
Theresa Scholes, December 1958, Miami, Florida
I didn’t know what to do.
Valérie smiled as Georgie made the introductions. I didn’t hear much of what he said.
The world of safety that I had constructed around myself and my parents evaporated away with Valérie’s smile at Georgie. Inside my head, I panicked, I felt my heart pounding. My mind raced as it tried to piece together what story Valérie had told to get herself into Georgie’s good books so quickly. I thought of my parents and their sudden vulnerability to Amos’s wrath. My skin crawled, and sweat pou
red from my armpits.
“Oh, we already know each other,” Valérie said, “I didn’t expect to catch up with you so soon, Theresa.”
“Yeah,” I stammered, still not sure what to say. I didn’t want to blow whatever cover story she’d concocted, but I wanted to roar “Traitor!” at the top of my lungs.
“I got away from Amos.” Her grin looked beguiling, and she appeared to be totally at ease with Georgie and her present situation. She stretched her hands towards me. “Theresa? I want to tell you. I really got away from Amos. I’m free.”
I wanted so much to believe her, but I had so much at stake, it felt difficult to let my suspicions go. “You just, ‘got away’?”
“Oh, there was no ‘just’ about it, really. I had to fake my own death to do it.”
“But Amos turned you. You’re beholden.”
She tilted her head back and forth. “Technically, no. I’ve been a vampire since I was born.”
Ivan’s head turned sharply, curiosity written all over his face.
Valérie looked around the table, then shrugged. “When I was born, I was found in an alleyway in my home town, and I…”
“Town? Where?” Ivan interrupted.
Valérie looked perplexed. “Florence, Italy.” She said slowly.
“Oh my God!” Ivan’s voice rose above the level required for circumspect table conversations, and he almost cringed in his chair. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “What’s your full name?”
I looked from one to the other as they conversed, conscious that Georgie did the same.
“Valérie Marneffe Berthier Lidowitz.”
Ivan looked excited beyond words. His hands rose to cover his face as he stared into Valérie’s eyes. For an instant, I felt jealous of the connection they were making; I had already entertained fantasies of Ivan and myself.
“I knew your mother,” he said between his fingers. Tears welled up in his eyes as he reached across the table, clutching her outstretched hands.
