The Seeker

by Martyn Taylor

  She smiled at him and his heart melted inside him, reconstituting itself immediately as he frowned, wondering whether he had fallen prey to vampire glamour. She reached across the table and laid her hand on his. For a moment he felt as though he was being stroked by a statue.

  Chapter Six

  The cab ride to her home was silent. He could think of nothing to say and she just looked out of the window on the passenger side, staring at the pedestrians as the cab passed by.

  Was she sizing them up as food, he wondered briefly, and then cursed himself for being so crass. She was not like that any longer. He wondered how he knew that.

  When they got out of the cab, after she let him pay the fare, he looked around himself and felt a sharp jolt of regret and loss as he looked around.

  He and Marion had planned to live in a house like this, when they were first married, before Jeremy and Francesse, before their world turned upside down and threw him out into the night. It was significantly upmarket from the North London flat they could afford but nothing like so grand as Bishop’s Avenue, a long term target with their lives mapped out for them as they were then.

  “You live here?” he asked, redundantly, as she unlocked the gate.

  “We moved in when they were first built.”

  He nodded. How many more improbable things was he going to be told today? The garden he walked through to the front door was perfection, every blade of grass on the lawns either side of the gravel path shaved to the same length, the miniature box hedges demarcating the flower beds just as evenly trimmed as the grass.

  There were rose bushes and something he recognised as a magnolia tree, and others he did not. His fingers had often been black with dried, crusted blood, but never green.

  ‘All your own work?’ he thought of asking, but did not, the question drowned out of him by the sensations that flooded through him as she opened the front door to reveal the darkness within.

  This was the home of two ancient vampires, creatures whose destruction was his life’s ambition, and one of them was inviting him inside with the same smile as she would if Earl Grey tea and Bath biscuits were the order of business, with a little decorous gossip and the character assassination of mutual friends.

  He walked through the doorway without hesitation. After all, one of the laws of war as to never allow your enemy to see your weaknesses, and he had to remember that this creature was his enemy, and always would be, however beautiful and dignified and friendly she pretended to be. She was a vampire. Everything about vampires was a lie, until it wasn’t, and then it was too late.

  “Believe that if you wish, Robert Call. It may be true of the lesser ones, the children, but I have not told you a single lie. Neither will I.”

  He looked around himself, searching for the source of her voice. She had been standing beside the door when he had the thought, but now the door was closed and he could not see her in the gloom of the hallway. Then the lights came on, and she was standing a few feet in front of him, arm draped around a larger than life sized statue of a jackal-headed man wearing a head dress. It was obviously Egyptian – Anubis, perhaps, one of their gods.

  Call was certain he had seen it before, perhaps in the photographs of the ante chamber to Tutankhamen's tomb, except the face of this beast was gold with lapis lazuli eyes – just like Tut’s death mask – rather than carved from black basalt.

  “Tell me about your brother, what’s his name?” Call sat down on a chair against the wall, beside a highly polished side board that looked as though it was mahogany and should have a silver tray with calling cards, a top hat, grey gloves and a silver topped ebony walking cane. It was empty of anything but the sheen.

  “The name he has used for centuries is Cyrano, although that is definitely not the name he was given at birth. We are identical twins – or as identical as male and female can be – born on the fourteenth of August 1570 in Micklegate, in the city of York, to a wealthy wool trader called William Brough and his wife, Elizabeth. She did not survive our birth, but our father never regretted her loss, so why should we? He devoted himself to gathering still more wealth to himself until he married a younger woman, the daughter of gentry, who had ideas about becoming a lady that took us to the court of Queen Elizabeth as teenagers and cost our father his fortune. Not that we were concerned because, by then, we had enjoyed our fifteen minutes of fame at court - and been ushered into the shadows by Peter the Roman.”

  Call shivered when he heard that name, feeling that vibration at the back of his sensibilities again, beyond his reach to bring it into the light where it could be examined and then dismissed for the insignificance it was. ‘Peter the Roman’. Had he heard that name before, encountered it somewhere?

  “I’m not really interested in the ancient history,” Call said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but that is not going to help me find your brother now. Do you have a photograph…?”

  Her laughter derailed his train of thought. “Whatever makes you think he would allow himself to be photographed, Mr Call? We are vampires. You only see us when we wish you to see us. None of your devices can capture us.” In the blink of his eye she was no longer standing beside the golden cat.

  Which was not entirely true, Call thought. There was some more modern technology he believed could detect and record vampires. He just wished he could afford to acquire some for field testing. “A painting then. If he is your twin then he must be as attractive as you, even without the vampire glamour.” A connection is his brain closed, and he remembered where he had seen Roxane before. “Surely he has been painted. You have, after all.”

  She reappeared, only now she stood right in front of him, toe to toe, glaring down at him. At least, he assumed she was glaring. He could not see her eyes through her dark glasses. “Painted?” she hissed. “What do you mean, painted?”

  “The Portrait of an Unknown Lady, by Sir Anthony van Dyck. It’s in the National gallery. It is a portrait of you.”

  She leaned forward, and trailed the fingers of her right hand down his left cheek. He was uncomfortably aware that her fingernails suddenly seemed very solid, very sharp. “I thought you said you were not interested in art?”

  He lifted her hand away, knowing he only did so because she permitted it, and got to his feet. She took a small step backwards. He knew it was her choice too, rather than anything he had made her do. “I lied,” he said. “It is not something just vampires do.”

  She was back by the statue of Anubis again, right arm draped around it like a close, intimate friend. “This vampire does not lie. There is a painting of him on the stairs.”

  “If you say so.” He took two steps towards her and suddenly she was looking down on him from half way up the stairs. “I am to find a very beautiful young man called Cyrano, who I will only see if he wishes me to see him. Is that right?”

  The statue purred, or at least it seemed to Call that it did.

  “Where should I start looking?”

  “In the underworld,” Anubis said.

  The Underworld. “Where else? The night places, the bars, the clubs, the dens where vampires collected to reassure each other they still existed; where they could entertain those humans who knew vampires existed and believed they could collect the brownie points of associating with them and not having their throats torn out; from where they could go out into the city night in search of food.

  “Surely that is more your milieu.”

  The smile on her face lost all meaning. “I do not associate with beasts, Mr Call. I may be one myself, but it is many, many years since I have needed their company or sought it out. Since we came to this city again my brother and I have been all the vampire either of us needed…” her voice died away as disturbing memories obviously made their presence felt. “… for the most part. Every so often Cyrano would hear the black dog howling outside his back door. He would seek out the animals then, returning when he was restored to himself.”

  ‘Black dog,’ Call wondered? Did vampires get
the blues too, depressed?

  “I’ll need to know everything I can about him if I am to find him.”

  “Go to the top of the stairs. His is the first room on the right.”

  Without waiting he started up the stairs, coming to a half landing on which was hung a tapestry depicting rich people in Elizabethan court dress, with the queen herself at the very centre looking all regal and austere and impossible, surrounded by the usual suspects.

  Call would have walked on, had his attention not been taken by a particular mane of bright, golden blonde curls on a young woman near the right hand side of the group, at the back. He looked more closely. Sure enough, it was Roxane, hardly any different to the woman standing by the cat statue, gazing up at him.

  Beside her was a breathtakingly beautiful young man, long nosed, high browed, knife cheeked with a cascade of reddish blond hair and pale, pale blue eyes. Not quite her identical twin – he was male, after all – but close enough for Fridays. Call thought of taking out his phone and photographing him but knew he was not going to forget that face, so carried on to the top of the stairs to be confronted by a painting, the Portrait of an Unknown Lady. She smiled past him, as aware and enigmatic as La Giaconda.

  “Is this the real thing?” he asked over his shoulder. “The original?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He laughed. “It would if you wanted to sell it. The original is worth millions, a copy isn’t worth pennies.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not materialistic. It isn’t for sale.” She turned away and walked out of his sight, leaving him to his investigations. He hesitated with his hand on the doorknob, wondering what had brought him here, accepting as commonplace things and beings he would have believed outrageous in his youth, then decided the process did not matter. All that was important was the moment.

  He turned to doorknob and stepped through the doorway into Cyrano’s room, not knowing what to expect. What he had seen of the house had revealed Roxane’s taste to be frugal going on ascetic, which his experience told him was atypical of the species. Vamps were magpies, able to resist everything except anything shiny. Cyrano’s room was an explosion of possessions; clothes piled here and there in no obvious order; enough shoes to make Imelda Marcos blush with envy; books were stacked haphazardly, some open, some closed; paintings were stacked against the walls, face inwards.

  The room, though, was dominated by a canopied four-poster bed that made the Great Bed of Ware seem like a truckle bed dragged out to accommodate an unexpected, unwelcome guest. The bedding was in disarray, as though the occupant had got up expecting to return. Dust motes drifted in the air, catching occasional beams of sunlight that infiltrated through the curtains and shutters.

  There was an antique switch close to the door, a fluted brass dome, and Call turned on the light. A low wattage bulb glowed high up near the ceiling, dangling from six inches of braided cotton flex, doing little to alleviate the gloom.

  The centre of the room was occupied by an ornate gilt legged table that could have come from the Versailles of Louis XlV, together with a matching gilt and scarlet plush upholstered chair displaying the signs of serious use.

  The tabletop was clear, green leather figured with gold around the periphery, a stark contrast to the chaos of the rest of the room, except for a fine layer of dust that also covered three ornately carved wooden boxes, the size and shape of small, old fashioned file card drawers. When he opened them he found business cards stacked inside, and when he lifted a few out to examine them he found they advertised just about every private drinking, gambling and dancing club in London.

  Before the boxes were a card and a small photograph clipped together. The card was thick, glossy and black. Embossed silver lettering referred to a club on Kensington High Street so fashionable, upmarket and trendy that even Call had read about it - The Russia House.

  The photograph was a head and shoulders shot of a somewhat plain girl with long blonde hair piled up on her head and wearing going out clothes that had been the height of fashion - six months before. Call fancied he detected desperation in her eyes, then told himself he was only seeing what he wanted to see, although associating with vamps was reason enough for desperation.

  Just as he replaced the card on the table a spark caught fire in his memory, and he brought out his wallet, opening it to look at a photograph of a young girl in one of the clear plastic pockets. She was the daughter of parents so disconcerted at their daughter running away from home that they had come to him to find her.

  As a rule he did not accept commissions, and he had not taken any of the money they offered him, simply agreed that he would keep a look out for Rosa Jane as he went about his business. He did not ask why they thought she might have taken up with vamps. She would not be the first to succumb to their ersatz glamour, nor the last.

  Laying the photograph from his wallet next to the one Cyrano had he compared the two girls, or rather, saw the same girl in each picture. That was the thing with women and girls, a brush of the hair, a dab with the make-up brush and they could look like different people, only there were some features not so easily disguised.

  Rosa Jane had a long nose and a strong brow, with an ever so slightly dimpled chin. So did the girl on Cyrano’s picture. One might be insignificant, two might be coincidental, but three..? They were the same girl. All the more reason for him to find Cyrano. Two birds with one stone. He liked that.

  He put the card and photograph in his pocket, took one last, long look around the room and left. Roxane waited outside.

  “Did you find anything useful?”

  “That depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “I don’t know yet. I may have somewhere to start.” He held out the card and photograph for her to examine without allowing her to touch them.

  “She certainly looks like his type, the fragile English rose.” There was a dismissive contempt in her voice. Nothing about her was in the least bit fragile.

  “Didn’t you say that neither of you… partake anymore?”

  “We don’t, Mr Call, but we are Leos. Cats. We like to play with our food, even if we do not intend to consume it.”

  This was not news to him. She shrugged, touching the card with an elegant, purple varnished finger nail that looked sharp enough to pierce flesh.

  “Loathsome place,” she said, “all loud noise and febrile sham excitement. I cannot understand why humans have to go to somewhere so uncomfortable to ‘enjoy’ themselves, where the music is too loud to hear anything anyone says and where the drinks cost a fortune, and not a small fortune either.”

  Call thought about trying to explain this human foible, only to decide he didn’t understand either. Perhaps his children might be able to explain it to him, if he was ever allowed to speak to them again.

  He brushed past her as he went towards the door. It was like pushing past a wall.

  “Where are you going?” She demanded, standing between him and the door, having been behind him a moment before. Evidently nobody was allowed to depart her presence without the correct obeisances, her words of permission. He opened his mouth to explain, and then closed it, shaking his head. What were the rules? Never go back. Never apologise. Never explain. He stepped past her again.

  “I’ll call you when I have something to report.” He put his hand on the door knob.

  “I haven’t given you my number,” she said.

  He took out his phone and held it up, above his head where she could see it. “You called me. Remember? I have your number.” Then he opened the door and returned to the world of light and normality and a thin rain borne on a bitter breeze. It felt idyllic to him, compared to inside that house.

  Chapter Seven

  Call did not visit his parents often, largely because graveyards brought a black cloud down upon him. Vampire mortality was one thing. He could deal with that. Human mortality was entirely different.

  Even so, there were times when he had to seek out their co
mpany, and this was such a time. Theirs was a modest headstone in a north London cemetery, just their names and dates carved into a grey stone that was now a little algae stained in the climatologically changing warm, humid city.

  Dad had gone first, eight years ago –immediately before Call had discovered his calling and curse to hunt vampires and long before he became aware of the link between the two events – in a single car crash that had never been adequately explained so far as he was concerned.

  His father had been a proficient driver, cautious yet decisive. He was also the most grounded man Call had ever known. The odds on him taking his own life were ludicrous; the odds on him killing himself by driving into a motorway bridge support at ninety miles an hour were slim to vanishing. He would not have inconvenienced the emergency services by doing something so spectacularly selfish and irresponsible.

  If Dad had killed himself – a very big, indistinct if – it would have been with pills in his own bed so that Mum could have thought he had just gone in his sleep. After his funeral came the fuss with the insurance companies, who didn’t want to pay out on a potential suicide.

  Mum hadn’t lasted long after all that, and Call would take to his grave his shame and regret at having ignored her need at that time because of the upheaval in his own life. She had never neglected him when he was in need, but the one time she needed him he was too selfish, too preoccupied to notice, and no amount of tears would ever wash away that blemish.

  There was a bench in front of their stone, facing the memorials on the other side of the gravel path. Sitting there he could talk to them without actually having to look at the stone. Rather than talking to some specific dead people he could become just another one of the legion of unbalanced in London talking to his invisible friends, or enemies. At least he didn’t shout.

  “I know you’ll think I’m crackers, dad. I know I’m crackers. I’m supposed to hunt down these creatures, destroy them. I’m not meant to help them. I can tell myself I’m doing it so that when I find him I’ll be able to get rid of both of them, only I know that’s not true. I cannot destroy them. They are too old, too powerful. I can tell myself that she will kill me if I don’t help her, but that’s not true either. I don’t believe she wants to harm me. She’s different, dad. She’s not like any vampire I’ve ever met. Did you encounter any like that? If you did I haven’t found any mention it in your journals. The reason I’m doing it is that it feels like the right thing to do, and you always taught me to do the right thing. Tell me, how can me helping a vampire be the right thing to do?”