Jessica sighed. “I’m dating an adolescent.”
“If you never grow up, you never grow old.”
Holding hands, Drake and Jessica made their way out of the exhibit and toward the gift shop.
They were so involved with each other that neither of them noticed the man in the red parka vest who followed them out at a discreet distance. He had entered the exhibit a few minutes after Drake and Jessica, and had stood by them to view some of the displays, never giving them a second thought. At least until he heard them discussing vampires and the Vampyrnomicon. His interest piqued, he stayed within earshot of the couple, listening to every word.
After Drake and Jessica left the gift shop, Akers waited a few minutes to ensure they would not see him, and departed the museum to report what he had heard to Chiang Shih.
* * *
Reese rubbed his eyes, trying to ease the tiredness. He felt like he had been reading for hours. Which, in fact, he had. A glimpse at the wall clock showed that it was already four thirty-four in the afternoon. The room at the far end of the Freer Gallery’s archives section that had been set aside for scholars to study Ferrar’s books and papers would be closing in less than half an hour, so he decided to call it quits for the day and resume his research tomorrow. Hopefully he would have more success in the morning in solving the mystery surrounding the Vampyrnomicon. He doubted it, though, for he was nowhere closer to finding it than when he began. In fact, things were more confused than ever. He had unearthed two previously unknown facts about Antonio Ferrar that seemed to contradict each other and shrouded the question in even more mystery.
The first fact he extrapolated from something already known by historians. Ferrar had been a prolific memoirist. It was practically an obsession. An English-language version of his memoirs as a priest in Spain and his years as an inquisitor had been available since 1953, and had provided the framework for every biography written about the man since. The private archives held a treasure trove for Ferrar biographers—a collection of his unpublished, hand-written memoirs dating back to his youth. The first two volumes, written on separate sheets of paper that were later bound by the Church, detailed his life as a young conversos living in Christian Spain. These diaries were written in colloquial Spanish. Although Reese’s Spanish was rusty, he pieced together a fascinating mosaic of the inquisitor’s youth.
Born in 1446 as Noah Levi, Ferrar was the son of a Jewish merchant family who lived in Madrid. His father had converted the family to Catholicism when Ferrar was three because it was neither physically safe nor financially profitable to be a Jew in a Christian Spain still obsessed by the Muslim Moor’s occupation of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula for more than seven centuries. His father soon fell in with Madrid’s Catholic demagogues, adopting a zealous pro-Christian, anti-Semitic stance to convince others of the solidness of his new-found faith. Being a devoted son and loyal Catholic, Ferrar readily adopted this demeanor as his own. The remainder of the diaries contained fascinating vignettes of everyday life in fifteenth century Madrid and how he lived as a conversos, always under suspicion by his Christian neighbors. Interspersed with these entries were rambling diatribes against Islam and Judaism that would have made the most extreme racist blanch. The second of the two diaries ended in the spring of 1453 when, as a youth of seventeen, Ferrar entered the priesthood.
The third memoir picked up at this point. This edition, hand-written both in Spanish and Latin in a cheap leather-bound journal, described his five years as a seminary student. This memoir Reese found much easier to read because, as Ferrar became more conversant in Latin, he wrote predominantly in this language. The last two years of entries were entirely in Latin. Because of the enormity of the time required for his studies, this memoir contained fewer details. Nonetheless, it provided invaluable insights into the life of a seminary student and showed the full acceptance of his peers as a devout Catholic.
And finally there was the fourth memoir, the one known to history that related Ferrar’s life as a priest in Saragossa and his role in the Inquisition. Reese had read these memoirs so many times he practically knew them by heart. Even so, to see and touch the actual diary, a thick oversized book bound in expensive leather with Ferrar’s name stenciled in gold on the cover, was a researcher’s dream. In addition, it offered the opportunity to unravel the mystery of the Vampyrnomicon.
Little did he know when he began reading how entangled that mystery would be.
Ferrar had been assigned as the junior-most priest at the Saragossa Cathedral in the winter of 1458. The period covered by the first twenty-two years was an unremarkable memoir of the day-to-day grind of a priest, a lurid accounting of the Saragossian’s sins, and a testament to his deepening faith. The text only became compelling after 1480 when the Dominicans in Spain initiated the Inquisition to purge unbelievers. Pedro Arbues, the canon of Saragossa Cathedral and Ferrar’s mentor, requested that the young priest head up the Inquisition in their diocese. Ferrar readily accepted the assignment. The entries for the next few years describe a nightmarish existence within the dungeons of Aljaferia, where the accused were detained. The rounding up of Jews and other non-Christians. The arrest of supposedly-lapsed Christians, who were not allowed to know the accusations brought against them. A litany of tortures, forced confessions, and, for those who remained true to their non-Christian faiths, public executions by secular authorities, which allowed the Catholic Church to keep its hands clean of the sin or murder. Nothing new to Reese, but reading it in Latin, and in Ferrar’s own hand writing, made it seem as if he had a window into hell itself.
Which seemed a fitting prelude to what happened next.
On 15 September 1485, a conversos murdered Pedro Arbues. As expected, retribution was swift and fierce, even by Inquisition standards. Seven people were rounded up in connection with the murder. Because Arbues had been Ferrar’s friend and mentor, the Church gave the priest the honor of interrogating and punishing the accused. Ferrar’s last journal entry, dated 21 September 1485, listed the names of the six men and one woman apprehended for the murder, and noted that their interrogation would begin the next day.
No record exists of Antonio Ferrar ever making another journal entry from that day until his death at Mont St. Michel in 1491. Reese had asked the head archivist if there were any more memoirs available for viewing, or if any existed in Ferrar’s personal belongings that scholars were not being granted access to. She assured him that every book in the Ferrar collection had been meticulously catalogued in Spain and rechecked upon arrival at the Freer Gallery, and that no other memoirs existed.
It seemed incredible. Why would a man who kept detailed memoirs for more than thirty years, recording even the most mundane aspects of his life, suddenly stop writing at the height of his career? Most theories centered on a letter discovered in the Vatican archives in the late nineteenth century criticizing Ferrar for his “overzealous brutality” in connection with one of the unidentified prisoners arrested for Arbues’ death. Historians speculated that Ferrar’s zeal to convince others of his Catholic credentials, coupled with a thirst for revenge for those who murdered his mentor, had driven the priest to commit unspeakable horrors on the accused. Unfortunately, since no accounting of the interrogation could ever be found, this theory remained in the realm of conjecture.
Reese found a single clue to what might have happened, however vague it might be. Among the seven names listed in Ferrar’s last journal entry, the priest described only one of the accused—Emilio Carius. Most translators of the memoirs used the Latin term maleficium, which had been translated as “the criminal” or “the wrong one.” However, that was a transliteration error.
The actual word Ferrar had used to describe Carius was maleficus, the “evil one.”
Further deepening the mystery, Ferrar left the priesthood in early 1486 and retired to Mont St. Michel in western France. Here he lived as a recluse, shunning all human contact until he died in an unexplained plague that wiped out
the city in 1491.
The head archivist, a mature woman with her auburn hair pulled back in a tight bun, came up to Reese’s table. “Sir, you need to pack up. We’re closing in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be ready in a moment.”
As the woman walked away, Reese placed the book he had been reviewing back into its special basswood case, which was lined with acid-free cardstock that preserved the material, and returned the case to its appropriate shelf in the climate-controlled book cabinet. Intuition told him that he was very close to unlocking this puzzle, and that the key lay with this Emilio Carius. When he returned tomorrow, he would scan through the other books from Ferrar’s library, hopefully finding something meaningful in them.
* * *
The puppy yelped, half from pain and half from terror, when Chiang Shih plunged her fangs into the back of its neck. It thrashed around, trying to break free. Quickly realizing the futility of its efforts, the animal went limp. It pathetically whimpered as the master drained its life blood. Chiang Shih savored the meal. Its little heart pumped frantically from fear, causing the blood to pour into her mouth. Panic-induced adrenaline always added a savory flavor. As she drank, coldness crept through the puppy’s body, and its heart rate slowed. With a final sob, the puppy died in her hands. Chiang Shih finished feasting, draining the animal of its last drop of blood. She took the shriveled carcass and tossed it into a green trash bag along with the other three cat and puppy carcasses. Walker would dispose of the bag later that night during his hunt.
Feeding off of stray animals was not the best way to live, but she needed to do so to maintain security. She already took a risk having her masters out there creating covens and hunting for food to sustain them. For her to be in any way associated with those missing humans could unravel her plans. Besides, living in a luxury apartment and feeding off of stray pets still beat living in sewers or forests and eating whatever vermin she could get her hands on.
Standing up in the bath tub where she had feasted, Chiang Shih noticed both she and the basin were splattered with blood. Sliding the shower curtain across the stall and turning on the faucet, she washed away the incriminating fluid. She was drying herself off when a knock came at the door.
“Come in.”
Walker entered. He wore black jeans and a matching shirt.
“I thought you’d be out hunting,” she said.
“I should be. But Akers dropped by. He says he has something important to tell you.”
“Can’t you handle this?”
“I could.” Walker smirked. “But I think you’ll want to hear what he has to say.”
“I’ll be right there.”
As Walker exited, Chiang Shih pulled a silk robe out of the closet, slid it on, and headed for the living room. She found Walker standing by the window, his back turned to Akers as he stared out over Washington. Akers sat on one of the sofas, fidgeting and nervously looking around the room. Upon hearing Chiang Shih enter, he jumped up and bowed his head.
“Thank you for seeing me, mistress.”
Chiang Shih sat down in the leather chair. “Walker said you needed to talk with me.”
“Yes, ma’am. I went to the Freer Gallery to check out the Antonio Ferrar exhibit for any signs of the Vampyrnomicon, just like you ordered.”
“Did you find the Vampyrnomicon?”
“No. But I wasn’t the only one looking for it. I overheard a couple talking about the book.”
Walker turned to face the others and leaned back against the window. “Describe them for her.”
“The man was about six feet tall, medium build, with short-cut dirty blonde hair. He wore a leather flyer’s jacket.”
Chiang Shih recognized the description. “The hunter.”
“The woman was a little shorter. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, and was very attractive.”
“That sounds like his girlfriend,” said Chiang Shih.
Walker nodded. “It seems as if the hunters also know about the Vampyrnomicon.”
“I’m not surprised.” Chiang Shih returned her attention to Akers. “What did they find?”
“Nothing. I overheard them saying that if the Vampyrnomicon was in the collection, it would be in the private archives. Somebody named Reed, I think, was searching the archives.”
“Was the name Reese?” asked Chiang Shih.
“Yeah. That sounds right. Do you know him?”
“He’s that meddlesome college professor who has been mentoring the hunter on how to kill us.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Walker.
“I could take care of them for you,” offered Akers with ingratiating enthusiasm.
“Thank you, but no. I don’t plan on letting the hunters get off that easily,” Chiang Shih said reassuringly. “And I need you to stay out of trouble. You’re too important to us to wind up in jail over some petty crime.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Besides, I don’t want to stop the hunters. At least, not yet.”
Akers looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
Even Walker did not understand. “Why wouldn’t you want to stop them?”
“Let the hunters do the work for us. We can’t visit the museum during the day, but the hunters can. Let Reese do all the research. If the Vampyrnomicon is in the archives, he’ll find it. Once he does, then we’ll take it from the hunters.”
A sardonic smile spread across Walker’s lips. “That sounds like fun.”
“It will be,” said Chiang Shih. “But not for them.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Akers.
“Yes. Find out where the hunters work and live, and stay close to them until you know whether or not they find the Vampyrnomicon.”
Akers hesitated, his eyes darting between Chiang Shih and Walker. “T-the only thing is… I mean….”
“Is something wrong?”
Walker pushed himself away from the windows and stepped over to the others. “What he’s trying to say is that there’s no way he’ll be able to stay close enough to the hunters to know if they find the Vampyrnomicon without giving himself away.”
“You have a point.” Chiang Shih frowned. “Do you have a way around this?”
“I do.” Walker faced Akers. “How long will it take you to find out where they work?”
“Two or three days, at most.”
“Good. Once you’ve tracked them down, come see me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have anything else to tell me?” asked Chiang Shih.
“No, ma’am.”
“Then you’re dismissed.”
With the barest of nods, Akers turned and rushed out of the apartment. Once the door closed behind him, Chiang Shih stood and moved over to Walker. “Are you sure your plan will work?”
“I guarantee it.”
“Then I’ll leave it all to you. Once the hunters have the Vampyrnomicon, we’ll take it from them and make them regret that they ever challenged us.”
* * *
Racing around his kitchen as he made preparations for his guest, Mike Fletcher was practically giddy with anticipation. Moments like this were few and far between, and had to be carefully planned and skillfully executed. Such preparations dictated the infrequency of these trysts. When he did manage to pull one off, it usually ended up as a quick tawdry event that ranked high in thrills but little in meaning. Tonight would be different. Tonight he would be meeting his guest at his house where they would be safe from prying eyes, just as he liked it. He did not need to get caught in the act because he knew full well how society would respond if they discovered his secret—that Mike Fletcher, the vice principal of Washington’s largest junior high school, was a pedophile.
Mike felt his anger rising and forced himself to relax. He despised the word pedophile. It sounded so demeaning. It wasn’t like he had a penchant for grade schoolers or little boys. And he never forced anyone to do anything they didn’t want to anyways, unlike all those fag p
riests who used to preach against sin on the pulpit, then in the back room would tell the impressionable altar boys “Hail Mary, full of grace, stick this penis in your face.” He didn’t consider himself a pervert. He liked girls between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. They were still innocent and inquisitive, and were only looking for a good time, unlike most women he knew who entered relationships with a lifetime’s worth of emotional baggage. Lots of cultures didn’t frown on teenage girls marrying older men. In Japan it was perfectly legal for men to get head from girls as young as fourteen. Hell, an entire industry developed around that fetish.
Mike considered himself a fetishist, not a pedophile.
He knew damn well that the courts, the school system, and his family and friends would not see it that way. He also knew that getting caught would land him in a world of shit, which determined why he always showed great caution when fulfilling his fantasies. The most important rule was never shit where you eat, so he never dated any of the girls from his school, or in the Washington area for that matter. He never used the Internet to search for his porn because that left an electronic trail that easily could be traced back to him. Instead, every two months he met a man in Silver Springs who, in exchange for $100, would pass him a USB flash drive containing one Gigabyte of pictures of teenage girls either in the nude or performing various sex acts. He would then view the images directly off the flash drive, never loading them onto his computer so they could later incriminate him. He conducted his instant messaging of potential dates anonymously from different Internet cafes and Starbucks using a laptop and e-mail account he had set up under an alias.
Most important of all, he never dated at his house because of the danger of exposure. If some nosy reporter or vice squad sting team showed up at his door, they’d have him dead to rights. Or, God forbid, one of the little cunts tried to blackmail him. To avoid any hassles, he did all of his dating in the Baltimore area under a false name. He used his own car, but with a fake set of license plates that he would switch off when he drove up to Maryland. He never rented a hotel room or used his credit cards, which could link him to that city and to a particular time. The system had been nearly foolproof in preserving his anonymity. By necessity, each date had been a quick encounter in a public place, usually in the backseat of his car, or occasionally in an isolated park.
The Vampire Hunters (Book 2): Vampyrnomicon Page 16
