by Steve Seitz
“I’ll take your word for it, Holmes.”
“Watson, if you had told me more about this phenomenon in the first place, you might have saved me months!”
“You know perfectly well you would have thought me mad,” said I. “You had already surmised that some ancient alchemical potion of Dracula’s was somehow responsible. That fit better with your existing theory.”
“Indeed. Anyway, as you so ably surmised, vampirism is a disease, and a curable one,” Holmes continued. “Armed with this insight, I made my way to a laboratory in Montpellier, France and toiled from sundown to sunrise for two years before I made the finding critical to understanding the virus. And here-” he placed a vial on the table “-is the cure.”
“What is it?”
“A garlic derivative. I still don’t know why garlic is so toxic to vampires, but the virus’s reaction to it is extraordinary. Treatment was painful and terrifying at first; after all, I had mostly myself upon which to test my progress. Hard enough to even find vampires; harder still to find vampires willing to subject themselves to laboratory analysis, but I flatter myself to say that I have restored several to full human health. Rarely have I encountered creatures so grateful. Perhaps, Watson, you should track them down; they have stories to tell, believe me, especially the older ones.
“I almost killed myself several times, but I was determined to prevail. My bliss knew no confines when my canines fell out and normal teeth began to grow. But I knew I had truly succeeded when I passed a bakery on my way to the laboratory and the aromas from the ovens insinuated themselves deep within my nose and awoke in me the fiercest hunger, the first time I had desired food, genuine, human food, since the Reichenbach. There is no way I can make you understand the joy that filled my heart when I salivated for sustenance that wasn’t blood! I bought and devoured an entire baguette.”
“How did you control your craving for blood?”
“I forced myself to subsist on beef and pork blood. But as I made progress and the disease waned, it became easier.”
“That still leaves a year unaccounted for.”
“I am never far from my Stradivarius. I needed to accustom myself into normal life again. So if, in your readings, you have come across the name of a Norwegian violinist named Sigerson, then you have a fair account of my doings.”
“Speaking of which, how do I explain your return to the reading public?”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Nothing would be gained, and much would be lost. How can I act as the last and highest court of appeal in the realm of detection if you tell everyone I was a vampire? Surely the reading public has had its fill of me in any case.”
“You haven’t seen my correspondence. Dead or not, they clamor for more adventures every day.”
“Not for a while, then. Let me regain my normal life first. And that starts with the Honourable Mr. Adair, and yet another echo from the Reichenbach. We shall soon visit Colonel Sebastian Moran. I imagine he’ll be rather surprised to see me. But first a word with Dr. Seward is in order.”
***
Dr. Seward’s Diary
(dictation transcribed from wax cylinders)
April 9, 1894
Today I had the most extraordinary shock.
I had just returned from lunch with Lord and Lady Godalming when my secretary handed me a card.
“Another one who thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes, sir,” he said. “He sure looks the part, though, have to give him that. He’s waiting in your office.”
The figure who greeted me - tall, slender, and gaunt, with an aquiline nose and square chin, in the familiar frock coat - was indeed none other than Sherlock Holmes, whose bleeding body I had last seen sprawled on the floor of his Baker Street flat.
“Mr. Holmes?” I asked, my voice rising half an octave. “How is this possible?”
He extended his hand and smiled. In somewhat of a daze, I accepted it, and it was warm. He laughed at the wonderment on my face, and I saw, with awe, that his teeth were smooth, yellow with nicotine, and even.
“Mr. Holmes, I cannot find the words. You are a wizard, sir! They would surely have burned you at the stake four hundred years ago.”
“I’m afraid it is dull, pedestrian science that takes the place of wizardry,” he said, taking a seat and offering me a cigarette as if I were in his office. I declined the cigarette and boldly took his pulse. It beat in his arm, strong and regular.
“No ghosts need apply,” he added.
“There is no doubt,” I said. “Every trace of the vampire appears gone from your body. It is as though you were never cursed.”
“I was never cursed,” he replied, “I was diseased. Watson’s theory proved correct, you see. Vampirism is a virus. Once it is introduced into a host, it lurks quietly until the host dies, to awaken once blood no longer flows. After an incubation period of three days or so, the virus reactivates the nervous system.”
“I see.”
“The body lives, but it cannot sustain itself as before. Blood must be obtained from without.”
“But the other things,” I said. “The fear of Christ, the transformations into animals, the lack of an image in the mirror?”
“Your idolatrous talisman had no effect upon me, if you’ll recall,” Holmes replied. “The vampires in Transylvania spent their original lives when religious mania in that part of the world was at its height, and that’s what they were reacting to. They had hundreds of years in which to reinforce their beliefs. I do not believe they can transform themselves into animals or mist, for I have been unable to do so. Hypnotism, magician’s tricks and superstitious hysteria can account for it. But I will allow the possibility that perhaps the unlamented Count had mastered dark arts we will never understand.”
“And the lack of an image in the mirror?”
Holmes hesitated.
“I never lost my image. I must put that down to superstition as well.”
I doubted he was telling the truth, but what could I say?
“Why did you come here, Mr. Holmes?”
“To give you this.” He placed a flask and a thick envelope on my desk. “The cure for the curse. It is derived from common garlic. I have also prepared you a copy of my notes, the formula, and the treatment I inflicted on myself and some others. I can only hope that a qualified physician can come up with a more humane course of treatment than did I. Naturally, you may consult me freely.”
I took the flask in my hand as if it were the Holy Grail.
“The cure. Van Helsing will never believe it.”
“I doubt that he will want to. Please give my regards to Lord Godalming and extend my apologies to his wife. My heart is not hardened against him; indeed, he performed exactly as I wished. I hope someday he will do me the honour of sharing his company again.”
“You are an extraordinary man, Mr. Holmes.”
“You are perceptive, Dr. Seward.”
And with that, he donned his top hat and strode from my chambers. Again, I marveled at the gift he had given me, and my eyes filled with hot tears as I thought of Lucy.
-END-
4Again, I am indebted to the keen researchers at Hawkins, Harker, Graham & McFarlane for digging out and indexing the Seward, Harker and Godalming papers. -SS
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