The Vampire Megapack: 27 Modern and Classic Vampire Stories

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  She saw the new tomb before she saw her older sister. She gasped, and the pain was so unfamiliar, so ancient and forgotten, that she gasped again at the sound of it. A great block of stone, carved smooth, sat on a plinth so that it was above the others of the chamber. Only the Master’s was higher than this skilfully crafted resting place. The new sepulchral sculpture had a loftiness even his first could not tolerate. She circled it as if it were prey.

  His second seethed. “Such pathetic boyar pride! See how he displays his latest treasure, how we will lay ourselves down before her, below her!” She grabbed the lid of the nearest tomb and cast it against the wall where it exploded into large chunks of rubble. “Why should she lie in such splendour?” She went to another, picked up the stone covering as if it weighed the same as breath, and threw it across the crypt. It broke in half across the bottom steps from the chapel. She went from one tomb to the next, smashing their lids, filling the room with the dust of broken stone. She screeched noises that nature didn’t know and made ruin. Yet even in her rage she dared not destroy the offending tomb. She would not risk his anger, his wrath, for that pleasure.

  She was calm again only when all the others were lidless ruins. She sat upon the edge of one and stared at her own.

  “Let us find someone new for ourselves,” she said.

  To feel the pulse of a man, the beat of his heart, the strength of his body against her own; that would please her for a little while. A strong enough man could remain hers for many nights as she satisfied the thirst she’d been cursed with.

  “If we are cunning, and we are cunning, pretty sister, we can lure him here. Have him hunt us to this resting place. When he sees us sleeping he will be so transfixed by our beauty that he will linger. He’ll be enthralled, watching us sleep peacefully whilst his ally the sun tires of him and leaves him to our sister the moon, the beautiful moon. When we wake, he will be waiting. He’ll worship us even as we feed.”

  His first caressed her gently. “Dear sister—”

  She stood. She did not want sympathy. “Let us go now, before they return. We’ll go to the village.”

  Her defiance lasted only as long as the tunnel to the courtyard for there, stamping restlessly on the flagstones, were his four magnificent coal-black horses. They had been released from his carriage but had not strayed far. It sat behind them like a box of shadows. Its lanterns had been extinguished, and whatever luggage it held was gone.

  “It is too late.”

  Each reached for the other’s hand and held it.

  * * * *

  They went to the room together. The door had been left ajar and they heard voices from within. Though the two were talking in the hushed tones of new lovers, the sisters could hear each word as clearly as if they were stood beside them.

  “Yes,” he was saying, his voice strong and proud, “As far as you can see. As far as those mighty peaks in the distance. All of it.”

  “I am not surprised,” she replied. “I, too, would beat back armies to keep such lands from their vile hands.”

  He laughed at that. It was not his practised and polite sound, and so rare to hear without cruelty or taunt that each sister glanced at the other. It was a look of jealous pain and it made them sisters more than their physical likeness.

  “I am glad that you would spill blood for it.”

  The sisters entered to see them stood at the window. He was tall even when framed by such grand design, and his black clothes made him one with the darkness upon which they looked. He smiled and bowed politely.

  “I am pleased that you are here. I have someone for you to meet.”

  The dress fit her well; satin silk and silver lace clung to her as if it was already the skin it would become. She was far more fair than either had feared, with masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. Her lips were ruby red and she smiled with a dangerous coquettishness that would have men in their hundreds offering their throats for her deadly kisses. She was so beautiful that his second, jealous as she was, felt something stir even in herself at the woman’s voluptuousness. All men who dared look upon her were doomed.

  “Is she not beautiful?” said the Count.

  His first agreed faithfully, complimenting the woman’s wonderful hair. “We have sunshine again,” she said, brushing a length of it away from the woman’s throat. A pulse still beat there, delicious in its rhythm.

  “I prefer darkness,” said his second, though she was excited by the quickened breaths of the woman.

  The Count frowned but said nothing.

  “As do I,” said his newest, eager to be welcomed.

  “It is just as well.”

  “Does she displease you?” asked the Count, stepping away from the window and approaching slowly. “Do you not like your gift?”

  His first glanced at him for a brief moment. She was behind the woman, combing back her golden hair and holding it so her throat was bare. She was smiling, sharp and greedy.

  His second was confused. She meant to address him directly, defiantly, with something cold and cruel, but she could not turn away from the woman whose eyes were closed now as she leant back against his first, her chest heaving with heavy breaths as more of her neck was exposed to those in the room.

  “Gift?”

  He nodded once and smiled. She returned it hesitantly, then with more pleasure as his smile broadened to show her the points of his teeth.

  “I will be very busy for a while,” he said, his hands at her waist, “I have many preparations to make and I do not want for you to grow bored.”

  He was steering her towards his newest like a wind directing the clouds of a storm. His first was placing sweet kisses at the woman’s throat. The pulse there fluttered with each one.

  “She is my gift to you both. A new sister to teach and play with.”

  She went to her new sibling with confidence. She had a cold kiss for each cheek and a pleasantry to make her feel welcome.

  “Such a beautiful dress.”

  The Count laughed his pleasure and went to them with kisses of his own.

  DRACULA’S GUEST, by Bram Stoker

  Note: “Dracula’s Guest” was cut from the original Dracula manuscript by its publisher because of length considerations. It was first published as a short story in 1914, two years after Stoker’s death.

  * * * * *

  When we started for our drive the sun was shining brightly on Munich, and the air was full of the joyousness of early summer.

  Just as we were about to depart, Herr Delbruck (the maitre d’hotel of the Quatre Saisons, where I was staying) came down bareheaded to the carriage and, after wishing me a pleasant drive, said to the coachman, still holding his hand on the handle of the carriage door,

  “Remember you are back by nightfall. The sky looks bright but there is a shiver in the north wind that says there may be a sudden storm. But I am sure you will not be late.” Here he smiled and added, “for you know what night it is.”

  Johann answered with an emphatic, “Ja, mein Herr,” and, touching his hat, drove off quickly. When we had cleared the town, I said, after signalling to him to stop:

  “Tell me, Johann, what is tonight?”

  He crossed himself, as he answered laconically: “Walpurgis nacht.” Then he took out his watch, a great, old-fashioned German silver thing as big as a turnip and looked at it, with his eyebrows gathered together and a little impatient shrug of his shoulders. I realized that this was his way of respectfully protesting against the unnecessary delay and sank back in the carriage, merely motioning him to proceed. He started off rapidly, as if to make up for lost time. Every now and then the horses seemed to throw up their heads and sniff the air suspiciously. On such occasions I often looked round in alarm. The road was pretty bleak, for we were traversing a sort of high windswept plateau. As we drove, I saw a road that looked but little used and which seemed to dip through a little winding valley. It looked so inviting that, even at the risk of offending him, I called Johann to stop�
��and when he had pulled up, I told him I would like to drive down that road. He made all sorts of excuses and frequently crossed himself as he spoke. This somewhat piqued my curiosity, so I asked him various questions. He answered fencingly and repeatedly looked at his watch in protest.

  Finally I said, “Well, Johann, I want to go down this road. I shall not ask you to come unless you like; but tell me why you do not like to go, that is all I ask.” For answer he seemed to throw himself off the box, so quickly did he reach the ground. Then he stretched out his hands appealingly to me and implored me not to go. There was just enough of English mixed with the German for me to understand the drift of his talk. He seemed always just about to tell me something—the very idea of which evidently frightened him; but each time he pulled himself up saying, “Walpurgis nacht!”

  I tried to argue with him, but it was difficult to argue with a man when I did not know his language. The advantage certainly rested with him, for although he began to speak in English, of a very crude and broken kind, he always got excited and broke into his native tongue—and every time he did so, he looked at his watch. Then the horses became restless and sniffed the air. At this he grew very pale, and, looking around in a frightened way, he suddenly jumped forward, took them by the bridles, and led them on some twenty feet. I followed and asked why he had done this. For an answer he crossed himself, pointed to the spot we had left, and drew his carriage in the direction of the other road, indicating a cross, and said, first in German, then in English, “Buried him—him what killed themselves.”

  I remembered the old custom of burying suicides at cross roads: “Ah! I see, a suicide. How interesting!” But for the life of me I could not make out why the horses were frightened.

  Whilst we were talking, we heard a sort of sound between a yelp and a bark. It was far away; but the horses got very restless, and it took Johann all his time to quiet them. He was pale and said, “It sounds like a wolf—but yet there are no wolves here now.”

  “No?” I said, questioning him. “Isn’t it long since the wolves were so near the city?”

  “Long, long,” he answered, “in the spring and summer; but with the snow the wolves have been here not so long.”

  Whilst he was petting the horses and trying to quiet them, dark clouds drifted rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away, and a breath of cold wind seemed to drift over us. It was only a breath, however, and more of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out brightly again.

  Johann looked under his lifted hand at the horizon and said, “The storm of snow, he comes before long time.” Then he looked at his watch again, and, straightway holding his reins firmly—for the horses were still pawing the ground restlessly and shaking their heads—he climbed to his box as though the time had come for proceeding on our journey.

  I felt a little obstinate and did not at once get into the carriage.

  “Tell me,” I said, “about this place where the road leads,” and I pointed down.

  Again he crossed himself and mumbled a prayer before he answered, “It is unholy.”

  “What is unholy?” I enquired.

  “The village.”

  “Then there is a village?”

  “No, no. No one lives there hundreds of years.”

  My curiosity was piqued, “But you said there was a village.”

  “There was.”

  “Where is it now?”

  Whereupon he burst out into a long story in German and English, so mixed up that I could not quite understand exactly what he said. Roughly I gathered that long ago, hundreds of years, men had died there and been buried in their graves; but sounds were heard under the clay, and when the graves were opened, men and women were found rosy with life and their mouths red with blood. And so, in haste to save their lives (aye, and their souls!—and here he crossed himself) those who were left fled away to other places, where the living lived and the dead were dead and not—not something. He was evidently afraid to speak the last words. As he proceeded with his narration, he grew more and more excited. It seemed as if his imagination had got hold of him, and he ended in a perfect paroxysm of fear-white-faced, perspiring, trembling, and looking round him as if expecting that some dreadful presence would manifest itself there in the bright sunshine on the open plain.

  Finally, in an agony of desperation, he cried, “Walpurgis nacht!” and pointed to the carriage for me to get in.

  All my English blood rose at this, and standing back I said, “You are afraid, Johann—you are afraid. Go home, I shall return alone, the walk will do me good.” The carriage door was open. I took from the seat my oak walking stick—which I always carry on my holiday excursions—and closed the door, pointing back to Munich, and said, “Go home, Johann—Walpurgis nacht doesn’t concern Englishmen.”

  The horses were now more restive than ever, and Johann was trying to hold them in, while excitedly imploring me not to do anything so foolish. I pitied the poor fellow, he was so deeply in earnest; but all the same I could not help laughing. His English was quite gone now. In his anxiety he had forgotten that his only means of making me understand was to talk my language, so he jabbered away in his native German. It began to be a little tedious. After giving the direction, “Home!” I turned to go down the cross road into the valley.

  With a despairing gesture, Johann turned his horses towards Munich. I leaned on my stick and looked after him. He went slowly along the road for a while, then there came over the crest of the hill a man tall and thin. I could see so much in the distance. When he drew near the horses, they began to jump and kick about, then to scream with terror. Johann could not hold them in; they bolted down the road, running away madly. I watched them out of sight, then looked for the stranger; but I found that he, too, was gone.

  With a light heart I turned down the side road through the deepening valley to which Johann had objected. There was not the slightest reason, that I could see, for his objection; and I daresay I tramped for a couple of hours without thinking of time or distance and certainly without seeing a person or a house. So far as the place was concerned, it was desolation itself. But I did not notice this particularly till, on turning a bend in the road, I came upon a scattered fringe of wood; then I recognized that I had been impressed unconsciously by the desolation of the region through which I had passed.

  I sat down to rest myself and began to look around. It struck me that it was considerably colder than it had been at the commencement of my walk—a sort of sighing sound seemed to be around me with, now and then, high overhead, a sort of muffled roar. Looking upwards I noticed that great thick clouds were drafting rapidly across the sky from north to south at a great height. There were signs of a coming storm in some lofty stratum of the air. I was a little chilly, and, thinking that it was the sitting still after the exercise of walking, I resumed my journey.

  The ground I passed over was now much more picturesque. There were no striking objects that the eye might single out, but in all there was a charm of beauty. I took little heed of time, and it was only when the deepening twilight forced itself upon me that I began to think of how I should find my way home. The air was cold, and the drifting of clouds high overhead was more marked. They were accompanied by a sort of far away rushing sound, through which seemed to come at intervals that mysterious cry which the driver had said came from a wolf. For a while I hesitated. I had said I would see the deserted village, so on I went and presently came on a wide stretch of open country, shut in by hills all around. Their sides were covered with trees which spread down to the plain, dotting in clumps the gentler slopes and hollows which showed here and there. I followed with my eye the winding of the road and saw that it curved close to one of the densest of these clumps and was lost behind it.

  As I looked there came a cold shiver in the air, and the snow began to fall. I thought of the miles and miles of bleak country I had passed, and then hurried on to seek shelter of the wood in front. Darker and darker grew the sky, and faster and heavier fell the
snow, till the earth before and around me was a glistening white carpet the further edge of which was lost in misty vagueness. The road was here but crude, and when on the level its boundaries were not so marked as when it passed through the cuttings; and in a little while I found that I must have strayed from it, for I missed underfoot the hard surface, and my feet sank deeper in the grass and moss. Then the wind grew stronger and blew with ever increasing force, till I was fain to run before it. The air became icy cold, and in spite of my exercise I began to suffer. The snow was now falling so thickly and whirling around me in such rapid eddies that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Every now and then the heavens were torn asunder by vivid lightning, and in the flashes I could see ahead of me a great mass of trees, chiefly yew and cypress all heavily coated with snow.

  I was soon amongst the shelter of the trees, and there in comparative silence I could hear the rush of the wind high overhead. Presently the blackness of the storm had become merged in the darkness of the night. By-and-by the storm seemed to be passing away, it now only came in fierce puffs or blasts. At such moments the weird sound of the wolf appeared to be echoed by many similar sounds around me.

  Now and again, through the black mass of drifting cloud, came a straggling ray of moonlight which lit up the expanse and showed me that I was at the edge of a dense mass of cypress and yew trees. As the snow had ceased to fall, I walked out from the shelter and began to investigate more closely. It appeared to me that, amongst so many old foundations as I had passed, there might be still standing a house in which, though in ruins, I could find some sort of shelter for a while. As I skirted the edge of the copse, I found that a low wall encircled it, and following this I presently found an opening. Here the cypresses formed an alley leading up to a square mass of some kind of building. Just as I caught sight of this, however, the drifting clouds obscured the moon, and I passed up the path in darkness. The wind must have grown colder, for I felt myself shiver as I walked; but there was hope of shelter, and I groped my way blindly on.