Much like the walls before, the door was carved from top to bottom with intricate carvings and the same repetitive hieroglyphics.
A ring had been affixed to the stone door as a handle. Without querying his friends, Simon grasped the door ring and pulled it toward him. The door slid open quietly, despite its enormous weight. Light poured through the opening, blinding the trio.
Simon raised a hand to his eyes to block out the multitude of torches hung around the wall. The smell was both smoky and pungent, causing Simon to cough slightly as the thick smoke in the air burned his lungs.
At the sound of his cough, a rustle of movement was heard from within the room.
Simon squinted against the light. As his eyes adjusted to the brilliant glow, he could see a figure seated atop a stone throne in the middle of the room.
The ancient man raised his head toward his newest visitors.
“Have you also come to take my blood, to join the ranks of the new den?”
Torches burned in sconces along the walls, illuminating the square room. The walls were a similar white limestone to the hallway through which the trio had just passed. They had been carved with the same repeating series of symbols, though the careful carving that appeared in the hallway was lost, as though the carvings became more frantic the more times they were produced.
Against the far wall, a dais had been carved from the floor, on the top of which sat a stone throne. The throne’s surface appeared to have once been flawless, but it had recently been marred by chisel marks, creating holes along the sides of the rock seat.
Atop the throne sat an archaic man. His shoulders were hunched from exhaustion and, though he watched Simon as the Inquisitor entered, the man’s head slumped toward his chest. His pale white skin had the consistency of leather but the color of fresh snow. His pale scalp bled seamlessly into his wispy, ivory hair. Large patches of hair were missing, and the man’s skull was scarred with bald sections. Nails, which had grown too long from poor maintenance, protruded from his fingertips as he grasped his stone throne.
Simon paused at the sight of the figure. Most jarring was not the man’s appearance but the dichotomy of the man’s ancient appearance intermixed with the modern technology protruding from his skin. His wrists and ankles were bound in tight leather straps. Heavy chains dangled from each of the manacles, affixed to the chair. From his arms, needles pierced his thin flesh and tubes, stained red but currently dry of fluid, ran from the syringes and led to rubber-corked glass jars beside the throne. Simon leaned to the side for a better view of the jars and, not at all to his surprise, they were partially filled with a vibrant red blood.
“You’re not one of his minions, are you?” the ancient man asked. His voice was barely raised above a whisper, though the sound carried well through the empty room.
He raised his hand to brush the strands of hair from his face, but the chains reached the limits of their range less than a foot from his lowered head. With a sigh, the man lowered his arm once more.
With great effort, the archaic figure raised his chin from his chest and rested the back of his head against the back of the stone throne.
“Speak or be gone,” he said. “I have no time for visitors. No, no, that’s not correct. I have nothing but time, but what I lack is interest in visitors.”
“What are you?” Simon asked. He wished he had the foresight to collect another wooden stake from the previous room.
The ancient man laughed, though the sound was more equivalent to an asthmatic wheeze. As he opened his mouth, the elongated fangs were evident.
“He’s a vampire,” Luthor said, disgustingly.
“Not a vampire,” the archaic monster corrected, leaning forward with great effort. “I am the vampire, the originator, the pure!”
“Kill him and let us be gone,” the apothecary whispered.
“I can hear you, little man. I went for nearly a millennium without so much as a whisper, caressed only by the sound of my own voice. I grew so accustomed to the silence that I could hear water droplets sliding between the cracks in the stone. I could veritably hear my hair growing. I pulled it out in droves just to further appreciate the silence. Yet you whisper as though you can’t be heard. Your whispers are like someone screaming in my ears.”
“He’s gone wonky, sir,” Luthor said, no longer bothering to be quiet. “Finish him like we did the others. We should be gone from the mine sooner rather than later.”
Simon heard his friend’s plea but chose instead to step closer to the beast. “You said ‘his’ minions. Of whom do you speak?”
The elder vampire wrenched his arms upward until the chains were taut. The leather straps bit into his wrists, but he seemed oblivious to the pain. “Free me from this prison and I’ll answer your questions.”
“Answer my questions and I’ll decide whether or not to end your life,” Simon retorted.
The vampire lowered its arms and laughed heartily. “Were I in my prime, I would have dispatched you without so much as a thought, moved quicker than the human eye could track, or flown through the air until I appeared as little more than mist. I would have—”
His diatribe was interrupted as he was overcome with a bout of harsh coughing.
“He won’t talk, nor would I expect him to,” Luthor said. He glanced nervously into the blackened tunnel behind them. “Hurry and finish this.”
“Who is ‘he’?” Simon reiterated.
The vampire wiped spittle from his lips and grimaced. “Free me, mortal.”
Simon took a threatening step forward. “I’ll sooner free you from this world than release you from this prison. Tell me what I want to know.”
The vampire shook his head in defeat. “This world is a prison, human.”
“He’s talking in riddles,” Mattie said. She grasped her wrist and pulled downward, stripping the skin from her hand. Beneath, the claw and fur of the werewolf was revealed. “I’ll end this if you won’t.”
Simon grasped her arm as she tried to pass. The vampire sucked air between his teeth in surprise.
“A monster walks beside you, but you leave this one strapped to the throne.”
Mattie caught Simon’s gaze and stared at him sternly. “We don’t have time for this, Simon.”
“We can’t kill him,” Simon replied. “The two we’ve already slain have put us at great personal risk. Something tells me this one’s death will be significantly more noticeable, and recognized far sooner. If we kill him, we will never leave Whitten Hall alive.”
“So we just leave a vampire alive, sir?” Luthor asked incredulously. “There has to be a better option.”
“Perhaps there is, Luthor, but not one that I can conceive on such short notice. Come, both of you, we’re leaving at once. Let the vampire rot in his cell.”
The trio turned away reluctantly, glancing over their shoulders at the imprisoned ancient monster. Simon stepped through the doorway and grasped the edge of the heavy stone door. As he started to push it closed, the vampire’s whisper reached his ears.
“Martelus Whitten,” it said. “Now I’ve told you what you wanted to hear. When we meet again, I expect you to remember this favor.”
Simon paused for the briefest moment as he absorbed the newest information. Finally, he pushed the door shut behind him and rejoined the others.
Their ascent out of the mine was uneventful, though they remained on edge throughout their walk. Simon placed an expended lantern from the barracks atop the scorched rock in the large chamber, hoping to conceal the true origins of the explosion that nearly claimed their lives. He doubted the vampires would be fooled for long, or truthfully at all, but it made him feel better for putting forth the effort.
It was still dark as they reached the floor of the quarry. Simon pulled the watch from his vest pocket and checked the time. He nodded appreciatively as he realized it was still a few hours before dawn.
The vampire’s parting words, albeit not as surprising as he imagined, still haunted Sim
on. The chancellor had presented himself well, convincing Simon and his entourage that there was merely a labor dispute ongoing in Whitten Hall. All the while Martelus hid the truth that he and so many of his fellow townsfolk were vampires and murderers, having slaughtered over a hundred people to feed their insatiable thirst for blood.
As they climbed the perimeter trail that led to the lip of the pit, Simon’s mind was already awhirl with possibilities. Martelus and all that had been turned would have to be destroyed, of that he was certain. Unfortunately, they numbered forty or more, while Simon had only a group of three. Even the element of surprise wouldn’t be on their side much longer, ending as soon as the chancellor realized that two of his minions had been staked through the heart.
The trio reached the trail that led back into the woods, without sharing so much as a word of surprise between them. Simon glanced over his shoulder, catching the weary expression on his two companions’ faces. He nodded his understanding and led them into the woods. He no longer felt comfortable traveling the road, even when they were far removed from the chancellor’s manor house.
After walking for a while, Simon could feel the sweat beading on his brow. The humidity that they had so refreshingly avoided while in the mine had returned with a vengeance, draining their remaining energy.
“Can we stop for a moment?” Mattie asked. Of the three, she was the most affected by the weather.
“The river should be just ahead,” Simon replied. “It would be good for all of us to stop and drink our fill.”
The underbrush wasn’t as thick deeper within the woods. They moved with little impediment, following the faint glow from the hooded lantern. Simon glanced within at the light and noticed that the candle was nearly extinguished. The wax had run into an amorphous clump at the bottom of the lantern. A weak flame consumed what little wick remained, but even that repeatedly threatened to go out.
To his relief, Simon heard the trickle of the stream ahead. He pulled the hood of the lantern down, concealing most of the light that spilled from it. The lantern was useful but grew more unnecessary the closer they got to the stream. The canopy of leaves was nearly nonexistent, allowing moonlight to filter down onto the exhausted group.
Simon covered the lantern completely as he knelt before the stream. Mattie took her place beside him and lapped handfuls of water into her mouth. When the Inquisitor was satiated, he assumed Luthor’s cautious watch of their surroundings as the apothecary took his turn by the water’s edge.
Eventually, they had all drank their fill. With his belly full, Simon lifted the hood of the lantern once more. He frowned as they remained in darkness. Glancing into the lantern’s interior, he saw that the small flame had succumbed and their light was fully extinguished.
“We have no light,” Luthor stated. “I’ll be hard to traverse the wilderness without a light.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Luthor, which is exactly why we’re not going to. We’re going to sleep here in the woods tonight.”
“Sir?”
Simon sat on the forest floor, resting his back against a tree. “We’d be lost without our light, which means we’d be just as likely to stumble upon a group of vampires returning to their daytime homes amidst the mines as we are to find our way back to the inn. Even were we to find our way back, we’d be sleeping tonight amidst a den of vipers, the analogy working just fine considering their shared love of elongated fangs.”
Mattie slumped to the ground as well. “Aren’t they just as likely to find us here as they are in town?”
“If they were actively looking for us, then I would say yes. They’ve already proven to have far superior night vision. However, they aren’t yet looking for us. More than likely, they won’t discover their deceased brethren until the sun has already risen. That gives us, at best, a day’s head start before they begin their pursuit. We’ll get a few hours’ sleep here in the woods and then make our way back to town, gather our belongings, and move expeditiously back toward Callifax.”
Luthor drove his fist into the open palm of his other hand. “I can’t believe we were duped twice now by those we were supposed to trust.”
Simon patted the ground beside him, encouraging the apothecary to sit. “That’s not at all true, Luthor. Your instincts put you at odds with the chancellor upon our very first meeting. Matilda’s keen sense of smell identified the pallor of death that hung over the town immediately. It was only I who was in too big of a hurry, and far too stubborn, that I held out a glimmer of hope that this assignment might be above keel. I should have seen through the chancellor’s lies sooner. He never let his people leave of their own volition. He killed them… ate them, if you will. Moreover, he invited new workers, who arrived weekly, to serve as more of their food.”
Luthor accepted the offer to sit. He removed his bowler cap and wiped the accumulated sweat from its brim. “So that’s it for us, then, sir? We’ll collect our things and leave Whitten Hall behind us?”
Simon nodded. “Until we can notify the Inquisitors of what we discovered here, then yes, that’s all there is. We have only one other responsibility: to collect Gregory, our bartender accomplice. He warned us something was amiss, even if we ignored the warning and dove headlong into the vampires’ home.”
“Just him?” Mattie asked as though she were taken aback. “There are at least two dozen people in the town during the day, meaning that they couldn’t possibly be vampires. We should be taking as many as possible with us as we leave.”
“Were it at all possible, my dear, I most certainly would. However, we’ll be moving quickly once we leave, to put as much distance between us and our pursuers. A large group will slow us down. Moreover, I can’t guarantee the innocence of the rest of the town. It’s far more than likely that a good portion of them are in collusion with the vampires. No, in this instance, we’ll take just the one who will be our advocate before the Grand Inquisitor, confirming what we’ve witnessed. After that, we can return with an army that rivals the vampires’.”
Luthor fidgeted with the brim of his hat. “We’re going to look conspicuous when we suddenly leave town with our luggage in tow. If there are conspirators within the town during the day, they’ll be doing their best to stop us.”
“On the contrary, Luthor, we’ll be doing exactly what they want. The day we arrived, we met with the chancellor. He said the next train would be arriving in two days. That was last night. We’ll sleep tonight in the woods, which means that the train will be arriving in Whitten Hall some time tomorrow. They wanted us gone, and we will be more than happy to oblige. We should be miles away before the vampires are able to begin their pursuit and by then, it’ll be far too late.”
Mattie frowned and placed her arms over her knees. The Inquisitor glanced toward her and arched an eyebrow inquisitively.
“What’s bothering you, Matilda?”
Mattie shook her head. “We’re working so hard to convince the Grand Inquisitor that I’m not a threat, quite unsuccessfully thus far, might I add. He needs to know that those of us infected aren’t a danger to the crown. Instead, the very next mission on which we are sent, we encounter another group of infected citizens of the kingdom and, quite naturally, they’re slaughtering civilians. They’re a threat. What possible chance is there of convincing the Grand Inquisitor, once he comes to the natural conclusion that exceptions can’t be made for those infected, that we should be allowed to live?”
Simon nodded understandingly. “It’s a difficult path, to be sure, but a bridge we’ll have to cross when we come to it. For now, we can’t allow ourselves to be distracted.”
He gestured toward the uninvitingly hard forest floor. “Get some rest, both of you. Dawn will be here sooner than we think, and we have a full day ahead of us.”
Before the sun arose the following morning, Simon was awake. He removed his jacket from where it had draped over him like a blanket during the cooler, if not still humid, night. He roughly brushed the clinging grasses and fallen pine needl
es from the jacket before shaking it, dislodging the dirt and moss accumulated from the forest floor.
Though Luthor snored softly from his place beside a pine tree, Mattie was already awake. Her hair was damp, as though she had bathed that morning, leaving her blouse and leather jerkin damp from the water dripping from her hair.
“Morning,” Simon said, stifling a yawn.
“Good morning,” she replied as she gathered the meager belongings they had taken with them on their adventure the night before. “How did you sleep?”
“I slept like absolute rubbish, but thank you for asking just the same. There’s something about sleeping with a rock repeatedly jabbing you between your shoulder blades, all the while having the fear of being taken in the night by blood-sucking vampires, that results in a night of ill-begotten sleep. How did you sleep, Matilda?”
Mattie glanced up from her work and shrugged. “Fine,” she replied simply, her answer a strong counterpoint to Simon’s rambling.
Simon walked across their narrow clearing and kicked the sole of Luthor’s outstretched foot. The apothecary awoke with a start, tilting his bowler cap from in front of his eyes so quickly that it toppled completely from his head. Though his eyes settled on the Inquisitor, Simon was sure that Luthor didn’t actually see him.
Luthor reached up with the back of his hand and rubbed his eyes furiously. From the inside pocket of his suit, he withdrew his wire-framed glasses and placed them on his face.
“The sun is rising, Luthor, and so should we,” Simon said.
Luthor muttered something unintelligible before glancing toward the quickly brightening sky. The sun was beginning to crest over the tops of the nearby trees. Simon followed Luthor’s gaze and enjoyed the sudden warmth of the brilliant sun. He often took for granted the glow of the dawn, though that was likely to change when faced with denizens of the night. Suddenly, the morning sun seemed like the most glorious thing he had ever seen.
Luthor stood and retrieved his hat. Though on his feet, he still looked sadly disjointed and uncoordinated. Mattie glanced at the two men before shaking her head slowly. They had no mirror with which to appraise their current disposition. Neither man could appreciate the clinging pine needles in their hair, or the tussle of their normally perfectly coifed locks, or even the heavy wrinkles present on their attire. She walked to Luthor’s side and affectionately removed a blade of grass from the apothecary’s muttonchops.
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