‘Then hear me well, for I hope I do not see you again. If you turn another, just one, the infection will spread, and the world will die under the weight of our kind. If I hear you have turned another I will hunt them down and kill them, then I will hunt you down. This is my gift to you. Not my blood, but your life. You live under my forbearance.’
‘What makes you think you could best me? I am young. I am stronger.’
‘And full of pride. Pride undid me. It may be your undoing, too.’
I stood and drew myself to full height, but I was not as tall as him. He smiled. Something he still knew that I did not. I wondered at what it was.
Faster than a thought he had drawn another blade from his belt and he ducked low and slashed through the backs of my legs, one, then the other, before I could even move.
I reached out to tear out his throat but I crumpled to the floor. My legs would not work and I felt the burning pain there. He had hamstrung me, with a silver blade.
I roared at him but I could only drag myself forward. He leapt out of my reach easily and laughed.
‘I cannot have you follow me. I’m sure you understand.’
He turned and headed back down the hill at an easy run. I watched him until he was out of sight.
Was I sentimental? I think I was. He was my first child to show signs of promise.
I was angrier than I have ever been, but in some ways I was proud of him, too.
But then isn’t that what children are for?
*
Chapter Sixty-Seven
St Petersburg
1914
It took some time for me to heal from my wounds. Silver inhibits the healing process. I believe if I was to come into contact with enough silver I would die. I might even enter some kind of living death, unable to move, unable to heal…perhaps it would be like a coma.
I did not know. Nor did I ever wish to find out. My will to live was strong once again, and in part it was due to my errant child.
I did follow his progress. For many years I sought out news of Rasputin, and there was always news.
He had not made any vampires. I heard that he had taken a wife, and got her with child, but the child was not my kind.
I do not know how he managed the feat. Perhaps the silver he had ingested somehow made his seed human. Perhaps, even, someone else had fathered his children.
I learned much, in later years, about the effects of silver on my blood. All I would learn would come too late. It seems my whole life I have been trying to catch up with history. I am a creature out of time. An anachronism and the future. Time swirls around me like mist and like mist I can never grasp it.
Rasputin grew in power over the years. He achieved what I had not in a short time. He became the right hand of leaders. I could see his ambition even as I watched from afar. He began by healing the Tsar. The Tsar was always sickly. Rumour told of an illness of the blood.
I could see how Rasputin had healed him, even without the full facts. My anger grew as Rasputin’s standing in the lofty courts of Russia waxed and waned.
He had great influence over the Tsarita, and soon was beginning to take an interest in the Great War which began in 1914, and there was a vampire well placed to take a hand in the shaping of Europe. I could see that he exerted too much power already. I could not allow a vampire to make the world his playground. What world would be left, should one of my blood rule? I held a strange affection for the people that populated the world. I recognised that this was their world. I was but a traveller. I had no right to rule them. I could cull them, feed on them, without any hint of conscience. That was not the problem. They were food to me, but I also loved them in their way.
They scurry through life striving against such adversity. There was a kind of beauty in their constant struggle. They fought for life every minute they took breath. It was a miracle any of their children survived their first year. And things just got harder, never easier. When so many things could be fatal, who could not respect them? They risked everything, I risked nothing.
I could not take that away from them. Their struggle was monumental, and I was an observer.
I would not have them destroyed. I could see the end that Rasputin would put in place.
Then I heard about a battalion of soldiers. They were covered in glory even though this war, the war that should have ended all war, was a long battle of attrition, through freezing cold weather, fought in trenches, with artillery that had previously been undreamed of.
The Tsar that Rasputin had healed took charge of the war, leading the battalion.
The rumours grew. The Tsar was weak, but his soldiers were strong. They were holding back the Huns. Their might was fast becoming legend.
And all the while, in St Petersburg, Rasputin was pulling strings. He was wily. He had proved as much when he outwitted me. But war is a human affliction, one of many rites of passage the human race must pass through.
It is theirs, and theirs to suffer. It makes the race stronger, it creates alliances and shapes nations. Great nations can drive change or cause immense suffering, but without the benefit of nations much human endeavour would be wasted and lost. I could see the need for war. This teething of the child that was the human race. One day, I imagined, human kind would see the folly of war and find another way. They could work together. They could be great. But through the ages I had seen enough of war to know that it would pass. Even as great as this war was, the human toll beyond reckoning, it was just a phase. A rite of passage.
And it was not for Rasputin to rule it.
Nor was it for him to change it. He was changing it with his blood.
He was creating soldiers with his blood.
It was time I finished it.
In 1914 I took residence in a small house within the capital. I watched with great interest the newspapers, and listened to talk in the taverns, nursing a slow drink so as not to make myself sick.
There is much to learn in taverns. The truth comes out after a few drinks.
The rumours were gaining force. Rasputin was not the same as other men. People still whispered it, but they were beginning to think he was something other than human.
It would not be good for me if people were to realise that my kind were among them. All they had ever had was rumour. But this was a different age. People had information. It was a new age. Communication was something people had lacked before. Now words could travel around the world. My kind, always myth, could become fact and be hunted from existence. I did not know how many of my kind roamed the earth, in the secret places, but I thought that perhaps there were a few. Rasputin, however, was not a secret. His power, his unearthly endurance, everything was pointing to someone more than human. He was shouting his difference from the rooftops and I could not let him ruin the world.
When an attempt was made on his life and failed, the rumour became a wave, washing over the country, spreading even across borders.
The time to act would come soon.
*
Chapter Sixty-Eight
1916
I closed my front door and head down the street. I had a cloak wrapped tightly around my shoulders, over a thick coat. I wore woollen underwear, fur boots and hat and a pair of leather gloves. I was still freezing. People don’t understand the Russians, on the whole. They think as a race that they are surly and uncommunicative, leery of strangers and foreigners. That is not the case at all. What ails Russia is the same as it has always been, throughout the ages. Russians are just cold. It is always so cold in Russia.
The Russian winters can kill with their cold. Each summer, people know the winter must follow. It is a shadow that hangs over them. That is what makes them surly. Knowing that the harshest of winters will always come, no matter the summer. Even the warmth of the August sun cannot make a Russian forget the bitter cold that brackets each year, the summer in between just an afterthought that does not even warrant a complete sentence.
It was into this cold, without snow yet, but not long off,
that I walked. My boots made little sound on the pavement. I was not trying to be stealthy. There was no point. The evening was quiet. Most people would stay indoors on a night like this, huddled by their fires, looking up at the eaves on occasion, worried that the gusting wind would tear their roof loose.
My cloak whipped about in the wind. It took most of my concentration just to keep it from flying off into the night.
The streets were clean. Building work on houses begun in the summer had been forgotten, the sites battened tight against the winter. It was past one such building site that I walked, then turned a corner into a tight side street. I walked in a darkness that the distant streetlamps did not touch. The darkness enveloped me and reminded me of why I had come to this place.
I steeled myself against the risk that I was taking. I wore a sword at my hip, largely concealed under my cloak but from when the wind lifted it clear. I hoped I would not need the sword. If it came to that, blood would be shed, then there would be a risk of the insanity spreading. I avoid public conflict whenever I can, but in this age of intrigue, with the war raging on the western front, I had to be careful. There were agents of foreign powers at work in many of the worlds capitals, and I was a man of no nation. My accent was strange and untried, and I would soon stand out as a foreigner myself. It was all too easy to come under suspicion.
I was to meet a man who, like me, wanted Rasputin’s growing power to end. For him it was a matter of pride. For me it was a simple expedient. The risk to me from Rasputin’s blood was too great. I could not put myself in such a position. I held myself back. I was the last recourse. Rasputin must die, but not by my hand.
I came to a dark door set in a three story building. I rapped on the door with my gloved knuckles and waited, shivering in the cold.
The door opened and a man opened the door. He held a pistol to one side. I wondered if he would deem it necessary to use it on me. I had no proof of my credentials, just my name.
‘I am Demetri. I have come to meet with Felix,’ I said. I watched the pistol. I have never been shot. It seemed somehow uncivilised. I did not wish to be shot. It would be inconvenient and ruin any chance I had of getting my plan into action.
He seemed to weigh me up for a minute. His eyes did not fail to see my sword but he did not mention it.
‘Come in. He is waiting.’
So much for intrigue, I thought. I followed the man through the house into a back room. It had high ceilings, an architectural folly that the Russians had yet to grow out of. They wanted grandeur, but a large room is so much harder to heat.
Still, the fireplace was immense and the size of the fire alone lent the room some heat. There were no other lights in the room, but it was bright enough for me.
I walked to stand before the fire. The man with the pistol offered to take my coat, but I refused.
‘Please, be seated,’ said a man as he came into the room. He had an air of power about him, but he was also in his cups.
I did not say anything. I knew I could not be choosy. I needed someone who could pull off this deed, this assassination, and I needed someone well placed. This man fit the bill perfectly, whether he was a drunkard or not.
‘I cannot stay for long,’ I said.
‘A drink?’
‘Not for me,’ I said.
He shrugged and took a chair facing the fire. He poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter. It smelled like brandy.
‘To the business of the night, then, eh?’ he said.
I ignored his feeble joke but nodded.
‘We are of like mind,’ I said. ‘The devil must die.’
It was Felix’s turn to nod.
‘But for a man such as him,’ I said, ‘we must be sure. He has fey powers. You know of the attempt to kill him?’
‘I have heard, yes. Stabbed through the belly.’
‘Then you know he cannot be killed by mortal means.’
Felix looked at me for a moment, but he did not say anything. He was not discounting me out of hand. I had superstition to thank for this. Rumour was a powerful thing. Talk had long been circulating about Rasputin’s fey nature.
‘He must be slain by silver,’ I said.
‘Then it is true? He is demon spawn?’
‘I know him of old. It is true. He has the devil’s blood.’
‘Then he must not live out the year.’
‘Can you get him alone, do you think?’
‘I can invite him for dinner.’
‘Then you must subdue him, and stab him through the heart, and shoot him in the head. You must be sure that he is dead.’
He nodded thoughtfully. I realised that he was not as drunk as I had first imagined. Perhaps this man would be able to pull off the assassination. I hoped that I was not too optimistic. I did not want to have to face Rasputin alone. A vampire whose blood was poison to me.
I took a package from underneath my cloak and handed it to him.
He opened it and drew a revolver from the box within the package. There were five bullets within the case. He raised an eyebrow at me.
‘I took the liberty of having silver bullets made for the weapon. It is a Webley revolver. It is used by the British. If anyone finds the bullet that kills him they will only check the calibre. This will place suspicion on the British, not the Russians. It would not do to have suspicion laid on you. And here,’ I said as I took the sword from my belt, and a dagger from my right hip.
‘Both forged of silver. I had them specially made. Give them to your men.’
He took these weapons also.
‘When will you do it?’ I asked.
‘Before the year is out,’ he said. ‘You will hear of it.’
‘Good.’ I said. ‘We will not meet again.’
I rose and with a nod left him to his thoughts.
*
Chapter Sixty-Nine
1916
The strange thing was, that evening when I went to the tavern down the street from the house I had taken for my own, I knew the story before it was told to me.
Rasputin had been poisoned. When that hadn’t worked he had been stabbed, beaten, shot, and thrown in the river.
I felt my head swim and I stumbled as I rose from my table. The tavern was crowded and I bumped into a few people on my way to the door.
I wondered if this was what being drunk was like. I was bouncing off people as I walked, and when I eventually made it outside there was no one there to hold me up, I slid down a wall and landed with a thump on my side. My head was swimming with images. It was like the dream, only I was awake. I knew what was happening. I even knew the date this war would end.
I wondered if I was being touched by God. Perhaps this was the way a mystic felt. Was this what Rasputin had felt when he found me?
I pushed myself weakly to my feet. I could not stay out in the night any longer. Even through my daze I could feel the cold biting my nose, my fingers. All too soon things would start to drop off.
I walked back toward my house in a kind of fugue. I only partway saw the streets as I stumbled on. People laughed at me, thinking I was well into my cups, but I had only had one slow drink in the tavern and alcohol had no effect on me. It was not like this, I was sure. I was having hallucinations. I saw another war, yet to come. I saw tanks, like those that were being used in this war, but this time they were effective. I saw planes flying through the skies, but with just one set of wings. I saw planes dropping things from the air, and I knew they were bombs. The soldier’s armaments were different. They did not carry swords, but pistols and rifles, but the rifles were repeating rifles. There were people dropping from the sky, floating down on big ballooning sheets, and I knew the name for these people, and that the sheets were called parachutes.
All this I saw through hazy eyes, overlaying the city streets as I walked on, largely unaware of where I was going.
Through this fog I saw a land I knew was the future. For the first time since I had dreamed during my long sleep I knew that this
was not an alien world, or a world of my imagination, but the future to come, a vision of things that would come to pass.
How did I know this? How does a man know to breath? It was plain and irrefutable. It was not a fantasy, but the future of this world to come. These were visions of things I would see and know. But how did I know?
My head swam and for a few moments I think I must have passed out. I woke with my nose blackening from the cold and my fingers frozen so solid that they could not move.
I made it back to my home without further incident but surer than I have ever been in my life that I had a purpose. I had seen the future. I would not be granted such a vision if it were not for a reason.
That night I became sure that there was a presence in the world greater than myself. Greater than the whole of society. An overriding force that governs things, whether it be the hand of fate or the hand of God.
For the first time in my life I knew where I was going.
I spent the night warming myself by a roaring fire in the hearth of the house that I had taken for my own.
In the morning I visited a few of my old haunts and tried to find out where Rasputin’s body was being buried. I could not afford to take chances.
I had to make sure he was dead. I had a future and I could not see his hand in it. For the first time I had something to work toward. There was a future I must see. I was sure I had to make it to that future for the world to work. That was the purpose of my vision. To know where I must go. I was drawn toward it.
That was what I thought, then. Now I realise that I wasn’t drawn toward it. It was drawing me. I was so assured of my importance I thought I had choices, but this thing that I call my life is too powerful to be under my own control. Fate does not trust me to make the right choices. Instead, it puts me where I must be.
Can you imagine how futile a life would be if you had that knowledge from birth? Would a man move at all, or just curl into a ball and cry with despair? That is why no one knows just how futile it all is, or else the world would not work and the grand design would fail. Should that fail the future becomes uncertain. For time to unfurl and soar in all its grandeur it needs to follow its path.
Vigil Page 24
