The London Vampire Panic

by Michael Romkey

  "You condemn me to an unusually cruel death," the vampire cried out at the sound of a latch being undone above her.

  "If so, it will be no more than you deserve," Shaftbury said coldly.

  The halves to the trapdoor fell heavily open.

  "Father, forgive them," she said under her breath in a horrified whisper.

  The result was far from dramatic. It was late in the afternoon on a heavily overcast London day. There was not, it seemed, enough sun to cause much discomfort. The vampire stood in the center of the cell, her head thrown back, her upturned face a terrified mask.

  The fear went out of her face, replaced with relief, and then defiance. The sun, it seemed, had no more power over her than the crucifixes the women brandished the first time she was captured (see deposition transcript).

  The vampire began to laugh, quietly at first, then almost hysterically.

  "Of course, you realize the only reason I am still in this prison is because I thought the sun would burn me. Now that I know it cannot hurt me, there is nothing to keep me from bending apart the bars and—"

  She clapped her hands over her face as if in sudden horror.

  "It burns," she moaned lowly. "It burns!"

  Her whimper transformed into an agonized howl at the increasing reaction. Although I don't have the evidence to confirm it, I believe some altered substance in the vampire's epidermal cells oxidizes rapidly when exposed to ultraviolet light. She began to shriek as her flesh spontaneously combusted, her entire body bursting into brilliant flame, as if she were a torch soaked in kerosene and touched with a match. She ran frantically back and forth across her cell, but there was no place to hide and no one to help her.

  "For the love of God, shut the trapdoor!" Lucian shouted.

  I believe it would have been more merciful to let her die, but Shaftbury did not have to decide. The vampire flung herself against the bars and began to pull them apart, bending them back as if they were thin strips of copper. I was raising my Colt when she came through the bars, but she collapsed after a single step. Her body was burned black, the flames having reduced it to a thin layer of charred muscle over a skeletal form. The sickly sweet smell of burnt flesh and hair was almost too much to bear.

  "Behold, the vampire's Achilles heel is sunlight," Shaftbury said, as if speaking to himself.

  Kate Woolf's right hand opened and closed.

  "It is still alive!" Shaftbury exclaimed.

  The hand, reduced to a burned claw, tiny in size but representing immense menace, extended an inch toward Shaftbury and grasped at the open air. It was at once a pathetic, useless gesture and yet it displayed an indomitable hostility. Any pity I felt disappeared as I realized the vampire's body could repair itself over time, left in darkness to regenerate, thirsting madly for the living human blood it craved to quench its inhuman thirst. Our species is no match for the vampire's superhuman resiliency. Its adaptive advantages were now beyond dispute. If there were many more like Kate Woolf, mankind could not help but become the cattle upon which the vampires fed, wiping us out—or, far worse, keeping us penned up like livestock, fattening us for slaughter.

  "Shoot it!" Blackley exclaimed.

  I shook my head. That had been tried. A bullet would slow the creature, not kill it.

  As the vampire continued to grab at the air in front of Shaftbury's leg, I dashed out the door and down the claustrophobic hall toward the jailers' day room. There, I snatched a fire axe off the wall and retraced my steps, my footfalls echoing against the damp masonry.

  The first thing I noticed when I came back through the door was that the guards and committee members were staring off into space, dazed expressions on their faces. Only Blackley had the power of mind to resist her. He was backing toward the door, his hands pressed over his ears, muttering, "No, no, no," as if to keep the vampire's suggestion from taking root in his mind.

  Shaftbury knelt down before Kate Woolf and offered the inside of his wrist to the charred figure splayed on the floor before him.

  The vampire drew back its lips, burned and cracked, revealing two incisors dropping down from the upper jaw. In contrast to the charred flesh, the fangs seemed very white indeed.

  "Shaftbury, get back!"

  He slowly turned his head, giving me a stupid, uncomprehending look.

  I shoved him out of the way, but found myself quite unexpectedly standing over Lady Olivia Moore. She looked up at me piteously, silently begging me for help. She was so thankful I had come to save her, so grateful—if only I would hold out my hand, she would kiss it to show her gratitude…

  I knew I was looking down on an illusion, and yet Olivia was so helpless and lovely—how could I resist the sweetness of her desperate begging words?

  On a deeper level, far down in my mind, in a place the vampire could not reach, I somehow comprehended that my only chance of survival was to devise a way to block the vampire from my mind. It was at that moment the nonsense doggerel penned by Charles Dodgson—mathematics professor at Oxford, part-time cryptographer, part-time writer under the pen name Lewis Carroll—floated to the surface of my mind.

  Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The Jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

  The frumious Bandersnatch!

  What providence! Surely that bit of verse was the only thing that kept me from surrendering my life to the lovely mirage before me on the prison floor. The axe felt real enough in my hands—the curving ash handle against my fingers, heavier in my right hand than my left because of the steel blade.

  He took his vorpal sword in hand

  Long time the maxome foe he sought—

  So rested he by the Tumtum tree.

  And stood awhile in thought.

  I had used an axe to cut down many trees when I was growing up, and I still prefer to chop my own firewood. It is an excellent tonic for the lethargy of winter, when men tend to spend too much time inactive indoors, breathing stale air.

  And, as in uffish thought he stood,

  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

  Came wiffling through the tulgey wood,

  And burbled as it came!

  The vampire begged and cajoled, whispered and sang, wiffled and burbled, trying to get inside my head. But I furiously concentrated on Dodgson's words, raising the axe high above my head, the simple tool infinitely more real than the power and immortality Kate Woolf was promising me.

  One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

  He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

  I brought the vorpal blade down with all my strength, snicker-snack, and stood panting and drenched in sweat, staring down at the thing I had done.

  The Jabberwock was dead—and with it the vampire, the unfortunate young woman named Kate Woolf.

  * * *

  PART V

  The Vampire

  * * *

  19

  The Meek

  Kate Woolf deposition, dated January 14, 1880. The transcription was initialed A.T., for Algernon Turnor, Benjamin Disraeli's secretary.

  "Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. I regret I am unable to offer you better hospitality, but no doubt you understand. You want to know—it is not necessary to ask—the story of how I came to be as you see me now. I will tell you and truly. You do not believe me? Bring a Bible, and I will swear an oath. And if you would leave it with me, I would read it and take comfort in its words. Does not the good book teach that the meek will inherit the earth?"

  (Enigmatic smile.)

  "If I am unable to tell you everything you want to know, it is only because there are parts I don't understand myself, but I will explain as best I can. I haven't the education to understand the science of my condition, as Professor Cotswold would like to know. And I do not know whether it is possible to divide the vampire's power from its terrible Hunger, Lord Shaftbury's secret q
uestion."

  (S. asks how the vampire knows their names. Is it a demonic trick?)

  "I know your names and more than that, sir. I can read your innermost thoughts, if I try. That is how I came to see the bridled ambition that burns within you, my lord.

  "I can also see what you think of me. One glance, and you all think you know me, as if people were simple things and easily categorized as hats or types of bird. You would despise me as a fallen woman. And for being a vampire, and the things I have done because of it. And yet you respect my powers. At least I think you do. Fear and respect smell an awfully lot alike. You admire my ability to withstand bullets and steel, my power to read your thoughts. Power is a wonderful thing, gentlemen. It has a curious transforming effect on people. One moment you're a Jezebel, a member of an invisible, untouchable caste. But then quick as you can say Bob's your uncle, you learn to have a sobering respect for me. You realize there are even things about the hated vampire you admire. Do not shake your heads, gentlemen. Like the eye of the Almighty, I see all.

  "Am I ashamed to have sold my body? Of course I am, but I came to my way of life for my own reasons. It made me my own master. I am hardly the first poor woman to find herself in such circumstances. It could happen to anybody, even Lady Olivia, who is so precious to you both, Captain Lucian and Professor Cotswold."

  (Lucian reacts with justified anger.)

  "You men are such hypocrites," the vampire cried. "How do you know what life is like for someone like me? Men may do as they please. If your soul yearns for adventure, the entire world is your oyster. Lucian and Blackley, you went to India. Professor Cotswold has been around the world, looking for knowledge. Lord Shaftbury, nothing has stopped you from pursuing your unquenchable thirst for power. But what of a churchman's daughter, condemned to a life of genteel poverty in a deadly dull Midlands village parish? My father is rector of St. Thomas Church in—well, you can find that out easily enough for yourself, if you're interested. Ask Mr. Palmer if you are curious. I can see that he knows."

  (Palmer does not acknowledge whether this is true.)

  "I inherited my passionate nature from my mother. She died when I was a young girl. My mother wrote poetry, filling notebook after notebook in a neat feminine hand, I'm told. I was never able to read her literary creations. My father, you see, is the sort of man who finds any expression of emotion distasteful. He burned Mother's notebooks when she died. The great expressions of her heart and soul—her dreams, her secret desires, no doubt her disgust at finding herself trapped in the boring existence of a provincial vicar's wife—fed the coal fire in my father's parlor. Little wonder I grew up learning to take affection where I could find it.

  "And you gentlemen would condemn me. We come into this world as a new bolt of cloth, leaving it to others to cut and stitch our lives to suit patterns known only in their own misshapen hearts. Why blame the dress when any fault in the tailoring lies with the maker? And what of the Creator's role? Is He not the ultimate tailor of our lives and days? Did He not shape me to suit His purpose? That is the question Reverend Clarkson would have wanted to ask today. Such a cold look, Dr. Blackley! You think me a modern-day Caligula, yet I did nothing to harm Clarkson. Indeed, I spared his life. Do you know what he was thinking when I snatched him up by the coat and made ready to sink my teeth into his neck? He was thinking about my soul! He wondered if the soul of the creature about to snuff out his life was beyond redemption. Think of it. There's a model Christian for you.

  "But what of God? Am I so different from you? We all are sinners, the extent differing but in degree and detail. If you believe in God—as do I—then do you also believe becoming a vampire was part of God's will for me? I have prayed for God to lead me not into temptation, yet temptation is the only thing I find whichever way I turn. Is it possible I am something other than a monster? Could I be an agent of God's will? We are all in God's hands. I am no different. The things I have done repulse you, and they repulse me, but I did not come to them of my own free will.

  "What am I? Why am I? I want to know the answers to these questions as much as you. We know you cannot kill me. If I am immortal, is it possible I am a messenger of God? Maybe I have become like the seraphim, an immortal burning one, burning with the twin flames of passion and Hunger. The choirs of angels listed in the Bible—the seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, angels—may be joined by a tenth: the choir of vampires. And if we are akin to archangels, cherubim, thrones, and powers, what message do we bring man? Or is our purpose to bring mankind to Judgment Day? Then I am a fallen angel of the Apocalypse, wandering the night drunk on the blood of saints, come to earth to inaugurate seven years of tribulation. I join you in hoping—in praying—this is not the case.

  "Jesus came into the world to save sinners, not the righteous. I am a sinner in so many ways. Surely Reverend Clarkson is right in thinking there is still a chance for redemption for me."

  * * *

  20

  Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major

  I MIGHT NOT be here today had I not been bringing flowers to church and stopped to listen to the new organist practice. I remember the experience very well. I was putting flowers on the altar and all at once I was standing there, looking at the light on the cut-glass vase, entirely intoxicated with the beauty pouring into the air.

  "The music was Johann Sebastian Bach. I have always adored listening to Bach, which is like having God Himself whisper into your ear. But I did not merely listen to the music that day: I felt it deep inside in a way that was entirely new. In my fifteen years I had never experienced anything so intense and wonderful. It was an instant of perfect bliss that released the passions that had been welling up from my heart with increasing intensity.

  "I thought Dietrich Morse was responsible for a long time, but I have decided that I was mistaken. Beauty flows through the brilliant artist, but he does not actually possess it. The essence of beauty belongs to the Almighty alone.

  "But I have run ahead of myself. I need to introduce Dietrich Morse, the new music director at our parish. His predecessor, the consumptive Vincent Lytton, had gone away to Italy to recover his health and died there. He is no doubt buried in a sunny Umbrian cemetery. I have always loved music, but Mr. Lytton's playing never impressed me much. The light of his talent was dim indeed compared to his successor. Dietrich Morse was a consummate master of the organ, which I remain convinced is the mightiest and most expressive musical instrument ever invented. Seated at the keyboard, Dietrich would make it roar like Lucifer or sing as sweetly as the angels. His hands would fly across the manuals as swift as swallows plucking insects from the evening air. At the same time, his feet would dance across the pedals, so that he seemed to have not two hands but four, like some Hindu god. Every note, every passage, every flight of improvisational fugue was perfect. Even the dullards in our parish realized we had something special in Dietrich Morse. People would walk out of church, the postlude thundering behind them, and express amazement that we had been blessed with such genius in our humble parish. Certainly his talents suited him to a position at Westminster or Canterbury.

  "Dietrich was no longer a young man when I heard him play for the first time. By the time he came to St. Thomas, his long black hair and beard had become shot through with gray. His eyes were an almost translucent shade of blue and typically had a faraway look, as if he was preoccupied with things beyond the dross of the ordinary world.

  "I asked my father to arrange for Master Morse to instruct me in the piano. I was never better than an average musician, but I worshiped the air Dietrich breathed and yearned to bask in the reflected brilliance of his passionate genius. And so it came to pass that at four o'clock on a Tuesday in June, I presented myself to Master Morse for my first music lesson.

  "I sat at the keyboard, Dietrich on a chair behind me to the right. He asked me to play something—anything I wished. I chose Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major, the first piece in 'The Well Tempered Clav
ier,' and the easiest. I managed to get through it without error, and I even managed to put a certain amount of emotion into my playing. Pleased with myself, I looked back at Master Morse for a sign of his approval. He was staring at me, a deep frown forcing his brow down over his eyes, so that he resembled the bust of Beethoven my father had sitting on the piano in the rectory parlor.

  "I slid over to make room for him to sit beside me on the bench in order that he might illustrate a point or two about technique. The thrill I felt when his leg pressed against mine! Do not blush so, Captain Lucian. I promise not to be very explicit in my account.

  "I noticed for the first time that Dietrich Morse's hands were amazingly delicate, his nails neatly trimmed and polished, like a gentleman's. In contrast to my own playing, depressing my fingers with somewhat mechanical deliberation, his hands danced across the keyboard as if each finger was animated by an intelligence and soul of its own. He played the same piece I had just presented, but there was little to compare between the two performances. Mine was crudely shaped from clay, his sharply cut and polished marble.

  "When he finished, he looked down at me with burning blue eyes. He said something, but I cannot tell you what it was. My heart was pounding too loudly in my ears to hear. The prelude's aftertones seemed to hang in the air, shimmering around his face like a halo. In the next moment I was in his arms and he in mine, and together we made passionate music of an entirely different sort."

  (P. protests there is no need for such scandalous detail.)