by Tom Holland
Rebecca reached the final step. She halted, and lifted up her candle. As she did so, the flame seemed to leap and expand, to reach the gleam of oranges and yellows and golds that met Rebecca’s glance wherever she looked. The crypt was wondrous - no mouldy place of the dead, but a pleasure chamber from some Eastern harem, bedecked with beautiful things, tapestries, carpets, silver, gold. From the corner came a soft bubbling. Rebecca turned and saw a tiny fountain, with two couches, exquisitely carved, on either side. ‘What is this place?’ she whispered to herself. ‘What is it doing here?’ And the memoirs - where were they? She held the candle up high again, and glanced around the room. There were no papers she could see. She stood, rooted, wondering where to start. It was then that she heard the scrabbling.
Rebecca froze. She tried not to breathe. Her blood was suddenly deafening in her ears, but she held her breath, straining to hear the noise again. There had been something, she was sure. Her heart was thumping so loudly now that it seemed to be filling the room. There was no other noise. Eventually, she had to gasp for air, and then, as she breathed in greedily, she heard it again. Rebecca froze. She lit a second candle and held them both above her head. At the far end of the room, raised and central like an altar in a church, was a beautiful tomb of delicate stone. Beyond it was a doorway in the Arabic style. Slowly, Rebecca walked towards the tomb, candles held out in front of her. She strained her ears as the scrabbling returned. It was rasping but feeble. Rebecca stopped. There couldn’t be any doubt. The scratching was coming from within the tomb.
With a numb sense of disbelief, Rebecca reached out to touch the side. The scrabbling seemed frantic now. Rebecca stared down at the lid of the tomb. Buried beneath dust, she could just make out words. She blew the dust away, and read the lines that had been hidden underneath.
Mixed in each other’s arms and heart in heart,
Why did they not then die? They had lived too long
Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart.
Byron. Rebecca recognised the poetry at once. Yes, Byron. She read the lines again, softly sounding the words, as the scrabbling grew and the candles began to flicker, despite the heaviness of the dull crypt air. Suddenly, like vomit, horror rose up in Rebecca’s throat. She staggered forwards and leaned against the tomb, then began to push at the covering slab, like an amputee scratching at her bandages, desperate to face the absolute worst. The lid shifted, then began to move. Rebecca pushed even harder, as it slid across. She lowered her candles. She stared into the tomb.
A thing was looking up at her. Rebecca wanted to scream, but her throat was dry. The thing lay still, only its eyes alive, gleaming yellow from socket pits, everything else withered, lined, incalculably old. The thing began to twitch its nose, just a layer of skin over splintered bone. It opened its mouth greedily. As it sniffed, the thing began to move, its arms, furrowed twists of dead meat on bone, struggling to reach for the side of the tomb, its nails, sharp like talons, scraping at the stone. With a rattling shudder, the creature sat up. As it moved, a haze of dust rose from the furrows in its skin. Rebecca could feel it in her mouth and eyes, a cloud of dead skin, choking her, blinding her, dizzying her brain. She turned, arms over her eyes. Something touched her. She blinked. The thing. It was reaching for her again, its face twitching eagerly, its mouth a gash of jaws. Rebecca heard herself scream. She felt flakes of dead skin in the back of her throat. She gagged. The crypt began to spin, and she fell down to her knees.
She looked up. The creature sat on the edge of the tomb like a bird of prey. Its nose still sniffed at her, its mouth grinned open wide. But it was holding tightly to the edge of the tomb, and seemed to be shuddering, as though reluctant to make the leap to the ground. Rebecca saw that the creature had shrivelled breasts like calluses, which tremored against a hollowed chest. So the thing had been a woman once. And now? - what was it now?
Rebecca realised that her horror was ebbing away. She looked up at the creature again, but could scarcely see it now, her eyes felt so heavy with ease. She wondered if perhaps she were asleep. She tried to sit up, but her head felt thick, as though with opiates; she couldn’t move, except to tilt her head fractionally until it came to rest. She was lying in someone’s arms. A soft pain was welling from her throat. Blood, in a warm stain, felt heavy on her skin. A finger stroked the side of her neck. The pleasure it gave her was wonderful. Whose finger was it? she asked herself vaguely. Not the creature’s - she could see it, still perched above, a dim and shadowy form. Then Rebecca heard a voice, the most beautiful voice she had ever heard. ‘This one,’ it whispered. ‘You promised me. This one! Look, look, don’t you see her face?’ Rebecca struggled to stay awake, to listen further, but the words began to fade into the dark. The dark was satin, and delicious to the touch.
But Rebecca never swooned wholly into unconsciousness. She was aware of herself, all the time, of the blood inside her veins, of the life inside her body and soul. She lay in that place of the dead she knew not how long. She did recognise, when it happened, that she was rising to her feet, but only remembered being led up the steps and out across the church once the wind from the London night had blown cold across her face. Then she began to walk, down endless dark streets. Someone was beside her. She began to shiver. She felt cold inside, but her skin was hot, and across her neck the wound burned like liquid gold. She stopped, and stood still. She watched as the figure from beside her walked on, just a silhouette in a long black coat. Rebecca looked around. To her right flowed the Thames, its waters greasy with the dark and cold. The storm had died to a preternatural hush. Nothing living disturbed the calm.
Rebecca clutched herself and shuddered. She watched the figure ahead of her walk along the Embankment sweep. He was limping, she saw, and carried a cane. She felt her wound. The pain was already beginning to chill. She looked for the figure again. He had gone. Then Rebecca saw him again, crossing over Waterloo Bridge. The silhouette reached the far bank. It disappeared.
Rebecca wandered aimlessly through London’s depeopled streets. She had lost all sense of time or place. Once, someone tried to stop her, pointing at the wound to her neck and asking to help, but Rebecca brushed him aside, not even pausing to glance into his face. Morning broke slowly, and still Rebecca walked. She grew aware of traffic, and the faint songs of birds. Streaks of red light began to touch the eastern sky. Rebecca found herself walking by the Thames again. For the first time that night, she glanced at her watch. Six o’clock. She realised with a shock how light-headed she felt. She leaned against a lamppost, and stroked at the pain that stretched across her neck.
Ahead of her, she could see a crowd of people by the riverside wall. She walked along towards them. Everyone was peering into the waters below. There were policemen, Rebecca saw. They had dredging hooks. They began to pull on them, and a limp dripping bundle was hauled up the embankment face. Rebecca watched as it was rolled over the wall and fell with a damp thud onto the paving stones. A policeman bent down to peel some rags away. He made a face and shut his eyes. ‘What is it?’ Rebecca asked the man in front of her. He said nothing, just stood aside. Rebecca looked down at the bundle. Dead eyes met her own. The face was smiling, but wholly white. There was a terrible gash across the dead man’s neck.
‘No,’ said Rebecca softly to herself, ‘no.’ Like the sound of a stone dropped into a well, comprehension of what she was seeing had come slowly. And broader comprehension, of what or who could have done such a thing, to the corpse and to herself, seemed impossibly beyond her reach. She felt tired and sick. Turning, she hurried from the scene. Instinctively, she muffled herself behind her coat, so that no one should see the wound to her own neck. She began to climb the bridge that led to Charing Cross.
‘Rebecca!’
The same voice, the one she had heard outside St Jude’s. She spun round in horror. A man was standing behind her, a leer on his face.
‘Rebecca!’ The man’s grin broadened. ‘Surprise, surprise! Remember me?’
Re
becca turned her face. The smell of acid on the man’s breath was foul. He chuckled softly as she looked at him again. He was young and well-dressed, almost dandyish, but his long hair was tangled in greasy knots, and his neck lolled strangely as though it had been twisted round. Yes, she remembered him. The silhouette on the Mayfair street. And seeing him in the light, she knew why he had seemed familiar even then. ‘The bookseller,’ she whispered. ‘You brought me the letters. The ones from Thomas Moore.’
‘Oh good,’ he wheezed, ‘it’s all coming back again, I see. Nothing less flattering for a fellow than to be forgotten by a pretty girl.’ He leered again, and again Rebecca had to hold her breath and look away. The man seemed unoffended. He took Rebecca’s arm, and when she tried to shake him off, he gripped her until she could feel his nails gouging deep into her flesh.
‘Come on,’ he whispered, ‘move those lovely legs!’
‘Why?’
‘I am a humble worm, I crawl and obey.’
‘Obey what?’
‘Why, the unspoken wishes of my master and lord.’
‘Lord?’
‘Lord.’ The man spat out the word. ‘Oh yes, we all love a lord - don’t we?’ Rebecca stared at him. The man was muttering to himself, and his face seemed contorted by bitterness and loathing. He met her glance, and bared his teeth in a grin. ‘I speak now as a medical man,’ he said suddenly. ‘You have a most intriguing wound across your throat.’ He stopped her, holding her hair and yanking back her head. He sniffed at her wound, then licked it with his tongue. ‘Mmm,’ he breathed in, ‘salty and sanguinary - a splendid mix.’ He hissed a chuckle, then pulled her along by her arm again. ‘But we must hurry, so come along! People might notice.’
‘Notice what?’
The man muttered to himself again under his breath, dribbling now.
‘I said, notice what?’
‘Oh Christ, you stupid bitch, can’t you see?’ the man yelled suddenly. He pointed back at the crowd round the corpse. ‘Your wound,’ he shouted, wiping saliva from his lips, ‘it’s the same. But the bastard, the fucking bastard, he killed that other one, but not you, the bastard, he didn’t kill you.’ His head began to twitch and loll on its twisted neck. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered again, ‘bastard . . .’ and his voice trailed away.
Rebecca stopped. ‘You know who did that terrible thing?’ she asked, pointing back across the bridge.
‘Oh yes!’ The man began to chant. ‘Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!’
‘Who?’
The man winked. ‘You should know.’
Without thinking, Rebecca stroked at her neck. ‘Lord Ruthven? Is that who you mean? Lord Ruthven?’
The man tittered to himself, then stopped, and his face was a twitching mask of hate. Rebecca struggled suddenly, and managed to break free. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said, backing away.
The man shook his twisted neck. ‘I’m sure he’d want to meet you again.’
‘Who?’
‘You know.’
‘I don’t. I don’t. It’s impossible.’
The man reached out to take her arm again and stare into her face. ‘Fuck me,’ he whispered, ‘fuck me, but you’re gorgeous. Quite the most gorgeous I’ve ever sent. He will be pleased.’ Again, the man’s smile was livid with hate. He began to pull her along the bridge. ‘Now, now, no more struggling, you’ll bruise your pretty skin.’
Numbly, Rebecca followed him. ‘Lord Ruthven,’ she whispered, ‘who is he?’
The man cackled. ‘You surprise me, you being such an educated girl.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That you should not know who Lord Ruthven was.’
‘Well, I know of a Lord Ruthven . . .’
‘Yes?’ The man grinned encouragingly.
‘He was the hero of a—’
‘Yes?’
‘Of a short story.’
The man nodded and chuckled. ‘Very good. And what was it called?’
Rebecca swallowed. ‘“The Vampyre”. But - but that was just fiction . . .’
‘Really? Fiction? Is that so?’ The man twisted his mouth into a grin of terrible bitterness. ‘And who wrote it, this fiction?’
‘A man called Polidori.’
The man grinned again. ‘Such fame, such posthumous fame!’ He pressed his face close to Rebecca’s, the acid as thick as ever on his breath. ‘And this Polidori,’ he whispered, ‘who was he?’
‘The personal physician to . . .’
‘Yes? Yes?’
‘To Byron. Lord Byron.’
The man nodded slowly. ‘So he would have known what he was talking about, don’t you think?’ He held Rebecca’s cheeks. ‘That was what your mother thought anyway.’
Rebecca stared at him. ‘My mother?’ she whispered.
The man pulled on her arm, so that she almost fell. ‘Yes, your mother, of course, your mother. Come on,’ he muttered, ‘you bitch, come on.’ Again Rebecca struggled and managed to break free. She began to run. ‘Where are you going?’ the man screamed after her. Rebecca made no answer, but still the sound of the man’s laughter pursued her across the bridge. Traffic and blank crowds, nothing else. She flagged down a taxi. ‘Where d’you want?’ the driver asked. Rebecca swallowed. Her mind seemed empty - and then she knew. ‘Mayfair,’ she whispered, as she climbed into the back. ‘Thirteen, Fairfax Street.’ She clutched herself, and shivered, as the taxi pulled away.
Chapter II
The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. The Romaic term is, ‘Vardoulacha’. I recollect a whole family being terrified by the scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed from such a visitation. The Greeks never mention the word without horror.
LORD BYRON, NOTES TO The Giaour
It is, of course, dangerous to walk too close to a vampire.’
The same beautiful voice Rebecca had heard in the crypt. She would have braved any peril to hear it. She understood what it was to hear the sirens’ song.
‘But you realise that, of course. And still you have come.’ The voice paused. ‘As I hoped - and feared - you would.’
Rebecca walked across the room. From the shrouded gloom, a pale hand flickered in a gesture at her. ‘Won’t you sit down, please?’
‘I would prefer some light.’
‘Of course, I forget - you don’t see in the dark.’
Rebecca pointed towards the curtains, and London’s distant hum. ‘Can I draw them?’
‘No, you will let in the winter.’ Rebecca watched as the figure rose to his feet and limped across the room. ‘The English winter - ending in June, to start in July.
You must excuse me - I can’t even bear to glimpse it. I have been too long a creature of sunnier climes.’ There was the spurt of a match, and Rebecca recognised the back of the man she had watched on the Embankment that night. Light, in a golden wash, flickered across the room. The figure stayed bent as he tended the flame. ‘I hope you don’t object to the lamp,’ he said. ‘I brought it back from my first trip abroad. There are times when electricity just doesn’t seem right, don’t you think?’
The vampire laughed and turned, and held the lamp up to his face. Slowly, Rebecca sunk back into her seat. There could be no doubt who she was staring at. The dark curls of his hair set off the ethereal paleness of his skin; so delicate were his features that they seemed chiselled from ice; no flush of colour, no hint of warmth touched the alabaster of his skin, yet the face seemed lit by some inner touch of flame. This was not the man who had died in the Missolonghi swamps, bald and overweight with rotting teeth. How had it happened that he was standing here now, miraculously restored to the loveliness of his youth? Rebecca drank in the sight of him. ‘That beautiful pale face,’ she murmured to herself. And beautiful it was, inhumanly so - the face of an angel cast from another world.
‘Tell me how it is possible,’ said Rebecca at last.
Lord Byron lowered the lamp and returned limping to his seat. As he did so, Rebecca thought she heard movement from
the room behind her. She turned round, but the darkness was impenetrable. Lord Byron smiled. He whistled softly. Out of the shadows padded a large white dog. It stared at Rebecca, then yawned, and sank down at Lord Byron’s feet. Lord Byron stroked the dog’s head while on his other hand he rested his chin. He stared at Rebecca. His eyes glittered, and a faint smile curled his lip.
Rebecca stroked back her hair. ‘My mother,’ she wanted to scream, ‘my mother, did you kill her?’ but she dreaded the answer she might receive. She sat in silence for a long while. ‘I came to find the memoirs,’ she said at last.
‘There are no memoirs.’
Rebecca frowned with surprise. ‘But I was given the letters, from Thomas Moore . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘So what happened to the copy he had made, the one he writes about to you?’
‘It was destroyed.’
‘But . . .’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’
‘For the same reason as the original was destroyed. It contained the truth.’
‘Then why was I shown Moore’s letters? Why was I tricked into visiting the crypt?’
Lord Byron raised an eyebrow. ‘Tricked?’
‘Yes. The bookseller. I assume he works for you.’
‘For me? No. Against me, eternally, and always for himself.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Someone to avoid.’
‘Like you? And like that thing, that creature below?’
Lord Byron’s brow darkened, but his voice, when he spoke, was as calm as before. ‘Yes, she is a creature, and so am I a creature, the most dangerous creature you will ever meet. A creature who has already fed on you tonight.’ He licked his teeth with the tip of his tongue, and the dog stirred, growling faintly from his chest.
