The Heads That Rolled

by Lucille Moncrief

  Nefarious IV.V

  The Heads That Rolled

  Lucille Moncrief

  Contents

  Introduction

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  Afterword

  I am Drusilla

  Also by Lucille Moncrief

  Introduction

  Enjoy dark tales and other sordid myths? Sign up for my newsletter and get my free dark fantasy story, Hannibal Steele and the Bone Elixir, delivered straight to your inbox.

  I

  Samuel Quartermaine

  St. Vincent’s whitewashed façade glowed a deep orange in the breaking dawn. The bottles in the satchel at my hip clinked together—crying out for blood, longing to be filled with that healing draught. I adjusted the worn leather strap on the bag I carried and ascended the stairs to the infirmary.

  The doors were opened wide. Nurses and doctors in their white, starched attire wormed their way through the halls like busy ants on duty. I’d always wondered how they managed to keep their suits so pristine. Where was all the blood? The fingerprints? My mouth tingled.

  Shivering despite the heat, I made my way to The Vegetable Garden, the part of the hospital so lovingly named for its long-term denizens in the comatose wards. With creeping, soft steps, I opened the door and hurried down the hallway. Spiderwebs hung like a witch’s shroud in the dim corners of the Doric columns. The air was stale, yet tinged with the sharp odor of carbolic acid and the soft, rise and fall of gentle breath. I sensed the slumbering, living souls on the other side, their spirits deadened to all stimuli. Maybe. Or at least I’d hoped to convince myself of it. The thought of them becoming alert to my rather intimate thievery sent a shudder straight to the heart of my conscience.

  If it had been possible for me to feed Coldiron myself, I would have done so, but my blood, black as sin, would only sicken him further. A dhamphyr could not feed upon another dhamphyr’s blood, only the blood of a vampire, witch, or mortal. Guilt lashed at my insides, constricting them with grief, and I bit the inside of my cheek, telling myself to cease all worry, for no other could finish the task I was about to undertake. And Coldiron, my Coldiron, had only myself and Tiodora to care for him.

  We knew what he was, and what it would take to bring him back to at least feeble health. Dhamphyrs were not immortal. Subject to the corrosive effects of time, albeit slowly, a grievous injury could hasten them to the twilight of their dotage.

  Coldiron was old. So old, he couldn’t remember the year of his birth. Once during the height of Byron’s fame, while we’d stalked the vampire overlord, Sethet, amongst the ruins of an Albanian monastery, Coldiron had confessed that he speculated he’d been born sometime around anno domini 1060. He’d been just a boy before his transformation when he’d lived to see William the Conqueror’s Harrying of the North.

  The door swung on its hinge with a stymied creak as I crossed the threshold to the round, inner hall of The Vegetable Garden. I longed to hurry back to Elyse and gave no thought of trying the other doors; I knew from which vine to pluck. Opening door number three, I entered on tiptoes, quiet and light as my inner feline, and closed the door behind me.

  The woman inside lay in much the same position as I’d left her some weeks ago. A loving nurse, perhaps the guilt-ridden, shrieking Matilda, had placed the woman’s hands on either side of her in a peaceful, slumbering repose. Her hair had been brushed to a copper shine, and I glanced over my shoulder, listening, clutching the strap on the bag to still the clinking bottles inside. I heard nothing but the slow, faint whisper of blood in her veins, echoing the nervous tattoo of my heart. I lowered the bag from my shoulder, and set it upon the foot of her bed.

  My kiss, my blood would corrupt the draught, and so I opened the bag, unfastening the inner pocket, and pulled out the scalpel and the funnel. The bright metal glistened in the sun’s rays, growing and brightening with the burgeoning day through the shutter slats.

  I took the woman’s hand, flipping it palm side up. Her fingers were as cold as the metal scalpel, and the deep violet vein in her wrist throbbed to a slow, lingering beat, clinging to life. I gave my head a slight shake.

  What kind of life was it, to lay there like a half-dead fairy tale in a building as cold and vast as St. Vincent’s? Uncertain if it was a place of healing, or merely a portal to the other side, I sensed the veil between the living and the dead was worn to a thin, breakable gauze. Glancing around for one nervous second, I wondered if I narrowed my eyes to sharpened slits if perhaps I could see through the tunnel to the specters on the other side. Did they beckon with crooked fingers, or shun me from their dwelling?

  Vampires got to wander the earth for eternity, and if they ever passed, I was certain they went to Hell. But, where did a dhamphyr go? The matricidal must have a seat at Lucifer’s right hand, for he hated Eve and her motherhood. I bit my cheek and chased away the thoughts with a determination to complete my task, determined to delay Coldiron’s passage to the other side for as long as possible. While this plane of existence was hardly warm and inviting, it was the hell we knew.

  I pulled a bottle from the bag, placing the funnel inside its neck. Swallowing hard to beat back a renewed wave of guilt, I set the contraption at the edge of her bed. With the blade of the scalpel and a well-turned flick of my wrist, I cut into her vein.

  Gritting my teeth, stinging and threatening to erupt into the fangs I so despised, I held her hand over the funnel’s edge. The scent of her essence, while pale-blue and anemic, spun my eyes into pink orbs, and I squeezed them shut as I listened to the slow drip. It echoed. It haunted me and beckoned from the edge of reason. Madness, a frenzy, reared its ugly cloak about my back.

  Lucifer unfurled his wings. Screams reverberated inside my consciousness. Rushed beats filled the tight hollow of my chest, and I tamped down a groan. I prayed to a deaf god to fill the bottle quickly, fast enough to fold the cloak of devilishness away into the strange ether once again.

  Once the bottle filled to the brim, I set it on the floor with a soft clink and a sigh. For a moment, I waited. The darkness dissipated, and my head became clear again. I took her hand in mine and pressed the cut against my lips.

  The opening in her smooth, ashen skin closed like a shy crocus at dusk, and her blood sent a jolt of lightning straight into my veins as I licked it from my lips. She immediately healed. A tension which had gripped my ribs settled and disappeared as I dropped her hand to the top of the hospital quilt.

  Opening the canvas bag, I searched for the rubber stopper at the bottom. The scratching sound that my elongated nails made against the fabric seemed louder the roar of the sea. With my nerves more taut and tattered than the tail of a sumpter’s, sweat pitted the space above my lip and between my eyebrows. A terrible, itchy feeling crept up and down my rib cage, compelling me to leave. But the warm blood in the bottle at my feet was the taunt of starvation. Misery danced upon the edges of my hazy vision. I had to leave, as much as I wanted to imbibe. My fingers contacted around the hard knot of the stopper, and I pulled it out with victory playing upon my lips.

  The funnel was still sitting within the bottle's neck like a cocktail garnish when I picked it up from the floor at my feet. I put the funnel’s edge to my lips, pulled it free with my mouth, and shoved the rubber stopper into the bottle.

  My fangs erupted, and stars twinkled within my gaze as the sun rose high overhead. I would burn, and I would die. I could die right then with the delicious taste of her blood on my tongue. Tossing the bottle into the canvas bag, I began to lick the funnel clean. Shame and a satisfying warm swept over me.

  As guilt impinged, such an unwelcome visitor, an
other soon elbowed it away from the door of my trembling heart. Hues of bubbling, warm blue and brass settled like an inviting curtain drop within my head. A deep calm filled my spirit. The end of the starving time. Such serenity, such blessed clean ivory as this! The world began to take on a sharper relief as I licked the last drops from the funnel and tossed it into the canvas bag.

  I sighed, wiping my mouth upon my sleeve. The buzz within my ears was finally gone, and a clearheaded sensitivity fell over my person as I stood, staring down at the slumbering human beneath me. A person with a soul. I’d just used her as my very own personal pincushion. Well, this was indeed the second time of my indiscretion. The guilt began to invade once more, and my smile faded.

  The slope of her forehead, round and delicate, had a waxy, tight appearance and a sheen of sweat on it. The sight of a mother’s gentle hand sweeping away a lock of her copper hair struck me. A fiancé’s lips upon her temple dashed my spirit. A few pock marks graced the tip of her chin. I thought of the one who’d comforted her as a fevered, blemished child. Did they comfort her now? Someone had brushed her hair.

  I looked around, anything to fill my sight but the vision of her so unable to consent, to defend herself.

  What monster am I?

  I picked up the canvas bag and swung the strap over my shoulder, turning my head so that the sight of her wouldn’t offend me so since her body was such a stark and visible reminder of my atrocity.

  A stack of papers, their edges worn, flimsy from handling and the kiss of many fingerprints, sat on top of a walnut stand next to her bed. I sucked in a breath, hesitating for a moment, before reaching for them. I had her face, but I needed and wanted a name to go with it.

  Humans weren’t only my food. I owed my very existence to them. They held the dominion of God. Such foolish creatures, to have his blessing yet kill him upon the altar of their reason. What a grim turn of events.

  Soft, rustling footsteps sounded from the hallway, and I quickly set the papers down. A mixture of relief and annoyance filled my chest, and I frowned, knowing I couldn’t shift to escape detection as I had before. I still missed the old jacket and hat I’d been wearing when I’d last taken the form of my feline familiar. My cherished attire was probably shoved away in the back of an evidence drawer, sticky with the fingerprints of some confectionary-loving detective.

  The footsteps grew louder as I tightened my grip on the bag. With no other means of escape, I quietly crossed the room and pushed aside the window shutters, climbing over the sill. My skin tightened and tingled with pain at the sunlight.

  I would forget about the woman in the hospital bed until she was needed again. My cynicism and bone-dry need for consumption disgusted me.

  Letting go of the windowsill, I landed in a patch of ivy groundcover. Dead, dried leaves crunched beneath my feet, and the morning sun beat down on my uncovered head. I cursed the sunlight, hating it, wishing for the snow and rain and the gloom of Canada or even bloody, soot-covered Liverpool.

  The contents in the bag clinked and jingled together like I was a macabre Santa Claus on my way to deliver a frightful gift. I looked around. I was at the back of the infirmary where it met the edge of Colonial Cemetery. Mourning doves cooed upon the spikes in the gate, reminding me of the terrible reign from whence I hailed. I could still see the traitor’s heads upon the pikes, their mouths twisted in surprise and horror amongst flesh the colour of pea soup. The shout of “Liberte” echoed in my brain as the doves opened their beaks.

  A wisteria wept violet blooms across the lawn. Tightening my grip on the strap, I gulped, and made my way to the front of the building, tipping my chin and smiling to passersby, and hurried back up the front steps of St. Vincent’s.

  Coldiron’s room was down the second hall and to the left, and with the still-warm healing draught at my side, I kept to the side of the hallway with my eyes downcast until I came to the correct room and pushed open the door.

  He lay next to the window, still slumbering. His pallor was tinged an amphibious green. He needed to feed. I shut the door behind me and clicked the lock, hurrying to his bed.

  Snoring softly beneath the open shutters, he smelled like wet cement, and I knew with a terrible certainty that he was near the end. While administering the necessary sustenance would ease his pain and possibly prolong his life for a few more weeks at best, the Vegetable Garden’s harvest could not delay the inevitable.

  I felt my eyes sting from a weep that threatened to escape from my spirit. Swallowing hard, I removed the bottle from the bag. His sheets were a crisp white, and I feared to stain them once I opened the stopper.

  The bottle was deliciously warm in my hands, and I longed to cry and shout, drink the bottle myself, or smash it against the wall. Without Coldiron, I would be the last of the dhamphyrs, and I would be alone in a hostile world, alone like I was when he found me that awful night in 1794.

  II

  Paris, 1794

  Lucius Marquis, lowly noble of the Scion Hive, passed beneath the stalks of flowering irises in the form of his ermine familiar. With his senses heightened, he stood on his stubby hindlegs, inhaling the late-night air through flicking nostrils, black and wet as freshly poured tar. Hidden beneath the lavender blooms, he spied The Incorruptible passing through the gate on his way to the cabinetmaker’s house.

  With his black cloak rustling in the stale and stinking city air, wisps of his powdered wig glinted in the dim glow of the tallow candles, flickering inside their wall sconces. His steps were purposeful and clipped against the cobblestones in a dirge-like percussion line. Lucius the ermine salivated as he regarded The Incorruptible Robespierre, leader of the Jacobins, dripping in the blood of the newborn, squalling nation.

  The ermine kept low, eclipsed in the shadows of the foliage as the gate shrieked open, then clattered closed. The crumbling bricks in the wall snagged on the ermine’s snow-white fur, and he poked his tiny head around the corner through the slats of the gate.

  Robespierre sat on a worn, wooden bench next to a stoppered fountain within the small courtyard. Yellowed, wilting fronds hung over the base of the fountain like they wished to escape the decaying stench of Paris. Lanterns hung from several wall hooks, casting the courtyard in a fiery glow.

  Robespierre took off his glasses, cleaning the lenses with the hem of his blue redingote. His tricolour cockade was pinned to his lapel. The meticulous, measured way in which he swiped the spectacle’s lenses, then wicked the stems clean, was a curious affair. The ermine tilted his chin as Robespierre cleared his throat, donning the glasses once more, and crossed his legs at the knees, waiting.

  The ermine looked away and pressed himself against the cold brick. An iris leaf rustled above his head as he settled in for the coming espionage.

  The incredible, breathtaking degree with which The Incorruptible had changed his tactic, his very rhetoric and seeming beliefs had the ermine’s nose twitching and his ears erect. Robespierre, since the beginning of the citizen’s revolt, had been a man of the people, defender of the weak and downtrodden, hater of the oppressive regimes—the avaricious clergy and aristocracy. He’d been against bloodshed, railing against the death penalty, and had cemented ties within the opposing, ideological factions of the revolution. But now—the ermine shuddered—he’d signed the death warrant of every son and daughter of the nation. No one was safe.

  Robespierre, once the architect of liberty, fraternity, and equality for all the living, had now made everyone equal for death’s razor. He was the writer of terror, father of the ultimate demise, and the first in history to engage in systematic, state-sponsored terrorism. The ermine peeked around the corner through the gate again.

  Robespierre sat erect, his head to the side and his neck craned. The ermine’s nose flared as he sensed Robespierre’s excitement and anticipation in the air.

  "Why yes," thought the ermine; someone had indeed got to Robespierre. The ermine had an excellent idea of whom it was—someone powerful, more powerful than the late F
rench king had ever been, and someone in need of a lot of innocent blood. Callista Tromperie, High Witch of the Coven of the Alpine Manticore. Lucius was her unwitting familiar.

  The scent of a tropical, candied breeze fanned the air, licking it, caressing it, seducing it with the promise of power. Callista appeared from the shadows. Her presence disturbed the candles in the lantern, and the flames rose and fell to a beat indiscernible.

  Robespierre stood and bowed, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles, while she loomed over him, imposing and heavier than a mooring block.

  The ermine held his breath, willing his muscles to cease their shudder, and his skin to quieten its shiver. He listened as the shadows pressed in on him.

  “The streets are bathed in blood, Maxime,” Callista said, her eyes aglow in the crumbling garden.

  “Is it enough yet?” Robespierre deigned to question. His features had fallen. “Please, you must tell me that your lust has been sated.”

  Callista inhaled sharply, moving away from him. She took a seat on the bench, and he knelt at her feet.

  “I must have more,” she said, leaning back against the bench.

  Robespierre sighed and put his head in her lap. He appeared to weep, and his shoulder heaved.

  Callista’s eyes spun like little amethyst pinwheels in the dark. She stroked a curl upon his wig, staring off into the darkness at everything and nothing. A smirk tried to make its appearance known at the corner of her lip, dancing, pulling like disturbed lantern flames.

  A cart clattered in the street, rumbling past the ermine. He held his breath as it disappeared, swallowed by the city’s shadows, and the smell of offal filled his nostrils. His stomach rumbled at all this talk of blood. Someone screamed, and a chamber pot emptied from a window. Annoyance gnawed at the beast’s belly. How could she waste this critical, important task on that simpering dunderhead, Maxime Robespierre? The ermine knew she was trying to open the portal and summon the Nephilim. But such a thing as that could only be accomplished with a sustained blood sacrifice in high volume. It required cunning, ruthlessness, and faithfulness that only a witch’s vampire familiar could fulfill.