by Dahlia Adler
I know I should have written sooner. To ask if classes are going well. Or whether you’ve gotten into any mischief without me. But I must admit, I haven’t been myself lately. It’s like I keep forgetting things I know I’ve done, almost like someone else is operating my mind.
And to add to it, there’s something odd in the air. Why, just the other day, I found out that Anne returned. I thought I’d see her at dinner, but when I asked the duchess, she replied with a faraway look in her eyes that Anne hasn’t been herself lately. I can’t help but wonder if whatever is ailing Anne has anything to do with my lapses in memory.
I have bags under my eyes—eyes often bloodshot. I feel as if I’m missing sleep. When I wake, my back aches and even more strange are my blackened heels as if I’ve been moving through the night while asleep—without even my slippers on. And then … I am afraid you’ll think me mad. But sometimes when I’m alone, I swear I hear someone talking to me … I knew I recognized the voice, but I just couldn’t place it. Until yesterday. When the new duke, the duchess’s new husband, the very brother of her former, joined us at dinner. I must’ve been daydreaming, for when he called my name, it was the voice from my dreams.
You’ll think me silly for even writing this. But if I don’t, I worry I’ll forget.
Sam, I fear I’ve been visited by the devil.
Something is rotten here.
28 April 1892
Camilla sneezes, blowing dirt out her nose, then climbs out the grave. “Next time, you’re getting buried.” She dusts herself off.
“Next time?” I lift an eyebrow. “Isn’t the whole idea that this never happens again?”
She shrugs. “Now that I think about it, it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it was kind of fun. What was it you said again? Never have you loved anyone as deeply as Camilla, that forty thousand brothers could not outdo your love for me?” She doubles over laughing. “I’m never letting you forget that.” Out of her pocket, she pulls a potion. The potion. With which she faked her death, slowing her heart to a low rate, making it seem like she truly was dead.
I scoff. “You have a strange definition of fun.”
“So, what next?” she asks as she comes beside me.
I walk over to a bench just to the left, to the side of the graveyard in which we stand. “I don’t know.” The part we had planned for, making everyone—especially my uncle—believe that she’s dead, is over. “Somehow we have to prove that he’s a monster known to others only through penny dreadfuls.”
“We’re not going to prove he’s dead,” she says, coming to sit beside me on the bench.
“Well, then, I don’t see how else we’re going to get rid of him.”
“Oh, Anne. Haven’t you any imagination?” With a wicked smile, she pulls out the penny dreadful rolled up inside her pocket.
No. 1
No. 2, 3, and 4 are Presented, Gratis with this No.
VINCENT THE VAMPIRE
or the
Knight of Blood
A Romance of Exciting Interest
by the author of
A Maiden’s Revenge, Grace Van Helsing
Sold by all Newsagents everywhere
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Camilla flips to a page detailing “Vincent the Vampire” being staked by his lover. She places the open paper in my lap. “We’re going to kill him ourselves.”
“Kill him?” I stand from the bench, and the pamphlet falls to the ground. “Are you actually crazy? He’s my uncle,” I whisper as if I’m afraid to speak such truths aloud, as if I can’t believe she’s suggesting such a terrible thing.
“Well, he killed your father,” she says, hands on her hips. “And he put me under his spell, drinking my blood, trying to make me like him. He would’ve succeeded, too, had we both not figured it out. I’d say it’s the lesser evil that he deserves to die.”
I shake my head. “We can’t go playing God.” I take in the graveyard around us where many generations of my family are interred. My gaze lands on a skull, leaning against a tombstone. Reginald, the tomb reads, with nothing else but the date of his birth and death.
I walk over to the tomb and kneel in the earth. Then, with my right hand, I pick up the skull. “Alas, poor Reggie,” I whisper. “I knew him.”
Camilla comes beside me and rolls her eyes. “That is not Reggie’s skull, his remains are likely far beneath the earth.”
“But it could be his,” I say, remembering how he would laugh. Reggie was our jester, but he was more than that to me. Aside from Camilla and my father on his infrequent visits, Reggie was my companion. He’d tell me stories about my ancestors—brave battles fought; noble deeds done. “He always knew how to bring me comfort, and now he’s dead. One day, we’ll all look like this. No matter how noble, how fair, how great—we’re all bones and ashes in the end.”
Camilla places a hand on my back. “I know this isn’t what you asked for—I know this shouldn’t be your burden to carry. But if he is this beast, this monster we think he is, if we let him go and he kills others, then it will be on us. We made a choice to act, to get this far, we cannot turn back now.”
Some choice. “It’s not like my father’s ghost asked me if I wanted to know the truth. He just told me, taking my free will from me.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But you chose to believe him, you chose to believe me. We can no sooner turn from our choices than we can the truth.”
“What truth?” I ask.
She takes Reggie’s skull from me and stares at it. “That your uncle is a monster and monsters must be killed,” she says as if it’s that simple.
But of course, it isn’t. “What if by hunting a monster we become monsters?” I counter.
She places the skull back atop the grave. “Anne—”
A twig snaps. I hold my finger up to my mouth. “Shh,” I say as I hear footsteps. Someone is approaching. “Quick. Hide. We can’t let whoever it is see you.”
Dread fills her eyes. Her thoughts—what if it’s my uncle?—are as clear as the twinkling stars above us. “Hide,” I say. “Go now.”
She darts away, crouching behind a tree. I tense, unsure of what to do. If I run, it makes it look worse, if I stay, what if he kills me? But it’s not my uncle at all. Camilla’s brother, Sam, rounds the corner of the church, coming into the graveyard. His green eyes are burning bright, and before I can react, he charges at me. I jump to the side, trying to get out of the way. But he’s faster and punches me in the jaw.
“That’s for my sister,” he says.
25 April 1892
LADY ANNE’S JOURNAL
7:59 p.m.
I tried to find Camilla after I saw her the other night, but when I reached the courtyard she wasn’t there—just a trail of footprints that eventually disappeared. I decided to go to dinner with my mother, hoping that she’d be there, but all Mother said was that Camilla wasn’t well. She barely acknowledged my existence otherwise—so much for her wanting her “dear daughter” to return.
But none of those moments compare to what I saw after dinner. A sight more troublesome than even my father’s ghost. I wouldn’t dare write it here had I not promised myself I would, that this would be a place where I’d recount all.
I was walking back to my chambers, which are on the other side of the castle from where my mother likes to informally have dinner. My uncle, whom I’ve only seen once since I arrived, was absent. That time I saw him was bad enough, he and my mother together looked like two people without remorse—even without proof, other than my father’s word, I believed he did it. How else would one so casually be with the wife of his own brother or the brother of her own husband—even if my mother and father weren’t close?
Anyway, I was walking back to my rooms when I heard a muffled scream. It was coming from a spare bedroom. Through the cracked door, I could see my uncle. Before him was a woman, a maid, by the looks of her uniform. She wore a high collar, which he promptly undid. I steeled myself, certain I was about to witn
ess an affair. Not that it would’ve mattered what I saw, I told myself, for my mother would never believe me. Of course, given what I saw, she’s definitely not going to believe me. With a caress of his hand upon her pale neck, where two other bite marks already were, he bit her, drinking deep.
Then, as if he knew someone was there, he looked up at me. Or rather, he looked in my direction but did or said nothing to acknowledge I was there or that it was me he saw. His eyes, normally bright green, were a deep, dark red—the very color of the blood coating his mouth and running down the woman’s neck. As he stared, dread seeped into my heart. A coldness grew there that I have never known.
I tore myself away from his stare and ran all the way to my rooms. When I got here, there was but a simple note:
Dear Stepdaughter,
I would be honored if you’d join me the day after tomorrow. I remember you used to be quite the accomplished equestrian. I hear the trails are glorious this time of year.
Sincerely,
Andrew
He must know I saw him. He has to know that I saw him … drinking? From a maid’s neck. His sharpened teeth, biting into her and draining her blood. I have to figure out a plan now. All of this must be connected.
Wait, someone’s knocking on my door. I must remain calm. I shall return.
10:11 p.m.
It was Camilla. She asked me to save her life.
25 April 1892
MISS CAMILLA’S JOURNAL
10:13 p.m.
I went to Anne and told her that I thought her uncle was a vampire and that he was possessing me. The strangest part is she believed me.
Earlier today, I sent word to the duchess that I was sick—it wasn’t that far off from the truth—and went to the old library. The late duke loved that library. The duchess never used it as a result, and the new duke was rarely seen during the day. So, I spent all day there, looking for any clues. Any records, any accounts of what I’ve been going through. And it’s not just me. Something is up with some of the staff, too. They look paler, sickly almost, as if they had lost a lot of blood.
And then I found it, my account, only it wasn’t what I expected. It was a penny dreadful, rolled up and shoved between two other books. One of those pamphlets sold on the street, tales written to scare and surprise. The author of this one was a Miss Grace van Helsing. “A romantic suspense author by day and a monster hunter by night,” claimed her biography. I might’ve laughed at that, if, after all this, I could’ve mustered up a laugh. Instead, I read the stories, all four of them. And then I started finding similarities between the novel’s young maiden and myself. The memory lapses, the fatigue, the increased sensitivity to sunlight. She was being enthralled by a vampire, which meant that I was, too.
A grand leap? Maybe. But was it not Sherlock Holmes who said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”? I needed another opinion. So, like a detective myself, I headed to Anne’s rooms determined to lay out all that I knew.
Maybe she had been avoiding me, maybe she didn’t even know I was here. But I was determined to make her listen to me. I needed an ally; I couldn’t do this alone.
She opened the door as soon as I knocked, her face the palest yellowish brown, like she’d seen something terrible, like the unfathomable was true. At once, I knew that she knew something too. The dread, the fear in her face all but confirmed it. And when we finished laying out all of the facts, we came to this conclusion:
Her uncle, Duke of Elsinore, was in fact a vampire. And, like any vampire, he must be stopped.
Now, we just have to make everyone think Anne’s even crazier so as to not draw attention to our plans, which shouldn’t be too hard, given that she told her mother she spoke to her father’s ghost. Then there’s the matter of faking my death—to get out from the duke’s thrall—which will be a challenge. But we have to throw her uncle off somehow. We can’t let him know what we know.
Now, we have a plan. Soon we shall have our revenge.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.
No. 11,528. London, Thursday, April 28, 1892. ONE PENNY.
DEATHS.
TAYLOR—On the 27th at Elsinore Hall. Miss Camilla Whitbeck was found drowned, in a brook, of unknown circumstances. Funeral to be this evening. Of her death, Duchess Penny Taylor said, “One woe doth tread upon another’s heel, so fast they follow.”
28 April 1892
I stumble back, nearly hitting my head on Reggie’s tombstone, as I reel from Sam’s punch. “You’re not supposed to hit a lady.” I spit out blood.
Sam scoffs. “You may be the daughter of a duchess and duke, but you’re no lady. Was it not you who, at age eight, convinced me to put crickets into your mother’s bed?”
I laugh as the memory returns to me, but Sam does not. “A punch for old times’ sake, eh?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, ignoring me. “You don’t deserve to be here.”
“Camilla was my friend, I deser—”
“You’re the reason she’s dead,” he yells. “I heard you drove her mad talking about seeing ghosts.” He pulls out his sword and points it at my chest. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you now.”
“Sam.” I raise my hands. A million thoughts race through my head. Clearly, our plan, spreading rumors about how crazy I am, worked a little too well.
“Don’t move.” He presses the blade to my cheek. The cold steel drives shivers up my spine.
“I’m not the real enemy here.”
“Who is?” He smirks. “God? Are you going to try to tell me that it was just her time to die?” Hand shaking, he brings the blade down to my neck. “Are you seriously going to—”
“Stop!” Camilla races from where she is hidden and stands beside me.
“Camilla?” Sam’s voice cracks. He drops his sword. “Is this some kind of cruel trick? What have I done to deserve this?” Tears roll down his cheeks as he looks up to the sky as if sending a silent prayer, as if asking forgiveness for some assumed crime.
“Well, I’d say trying to kill me was pretty bad.”
“Anne,” Camilla snaps, shooting me a look that says she’ll kill me if I continue to make fun of her brother’s plight. She takes his hands, now pressed together. “It’s really me. I never drowned.”
“But I saw you, you were dead.” He withdraws his hand and wipes his cheeks. “I saw you,” he says again and again.
From her dress pocket, Camilla pulls out a small vial of potion containing a bit of the nightshade we got from an apothecary. “We told them we wanted it for a play, to make the unbelievable real. I suppose it was a play of sorts, one to fool a wicked duke.” She grins at me then looks back at Sam. “How did you get here so fast?”
He reaches into his pocket and then pulls out a letter addressed to him from Camilla. “I booked the earliest train as soon as I received this, and when I got here, the duchess told me you’d lost all senses and flung yourself into a brook.”
“My letter,” says Camilla. “In the midst of everything, I forgot I sent it.”
“You said you were haunted by the devil,” says Sam. “What’s going on here?”
She leans into him, eyes full of sorrow and fear. “Do you trust me?”
Without hesitation, he nods. And then we fill him in.
“You think the duke is a vampire?” Doubt slips into his voice, but he hasn’t left, hasn’t run away yet, which means there’s a chance he believes us, a chance we can convince him.
“We’re certain of it,” I say. “But we need proof.”
“Which is where this comes in,” says Camilla, waving around the penny dreadful. “I found a London address for Grace van Helsing, who’s the author.” Camilla points at her biography. “What if she really is a monster hunter? I say we find her and ask her all that she knows about vampires. Their strengths and their weaknesses and we use that to really figure out what is going on here.”
“And then?” asks Sam.
Camilla
looks to me, and I think of all that has transpired. Of my father’s death, of how Camilla barely escaped death—or a fate worse than death—of how my uncle is using my mother, of how he’ll likely never stop until we’re all dead and drained of our blood. And then he’ll move on to kill others. Camilla’s right. I made a choice. I chose to believe my father, I chose to believe what I saw that night, I chose to believe her. We are all going to die one day. One day we’ll be bones and ash. But right now, we are alive. It’s up to me, to us, to make sure that my uncle’s reign ends here.
“And then,” I say, meeting her eyes, “we bring this vampire down.”
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.
No. 11,530. London, Saturday, April 30, 1892. ONE PENNY.
DEATHS.
TAYLOR—On the morning of the 29th at Elsinore Hall. Lord Andrew Taylor, Duke of Elsinore, was found dead of unknown circumstances. Funeral to be determined. Of his death, his stepdaughter, Lady Anne Taylor, said, “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
Does it not, think thee, stand me now upon—
He that hath killed my king, and whored my mother,
Popped in between th’ election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
(And with such cozenage!)—is ’t not perfect conscience
To quit him with this arm? And is ’t not to be damned
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?
—HAMLET, ACT 5, SCENE 2
AUTHOR’S NOTE
When I set out to write this story, I knew two things:
One, that I would retell Hamlet.
Two, that there would be a vampire.
I love Hamlet. I’ve studied it. I’ve performed it. I know so much of it by heart. I also love vampires. They’re seductive, and they’re terrifying. Though I love vampires in all their forms, I tend to favor vampire media that focuses on charismatic vampires who are tortured souls that hold your sympathy. I have Anne Rice and Blade to thank for that. But with this story, I wanted the vampire to be the bad guy, as Hamlet’s Claudius is, and so I turned to the original bad guy vampire tale: Dracula.
