The Parliament of Blood (18 page)

Sir William looked up in surprise as his office door swung open. ‘To what do I owe this honour?' he asked as his visitor closed the door behind him.

‘When you came to see me last night,' Lord Ruthven said, ‘I was not sure that I could help you. Not sure that I
should
help you.'

‘And now?' Sir William waved him to a chair.

‘Circumstances change. Things are getting out of hand. I think you are right. We need to talk.'

‘Really?' Sir William leaned back in his chair. ‘And what should we talk about? Photographs, perhaps? Ancient Egypt, maybe? The real significance of certain artefacts until recently in the care of my department?'

‘All of these and more,' Lord Ruthven conceded. His voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘But, most of all, we need to talk about vampires.'

There was silence for a long time. Sir William sensed that Lord Ruthven needed a while to gather his thoughts and to summon up his courage. Eventually, Ruthven nodded slowly and sat down, as if he had come to a momentous decision. His voice was low and Sir William leaned forward, listening keenly.

‘There are so many stories. So very many. I'm sure you have heard a hundred and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. From the ancient Egyptian Book of the Undead to the
Necronomicon
, from the Forbidden Tablets of Myrkros to the writings of Thomas Prest just a few years ago … So many stories.' He lapsed into silence again, eyes unfocused.

‘Do you mind if we draw the curtains?' Lord Ruthven said at last.

The smog of the early morning had burned off and the sunlight was falling across the desk. Sir William got up and closed the curtains.

‘You were talking about stories,' he prompted as he sat
down again. ‘I take it that you have a story to tell me? About vampires?'

‘Ah, but that's the point. They are just stories. They may have a basis in fact, but the whole notion of vampirism is a fiction. There is no such thing as a vampire – how could there be?'

‘How indeed?' Sir William waited a while, before clearing his throat and continuing. ‘As you say, a fiction. Stories and myths. A popular idea with little basis in fact. An age-old legend of a creature that looks like a man – that was once a man – who now survives by drinking the blood of others. A parasitic creature that shuns sunlight …' He let the last comment hang in the air.

‘You can understand how the stories started,' Lord Ruthven said. ‘They sprang from tragic but ordinary circumstances, of course. Attempts to rationalise the effects of plague. A way of explaining the preservation of a dead body. Even to mitigate the horror of premature burial. How can we believe that a loved one we sealed in a coffin below the earth was not actually dead – that they scratched and scraped and screamed inside what became their tomb.'

‘A self-fulfilling prophecy,' Sir William agreed. ‘Better to believe they were possessed or infected, no longer human, than to admit you condemned them to such a fate.'

‘Anaemia,' Lord Ruthven went on. ‘The inhumanity of man to man – an excuse for brutality that we would rather had a different explanation from simple sadism.'

‘And so the legends and myths built up,' Sir William said.
‘Is that your thesis? You came here to tell me that vampires do not exist. That it is absurd to believe the stories.'

‘There are absurdities,' Ruthven admitted. ‘How can a man turn into a bat, for example?'

‘But there are also aspects that are rather more plausible. Don't you think?'

‘Oh yes.' Lord Ruthven's tone was matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing the most mundane of subjects. ‘But that is simply because beneath the façade and behind the stories, hiding in shadows and masked by legend and deceit, vampires
do
exist.'

Sir William sat back in his chair, and breathed a heavy sigh. ‘Now, at last, we are getting somewhere.'

‘As I said, the stories have a basis in truth. All stories do. They have been exaggerated and embellished until they seem absurd and ridiculous to the rational mind. But it is the trappings and the details that are the fiction. Little lies to overstate the truth. The great lie to conceal one fact.' He waved a hand in the air, as if to dismiss them all. ‘A conspiracy that has lasted for centuries – millennia even – with precisely the intention of making it seem that vampires are a myth, a story, a fiction.'

‘A way of drawing attention away from the truth,' Sir William realised. ‘Not by trying to conceal it, but by making it so public, making it seem so far-fetched, that it cannot be believed.'

‘While the terrible truth lurks in darkness and shadows.' Lord Ruthven hesitated for a moment before going on: ‘Of course, we could never hope to hide our existence
entirely. And so we chose a different path. We publicised accounts of our lives, exaggerating them. We encouraged the theatre and music-hall performances. Even wrote some of the penny dreadfuls ourselves. We created an obvious fiction wherein we could hide the truth.'

‘A clever plan.'

‘It worked,' Ruthven conceded. ‘It worked to conceal the facts from the masses, and to mislead anyone who did stumble across the truth. And it continues. Even now, one of us is feeding ideas fit for a sensational new play to Mr Stoker at the Lyceum Theatre.'

‘You spoke of the great lie,' Sir William said quietly.

‘Do you realise how much I am risking just by speaking to you at all?' Ruthven countered. ‘There have been so many lies. So many embellishments to hide the central truth.'

‘And yet, at its core, you would have me believe that vampires do exist. That creatures of the night drink the blood of the living for sustenance. The undead walk among us.'

‘Just as it has always been. And Man is so introspective, so selfish that he does not notice. Our victims – and yes, I choose that word deliberately – can fade and pale and waste away as we drain them dry. And no one notices. No one wants to notice. Is that ignorance, or wilful self-deceit?'

‘Perhaps,' Sir William said slowly, ‘there is a part of all of us that wants to live for ever. No matter what the cost.'

‘Perhaps,' Ruthven conceded. ‘For centuries we have existed alongside ordinary mortals. You described us as
parasites. Perhaps you are right. A whole second civilisation that feeds off the first. Parallel and unsuspected, dependent on humanity for the blood that sustains us.'

Sir William listened carefully, making the occasional note on a sheet of paper. He felt detached and cold – as if he was indeed listening to a story rather than learning a terrible secret.

‘We have a healthy, growing society. Too healthy perhaps as our numbers continue to increase. We have had to limit our activity in order to remain hidden and unknown.'

‘So as not to draw attention to yourselves,' Sir William said.

‘Indeed. While we are awake, we need a constant supply of fresh blood. And even here in London, there are only so many unfortunates who can disappear from the streets and the workhouses and never be missed. We take them from wherever we can find them. Anyone whose blood we can drink. Anyone who won't be missed.'

Sir William's throat was dry. He ran a finger round the inside of his collar to loosen it as Ruthven went on:

‘But even so, there are too many of us now.'

‘Then how do you stay hidden?'

‘By sleeping. At any time only some of us are awake and active, while the rest sleep. We have resting houses all over London where they wait for their turn at life.' Ruthven gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘Life! I have seen so much death. Even today. What a cost, what a way to live. Oh, to sleep and never wake up.' He sank back into the chair and closed his eyes.

‘Are there many of you who feel this dissatisfaction?' Sir William wondered.

Lord Ruthven shook his head. ‘A few perhaps. There is a dissatisfaction, but not with our fate itself, more with the way we handle it. There is growing dissent among both the waking and the sleeping.'

‘I can imagine.'

‘Really?' From his tone, Ruthven did not believe him.

‘It is a system that cannot be sustained,' Sir William said. ‘The attraction, as I understand it and if I can use that word, of your condition is longevity. How appealing can it be to have everlasting life and yet be asked to sleep through it? How amenable are those already awake to giving up their lives and sleeping for – how long? Decades? Centuries?'

‘Those of us who attain positions of power and wealth within society tend to want to maintain that,' Ruthven agreed. ‘Others spend far longer than they would wish asleep. They argue that those in the public eye must be seen to age and die. The way of the world is change, yet we remain constant. Those of us awake must make way for the sleepers, but those with power want to keep it. At any cost.'

‘Quite a dilemma. But with an obvious solution. An unacceptable solution.'

Ruthven nodded. ‘Increasingly it is argued that the status quo must change. That what worked once is no longer the best way. As our numbers grow, so do the arguments that we should step out of the shadows. Announce our
presence. That we are now strong enough to take over. We don't need to govern from hiding, shaping the destiny of the world while remaining forever shrouded in darkness. Why should we limit ourselves? Why feed only on the dross of society, on those who will not be missed – the children from the workhouse, the women on the streets, the drunks asleep in the alleys?' Lord Ruthven leaned forward, fixing Sir William with a dark, piercing stare. ‘There are so many of us now in positions of power that we could take over and rule.'

‘And will that happen?' Sir William asked quietly.

‘A few years ago, I would have said no.' Lord Ruthven looked away. ‘But circumstances have changed. Until now those of us who favour the status quo have been able to argue that the current system works. That it is best and safest not to change our strategy. It has served us well for centuries. But now … it is becoming a different world and things are happening that may expose us.'

‘Expose?' Sir William smiled. ‘You mean, as one might expose a photograph?'

In his room across the corridor, George was examining one of the photographs from Xavier Hemming's files. It showed a man standing in a stiff pose on the sea front. A pencilled description on the back of the photograph read:

Brighton, 1864
Michael Adisson and unknown

The man in the picture – Adisson – had one arm hanging by his side. The other arm was held out, curled round. As he might have stood if he was holding someone with him in the photograph – his wife, or child, or …

‘Unknown indeed,' George thought as he looked through his magnifying glass. The obvious explanation was that the man was just standing oddly. But the pose would have been held for a while. It was not an accidental posture.

The next possibility was that it was a trick. The person Adisson was holding had somehow been removed from the picture. George knew from his discussions with Blake and Pennyman that such things were possible. But they were
complicated, they needed planning. If anyone had removed a figure from this picture, they would need an identical photograph taken from the same position to replace the background. And there was no sign of any trickery.