An Unattractive Vampire (4 page)

“You say you have slain the vampyr?” he said.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Where?” he questioned.

“In its grave, beneath the house,” she answered. “It came for me at twilight. Stole me from my bed on its devilish wings. Imprisoned me and prepared to drink of my life’s blood. But noises above distracted it, calls and fearful mewls. Upstairs, it journeyed, from whence it returned sated and covered in blood. Full from its meal and fearing little from a woman, it lay down to sleep. After it, I climbed, taking with me a sharpened piece of wood and an ax. I drove the wooden shard into its heart and removed its head with the ax. Out of the grave and out of the cellar I fled, whereupon I was found, and like this, brought before you. Thus ends my tale.”

It was the most a woman had ever been allowed to speak publicly in the village of Shepherd’s Crook. The Puritans erupted into their own version of applause—prayer.

Though not entirely convinced, Martin conceded, “Very well. Lead me to the creature’s grave.”

Anne gave herself so many points.

• •

A pair of lanterns cast light into what was a much-changed cellar. When Anne had left it minutes before, it had been clean and dry, sparsely populated with wine barrels and a few odds and ends. Most notably, you hadn’t needed two lanterns to navigate it. Now, though . . . Darkness clung to the walls like tar, only reluctantly revealing the basement’s secrets to the flames. Cobwebs had grown with incredible speed, some stretching from ceiling to floor. Shards of shattered barrels littered the ground, making it all the more difficult to walk in the gloom. And deep within the shadows, the innumerable eyes of rats and spiders glowed with unnatural intelligence.

This was a cellar no more; it was a lair.

Into the darkness carefully crept a group of four: the witchfinder, Erasmus Martin; the so-called innocent, Anne Stevens; the door buster, Benjamin Moss; and the dutiful “Yes, Mom, I’ll keep an eye on Dad” son, Jonathan Moss. Martin and the younger Moss held the lanterns while the elder Moss held Anne, regaling her with tales of his door-breaking exploits.

“By the time I was John’s age, I’d already racked up thirty-five, not including Ol’ Goody Blythe, who lived in a cave and blocked the entrance with a boulder. And this was all before ’68 when the Massachusetts commissioner ruled that multiple doors in the same lair should count separately. Blasphemy, I say. He just wants to pad his own numbers. I, however, got my hundred honestly—one door at a time.”

Anne listened to this patiently, not that she had a choice. She was, after all, just an ordinary Puritan woman, guilty of absolutely nothing other than being born female. She would never dream of telling the old man to shut his damn mouth (points) or mentioning that his last dozen doors fell only because his son had climbed through a window and taken them off their hinges. Absolutely not. She was merely terrified and walking back into a cellar she had been in just once, a feat made easier by the new debris.

“Hold here,” Martin ordered. The others stopped and waited as he alone climbed over a wagon wheel, which definitely had not been there before, and disappeared from sight. Seconds passed, then minutes. Somewhere in the basement, there was a deep growl followed by a soft thud. The two Mosses shifted uncomfortably. Anne was sure that one more unidentifiable sound and the pair would bolt. Fortunately or, from Anne’s perspective, unfortunately, the witchfinder emerged from the darkness. “Bring the girl.”

“Master Martin, you’re bleeding,” the elder Moss pointed out.

The witchfinder took a handkerchief from his pocket and covered the small cut that had mysteriously appeared under his eye. “So I am. This way.”

The three of them clambered over the wagon wheel, slid across a carriage door, and fell right next to the looming Martin. From there, lanterns were raised and the four Puritans looked down into the grave of the vampyr. In the flickering light, Bile looked even deader than usual. His blood shone black, splattered across his white chest. His head had shifted position and now tilted forward and to one side, making it nearly impossible to believe it could still be connected. Even his eyes, which were gray and lifeless to begin with, had clouded over, extinguishing the fire given them by those dark pupils. The effect was so convincing that Anne worried her master might have actually gone too far.

“Heaven protect us,” gasped Jonathan Moss, crossing himself.

“Good God,” croaked Benjamin Moss, his eyes wide with terror.

“The creature is dead. Let us go” did not say Erasmus Martin. He should have. The illusion was flawless, her performance convincing, and when three people all see such a ghastly sight, it is only right that all three exclaim.

Yet Martin remained silent. The four of them stood in his silence and continued to gaze down upon the body.

Anne’s mind began to panic.
What is he thinking? Why doesn’t he say anything? What does he know? Does he know? He knows! He must know. If he didn’t know, he would ask, he would question, or he would leave. He hasn’t asked, he hasn’t questioned, and we’re still here. So. He. Must. Know.

These thoughts expressed themselves on the outside in the form of a shudder. Erasmus Martin took note. Fortunately for Anne, so did Benjamin Moss.

“Be at ease, my girl. The creature is dead,” he said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Well done. Well done, indeed. Wouldn’t you say it was well done, Master Martin?”

Erasmus Martin, who had been eyeing Mistress Stevens intently, found his cold, hard suspicions crashing into the optimistic certainty of Benjamin Moss.

“I”—Martin searched for a word that would appease the elder Moss, without betraying his reservations—“suppose.”

“Oh, he’s just disappointed,” continued Moss. “He wanted to kill the beast himself. Came all this way, and you do his job for him. And so neatly, too. Even cut off the head. Not many folk nowadays know about that. They’d just stick a stake in it and leave it for dead. But not you. You did the thing right. Why, I doubt Master Martin himself could have done as well, could you, Master Martin?”

“Hmm . . .” Martin grunted noncommittally.

“Don’t mind him, dear. He’s just jealous. Envy is a sin, Master Martin. You shouldn’t let the green-eyed monster have you just because this gray-eyed monster didn’t. And it’s a most fitting end, don’t you think? The monstrous creature done in by a pious woman. Beauty killing the beast. There’s something in that, methinks. A parable perhaps. And, anyway, it’s not like she’s going to take your job. Come now, tell her she’s done well.”

The old man pushed Anne toward the witchfinder to receive his praises, placing her in that awkward too-close zone, which is good for kissing and little else. Not even Erasmus Martin, as hardened and pious as he was, could ignore the discomfort that came from standing chest to heaving bosom with a woman, her chin tilted up.

“Yes, well . . . ,” Martin stammered, suddenly very hot as he peered into Anne’s innocent-looking large blue eyes. He stepped to the side, away from the threat of intimate contact, before continuing, “It does appear the creature is destroyed.”

“You see, my boy, that wasn’t so hard,” chortled Old Moss, who was an expert chortler. “I know it doesn’t seem like much, girl, but that was high praise from the likes of him. Truth be told, not being set on fire is high praise from the likes of him. Now, what say we leave this dreary den and see if there’s any cider left?”

The old man offered his arm. With a smile, she took it. Jonathan Moss followed behind as they started to leave, wondering why he hadn’t inherited his father’s obvious skill at talking to pretty girls.

“However . . .”

The dreaded word worked its magic. Anne and the Mosses spun around, slowly and in unison.

Martin stretched his arm out over the vampyr’s grave. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

And with that, he let go of his lantern.

They say great minds think alike, whoever
they
might be. While this may be true, it usually happens only when those great minds are separated by an equally great distance. Two great minds in the same room are far more likely to argue and bicker about differences than unite in a single idea. This is important to note, because on this occasion, when the witchfinder’s lantern began to fall, Anne Stevens, Erasmus Martin, and Yulric Bile were all united in a single thought:
Damn it to hell!

In good time, Anne and the Mosses slowly moved forward to witness the aftermath. They found a smoldering but empty grave.

“Not so dead after all,” said Martin with a certain amount of satisfaction. Only he had been on the precipice. Only he had seen.

The lantern had shattered, covering the creature quickly in oil and flame. The beast had managed to maintain the illusion until then but, faced with annihilation, had finally broken. It had writhed. It had screamed. It had hit its fail-safe.

Naturally, Yulric had foreseen this possibility. Erasmus Martin had a reputation for being thorough, after all, and there was nothing quite as thorough as fire. And so the grave Yulric had so carefully constructed was designed to cave in when struck from the bottom, burying him completely and dousing the flames.

Anne turned from the collapsed hole to find the witchfinder watching her, his eyes aglow with accusation. She had staked the beast to the ground. She had cut off its head. She had lied. He had her. He knew it. She knew it. He knew that she knew it, which made it all the more sweet. He savored his moment of victory.

It did not last long.

“Well, it was a bloody good attempt, girl,” said Benjamin Moss, once more coming to her rescue. “You have to admit that, Master Martin. It did look dead. Must have missed the heart, though. Not cut off the head, too. Head has to come all the way off, my dear. I expect your arms were tired, all that hacking away. Figured halfway through was good enough. Ah well, can’t expect more from a girl, eh, Master Martin?”

Both Martin and Anne looked from the old man to each other. He had just given her the perfect excuse, one every Puritan would readily accept. It may have been a crime to be a witch, but it wasn’t a crime to be stupid and weak. The ignorant-woman defense would work. Martin couldn’t touch her. She knew it. He knew it. She knew that he knew it, which made it all the more sweet when she said, “I suppose so.”

Martin’s eyes narrowed.
I know it was you,
they seemed to say.

Anne’s eyes widened in response.
Who, me? I’m just a simple Puritan girl. I have no thought or opinion of my own. I leave the thinking to God and men.

Martin’s eyes rolled as he turned away.
Oh, shut up.

The Mosses caught none of this.

“Not like a woman to miss a man’s heart, is it, my boy?” chuckled the elder. The younger, who had recently been unsuccessfully engaged, did not find this so funny.

“What now, Master Martin? Should we dig the creature out?” asked Jonathan Moss while his father explained the joke to Anne. She had already heard about it, of course; the village wasn’t that big. Still, his hand gestures were quite amusing.

Martin, meanwhile, considered the younger Moss’s proposal. Digging was the simplest solution. Get a few lads with strong backs and shovels. Dig until you find the beast. Finish the job. Simple. Of course, you would have to ignore the fact that all the while you were digging, a creature of terrible power lurked beneath you, waiting to drag you into the earth. How many lives would it take to extinguish this evil forever? How many was he ready to sacrifice? He could practically feel the vampyr’s grin emanating from the dirt below.

The witchfinder removed a large silver cross from his jacket.
A stalemate, then.

“Master Martin?” Jonathan inquired cautiously of the silent witchfinder, who seemed very intent on his cross. It could be that he was thinking or talking to God, but it could also be that he wasn’t all there. Jonathan tried again. “Master Martin, should I get a shovel?”

“No,” said the witchfinder at last, “we do not need one.” He dropped the cross into the grave. It landed flat and began to sink into the mud. As it disappeared from sight, something beneath the ground shifted and then grew still.

The Mosses looked very confused.

“Masters Moss, fetch all the skilled tradesmen in the village. I need two dozen heavy stone slabs with crosses engraved on them, as soon as possible.”

The Mosses nodded and hurried off to carry out the instructions. Martin had no doubt that by evening’s end, the stones would be delivered. Puritans may not be the brightest, nor the nicest, nor the most civil, nor the least hypocritical of people, but they could certainly work.

Erasmus Martin, too, made his way toward the cellar steps, reaching them at the same time as Anne Stevens. He eyed her warily. “After you,” he said, determined not to turn his back on her. She gave him a mocking curtsey and bounced up the stairs in a very un-Puritan way. He followed her, disapproving.

The pair reached the gathered village just as the Mosses were leaving with several of the larger men to gather appropriate stones.

“What’s this about not digging out the creature?” asked Goody Cross. “Are you here to slay the creature or not?”

Martin turned to her. “And how many sons are you willing to sacrifice to see me kill the beast?” The woman sputtered and stepped in front of her son to shield him from the witchfinder.

“The vampyr cannot be killed without heavy bloodshed,” he declared. “So we trap it underground, entomb it for all time.”

“How?” came an unidentified voice from the crowd.

Erasmus removed a silver flask from his cloak. “We consecrate the land surrounding the house. He won’t be able to pass through holy ground.”

A discontented murmur spread among the assemblage.

“That sounds a bit like popery, Master Martin,” accused John Fryer.

“It is popery, Master Fryer,” Martin replied. This brought angry shouts from the Puritans. Vampyrs were one thing, but Catholics . . .

“I’m not sure we can condone this idolatry,” Fryer jeered. “Why, if Pastor Collins was here—”

“Pastor Collins is dead,” the witchfinder said. This quieted the crowd considerably. “I do not ask you to be privy to what I do. Go on your way and I will take care of it.”