More Than Mortal (7 page)
Authors: Mick Farren
He wondered if this unaccustomed insomnia could somehow be caused by the long flight from California. Human travelers talked of a disorientation they glibly called
jet lag,
and he had once read a scientific paper on how the time-sense of even rudimentary creatures like bivalves could be confused by fast, long-distance journeys. A batch of oysters from Long Island Sound had been moved by transport plane to Lawrence, Kansas. Once relocated and settled in the laboratory tank that was their new home, they commenced, after a short period of adjustment, to open and close as though the Atlantic Ocean extended all the way to the Midwest and the tides behaved accordingly. Why such a bizarre study should be conducted in the first place had been something of a mystery to Renquist, but he had long since
ceased to be surprised at the directions humans might be steered by their insatiable curiosity. Unfortunately, so few nosferatu practiced intercontinental air travel that little data was available to tell him whether he was suffering from some kindred reaction or this jet lag, and he resolved to keep mental notes on his sleeplessness. Sooner or later, the undead would have to come to grips with the jet age.
jet lag,
and he had once read a scientific paper on how the time-sense of even rudimentary creatures like bivalves could be confused by fast, long-distance journeys. A batch of oysters from Long Island Sound had been moved by transport plane to Lawrence, Kansas. Once relocated and settled in the laboratory tank that was their new home, they commenced, after a short period of adjustment, to open and close as though the Atlantic Ocean extended all the way to the Midwest and the tides behaved accordingly. Why such a bizarre study should be conducted in the first place had been something of a mystery to Renquist, but he had long since
ceased to be surprised at the directions humans might be steered by their insatiable curiosity. Unfortunately, so few nosferatu practiced intercontinental air travel that little data was available to tell him whether he was suffering from some kindred reaction or this jet lag, and he resolved to keep mental notes on his sleeplessness. Sooner or later, the undead would have to come to grips with the jet age.
After about an hour, however, he discovered these spells of drifting were not without their own unique value. He found himself experiencing a new and, as far as he could recall, unique form of perception. For a being of Renquist’s age to experience anything curious and original was such a singular novelty that he made no effort to control or thrust it from him. It also helped, of course, that the experience was far from unpleasant. The word
cozy
sprang to mind, and Renquist allowed himself to glide effortlessly with it. He might not be sleeping, but he was sufficiently relaxed to derive some recuperative benefit. Although the drifting perception was widespread and generalized, and lacked much in the way of precision, it delivered a fairly coherent, hypnovirtual view of the world in which he was now immersed. As during his earlier stroll down the Strand, he was again aware of both the psychic and material density of the Old World as close-packed modernity was layered on millennia of history. Although New York and some of the other cities on the Eastern Seaboard might come close, the United States as a whole seemed positively empty in comparison. Renquist wasn’t sure which he actually preferred. Both had their attractions. As the strange demidreaming continued, he found a measure of specificity was possible, and he could exert a certain gentle direction without breaking the condition and returning to full waking. The odd perception also tended toward the two-dimensional. Humanity seemed spread around him like an ethereal and somewhat threadbare billiard table, except it had a distinct curve, perhaps conforming
in its insubstantial way to the curve of the earth, or maybe to that of space-time itself.
cozy
sprang to mind, and Renquist allowed himself to glide effortlessly with it. He might not be sleeping, but he was sufficiently relaxed to derive some recuperative benefit. Although the drifting perception was widespread and generalized, and lacked much in the way of precision, it delivered a fairly coherent, hypnovirtual view of the world in which he was now immersed. As during his earlier stroll down the Strand, he was again aware of both the psychic and material density of the Old World as close-packed modernity was layered on millennia of history. Although New York and some of the other cities on the Eastern Seaboard might come close, the United States as a whole seemed positively empty in comparison. Renquist wasn’t sure which he actually preferred. Both had their attractions. As the strange demidreaming continued, he found a measure of specificity was possible, and he could exert a certain gentle direction without breaking the condition and returning to full waking. The odd perception also tended toward the two-dimensional. Humanity seemed spread around him like an ethereal and somewhat threadbare billiard table, except it had a distinct curve, perhaps conforming
in its insubstantial way to the curve of the earth, or maybe to that of space-time itself.
His first tentative notion was to cast around for traces of other nosferatu, and no sooner had he entertained the idea than he began to notice tiny orange flecks amid the verdance of humans. Some were relatively close. The city of London apparently had its compliment of loners, but no concentration that might tell of a clan or colony. As soon as he could judge distance and direction, he observed a triple trace of tiny stars in the west he knew must be Columbine Dashwood and her two companions, the reason he was in London in the first place. Much farther away, far to the north, he finally spotted the kind of cluster that must represent a substantial community of the undead. Unless much had changed in the British Isles, it could only be the Fenrior of Fenrior who maintained his clan of vassals, henchmen, and bonded companions in the isolated and desolate grandeur of the Scottish Highlands. Renquist knew very little about Fenrior and his people beyond the epics and legends, which were both many and lurid but could not always be trusted. Most accounts seemed to agree that the Clan Fenrior was wild, uncouth, barbarous in the extreme, and conducted themselves as though they had yet to adjust to the sixteenth century, let alone the twenty-first. They reputedly depended on the old and violent blood ties of crag, glen, and tarn to preserve them from widespread human detection and retribution.
Renquist knew that if he was aware of the Fenrior, the Fenrior could well be aware of him, and he wondered how protocol might dictate he act toward them. They were, by all repute, immoderate in the cruelty with which they received strangers in their lands, and yet, by their numbers alone, they qualified as the primary community of nosferatu in Britain. He had been invited by Columbine Dashwood, and etiquette dictated that he must attend her first, but with her requested favor bestowed and his commission discharged, would it be expected
of him to pay his formal respects to the Fenrior, or would it be far wiser to respect the privacy of these Scottish nosferatu beyond the Roman wall, not intrude, and leave them well alone?
of him to pay his formal respects to the Fenrior, or would it be far wiser to respect the privacy of these Scottish nosferatu beyond the Roman wall, not intrude, and leave them well alone?
As Renquist was drowsily contemplating how he should behave, he noticed a fleck of color to which he couldn’t put a name, significantly close to the triple pinpoints of Miss Dashwood and her friends. Now what was that? Renquist attempted to see more clearly, but as he did, the perception perversely vanished. The effort to focus had apparently broken the spell. Renquist sighed and ran fingers through the reassuringly familiar fur of the rug.
“No matter how we deceive or congratulate ourselves, the dreaming is never truly ours to command.”
He was now aware, however, something was to hand that Columbine had neglected to mention in her letters.
On the very day following Marieko’s visit to Morton Downs, Columbine’s dreams had entered a new and highly disturbing phase—the one that would remain with her all the way through to the long day she waited for Renquist to make contact. One time and, mercifully, one time only, she had all but been dream-blinded by a flash that she knew by unexplained instinct was called the Fire in the West, although the same instinct refused to give up any further information or explanation of the horrendous and all-consuming flame. It certainly made no sense and seemed hardly to fit with what she knew of the sixth century. As she saw it from the point of view of her mysterious observing host, the explosion looked near-nuclear. The host had stood on a grassy hilltop at what seemed to be the moment of impact. Had the fireball first come from the sky? Columbine had entered the dream a fraction too late to be certain. Just in time, in fact, to be rendered sightless by the flash and all but choked by the stench of burned hair and singed clothing
as a searing radiant heat swept over the hillside, scorching the grass and causing trees to ignite.
as a searing radiant heat swept over the hillside, scorching the grass and causing trees to ignite.
Multiple disasters struck her and her observer like a series of fast hammer blows. First the abominable light, then the heat, and then a shock wave with a sound like nothing she had ever experienced. A scream? A roar? A convulsion of the very earth? An extended thunderclap to herald the Doom of Everything? Finally the wind and a new shriek of universal doom. And yet she knew, again by weird instinct, that she was, in reality, a great distance from the true ground zero of the fiery destruction. In the middle of this off-the-scale violence, way out of both human and nosferatu proportion, she at least had confirmation of Marieko’s theory that the thing through whose eyes she watched was massively powerful. He or she could remain standing when living trees were uprooted and swirled into the air and cattle flew like birds. His or her flesh could tolerate heat that scorched grass in an instant. Columbine also realized she was now freely assuming this observer was also the thing asleep in the mound; a long-jump of faith and connection to say the least.
The vision of the Fire in the West may only have shown itself a single time, but what followed was barely an improvement. Instead of peasants and sunshine, the rain and confusion of the battlefield, or the dank and bloody carrion plain that remained in its wake, she found herself in a twilight place of murky desolation where only the closest objects were visible in a choking finegrain haze, chill but at the same time parched and gritty. Trees had been reduced to naked skeletons, with their bark chewed away, while the hillsides were bare of grass, and hedgerows were naked barbed-wire entanglements of dead brambles. Pale grey ash fell like dusty snow. Birds and animals seemed to be no more, save for hungry and combative rats and wolves. Haggard human survivors, mostly former warriors, with rust on their swords and mail, hollow-skull staring eyes, and weary
leather falling away from their shields and helmets, tottered on the final cadaver legs of terminal starvation. Knights whose prized horses had been long since eaten, bowmen for whom no target presented itself, wagoners whose oxen had dropped beneath the yoke, and deserted kings of burned dominions; they all moved aimlessly through an occluded landscape where nothing was to be found except inevitable death. Only her host/observer manifested any real sense of purpose, and he or she seemed only to be seeking some specific if hard to find place of concealment in which to hide or maybe die like everyone else.
leather falling away from their shields and helmets, tottered on the final cadaver legs of terminal starvation. Knights whose prized horses had been long since eaten, bowmen for whom no target presented itself, wagoners whose oxen had dropped beneath the yoke, and deserted kings of burned dominions; they all moved aimlessly through an occluded landscape where nothing was to be found except inevitable death. Only her host/observer manifested any real sense of purpose, and he or she seemed only to be seeking some specific if hard to find place of concealment in which to hide or maybe die like everyone else.
“This has to be stopped.”
Unintelligible peasants and endless waterlogged battles were one thing, but Columbine drew the line at visions of an unknown apocalypse. As soon as the sun was below the horizon, she had assembled the others in the formal drawing room. “I’m not exaggerating. It was as though the world was ending.”
Marieko thought about this, a single furrow appearing in her porcelain neo-geisha brow. “But it was still a vision of the past?”
“I think so.”
“Not the present or the future?”
“It looked like the same period as all the other dreams except everything was dead or dying.”
“So you don’t think it was some kind of warning?”
“If you’re asking me if I’ve suddenly turned into Edgar Cayce or Saint John the Divine, the answer is no. I don’t think I’m having prophetic visions.”
Destry was growing a little impatient. “Really, Columbine, are you telling us you have no idea what this might mean?”
“All I really know is that I didn’t like it at all.”
“So what do you want us to do? We decided we should wait.”
Destry was absolutely correct. They had talked almost through the dawn, finally agreeing that their only option
was to let Campion proceed with his excavation until more was revealed. After almost twelve hours of nonstop nightmare, Columbine had been more than ready for a radical revision of that idea. “If I have to keep seeing this shit every time I try to sleep, I’m going to lose my mind. I know you two don’t have a high regard for it, but it’s the only mind I’ve got, and I need it for thinking and getting me around.”
was to let Campion proceed with his excavation until more was revealed. After almost twelve hours of nonstop nightmare, Columbine had been more than ready for a radical revision of that idea. “If I have to keep seeing this shit every time I try to sleep, I’m going to lose my mind. I know you two don’t have a high regard for it, but it’s the only mind I’ve got, and I need it for thinking and getting me around.”
“I still believe we should wait, and not do anything precipitate.”
“But it’s not you having the blasted dreams, is it, Destry? If I were human I could wash down a handful of Seconal with a shot of gin and sleep like a weary dog, but I’m not, and I’ve never encountered any drug or potion that could knock out one of us.”
It had been Marieko who had given the very first momentum to what would become their plan. “I think we need the help of an expert.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We would appear to have stumbled across something that is not only well beyond the sum total of our own collective knowledge and experience, but can also invade the dreams of one of us at will, leaving us powerless to stop it. I would suggest we need the help and advice of someone who is both highly knowledgeable and unable to resist a mystery.”
“A nosferatu?”
“Of course.”
“She would have to be extremely venerable but, at the same time, still retain a mental flexibility.”
If inscrutability came in degrees, Marieko’s expression achieved an unprecedented level of bland knowingness. “It wasn’t a
she
I had in mind.”
she
I had in mind.”
In an instant, Columbine had seen exactly where Marieko’s logic was taking them. “No!”
“I know how you feel about Victor Renquist, my dear Columbine, but—”
“Never!”
“He has all the qualifications.”
“He wouldn’t come here.”
Destry began to warm to what Marieko had set in motion. “I think he would. If he were to find out we’d happened across something very old with a nosferatu connection, he’d be here like a shot.”
Marieko, cross-legged on her cushion, sat even straighter. “She’s absolutely right.”
Columbine had risen from her accustomed velvet wing chair, walked to a side table, and opened a pink-and-black art deco cigarette box. Smoking cigarettes was a habit she had picked up during her travels with Sir Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor), when he had been on his way to become the first infidel to enter the holy city of Mecca. She had convinced herself that a cigarette lent a woman a distinct extra degree of authority. The principle applied to any elevation of rank from trollop to duchess. Since all the mortal fuss about cancer and secondhand smoke, it had become an even more powerful affectation, indicating, as it did, a certain devil-may-care, risk-taking ruthlessness. On a visit to a high-rise domination bordello in Tokyo’s Roppongi district in the late 1980s, she had observed that the lace-, rubber-, and leather-clad mistress-sans all chain-smoked to stern and contemptuous effect. Right then, it wasn’t authority she needed, and, of course, her nosferatu metabolism derived no pleasure or satisfaction—or harm, for that matter—from the process. It was a device she usually reserved for human company, but, right at that moment, she needed some manual ritual, a practiced distraction to cover her confusion. Of course, Marieko was right, damn her, but the idea of actually seeing Renquist after all this time was singularly disturbing. She flicked the matching table lighter, but it refused to catch, clearly out of fuel.
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