The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (33 page)

“You are the bird’s keeper, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Falconry, used to be the most noble of professions. The duke of Burgundy ransomed his son by sending twelve white hawks to his captor, Sultan Bajazet. There was a time when the office of grand falconer of France was one of the highest and best paid in the kingdom.”

I continued to look into his eyes. He seemed more a nature spirit than a boy.

“Is the falcon a vampire?”

“No.”

“Each time a falcon dies, you train a new one?”

“Yes.”

“How many falcons have you trained for des Esseintes?”

“Dozens.”

“For what use?”

“For protection. To help him in his work.”

“His orchids?”

He grinned. “No, the work. The work.”

“What work?”

“The work he receives so many letters about. The work he reads half a dozen newspapers every day for. It’s what they all work for. It’s why they send me out every night.”

“What is the work?” I demanded.

He shook his head. “Such a talkative old man.” He gave a nod to the falcon and it sailed to the floor at my feet. “I must go now. You should ask Monsieur des Esseintes that question.” He grinned one last time. “Oh... yes... as you seem to have suspected, in our game this evening you were quite correct. I could have taken you whenever I wanted.”

With that he snapped a button off his trouser pocket and threw it forcefully at my feet. I looked in the direction of the sound for but a second, bewildered at the purpose of such a distraction. When I looked up again the young man was gone. Without a sound. Without a trace. The long and narrow clearing was quite empty

After the events of that evening something very strange happened, something that my most calculating instincts could have never foreseen or understood. Lady Dunaway began to change. I first noticed it when I was returned to my cell. I recited in detail my explorations of the house, my frightening encounter with Hatim, the falcon trainer, and his mention of “the work” of the vampire. At first I thought it was my imagination. Between us there had always been an excited sharing, but she absorbed my description of the house with a strange sort of listlessness, even disinterest.

As the days passed her change in attitude grew more pronounced. She no longer wanted to discuss things with me. She lapsed into lengthy and inscrutable silences. Sometimes, if I interrupted these she would snap at me angrily. At other times she was oddly regretful. It was as if an iron door had suddenly and inexplicably closed between us, and if I even mentioned her changing moods, she would furiously deny them. The intensity of her denials, the breaking of her deep voice from the cell beyond, only indicated to me that she was well aware of her change. I was at an utter loss. She was a completely different person from the woman who had so recently and passionately confirmed our friendship. What could have happened? Had the pressure of our situation caused her to give up? I did not think so. Although she irritatedly shunned any discussion of Ambrose or escape, all of her mettle still rippled behind her voice. Nothing could have caused me greater torment. Even in our bleakest hour I had kept my courage because she had inspired me. There had been two of us. Now I was alone.

I racked my brain trying to figure out what might have caused the change. One other possibility suggested itself, that Lady Dunaway had been turned into a vampire. After hours of anguished thought I found this possibility unsatisfactory. Everything I had thus learned about the vampire indicated that the bestowal of their condition was a very rare gift indeed. Niccolo had been changed for his unearthly beauty, des Esseintes for his voracious intellect, and Ilga for her computing facilities. Exemplary though Lady Dunaway was above the multitude of Victorian women, she simply was not a likely candidate. Furthermore, if she had been changed, why wouldn’t she simply tell me? It did not explain the reason for her almost guilty secrecy.

I was completely baffled, and yet my intuitions told me a puzzle had been carefully and deliberately laid in my lap. I could not help but think that Lady Dunaway’s disappearances had something to do with her change. From des Esseintes’s remarks about the orchids and the rooms shifting places at night I was convinced he knew what was going on. He was purposefully baiting me, but why? To what end?

My bewilderment and concern were only deepened by an event two evenings later. On my breakfast tray was a silver salver containing a letter and two telegrams from Ursula. The telegrams were sealed and showed no obvious signs of tampering. Similarly, the letter was fastened with sealing wax impressed with Ursula’s signet, but when I picked at it with my thumbnail it popped off with suspicious ease. A closer examination revealed that it had previously been carefully removed and then resealed with paper mucilage. They were addressed to the Hotel Madeleine. The letter read:

Father:

I understand you are probably consumed in your search for your Camille. Perhaps my first letter was premature. Perhaps I am overanxious to expect some word before the end of a fortnight.

In any case, if it is within your magnanimity, could you inform me of your progress? I am engaged in a little search of my own. Browsing through old newspapers.

Cook sends love.

Warmest regards,
Your other daughter, Ursula

I shook my head sadly at the sarcasm of her letter; her reference to
my
Camille. If she only knew my situation.
Cook sends love. Browsing through old newspapers?
What was it she was looking for? Had she thought of some further historical reference to Niccolo or Lodovico?

I opened the first of the telegrams:

Good Doctor Gladstone... might one beseech you to wire me no later than this very afternoon... it is most important–-Mistress Gladstone of the rabbits.

And the second telegram sent but a day later:

Are you there?... One begins to worry.... If you have not wired me by morning I shall notify the Préfecture de Police.

And when had that morning passed? Yesterday? The day before? How I wished I could sort out the nights. It was ironic that the Préfecture de Police was but ten minutes away on the Île de la Cité. At this very moment the authorities were probably scouring the city, completely unaware that I was sequestered so nearby.

Why was it so important for me to get in touch with Ursula? Was it merely to quell her growing anxieties, or was there some deeper meaning?

It was an evening later that Grelot brought me word des Esseintes wished to see me. Out of lifelong habit I stared at the clock without hands, and silently reprimanded myself. Was it dusk already? If it was, we were barely into twilight, for I was as tired as if it were the wee hours of the morning. Lady Dunaway was still asleep.

“She’ll stay here,” Grelot said. He added no explanation.

We left without waking her.

When we reached the foyer we turned right and passed through a small parlor. From the parlor we entered the orchid conservatory through still another of the multitude of doors encircling it. We discovered des Esseintes sitting in one of two peacock-backed rattan chairs, and wearing a jeweler’s glass in his eye. He was in the process of measuring one of his orchids with a pair of calipers. He was dressed in a black velvet smoking jacket, most unsuitable attire for a greenhouse, and the jacket was beaded with moisture. He looked up and smiled.

“
Bonjour
, Monsieur le Docteur.” He picked up a brass kettle from a small table beside him. “Aniseed tea?” As usual he thrust a cup in my hand as his eyes instructed me to take a seat. He dismissed the butler.

“Once again accept my amends for neglecting you for so long. I cannot impress upon you the complexity of my affairs. How long did I leave you in there this time?”

“Almost a week,” I said without emotion.

“One of those evenings you had the freedom of the house?”

I nodded.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I was bloody near killed.”

He did not flinch. “How so?”

“How so?” I repeated. “First I was attacked by that murderous bird, and then I was hunted like some wild beast by your young Arabian friend, Hatim.”

“Mats
bien sûr,
Hatim. I’m sorry about Hatim. You must forgive him. He’s a mischievous sort, and by the way, he’s Persian, not Arabian.” Without explanation he said, “Here, look at this.” From his velvet smoking jacket he withdrew the photograph he had taken of Lady Dunaway and me outside the peacock sitting room. The vacant and astonished expressions on our faces were still further nightmarish reminders of our helplessness.

I thrust the photograph back at him, angry that he should interrupt our conversation so flippantly. “I don’t care what he is, but he’s not mischievous. He’s malevolent.”

As usual des Esseintes maintained an air of deadly calm. “If you only knew him as I know him, you might understand a little more. When I first encountered Hatim he was the grand falconer of the Malik Shah at Naishapur. He was the most renowned falconer in all of Persia. He displayed such a rapport with his falcons that it was said they shared a common soul.” The Frenchman casually glanced at the air around my head, and I realized he was observing the quiver. “You could tell, couldn’t you?”

“Tell what?”

“That Hatim and his falcon vibrate to the pulse of a single heart, a common soul?”

“I sensed in them a more than normal similarity.”

“There is hope for you yet, Monsieur le Docteur,” he said, staring intently into my eyes. “You are not entirely blind to the more subtle worlds.” He lifted the tea to his nose, and his nostrils flared. “Malevolent or not, Hatim can get the falcon to do things no one else can. You can see why I turned him into a vampire. I don’t think I would have survived the Middle Ages without him.”

“I think you would have.”

He smiled his empty, frightening smile. “You did not have to live through the reign of a monarch known as Charles the Simple.”

I did not share his sense of humor. “We are playing a game of chess, aren’t we?”

He remained implacable.

“Can we eliminate this game?”

“Be my guest, Monsieur le Docteur.”

“I know you have done something to Lady Dunaway. I do not know why she could not answer when I called to her, but she has changed. You know why she has changed, and you have hinted at it with your obscure ramblings about orchids. What do you want from me? What is going on?”

“I do not know.”

“I think you do.”

“Perhaps I do, but I said I don’t.”

My temper rose. “Hatim told me to ask you about the work of the vampire. He said it is the work you are all interested in. He said it is the reason you keep a constant vigilance on the newspapers. Pray tell, Monsieur des Esseintes, what is the work of the vampire and how does it involve us and our children?”

“I told you I know nothing of your children.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That is your choice.”

“What is the work?”

He answered in the flash of a second, coldly and calculatedly, “I cannot tell you.”

I was outraged. “
Why?
”

“Because there are things you do not understand, would not understand. There are some realizations that cannot be conveyed. They must be felt. Internally. You are being told things all the time that you pay little or no attention to.”

I felt the blood surge up in my temples. “I can’t take it any longer. I can’t remain locked up in that cell!”

“There, there,” he soothed. “Would it help if we went out for the evening? Would you like to go on a carriage ride?”

I looked in his face. There was no emotion behind his words. It was merely an appeasement.

“I could tell you another story. I could tell you more about Lodovico.”

I was still furious, but the mere mention of the name had a magic that reached down and gripped something deep within me. It was the first time I realized how much control it exerted. I tried to fight it. In the privacy of my thoughts I rationalized and told myself that every tidbit of information I might gather on the mysterious and mythic vampire might offer some key to the solution of the puzzle, but I knew this was an equivocation. Whether I enjoyed admitting it or not, the name of the Alexandrian scribe had an irresistible hold upon me. My captivation was evident.

His blue eyes flashed. He knew he had me. He burst through the door. Outside, once again, I discovered that the falcon had not entered the orchid conservatory, but remained just beyond the door. In the foyer des Esseintes exchanged his smoking jacket for his evening coat and cane, and then gripped me lightly by the arm. “This way,” he directed. We went back through the parlor; and through a glassed corridor leading to the stables beyond. To my delight the vampire gentleman directed the falcon to remain behind.

The stables themselves were large and housed no less than five elegant coaches as well as eight fine Hackney stallions. As I might have suspected, one of the human servants, a fourteen-year-old boy dressed in livery, already awaited our arrival.

Much to my interest, the moment we entered the green atmosphere of the stables all eight of the stallions began to pull uneasily at their fetters. The boy in livery began to lead two of the horses by their reins to the center of the stable where we stood waiting. The closer they drew to my companion the more they protested. Their flanks rippled. They stamped their hooves. They began to arc their massive heads so violently I feared they might jerk free from the poor boy. Des Esseintes gripped the reins and began to close the slack. The Hackneys flared their nostrils as they pulled their heads sideways and stared with wide and empty terror at the tall gentleman. I do not know exactly what he did next. With a single deft movement he brought his hand down alongside one of the horses’ necks. It gentled. He repeated the process with the other.

“Horses have such easily disturbed spirits,” he sniffed.

He led me to the coach, a spacious black hansom. “Do you notice anything different?”

I looked at the cab. I did not notice anything different.