The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (46 page)

I burst into my bedchamber and experienced anew the darkness of the reptilian green walls, the looming presence of the seashell chair. In the second drawer of the bureau I found what I was looking for: two hundred pounds in cash I had kept there for emergencies.

I went downstairs to see Dr. von Neefe. She was peering through the curtains of the foyer. “There’s a man out there,” she said breathlessly.

“What did you expect?”

“I simply cannot believe it. It’s a nightmare.” She looked at me sharply. “You’re going somewhere.”

“I must.”

“For God’s sake, wait until daybreak.”

“I cannot.”

Cook looked back and forth at each of us worriedly. “Shall I call out the window for the constable?”

“No, I don’t want to alarm them.”

Cook burst into tears. “Is it the little one? Do they have the little one?”

“I’m going with you,” Dr. von Neefe stated flatly.

“I think it would be better if you stay here.”

“Certainly not. I’ve proven myself by now. I could be of help.”

I wanted to refuse, but the urgency I saw in her eyes persuaded me. I reluctantly consented.

We slipped back through the garden and made our way to the stables. I bridled up the horses and mounted the brougham myself. If Dr. von Neefe still believed the vampire were incapable of evil, she was doubting it now, for I had never seen her so completely bloodless. Even the fear she had displayed when we had first hidden in des Esseintes’s playroom did not match the look of dread now in her face.

“How are we going to get out of here?”

“We’re going to drive by them.”

“They will see us.”

“They will not see you. You will be hiding in the brougham.”

“What about you?”

“They have seen no one new enter the house. They will assume I am the driver out on an evening errand.”

She remained unconvinced, but she had no choice. She climbed into the brougham and stooped down so as not to be seen. Her entire manner was dragging and hesitant, as if some part of her had guessed what was to happen next. And what was to happen? Why did we both seem to realize every second was crucial? I pulled my collar up around my neck and slipped on the driver’s flannel cap resting on a nail in the stable. I opened the door. I drove the brougham out slowly so as not to arouse any undue attention. I stepped down from the seat and closed the stable door behind us.

As surreptitiously as possible I surveyed the gaslit street. There was a single black carriage parked some distance down and a lone figure leaned against it. He watched me casually. I got back up into the brougham and started up. To my dismay I heard Dr. von Neefe shifting about loudly in the back. I saw her peeking through the window, but as we drew near she slunk back down fearfully. The horses slowly clopped by the parked carriage. I did not look down at the gentleman standing beside it. Was he a vampire? Could he hear the rapid pounding of our hearts, or was he merely another human minion? He displayed no reaction as we passed slowly by. I held my breath as we continued. It had apparently rained earlier in the evening, for the streets were a quagmire of potholes and mud, and the brougham rocked gently. My heart sank when I heard the sound of carriage wheels slowly start behind us.

I dared not look back. After a prudent length of time I edged the brougham toward the curb lane. To my growing concern I heard the coach repeat the maneuver, slowly, portentously. Was he merely taking the precaution of following us, or had he recognized me? It did not matter. The game was afoot. I quickly turned a corner and cracked the horses into a trot. I continued my evasive actions and turned again. He was on to us now. I had only the slightest of leads and I had to make of it everything I could. I knew what I had to do. I cracked the horses again and we tore down the cobbles. The brougham bounced violently every time we hit one of the potholes and sent a spray of muddied water up over the sidewalks. By the time we reached the end of the street the driver was behind us again. Dr. von Neefe let out a cry as she rocked about in the back.

I stayed ahead of him, begging everything I could from the horses. When we passed Bolton Street I looked down it desperately. Was it there? I had taken a gamble. I had only caught a glimpse of the street as we had flown by. In my mind’s eye I tried to pick out the details. The streetlights. The quiet houses. The carriages. I turned around. Our pursuer was just now passing Bolton and he, too, glanced down the street. He motioned savagely with his arm and pointed in our direction.

So I had been correct!

Within seconds a second black carriage flew oat of Bolton and careened around the corner.

“In God’s name!” Dr. von Neefe shrieked as she spotted the second carriage. “We are through! There is no stopping them now!”

I ignored her words. I spun the brougham around still another corner and sent the woman crashing into the side window. We were now headed toward the river.

For one last time I whipped the horses, and their hooves sent a spray of water up over the carriage. The two black coaches were scarcely a block behind now. Abruptly, I turned into Green Park, but instead of continuing on through, I jerked the horses off the road and behind a group of trees. In a flash I jumped down and placed a hand on each of the horses’ muzzles to keep them from snorting. On the dimly lit road beyond, the two black carriages clopped briskly by.

As soon as they were out of sight I mounted the brougham again and pulled it back onto the road. I turned back in the direction from which we had come.

Dr. von Neefe pressed against the dividing window. “Have you lost your senses? What are you doing? Don’t you realize they’re going to come back looking for us?”

“They won’t be back for a while,” I said. “I was leading them toward the river, in the direction of Scotland Yard. They’ll continue there looking for us.”

“Why are you turning around?”

“Because Grelot and the falcon were waiting for us at the Gare du Nord, not the Gare de Lyon.”

“So?”

“So Monsieur des Esseintes was more concerned about keeping us from returning to London than keeping us from following Niccolo. There is something going on here they did not want us to interfere in.”

Dr. von Neefe sat back silently.

I don’t know what I had expected when we turned onto Bolton Street. It certainly wasn’t the picture of tranquillity that Dr. Cletus Hardwicke’s narrow house presented in the distance. It stood black and silent. Its finials and gingerbread windows were quaintly inviting. From the expression on my companion’s face her mind was racing. She gripped the handrest as we pulled before the somber house. Her eyes went immediately to the one troublesome aspect.

The front door was open. Silent.

“That shouldn’t be,” I said as I stepped down and rounded the side of the carriage.

“Don’t go in!” she begged, clutching forcefully at my arm. I paused and once again peered into the tomblike darkness beyond the door. She drew me closer, and gazed deeply into my eyes. There was an unusual tenderness in her voice. “What if they are in there waiting for you?”

“I don’t think they are.”

“If you are correct, if there were only those carriages, don’t you think they will be back as soon as they realize you have fooled them?”

“Yes, but we have a little time.”

An emotion not normally present in the older woman’s face suddenly flickered into existence. “Dr. Gladstone, I don’t know what I would do if I lost you. Please, for my sake, don’t go in.”

Her plea struck an odd chord within me. To my surprise it tugged at my heart a little. I looked straight into her eyes, so entreating, so uncommonly vulnerable. My feelings fought among themselves until the stronger won out. “I must,” I said as I pulled away and approached the front step.

“Hello?” I called when I reached the opening. The house was awesomely still. I stepped down upon the threshold and noticed the row of shiny new latches that had been installed upon the door. Six of them. Unbroken. Each carefully opened and no sign of tampering. The floor creaked.

“Cletus?”

Nothing
...

I crept into the hall.

Inside, a fine wash of moonlight shone through the leaded windows and revealed a hint of the tumult within. Furniture had been hacked to bits and piled up beneath the windows. Remnants of stale meat and dirty clothing lay strewn about. Life had been nervous and prowling within the house. Untold days of restlessness and fear were written in these haphazard droppings. Mirrors had been shattered as if the inhabitant could no longer bear to look in them.

And where was the inhabitant?

I continued to the dining room. With each creaking step I expected to hear some sound. A scraping. A rustling. But there was nothing. I noticed the massive oak table had been propped on its side and nailed against the door leading to the garden. Stalagmite droppings of candles trailing down its broken legs revealed still further signs of a curious vigil. At last out of the all-encompassing silence came an undisturbed voice.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

I looked up. Resting sideways and wedged awkwardly between the stair railings was Cletus’s gaunt countenance. His eyes still held a hint of their former intensity, but their soul was gone. They no longer stared at me, but through me. He remained reclining like some strange puck. Like the house there was a disturbing serenity in his gaze.

I did not have to be told what had transpired. All of the windows were barricaded. There were six shiny new latches on the door. Like Chiswick before him and the woman at 24 Rue de la Glacière, Cletus had been the victim of their game. Stratagems had been woven around him with the same insurmountable conceit as the gods of Olympus strewing illusions and chimeras in the paths of the Argonauts. But why? Why had they done it?

Then it struck me. What an imbecile I had been. What a complete and utter fool. The game was not simply one of their depraved vagaries, nor was it a test. It was a carefully conceived criminal activity. The victims were all scientists, but there was more. They—or we—were all scientists who had discovered something, something the vampire wanted. My focus had always been on little Camille, on wondering why they would want an idiot savant, but what if she were a diversion? What if they had always been after something else?

“Cletus,” I said firmly, “where is the virus?”

“Oh, yes,” he chortled dazedly, not seeming to recognize me. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

What was it Niccolo had said—
Yes, I would be most interested in seeing your work?

I was numbed. The cogs tumbled once again. They had used Camille to lure me away. Why were they still keeping her? Why didn’t they simply break into the house and steal the virus? For some reason this was out of the question. They infinitely preferred to play an elaborate charade. I presumed they had wanted me out of the picture because they saw Ursula as a more vulnerable victim, perhaps because of her enchantment with Niccolo. That meant that all the while I had been a prisoner in des Esseintes’s house, he had known about it, known the villainy that had been intended for her. Anger boiled within me as I thought of the vampire with his orchids, so genteel, so frighteningly vacant of emotion. It was the ultimate irony that Cletus had intervened and taken possession of what they so fervently sought. He had unwittingly signed his own death sentence. He had become the victim of the game.

“Cletus?” I repeated.

For a moment the mist cleared. A hint of recognition trembled in his face. “Gladstone?”

“Cletus, why do they want the virus?”

His eyes were glazed. He toyed deliriously with the banister. “The virus?” Then the disquieting self-assurance returned. “Oh, no... you can’t fool me. You think I’ll believe it’s you.”

“It is I, Cletus.”

He became uncertain. His expression revealed an inner struggle. “Gladstone?” He lifted himself up a little, gripping the banister tightly. “Gladstone, is that you?” He knitted his brow tightly as he peered down at me and attempted to make some sense of my face.

I stepped closer and he went rigid with fear. I quickly raised my hand to calm him, but he remained tense. “Cletus,” I said again, “do you know why they want the virus so desperately?”

My different phrasing of the sentence seemed to cut through the fog of his confusion. He looked at me with piercing horror. “A dirigible capable of carrying vast cargoes. A virus against which the human population would have no defense.” He suddenly shifted his gaze from me to the gloom beyond. His face was expressionless. “It would spread like any epidemic,” he said with alarming softness. “It wouldn’t necessarily effect genocide. Certain enclaves might survive. There is always the chance that it might spontaneously mutate before razing the far corners of the globe. But it would cripple and weaken as age weakens the antelope before the hyena kills.” He looked at me again and cocked his head to one side with boyish innocence. “What more perfect weapon for a species whose specialized metabolisms provided such complete immunity?”

He abruptly dropped his vision to the bottom molding of the banister, as if the crack he was toying with were of infinitely greater importance than the words he had just spoken.

“Cletus, please tell me where the virus is.”

He regarded me with childlike sadness. His eyes teared as if he were about to cry. The same inner struggle seethed within him. He was coming out of it. Somewhere deep within his weathered skull he was summoning the full force of his will to speak. A fearful recognition flickered in his eyes. “Gladstone—” His head was wrenched suddenly to one side as if possessed by a demonic force. His deformed old frame was shaking as he tightly clenched his teeth and struggled to watch me out of the corners of his eyes.

His trembling ceased abruptly. For a few uncanny moments he held the contorted position, and then slowly a smile crept across his face. “Oh, no....” he chuckled throatily. “You can’t fool me.”

“Cletus!”

He stared at me vacantly for a moment.

In a single deft movement he kicked something and there was a resonant gurgling sound as of a can emptying. A liquid began to trickle down the banisters. The smell of kerosene permeated the room. In an instant he was up and bolted through the doorway behind him.