Kristian/the creature/the Viking man-boy took him in an alleyway in the darkest, stinking depths of Restoration London’s East side, and enjoyed the transformation immensely when he stalked back through the streets to a horse and polished black carriage which he knew, from the transference of the man’s thoughts, was waiting for him. Now he was a tall, elegantly dressed gentleman by the name of Count Jeno Varga, of Hungarian aristocracy, in a time when London was still young and the majority of the buildings were still of wood, before the great fire that would wipe out hundreds of the city’s inhabitants and cramped buildings.
After a long journey around the city’s outer edges, he ordered the driver to stop and satisfied his renewed hunger by taking a buxom whore from the streets who smelled a little bad but had a beautifully slender white neck that was slightly powdered. He couldn’t resist her, and when they walked and walked and finally reached the town house in a more appealing part of the city that came as a perk of his new position, he bit into her neck and began to suck hard. But when that wasn’t enough to slake this new body, when all he wanted was more blood, blood, blood, he ripped the flesh of her throat open with sharp, neat nails and bathed his face in the fountain that gushed forth. By the time he was finished she felt like a cold sack of jelly in his hands, and he let her drop to the intricately woven rug of the parlour in disgust. Before Dawn’s first light he had slaked yet more of his thirst on the driver of his carriage. But he didn’t kill the man, whose name was Arthur and who had worked for the Count for seven years. He needed a new accomplice in this city that was so alive with thousands of unknown and forgettable people, so he finished off the driver’s human life by forcing his own blood down the terrified man’s throat and thereby changing him into a creature of the night, a companion in the never ending darkness. Afterwards they took the whore down to the mucky edges of the Thames and rolled her into the stinking water. She disappeared beneath the filth in a flurry of bubbles.
In the morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise in the distant East, they shared a delivery boy after promising him a silver coin. Keeping the curtains drawn all day long, they took whoever came to call; the young boy with his bundle of newspapers tucked under one arm; a middle aged woman looking for housekeeping work who had screamed bloody murder and nearly torn the curtains from the rail as they wrenched her head messily from her body; two dear friends of Count Jeno Varga who came to call, as arranged, apparently. They frowned as they heard the strange inflection in their friends voice and saw the silver fire burning in his eyes. He and his driver took one each and drained them dryer than an Arabian desert and they slipped to the floor afterwards like two puppets whose strings had been cut.
By the end of the day, the house was crimson. There wasn’t a patch of carpet or lusciously varnished floor that could be seen through all the blood. There was not a wall clear of the sprays of their excesses. There wasn’t a room that didn’t reek of blood and death and human waste.
So, after they had bathed and the water turned pink with the blood from their skin and Jeno had dressed in the finest garments he could find in the wardrobe; a black evening coat with a fox fur trim, waistcoat, silk shirt, trousers so stiff he could barely walk in them, they left the life of the Count and his driver behind in the growing squalor of London. The spirit that now shared body space with Jeno didn’t need his fortune; in his various guises throughout millennia, he had collected and hoarded plenty of riches and even more money was hidden away in various Jewish banks throughout the civilised world. But he wanted to study this land, this country that was so unlike the majority of Europe, this island nation of explorers and empire builders of people so different they might as well be of different colours. He roamed the length and breadth of it, from the valleys and sleepy, superstitious villages of Wales, to the farming hamlets and booming industrial towns of England, and finally the rocky coastline of Scotland, which he fell passionately in love with.
But it was a love affair that was almost the end of him.
***
Some three hundred years later he took two rooms in a small hotel in the peaceful coastal village of Cruden Bay, up in the north arm of Scotland, a place where violent, cold winds whipped off the North Sea and rattled any loose gables so that at night, in the winter, it sounded like the village was speaking to itself in raised, often violent conversation. And perhaps it was. Kristian, inside this creature’s head, or the creature inside his head, recognised the streets of the village but only as they would have looked in Victorian times, much like the nightmare he had been having where his own street had suddenly transported him back to a time of cobbled roads and gaslight lamps.
Another man was staying at the hotel, a very distinguished Irishman who seemed to take an interest in everyone’s business but his own.
The man introduced himself as one Abraham Stoker, a novelist originally from Dublin in Ireland but who now resided in London with his wife and son. Stoker had also fallen in love with this stretch of Scotland, and in particular, the ruins of Slains Castle perched precariously out on the cliffs edge about a mile away.
They met in the lounge each evening. Count Jeno Varga had, by this time, worked out a very intricate lie about his allergy to sunlight hence his reasons for sleeping during the day, so intricate that few rarely asked more about his condition lest he bore them with medical terminology verbatim. But Stoker was very interested in the condition; an allergy so powerful that even the soft rays of sunlight filtered through a paper blind could burn the skin and singe the hairs on Jeno’s arms.
“And what is it, exactly, that reacts to your skin, Dear Count?” Stoker asked in his customarily roguish Irish accent one night while the Count watched and Stoker tucked away two large glasses of brandy. “Is it the heat?”
“It is something called ultraviolet radiation,” the Count replied, hiding his annoyance well at the bearded little man’s intrusive questions. Always with the questions. A typical novelist.
“And this radiation, what is it? Is it something we can see?”
“Not at all,” he said, smiling a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “There is a spectrum of radiation within sunlight that hurts no one, so far as we know. I just happen to be allergic to one of those spectrums. Scientifically, I have no idea why some cells react to the light at all, and neither do the physicians. The experts have told me it is something to do with the same process that make the plants grow and adds colour to our world, but why it reacts so violently to my good self, I have not the slightest idea. All I need to know is that I must stay out of sunlight, even filtered sunlight, and that the night has become my day. But I don’t mind. I much prefer the quiet hours when all and everyone sleeps. The owl is my sparrow, the bats my dawn chorus. The Lighthouses provide my light. The lonely ships are my traffic. I can be as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean, or as vigorous as a workhouse boy. There is no one to witness how I conduct my life. And I am not in the least saddened by that. The world is fast becoming an ugly place.”
Stoker scratched his beard and lit up a pipe he had prepared earlier. Jeno smiled again to disguise his discomfort. He detested the stench of tobacco smoke.
“I hope you don’t mind, Dear Sir, if I write that last line down. I may even use it one day in my work.”
Stoker plucked a notebook from his inside jacket pocket and licked the end of a small, stubby pencil. He scribbled fervently, without waiting for Jeno’s answer to the question. Before the Count could give such permission, the notebook was deposited back inside Stoker’s coat pocket along with the pencil. Stoker then resumed puffing on his pipe.
“To think, I may one day be associated with a famous novel,” Jeno said. The sneering smile never left his lips.
“Indeed, Kind Sir,” Stoker replied. “I shall assuredly give thanks to you in my notes should I ever use that line.”
“That would be most kind.”
They spent another half an hour together, discussing the magic of scientific discovery, of how quickly the world was moving on, leaving old fogies like them behind as steam engines, electricity, and the wonder of the telephone strove to shrink the world to the size of a city neighbourhood. Afterwards, Jeno made his excuses and left for his evening walk. A walk that was, in fact, a hunt for any person stupid and unlucky enough to be out after dark. Even in places such as Cruden Bay, where the population was small and everyone knew each others business, pickings were often very bountiful as people, mainly young men, travelled from place to place seeking farm work or odd jobs, anything to keep them out of the poor houses. They were Count Jeno Varga’s meat. They were his sustenance.
He took a young man outside the village boundaries, a vagrant who smelled faintly of rotten turnips and old sackcloth. He was nothing more than a boy, and in a rare bout of pity, Jeno held the boys head to his chest as he waited for the slowing heartbeat to stop. Some people, even some of his victims, didn’t deserve to die in a brutal and violent struggle. Sometimes it was just enough to let death slip in slyly and steal away the life.
After his walk, he stood beneath a gas lamp next to small patch of green park and watched the heavens, aware that he, in turn, was being watched. The light had yet to be snuffed out and it cast a halo around him as he waited to see if the secretive watcher would step out of the darkness and introduce himself. When no one came forward, he turned his gaze to the houses and archways leading into courtyards around him. In one, there loomed a shadow, tall and still, and even though Jeno could see none of the character’s features, he knew by instinct that it was Stoker, the novelist. He was watching him, and for how long he had been doing so he didn’t know. He could have been following him all night. He could have seen him dispatch the young boy and would now know his secret. If he did, Jeno would need to kill him.
He stepped from the smooth surface of the path which snaked around the park and onto the cobbles of the road. His heels clicked loudly, alerting Stoker to the fact that he had been discovered, and as if in answer, feigning the act of someone who had only just noticed the Count was there, he stepped from the darkness, revealing himself. He wore a top hat and cape, in the same style as the count. They could have been brother’s standing there in the crisp gloom of late evening.
“I’m sorry, Count. I didn’t see you there.”
“And why were you lurking in the shadows like some half formed monster, Mr Stoker.”
They were now facing each other, mere inches from toe to toe.
Stoker laughed and in the light of the gas lamps, pretended to blush. “I’m afraid I was caught unawares, Sir. Too much lubrication.”
“A sorry excuse, indeed,” Jeno said with a chuckle. “Will you walk back to the hotel with me? Have a nightcap?”
Stoker didn’t say anything at first, seemed to study the count with measured attention. Then he spoke softly.
“That would be nice. I have yet to see a morsel of food or a sip of wine pass your lips.”
The Count smiled. “I dine early.”
They walked down the middle of the road, heels clicking on the cobbles. The atmosphere between them was electric. It was an atmosphere charged with fear and suspicion.
They exchanged a few nods and small bursts of conversation over the next few days. Stoker seemed in no hurry to be on his way back to London, even though he claimed to have enough research material for his new novel. It was to be a suspenseful tale based on superstitions, was all the information he would give when prodded on the topic of his next work.
The last time they were to meet before Stoker left the hotel in fear for his life, and Jeno left to hide out in warmer climes, was on a starry skied evening out on the cliffs, a mile from the village. Jeno had taken a young female farm labourer walking over the grain fields, promising much silver for a mere hour of her time. He had only just raised his head to wipe the blood from his lips and chin, in the darkly black innards of the roofless Slains Castle, when he heard the crunch of footsteps out on the frosted grass.
Like an animal, he hissed to send out a warning, lest he was mistaken and it was nothing but a dog or deer prowling about. When a familiar voice called out and asked if anyone was there, his eyes burned bright and silver in the darkness and he shoved the body of the woman down into a hole he had already dug. She would share her final resting place, beneath the stone walls of a castle slowly crumbling into the sea, with four other misfortunates whose eyes had been aflame at the promise of silver coins.
Cleaning himself off, he left the small enclosure that would one day, in eleven decades time, be the death room of a young girl called Alicia. He stepped out into the night, illuminated by nothing more than the stars and a gibbous moon.
“Count Varga,” the voice exclaimed. “You gave me quite a start.”
The count stepped forwards, out of the main hulk of the castle, into the grounds, perilously close to the cliffs. Abraham Stoker stood illuminated by the same light. A smoking pipe was held in one hand.
“I doubt I startled you,” the Count said, “as much as you startled me. I have a sneaking suspicion that you expected me to be here.”
“Not at all,” Stoker said as if mortally offended. “Whatever gives you such a vile impression of me?”
“The constant questions. The continual stares I get from you whenever I leave the hotel. The feeling that you’re always there, like a buzzing fly.”
“Well you’re an intriguing character. I’m always attracted to such people, being a novelist.”
“Your actions are beginning to irritate me, Sir,” the Count snarled. “Any other man would have taken you to task by now.”
Stoker puffed on his pipe for a few moments. There was no doubt he was afraid, but whatever intrigue he felt outweighed any impulse to flee over the fields towards the dim lights of the village a mile up the slopes.
“Where is the girl?” he eventually asked in a quivering voice.
“What girl?” Jeno asked.
“The girl I saw you come here with.”
Jeno stepped forwards and Stoker back stepped until he was at a comfortable distance.
“She left. She went home,” Jeno said unconvincingly.
“You lie, Sir. I watched her enter these ruins with you, and none but yourself came out. Where is she?”
Jeno sneered and stepped forwards again. This time he made a show of what he was always conscious of hiding, his canine teeth, which usually sat neatly over his bottom teeth. Now they were bared, gleaming in the moonlight, almost half an inch longer than they should be and sharp as needle points. Stoker let out a startled little cry and then grew perfectly still. The only sound now was the gentle music of the waves beneath the cliffs.
“You have been paying my life too much attention, Mr Stoker, storyteller. Tell me why I should let you live.”
Stoker said nothing, but Jeno was sure he felt the tremors of the novelist’s fear seep through the ground and vibrate up his own legs. The thought gave him pleasure. Sometimes fear fed his appetite as surely as fresh blood did.
“I’ll ask you once more, and if I don’t receive a suitable answer, Mr Stoker, I will tear your throat out where you stand.”
He ended the threat with a small snigger.
“I…I…” Stoker mumbled. “I don’t know what kind of fiend you are, Count. But I have my God to protect me.”
Jeno laughed. “Your God isn’t taking calls, Mr Stoker. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“What are you?” Stoker whispered.
“I am everything you always wanted to be. I am what humanity craves. Immortality. Now tell me. Why should I let you live, knowing what you know.”
Stoker spoke quickly. “Because no one would ever believe me if I told them. That is why you should let me live. Because I am no use to you. That is why I should live. Because I am an old man of little use to anyone. If my blood is what you seek, you’ll find it diseased and bland and tasteless.”
“I’ve had my fill of blood tonight, novelist.”
“I thought so,” he said in a barely audible whimper.
Jeno willed himself closer to Stoker and rushed over the scrubby ground before Stoker had even noticed he had moved.
“I let you live now because as I have intrigued you, so too have you intrigued me,” Jeno whispered into the novelist’s ear. “But if I ever see you again I will kill you, Mr Stoker. If I even hear your name muttered in my presence, I will track you down like a wild animal and suck every ounce of moisture from your dying, shrivelling flesh. Do you understand me? I will make it so that whomever you leave behind will spend the rest of their lives wondering what happened to you. I will make it so that your carcass will never be found. You have a son. How badly do you want him to live?”
Stoker shook so violently that Jeno thought he might die right there outside the tall walls of the castle ruins. Then he nodded his head and Jeno took that as his final answer. Finding no other reason to stay there, he rushed out over the fields of tall grasses and wheat and entered the hotel entrance as though he had been out for nothing more than a leisurely stroll. His trunks were packed up within an hour and Arthur, his trusted driver, fetched his carriage from the courtyard behind the hotel.
In the years up until Stoker’s death in nineteen-twelve, Jeno paid particular attention to Stoker’s name whenever it popped up in the press. He had written a semi-successful novel which was, in the decades to come, all he was remembered for, even though he had written other novels and stories. After his death, it was rumoured, and finally written down by one biographer, that syphilis was what eventually killed Stoker. Had the novelist known his blood was tainted, thereby warning Jeno of his ill health and the poor quality of his blood? He would never know. He never again saw the novelist, or met any of his descendants. He was an infinitesimally small character in the thousands who had crossed the paths of Jeno’s life.
And now that life was being started anew, in the young and supple flesh of a boy not yet a man but with the handsome looks to be afforded the respect of adulthood. Count Jeno Varga was no more. Kristian Anderson was the one who now wore the spirit that had survived the displacement of bodies for thousands of years. It was Kristian Anderson who would now revel in the fortune of millennia, with nothing and no one to stop him but himself.
And therein lay the folly of the body-hopping creature now infused with Kristian’s spiritual and nervous system. That folly was that some remnant of the host spirit remained, and in some, it was more powerful than it was in others. In Kristian Anderson it reigned supreme one moment and then became slave to the invading spirit the next. In the early days, Kristian became all too aware of how important his initial power would be. It was what would separate him from the rest of the sickening hordes of vampires throughout the world.
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