THIRTEEN
Asher
had always loved Prague. He’d visited it in the early eighties as a
student, fascinated by the ancient walls and cobblestone streets of
the Bohemian capital, and had felt himself drawn to the profound
sense of mysteries that clung to its crumbling university. Though
rational by nature, he had returned again and again in his studies
to the sense that the city was a threshold – praha, in Slavic – to those strange pre-Christian
beliefs that even then were his deepest joy. From Prague he had
trekked to the nearby mountains a dozen times, to study curious
verb-forms – in Slovak, Czech, Serbian and dialects even more
obscure – and even more curious beliefs, in out-of-the-way valleys
and villages where the Slovak had lived cheek-by-jowl with the Turk
for half a millennium.
If any town in Europe
would have vampires, he knew it would be Prague.
Ysidro had taken a
house in the Old Town that had the look of having originally been a
gatehouse to some larger structure. There was a crypt down below,
lightless as the pit of Hell, where Asher paid his porters to
deposit the trunks and luggage. The journey from Germany into
Bohemia had taken only hours, and he had not seen his traveling
companion for a day and a half. Only the presence of the train
tickets, and the Prague addresses jotted on a slip of notepaper in
the Berlin apartment, had informed him that their quarry was not in
the German capital, and that they were moving on.
His own temporary
residence, on the other side of the river in the Lesser Town, had
some extremely Elizabethan inequalities of floor level between
parlor and bedchamber, and a lack of both heating and plumbing that
reminded Asher strongly of his student days. As he walked back
across the great bridge in the chilly spring twilight from an
afternoon spent in the paneled book-room of Ysidro’s rented nest,
he considered turning his steps towards what had been the Ghetto
and calling on one of his old mentors. Only the remote possibility
that some connection might be established between himself and
Ysidro by the local master kept him away.
Yet he sat for a long
time in the window of his pension,
watching the dark street, the starry blackness above the town’s
steeples, after the city’s lights winked out.
James,For three years past, the Master of Berlin has sensed the coming of an outsider to that city, six or eight times in a year: subtle, clever, and unseen. Because this outsider does not hunt, he has not seen him, or her. Yet he is aware of the presence, and aware when that presence departs, after a stay of two nights or three.I still seek the Master of Prague.There is a strangeness in this city. For your life, do not be on the streets when darkness falls.
‘Are there vampires
in Prague?’
‘James.’ Old Dr
Solomon Karlebach ducked his head a little – a habit Asher
remembered from his student days – and peered at his former student
from between spectacle rims and those astonishing eyebrows. These
days the expression of his mouth was more than ever concealed by
the flowing Assyrian beard. ‘And you a man of science.’ The old man
– and he’d been old, Asher reflected, when he’d first met him
twenty years ago – hadn’t seemed in the slightest surprised to see
him, when one of the great-grandchildren of the household had
brought him down to the parlor to greet his guest. Even the fact
that his former student was now three-fourths bald and embellished
with black American side-whiskers and a pince-nez didn’t seem to
faze the scholar, who had not the least trouble seeing through the
disguise.
‘True science lies in
keeping an open mind.’ Asher obeyed the old man’s gesture and
seated himself on one of the faded chairs with which the parlor was
so superabundantly provided. With the curtains drawn to muffle the
noise from the narrow street, every object in the room seemed to be
the same indeterminate shadow-color, even as he remembered them.
White-lace antimacassars still blotched the gloom like mammoth
bird-droppings. Half a dozen lampshades, each trimmed with
glass-bead fringes, provided a queer glittering quality to the
darkness, galaxies of nearly-invisible stars. ‘At least so you were
always telling me. I have recently wondered if there were some
reason behind your certainty.’
‘Ah.’ The old Jew
settled back in his velvet chair (red? purple? brown?) and stroked
his beard. His advancing age showed itself most in his hands, which
Asher was distressed to see were so twisted with arthritis that the
growing yellow claws on the last two fingers of each had left scars
on the flesh of the palms. ‘And something has happened recently,
which has caused you to wonder?’ His dark eyes went to the window,
as if to satisfy himself at the thin slit of light still visible
between the panes of the shadow-color brocade.
‘Are there vampires
in Prague?’
‘The world is full of
vampires, Jamie.’ Karlebach turned and smiled at the grandson (or
great-grandson) who brought in a silver tray with tea on it, served
in the Eastern fashion, in ornamental glasses fitted into silver
holders, with a little dish of sugar chunks to suck it through.
When the boy left: ‘Not all are Undead.’
‘I know that.’ Asher
thought about his Chief at the Department, thanking him for saving
the South African assignment by killing a sixteen-year-old boy who
had been a friend to him, then passing without pause for breath to
the next mission he wanted him to undertake.
‘L’chaim.’ Dr Karlebach saluted with his tea glass.
‘And I think – from the scars on your neck and the silver chain I
see under your right shirt-cuff – that you know yourself about the
ones who are. So tell me what you really want to know, Jamie. About
the vampires? Or the Others?’
Asher sipped his tea.
‘Others?’ He had already seen, when his
host had lifted his glass, that Dr Karlebach wore silver chains
around his wrists – and probably his throat – as well.
Karlebach’s beard
shifted a little with his smile. ‘Tell me why you
ask.’
‘I
can’t.’
‘Ah.’ For a time the
old man studied his face with sudden sadness in those sharp dark
eyes. ‘So you have become their servant, Jamie? Don’t trust them,
my boy. Whatever they have told you—’
‘I
don’t.’
But he did, in a way.
Even though he was aware that Ysidro had tricked him, as vampires
do, into participating in his search for the Lady
Irene . . . his concern about the Kaiser, bombs, and
poison gas being minimal at best.
And he could see that
Karlebach read his trust.
The old man sighed, a
tiny breath stirring the extravagant white mustaches. As he had
sighed, Asher recalled, when he had told his mentor that he was
going to work for the Department. ‘Very well.’ The deep, rusty
voice rumbled over the clipped vowels and sing-song consonants of
the Austrian German that the Kaiser and his followers in Berlin
would barely have recognized. ‘I don’t know who – or even what –
the Others are, but I think the vampires fear them. Certainly more
than they do any of the living. I have never heard mention of them
anywhere else; only in Prague. I’ve seen them – the few times I
have seen them – near the bridges, and
on the islands of the river. They’re hard to spot. If you don’t go
looking for them, you are generally safe.’
‘Are they a kind of
vampire?’
‘They kill.’ The old
man sketched a small gesture with those yellow-nailed hands. ‘I
think not so frequently as the vampires do, but also not so
carefully. Sometimes two and three men in a month, then nothing for
years. Sometimes they will kill a vampire: open its crypt, and
summon rats – with whom they have a . . . a
kinship – by the thousands, to devour
it while it sleeps.’
Asher was silent,
appalled. Was this what Ysidro had meant by his warning? Or – given
the deadly squabbles within the vampire community itself – was
there a factional war in Prague too, complicated by the presence of
beings that neither side could control?
I still seek the Master of Prague.
There is a strangeness in this city.
‘Jamie.’
He was aware how long
he’d been silent, wrapped in the shadows of his thought. Old
Karlebach was still watching his face, reading him as he’d always
been able to read him.
‘Don’t bargain with
them, Jamie,’ said the old man again. ‘Don’t help them, don’t
believe them, don’t let them live one moment beyond what it takes
to destroy them safely. No matter what they tell you, about why it
is so necessary that you help them do whatever it is they’re asking
you to help them do. They are lying.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
Asher tried to speak lightly, but the recollection of how Ysidro
had manipulated his dreams stung him still. He found himself, too,
extremely conscious that the stripe of light between the curtains
had gone from gold to pallid gray and would soon be
gone.
‘I have studied
them.’ His teacher sighed again and shook his head. ‘Seventy years
I have watched them, not believing at first, then believing – and
fearing. I have read each book, each manuscript, each monastic
record and fragment and gloss the length and breadth of Europe, and
I know, as well as any living man knows, who they are and what they
do. And how they do it.’ His eyes were on Asher, as if he knew all
about his dreams of coming war.
‘Have you met them?’
But he already knew the answer to that. Beneath that flowing ocean
of beard, did his teacher bear scars of his own? ‘Do they know of
your . . . researches?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Karlebach
folded his misshapen hands.
‘And in your
researches,’ said Asher, ‘have you ever heard of vampires coming
into being without the infection from another
vampire?’
The old man frowned,
startled and disconcerted by the idea. ‘Never.’ He shook his head,
white hair glinting under the black velvet of his cap. ‘Such a
creation would never survive the dawnlight, without a master to
instruct it . . .’ His dark eyes narrowed. ‘Is that
what you seek?’
‘It’s one of the
things we’re seeking.’
‘We.’ Karlebach pronounced the word as if it were
wormwood on his tongue. ‘I wish you could hear how you just said
that. They’re seducers, Jamie. When they need the living – and they
often do – they whisper in your dreams, and you find yourself going
where you dreamed of going, and doing what you did in your
dream—’
As poor Margaret Potton
did . . .
And myself.
‘Do you think the
only kind of seduction is the sort that warms the loins? That is
the simplest – the most basic . . . Else why did
Dante place the Circle of the Lustful at the top of Hell, just
within its gates? Everyone stumbles into that circle sooner or
later. It’s big. But, as well, they seduce through the intellect,
which thinks it can best judge the
circumstances of whatever the particular instance is that the
vampire presents. They cause you to think that you’re doing your
duty – to country, to love, to a friend, even to God – when in fact
you are only doing exactly what the vampire wants you to do. Am I
right?’
For a long while
Asher did not reply, thinking of the ribbon of blood flowing down
the streets of Mafeking in his dream. Of the slim shadow of Ysidro
by lantern light, on the other side of a lake of blood. Of the
pearl ring Ysidro had given to the woman he had loved. Then he
said, ‘You are right.’
‘It is all seduction. For all their strength they are
fragile creatures, brittle as handfuls of poisoned glass. You
have become the servant to one of them,
haven’t you? His day man – like the shabbas goy my granddaughter
employs to light the fires in the stoves here on the Seventh Day,
so that her husband will remain holy and yet have warm feet.’ The
luxuriant mustache moved again in a wry smile.
Asher sat silent,
knowing that what his teacher said was right. A whisper out of
shadow: James, we must
speak . . .
He knew what the old
man was about to say.
‘They kill those who
serve them.’
‘I know
that.’
‘And those to whom
they speak.’
‘Which is why –’
Asher glanced at the window, aware that the room was now almost
dark – ‘I should go.’
‘Not for my sake.’ Dr
Karlebach waved dismissively. ‘They know all about
me . . . But, yes, for your own. Where do you
stay?’
‘Across the river. In
the Leteriská . . .’
‘Be careful when you
cross the bridge. It’s early enough . . . You’re not
going to kill him, are you? Your vampire.’
‘Not now,’ said
Asher. ‘No.’
‘Because he’s made
you think you can’t.’
The old man shook his
head, got to his feet, and, when Asher did so, too, gripped his arm
briefly, as a man will touch a friend whom he knows to be making a
tragic mistake. Then he crossed to a cabinet – a towering marvel of
black carving and hidden drawers looming in the shadows – and
unlocked one of its compartments, bringing out a small tin of what
looked like American snuff and a leather band studded with tiny
silver disks. He took Asher’s hand – even stooped with age he was
nearly Asher’s height, still bulky and strong – and slapped the tin
into his palm. ‘I misspoke myself when I said that the first circle
of Hell is Lust, Jamie. Wider still is the outermost circle, the
most deadly, the circle of indifference. That state when you are
not thinking of anything in particular . . . perhaps
you are a little sleepy – I can see that you are short of sleep,
traveling with this creature – and off your guard. This will keep
you alert. Rub it on your gums, like the Americans so disgustingly
do. But only a very little. Vehrstehe?’
Asher opened the tin
and sniffed: the smell was sharply unpleasant and nothing like
tobacco. The tin had once actually contained American snuff:
Leidersdorf’s Nic Nac Fine Cut Chewing,
it said.
‘And put this on.’
Karlebach unbuckled the band. Near where it fastened, Asher saw
there was a small turn-screw that operated a tiny pair of hidden
jaws – like a miniature instrument of torture on the inside of the
leather. When twisted, the jaws would extend and bite into the
flesh of the wrist. ‘If you need more than my little powder to keep
yourself awake. Pain will usually serve against the vampire, though
not always. The best remedy against the vampire is distance – the
more of it, the better.’
Silently, Asher held
out his wrist and helped the crooked fingers affix the buckle
tight.
‘Thank you. More than
I can say. If there is anything I can do to repay—’
‘There is.’ Karlebach
put both hands on Asher’s shoulders, looked hard into his face.
‘Don’t let this thing live. Kill it. Else you take his sins upon
yourself. Every kill he makes henceforth will be upon your head as
well as his. God has put this opportunity into your hand, James.
Tomorrow morning if you can—’
‘I
can’t.’
‘So it would have you
think. So he would have you think – for
they are as human as we are, and as
mortal . . .’
The dark eyes held
his for a long moment more, under polar-bear brows. Distantly, the
clock in the bell house was striking nine. ‘Go with God, my old
friend. Because you’re going to need His help. And Him, too, you
should think perhaps to repay.’
As Asher passed
beneath the gothic tower that guarded the Old City end of the
bridge he thought he saw movement beyond its shadow, but when he
reached the spot, beside the stone railing past the first of its
aisle of statues, there was nothing there. He leaned over the
lichened rail, saw dark water gleam below him in the gaslight. A
thug, a pickpocket, lurking out of sight now that the day’s traffic
of omnibuses and peddlers’ carts was gone?
Or something
else?
A kinship with rats, Karlebach had said.
I have never heard mention of them anywhere
else; only in Prague.
They kill. Sometimes they will kill a
vampire . . .
. . . summon rats by
the thousands . . .
A species of vampire? Asher drew back from the
rail, continued across the bridge. Found himself holding to the
center of the way as much as he could.
A variant form of the
bacillus by which, Lydia had theorized, human flesh was altered,
one cell at a time, into cells that did not decay with age, but
combusted with the touch of the sun’s light?
He thought about the
envelope in his luggage, containing snippets of the Lady Irene’s
bedroom carpet, stiff with dried vampire blood. Marya’s and Ippo’s . . . He could
still see their faces, distorted with hatred, for him and for their
master. For years, Lydia had spoken of getting her hands on vampire
blood to study, though not – Asher was acutely aware – since the
death of Margaret Potton in Constantinople. He wondered now if she
would welcome the sample. One would have to
handle it very carefully, of course, lest there be an accident and
you infect yourself, she had
said . . .
And then what? If your body was infected with the
tainted blood – if indeed it was a bacillus – but you had no master
vampire to gather your mind and soul into his own, to preserve it
during the death of the body . . . would you simply
die? Was that what had happened to those poor children in
Petersburg?
Or had it been
something else?
He was acutely
grateful for the dim lights of the Lesser Town’s cafés, for the
presence of street vendors, students, flower sellers and knife
grinders who set up shop in the angles of those cobblestoned ways,
as he climbed the stairs of his pension
and locked himself in.
He left the lamp
burning beside the bed as he slept.