An Unattractive Vampire (24 page)

You see, The Doctor Lord Talby had two secrets.

One was that he actually hated beautiful people. He chose not to think of the reason, though if you were able to see his thoughts, every so often you would glimpse it in flashes: a beautiful woman, an empty altar, and his more handsome and sexually voracious brother. Make of it what you will, but the result was that he jealously despised those who were naturally very attractive.

His second secret was that most of the surgeries he performed on his would-be vampires were completely unnecessary. He just enjoyed causing pain.

Baghdad was dangerous. Everyone said so: Catherine, Simon, the travel advisory they’d received upon booking their plane tickets. Everyone. It seemed there had been a war,
⁵¹
and while order had been restored, violence still flared up periodically, making the city dangerous. Of course, the people of Baghdad weren’t aware that beneath their ancient city, an even greater danger slept: one that made the brutal Mongol invasion look like a game of touch football.
⁵²

Deep within the earth, Yulric journeyed through an old, unknown tunnel filled with remnants of Baghdad’s past. The walls were lined with a thousand years of history—artifacts, buildings, skeletal remains—that had been buried, burned, and built over. It was hours before the vampire passed into a properly ancient era, and it was several more before he came to the great stone wall with a hole in its center. Yulric climbed through, aware as he did so that the wall had been broken out of, not into.

Within the cavern on the other side lay a large, ancient city. Stone and mud structures rose out of the sand—some intact, others in ruins—but all showing the unmistakable ravages of age. Streets littered with the detritus of everyday lives led to dunes so high, they nearly touched the stone overhead. Farther in, the damage became less random and indistinct. Signs of fire could be seen, accompanied by the occasional arrow. Pieces of pottery lay broken across the floors of ransacked buildings. The gates to food stores hung awkwardly off their hinges, open to the world they’d unsuccessfully tried to keep out.

And scribbled everywhere were messages from the long dead. Warnings pocked the walls, some informing desperate neighbors to keep away, others to prevent future travelers like himself from venturing farther. Pleas marked those inches that warnings did not scar. The people in their final days, begging their gods for food, for rain, for deliverance. Then every so often, though more frequently as you approached the center of the city, carved onto the doors was the same message over and over again. Part curse, part denouncement, what it actually said was eloquent and terrible, but what it amounted to was quite simple:
I ate my neighbor.
It never failed to make Yulric smile.

After this entertaining walk down memory lane, Yulric reached the empty space of the center square. In front of him stood a ziggurat in all its glory. Before a woman considered naming her baby Jesus, priests had worshipped and sacrificed here. Before one god decided to free his people from Egypt, many gods watched their followers from its summit. Yulric ascended hundreds of stone steps to reach the shrine at the top of this half pyramid.

The entrance to this former sanctuary was darker than the impenetrable blackness of the underground cavern. It was so dark, in fact, that neither Yulric’s mortal nor his immortal eye could make out what lay beyond. As it wouldn’t do for him to be tripping over his own two feet, he picked up a femur from a nearby pile of sacrifice victims and, using a “borrowed” T-shirt from Amanda’s wardrobe, set it ablaze.
⁵³
He had no intention of ever telling her what had happened to it.

Holding his light aloft, he took a moment to peer into its dancing flames. This was right. This was proper. Journeying into the depths of a cursed and ancient temple mired in darkness, led only by a torch made from a human leg. And the boy had tried to convince him to take a flashlight.

The vampire passed through the shrine’s archway and again found himself walking down a sloping passageway. As he went, his torchlight revealed the story of Akkad etched into the stones of the corridor. The walls spoke of the city’s founding, both the story where the gods built a kingdom in the desert for the greatest race of man, as well as the lesser-known tale of a beleaguered architect trying desperately to convince a group of herders that settlements were the wave of the future. It told of the oppressive rule of foreign kings, the coming of the great king Sargon, and his later rebirth in the form of his grandson Naram-Sin, who defeated the Hittite kings, the rebellious Magan, and the Lullibi leader Bruhd-wai.

Farther down, the images became darker and more varied, sometimes whispering, other times screaming the tale of the city’s fall. The pictograms spoke of the god king’s great sin: defiling the temple of Nippur. Abandoned by the gods, a great curse fell upon Akkad, devouring all life. More erratic carvings told of cannibals, of fire, of angry sands swallowing the city whole, and of a nameless thing that came out of the darkness. The scrawls petered out with final warnings for anyone who came after to flee for their lives. Yulric chuckled at the desperate concern for his soul’s well-being from thousands of years ago.

At the very heart of the ziggurat was a large chamber where the high priests and priestesses had conducted the most secret rituals of the gods. It had high vaulted ceilings rising to the top of the ziggurat itself and was decorated like a bizarre and oddly fish-themed version of the Sistine Chapel.
⁵⁴
In the center rose a high altar, nearly a ziggurat in its own right, fifty steps led up to its peak. And, everywhere, there were the discarded bones of sacrifices, both animal and man.

This was Yulric’s destination; however, when he arrived at its entrance he found said chamber sealed. Across the opening to the great central chamber lay a huge circular stone. Emblazoned on it was a hideous human-headed spider, whose belly had become home to quite the collection of graffiti over the years.

Nearly every culture that had ever inhabited or invaded either this ancient city or the modern one above was represented. Though the highest were in languages unknown even to Yulric, the lower he read, the clearer the messages became. The last three warnings were obviously the most recent: in Arabic, May Allah protect against that which is inside and damn any who open it; in English, For the preservation of the Empire, sealed 1910 under orders of his Majesty by his humble servant Sir Henry Calibrey. May God preserve us; and in American, No seriously. Don’t fucking open.

All that was of no concern to Yulric. What vexed him was the combination of cross and crescent moon that the previous Christians and Muslims had etched onto the surface. Even from across this antechamber, the vampire’s newly formed skin blistered within the presence of the dual holy symbols. He had little hope of getting any closer. Fortunately, he did not have to.

From within his robes, he pulled a small stick explosive the boy had made for him.
⁵⁵
Using his torch, he lit the fuse and rolled it gently to the foot of the seal. He took a few steps back into the passage to avoid any cross-laden debris. A moment later, there was an explosion that rocked the entire temple. Dust and small stones fell around him, but overall, the structure held.

The same could not be said of the room he had just left, however. The ceiling and far wall had partially collapsed, leaving piles of heavy stone rubble. Yulric did not mind. The seal, while not destroyed, had been damaged by the blast. The image of the spider woman now consisted of her head above the nose and a few lines, which might be legs, on the edges. The rest, including the symbols of Christ and Allah, had been entirely excised by the fire stick. An impassable cave-in was barely a hindrance.

The sound of tiny spider legs clattering against stone echoed into the empty temple chamber as tiny white arachnids flooded out of cracks in the debris. After a moment, they swarmed together into a mound, which slowly rose and became Yulric once more.

“I see you learned your lessons well, young Yulric?” The voice echoed out of the darkness, speaking a language that had died with the arrival of the Common Era. Yulric moved toward the high altar; ancient bones cracked and splintered beneath his feet with each step. Huge webs lined the room; the most significant of them ran from the central platform. Suspended within them were dozens of mummified remains, cocooned in gossamer wrappings, their final, terrible expressions perfectly preserved.

Yulric knelt before the altar and in very basic Akkadian replied, “I have freed you from your imprisonment, my lady.”

One of the desiccated corpses in the web unfurled itself. It silently skittered down the web until it hung just above the English vampire, peering at him with empty eye sockets. “I did not expect you back so soon, my pupil.”

“It has been over seven hundred years.”

“Has it? How time flies.” Her voice rasped with centuries of disuse. “And why have you sought me out this time? More forbidden knowledge?”

Yulric remained bowed. “I seek your aid against an enemy.”

“You wish me to follow you, you mean?” Arru chuckled mirthlessly. “And why,
young
Yulric, would I do that?”

From within his robes, Yulric removed the portable DVD player he had brought. “Let me tell you of the modern vampyr . . .”

Amanda managed to get out of her room fairly easily. Thanks to her brother’s many attempts to hide weapons from her, she knew how to pick a lock. Once through the door, she found she had not warranted a guard. She tiptoed down the hall as quietly as she could, hoping that whatever vampires might be nearby weren’t paying attention.

The corridor turned and then came to a junction. The passageway to her left ended in a railed balcony overlooking what she assumed, based on the spacious floor plan and the gurgling of a fountain, was the lobby of the building she was in. She could clearly see the aperture for a set of stairs, stairs she could use to escape if not for the fact she would be in plain sight of anyone entering or leaving. Straight ahead was an endless maze of doors and offices. Somewhere in that mess would be the discreet stairwell required by law in case of an emergency. However, each step farther into the belly of the beast increased the likelihood of being spotted by someone. Finally, to her right was an elevator, an enclosed space from which she could not escape and which held a fifty-fifty chance of discovery every time the doors opened.

The sound of voices from the lobby pushed her toward the elevator. She hit the button and listened hard. She could not quite make out what was being said, but the chatter was definitely getting closer. She pointlessly hit the button two or three more times. The doors dinged and slid apart. Amanda flattened herself against the wall, but much to her relief, it was empty. She hurried inside and hit the first-level button. Just as the doors shut, she thought she saw a pair of heads cresting the stairs.

The car began to move. Amanda looked around the box for somewhere to hide. Impulsively, she climbed onto the railing that stretched waist high around the walls and tried to push up a ceiling panel so she could conceal herself on the roof of the elevator.

This is how Nora found her on the first floor.

“Um, hi?” uttered the bemused vampire.

“Hi,” Amanda answered. She did not move from her uncomfortably precarious position. Nora likewise stood motionless, only holding out a hand to stop the doors when they began to close.

“I don’t suppose I can convince you to forget what you’re seeing and let me go,” Amanda wondered.

“Probably not,” Nora replied.

Amanda sighed. “I didn’t think so.” She hopped down. “Take me back.”

Nora escorted Amanda to her room. After that, a vampire was always on guard outside in the hallway.

That was her first escape attempt.

“Why exactly are we here?” Catherine asked as she trudged along a forested riverbank in the middle of the night. She was entirely too well dressed to be trudging anywhere. The khaki capris she was wearing were no longer khaki, and her silk blouse from Nanning had ripped in three places. Her foot slipped off a wet rock, and a nearby branch snagged her sleeve, making it four.

“We have need of you,” Yulric answered from up ahead. He did not notice the mud and muck that clung to his ragged robes. Neither did the leathery, eyeless hag who followed in his wake, though she had no clothes to ruin. Not even Simon complained during this jungle trek. In fact, he seemed unnervingly well prepared as he lit their way with a flashlight and hacked away foliage with a hatchet. Catherine wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the small ax from but found herself too busy cursing the increasing squish between her toes to care.

“If this cave isn’t our destination, we’re turning back,” Catherine called out.

Simon turned back to her, puzzled. “What cave?”

“This cave,” Yulric answered. Twenty feet ahead of the mortals, he pulled aside a tangle of vines, revealing a partially submerged cave on the far side of the river bend. Catherine pushed forward, passing Simon, who watched her with concern.

“You want us to go in there?” Catherine asked incredulously.

“We cannot,” hissed Arru. She pointed to the rock wall above the opening.

Catherine squinted, and though her left eye teared up quite a bit, she could just make out the worn etchings in the stone. “The yin-yang?”

“Bagua,” Simon corrected. He was examining them through a pair of binoculars. When had he had time to pick those up, or had he been carrying them with him this whole time? He turned to Yulric. “You have been here before?”

“Yes,” Yulric nodded.

“How did you get in back then?” asked the boy, taking off his shoes and socks.

Yulric pointed toward the opening. “The way was not barred when last I was here.”

Simon snorted as he picked up a stick off the ground and stuck it in the water, feeling for the ground. It did not hit resistance. “We swim,” he told Catherine as he set down his flashlight, its beam directed at the cave.