Of course, by original birth, Renquist was technically himself an Englishman. Almost a thousand years ago, when the world had been so much more empty of men and the great forests still held sway in northern Europe, when bear and wild boar still thrived and deer crowded the thickets, he had been simply Victor of Redlands, the out-of-wedlock son of Roger, Earl of Cambray, and
Gwendoline the Saxon maid, turned loose to make his way in the world as a bastard, with only the horse, armor, and sword that were the sum payment of his father’s considered debt of paternity. Despite these distant human origins, his arrival by no means represented any kind of homecoming. Perhaps he might have felt some ties to a homeland back in those ancient days of faded unreality, when he had been so young, so stupid, so human: roaming through France, England, and the Low Countries, hiring on with any lord, duke, or baron who would keep him supplied with food, drink, women, adventure, and the opportunity of pillage. Perhaps he might have felt like an Englishman in those troubled years at the start of the hideous idiocy that would become know as the Crusades. Soon after that, though, when only in his twenties, destiny had brought him under the influence of the hypnotic and frightening beautiful being known as the Great Lamia, the immensely powerful female nosferatu who changed him to what he now was. From that fateful day forth, temporal considerations like home and heritage had been consigned to an increasingly hazy past. The Great Lamia had transformed him, brought him across the mortal divide to join the somber ranks of the undead. He had crossed centuries and continents, the perpetual outcast and figure of fear except among others of his own kind, until the recall of his time as human was less than a dream.
Normally Renquist was able to mentally calculate time, almost to the second, without the aid of any timepiece, but for the long flight halfway across the world—and now the journey by road from the airfield into the city—he had tuned back his time perception, just as he had slowed his undead pulse and reduced his strange nosferatu respiration almost to nothing. An unawareness of time was the most complete protection against the boredom of all-enclosing darkness. Thus it came as a mild surprise when the truck carrying his container began making frequent short stops as though moving
through reasonably heavy traffic, and he also became aware of the intrusion of minds of humans in massed numbers.
The plan had been a relatively simple one. The flight case in which he was concealed would be delivered to the Savoy Hotel in London’s fashionable West End along with the rest of his more conventional luggage. A bribed bellhop would unlock the fastenings that held down the lid, but the man had been ordered to be sure and leave the room without looking inside. Once alone in his suite, Renquist would be able to emerge, shed his traveling clothes, dress for the outside world, leave the hotel, and merely reenter and register just like any much more natural new arrival. The strategy, far from earth-shatteringly complex, could never have been consummated without the Byzantine and globe-spanning network of contacts and the dossiers of human weakness and vulnerability Renquist scrupulously maintained for exactly such eventualities. The aircraft, the carefully timed schedule, the strangely explicit instructions, and the bribery and corruption required to ensure that those instructions were carried out to the letter, with no questions asked, were all a result of favors called in from men and women who owed Renquist either their liberty or their very lives—individuals whose dark secrets ranged from the bankrupting of huge corporations and small countries to deliberately and systematically feeding their heiress spouses coma-inducing doses of insulin or other medications. For the well-organized nosferatu, secret knowledge (and the threats it made possible) was as valuable as industrial diamonds, uncut cocaine, or hard currency.
The truck carrying his aluminum case-coffin came to a more decisive halt. Renquist could only assume that they had reached the delivery entrance of the Savoy. This was confirmed when the case was abruptly dragged to the rear of the vehicle, upended, and lowered. He was moving again, leaning at an angle close to vertical, as
though being propelled on some kind of trolley. He was grateful that whatever human underling was overseeing the transfer strictly observed the prominently displayed THIS WAY UP stickers. He had no desire to make this final leg of his journey humiliatingly upside down. Headfirst might suit a bat, but never a nosferatu. Despite the weight of human folklore, the undead had nothing to do with the subfamily Desmodontidae except an occasional common predator rapport. Of course, he would expect nothing less than perfection in even the smallest details from the Savoy. It was, after all, one of London’s most legendary and prestigious five-star hotels.
This inclined forward motion continued for a couple of minutes or more; then, after a series of bumps, it ceased and was replaced by a smoother upward one. He was in an elevator. His destination was close. After a second set of bumps, as the trolley was maneuvered out of the lift, the new, more muffled sound of its wheels told him he was now moving along a carpeted corridor. The trolley halted, a door was opened, and Renquist was moved into a room. The casket was lifted from the trolley and placed on the floor in a way that left Renquist lying flat on his back. One more operation, and his travel plan would be completed to perfection.
He heard a human voice. “All right, Sanji, old lad. You can go along. I’ve just got one more thing to do here.”
One set of footsteps left the room, and moments later, he heard the click of the first of the fastenings on the case being unlocked. It was followed by the voice that had spoken before, this time talking to itself. “This is a fucking weird one, and no mistake.”
The other fastenings were also unlocked, and then this human made his exit, closing the door behind him. Renquist waited a full thirty seconds and finally, with an almost embarrassing resemblance to the rising vampire in a cheap photoplay, he pushed open the lid of the case and stood up. He stepped from the box and looked
slowly round the suite. Again, his instructions had been carried out to the letter. The rest of his luggage was positioned beside the case, and thick metal foil had been taped over all the windows so even the slightest hint of sunlight was rigorously excluded. That a guest at the hotel might obsessively demand the elimination of all outside light might seem a little unusual, but the Savoy was well accustomed to the unorthodox. Down the years, the establishment had catered to the eccentricities of such off-center luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, Sergey Diaghilev, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, King Farouk, Salvador Dalí, Howard Hughes, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to name but ten. It was also a matter of public record that Elvis Presley had demanded a similar sealing of the windows from his hotels when he performed in Las Vegas or went on tour. A slightly more conventional request by Renquist was for the large jug of ice water—it had been placed by unseen hands on the top of the suite’s small bar.
When Renquist had assured himself that all else was to his satisfaction, he picked up the jug and drank from it in deep, wolflike drafts. It seemed, as he grew older, that water became more and more important to his metabolism. He had no explanation for this and did not know if the phenomenon was unique to himself or if it afflicted all nosferatu who reached his advanced age. He, in fact, had no way of knowing. Since the departure of the ancient Dietrich, he’d met absolutely no nosferatu as old as he was.
After drinking, he dressed, but he took his time. He was in a new city and felt it incumbent to present himself with the optimum of grave good taste. A dark silk suit, a navy shirt with a narrow black tie, and slightly pointedtoe, Cuban-heeled boots seemed appropriate, topped off with an almost ankle-length black trench coat, since it never paid to trust the London weather. He considered a wide-brimmed, slight dandified hat, but he was currently wearing his hair long with a slight curl. It hardly
suited a hat, and if it should get wet, so be it. It was time for him to merge with the human population. He considered taking the silver-topped cane that also served as a sheath for the secreted blade of the finest and most deadly Milan steel, but he decided a sword stick was unacceptably flamboyant and probably surplus to his requirements.
Renquist was neither so naive nor so ill informed that he stepped out into the London night expecting a Sherlock Holmes pea-soup fog. He was pleased to find he had arrived on a pleasant, if slightly brisk, night and decided, instead of going straight back into the Savoy to register like a newly arrived guest who’d had his luggage sent on in front of him, he would walk for a while and get the feel of the city. London had changed a good deal since he had last been there. To his eye, it had ceased to be as individual and idiosyncratic as he recalled it. It seemed to be succumbing to both the new European homogeneity and the overall multinational uniformity of McDonald’s, Sony, and Citicorp. He missed the Dickensian intricacy he’d known in the days of Sir Henry Irving; Lillie Langtry; Eddy, the Duke of Clarence; and Mrs. Patrick Campbell—that same period when Bram Stoker had caused such troublesome reverberations by inventing the wholly fictional but uncomfortably too-believable Count Dracula.
Aside from the Dracula anxiety, the 1890s had been one of his favorite eras in the history of the ancient city, but any nostalgia he might have had for the times past wasn’t sufficient to mar his enjoyment of strolling slowly down the Strand, taking in the sights and sounds, the store window displays, the marquees of the theaters, and, most interesting of all, the vast international variety of humanity who thronged the sidewalks. After being isolated in the relatively new and automobile-dominated city of Los Angeles for so long, to be back in a metropolis where crowded streets lived and breathed, and palpably dense history was layered beneath his feet was a
positive pleasure. He tuned back the mental auras of the passersby. He had no desire to eavesdrop on the details of their thoughts and feelings, and en masse, humans could be overwhelmingly intrusive on his undead perceptions.
He continued walking west until he was within sight of the circling traffic in Trafalgar Square, the cars, cabs, and red double-decker buses that orbited the tall monument to Admiral Horatio Nelson. Renquist looked up at the stone figure atop its narrow column, the surrounding pools and fountains, and the four guardian Edwin Land-seer statues of couchant lions at the base. Nelson, the nation’s great maritime hero, had destroyed Bonaparte’s navy in 1805 but was shot down at his very moment of triumph. Poor Horatio. Renquist had never met the man, but the humans with whom he’d had contact on the staff of the Duke of Wellington had assured him the admiral had the ego of a pouter pigeon. What other reason could he have had for parading around the quarterdeck of his flagship, HMS
Victory
, in full dress uniform for all to see, complete with all his medals and insignia, including the Order of the Garter? He had presented too prime a target to any French sharpshooter, and it had been inevitable that one would nail him from the rigging.
By the time Renquist reached the intersection of the Strand and Trafalgar Square, he decided he’d walked enough. He was in no way fatigued—he just couldn’t be totally comfortable relaxing and exploring the possibilities of the town until he had completed the process of checking into the Savoy and creating for himself a secure, if temporary, refuge. The cab rank of Charing Cross Station was just across the street, and Renquist decided he would ride the short distance back to the hotel and arrive in a wholly plausible manner, as though at the end of a long journey. A few rail travelers queued for the black London taxis, but cabs were coming and going in a continuous flow, and the fifth one up was his. Once inside, Renquist leaned toward the partition separating
passenger and driver, and gave his instructions.
“The Savoy, please.”
“You know you could walk that, don’t you, mate?”
“I know, but right now I don’t care to.”
Renquist occupied himself through the short ride, idly inspecting the man’s mind and finding nothing remarkable. The lower levels of the driver’s concentration handled the vehicle and the surrounding traffic. The upper speculation was totally centered on later that evening, when he intended to talk his recently acquired lover, a twenty-two-year-old beautician, whose long legs and short skirts belied depressingly conventional sexual parameters, into some elaborate and slightly unorthodox carnal theatrics. The cabbie was at a loss to know what manner of response his suggestion would provoke. He hoped for eager acquiescence but feared angry outrage, her being so young and comparatively inexperienced. His dilemma held Renquist’s attention for only a moment or two. The practices in question were hardly extreme, even by human standards, and hardly as uncommon as the driver appeared to believe. When Renquist paid him off in front of the Savoy, he tipped him overgenerously. This had always been his policy when he invaded the minds of servants without their knowledge.
At the Savoy’s imposing reception desk, his business was transacted with professional fluidity. He registered under the name Victor John Renquist, using a Canadian passport in that name—one of the five that he carried with him hidden in his luggage. The letter of credit from the private bank in Brunei and the formal instruction as to where to send his bills caused the clerk a moment of pause. He had clearly never seen anything like it before, and he quickly disappeared to check with more senior management. His superior must obviously have set him straight, since the clerk hastily returned to treat Renquist with an even greater degree of respect than previously.
Only his final words after all formalities were complete took Renquist by surprise.