The Vampyre (24 page)

‘Women were asleep on every couch. I breathed in the dizzying scent of their blood. Lovelace stood beside me. His grin was hungry and lecherous. “Gad,” he whispered, “but this is as sweet a room of strumpets as I've ever seen.” He bared his teeth. “I must have 'em.” He glanced up at me. “I shall have 'em.” He moved forwards, like a mist across the sea. He stood by a girl's bed, and as the shadow fell across her dreams, she moaned and raised her arm as though to ward the evil away. I heard Lovelace's soft chuckle, and then, not wanting to see any more, I turned and walked on down the centre of the hall. Ahead was another ornate door of gold. It was slightly ajar. I could hear a faint sobbing. I brushed my veil back from my ears. I heard a crack, and then the sobbing again. With a rustle of bells, I passed into the room beyond.

‘I looked about me. Cushions were spread across a marble floor. Along the room's edge stretched a blue-watered pool. A single flame burned within a golden lamp. Standing in its wash was a naked girl. I studied her. She was wonderfully beautiful, but her bearing was imperious, and her face seemed equally voluptuous and cruel. She breathed in deeply, then raised the cane and swung it down hard. It bit into the back of the slave girl at her feet.

‘The girl sobbed, but didn't break her posture of submission. Her mistress stared down at her handiwork, then glanced up suddenly into the shadows where I stood. Her bored, spoiled features seemed to lighten with interest; she narrowed her eyes; then the look of satiation returned to her face, and she sighed, dropping her cane onto the ground. She shouted at the girl and turned her back; the girl, still sobbing, began to pick up fragments of glass. When they had all been gathered, the slave girl bowed low in obeisance, and scurried from the room.

‘The Sultan's Queen, for such she clearly was, threw herself onto the cushions. She held one of them tight, screwing it round and round, then hurled it violently back onto the floor. As she did so, I saw that her wrists were gashed with damp blood; the Queen stared at them, and touched a wound, then rose to her feet again. She called for her maid; there was no response. She called again, and stamped her feet; then she picked up her cane, and walked towards the door. As she did so, I stepped out from the shadows. The Queen turned to look at me. She frowned when she saw that I did not lower my eyes.

‘Slowly, the frown became a stare of surprise, and a strange tumult seemed to flash across her face. Command struggled with voluptuousness - and then she snapped her fingers, and was imperial again. She shouted something in a language I didn't understand, then pointed to the spot where her maid had smashed the glass. “I am bleeding,” she said in Turkish, holding out her wrists. “Call the physician, girl.” I smiled slowly. The Queen flushed - and then disbelief darkened into a passion of rage. She brought the cane stinging down on my back. The pain was like fire, but I stood where I was. The Queen stared deep into my eyes - then she choked, and dropped the cane, and stumbled back from me. She sobbed noiselessly. I watched as her shoulders rose and fell. She buried her face in her hands. In the golden light, the blood on her wrists gleamed like jewellery.

‘I crossed the marble floor to her, and held her in my arms. The Queen looked up startled; I placed a finger on her lips. Her eyes and cheeks were soft now with tears; I brushed them away, then gently stroked the wounds on her wrists. The Queen flinched with pain, but when she met my eyes, her agony seemed forgotten, and she reached up to hold me and stroke my hair. Nervously, she held my breasts; then she whispered something in my ear, words I didn't understand, and her fingers started to loosen my silk. I kneeled, kissing her hands and wrists, tasting the fresh blood that welled up from her cuts; when I was as naked as she, I kissed her on the lips, touching them with the rouge of her own blood, then leading her across to the stillness of the bath. Softly, the waters enveloped us. I felt the Queen's gentle fingers stroke my breasts and stomach; I opened my legs. She touched me, and I reached for her; she moaned, and tossed her head back; light caught the water on her throat and made it seem flushed with gold. The Queen shook; the warm water rippled gently, and I felt my blood seem to move with its flow against my skin. I licked her breasts, then, gently, I bit; as my teeth pierced her skin, the Queen stiffened and gasped, but she did not scream, and her breathing deepened with eagerness. Suddenly, she shuddered; her body shook and she fell back against the tiles; once again, her throat was touched by gold. I seemed beyond self now, beyond consciousness, to have nothing but desire. Without thought, I slashed across my lover's neck, and as her blood spilled out into the waters of the bath, I felt my own thighs turn to water and join with the flow.

‘Still the Queen hadn't screamed. She lay in my arms, lapped by her own blood as her breathing grew fainter and I drank from her wounds. She died without a sigh, and the waters were cloudy with her departed life. I kissed her softly, then slipped from the bath. I stretched - my smooth limbs seemed oiled and refreshed by her blood. I stared at the Queen, floating on her purple bier, and saw how her dead lips smiled back at me.'

Lord Byron paused, and smiled himself. ‘You are disgusted?' he asked Rebecca, noticing how she stared at him.

‘Yes, of course.' She clenched a fist. ‘Of course I am. You enjoyed it. Even once you'd killed her, you felt no disgust.'

Lord Byron's smile faded. ‘I am a vampire,' he said softly.

‘Yes, but . . .' Rebecca swallowed. ‘Before - before you had defied Lovelace.'

‘And my own nature.'

‘So he had won you?'

‘Lovelace?'

Rebecca nodded. ‘You felt
no
remorse?'

Lord Byron hooded his burning eyes, and said nothing for what seemed a long, long time. Slowly, he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I found Lovelace wet with blood, squatting like an incubus on his victim's chest. I told him that I had killed the Sultan's Queen. His amusement was quite immoderate. I didn't laugh with him, but no . . . I felt no remorse. Not until . . .' His voice trailed away.

Rebecca waited. ‘Yes?' she asked at last.

Lord Byron's lip curled. ‘We fed until dawn - two foxes in a chicken coop. Only with the muezzin's first call to prayers did we leave the chamber of odalisques. We passed, not into the passageway outside, but into a further room, set aside for the slave girls to adorn themselves. The walls were lined with mirrors. For the first time, I saw myself. I stopped - and froze. I was looking at Haidée - Haidée, whom I had not seen since that fatal night in the cave. But it was not Haidée. Haidée's lips had never been wet with blood. Haidée's eyes had never glittered so coldly. Haidée had never been a damned and loathsome vampire. I blinked - and then saw my own pale face staring back at me. I screamed. Lovelace tried to hold me, but I brushed him away. The pleasures of the night seemed suddenly transformed into horrors. They bred like maggots on my naked thoughts.

‘For three days I lay exhausted and feverish in my bed. Hobhouse nursed me. I don't know what he heard me say in my delirium - but on the fourth day, he told me we were leaving Constantinople, and when I mentioned Lovelace's name, his face darkened and he warned me not to ask after him again. “I have heard strange rumours,” he said, “impossible rumours. You will leave with me on the ship I have booked. It is for your own safety and good. You know that, Byron, so I will hear no arguments.” And nor did he. We sailed that day, on a ship bound for England. I left Lovelace neither message nor address.

‘But I knew that I couldn't go back home with Hobhouse. As we neared Athens, I told him I was going to stay in the East. I had thought my friend would be furious - but he said nothing, just smiled strangely, and handed me his journal. I frowned. “Hobby, please,” I said, “save your scribblings for your audience back home. I know what we did, I was with you, if you recall.”

‘Hobhouse smiled again, a twisted smile. “Not all the time,” he said. “The entries marked Albania - study them.” He left me.

‘I read the passages at once. Then I wept - Hobhouse had changed the record of what he had done, so that it seemed as though we had never been apart - my time with Vakhel Pasha was quite obliterated. I found Hobhouse, and held him tight, and wept again. “I do love you, Hobby,” I told him. “You have so many good qualities, and so many bad ones, it is impossible to live with or without you.”

‘The next day we parted. Hobhouse divided a small nosegay of flowers with me. “Will it be the last thing we ever share?” he asked. “What will happen to you, Byron?” I didn't answer. Hobhouse turned and boarded the ship again, and I was left alone.

‘I headed on to Athens, and stayed briefly again with Widow Macri and her three lovely nymphs. But I was not made welcome, and though Teresa embraced me enthusiastically enough, I could still glimpse the fear that waited in her eyes. I began to feel the fever again, and reluctant to create a second scandal, I left Athens behind and journeyed on across Greece. Stimulation, sensation, novelty - I had to have them - the alternative was restlessness and agony. God, I was relieved that Hobhouse was gone. In Tripolitza, I stayed briefly with Veli, Ali Pasha's son, who entertained me as though I were a long-lost friend; I could see that he wanted me in his bed. I let him take me, of course - why not? - the pleasure of being used as a whore was a momentary thrill. Then, in return for my services, Veli passed on news of Albania. It seemed that Vakhel Pasha's castle had been burned to the ground and quite destroyed. “Would you believe it?” Veli asked, shaking his head. “The mountain people thought that the dead had risen from their graves.” He laughed at the thought of such hapless superstition. I listened with amusement - then asked about Vakhel Pasha himself. Again, Veli shook his head. “He was found near Lake Trihonida,” he said.

‘“Dead?” I asked.

‘Veli nodded. “Oh yes, very dead indeed,
milord.
A sword had been driven deep through his heart. We buried him by his castle on the mountainside.”

‘So he was gone. Dead in truth. I realised I had half-believed he might still be alive. But now I could be certain - and the knowledge, somehow, served to liberate me. Everything seemed changed - I was free of my creator - and, at last, I accepted the truth of what I was. Above the Gulf of Corinth, as I fed on a peasant boy, I was discovered by Lovelace. We embraced warmly, and neither of us mentioned my flight from Constantinople.

‘“Shall we be wicked?” Lovelace asked me.

‘I smiled. “Wicked as sin,” I replied.

‘We returned to Athens. Cloaked as we were in our mutual pleasures, dread and guilt became forgotten words - two such libertines had never existed, Lovelace assured me, not since the days of the Restoration rakes. New worlds of delight were opened up to me, and I grew drunk on companionship, sex, and fine wines. And blood, of course - yes - always blood. The fires of joy seemed to have burned away my shame. My cruelty now seemed a beautiful thing - I loved it, I found, in the same way that I loved the blue skies and landscapes of Greece, as an exotic paradise I had made my own. My old world seemed impossibly distant from me now. With Lovelace's encouragement, I began to think of it as forever gone.

‘Yet sometimes - after I had bathed perhaps, and was sitting on some lonely rock, gazing at the sea - then I would hear its call again. Lovelace, who scorned such moods as hypocrisy, would damn me roundly for my gloom, and lead me out on fresh revelries - yet often, at these moments, it was his very encouragements which most discomforted me. Sometimes, when I felt the call of home, he would hint again at secrets, dark truths, threats that in England might betray me.

‘“And in Greece?” I would ask.

‘“Why no, sir,” Lovelace answered once. “Not if you have wrapped your tizzle in a good sheath of pig-gut.” I pressed him to explain, but he laughed. “No, Byron, your soul is not yet flinty enough. The time shall come, when you are steeped in blood. Then go back to England, but for now - egad, sir, 'tis almost the night - let us venture out and twat-scour the town.” I protested, but Lovelace held up his hands. “Byron - I beg you - let us have an end on't, please!” And straightaway, he gathered up his cloak and hummed an opera tune, and I knew he was relishing his power over me.

‘But the conversation didn't worry me for long - nothing worried me - there were far too many pleasures to learn. Much as a lover is instructed by a courtesan, so I was taught the arts of drinking blood. I learned how to enter a victim's dreams, how to master my own, how to hypnotise and generate illusions and desires. I learned how vampires could be made, and the various orders into which a victim might be transformed - the zombies, whose dead eyes I had seen in the Pasha's castle, the ghouls, such as Gorgiou and his family had become or, most rarely, the masters - the lords of death - the order of creatures to which I belonged.

‘“But be careful who you choose for that honour,” Lovelace warned me once. “Know ye not, in death as in life, there must be aristocracy?” He smiled at me. “You, Byron, might almost have been chosen as a king.”

‘I shrugged off Lovelace's flattery. “I damn all kings to Hell,” I said. “I am not a vile Tory like you. If I could, I would teach the very stones to rise against tyranny. I kill - but I shall not enslave.”

‘Lovelace spat with contempt. “What distinction is that?”

‘I stared at him coldly. “One that is clear enough, I would have thought. I need to drink blood or I die - you have said it, Lovelace, we are predators, we cannot defy what is natural in us. But is it ever natural to make our victims slaves? I hope not. I will not be like my creator, that is what I mean - surrounded by mindless serfs, beyond the redemption of love and hope.”