The Vampyre (3 page)

In the foyer, a bored security guard watched her as she left. Rebecca walked quickly through the doors, and then on down the street. It was good to be outside. She paused, and breathed in deeply. The wind was strong and the air cold, but after the closeness of the office, she welcomed the night, feeling, as she began to hurry down the street again, as weightless and storm-swept as an autumn leaf. Ahead, she could hear traffic - Bond Street, a gash in the darkness of people and lights. Rebecca crossed it, then turned back to the silence of empty mews. Mayfair seemed deserted. The high, forbidding street fronts were virtually untouched by lights. Once a car passed, but otherwise there was nothing, and the silence filled Rebecca with a strange, fevered joy. She kept the keys in her palm, a talisman, to quicken the rhythm of blood through her heart.

By Bolton Street, she came to a halt. She realised she was shaking. She leaned against a wall. Her excitement suddenly frightened her. She remembered the lawyer's strange words. ‘Drawn,' he had said, describing her mother. She remembered how he had appealed to her, despairingly, not to visit Fairfax Street. Rebecca glanced behind her. The road she was on had been the haunt of dandies once, where fortunes had been lost, lives ruined, gambled away with the curl of a lip. Lord Byron had come here. Byron. Suddenly, the fever in her blood seemed to sing, with ecstasy and a quite unexpected shock of fear. There seemed no reason for it, nothing she could put into words, and yet, as she stood there in the shadowed silence, she realised that she was terrified. But of what? She tried to identify the cause. She had just been thinking of something. Byron. Yes, that was it - Byron. And there it was - the same fear again. Rebecca shuddered, and suddenly knew, with absolute clarity, that she would not, as she had originally planned to do, enter the chapel that night. She could not even take a step towards it, so paralysed was she, and exhilarated, by a terror she could feel as a dense mist of red, enveloping her, sucking out her will, absorbing her. She struggled to break free. She turned. There was traffic moving on Piccadilly. She began to walk towards the sound of it, then to run.

‘Rebecca!'

She froze.

‘Rebecca!'

She spun round. Sheets of paper, caught by the wind, were fluttering across an empty street.

‘Who's there?' Rebecca called.

Nothing. She tilted her head. She couldn't hear the traffic now. There was only the screaming of the wind, and a signboard rattling at the end of the street. Rebecca walked down towards it. ‘Who's there?' she called out again. The wind moaned as though in answer, and then suddenly, just faintly, Rebecca thought she heard laughter. It hissed, rising and falling with the wind. Rebecca ran towards it, down a further street, so dark now that she could barely see ahead. There was a noise, a tin kicked, clattering over tarmac. Rebecca glanced round, just in time to see, or so she thought, a flitting silhouette of black, but even as she stepped towards it, it was gone, melted so totally that she wondered if she had seen anything at all. There had seemed something strange about the figure, something wrong, but also familiar. Where had she seen such a person before? Rebecca shook her head. No, there had been nothing. It was hardly surprising, she thought, the wind was so strong that the shadows were playing tricks on her.

She felt breath on her neck. Rebecca could smell it as she spun round, acrid, chemical, prickling her nostrils, but even as she turned and held out her arms to ward off the attacker, she could see that there was nothing there to fend away. ‘Who are you?' she called out into the darkness, angry now. ‘Who's there?' Laughter hissed on the wind again, and then there was the sound of footsteps, hurrying away down a narrow lane, and Rebecca began to run, chasing after them, her heels echoing, her blood thumping like a drum in her ears. So deep it pulsed, she felt quite distracted by the sound. She told herself, ignore it, listen for the footsteps. They were still ahead of her, down a very narrow lane now, and then suddenly they were gone, faded on the air, and Rebecca stopped, to recapture her bearings and her breath. She looked around. As she did so, the clouds overhead became ragged and frayed, and were then scattered altogether on a gusting shriek of wind. Moonlight, death-pale, stained the street. Rebecca looked up.

Above her loomed a mansion-front. Its grandeur seemed quite out of proportion to the alley, otherwise narrow and blank, in which Rebecca found herself. In the moonlight, the stone of the mansion was cast maggot-white; its windows were pools of darkness, sockets in a skull; the impression given by the whole was that of something quite abandoned by time, a shiver of the past conjured up by the moon. The wind began to scream again. Rebecca watched as the light faded, then was lost. The mansion, though, remained, revealed now as something more than just an illusion of the moon, but Rebecca was not surprised; she had known full well that it was real; she had called at these mansion gates before.

She did not bother this time, however, to climb the steps and knock at the door. Instead, she began to walk down the mansion-front, past the railings that speared up from the pavement, guarding the mansion from the passer-by. Rebecca could smell the acid again, just faint on the wind, but bitter as before. She began to run. There were footsteps behind her. She glanced round, but there was nothing, and she felt the terror return, descending on her like a poisonous cloud, choking her throat, burning her blood. She stumbled, and staggered forwards. She fell against the railings. Her fingers clutched at a tangle of chains. She lifted them up. There was a single padlock. It barred the way to the chapel of St Jude's.

Rebecca shook out the keys. She fitted one into the padlock. It scraped rustily, and didn't turn. Behind her, the footsteps come to a halt. Rebecca didn't look round. Instead, in a wave so intense that it was almost sweet, terror coursed through her veins, and she had to steady herself against the gate, as fear possessed her, fear and strange delight. Her hands shaking, she tried a second key. Again it scratched against rust, but this time there was movement, and the lock began to shift. Rebecca forced it; the lock opened; the length of chain slithered to the ground. Rebecca pushed at the gate. Painfully, it creaked ajar.

Now Rebecca turned. The acrid smell had faded; she was quite alone. Rebecca smiled. She could feel her terror sweet in her stomach, lightening her thighs. She stroked back her hair so that it flew in the wind, and smoothed down her coat. The wind had blown the gate shut again. Rebecca pushed at it, then walked on through towards the chapel door.

It was approached down a flight of steps, mossy and cracked. The door itself, like the railing gate, was locked. Rebecca felt for her keys again. As gentle as the fall of a dying breeze, her terror arced and was gone. She remembered Melrose again, his fear, his warnings to avoid St Jude's. Rebecca shook her head. ‘No,' she whispered to herself, ‘no, I am myself again.' Inside were the memoirs of Lord Byron, for which her mother had searched so long, soon to be hers, held in her hands. What had ever possessed her to think that she could wait? She shook her head again and turned the key.

Inside the chapel, the darkness was pitch. Rebecca cursed herself for not having brought a torch. Feeling her way along the wall, she reached some shelves. She ran her finger along them. There were matches, and then, on the shelf below, a candle box. She took one of the candles and lit it. Then she turned to see what the chapel contained.

It was almost bare. There was a single cross at the end of the room. It had been carved and painted in the Byzantine manner. It represented Cain, sentenced by the Angel of the Lord. Waiting below them, more vivid than both, was Lucifer. Rebecca peered at the cross. She was struck by the representation of Cain. His face was beautiful, but twisted in the most terrible agony, not from the mark that had been burned onto his brow, but from some deeper pain, some terrible loss. From his lips came a single trickle of red.

Rebecca turned. Her footsteps echoed as she crossed the bare floor. At the far end of the chapel, she could see a tomb, built into the floor, marked by an ancient pillar of stone. Rebecca kneeled down to see if there were inscriptions on the tomb, but there was nothing to read, just a strip of faded brass. She glanced up at the headstone; the candle flickered in her grip, and shadows danced over faint patterns and marks. Rebecca held the candle up closer. There was a turban, carved into the top of the stone, and then lower down, scarcely legible, what seemed like words. Rebecca peered at them. To her surprise, she saw that the script was Arabic. She translated the words; verses from the Koran, mourning the dead. Rebecca stood up and shook her head in puzzlement. A Muslim grave in a Christian church? No wonder it was never used for worship. She kneeled down by the tomb again. She pressed it. Nothing. There was a gust of wind and her candle flickered out.

As she lit it again, she saw, in the spurt of the match's flame, a rug stretched out behind the tomb. It was beautiful - Turkish, Rebecca guessed - and like the headstone, clearly very old. She pulled it back, tenderly at first, and then, with a sudden thrill of excitement, frantically. Below it was a wooden hatchway, padlocked and hinged. Rebecca pushed the carpet away, then fitted the third and final key. It turned. Rebecca tugged the padlock off, then breathed in deeply. She heaved at the hatchway. Slowly, it lifted. With a burst of strength that she hadn't known she possessed, Rebecca raised the hatchway up until it toppled and fell with an echoing thud onto the flagstones behind. She stared at the opening she had uncovered. There were two steps, then nothing beyond them but a yawning blank. Reaching for more candles, Rebecca slipped them into her pocket, and took a careful first step. Suddenly, she breathed in. The fear had returned, in every corpuscle of her blood, lightening her until she thought that she would float; and the fear was as sensual and lovely as any pleasure she had known. The terror possessed her and summoned her. Obeying its call she began to walk down the steps, and the opening to the chapel was soon just a glimmer, then was gone.

Rebecca reached the final step. She halted, and lifted up her candle. As she did so, the flame seemed to leap and expand, to reach the gleam of oranges and yellows and golds that met Rebecca's glance wherever she looked. The crypt was wondrous - no mouldy place of the dead, but a pleasure chamber from some Eastern harem, bedecked with beautiful things, tapestries, carpets, silver, gold. From the corner came a soft bubbling. Rebecca turned and saw a tiny fountain, with two couches, exquisitely carved, on either side. ‘What is this place?' she whispered to herself. ‘What is it doing here?' And the memoirs - where were they? She held the candle up high again, and glanced around the room. There were no papers she could see. She stood, rooted, wondering where to start. It was then that she heard the scrabbling.

Rebecca froze. She tried not to breathe. Her blood was suddenly deafening in her ears, but she held her breath, straining to hear the noise again. There had been something, she was sure. Her heart was thumping so loudly now that it seemed to be filling the room. There was no other noise. Eventually, she had to gasp for air, and then, as she breathed in greedily, she heard it again. Rebecca froze. She lit a second candle and held them both above her head. At the far end of the room, raised and central like an altar in a church, was a beautiful tomb of delicate stone. Beyond it was a doorway in the Arabic style. Slowly, Rebecca walked towards the tomb, candles held out in front of her. She strained her ears as the scrabbling returned. It was rasping but feeble. Rebecca stopped. There couldn't be any doubt. The scratching was coming from within the tomb.

With a numb sense of disbelief, Rebecca reached out to touch the side. The scrabbling seemed frantic now. Rebecca stared down at the lid of the tomb. Buried beneath dust, she could just make out words. She blew the dust away, and read the lines that had been hidden underneath.

Byron. Rebecca recognised the poetry at once. Yes, Byron. She read the lines again, softly sounding the words, as the scrabbling grew and the candles began to flicker, despite the heaviness of the dull crypt air. Suddenly, like vomit, horror rose up in Rebecca's throat. She staggered forwards and leaned against the tomb, then began to push at the covering slab, like an amputee scratching at her bandages, desperate to face the absolute worst. The lid shifted, then began to move. Rebecca pushed even harder, as it slid across. She lowered her candles. She stared into the tomb.

A thing was looking up at her. Rebecca wanted to scream, but her throat was dry. The thing lay still, only its eyes alive, gleaming yellow from socket pits, everything else withered, lined, incalculably old. The thing began to twitch its nose, just a layer of skin over splintered bone. It opened its mouth greedily. As it sniffed, the thing began to move, its arms, furrowed twists of dead meat on bone, struggling to reach for the side of the tomb, its nails, sharp like talons, scraping at the stone. With a rattling shudder, the creature sat up. As it moved, a haze of dust rose from the furrows in its skin. Rebecca could feel it in her mouth and eyes, a cloud of dead skin, choking her, blinding her, dizzying her brain. She turned, arms over her eyes. Something touched her. She blinked. The thing. It was reaching for her again, its face twitching eagerly, its mouth a gash of jaws. Rebecca heard herself scream. She felt flakes of dead skin in the back of her throat. She gagged. The crypt began to spin, and she fell down to her knees.

She looked up. The creature sat on the edge of the tomb like a bird of prey. Its nose still sniffed at her, its mouth grinned open wide. But it was holding tightly to the edge of the tomb, and seemed to be shuddering, as though reluctant to make the leap to the ground. Rebecca saw that the creature had shrivelled breasts like calluses, which tremored against a hollowed chest. So the thing had been a woman once. And now? - what was it now?