An Unattractive Vampire (3 page)

One side pleased; the other outraged.

This is perfect,
said the logical Yulric.
She thinks us a werewolf. Kill her and be done.

We are not a werewolf,
said the less logical Yulric.

I know we are not a werewolf, and you know we are not a werewolf, but this stupid girl does not know we are not a werewolf, so . . .

We are
not
a werewolf,
said illogic.

But we could be,
argued logic.
We could be a werewolf. Others will come and try to slay us, as she has, with these silver musket balls, which, while painful, yes, will not kill us. And so we continue.

The less logical side did not have a response, so logic went on.

All those centuries, the escapes, the elaborately faked deaths, convincing entire continents that a stake through the heart was all anyone needed to do to kill a vampire. What was it for if not this?

“What, indeed?” Yulric mumbled to himself. The entire debate had taken but a moment, which was good, because the girl was already looking at him funny.

He tossed her the ammo clip.

“The silver musket balls did not kill me.”

Musket balls?
Amanda rolled a set of internal eyes in mockery. Determined to win this argument, she retorted, “They’re probably fake.”

He rushed her with such speed that she let out an involuntary squeak. His hand closed on hers and the spritzer bottle sprayed him full in the face. “The wolfsbane potion does not keep me at bay.”

“I bought it at a Renaissance fair,” she said, as if this explained everything.

“I transformed into mist.”

She was far too stubborn to give in. “It could happen.”

“Indeed. And this also could happen.”

The light remained the same, yet shadows passed over him. His form contorted and twisted. Shoulders buckled. Hips sucked in. His entire body collapsed in on itself until finally, where once stood a six-foot-tall corpse, now flew a three-foot-long bat. It hovered in the air for a moment before soaring out the broken windows and into the night. Amanda ran after it, onto the balcony,
¹
where she pondered the odds of a werewolf also being a werebat.

Yulric, meanwhile, flew through the night. Finally free after so long underground, he could not help but indulge himself, wheeling high through the air before diving low to the ground.

He was the master of his domain. All the blood in all the veins from here to the horizon was his for the taking. He had the power. He had the will. Nothing could stop him.

And then . . .

Light. Screeching. Pain.

• •

Amanda found him early the next morning crawling back into the six-foot hole in her cellar, from which he’d emerged. Both his legs broken.

“What happened?” she asked.

He looked at her in wide-eyed terror. “There are . . .
things
out there.”

He passed out. Amanda looked down at his tattered remains. This was definitely not going according to her plan.

The mob of Shepherd’s Crook, 1680 edition, stormed the home of the demon, sorcerer, and suspected vampyr Yulric Bile. As mobs went, it was a pretty good one. No elder went without a torch. No young man went pitchfork-less. Women wept and gnashed their teeth. John Farthing brought his new gun. John Cross had forged some chains. Benjamin Moss broke down the door to his one hundredth citadel of sin, with some assistance from his son, John. Cider was drunk, hymns were sung, and a fine time was had by all. The only blemish on the otherwise superb revelries of condemnation was the man who had arranged it all: the witchfinder, Erasmus Martin.

Little was, is, or will likely ever be known about one Master Erasmus Martin. It was said that he had traveled to the Far East to learn ancient secrets in ancient temples before burning them to the ground for heathen practices. It was said he’d made a deal with the devil and now sought redemption for his damned soul. It was said he was a milliner’s son. Whatever the truth, it cannot be denied that he was very good at his job.

The villagers of Shepherd’s Crook didn’t know where (England), how (a ship), or why (to hunt the vampyr) Martin had come. He had simply appeared as a passing traveler one dark, dreary day a year ago, before the house—not yet pink—had been completed. He had asked a few questions, inspected the construction, and generally milled about, much to the chagrin of everyone who found him far too competent. It wasn’t until he had the gall to seek advice from the native savages that the elders asked him to leave. He had done as they requested, and everyone had tried to forget about him.

That was six months ago. Before children went missing and old people died. Before the blood plague, the animal attacks in the far woods, and the peculiar neck wounds that appeared overnight. Before some women’s husbands came home looking altogether too pleased with themselves.

Before Yulric Bile.

Letters had been sent to nearby churches in Salem, Arkham, and even that den of sin and iniquity, Boston. They spoke of the evils faced and pleaded for aid in vanquishing the devil’s servants. The hope, ultimately, was to attract the famed preacher Increase Mather to town. He could sign copies of his books, give sermons, condemn a few local ne’er-do-wells of gross negligence, and, if there was time, also rid them of the vampyr.

That was what they had hoped. What they had received was Erasmus Martin riding back into town.

Wherever the witchfinder walked, the mood of the crowd sobered. Conversations hushed. Children stopped playing. Cider was sipped more quietly. That season, the Puritans invented their own word for
buzzkill
and it was Erasmus Martin.

Still, there was no reason
they
couldn’t have a good time. So the Puritans continued with their grand displays of piousness and let Master Martin get down to the business at hand, which, in the opinion of the gathered crowd, he was slow to do.

Martin stood before the maw of the house’s doorway, weighing his options. Inside, his quarry waited. Based on its history, the witchfinder assumed whatever followers the creature had acquired were already dead. You never could count on this, though, and he had no desire to face a room full of fanatics wielding axes.

Again.

Then, there was the house. Who knew what traps lay in wait for those not privy to its secrets? Rush headlong inside and you would not have a head for long. Martin chided himself for the joke and pledged to flagellate himself later.

The house, the followers, and the creature itself—all dangers to be considered. All reasons for Erasmus Martin to pause. He hadn’t lived into witchfinder old age
²
by being reckless. Nor, though, had he earned his reputation by simply setting everything ablaze and hoping for the best.

He took a step forward. The crowd cheered. He looked at them and they stopped. Cheering was not the Puritan way. Contentment was not the Puritan way. Unnecessary hardship, unwavering resolve, and a detailed condemnation of any sexual act,
that
was the Puritan way, and if Martin was going to do this, by God, he was going to do this as a proper Puritan.

Into the darkness, across the threshold, alone but for God.

Once inside, he exchanged his Bible for a stake. He may have been a man of faith, but he did feel better with a weapon in hand. The inside of the house was much like any other lair or den of unspeakable evil. It was dark, dimly lit by a few candles here and there to accommodate the eyes of mortal followers. There was very little furniture, a chair or two, but no paintings, no accoutrements. Nothing to show that anyone
lived
there, except perhaps a bookcase covered in worm-eaten, leather-bound volumes. Martin approached with trepidation and flipped through a few tomes. The
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
, the
Vermis Mysteriis
, Pnakotic fragments,
The Book of Flies
, these were darkest, most vile of grimoires—further proving the absence of life in this rotting edifice. He moved on, making a note to burn those hideous texts once his work was done.

On the second floor, he found the vampyr’s followers, or what was left of them. He knew now where the pastor had disappeared to and why the magistrate and his brother had been absent from their homes. Inevitably they would go down as mere victims of the creature. Those with influence were always cleared of wrongdoing when the official records were written, regardless of the truth. Martin didn’t like it, but then, liking it wasn’t his job. His job was to vanquish this abomination, and with the death of its minions, that had become one step easier.

From outside, a noise rose up that was not righteous: self- or otherwise. Martin stepped over the schoolteacher’s body and onto the balcony. Outside, a crowd had gathered around a pair of figures.

“John Starling, what goes there?” Martin called down.

“Master Martin, we caught Anne Stevens coming out of the cellar,” answered the young man, holding her closer than was strictly necessary. “She says she has killed the vampyr.”

“Indeed,” replied a skeptical Martin. “I will be right down.”

It was only then, as he turned away from the window, that the witchfinder saw what he had missed during his initial scan of the room: a piece of paper pinned to the far wall. It may have been yellowed and worn with age, but for all that, its subject matter was no less clear. Seared upon this leaf was the image of some unknown, tentacled monstrosity, its great mass undulating with evil as its glowing red eye peered out from beneath a throng of slimy feelers. It sat atop a mountain of human skulls, and, on either side, a pair of angels were depicted descending into gibbering madness. So horrible, so lasting, so utterly indelible was the image that Martin wondered why he had not noticed it before. He could suppose only that it was because then, unlike now, the picture had not been oozing toward him.

Tendrils of ink and ectoplasm climbed their way out of the paper, as if it were a tiny window, and fell to the floor with as much squish as thud. The great red eye blinked and dilated, its gaze spinning frantically around the room before settling on Martin with what was, at best, malice and, at worst, hunger. What passed for ropy arms writhed across the floor as the rest of the beast’s great bulk unfurled from the drawing. When the appendages came in contact with the remains of the Puritan cultists, they convulsed excitedly, engulfed their food, then moved on, with the corpses clearly visible through its translucent skin.

When, finally, the last part of this ancient and unkillable creature—its sanguine eye—released itself from the paper prison, a shriek that had very little to do with vocal cords or ear canals roared inside the minds of every living thing within sixty miles. Only then, as the quivering, gelatinous horror from beyond slunk forward to envelop him, did the witchfinder notice the message written in blood
above
the paper.

You did not think I was going to make this easy, did you?

• •

Several minutes later, Erasmus Martin strode across the grass, covered in a putrid slime and surreptitiously stowing a small hatchet up his sleeve. The crowd backed away, partially because of the horrible sounds they had heard, partially because of the smell, but mostly because he was the witchfinder, and they didn’t like him very much. In this way, Martin found himself with an unimpeded view of the girl who’d been caught.

The young woman stood—proud, defiant, and miraculously free from harm, considering she was covered in the creature’s black ichor. There were no visible injuries to her person: no gashes, no scratches, no evidence of living blood anywhere. The witchfinder’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he clutched his side. Nobody came away unscathed from an encounter such as this.

He also noted, in some forgotten chasm in the depths of his mind, that the girl was uncommonly pretty. The face beneath the miasmic ooze was fetching, and the figure beneath the unflattering dress quite full. Puritans had long become masters at gleaning the full human form from within wrappings of pious modesty. Even Martin, who was more resistant than most to such thoughts, could not help but trace the lines of bosom and bottom, if only momentarily.

For her part, Anne’s observations of the approaching witchfinder were best summed up by the phrase
manfully ugly
. Despite being of average height, he carried himself as if he were ten feet tall, helped along by his dark broad-brimmed hat and dramatically billowing cape. He was not excessively muscled, yet she could tell what lay underneath the jacket and trousers was taut and strong.
³
What’s more, everything about him, from his stride to his eyes, shouted at a single-minded determination and confidence.

If only it hadn’t been for the face. The pox had long ago left its mark—or rather, marks—on Erasmus Martin. Not that this was uncommon. Johnathan Carter had been happily married these ten years despite a face full of pox, as had Jon May and John Gables. Unlike Martin, however, they had not spent their time since adding more gruesome scars to their already marred features. In his defense, the witchfinder wore them well, like badges of honor, as much symbols of his office as his hat, cloak, and Bible.

“Here’s the girl,” boasted John Starling, wrenching her forward for display.

“Yes, I see.” That was not all Erasmus Martin could see. One of the boy’s hands had lingered too long in a place it had no business being, and now the full might of the witchfinder’s judgment fell upon John Starling. Eyes wide with horror, the young man removed his hand, but the damage had been done. Martin looked on, accusing and silent, as John Starling melted away, disgraced, into the crowd.

When the young man, who would forever after be known in the community as John Starling the Lech, was out of sight, the witchfinder turned his attention back to Anne Stevens. There was a brief moment between the two in which her eyes expressed thanks and his head bowed slightly to acknowledge her gratitude, but before anyone saw, it was over. Their faces reset to their respective defaults: his, of conviction, hers, of abstinence. The gathered crowd fell silent to listen.