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This story was first posted chapter by chapter in May 2001; it was revised for the print run in 2004, but I decided to leave the original version online. It has a more "fairy tale" feel than the revised version, and was intended as a quick introduction before throwing the characters into some real action.
The original intro to this story: "This is a story that stormed through my brain after a dream involving an actor, judges and vampires. When I woke up that morning, I knew how Coleridge must have felt when he dreamt of Xanadu. I had to write. The original dream soon expanded into this dark fantasy. All parts are posted, so you can now read it in one sitting. Gothic welcome to Perigord"
In January 2002, the first instalment of this 2001 version was published on Art of Horror (http://www.artofhorror.com),an online horror magazine. The site then moved, discontinuing most of the series it had started publishing, and now no longer exists.
There are still printed copies available, with fun covers and thumbnail graphics: see the homepage for purchase details.
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Jump to chapters one two three four five six seven eight nine ten
It was a cool late August evening and Michael was staring out the train window. After flying from Montreal to Paris to Bordeaux, and then taking the train east, he was exhausted and severely jet lagged. He had three weeks before starting his internship and chose to spend them in one of the most picturesque areas in France. From the window, he could see castles amass, some renovated, some crumbling, others used as farms. Here and there, some derelict Roman arena or tower were standing like a steadfast soldier. To his North American eyes, it was incredible to see so much ancient history pile up, in many cases abandoned like a rusty car in a backyard.
Michael stepped off in Perigueux, a small town in the wine valleys of Perigord, in the middle of France. He lugged his bag across the train station to the tourist office and found out where his hotel was. He got a street plan and directions to the hotel, the Ibis, on the waterfront of the River Isle. The location was ideal: it was within walking distance of most of the attractions, and the nearby bus and train stations would allow Michael to go on day trips to Lascaux and other places in the area. It was late and the stores were closed, but the streets were lively, and the restaurant tables spilled onto the sidewalks. Teenagers were hanging out at centuries-old buildings and parks; the scene, in complete contrast to kids haunting strip malls in America, jolted Michael with the realization of how old Europe was.
Michael found his hotel on a busy main street, next to the river, and could see a tree-lined walking path on the opposite shore. After registering and carrying his bag to his room, Michael went to the hotel bar to indulge in a glass of fine Perigueux wine as he planned the next day. A tour of the old city was unavoidable, and he couldn't wait to see the narrow cobbled streets in better light. He was also getting excited about an upcoming torchlight procession. He was already mapping out a city-wide walk, ready to discover the town by getting lost in it a few times.
Michael nursed his drink, his body mired in exhaustion, almost nodding off in a padded armchair. A young overbearing man from Germany sat next to him, his rapid blabber stretching Michael's endurance to its limits. Michael, wearied by jet-lag, experienced the conversation like a blur. He remembered the German getting excited about the history of the old town, the French Revolution, Napoleon's wedding chandeliers, and Romans and Gauls. The discussion started switching back and forth between history and something else, but Michael was at a loss to remember whatever else they talked about. He felt as if he had jumped mid-way into a game and got lost amid indecipherable masses of codes and rules. In the end, when the German and his accent became a haze of words and drinks and anecdotes, Michael gave up and went to bed. He had an uneasy feeling, like an invisible open chest wound. He blamed it on being up for the greater part of the last 36 hours. He was so tired that his blood had drained down to his legs, and his body felt leaden and wan. His sleep was restless. His eyelids twitched nervously, though his body lay completely inert in bed.
After the bars closed and people went home, four teenagers sneaked inside the ruins of Barriere Castle. They did not expect to find anything of importance; archaeologists had extracted any artefacts the castle would have contained. But a few days ago, they'd seen a man furtively visit the castle and were certain the man had abandoned a heavy, shiny box amidst the battered walls. They went in after the man had left, but the box was nowhere on the grounds. Since then the students had been looking for the mysterious object. When they came the next day they discovered, close to the dungeon, that some stone slabs were loosened from the grass. This time they brought shovels and were digging under the slabs. When the hole was big enough for one person to slip in, Pierre, the smallest, tunnelled further in while his friends kept watch.
He reached an old wooden door, which seemed to lead into the dungeon. Pierre cleared the door. He found hinges on one side and tried pushing the door open. The hinges were rusted shut, but Pierre managed to fray a small hole in the humid wood. He asked for a flashlight and twisted his neck to see inside the dungeon. Inside the dungeon, he could see piles of stones, decrepit tables and chairs, and irons chains hanging from depressed beams. In the dim light, the room seemed about to cave in. Pierre was puzzled when, in the middle of this entombed room he saw a box. It was clean, untouched by rot and mud and dust. "Guys, I don't know how it got here, but I found the box!" He pushed his arm inside the hole to shine the light directly on the box. Something moved, and it was coming right at Pierre.
He yelped and tried climbing out of the hole, but his arm got stuck: the weight of a toppled beam was pinning his arm inside the door. Pierre was panicking; the beam was cutting off the blood circulation in his arm, and the hole wasn't big enough for his friends to come pull him out. Panic froze the gang for a moment. Pierre started shouting hysterically: the weight was pressing heavier on his arm and was starting to bore into the skin.
His friends started shovelling furiously to make the hole bigger, trying to pull Pierre out by his free arm. Panicking as much as Pierre, their strength was failing them. "My arm's being cut off! Shit, get me out!" Realising they couldn't dig fast enough, his friends ran out to the empty streets, trying to find a telephone or stop a car.
Between shouts of terror and distress, Pierre realised he was going to lose his arm. This was the old town, and by the time his friends reached anyone, gravity would have worked its Newtonian way into his arm and crushed it off. He did the only sensible thing he could think of amid the haze of pain and settled into a comfortable faint. He was limply hanging from the door by a few ligaments and the remnants of acrushed bone.
Michael awoke from the weirdest dreams. In the first dream, he was in a dim, luxurious courtroom of oak and leather. He was hearing a trial, then suddenly lost interest in the questions and testimony. He was starting to feel like the things talking to him were amusing pieces of articulate meat. He reclined in his chair. A glass of red wine had appeared in his hands, contrasting sharply with his deathly pale skin. He was marvelling at the red liquid, playing with the glass so the golden light of the desk lamp would shimmer in the splashing wine. He didn't have much interest in drinking the wine, but occasionally feigned to sip from the glass ,the crystal clicking against his brand new set of fangs.
That puzzling dream segued to a much more disturbing nightmare. In that dream, he was lying in his hotel bed in Perigueux, awake and aware of a young man groping with a flashlight under a heavy stone building. The light shone on a box and Michael immediately felt possessive, as if the teenager was stealing something valuable from him. Overcome by a fit of rage and possessiveness, Michael, still lying in bed, pushed a heavy beam onto the teenager's arm. Michael woke up screaming, convinced he really did cut off someone's arm.
Michael was so shaken he could not fall back to sleep. When the sun peaked on the horizon, he decided to take a walk. He got out of the hotel and turned to visit the old city. The streets were narrow, most of them dark, damp and mossy green: the scenery in the early dawn light was so drab it only fed the nightmares persecuting him. Feeling slightly claustrophobic, he finally stopped in one of the open spaces, rue de la Vertu, and let the rising sun bake him warm. A pink wall facing the benches was a welcome change from the surrounding stony buildings. The sun soothed his nerves a little, but the fright instilled by the nightmares marred Michael's first vacation day. He felt sick and miserable, as much from the jet lag as by his restless night. By mid-afternoon, he had drained himself out from walking, and even the sun was overtaxing and making him dizzy.
Back at the hotel, Michael rested in a quiet corner of the bar, where he nodded off until evening. He picked up a newspaper to read over dinner, and was horrified to read about the accident at Barriere Castle: a teenage boy had disappeared, leaving behind only an arm and panic-stricken friends. He couldn't believe the coincidence. Michael kept repeating to himself "No, I can't have, I didn't kill him;" it proved hard to convince himself because he was persuaded he did crush the arm off the teenager with telepathy. A small voice in the back of his mind, whose conclusions sounded ridiculously far-fetched, was telling him the youth was killed only after Michael woke up and let the beam go. Stranger still was the fact that he knew the boy was dead, though the article only mentioned his disappearance.
That night, Michael's sleep wasdisturbed with the feeling of an enemy encroaching on his territory: a prowler, hiding just beyond his awareness, lay in wait.
The German was carefully staying out of the range of perception of his prey, watching the rapid emergence of his monster. The unconscious mind was frantically groping from its hotel bed to identify the threat, but the predator was reasonable enough to cloud his presence. After all, he didn't want his new creation to run away before he was finished. For Tadeus this was a routine game that he pursued for lack of a better pastime, though a part of him always hoped for some revelation into his nature out of the recurring experiments.
Satisfied that his son would stay at the hotel, Tadeus left to attend to more pressing matters: he had to rid himself of a body. Help would soon have arrived at the castle, so he carried the dead teenager, the rest of a delightful meal, to his car. Proper disposal was imperative if he didn't want to attract undue attention to the method of the kill. It would be a shame if people started believing mythical monsters freely roamed the earth. He drove the body to the river, just outside of town, where he hacked the body to pieces and threw them into the current. Investigators would never find the entire collection of body pieces and reconstitute the puzzle of events.
After disposing of the body, and washing the blood from his clothing, the young German returned to the city. It was still early, and people were loafing in the cool August night. Tadeus wandered the streets, savouring the smell of exotic and local flesh, the tantalizing fodder of future meals. He beamed like a connoisseur in a wine cellar. When the streets were empty, he slipped inside the Ibis, and went straight for the room where lay his victim. Curious about the mettle of his creature, he rummaged through his reading material: a travel book, a Tom Clancy. Tadeus giggled silently at the brochures announcing excitement and entertainment in the town of Perigueux.
Then he walked up to the bed and sat beside his son. He bit into his wrist and let the blood drip into the half-opened lips of the moaning sleeper. He gently blocked the nose to make sure the liquid was swallowed. Tadeus knew he would soon be detected at such proximity, and fled immediately.
Michael woke up dizzy and tense. His throat was coated with the dirty penny taste of blood, but he couldn't understand where it came from. He had felt someone touch him, but he was alone, door and windows shut. The street was calm, the people in the next room were shifting in their sleep. He remembered enough of his dreams to know they had been unpleasant and distressing. He was shivering and tired. He was going to be really sick.
He couldn't face breakfast. He strained to pull clothing over his aching muscles. Michael was desperate not to spend his vacation stuck in a hotel room with a cold and fever; the atmosphere in his room, with the nightmares and the smell of sickness, was too oppressive. And the river, he half-heartedly joked, might enjoy yesterday's meal better than his stomach.
It was still early and none of the other guests were up. Hotel staff were preparing tables and placing flowers, and from the kitchen floated the scent of orange peels. The aroma, which usually brightened up Michael's spirits, only unnerved his over-taxed senses. He went out.
The shore was still dewy, so Michael decided to climb up to a square to warm up in the morning sun. He squatted at the corner of Clarte and Denfert-Rochereau, at the foot of the cathedral, and watched the market place open up. Soon, however, he was feeling so ill that even the sun was causing him discomfort. He decided to visit the cathedral. The bare arches and cupolas had a calming effect on him. A pair of monumental chandeliers hanging from the ceiling caught the light from the window panes. A plaque mentioned they were a gift from Napoleon III. He said a quick prayer, embarrassed by the pious surroundings. Then, before falling asleep in a holy place, he went back outside and walked down to the river. He spread his shirt under the trees and lay down to rest, catching up on several restless nights.
By the middle of the afternoon, the shade trailed in a new direction, and direct sunlight was stoking up fever and nightmares. Michael was in hell, his body aflame and each muscle, each nerve in his body in thrall to violent convulsions, his life essence burning away. It was like dying. Flashes of light were searing through his eyelids across his neural net. The nightmare jolted Michael awake and he ran to the shade, where his fever and sudden fear of light subsided. He eventually nodded off again, this time covered and unperturbed.
Late inthe afternoon, Michael opened his eyes, feeling rested and hungry. He decided to go for a bite, hoping to taste, and stomach, the local specialties. He walked downtown in the twilight, the city growing dark quickly. The streets felt stuffy: alleys zigzagged between tall, mossy buildings with few windows, and every here and there an opening for breathing, for parking, or for marketplaces. Even in the new town, millennial vestiges cornered each new contraption. Centuries of generations sent their voices through masonry, statues, and walls with the names of long-gone streets. A plaque over a bakery window echoed the surrounding cenotaphs of past glory: "Remember that you must die...." Michael was glad for the walk, even at his slow pace. His original plans were ruined, but he still managed to see the sights, albeit in the strange colouring of his fever.
He stopped at one restaurant, hooked by the medium-rare smell of quails in brandy sauce. The smell was much more attractive than the saturated, heavy odour of pate de foie and roasted duck. He ate lightly and returned to the hotel to relax over a drink. The meal was stoking some warmth into him, but the hard-hitting sun and alcohol had so flustered Michael's senses that he felt giddy. He was calling it a night when the German he met the first night walked into the hotel.
The German immediately recognized Michael and picked up the conversation where he left off. Again, Michael was inundated with a barrage of history, tourist enthusiasm, and questions. Was Michael enjoying his stay? Was he going to the torchlight procession? Did he visit the cathedral? He barely left enough time for any reply. The man switched so wildly from topic to topic that Michael missed most of it. The whirling monologue was too much to handle in Michael's state. He mumbled a feeble excuse and retired to his room. He felt great relief when he closed the door between the German and him: the aura emanating from the man was like a fox waiting to grab a chicken.
When he stepped in bed, Michael was dizzy and confused. He knew he ought to be noticing something that was slipping past him, and it was a terrible feeling. The food hadn't completely chased the chill from his limbs. Precious heat was radiating away where the veins were closest to the skin. Adding to Michael's misery, the afternoon nap and the strange feeling conspired to keep him awake. For a long while he stared at the ceiling in the dark, until finally tiredness overcame him and he slumped into nightmares.
Tadeus expended himself fully in his marionette making. One more night and his creation would be complete. A portray of his father, or a rebel son? Either way, he expected a good hunt would ensue. He sat in the lounge of the Ibis Hotel with an untouched glass of wine, sensing the tormented nightmares forming the new entity's mindscape. Blurry memories of his own transformation, pickled in his centuries-old memory, resurfaced at the parallel with Michael's dreams. Back then, Tadeus had not understood the change, feeling a savage force stir up in his breast, keenly aware and utterly unsuspecting of his own death. The mind knows much more than it lets on when it's awake.
Tadeus, loafing in a Louis-style chair, was slipping in and out of Michael's field of perception: it was like playing peek-a-boo with a baby. The child would grow fast, but for now could only detect a presence, not identify it. That would soon change. His son was on the brink of death and a fierce and vengeful beast would soon be unleashed in his stead. Upon realizing what he'd become, his son would rage against the puppeteer who operated his transformation. Maybe he would manage to kill his creator - maybe this man would find the one grain of truth among old vampire-killing folklore. At the very least, Tadeus was hoping for entertainment from the blind rage of his new-born monster.
One more night, and his son would drink his last of Tadeus's blood. The next meal Tadeus would bring Michael after that will be warm and fresh blood, the baptism into his new life. The vampire had timed the final agony, and the screeching wail of the new-born, to coincide with the annual torchlight procession: the hotel would be empty, the streets booming with music and chatter. The perfect diversion.
The monster, waiting in the shadows across the river, let the nightmares educate his son without interruption until just before dawn. When time came, he entered the hotel as easily as if all doors were open. He had filled a vial with his blood already, so he wouldn't lose any time. His creation was reaching maturity and might start resisting actively. From this point on, less time spent near Michael meant less chances of getting caught by staff investigating struggling noises.
He quickly approached the bed. "There's gold and money where the young man died the other night," he whispered to Michael, seeming to breathe into the young man's dreams. "You will need it in your new life." Tadeus hated bringing forth destitute children - if money was no object, the pursuer's imagination was the only real limit to the manhunt. This way he tested the true mettle and sophistication of his creations. He briefly let Michael peek behind the veil so he could size upwho, and what, he would be fighting against. Tadeus pulled the vial from his pocket.
Without the dark liquid in the vial, Michael would pine and die within a few days, a rotting husk. Filled with the hope that this progeny would succeed where previous ones failed, Tadeus poured the liquid down Michael's throat.
"EVIL BASTARD!" The sun wasn't up, but early dawn light came in from behind the curtains. Upon waking up, Michael's mind established facts, in rapid-fire succession. First, he knew the German had killed him three nights ago. He was a dumb corpse who only now figured out he was dying. Also: he was living on borrowed time, his life extended by a dark goo gritting through his veins like sand in an hourglass. Third: his sense of self-preservation was an obstacle against the most obvious solution. What kind of monster was he, to fear death so much he preferred becoming a man-eating beast? Michael realized that his syllogism left him in a very badposition.
His thoughts turned to the teenager he - with the unsuspected power of his own mind - had trapped, sacrificing an easy meal to the vampire. The monster had tested his creation, and Michael had let jealousy and violence take over. He threw up the quails from his dinner. His mind was reeling between practical considerations and panic. Could he return home? Did vampires die in sunlight? Could he hide? Would he need the valuables hidden in the castle? Would he turn into a spectacle of hissing flames if he entered a church? Was this reversible?
His body was giving up on him, crying for rest or death. Whether he died or turned into a vampire, Michael knew this was his last day in sunlight. He stormed out of the hotel. He knew the vampire was nearby, ready for the final step. He tried finding its tomb, resting his hopes of salvation in movie lore. But there were no clues, and the clock was ticking for Michael. Even people's reactions were changing: yesterday, they showed concern for the sick man; today they avoided him like the plague, trying to ignore the smelly corpse walking among them.
In desperation, Michael shopped: in addition to wooden stakes, he got a silver cross, kitchen knives, and garlic. He suspected these symbols were potent only in legends and movies. However, Michael was hoping to gain time: monster keeling over in pain, victim left alone to die.
By evening, he felt like a rat in a cage and had no idea what to do. The idea of waiting idly in his room did not overjoy him, but he cared even less for open spaces. He roamed in the lobby and around the hotel, in search of inspiration. Hotel staff were impolite, if not outright ignoring the body in the lobby. Guests were looking for the source of decaying dog's breath.
Soon Michael was strung beyond his capacities. He was falling asleep, while his tormentor was rising to share his hell with someone new. Michael slipped under the bed, face down. The vampire would need to pull him from under there to make him swallow anything, and Michael counted on waking up if he were moved. Time was Michael's last hope.
Lights from the torchlight procession were flickering through the curtains. Terrible hallucinations assailed Michael: his body pierced with stakes, trails of blood. All of Perigueux tracking him with torches in their hands. The pain was real, but the manhunt was cinematic: stakes, crosses, garlic were mere props. Urban legends, teeming with monsters, had forgotten how to dispatch them. Monsters would keep roaming the earth, driven by their warped survival instincts, until someone remembered how to kill them. If things turned for the worse, Michael would soon join the ranks of those damned souls.
This near to the final confrontation, Tadeus was getting excited, a thermos of warm blood in his jacket. Those little rushes of pleasure broke the endless monotony of his existence. A long time ago, Tadeus had tried to end the tedium, but he missed and had to endure an eternal cycle of going through the motions of life. It was a lonely eternity, where he was enemy of Man and competing predator with his kind. He spent years inventing little games to keep boredom at bay, but his latest attempts marked a definite improvement in entertainment value. He always became deeply absorbed with the details - finding a victim, providing for his creature, planning the turn - and the game usually cured him, in average, from a few years of tedious sameness.
Tadeus waited until the torchlight procession reached a certain momentum before walking into the hotel. It was time to end the game. The moment when his sons opened their eyes to a new existence was a blood-rushing experience. He knew Michael would try to stop his fate. They all try. Maybe this one would surprise him, he thought with genuine hope and curiosity. Otherwise, Tadeus was at least hoping he chose a cut with a little backbone and a mean vengeful streak. His son would be angry to have his life robbed by a mythical oddity, and a chase would keep Tadeus on his toes for a long time.
He didn't need to look around the room: he knew instantly where Michael had hidden. He found the arrangement amusing. Michael was awake as soon as Tadeus lifted the bed and pulled him from under it.
Michael panicked. Seeing Tadeus there, ready to turn him into an immortal atrocity, he lost control. He knew he couldn't kill the vampire; he was too feeble to even hurt the creature. Michael yelped and forced the blade of the biggest knife under his jaw, hacking left and right, mangling his throat and mouth - anything block the monster's poison. The self-inflicted violence shocked the monster and his prey was winning precious seconds. Time seemed frozen by pain and terror, and Michael felt a time-lag as he hacked away, making as much damage as was humanly possible. Die, die, die, he pushed the knife around and up and down his neck, die die die already you cold bastard.
Tongues of ripped flesh were hanging from his throat when the monster caught him. He grabbed Michael's arms and made him drop the knife. Die die die, prayed Michael. And his wish was turning true. His life was fleeing. His weakness, the fighting and hacking against his own will and instincts, the asphyxiation on blood from his wounds...He heard a gurgle in his lungs, and smiled in victory as he sank in the arms of the vampire who was holding him.
The vampire's cool stance was shattered. He was shaking his stillborn son, trying to force a change, desperately pouring the blood he'd brought into the hacked up opening that used to be the mouth. Finally Tadeus fled the hotel, and the region. The game had rarely turned this messy and sour. This wasn't prey - this was suicide, with such vehement willpower that it repulsed and scared him. The room was splattered in blood. It was too much to clean by himself. If he stayed he would be caught. Let the sun rise, the maid find the body, the police clean it up. Tadeus fled, driven by a rare panic.
It was still dark when Michael rose to his feet, shaky but no longer disturbed by the cold in his body. He looked around at the blood puddling on the floor. He slipped his finger in the liquid and sniffed it. The smell would forever linked to his rebirth. It was his own blood, his first meal, the baptism into his life as a vampire. When he drowned on his own blood, the same warm blood also seeped down to his stomach. He looked with hard eyes at the mess in the room. That was his life staining the carpet, the wallpaper, the bed.
Michael left by the window, deliberately splashing his blood in a trail leading across the empty road to the river. He worked fast, as people were still returning from the procession. He covered his ragged neck, clotting the flow of blood. Investigators would think his body was dumped in the water. His wounds concealed, he walked to Castle Barriere. He was grateful to discover that Tadeus had not lied about the box full of money. With it he could lie low until he healed.
After that, he did not know. Perhaps he would try and find Tadeus, stop him. He knew better than to hound the vampire now. In his state, and still new to this parody of life, he was bound to make mistakes. He certainly did not want to draw attention to the fact that he was not, contrary to expectations, dead and rotting. There lay, after all, his one advantage against Tadeus: his creator thought him dead.
Michael thought about hiding in some ruins, but there were too many tourists. Perhaps he could seek help from the monks. They might even be able to exorcise the vampiric element from his blood. He carefully crawled up to the cathedral and monastery. Though the streets were blissfully dark, some people were carrying torchlights and would see him clearly. For the first time he noticed the street names two street names: Denfer and Clarte, Hell and Light, met beside the cathedral. He gulped his blood as he forced the lock and entered the cathedral, closing the door silently behind him. The cathedral was dark, dimly lit by the torches from people in the street. He was ashamed, feeling he no longer had a right to come to God. He crept along the bare walls until he reached the transept. The cool, white masonry was calming him, and he knelt in prayer. He was making his peace, suspecting even the monks would call him a monster. He was hoping to be brave enough to face whatever happened.
Something shone above him. The chandelier was glimmering, its crystals glittering like the devil's brazier. Michael panicked. He knew he was damned and he fled. He ran outside. He ran down the street, ran from the cathedral, ran down Denfer and into a small passageway. He ran down the steps and zigzaged along the smaller streets until he reached the old ramparts. And he ran out of the old town, ran past the train station, ran away from Perigueux, ran until his body could move no more. Then he stopped, at least for the day, in the forest, unable to conceive what would happen next.
I would like to thank two people whose web pages on Perigueux were useful in the planning stages of the story:
Many heartfelt thanks to friends who read, encouraged and took notice as I trudged along: Matthew, Johane, Franco, Frederic and Martin.
This version was first posted chapter by chapter in May 2001. (c) Saskia Latendresse 2001-2006
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