Page 42 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“Would that be our quarry the vampiress?”
Readers who are following this narrative in its serialised edition may have forgotten in the months between the publication of the first instalment and the present that our suspects were as follows: Mr. Charles du Maurier, impresario of the theatrical experience known as Mise en Abyme (whom we eliminated from our enquiries in the light of the shrewd character of his current protégé), Mr. Enoch Reef (who, it transpired, had been engaged in an underworld conflict that would have made it quite impractical for him to waste resources blackmailing civilians), Mrs. Yasmine Benamara (our encounter with whom was detailed in last month’s edition), the Contessa Ilona of Mircalla (a vampire, whom we have yet to meet), and Citizen Icarius Castaigne of the People’s Republic of Carcosa (who will appear in a future escapade).
To return our focus to the matter at hand, I had asked Ms. Haas to clarify the nature of our next suspect for the simple reason that I was deeply (and, as it turned out, accurately) concerned about the dangers that may await us were we to bait a vampiress in her lair during the hours of darkness. Once Ms. Haas had confirmed that the Contessa was, indeed, our subject and I had articulated these very reservations to her she assuaged my fears in her usual fashion.
“Oh, don’t be such a wet blanket, Captain. If it reassures you, bring one of the pistols. I believe there are a half dozen silver bullets in that slipper over there. And in one of the decanters you will find water consecrated in the name of several solar deities, including your own peculiar nuclear god.” She paused thoughtfully. “Unless I drank it. I was a little low on mixers the other day.”
I fetched my cane against the possibility that my wound would inconveniently resurface and availed myself of the offered pistol and ammunition. I would not normally go armed into a respectable part of the city, but when one’s destination is haunted by the living dead one reconsiders the relative merits of propriety and security. Ms. Haashad not, as it happened, consumed the holy water or, at least, I found that one of the decanters contained a liquid that appeared to be water, and which I assumed, therefore, was the reagent to which she had referred. Although, given its proximity to the whiskey, it may have been soda, and, given the overall disarrangement of Ms. Haas’s drinks cabinet and alchemical apparatus, it could also have been a solution of brine, the collected tears of a thousand virgins, or an extremely dilute medical sample. Nevertheless, I decanted it into a hip flask, hoping that, in extremis, I might at least be able to distract or discommode an adversary.
While I had been thus engaged, Ms. Haas had completed her ensemble with the addition of an opera cloak lined in red silk, a collapsible top hat, and a gold-rimmed monocle.
“Madam,” I exclaimed, “you surely cannot be intending to confront an unliving tyrant in such impractical garments.”
She gave me one of her mocking looks. “In case it escaped your attention during our last escapade, I am gifted with the capacity to alter my appearance at will. I can be anyone I wish whenever I wish, one of the perks of which is that I can wear whatever the ——” And here she employed one of the words I prefer not to set before my audience. “... I please.”
It was a fair point, although since she did not, in fact, often change her appearance in order to conceal her inappropriate sartorial choices it sounds, in retrospect, rather like an excuse.
We bade farewell to Mrs. Hive, whose present body had lost an arm and most of its face, meaning she would soon be obliged to purchase another, and hailed a cab from the end of Martyrs Walk. As we rattled through the cobbled streets of Athra, I enquired further into our strategy.
“Are you absolutely certain,” I asked, “that this is the best time of day to be going to the home of a vampire?”
She put a finger pensively to her lips. “It’s what you might call acompromise. If our intent was definitely to slay the Contessa in her sleep we would attempt to come upon her just after dawn or close to noon, when the sunlight would render her weak. By extension of this reasoning, however, if one wishes to visit socially, arriving before sunset is considered spectacularly rude. It’s approximately equivalent to trying to call upon a human while they’re in the bath and you are dressed in a suit of Marvosi body armour and carrying a rifle. Which is to say, rather gauche.”
“I do follow your reasoning, but what if, for example, she tries to slay us?”
“Well, that is why we’re not visiting at midnight. And besides”—she patted me on the knee—“I rather hope it won’t come to that. Vampires are rather tricky creatures. On the one hand, they’re immortal, and immortal beings have far less cause to behave rashly than mortal ones. But on the other, they’re also creatures of overwhelming and unbearable passion, a quality that makes them a great deal of fun in some contexts but terrible bores in others.”
I asked one more question. It was a question I would ask many times over the course of my long acquaintance with the sorceress Shaharazad Haas, never receiving an entirely satisfactory answer. “Is there a plan?”
“Of course there’s a plan. We go to her house, we have a conversation, we see how things develop from there.”
“Wasn’t that the plan last time?”
Ms. Haas brightened. “Yes, and everything worked out wonderfully.”
We disembarked outside the high stone wall of the Contessa’s estate. The gates were closed but not locked, although rust and decay made them difficult to push open, and the grounds beyond were overgrown and ill lit. Perversely, for we were not a hundred yards from the road, I could have sworn I heard the howling of wolves in thedistance. The house itself was just visible, its turrets and spires casting ominous shadows in the fading sunlight.
Ms. Haas pressed her fingers to her temples. “Vampires,” she declared, “are the worst. For the price of this pile of weeds and rubble she could live basically anywhere. But, no, no, it has to be a crumbling manse in an obviously haunted wood. I mean, where did she evengetbarghests?”
I did not quite share my companion’s jaded attitude to our circumstances. But the chill in the air, the beasts prowling the night, and the threat of some unhallowed abomination descending upon us without warning put me uncannily in mind of my early childhood. Much has improved since those days but, even now, there are still forests in Ey where one does not walk if one wishes to emerge with one’s mind and one’s soul intact.
We pressed on towards the castle, which took some while for the grounds were extensive and not easily traversed. I was glad of my cane, for my old wound had been playing up lately, and the rough terrain would likely have further aggravated it.
When at last we arrived, we found the windows lightless; indeed, there was no sign whatsoever of habitation save a scattering of bats circling one of the towers. The front door, which was heavy oak, its knocker gripped in the mouth of some leering imp, swung open soundlessly as we approached.
“Perhaps,” I remarked, “I’m being overcautious. But does that not look to you rather a lot like a trap?”
My companion nodded. “Yes, were she observing tradition, and, from the look of this place, the Contessa is nothing if not a traditionalist, she would have met us at the door to give us some assurance of our safety. The fact that she has not implies either that she is not at home or that we are being encouraged to trespass and, thereby, invite reprisals.”
“How then should we proceed?” In all honesty, and this may have been my upbringing or my military experience speaking, I was edging towards the opinion that the most practical course of action would be to set the building on fire and run. Unfortunately, this would be unlikely to provide us with the information we required.
“I suspect you will dislike this suggestion”—Ms. Haas peered into the darkness beyond the doorway—“but I think it might be best if I were to go through the main entrance in order to draw the attention of whoever or whatever might be lurking inside, while you skirt the boundaries and seek an alternate route.”
Contrary as it ran to my instincts, I was forced to concede that Ms. Haas’s strategy had a great deal to recommend it. If the main entryway was indeed a trap, Ms. Haas was more likely to survive it than I and if one intended to bait out an ambush one did not do so by committing one’s whole force. I nodded my assent.
Needing no further encouragement, my companion swept into the mansion, her cloak billowing about her. The moment she was across the threshold, the doors slammed shut, which rather confirmed our suspicions of skulduggery. In a situation like this, my natural impulse would always be to go immediately to the aid of my friend, but in the face of real danger such kindnesses can prove fatal. I have learned from bitter experience that the success of an operation and the survival of those engaged in it are best served by adherence to the agreed plan, rather than impulsive acts of private compassion. So, I trusted that Ms. Haas’s abilities would prove equal to whatever she faced and turned my attention to the task she had laid before me.
Taking a firm hold of my cane in one hand, and the pistol in the other, I swept the perimeter, proceeding clockwise from the door and keeping a weather eye out for ghosts, ghouls, and barghests. The most obvious points of access were the open and unguarded windows high in the tower. While I believed myself capable of scaling its rough walls with relative safety, I had no wish to be caught thirty feet above theground with no free hand when attack by a flying enemy was possible at any moment. Further, my time beyond the Unending Gate had taught me that one must never underestimate the physical strain a long, vertical ascent would place upon one’s body or the severe detriment of such fatigue on one’s capabilities afterwards. I resolved, therefore, to assault the tower only as a last resort.
