Page 62 of The Last Vampire
William did not think of how the lack of windows would affect her. He digs into his box of clothing, and he pulls out his waistcoat, perching it over her shoulders.
She feels along the embroidery, and while she inspects the fabric, he strides up to the loose rock in the wall and removes it. Then he sticks his hand in and pulls out the letter in the metal envelope.
“That’s it?” she asks, walking over.
He hands her the piece of parchment.
“February 13, 1769,” she reads, then she stops abruptly and looks up. “Does that date mean anything to you?”
William nods, not seeing the point in hiding this from her. “It would have been my twentieth birthday. It is also the last day I can recall before awakening here.”
Her eyes widen with a kind of awe, and then she looks back down at the letter. “To the Esteemed Huntington,”she reads,“the parcel shall reach you in due course, though it may be several months hence. Disperse the fortune I have entrusted to you with prudence, ensuring it is spent but sparingly over the course of the century, that none might harbor suspicion. When sufficient time has passed, erect a stronghold to ensure this estate is safeguarded above all others. Mark well our agreement, and you and your descendants shall prosper for eternity.”
She stares at the paper after she has finished reading.
“It’s unsigned.”
“I noticed.”
Yet even without a name, William recognizes the handwriting. He would know it anywhere, in any time.
It belongs to his killer.
“What does it mean?” asks Lorena.
“I suspect… I am the parcel,” says William, and it feels strange to say the words out loud. “I must have been shipped here from London in that coffin and kept hidden for centuries. The question is…why?”
“What about the timeline we found on the ceiling of the LUB last night?” she asks. “What was all that?”
As she has already seen and heard too much, William does not see any point in shielding her from somerealworld history. “The Black Death was not an illness… it wasus.”
Her eyes widen and glaze over with awe.
“After we had eaten our way through half the European population, human mortality plunged to dangerously low levels, and we risked starvation, which could cause our bodies to go into death-sleep indefinitely. Since our lifestyle of limitless drinking was unsustainable, in 1429 we agreed to a Treaty with the humans. Vampires would no longer drink to kill, and we would limit our numbers to no more than five percent of the human population—in return, we could integrate into mortal society. The Treaty also called for the creation of a human law enforcement division called the Legion of Fire.”
She seems too entranced to interrupt with questions, so he goes on. “The ensuing peace held for a while, but in time, some vampires began reverting to the old ways. And some branches of the Legion became radicalized and went rogue, hunting immortals indiscriminately. By the 1700s, tensions worsened to the point that both sides were predicting an existential war.”
Did that war break out?
Did the vampires lose?
Is William a prisoner? Or is he a secret survivor?
These questions have been plaguing him since he became conscious, and he feels no closer to finding the answers.
“What about the Spell of 1775?” asks Lorena. “It was written on the ceiling.”
“I do not know what that is, as I was already asleep by then.”
“Maybe if you told me more about yourself,” she says in a tentative tone, like she is walking a tightrope, “we could finally figure all this out.”
He is insulted by her implication. What does she think he has been trying to do this whole time?
“How couldyoufigure this out whenIcannot?” he asks.
She crosses her arms, too proud to face his logic. “Such arrogance from someone who doesn’t even know who Einstein is!”
“Who?”
