traddling the gap between the ordered western lands of science,
religion and syphilis, and the chaotic eastern lands of
superstition, paganism and yeast infections, the Nobles' Rest
offered a symbolic gateway between each world, offering the
unwritten adage 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here' to all
travellers, regardless of which way they were bound.
On this evening, however, travel was impossible as a sudden
storm had isolated the rocky pass upon which the hotel stood.
Torrential rain thundered down the mountain sides, while a thick
fog enveloped the land; nothing could get in or out.
"We'll just have to make the best of it," grumbled Lord Horton
as he gazed out of a window, squinting through the glass darkly
and seeing nothing but his own reflection, behind which the
reflections of his fellow guests could be seen; Doctor Scott,
physician; Doctor Roberts, Master of Lounds College, present
with some half dozen of his students, and lastly Stephens, the
foundry worker, and his seemingly endless supply of grimy male
children, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty two.
Also somewhere in the hotel was Sir Montague Newell, banker, and
Sir Ian Clarke, scientist.
Lord Horton turned and saw that he had somehow missed one of the
retinue, despite the fact that he was leaning against a table in
the centre of the room in clear view. This was Count Gryff, a
foreigner from the far edge of the lands of ravines and forests.
And then of course there were the ladies, segregated in the tiny
drawing room at the other end of the hotel, along with the women
from Stephens' family.
Lord Horton sighed again, wondered how he could pass the time,
and jumped as a thunderous knocking sounded from the front door.
The guests looked at each other in surprise; for anyone to risk
travelling on such a night indicated great urgency or suicidal
insanity. The German manager gestured to the Swedish deputy
manager, who in turn rang the bell to summon the Spanish bell
boy, who ambled forward and opened the door.
He was brushed aside by a tall, thin man who radiated command
and energy. The man strode into the hotel, looked around at the
guests, and settled on Count Gryff.
"A-ha!" he exclaimed. "You thought to throw me off with the
weather, but by God's grace I survived the merciless ravine that
swallowed my three companions, valet, assistant, both mules and
native guide, and now I am here."
"You are no match for one who has stood outside the enormity of
time!" shouted the Count, springing into an alert crouch. "I
tell you now that all will suffer before my night of terror is
done."
"Oh, I say," said Doctor Scott, "what is going on?" Lord Horton
frowned disapprovingly; such a question should not even be
contemplated when foreigners were involved. He began to suspect
that Doctor Scott was hiding a lower middle class background.
"Stop him," cried the new arrival as the Count leapt for the
rear door that lead to the rest of the hotel. "He is evil, and
against God!" The deputy manager tried to move forward, but in
an astonishing burst of speed the Count grabbed him, wrenched
the man's head to one side, plunged his teeth into the deputy's
neck and drained the doomed wretch dry in one convulsive gulp.
Then, flinging the corpse from him, he ran through the exit,
bellowing with demonic laughter, his cloak swirling as it caught
eddies of wind in the corridor, leaving the stunned guests
looking at each other in wild surmise.
II
"A vampire?" said Doctor Roberts in amazement.
"Yes, and he must be destroyed," said the new arrival as he
passed his card around, on which was printed Professor Tyst.
"He must be exposed to sunlight, or staked through the heart."
"Oh, come," said Doctor Roberts. "You can't expect men of good
sense, men of science and natural philosophy, to believe in such
things."
"And how would you explain it then?" asked the professor.
"Anaemia," said Roberts. "Anaemia, coupled with native
superstition, and a perverse active sexuality that has made this
man believe himself to be a vampire. He must be
psycho-analysed."
"He must be destroyed," insisted Tyst.
"Psycho-analysed!" maintained Roberts. "I bet," he added in a
burst of creative academia, "that when the Count was a boy,
rumours abounded of the dead undead, and someone was exhumed
from the village cemetery, and there they saw a man who had been
buried alive, who had scratched the inside of the coffin as he
tried to get out, and who had bit through his lips in agony and
so blood was on his mouth, and after death the continued growth
of fingernails and hair would have compounded the primitive
superstitions, and the Count undoubtedly saw some of this, and
repressed it…"
"The how do you explain the dead deputy?" asked Doctor Scott,
who was examining the corpse.
"A heart attack, caused by shock," said Roberts immediately.
"The body has no blood in it,"
"Perhaps it leaked out somewhere…" said Roberts feebly,
demonstrating the academic desire to hold onto a theory based on
no facts whatsoever, rather than to accept a theory backed up by
observational evidence. The discussion was interrupted by a
piercing scream.
"That came from the drawing room," said the manager.
"The ladies," gasped Lord Horton, and the men rushed as one from
the room, trampling Professor Tyst underfoot.
III
The men arrived to find the drawing room in a considerable state
of disarray, with chairs overturned and the women clutching each
other and sobbing, with the exception of Roberts' daughter,
Anna, ('Probably shocked silent', thought Lord Horton,) and
Stephens' wife, ('Hardened creature, no womanly feeling',
reflected Horton.)
"My daughter," said Horton as his gaze swept over the scene.
"Where is Lucy?"
"It took her!" cried Mrs Roberts. "It swept in and took her
away!"
"So that's it!" hissed Horton, his eyes narrowing.
"What's it?" asked Stephens', looking up from comforting his
wife and daughters, who where all shivering in shock and
incomprehension.
"The reason the foul creature is here," said Horton, eager to
tell everyone his theory even though it was a common menial who
had asked the question. "It clearly plans to invade our country,
and to overthrow the social order by attacking our venerable
upper classes."
"Well, she didn't put up too much of a struggle," said Mrs
Stephens. "In fact, she seemed rather eager to go."
"Rubbish. How dare you insinuate…" spluttered Horton.
"Insinuate what, father?" asked a strange voice from the door.
The assembly swung around in shock and saw Lucy and the Count
standing side by side. Horton looked at the revealing dress,
dark eye shadow and red lipstick that his daughter had somehow
acquired from somewhere, and almost lost the power of speech in
shock.
"Why are you dressed as a common woman of the street?" he
demanded.
"I think it suits me," replied Lucy with a laugh.
"Foul creature!" cried Roberts. "What have you done to this poor
girl?"
"He did nothing except give me another way of life, and let me
speak for myself, and let me articulate my desires freely," said
Lucy in a low hiss before Gryff could even open his mouth to
speak. "And it's a damn sight more than you ever allowed me,
father."
"How dare you speak to me in that foul language?" gasped Horton.
"Come here at once."
"Why did you take her? Why not me?" demanded Anna passionately,
to the shock of Roberts.
"Anna, you're delirious!" gasped her father. "Doctor Scott, do
you have a sedative?"
"It will take more than a sedative to solve this," said the
medical man, who had seen a lot of life's injustice over the
years as a general practitioner.
"But this fiend has obviously influenced the mind of these two,
probably by some Devilish powers…"
"I simply gave an opportunity," said Gryff with a laugh. He
turned on Anne. "Come, then, my dear, fly with us; find a new
life with us!" Anna broke free from her father's attempt to
restrain her, and all three disappeared into the corridor.
Before anyone could give chase the lights went out, plunging the
room into utter darkness.
IV
"I see it all, now," exclaimed Roberts as the lights flickered
back on some thirty seconds later. "Obviously the creature
wishes to destroy the natural social order, ordained by God
Himself, by forcing all respectable women," (here he glanced
dismissively at the Stephens family), "into becoming unnaturally
sexually active."
"That is supposition," said one of Roberts's students, who had
never liked the Doctor.
"This Gryff is obviously a sexual creature," exclaimed Roberts,
"and wishes to bend all to his filthy will."
"Where is the proof of that?"
"Gryff is a sexually polymorphous construct of…"
"Please do not speak of it anymore," said Lady Horton. "It's bad
enough being attacked without having pornographic theory rammed
down our throats."
"Quite right," said Horton, glad that at least his wife was
keeping her standards, although he secretly believed that she
was to blame for their daughter's moral lapse. His wife was,
after all, a woman, and women had been the source of all evil
from the days of Eve and Pandora. The discussion was interrupted
by a piercing scream.
"The dining room!" shouted Horton, taking command as was his
right and duty. "Immediately!"
V
The group thundered down the corridor and into the dining room,
to where they had earlier left Sir Montague Newell, the eminent
banker, after their evening meal. It was obvious at a glance
that the banker, who had remained behind to finish off the vast
trifle, had cashed his final cheque. He was sprawled in the
remains of the trifle, his white face a garish contrast to the
red jelly. From the left leg of his suit, streams of coins were
pouring out onto the carpet. Doctor Scott felt for a pulse, and
then examined the banker's leg.
"Ah, he has a money bag tied up in his britches," reported the
Doctor. "It's somehow got ripped during the attack, and the
money is spilling out." Already the pile of gold was almost
covering the dead banker's foot.
"I see it all now," exclaimed one of Roberts's students.
"See what?"
"The pattern behind the vampire's attack. Clearly he wants to
leech on the wealth of society, to gather all capital to
himself, to hold onto the monetary wealth of the nation. That is
why he has killed Sir Montague."
"I don't see it."
"Obviously Gryff caused the tear deliberately, it is symbolic of
the vampire's nature of hoarding wealth, and bleeding us dry."
"It's symbolic of your desire to speak rubbish," muttered Scott.
The discussion was interrupted by a piercing scream.
"The snooker room!" exclaimed Horton, and the group ran to the
door.
VI
In the snooker room, the group found the drained body of the
scientist, Clarke, who had been practicing his trigonometric
trick shots before being sunk. Scott checked the body, just to
be sure, and shook his head.
"I see it all now," said one of the students.
"Bloody hell," muttered Scott under his breath.
"Obviously he wants to become enlightened, hence he plans on
coming to our land, draining our scientific knowledge, and
leaving us in the barbaric, primitive state that his land is in,
and to that end he has foully murdered one of our leading
scientists."
"But he's not in our land; he's in his own land, more or less."
"Obviously he is on his way from one to the other." The
discussion was interrupted by a piercing scream.
"The ladies!" exclaimed Horton. "By God, we have left them
alone."
"Actually, I asked Stephens to stay and look after them," said
Scott.
"Was that wise?" asked Roberts in alarm. "He's probably as
dangerous as this vampire; he's not of the right breeding…"
"Why don't we find out," snapped Scott in irritation, leading
the way forward.
VII
"What happened?" demanded Horton as the men crowded into the
drawing room. He checked to see that his wife and other ladies
were still present, after which he looked for the women of
Stephens' family. Finally he saw Stephens lying on his side,
being tended by his wife and daughters. A trickle of blood ran
down his face.
"It was the Count," said Lady Horton. "He returned to tempt us,
the Devil."
"What happened?" asked Scott gently as he tended to Stephens,
who was stunned but otherwise not harmed.
"Well, Doc, the Count burst in, asked who else would join him,
asked if any of my family would…"
"And how many of them jumped at the chance?" sneered Horton.
"None of us did," snapped one of Stephens' daughters whose name
Horton had never bothered to ask after. "We've enough worries
with just trying to keep our heads above water without becoming
the play-thing of a toff."
A
mutter of agreement went round the Stephen's family.
Horton and Roberts looked down at them with disdain. "What
actually happened, though?" asked Scott.
"The Count tried to bite my Ethel," said Stephens, pointing to
his eldest daughter, "and I said, 'Oy, we're respectable folk we
are, we don't want no toff coming round here expecting to do
what he wants', and then he hit me and did a runner."
"I see it all, now," said yet another student eagerly. "The
Count is an agitator, who wants to stir up socialist unrest, and
to this end he is attempting to stir the working classes to rise
in treacherous rebellion against their betters…"
"No no," said another. "His motivation can be seen as he only
attacks Western citizens, he therefore wants to attack the
Western state…"
"That's what I said before," said Horton in irritation.
"Yes, but the state is not synonymous with the upper classes, no
mater what you believe…"
"Or perhaps he's just picking us off one by one as we're stupid
enough to go thundering around without a plan," pointed out
Scott.
"Instead of arguing, why don't we ask the expert on what we can
do?" snapped Stephens, as the sadly trampled figure of the
concussed professor staggered into the room, clutching a bloody
handkerchief to his head.
VIII
"The vampire is against the design of God, and must be
destroyed. We must destroy this moral evil at source, that way
all his sin will be undone, and all will be as it once was,"
said the professor, when he had recovered sufficiently to
understand the questions being put to him.
"So we don't need to stake the women through their black
hearts?" demanded Horton, feeling his righteous erection ebb a
little.
"No, we just need to destroy Gryff."
"Oh. All right, how do we start?"
"When the vampire is satiated, he must rest in a safe area.
Typically this will be a tomb, his coffin, a sepulchre…"
"But there is nothing like that here," said the manager.
"Then is there somewhere dark, and away from the sun, and where
he is liable to be undisturbed?" asked Tyst.
"The attic!" exclaimed the manager.
"To the attic!" cried Horton, and the group charged up the six
flights of stairs to the attic. There was nothing there.
"Is there anywhere else?" demanded the professor, panting
somewhat.
"Yes, the cellars!" cried the manager.
"To the cellars!" commanded Horton, and the group charged back
down seven flights of stairs to the cellar. There was nothing
there.
"There… must be… somewhere else…" gasped Tyst, holding his side
in pain as a stitch bit into him.
"Ach… let me… think," puffed the manager. He leaned against a
huge casket that at one time had held several boxes of wine, but
which was now empty. He glanced at it, and wondered who had put
the lid back on…
"There, in there!" he gibbered in fright, pointing at the
casket. Horton sprang forward, flung the lid aside, and jumped
back with a shriek as a rat leapt out of the box and scurried
away.
"Was that him?" he demanded of the professor.
"What, the rat?" asked Tyst.
"Yes, I'm sure I've heard somewhere that vampires can take on
the form of other animals…"
"Oh come on, be serious," said Tyst. "How could a full grown man
turn himself into a tiny rat? We must keep our feet on the
ground in our search for the blood sucking vampire, and not let
our imaginations run away with us."
"Yes, yes, of course."
"Turned into a rat, indeed," muttered Tyst under his breath.
"The gardener's shed!" cried the manager.
"What?"
"The gardener's shed; it is totally enclosed for his mushroom
growing. They need total darkness."
"To the garden shed!"
IX
"I hope there's something here this time," muttered Scott, who
was getting increasingly red in the face and short of breath.
The men cautiously prised open the door and saw on the ground
three long shapes, wrapped in bits of cloth, sacking, and manure
bags.
"There, we have them," hissed Horton.
"All right, keep it quiet," snarled Tyst, watching over his
shoulder as the first thin streaks of light appeared in the sky.
"Yes, yes, we have him; there is no escape now!" Tyst strode
into the narrow shed, hampered somewhat by the lack of striding
room, grabbed a spade from the work bench, and, raising it above
his head, prepared to strike.
"Hang on, which one is it?" whispered Scott in alarm. Tyst
paused, muttered something under his breath, pulled the cloth
away from the figure he had been about to attack, and saw that
he was looking down at Anna. Muttering something else under his
breath, he checked the other figures. The middle one was Lucy,
and the third was the Count.
Tyst brought the spade back up, and at that moment the Count
opened his eyes and glowered in fury at the men clustered around
him. Tyst faltered, stepped back, bumped into a shelf, and a
small axe balanced precariously on its side fell off and
plummeted to the ground, the weight of the head making it turn
downwards as it fell.
The blade fell neatly through the Count's neck, severing the
head completely, and in the moment before death, before the body
crumbled to dust, it seemed to Tyst that the Count smiled in
contented relief. To Doctor Scott, it looked more like
indigestion after a heavy meal.
X
"Gentlemen," exclaimed Horton, pointedly ignoring Stephens from
the toast. "The evil is over, good has triumphed. I give you the
good taste of freedom, and Christian principles."
"Are you sure about that, papa?" asked Lucy, who appeared to be
back to normal.
"How dare you walk into the gentleman's room," said Horton.
"Return to the women's room, at once."
"Why?" demanded Lucy.
"Because it's not done, for you to be here," exclaimed her
father.
"No, it isn't, is it," countered his daughter. "But I came to
tell you that when we get back home, Anna and I intend to create
a new movement for the advancement and equality of women in our
society. This trip has opened our eyes to the world we live in."
"You can't; I forbid it," spluttered her father.
"You can't stop me," said Lucy with a tinkling laugh. "And I
intend to fight for social equality for the lower classes, too.
I've been talking to Stephens and his family, and their plight
is terrible. You know, they came out here looking for work,
because he couldn't find any to support his family back home."
"That's his own fault," said Horton. "He should never have had a
family if he can't afford them. I intend to ask the Home
Secretary when we get back to pass a bill forbidding relations
between the lower orders to preserve our social lines, and…"
"And nothing; I'm going, papa, and we will make changes in our
world."
"You said she was all right," said Horton accusingly to Scott as
Lucy walked out. "You said she was back to normal."
"She is," said Scott. "I rather believe she felt like this
before the trip. It's just that the events of the last few hours
have changed her perceptions. And good luck to her."
"Evil!" cried Horton. "Evil! Contamination!"
"The continued evil of the vampire lives on!" wailed Tyst. "Oh,
how do we rid ourselves of the evil?"
"Ah," said one of the students. "I see it all now. The vampire
is a psychic phenomenon that changes people internally…"
"No, it's a sexual predator…"
"An agent for social change…"
"Represents primitive regression…"
"The feudal system…"
"Capitalism without conscience…"
Sighing at the endless theories and bickering, Doctor Scott
silently left the room.