Vampyrrhic Rites Read online

  Vampyrrhic Rites

  Simon Clark

  Copyright © Simon Clark 2003

  The right of Simon Clark to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by Hodder and Stoughton.

  This edition published in 2015 by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd.

  For Janet

  Table of Contents

  DARKNESS RISING

  1.Electra’s Room. Hotel Midnight.

  2.Rowan’s e-mail. Twenty past midnight.

  LAZARUS DEEP

  1.Lakeside. Midnight.

  2.The North Shore. Beyond Midnight.

  3.In the dark wood. Long past midnight.

  4.The Mouth of Horcum. Two a.m.

  CHAPTER 1

  1.1

  1.2

  1.3

  1.4

  1.5

  CHAPTER 2

  2.1

  2.2

  2.3

  2.4

  2.5

  CHAPTER 3

  3.1

  3.2

  3.3

  3.4

  3.5

  3.6

  3.7

  CHAPTER 4

  4.1

  4.2

  4.3

  4.4

  4.5

  CHAPTER 5

  5.1

  5.2

  5.3

  5.4

  5.5

  5.6

  5.7

  CHAPTER 6

  6.1

  6.2

  6.3

  6.4

  6.5

  6.6

  CHAPTER 7

  7.1

  7.2

  7.3

  7.4

  7.5

  7.6

  7.7

  7.8

  CHAPTER 8

  8.1

  8.2

  8.3

  8.4

  8.5

  8.6

  8.7

  8.8

  8.9

  CHAPTER 9

  9.1

  9.2

  THE BROXLEY TESTAMENT

  A Vampiric Lament by Rick Broxley

  CHAPTER 10

  10.1

  10.2

  10.3

  CHAPTER 11

  11.1

  11.2

  11.3

  CHAPTER 12

  12.1

  CHAPTER 13

  13.1

  13.2

  13.3

  13.4

  13.5

  13.6

  13.7

  CHAPTER 14

  14.1

  14.2

  14.3

  14.4

  CHAPTER 15

  15.1

  15.2

  15.3

  15.4

  15.5

  15.6

  CHAPTER 16

  16.1

  16.2

  16.3

  16.4

  CHAPTER 17

  17.1

  17.2

  17.3

  17.4

  17.5

  CHAPTER 18

  18.1

  18.2

  18.3

  CHAPTER 19

  19.1

  19.2

  19.3

  19.4

  19.5

  CHAPTER 20

  20.1

  20.2

  CHAPTER 21

  21.1

  21.2

  21.3

  21.4

  CHAPTER 22

  22.1

  22.2

  CHAPTER 23

  23.1

  23.2

  23.3

  23.4

  23.5

  CHAPTER 24

  24.1

  24.2

  24.3

  24.4

  24.5

  CHAPTER 25

  25.1

  25.2

  25.3

  25.4

  25.5

  CHAPTER 26

  26.1

  26.2

  26.3

  26.4

  CHAPTER 27

  27.1

  27.2

  27.3

  27.4

  27.5

  CHAPTER 28

  28.1

  28.2

  28.3

  CHAPTER 29

  29.1

  29.2

  CHAPTER 30

  30.1

  30.2

  30.3

  30.4

  CHAPTER 31

  31.1

  31.2

  CHAPTER 32

  32.1

  32.2

  32.3

  32.4

  CHAPTER 33

  33.1

  33.2

  33.3

  33.4

  33.5

  CHAPTER 34

  34.1

  34.2

  34.3

  34.4

  34.5

  CHAPTER 35

  35.1

  35.2

  35.3

  35.4

  35.5

  CHAPTER 36

  36.1

  36.2

  36.3

  36.4

  CHAPTER 37

  37.1

  37.2

  37.3

  37.4

  CHAPTER 38

  38.1

  38.2

  CHAPTER 39

  39.1

  39.2

  39.3

  39.4

  39.5

  39.6

  CHAPTER 40

  40.1

  40.2

  40.3

  40.4

  40.5

  40.6

  CHAPTER 41

  41.1

  41.2

  41.3

  41.4

  41.5

  CHAPTER 42

  42.1

  42.2

  WINTER’S END

  1. Station Hotel. Noon.

  2. Robin Hood’s Bay. Dusk.

  Here terrible portents came about over the land of Northumbria, and miserably frightened the people; there were immense flashes of lightning and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air.

  ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, AD 793

  * * *

  We use them every day, but few know the true meaning of the days of the week. One can only guess how ancient their pagan origins. So, hereafter, are our common-or-garden days with their ineffably exotic translation: -

  Sunday — the day of the Sun god

  Monday — the day of the Moon goddess

  Tuesday — the day of the god Tiw

  Wednesday — the day of the god Odin, sometimes known as Othin

  Thursday — the day of the god Thor

  Friday — the day of the goddess Freya, leader of the Valkyries

  Saturday — the day of the god Saturn

  A VERY PAGAN FOUNDATION by the Countess of Bedale, 1929

  * * *

  One sign of the vampire is the power of the hand

  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873)

  * * *

  Navel, septum, labret, tongue,

  Purple, black, lace, leather,

  Chains, collars and candy necklaces.

  Stoker, Lovecraft, Poe.

  Poetry, painting, rain, and death by architecture.

  All these we want. All these we need.

  MIDNIGHT’S FAIR, Anonymous

  * * *

  I have a personal dislike to vampires, and the little acquaintance I have with them would by no means induce me to reveal their secrets.

  Lord Byron (1788-1824)

  DARKNESS RISING

  1.Electra’s Room. Hotel Midnight.

&nb
sp; She lay on the bed. Her hair of beautiful gunmetal blue splashed outward as if it had exploded across the pillow. Hotels at midnight are other-worldly places. They house strangers who sleep under the same roof. They are a rendezvous for lovers. Places where marriages are consummated. Where individuals of a certain nature may indulge their secret passions away from their own homes.

  The weight of darkness pressed down on her naked body. Sometimes she willed that sensation into the mental image of a lover pressing her tight against the bed. A lover with long hair falling in soft curls across her face. This lover wouldn’t hold her with arms but with a pair of vast black wings. Bat wings. They’d have the shine of patent leather. Through them would run veins that pulsed with warm, rich blood. They’d rustle as they encircled her. Aromas of clean hair and skin would rise deliciously into her nose. She rested her hand on her face, her fingers splayed, forming a cage across her eyes.

  I see my lover. I see the wings that will hold me. They heat the air above my bed. Now my lover swoops…

  A soft chime shimmered on the midnight air. Electra Charnwood blinked the fantasy away.

  No.

  There is no lover there, hovering on outstretched wings above the bed. I’m lying awake, as I do every night in this forbidding Gothic horror of a hotel in Leppington. There never is any lover. The town’s dead. It’s snowing. It’s just the same as always…

  Electra climbed from the bed and stood there for a moment, feeling the chill of midnight air on her naked body. Normally, she’d slip into the silk kimono with the gold dragon winding down the back but she’d grown to enjoy the cold against her skin. Lately, she’d even taken to turning off the heat in her room. Now there was something delicious about the way the chill night air slid through the part-open window to roam across her shoulders, breasts and thighs.

  The musical chime sounded again.

  Two e-mails in as many minutes? Your popularity’s bursting through the ceiling, girl.

  She crossed the room to her desk where the computer screen burned with a cold blue light in the darkness. The first message ran a heading: Meet Thursday? She recognized the e-mail address.

  ‘Only in your dreams,’ she murmured, then deleted the message without reading it.

  The next one caught her breath. Shivers tingled across her back and arms. A mass of tiny ice feet invading her skin.

  This one was headed: Please.

  Sight of the e-mail address filled her mouth with the taste of something metallic. That’s the taste of fear, she told herself. A mere glimpse of this e-mail address always had the same effect on her. She sat down at the desk, straightened her spine in a way that signalled ‘OK, I don’t want to do this, but I won’t be frightened… I won’t be frightened…’

  Even so, the feel of icy insectile feet now pelted down her spine. Her heartbeat quickened.

  OK. I don’t have to do this, she reasoned. I can read it in the morning, or next week, or even delete it; never read it at all, but I —

  No. He needs me.

  Before she prevaricated any more, she went for it. Skimming the cursor across the screen, she struck the highlight bar that contained a single stark Please.

  Electra,

  Thank you for your message. Those kind words meant so much to me. Please know that they carried me through some difficult nights. Those terrible sounds come again. They came through the walls. I’m convinced that if I opened the —

  Electra stopped reading. The sound of footsteps in the hallway startled her. It was the sound someone makes when they approach stealthily across carpet. Now they were just outside the door. There they paused.

  Clenching her fist on the desk and half turning, she spoke in the direction of the door. ‘Yes. I know you’re there. I know who you are…’ Her heart pounded in her chest, her ears buzzed with the force of blood being driven through her veins. Louder, she repeated, ‘I know who you are. But I won’t let you in. You can’t hurt me… not if I don’t let you.’ With a sudden fire in her voice she called out loudly, ‘And you can tell that to whoever sent you!’

  A necklace of black beads lay on the desk beside the computer. Picking them up, she flung them at the door where they clattered against the panel. They’d not even come to rest on the floor when she heard the footsteps backing away. Closing her eyes, she saw in her mind’s eye those bare feet. They’d run, making nothing louder than whispering sounds, away along the carpeted corridor to the stairs. Then down the staircase, moving faster and faster.

  And they’d be the strangest feet in the world. Back-to-front feet with the heels pointing forward and the toes back. Moving ever faster, they’d race across the lobby, past the reception desk where Electra spent so much of her working day, then past the kitchen to the basement door. Without pausing, the runner would speed down the steps into the basement. They wouldn’t pause to switch on the light. They didn’t need it.

  No, she saw them plunging down into darkness to race between ancient shelving, empty bottles, junked bed-frames and broken mirrors. Not even solid ground would stop them now. She pictured them plunging through the brick floor into the earth beneath Leppington town. There they’d swim deeper down through layers of clay, the foundations of medieval houses, Viking feasting halls, Roman villas — tiles, bricks, potsherds of terracotta and blood-red Samian ware. Further down through flint arrowheads and axes. All this and more, blended with the bones of Leppington’s ancient dead.

  At some point the runner would find its master.

  Electra Charnwood got another message.

  ‘That’s right,’ she whispered as she returned to the computer screen. ‘That’s right. I did. And I know you’re trying to start it all over again.’

  Electra read the e-mail.

  2.Rowan’s e-mail. Twenty past midnight.

  Electra.

  Thank you for your message. Those kind words meant so much to me. Please know that they carried me across some difficult nights. Those terrible sounds came again. They came through the walls. I’m convinced that if I opened the door I would see something out there. And, believe me, I don’t want to see. The noise is terrifying. To see what makes the sound must be beyond imagination. But I can feel’ their presence — if that makes sense, Electra. I feel waves of cold — absolute cold — rolling into the house. I feel dread. If I were to open the door nothing would ever be the same again.

  Electra, I’m frightened. I want to go home.

  Only I know I can’t find my way home. I don’t even know where I am. You asked questions and requested information. How did I come here? To describe my surroundings. To try and remember.

  I do try. All I can say for sure is that my name is Rowan. I’m not an old man. I’m sure I am young. There are no mirrors. But if there were I know I would scream at what I saw.

  Now… why did I write that? Why should I scream into the mirror? What is it that’s so wrong with me?

  It’s those sounds. They infest my ears… they move like worms in my brain.

  I’m sorry, Electra. I know I should stay calm. You have asked me questions. I will supply answers. Right FIRST. HOW DID I GET HERE?

  Easy, Electra. I don’t know. I just found myself here. I didn’t even wake to find myself in this place. It happened over a long period of time. As if I lay on the bed for days while a mist slowly… ever so slowly… cleared around me. In short, not only don’t I know how I arrived here, I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. Now, how crazy is that?

  SECOND. WHAT IS THIS PLACE?

  That’s easy, too. An old house of some kind. The walls are bare stone. There’s not much furniture. A sofa, an armchair, a few framed prints of seascapes on the walls. Three bedrooms on the first floor; another bedroom in the attic. In the kitchen… if I can bring myself to venture into the kitchen, which isn’t often, because that’s where the trapdoor to the well is… there’s an old-fashioned-looking cooker, a table and chairs, a dresser with plates, a microwave, a refrigerator; a big Belfast sink.

  But I do
n’t know where this is… out in the countryside, I guess. The reason I’m not sure where — and you’re going to laugh out loud at this, my dear Electra — is because I dare not look out of the windows. I daren’t. As simple and as stupid and as crazy as that!

  The windows terrify me. When I was in this fog of not being fully wide awake I knew people looked in at me. No, not looked but STARED. Frightening faces. Electra, this was the worst part. I was paralysed. All I could do was look at the faces staring in at me. Inside my head I was screaming. But I know I couldn’t even murmur aloud.

  And during that time everything seemed monstrously distorted. The doorway was an ugly hole that constantly changed shape. The dimensions of the room moved from being as tiny as a box that pressed against me, to expanding into something as vast as a cathedral where the ceiling light was only a dot in the distance. Sometimes I felt as if my head was swelling. It would keep swelling until it was bigger than the room itself That’s impossible, I know. But that’s how it felt. And it was such a terrifying and sickening sensation.

  But that’s over. Only you might understand now why I daren’t look out.

  After I emerged from this mental fog I searched the house. I found a hammer and nails and nailed down the trapdoor in the kitchen. Wasn’t I the man of action?

  And now I have this sensation growing inside me. A sense of wanting. Needing. It’s a hunger, but not a hunger, if you know what I mean?

  No? It doesn’t make complete sense, does it?

  But I guess it’s what birds feel in their hearts when the time comes to migrate. They don’t KNOW what they want, but there is this instinct — this God-almighty overpowering instinct — that possesses them; that drives them to gather into flocks, then to fly south.

  Some instinct’s growing like a clump of weeds inside me. The pressure’s enormous. Sometimes I wonder if my heart’s simply going to grow and grow until it bursts my ribcage.

  I need you, Electra. I believe that only you can reach out to me. So each night I find myself sitting here at the computer.

  There is no telephone but I can send these e-mails to you down the line.

  I could send messages to other people. Is that what you’re thinking as your gaze glides across these words? But everything else on the computer screen is a fog. Only this link through your Hotel Midnight site is clear. When I wake I find myself sitting here, so I type. After that, I walk from room to room in this lonely house until it’s time to sleep.

  If you do read this, if you do believe what I’m saying is the truth (and, God help me, it is) then please will you try and find me? You can’t imagine the terror this life holds for me. Please help me before those sounds grow louder than I can bear. Please try to