THIRTEEN

Asher had always loved Prague. He’d visited it in the early eighties as a student, fascinated by the ancient walls and cobblestone streets of the Bohemian capital, and had felt himself drawn to the profound sense of mysteries that clung to its crumbling university. Though rational by nature, he had returned again and again in his studies to the sense that the city was a threshold – praha, in Slavic – to those strange pre-Christian beliefs that even then were his deepest joy. From Prague he had trekked to the nearby mountains a dozen times, to study curious verb-forms – in Slovak, Czech, Serbian and dialects even more obscure – and even more curious beliefs, in out-of-the-way valleys and villages where the Slovak had lived cheek-by-jowl with the Turk for half a millennium.

If any town in Europe would have vampires, he knew it would be Prague.

Ysidro had taken a house in the Old Town that had the look of having originally been a gatehouse to some larger structure. There was a crypt down below, lightless as the pit of Hell, where Asher paid his porters to deposit the trunks and luggage. The journey from Germany into Bohemia had taken only hours, and he had not seen his traveling companion for a day and a half. Only the presence of the train tickets, and the Prague addresses jotted on a slip of notepaper in the Berlin apartment, had informed him that their quarry was not in the German capital, and that they were moving on.

His own temporary residence, on the other side of the river in the Lesser Town, had some extremely Elizabethan inequalities of floor level between parlor and bedchamber, and a lack of both heating and plumbing that reminded Asher strongly of his student days. As he walked back across the great bridge in the chilly spring twilight from an afternoon spent in the paneled book-room of Ysidro’s rented nest, he considered turning his steps towards what had been the Ghetto and calling on one of his old mentors. Only the remote possibility that some connection might be established between himself and Ysidro by the local master kept him away.

Yet he sat for a long time in the window of his pension, watching the dark street, the starry blackness above the town’s steeples, after the city’s lights winked out.

James,

For three years past, the Master of Berlin has sensed the coming of an outsider to that city, six or eight times in a year: subtle, clever, and unseen. Because this outsider does not hunt, he has not seen him, or her. Yet he is aware of the presence, and aware when that presence departs, after a stay of two nights or three.

I still seek the Master of Prague.

There is a strangeness in this city. For your life, do not be on the streets when darkness falls.

‘Are there vampires in Prague?’

‘James.’ Old Dr Solomon Karlebach ducked his head a little – a habit Asher remembered from his student days – and peered at his former student from between spectacle rims and those astonishing eyebrows. These days the expression of his mouth was more than ever concealed by the flowing Assyrian beard. ‘And you a man of science.’ The old man – and he’d been old, Asher reflected, when he’d first met him twenty years ago – hadn’t seemed in the slightest surprised to see him, when one of the great-grandchildren of the household had brought him down to the parlor to greet his guest. Even the fact that his former student was now three-fourths bald and embellished with black American side-whiskers and a pince-nez didn’t seem to faze the scholar, who had not the least trouble seeing through the disguise.

‘True science lies in keeping an open mind.’ Asher obeyed the old man’s gesture and seated himself on one of the faded chairs with which the parlor was so superabundantly provided. With the curtains drawn to muffle the noise from the narrow street, every object in the room seemed to be the same indeterminate shadow-color, even as he remembered them. White-lace antimacassars still blotched the gloom like mammoth bird-droppings. Half a dozen lampshades, each trimmed with glass-bead fringes, provided a queer glittering quality to the darkness, galaxies of nearly-invisible stars. ‘At least so you were always telling me. I have recently wondered if there were some reason behind your certainty.’

‘Ah.’ The old Jew settled back in his velvet chair (red? purple? brown?) and stroked his beard. His advancing age showed itself most in his hands, which Asher was distressed to see were so twisted with arthritis that the growing yellow claws on the last two fingers of each had left scars on the flesh of the palms. ‘And something has happened recently, which has caused you to wonder?’ His dark eyes went to the window, as if to satisfy himself at the thin slit of light still visible between the panes of the shadow-color brocade.

‘Are there vampires in Prague?’

‘The world is full of vampires, Jamie.’ Karlebach turned and smiled at the grandson (or great-grandson) who brought in a silver tray with tea on it, served in the Eastern fashion, in ornamental glasses fitted into silver holders, with a little dish of sugar chunks to suck it through. When the boy left: ‘Not all are Undead.’

‘I know that.’ Asher thought about his Chief at the Department, thanking him for saving the South African assignment by killing a sixteen-year-old boy who had been a friend to him, then passing without pause for breath to the next mission he wanted him to undertake.

‘L’chaim.’ Dr Karlebach saluted with his tea glass. ‘And I think – from the scars on your neck and the silver chain I see under your right shirt-cuff – that you know yourself about the ones who are. So tell me what you really want to know, Jamie. About the vampires? Or the Others?’

Asher sipped his tea. ‘Others?’ He had already seen, when his host had lifted his glass, that Dr Karlebach wore silver chains around his wrists – and probably his throat – as well.

Karlebach’s beard shifted a little with his smile. ‘Tell me why you ask.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Ah.’ For a time the old man studied his face with sudden sadness in those sharp dark eyes. ‘So you have become their servant, Jamie? Don’t trust them, my boy. Whatever they have told you—’

‘I don’t.’

But he did, in a way. Even though he was aware that Ysidro had tricked him, as vampires do, into participating in his search for the Lady Irene . . . his concern about the Kaiser, bombs, and poison gas being minimal at best.

And he could see that Karlebach read his trust.

The old man sighed, a tiny breath stirring the extravagant white mustaches. As he had sighed, Asher recalled, when he had told his mentor that he was going to work for the Department. ‘Very well.’ The deep, rusty voice rumbled over the clipped vowels and sing-song consonants of the Austrian German that the Kaiser and his followers in Berlin would barely have recognized. ‘I don’t know who – or even what – the Others are, but I think the vampires fear them. Certainly more than they do any of the living. I have never heard mention of them anywhere else; only in Prague. I’ve seen them – the few times I have seen them – near the bridges, and on the islands of the river. They’re hard to spot. If you don’t go looking for them, you are generally safe.’

‘Are they a kind of vampire?’

‘They kill.’ The old man sketched a small gesture with those yellow-nailed hands. ‘I think not so frequently as the vampires do, but also not so carefully. Sometimes two and three men in a month, then nothing for years. Sometimes they will kill a vampire: open its crypt, and summon rats – with whom they have a . . . a kinship – by the thousands, to devour it while it sleeps.’

Asher was silent, appalled. Was this what Ysidro had meant by his warning? Or – given the deadly squabbles within the vampire community itself – was there a factional war in Prague too, complicated by the presence of beings that neither side could control?

I still seek the Master of Prague.

There is a strangeness in this city.

‘Jamie.’

He was aware how long he’d been silent, wrapped in the shadows of his thought. Old Karlebach was still watching his face, reading him as he’d always been able to read him.

‘Don’t bargain with them, Jamie,’ said the old man again. ‘Don’t help them, don’t believe them, don’t let them live one moment beyond what it takes to destroy them safely. No matter what they tell you, about why it is so necessary that you help them do whatever it is they’re asking you to help them do. They are lying.’

‘Is it that obvious?’ Asher tried to speak lightly, but the recollection of how Ysidro had manipulated his dreams stung him still. He found himself, too, extremely conscious that the stripe of light between the curtains had gone from gold to pallid gray and would soon be gone.

‘I have studied them.’ His teacher sighed again and shook his head. ‘Seventy years I have watched them, not believing at first, then believing – and fearing. I have read each book, each manuscript, each monastic record and fragment and gloss the length and breadth of Europe, and I know, as well as any living man knows, who they are and what they do. And how they do it.’ His eyes were on Asher, as if he knew all about his dreams of coming war.

‘Have you met them?’ But he already knew the answer to that. Beneath that flowing ocean of beard, did his teacher bear scars of his own? ‘Do they know of your . . . researches?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Karlebach folded his misshapen hands.

‘And in your researches,’ said Asher, ‘have you ever heard of vampires coming into being without the infection from another vampire?’

The old man frowned, startled and disconcerted by the idea. ‘Never.’ He shook his head, white hair glinting under the black velvet of his cap. ‘Such a creation would never survive the dawnlight, without a master to instruct it . . .’ His dark eyes narrowed. ‘Is that what you seek?’

‘It’s one of the things we’re seeking.’

‘We.’ Karlebach pronounced the word as if it were wormwood on his tongue. ‘I wish you could hear how you just said that. They’re seducers, Jamie. When they need the living – and they often do – they whisper in your dreams, and you find yourself going where you dreamed of going, and doing what you did in your dream—’

As poor Margaret Potton did . . .

And myself.

‘Do you think the only kind of seduction is the sort that warms the loins? That is the simplest – the most basic . . . Else why did Dante place the Circle of the Lustful at the top of Hell, just within its gates? Everyone stumbles into that circle sooner or later. It’s big. But, as well, they seduce through the intellect, which thinks it can best judge the circumstances of whatever the particular instance is that the vampire presents. They cause you to think that you’re doing your duty – to country, to love, to a friend, even to God – when in fact you are only doing exactly what the vampire wants you to do. Am I right?’

For a long while Asher did not reply, thinking of the ribbon of blood flowing down the streets of Mafeking in his dream. Of the slim shadow of Ysidro by lantern light, on the other side of a lake of blood. Of the pearl ring Ysidro had given to the woman he had loved. Then he said, ‘You are right.’

‘It is all seduction. For all their strength they are fragile creatures, brittle as handfuls of poisoned glass. You have become the servant to one of them, haven’t you? His day man – like the shabbas goy my granddaughter employs to light the fires in the stoves here on the Seventh Day, so that her husband will remain holy and yet have warm feet.’ The luxuriant mustache moved again in a wry smile.

Asher sat silent, knowing that what his teacher said was right. A whisper out of shadow: James, we must speak . . .

He knew what the old man was about to say.

‘They kill those who serve them.’

‘I know that.’

‘And those to whom they speak.’

‘Which is why –’ Asher glanced at the window, aware that the room was now almost dark – ‘I should go.’

‘Not for my sake.’ Dr Karlebach waved dismissively. ‘They know all about me . . . But, yes, for your own. Where do you stay?’

‘Across the river. In the Leteriská . . .’

‘Be careful when you cross the bridge. It’s early enough . . . You’re not going to kill him, are you? Your vampire.’

‘Not now,’ said Asher. ‘No.’

‘Because he’s made you think you can’t.’

The old man shook his head, got to his feet, and, when Asher did so, too, gripped his arm briefly, as a man will touch a friend whom he knows to be making a tragic mistake. Then he crossed to a cabinet – a towering marvel of black carving and hidden drawers looming in the shadows – and unlocked one of its compartments, bringing out a small tin of what looked like American snuff and a leather band studded with tiny silver disks. He took Asher’s hand – even stooped with age he was nearly Asher’s height, still bulky and strong – and slapped the tin into his palm. ‘I misspoke myself when I said that the first circle of Hell is Lust, Jamie. Wider still is the outermost circle, the most deadly, the circle of indifference. That state when you are not thinking of anything in particular . . . perhaps you are a little sleepy – I can see that you are short of sleep, traveling with this creature – and off your guard. This will keep you alert. Rub it on your gums, like the Americans so disgustingly do. But only a very little. Vehrstehe?’

Asher opened the tin and sniffed: the smell was sharply unpleasant and nothing like tobacco. The tin had once actually contained American snuff: Leidersdorf’s Nic Nac Fine Cut Chewing, it said.

‘And put this on.’ Karlebach unbuckled the band. Near where it fastened, Asher saw there was a small turn-screw that operated a tiny pair of hidden jaws – like a miniature instrument of torture on the inside of the leather. When twisted, the jaws would extend and bite into the flesh of the wrist. ‘If you need more than my little powder to keep yourself awake. Pain will usually serve against the vampire, though not always. The best remedy against the vampire is distance – the more of it, the better.’

Silently, Asher held out his wrist and helped the crooked fingers affix the buckle tight.

‘Thank you. More than I can say. If there is anything I can do to repay—’

‘There is.’ Karlebach put both hands on Asher’s shoulders, looked hard into his face. ‘Don’t let this thing live. Kill it. Else you take his sins upon yourself. Every kill he makes henceforth will be upon your head as well as his. God has put this opportunity into your hand, James. Tomorrow morning if you can—’

‘I can’t.’

‘So it would have you think. So he would have you think – for they are as human as we are, and as mortal . . .’

The dark eyes held his for a long moment more, under polar-bear brows. Distantly, the clock in the bell house was striking nine. ‘Go with God, my old friend. Because you’re going to need His help. And Him, too, you should think perhaps to repay.’

As Asher passed beneath the gothic tower that guarded the Old City end of the bridge he thought he saw movement beyond its shadow, but when he reached the spot, beside the stone railing past the first of its aisle of statues, there was nothing there. He leaned over the lichened rail, saw dark water gleam below him in the gaslight. A thug, a pickpocket, lurking out of sight now that the day’s traffic of omnibuses and peddlers’ carts was gone?

Or something else?

A kinship with rats, Karlebach had said. I have never heard mention of them anywhere else; only in Prague.

They kill. Sometimes they will kill a vampire . . .

. . . summon rats by the thousands . . .

A species of vampire? Asher drew back from the rail, continued across the bridge. Found himself holding to the center of the way as much as he could.

A variant form of the bacillus by which, Lydia had theorized, human flesh was altered, one cell at a time, into cells that did not decay with age, but combusted with the touch of the sun’s light?

He thought about the envelope in his luggage, containing snippets of the Lady Irene’s bedroom carpet, stiff with dried vampire blood. Marya’s and Ippo’s . . . He could still see their faces, distorted with hatred, for him and for their master. For years, Lydia had spoken of getting her hands on vampire blood to study, though not – Asher was acutely aware – since the death of Margaret Potton in Constantinople. He wondered now if she would welcome the sample. One would have to handle it very carefully, of course, lest there be an accident and you infect yourself, she had said . . .

And then what? If your body was infected with the tainted blood – if indeed it was a bacillus – but you had no master vampire to gather your mind and soul into his own, to preserve it during the death of the body . . . would you simply die? Was that what had happened to those poor children in Petersburg?

Or had it been something else?

He was acutely grateful for the dim lights of the Lesser Town’s cafés, for the presence of street vendors, students, flower sellers and knife grinders who set up shop in the angles of those cobblestoned ways, as he climbed the stairs of his pension and locked himself in.

He left the lamp burning beside the bed as he slept.