Victorian Age: Vampire

We present for your enjoyment the Prelude of the upcoming release Victorian Age: Vampire, scheduled to release in October 2002.

Prelude: The Turning of Adam or Innocence Conquered

It was in the chill fall of the year, and nearly four decades since my grave change of circumstance that I returned to London. It was, as I recall, a particularly storm-ridden season, and on the very night of my arrival, as my vessel navigated its way up the foetid waters of the Thames, the city saw fit to welcome me with — in no particular order — fog, hail, lightning and winds of a remarkable tempestuousness. It was an honor I graciously accepted. As I saw it, such was my due as a returning dignitary of the nighttime hours. The wilds of Eastern Europe, full as they were of bestial savages (who had recently slaughtered my lovely mortal companions for sport) on the one side and superstitious peasants on the other, had not been to my liking. The worst London storm was sweeter to me than the clearest summer night in Styria, whence I was returning.

Through a proxy, I had arranged lodging in the private residence of some aged and country-bound minor lord named Trobury who no longer found the journey to London worth his while. These fine apartments, while more than comfortable, were decidedly removed from any major thoroughfares, being situated in a neighborhood that had, evidently, seen a notable reversal of fortune in recent years. Lacking proper upkeep, the buildings along that and other nearby streets evinced a pronounced shabbiness, even in the wan illumination of the gaslights. The street lacked anything resembling a wholesome character, a fact that troubled me not at all. Neither rake nor doxy posed any threat to my welfare, though I was likely, in the fullness of time, to pose one to theirs. All the same, if one sets up one’s situation so as to be entirely insulated from the very possibility of danger, then one has already been bested by the circumstances of existence, and may as well acknowledge as much and be buried with all due ceremony.

From my pocket I produced the key to the door of my new sanctuary. In correspondence with my proxy, I had been most particular with regard to my lodgings, particularly certain of the more… unusual elements.

I walked around the squat tower to insure that everything was in order. The place was at once simple, solid and unassuming. As I had been careful to stipulate, it was built quite solidly of stone. Alluding to London’s aggressive criminal element, I had requested that all of the pointed Gothic windows be boarded up before my arrival in the interest of my personal security. From without, the place looked rather like the tower of a prison or abandoned fortress.

The exterior meeting with my approval, I unlocked the enormous oaken door. The single oil lamp I had requested burned dimly, barely banishing the shadows to their corners. Taking it up, I toured my new rooms.

The various chambers were so luxuriously appointed as to verge on the Dionysian. Silk and velvet were the only fabrics in evidence. Blocking the view of the boards, the sharply arched stained glass windows were exquisitely wrought, and should I ever tire of looking at them, I could pull the heavy velvet draperies. Every colour in that room was as rich and deep as nature allowed, and the room was beautiful, though the walls were so busy with draperies, tapestries and queer old paintings as to render all of the rooms a touch claustrophobic. The large standup mirror in the boudoir only served to multiply the sensual richness of the room.

After a bit of necessary settling in, I donned my cape and went back out into the night. There was much to do in this old, new city.

As I made for busier and brighter streets, it seemed as though I was walking a gauntlet of whores. They lingered in doorways and rippled into and out of alleyways like cats, frequently shadowed by the nervous looking men they entertained. One young and tender strumpet had the temerity to block my path.

"Dressed right nicely you are, guv. Too nice for these parts. Lookin’ for somethin’, I’d say. Care to give it a toss?"

I feigned bashfulness, stared alternately at the ground and at her bosom, and she became bolder and took my hand.

"Y’r ‘and’s cold, guv."

"I’m sure you could warm it for me, my dear."

"Aye, I’m sure too. I ‘ave a nice warm alley I can show you right over ‘ere, if you’d care to follow me. Get your ‘and real warm like."

I followed her, returning moments later from that shadowed alleyway, much warmer for her sacrifice. I soon hit bright lights and peopled streets and the newly pink glow of my complexion allowed me to pass through the more upstanding citizens of London without alarming the more superstitious amongst them. My hunger sated, it was time to acquire a companion. It would not do to present myself to London’s nighttime society without one.

A proper gentleman’s companion is not to be found among the rabble. On the contrary, I pride myself on having extraordinarily fine taste in such matters. We were rapidly approaching the winter solstice, and though it had been dark for some time, it was not yet especially late, and there were still couples walking arm in arm down many of the more populated thoroughfares.

The lights of those fine places, where the fine people walked down the fine streets wearing all their finery seemed to banish the constant fog, the soot and the despair for which London was known. It was along such streets that the haves gathered with other haves to discuss the filthy and uneducated have-nots. A man named Marx had not so long ago written a book on such matters, and so it was quite frequently the topic of conversation among the clean and learned upper classes.

And there, in the midst of all the strolling couples, was I, a thing of superstition and old wives’ tales, walking amongst them, noting their pretty ways, their pleasant, empty chatter, their formal and eloquent manners, their glaring hypocrisy, their pent up, unspeakable desires. The ardent student of everyday behavior can gain insights into human nature that, after just a few years’ study, seem like telepathy. It’s what allows mediums to read their marks well enough to feign a departed loved one’s post-mortem je t’aime. It’s what had just allowed a Viennese doctor named Freud to write books cataloguing the commonest forms of hysteria seen in the daughters of the comfortably bourgeois. And, when unbounded by the constraints of a single lifetime, it allowed me to see the soul of a man or a woman, and all the stains it bore.

A man in a top hat passed me. He was wealthy, almost certainly an aristocrat. The look on his face was thinly disguised rage. It was his intent to commit murder.

A woman passed me holding her husband’s hand. She loathed him, and yet his family’s money provided her with things she otherwise would not have, and his nightly advances were worth suffering through in order that she might flaunt diamonds on her wrist, her fingers, and on her sweet, delicate throat.

A block later I spotted a young couple. She was naïve, idealistic, in all likelihood, still a virgin. Her smile was utterly genuine, and I wanted her. Until I saw her betrothed. When I looked more closely at him, it was his beauty, his innocence that cried out to me.

The English are not, on the whole, an attractive people. It is a nation of ruddy cheeks, crooked teeth and warts. Youth, when gifted by good breeding, can occasionally hold off many of these blemishes, but in the end, time undermines the efforts of even the most desperate Narcissus.

This young man’s charm and appeal were dazzling. The girl whose hand he held was completely taken with him, and understandably so. His skin was fine and smooth, his teeth straight and white, his eyes clear and kind. His black hair lay slightly mussed, but no less silken for that. Their postures gave away an excitement, a desire for one another. Their wedding date was imminent, most likely Christmas or New Years. I found that problematic. Were they to wed, he would have been taken, besmirched, rendered less able to fly with me amongst the assemblages of London’s night birds.

She whispered in his ear and he smiled, and in his smile was all that I wanted to draw out of him, and from that moment on, no other companion would do.

They walked in search of a carriage. She, delicate virgin, needed to be taken home and safely deposited with her family.

In my own carriage, I followed. I remembered the address of her home and the face of her father as he stood at the front door to take custody once more of his daughter. Although I could not hear the cordial conversation in its entirety, I learned that her name was Annabelle. Her father was referred to simply as "Mister Pfenning."

I bribed my hackney driver not to be suspicious as I told him to follow the carriage in front of us. When our quarry’s carriage stopped, I again took note of the house address. Not so grand a place as that of Annabelle’s parents, but impressive for a man so young.

We both paid our respective drivers and got out of our carriages at the same time. He began to walk to the gate of his house and I called out to him.

"I say, excuse me, good sir, but could you tell me where Trobury Tower is? I’ve only just arrived in town and cannot fathom the organizational principle of this blasted city."

He did not want to hear me. He was too aglow with his evening with Annabelle, but the privilege of being a Victorian gentleman carried a multitude of obligations. He first assessed that I was not a beggar or a criminal of any ilk. My smile, more soothing than a living man’s, convinced him that I couldn’t possibly be. My strangeness, perhaps some hint of an accent I may have picked up since leaving London, intrigued him.

"I believe I know where it is, sir, but it has not been, for years, the kind of place a gentleman of your evident stature would care to visit — not by night in any case."

His eyes were unable to leave my face.

"Indeed? In that case, I would be most appreciative if you could see fit to accompany me to any quality establishment of your choosing that I may pick your mind with regard to other ways the city has changed in my absence."

His lovely Annabelle forgotten now, he saw only me. He was too naïve to mask the awe that my glamour had ignited within him. En route, I introduced myself to him as Dr. Fordon Fortunato Fell, only recently returned from extensive travels to Europe’s most easterly lands. Although he thought my name odd, he had the grace not to say so.

At the tavern, I bought him a potent brandy and questioned him about the city, about his betrothal to the lovely Annabelle, about his vocation and avocations.

My beautiful young man’s surname was Killian, given name Adam. His youth and innocence radiated from him the way that fragrance wafts from honeysuckle. Who would not have desired to possess that boy? Even the great Apollo was humbled by the beauty of his Hyacinthos.

He was not a drinking man, so his mind was loosened after only the second drink.

"Surely you would be willing to guide a stranger in your city to his lodgings?" I asked.

There was no resistance. He consented, and we took our leave.

Trobury Tower was perhaps all of ten minutes away by carriage. When I invited him in, he could not get the better of his fascination. After locking the door, I showed him my luxurious refuge. While he marveled at the intricacy of the stained glass, I opened the veins on my wrist with a straight razor. Approaching from behind, I pressed my body against his, placed my dripping wrist at his lips and said "Take this."

There was nothing he would not have done at that moment to win my approval. I watched his every movement in the standing mirror before us. His lips closed, he suckled, and I felt his body shudder against my own.

Perhaps half an hour later, I left him at his doorstep. Gazing into his beautiful eyes, I told him that none of this had really happened, that he had left his lovely Annabelle and gone directly home to bed and he therefore had nothing to feel ashamed of.

His absence hurt me. I wandered the streets of London for the rest of the night, reacquainting myself, as much as the fog allowed, with the city of my birth and its institutions. When the eastern horizon turned gray, I returned to my quarters. Within Trobury Tower was an enormous canopy bed carved from some dark and heavy wood. Beneath it was the casket wherein I rested by day.

My second night in London, I woke and fed quickly. Finding a tavern with a suitably distinguished clientele, I claimed for myself a booth near the dark back of the room. Silently, I called my companion to me.

While I waited for the beautiful Adam Killian, I had the barmaid bring to the table one bottle of vivid green Pernot-Fils, an appropriate glass, the absinthe spoon, water and a bowl of sugar.

When, twenty minutes later, Killian arrived, he was furious.

"My deepest apologies for being so late, Dr. Fell. I had to take my leave of dear Annabelle and I was accosted by not fewer than three of the damned prossies that infest this wretched city. They are an affront to the good people of this city, and the dainty little sodomites who ply their vice in the molly houses are even worse, if such a thing is possible."

His exasperation detracted from his beauty, so I sought to soothe him. "Do not denigrate the whores, Killian, of either sex. I have learned, over the course of years, that they fulfill a myriad of functions and are poorly rewarded for their troubles, simply by virtue of the fact that they labor, not in factories like the base classes nor in offices like the privileged classes, but in darkened alleyways. Work is work, Killian, high-minded morality notwithstanding."

So saying, I saw fit to change the subject. "Have you ever had the pleasure of drinking absinthe, Mr. Killian?"

"I do not fit well into the Bohemian set, Dr. Fell, so, no, I have not partaken of the so called ‘Green Fairy’."

"But," I said, "I think that you’d very much like to, would you not?"

His rage forgotten, he waxed handsome again. Almost coyly, disarmed by my graciousness and bonhomie, he said, "Would you like me to?"

"Very much so, dear Adam; very much so."

"Will you join me?"

"Alas, I shall not. My absinthe-imbibing days are long behind me while you have yet to cultivate an appreciation for the more exotic pleasures."

So saying, I poured a generous portion of the emerald liquor into his glass, filled the slotted absinthe spoon with sugar, more than one would usually use so as to break in my young protégé gently, and poured in the water through the spoon. With the addition of the sweetened water, the contents of the glass changed from emerald green to nacreous white.

Looking him in the eye I said, "Drink to long life, Mr. Killian, and the catalogue of pleasures it promises."

He drank. And drank. And drank.

Some time later, I carried him to the carriage, and we returned to the stony privacy of Trobury Tower. I laid him gently on the thick quilt where he could writhe in time to his hallucinations without injuring himself. The wormwood was showing him a world beyond that to which he was accustomed — soon, it would be my turn.

Although I had fed, the sight of his sweet and undefended throat was more than my overtaxed will could forego. Lying next to him on the bed, I reached my hand beneath his shapely skull, grabbed his fine black hair and pulled his head back. I could feel the heat rising from him, smell the scent of his flesh. Letting my lips linger on his neck, my teeth pierced skin, but just barely. I did not want the full flow of his blood; I wanted only to taste him.

This was not feeding; this was exultation.

Had I not glutted myself on the blood of whores before our meeting, Killian would surely have passed from this world to the next, because there was no control I could have mustered in the face of his unconquered youth and the sweetness of his blood.

I lay next to him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. I had healed the small wound on his neck so that it no longer tempted me. When he stirred, I drew close to him. Biting my own wrist, I let the precious, the sacred, blood drip onto his parted lips where it looked for all the world like the sweet incarnadine juice of pomegranate seeds.

He sighed and pulled close my wrist to suckle. I let him drink deeply, knowing that in one night’s time, he would belong to me.

When I returned him once more to his doorstep, the sun was threatening to rise into a cloudless sky and I could barely stay awake.

"Has your home a basement, Adam?"

"It does, though it’s rather small. Why do you ask?"

"I should like to sleep the day away there, if you wouldn’t mind. I would greatly appreciate it."

The basement was small with stone walls. It was musty and completely lacked windows. Before Killian went up stairs, I caught his eye.

"You will not remember the evening, nor that I am down here, Adam, but neither will you be surprised when I come for you this evening."

"Yes, of course," he said, and then he took his leave. I had only moments to find a relatively secluded corner before the waves of oblivion washed over me.

I saw not the least hint of light in the basement when I shrugged off my diurnal stupor.

I hungered. The fragrance of his innocence seemed to seep from the very stones of the place, through the boards of the floor and carried in the air itself.

Walking up the stairs, I heard voices, sharp and accusatory as I entered the living chambers of my new ward.

"…and not return to your home until well past midnight?! Are you under the impression that I, a physician, do not know the symptoms of drunkenness, the odor of absinthe? If you are, then my sister is quite mistaken and you are mad, Killian."

I followed the noise to the room of its origin. There were, within the parlor, three persons: the bellicose stranger, the weeping Annabelle, and my beautiful Adam, looking stricken.

Loudly clearing my throat, I joined in the fray. "Sir, I was with Mr. Killian last night, and I can attest that the man is very nearly a saint. Although I am a respected man of science and learning, he is a much better man than I, and if you are intent on breaking the poor boy’s spirit for a single evening of imbibing absinthe with a friend, then perhaps you and your sister might wish to go elsewhere."

"Killian," said the puzzled accuser, "who is this?"

I replied, unsmiling,"Doctor Fortunato Fell, philosopher of human nature, investigator of nocturnal mysteries and leader-astray of the innocent. The good Mister Killian here was kind enough to accompany me last night in my rounds of London’s grey and haunted streets, something he’ll be doing a great deal more of henceforth. His marriage to your sister, I’m afraid, must be put off for the foreseeable future."

"You’re mad." stated the interloper.

"I am not." I looked at Adam, caught his eye directly and said "Come stand with me, Adam." He rose at once from his seat and stood near enough to me that I could hear the beating of his heart. "Adam is preparing to enter a new and enthralling period of his life, one beyond your understanding. It would be in the best interest of all involved for the lovely Annabelle to find another suitor and to leave Adam to his amazing discoveries." Into Adam’s ear I whispered, "Dismiss them."

"Annabelle… Charles… please go. I’d rather not discuss this at the moment."

The two departed, Annabelle in tears, Charles enraged. After this evening, my companion would happily avoid his former fiancée and her combative brother, but just then he was in a fragile state.

He looked tired. It was to be expected. Making the transition from his world to the world of the night was bound to take its toll. It always did.

"Poor Adam. You must not dwell on those people, do you understand? Put on your coat and follow me. There is a most bewitching distraction to which I need must introduce you."

Adam, enrapt, followed. We did not take a carriage. The cold air of night, the exercise, would do my young companion good. As we walked through the fog, I had him tell me everything about Annabelle’s brother: where his office was, his home address, the name of his wife and children.

We arrived at our destination nearly an hour later. A young Indian man opened the door. I smiled at him winningly and said, "We are here for the airs of inspiration, my good man."

He ushered us into a chamber of moderate size furnished only with an abundance of silken pillows. In the center of the room was an elaborate hookah.

"Now, dear Adam, you will have a taste of dreams like you’ve never had before."

The opium affected him both quickly and powerfully. He was soon reclining on the pillows, wholly incapable of conversation. I had errands to run, but I left instructions with our host that Adam not be disturbed from his reverie before my return.

My hunger by that time, was sharp. I took a carriage directly to Charles Pfenning’s home. The lovely Mrs. Pfenning was only too happy to ask me in. Her husband, she informed me, was upstairs, reading in his study after a most taxing day. I thanked her and told her that I could find my own way up.

Within moments, good Doctor Pfenning was pleased to see me. "Here is what you remember of this afternoon," I said staring into his eyes. "You met privately with your sister, the pristine Annabelle, and in a moment of weakness, you fell prey to her young feminine charms. You forced yourself upon her unnaturally. Your poor violated sister escaped you and fled, no doubt to the authorities, and now you are alone in your despair, awaiting the justifiably severe consequences of your brutish act."

He grew immediately ashen faced.

"It’s a bad situation, Charles, but chin up. As a physician," I offered, "you have access to many… agents of relief, do you not? Lethal curatives to release you from the consequences of your deeds?" He hastened immediately to his apothecary bottles and began searching through them. I watched him formulate, brew and drink, and by the time the good (and inexplicably anemic) Mrs. Pfenning found her dead husband, she never remembered that he had received a visitor.

En route back to Adam, I paid a generous sum to a whore to buy all of her clothes. She was pale as the moon and clearly pregnant. How I wanted to drain the warmth from her! I reigned in the Beast and let her go. Naked, she scuttled back to whatever hovel she resided in to dream of the beautiful new clothes she would buy on the morrow.

At the opium den, I gathered up my charge and we returned to Trobury Tower where I set the whore’s clothes on a chair in the boudoir.

Behind the tower’s great oaken door, I once more tasted my new companion. His blood was rich with dreams and all the sweeter for it. His beautiful eyes lolled languidly behind their long lashes.

I removed my shirt, to prevent its getting stained, and brought out the straight razor once more. I lay next to Adam, placed my arm beneath his neck, allowing his dreaming head to loll backward, parting his lips. I cut my throat and pressed the wound to his mouth and felt him come alive beneath me. The embrace in which he held me was strong, desperate. I gave until I was weak. Had he taken more I almost surely would have fallen prey to my own inner demons, and that I would not allow.

Pushing him away, I saw that his eyes were no longer clouded with fantasies. They were alive, awake, aware.

"We have one last bit of business to attend to, sweet Adam, before our great adventure is over with for the evening. Let us go and pay a visit to your former fiancée."

It was Annabelle’s father who answered the door in his nightclothes. He was happy to escort us up to Annabelle’s room, just as Annabelle was happy to accompany us on a walk on such a fine autumn night. The old man would never remember our visit, and would have no idea how his daughter had left the house.

A carriage took the three of us back to Trobury Tower. Once inside I looked at the girl and said, "Strip." She had long been trained to obey men. She didn’t even balk.

My hunger was growing more insistent, but I refused to allow it to impinge on the virtuosity of this… spectacle.

I gazed at Adam, who looked confused, conflicted. "Sweet Adam, please remove your clothing."

He hesitated, but acceded.

During my time in Eastern Europe, I had the opportunity to attend a performance of the Russian ballet, and if ever a man had the body of a dancer, it was Adam. It was as perfect as the flesh can be.

"Now," I said, "take her."

He did not move. Either his Victorian conscience was rebelling at this notion, or he did not want to offend me. I preferred to believe it was the latter, and I appreciated his sensitivity, but it would not do for my ultimate goal. I looked at my beloved, nodded in the naked Annabelle’s direction and said, "Ravish her. As you would have on your wedding night.

He was gentler than I wanted him to be. I watched, jealous, enraged, hungry. I cheered him on to completion even as my jaw clenched in fury. Annabelle alternately cried and fought, moaned and cooperated. It was over quickly, and I was glad of it.

"Go clean yourself." I directed Adam.

"Stand." I told the girl, and she did. Annabelle’s virginal blood stained the quilt and, intermingled with other fluids, still ran still down her thigh, the chief ingredient in a heady, primordial cocktail.

I knelt before her, cleaned her intimately and drank from her as I had never drunk from any vessel. I handed the whore’s garb to her and told her to dress herself. She did so slowly and unsteadily as the tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

Adam returned, the stain of Eve washed away.

I gazed proudly upon him. "I’ve tasted you in new ways, dear Adam. Would you drink from me again?" I handed him the straight razor.

For a moment he hesitated, until I asked, "Where is your love for me, Adam? Drink!" In a flash he had snatched the razor from my palm and was on me like a ravenous animal; were it not for my diabolical resilience, his razor stroke would have severed my hand. As it was, he cut deeply enough for a long, deep draught.

"Yes, that’s it, take as much as you can. Drain me that I may drain the lovely Annabelle completely."

He drank until sated.

In turn, I beckoned to the weeping Annabelle and, holding her close, drained her dry. Her beauty at that moment was stunning. My little courtesan would never age further, never be seen wrinkled and ugly, never be forced to bear the indignities of pregnancy or childbirth.

Under cover of darkness, we dumped her small body in an alleyway frequented by whores.

I walked through the fog, my companion at my side. "Tomorrow night we shall buy you beautiful new clothing and we shall present ourselves to Mithras, whereupon your induction into midnight’s demimonde will be complete, dear Adam. So long as you remain with me, you will not die. Your beauty will never fade. If you choose to sing, your song need never end, and should you wish to dance, you will dance forever."