Best New Vampire Tales: Vol 1 Part 25

"Making history," Rogan said. "I'm guessing there's little difference between vampires and Sabbatarians on a spiritual level. Now you both should easily be able to track and repel vampires. Those of you who have been vampires, and those of you who have been vampire hunters, will find this both extremely advantageous and disadvantageous."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Gantu said. "You've destroyed us both. Whatever hold I had on the rebellious vampires who kill your kind without care, I'll lose now. Likewise will I be hunted by my own kind, who will see me no longer as the master vampire but as a half-breed with the aura of a vampire hunter!"

"Then I suppose it's good that you have Jonah here to help you," Rogan said. "He has a thousand years of family expertise in dealing with vampires."

"I'll never help him," Jonah said, his eyes glowing red.

"I think there will be no better alternative than working together, because you're two of a kind. Gantu, you told me most vampires stick to the rules and only kill when they have to, and then only those who deserve it. Is this true?"

"It is," Gantu conceded.

"And Jonah, you have an undying desire to kill heartless bloodsuckers, right?"

"d.a.m.n straight," the old man said.

"Well, your first problem is obvious: do you kill yourself? If not, I give the both of you about a week before you're starting to see each other's side of things." Rogan got up, turned, and headed for the door. "The best part is, I don't have to worry about Jonah getting killed trying to knock you off, Gantu, and I don't have to worry about him succeeding and actually taking you out. So I can sleep tonight, in peace."

"Why would you do such a thing?" Gantu cried.

"Yes!" Jonah called after him. "Why d.a.m.n us to this?"

"Well, two reasons," Rogan said, stopping at the door and turning back. "First, the att.i.tudes the two of you have about the other make it only poetic justice to make you need each other to survive."

"And the second?" Gantu said.

"Simply put, I like both of you," Rogan said with a smile. "Stop by the house anytime. I'll have drinks waiting."

They'd have to do the rest themselves. He hoped they would come by some night for a drink-not of him, of course. He figured one of three things would happen. First, they'd destroy each other. Second, one would destroy the other, and the destroyer would be a lone outcast hunted by vampires and hunters alike. Or third, they'd somehow team up in order to survive-and maybe work on abolishing the ongoing, secret war between humans and vampires. He hoped it was the latter.

Rogan rode at dangerous speeds through the midnight city, but he was in control-of the bike, of his life, of his destiny. With his newfound powers and the events of the last week, he felt like a comic book hero. But why not?

He popped a wheelie and screamed off into his future.

Thirteen Lines.

DON WEBB.

Before I encountered the unfinished sonnet of Henry Salt, I would have said that there was nothing on the world that was worth my life. Everything has changed by my reading the thirteen lines. I now know Love and Terror.

My door into the place of d.a.m.nation was (appropriately enough) the love of money. I work as a research a.s.sistant at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. We've got quite a collection including the fine copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula; you should stop by some time. My job is to aid those scholars and seekers after the mysteries that visit our air-conditioned halls. Sometimes the work is both hard and exhilarating; sometimes there is nothing to do. Being the thrifty sort that I am, I use my free time to produce little gems of independent scholarship that I sell for small recompense. My real name does not matter, but perhaps you know my pseudonym of John Kincaid, who writes lots of articles of the paranormal or just plain weird.

I had an idea for a honey of an article on strange ma.n.u.scripts and cursed books. I figured I'd cover four or five texts, plus some pictures and I've got a feature. Maybe if I played my cards right Omni or Playboy would be tempted. My formula for success in paranormal writingaawhat the heck, I can give it to you now that I'm leaving the fieldaawas to cover the same old ground for 75 - 80 percent of the article, and then add one truly new item. This would make my article hot and quotable and ensure that I could sell my next article.

Very, very few people are aware that I am John Kincaid. It would probably make most researchers uncomfortable. Would you want your research a.s.sistant to be the man who wrote "Was Lincoln's Father Bigfoot?" No, I didn't think so.

My article on mysterious texts covered the magical papyri of Thebes, the Voynich ma.n.u.script, and Dr John Dee's "Enochian" cipheraaall well-researched and well-known texts for the occult crowd. I was browsing through the on-line catalog for occult curiosities when I came across Blood Loss and Poetry: An Account of the Inanna Sonnet by Austin O. Emme, London, Dawglish & Son, 1925. "An account of the so-called vampire sonnet, its translators since the Middle Ages, and the discovery of the original text in Sumerian, with especial emphasis on the life of Henry Salt, Esq." Private edition of 333 copies. LOST.

The last word dashed my hopes as much as all the others had raised them. LOST meant that the book had been part of one of the rare book collections, and that most likely it had walked away with some visiting scholar. Our current security system prevents any such thefts, but in a more trusting ageaasay, thirty years agoaasuch a stringent system wasn't in place, and the occasional visitor overcome by bibliophilic l.u.s.t took a book or two. I decided to post queries on a couple of electronic librarian's lists looking for either Blood Loss and Poetry or any information on Henry Salt.

Then I went out to lunch.

It was a couple of days before I got a response. A couple of postings revealed that Henry Salt had been an undistinguished curator of Egyptian and Mesopotamian antiquities at the Sall.u.s.t Museum. A third indicated that he had died during a scandal of 1898, and the fourth proved most interesting.

"We too have lost our copy of Austin Emme's book, but one of our grad students in the Sixties had begun a study of "Scarlet Woman Motifs in Ecstatic Poetry" and provides a copy of the vampire sonnet: 'Look into the heart of wind on storm night and find a sudden black rainbow.' "

Just as I read the first couplet I heard a sudden metallic noise, like a huge wreck, and I ran to my window. Below on Guadalupe Street what had been a small j.a.panese car and a large four-wheeled Jeep were now one. Three or four other vehicles had hit each other, or parked cars, in an effort not to smash into the central pair. Students, homeless beggars, and street entrepreneurs were pointing and yelling. Amidst the crowd stood the oldest and ugliest woman I had ever seen. She was dressed head to toe in black, Iranian somehow. Sirens sounded, and I could hear my coworkers going to their windows.

I went back to my terminal, but the screen was blank. G.o.ddamit! Had I hit the delete key or otherwise screwed up? I spent several minutes trying to retrieve the missing message, and wound up sending a note to the computer center asking if they could help me.

I worked till dusk. I had gone through a painful divorce a couple of years ago, one of my best defenses against loneliness is overwork.

It was a beautiful warm Texas night and I didn't want to hurry home. I walked through campus. UT has a beautiful campus, full of Spanish buildings and fountains. I sat on the edge of one of them, where hippocampi sported in the backlit foam. Very pretty and the white noise filled my ears as spray soaked my tired face ...

And I found myself dancing in an old palace, all soft stone and candlelight. My partner wore a black veil that shimmered like moonlight on a lake and we danced by vast windows, which looked upon a world in perpetual night where the ground outside was white as snow, but I knew it wasn't covered with snow, then my head plopped back and I woke up.

I had fallen asleep by the fountain. I felt dizzy and confused, and very embarra.s.sed. I'm sure I looked drunk or drugged. I stood up, a little bit staggered by my experience. Someone laughed behind my back.

I didn't feel like driving home, so I decided to return to my office. I was there several minutes before it occurred to me that I might need medical attention. Frankly, I was hoping to fall asleep again and regain the sweet feeling of the dream.

As my orientation returned I decided to check my email: two more messages on Salt. One was from a colleague in Denver; after pleasantries he got to the point: "We have the Emme book. Henry Salt went from respected 'Orientalist' (as they said in those days) to a kind of street person. He had acquired a clay tablet bearing a hymn to Inanna, which he translated and then discovered that it matched a medieval French poem. At first he published this as a historical findingaaevidence of a poetic tradition going back to the Euphrates. Then he went through a period of trying to form a 'Cult of Insubstantiability,' which got him fired from the Sall.u.s.t. Then he had a change of heart and spent all his money buying every copy of his articles on the hymn. He even snuck into the Sall.u.s.t and hammered the tablet to bits. He apparently died in front of the museum a few days later, some said of blood loss. To my surprise I discovered that we've never made a microfilm copy of the book. As soon as we have one made up, I'll send it to you. Thanks for the interesting read."

The other was from the Oriental Inst.i.tute in Chicago. Its message was more to the point.

"Leave the 'Unfinished Hymn to Inanna' SM 10188 alone. It claims a scholar every couple of decades. Stick with something safe like crack cocaine."

Needless to say I was more intrigued than ever. All commercial dreams had vanished. I wanted something that I could knowaasome Mystery that was for me and me alone. There is nothing that can be possessed as fully as something within one's mind.

I waited daily for the microfilm from Denver, and I continued to have my little dreams. I remembered little of them, save for the slow lovely dance with the veiled woman and the delicious sense of swooning that accompanied each dance. I wanted to have her, take her, but even more than that I wanted to speak with her to know her thoughts and being.

I don't recall ever being so much in love. Certainly not in my marriage to Beth, certainly not in college or high school romances. Never in fiction or movies or fantasy.

My boss called me in and asked what was wrong with me.

How did she mean?

She said that I had been getting really sloppy about finishing a.s.signments. The other day I had been speaking with a man from Utah and that I had just wandered away from him in mid-sentence.

I sort of remembered this, but shrugged it off with a bad joke about Mormons.

She also asked about my health saying that I was looking pale and wan.

I asked if she was worried about expenses for our health plan. It was all in all very unpleasant.

I knew that I could stop, but I wanted to let things go on for a little while at least. I needed a better picture of things, and besides I felt so dreamy.

The microfilm arrived. I'll quote from relevant sections.

"Dr. Salt's initial paper on the clay tablet from Persepolis stressed that it was not a fragmentaathat the poem was actually incomplete. He speculated that this was perhaps the initial poem to be written first, before being recitedaaand that the unnamed scribe simply couldn't think of an ending before the clay dried." Pg. 14.

"Salt never revealed his sources for discovering the medieval French, ancient Greek, or seventeenth century English versions of the hymn; although the existence of some (but not all) of these translations has been verified. His published remarks merely say that these were brought to his attention in a "mysterious manner." This probably marks the beginning of his death as a scholar." Pg. 23.

"Little is known of the Church of the Yellow Light. Salt took in members from all races and cla.s.ses. When I tracked down members some twenty-five years later, most could recall nothing. A few had vague impressions of meeting in a drafty cheap hall that Salt had rented, and watching some sort of magic lantern projections. Fewer still had been so stirred by their experiences to try their hands at Theosophy or various occult practicesaabut for the most part their whole involvement with the Church had been a particularly obscure dream in their dreary dreamlike existence." Pg. 48 "Salt gave many alternative translations for the Hymn to Inanna. Some alternate opening couplets include: She is Thunder, the Perfect Mind Adversity and Advantage is her Name.

Sweeter than my own thoughts is she She, who invented thinking for me What cost red blood for golden nectar?

What cost the world for splendor?

Suddenly a black rainbow in the blue night and in that other world living gold.

Clearly these cannot be objective translations from the Sumerian. Salt's own explanation for the variations (he apparently produced 418 of them!) was that the original had been written in 'an unknown tongue.' " Pg. 52 "The last meeting of the Church of the Yellow Light occurred on October 16, 1898. Salt had been giving one of his lectures on the insubstantial, when he abruptly seemed to change his views. He began shouting, "No! She's mine! Mine alone!" and chasing people from the hall. The rumor that he later set the hall on fire is unsubstantiated, perhaps this was the work of a disillusioned follower or maybe a random vagrant." Pg. 101 "One of the most ingenious theories was that the poem tried to define the indefinable, or as Salt put it, "to make the Unknown Known." Most of the poets or translators had tried to add a word to the poem, some even attempted a whole line. According to Salt, it was the strain of extending the poem that caused the blood loss. The Sumerian version was a mere eight lines long. Salt had located an English language version of 1814 consisting of twelve full lines and the beginning of a thirteenth. Salt's final version of the poem was cast in the form of an unfinished sonnet awaiting its fourteenth line. I have published the verse as APPENDIX B to this volume. Although I find the supposed occult or "vampiric" nature of the sonnet to be utter rubbish, I must admit I find the lines a bit too fascinating. This undoubtedly speaks of the suggestibility of the human mind, and perhaps lends support to the theories of Dr. Freud." Pg.135 "Although Salt's death was rumored to be caused by anemia, no autopsy was performed nor medial report of any kind made. The sheriff attributed the death to exposure. The body was to have been buried in the family vault, but was stolen by person or persons unknown and no doubt performed its last civil service for aspiring medical students. " Pg. 167 The microfilm broke before I could read the thirteen lines of Henry salt. I had to wait and get help to repair the machine, because I didn't want to risk gumming up the works and possibly loosing my chance to read the microfilm for several days.

While I was waiting for the technician to come to fix the microfilm, my boss sent for me.

She told me that my clothes were dirty. She told me that I smelled. She told me that I needed a shave.

She said my eyes looked sunken. Was I on something?

She told me to go home.

"But I'm waiting for some film to be fixed."

"It's five o'clock. You can look at it tomorrowaawhen you come in clean and shaved. Get some sleep. Take a vitamin for Christ's sake."

"But this is a very important project. I've been working on it since the day of the big wreck."

"What wreck?"

I began to understand. I went home. I would have to make the decision whether or not to read the poem, because I began to see what the implications were.

The woman came to me in a dream that night.

As I had expected.

I found myself in the vast stone hall whose windows looked upon miles and miles of ground as white as snow. I could see the land clearly now; it was covered in bones. The soft glow inside the hall, which I had attributed to candlelight in all my dreamy dreams of love, had no source. It came from everywhere and cast no shadows. As I pondered this, a voice came from behind meaaa voice so sweet that I could feel it make my sleeping body shiver.

"The light is the force of mind. Ultimately it is the only light we have in this darkling universe. It is my light."

I turned to face her. She had removed her veil. I took her in my arms and we began to waltz to silent music. How can I describe her face, a face that has the beauty of a thousand moonlit nights? Or the eyes of a blue not of your earth, for it is such a blue that can only be imagined? Or her hyacinthine black hair, whose l.u.s.ter suggests another spectrumaaan anti-light whose unknown colors could only be spread by a prism whose angles are unknown to man?

All of this and so much more was she.

"None of this is real, is it?" I asked.

"No. Not in the way you mean real," she said. "This is imagination alone. This is the insubstantial. Yet alter anything here, and those things in that other world which are symbols of here are altered proportionally."

We waltzed and waltzed, stone walls and dark windows spun.

"I am the G.o.ddess of this place. I am the source and the Form of all dream lovers. I am real as long as I am loved."

"You are Inanna?"

"I have any name you want to give me."

"And how long would you keep that name? How long would you be faithful?"

"I will be faithful as long as you live, devoted to you absolutely. My love and l.u.s.t would be as absolute as could be imagined by anyone, anywhere. For I am the Form of the dream lover."

"And when I died?'

"I would spirit your body here, to lay in the endless lands of insubstantiality. Your bones would join the millions, and I would become the old woman wandering the earth till another was chosen. One that could see me and my illusions."

"Would you remember me, out of your millions of lovers?"

"No." she said, and I could feel my sleeping twitch with agony, but I did not awaken. She continued, "No, but while we loved the rain of inspiration would fall upon your race. While you struggled to add another line to my poem, a thousand poets would be born. While your blood itself boiled away the idea of Love would become more perfect."

I awoke and I thought of her. I pictured myself crazed and bloodless, trying to live one more day so that I could dream one more night.

I could put it aside. I could throw away the microfilm and delete my computer files. I hadn't taken a vacation in a couple of years. I could go to Vegas, blow some of that money I'd socked away since my divorce. I could get drunk and go to a cathouse. I could ...

I wasn't even fooling myself. Tomorrow I'd shave and bathe, and put on a clean suit. I'd get up early so I could catch breakfast at a restaurant downtown where I'd have beef steak and eggs Florentine to build up my blood.

And I would read Henry Salt's unfinished sonnet and start to work on the fourteenth line.

(For Lilith).

Flotsam.

SCOTT HARPER.