Thirst Page 3

  Van Diemen descended the stairs to his library, thinking how good the first glass of cold champagne was going to taste. A vampire had no need to eat, but he could drink anything. After blood, champagne was his favorite, though blood, The Life Force, really couldn’t be called a drink in the sense of its being a beverage. More quibbling, he thought. Drink your champagne and enjoy it.

  He had loved champagne as a young man. He loved it still—proof, if proof were needed, that a man did not change his essential nature when he joined the undead. Ignorant mortals, who were more to be pitied than scorned, thought otherwise: For them, the vampire was a revolting creature of night and fog, a bloodthirsty monster devoid of emotion, a shambling zombie without feelings. There was some truth in this. (Who could deny it completely?) Yet it was no more true than the prejudiced belief that all Negroes were well hung, that all Jews were avaricious, and that all Irishmen were drunks.

  Savoring the chilled wine, Van Diemen decided once again that mortals hated and feared the vampire because they saw him in the context or their own lives, their humanness. Their man-made laws forbade the killing of other humans except under special circumstances, namely war, self-defense, legal execution, and so on. But when viewed in the light of history, the biblical proscription against killing—Thou shalt not kill—was meaningless. Humans, from cavemen to courtiers, Neanderthals to Nazis, had been slaughtering other humans since the beginning of time. Look at the great killers of history: Attila, Hitler, Stalin, the Serbs and Rwandans of today. The world was a great charnel house stinking of decay. Compared to murderous humans, vampires were a tame lot, selective in their killing, seldom given to murder en masse. Van Diemen did some quick calculations. He had been a vampire for 195 years or 71,175 days, which meant that, at the rate of one victim per day, he had killed the same number of humans. Rounded out, the figure was closer to 75,000 victims, a fair total certainly, but no record breaker when spread out over nearly two centuries: the Rwandans had beaten that number hollow in less than two months. And when considered objectively, Van Diemen’s 75,000 killings had served a definite purpose: They had kept him alive. A selfish view, of course, but what was the use of humbugging about it?

  Van Diemen poured another glass of wine and lay back in his chair. The effects of the first glass were pleasant, causing a gentle lift in his spirits. He didn’t need stimulants, like some vampires he’d heard of. But good wine enhanced his feeling of well-being, opened the doors of perception a little wider; and if he drank too much, as sometimes happened, all he had to do was take a sustained-release Ritalin tablet, perhaps two, and his drowsiness disappeared. Used to treat narcolepsy, among other things, Ritalin was only mildly addictive and perfectly safe if taken with discretion.

  Van Diemen put one tablet in his mouth, then another, and washed them down with champagne. There was a temptation he firmly resisted; he put the pill bottle back in the drawer of his writing table and locked it. It was five minutes to seven by the library clock—a little early to go out. It was November—Poe’s “drear November”—and it had been dark for more than an hour. He could have ventured forth, but he preferred to do it later, when the Bronx was settling down for the night. At the moment the borough would still be too frantic to suit him: the highways going north choked with cars, the fast-food places and junk shops on Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse still in full swing. It wasn’t that he objected to such places; now and then he took a guided tour of the area. Christmas Eve, with the shopping frenzy at its height, was the best time to see humanity at its worst. One such night, three hours before midnight, with the plastic Christmas trees flapping in the wind, he had seized a package-burdened young woman and carried her off like Santa Claus in reverse. This was done at the intersection of Fordham and Kingsbridge roads right across from the little park, one of the busiest corners in the Bronx. Before she knew it, the young lady found herself naked in a tool shed on the grounds of Fordham University; when she regained consciousness, the first thing she said was, “Who are you? Who are you?”

  Van Diemen, the sadist, replied, “Can’t you guess? Ho-ho-ho!”

  But there the jollity had ended: The woman had been minutes from death when he left. Despite, or because of, far-off caroling, he had torn out her throat.

  At ten o’clock, Van Diemen mounted the stairs to the tower, to be greeted by the twittering of the bats that lived there. The bats were his friends; he had made them quite tame: If he stretched out his hand they would cling to his fingers, hang upside down, and make their peeping little sounds. It was only when he became a bat himself that their peeping became a shrill crescendo of otherworldly music. That . evening, the bats were quiet, though there was a note of expectancy in their sounds.

  Van Diemen stood in darkness, looking down at the river. There was such an infinite choice of victims. Should he fly north, following the course of the river? Strings of barges towed by tugboats, attended by very few men, were always on the move. A sleepy night watch would be easy prey. That had some of the fake thrills of adventure movies: A vampire swooping down over the dark river, risking all to land on a fast-moving barge. Van Diemen rejected the scenario as a cheap idea. Anyway, he had his writing to do, and showing off to no one but himself would not get it done. He had made a resolution, and he was going to stick to it. From now on, his nightly routine would be an early feeding followed by a swift return to his writing table, and there to work until dawn. That called for the strictest discipline, but he was going to do it.

  The bats screamed in unison as he flung himself from the tower, changing into a giant bat. His transformation was always an act of faith: His powers could fail; he could fall. But even as the thought flashed through his mind, as it had countless times in the part, he felt his enormous leathery wings lifted by air currents and he was borne upward into the dark sky. He could fly at any speed he willed himself to, but for the moment, he was content to swoop and soar and glide high above the city. He felt wonderful and the two psychic energizer pills and the glasses of wine made him feel even more wonderful. He felt like the master of the world as he swooped down over the cars on the Henry Hutchinson Parkway, increasing his speed so he would not be seen by the poor, pathetic bastards dragging themselves home to the dreary suburbs. He could pile them up in their tinny cars, mangle them, crush them anytime he wished. All he had to do was show himself and fly over the line of cars, and death and destruction would follow.

  It took an effort to control himself, and when he did, he winged his way swiftly eastward toward the vast acres of the Bronx Zoo, a place so large that it couldn’t be adequately patrolled even by armed guards in jeeps. The zoo had lakes and rivers and islands, meadows and woods, swamps and caves; and strange people, not all of them derelicts, were always trying to break into it at night. For the derelicts, terrified of being set on fire by roving teenage thugs, the zoo was a place to hide. Now and then, some befuddled wino got over the razor wire only to be mauled to death by a bear that resented having its cave invaded. The strange people were another story: Most of them wanted to commune with the animals. They sneaked around making weird sounds until they were discovered and arrested.

  Van Diemen could understand the strange people. He too liked to swoop down over the buildings where the animals and birds and reptiles were housed. He liked the big cats best of all, and when he came near, the tigers grumbled in their sleep, sensing the presence of a killer with powers far greater than their own. Tonight, he let the killer cats sleep undisturbed: he had more pressing business to attend to: He had to find a victim.

  He wasn’t sure he would find one. Break-ins always fell off when the weather got cold, and it was cold now. According to the newspapers, security at the zoo had been tightened in recent weeks after a demented man was found trying to break the plate glass in the reptile house, hoping to be bitten by a cobra. Even so, Van Diemen wasn’t ready to give up just yet; the zoo, that sinister fairyland, fascinated him, and he wanted to feed there if only because he hadn’t done it before.<
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  Flying fast and low, he saw the guards in their jeeps, but of course they didn’t see him. Out over the grassland that did its best to look like an East African savanna, he saw something that made him screech. Outlined against the light-colored trunk of an enormous baobab tree was a well-built woman dressed in what looked like safari clothing. Still some distance away, he couldn’t be sure; he had to get closer. He flashed past her at no more than five feet from the ground and saw that she was indeed a youngish, shapely woman wearing safari gear. All she was doing was standing there, looking out over the wide expanse of rough savanna grass. She seemed startled for a moment, feeling the air split by the speed of his flight, but all she did was look up at the sky. Who was she? What was she doing here at this time of night? The great tree was isolated, far off the roads and tracks patrolled by the men with guns. Van Diemen wondered, as he came to earth and assumed human form, what kind of woman she was.

  He walked through the tall grass, making no sound. Then he saw the tent pitched beside the tree. An enormous rifle—an elephant gun?— was propped against the tree. Closer still, he saw that she was holding a camera with her left hand. It looked like an expensive Nikon with a power drive and a built-in flash. Van Diemen didn’t like to think about the flash and what it could do. He wanted to be gone from there, yet curiosity made him stay.

  “Good evening,” he said, coming forward, then stopping. If he expected the woman to be frightened he was mistaken. Van Diemen was wearing midnight-blue linen trousers and the dark red smoking jacket he favored for his hours in the library. The woman—with her cropped blond hair and little hard face—looked at him without much curiosity. She was one of those people who had seen everything:

  “What’s the matter?” she said in a whiskey-and-cigarette voice. “You couldn’t sleep, so you decided to take a walk in the zoo?”

  “Nothing like that,” Van Diemen said calmly, affecting an Oxford accent. “I just happened to be in the vicinity and thought I’d pop in.”

  “Thought you’d pop in, eh?” There was no fear in her voice. “What’s the matter with coming here in the daytime like the rest of the folks? Too cheap to pay the price of admission? You should come here Wednesdays—it’s free. I can see you didn’t come over the wire or dig a hole under the fence like the rest of the bozos. How did you get in, if I may ask?”

  “I could ask you the same question,” Van Diemen said.

  “I have every right to be here,” the woman said. “I’m doing a photo story for the zoo for free. I like the zoo. My name is Maggie Connors, if that means anything to you.”

  “You’re the photographer?” Van Diemen knew who Maggie Connors was from reading Liz Smith and the other gossip columnists. In her time, she had photographed wars, cyclones, executions, shipwrecks, cannibal feasts, and IRA weddings. Name it and she’d done it. People said she was afraid of nothing; Van Diemen could well believe it.

  “You didn’t say the famous photographer,” Maggie Connors said. “But I forgive you. You know my name. What’s yours?”

  “Anton Karolyi.”

  “Hungarian, eh?”

  “On my father’s side.”

  “You wouldn’t be related to Count Mihaly Karolyi?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Van Diemen had never heard of the man.

  “Then how about Count Dracula?” Maggie Connors laughed. “Just a joke. Didn’t you know all Hungarians are related to Dracula?”

  “I was not aware of that,” Van Diemen said. This one could use some manners: What is holding you back? he asked himself. She was a good-looking woman, and plenty tough, and that made her all the more desirable.

  “Bit of a stuffed-shirt, aren’t you?” Another coarse laugh. “You ever been to Dracula country? Click magazine sent me there when Coppola was making the movie. They wanted pictures of Dracula’s castle—all that shit. So what did I find there? Nothing but a pile of fucking ruins. I shot it anyway. Later I found a drawing in the state library and they let me shoot that. Some castle! Looked like a big Chinese restaurant with a lot of floors—something you’d expect to see in L.A. This vampire thing is bullshit.”

  “I am a vampire,” Van Diemen said.

  Maggie looked at him, then laughed. “Get serious, will ya?”

  Van Diemen took a step forward; she wouldn’t laugh for long when he took hold of her.

  “Stay back!” she yelled and brought up the camera; a flashbulb popped in his face, blinding him. Light continued to explode as he advanced on her, shielding his eyes with one hand, clawing at her with the other. He didn’t want to feed on her, he didn’t even want to have sex with her. What he wanted was to kill her, to rip out her throat, to tear her breasts to shreds with his nails. He wanted to bite and claw and rend until she was nothing but a bloody corpse. He lunged for her and tripped over one of the guy ropes bracing the tent. Down he went with the flash still popping.

  Humiliated, he sprang into the air with a wild scream and instantly became a bat. He was gone before the next flashbulb went off. Flying away at terrific speed, he knew he should go back, seize her, and let her know what terror was. He felt confused, tired, and defeated. He wanted nothing but to return to the peace and safety of his castle.

  As for feeding, he had to settle for a middle-aged black nurse waiting for a bus near St. Barnabas Hospital.

  Three

  Van Diemen came home in a black mood. Even the bats in the belfry knew something was wrong and kept away from him. Some feigned sleep, some flew off into the night. They had seen him snap his teeth, curse, and wave his arms before when he was really angry, and he was doing all of that now. They feared him as a bat, but not as a man; tonight, though, it was best to keep their distance.

  Van Diemen stood at the top of the tower and cursed Maggie Connors. “HI kill her! Ill skin her alive!” he shouted at the dark sky.

  The few bats still there twittered in sympathy, the last thing Van Diemen needed; what he needed, wanted, thirsted for was revenge. Never in his long life had he been so humiliated. The way she had sneered at the ancestral home of Prince Vlad Dracul! Chinese restaurant, indeed. What had the vile creature said? His blood boiled as he recalled her words: “This vampire thing is bullshit.”

  He knew he had to get himself under control, which would not be an easy thing to do. Easy! It was hell. But he forced himself to do it, and his hands had stopped shaking by the time he opened the door to his library and walked to his chair.

  “Calm yourself,” he said aloud. A moment later he was back on his feet, pacing the room.

  “Calm yourself,” he said again.

  The champagne bottle in the ice bucket was about a third full; most of the ice had melted. To hell with champagne—he needed something stronger, though there was some risk in it. Vodka tended to make him reckless, and when he drank the liquor, he did things he wouldn’t do if sober. Yes, yes, he told himself impatiently, irritably, but if he limited himself to a few drinks, what harm can come of it? After all, he was not a drunkard.

  Van Diemen pressed a button and a section of bookshelves slid to one side, revealing a full-sized refrigerator that contained nothing but liters of the Finnish vodka encased in ice. A tray of frosted glasses stood on another shelf. It was one of Sander’s duties to keep the bottles and glasses just so; he knew he would get a good whipping if he failed to do so. Thus, Sandor had not failed in this duty yet.

  Van Diemen took a bottle and glass to his writing table and poured himself a drink of vodka. A little more, yes; he was entitled to it after the awfulness he’d been through. Sip, he told himself before he emptied the glass in one long swallow. He looked at the glass and decided it was too large. The trouble with large glasses was he was tempted to put too much into them. And as he poured another drink, he made a mental note to order smaller glasses.

  Ah, there it was, the first glow, the first buzz. Reclining in his high-backed leather chair, he regarded the dripping bottle with affection. The vodka Van Diemen preferred was red, and it tasted nothing
like blood, but the liquor looked like blood. Fresh blood was hot and this vodka couldn’t have been colder; still, Van Diemen enjoyed closing his eyes and pretending he was drinking blood.

  Van Diemen wondered if he might not be getting a little drunk. Nonsense! He was a gentleman who could hold his liquor. He tried to put Maggie Connors out of his mind. He would get back to her later. But her hip-flask voice kept nagging at him, and he knew he had to face the awful truth: She had taken his picture. The first one was what mattered; she had taken it before he had had a chance to hide his face. Her object had not been to photograph him, but to drive him away with the flash. What difference did it make? Every time the flash had popped, his image had been recorded on film. The dreadful woman had his picture, and most humiliating of all, she had photographed him falling after he had tripped over the guy ropes.

  He poured another drink. One of the silliest beliefs humans held about vampires was that they could not be photographed and that they cast no reflection in mirrors. Absolute rot! That sort of thing belonged in the same bag as wolfs bane, garlic, the Christian cross—all the things the vampire was said to fear. It was one of Van Diemen’s small pleasures to regard himself in a mirror, for he was a handsome fellow and proud of how he looked. He would be twenty-three forever, but he had an innate dignity that belied his age. He could look very young, with all of youth’s attendant seriousness. He could present himself as middle-aged, jaunty, or mildly saddened by midlife crisis—whatever he felt like doing. This ability kept his mistresses guessing.