Chapter Three

Nikola sat in front of the dressing-room vanity, staring at the black paint that covered the mirror while she applied her mascara. Over the last few months, she had grown adept at putting on her makeup without the aid of reflective surfaces. Lord Esher did not approve of looking glasses. Still, she had managed to glimpse enough of herself in shop and car windows to know that she no longer looked like herself; whoever that might have been.

She knew that her name was Nikola, that she was a dancer, and she was betrothed to Lord Esher. Beyond that there was only mist and the occasional, murky recollection. She had the nagging suspicion that her life once held more than these few reference points, but every time she tried to remember anything else, her head began to hurt and the mist surrounding her thoughts grew thicker.

Occasionally the fog would lift for a moment, and she would become painfully aware of what was happening to her. During those brief moments of clarity, she was so overwhelmed by horror and helplessness she actually welcomed the amnesia’s return. It was far less scary that way. Like what had happened outside the club earlier. When the street urchin darted forward and touched her—it was as if she’d been startled from a waking dream. She had looked down into the child’s unwashed face and recognized it. Even now, the boy’s features were trying to swim out of the mist, as if he were drowning and desperate to reach her. The face had a name. And on some deeply hidden level, she realized she should know it.

She put aside her mascara, fearful that her trembling hands would ruin her makeup. Lord Esher was most particular when it came to how she looked while dancing. It would not do to displease him. Nikola blinked her eyes and, to her surprise, found that she was crying.

How strange.

Why should she weep? She was Lord Esher’s newest bride-to-be. Shouldn’t that make her the happiest woman on the face of the earth? She wished she knew.

Just then the door opened and her betrothed, accompanied by his lieutenant, Decima, entered the dressing room. The vampire lord wore tight-fitting black leather jeans, a black muscle shirt, dyed-black lizard skin cowboy boots, and a floor-length black leather duster. His dark, square-cut hair fell well below his wide, heavily muscled shoulders. Despite his striking physical appearance, the only thing that marked him as different from the mortals who inhabited the city’s rowdier districts was the chromium-plated infant’s skull he wore as a belt-buckle.

“Good evening, my dear,” Esher smiled, standing behind Nikola so that his strong hands rested on her bare shoulders, the thumbs pressed lightly against her carotid artery. “You look ravishing, my pretty. Doesn’t she, Decima?”

The female vampire shrugged, folding her arms over her bare breasts. Her nipple rings jingled slightly as she spoke. “As you say, milord.”

“Are you ready for tonight’s performance?” the vampire lord asked.

“Almost,” Nikola replied, feeling her flesh grow chill under Decima’s gaze. Until recently, she had been Esher’s consort, and made no effort to hide her contempt for her replacement in the vampire lord’s affections

“You look troubled, my dear,” Esher murmured as he stroked her pale gray hair. “Is there something bothering you?”

“There was a little boy on the street outside the club tonight,” she said in a soft, uncertain voice. “He seemed familiar to me. Who is he, milord? I feel that I should know him.”

Esher spun turned Nikola about in her chair so fast that she cried out in alarm. His eyes gleamed red and wet, like fresh wounds. When he spoke, there was thunder in his voice. “You did not see a child tonight! Do you understand me, Nikola?”

“There was no child,” she murmured, her pupils now dialed out of focus.

“Very good!” Esher smiled, his anger dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. “That’s much better, isn’t it? Don’t you feel much nicer not thinking about things?”

“Yes, milord,” she agreed meekly. “Very nice.”

The moment Esher left the dancer’s dressing room he turned to scowl at Decima. “Why didn’t you tell me the boy was here earlier?!?” he growled.

Decima shifted uncomfortably and glanced at her boots, unwilling to meet his gaze. “I didn’t think it was important, milord. I sent a couple of Pointers to handle it.”

“Which ones?”

“Cavalera and Cro-Mag.” “And did they succeed?”

“Cro-Mag was found unconscious in the gutter with most of his teeth knocked out. Cavalera is dead. He was stabbed through the heart.”

“Seeing as how one was a congenital idiot and the other an illiterate, I’m not surprised they failed!” Esher snorted in disgust. “Do you have any clue as to who was responsible for the attack?”

“Cro-Mag said something about an old man, but I don’t know how reliable his account might be. He’s seems to be suffering some brain damage…”

“As if anyone would notice the difference!” Esher snorted. “See that he’s made tonight’s Example.”

“As you wish, milord,” Decima said, bowing her head in ritual compliance.

“And I want the brat destroyed, once and for all! I can’t finish pre-conditioning my new bride if he keeps popping up at inopportune times. She’s almost completely mine, save for where the boy’s concerned! As long as he continues to live, he endangers the entire process! I have not spent all this time and energy on Nikola to have it ruined by something as insignificant as a human child! Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Decima replied with a smile.

In earlier, if not better, days the Dance Macabre had been an establishment frequented by motorcycle gangs and other social misfits. Now it was an exotic ‘gentleman’s club’ that catered to tastes far darker than anything dreamed up by even its most depraved previous clientele.

The interior of the club was divided into three areas: the vast dance-floor area, where pale-faced vampires and humans mingled at tables; the combination runway/stage, where the dancers paraded for the audience; and the upper balcony, which was reserved for Esher and his collection of courtiers and minions. The Dance Macabre offered two different bars: one that served alcohol for humans, and a second for those whose tastes ran to things warmer than wine.

A dozen humans, male and female, were shackled to the far wall by bondage harnesses attached to spools of stainless-steel chain, similar to those used to restrain large dogs. Phlebotomy shunts jutted from their right elbows, while bags of anticoagulant were pumped into intravenous feeds attached to their left arms. Some looked terrified to the point of madness; others seemed oblivious to their surroundings; and a few appeared to be lost in ecstasy. All were exceptionally pallid specimens.

Esher paused at the balcony’s railing to scan the floor below. The evening was getting off to a good start. He spotted a couple of new faces clustered near the feeders. The Dance Macabre attracted vampires from as far away as New York and Atlanta and had proved handy in recruitment. Soon his brood would be as large as Sinjon’s.

Satisfied with the turnout, he returned to his seat, a rosewood throne outfitted with crimson velvet cushions, which had been presented to him by the human mage, Crowley, decades ago. The little charlatan had thought he could learn things from the vampire lord, but had quickly lost interest upon discovering the price of such knowledge. Not that he would have given the power-hungry dilettante what he was looking for in the first place.

Esher snapped his fingers and his private stock stepped forward and knelt at his feet. The woman’s wan complexion and drawn features made her look far older than her nineteen years. Without his having to gesture or speak, the private stock automatically offered her right arm. He quickly uncapped the shunt and plugged a hypodermic needle attached to a length of IV tubing into the access port. He then brought the end of the IV to his lips and began to suck. The private stock’s eyes rolled back and gasped as if on the edge of orgasm and swooned, laying her head atop Esher’s boots. The vampire lord grunted in irritation and kicked her away as he would a bothersome pet. The private stock barely flinched. Judging by the thinness of the blood he’d drawn from her, she was close to empty. He made a mental note to remind Decima to see that another vintage was chosen from his cellar.

Esher settled back into his throne and allowed himself a moment’s relaxation. His eyes flickered to the series of closed-circuit television monitors mounted near the ceiling. One presented him with a closer view of the club floor, another was trained on the stage, and two more showed views of the street just outside the front door. He liked to keep an eye on things. It was a trait that had guaranteed his continuance for a very long time.

At two hundred and five years of age, Esher was comparatively young, as his kind measured such things. Most vampires were well into their third century before they accrued a sizeable power base such as his. But then, he’d always been exceptional, even as a human. The impression he’d made on his unofficial “biographer” was proof of that.

Reynolds Esher had been born into Tidewater aristocracy, thirty years after the Revolutionary War. Indeed, his maternal grandfather had been one of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Raised by doting mammies, not only had he wanted for nothing as a boy, but few limits had been placed on him. By turns inquisitive and cruel, he’d shown early signs of interest in becoming a physician, so he was promptly packed off to the University of Virginia to continue his schooling. Once enrolled, he began a life of carousing and abandon that would eventually result in his being expunged from the school’s records.

It was during this time that he met the poet. They became acquainted over the gaming tables. Esher found his fellow student intriguing, as they both shared a morbid turn of mind. Although he found the poet’s inability to hold his liquor in turn both amusing and disgusting, they continued to remain on familiar terms after his associate’s gambling debts ultimately forced him to quit his studies.

Esher was clearly the stronger personality, and the sensitive young poet seemed both fascinated and appalled by his comrade’s belief that the world and the wonders in it belonged to whoever was strong enough to take them. In Esher’s view there was no room for the incompetent, the weak, and all those unable—or unwilling—to make the most of their situation. Although the poet argued heatedly with him over these points time and again, it seems he could never quite bring himself to break off their acquaintance. It was as if the strength of Esher’s charisma compelled the poet to seek his company, as a lodestone attracts an iron filing. Outside of their mutual fondness for cards and dice, and a weakness for strong spirits, each man shared an interest in death and dying continued to bind them. But where the poet’s dark obsession took the form of fanciful stories and poems, Esher became a practicing occultist.

As the years passed, the poet drifted in and out of various editorial jobs up and down the Eastern seaboard, publishing the occasional slim volume of florid poetry. As for Esher, he was first expelled from the University of Virginia, and then from Harvard’s medical school. In each case he was accused of harvesting organs from cadavers for unsavory purposes.

After Harvard gave him the book, he decided it would behoove him to take the Grand Tour of Europe so that that he could “broaden his horizons”—as well as dodge a charge of grave-robbing. It was during these travels, in an isolated portion of Romania known as Transylvania, that he found his destiny.

He had heard rumors of a vampire coven operating out of a castle in the Apuseni Mountains. Intrigued by the stories, Esher was compelled to find out more about these secretive blood cultists. At first his inquiries were met with evasion, if not outright hostility. The peasants who tended the fields, and the thick-witted boyars that ruled over them, were equally unwilling to help in his investigations. In some villages the mere mention of the word ‘vampire’ was enough to cause every door to be slammed shut. Still, he was not the type to be dissuaded by superstitious villagers.

It wasn’t until he stumbled across an elderly Eastern Orthodox priest named Father Gregor, who claimed to be an expert on Romania’s dark secrets, that he finally found a tangible lead for his search. The old cleric was blind in one eye and given to drinking at the local inn at Rotberg. Despite his physical infirmities, Father Gregor was a virtual encyclopedia of the occult arts, and more than willing to talk to an appreciative audience.

At first the old priest hedged concerning his knowledge of the vampire coven, but after a couple glasses of sherry he became increasingly voluble. Father Gregor claimed that the coven was lead by a powerful undead warlock named Gabor, who lived in a castle not far from Zlatna. Esher lost little time in reaching the mountain village, but while on the way he wrote to the poet of his adventures and his plan to infiltrate the blood cult. It was a foolish thing to do, he later realized, but at the time he wanted someone to know what might have befallen him should he never be heard from again.

As it turned out, although his earlier inquiries might have gone unanswered, they had gone far from unnoticed. He was in Zlatna less than a day before he was contacted by the vampire known as Gabor. Whatever Esher had expected, it was not the beautiful blond youth with milk-pale skin who appeared in his rented bedchamber that first night. The vampire was impressed by Esher’s strength of personality and ambition, and extended an offer to join his coven.

Unlike most vampires, Gabor spent a great deal of time and care grooming his new recruits before actually turning them into one of the undead. Where others were haphazard when it came to adding to their brood, producing creatures ignorant of their dark heritage, Gabor was intent on surrounding himself with loyal and powerful followers. That is why Gabor insisted that any human he chose to Make in his image first be trained in black magic.

During this time Esher returned to his homeland only once, to set his affairs in order and arrange for his estate and family fortune to be placed in the name of a fictitious distant relative, in preparation for his disappearance from the world of mortal man. His ship put to port in New York City, and it was there he saw the poet again.

They met in a dark and dire pub along the city’s notorious Bowery. Esher wasn’t terribly sure why he’d arranged the meeting, except that part of him wanted to say goodbye to what he now realized was probably the only thing resembling a friend he had ever known. Over absinthe, he found himself rattling on about his drive to bend death to his will and his pursuit of so-called forbidden knowledge. It took him a few minutes before he realized that his drinking companion was regarding him with open ill-ease, if not actual fear. Only then did he recognize his mistake in confiding in the poet. He quickly found a reason to leave, hoping that his old school chum would simply dismiss his story as the raving of a drunk. It wasn’t until some years later that Esher discovered that his last conversation with his old schoolmate had resulted in his writing a couple of stories whose central antagonists bore more than a passing resemblance to him. In one he was portrayed as a wicked and haughty prince who dared defy death; and in the other he was described as the perversely morbid heir of a once-proud lineage. And to, add insult to injury, the poet had barely bothered to fictionalize his surname.

Having put his mortal affairs in order, Esher quickly returned to the castle in Transylvania and willingly surrendered his throat to Gabor’s fangs. When he awoke three nights later, he was shown his own death certificate. And so did his mortal life end and his existence begin.

When Esher’s sire learned of the stories written by the poet, he was displeased by what he saw as a serious indiscretion on his protégé’s part, but Esher was able to convince Gabor that his worries were unfounded. After all, the humans who read the poet’s gruesome little stories routinely dismissed them as fantasy, nothing more. And the poet’s own problems with drink prevented those who might glimpse the truth hinted at in his tales of mystery from taking them seriously. Besides, in another decade or two, who would remember the jottings of a penurious drunkard?

Ten years passed, during which time Esher honed the occult skills he’d learned while still alive, growing even more adept in the dark arts. He curried favor with his sire, and was granted permission to leave Europe in order to prepare the way for Gabor’s eventual relocation to the New World. In 1848 Esher returned to America and claimed the “inheritance” he had arranged for himself, all those years ago. He then drifted up and down the eastern coast, from city to city, marveling at how the Industrial Revolution had transformed sleepy Colonial ports into burgeoning metropolises.

It was during one of these forays he spotted the poet lurching out of a grog shop on the low end of town. He was exceptionally drunk and looked to be in very poor health. Esher followed at a discrete distance as the poet continued on his bender, making sure he kept to the shadows in order not to betray his presence. The other passersby on the street gave the poet plenty of room as he babbled to himself, calling out the name of his wife and quoting fragmented lines of his own poetry in a slurred voice. Esher followed him into an alley and watched from a safe hiding place as the poet leaned against a wall and vomited noisily onto his own shoes. Only then did he step forward and tap his old school chum on the shoulder.

“I say, old fellow, are you all right?”

The poet wiped at his mustache and turned around unsteadily, doing his best to keep from collapsing. “I know that voice-or at least I used to.”

“I’m insulted, old man!” Esher laughed. “Don’t you recognize me?”

The poet’s brows knotted tight, then suddenly went slack, his eyes widening in a mixture of surprise and horror. “My God! They said you died of typhus in Austria!”

“You shouldn’t believe all that you read—and half of what you write, old friend!” Esher chuckled, clapping the ailing man on the back. “Come—allow me to buy you an absinthe! We have so much to catch up on!”

It wasn’t hard to cloud the minds of the patrons of the bar, since their minds were befogged to begin with. Still, Esher did not want anyone to notice that the poet’s last hours were spent in the company of anyone but the green fairy. As he drank, he told Esher of his life—or what was left of it—since last they met. It seemed that although the poet had experienced some success with his writing, there had also been an unfortunate scandal involving a poetess and a libel suit, which eventually robbed him of what little money he’d managed to accumulate, and not long after, his young wife succumbed to tuberculosis. He abandoned New York City, returning to his native soil in hopes of overcoming the temptation of drink. But then a friend invited him to a birthday party in the city, where he made the mistake of toasting the hostess with a sherry—he did not remember much after that, but he was certain that several days had passed.

As Esher listened to the poet weep and babble, he contemplated, for the briefest second, on bestowing the gift of immortality on his old drinking buddy, only to quickly cast aside the notion. The poet was simply too romantic and weak-willed for such a transformation. So when he finally suffered a seizure and collapsed in the gutter, Esher quietly left him there to die of exposure. After all, he had more important things to attend to. And with the poet’s death, the last tie to his mortal identity was finally severed.

In the years since his return to America, Esher’s had worked hard to become one of the most feared and respected Nobles, the Ruling Class of vampire society. But it wasn’t until five years ago, that he’d dared to make his boldest moves: the usurping of Deadtown.

The inner-city neighborhood had been damned for a very long time, and as such he could operate openly, without fear of discovery from the human authorities. However, it had been Lord Sinjon’s stalking grounds since the War of 1812. Compared to the elder vampire, Esher was little more than a pimply-faced teenager. Most Nobles would have been intimidated by the fact Sinjon had one of the largest broods in North America. But then again, Esher wasn’t one for being timid. It was his goal to move in and shatter the old fool’s power base and take over his turf. But in order to do so, he had to match his rival’s numbers. That meant creating his own vampires while also recruiting as many orphans and castaways possible. Luckily, he had no shortage of raw material to work with.

Thanks to the rise of modern technology and the downfall of superstition in the years since the First World War, there were probably more vampires wandering about than ever before. The vast majority of them were garden-variety undead, ignorant of their potential, struggling from one feeding to the next, in constant fear of being found out by the humans on whom they preyed. Without a sire or dame to claim them, they meandered, eternal and alone, in search of security. And Esher was more than happy to give it to them.

Throwing caution to the wind, he set out on a blatant campaign against the Lord of Deadtown. He opened the Dance Macabre, which acted as a magnet for orphaned vampires, especially those new to unlife. Most were so pathetically desperate for someone to tell them what to do and explain the intricacies of their new existence to them that they gladly swore allegiance to him by allowing him to taste of their blood in exchange for a sip of his own. From that moment on they belonged to him, both body and mind, as they no longer had a soul to barter.

Esher much preferred recruiting orphaned vampires than to spawning his own brood. He was nowhere near as prolific as most Nobles, some of whom created new undead every time they fed. Like his own sire, Lord Gabor, Esher preferred quality over quantity in his progeny. He’d been forced to destroy the first one he had created after she ran away to be with a human male. He’d ripped her unliving heart from her breast and squeezed the blood from it as punishment, but not before gouging out the eyes of her mortal paramour. He never spoke her name after that and his servants had been instructed never to mention her again on pain of death. In time he had replaced her with Decima, who had served him well for several decades. But all things fade with time, including a vampire lover’s passion, and now his precious Nikola was being prepared to take her place as his bride …

Esher was suddenly drawn from his reverie by the sound of the disco music being switched off. He straightened himself and leaned forward in his seat. The floor show was about to begin.