Nicolai’s apartment was only four blocks away from where I’d left Les earlier that day. This part of the Mission had been recently identified by the Chronicle as the “hippest” neighborhood in the city, but it seemed like only a small portion of the residents could afford to partake of the hipness. Tapas bars and book-lined coffee houses sat cheek by jowl with pool halls, Mexican grocery stores, and tiny travel agencies advertising cheap flights to every city in South America.
The address Nicolai had given me was a large apartment building on the corner of Sixteenth and Guerrero, a gray three-story citadel with security gates on all the entryways and first-floor windows. I rang the bell on the middle door and while the buzzer sounded I pushed open the metal gate. There were three flights of creaky wooden stairs before I reached number twelve.
A tall thin man, whose most distinguishing characteristic was the high contrast of black and white in his appearance, answered my knock. A snarl of shoulder-length black hair framed a white face marked by black eyebrows and a black goatee. He wore black leather pants, black boots, and a frilly white pirate shirt. He looked to be in his mid-forties.
He shook my hand with a cold, moist palm. “I am Nicolai Blaloc, you must be Angela.” He squinted at me as if his eyesight was bad. “Please come into the parlor.”
I couldn’t suppress a gasp when I entered his “parlor.” Normally Victorian apartments bear only the most vague resemblance to what they looked like when Queen V was alive, but Nicolai’s made me feel like I’d walked into a time machine. Every inch of wall and ceiling was draped or painted or covered in ornate floral patterns, one laid upon the other in dizzying profusion. A mansion’s worth of silk and gilt furniture packed the little room. He even had a baby grand piano with a piece of silky fabric tossed over it. Every table held a collection—crystal figurines, snuffboxes, and tiny pictures in silver frames. He also had an assortment of stuffed birds, some of them under glass bell jars, others mounted on the wall, a few in bamboo cages. The birds gave me the creeps; they all seemed to be staring at me with their glassy eyes. To complete the effect the room was lit with flickering gas lamps. After giving me a few moments to take in the scenery, Nicolai directed me to sit in one of the high-backed chairs.
“Angela, you look somewhat ill at ease. May I offer you a drink? A glass of wine, perhaps?”
His calling me Angela made me uncomfortable, because it reminded me of Eric. “I’ll have a glass of wine, sure.”
He passed through a curtain-draped archway and returned a few minutes later with two glasses of red wine in tulip-shaped glasses. Nicolai arranged himself on the couch opposite from me and took a sip of wine. Somewhere in the apartment several grandfather clocks chimed.
Nicolai leaned back and stroked his goatee, as candlelight flickered on his face. He looked like Sigmund Freud in hell. “Tell me what you have been experiencing.”
Where to begin, how much to tell, how much to trust? I had to tell him some of the truth if he was going to be any help to me. “My boss, Lucy Weston, is dead. It looks like she was killed by a vampire, or someone who wanted to make it look like a vampire’s work. The police are after Les Banks, her boyfriend. He’s the one who gave me your name. Les says he didn’t do it, that Lucy was killed by a ‘real vampire.’ The man he was referring to is someone I’ve been, uh, seeing.”
I rubbed my eyes. This explanation was bringing on a headache. “This man I’ve met, he has told me some things that are hard to believe.”
“But things have been happening to you that you cannot explain by natural causes.”
Startled, I pitched forward to get a better look at Nicolai. “Yes, that’s right.”
“You are experiencing unusual symptoms. Nausea, headaches, a desire for darkness. Loss of appetite. You hear voices.”
“Yes, that’s right.” My voice was a whisper.
Nicolai continued to stroke his beard. He spoke in a soothing monotone, as if he were hypnotizing me. “This man, he visits you at night. You have, shall we say, encounters, with him that are both frightening and…”
He paused. I gulped loudly.
“…exciting.” He put out one finger and stroked the tail of a stuffed black bird perched on a branch-shaped pedestal. “Yet I’ll warrant you could not describe the exact nature of these encounters, am I correct?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to work properly.
“You are powerfully attracted to him, yes, Angela?”
“Who are you?” I was gripping my wineglass so hard I thought I might crack it.
He leaned back, smoothing the ruffles on the collar of his shirt. “I am nobody, simply an observer. I am a scholar, a historian, a researcher. I follow groups such as the one that convenes at the House of Usher because that is where you usually find them.”
My mouth felt dry. “Find who?”
Nicolai went to a bookshelf in a corner of the room and took down a large book bound in flaky brown leather with gold embossed text. He put it on the table in front of me and opened it to the front page, which had the spiky and not quite even type of a very old book. The title read: The Vampire in Legend, Fact and Art, by Mme. de Laszowska, with a publication date of May 1785. There was a bookmark in the first third of the book so I opened to that page.
It was a print of what had originally been a woodcut, of a man’s profile, with a sharp nose, small eyes, and a pointed beard. He wore a simple crown on his head and a fur collar. His eyes glared at some distant enemy. The caption read: “Fourteenth century Transylvanian count Vlad Tepisch, believed by many to be the first vampire.”
Nicolai’s words floated over the picture, the soothing, cultured voice of a professor giving a lecture. “The history of the vampire begins in fact, but the fabric of truth is frayed with time, interwoven with myth and make-believe to produce a patchwork quilt of legend.”
I looked up from the book, pulling my coat around me as if it could offer some protection from the discomfort I was feeling.
Nicolai was looking at me with the professional smile of a therapist, but his eyes glittered in the gaslight. “The term ‘vampire’ is one of the most misunderstood in human culture. The word has many connotations that are not strictly accurate. For example, vampires are neither immortal nor supernatural.”
“So you’re saying they don’t actually kill people?”
“On the contrary, they do kill people and many of them. One could certainly have killed your friend.”
I was shocked. “You mean all the people at the House of Usher are murderers?”
A deep sigh. “No, no, no. Those people are human, engaging in behaviors that are fulfilling to them psychologically. Many of them were abused as children and are drawn to the vampire myth as a means of achieving power, or being close to power, in their own lives. They drink blood when someone consents to give it to them, but they are not vampires. No, the true vampire is something far beyond them, something they will never comprehend.”
Nicolai stroked the leather of the book. His fingernails were long and filed to sharp points at the tips, each one a tiny blade.
“The vampire, while not immortal, lives much longer than a mortal life span, perhaps as long as two thousand years. Think of the redwood tree, the Komodo dragon. They breathe but their breath is cold; their hearts beat, but slowly. Like lizards, their body temperature adjusts to the ambient temperature. Naturally cold, they are warmed by blood, human contact, and warm environments.”
I thought of Eric’s cold hands, warming when he touched my skin.
“They require blood to survive, but the amount can vary, depending on the particular vampire. Some go for long periods of time without killing, while others, particularly in earlier centuries when it was easier to hide, vanquished entire cities.”
“Nicolai, the things I’ve been experiencing…”
“Yes, you’re wondering if you are becoming a vampire.”
“No! That’s not what I was going to ask. I don’t believe in vampires. He could be doing this with drugs, with hypnosis…”
Nicolai turned to stare at me, tiny fires reflected in each of his eyes. “Angela, let’s not waste each other’s time. Why have you sought me out, instead of the police, or a psychiatrist, or, what are they called, a cult deprogrammer? I’ll tell you why. Because you already know the truth, that only I can help you.”
Unless you have experienced a religious epiphany yourself, any description of what I felt at that moment would be inadequate. What I had been denying over the last few days finally stood in front of me and blocked every other exit. Eric had been telling me the truth.
Nicolai’s lips twitched into a smile, and he nodded slowly. “I see that you are coming into acknowledgment. This is good, for I have much more to tell you. The vampire is inducing a conversion in you.”
“Conversion?”
Before answering he pulled out another book. It was a decrepit, leather-bound version of Dracula, by Bram Stoker.
“You have read this, I presume?”
“Does seeing the movie count?”
He sniffed in disgust.
“I mean the one by Francis Ford Coppola. It was a very good movie. Keanu Reeves sucked, but still.” I was babbling to cover my nervousness.
Nicolai flipped through the dusty pages and began reading out loud, squinting even more. “She was initially bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking…and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is UnDead, too.”
He closed the book and a piece of its leather binding fell to the floor.
“Bram Stoker was close to correct in his portrayal of Mina. An older vampire must induce the conversion over an extended period of time, during which he ‘visits’ the subject and induces what Stoker called a trance state. I would call it a euphoric state. What would you call it, Angela?”
“Just go on, Nicolai, please.” I took a gulp of wine.
“Very well. The body fluids of vampires contain a virus that causes the biochemical changes that produce another vampire. However, to become a vampire the person must have certain genetic characteristics that predispose him or her to vampirism, that is, the gene to which the virus attaches itself.”
“I can see I should have stayed awake in chemistry class.”
Nicolai continued, ignoring my attempts to lighten the atmosphere. “The gene, like all genes, runs in families. Famous powerful families, such as the Medicis in Italy and the British royal family, would make vampires within the family and discourage any ‘outbreeding.’ This also helped to limit the number of vampires in the world, which was important for its survival as a species. And the human species too, of course.”
“So you’re saying I have a vampire gene?”
“Yes. And it must be very strong in you if you are able to see your vampire’s thoughts. Are you able to read anyone else’s thoughts?”
“Yes, my mother’s.”
Nicolai nodded. “Of course. You would have inherited it from her.”
My finger traced the outline of the face of Vlad Tepisch. “What, uh, other powers, might someone acquire if they became a vampire?”
Nicolai clapped his hands together like an excited child. “An excellent question, Angela, and so very timely! In addition to the already mentioned longevity and clairvoyance with other genetically related individuals, there is superhuman strength and agility.”
I closed my eyes and remembered Eric lifting me in his arms and moving me from the Hyde Street Pier to my apartment in Pacific Heights in the blink of an eye.
I ran to the edge of town where I knew there was a cliff, a precipitous drop down to a river. I ran toward it and found that I could very nearly fly, my strength and speed were so great.
Nicolai was still speaking. “…scholars say that there is also superhuman intelligence, but my research indicates that this is probably simply the result of judicious use of the other powers, such as clairvoyance. Although if you believe the adage that with age comes wisdom, well, what vampire wouldn’t have an advantage over us there?”
I remembered Eric’s nose, squashed in the parking lot and miraculously healing. From there it wasn’t that far a leap to my mother and her possible cancer. “Could a person, I mean a vampire, cure someone of an illness?”
Nicolai nodded. “The vampire venom does have curative powers, for both the vampire and those he feeds on. As long as he doesn’t kill them, of course.”
It was time to ask the most important question. “So,” I was so nervous I had to strain to make my voice work, “how does one actually become a vampire?”
“The human being walks around in a semi-vampiric state for a period of several days or weeks, while the vampire visits them and feeds on them, injecting small amounts of venom each time. They may experience symptoms—headaches, nausea, sensitivity to light–which are hints of what is to come. If the fluid transfer stops during this period, the human most likely reverts back.”
“And if they don’t revert back?” I asked.
Nicolai pressed closer to me and I saw beads of sweat on his forehead. He was no longer smiling.
“At the climax of the blood exchange the vampire-to-be must die. This is always a dangerous proposition because there is no way to know whether the vampire virus has ‘taken’ until you die. So if you wake up it was successful, and if you don’t…” Nicolai shrugged and held up his hands. “It’s a risk well worth taking.”
“How do you die, Nicolai?” I whispered.
“The vampire ends your mortal life, of course, by draining your blood.” Nicolai inched even closer and touched me on the arm. I felt his nails through my coat.
“Angela, if you are being visited by a vampire and you are not dead, then you are a very special person. You have been chosen, don’t you see?”
One of the sweat beads rolled from his forehead down his cheek. “The vampire only does this for one reason that I’ve been able to discern. To find a partner. I’ve been waiting for years to find someone like you, Angela. A vampire has chosen you, and now you are hovering on the precipice between life and conversion. For you, dying would be an opportunity of the highest magnitude.”
“But I’d have to kill people in order to live…” The room seemed to have no air. The wine I had drunk threatened to make a return appearance.
“How would I stop it?” I choked out the words.
Nicolai leapt to his feet and slashed the air with his hand. “Stop it? Impossible! The only way would be to kill the vampire, and I’m sure you don’t want to do that, do you, Angela? Think of the possibilities you’re being offered…”
“Nicolai, I have to get some fresh air…” I stood up.
“Please don’t go, Angela, there’s so much more to say—”
Nicolai clutched at me, but I brushed him off and left the apartment. In the street I leaned over a garbage can and threw up.
I forced myself to go to bed when I got home, to at least pretend I was normal, but it was like trying to sleep while on speed (which I’ve only tried once, for the record). My mind raced, my hands and feet twitched, I felt jitters all over my body. Finally I gave up and sat in the living room with the TV on and the sound off. As infomercials for thigh machines and acne creams flickered across the screen, I stared out the window, wondering where in the darkness Eric was and whether he was thinking about me. Part of my jitters was caused by an acute desire to go out into the city and look for him, starting at his office and working my way through every inch of San Francisco’s forty-seven square miles until I found him and checked us into the nearest hotel where I could unbutton his shirt and run my tongue along the cleft of his collarbone, fill my nose with his aroma. The desire for him was a physical pain, like I’d swallowed hot rocks and they had burned their way down my throat and through my body.
But still my rational mind, the famous McCaffrey cool head that had saved many a citizen from burning alive when my father and grandfather applied it to fighting a fire, told me to step back from my feelings and analyze the situation. Thanks to Nicolai, even my rational mind had accepted that Eric was something else, something not human. I didn’t want to use the V word, but he had powers far beyond those of a human, powers he paid for in all-too-human guilt and loneliness. Wasn’t loving him like loving the sun, so beautiful and warm, essential to life but deadly if you got too close?
As I watched the light break over the horizon, a torpor came over my body that I could only compare to going under general anesthesia. The doctor says count backward from ten and by the time you get to eight you have as much consciousness as a log. But it couldn’t have been as bad as that, because I did hear my alarm clock, albeit two hours after it started ringing at seven.
In the shower I washed my hair several times, forgetting after each time whether I’d done it. Getting dressed, a task I had always considered easy, became an agonizing chore because I couldn’t figure out which tops went with which bottoms. Outside it was cool and foggy, but the sunlight still hit my eyes so strongly I felt like I was getting a migraine. I stopped at a street vendor outside my office and bought three pairs of the cheapest, darkest sunglasses I could find.
I stopped in at Steve’s office and found him with his head in a file drawer. As soon as he sat up I could tell something was wrong. His blue silk tie was loosened and the top button of his starched white shirt was undone. For someone else this would mean they were relaxing, but Steve was not a relaxed guy.
“Angie, someone was in my office last night.”