Chapter 8

Drinking With Nigel

We took a table in the back corner of the Foggy Dew and everyone gave us a wide berth. Sal set down a bottle of gin and glasses, then backed away. Nobody had ever survived a conversation with the vampire before.

“So why’d you end up here instead of hell?” Ms. Parker asked directly. She wasn’t the type to beat around the bush. When he didn’t bite her hand off, I reckoned he must’ve liked that about her.

“You may consider it a reprieve,” he replied in his fancy way of talking, “but to me it is a far worse punishment. There is no palpable nourishment here, very little entertainment, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anything resembling stimulating conversation.”

“But you done something worth saving your hide for, ain’t ya?” Buddy asked.

“I really couldn’t say.” Nigel sipped his glass of gin without much interest. “I’ll tell you what… You can listen to my story and judge for yourselves. If nothing else, it will at least pass the time.”

“Fair enough,” Buddy agreed.

“I was born in London in 1635 and spent a century slaughtering thousands of people to slake my thirst. Then I stowed away on a cargo boat to the New World, where I killed a thousand more. I was the only vampire on the entire continent!”

“Sounds kind of lonesome,” Ms. Parker remarked.

“Indeed,” Nigel admitted. “I had not spoken to a soul for more than fifty years when the frontiersmen began building their crude sod houses in the interior. One day a woman scolded me for poaching her livestock. Her hubris amused me, so I chose not to feast on her. She had been widowed during the colonies’ revolt against England, but she was determined to stake a piece of land for herself. We lived together as man and wife for five years before she became with child.”

“Wuz it yours?” Buddy blurted out.

Nigel lifted an eyebrow in offense. “You don’t mean to take me for a cuckold, sir?”

“So vampires can have children with regular women?” I asked.

“Certainly.”

“So does that make the child a vampire, too?” Ms. Parker asked, looked oddly worried.

“Very rarely, perhaps one in a thousand, and the child would only become a full-fledged vampire if it consumed warm blood.”

“Oh, good,” Ms. Parker said.

“But say it was one of them one-in-a-thousand types, and it happened to drink some blood,” I asked out of curiosity. “Would it wanna feed on people, even if it was half a one itself?”

“Indeed, and most voraciously,” Nigel answered. “You would not care to cross paths with a mixed-breed. Throughout the ages, vampires have survived by being discreet in their feeding. Mixed-breeds know no such discretion. Their appetites are too great to control. In the Middle Ages, they destroyed entire villages, which the vampire community went through great pains to cover up. Eventually, unions between vampires and humans were banned altogether to avoid such problems.”

“So you was breaking vampire law by having a baby with that lady,” Buddy pointed out. “Like some kinda vampire outlaw.”

“Yes, I suppose you could say that,” Nigel replied dryly. “But as I said, there was only a one in a thousand chance of my child inheriting the vampiric traits. Even then, he would’ve had to consume warm blood to trigger it.”

“As if the wolves weren’t enough to worry about!” Ms Parker said.

“No need to fret about that now, ma’am,” Buddy told her. “Ain’t no half-breed vampire gonna get here. Prolly go straight to hell for killin’ its own kind!”

“So what did happen with your child?” Ms. Parker asked Nigel.

“It is not a story with a happy ending, I’m afraid. My two brothers had grown bored in England, so they tracked me down. My older brother Ian was a strict follower of vampire law and very much opposed breeding with humans. When he discovered that I kept house with a human and she was with child, he tried to kill her. Since I was well nourished from the blood of natives and Ian was still weak from his journey, I gained the upper hand. My younger brother always had a skittish temperament. He was torn by watching us fight, and he ran off when I proved the victor.”

Nigel had not exchanged more than a few words with anyone in nearly a century. Now he was gabbing on like a schoolgirl. His taking a shine to Ms. Parker must’ve provoked it. We listened quietly and kept nodding, hoping when it was over he wouldn’t find a reason to send us all to hell.

“While we were fighting,” he continued, “the townspeople became convinced that we were all witches. As I was recovering from my wounds, they captured my wife. I offered to trade my life for hers, but once they had me shackled to a tree, they burned her at the stake.” Nigel’s eyes moistened. “My unborn child perished with her.”

“How horrible!” Ms. Parker gasped.

“Indeed.” He quickly regained his composure, then a wicked smile came over his face. “I was to have my revenge though. They intended to burn me, but I caught my guard unaware and used his finger bones to pick my shackles. I slaughtered the townspeople, only sparing the women and children, since they had no part in the decision to kill my wife.”

“But why didn’t you just turn your wife into a vampire when you had a chance, so she wouldn’t die either?” Ms. Parker asked.

“Despite the tales you’ve heard, a human cannot become a vampire through a bite any more than a pig can become a man from the ample portions of bacon you consume. Vampires are born of vampires.”

“Ain’t it true that you need a wooden stake to kill ’em?” Buddy asked.

“No, a bullet will suffice, though you’d be hard-pressed to shoot quickly enough. Otherwise, we can expect to live as long as five hundred years before expiring of old age. Nothing lasts forever.”

“How come we didn’t know about none of this before?” Buddy asked.

“For the expediency of our feeding, we have always kept our identities secret. If your livestock could comprehend your language, you would not inform them of your intentions, would you? Sure, encounters have been reported now and then, but they were usually considered little more than folklore.”

“So if the townspeople didn’t get you, how did you die?” Ms. Parker asked.

“My younger brother allowed the vampire tribunal to know that I killed Ian, and it is strictly forbidden to kill another vampire. So they sent a hunter named Luther after me.”

“Your own brother tattled on you?” Buddy shook his head in disapproval.

“There was no need for that. Vampires can read thoughts. All Martin had to do was be in the presence of another vampire for it to become known.”

Ms. Parker shuddered as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Are you feeling okay, ma’am?” Nigel asked.

“Oh, why yes. I suppose the morning sickness is coming in the evenings,” she said. “Is that the name of your brother? I knew a man by that name, but it couldn’t have been the same man. Martin is a fairly common name, after all.”

“So can you read our thoughts?” I asked Nigel, trying not to think of anything unpleasant about him.

“Dead men don’t offer them as freely as the living,” he said, “but the silence is welcome after centuries of listening to prayers for sex and money.”

“And what happened with that hunter vampire they sent after ya?” Buddy asked.

“Luther did not know the territory as I did. I might have evaded him for decades. Alas, he played upon my sympathies. He collected the town’s women and children, including some of my wife’s kin, and locked them in a barn, then threatened to burn them alive. I knew it was a trap, but I no longer cared. Rather than see more needless death, I let Luther kill me. Then I ended up here, though I don’t know why.”

Nigel emptied his glass of gin in one gulp. He might’ve been a few centuries old and had eaten a mess of people, but he still looked like a heartsick schoolboy.

“You sacrificed yourself for your wife and then for those women and children,” Ms. Parker said. “That’s why you’ve been sent here! You’ve been given a second chance.”

“Damnation is not a second chance,” Nigel said with some annoyance. “I have never seen a single soul escape this town. There is no heaven and no redemption. There are only varying degrees of hell—not the least of which are boredom and solitude. At least you have food that you can eat here. For me, there is no substitute for warm blood. I am continually hungry and bored.”

“Well, it looks like you got yourself some excitement now,” Buddy pointed out. “Them werewolves’ll be back.”

“So do you know what happened to your younger brother Martin?” Ms. Parker asked shyly.

“I suppose he might still be wandering around America. If you’ll excuse me, ma’am. I think I should spend as little time in your company as possible. I’m afraid I might not be able to withstand the lure of the warm blood inside of you.” As Nigel headed for the door, Ms. Parker braced her tummy in fear.

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Buddy told her. “Ain’t no vampire gonna eat you or your baby while I’m around.”

We walked Ms. Parker back to the hotel to be sure the wolves didn’t double back for her. As we crossed the road, the wind picked up. The normally unmovable clouds parted for a brief instant, and a faint beam of light shone down from the corner of the sky. For the first time, a pale circle was visible beyond the embers of dusk. Some howling sounded in the distance, then more joined in. Soon the entire pack was calling at once. A moment later, the clouds converged. Dusk resumed, and the wolves were silent.

The Crapper

Comings: Whiny Pete’s probably already chewed the ear off every man in town about the stampede he caused and the children he killed, so I won’t waste much space on him here, except to say that I don’t expect he’ll last more than a month, and when he reads this and starts whining about the prediction, it may shorten that time considerably.

Goings: Fat Wally hailed from Mississippi where his momma was born to a proper family. His pa owned some land, but Wally had a wild streak that couldn’t be appeased by farming. He ran off to pilot steamboats when he was fifteen and eventually got involved in managing sporting ladies, which became his lifelong career. He loved his pork, even before he wound up in Damnation, and considered bacon a main dish and eggs just a side. Some five years ago, he joined us after his heart gave out in a brothel in New Orleans, where he was spending the money he had fleeced from a banker.

Wally was considered by most to be amicable company at the poker table and his constant ribbing of the newbies provided a welcome distraction. He couldn’t abide jabbering whiners like the one who pressed a pistol to his breast during a botched gunfight that turned into a wrestling match. But fair is fair, and the man who ain’t smelling sulfur is the victor. One thing that can be said about Fat Wally’s departure is that he won’t have to listen to Whiny Pete no more. Unfortunately, the rest of us will.

Though not really a new arrival, I would like to share some recently learned information about one of our oldest residents. The vampire’s name is Nigel. He introduced himself after he saved Ms. Parker from a couple of wolves. He came from England originally. Had himself a human wife in America, and they’re not supposed to do that according vampire law. Nigel had to kill his own brother to protect her, and then another vampire hunted him down and held his wife’s kin hostage. Nigel sacrificed himself so that they could live. He don’t seem like such a bad guy after all, though I wouldn’t test him on it. Also, he thinks Ms. Parker is still with child, and she’s pretty sure she is, too.

Oh, and I think we saw some kind of moon-like thing in the sky last night when we were walking her home.