Bite

JUNE 1666

LONDON

     He had taken a room at the ‘The Town of Ramsgate’ inn, sitting quietly as a commotion raged following the discovery of a young woman’s body in the Thames, mere hours since her arrival from Rotterdam. 

     He’d disembarked the ‘Gilded Lion,’ a Dutch three masted Fluyte. It had been squalid and uncomfortable, but the young woman he’d made the acquaintance of during the short voyage provided a singularly pleasant distraction.

Reading by candlelight, Carsten kept an ear open, listening for any utterances that may cause him to flee. She’d tasted pleasant, he smiled, although she’d been raised on a poor diet as her blood was rather thin. Returning to Honore’s letter,

My dearest Carsten

A troublesome character whose companionship we have both shared is becoming problematic. His actions are drawing far too much attention to our kind, risking unfortunate interest and speculation.

My dear, destroy Lord William Rust. He can be found at either his London home or at Castle Loup in Hampshire. Be cautious, he is of both a fierce and cunning nature.

Bring me his head,

Honore

     Everyone in England had heard of Rust. Generations of gossip identified Rust’s family as possibly Egyptian, or perhaps from the Americas? The earliest recorded fact was of a Baron Rust leaving France for England, supporting William, Duke of Normandy’s invasion in 1066. With William seizing the crown, Rust’s descendants strategically picked the right side in battle, acquiring land and property and a place at court. 

     Carsten knew the invading Baron and the current Earl were one and the same. Throughout generations he’d avoid uncomfortable questions by disappearing prior to a death announcement and his heir, looking remarkably like his predecessor, inserted himself into public life with new clothes, few wrinkles, and the inherited filthy temper. His current incarnation found him living as the ninth Lord Rust.

     A shout from outside his window gave Carsten cause to stand and listen, “Her blood has been drained,” a man called, no doubt the neglectful manservant who’d allowed the young woman to slip away from under his nose. Carsten considered wringing the man’s neck to tie up any loose ends, but Honore’s request was his priority, and he simply gathered his effects and slipped from the upstairs window and across the crowded rooftops. He travelled for some distance, sniffing the warm air carrying London’s stench, then dropped to street level. It was filthy and crowded, even at night; the devastating plague of the previous year apparently forgotten. Carsten kept his eyes open for the occasional stones carved with street names before finding Hutton Street. 

     Rust’s London house was a large red brick affair, quite different than the ramshackle jumble of overhanging timber and plaster homes and businesses scattered along the dirt road. Carsten brushed flecks of dirt from his ornate sleeves as he rapped the oak door.

     “His Lordship ain’t ‘ere,” a woman’s sharp voice informed him.

     “Ah, I presume he’s at his country estate?” said Carsten, his English perfect, his accent pronounced. He looked at the old woman leaning from an upstairs window. “Does he stable horses nearby?”

     “Who’s askin’?” she replied.

     Carsten was growing impatient, “I have to give Lord Rust a message. It is of the utmost importance.”

     The woman closed the window and Carsten could make out her heavy steps and cursing as she wheezed downstairs to open the door. Before she could open her mouth Carsten grabbed her throat and carried her backwards, flailing helplessly as he tossed her to the flagstones.

     “Horses?”  The prone woman, injured and groaning, flicked her eyes towards the back of the house where Carsten instantly recognised the sharp equine tang. “Danke.” 

     He decided not to consume her, she looked poor meat and he’d already eaten. Instead, he walked swiftly through the house and into the yard where the stables stood. The horses within began to whinny and kick, their usual reaction in the presence of a predator. Carsten, ignoring their skittishness quickly mounted a shining chestnut gelding and pushed the doors aside, riding it into the street. He let the horse, in its panicked state, simply bolt and lead him where he needed to go. He hoped it would be soon as he could hear the sound of the dawn chorus.

#

     Rust sat idly. He tapped his smart new boots against an old coffer he’d ransacked from somewhere. His memory wasn’t what it was. He couldn’t remember how old he was, and despite the nonsense spoken about vampires living forever he was bloody tired out, immortality having lost its sheen hundreds of years earlier. He was in what he referred to as his ‘descendent phase,’ creating a new persona and burying his old one. A couple of new portraits, a new coffin entombed in the mausoleum and give it a few years he’d be back kicking up trouble for the latest King. Charles? Not the one who’d had his head lopped off, the new fellow. 

     He was bored senseless. He fancied quitting the castle and getting back to some wanton savagery on the continent, maybe north Africa? Had to keep out the sun, mind you, and that left nothing but night campaigns which weren’t half as much fun. He’d received a letter from Honore, 

     William

     Regretfully, word has reached me of your reckless appetites. An entire village! Your arrogance and foolishness have sadly not abated with the passing of time. This is far from an isolated case, indeed your carelessness has worsened since we last met.

     Must I repeat what you, above all others, should know? Discretion is required for our kind in positions of power and influence. Failure on your part jeopardises not only yourself but us.

     Your attendance in Madrid is required. On 15 July you will answer to your peers at the annual midnight assembly.

     Honore

     Rust had howled with laughter, pinning the note to his wall with a pugio. The massacre of a hamlet of serfs was simply his usual manner of controlling dissent; they’d begged for a reduction in their tithes due to crop failures so of course he’d made an example of the wretched peasants and butchered them one night, carrying several younger specimens back to the castle for his entertainment. The drained corpses were tied to poles and set alight along the highway as a warning; he had a reputation to uphold.

     Now he grew pensive. Someone was coming, and he knew they’d be one of Honore’s creations, educated in the ways of dispatching troublesome vampires. He could flee, of course, but why bother? He was tired, listless, depressed. Perhaps a final death would be better than hanging around waiting for his batteries to run down; he hadn’t created any new vampires in more than a generation, subsequently his powers were sagging. The desiccated bodies of his once vibrant, energy giving acolytes were past sustaining him, long into their death dream state within the mausoleum.

     Stretching, he loped into his long gallery, striding past the portraits he’d commissioned over the last several hundred years, reaching the staircase and bellowing, “Hackforth? Where are you, man? Blast it, come when called!”

     There was a scuffling and muttering from some distance away, slowly approaching the main hall, “Your lordship?”

     “Don’t lordship me you dog, fetch me my boots. Now!”

#

     The horse, having held a steady pace and course through the night had grown weary and Carsten, needing to take cover from the approaching morning found a barn. His steed, watered and fed, rested as Carsten found a dark corner to lie down. He ignored the inquisitive rodents and insects that approached him, instead allowing his mind to chase down memories.

     He and Rust had met, perhaps twenty years past, at the annual assembly. He and Honore were still, at that stage, quite devoted to each other, so the other vampires treated him with a wary respect. Following a shambolic feast where dinner got up and made a run for it, Carsten bumped into the imposing Rust on the terrace of Honore’s chateaux.

     “I’ve heard so much about you,” Carsten had said.

     “Yet you still approach me?” Rust rumbled.

     Bowing his head, the hulking creature fascinated Carsten, “You know Honore?”

     “I do, and I know who you are too. Let’s look at you.”

     Rust gripped Carsten’s chin, tipping his feline face upwards. The senior vampire’s strength was unexpectedly powerful, the younger man feeling as if Rust could snap his neck like a hen.

     “As I thought, another minor aristocrat on the slide added to Honore’s coop. What do you want with me, child?” Rust’s voice was a low boom in Carsten’s chest.

     “I felt,” said Carsten quietly, smiling, “we may become acquaintances?”

     “Did you now?” growled Rust, “I’ve had a belly full of acquaintances and too few friends in my long existence, so I’ll have to disappoint you.”

     Carsten watched as the looming figure slipped away into the gardens, taking a swipe at a servant holding a lantern. Following at a gentle trot he came across Rust sat gloomily beside the lake, throwing stones.

     “Perhaps friendship would be preferable?” Carsten sat beside his silent companion.

     Rust was flummoxed; as the great hunter he was unused to being pursued. “I have no more need of friends,” he said quietly, looking side on at the younger man with his pale skin and long fair eyelashes.

     “You never know when you may need a friend,” Carsten said and slipped his small hand into Rust’s large fist.

#

     Twilight settled across the castle grounds allowing Rust to take his usual evening exercise, trailed by Hackforth who huffed and puffed as he tried to keep up with his master.

     “This wall, here, remove it and replace it with…” Rust hadn’t thought further ahead than demolition, “another wall, taller, something the horses will leap.”

     Hackforth didn’t bother to argue, he just jotted it down and knew Rust would have forgotten by the next day.  

     “And another thing, I’m going to town next week; find me something suitable to wear. I’m the umpteenth iteration of this blasted Earl; send for the tailors, I must be transformed. Dammit man, what’re you waiting for?”

     Hackforth walked away crisply, shaking his head, and muttering darkly.

     “I heard that,” Rust shouted at his servant’s receding back. He stopped, hands on hips, and surveyed his estate. At this elevated position he appreciated how the castle settled into the soft landscape, his boundaries miles hence in all directions. The moon was waxing, and the stars were quite brilliant. Had he not been out of sorts he may have felt himself satisfied.

     A noise alerted him. On the road bordering the forest he spied a lone figure on a mount. Despite the distance he could make out it was his chestnut gelding he kept stabled in town. “Damned thieving scoundrel,” he smiled, exposing sharp incisors, “I’ll have your hide!” The day was livening up, he thought, breaking into a fast jog across the damp fields.

     Carsten spotted the fast-approaching figure of Rust and gently dismounted, raising a hand, clearly confusing the older vampire as his speed slowed and despite leaping the large hedgerow with one bound, he stopped some distance back.

     “Carsten?”

     “It is, my lord, and I’m so very happy to be with you again.”

     Rust spat, “Don’t try and flannel me you turncoat, I know why you’re here. You intend to depart my home with my head in a sack!”

#

     The two men sat opposite each other in the gloomy dining room. The place had, Carsten noted, grown somewhat more careworn. There were cobwebs strung between the candelabra and dust so thick on the sideboard you could lose a mouse.

     Rust, drinking from a large flagon, glared at his guest.

     “You look well, Carsten. Being a duplicitous hound clearly suits your temperament.”

     Hackforth stood at the door, “Sir, are you ready for the main course?”

     Rust waved his hand dismissively, “Not now, can’t you see I’m busy?”

     “Sir,” Hackforth turned, Carsten noting the elderly man was dragging a gagged and struggling small child with him.

     “You really are a monster,” Carsten smiled, “You don’t even let them ripen!”

     Rust threw his flagon at Carsten’s head, which he avoided with lightning speed and returned to gazing curiously at the fuming figure. It was only the years showing in the man’s eyes that gave away his age; a creature rising aeons ago with Honore and the others. The vampires watched as humanity rose, a herd upon which to feed and flourished, all the while growing wary of the power they amassed.

     “And the hag, is she well?” Rust prodded 

     “The lady is very well, thank you. The real question is, my lord, are you accompanying me to Madrid? I have no intention of failing her, nor do I want to kill you.”

     “I’d like to see you try,” a wolflike Rust growled. “I thought you and I had an understanding?”

     Carsten nodded, smiling, “We do. In respect of our close friendship…”

     Rust snapped, “Friendship, is it? Why was I under the impression our relationship was more than a friendship, a commitment, more intimate? We gave it a name, I recall.”

     “We never used that word.”

     “I did, and you refused to say it back to me.”

     Carsten saw Rust was clearly upset, not just angry. This gave him cause to pause as he hadn’t appreciated Rust’s attachment to him; he had misjudged Rust’s depth of feeling.

     “Clearly you no longer care for me. I’ve waited, Carsten, for just a word from you; of your adventures and conquests, your travels, and discoveries. Yet, each time I gave up hope a letter would arrive, or you’d appear unannounced. This silly old fool adores you, and now look! I either travel to Spain in your duplicitous company to face certain death, or you dispatch me in my own home. 

“Had it been some other treacherous cove on the road this evening, my would-be executioner would be laid out on this table without his head.”

     Carsten leaned back in his seat, curious. He had experienced Rust’s affection but never believed it anything other than lust. 

     “Nevertheless,” Carsten said quietly, “I have my orders.” He reached into his scabbard and quietly unsheathed a long thin blade, finely sharpened.

     Rust slumped in his seat, defeated, “Carsten, if we cannot be together, then let it be done.”

     The younger man stood and with a grave smile drew back his arm…

#

     The storm in the Bay of Biscay was wild. The crew of the Spanish Galleon sailing from Cherbourg fighting to bail out the encroaching sea as it flooded the lower decks. Those who had bought passage lay in their bunks, praying, as the swell tossed the ship like a cork, sails in tatters, sea and rainwater mixing as it poured between the creaking decks.

     Carsten sat cradling the heavy leather sack he refused to hand to anyone on the exposed upper deck, preparing to be pitched into the wild foam at any second. “The things I do for you,” he said quietly, thinking of Honore, the weight of the sack bearing him down. If any crew approached him, entreating him to stay below else he be swept to his doom, he merely snarled at them and their natural instinct for self-preservation kicked in and they found something else more useful to do.

July 1666

Madrid 

     Honore welcomed her kind as they paid tribute, passing before her, either placing flowers or gifts on a long low table and flashing their smiles. She had need of neither but appreciated (and expected) the gesture. She scanned the crowds of chattering heads, cutting through the prattle, listening out for Carsten. His ship had foundered, but knowing he was resourceful, she was convinced he’d made his way safely ashore. 

     He was usually so prompt, so precise, unfailing in his duty; she had grown concerned. Could he be trapped somehow, on the seabed, aging until he was no longer of any use to her?

     “My lady!” A voice that drew her hand to her neck.

     “Carsten, my boy!” She unexpectedly grasped him, much to the disquiet of the rest of her brood who disliked the blue-eyed boy, her favourite, hoping he’d been finished off by the monstrous Rust.

     “His head?” she whispered.

     He leaned in, smelling her perfumed neck, “Lost, forever.”

     “Impossible!”

     “At the bottom of the sea,” he said sadly.

     She tried not to show her displeasure, although Carsten felt it keenly, as she broke away and drifted amongst the crowds, losing sight of her in the warm summer night of Madrid.

1805

The Barbary Coast

     The huge man boarded the ship under darkness, leading a small party of marines. The American vessel, ‘Philadelphia,’ had been seized by the pirates of Tripoli and its crew enslaved; the ship too powerful and valuable to be requisitioned and used against its allies in the Mediterranean.

     The men were amazed and horrified at their bulky leader’s deftness of touch and heightened senses; silently identifying sleeping pirates and despatching them ruthlessly, tearing out their throats with his teeth. Under his fierce command they laid charges and set fires until the ship was ablaze, and they fled. 

     At the harbourside the ‘Philadelphia’ exploded, its huge cannons flung high into the night, flattening buildings, killing hundreds.

     “I like to see a job done well,” he smiled at the youthful faces aglow in the flames, retreating to their vessel, secreted on the other side of the bay.

     “Sir, where did you learn to conduct a raid like that?” one man asked.

     “Oh,” he said, “On the Nile, many, many years ago. Now, men, I’ll leave you to carry on without me.”

     There was a muffled demand for him to stay with his regiment, but he refused.

     “I have some unfinished business to the north.”

     “The Admiral will demand a report, sir!”

     “Dammit man,” the man grumbled, “Just say William Rust, he left for a bite to eat!”