Chapter Four
Whilst our heroes were engaged in their whispered conference at this ungodly hour, most of the villainous subjects of their conversation were sensible enough to already be fast asleep. Only one of them, the cloaked figure of Jasper Helwyze, remained sleepless and wary at that late hour; and as he stirred the dead, smoking ashes of the fire, he glanced upon the slumbering forms of both his master and the young object of his terrible affections and spoke in a voice soft and audible only to himself:
"Lovely Antonia, yours is the sleep of innocence distilled, tranquil and untroubled by cares and anxious memories. And my master Ambrosio, though your sleep is that of a guilty man, it is still far more than I shall ever enjoy. Would that I might enjoy even the sleep of the conscience-tormented – but even that respite is denied me. Hell's ceaseless tortures taught me long ago that there is no calendar other than the endless repetition of desire and death; and that there is no day but Doomsday itself, when the final dissolution shall at last come about to consume both Satan and his allies – of which I am one. Now I may never sleep again, neither in this world nor the next." His face grew pale as a winding sheet as he murmured these last words and a look of despairing horror and weariness entered those implacable eyes for a moment. Just as suddenly as it surfaced, however, it disappeared to be replaced by all his former contemptuous mercilessness and malignance. With a brooding, melancholic countenance, he gazed upwards towards the cold, glittering stars as though seeking to both supplicate and renounce the heavens from which they so impassively shone.
The sound of a sigh caused him to glance up swiftly, roused momentarily from his poisonous contemplations. He perceived that Antonia was stirring in her sleep as though troubled by some dream and he rose from his place by the dead fire and knelt beside her, watching until her restlessness subsided somewhat and lapsed once more into peaceful drowsing.
For a few minutes, he remained by her side as though transfixed by both jealousy and sorrow at the sight of her tranquil sleep – a luxury that was forever to be denied to him. Yet Helwyze had lost nothing of his sorcerous knowledge and it struck him that even now in the midst of his lonely agony, he might gain some sort of amusement at the expense of this innocent creature before him. Leaning close to her ear, he spoke in a low, gentle voice, reciting the ancient runes that enable one to harness the threads of a sleeper's dreams and weave them into any pattern one may desire. Then, after he had invoked the necessary spells, he continued to whisper into the sleeping girl's ear the visions that he desired her to behold:
"Dear heart, behold about you all the splendors of the New Jerusalem: the seraphs, the winged angels – yes, even the Fount of Life. You behold all of the blessed souls who wander beneath those jeweled arches and upon those golden streets. Are you one of that happy throng, Antonia?"
In the soft voice of one who speaks in one's sleep, she replied, "Oh, I hope so!"
"Of course you are, my dear," he said. "For yours is a pure and contrite heart. Ah, but look! All is not happiness here. Do you not see the deep chasm that separates this beautiful Heaven from a plain of sulphur and bitumen? Do you not hear the cries of the damned as they roil in flaming gulfs, lost to all hope of salvation or even death? Does not the fanning heat of Hell reach even that celestial city and brush against your face like the wind of an immense furnace?"
Breathlessly, she whispered, "Yes – and I know some of those poor, wretched faces. Oh, no, it cannot be!" Her voice broke and was full of a sorrowful horror, "Dear Ambrosio – kind Helwyze! Why do the two of you suffer within these flames alongside all of these sinners?" Helwyze, who had turned very pale at the mention of his name, listened intently as she continued, "But I am so close to the chasm betwixt Heaven and Hell. Can it be that I could but stretch out my hand and save them and then lead them with me to Paradise? Perhaps I shall fall within that terrible gulf – but it is worth the risk, for I cannot be in Heaven whilst those who are my friends must suffer."
So passionate were her feelings even while she remained fast asleep that her hand actually went out as though to clasp the suffering hand of some sinner and happened to fasten upon Helwyze's wrist. Though it was but the light grasp of a sleeping girl's hand, he was held frozen by her touch as though rendered helpless by some sorcery even more potent than his own.
The sound of footsteps behind him caused him to rise with a start. He beheld a figure standing close by within the shadows and heard a voice say, "Come away with me that I may speak for a moment with you."
The voice was familiar to him and with a vague shudder of remembrance, he followed it into a secluded grove apart from the two sleeping figures of Antonia and Ambrosio.
Once alone, the strange figure threw back the hood of its cloak to reveal the beautiful face of a woman, with long, red hair spilling down to her waist and deep blue eyes intently fixed upon the pallid sorcerer.
"Helwyze…my Helwyze," she murmured. "I have oft dreamt of this moment when I would have you once more before me. When you died so many centuries ago, I believed that chance to be lost – yet now here you are."
"Indeed Providence works in mysterious ways," Helwyze replied with a faint smile.
She tilted her head playfully at him. "You seem little pleased with Providence, my dear sorcerer."
"I would say that it is He who is little pleased with me, my dear vampiress."
"And do you crave His good pleasure? It seems to me that your heart is such that it could not help but mock the mercy that it would seek to supplicate."
"And it seems to me a little late for supplications – for both of us," he returned. "What business have you here, Aleera? Are you so wearied of your Count that you seek even my poor company as an anodyne?"
"Do not mock me with feigned ignorance," she laughed. "You know very well that it is only you that I shall ever desire."
"And yet I have never sought after your love nor encouraged it."
"You have been very careful not to. However, the more you demur, the more you whet my appetite."
"I am sorry for that," Helwyze replied. "For I hope never to gratify it."
Her eyes flashed with a hideous fury at these words. "Do you truly believe that you may escape me?" She took a step nearer to him and as she did, he raised his hand to make the sign of the cross. However, as his finger traced the shape within the air before him, the choking scent of sulphur seemed to rise up all around him and the fiery shape of a cross appeared in the air before vanishing.
"Blasphemer!" Aleera laughed. "Did you truly believe that the cross would save you? You, who have renounced Heaven, cannot still hope to benefit from its protection! Rather, give yourself wholly unto me and become as I have become."
She exulted in the look of helplessness that she had startled out of her victim with these cruel words and as she grasped him and drew him to her, he barely resisted her as though certain already of his defeat. She pressed her mouth against his white lips with a fury that seemed to draw the breath out of her victim and all the while her fingers caressed his hair and throat. At last, she relaxed her grasp slightly and regarded his face with an expression of gloating expectancy. "Well, shall you not fight me and make your escape? Or are you indeed mine now?" She knew very well that it was not in the sorcerer's nature to strike a woman; also, she was well aware of the hypnotic power attendant about her and its effect upon her victims. It was difficult enough for a Christian to resist such a creature; for an apostate such as Helwyze, the struggle was far greater.
With a faint look of despair but as though compelled by an insurmountable summons, he bent closer and brought his lips upon her throat. But his kisses were cold and forced, seeming to linger with hatred rather than love upon the object of their ministrations. Nonetheless, Aleera held him closely, a faintly sardonic smile upon her lips as he at last ceased and met her gaze.
"Even this unwilling tribute from you, O sorcerer, is more to me than the impassioned embraces of any other," she murmured. "And you know as well as I that I have means of causing even your indefatigable coldness to melt."
He gazed upon her radiant, flawless beauty with a strange mixture of helpless hatred and enslaved bewilderment. He knew, then, that he was utterly powerless to resist her enchantments, false though he knew them to be and that he would not only succumb to them but, in so doing, give up his soul to her as well. It was the loss of his soul and will that caused him to blanch more than the humbling shame that accompanied it. If he had to be damned, he would much rather do the damning himself than become the victim of bewitchment.
"What, Helwyze, you are not afraid are you?" she demanded with a mocking smile.
At last he spoke and as he did, he knelt at her bare feet as though in a last plea for mercy: "I see that I am helpless before you, for I have neither Christ nor Satan to succor me against your enchantments. Yet I beg that though you satisfy yourself in all other things, that you do not thirst after my blood nor cause me to become as you are."
She gazed down upon him, her eyes shining. "And so – proud Helwyze, who refuses even to kneel before his Maker, humbles himself at my feet and implores me for mercy." She took his hand and raised him up so that he stood before her once more. "But why should I not follow God's holy example and reject your unrepentant impiety? Cursed one, kiss me." With a look of silent despair, he did so. "And now I shall do the same for you."
Her long fingers twined within his hair and drew his head irresistibly back so that his throat lay pale and vulnerable before her. He flinched at first beneath her lips, but she did not immediately sate her thirst, choosing instead to kiss the unmarked perfection of his untouched throat as though reveling in its exquisite, yielding softness. Her other hand held his wrists as tightly together as though they were bound by manacles, effectively repressing his struggles. At last, she ceased her toying delay and her teeth entered deeply into his flesh. A soft sigh escaped his lips and a hideous shudder moved through his frame as she drank deeply of the crimson that leapt from his veins. He renewed his attempts to escape, but her grasp only tightened about him whilst all the while her fingers moved wildly within his hair. At length, he ceased even this resistance and, thoroughly overcome, gave himself up to her languorous caresses and avid lips.
Suddenly, as though physically thrust back by a force even greater than her own, Aleera staggered away from him, her face white with fury and her lips dabbled with blood. Her eyes were not turned upon him but upon something behind him and as the vampiress disappeared into the midnight air, he turned to behold what it was that had frightened her away. In the uncertain moonlight, all he could make out was the figure of something clothed in flowing white with a crucifix hanging from a chain about its throat. But in the extremity of his exhaustion and bewilderment, he fancied that he saw before him nothing less than an angel of God – and this thought threw his mind into an even greater maelstrom of consternation and terror. Sinking to his knees before the figure, he murmured in a voice that, though full of dread, still held within it all of his eternal, despairing defiance: "Spirit, you must not send me back so soon –so soon. You know as well as I that I shall have all of eternity to dwell within the Outer Darkness – and I dare hope that I shall not be deprived of my momentary respite from Hell's pangs by you or any other emissary of Heaven save Christ Himself until Judgement Day – and even then would I resist Him with all the forces of the Inferno that lie at my disposal – would cause seraph to battle fallen angel for my wretched soul before I would allow it to be cast once more and forever into the Pit. Hearken to me, then, have pity and begone!"
As he finished uttering these terrible, impenitent words, the sorcerer was suddenly overwhelmed by a hideous sensation of faintness as though the loss of blood that he had sustained was at last affecting him. Yet the terror of being borne to Hell whilst unconscious harrowed him so deeply that even as he felt the darkness of a swoon close in upon him, his lips parted and he struggled to breathe the words that would summon forth Belial or some similar daemon who might come to his defense. Before the spell could be uttered, however, he felt a cool hand upon his brow and a soft, frightened voice whispered his name as though to recall him once again to the world of the living and the blessed. He seized the hand in a grasp that caused its owner to gasp and gazed with half-unbelieving eyes upon the tender, concerned visage of Antonia.
"Helwyze, dear friend – what is it that has frightened you?" she asked.