Vampyre
by ElenaC

Chapter IV – In The Light Of Day

- Holmes -

As I walk alongside my unlikely companion, I deduce from his manner of speech, his familiarity with the area and the apparel he is wearing that he cannot be much older than he appears (for I rather doubt that a vampire is subject to the mortal process of aging and, therefore, potentially immortal - yet another implication I have not grasped in its entirety). His speech proclaims rather humble, East London origins, but as he moves through the crowds, he exudes a sense of self-confidence that I am tempted to attribute to his vampiric state rather than his native personality, and I find that I am in agreement with this attitude. After all, what harm can these mortals do us?

However, of the hundreds of people who pass us on our way, I notice none other who is like us. This means that there aren't many on average, which in turn means that vampires are not superior to mortals, for otherwise they would certainly have conquered and enslaved all mortals by now, or be at the very least more numerous. Clearly, there is a flaw in my assumption of superiority, stemming, no doubt, from incomplete data. Maybe there is some natural factor that limits uncontrolled growth of the vampire population, such as some even stronger enemy.

This leads to another line of thought I have carefully suppressed till now: if vampires exist, what else is there? How wrong have I been in my assumption that the mortal world is big enough for us?

My speculation is halted when we reach our destination. My fellow vampire waves me inside the public house, muttering, "We can enter freely here" before motioning me into the back room he mentioned, and I file his remark away for later examination. The landlord knows my companion by sight, nodding at him and greeting him with "Hello, Pete". I can detect no suspicion in the landlord's demeanour, which either means that he knows nothing of Pete's condition, or that he has no objection to it.

We sit down at the single, small table in the back room, lit only by a single candle. I eye the flame warily, but now that I am expecting it, I can control the unreasoning fear the sight causes in me – obviously something that gets easier with practice.

"Peter Carpenter," my companion introduces himself.

I nod. "Sherlock Holmes."

Carpenter's eyes open wide. "Sherlock H-" he gasps.

Another one of Watson's faithful readers, then. My dear friend will be pleased to know that he has an audience among the supernatural as well. "I take it you did not know me when you attacked me," I state.

"I – no, I had no idea…. I just thought… it seemed…"

As it does not seem that his sentence is going to contain any meaning, I undertake to interrupt him. "I suggest you start at the beginning."

Carpenter frowns with considerable confusion. "The beginning?"

"Who are you? How did you come to be like you are now? What did you want with the artefact – a phial containing a relic, is it not – and why did you choose to change me?"

"You don't know, then?"

I grind my teeth in impatience. "I know nothing about you save the obvious facts that you used to be a printer, that you were born and have spent most of your life in the area, that you are not much older than your physical appearance, which I should put at around four-and-twenty, and that you at least occasionally read the Strand Magazine but pay little attention to Paget's illustrations."

He smiles in obvious delight. "This is just like being in one of your stories! You are, of course, correct on every count."

"I am glad I managed to amuse you. Now, if you please."

He leans back in his chair and composes himself. "There's not much to tell. I'm an orphan with no living relatives and have led an unremarkable life as a printer, as you said. That changed five years ago, when I was attacked on my way to the pub – this very pub, in fact -, and left for dead in the street. When I came to, I was like this. It was horrible. The hunger, and the aversion to daylight and food, my God, looking at people and only seeing the blood in them – you have no idea what I went through. Or maybe you do. Anyhow, I tried to do the same thing you obviously did - seek out the one who made me to get answers. But I couldn't even find out who it was. So, there I was, a vampire with no clue. All I knew was that I had changed, and everything was different, and that I had turned into something I could not understand with no way of finding out anything about it except from books. So I studied everything that has been written about my kind. The only fact that looked to be of any help was that there appear to be some religious connotations. That's why I finally decided to steal that relic. There was a text in a book about the power of some relics have of exorcising evil, that such objects are imbued with the strength of the Lord, and I hoped that I might somehow reverse my condition with the aid of one of them. I found out about that phial, drifted into the church in mist shape, grabbed the phial while the priest's back was turned, and drifted out again. I tried everything I could think of, but, as you can see, I'm still the same. It didn't work. Nothing works. There's no hope." There is a desperation in his voice that I cannot believe is false.

I admit to a sinking feeling at those words, for I had hoped he might be able to give me something to go on. "Are you saying that, after five years, you have not found even a hint to a solution to your problem? No other vampires to offer suggestions? Nothing?"

He smiles sadly. "No doubt you would have done better, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. No doubt you will do better within the next five days, never mind five years. After all, here you are, having found me the very night after I made you. But I'm not like you. I may have eyes now that can see in complete darkness, but I still didn't know it was you even when I had my teeth in your neck. It's all I can do to survive from one night to the next, without being found out by my neighbours or by the police. If there are others like us in London or even in England, I don't know about them. Oh, I have found out a few things; how to turn into mist, or into a wolf, or that I cannot enter any private house without invitation, that crossing the river is difficult, that I cannot do anything without drinking blood at regular intervals, and that being awake during the day is next to impossible. But all that only helps me to survive as I am now, not to turn back into a normal human. I've come to the conclusion that there is no way. This is permanent. I'll never see the sunlight again."

- Watson -

"No matter how I questioned him, Watson, that was the extent of what he would tell me, and I believe him," Holmes concluded his account, draped over the sofa listlessly, one arm slung over his head and the other dangling down with the hand brushing the carpet. "If there were a way to reverse the change, he would have used it. Ergo, we must accept the possibility that this state is permanent, or, if it is not, that the procedure is either obscure or will need to be invented first. I am not averse to experimenting upon myself, as you know, Watson, but this would involve establishing an entirely new system of medicine for a newly discovered species, not just injecting myself with the latest alkaloid."

I listened, worried not only by his words, but even more by the air of hopelessness he was radiating. "You must not give up, Holmes," I entreated him. "If there is a way, we'll find it, together. I shall scour all the medical journals for the most obscure hints. We can go to the university towns and search the libraries. We can go abroad together to seek the roots of the matter on the continent. There is so much we can try that your printer didn't think to do, surely."

His lips curled in a half-hearted approximation of a smile. "Good old Watson! Always ready to offer sound advice or a helping hand. I truly do not know what I should do without you."

There was a pause during which he stared vacantly at the window, but I knew him well enough to tell that he was planning and thinking. Finally, he heaved himself into a more erect sitting position, and I was pleased to note that his listless attitude was changing for something more purposeful. "Very well. We'll exhaust London for what wisdom it can offer on the subject, but I find I need fortification first. Not you, old boy," he added when I was making a move towards undoing my collar. "Much as I appreciate the offer, I have found that animal blood will suffice. It's half past three now. I'll be back in half an hour, at most."

With that, he rose, took up his hat and stick, and headed for the door. But then, he halted and turned back. His silvery grey eyes, so dear and familiar to me, darted here and there to survey the sitting-room as if seeing it for the first time and finally came to regard me for a long moment with an unfathomable expression. "Thank you, my dear friend," he said, solemnly. "Do turn in; you look exhausted."

I was left staring at the closed door.

It is said that, between congenial souls, unfathomable ties of rapport may develop that transcend words or even the subtler language of the body. I had seen too much of the world to doubt this, and it was certainly the only explanation I had at this moment, when all my instincts were suddenly screaming at me to not let Holmes out of my sight. Without taking the time to question my impression, I, too, dressed for the street and stepped out our front door, just in time to see Holmes enter a lonely cab.

At this hour between night and day, when it was too late for the revellers and too early for the working men, the Baker Street was deserted, so I had no hope of finding a cab of my own. There was only one thing for it – run after the one Holmes had taken and hope that he would not spot me, and that he would reach his destination before I was out of strength.

I kept up a brisk trot until we crossed the Marylebone Road, where I happily saw another cab coming my way, and so I was soon able to continue my pursuit much more comfortably.

It soon appeared that Holmes was making his way towards Hampstead Heath. Of course, this would be a good place to lay his hands upon a rabbit or two, and I was beginning to feel a mighty fool for running after him like that on nothing more than a gut feeling. There was a moment when I actually considered turning back, but, despite all obvious rational explanation for this excursion of Holmes', my instincts were still clamouring at me to keep going. If he were truly intending to hunt, I told myself, surely he would have made for Regent's Park, which was much closer to our rooms than the Heath.

I barely managed to bring my cabbie to stop in time to watch my friend alight from his cab and move off in the direction of one of the larger lakes upon the Heath, but when I had finally paid my cabby and was ready to follow, Holmes was nowhere to be seen.

That was the moment when I noticed that the sky was lightening perceptibly. My unnamed dread began to take shape sufficiently for me to quicken my pace to a trot as I circled the Heath, looking for the tall, lithe figure of my friend.

It is not a large area, are mere few square miles, but it is uneven, riddled with lakes and trees and thus difficult to survey. I ran full out, from one clump of trees and shrubbery to the next, ever conscious of the approaching sunrise, calling my friend's name with increasing desperation. It was now so bright that I could see clearly, which was both a blessing and a curse. Finally, I spotted him a several hundred yards away, sitting calmly in what looked like a cross-legged position upon the highest point of Parliament Hill, facing towards the east, where the sky was in full bloom with pinks and reds. It was going to be a glorious, cloudless day. I ran uphill, on my last wind.

He looked my way as I approached. "You're too late, Watson," he called, very calmly.

"Holmes, no!" I came to a stop next to him, panting from my exertions. "Have you taken leave of your senses, Holmes?"

He looked up at me, raising a quieting hand in one of his masterful gestures. "My mind is quite made up, old friend."

"To kill yourself?"

"There is no other way."

"How can you say that?" I was beside myself with fear and worry, and, I am afraid, no little anger. The sky was now so bright that it could only be seconds till sunrise. "I thought we had decided to do this together!"

"There are too many variables," he said, in that same, almost unnaturally calm tone of voice. "I have no idea what will happen further down the road. I may attack you, kill you, even make you like me, once the impulses become too strong. There probably is no cure, and even if there is, it will be years until I find it. The risk to you is simply too great, so I have resolved to remove the cause."

Above our heads, the tops of the scattered trees were already bathed in sunlight. There was no time to discuss this. Fear for my friend's life gave me an impetus I never should have mustered under normal circumstances.

I reached down and grabbed him by his overcoat. "You are coming with me this instant, Sherlock Holmes, or I give you my word of honour that I will lift you and carry you away from here!"

But he slapped my hands away with incredible speed and strength. His eyes flashed; his lips drew back, and he bared his fangs at me, snarling. "Do not touch me!"

I recoiled. For an instant, I did not know Holmes from the ferocious, almost beastly thing that looked ready to pounce upon me, but then he fell back, closing his eyes and groaning softly, and he was back to being my dear, changed friend. "I beg you, Watson," he said softly, "leave now. I do not want you to see me when it happens."

"Not an option!" I shouted, taking off my overcoat and throwing it over him, whether to protect him from the sun or to protect myself from his fangs, I do not know. The sun was up now, both of us throwing long shadows along the hill. I threw my arms around him, coat and all, and dragged him to his feet.

Looking around frantically, I saw that the nearest shelter was a small wooden hut, used as a resting place for visitors to the Heath, halfway down the hill. Holmes offered no resistance and limply slumped back onto the ground, and I remembered the strange paralysis that had come over him at sunrise the morning before, so I made to hook my arms under his legs and lift him up. Abruptly, he shrieked and thrashed; there was the smell of burnt flesh so familiar to me from the battlefield, and I could not hold him for his struggling. The sun was burning every inch of his white skin that was exposed; the pain must be excruciating, overcoming even that supernatural daytime torpor, at least for the moment.

He made it to his feet by what looked like sheer accident, holding my coat closed before his face with hands that were rapidly reddening and blackening, and he stumbled away from the sunlight, towards the western slope of the hill. I put one of my arms around his shoulders and steered him towards the hut, his muffled cries in my ears, and terribly conscious of the fact that his movements were slowing and growing clumsy.

"Keep going!" I shouted. "There's shelter a hundred yards from here."

"I can't!" he wailed, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other, jerkily, his steps a precarious balance of stumbling and barely catching himself from falling, worlds removed from his normal economic sprinter's pace.

"You must! Use your mind, Holmes! You've made it this far. The sun is up, and you are still moving! Keep it up!" Thus encouraging him as best I could, I dragged and steered him downhill.

Maybe twenty yards still separated us from the hut when he fell and lay unmoving for a moment, his hands completely blackened now, the fingers reduced to thin, scorched claws that looked as though they would break off if any weight were put upon them. The coat had fallen away from his face, and before I hastily replaced it, I saw that the skin of his cheeks and neck were badly blistered from even this short exposure.

Those twenty yards to shelter, at that time, might as well have been twenty miles. But some instinct for survival seemed to have taken hold of Holmes now, for he managed to regain his feet, by what superhuman effort I know not, and stumbled, with my aid, the remaining distance, and finally, blessed cool shadow surrounded both of us.

We collapsed inside the hut, and I had barely removed the coat from Holmes' head in order to assess the damage, when his burnt hands grabbed me and pulled me towards him, desperate strength guiding my head towards his, angling and exposing my throat.

I might have fought him off, weakened and injured as he was, but I yielded to the desperation I could hear in the one groan he that escaped him before his fangs penetrated my skin, and then it was too late. There was again that intense pleasure I remembered so well from last time. I gladly and willingly abandoned myself to it until the walls of the hut surrounding us seemed to waver and recede, and finally faded away.