A/N: Thanks to TheHighestPie, as ever, for her beautiful betawork, and also to MmeBahorel for using her historical expertise to make specific suggestions.

I feel an apology is in order for the number of errors that have slipped through in previous chapters. Weeding them out is an ongoing task, and I hope to have another go at it in the near future.


Chapter 8 - Darkest Before the Dawn

The story of the Vampyre is founded on an opinion or report which prevailed in Hungary, and several parts of Germany, towards the beginning of the last century:--It was then asserted, that, in several places, dead persons had been known to leave their graves, and, by night, to revisit the habitations of their friends; whom, by suckosity, they drained of their blood as they slept. The person thus phlebotomised was sure to become a Vampyre in their turn; and if it had not been for a lucky thought of the clergy, who ingeniously recommended staking them in their graves, we should by this time have had a greater swarm of blood-suckers than we have at present, numerous as they are.

The Vampyre, John Stagg, 1812


Prouvaire was dreaming of great dark wings that beat in the void, surrounded by swirling pinpoints of light like the bioluminescence of the oceans. He had seen that living light one night from a boat, leaning over the side and staring below the surface of an oily-calm sea. There had been stars above and stars below, and he had felt – not for the first time – the grandeur of the infinite, as if he was suspended among galaxies.

Courfeyrac's voice, then, was a rather unwelcome intrusion, calling his name as he emerged from a syrupy sleep that clung to his eyelids and his limbs, imbuing both with heaviness.

"Go away!" he muttered.

"Prouvaire! If you don't wake up right now, I'm going to pour an entire pitcher full of water over your head."

There was a murmured voice somewhere off to the side, demurring. That would be Combeferre.

Prouvaire smiled and finally raised his eyelids, flinching from the bright sunlight that streamed into the room.

"Good morning!" he managed with a reasonable approximation of cheerfulness. He felt rather as if he'd been eating hashish, and he certainly hadn't done that – not last night, at least. Or he thought not. Blinking helped bring Courfeyrac's face into better focus, looming in over him and looking rather anxious. He hadn't even taken off his hat. Far too excitable was Courfeyrac. "You're up and about uncharacteristically early."

"Prouvaire, it's nearly eleven o'clock! Where is Enjolras?"

"What?" Prouvaire started into full wakefulness. Turning, he gazed open-mouthed at the bed. It was barely disturbed, as if it had hardly been laid in, and was most conspicuously empty.

"I...what…I don't know!" Prouvaire shook his head. "He was asleep when I saw him last." Or – wait, was that right? Hadn't there been something else?

"I'm going to find him," Courfeyrac straightened. Combeferre moved in front of the door.

"Let us think about this," Combeferre said soothingly.

"God knows where he's got to while you two have been sleeping!" Courfeyrac snapped. "You know he's not in his…" he stopped and slid a sideways look at Prouvaire. "He's not well enough to be out in the streets."

"And where do you propose we look for him?" Combeferre asked. Courfeyrac opened his mouth, and then shut it rapidly. "Exactly. You don't know where to begin. Let us think this through."

"I don't understand," Prouvaire said, bewildered. "Is he well enough to be up and about?"

"I don't know," sighed Combeferre. "I suspect not. Courfeyrac came here this morning and found him gone and both of us – er – rather deeply asleep."

"So we need to find him?"

Combeferre nodded. "His…delirium might lead him to act in a rather odd manner."

"I think all his morning coats are still here" said Courfeyrac from the armoire. "There a gap in his line up of footwear."

"You keep track of his coats?" Combeferre asked, somewhat amazed.

"Well, one does notice these things. He alternates between four of them. One is quite three seasons old, and I keep telling him he needs to change it. They might all be dark, but lapel widths do make a difference, you know, and as to his cravats…"

"Courfeyrac!"

"Sorry, nerves. I'm babbling. What if he starts – er – that delirious talk again? Might he not be picked up as a madman or a drunk?"

Combeferre shuddered. "If we're fortunate, they'll assume he's just another student who has been drinking too much cheap vin de table that's probably made of real table." The gendarmes only cared about whatever they could define as "disturbing the peace" - and confronting Enjolras out of concern for his own safety could not fail to result in that definition.

"Perhaps we could ask the concierge or porter if they saw him go out?" Prouvaire asked. Courfeyrac nodded eagerly.

"Could you do that, Prouvaire?"

Prouvaire looked at the two friends with narrowed eyes. Something was certainly going on that they were not telling him. At a shrewd guess, Enjolras was probably rather worse off than they were trying to lead him to believe.

Courfeyrac and Combeferre waited until Prouvaire was out of the room.

"Well, what do we do? Where do we begin?" Courfeyrac asked.

"Where would Enjolras go?" Combeferre pondered aloud.

"If he were in his right mind?" Courfeyrac asked impatiently. "He'd have lectures this morning, I think…yes, Tuesday. Or he'd go to the Musain. Wait, no – not at this time of day. He takes coffee at the – Combeferre, this is hopeless. He could be anywhere. What if the police apprehend him and assume he's riotously intoxicated?"

"He was quiet most of yesterday." Combeferre tried to be reassuring.

"Yes, but he doesn't have a coat or hat – no waistcoat either, I'd lay odds. At least his nightshirt is still here, so we know he's not wandering around in that."

"He must have put on the clothes he was wearing the other day." Combeferre deduced. "I hadn't sent out his laundry."

"Well, at least he's got something on. Might start a new fashion for shirtsleeves as morning wear. God, Combeferre, what are we going to do? Even if he does get picked up by the police and they're inclined to look on him as a benignly drunk student, what's to say he doesn't react badly to them if he's accosted?"

"Don't borrow trouble. We've enough of it to be going on with. Ah, Prouvaire –"

The poet had returned.

"He went out well over an hour ago – the porter saw him leave. Apparently in a disreputable state of dress, but he seemed quiet enough." Prouvaire must be concerned, Courfeyrac noted even in his distraction – he hadn't tagged on a comment about the bourgeois preoccupation with respectable attire, and why it was to be applauded that Enjolras was finally challenging such assumptions. "The porter was frustratingly but understandably inattentive as to which direction he took, but did seem to think it was possibly east, which could mean the Sorbonne or the Luxembourg."

"Aha! Right, let's get after him. At least he'll cut a more noticeable figure than usual in his state of undress – someone might have seen him pass by." Combeferre said. "Wait, Prouvaire – can you do something for me? Go and find Joly. He was going to call around this afternoon anyway – he'll be working in the anatomy department today. Send him back here – this is where we'll meet." Prouvaire knew his way around the anatomy rooms quite well, Combeferre knew – he was not one to let slide a pretext for visiting Joly or Combeferre in an environment where so many interesting momento mori were lying around.

It proved easier than they had hoped to track their errant friend. A cryer on the corner had seen him, and a forward young maid polishing the brass hinges and knocker on a front door had noticed him pass ("La! He must have had a night of it – some girl is very lucky indeed!"). There were enough people to point them in the right direction, which they soon narrowed down as the Luxembourg.

"Perhaps he had our appointment there the other day in mind?" Courfeyrac wondered, and then accosted a water seller to see if he had seen a young man in his shirt sleeves.

"Yes, I saw him. You should be keeping a better eye on your friends, you young men – he looked as sick as a dog." They exchanged alarmed glances. "Indecent how he was dressed, too – although who knows what fads you flâneurs will take into your heads these days."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"No, he was too busy talking to whatever lurched out of the absinthe bottle at him – or I'll wager that's what it was. I'd put him straight to bed if I were you boys."

"Which way?"

"Towards the upper terrace, I'd judge."

He was easily spotted at a distance, sitting on a bench. It was fortunate he hadn't been thrown out of the Gardens. Courfeyrac had sometimes thought him out of place with his sober attire verging on severe in the midst of the more colourful associates or the working men. The last time he had seen Enjolras in a public place in indecorous dress had been on the barricades of July. Then, even with a lack of coat and cravat, bareheaded and with his sleeves rolled up, he had moved with an ease and confidence that had made his appearance perfectly natural. But this – the white of his untucked shirt seemed harshly bright in the morning sun, with no coat or waistcoat to obscure it. He was bent over, face in his hands, a huddled and disconsolate figure.

"Enjolras?" Combeferre asked softly on approach, touching his shoulder. There was no response, so he gave a gentle shake. Enjolras, eyes closed, turned his face up response to the voice. At the same time Courfeyrac observed that the back of his neck, where the bandage did not obscure the skin, was blistered. Although a bright day it was not yet noon, yet the skin looked as if it had been sunburned in the harshest summer day.

Courfeyrac drew in a sharp breath as Enjolras opened his eyes. They were so bloodshot and red rimmed that for a moment he thought they were bleeding. The blue stood out in startling contrast.

"Are you alright?" Combeferre asked, and Courfeyrac was relieved at his utter stillness and calm – it enabled Courfeyrac to ground himself and restrain the anxious questions that threatened to spill over. Enjolras nodded slowly.

"I wanted to be in the sunlight. But…it feels wrong. The light is wrong."

Combeferre seated himself beside his friend and examined the back of his hands, where the fair skin had blistered like the neck. His face too, particularly the nose and chin – every part of exposed skin.

"What are those marks?" Courfeyrac asked in Combeferre's ear, who shook his head in response. It wasn't clear if he didn't know or didn't care to say. Courfeyrac hoped it wasn't contagious.

"Shall we go back now?" the medical student asked Enjolras gently. "Can you rise?"

"I don't think they can touch us in the daylight," Enjolras continued as though Combferre had not spoken. "But my mind is still not my own." He closed his eyes as if the sun pained him. It probably did, Courfeyrac thought. He seemed extraordinarily photosensitive. He took off his own hat and placed it on his friend's head. Hopefully the brim would shade him, even if only slightly.

"Enjolras, come. We need to get you back to your rooms," Combeferre said more firmly.

"I had to escape, you see." The sick man explained. "I cannot remain there and wait for him! At least here, if I burn, I burn in the light. Not in his foul embrace." And he gave a full bodied shudder.

"Take his other arm," Combeferre ordered. Courfeyrac was startled – although he had been sitting in the morning sun, he could feel the cold of Enjolras's skin through the fine muslin of his shirt. He took off his own tailcoat and draped it over his shoulders – that would serve the dual purpose of warming him and helping to protect that painful looking neck. They pulled him to his feet, and he did not resist, seeming hardly aware they were there.

The journey back had a certain nightmarish quality, with Enjolras stumbling between them, head slumped forward. Courfeyrac's hat fell off his head twice, and his voice was beginning to take on the desperate tones they had heard before, paying no heed to attempts to quieten him. "Small consolation that anyone who sees us will think he's dead drunk," thought Courfeyrac grimly. "And think of what rumours that would start in the School of Law." Combeferre kept up a cheerful stream of small talk, ignoring his friend's startling observations on the place of souls and the monsters that hunt them.

Joly and Prouvaire were waiting in the Concierge's reception room when they arrived, Prouvaire's face registering startled dismay at the state of their chief. Joly's expression was more obscure, but Courfeyrac thought he caught a knowing look in his eyes, the hint of a suspicion confirmed. And what a sight we must be, thought Courfeyrac. Although he was relieved that Enjolras' breathing had slowed once they were indoors, their friend leaned almost his full weight on them as they walked up the stairs. His distress seemed to be increasing.

Courfeyrac left the medical students to undress Enjolras and put him to bed – he had sometimes deposited friends in their beds when they were more intoxicated than he, but had never felt the need to do more than slide their boots off if he were feeling in a particularly generous mood - and took Prouvaire into the sitting room. He closed the door to Enjolras' bedroom behind him and leaned against it, looking at the ceiling with a sigh.

"I'm not a fool, Courfeyrac – I know something is wrong here, and badly wrong," Prouvaire said.

"God, I could use a drink." Courfeyrac said. "Spirits. Although I suppose the only thing I'm likely to find here would be in Joly's medicine bag. Do you think the Concierge is a secret tippler? Someone as pious as Madame Evers must have a secret stash of hard stuff. I'd even take gin."

"What's happening? He sounds like he has a fever."

Courfeyrac thought of all the ideas coalescing in his head, his thus far mostly unvoiced fears and half notions barely articulated to Combeferre.

"We don't know yet," he hedged. "But look, can you stay here and help out our Asclepiosian representatives? I have to meet someone."

Prouvaire looked at him suspiciously, clearly thinking that Courfeyrac might have a game of dominoes lined up for the afternoon.

"It's important, Prouvaire. I'll be back this evening."

"I think sometimes that we've become far too accustomed to this secret society business!" Prouvaire burst out. "Enjolras has some mysterious illness, and you're off to meetings with an air that would suit a stage adaptation of one of those novels you're always reading. Joly won't answer my questions – and it's not like him to miss a chance to talk medical ailments - and even Combeferre has an attitude of concealment…I thought we were supposed to trust each other absolutely?"

"Because if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, I'll feel like a damned fool. Now please – just help Joly and Combeferre. I'll see you tonight."

He thought the better of knocking on the door to Enjolras' room to see what was happening in the sick chamber.


Enjolras had been quietly obedient as they slipped off his boots (no hose, Combeferre noted, and so he had a few blisters on his heels as well) and clothes and pulled his night shirt over his head. There was a pattern of bruises across his upper body, extending down his arms, and even on one knee. They had faded to a yellow tinge, and he wondered how many days old they were. He lay with his eyes closed as his friends quickly examined him. The wound on the neck was scabbing over again – it had now faded into two precise holes, the edges of which seemed slightly abraded, but otherwise the rest of the injury seemed to have healed.

"It's curious," Joly observed, "I don't think I've seen blisters fade so soon. Look at his skin – I could have sworn that was a bad case of sunburn. It almost looked like a steam burn it was so bad on the back of his neck. And yet they've all but gone, and the skin has nearly resumed its pallor."

"It rather looks like he has come into contact with some irritant. I wonder if-" he Combeferre broke off "-his pulse and respirations are increasing," he said, holding his friend's wrist. "Enjolras – can you hear me?"

When Enjolras opened his eyes, there was a forceful terror contorting his features. "You brought me back into the dark!" he cried.


"Please…do you not see I am stalked by one who is worse than Empusa? That my blood now flows in his dead, dry veins, and that I am never free? Sleeping or awake, it is his dead eyes and livid, hateful face that I see…no, not livid…it is clothed in false beauty, it hides the rankness of death behind red lips and the hectic flush of fevered cheeks…his breath brings death and his touch is cold."

There were other voices in the room, but they were ephemeral beside the hungry dark. He felt his lips crack, and heaviness as if his limbs were weighted. His eyes might be open, but it seemed impossible to tell what was real around him, with the forms in the room far less present than the vivid red and the sharp teeth that waited for him.

"He has journeyed with Alharazed on the Black Pilgrimage…they have followed the path to Chorazin, and there they made homage to the Prince…oh, the Prince aëris!"

The incubus was on his chest, pressing down and suffocating him, even when it was not in the room. The bed clothes were transformed into mountains, and he himself a frozen and lost traveller in a bleak landscape. Shapeless forms loomed over his darkened vision.

"Do you not see him in the corner, my friends…he waits with eyes of silver, this one who consorts with Oreios and Argios?"

"…delirium...he needs…but he won't sleep like this…"

"He has a certain power over your eyes!" Enjolras tried desperately to explain. "…look again, my friends…be sure he does not stalk you, too! Kin to Shabriri….he walks at Samael's right hand, he is his avatar. He will drink your blood, he will watch the life run out of you…"

He had to remain in this world. More than his life was at stake. More than that of his friends. This was the horror of predatory intent made manifest, the very personification of the evil that preyed upon the wretched of the world. It thrived on innocence, it perverted everything it touched, and it was the seductive power of dissolution.

"Enjolras?"

He wanted to tell the voice on the far side of the abyss that he was still, in some way, aware. But his tongue moved as though choked with dust, and he could only gasp out the words born of terror.

And somewhere was that active, malevolent intelligence, humming in his mind, alien but entwined with his thoughts.

"Please…please, you must…ah, you must see it…you must speak of it, for I cannot…"

"…not aware of us…heart rate too fast…"

"I do not wish to…"

"…cannot let this go on…"

The voices rose and fell away from his bed and then he sensed a figure draw close. Although it was not the malevolent presence, he cringed back. He could feel the warm body that drew near, and it evoked terrifying images of blood on his lips, spurting into his mouth and spilling down his throat, bringing with it a sensual pleasure undreamed of. He felt a desire that was utter anathema.

And then there was a hand, shaking slightly, supporting his head, and a dim figure leaning over him whose features he could not see, and whose voice he thought he should know but did not. Something wet was held to his mouth, and he heard a distant admonition to drink, in a terrifying echo of the vision of blood. He tried to turn his head but the hand was firm. He opened his lips to speak, but then bitter liquid filled his mouth, and he swallowed hard. It hurt. There was an impression of a warm, comforting hand on his forehead…he was so cold. He felt a roiling in his belly, as if his body rejected the fluid, but then another kind of numbness overcame him and his consciousness melted away altogether. He did not welcome the dark, knowing that even in the deepest dreams he had no guarantee of respite.

Combeferre, his back turned towards Joly, lowered Enjolras' head to the pillow, then put his hand on his disturbed friend's shoulder for a few moments. The older student kept his face averted from Joly when he took Enjolras' wrist to ostensibly measure his pulse as the sick man's keening cries faded and his restless movement stilled. It struck Joly that Enjolras was never meant to be seen in this light, his face slack with a complete lack of energy and will. This could not be mistaken for sleep. They stood for a few minutes, listening to the harsh, rasping intakes of breath.

Joly laid a hand on Combeferre's arm, turning him from the bed. The strain was showing, his hair standing in stiff clumps where he had run his fingers through it. In spite of Courfeyrac's reminders to shave he still had a dark shadow across his chin. He sat down on one of the chairs, putting his head in his hands. More than tired, he looked exhausted.

"You've given him a heavy dose of morphine." It was not a question – Joly had seen the amount measured out. Combeferre nodded.

"He needs to sleep without these…dreams. Visions. Whatever it is that is so disturbing to him." He shook his head. Joly knew that Combeferre did not favour the use of drugs. "I…to have to use them on Enjolras, of all people…"

"Why 'of all people'?"

"He is the most clear minded of men. He allows nothing to cloud his vision. He does not even smoke – he told me once, when I asked why, that he had seen others become a slave to tobacco, and he would be a slave to nothing. And now…I've given him a heavy dose. I know he would not approve, but he must sleep. He's slipping away." Combeferre balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the palm of his other hand.

"Combeferre…" Joly hesitated. This was not going to be an easy conversation. "I think we need to consider that Enjolras' condition might not be entirely due to…external factors."

Combeferre looked sharply up at that. "What do you mean?"

"I think we need to consider calling in an expert in mental alienation."

"You think he's mad."

"Listen to me," Joly began, sitting beside his friend, holding his gaze with determination. This was medicine, and on medicine Joly was on firm ground. "I know we don't want to consider this, but let us look at the facts. You yourself say he is slipping away. We can find no disease."

"He has the symptoms of anaemia," Combeferre countered. "And what of those blisters?"

"Would that account for the ravings? This obsession about being stalked by some great, undefinable evil? Tell me, does a sane man do that?"

"Enjolras is one of the sanest men I have ever met," Combeferre answered

"I would normally agree with you, my friend. But I think that the attack triggered something. Enjolras is a…singular being. You know what Esquirol wrote about the link between passion and madness. Surely it must have occurred to you that Enjolras' intense feelings about the Republic, to exclusion of all else, have something of the characteristics of a monomania?"

Combeferre made a noncommittal sound.

"In this he is not alone," Joly continued. "I think he exhibits it in the same sense a great artist or composer does. He has a genius for revolution. He sees it all, complete, in the same way a great painter does his subject, or a composer hears a symphony in his head."

"And what if there is some truth in what you say?" challenged Combeferre. "Do you suggest that his monomania has now turned into something else? Some sort of dark paranoia?"

"I do not know. Which is why we need to call in someone who specialises in this." Combeferre was shaking his head emphatically. "We have to do something!" Joly insisted. "His body can't heal because his mind torments him. Are you simply going to keep him drugged so deeply he doesn't hear or see the demons? How is that better than what I propose?"

"I just cannot help but feel there is something else happening here, Joly. Something we can't see."

"I think it's past time we wrote to his father to tell him what was going on."

Combeferre sat up violently.

"No, not that. You do not know M. Enjolras."

"Is he really so terrible? Look, he obviously cares something for his son – he supports him in Paris in his studies, and I have never heard Enjolras speak ill of him as a man, only of his politics. They might not be close, but surely his son – his only son – matters enough to him to seek out the best treatment."

"It's not that simple, Joly."

"Why is it not that simple? By what right to do we presume to keep his child's condition from him?"

"M. Enjolras is by no means a cruel or even an unkind man. He and Enjolras do not see eye to eye on many matters, of course, but having a son as a political activist he can tolerate. It causes him some minor embarrassment, but he dismisses it as a youthful folly and insists that Enjolras will one day become a respectable member of the Chamber of Deputies." Combeferre managed a wry grin. "Although what sort of politics he assumes Enjolras will adopt by that stage, I've never been able to determine. But this is something else. Having a son with a question over his sanity…" he hesitated before continuing.

"Joly, you think that I'm being unreasonable in not considering calling in a specialist. But there are reasons why to do so would do far more harm than good. Such an action would be unsupportable for Enjolras, and would cause tremendous difficulties with his father."

"I know that these things carry a stigma," Joly reassured. "But we're in the 19th century now, man! As a student of medicine, you know that attitudes are changing. Our latest medical work and classifications suggest that the distinctions between le physique and le moral are not what we once thought they were, and that diseases of the mind, far from being a symptom of moral decrepitude, are in fact linked to physical illness of the body. Pinel suggests that if we can address disturbances of the animal economy, we can treat the illnesses of the mind."

Combeferre was deeply thoughtful.

"There is more to it still," he finally answered. "And one does not betray the confidences of any man with ease of conscience – let alone a man as reserved as you know Enjolras to be."

"Speak to me, then, as one physician to another – not as a man or even as a friend."

"No, I will speak to you as both friend and colleague. None of this goes to the Amis – although I think Courfeyrac knows most of it."

"Agreed. Have there been episodes similar to this in Enjolras's past?" Joly guessed. Combeferre started.

"This? Absolutely not. Never. It is not Enjolras – it was his mother." He took up the story. "You know that Enjolras' mother is dead?" Joly nodded. "Enjolras' father owns a slew of textile factories. He made his fortune in the early years of the century, and found an accomplished, impoverished, titled émigré to marry. To look at Enjolras is to know her features – I've seen her portrait. The same beauty, only she was cast in a somewhat more ethereal mould.

"She must have looked utterly otherworldly, then" Joly said, hoping to elicit a smile from his friend. Combeferre gave the ghost of a nod, indicating he appreciate the effort.

"They had one child who lived, but there was another, born not quite three years after Enjolras. A child that was always ailing – he died at six months. Soon after that, she was incarcerated in a sanatorium…it was said she was mad."

Joly nodded, the picture becoming clearer.

"You would remember that case at the Necker – the mother who succeeding in drowning two of her three young children in a tub? I helped care for the third. The case was a terrible one – she was quite convinced, or said she was, that she was acting for their benefit. She had lost her husband in a factory accident, and could see no way in which she could continue to care for them."

"I remember it," Joly responded. He remembered Combeferre's desperate need to talk about the case with him, about the mother's madness.

"Enjolras was there as well. He had called in that day, and I…well, I could not help but speak of what I had just seen, of what could drive a mother to do that. He managed to manoeuvre me somehow into Courfeyrac's company, rightfully discerning that Courfeyrac was probably better able to provide immediate comfort. Later, when I was more composed, he sought to discuss her case with me. That is his way – to seek to understand, even if his response emphasises the intellectual and the logical."

"To my surprise, the conversation segued into talk of his mother. He discussed her circumstances with me – what little he knew, or remembered. He knows my family were aware of her case, and he wished my opinions on it, and to find out what I knew of her. He did not recall her, not really, but from what he had been told in fragments, she seemed to suffer deep melancholia. It was this overmastering melancholy that lead her to confine herself in her room and remain in her bed, even before the second boy died. She did not play with Enjolras after the other child was born – would not touch him, nor even visit the nursery. And she desired nothing to do with her husband, either. Enjolras said his father once expressed frustration at having a wife who seemed to lack the will and capacity to rise and dress, even with the help of her maid, although there was nothing wrong with her in body."

"I'm surprised that he did not content themselves with merely confining her in their home." Joly said calmly. "His father had enough money to arrange to manage her condition – he could have hired what nurses he needed to care for her."

"There was more to her condition." Combeferre explained. "And here we arrive at the nub of why we must not let word of Enjolras' condition reach his father. His mother had – well, strange ideas. She sometimes had episodes that seemed trancelike, and she spoke of fanciful things."

"Like Enjolras's outbursts of soul? Those curious transcendent revelations?"

"No, not like that at all. Quite the opposite, except that both involve elaborate imagery that one is not always entirely sure is intended as allegory. Her husband I understand she described as a monstrous flea, sucking the life from her. Her son, she called a changeling. M. Enjolras, desperate, consulted a well known physician. The doctor he brought in was one of those who see insanity as a manifestation of moral degeneracy. Her very paleness, her fragility, was a mark of her weak spiritual and moral character. This physician suggested her incarceration in amaison de santé, and M. Enjolras reluctantly agreed. She died a few months later.

"Monstrous hallucinations? Could this be hereditary?" Joly asked, shocked.

"No!" Combeferre said emphatically. "Enjolras has never shared any of the symptoms that characterised his mother's illness. If he is ever melancholy – and his tendency is to be reserved, not gloomy - it is because he has taken the burden of change upon his shoulders, knowing full well all that implies. He is never morbid. And of Madame Enjolras – her case was unusual. My own family thought her unusual, and her sadness was profound. They did not think her mad…but then, they never knew the worst of her delusions. Before the sorrow came on her, she was by turns a very clever, very charming woman, who suffered from a whimsical soul and overmasting grief with the loss of one of her children."

"You say she had these symptoms before the child's death?"

"The child was sickly. That is what triggered her decline."

"I understand why we do not tell his father what is happening," Joly said, "and I concur with you that this is a matter of unusual delicacy. But we have few options. What can we do?"

Combeferre had no answer.


Courfeyrac would feel quite the fool if his mysterious contact did not show up to this meeting. Prouvaire was right – clandestine meetings were the final touch needed to render the whole experience melodramatic in the extreme. Rightfully, though, they should happen some place more appropriate…the catacombs, for example. At midnight. With either a full moon or a thunderstorm raging outside for final measure. As it was, he was sipping coffee in the Café Procope, surrounded by foreign visitors determined to soak up the literary atmosphere of the far-famed coffee house (the ubiquitous presence of which was one reason he usually avoided the Café) and he was very unfashionably early. Fortunately, the writer of the note was as well.

"M. Courfeyrac? Thank you for agreeing to this meeting."

The speaker might have been in his mid thirties, and sported a rather half-hearted sort of moustache and a dreary sort of black wool tailcoat, although the notched collar did give it some mild flare. Not a terribly interesting looking individual to be playing these sorts of games. He was, however assured in his manner.

"Will you take coffee, M. Guérande?" Courfeyrac asked, signalling a waiter.

"Please." He put a parcel on the table. "And I do apologise for the manner of my introduction. One must be discreet – you know how it is. I'm a journalist and literary editor by profession."

"You said you have something to share with me regarding Enjolras?"

"Yes. I met your friend, Grantaire, at the Morgue. It seems he, like me, has an interest in recent events in Paris."

"The series of attacks."

"Precisely. I was there to look at the bodies, and joined him when he was drinking with the attendants. I'm afraid your friend is most indiscreet. He let slip that he knew a man, one Enjolras, who had similar marks on his neck. I am hoping that the attendants did not take note and mention this to the police."

"Why should it matter if they did?" Courfeyrac asked, pretending guilelesness.

"I told you I'm a journalist. I know of Enjolras, Courfeyrac. He and I have friends and associates in common. I've heard him speak. And I think I would be very much remiss in my guessing if I did not suppose that there are activities he is involved in that he would prefer were not brought to the attention of the Sûreté, and render him desirous of avoiding their gaze altogether."

If this was a trap, Courfeyrac would not be drawn in.

"I'm certain that the correct action would be for us to tell the police," he said with a smile.

"Quite right. Good response. Well, let us pretend then that you and Enjolras have nothing to hide. I'm not so sure this is a story the police would be willing to believe – or, if they were, they might have reservations about allowing a man who is under the sway of the undead to wander the streets."

Courfeyrac nearly dropped his cup. He had not expected to have his own half-formed throughts on the cause of his friend's illness thrown in his face so abruptly – not sitting here in a warm café, in broad daylight, with the sound of an omnibus rattling past on the rue de l'Ancienne Comédie heard over the hum of chatter around them.

"Yes, you heard me. The undead. And your friend is a victim."

There was a brief pause as the waiter brought Guérande his coffee. Courfeyrac leaned forward.

"How do you know…?" he asked in a low tone.

"Then you do not deny it? Good. Let me tell you a story, then. You have heard of the English poet, Lord Byron, I imagine?" Courfeyrac nodded, thinking of Feuilly's enthusiasm for his efforts in Greece and Bahorel and Prouvaire's passion for his poetry and theatrical manner of living. "Some four years ago, not long after his death, I was engaged in editing some of his papers for a French edition of his works. I travelled to England, in search of sources, and while there became aware that he had engaged a personal physician, one Dr John Polidori, during his travels through Europe in 1816. Dr Polidori died in 1821 but I was able to trace a sister, Charlotte, who had transcribed a copy of his diary."

"It was evident to me upon reading the transcript that passages were heavily edited or deleted – well, the literary editor in me might have been sensitive to why this might be so, particularly for one who had accompanied the notorious Lord Byron on his adventures, but the journalist's instincts were also aroused with curiousity. Charlotte told me that she had destroyed the original, but I was able to find another sibling, Frances. John had been her favourite brother. She made a second copy – and this one was intact."

He laid his hand on the parcel that was on the table.

"And there is something in there that you think would shed light on the case of my friend?" Courfeyrac asked eagerly. Guérande smiled.

"It is all in there. Have you heard of a play by Nodier called Le Vampire?"

Courfeyrac's eyebrows lifted. "Yes." He nodded.

"It is based on a story by Polidori that was published in 1819, titled The Vampyre. You will find a copy included with the duplicate of the manuscript extracts, but it is the manuscript that will furnish you with the most information. It contains Polidori's notes from his travels, during which he encountered several individuals who fashioned themselves as "vampire hunters", who afforded him with many observations on the undead. The information is occasionally contradictory, but it will provide you with a starting point."

"And you will help us?" Courfeyrac asked eagerly.

"No more than I have already done in giving you this information," Guérande told him. "And do not implore me for more. When the stories started circulating about these latest attacks – heavily censored, mind you, but I spoke to some people with first hand knowledge of the state of the victims – I recognised the signs. I went to the Morgue to assure myself that it was so. But I am determined to remain at arm's length from what is happening. When you read the notes, you will understand why. I have a family. Let young men fight this battle."

"The police?"

"Might believe me. If I were very fortunate. But then, what would happen to your friend? I'll let you have the first turn at solving this and wish you all success in saving him. But if you fail, then this package goes anonymously to the office of the Prefect for him to make of what he will."

"Why are you really helping us?" Courfeyrac challenged. Guérande shrugged.

"As I said, I know your friend. I have heard him speak and read some of his articles. I am a Republican, Citizen. I may not participate in secret societies and I did not take to the streets last year to fight, but I would contribute in my own way. And I respect those who, like your Enjolras, have the courage to take stronger steps towards securing the liberty of the press."

"You have been generous to us, but would it not be better to join us in exterminating this monster?"

"Why should you should think there is only one, or that it is as simple as running a sword though a wild animal? Read the manuscript, Courfeyrac. They are not always solitary hunters. And their methods are not always crude. Do you know what happened to Polidori?" he asked, rising from his seat and putting on his hat. Courfeyrac shook his head. "He died in London in 1821. The coroner gave a verdict of death by natural causes. The evidence, however, was that he had taken prussic acid. Suicide or…" he shrugged. "I'm going home to my family. I wish you luck."

Courfeyrac took a knife to the strings and eagerly opened the parcel. It was not thick, perhaps twenty pages in all plus pages pulled from a publication. The latter were a French translation, but the rest – he groaned. English. He picked out a few words and phrases, then sighed, giving it up as a bad job. He needed someone more fluent.

"Ah well – at least Pontmercy is predictable in his movements." Sometimes it was of benefit to have dreamy friends who embraced a routine. He rubbed his temples, hoping he was up to the job of impressing the urgency of the matter on the translator without telling him why. It could sometimes be a little difficult to pierce Pontmercy's preoccupation with whatever was going on in his head.

It still seemed hardly possible. The meeting, the note, the very idea of his friend being hunted by a revenant in modern Paris. Had it been Jehan or Bahorel, he might have almost suspected a practical joke cooked up in concert with Borel and the rest of his crowd, an elabourate prank justfied as a means to shock a complacent bourgeoisie out of its malaise. But he had seen the blisters with his own eyes, and seen Enjolras show a terror that could not be simulated.

He thought briefly of returning to see Combeferre, but decided to collate his evidence first – Combeferre was a reasonable man, not even disposed to dismiss the existence of ghosts on data available to him, but he was exhausted and fearful for their chief's health of mind as well as of his body. With Joly to support Combeferre and Prouvaire to assist, it was Courfeyrac's role to follow up on the manuscript. Building a case was one of his singular talents.

His eye caught a word of the text as he rewrapped the papers. "Infection."

More than one creature, Guérande had hinted. And Gaudreau had spoken of a party of them. The relief Courfeyrac had been feeling at the possibility of a solution to Enjolras' ailment was replaced by trepdition.

The Undead. And if Enjolras was really infected…was it even possible to cure him? Guérande seemed to think it might be so, but…

He was on his feet and out of the café with alacrity, leaving his coffee and pastry half finished. Someone had to break through the inertia forced on them by their situation, seeing as Enjolras – usually the man to do precisely that - was decidedly in no position to take action himself.