A/N - Thanks to TheHighestPie for her beta reading (and general comments!) and Frédérique for some very helpful historical suggestions.
The historical sources on vampire lore referred to in this chapter, with the exception of the Lovecraftian Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis, are all actual texts. Vampires were a bit of a hot topic for debate among academics and theologians in the 17th and 18th century...no wonder Rousseau used them for an illustrative argument.
Chapter 10 – Into the Night
"…und die Toten reiten schnell." ("…and the Dead ride fast.")
Gottfried August Bürger Lenore 1773
Courfeyrac must have been at his most persuasive, for by the time Combeferre arrived at the Musain's back room not only had he and Joly assembled Bossuet, Feuilly, Grantaire and Prouvaire, he had all but persuaded them of his absolute earnestness, and had shown them the manuscripts. Despite the early hour, there was a bottle of brandy open on the table. The only one with no glass before him was Grantaire, who looked up at Combeferre with an intensely questioning expression when he walked in. Combeferre had seen Grantaire sober before – though his voluble behaviour when drinking tended to overshadow the bouts of sobriety – but was surprised to see him there. He nodded a greeting to his friends and drew Courfeyrac aside.
"Why Grantaire?" he whispered.
"You know he's the best classicist among us – his languages are probably better even than Prouvaire's," Courfeyrac said, slightly evasively. "He hasn't touched a drop this morning," he added, anticipating the next question.
"He's a gadfly. Do you really trust him to do this?"
"For Enjolras, yes. He's already guessed much of what has happened – didn't bat an eyelid at the news that the undead are stalking the streets of Paris, unlike Bossuet who was ready to have me committed to a maison de santé before Joly confirmed the story. Besides, we need him."
Combeferre shook his head, as much as to say that the matter was in Courfeyrac's hands, and turned to the others. Grantaire's expression told him that he had guessed the subject of their quick consultation, and Combeferre responded to his curled lip with a quick nod in his direction. He read something like relief there before the cynic lowered his head, gazing down at his folded arms.
"It's true, isn't it, Combeferre," Prouvaire said, a statement. This was not a matter for jesting. "How is he this morning?"
"Sleeping. No real change – although he slept better last night, and the nightmares and sleeplessness have abated somewhat, and he only woke once. He's not strong enough yet for us to tell him what we know."
"But we will do that tonight?" Feuilly asked. "I do not feel comfortable keeping anything from him – particularly not something of this nature."
"Perhaps it is best we do not," Prouvaire suggested softly. "I can't imagine anything more likely to drive him to madness than the idea that that he is being enveloped by an evil that is his very antithesis."
"If his sanity isn't beyond saving already," Bossuet said glumly.
"That will never happen" Grantaire said heavily. He had been silent, aware he was involved under sufferance, but the suggestion was too much for him. "If the entire world plunged headlong into madness and the dark, he'd be the last one over the precipice."
"Can we delay this discussion until tonight?" Combeferre intervened. "We need to know what we're confronting. Unfortunately, Dr Polidori might have been a physician by training, but he seemed more interested in the folkloric and dramatic possibilities of the vampire tales than he did in the physical mechanisms of how the process worked – and how to undo it. He offers several possibilities for killing the monsters, and seems to suggest that this will free those victims not yet dead. But we need to know more."
"I can go to the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève," Prouvaire volunteered. "Feuilly – you'll join me?" Feuilly nodded – the Bibliothèque was open to both students and non-students.
"I'll go too," Joly said. "I've been doing some work in the stacks there lately on some herbal texts and know it well."
"Good. Take what notes you can – anything that might connect to this case, no matter how outré. We don't know precisely what we're looking for, and anything that tells us what they are as well as how to locate and kill them might be of assistance. Courfeyrac and I will take the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, while Bossuet can assist Bahorel."
"You're still enrolled, aren't you, Grantaire? You can come with us," Courfeyrac added.
"As Aristaeus consults the naiads when his bees die," Grantaire started in gravelly amusement "and the Spartans turn to the Pythia in Apollo's temple at Delphi, so does Combeferre take to the bibliothèque when the vampires -" he broke off more readily than usual at the sharp nudge that Courfeyrac gave him with Joly's cane, sobriety having left him more attuned to the cues from his friends than was his wont.
They took up their hats and departed, Feuilly, Joly and Prouvaire taking the back stairs to the rue des Grès, a short round the corner walk to the Sainte-Geneviève. The others walked in the direction of the rue Saint-Jacques.
The Bibliothèque was located inside in several adjoining halls on the fourth floor of the northern and eastern wing of the Sorbonne. Courfeyrac and, even more unusually, Grantaire lowered their voices to a murmur appropriate to a temple of learning – and far more respectful than that which they usually adopted while crowding into their lecture halls on those days when attendance was a necessary evil. The combination of sombre tomes and the dimensions of the rooms commanded awe, thought Courfeyrac. Despite the seriousness of their errand, he had to smile a little at Combeferre's ease as he was greeted by the attendants, who did not look particularly surprised when the medical student gave a sketchy outline of the sort of texts they wished to peruse. It was probably no more obscure than any other area Combeferre's pan-discipline approach took him, although the subject matter was more in Prouvaire's range of interest.
Courfeyrac would have preferred to attach himself to Combeferre as they researched, but knew that his usually phlegmatic friend could become impatient of distractions when he was single-mindedly pursuing a subject. Combeferre was tenacious when on the scent of knowledge, and thoroughly relished tracing all the threads of a line of research through their sometimes winding paths, exploring tangents and applying his personal mix of philosophy and science. It made one feel quite the fifth wheel if one couldn't keep up.
Instead, as the staff began their helpful attendance on Combeferre and consulted with him over volumes and manuscripts, the law student found himself working alongside Grantaire. Their irascible friend showed a surprising adeptness at manoeuvring his way through the cataloguing system, flitting effortlessly from Greek to Latin, from medieval to baroque texts and back to classical sources. There was something intriguing in how his mind worked. Whereas Combeferre would plumb an idea to the bottom and investigate all its applications and implications, Grantaire - even while sober – made leaps and connections and skated on the surface, a dabbler in all fields. With the best will in the world, and a keen focus on helping Enjolras, he still struggled with distraction and the bright flashes of learning.
"Listen to this!" Grantaire whispered to Courfeyrac, looking up from a bound set of papers. "Dissertatio Historica-Philosophica de Masticatione Mortuorum!" he read the title gleefully. Courfeyrac looked at him blankly.
"The what dead?" he asked.
"Historical and Philosophical Dissertation on the Chewing Dead," Grantaire responded with relish. "Written by a Philip Rohr in 1679 – clearly a man with a good eye for a sensational title. I think you should borrow his phrasing for your next paper."
"We're not here for our entertainment, Grantaire" Courfeyrac reprimanded, although he had to admit that the dissertation sounded terribly tempting on the title alone. That was a problem he encountered with researching case law – there were too many diversions to be found leading into the bizarre and utterly irrelevant byways of litigation once one began delving into it. Even if must be admitted that animated corpses did not usually constitute the subject matter.
"It is perfectly relevant!" Grantaire defended himself. "Rohr believes that vampires are merely corpses possessed by demons in their coffins, and that they chew inadvertently."
"Well, I don't know if Enjolras is the victim of a chewing corpse, but copy it down anyway."
"What is a vampire but a chewing – or biting – corpse?" Grantaire demanded, but dutifully returned to his notes. Courfeyrac felt justified an hour later when he found Michael Ranft's 1728 De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis Liber.
"Book of the Chewing Dead in Their Tombs!" He said triumphantly. "Ranft refutes Rohr utterly, and demonstrates that the idea of demon possession is absolutely ridiculous – that demons are incapable of possessing the walking dead. And he obviously has the more sensational flare for phraseology."
"So what does he say the walking dead are, then, if not demonically possessed?" Grantaire asked. Courfeyrac shrugged.
"Vampires are entities separate from demons – they do what they do without the benefit of possession. Or so I gather from Ranft. It might be useful-" he began taking notes.
Combeferre, in spite of the assistance of the staff with whom he was on familiar and friendly terms, was frustrated in his attempts to find a volume he'd found referenced several times. The Necronomicon, a 17th century translation of Abd-al-Hazred's Kitab al-Azif, appeared in the catalogue, but seemed mysteriously unlocatable. "It might have disappeared during the Revolution," a helpful attendant suggested. "As you know, many texts were dispersed or even destroyed during that period."
"But we do have the next title on your list," said his colleague, coming up at that point with a large quarto sized volume. "It's a later copy of Ludwig Prinn's De Vermis Mysteriis – one of our restricted titles. We wouldn't normally allow access to it, but you are an exception, M. Combeferre." Combeferre smiled gratefully and took the book to the reading tables. He could thereafter be seen shaking his head in disbelief more than once.
"Time we moved on," Combeferre said above his shoulder as Courfeyrac looked up guiltily from a long digression into the more gruesome details of the Elizabeth Bathory case. Combeferre's hair was standing up in spikes from where his fingers had worked through it as he wrote – it must have been a thoroughly productive day for him, judging from the state of his coiffure. "How did Grantaire go?"
Courfeyrac looked at Grantaire's pile of notes. "Surprisingly well – except for a side expedition into eighteenth-century Germanic ballads that yielded little in the way of useful information but produced a colorful cast of characters. I think we can expect his monologuing to take on a decidedly Teutonic aspect in the near future. Otherwise, it's been years since I've seen him so focused – he's still off perusing the stacks."
"Let's see if the others have fared as well."
"This," said Prouvaire to the gathering in the back room of the Musain, "is quite a mixed bag." Combeferre nodded. He was feeling less than comfortable in his role as de facto leader of the Amis. It was not the first time he had filled this place – he had often convened meetings during Enjolras' absences. Enjolras was not a leader to determine his followers' actions in minute detail, and among his chief lieutenants he allowed wide latitude in the execution of what tasks they undertook, encouraging initiative and tightening the reins only on matters of security and specific requirements that needed to be filled. Combeferre, Courfeyrac or Feuilly – each could be trusted to provide the general direction that was required.
But his presence, even when silent, was always felt – not often through any censure of word or expression, but through example. Knowing his faith in them as individuals unified to a single cause inspired them. He celebrated their unique strengths and talents, working towards the one purpose. Enjolras himself would have stepped aside had someone else more fitted to the task of leadership arrived in their circle. He consulted each on the area of their talents, he deferred to Courfeyrac in the matter of recruitment and Combeferre in scientific progress. He encouraged each in the role for which they were best fitted.
Those qualities of leadership Combeferre felt at ease with. But the hard, implacable edge, should it be called for – it was that which he dreaded. In time, perhaps. And through necessity. But he did not want to be put to this test, not now. He was relieved that the Amis had fallen back not only upon his guidance, but also their own self-discipline.
"Let us get down to it, then. How did you fare at Sainte-Geneviève?"
They reverted to the tones they used when reporting on the mood in the National Guard units or the ateliers, or how they might reel off lists of potential sources of powder.
"The literature is conflicting," Prouvaire said, drawing on his reading of theological material. "Dissertatio physica de cadaveribus sanguisugis by Johann Stock and Dissertatio de Vampiris Serviensibus by Johann Zopft, both written a century ago, state scientifically that vampires are dreams inspired by the devil."
"But Dom Calmet argues in his Treatise on the appearance of Angels, Spirits, Demons, and the Returned in Body and Vampires that the debate in the German universities wais wrong in reaching a negative conclusion on their existence," Feuilly continued. "He pointed to accounts from Eastern Europe, and called for more study of the subject."
"Then there's the Palve case of the 1730s-" Joly added eagerly.
"Yes, we encountered that too," Courfeyrac interrupted. "There seems to have been a substantial amount of discussion among German and Italian academics about it. Did you find Pitton de Tournefort's Voyage into the Levant? His account of the ramshackle doings surrounding the destruction of a vrykolakas on Mykonos would make a fine subject for a comedy…"
"We're not interested in amusing anecdotes, Courfeyrac. Stay with the topic. We need practical information – not only Enjolras' life may depend on it," Combeferre said, fixing his friend with a stern eye.
"In 1693, a Polish priest asked the Sorbonne to counsel him on how he should deal with corpses identified as vampires," Feuilly said quietly. "And the same year, Mercure Galant printed reports of vampires in Poland."
"Any recommendations on how to dispose of them?"
"You have heard of how the peasants in a darker time dealt with convicted and hanged criminals and supposed witches? Burning and staking them through the heart, or removing the heart entirely, interring remains at a crossroads or unhallowed ground, seems to be a theme."
"That we should turn to superstition!" Joly said, shaking his head.
"Perhaps, Joly. But there might be something in it – look at your magnets. Would not the force of magnetism appear strange to a completely unlettered man? Magic. We call these creatures supernatural, but might they merely be currently unexplained by what we know of natural law?"
"True. So these physical means of addressing creatures suffering an unknown disease would be akin to using a herbal treatment, the active property of which we do not properly understand yet?"
"Precisely. In this case, I would prefer to know the origin of the disease – I'm inclined towards the organic, but cannot rule out supernatural agents. In either case, we must treat the contagion without knowing how the agency of treatment works."
"Groping our way forward in the dark." Joly responded.
"Perhaps one day we shall understand it better – but time is not on our side, and we must act now."
"Continuing –" Grantaire interrupted impatiently. "The Lettres Juives includes several Hungarian cases. You recall the supposed origins of our mysterious stranger?"
The discussion continued until nightfall, when Combeferre adjourned the meeting. "Tomorrow we return here to discuss what next." He massaged his temples. "How to locate these creatures would seem an obvious first step."
"We could use Enjolras as bait –" Courfeyrac suggested.
"I hope you jest. Will you come with me, Joly, so we can relieve Bahorel for a few hours tonight? We need to determine how to divide our forces so Enjolras isn't left alone."
"I'll come with you as well" Courfeyrac said. "I had a few hours sleep last night, at least. More than you two."
"You nap as a cat does. Very well then – let's get there before it grows too dark. Enjolras might be waking."
Combeferre had not quite known what to expect on their return, but when Bossuet opened the door to them he was somewhat surprised to find Enjolras sitting up in bed, apparently quite composed, as Bahorel read to him and took notes, balancing the portable writing desk on his knees. Enjolras held up his hand to indicate that they were almost done, as Bahorel read the last lines.
"....Article 6 – Commissions will be established for: 1 – provisioning, 2 – armament, 3 – supplying of ammunition. Citizens capable of fulfilling these functions are asked to present themselves to the Hotel de Ville.
Article 7 – Armorers shall deliver firearms, powder and bullets found in their stores to the people. The state will reimburse them for the price of these objects with a 25% bonus for the risks involved."
Bahorel in the role of secretary was not one on which Courfeyrac would normally pass up the opportunity of remarking upon, but Combeferre was in the room first, greeting his friends. "Courfeyrac, why don't you take Bahorel and Bossuet into the other room while I have a word with Enjolras here?" He exchanged a look with Courfeyrac that the latter understood. He was to brief their friends on what progress had been made. As Bahorel laid the desk aside, Combeferre picked up the notes.
"Blanqui's proclamation?" he asked quietly. "I didn't realise you were working with him, after our last discussion on his more extreme viewpoints. As I recall, you had fallen out over those remarks on eliminating what he calls the 'social cancer' of the privileged classes."
Enjolras nodded. Combeferre carefully noted the shaky control – his friend's eyes were still bloodshot and there was a tremor in his hands. Still, it was considerably better than expected.
"We have made a tentative rapprochement – we will have need to work together in future. I saw him last –" Enjolras hesitated, clearly confused about the passage of time. "The other week. He asked me to look over the proclamation in view of what we've learned from last July. We do not see eye to eye on all things, as you know. I still think him far too preoccupied with exterminating what he is pleased to call the 'aristocracy of money' and with defining those aristocrats as external to our Republic and therefore bereft of her protection. He does not see the universal fraternity of humanity as we do. But on the methodology of combat and as an organiser, he has interesting ideas. It is as well to be prepared when the time comes again. Bahorel has been good enough to take notes. I –"
He glanced down at his shaking hand. Combeferre put a hand on his shoulder.
"How are you this evening?"
"Better. It is as if the veil over my sight is beginning to lift. I feel as if the dim shapes that are around me are beginning to coalesce and take form. There is a face I can almost see..."
His breathing was becoming disordered.
Combeferre did not want to press him, but needed to know. "Enjolras, do you know what is happening to you? Do you remember anything of the night you were attacked?"
"It's almost there, but – something glimpsed out of the corner of my eye. Like the smaller stars of the Pleiades, I seem to see it only when I do not look at it directly."
Enjolras' eyes, still uncannily dilated, looked at him – a dark ring of blue around a centre of deep black. It was not entirely the frank and candid gaze of his friend. Something foreign lurked in that dark gaze.
"You've learned something, haven't you?" he continued, his eyes flicking towards the door, beyond which the others were quietly talking as Courfeyrac briefed them. "You know something of what is happening to me."
Combeferre couldn't make out distinct words, but he had a feeling Enjolras was listening. To their friends, or to something else? The impact of all he had read during the day suddenly came to him and he realised that Enjolras – the man he had trusted with his life in the past and would do so again – was not himself, and that something warred with his true nature. Even as his friend seemed to come back to himself, there was no certainty that this was true lucidity. It might be the clarity of returning health...or it might be the last assertion of his dying soul, as he had seen a moment of awareness come to those on their deathbed before the final death rattle and expiration.
"I think we are on the track of a cure," he said, hoping his voice conveyed more assurance than he felt. "We are all of us working together." And here he smiled. "You'd be pleased with us, Enjolras – again, when the crisis is upon us, we work as one."
To his surprise, Enjolras smiled in return. He had not seen that look in far too long, it seemed. It was merely a shadow of the radiant confidence that permeated his friend's expression when truly engaged with his subject, and nothing like that slow, rare, transcendent smile that sometimes illuminated his friend's features. But even this gesture gave him heart.
"Fraternity." He breathed, and grasped Combeferre's hand. "To stand beside such men as you..." he could not complete the thought, but held Combeferre's gaze with his own.
"Let us talk in the morning," Combeferre said. He felt uneasy discussing the cause of his friend's illness with him in the dark hours, when shadows gathered around. He felt them pressing even beyond the closed shutters.
"Perhaps now-"
"No, his hold on you is less in the daylight –" He stopped abruptly, realising what he had let slip. Enjolras looked at him, fully comprehending.
"You are right," he said.
"I'll help you with your notes, if you like." Combeferre volunteered. He was exhausted, and Enjolras looked hardly better, whether or not he had slept during the day. But work was a remedy, and planning for the coming dawn would help keep the malevolent darkness at bay.
"I would appreciate it. As long as you can allow Blanqui the ground for the sake of discussion, even if you think him a little too appreciative of Hébert's methodology."
"At least when you're possessed of Saint-Just's spirit, you eschew his more broad definitions of who is an enemy of the people and how to dispose of them."
"Come – if you throw Saint-Just's sins at me, I shall have to return with Danton's cruder epigrams about requirements for establishing the Republic."
Combeferre managed a chuckle. "Save that for Courfeyrac – he'd be able to instruct you with more skill on how to engage in such banter." It was a laboured exchange, but it was heartening to see Enjolras putting such effort into a semblance of normality. "I'll just step out for a moment and speak to Bahorel and Bossuet before they leave." He carefully left the door widely ajar.
Enjolras farewelled Bahorel and Bossuet while Combeferre lingered in the other room, discussing something with Courfeyrac and Joly. He wasn't sure if he heard or merely understood the sense of the words, but he knew that they were speaking of the things that writhed in the dark.
He was just now beginning to wonder about the number of his friends who had frequented his rooms these last few days – or what he supposed were days. It seemed only that there had been periods when he had felt tired and frail, almost dizzy with exhaustion, and then the other times he both sought to recall and dreaded remembering, where terrible eyes leered and talons reached for him.
He kept his eye on the rectangle of the door, and Combeferre not far beyond, his attention on Joly's words but still so comfortingly close. His friends were tying him to this world, but the dénouement was coming. The veil was lifting, and soon he knew he would face the creature from his nightmares and know his features in waking life. And he was afraid. For his friends, and for himself.
As he watched, the door began to close, so slowly he could not be sure at first if it even moved.
Even with his heightened hearing, he did not hear it click as it shut. He felt a breeze at his back, and his breath caught in his throat as he turned to the now-open window.
There, beside his bed, was the face from his nightmares, in sudden startling clarity. Every feature he could not recall in the waking world – the unearthly pallor, the silver eyes and high arch of the brows, and the mouth wide and cruel in a snarl of razor canines was poised immediately above him.
"Orssich." he whispered, everything rushing in on him at once. The theatre, the alley, the nightly incursions by this incubus.
There was no time to move, to speak or even to gasp before the creature was upon him.
As they spoke, Joly and Courfeyrac debating the comparative merits of ash and hawthorn for use in making stakes, Combeferre looked up and realised that the door to Enjolras' room was closed. He felt a prickling up his spine, but there was no sound from the room beyond. While Courfeyrac and Joly conversed, he rose and opened the door.
Combeferre took in the gruesome tableau at the window in a moment. The creature, a dark, slim figure, gave him a look of unutterable malevolence, all the more terrifying because of the triumph that could be read there on features that were so human and yet so unearthly.
The student felt a wave of revulsion. All that he had read that day – the arguments over whether these monsters were demonically possessed corpses, reanimated bodies, a tangible ghost or the avatar of some shambling, unnamable horror from beyond the stars – shrivelled before the reality of the Thing that stood before him.
So very nearly human. So completely alien. Its eyes shone silver, like a wild animal caught in the momentary illumination of a passing carriage light. Enjolras was slumped over one of the intruder's arms with his hair obscuring his face, and Combeferre could not tell if he was conscious. He was as limp as if lifeless, and a vivid patch of red soaked through his nightshirt at the neck where his bandage was in disarray, his legs loosely askew where they touched the floor, his weight entirely and effortlessly supported by his captor.
"Courfeyrac! Joly!" Combeferre cried, but even as the young man sprang towards his captive friend the creature slipped out the window, carrying his prey – Combeferre had a vague impression that he hardly touched the sill, seeming to melt out into the darkness beyond. It took only moments to reach the other side of the room, and his friends, bursting through the door, were directly behind him, but it was too late. Both fiend and man were gone. They peered down into the street, Combeferre sickened by the possibility that Enjolras might have been hurled to the paving stones below.
Leaning out over the edge of the sill with Courfeyrac and Joly at his elbows, Combeferre felt a lurching sense of disbelief. The dark intruder seemed to have landed on his feet, and in the gloom of the street the dim pallor of the white nightshirt could be seen where he carried their sick friend in his arms. In spite what he had just seen, it seemed incredible that any being in human form could have such strength. But this monstrous entity had not only managed to drag a man from his bed, he had leaped with him a full story down into the street below.
Two shadows detached themselves from near the wall, taking shape as men next to the intruder, and one turned a white face up to their window. Combeferre thought he could make out a blood red smile on the man's face, and felt a disorientating lurch of disbelief as the vampire's bright hair and beautiful, androgynous features seemed a distorted parody of those of the friend who had just been stolen from them. The sound of cantering hoof beats clamoured on the stones accompanied by chinking harness muffled by cloth.
"He has Enjolras!" Courfeyrac hissed next to him, quite unnecessarily, but Combeferre did not have time to answer before he was elbowed aside so Courfeyrac could swing his legs over the sill until he was sitting on it.
"Courfeyrac, you can't – you'll…!" But Joly was too late, as Courfeyrac awkwardly twisted around onto his belly, then slid down until only his hands still had a grip on the edge.
It all happened at once – Courfeyrac lowering himself as far as he could before letting go and dropping to the street below, and the carriage that charged up alongside the group below the window. Combeferre saw Courfeyrac land – somehow – on his feet (he really is like a cat, came the fleeting thought), stagger, then all in one quick move turn to the interlopers. Quite what he thought he was going to do against the three vampires Combeferre could not imagine, but the question was irrelevant. The carriage door opened, and he caught a final glint of gold hair in the dim side lamp on the otherwise darkened coach before Enjolras was passed into the compartment, his abductors followed him in a blur of swift motion, the door closing behind them with an emphatic finality.
The coachman, a muffled figure in a tricorn hat, whipped up the black horses again, and the carriage lurched away. Courfeyrac did not hesitate, his friends watching in astonishment as he ran pell mell after the disappearing vehicle, coat tails flying out behind him.
"Well," said Joly, sounding dazed. "That was….does Courfeyrac imagine he can outrun a four-in-hand?"
"Come on," said Combeferre grimly, "we'd better go after him in case they turn again in their tracks and come back for him as well."
He would give no voice to the despair he felt.