by Mark DuCharme

xiii

I had been rapping steadily at Mrs. Dittleboffer’s door— since she is the concierge, of course, her quarters are on the main floor, proximal to the central building’s entrance— for what seemed a quarter hour, but in reality was probably closer to three or four minutes.  I had heard no footsteps approaching, so I was surprised when the sound of the bolt turning became audible, and then the door creaked open.

Old Mrs. D’s languid, sagging face emerged from the shadows.  When I spoke, I was wary to keep my voice low, lest that busybody, Mrs. Plunket, be listening stealthily, just behind her door.

“Mrs. Dittleboffer, how are you,” I beamed, with no possible hint of insincerity.  “I’m so sorry to trouble you at this odd hour.  I wonder, though, if you can help me with something.  Is there any way to get into that door at the end of the third-floor alcove?  I wonder if you might have the key.  I’ve heard some strange noises that seem to be coming from there these last few nights.  It would sure help my peace of mind if I could just peek behind that door and assure myself that there’s no mischief there.”  I smiled.  I could be such a charming bastard, when I put my mind to it.

She looked at me as if I had just thrown sand in her face.  “No, there ain’t no key to that door.  I ain’t never seen one.  No key.  That tower deserted,” she said, in her version of English, and practically slammed the door in my face.

Well, that hadn’t gone quite as I’d expected.  But one should never give up hope.

I guessed that the only option now was Ana.  I really had not wanted to resort to that.  But what was I to do, short of abandoning Old Gruber’s plea altogether?  And if I were in danger, wouldn’t it be better to face it head-on, rather than live in passive dread of it walking through my door at some godforsaken hour?  No, I wasn’t going to live like that.  I resolved that I had to get in that tower, even if I had to resort to asking for Ana’s help.

Well, it was kind of silly.  I mean, what did I really think I would find in that dusty old tower?  I had no idea, actually.  Yet, I couldn’t shake that feeling of unease, that feeling of not knowing what was behind that old door, and whether there really was danger there.  And I really thought it might bring me some relief, if only I might just peer inside and assuage my darkest anxieties.

The phone rang three times, then went to voicemail.  “This is Ana.  Leave a message.”  Beep.

“Hi, Ana.  It’s Johnny.  Hey, listen— you said you might be able to help me get into that tower, so I thought—”  Suddenly, I couldn’t find the words to complete that sentence.  Suddenly, a cold fear overtook me.  This wasn’t like me.  I’m always calm, aloof and rational.  Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed.  I hung up the phone, to my own surprise.  I was even more surprised at what happened next.

“Johnny.”  It was Ana’s voice, just outside my apartment door.  The phone hadn’t even been down for a cold minute.

“What is it?”  I was tired, disappointed, cold, and scared.

“May I come in?”

“Sure.  I’ll unlock it for ya in just a—”

The door moved, seemingly of its own will.  The odd thing was that I was certain I had locked it.  All that thinking about picking locks and calling cards on my pillow had somehow reinforced my resolve to keep locked my own entrance.

It moved, I say, seemingly of its own will, and behind it Ana stood, stark upright and pale— as pale as moonlight.

She didn’t ask, this time— for I guess she had already.  Her heels clicked across the threshold.

“What can I help you with, Johnny?”  Her uncharacteristic demureness belied my growing dread.

“Ana— Analeise— you said you could get me into that tower.”  I was almost stuttering, for in truth, now I was truly afraid.

“Sure, I can, Johnny,” she replied, smiling a warm smile and stepping closer, as if we were intimates, or might soon become such.

Already, I was having second thoughts.  “What’s beyond that door?”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Johnny.  You just leave that to me.”  She smiled again.  I knew she was lying.  Oh hell, why hadn’t I ignored crazy Old Gruber’s dying testament?  Yet why had I ignored his admonition that his own daughter was dangerous?  I could feel it now— and now I was truly scared.  For her part, Ana just smiled that sweet, voluptuous smile that lets you know all bets are off.

“Come.  I’ll get you into the tower.”  She took my hand.  Her flesh was surprisingly cold.  We walked, and as we did, I could feel my own resistance to her grow suddenly numb, as if I had no will of my own left to take my hand away and back out of the bargain.

When we got to that ancient doorway, to my shock and growing dread, it yielded to her, and flung itself open at her approach, though gently and with malicious ease.  There is no other way to describe it.  She held my warm hand in her cold, clammy one the whole time.  I don’t even think she looked at the door.  She just knew that it would yield to her.

Behind it, from what I could see in the dimness, was a dusty corridor that led several feet to a lengthy spiral stairwell leading up to god-knows-what.  She didn’t pause; she was evidently quite familiar with the passage.  My hand was held in hers the whole time.  Her heel clicked on the first step, and the thud of my own shoe followed.  The door, as if by some preternatural force, swung closed behind us, as easily as it had yielded to her approach.  She never looked at me the whole time.

Up that winding staircase we walked.  Can I tell you what growing dread I felt?

Oh, why had I even for a moment trusted her?

We reached the floor she wanted, and made our way toward dim candlelight.  Though the illumination was welcome, I quickly realized it was evidence that someone did live inside this odd, post-medieval, circular structure.  My terror quickened.

At last, we arrived at a chamber from which I saw further candles’ illumination.  Once more, it was clear that she knew where she was going, and she led me— I knew not for what purpose.

I followed her lead— for at this point, what else could I have done?  I could not have broken free of her if I’d tried.  As she drew open the chamber door, it creaked a little.  Behind it was a windowless room brightly lit by candles.  There must have been at least a half dozen.  And in all that relative warmth, we encountered there a man— close to six feet tall, I’d wager, and middle-aged, from the looks of him, slender though not slight of build.  He looked as if he were well off.  Dressed in black from head to foot, his clothes were not just fashionable, but all the rage.

His gaze met mine, and then he smiled.  Though his complexion was most pallid, his lips were red– almost as red as Ana’s lipstick.

“Mr. Pinklund, I gather,” he said in a deep voice that tried to seem cordial.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“So good to meet you at last.”

“Why do you want to meet me?”

“I might ask the same question of you.”

He looked at me knowingly, smiling an indulgent but faintly mocking smile.  “But let me introduce myself.  I am Artemas Thorne.”

“I hear you own this building.”

“I own a lot of properties.  It has proven—” he paused— “useful for my purposes.”

“Which are?”

“Always trying to get to the point, you vivants.  As if a wasted moment could cost you an eternity.”  He had been speaking almost to himself, yet suddenly regained his politesse.  “Won’t you sit down, young gentleman,” the host purred suavely.

In addition to the candles, there was an antique-looking couch and two antique-looking chairs, plus some minimal bric-a-brac, which also didn’t look like it had been brought home from the store any time recently.  I reclined on one of the chairs, he on the couch, while Ana, who hadn’t really joined our party, stood to the side, looking away, near the door that she had led me through.  Although there was a seat for her, she didn’t take it, nor did Thorne invite her.

“You no doubt have heard tall tales from my departed tenant.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what to believe.”

“Your own eyes and senses will lead you to the truth.”

“Which is?”

He laughed to himself.  “You are remarkably impatient, even for one of your kind.”  I had started to notice his accent; he sounded kind of British and kind of American at the same time, but in a funny way, for he talked like no Brit or native of these shores that I had ever encountered.  It was— quaint, as if he came from a different time altogether.

“Then indulge my impatience just one more moment, sir.”

He paused.  “It’s not just the properties, so much, though there have been times when having a variety of potential”— he paused again— “residences has been most helpful.  But more helpful still has been the money, and the power it accords one.  The earthly power, of course.”

I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with this— or how I was going to manage to get out of this tower (for it had begun to dawn on me that this whole affair had been a very bad idea, and that, even if I wanted to kill this suave but, I sensed, dangerous host, I was quite unprepared to do so at that moment).  So I decided to keep up the open-ended questions, so long as he was responding cordially, and to bide my time until I could find an excuse to depart.

“Why is that?”

“Surely you understand, Mr. Pinklund, that those who hold wealth hold the ability to control their destinies.  And I now possess a very great deal of wealth, indeed.”  He resisted smirking, but couldn’t resist the triumphant glare his eyes exuded. “It has taken me quite a long time to accumulate— more time than you can even imagine; but I have succeeded, and so now I am welcomed (with certain precautions) in the gatherings of the elite, whether they be boardrooms or private meetings with government officials or even social fêtes— though, again, my welcome is always conditioned upon the usual superstitions.”

“And what exactly are those?”

“Oh, Mr. Pinklund, surely you are not such a naïf.  What can fate possibly do to cure you?”

“Tell the truth, possibly.”

“What more is there to say?  I am sure that annoying old gossip told you all the tall tales of yore.  Tales of crucifixes and holy water, of graves unearthed at dawn most dramatically, of stakes and consecrated hosts and whatnot.  Such legends!  We are both modern men, Mr. Pinklund.  Surely, neither of us will be deceived by lurid, second-hand folklore.”

“I’m not sure what I believe yet, Mr. Thorne.”

“That is a pity.  For I’d hoped we could do business.  You see, since I arrived here long ago, and that old native shaman put this curse upon me (and yes, I made sure that he was the first to suffer from my new life— a new life in a New World, or so I called it then), I have learned that doing business is a great way to forge bonds with those whose source of sustenance, for want of a better term, may be very different from my own.  Indeed, I have forged many of what I consider real friendships with mortals, in this way.”

“But aren’t you, too, a mortal?”

He smiled with an almost sneering amusement.  “Oh, my dear Mr. Pinklund, haven’t you already guessed?”

“But why should they welcome you if they also fear you?”

“Because I am one of them, Mr. Pinklund!  No, they do not drink mortal blood, exactly; nor do they sleep in coffins by daylight.  But nevertheless, we understand each other.  We have much in common, actually.  That is the best way to put it.”

It was clear his patience was thinning.  “I will put it to you, sir, that I am offering the opportunity to join my organization— if you would call it that.  To be of service to me from time to time, mostly in trivial matters.  To assist in my enterprise.  But if we cannot do the business I would prefer, sir, we shall engage in another sort of— transaction.  Well, what will it be?”  His eyes were most serious and menacing, yet it was entirely impossible— by what ungodly force, I could not guess— to retract my gaze from his.  I was dumbfounded, and had no idea what to say, a silence he must have interpreted as a rebuff.  “Ana,” he summoned sternly.

She turned, finally, and approached with eyes downcast.  She truly seemed sad and remorseful, and this shocked me momentarily, for I hadn’t imagined her character contained that potential.

“It’s not often,” she explained, “that youthful rebellion marks you for life, and even after death.”  Our eyes met, and I detected regret there too.

“Ana, don’t you understand?  You’ll be undoing everything your father worked and struggled for!”  I was surprised at my sudden interjection.  It was a desperate plea, but I felt desperate.

She met my gaze again.  “I’d like to help you, Johnny.  And I would have liked to help my father more.  But I’m not one of the living now.  And his power”— she glanced toward Thorne contemptuously— “is so much greater than my own.”  With that, she turned her head and walked away, slow heels clicking.

Thorne laughed his cold laugh that came too easily.  “Excellent work, Analeise, excellent!  For this, you shall be rewarded.”

“Fuck you and your rewards,” she snapped back coldly, still looking away.

“Then only I shall indulge in this feast?”  His grin widened, and I could smell his rank breath unforgettably.  She did not answer, and he didn’t seem to want her to.

He moved toward me instead, and the very air seemed to bear him forward.  All his politesse was gone now; the look in his eyes and his whole demeanor was suddenly a mountain lion’s, at the end of the chase, when the prey has lost all energy to flee.  That look of triumph.

I heard gibberish and rustling when the cold snapped at her feet.  An evil leer overtook his reddened eyes.

That is the last thing on earth I remember.

O help me, Lord!

But what am I saying?  I am still on earth!  I have never left!  It’s never been better here!  I walk every night, after the sun dies, as we all must, once, before tasting reality.

Things look more beautiful before dawn.  It’s hard to explain.  There’s just something about the absence of sunlight.  I mean the blues are too vivid; I mean that there are colors one only fully sees in the absence of direct light.

Thorne still lives and rules this land, an immortal baron over a helpless fiefdom.

As for Ana, she chose shortly after that night to take her own life, walking directly into streaming, mid-morning sunlight.  It is said that she vomited blood, but I didn’t witness.  I couldn’t have, you see.

The events described here occurred roughly 139 years ago this month, if I count the phases of the moon correctly.  That was the night of my awakening.  Since then, I haven’t been a transporter at all, but have been sort of promoted, in a funny way.  You see, I’m now one of those, like sharks, who saunter down uneasy thoroughfares at night.  You might even say, if you wanted to make a bad joke, that it is I who have now been transported.

But in truth, if you see me walking about the avenues at night, there’s an excellent chance it will be you who joins the ranks the transported.  I guess I’m still working for the Company, after all.   But aren’t all of us, in our own strange ways?

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