Vampire a Go-Go

FOURTEEN

Kelley and Dee sat at a rough wooden table in the corner of Kelley’s favorite pub. It was a dark establishment, thick with the smoke of oil lamps and candles. Kelley could barely make out the faces of the other patrons. They’d gone through half a pitcher of wine, and Dee had loosened up a bit.

It helped that the doctor could not hold his liquor.

Kelley told a bawdy joke and Dee laughed. Okay, thought Kelley. He’s ready for more probing questions.

Kelley tilted the pitcher, refilled Dee’s goblet. “I can’t help but wonder what all this secrecy is about, Dee. If I knew what was happening, I could help more.”

Dee’s frown was plain even in the dim candlelight. Instead of talking, he sipped wine.

“Is Rudolph impatient with us?” asked Kelley. “Are we not turning lead into gold fast enough for His Highness? Because I have to tell you, Dee, it’s going to take years. Frankly, I don’t think it’s possible at all.”

“Lower your voice.” Dee looked from side to side, but nobody seemed interested in their conversation. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

“Supposed to be,” Kelley said, “but everyone knows. People whisper about it all the time, or they used to. It’s sort of old news now, actually. Guess what they call the alleyway outside our workshop. The Golden Lane.”

“I thought they called it that because the soldiers use it as a convenient place to urinate.”

“There’s that too.”

Dee leaned across the table, motioned for Kelley to lean in also. Dee’s hushed whisper was barely audible. “I can tell you this much. Transmuting lead into gold, all that nonsense, it’s a cover story.”

“Then why the hell have I been cleaning beakers and handling toxic chemicals for the past five months? And why the hell would we have a cover story and then act like it’s a secret?”

“It’s the oldest trick in the book,” Dee said. “A couple of alchemists up to God knows what until all hours of the night. People are bound to be curious. They can’t help themselves. So we make up a story and let people discover the secret. Once they think they know what’s going on, they stop asking. The curiosity abates.”

“What about me?” Kelley asked. “My curiosity hasn’t abated.”

“In time, Edward.”

“And if we’re not transmuting lead into gold, then what was all that talk about breaking a silver goblet into thousands of pieces until it’s not silver anymore?”

“We’re not transmuting lead into gold,” Dee said. “But we are transmuting… something.”

“Dee, you must confide in me.”

“I’ve already said too much. This is a dangerous secret, Edward. Rudolph will have both our heads if it gets out, so please ask me no more.”

“I’m just trying to help.” Kelley sipped wine. “At least tell me when I might be able to know more. For pity’s sake, throw me a bone.”

“Rudolph’s astrologers are the key,” Dee said.

“I thought we were the key.”

Dee cleared his throat. “Well, naturally. But next to us the astrologers are the key. Soon they will bring us an object, and then, my dear Edward, then I will most certainly need your assistance. Until that time, I beg you to ask me no more.”

Kelley sat back and nodded. Clearly he would get no more out of Dee until Dee was ready. “Our pitcher is empty. I’ll get us more wine.”

“Please no,” Dee said. “My head is swimming. But I thank you for the drink. I’ve been working so hard lately, I feel like I might come apart.”

Kelley smiled. “I know just the thing to ease your troubles, my friend.”

Kelley’s eyes creaked open at the first hint of sunlight. He sat up in bed, pushing the girl’s naked leg off his chest. The rest of her was hidden beneath the bedcovers. Which one had he ended up with? The one with corn-yellow hair, he hoped. She had big tits. He couldn’t tell from the leg.

He cast about, squinting his eyes, but didn’t immediately see Dee and the other wench. Kelley’s head throbbed. It tasted as if a small, oily creature had defecated in his mouth and then crawled down his throat and died. His skin felt slick and clammy. The first stirrings of something unpleasant were beginning in his belly. It seemed impossible that a man could feel this bad and still live. The entire chamber smelled of sweat and wine.

Kelley crawled out of bed. His legs felt like jelly. He went to the plush sofa and pulled back the heavy quilt. The naked girl underneath whined, curled into a fetal position, flinching from the light. It was the yellow-haired girl with the large breasts. Damn. That meant Kelley had been with the bucktoothed one. He shrugged. No matter.

Kelley found his breeches, slipped into them, and went downstairs.

There was a water trough in the courtyard directly across from the tower door. Dee was on his knees, his head dunked in the water. His white skin glowed a dirty orange in the rays of the rising sun. He wore only his underwear. He lifted his head out of the trough, water streaming and dripping from his hair and beard.

“You okay, Dee?”

“You did this to me, you evil bastard.” Dee wiped water from his eyes. “What infernal scheme led man to invent wine?”

Kelley knelt next to Dee at the trough and splashed water into his face. “At least you hit it off well with Natasha.”

“Who the hell is Natasha?”

“The young naked wench asleep in your chamber.”

“Oh, God. My wife.”

“She’s back in England.”

“Praise the Lord for small mercies.” Dee suddenly grabbed his stomach, his pale skin fading to green. “Oh… no.”

Kelley backed away.

Dee convulsed and heaved, spewed acidic, partly digested wine into a puddle to the side of the trough. “Oh, God.” Dee shuddered and puked a second time.

“You should feel better now.” Kelley didn’t think Dee would recover quickly. With a little luck, the doctor would be out of commission all day and into the night.

Dee was stuck in a kneeling position, hunched over his own puddle of puke, a gooey strand of spittle still clinging to his beard. “I can’t move. This is disgraceful. I have several experiments to see to today. I feel like there are tiny devils with pitchforks in my head, stabbing the backs of my eyes.”

“I can’t help but feel partly to blame,” Kelley said.

“You are entirely to blame.”

“I understand,” Kelley said. “In that case, let me shoulder the burden today. You get back up to your bed and rest. I’ll check in on the experiments.”

Dee cast a sideways glance at Kelley. Kelley knew what the doctor was thinking. Did he really trust Kelley to handle his delicate experiments? In truth, nothing very important was happening in the laboratory, but Dee was obnoxiously fussy about his boiling pots and beakers.

“What will you tell people?” Dee asked.

“Anything you like.”

“I command a certain amount of respect at court,” Dee said, “and I would hate to see that respect tarnished.”

“Of course.”

“Tell everyone I’ve eaten bad goat cheese, and that I’m waiting for some digestion issues to resolve themselves.”

“No problem.”

Dee sighed. “Very well. Thank you, Edward. I think I will stay here and vomit a little more before crawling back up to bed.”

“Take your time.”

“One more favor, if you please,” Dee said. “Can you please tell those women to leave? I don’t think I can bring myself to look them in the eye, especially the blonde. Not after the unspeakable things I asked her to do.”

Kelley didn’t ask.

Kelley dressed and pulled himself together. Dee’s shadowy, partial revelations had piqued his curiosity. Kelley shooed the wenches out of the White Tower, as he began to see his vague plan coming together. He needed Dee incapacitated and out of his hair for a day.

He looked briefly into Dee’s laboratory. Nothing was exploding, so Kelley closed the door, locked it, and left for the main castle courtyard.

He made his way past the throngs of workers to the entranceway of St. Vitus Cathedral. As planned, he fell into a line of men pushing empty wheelbarrows. He’d intentionally worn his oldest, most threadbare clothing in an attempt to pass for one of the laborers. He still looked a little too clean, but nobody seemed to notice, so he pushed the wheelbarrow inside.

The interior of the cathedral was awe-inspiring, the ceiling arching high above him, dusty light spilling in through the elongated windows. Kelley had not attended mass regularly in years, but the presence of God never impressed him more than when he entered this cathedral. He felt dwarfed by the grandeur. The effect was spoiled somewhat by the line of sweaty men with wheelbarrows.

He dropped off the empty wheelbarrow and followed the line to a wheelbarrow full of dirt. He had only a split second to glance down the rough stone steps into the burial vault before he was swept toward the exit. A glance over his shoulder showed him grimy men coming up from the vault with buckets of earth, filling the empty wheelbarrows. He marched his new wheelbarrow outside, through the courtyard, and up a wooden ramp, where he dumped the dirt into the back of a wagon. Kelley presumed full wagons were driven someplace out of the way to dump the dirt, perhaps to farms that needed rich soil.

Dozens of men were participating in the dirt-moving endeavor. Kelley couldn’t figure out a way to break the line and get down into the vault without drawing attention, so he plodded along, bringing back empty wheelbarrows, getting a load of dirt, dumping it into a wagon. Repeat. It was getting hot, and his hangover weighed him down.

Kelley was about to call it a day and slip away for a bath when a foreman shouted, “Water!”

A dozen boys toted water buckets hanging from ox yokes. The dirty men crowded around, dipping cups into the buckets. Kelley realized just how dry and dusty his mouth and throat were, but he saw his opportunity.

He went to one of the smaller boys, lifted the yoke off his shoulders. “Let me help you with that, little man. I’ll take it inside for the others.”

The flushed boy nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

Kelley carried the water into the cathedral, set the buckets at the top of the steps that led down to the vault. He descended, and the temperature cooled. He was greeted by the moist smell of fresh earth.

“Water up top,” Kelley shouted down the passage. “Take a break.”

The clank and scrape of tools. Muttered voices. They came into view, about a dozen of them walking past him. They were caked with dirt from head to foot. They thanked him and trudged up the steps to the water buckets.

Kelley waited ten seconds, then went back down the passage.

He’d never been inside the vault beneath the cathedral, but he’d heard the same as everyone else, knew that dead rulers and bishops were entombed here. The most important figures had been granted tombs inscribed in Latin marking the brief history of the deceased. Lesser nobles had been given more modest accommodations. Skeletal remains, their hands folded over their chests, lined the broad shelves along the passage. Kelley paused to examine one of the hollow-eyed skulls and crossed himself.

He turned the corner and saw that the passage terminated with a hole in the masonry, about two feet wide and four feet tall. There were mounds of dirt on either side. They’d knocked a hole in the wall and had begun a new tunnel.

Kelley edged toward the hole and felt a cool, damp breeze on his face, less musty than among the tombs. He took a flickering torch from a nearby sconce and squeezed through the opening.

The tunnel was narrow; his shoulders scraped both sides in some places. He had to duck as he scooted through. Short beams had been installed haphazardly to discourage cave-ins. He sensed that the tunnel angled slightly downward, but maybe that was just his imagination.

The light from the vault faded behind him, and the darkness all but swallowed the orange light of the small torch. How far did this tunnel go? He was contemplating turning around when a rushing sound caught his attention. He cocked his head, listened a moment. He increased his pace forward, and the sound of rushing water grew with each step.

Abruptly the tunnel opened into a wide cavern. A light spray of cold water hit him suddenly. Kelley held the torch out before him, and the light was barely enough to give him the full picture. A small underground river rushed and foamed in front of him. He swung the torch one way, then another, trying to take in the whole scene.

The river flowed from left to right in front of him, angling down and swirling into a pool about forty feet across. Kelley lowered the torch and saw a muddy, narrow path in front of him, following the flow of the river down to the pool. There seemed to be some sort of construction on the far side of the pool, rough beams across the edge. He’d need to get closer to see.

Kelley put one foot on the muddy path. His foot slipped out from under him. He upended, landed hard on his butt, and began sliding, picking up speed and heading for the water. He dug a hand into the mud, felt rock beneath and felt a fingernail rip. But he halted his slide before tumbling into the river.

“Damn it.”

He grunted, got to his feet carefully on the slippery path. His entire back and ass were caked with mud. He steadied himself, held the torch aloft.

He’d slid half the distance down the path and now stood at the pool’s edge. There were beams and sandbags along the edge of the pool. It seemed the river had been dammed. Kelley held up the torch, looked across the pool, and saw a large passage. Not just dammed. Diverted. The small river rushed into the pool, swirled around, and emptied into the passage across the way. The path continued around the pool, narrow and muddy. Kelley had to put his back against the rough, wet stone to scoot sideways. The construction was more elaborate than it had first appeared. There was a drop of nearly twenty feet on the other side of the pool, and there was a sturdy ladder leading down to the floor of the cavern below.

The dam was large, with wooden beams holding rocks and sandbags in place. A lot of manpower had gone into diverting the river into the other passage. Kelley swung his leg over the edge, making sure to keep careful hold on the torch as he climbed down. The temperature dropped another few degrees. He shivered, wet and cold.

Kelley stepped off the last rung of the ladder and landed with a splash, the cold water coming halfway up his shin.

“Hell.”

Kelley’s feet were lumps of frozen meat in a matter of seconds.

He looked back up at the dam. The structure was not performing its task perfectly. Trickles of water spurted through here and there, so there was still a minor stream running along the river’s old course.

Kelley trudged on.

The cavern was much bigger here. He held the torch as high as he could but still wasn’t able to see the ceiling. He wondered why they’d want to dam the river. What was at the end of this passage?

Kelley’s foot caught on something underwater, and he pitched forward. His hands flew out to break his fall, and he landed with a cold splash, the torch hissing out and plunging him into total darkness.

Muttering every curse he could think of, he sat up in the middle of the stream and blinked. That’s a lot of dark.

He thought about feeling his way back up the stream, finding the ladder. If he was extremely careful, he could probably make his way back without falling in the river and drowning himself.

He was wet. He was cold. He was still hungover. This had been a terrible idea.

Kelley grunted, stood, and rubbed his backside where he’d landed on some rocks. Slowly his eyes adjusted. The darkness was not complete after all. Dimly he perceived the dull yellow flickering of torches at the far end of the cavern. There was light far ahead, around a corner.

He went forward, forcing himself to move slowly. This was no time for a sprained ankle. He stumbled a few times but managed to right himself without going into the water again, and soon he was at the bend in the cavern where it made a right turn. There was more light here, and Kelley picked up the pace. Soon the cavern turned again, and he saw a lot more flickering light.

He stood at the corner, peeked around the edge.

A handful of men milled around a construction site. One stood at a small wooden table, looking at an unrolled parchment. The large chamber was well lit by a number of torches and a large brazier. The echoes of a few men working with various tools mixed with the sound of rushing water coming from behind him. There wasn’t much mud here, although the stream still ran through the center of the chamber and left again through a hole on the far side.

A giant waterwheel had been assembled, but they hadn’t yet placed it in position. Kelley imagined the dam had been built to hold back the water for the construction and placement of the waterwheels. Presumably the water-or at least some of it-would be let loose again when the wheels were in place. But why? It was a hell of a place to grind flour.

The man standing over the parchment looked familiar. Yes, Kelley remembered him from the audience with Rudolph. Hans Vredeman de Vries. Rudolph had said something about the man’s working with drainage.

Kelley couldn’t stand it now. He had to find out what was going on. The curiosity burned a hole in his imagination. He waited until most of the workers were in another part of the chamber and the rest had their backs turned. He scooted fast around the edge of the cave, clinging to the shadows, and hunkered down behind a barrel and a pile of thick, coiled rope. He noticed a few narrow openings behind him, more natural tunnels.

There wasn’t much to see from this vantage point, so Kelley moved stealthily toward a pile of lumber. He never made it.

Strong hands grabbed him from behind, one thick hand clapping over his mouth. He was dragged into a tunnel, backward into the long dark beneath the earth.