Vampire a Go-Go

TWENTY-THREE

Kelley almost didn’t make the final dozen steps. When he reached the top of the main tower of St. Vitus Cathedral, he collapsed on the stone landing, his chest heaving as he panted for breath. From the courtyard looking up, the tower had seemed only slightly taller than other towers he’d seen, but the arduous climb up the steep, spiral staircase had sapped the strength from his legs and stolen his wind. A sickly sweat broke out on his forehead and down his back. Kelley would have to start taking better care of himself. He drank too much.

“Who are you?”

Kelley rolled over on his back, looked up at the man in the robe. “I’m… looking for… Roderick.” He paused, gulped breath. “I’m… Edward Kelley.”

“I’m Roderick.” The man was older than Kelley, even a few years older than Dee. He had a wild tangle of white hair that stuck out in every direction, a drawn face, and a nose like a beak; topped off by a white moustache and a beard with black streaks. “What do you want? I’m extremely busy.” He had a thick German accent but spoke good English.

“I’m an alchemist at court,” Kelley said. “I wanted to speak to you.”

“One of Dee’s cohorts,” Roderick grunted. “I thought you’d gone.”

“I understand you and your colleagues brought back something from the north. I’m interested to hear about it.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s none of your business,” Roderick said, turning away from Kelley. “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Kelley sat up, looked around the top of the tower. The construction was incomplete. At the moment, a crude wooden platform had been built around the stone landing. Roderick had some sort of strange device on top of a tripod. A stool stood right next to it.

“What are you doing up here?” Kelly asked.

“Waiting for sunset.”

“What happens then?”

“The angle of the sun will be right to test this.” Roderick indicated a wooden box at his feet.

Kelley went to the box and looked inside. Nestled in a bed of dry straw, a glass disc the size of a large serving plate glinted in the sun. Rainbow colors swirled in the glass, made Kelley’s eyes cross. He reached for it. “May I?”

“You may not,” snapped Roderick.

Kelley jerked his hands back.

“The finest glassblowers labored a year under the watchful eye of my best assistant to fashion that lens,” Roderick said. “A single scratch ruins it. Even a greasy smudge from your finger will delay my experiment while the lens is painstakingly cleaned.”

Roderick’s head spun to the horizon as the sun rapidly sank. “Blast. It’s almost time. Stand over there, Kelley. As long as you’ve disturbed my work, you might as well assist me. Over there. Stay still.”

Kelley moved to the spot Roderick indicated, on the other side of the platform from the tripod. He stood still, watched the astrologer.

Roderick donned a pair of white gloves. They looked as if they’d been made of some soft material. Velvet? Very expensive and finely made. Roderick bent, took hold of the glass disc with utmost care, and lifted it slowly from its padded nest in the box. With exaggerated caution, Roderick took one deliberate step at a time. Kelley found he was holding his breath and let it out slowly.

Roderick mounted the lens in a frame atop the tripod, hurried to clamp it into place, twisting knobs and securing latches. He swiveled the lens on the tripod, pointed it at Kelley.

Kelley shuffled his feet. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Keep still,” ordered Roderick. “The sun is nearly at its optimal angle. This probably won’t hurt at all. Much.”

Kelley held up a finger. “You know, maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. I’m… uh… concerned that perhaps-”

The rays of the setting sun hit the lens. It flared a blinding blue, and Kelley flinched. It bathed him in soft cool light. Time seemed to slow. He saw the world creeping by, dust motes pausing in midflight. A bird over Roderick’s shoulder wheeled with impossible slowness. His own heart beat a lazy lub-thub. He blinked his eyes, the eyelids falling as slowly as the setting sun itself, rising again like an old man in the morning.

Kelley’s head grew light, his vision washing out in a hazy blue.

When his eyes popped open again, he was facedown on the platform, Roderick standing over him.

“So,” Roderick began, “how do you feel?” Roderick held a quill poised over a piece of parchment.

Kelley felt strange, but also… rested? He stood. Yes. His aches and pains had vanished, as if he’d had a good night’s sleep. As if he’d never been hungover in his life. He relayed this information to Roderick, who scribbled it on the parchment.

“Good, good.” Roderick nodded, scribbled further notes. “This confirms what we suspected. Excellent.”

“What did you do to me?”

“Nothing you shouldn’t be thankful for, my good man. While you alchemists are mixing your little potions and bowel remedies, the Astrologers’ and Wizards’ Guild is harnessing the power of the cosmos.”

“That’s a good trick. Please explain.”

“What do you know of sunlight?”

“It’s warm and orange.”

“Bah!” Roderick made an impatient face. “You call yourself a man of science. Very well, I’ll try to keep this simple. When the sun comes up, you see its light shining down on the world. Seems simple, doesn’t it? But you are, in fact, seeing millions of things happening at once. Countless elements all coming together in what seems to be the single phenomenon we call light. There are a number of waves, and they span a wide spectrum. But not just waves. Sunlight is actually composed-somewhat-of particles also, millions of them so small they are unobservable by the human eye. You’re understanding all this?”

“Of course,” said Kelley, who understood not one bit of it.

“I have spent a lifetime discovering these secrets and designing the lenses. By filtering out some waves and particles and allowing others to pass through, we can control… well… the full implications have yet to be fathomed. The sun is both the destroyer and creator of all life on Mother Earth. It is the Alpha and the Omega of all existence. Rudolph’s generous support has allowed my work to reach fruition.”

Kelley cleared his throat. “Yes, well, Rudolph has us working on an important project as well. The alchemists are divining the secret process of transmuting lead into gold.”

Roderick paused, looked at Edward Kelley blankly, then burst into uncontrolled laughter. He stopped abruptly upon seeing Kelley’s expression. “Oh, hell, you’re serious, aren’t you? Well… that’s, you know, that’s… uh… that’s a good project too. Yeah.”

Kelley sighed.

Upon seeing the alchemist unplacated, Roderick went on to say, “Listen, Kelley, you’ve been a good sport, letting me blast you with the lens and all. If you still want, I can probably arrange a quick glance at that iron box you’re so curious about.”

“That would be most gracious,” Kelley said.

The brand on his ass stung briefly.

Roderick led him into the dungeons deep below the castle, past armed guards, through dim passageways illuminated by flickering torches. Kelley had not foreseen, nor desired, being underground again so quickly. He wondered if there were tunnels that connected the dungeons below the castle with the passages below St. Vitus Cathedral.

They finally arrived at a large set of thick, wooden double doors. Kelley counted a dozen guards in heavy armor standing in front of the doors and crowding the passage. They eyed Kelley with grim suspicion but parted to let Roderick enter. Kelley followed the astrologer into a large chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Braziers in each corner provided enough light for Kelley to clearly see an iron box on the far side of the room, a good hundred feet away.

Kelley also saw the dead bodies.

A half-dozen blackened corpses within ten feet of the iron box, all contorted in various stages of agony. Closer to Kelley were another three bodies, less charred but just as dead. Back another twenty feet was another dead man. The last body was maybe forty feet from where Kelley stood behind a rope that stretched the width of the chamber.

“We’ve been trying to determine the minimum safe distance for examining the object,” Roderick explained. “We open the box and see if a man can live. If he doesn’t, we move back ten or twenty feet and try again.”

“You used live men for this?” Kelley swallowed hard, felt ill.

“Prisoners.” Roderick pointed at the closest body. “That fellow was a horse thief, I think. The object emits some sort of invisible, destructive rays, not completely dissimilar to the sun waves I told you about earlier. Naturally, they called me in to lead the experiments. Rudolph is most excited by the find.”

“This seems too dangerous to fool around with.”

“There is always a certain amount of risk in discovery.” Roderick reached for a thin rope dangling two feet away. “This line is attached to pulleys which will open the lid of the box if I pull on it. That’s how we were able to safely open it when we sent the prisoners out. You can’t see much from here, but would you like a look at the object?”

No. Kelley didn’t want to see it. He wanted to run out as fast as he could, screaming all the way. His ass-brand flared a warning. Kelley winced and said, “Yes. Let me see it.”

Roderick pulled the rope, and the iron box’s lid creaked open.

A rock. That’s all it was, a rock about the size of a dog’s head. It did not glow or pulse. No screaming devils leaped from the box. A rock.

Then something. The room seemed to shimmer, like heat on summer cobblestones. A dark uneasiness crept into Kelley’s gut, a sickly foreboding, the sudden acute certainty that sinister fingers probed him, reached inside his very soul. Any feeling of well-being left by Roderick’s lens was utterly erased, leaving only the sour taste of decay.

“Close it,” Kelley said. “Close it now, please.”

Roderick released the rope, and the lid slammed shut. The sick feeling ceased immediately, like stepping away from a hot cook stove.

“Yes, best to keep it shut,” said the astrologer. “We’re at a safe distance, but better safe than sorry, eh?”

An acidic aftertaste lingered in Kelley’s mouth. He turned away and spit. Rude. “Sorry about that.”

“I did the same thing the first time,” Roderick said.

“It’s…” Kelley shivered. “Evil.”

“Come, come, my good man, no, of course not. Let us conduct ourselves as men of science. Good. Evil. Terms peasants use for things beyond their understanding.”

“Yes. Of course. I think I just need some air. Maybe we could go back now.”

“Understandable. Yes, some fresh air will do you well, my good man.”

Kelley followed Roderick back to the surface, memorizing every twist and turn in the dungeon. He would tell Edgar. The Society must know. This thing must be destroyed or hidden. Kelley was as sure of this as he was of his own existence.

Only a simple lump of rock, yet Kelley felt as if he’d looked into the eyes of hell itself.