The fast of vampires will result in blood thirsty to be drunk
Blood thirsty to wed the form of brooks
Blood thirsty to gush from desert places
Blood thirsty for the knife’s cool water
(“Blank Page”, from Ralentir Travaux by André Breton, René Char, Paul Éluard)[1]
Chapter 1: Vampire
1
France, 1898
Givre, the town located approximately 400 km east of Paris and close to the Swiss border, was the terminus of the eastern French railway. It was known for its harsh winter climate, meadows along the river and houses with dull red roofs. This town, which was no different from other typical eastern rural towns in terms of geography and size, was in reality far from being desolate or impoverished and had in fact flourished into a small regional city. It owed its prosperity to the watch industry, which had developed ahead of modernization and the traditional cheese industry, as well as the enormous sums of money invested into various sectors by the eccentric wealthy person living on the outskirts of the city.
The name of that wealthy person was Sir Jean Duche Godard.
A deep forest area stretched out to the east of Givre, but if you looked down on it from the sky with a bird’s eye view, you would see a crumbling steeple sticking out of the open space. It was an old castle built in the 14th century. Sir Godard lived in those ruins of a castle with his family.
The castle walls that were made to block the enemies had been swallowed up by trees, and the round watchtower that once stood proudly was now left as just a windswept foundation. The only building that retained its dignity was the mansion in the center, but even the estate wasn’t spared from the ivy growing all over its stone walls, creeping along the joints. The gaudy name of the castle, which once bore the name of a certain noble, had been lost in the memories of the citizens of Givre, and so, the new name given to this castle, which seemed to incite morw fear the more one looked at, was Chateau de Vagues de Folies [2]— the ‘Castle of the Waving Madness.’
The reason why a wealthy family was living in this desolate castle was as simple and straightforward as it sounded. Because ‘it was desolate’. For him and his family, the somewhat inconvenient housing condition was far outweighted by the fact that it was in a secluded location, was near the forest where animals lived and above all, was out of the reach of the city’s lights.
By the way, to Sir Godard’s credit, he was by no means a misanthrope. On the contrary, he had a human-loving and gentlemanly personality.
The reason he was forced to live in such an eccentric place was not a matter of a taste or preference; but rather a simple matter of his racial characteristic.
“Raul, the hunt is over. We’re going home.”
Half past midnight. In the woods south of the castle, Sir Jean Duche Godard called out to his son. The boy in a sweater, who was observing something at the base of the tree stood up and walked towards him with his hands in his pockets. He was Sir Godard’s second son, Raul.
“What were you looking at?”
“Collybia Butyracea.”
“Collybia? Not a weed I know of.”
“It’s a mushroom. More importantly, you couldn’t kill it with a gun, after all?”
Raul looked between the freshly lowered hunting rifle his father had on his shoulder and the dead red deer lying on the ground beside him.
“I couldn’t hit it when I shot it so I had no choice. Using bare hands is faster.”
“Then you shouldn’t have brought it in the first place.”
“The mayor went out of his way to send it to me, I had to try it at least once.”
Sir Godard put his hand on the belly of the buck whose neck had had been broken. He easily lifted the weight of the corpse of the beast that weighted over 200 kilos despite not looking so strong at a first glance. The two of them started walking towards the exit of the forest.
“Besides, using tools like guns and cameras makes for a nice promotion. It shows that we are keeping up the mankind.”
“Is that even necessary?”
“It is. Public image is important.”
“But I don’t think the other side really gets it.”
Turning his eyes towards the city, Raul’s round, and boyish face puffed out even further.
“Hunter attacked just the other day.”
“Oh, that was…”
Sir Godard mumbled. [3]
It was a small incident from 4 days ago. The target was Sir himself. He was walking through the western forest like today when the enemy suddenly jumped out from behind a tree. He was astonished beyond words to see old, antiquated ‘exterminator’ with bloodshot eyes and a silver stake and a mallet in his hands. Although he was able to kill the hunter without any difficulty, he had to go through a somewhat troublesome procedure to prove that it was self-defense in court.
“It’s true that things are not going too well right now… but that’s exactly why the public image is important.”
Sir Godard repeated, as if to remind himself.
The tides had turned 2 months ago, ever since the infamous ‘Count’ was defeated in Transylvania. After the news spread, the extermination boom had been rekindled across Europe. Endless rumors started spreading about his kind getting into trouble with humans, and even Sir Godard and his family, who were not in a position to be targeted, were forced to feel ashamed.
They left the forest and headed to the old castle where their family awaited. Whistling wind blew through the grass and Raul trembled strongly.
“It’s cold.”
“Even though you’re wearing a sweater?”
“I’m still cold.”
“We don’t feel cold as much as humans.”
“No human would be walking through the forest on a cold night like this.”
“You’re a strange one.”
“I’m still better off than you and mother.”
The father smiled wryly at his 15-year-old son, who seemed to have a rebuttal for everything he said.
His son, who usually spent his time reading in his room, much like his mother, and was only occupied with observing plants in the forest just when he finally went outside was certainly unusual among his race. Compared to the eldest son Claude, both his abilities and physique were inferior and his personality was also too passive. But Sir Godard felt that those qualities would actually make it easier for him to adapt to the upcoming future.
The days when they dominated the world as monsters was coming to an end.
The days of acting like nobles and fighting as factions among their own kind were long ago. Gone were the days of attacking humans in search of lifeblood. A little over a hundred years after the Industrial Revolution, mankind had expanded its civilization and territory, and was now completely eliminating the monsters that lived all over Europe. Centaurs, sirens, griffins and other species that were already rare, had become extinct in the last two centuries, reduced to existing only in one’s imagination, just like magic and ghosts. Their own kind were still rampaging here and there, but Sir Godard believed that their activity range would soon be reduced.
In the next century, everyone would need to get along with humanity. Whether they wanted it or not.
On his return to the castle, Sir Godard laid the deer carcass in the entrance hall. The large hall was lit only by a single candle, but it was enough light for them, since they were sensitive to sunlight.
“Let’s bring it to Giselle quickly.”
“Wait for me, I’ll put this away in the storage.”
Sir Godard slung his hunting rifle back over his shoulder and headed towards the door in the corner of the hall. Raul, with his hands still in his pockets, sat on the deer, still looking cold.
“That reminds me, can you stop leaving silver in the storage?”
“Silver?”
“The weapon you took from the guy who attacked you four days ago. Why would you leave it at home even though it’s dangerous? Is that also to boost your image?”
“No. Isn’t it much safer to take care of it myself instead of leaving it alone and letting it fall into the hands of other hunters? I’m planning to give it to Floren next week. You should know him, it’s that steel merchant. I can trust him.”
“But the thought of it being at home makes me nervous.”
“You’re too sensitive. There’s even a lock on the door so Charlotte doesn’t play with it…”
But as soon as he turned from his son to the storage, Sir Godard’s words were cut short. Instead, his eyes had widened in surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
“The lock…”
The lock had been broken.
The small storage set up in the corner of the entrance hall also served as an Armory, to be precise. In addition to storing the servants’ garden tools and maintenance equipment for the castle, it was also used to store at dangerous items that were brought into the castle.
That being said, for the Godard family with a high regeneration abilities, what constituted as dangerous were not guns or knives, but items made of silver, which was their weakness. It was very rare for those to be brought into the house, and even if they were nearby, there were no problems as long as they didn’t touch it, but with the safety of his youngest daughter in mind, he had the door padlocked, so that no one could open it except the butler and himself.
One side of the latch had been torn off, as if it had been twisted forcibly. The lock was just hanging on the door, as if it were unlocked. Just thirty minutes ago, when he had taken the hunting rifle out, he had locked the door properly and hadn’t noticed any changes.
“What…?”
Muttering to no one in particular, Sir Godard pushed open the storage door. It is the same dusty little room as usual. A broom propped against the wall, old paint cans and a bundle of shovels. On the farthest shelf, there should have been a sterling silver stake recovered from the attacker four days ago, along with everyday items such as a hammer and a first aid kit.
But before he could search visually, his sense of smell, which was several times stronger than a human being’s, picked up the smell of iron, which was clearly different from the tools in the storage. When he looked down at the floor, he noticed an oddity on a different level that made him forget the broken lock.
Lying on the wooden floor was a silver stake that should have been on a shelf in the back. It was about 20 centimeters long. Its diameter was just under ten centimeters. It was quite thick and large, but the cold, harsh glow it was supposed to emit was mostly obscured by something else.
From the tip to the middle, the stake was caked with fresh blood.
Sir Godard threw his gun roughly and crouched on the floor. Around the border between the blood and silver, he could clearly see the fingerprints left by somebody touching it with their bare hands down to their joints. He unconsciously reached out to trace it, and felt a burning heat just before he reached it, so he pulling back in a hurry. Blood on the surface of the silver simmered like a soup that had been overcooked. This would not happen if it was blood from a human or other animal.
── This blood belongs to our kind.
“Raul!”
Sir Godard shouted as he returned back to the center of the hall.
“Stay behind me, don’t wander off!”
“W-why?”
“Just listen to me and stay close! Claude! Charlotte! … Hannah!”
He ran down the stairs to the semi-basement living area. The baritone voice of the castle lord calling the names of his eldest son, youngest daughter and wife echoed through the cold stone hallway.
Something had happened. While he was out in the forest, someone broke into the castle, broke the lock of the storage, and took out the silver stake…
When he turned down the hallway that led to the basement, a short-haired young man popped out from the room in front of him and almost bumped into him. It was his eldest son Claude.
“What’s wrong, father?”
At the same time, an elderly butler named Alfred appeared from the back of the hallway, holding a lantern.
“Is anything wrong, master?”
“Claude, are you okay?”
“Okay? You can tell by looking at me that I’m okay… what happened?”
Sir Godard turned to the butler,
“Alfred, it seems there was an intruder in the castle. Did you notice anything unusual?”
“Intruder…? No, I have not seen anything. I’ve been in the office the whole time.”
“Where’s Charlotte?”
“Young miss? I am afraid, I have no knowledge of her whereabouts…”
“She’s in the laundry room with Giselle. They’ve been making a lot of noise for a while now.”
Claude said. As he listened carefully, he could definitely hear the voices of his young daughter and her maid from the ground floor. Sir Godard continued down the hall and hurried to his private quarters. All three of his children appeared to be okay. In that case, he didn’t want to even imagine it, but—
He arrived in front of the door. The first thing that reacted here was also his sense of smell. The same iron smell as the storage and a stench of something burning.
“Father.”
His family and the servants had finally noticed that something was amiss. Raul, who was following behind him as told, let out a frightened voice.
“Wait here.”
Sir Godard carefully opened the door, trying to not make any noise. The room was brightly lit by candles. A sofa, a bookshelf, a half-finished chest and a toolbox. There was an armchair in front of the door, with its back facing him and a familiar long blonde hair was peeking out from the back of the chair.
The smell of blood became much stronger.
“… Hannah?”
He thought that she must have fallen asleep while reading, as usual. If he called for him, her hair would move and she would greet him with a gentle, beautiful smile. She would tell him about the poetry anthology she was reading and the furniture she was repairing. Then, she would once again immerse herself in her work and the sound of the mallet would echo throughout the castle. Wishing for such an everyday scenery, Sir Godard called out to her.
There was no reply.
As he took a step into the room, something hard hit the tip of his shoe. When he turned his attention from the armchair to the rug, he saw a glass bottle with a cork lid rolling around. It had a flat shape similar to the skittle used to hold alcohol. A bloody hooded coat was crumpled up a few steps ahead.
‘Father’, the voice called again. Was it Claude this time? He no longer had enough composure to reply.
Maintaining full vigilance, Sir Godard moved around to the front of the armchair — and as soon as he caught a glimpse of his wife, he finally let out an animalistic scream.
His wife, Hannah Godard, lay dead in an armchair.
In the middle of her blood-soaked chest, an unsightly deep gash left by the stake, along with the burnt skin could be seen clearly.
—–
[1] After much googling, I could only find translation of this poem, done by Keith Waldrop and published on duration press. I don’t speak French, so I can’t tell you how accurate it is or what it actually means though.
[2] Again, I don’t speak French so I can’t vouch for how grammatically correct this name is. If any French-speaking person wants to chime in, please be my guest.
[3] The actual implication here is that he said something vaguely because he didn’t want to get into details
As mentioned on the post on my main blog, this is only part 1 of chapter 1. All following parts will be updated separately on NU, but on the actual site I’ll be updating this post itself.
Undead Farce 