The Alchemist #2
Now it came to me. Jack was still a boy when he’d started at the mine, and one time a German man he worked with told him a story like this.
Jack told it to me, and it scared me so badly I had nightmares.
The next Sunday I even refused to enter the churchyard because of the graves.
Father Kelly, the parish priest, came to see what was the matter.
Though I’d all but forgotten about vampires until now, I remembered him saying, “I don’t claim to know everything, Mina, and there are some very strange things in this world, but I can assure you that the souls in this churchyard sleep peacefully. ”
Mr. Tregarrick had watched me working through these thoughts, and now I gave him a hard stare. “What are you saying, sir?”
“It’s what I am,” he said simply. “A vampire.”
My blood froze, and my heart stilled. “Are you telling me that you’re dead?” How ashen he was. And how cold. No. It’s not possible.
“I have never died,” he said, and I thought it a strange way to answer the question. “But I do crave the blood of the living. My ancestors have always drunk it to survive. As I said, it is a family affliction.”
Can he be mad? Though I was shaking, I took a step toward him. I could see the vein in his neck pulsing. How slow it is.
“It’s only another old story,” I said, voice unsteady. “Like the Wolf of Roche Rock.”
“Most old stories have some basis in truth.”
I remembered my dream. Blood dribbles down his chin.
His arms had gone rigid at his sides, hands clenched. “Come closer.”
My heart bounced, and I swallowed dryly. This can’t be. I took two more steps, until my head had to tilt back to meet his gaze.
I smelled herbs and brandy. His lips parted slightly, and my breaths grew short and quick. Then I saw them. The very white, very sharp points of two teeth resting against his full bottom lip.
I staggered backward with a gasp. Head half turning toward the stairs, I tried to think how many seconds it would take me to reach the front door.
Too many.
“Mr. Roscoe,” I choked out.
His gaze felt heavy. So heavy I wondered whether I would be able to move again if I tried.
“That wasn’t me,” he said. “But I believe it was another vampire. The same as attacked you on the heath.”
I remembered his words from earlier. What I’m saying is I easily could have.
“The rumors are true, then?” Fear lifted the pitch of my voice. “You are a killer.” And Jack tried to warn me.
His eyes drifted to the window. “You’re not wrong, but it’s a little more complicated than that.”
“How is it more complicated?”
My tone—half anger, half terror—drew his gaze. I was shaking—hard. The cold air in the tower bit into me, and I wrapped my arms around my chest.
He clasped his hands behind his back. “Your instinct, once you believed me, was the correct one. Flee, Miss Penrose. You’ve heard enough to understand why you must stay away from me.”
Free to go. One message of warning delivered and another received. Yet I hesitated, studying him. Hermit. Alchemist. Vampire. He didn’t look dangerous anymore; he just looked tired. And deeply sad.
He’s more lonely than I am.
“You chose to tell me this,” I said finally, “and to make me believe it. A man has died, and I’m not going to leave here with half an understanding.”
He closed his eyes, letting out a breath.
My gaze moved again to the gourd-shaped copper vessel near the hearth. Steam and droplets collected in the vessel’s glass cover, and I heard a trickle of liquid traveling through a thin pipe into a second vessel.
“The medicine you make here,” I said, “does it somehow keep you from . . . ?”
His brows lifted. “That is excellent detective work, Miss Penrose.” While I wasn’t sure I knew what “detective work” was, I understood him to mean that I’d guessed right, and I breathed somewhat easier.
He continued, “My vital essence is a replacement for the blood that I otherwise must drink to survive.”
“It doesn’t have blood in it?”
“No. I can explain if you like. It’s rather technical.”
“Please.”
He folded his arms, brow knitting as he gathered his thoughts.
“The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote about the four elements that make up all matter—fire, air, water, and earth. These elements manifest the qualities of hot and dry, hot and wet, cold and wet, and cold and dry. In the human body, ideally these elements are in balance, but in reality, they often are not. Such imbalances are at the root of illness. Do you follow me?”
Though only just barely, I nodded.
“A vampire is an excess of earth—cold and dry. Blood is hot and wet, and drinking it helps make up for this imbalance. My vital essence is formulated to do this without blood. It is a distillate of Walachian wine. Early alchemists dubbed distilled wine ‘aqua vitae,’ but essentially it’s brandy.
Between distillations, I infuse the wine with fenugreek, Angelica sinensis, elderflower, foxglove, and the dark berries of Atropa belladonna—nightshade.
Also dew of lady’s mantle, which purifies and potentiates the elixir. ”
I followed his gaze to the shelves, where there were rows of bottles.
The wine bottles with the labels I couldn’t read, but also bottles with amber glass containing dark liquid, or clear glass filled with clear fluid and herbs.
Other shelves held jars of dried leaves and flowers, and a few jars contained shiny, dark berries. Isn’t belladonna a poison?
“I’ve included herbs with warming and moistening qualities,” he continued, “and Angelica sinensis is also a blood tonic, as is elder. Foxglove helps my heart cope with the sluggishness of my blood, and the nightshade berry somewhat dulls my heightened senses. It also gives the essence an unusual side effect”—he raised the tips of his fingers to his bottom lip—“but the medicine is not as effective without it.”
“The bruised color,” I said. “And your eyes—is that why you sometimes wear dark spectacles? So people don’t notice the color?”
“Partly. But mostly because nightshade causes mydriasis.” I frowned, and he explained, “My pupils are always dilated, and daylight hurts my eyes.”
He crossed to the furnace and fed it some small pieces of wood, rousing the flames inside. I didn’t have his learning, and I didn’t fully understand some of the things he’d told me, but one thing seemed clear enough.
“It sounds to me like you are no longer a danger to anyone, Mr. Tregarrick.”
He turned, and his glower stopped my breath. “Let me be clearer, Miss Penrose. The vital essence gives me a fighting chance against a deadly craving. That is all.”
A deadly craving.
“It’s not the same, you mean,” I said quietly.
“Not even close.”
My gaze moved again around the room. “That’s why you hide away here.” I remembered the day he brought me to the chapel. How it must have tested him! To have carried me, bloodied, from the heath, and then . . .
“When I cut myself with the knife—the blood bothered you, but not for the reason I thought.”
“No indeed.”
“And now?” I asked uneasily, brow furrowing. “Is it uncomfortable for you that I’m here?”
His dark lips curved down. “If not for my essence, you would already be dead.”
A hard shudder ran through me. My heart knocked against my ribs.
He took a few slow steps toward me. “Are you afraid of me now?”