Breach of Contract

They wheeled the legend in. The old man was motionless say for his head swiveling: the movement, caused by the dying momentum of his entrance, slowed to naught. I can smell the oldness from him, it entered the room the moment he came. Bowed by age, the picture of a dead and shriveled tree about to fall, he was adorned in a suit meatier than himself, as though the shirt and coat were the real and he some wirework inside, only visible at the end of the sleeves and the collar, holding it all up. They brought in the girl.

She struggled between two men, her bright flowing dress like fire. The shoes had come off, and her naked feet kicked at her captors as she was hoisted through the room and set before the chair-bound sinner. I sigh at this tiresome ritual, but our benefactor is before all else a showman.

The guards force the so far unnamed woman to her knees. His permanent orders that she not be drugged, that they’d present to him a lively specimen, were however mediated—past experience adding an unwritten rule—by a simple rag stuffed down her throat. This helped us all to hear whatever drivel of a toast was about to be made.

“They grow younger every year,” he comments in more of a growl than a voice. “I remember, she is the image of, yes . . . ” a long pause permeates the company. The younger members, eager for the toast to be given, anxiously bounce on their toes. His eyes trail off her and onto me, a bit of dribble hanging from his chin. “I know you,” he manages a sound like a laugh, “no care for this. Surgical mind. It’s good I have you, but tradition,” here he reaches his hand for the girl. She tries to move away, but with each shoulder endowed with a massive hand pressing her forward, the contact is made.

“Such warmth, life. Here is the secret to life.” He looks into her eyes, his worn expressionless face staring at her. “You remind me of someone. I can’t recall.” Letting her go, he sits back and asks, “Who is she?”

A guard mumbles, “Sarah Belington.” He goes on about her age and address, quieted by a subtle shaking of the old man’s head.

I chime in, “Multiple counts, sir. More recently, she got into debt. We offered to pay it off.”

“For what?” he asks.

“That she aid us in the acquisition of young women for purposes laid out in detail.”

“And how many?”

“Seventeen of her acquaintances were as she is now, three close friends, and of late her very own sister.”

“Ah yes, now I remember. A delightful young thing. A remarkable resemblance. The youngest child we ever had here at the chateau.”

“However, she is far from presenting us with the thirty due tonight,” I finish.

I think of bringing Sarah here three months ago, showing her in vivid detail what she was dooming her victims to, and the fate she was about to receive. She scoffed then, turning her nose up at the weeping girl.

“Do you think I’m a child?” she had asked, “Do you think I don’t understand what I am doing?”

Leaning down, the old man bites into her neck, and through the gag she lets out a muffled scream. Satisfied with this first taste, this show of authority, he sits back to be wheeled away, the younger vampires quickly encircling their prey in his absence. I lose sight of her in the shark like throng. One of the more sporting gentlemen relieves her of the gag, and I listen to the oft heard pleas for mercy as I follow after my master.