An October night in Collinsport in the year 2012. Shadows of the night . . . falling silently . . . echos of the past . . . haunting memory . . . veiled in misty glow . . . and, among them a disheveled book dealer of very questionable reputation awaits his rendezvous with Nichole Collins. He has for her the volume much sought after, [i]The Relic of the Anti-Saints; but he is unaware that another is prepared to take possession of that enigmatic volume [/i]
Opening: [www.youtube.com]
He would rather have been in New York, drinking a cold beer at Makarova’s bar, occasionally glancing at the mirror behind the glinting array of bottles, the cold sentries standing in fragile formation across from him, as he looked up through his steel-rimmed glasses at Makarova. A large, blond, in her late forties, with short cropped hair and a ring in her left ear; wearing tight trousers and a man’s while cotton shirt, bearing its wash-and-wear-untouched-by-an-iron wrinkles, with the sleeves rolled up almost to her shoulders; she stood for a moment looking at him, cigarette parked at the corner of her mouth, brazenly aware of its illegality. He was uncertain whether it was perplexity or curiosity on her face.
Makarova was hard to read.
“Collinsport. Sounds fishy to me.” Placing another frosted beer glass on the counter.
“It once was. Now it’s given over to tourists.” He said watching the reaction of the tall man entering the bar, slowly surveying the patrons before taking a seat at a table.
“They read in Maine?” She rolled her r’s, and the cigarette in the corner of her mouth moved as she spoke; her eyes squinting at the rising smoke.
“So I have been told.” He said glancing back at the woman who looked as if she should be working in a factory in Leningrad.
“It doesn’t seem like your kind of a place, Corso.”
“What is my kind of place?”
“Somewhere with a lot of sin.”
“Well see.” He said with a dry smile as he took a sip of the cold beer.
In actually it was just his kind of place, far too many opportunities here. He’d already been to Worthington Hall, the secluded boys academy that smelled of antiques, dusty shelves, cloistered air, and books. Lots of interesting books, including a near mint Julio Oilero’s Dictionary of Rare and Improbable Books, for which he was already seeking a buyer. As well as a copy of The Book Of Whispers by Isaiah Hope Turnbull, which was a 1st edition of the publication everyone suspected as a fraud. Of course, Corso knew better. As his fingers caressed the paper of the pages. His first thought was of the Swiss; but he wouldn’t pay what it was worth. Then there was the Collinsport Historical Society, several nice rarities there including the entire collection of Flora Collins to which was soon to be added the handwritten manuscript for her unpublished The Cherrywick Atrocities. He had just concluded that transaction earlier in the afternoon: David Collins carefully inspecting the pages, holding them gingerly by the fingertips.
“She would be truly amazed at just how much her books sell for today.”
“First editions, even in poor contention.” Corso watched Collins sitting across the desk, the Flora Collins manuscript placed before him. With his cigarette cocked in the corner of his mouth, although he was well aware that there was NO SMOKING in the public buildings, he watched David Collins as he became lost in the preoccupation of scanning through the tight cursive of her handwriting. Perhaps a little too preoccupied: “They are after all romance novels.” Collins said aloud, still turning the old handwritten pages.
“But, Second editions sell just as well.” Corso replied adjusting his glasses. “It’s the suppressed perverseness of her sexuality.”
Collins had looked from the pages at him as if Corso had just explained the meaning of the Grail.
The light breeze from the bay stirs now through his hair as he reaches into the pocket of his wrinkled suit jacket and removes a crumbled pack of cigarettes. He takes one from the pack, which is slightly bent, and puts it between his lips: he cups the flame of a match to light it.
He shakes the flame away and tosses the remains of the match into the darkness. He looks at his watch, 9:42.
She was late.
The transaction was supposed to have taken place the night before, but owing to the fact he was dealing with a creature of the night, schedules sometimes had to be far more accommodating than his natural inclination would have preferred. Particularly with some of this clients. But then again the trepidation he had eluded to when he had set up the transaction had been nothing more than one of his ploys so as to fulfill the wishes of his client, Count Petofi, who had procured the infamous volume that sat heavily now within the canvas messenger bag resting beside him on the bench. The Promenade was a new municipal addendum to the Collinsport Pier: a multi-level park, which at this hour late in the tourist season was all but deserted.
Seated in the shadows of a streetlamp, he smoked his cigarette in solitude. So far everything was going according to plan, although, on a timetable which for Corso was growing wearisome. He had gotten the book, Jules Allard’s, The Relics of the Anti-Saints, 1836, a first edition, published in New York by Black Sand Press with very little difficulty. Only delivering it had been more of an effort than he would have suspected. Nicole Collins had not proved to be particularly accommodating as to scheduling. He took a long draw from the cigarette and glanced up at the cement steps leading to the next level of the park— then there was of course the matter of having to deal with The Count, which was always problematic. The man was far too temperamental. So he wanted to be rid of the volume. As to the fact he was obtaining a second commission, well Petofi well knew his natural inclination for deviousness. One carefully obscured behind the face of what appeared to be nothing more than a rather timid and naïve book dealer.
Of course, he could have just wrapped the book in some brown paper and mailed it to her, he had already checked to verify the wire transfer of the agreed upon sum, but Corso’s reputation was that he always placed the volumein question in the buyer’s hand. It assured repeat business. And then of course there had been the unforeseen acquisition of the second volume, which he knew would absolutely enthrall her, having done business with Nicole Collins in the past, for which he had to admit he had been unaccountably lucky in securing just as he was preparing to depart for Collinsport. A very rare copy of Francois-Honore Balfour, The Comte d’Erlette’s infamous second volume: Cultes des Amoureux du Sang.
He knew her tastes.
And part of the deal was her extra copy of De Vermis Mysteriis, for whom he already had a buyer in Paraguay.
He flicked ashes from his cigarette, letting them rain down in darkness.
How he would love to peruse her library, let his fingers ever so lightly run along, caress the spines of her books. It must truly be quite extensive, even he did not know every volume she owned, having inherited most of it from her father. And fairly well protected: she being a vampire. Her mother, Countess Erzsébet Báthory; her father, a notorious wizard, though long missing; her birth mother, a infamously cruel and revengeful witch; and by some strange twist of fate, her grandfather was Count Andreas Petofi, only a fool or a madman would cross that formidable family of homicidal rogues.
One hand resting easily upon the canvas messenger bag, he sat smoking, alone in the deepening shadows. And for one brief moment, he held the half burned cigarette halfway to his lips as he grew silent in response to what he thought was some movement there . . . just beyond his periphery, before narrowing his eyes behind the slightly crooked steel-rimmed glasses and taking a long, final drag.
Someone was coming.
He dropped the unfiltered remains of the cigarette on the concrete before him and crushed the glowing embers into a darken death beneath the sole of his shoe. Even as he took note now of an odd curling tentacle of red mist or fog moving slowly along the upper level of the park, a mist that began to cascade down the steps in a rather mesmerizing swirl.
What is she doing here?, Agent Nine thinks as she adjusts her visor.
Dean Corso adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose and watches as the red mist eerily flows down the concrete steps, one by one, as if a foot descending them, to swirl and pool upon the landing perhaps fifteen feet away from where he sat.
The misty red swirl increases; its density gathers, and as it does so it seems to have begun to take on some opaque solidity. And had he turned away, had he taken his eyes from the gathering crimson mist, he would have missed the transformation of the blood red fog into woman – into Erzsébet Báthory.
From her well placed concealment Agent Nine thinks bloody hell, slipping back even tighter into the shadow of the pillar as she sets her visor to record. She had so far gone undetected, as she had followed Dean Corso from the Collinsport Inn. It seemed that for whatever her reasons Kaye wanted whatever it was Corso was preparing to sell to Nicole Collins.
But what the bloody hell was Báthory doing here? Nine had thought her out of the country.
One languid step before the other, the Countess ever so slowly approaches Corso “ who seems even more innocent sitting there than he could ever be. Only, no, it’s more like the lithesome stalk of a panther, he thinks. This is only the second time he’s ever seen one of the Undead materialize from an insubstantial mist, and even though he has seen it before, it is still startling, all the more so since he is well aware that it is merely an illusion, a trick, a very subtle mesmerism, wherein she’s projected the mental suggestion of a creeping fog and its slow transformation. In reality she was merely descending the stairs.
“Countess.”
“Mr. Corso,” her voice, it’s like seduction.
“I was anticipating Nicole.”
“I am sure you were,” She steps ever closer, “I am sorry, but I sent her a text extolling your regrets.”
“I’m sure she’ll regret having been betrayed.”
“That is between my daughter and me,” Her eyes pools of liquid intensity, “I understand you have something for her.”
“Yes, well, that is between your daughter . . . and myself.”
“Really?” She asks, her lips curling into a wicked smile revealing the sharp tips of her fangs. The shadows that across her face make her seem even more sinister – almost something inhuman, alien.
He is aware of a slight silver sheen, a lingering mist dancing in the light of the streetlamp.
Trickery.
He places his hand atop the canvas bag, “I am quite aware of your sleight-of-hand, madam.”
“A brave man Mr. Corso, but then again, they say you have been to hell and back.”
“I am rather well traveled.”
“I want the book Mr. Corso.”
“Yes, well, that deal is with your daughter.”
“I am making a new deal.” She told him with a wave of her hand, which seemed to effortlessly glide in the air. “You are not averse to making a profit “ now are you Mr. Corso. I mean, after all haven’t you’ve already been paid to purloin the book . . . and then, to deliver it to Nicole.”
So she was aware of the subterfuge.
“I already have a client.”
“What’s your price, Mr. Corso.” The Countess said, her eyes shifting shades of hue.
Book? Agent Nine ponders. What book and who would have paid Dean Corso to steal it and deliver it to the Collins leech? And what does Báthory want with it? She’s an Extraordinary Member of the Club for Christ’s sake – has this been cleared through Vanessa Coats? Or, is it yet some other chicanery on Kaye’s part? Whom is Báthory really working for?
Corso, who all this time had been affecting his most endearing look, the one which suggested be was but an innocent young man, of whom one would have suspected of not always having the best interests of his mother at heart but also one who looked to her for advise in every matter, reaches into his jacket pocket to slip a bent unfiltered cigarette from the pack within. Only as his fingers tips touched the single remaining cigarette, he decided against removing it and looked at the Countess as he considered her proposition. He smiles. His face revealing now the smile for which those who truly knew him long suspected he had never had a mother, “Being as it’s all in the family, let’s say we double it.”
“Let’s say.” Her brow rises.
He reaches into his inner jacket pocket to remove a piece of paper . . .
“Oh, that’s not necessary, you’ve just given me the number.”
He nods, “There are only a few of you with that power. Nicole is she one?”
“Is she?” Her voice like a siren’s song, “A mother never gives away a daughter’s secrets.”
“So, we meet here tomorrow night, after the money transfers.”
“No, I’ll take delivery of the book now.”
“No, that is not how I do business.”
“It’s how I do business.” The seductiveness of her voice giving away to a hint of menace.
It is certainly not the way he would transact the deal, but he was well aware of what the Countess was capable of and so, he slips his hand into the messenger bag.
“Pardon,” Agent Nine suddenly steps out from the shadow.
Báthory quickly turns, her eyes narrowing.
Corso’s hand inside the bag freezes.
“Agent 9, MI6.” She steps forward out of the shadows, “I do believe that would be a most unwise decision on your part Mr. Corso.”
He looks at her, “And your concern in this matter?”
“Surprisingly, some people are interested in denying . . . shall we say, certain unsatisfactory factions, what they desire.” She turns to him, “Mr. Corso, the British government is prepared to make you an offer . . .”
“Fractions, my dear you have no idea just how many there are at the moment.” Erzsébet Báthory remarks with a wicked irony.
Corso, no longer assuming any of his professional facades, once again slips his hand into the pocket of his wrinkled suit jacket and removes the last lingering cigarette from the crushed pack within. Bent, he places it between his lips and slowly slides open the small box of matches, removes one; and strikes the blue tip; the flame for a moment all but Satanizing his face, “An offer? How large an offer?”
“Name. Your. Price.”
Báthory eyes grow dark, the blue nearly fading to black, as she stares at the Agent: “I best advise you, in this matter, it would be wise for you to step away.”
“Well the Countess was prepared to double Miss Collins’ offer.” He drops the match, the flame flickering out as it falls.
“And I’m prepared to offer anything you desire. Monetary or otherwise.”
Erzsébet Báthory’s hand lifts languidly once more and her fingers curl in as if to pull Corso to her will, “You sir, would be also well advised to take my offer, while I still remain generous.”
There is the sound of the slight cough of a silencer; and a sudden snap resounds as a small spark hits the ground.
The silver bullet ricochets into the darkness.
Erzsébet Báthory’s eyes narrow and she sneers at the Agent with an audible hiss, her fangs exposed.
“No hypnotism Miss Báthory.”
Corso raises an eyebrow—did she just fire a silver bullet at Erzsébet Báthory?
Things could go badly really quickly now!
As a mere dealer of rare books he should have been more far than anxious, but Dean Corso wasn’t just a dealer in rare books, he was also a literary mercenary, and his mercenary instincts were awakened.
The agent was pushing too hard, especially against someone like Erzsébet Báthory. And very few people survived awkward dealings with people like the Countess, it wasn’t until his encounter with Irene, his fallen angel, during his very bizarre commission, a few years ago, to ascertain the authenticity of an edition of the Book of the Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadow that he discovered the truth about the much darker world and those that inhabited it . . .
Fingers pressed tight against his lips he removed the bent cigarette and exhaled a long plume of silvery smoke that curled against the breeze to swirl in the glow of the streetlamp. Báthory was very close to making some move that only a creature such as she could make, and the question for him was to whom would it be directed. The agent or himself – but before he could finish the thought the Countess had made her move: a blur in an instant that had her finger wrapped around his throat as he dropped what remained of his last cigarette.
“His neck is but a twig.”
Agent Nine held her weapon steady, “His neck is of little concern to me, Countess.” She told he, her voice as steady as her gun. “One squeeze of this trigger sends an anodized silver round filled with a light emitting UV compound.”
Erzsébet Báthory turned to look at her, “You think you are quick enough.”
“One way to find out.”
The Countess smiled at Corso.
He saw the sharp points of her fangs.
“Fascinating.” She replied.
And in an instant her hand dipped into the bag, grasped the Relics of the Anti-Saints, and whirled Corso around to put him between her and the agent, as she was suddenly no longer there.
No mists.
No tricks or illusions.
Merely the preternatural speed of a vampire.
“DAMN IT!” Agent Nine shouted as Corso stumbled backwards, rubbing his throat, coughing.
“Shit!” he spat out turning to look at the agent, “You . . . you owe me . . . fifty thousand dollars.”
Agent Nine arches a brow, “Technically Báthory does, we never settled on the deal.”
He continues to cough as he catches his breath and whirls around looking now at the ground.
Agent Nine watches uncertain if he’s still disoriented from the vise like grip of the Countess.
He spots what he is looking for and steps over to pick up his cigarette, “I knew when she showed up I was going to get screwed on this deal.”
Agent Nine sighs pinching her nasal bridge, and then exhales a long breath, “Come with me, and we will get the financial business sorted.”
He looks at her, “What — what are you doing out here anyway, Agent Nine of MI6.”
“I was ordered to ensure the book got into Nicole’s hands, or to obtain it if something like this were to happen.”
“Well now neither of us has the book!” He takes out his phone and starts checking messages. He still has business in Paraguay.
“What’s in that bloody damned book?”
He taps in a number on his phone, “A recipe for disaster, I would think.”
Cue Music End of Episode