Wolfweir (2 page)

Rudolphe
, still gazing ecstatically into the
moonbrilliant
sky, bumps into this tall figure with a lurch and jumps back uttering a profuse and sincere apology.

But the sneering dandy lets go his grinning lady companion's arm and swats
Rudolphe
with his glove, knocking the Professor's top hat onto the grass.
Rudolphe
goes pale, almost as pale as the leering gentleman who swatted him.

"Watch your step, scoundrel!
Drunkard!"

Alphonse, shocked and indignant, is already opening the sword case for his saber, but
Rudolphe
lays a calming hand on his arm and the boy relents, instead bending to pick up his father's hat.

Rudolphe
, turning to the still-screeching dandy with the top hat in his hands, merely says: "I perceive that you are upset. It was neither my fault nor my intention to startle you and your wife so grievously. Please accept my renewed and deeply sincere apology."

"Fool! Blackguard!" screams the woman, who is as pale and tall and regally attired as the man.

"I am heartily sorry that you think so," says
Rudolphe
Didier-Stein.

The tall gentleman now raises his walking stick as if to strike
Rudolphe
. Alphonse can bear no more of this mad scene. Rushing forward, he snatches away the descending stick and hurls it into a nearby clipped hedge. Whirling to face his father's assailant, he opens his case and takes hold of the Russian saber.

"You will pay, wretched pup!" shrieks the woman.

Rudolphe
now steps between his infuriated son and the raving couple.

"Calm, calm now," he says. "This shouting is bad for the nerves. You will cut your lives short this way."

"No, Monsieur drunken wretch, it is YOUR life which shall suffer a bloody and premature conclusion -- cut short tomorrow at dawn when you cross swords with me in that glade near where we presently stand. I am Lord Edward
Blackgore
of Scotland, and this lady you have wronged with your clochard-like tomfoolery is my gracious and brilliant wife, Lady
Edwarda
. We shall both be here to enjoy your demise promptly at 5 AM. Settle your affairs tonight, for you die choking on your own ignoble blood at sunrise."

Rudolphe
, taken by
suprise
at the gentleman's raw vehemence, steps back.

"But dear sir, I beg you
-- "

"Ha! So you are also a beggar," sneers Lord
Blackgore
.

"And a coward to boot," the lady chimes in with a spiteful snort.

Alphonse, shuddering with rage, cries:

"You will be sorry, malign wretch. My father was a champion fencer at University
-- "

"Silence!" thunders
Rudolphe
. This is not a suggestion. Alphonse shuts his mouth.
Mireille
steps close and pulls
him to her body, tight.

Coldly,
Rudolphe
says to the tall figure looming in the Paris dusk:

"You shall have your duel, Monsieur.
At dawn.
I now bid you goodnight."

"I wish you sweet dreams on the last night of your mortal life," sneers the woman.

But
Rudolphe
makes no reply. He has already turned on his heel and, taking Alphonse and
Mireille
by the arms with stony grip, leads them swiftly off.
Homeward.

**

As they walk,
Rudolphe
takes out his handkerchief and gives it to his wife. She dabs her eyes with it, then crumples it in her fist, but says nothing.

They are now crossing a bridge over the Seine.

"Papa," says Alphonse into the clear, ringing silence.

"What, my boy?"

"Are you going to keep that appointment tomorrow?"

"Yes, Alphonse. I must go. I gave Lord
Blackgore
my sacred word as a gentleman."

"He's a disgusting wretch.
Probably a madman.
You heard him ranting.
Mother?"

Mireille
doesn't speak.
Rudolphe
merely touches his son's head, tenderly.

"No more talk, good and noble Alphonse. Done is done. Let us enjoy ourselves for the rest of this peaceful evening."

The Attack

Night.
The lamp burns in
Rudolphe's
study. There is a strong smell of pipe tobacco, and sometimes the soft sound of pages of a book turning.

Mireille
has kissed her husband and gone to the bedroom, shutting the door.

From his own bedroom, where he sits awake in the darkness, Alphonse can hear his mother's stifled sobs.

**

He falls asleep with his head on the desk where he does school work, though he has promised himself not to sleep. He has vowed that he will accompany his father to the Bois.

He wakes groggily in the cold blue tinged light.
Almost morning.
His muscles are tight. His teeth are chattering.

Why is the apartment so cold? His breath actually fogs when he yawns.

**

Walking barefoot, he makes his way down the hall to his father's study.

The lamp is still on. He can see it blazing underneath the door.

He knocks.

"Papa."

Silence.

Again: "Papa!"

Nothing.

He puts his eye to the keyhole and sees:

Rudolphe's
polished shoes sticking out from behind the big mahogany desk.

He opens the door as if entranced. Walks forward across the thick carpet.

His father is stretched out on his back. His eyes are open.

Dead?

Dropping to his knees, Alphonse puts his ear to
Rudolphe's
heart. A faint beat. He can barely hear it over the ticking of the grandfather clock.

"Papa!"
Alphonse shakes his father gently.
"Papa!"

Tick
toc
tick
toc
.

Then he sees them: the two small drops of drying blood on his father's neck.

Bite marks, such as a bat might make.

**

"
Maman
!
Maman
!"

Bursting into his parents' bedroom at a full run, he sees his mother sprawled across the big bed in her nightdress.

He shakes her by the shoulders. No movement.

He holds two fingers below her nostrils. Yes. She is still breathing. But, like his father, deeply unconscious.

He looks on her throat, below the left ear.

Bite-marks,
and drops of drying blood.

**

At sunrise, a horse-drawn ambulance takes away
Rudolphe
and
Mireille
.
Clip-clop
clip-clop
.
The ambulance is bound for St. George's Hospital.

Meantime Alphonse stands with two detectives on the street, wiping away tears on the sleeves of his jacket.

Inside the apartment, he sits on a stool with his head lowered as they question him. He answers their queries in a dull monotone.

He tells the two sympathetic men all about the pale, elegantly dressed couple in the Bois, He gives their names: Lord and Lady
Blackgore
. One of the detectives scribbles it all down in a notebook. Then he claps the notebook shut.

"We'll go to the Bois de
Bologne
. If we don't find them there, we'll cover the hotels. Don't worry, boy. Go to the hospital when you're ready and wait to hear from us."

Patting his shoulders, they go.

He listens to their footsteps clicking down the stairs.

Going softly into the hall, he picks up his sword cane, the one with the initials A.D.S. engraved on the silver knob, from the umbrella stand by the door.

Whipping the blade free of the cane, he studies the cutting edge before sliding it back in.

**

Afternoon.
Nurses bustle in the white hospital corridor. Alphonse stands between two hospital beds, holding the sword cane.
Rudolphe
is in one,
Mireille
in the other. They are both breathing, yet still unconscious.

**

He returns home in the late afternoon, a few hours before sunset, and enters his father's study. The lamp is still burning. He doesn't turn it off.

He opens a drawer with a small key and takes out his father's private diary.

It is a
leatherbound
book, quite heavy. He flips through the pages until he finds the latest entry for
an
new case at the
Deuville
Asylum -- its heading reads "Lucia di
Fermonti
, Wolf-Girl?"

He reads his father's notes on the little girl found wandering naked in the forests north of Paris.

He reads it over several times.

As he shuts the diary, his gaze falls on a hasty ink scrawl on a corner of his father's green desk-blotter:

VAMP -

**

He stares at the scrawl for a long time. Then, he goes to his father's shelves.

Fingering the gold-stamped bindings of the shelved medical books, he finally pulls out an old volume with the title: VAMPYRISM: FORENSICS OR FOLKLORE?
A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.

**

He sits to read it in the big red leather armchair. Concentrating fiercely, he glances up only when the last sunrays begin to fade from the study's windows.

It's twilight. His eyes are red, grim with fury.