Unknown forces attempt to stop Judge Dee and Jonathan from transporting a mysterious and possibly dangerous prisoner, who holds a secret about the Judge, to an executioner in France…
1.
The horses were skeletal and plumes of steam came in great huffs from their noses as they galloped through the night. Judge Dee and Jonathan sat in the coach on either side of the prisoner. The prisoner never spoke and neither did the judge. The driver whipped the horses, faster, faster. Jonathan stared out of the porthole at the moon. He wondered if the moon really was made of cheese.
It was a nice thought. The only nice thought he’d had in a while.
Out there, in the dark, were forests and, and…things. Jonathan could feel hidden eyes watching them out of the trees. He could hear leathery wings as shapes as dark as the forests flitted beyond sight, tracking their every move. It was only a matter of time before they would be attacked. Again.
They had been travelling through Germany, under the Alps, having recently concluded the Werdenfels case in what Judge Dee had termed a satisfactory manner. It was cold, but the land was abundant and the food rich and heavy, which Jonathan appreciated, and there were always sausages. For a time all was well, but that had changed when they came to the city of Basel.
‘Romans,’ Judge Dee had said, sniffing the air.
‘Master?’
‘This is an old place,’ the judge said. ‘There were Romans here before.’
All Jonathan could smell were sausages. His mouth watered. It was night, because it was always night when you travelled in the company of a vampire. Jonathan rarely got to see daylight. But Basel was awake and the city’s narrow alleyways were crowded with vendors and revellers. Jonathan could hear the bells from the cathedral chime the midnight hour, could hear gulls cry over the Rhine. For a moment a sort of peace took hold of him. Basel seemed a nice place to visit.
And for a few moments it was so. He followed the judge, munching happily on sausage, as they wandered the streets seemingly at random, stopping at a milliner here, a barber-surgeon there, an apothecary, then at the rat catcher’s. Gradually the lights grew dim, the fires that burned had an eldritch glow to them, the streets were narrower and gloomier and Jonathan realised the judge had been searching for something all along.
They came into a stone carver’s shop. You could tell by all the unfinished headstones. A man stood behind the counter, his hands pale with marble dust.
No, Jonathan realised when the man reached for and lit a rancid, spattering candle. His red eyes glowed then, and his fangs showed in what passed for a smile. The man’s ghostly white skin was not the result of his trade but of what he was: a vampire.
‘Master Dee,’ he said. His hands, Jonathan noted, vanished out of sight under the counter.
‘Johannes,’ the judge said mildly.
‘It’s been awhile,’ the man – Johannes – said.
‘Transylvania, I believe it was,’ Judge Dee said. ‘Two hundred years ago. No, I wouldn’t reach for that if I were you. Put your hands on the counter, Johannes. And do it slowly.’
The man obeyed, his hands moving away from the silver-tipped knife he had been reaching for. He stared at Judge Dee.
‘How did you find me?’ he said.
‘It wasn’t hard,’ the judge said.
‘So, what?’ Johannes said. ‘You’ve come to finish the job? Then be done with it!’
The judge bared his teeth. Jonathan gulped the last of his sausage. He wasn’t at all sure what was going on. But then, he never was.
‘It isn’t you I’m interested in, Johannes,’ the judge said. ‘If it were, I would have indeed concluded our business back in the forest above Brasov. No. Some men are easy to find. Others prove more challenging.’
Johannes, if it were possible, turned even paler.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No, do not ask that of me.’
‘I do not ask,’ the judge said.
‘He would kill me,’ Johannes said.
‘So would I,’ the judge pointed out.
‘Yes,’ Johannes said. ‘But you would do it clean.’
The two vampires stared at each other. Jonathan stared at the unfinished headstones. They crowded the small, dank space. The flame of the solitary candle spattered.
Somewhere beyond the walls, the cathedral bells struck one.
The two vampires moved in a flash. They were a blur – then it was over. Jonathan did not even have time to hide under a table.
‘Give me a name,’ the judge said. He knelt over Johannes. Dust rose everywhere and headstones had tumbled on top of each other in a heap.
‘There…is no name,’ Johannes said, and then he laughed, or tried to. Then he burst into a cloud of dust that added to the general miasma in the room.
Jonathan coughed. Judge Dee straightened and for a moment, Jonathan realised with some surprise, almost seemed, well…lost.
‘Master?’ he said in alarm.
‘Jonathan,’ the judge said. The light came back into his eyes. He stared around him at the shop.
‘What are you looking for, master?’
‘I am looking for a man,’ the judge said.
‘A man, master?’
‘A vampire, Jonathan.’
‘Ah.’ Jonathan fingered a half-completed headstone. ‘Well, master,’ he said. ‘There is one obvious place to look.’
The judge nodded. Jonathan went around the counter. He rummaged in the drawers. He found a roll of parchment.
Names and places. A list of cemeteries and plots.
‘Most of these go to one place,’ he said. He stabbed at the list with his finger. ‘We could look there, master.’
‘So we shall, Jonathan,’ Judge Dee said. ‘Forgive me. I am not myself.’
‘Then who are you, master?’ Jonathan said, because he took expressions like that literally.
The judge almost smiled.
‘Would you believe I was young once?’ he said.
And on that cryptic note he left the stone mason’s store; and Jonathan, as he always did, followed.
2.
The cemetery lay far outside the city and only the new moon lit their way through the dark trees. Jonathan shivered. It was cold. Despondent Hill rose ahead of them, and Jonathan realised the futility of their mission. There were thousands of white headstones gleaming in the moonlight.
It was like hiding a needle in a haberdashery. Which admittedly was not the sort of place Jonathan often visited. He spent far more time in cemeteries.
Mist lay over the gravestones. Jonathan could hear no sound. Nothing lived and nothing moved. He pictured the dead rising from their graves, the way the Church said they would one day. He pictured them shambling around, hungry for flesh. Brains, maybe. Would the dead have a craving for brains? He instinctively looked for cheese in his pocket but he had no cheese.
‘Focus, Jonathan,’ the judge said.
Jonathan jumped. The voice had startled him. It was too silent in the graveyard. He regretted ever suggesting coming here. But it wasn’t like he had a choice. He would follow the judge. He began to scan the names on the headstones.
Stenzl. Legrand. Amerbach. Wildhaber. Finkel and Frigg.
He didn’t know what he was looking for. The place was huge. The dead lay dead.
Well, all apart from the one who wasn’t.
‘We are looking for a man with no name,’ he said, frustrated.
‘Everyone has a name,’ Judge Dee said.
‘This was his most recent delivery,’ Jonathan said. He had circled the last name on the list.
‘Notice anything strange about it?’ the judge said.
‘Yes,’ Jonathan said. ‘It’s English.’
‘Exactly,’ the judge said.
‘Master,’ Jonathan said. ‘What if there are grave robbers here? They could be dangerous.’
‘Our quarry probably feeds on them,’ the judge said, then considered. ‘That, or on funeral parties.’
‘This is hardly reassuring,’ Jonathan said. But it did make him feel slightly better.
They moved slowly through the graves, searching for a name.
Stanton.
It was a stupid name. The sort of name a vampire hiding in a German cemetery might indeed pick for himself in the thought he was being clever. Vampires always thought they were being clever.
The moon shone down. It took them hours. Jonathan’s feet hurt and his stomach rumbled miserably.
Then he stopped.
‘Master!’ he called.
The judge was suddenly just there.
He stared at the grave.
‘Come out,’ he said. ‘You know who I am.’
No one replied. There was no sound at all. The judge sighed. He gestured at the grave. He said one word – the one word Jonathan didn’t want to hear.
‘Dig.’
Jonathan took the shovel he’d been carrying. He stared miserably at the plot of earth. Nothing good ever came from digging for vampires.
Something niggled at him. He stared at the empty plot next to Stanton’s. Something had been buried there, but there was no headstone. He said, ‘You don’t think…?’
The judge nodded, the hint of a smile playing on his austere face.
‘A man with no name, remember?’ he said.
Jonathan sighed, but inwardly.
Vampires.
They always thought they were being so bloody smart.
He dug. The ground was hard. The only sound in the night was Jonathan’s heavy breathing and the impact of the spade with the soil. His back hurt. His muscles ached. And he was hungry.
A while back Jonathan had come up with a radical new idea. What if he took a slice of bread, put something on it – a generous helping of ham and cheese, for example, ideally with a pickle – and then put a second slice of bread over the top? The result was a sort of moveable feast. He debated what to call this invention. A Jonathan didn’t seem quite right.
The spade made a sort of wet splat sound as it hit something solid. Jonathan froze, his heart speeding up. He wiped sweat from his brow.
‘Well?’ he whispered.
‘Stand back, Jonathan,’ the judge said, and there was something in his eyes that made Jonathan afraid. That would have made anyone afraid.
Jonathan was beginning to suspect that whatever this case was, it wasn’t business ordered by the Council. They being the ultimate arbitrators of vampire law, et cetera et cetera.
No. This felt almost…personal.
Which was clearly impossible, Jonathan thought.
Judge Dee didn’t do personal.
Jonathan stood back, which was just as well, because just then two shadows dropped from the skies and turned into women. Jonathan tried not to stare but the women weren’t there to chat. They attacked Judge Dee in total silence, fangs bared and claws extended. Jonathan shrieked when one passed too close and he stumbled on a grave and fell and the attacking vampire missed his throat as her claws passed harmlessly. Jonathan didn’t see what happened next because he had curled up into a ball and hugged his knees, trying to make himself as small as possible.
‘You can get up now, Jonathan.’
He opened his eyes. The same cemetery, the same dug-up grave, everything the same: other than the two new corpses.
They lay at the judge’s feet, as silent as when they appeared. Not too old, or they would have turned skeletal or into dust. Jonathan could not figure out where they’d come from.
Or why.
‘I won’t have to dig fresh graves for them, will I?’ he said. ‘Only it’s my knees, they’re—’
The judge inched his head. Jonathan subsided.
‘Open the coffin,’ the judge said.
Jonathan stared at the open grave.
‘I really would rather not,’ he said.
‘Open,’ the judge said, ‘the coffin, Jonathan.’
‘Yes, master…’
Miserably, he lifted the spade and smashed it into the coffin.
Wood splintered and broke. Still nothing moved. Jonathan hit the coffin again.
A screech filled the night.
Jonathan fell back in fright as a small, ungainly figure rose out of the coffin, wild of hair and wild of eye. It shrieked again and turned into a bat, trying desperately to flee. But the judge’s hand snapped out and caught a wing with ruthless efficiency, and he tossed the creature on the ground, hard enough to stun it.
The bat shivered, and the man reappeared. He lay on the ground looking winded.
‘Hello, Petros,’ Judge Dee said coldly.
3.
They took the prisoner back into town and kept him in a room that had no windows, in an inn where they didn’t ask any questions as long as the innkeeper got paid. The prisoner didn’t speak and Jonathan still had no idea what he had done to have the judge go after him in this way. It was most unorthodox.
He was a vampire, though, so it stood to reason he was guilty of something, or a great many somethings, and so Jonathan didn’t feel too bad about it.
He went down to the common room. This was an unsavoury hostelry in an unsavoury part of town and Jonathan craved something that was savoury. Like a meat pie. He sat by the fire and munched on it happily. A girl came and sat beside him. She said, ‘Who are you with?’
He realised with some surprise that she was English.
‘Judge Dee,’ Jonathan said. ‘You?’
‘I serve the Lady Samantha,’ the girl said. She gestured to the other side of the room, where a tall, imposing figure stood sipping a glass of something red and viscous. This was the sort of inn that attracted vampires: it had no windows in the rooms, and no one to complain of the smell or grumble about the inevitable presence of corpses.
‘What’s she like?’ Jonathan said.
The girl shrugged. ‘She’s a soulless undead monster,’ she said. ‘Obviously. But as far as those go she’s not so bad. Can I have some of your pie?’
‘Can’t you get your own pie?’ Jonathan said.
‘I could, but…’ She stared at him until he gave up.
The girl munched happily on the pie for a while. ‘Judge Dee?’ she said. ‘What’s he like?’
‘He is a being of pure intellect,’ Jonathan said, ‘a brilliant mind that has no equal.’
The girl wiped crumbs from her mouth.
‘Come on,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘A being of pure intellect,’ the girl said, mimicking him. ‘No one’s like that. Especially not a vampire. What’s he into, this judge of yours? Boys? Girls?’
‘You’re very…earthy, aren’t you?’ Jonathan said. A little judgmentally, it was true, but he was still sore about giving her half of his pie.
‘And you’re a dunce,’ the girl said pleasantly. She stood up.
‘I must to my mistress,’ she said.
‘And I to my master,’ Jonathan said, trying to keep up.
‘Right,’ the girl said. ‘I hope he doesn’t make you think too hard.’ But she smiled as she said it.
‘I’m Fiona, by the way,’ she said.
‘I’m Jonathan.’
‘See you,’ Fiona said, and then she departed. Jonathan stared after her somewhat forlornly. There, he thought, goes a girl who likes a pie.
Then he picked himself up and went in search of the judge.
Jonathan found Judge Dee by the stables, speaking softly to a darkly clad figure standing beside a dark coach. The coachman had a black hat pulled low over his eyes and wore riding boots and held a whip in one hand. He stared as Jonathan approached but said nothing.
‘We shall depart immediately for Epinal,’ the judge said, as though matters had just been concluded.
‘Epinal, master?’ Jonathan said.
‘It is a town some distance from here,’ the judge said. ‘In France.’
‘What’s there, master?’ Jonathan said.
The coachman started. When he spoke his voice was raspy and low.
‘The Executioner,’ he said. ‘The Executioner of Epinal.’
He stared at Jonathan as though disapproving of both his ignorance and his very existence. The coachman was clearly French, for his tone carried that sort of superiority mixed with exasperated dislike by which the French have always greeted the inquiries of English visitors to the continent. He bared fangs at Jonathan, who merely nodded politely.
France, he thought miserably. Why did they have to go to France.
But he accompanied the judge to the locked room. They marched the prisoner to the coach, sat inside, and the coachman whipped the horses. The carriage with its cargo lurched out of the courtyard and into the night.
In moments they had left Basel, the warmth and lights of the city swallowed behind them in the dark, and with it vanished the girl who liked pies. Jonathan brooded. Outside, the night grew, and the forest pressed against the road as though waiting to devour it. The moon glared down malevolently and illuminated the hostile Alps that rose as though to squash the coach like an irritant fly.
Jonathan must have dozed off, because when he woke they were under attack.
Again.
4.
Someone really didn’t want them to hold this Petros. Jonathan cowered under the seat as the judge vanished outside. Jonathan heard the coachman cursing and the flick of arrows being loosed. Something went thump and someone screamed, and something fell from the air and landed heavily. In all this time the prisoner, Petros, said nothing and just sat there staring into the distance like none of this was any of his business.
‘What did you do, man!’ Jonathan said, his voice muffled under the seat.
Petros stirred and blinked at him in some evident surprise.
‘Me?’ he said. ‘I was a librarian.’
Jonathan reflected on the last time he had encountered librarians (in what he had since come to refer to as the Case of the Missing Manuscript, if only to himself). The bodies had piled up fast then. He had an Englishman’s innate distrust of libraries, and an even deeper one of vampires, which his travels with Judge Dee had done nothing to cure.
So he cowered uncomfortably under the seat until the sounds outside ceased.
Someone reached for the door of the carriage.
Jonathan squealed.
‘This is most taxing,’ Judge Dee said.
He came back into the coach and banged twice on the roof. The coachman cracked his whip and the horses whinnied and took off at a gallop. The prisoner didn’t say another word. He seemed resigned to his fate.
But Jonathan was beginning to wonder if they’d ever get the prisoner to Epinal and its executioner.
So far there had been two attacks, but they weren’t so…serious.
Judge Dee was an ancient vampire and for anyone to really make an attempt on him they’d have to be formidable.
These two have been more like…warnings, Jonathan decided.
Warnings he would have been happy to heed, were it up to him. But the coach was still heading to Epinal.
It was a mystery.
He did not particularly care for mysteries.
‘So what did you do?’ he said again. ‘Slaughtered a whole village somewhere? Turned too many people into vampires of your own to serve you? Murdered the Queen of the Vampires?’
The prisoner, for the first time, winced.
‘There is no Queen of the Vampires,’ he said quietly.
Jonathan studied him with some attention now.
‘But you murdered someone,’ he said.
‘I murdered no one!’ Petros said.
‘Yet you were there,’ the judge said; and the words, delivered like a death sentence, sent a shiver of fear down Jonathan’s spine.
Petros hung his head and said nothing.
Snow fell heavily as they rode. They took shelter for the day in a wooden cabin outside Mulhouse. The cabin was dark and woeful. When they came to it the sky was near daybreak and the door was locked. The coachman banged on the door loudly.
‘What!’ came an irritated reply from inside.
‘Open up!’
‘Get lost!’ came the reply.
‘Open up, in the name of the Council,’ Judge Dee said.
There was silence inside. Then someone came to the door and opened it. He peered out at them suspiciously. He wore a long black coat and a curious device over his eyes, two glass circles in frames riveted together.
‘You are of the night?’ he said. ‘Then come in, but hurry. The sun will soon be out and I do not care for the sun.’
‘None of us do,’ the coachman said sourly. He pushed past the man and went inside, where a small fire burned.
‘I am Dr Rivera,’ the man said. ‘A medicus of some fame, if I say so myself. You have heard of me?’
Jonathan shook his head and mumbled, ‘No, sorry.’
‘Curious,’ Dr Rivera said. ‘Do you see these glasses of the eye that I am wearing? I made them myself.’ He beamed with pride.
‘An Italian invention?’ Jonathan said.
‘Nonsense! It is all in Ptolemy, if you care to look. Have you read Alhazen’s Book of Optics?’
‘I have not,’ Jonathan said.
‘A pity,’ Dr Rivera said, and then dismissed him. ‘And you are?’ he said, turning to the judge.
The judge shut the door and locked it in place.
‘I am Judge Dee,’ he said.
‘Dee, you say?’ Dr Rivera peered at him close with his eyeglasses. ‘I’ve heard tales of your deeds.’
The judge didn’t reply. The prisoner went to the fire and stood beside the coachman, rubbing his hands.
Dr Rivera turned to him next.
‘And you are?’ he said.
‘He’s nobody,’ the judge said.
‘I am Petros,’ the prisoner said.
‘You are a strange bunch,’ Dr Rivera said. ‘But since we are to be locked here for some time, I am glad you at least brought refreshments.’ And he turned his magnified red eyes on Jonathan and beamed at him with a mouth full of sharp teeth.
‘I am not the refreshments!’ Jonathan said. He moved as far from the doctor as was possible and reached in his bag for bread. He munched on it angrily. ‘I am the judge’s assistant.’
‘What would Judge Dee need with a human assistant?’ Dr Rivera said, confused. ‘He is a being of pure intellect, a brilliant mind that has no equal. Or so they say, anyway.’
‘No one’s a being of pure intellect,’ Jonathan mumbled, suddenly and with a certain ache remembering the girl, Fiona, who had said it. ‘Especially not a vampire…’
‘Did you say something, boy?’ Rivera said.
Jonathan yawned. He felt very tired and the fire looked warm and inviting. Dr Rivera looked at him, then at his silent companions, and shrugged.
‘A strange bunch indeed,’ he said.
5.
The vampires slept. Judge Dee had vanished. Jonathan never knew where he went when day came. The judge had an uncanny ability to disappear. Each vampire went to a separate corner of the cabin, each mistrusting the other as vampires always did. The prisoner was not in chains, but then he must have realised the futility of trying to escape the judge.
Jonathan found a corner as far from the vampires as possible – he didn’t trust them any more than they trusted each other – and did his best to fall asleep. It was cold, and he wrapped himself tight in his blanket, and listened to the wind howling outside and the snow and ice beating against the walls of the cabin. It was day outside now; but it may as well have been night.
Jonathan slept. He dreamed of pastry.
The banging on the door woke him up.
The banging was loud and the voices outside, indistinct, sounded desperate.
‘Open the door! Let us in!’
The judge was suddenly there. He looked to Jonathan and nodded.
‘Why me?’ Jonathan said.
The prisoner, Petros, sat quietly by the fire. The doctor, Rivera, was feeding on a live rabbit. He looked up with blood-stained lips.
‘What?’ he said.
The coachman was still asleep in a makeshift coffin.
‘Open the door!’
‘Please, Jonathan,’ the judge said. Jonathan got up reluctantly. He really didn’t want to open the door.
He went and opened the door.
A warm, soft, and only somewhat smelly body fell into his arms, and he found himself looking into the very live eyes of Fiona, the girl he’d met in Basel.
‘My hero,’ she said.
‘I, err…’
She laughed and pushed him away and went straight to the fire.
Behind her came her mistress.
Jonathan took a step back, and then another.
Lady Samantha, tall and stern, stood in the snow and looked down on him with disdain.
‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
‘I, err…’ Jonathan said again.
‘Are you a simpleton?’
‘I mean, be welcome in this, um, cabin! Enter of your own free will! And so on and so forth!’ Jonathan said desperately.
‘And shut the damned door!’ Rivera shouted. ‘It’s freezing!’
Lady Samantha sniffed.
‘Very well, then,’ she said. She stepped inside and Jonathan hurried to shut and lock the door. Snow had drifted in and Jonathan’s hands were frozen. He went to the fire to stand by Fiona.
‘She likes you,’ Fiona said, rubbing her hands for warmth.
‘You think?’ Jonathan said.
‘No.’
Jonathan turned, his back to the fire. He took in the scene: the dark cabin, the vampires like shadows standing frozen. Judge Dee, Dr Rivera, the prisoner, the coachman, and Lady Samantha.
He had a very bad feeling about all this.
Lock up a bunch of vampires together and it was only a matter of time before someone became a corpse.
Judge Dee came and stood beside him. They withdrew into a corner and spoke softly.
‘Do you trust them?’ Judge Dee said.
Jonathan shook his head fervently.
‘They could be after Petros,’ the judge said. ‘We can trust no one. Not even the coachman.’
‘But why?’ Jonathan said. ‘Who is this Petros and why does he matter?’
‘He matters to me, Jonathan,’ the judge said. ‘And I want him alive. Long enough to reach the executioner in Epinal.’
He turned to the assembled vampires.
‘Listen to me!’ he said.
The others turned, scowling.
‘It is snowing hard and we are isolated here together for the moment. When the snow eases we will each go our separate ways. Until then, I want no funny stuff. This prisoner is mine, and mine alone.’
‘Who is the prisoner?’ Lady Samantha said, looking confused.
‘I am,’ Petros said, raising a hand meekly.
‘Why?’ Lady Samantha said. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ Petros said.
‘Then that’s not fair,’ Lady Samantha said. ‘You should let this man go, Dee!’
‘Stay out of this,’ the judge said, his voice dangerous. ‘You, too, Dr Rivera.’
‘I mind my own business!’ Rivera said. ‘Do any of you play chess? To pass the time, you understand. Can I offer anyone a fresh rabbit?’
‘I’ll take one,’ Lady Samantha said. ‘I’m famished.’
Rivera tossed her a rabbit and she sank her teeth into its neck and sucked greedily.
‘Delicious,’ she said.
‘No murders!’ Judge Dee said.
‘We heard you,’ Lady Samantha said.
‘No poisons, no knives in the night, no stakes through the heart—’
‘We heard you!’ Dr Rivera said.
‘Or you will feel the true might of my power,’ Judge Dee said.
‘There is only one of you, though,’ Lady Samantha said. She flashed him a hungry smile, her lips stained with blood.
‘Excuse me?’ Judge Dee said. Jonathan took a step back into the shadows.
‘I said, there is only one of you, Judge!’ Lady Samantha said. She dropped the rabbit. It flopped wetly on the floor. The lady bared her fangs. She raised her hands and her fingers turned to long, sharp claws.
‘And there are more of us…’
Jonathan saw with horror how Dr Rivera shed his polite countenance and joined the lady. He hissed, his face elongating into a long, ugly wolf’s snout.
‘No games,’ Dr Rivera said. ‘No polite little mysteries to titillate your…intellect, Judge Dee. Murder is something to be committed for a reason, not just to provide a corpse.’
The coachman, too, moved to join them. The three vampires moved on Petros with singular intent.
‘Grab him!’ Judge Dee said.
‘What?’
‘Grab him! Now!’
The judge moved like lightning. Somehow the door was broken and the snow burst in and the fire went out. It all happened at once. Jonathan grabbed Petros. There were screams in the dark. Jonathan and Petros tumbled out of the cabin into the snow. The wind ripped at Jonathan’s clothes with icy fingers.
‘Fiona!’ he cried.
‘Into the coach!’ Judge Dee said. ‘Hurry!’
Jonathan and Petros clambered into the coach.
Then he thought: The horses! Where were the horses!
The judge was somewhere out of sight. Jonathan heard the crack of a whip and a scream that might have been Dr Rivera. Then the howl of a wolf that made him shiver. He stuck his head out of the porthole window. No horses, he saw: but a giant wolf was somehow hitched to the carriage and it turned its head and regarded Jonathan with wise, red eyes.
It was the judge.
The wolf howled wordlessly into the night and then the carriage thundered away and into the dark woods.
Jonathan drew his head back into the carriage.
‘That was a close one!’ he said.
‘Too close,’ someone else said. Jonathan screamed as the smiling Lady Samantha flashed a silver knife in the dark of the carriage.
Then Petros said, ‘No,’ and reached out. The lady’s face froze in surprise. The knife clattered to the floor and the door opened as of its own accord as Lady Samantha flew back and vanished into the snow with a howl of outrage.
‘They’re right, you know,’ Petros said. The coach thundered on. The night was dark and filled with snow. Jonathan could not see the stars or the moon.
‘Right?’ Jonathan said. ‘About…about what?’
He felt woozy. He kicked the knife out of the carriage and slammed the door shut. A moment before he had been nice and warm and in the company of a girl, he realised with some surprise, that he liked.
Now he was cold and scared and moving through a dark world, and he had nothing to eat. Which, he realised miserably, merely meant a return to the usual state of affairs.
‘Murder is never complicated,’ Petros said. ‘There is no mystery about it. Dee has always loved the theatrical. But murder is a simple art…’ He fell silent.
‘You knew him?’ Jonathan said, surprised.
‘A long time ago,’ Petros said. ‘In truth, I hoped never to set eyes on him again. But old scores have a way of catching up with you.’
‘Who are you?’ Jonathan said. Again, it occurred to him the only explanation to the events of the past few days lay in this unassuming vampire; and perhaps Petros was right, then. The real mystery wasn’t in who was trying to murder whom, but why – and again he had the sense that this was not the judge as he knew him, that this was something…personal.
Which made no sense to Jonathan; not then.
6.
‘I was born in the place the Greeks called India, that is, beyond the great river Indus, which lies far away from here—’
‘I never heard of it,’ Jonathan said, and Petros nodded and said, ‘You have not heard of a great many things, I’d wager—’
Which did not exactly endear him to Jonathan.
The great wolf still pulled the carriage onwards through the snow. He never tired. On and on they went, taking the prisoner to the executioner.
‘Are you going to listen, or are you going to interrupt?’ Petros said.
‘I’m listening,’ Jonathan said.
‘Very well, then. Where was I?’
‘In India,’ Jonathan said.
‘Right. So. At that time a Greek commander rose, who took over much of the known world, and he even reached India. Which defeated him, to tell you the truth. His men were tired and across the river was an army ready to fight…Anyway, he turned back at that point and then he died in Babylon. Amongst his soldiers, however, were—’
‘Vampires?’ Jonathan said.
‘Well, yes,’ Petros said. ‘And so I—’
‘Became one? Against your will? Et cetera and so on?’
‘Well, yes,’ Petros said. He glared at Jonathan. ‘Do you want me to tell you the story, or not?’
‘I don’t see how any of this relates to the judge or why we’re being chased by assassins,’ Jonathan said. It was so typical of a vampire, he thought. Start the story too early and make it all about themselves.
‘I haven’t said much up to now,’ Petros pointed out.
‘True. Well, go on, then, I suppose,’ Jonathan said grudgingly.
‘So I became a vampire, yes. Lucky guess,’ Petros said.
‘As if,’ Jonathan said.
Petros pointedly ignored that.
‘In due course I made my way across Alexander’s empire,’ he said. ‘Though even then it was falling apart again. There had been a transfer of people and ideas between Asia and Europe back then. There are still some blue-eyed children born on the Indus, and other Buddhists than myself who ended up in the Greek king’s newly founded Egyptian city of Alexandria.’
‘What’s a Buddhist?’ Jonathan said.
‘We follow the teachings of the Buddha, who advocated a path to end the endless cycle of life and death by seeking enlightenment. Of course, I was stuck on the cycle, having become undead. I could not die and be reborn again nor could I fling my earthly shackles to attain nirvana. Rather a conundrum, really. Plus, I was never a very good Buddhist, to be honest with you. But I was happy in Alexandria, for a long time. It was a seat of learning with exciting scholars from all over the world, and there was a library, a great big one, and eventually I got a job there. That was where I first met Dee.’
‘You knew Judge Dee then?’ Jonathan said.
Petros smiled.
‘He was not yet a judge, then. Just…Dee. He had come from a land far beyond the Indus and my own. A traveller, drawn by curiosity to this part of the world much as I was. He was younger then, fond of the Greek form of theatre, with a restless and brilliant mind. He studied works by Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, and, well, you know, a bunch of other stuff like that. I was just the record keeper. The clerk.’
‘You told me you were a librarian,’ Jonathan said.
‘I was! I worked in the library!’
‘As a clerk.’
‘Still counts! Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or not?’
‘Go on…’
‘So,’ Petros said. ‘I worked in the library. It was a magical place, filled with all the knowledge of the old world. I worked under the head librarian, a fellow by the name of Amenhotep. He was an Egyptian. Also a vampire. I’m just filling in the details for you, you understand. Vampires were useful. We lived a long time and could remember overdue manuscripts and what was filed where. And nobody minded if sometimes foreign scholars went missing. We tried not to feed too much or too often. You know how it is.’
‘The Unalienable Obligations,’ Jonathan said. ‘I’m still not sure when we’re going to get to the murder part.’
‘Who said there was going to be a murder?’
‘It’s implied,’ Jonathan said. The coach thundered on. Petros sighed.
‘Yes, well…’ he said. ‘Things would have gone much as they always did in our little corner of the world, were it not for the arrival one day of a young new scholar.’
His eyes misted over.
‘She was beautiful, you know,’ he said, so quietly that Jonathan had to strain to hear him. ‘I like men, myself, but there was just something about Helena – a keen, sharp intellect to equal, perhaps surpass, Dee’s own. And she was interested in everything, in those days – botany, alchemy, the theatre, medicine…I think she wanted to find a cure for her condition. She was—’
‘A vampire?’ Jonathan said.
‘Well, yes,’ Petros said. ‘But none too happy about it. She considered us parasites – not an abomination, but perhaps an aberration in nature. Something she could fix, if only she found the right tools.’
‘She sounds like Judge Dee,’ Jonathan said, and Petros gave a short, surprised laugh.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They did hit it off famously…’
A terrible suspicion rose in Jonathan then.
‘You don’t mean…’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘It can’t be!’ Jonathan said. He gaped at him in horror.
Petros said, ‘Judge Dee…fell in love.’
7.
The snow began to ease. There was no sun and maybe there never will be, Jonathan thought morosely; and the wind still howled like a maddened thing as the coach fled under the Alps, driven by the giant wolf who was Judge Dee.
Jonathan still had no real idea why they were taking Petros to the Executioner of Epinal, nor why there were other vampires trying to stop them. He was used to mysteries that were, at heart, simple. Who slipped who the deadly poison, just how the person in the locked room in the castle was killed, or who set off the mechanical trap that operated on clockwork at just the right time to kill the duke. It was usually the butler, anyway.
Those Jonathan understood. Those he had twice a day for breakfast – oh, how he craved some toast and marmalade just then! Perhaps a scrambled egg, and bacon, and a glass of milk—
Instead he was here, driven through the snow on a mystery of – there was no easy way to say it – of the heart. He could not imagine the austere Judge Dee stooping so low as to have real feelings, but then—
But then again, he thought – everyone had to be young once.
Even Judge Dee.
‘So then what happened?’ Jonathan said.
‘They fell in love and got married and lived happily ever after,’ Petros said. ‘What do you think happened, you fool?’
‘She died?’
Petros scratched his neck uncomfortably.
‘Something like that,’ he said.
‘Violently, I presume? Murdered, and so on?’
‘Those were difficult times,’ Petros said. ‘You have to understand, things always go well until they don’t. I’m not making excuses, but…It was Ptolemy VIII, if you want to blame anyone. Once he came to power the library’s decline began. He disapproved of…intellectuals. Disapproved with lethal intervention, if you get my drift. Didn’t like vampires much, either. Aristarchus of Samothrace, who was head librarian before Amenhotep, you see, well, he quit in protest and exiled himself to Cyprus. Cyprus! Godawful place. So things weren’t going well, and then that creep Julius Caesar showed up about a hundred years later and accidentally set fire to the library. Accidentally! All those precious manuscripts, lost forever.’
He stopped, looking quite overwhelmed, then recovered himself.
‘It was then,’ he said quietly, ‘that it happened.’
‘You did it? You murdered Helena?’
‘Who is to say what happened!’ Petros said. ‘There was a fire, confusion, anything could have happened. But Dee…Dee was not…pleased.’
‘I should think not!’ Jonathan said, outraged on his master’s behalf.
‘Yes, well. He was throwing all kinds of wild accusations. At me, at Amenhotep. I fled, and I’ve been hiding ever since. He is crazy, your master! He isn’t rational.’
‘Judge Dee?’ Jonathan said. ‘He is the most rational person I have ever known! The man is nothing but cold intellect!’
Petros chuckled.
‘Yes, he does like to give that impression, doesn’t he?’ he said. ‘Oh, dear. I think we’ve arrived.’
Jonathan looked out of the window. High on a hill stood a castle, glaring down on the town ahead like a malevolent bat with its wings folded. The town itself, nestled around a river folded into the landscape, looked equally uninviting, its crude streets paved with uneven stones and its houses leaning-to like drunks attempting to evade the night watchmen. Jonathan wasn’t sure, but he had the distinct impression there were faces carved into the stone walls, and they watched the approach of the coach with what he felt sure was disapproval.
They were almost in the town. Then he heard a scream.
‘Jonathan! Jonathan, save me!’
He gave a startled cry of his own. He peered into the snow, saw the girl, Fiona, hanging from a tree, her arms tied behind her back, a noose around her neck. She was still alive, balancing precariously on the back of a donkey who looked decidedly unhappy to be there.
No doubt the donkey would soon bolt for freedom.
No doubt Fiona would die.
No doubt it was—
‘A trap, of course,’ Petros said. He looked gloomy again. ‘A man with a cold intellect such as your master would never stop to save a human—’
But Jonathan wasn’t listening.
He flung the door open. He leaped outside and rolled in the snow.
‘I’m coming, Fiona!’ he shouted. ‘I’m co—’
But the cold biting wind snatched his voice away. All was quiet, all was dark. There were no lights behind the windows of the houses. Jonathan ran, fell, picked himself up. He did not look back. Fiona teetered on top of the donkey. Jonathan was so close, so close—
The donkey brayed and bolted. Fiona’s scream cut short as she dropped—
A huge, dark shape leaped into the air. It flew over Jonathan, tore the rope with an extended claw as though the rope was a mere thread, and grabbed the falling Fiona in its teeth. Jonathan slid the last of the distance and knelt by Fiona as she lay in the snow against the hide of the giant wolf that was Judge Dee.
‘Got you!’
Two figures materialised in the snow. Dr Rivera and the Lady Samantha, claws extended, fangs bared in delighted grins.
They leaped onto the wolf, ready to terminate its existence at last.
‘Why, Fiona?’ Jonathan said. He cradled her in his arms. She looked up at him and smiled.
‘My hero…’ she said.
Jonathan tried not to look. The sounds of tearing and snarling, of fury and fear. A bat shot away from the melee as though kicked by force, shrieked, and hit the tree. It transformed into Dr Rivera and slid down slowly to the ground.
‘There are only two of them,’ Jonathan said.
‘Three,’ Fiona said. She pointed.
The coachman, all in black, formed out of the mist. He strode to join the battle. Judge Dee was half-wolf, half-man. He fought wordlessly, and the vampires he fought must have been very old and very powerful, Jonathan thought, to have taken him on at all.
‘I have to help him,’ he said desperately.
‘You’ll only get yourself killed,’ Fiona said. She sat up and felt her neck. ‘That was close,’ she said.
‘Your first time?’ Jonathan said.
‘Oh, no,’ Fiona said, surprised. ‘We do the hanging thing about once a month. I’m a wanted woman, you see. There’s a price on my head and Lady Samantha likes to claim it whenever she’s low on cash. And every time I escape the noose the price on my head increases.’
‘What are you wanted for?’ Jonathan said.
‘This and that. A couple of murders, some armed robbery, arson, theft of holy relics, counterfeiting money, receiving and selling stolen goods, perjury, kidnapping, a spot of blackmail here and there. You know. Moral turpitude, mostly.’
‘I thought you were…’
‘Good?’ She smiled again. ‘You’re so sweet,’ she said. ‘I serve a vampire.’
‘But they’re not all…’
‘Bad?’ She laughed with genuine warmth and Jonathan blushed.
‘They’re vampires, Jonathan,’ Fiona said.
He couldn’t argue that point. And besides, she remembered his name! A strange heat suffused him, and he was barely paying attention to the battle between—
‘Master!’ Jonathan cried.
The judge was buried under the onslaught of his attackers. Snarls and hisses, and the coachman was next to fly through the air and land in the snow, but he rolled and got up and darted back to the melee—
‘Enough!’
The voice was ice-cold and as sharp as a fishmonger’s filleting knife.
The fighting vampires stilled. Even Dee.
A small figure, clad in black, stepped out of the mist and glided over the cobblestones until it stood in the snow. It regarded the vampires coolly. One by one, Lady Samantha, Dr Rivera, and the coachman moved aside, then bowed their heads.
The man and Judge Dee stood alone, regarding each other in silence.
‘Who is that?’ Jonathan whispered. He was surprised to discover he was holding Fiona’s hand.
‘That?’ Fiona said. ‘That’s the big man. The boss. The top cheese.’
‘Did you say cheese? I really want some cheese.’
Fiona ignored him.
‘He is the Executioner of Epinal,’ she said.
‘No kidding.’
Fiona shrugged. ‘They say he used to be a librarian or something. Here.’ She reached in a bag Jonathan saw she had hid on her person. She rummaged inside it and brought out a large chunk of hard cheese.
‘Split it with you?’ she said.
And just like that, Jonathan fell in love.
8.
‘Dee,’ the Executioner of Epinal said.
‘Amenhotep,’ Judge Dee said. ‘It has been a long time.’
‘Not long enough,’ the executioner said. ‘But since you are here…Shall we retire somewhere a little more comfortable?’
‘I have no interest in comfort,’ Judge Dee said.
‘You never did,’ the executioner said, and sighed. ‘I assume you have Petros with you?’
‘I do. And he is proof, at last, Amenhotep – proof that you murdered Helena!’
‘Always so emotional, Dee,’ Amenhotep said. ‘And what a florid imagination you have. I had hoped my…associates here would have talked you out of this fool’s errand, but I see they’ve failed.’
He glared at Lady Samantha and Dr Rivera.
‘You two were supposed to be the best,’ he said.
‘Pretty good…’ Rivera mumbled.
‘What was that?’
‘He said, we’re pretty good!’ Lady Samantha boomed.
‘Not good enough!’ Amenhotep snapped. ‘Clearly. Very well. What’s done is done. Coachman, fetch my coach.’
‘Your coach?’ Jonathan said.
Amenhotep turned an irritated gaze on Jonathan.
‘Who did you think it belonged to?’ he said. ‘Now, why don’t we settle this like civilized beings, indoors? Be welcome in my castle, enter of your own free will, and so on. There is still a law, is there not, Judge Dee? Or do you wish to settle this right here, right now? If so, just say the words.’
And he hissed, showing his fangs.
Jonathan had to remember that these were old vampires. Amenhotep might not have looked like much, but if the judge were to fight him…Jonathan wasn’t sure who would win.
He hoped the judge would accept: then they would go into a nice warm castle, or perhaps some sort of mayoral estate, with thick carpets and a warm fire, and there’d be wine…
He thought longingly of the wine.
‘I am the law!’ Judge Dee said. He stood dark and alone against the snow, and the shadows pooled all around him. His red eyes shone. ‘I pronounce you guilty of murder, Amenhotep. And I sentence you – to death!’
Amenhotep hissed again, and his claws lengthened and his eyes burned. ‘You are a boor, Dee! And this has been a thousand years coming for you!’
And he leaped through the snow just as Judge Dee did.
‘Stop!’ Jonathan cried, but helplessly. The two ancient vampires moved too fast for him to observe. Blood spattered the snow. The others watched. Fiona came and stood beside him, and Jonathan was grateful and surprised when she took his hand in hers.
‘Stop! Dee, stop!’
The cry had come from the lone figure emerging from the coach.
Petros, the witness. The judge’s proof of murder, which he had not even exhibited.
Now Petros, animated, was running slowly, too slowly towards the deadly fight.
‘Dee, she isn’t d—!’
‘Petros, no!’
The battle slowed, and Amenhotep stood wavering in the moonlight. ‘Petros, you must not—!’ he said. ‘We took an oath!’
And now Judge Dee, too, emerged into visibility. He wavered on his feet.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Helena isn’t dead!’ Petros cried.
There was blood on the judge’s face. It looked a little like tears.
‘What?’
Amenhotep sighed.
‘For a smart fellow,’ he said, ‘you can be pretty dumb.’ He reached a hand out to the judge, and the judge did not push it away.
‘Come along, old fellow,’ Amenhotep said. ‘Let’s get out of the snow.’
9.
They trudged through paved streets and onto a market square, and into a place that was, just as Jonathan thought, less a castle and more a mayoral estate, but did indeed have thick carpets and a warm fire, and ghostly servants palely loitering. The vampires sipped blood. Lady Samantha nibbled delicately on a servant. Jonathan accepted a glass of wine. He took a sip. The wine was good. He took another sip.
Judge Dee sat quite overwhelmed in a comfortable chair. Amenhotep looked ill at ease, standing with Petros. The fire was behind them, casting their shadows ahead.
‘What do you mean she is not dead?’ Judge Dee said.
‘You must understand, it wasn’t our fault,’ Amenhotep said.
‘We were just trying to help,’ Petros said.
‘Precisely.’
‘It was for the best.’
‘Exactly.’
The two vampires exchanged embarrassed glances.
‘The thing is,’ Petros said. ‘Your love for each other was truly a thing to behold.’
‘Truly,’ Amenhotep said.
‘But as the centuries passed, your interests…drifted,’ Petros said.
‘Helena wished to cure the affliction of vampirism,’ Amenhotep said. ‘She was drawn to the Greco-Buddhist teachings of the time and wished to find a way for others to get back on the wheel of life and death as a way of at last finding true enlightenment and…Well, this isn’t much my field, you understand, but it was something like that. Personally, I never minded being a vampire. You get to read a lot of books when you live forever, and draining the occasional incompetent scholar of blood is hardly a price too steep to pay.’
‘I concur,’ Petros said. ‘But that is neither here nor there. While Helena was doing that, you were devoting yourself ever more to the law, becoming ever more severe and…dare I say, humourless in the process.’
‘You used to tell such wonderfully bawdy jokes…’ Amenhotep said. Jonathan nearly choked on his wine. The very idea was preposterous.
But the vampires paid him no mind.
‘You had become an ascetic,’ Petros said. ‘While she sought true life, you dedicated yourself to undeath. You were…’ He hesitated.
‘You were growing apart,’ Amenhotep said.
Judge Dee sat in stony silence.
‘Oh, no,’ Fiona said. She came to stand beside Jonathan.
‘I made this for you,’ she said. When he looked she was holding up two slices of bread with meat and cheese in between them.
‘You made me a Jonathan?’ he said.
‘I call it a Fiona,’ she said. She smiled and took his hand, and then their faces were close together and Jonathan’s heart beat like it only did when he was being chased by monsters in the night who wanted to kill him.
Somehow Fiona was so warm and so there and…
Their lips met.
They kissed.
Since the invention of the kiss, it is said, there have been just five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure.
This kiss wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t even close.
But it felt like it was to Jonathan.
‘The thing is,’ Petros said. ‘Helena was very fond of you, Dee. And she didn’t want you to suffer, the, eh…’ He tried to think. ‘Slings and arrows?’ he said uncertainly. ‘Of a broken heart?’
Judge Dee still said nothing. Jonathan couldn’t see what slings and arrows had to do with anything.
‘The library was in decline, and Helena needed to continue her researches elsewhere. She didn’t want to hurt you so she did the most sensible thing she could think of. When Caesar’s fire broke out it seemed the very opportunity she was waiting for. She faked her death and vanished.’
‘She was being considerate,’ Amenhotep said. ‘We figured you would take the news stoically, and eventually move on.’
‘We just didn’t count on you blaming us for her death,’ Petros said.
‘We only tried to do the best for the both of you,’ Amenhotep said. ‘As friends.’
‘And we swore to protect her secret,’ Petros said. ‘So…’ He shrugged.
‘We were in a bind,’ Amenhotep said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Quite.’
Judge Dee said nothing.
‘I mean a thousand years!’ Amenhotep said. ‘And still you kept going! Poor Petros hid in a cemetery and I became an executioner, which is quite clever if you think about it, for there is never a shortage of sinners and I always have fresh blood to drink. But you really did put us to a lot of inconvenience.’
He looked at Dee somewhat reproachfully.
‘I…see,’ Judge Dee said. He sat there looking a little lost. Jonathan almost felt sorry for him. Judge Dee always solved the case.
Well…almost always.
‘Do you know where she is now?’ Judge Dee said at last. He sounded broken.
‘No idea,’ Amenhotep said.
‘We didn’t really keep in touch,’ Petros said.
The other vampires, Dr Rivera and Lady Samantha and even the coachman, seemed fascinated by the story so far.
‘So she…she broke up with you?’ Lady Samantha said.
‘But in a nice way,’ Dr Rivera said.
‘It happened to me once, too,’ Lady Samantha said. She touched a kind hand to Judge Dee’s shoulder. ‘It’s never easy when they fake their own death and…’ She tried to think of a suitable expression. ‘Ghost you?’ she said uncertainly. ‘You know, like they died and now they’re a, well…’
‘A ghost,’ Dr Rivera said, nodding energetically. ‘Yes, it happened to me, too, once. I got over it, naturally. You move on, don’t you. Of course, sometimes they really are ghosts, and—’
‘Vampires don’t have ghosts,’ Lady Samantha said.
‘You don’t know that,’ Dr Rivera said.
‘Have you ever seen one?’ Lady Samantha said.
‘Well, no, but…’
‘Enough!’
It was Judge Dee.
He stood up and formally bowed to Amenhotep and Petros.
‘I will take up no more of your time,’ he said.
‘Nonsense, Dee,’ Amenhotep said. ‘Stay the night, at least. Let the storm die out. You are always welcome, you know.’
‘Thank you,’ Judge Dee said. ‘But I must press on. Jonathan, pack our bags.’
‘But master!’ Jonathan said. He couldn’t help it. It just escaped. ‘Master, the storm—’
He thought miserably of the cold outside; and of the fire inside, and the wine, and Fiona…
He thought for sure the judge would hurry him on. But he saw something change in Judge Dee’s eyes. An understanding, and a sort of sudden, unexpected gentleness.
‘You are quite right, Jonathan,’ he said. He turned to Amenhotep. ‘We will stay, of course. Thank you…old friend.’
Amenhotep nodded.
‘I am glad,’ he said.
‘And I am sorry, about, you know. Kidnapping you and so on,’ Judge Dee said to Petros.
‘These things happen,’ Petros said.
‘Yes,’ Judge Dee said; but he said it dubiously.
The next night the storm quietened and the moon was bright. The air felt fresh and clean. Fiona nestled into Jonathan’s arms.
‘Will I see you again?’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Look me up if you’re ever in London. My Lady Samantha likes to summer there.’
He kissed her goodbye; and then he went to join Judge Dee. The judge had said his own goodbyes already. Now they trudged out of the town, and only the faces in the stone walls watched them pass.
‘There is no fool like an old fool,’ Judge Dee said ruefully. ‘But it is true what they say. You are only young once.’ He strode ahead, and Jonathan followed. He wondered who this Helena was, and what she was like, and if the judge would ever find her again. And he thought of Fiona, and whether he would ever see her again.
‘Yes, master,’ he said.
“Judge Dee and the Executioner of Epinal” copyright © 2024 by Lavie Tidhar
Art copyright © 2024 by Red Nose Studio
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Judge Dee and the Executioner of Epinal
