The wooden door was flung open. Two men in white robes, those of men who worked in the sun, squeezed through the doorway. The foremost carried a young woman, limp, in his arms. The noise of the room died at that moment, and then a scream was born on the warm air. The Innkeeper had her knuckle between her teeth, white. Her son, at the bar, let a jug of water fall on it as he stared at the dead girl.
There was a certain commotion as the girl was brought through the large plaster-walled room, up a stair, and into the Innkeeper's home. Guests rose from their seats; not simply for the fact a corpse had been processed through the dinning room. Variously they clutched at beads, wrung their hands, shook their fingers, and crossed themselves. The few who had rooms at the inn looked about in confusion as the locals rushed out the door in unison. Several men with European accents went to the landlady for an explanation.
One lone stranger, with wine dripping from his lips, watched, blinking only as necessary to moisten his eyeballs. They were colored dark green, his eyes, and his hair was red. He licked at his lips discreetly and looked at the door to the back rooms.
The landlady would not be comforted and took herself to her home. Much wailing and bemoaning were heard from within.
A man in a dark colored suit rose from a table near the far wall and announced that he was a doctor. He demanded to see the girl. Insisting nothing could be done for the dead, the young waiter grudgingly sent him into the back. This waiter then approached the stranger, whom was the only one remaining seated. He spoke: "Sir, it might be wise for you to retire to your room, wiser to leave this place."
They both turned their attention to the crowd pressing at the door for a moment. The man dropped his hands to the table, fingers absently groping at a napkin. His eyes were lowered still when the boy spoke again, "Sir you are English?"
The stranger looked up, startling the boy, with a sudden glance. "I came from...Scottish parents," he said and the waiter realized it was not the man's native tongue.
When the stranger fell into a familiar Arabic dialect the waiter almost forgot his caution. Looking at the bowl of wine he remembered.
Their eyes locked and it seemed some gold luster ringed the strange man's pupils. "We would not want to see you troubled by this business."
"It is no trouble to me. I will leave, as I have planed, when the week is up, I have been traveling for months and wish rest..." His gaze shifted to the multicolored window and the boy was left looking at his red hair.
"Sir, then you will want to retire now."
He seemed slow to answer.
"Yes. I will go up now," he said at length. "Tell me, friend, why so much fuss over me?" His eyes scanned the interior, the small disperse group of guests, gentlefolk from near and distant lands, come to Alexandria, perhaps for the very reason he had.
"Sir, in these, parts...well, it was not a natural sort of attack, and you are a foreigner, and red haired, the old ones see you as a bad omen. But, go now, I will bring fresh towels to your room."
The stranger rose. His eyes met the doctor's across the room, as the latter descended the small stair. "Boy, the girl...who was she?"
"The daughter of my mothers brother. And she was not the first to die."
The stranger nodded and then turned to collect his things: a black hooded cloak, a gray linen scarf, and a small velvet purse.
The waiter entered the back room and saw his cousin laid out on a bench, drawn, pale, almost waxen, and still as stone. His father and his uncle watched the windows. His mother wrung her hands. Again, the doctor came into the room. He closed the door after himself.
"Nephillim!" Cried the boy's mother, "Cursed!" The boy tried to silence his mother to no avail. He studied the doctor suspiciously.
"I have seen this before," said the doctor, "this child is also a victim of the Vampyre. There is not much time!"
The girl's father turned and rattled in the local dialect, it fell to the boy to translate, but when he realized the doctor understood the objections and still ignored them he began to curse the doctor in English, for his own reasons.
The young man did not agree with either, "It has been a decade since the Nephillim took Alexandria, no more die now than in war before. The number of undead is so small as not to be seen. A person does not become one of the Spawn just from one bite...and not from a single transfusion. Ceremonies must be performed. It's all been proved."
"No," said the doctor. "In 2001 a young woman was turned by drinking just a bottleful of the blood, this has been verified, she is one of the famous ones. In laboratories rats given just a drop of the blood showed the signs of the Vampyre..."
"It's all nonsense. You live in fear of what you do not have control over. You want to mutilate young girls to prove your worth." The boy turned to his mother, "Do not let him do this." But the knife was already out of the bag.
"Do it, Doctor, give her peace, give her rest now."
The doctor raised then a stake of ash and a mallet. The girls' father had to be restrained by his brother-in-law, and still struggled frantically to get to his daughter's body. The stake was placed over the young corpse's chest, the mallet was raised. The young man backed out of the room.
A knock came at the door upstairs. A pale hand drew it open. In the hall, the boy stood, towels in arms. "Come in," said the stranger. He was dressed in black silks now and the young servant noticed the various charms he wore: ankhs, the silver star and crescent, and at his throat a wide gray satin choker. It was all very common jewelry, except for the choker.
The boy walked into the room. He looked about himself as he set two towels on the small vanity. He felt he was being watched. He heard the door creak closed and click shut.
"Tell me, should I be afraid to walk the streets at night? all these unnatural deaths?" The last word had a strange ring to it. "Would you be afraid?" The stranger asked.
"No," laughed the boy and then remembered his place. "Sir, there are things we do not often care to mention so close at hand, but if you take my meaning: Those in power now...many fear them." He glanced toward the open window.
"The Nephillim?"
"Yes...Sir."
"Do you often get news here, being so close?"
"Of Them? Quite regularly. We had family here when Rome was taken over, Alexandria got the religious refugees. We had some even earlier when Karachi rose as their capital in the East. And I remember the taking of Alexandria myself."
"Have you not heard of the city called Necropolis or The City of Angels also in America?"
"Yes Sir, in schooling."
"That is good. But the old ones, they get superstitious?"
"Our people know many mysteries. Even those of the Nephillim. I am a proud Egyptian, but these Englishmen that have been through, they are no more than ambulance chasers."
The stranger laughed, "You sound like the young people of every city do, proud, and they all wait at the gates asking to be taken as the new apprentices."
The boy looked shocked and a little ashamed.
"I have traveled a lot, don't be ashamed, I was the same way when I was young, but I got over it."
The boy bowed his head.
"The girls...it was the bite, the kiss?"
"Yes, sir, they had the marks, but you must not speak of these things, if you speak the language you may know this: red hair, and the green eyes...unlucky, the old ones will say you are predisposed to be a Vampyre."
"Do not worry about me, I know their customs well."
The boy seemed to sigh then eager to please he offered a bit of information. " I hear the Lord of Karachi himself will come to the capital at Alexandria," said the boy.
"Orchid, coming to Alexandria..." sighed the stranger, "Yes, I have heard it on the road. The one called Orchid is coming to their haven in Alexandria. Some say, boy, that they are having a council, a gathering of Darkling, and many more will be there to meet him."
The boy made his way to the door. Before he left his eyes were caught suddenly. "Let me give you something," he heard and he saw a flash of gold, it seemed the disk became a dancing ring of gold. He felt something pressed to his hand. It was the strangers' eyes he saw, more like the sharp petals of sunflowers, was the gold. Like rays shooting into his brain. They said, let me give you gold.
"Thank You," said the boy and reflexively lifted the coin to his mouth as he stepped back. His eyes glittered and the coin slipped from his fingers.
The stranger caught it up in his hand instantly and smiled as he placed it in the boy's other hand. The boy giggled, "I dropped it, I think... My fingers are so sleepy." Then he stumbled backward out of the room.
It was late afternoon. Sunlight passed through the many colored panes of glass into the common room of the inn. The pattern it cast on the table and floor was the only joyous thing in the room. And then there was a young woman come with her father. She took down the hood of her cloak and lifted her long gold hair up, to let it fall in waves down her back.
Her father, a man of some youth himself, handsome and dark of hair though he was obviously a foreigner, spoke to the innkeeper about a renting a room for the night, or at least a bite of food. The landlady was loath to give them either.
All around the inn there were signs of mourning. Mirrors were covered. The only decorations left were those that worked as charms to ward off evil, all wore somber colors.
Four people entered the room at the same time. The red haired guest came from his room, upstairs. Two of the staff, the young waiter and his uncle, came from the back. The doctor came in from without and threw off his overcoat. The landlady's brother was soon at her side. "Don't you know this place is in mourning?" He asked the dark haired man.
"You have other guests here, and we have had naught but breakfast all day," said the young woman.
"It is not a safe place..."
The waiter sat his guest at his usual table, both of them keeping one eye on the conversation of the others, or perhaps the young lady. The boy poured water from his jug into the glass on the table. "What happened to your wrist?" The guest asked casually, looking down over his tinted glasses at the boy's bandaged wrist.
"Oh, I must have cut it on something, it doesn't hurt."
The stranger looked up to see the doctor approaching his table. Across the room the innkeeper threw up her arms and called for her son to seat the guests to dinner.
"May I join you?" Asked the doctor of the stranger when the boy was gone.
"I'm naught but drinking water."
The Doctor sat. "I am interested to know why you are not scared away."
"What have I to be afraid of doctor?" The stranger asked and sipped the water.
The boy returned to wait on them. "Yes, feed me," said the doctor loudly, "Dinner is on me, two steaks if you have them about."
The boy winced thinking only of the stake he'd seen lifted above his cousin's breast.
The stranger smiled slightly and took the boy's hand gently, "I do not eat meat, perhaps a stew of vegetables, or a pot dish, whatever is the least trouble to your family, my tastes are simple."
"Our meat is seen by the priests," said the boy proudly.
"Who am I to put faith in the church of late? No...meat." He dropped the boy's hand and watched him hurry off toward the kitchen.
"You speak carelessly," said the Doctor slowly.
"Maybe I do not care."
"Ill things are afoot here, you would be wise to leave."
"So I have been warned, to speak bluntly, doctor, I have seen no harm come to any but young ladies, what have I to fear?"
"Perhaps more than you know."
Soon the food was brought to the table, a steaming vegetable soup and a small rare steak. The stranger was silent, he waited for the soup to cool a bit, but still couldn't have eaten it watching the doctor slice into the bloody piece of meat. He moistened his lips before breaking the silence. "What are you a doctor of, exactly?'
The doctor swallowed and took a swig of wine before he answered, "I am Reverend as well, though I do not boast the tittle, I am Doctor of Metaphysics, of Philosophy and Biology."
"You're English?"
"From Manchester. Do you know it?"
"I have heard a lot about it."
"And where are you from?"
"Karachi, Doctor," said the stranger and then went on to say, "But my mother was Scottish."
With the soup half done the stranger excused himself and left the inn.
The doctor went up the stair. The room he entered was not his own, it was that of the stranger. He was not unnoticed. The waiter, the boy, he saw him go. But the boy didn't stop him, he was innocently distracted by his young female guest asking for something to drink.
The doctor rummaged through the other man's belongings looking for some clue to his identity. The closet had rare designer shirts and pants in fine silks and linen, but the doctor didn't know that. He threw the shirts aside looking to find something behind them.
On the bed, he found a dagger, with a jeweled hilt, but didn't dare take it. He passed to the vanity. He took up a small container of white powder and tasted it: "baking powder...to clean their foul teeth," he murmured to himself. He let it down and scoured the rest of the surface. The jewelry was all silver but he knew this meant nothing to them. He took some hair from a brush and tucked it inside his jacket pocket.
Then the young servant came in. "Have you got the wrong room, Sir?" He asked.
"Boy, you must forget you saw me here."
The doctor was gone suddenly, but he had no control over the boy, and so the boy remembered that he had been there.
Downstairs the two new guests were having coffee. "I do not like this place, the people here, they are suspicious, they trouble me."
The girl's father looked slowly from her to the unknowing innkeeper behind the bar. "I know how to handle these people," he said.
The door of the inn opened then. It was the red-haired guest they had seen dining with the doctor. He removed the scarf from his face and looked right at the girl. She smiled. She watched as the young waiter went to him. The man inclined toward the boy then, as the boy whispered something at his ear.
The young woman saw him place a piece of gold in the boy's hand then kiss the fingertips. It seemed her heart skipped a beat.
As the stranger passed their table her father spoke to him, "You seem a gentleman, Sir," he said in English, "Won't you join us."
The stranger bowed. "I am glad for company and your kind invitation, but my English you may not be glad for."
"Do you speak French?" The girl asked.
The stranger took a seat opposing neither of them. "I do," he said and thus the conversation continued in that language, "I must warn you the Egyptians have become suspicious of this language. It is the language the Nephillim have made their trade language."
"I know," said the girl.
"But do you know that this house is in mourning for a girl found dead with their mark?"
"Dead?" Gasped the woman, "the Nephillim governors do not take from those under their dominion, the deaths come from the guilty and the lost."
"Sweet child, tell me, are you a friend to the Nephillim?"
Humbly she nodded her head.
"I see, I too travel these lands as a friend to them, I trust you with this. Perhaps it was a rouge, perhaps not. No one here knows."
"I don't like this news," said the dark haired man, "We should find another inn."
"You are on your way to Alexandria?" The stranger asked.
"You are very keen, yes, that is where we are going, and if this territory is unfriendly..."
"Father, we may as well stay here as another inn, now that we know what is going on."
"Both of you, I warn you to be careful of the doctor. He has tested me solely because I am a stranger. M'lady, don't trust him, someone fair as you causes jealousy, especially in this land."
"Who is he?" Asked the girl earnestly.
"He is a Vampyre killer, one of that order from Manchester that plagues the haven in Paris, I would wager."
"Thank you so much. We don't often meet gentleman such as you traveling as we do. There is much unrest from here north. What is your name?"
"Treasure," said the red-haired man, "They call me Treasure."
The woman smiled, a hand to her breast. "I am Claudia, and this is my father."
Treasure nodded to them both. "Forgive me, Mademoiselle, I must go to my room for a while," and he excused himself.
He went then to his room. He tore the hair from his brushes and lay it all in the metal wastebasket. He set fire to it then. Next he took paper, ink and pen from the stationary and wrote a letter. He placed it in an envelope and addressed it.
He heard a creaking at the door. The young waiter stood there. "Come into my room," said the strange guest, "There's something you can give me a hand with."