XVI. Vampire
It took a long time to get the coffin open. That it had been locked from the inside came as no shock to Ingrid. For all his ambition regarding rule and organization of the region, Cambridge had no wish, for the time being at least, to be discovered. It made sense, considering that his once great plan could now be compared to the wall fortifying his retreat. Both were in ruins.
She waited while the men chipped and banged at the casket with makeshift tools. Their labor--and the swearing that went along with it--raised a significant din, and after several minutes of zero progress Scott finally voiced aloud a question that had already surfaced in Ingrid's mind.
"Why doesn't the fucker just wake up and let us in?" she heard him snap. "I mean Jesus Christ, he’s gotta know by now that someone's knocking."
"I very much doubt the idea of entertaining visitors pleases him," Darren came back with.
"Scott, do you want to take a breather?" Ingrid asked, shining her torch into the hole.
"No, no. I'm all right."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
They went back to work. Ingrid went back to thinking about what she was going to say to Cambridge. Or more precisely, how she was going to say them. The thing of it was...they had never met. Not once. For all the changes wrought upon her life by Cambridge's maniacal ideals, in spite of all the loss and heartbreak that had grown from the spoiled crops of his failed enterprise, Ingrid had no idea what the body reposing inside the casket looked like. Until today, Cambridge had been an adversary without a face. How would their belated confrontation play out?
A deep, hollow sound of something heavy being broken came from inside the hole. "Got it!" Scott yelled.
"Wait!" Darren called. "Move slow. Nice and easy. We don't know what's inside yet. Ingrid?"
"Here," she called.
"Almost ready for you."
Inhaling a deep breath, she stepped under the wall. "Once the lid's off I want the two of you to wait outside."
"I'm not sure that's wise," Darren said, his eyes doubtful in the torchlight. "Cambridge may be old, but he's plenty dangerous. He's also a vampire."
"No he's not. There's no such thing."
"He murders people and drinks their blood. That's a vampire as far as I'm concerned."
"Ingrid," Scott broke in. He was filthy. Dust powdered his beard. Sweat gleamed on his neck and biceps.
"I'll be okay. I'll be careful."
"But--"
"And if something does go wrong I'll give a shout. Come on, boys," she went on, cutting off all further objection. "Show me some muscle. We need to get this lid off."
"Young lady I assure you," came a sudden, muffled voice that made her blood freeze, "they will have no further need at this time for physical endeavor."
And with that, the casket’s heavy pine lid began to move.
***
His skin was the color of Carrara marble--bloodless, but for a gossamer web-work of blue veins. And indeed, Ingrid thought as she beheld his countenance, this man looked ready to be cut, to be willed by hammer and point into the godlike figure he'd once been. He gazed balefully from the casket, saying nothing, his hands at rest on the white counterpane. Uncertain of how to proceed, Ingrid stared back. She opened her mouth to speak--
"Just like I was told," Cambridge uttered.
Her eyes narrowed. "How do you mean?"
"You. Standing there, looking at me the way an insomniac looks at a clock in the middle of the night."
"I'm not sleepy just now."
"No. You're hopeless and lost, but not tired, at least for the moment."
"Did Nancy tell you that?"
"Of course. And she knew. She was your guardian, after all."
So far, only Cambridge's lips and eyes had moved. As for the rest of his body, Ingrid couldn't help but compare it to the stuff of quarries again, rigid and ghost-like, even through the black sleeping gown he wore. Yet if her earlier musing were to prove correct--if the flare in his eyes burned from an aspiration to be recast--this man was about to be disappointed. Ingrid had no goals in that direction. She'd come here for information. And perhaps to tear down any part of him that remained.
"Ingrid Semeska," the vampire proclaimed.
"Ingrid Felton."
"She's dead."
Her lip twisted. "My mother, yes."
"Her too. But I was speaking of Nancy."
"Oh. Yes, I was there when it happened."
"Were you? All I saw was the aftermath, when the dambuhala had left. This was just before dawn."
"What drew you to the cathedral?" Her curiosity was piqued. "I mean you're a vampire, aren't you?"
For the first time, the expression on Cambridge's face changed. Subtle amusement rippled its features.
"Yes," he claimed, eyebrows lifted, "and like any vampire, I'm in love with desecration."
"Stop it. That's just the opposite of what you've been trying to do with the region."
The brows dropped. "Young lady, this region is a lot of things. Desecrated is not one of them. Ungoverned. Disorganized. Reckless. But never desecrated." Cambridge stopped, drew a deep breath, and sighed. "At any rate, what I once strived for matters little at the present time. I have...nothing left to offer this land."
"That's a relief, isn't it?"
"Such wit. I care about the region every bit as much as you or anyone else who traipses about its wonders spewing poetry and vaginal fluid like they were both the same thing. Even more so, I dare say. I tried to make it a better place. A stronger place. Love is never bound by a physical deed, Miss Semeska. Tears and pain and loss imprison it as well. Lock it away to burn while its keeper feigns helplessness in the corner of some room flown by the man of her dreams. I wished to take those things away. Filter them out. Give us purity."
"I've heard that kind of talk before, mainly from televangelists on Sunday morning looking for fast money. And it's Felton, not Semeska."
His hands turned to fists. "Damn it, girl, you're not listening! Leave your cynicism in the progressive where it belongs. Open your heart to something other than what that young man outside gives you in bed every night."
Ingrid felt her own anger begin to swell. She gritted her teeth. "That young man brought me here, and I him, with the one kind of love this region needs. Take your own shortcomings back to the progressive where they belong--"
"You don't know anything," the vampire spat.
"Ingrid?" Scott's voice, concerned. Ingrid looked over her shoulder to find him peering through the hole.
"It's all right," she told him. "We just need a few more minutes."
"Oh yes, everything here's just lovey-dovey," came Cambridge's voice from the casket.
"Why don't you climb out of that thing so we can talk in more suitable surroundings," Ingrid asked, once Scott had retreated.
"More suitable for whom? Don't be an imbecile, girl. It's daylight out there."
She couldn't help but laugh. "Which means what? You'll burst into flames once sunlight touches your head?"
"I have forgotten what happens. But do you know what will happen to the region, now my attempt to arrange its scattered pieces has come to an end?"
"It heals."
"Parts of it will heal," he allowed. "But the parts of it that were sick to begin with--the deadly accidents that could have been prevented; the poorly planned roads that lead nowhere; the plagues; the infestations--they're going to get worse. And worse, and worse. Because nobody cares."
"They care a good deal, Cambridge. It's what this region is all--"
His head shook. "We go around and around, Miss...Felton," he corrected, in the nick of time. "Just do what you've come here to do. Get it over with. I'm weak."
"What do you mean?" Ingrid replied, frowning.
It irritated him. "What do you mean, what do I mean? Finish me. Complete your task here and go...save the region."
Ingrid gazed upon his weathered features, barely able to believe her ears. Her earlier intuition regarding quarries and chisels had been sharp--razor sharp. Except it wasn't resculpture Cambridge was interested in. Oh, no. Here before her lay a man who'd been beaten, and who wished to remain so. Only one final hammer-strike remained.
"Sorry," she told him, giving her head a shake. "We're not in some gothic novel from the nineteenth century. And even if we were I'd leave the stakes and hammers to men who know how to use them."
Cambridge eyed her beadily. "A delicate little flower, Ingrid? Is that what you are?"
"Delicate and wise. Strength in weakness, Cambridge. Remember that passage from the Bible?"
"I do, but I hardly think Paul and Timothy had slaying vampires in mind during the penning of 2 Corinthians."
"It's about wisdom, Cambridge. Or so I've always believed. Knowing that what makes us weak on the outside can always be subdued by the strength we carry within."
"You weren't very strong when you broke your young man's heart two years ago. Or when you dropped out of school." His lip curled into a wry smile. "Or while Randy was holding you underwater like an octopus, waiting for your breath to expire."
Ingrid, unperturbed, stared straight back at him. "I was though. I'm still here."
"Your friends saved you."
"My friends love me. And I them. That's what you're missing, Cambridge. You can't take pain and suffering away from love. They're crucial ingredients. Without them you don't have love at all."
"Is that a fact? Then tell me, Ingrid, what do you have?"
Her eyes narrowed. "A consumer."
"Bah!" The casket shook as his fist struck the inner lining.
"Help me put the dambuhala back, Cambridge. Tell me where you were when you brought them through. I need just that much."
He snorted. "You're going to lead them back, eh? Play a tune on your pipe and make them dance?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that."
"Tell me."
"Do I need to?"
"I'd like to hear."
He was serious. Smiling, but serious. Ingrid nodded, and after a brief update to Scott and Darren, went back to the chamber and told him everything Rupert Doody had told her in Bowershim. When she was finished Cambridge, like any good listener, repeated the story's key points in order to clear any possible misconceptions on his part.
"So you're going to breach the interstice whilst in the misty realm of a lucid dream," he said, blinking into the shadows. "Lucky you, to be able to control what your subconscious shows you at night. I never remember my dreams."
Ingrid’s eyes dropped. "I don't control my subconscious."
"What do you mean?" the other frowned. "Isn't that what lucid dreaming is?"
"Yes."
"And you don't know how?"
"Well..." she faltered, biting her lip. "No."
Cambridge's chest sank as he let out a heavy sigh. "This Rupert Doody gave you a book with instructions on how to achieve the state necessary for access to the interstice. You read it, I presume."
"Of course I read it."
"But it didn't sink in."
"I guess not," Ingrid replied bitterly. "But then I didn't get much time for field practice. Your nephew drowned me. Your sister chained me in a dungeon and put me under a curse."
"Ah yes, the night terror curse. It was always her favorite." His fingers drummed the counterpane. "Though in your case, girl, it would have helped more than hindered. Should have helped."
"I guess I was too busy trying not to die of fright."
Cambridge looked away with a shrug. "Che sera, sera, Ingrid. Oh and by the way, your teacher has at least part of his instructions wrong. You may wish to fact-check the rest, just to be certain."
"What are you talking about this time?"
"What is it that everyone talks about in this region? Emotions, girl. But it isn't hatred that's going to reopen the interstice for the dambuhala. Hatred is for higher states of consciousness. The ogres don’t feel it.”
“Then how did you get them here in the first place?”
“Ah. Tell me, Miss Felton, in your opinion, what is the most primitive, the most rudimentary emotion there is?"
"Well..."
"Come on. You're a smart girl."
She thought of the ogres, mindlessly rending and tearing their way through the region. And whether she liked to admit it or not, Cambridge had a point. The dambuhala didn't seem intelligent enough to feel hatred, or any other emotion produced from advanced thought. So what did that leave? Something primitive, as she'd already been told. Something basic that lived in every corner of every thought of every living brain.
"The first emotion," Ingrid said, half to herself.
"Right you are. And that would be...?"
Her head shook. "Oh no. Fear?"
"Give the girl a stuffed bear, carny, she's done well."
"It can't be right," she said, though in her heart a different truth became more clear by the second.
"Why not?" Cambridge asked. "For all the destruction they do, Miss Felton, the dambuhala are animals. Animals lured into a strange new world and trapped there. Trapped to scramble like mad for a way out. They’re not angry—that was another of my mistakes. They’re terrified."
His choice of words reminded Ingrid of something Darren had said at camp the previous week: The dambuhala won't need coaxing...they'll rush to their own region like insects to a crack in the wall...
Somehow, she began to feel even less adequate than before. Doody had instructed her how to use anger, not fear, to open the interstice. Would the chemistry for both emotions be the same? Surely not. But hate was all the girl she’d seen in the Carlson Glass had to give. Hate her back, Doody had said. But where would that lead the ogres?
"Hatred does have a region somewhere, right?" she asked.
"Oh, undoubtedly. And yes," Cambridge cut in, reading her thoughts, "I suppose it would be possible to adhere to your tutor's instructions. The interstice would open--probably--and the dambuhala would rush right in. Then they would become the problem of whomever or whatever lived on the other side."
"If we're talking about a region of hatred I'm not sure I care."
A look of surprise took hold of his face. "No? Goodness."
"What?" she asked.
"You continue to astound me with your naiveté. Even if I do agree to help you, Miss Felton, it may not matter. You lack the education needed to comprehend these emotions."
The remark stung. Ingrid's hands closed into fists. "I know more than you. What about empathy, Mister Cambridge? Did you care at all about those girls you killed? "
"I chose not to care in order to serve a higher purpose."
"Your vampirism?" Ingrid was suddenly furious. All the hurt Cambridge had done the region flooded her thoughts. "I ought to have Scott and Darren drag you outside right now. We'll find out just how meaningful your purpose is."
"You, on the other hand," Cambridge continued, "have no choices to make in the matter. You know of only one, simple way. Hatred may not be a pleasant thing to feel, Miss Felton, but it's still an emotion. It gets things done."
"I can't think of anything good coming out of hating somebody."
"Hatred requires not a living target. Plenty of good derives from negative beginnings, Miss Felton. A man may build a tree house for his son because he hates the thought of disappointing him. A woman may paint a mural on a wall because she hates how plain it looks. I daresay the region of hatred is not at all barbaric, but a glorious, prosperous place, filled with the achievements of its dwellers."
She shrugged. "It still doesn't sound like a tourist spot to me. But your point is taken, Mister Cambridge. So I'll ask again," she went on, braving the vampire's proximity by leaning over the coffin, "tell me where you brought the dambuhala through, so I can put them back. If fear is the primary emotion of their region then fear is what I'll use."
He waited a long time before answering. Scott and Darren checked on her again; she told them she was fine. Then she took a deep breath and circled to the other side of the chamber. Something--a rodent, it sounded like--skittered across the floor. She didn't let it scare her the way such creatures normally would. Cambridge appeared to be deep in thought. Soon, she was convinced, his secret would be hers. It made these seconds alone with him critical; any distraction held the potential to change the vampire's mind and end their conversation with the veil undrawn. And so she waited, still holding her breath, until at last Cambridge turned his head in her direction.
"It would do better to show you than to tell you," he said.
"Why?" Ingrid plumed, before gasping deep with some much needed air.
"Because I want to be there when it happens," he answered. "It's a fascinating thing to behold, the opening of the interstice. Also..." He trailed off, closing his eyes.
"Yes?"
"You'll need someone with you--a person who has at least some vague, conscious experience with these things--to reduce the risk of failure."