I took the form of a bat and made my way to his East End lodgings. The necklace was where he said, under a floorboard. It contained a single brilliant ruby. The setting was simple, allowing the gem to shine in all its brilliance. Such a jewel would sparkle upon any woman’s bosom, and it crossed my mind to simply retreat to my rooms and keep it for myself. It would look stunning on Lucy. But I had already started other events in action, so I hung the jewel around my neck and reverted to the form of a bat, keeping to the shadows so the light would not flash upon the ruby.
Upon my return I found Mr. Danielson seated at my table, dutifully obeying the suggestions I had left with him. I handed him the necklace and bade him to return it to the duchess. Return it he did, but I was unprepared for the noblewoman’s quite earthy reaction. She began to beat the man about the head and shoulders with her handbag with such fury that two waiters were required to separate the pair. Presently a policeman arrived and the duchess proffered her charges.
The great scientist Tesla, seemingly engrossed in calculating the volume of his coffee pot, looked up at the commotion and approached the duchess after the leech had been taken into custody. Although the incident was not directly of his doing, he offered his most sincere apologies for any distress caused to her person. As he spoke, his eye was drawn to the ruby necklace dangling from her hand.
“Madam, would you allow me to examine your ruby?”
She understandably demurred.
“You may hold onto the necklace. Please, hold only the gem up to the light.” He gestured in the direction of a gas lamp. He studied the stone for a long moment, inspecting the way in which the light refracted through its facets. He thanked the mystified duchess for her kindness then returned to his table, his thoughts still clearly with the ruby. Next he took a long, slow sip of coffee then proceeded to arrange the spoons at his place in precise alignment with the salt cellar. The waiter delivered a brandy snifter, the volume of which Tesla absentmindedly calculated. He took a sip, then recalculated the remaining amount of liquid. After a moment a smile began to play upon his lips, and his eyes shone with the brilliance of scientific thought.
“Gentlemen,” he addressed the somewhat startled assemblage at his table, “what do you suppose would happen if you were to shine a very intense light through a ruby which has been cut so as to precisely focus that light?”
“A very focused red beam of light?” ventured one fellow.
“That could be quite useful during your magic lantern slide presentations,” concluded another.
“The world is not ready,” Tesla sighed as the waiter refreshed his snifter, then addressed the man. “Did you know that you have precisely forty-two ounces of brandy left in your decanter? I’ll double your gratuity if you can divide that equally between the glasses at this table.” There was a hearty laugh all around as I retreated to my own place to settle up my bill. My heart sank as I noticed the waiter had refilled my wine glass and brought a fresh, steaming bowl of soup.
Ah, well. I would simply leave a generous tip and explain that a recent sea journey had left my stomach unsettled. I had learned that there are as many excuses as there are long, lonely nights in London.
An Essay on Containment
Gene DeWeese
(From the Secret Journal of Radoslav Coulson)
London
August 7, 1893.
I greatly fear there will soon be trouble for us all. The so-called Count has made landfall, I know not where.
For days I have sensed his approach, so powerful is his aura. But it is not his power that is the source of our peril, it is his damnable ego, his utter lack of discipline.
We have known of his existence for more than a century, so perhaps the current dilemma is as much of our own making as it is of his. We should have acted decisively decades ago and not continued to place naive confidence in his obvious intellect and the instinct for survival that we all share. It is apparent that our quiet counsel, even our more pointed warnings, have gone unheeded. Had he paid the slightest attention to our words, he would at least have contacted one of us to help prepare the way for his journey, not one of them, with whom he must always be on guard, ready with justifications for behaviors that to them are bizarre but to us are only what our nature demands.
But perhaps I am being unduly alarmist. Perhaps those very contacts will cause him to apprehend the danger more clearly, to begin at last to act with the discretion that is essential in dealing with the ever-increasing perils of the modern world. Such, at least, is my hope.
Nonetheless, we shall begin our preparations immediately. I only hope that our skills have not atrophied in the decades since we were last called upon to make extensive use of them.
August 9, 1893.
Once it was determined by consensus which of our unwitting accomplices to employ in this matter, it required only a single night to verify that our choice was viable. The extensive conditioning he was given nearly half a century ago in his youth still holds sway. He has become precisely the person we intended, precisely the person we knew we would someday need. Now preparations for our little drama can begin in earnest.
August 12, 1893.
As I had hoped and expected, the initial phase went remarkably well.
Indeed, it is at times like this that I can understand what drives the Count to engage in his reckless behavior. There is undeniably an incomparable satisfaction to be taken in exercising one’s mental powers, causing memories to shift and alter by mere whispered suggestions in the night. As I observe the intricate patterns of change we weave within the minds of our oblivious subjects, I can imagine that the feeling we experience is not unlike that which their master musicians achieve when giving a virtuoso performance for an appreciative audience.
My only regret is that for our virtuoso performances there can be no audience save ourselves unless it becomes necessary for the subjects to act out the scenario dictated by those deceitful memories. Contrariwise, my dearest hope is that, for the sake of us all, such actions are never required and that the memories themselves, untended, will gradually retrogress, unnoticed, until the minds that housed them are left only with dull reality.
We shall see.
August 17, 1893.
Carfax!
The fool has actually moved into Carfax, bringing with him not one but fifty boxes of his precious native soil, a needless luxury at best! If he persists in such recklessness, he might as well shout his nature from the rooftops!
I should not have delayed even these few days. I should not have allowed myself to entertain for even a moment those same false hopes that had already kept us from acting for nearly a century. I should have paid stricter heed not only to the power and the undisciplined nature of his aura but also to his shameful record of almost mindless self-indulgence. I should have seen that, like anyone, he is shaped by his past experience, and that his past experience consists of centuries of indulging his every whim without concern for the effects. For centuries he “lived” alone in a backward and isolated area where superstitions of all kinds were so deeply ingrained in the mortal populace that no one would even think of defying even the most ludicrously unlikely creatures who claimed, let alone openly demonstrated, supernatural powers. Drink a little of their blood while they slumber unaware, steal one of their daughters and bend her to your will, causing her to rise in the night in answer to your silent summons, and they cower in their hovels, scrupulously avoiding any show of defiance or even of discontent for fear that anything short of servile obedience would only worsen their situation.