‘”I … I’ll burn!” he gasped then. For a moment his eyes were wide and bright with fear, but then a strange look of peaceful resignation came into them. “It … is finished.”
‘I tried to take his hand but he shook me off; and once more he muttered, “Finished. After all these long centuries …”
‘”It was finished anyway,” I told him. “Your injuries . . . surely you must have known?” I was anxious to make it as easy as possible for him. “Your pain was so great that you’ve crossed the pain threshold. You no longer feel it. At least there’s that to be thankful for.”
‘At that he looked at me, and I saw scorn staring out of his eyes. “My injuries? My pain?” he repeated. “Hah!” And his short bark of a laugh was bitter as a green lemon, full of acid and contempt. “When I wore the dragon-helm and got a lance through my visor, which broke the bridge of my nose, shot through and smashed out the back of my skull, that was pain!” he growled. “Pain, aye, for part of me – the real ME – had been hurt. That was Silistria, where we crushed the Ottoman. Oh, I know pain, my friend. We are old, old acquaintances, pain and I. In 1204 at Constantinople it was Greek fire. I had joined the Fourth Crusade in Zara, as a mercenary, and was burned for my trouble at the height of our triumph! Ah, but didn’t we make them pay for it? For three whole days we pillaged, raped, slew. And I – in my agony, half eaten away, burned through almost to the very heart of ME – I was the greatest slayer of all! The human flesh had shrivelled but the Wamphyri lived on! And now this, pinned here and crippled, where the flames will find me and put an end to it. The Greek fire expired at last, but this one will not. Human pain and agony, I know nothing of them and care less. But Wamphyri pain? Impaled, burning, shrieking in the fire and melting away layer by layer? No, that must not be . . .”
These were his words as best I remember them. I thought he raved. Perhaps he was a historian? A learned man, certainly. But already the flames were leaping, the heat intolerable. I couldn’t stay with him – but I couldn’t leave him, not while he was conscious, anyway. I took out a cotton pad and a small bottle of chloroform, and –
‘He saw my intention, knocked the unstoppered bottle from my hand. Its contents spilled, were consumed in blue flames in an instant. “Fool!” he hissed. “You’d only deaden the human part!”
‘My clothes were beginning to feel unbearably hot and small tongues of fire were tracing their way round the skirting-board. I could barely breathe. “Why don’t you die?” I cried then, unable to tear myself away from him. “For God’s sake, die!”
‘”God?” he openly mocked me. “Hah! No peace for me there, even if I believed. No room for me in your heaven, my friend.” ‘On the floor amongst other debris from the desk lay a paperknife. One edge of its blade was unusually keen. I took it up, approached him. My target would be his throat, ear to ear. It was as if he read my mind. ‘”Not good enough,” he told me. “It has to be the whole head.”
‘”What?” I asked him. “What are you saying?” ‘Then he fixed me with his eyes. “Come here.” ‘I could not disobey. I leaned over him, gazed down on him, held out the knife. He took it from me, tossed it away. “Now we will do it my way,” he said. “The only sure way.”
‘I stared into his eyes and was held by them. They were . . . magnetic! If he had said nothing but merely held me with those eyes, then I would have remained there and burned with him. I knew it then and know it I now. Crippled, crushed, opened up like a fish for the gutting, still he had the power!
‘”Go to the kitchen,” he commanded. “A cleaver – the big one – fetch it. Go now.”