Victor Gischler - Vampire A Go-Go

Go away .

The lock came louder, a voice shouting on the other side of the door, “Master Kelley!”

He stood reluctantly, went to the door, and opened it a crack to see a teenager on the other side, with a dirty face, greasy hair. Some random lackey from the stables or kitchens.

“Master Kelley?”

“What is it?”

“Word’s all over that he’s dead, sir. The emperor has everyone running every which way. Said to come fetch the alchemist. I’ve got to get back, but the emperor wants you right away and no mistake!” Breathless. He dashed away before Kelley could ask him anything.

He went downstairs and out of the tower, paused to dunk his head in the water trough, where he drank handfuls of water. Damn, he was still half drunk.

He was halfway to the castle when he was intercepted by one of the emperor’s robed advisors. He recognized the man’s face but couldn’t come up with a name.

“Is it true he’s dead?” Kelley asked.

“I’m afraid so,” the advisor said. “Naturally, the emperor wants to… ah… take the opportunity to test the device.” The advisor quickly looked around to make sure no one had overheard him.

Kelley shook his head. What would Roderick think about being brought back to life by his own invention? “Where is he?”

“They’re putting him into dry clothes now,” the advisor said.

Kelley stopped walking, then looked at the advisor, confusion on his face. “Dry clothes?”

“I thought you’d heard. He drowned in the Charles River. It happened just an hour ago.”

“Wait. What was he doing in the Charles River?”

“That’s hardly relevant.” Haughty. Impatient.

“But I just… how did he get to the river?”

“The emperor’s cousin was boating with a couple of young ladies. He fell in and drowned. It’s hardly-”

“Hold on. Who? The emperor’s cousin?”

“Who do you think we’ve been talking about?”

“I just…” The emperor’s cousin. Not Roderick. “I was confused for a moment. Never mind. Lead on.”

Kelley followed the advisor to St. Vitus Cathedral, past a brace of guards keeping out casual worshippers, and into the vault leading to the caverns below. The paths had been completed and roped off for safety; the entire underground complex had been completed. Even the ladder that led down the front of the dam had been replaced by narrow stone steps along the cavern wall.

It had been explained to Kelley that the caverns would be the most well kept of state secrets, the legacy of the Holy Roman Emperors. That was one of the reasons a dead peasant had not been brought in previously to test the machine on a human. If the peasant was brought back to life, then he would need to be killed again to keep the secret, and not even Rudolph could bring himself to be that bloody. Only the emperor and the royal family and his heirs would have access to immortality.

Laborers who’d worked in the caverns had been pressed into the army and sent to faraway campaigns. Soldiers standing outside the cathedral had no idea what they were guarding. Of course, rumors spread of the strange activities in and under the castle, but the emperor’s spies continued to spread the tale that the alchemists were transmuting lead into gold. (A rumor that also helped explain why so much lead was being sent to the castle.) It was a cover story that would hold for centuries.

They entered the waterwheel chamber, where Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II waited with more advisors and captains, the most powerful and influential people at court. They watched him expectantly as he approached. Kelley stood before the emperor and bowed his head just enough to show respect. He’d been through too much to grovel. He no longer cared what happened to him.

Rudolph looked him up and down. “Kelley, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“And you can operate this machine? Roderick has shown you?”

“Yes, Highness.”

The emperor stepped aside, gesturing to the table on the stone dais. A man lay stretched out on the table. A circle of lenses hung from a thick chain above, with a prism and another, larger lens in the middle of the circle.

“My cousin,” Rudolph said.

Kelley nodded, climbed the steps of the dais, looked down at the young man on the table. Fair hair, still slightly damp, clean bright skin. He’d been put into a dry robe of plain, white cloth. Bare feet. He didn’t look dead at all. He looked like he was sleeping, dreaming of something far away. Kelley put his hand on the man’s chest. No heartbeat.

“Can you do it?” Rudolph called from below.

Kelley pointed at a wall of lead a dozen feet wide and seven feet tall. It had been erected as protection from the machine’s rays. “You’ll be safe behind there.”

The emperor and his advisors looked at one another a moment, then scurried behind the wall.

Kelley looked at the cousin’s smooth face again. Had he deserved to die so young? Was he a good person? Kelley had never met him in life. Maybe God had selected him for death. Perhaps he was wicked and cruel, and it was a kindness to the world to be rid of him. Who was Kelley to decide his life or death? Kelley tried to convince himself he wasn’t deciding anything. Roderick had built the machine. Rudolph had given the orders.

Kelley was simply pulling the levers.

“What’s happening over there?” Rudolph called from behind the wall.

Kelley frowned, ignored the emperor.

The alchemist circled to the other side of the dais, where a row of twenty levers connected to gears and pulleys and flywheels. He pulled the first lever, and the sound of rushing water filled the cavern. The waterwheel turned, slowly at first, then more rapidly. The other levers determined the order of the lenses, the flow of light, lowering the whole apparatus. It all had to be done in the exact order. Kelley had been over the scribbled instructions in his journal a thousand times. He knew the procedure by heart.

“Do you hear me?” shouted the emperor. “What’s happening?”

Shut up, you lunatic. I’m working .

Kelley began to pull levers. The lenses lowered, surrounded the table. Overhead, gears meshed. Powered by the waterwheel, they began to spin. The big lens in the middle lowered until it was directly over the emperor’s cousin, three feet from his chest. Portals opened overhead. Sunlight from above, reflected and re-reflected through lenses and mirrors, poured through the shafts, struck the lenses brilliantly white.

Kelley had expected it, but he flinched anyway.

Rudolph stuck his head around the corner, squinted into the light. “Damn you, alchemist. Don’t you hear me talking to you?”

“If you want to live, Highness, get back behind the protective barrier.”

Rudolph frowned but ducked back behind the lead wall.

Hatred and resentment swelled within Kelley. Who was this insane ruler to defy the will of God, to squander the resources of an empire for his mad schemes? How many had died and suffered for Rudolph’s vanity? Kelley’s need to defy the emperor compelled him at that moment like no other force on earth, his need to rebel palpable.

Since the emperor and his men were behind the lead wall, nobody saw the terrible thing Kelley did next.

When his act of defiance had been completed, he pulled another lever, rechecked the lenses, and retreated back behind the lead wall with the others. Here there was a final lever. He pulled it. Gears spun overhead. He could not see, but he knew what was happening. The lead box opened, and the stone’s rays flooded the prism beneath it. The rays emerged from the other side of the prism and struck the lens directly above the emperor’s cousin. The ceiling of the cavern jerked and danced with colored lights. Rudolph and his men cowered. A few crossed themselves.