MYSTERIES OF OTRANTO

The Palazzo Otranto might have been grown rather than built. It was neat as a snail's shell or a human heart, an architectural spiral. The main corridor began as a ledge inside the topmost tower, like the rifling of a gun barrel, and wound down through the building, the rooms off it larger the nearer they were to ground level, turning at last into a circular passageway around the cavernous basements. No staircases, just a constant helter-skelter slope and the occasional sharp step. Hell on the knees.

The palazzo was in Fregene, on the coast a few miles outside Rome, among pine forests and the usual ruins. There was a Temple of Pan on the grounds. The Dracula household celebrated eternal Saturnalia, a nebulous and never-ending party that attracted guests like flies.

Tom had been here since Spring and wasn't sure if he should stay much longer. There was no particular reason to move on and he certainly didn't want to return to the bailiwick of the New York Police Department. He'd left the States in the first place to avoid questions about a silly stunt some folk might call mail fraud though it hadn't gone on long enough for him to make money out of it, worse luck. The exclusive company of the dead was deepening his customary ennui. Someone dangerous might pick up on the irritation he attempted to conceal behind fashionable disinterest. The dead were clowns, but also killers.

This was, however, the life of ease and refinement he always imagined would suit him best. Goodish paintings were about, mostly from old and fussy schools he didn't cotton to. A VistaVision Schalcken hung in his tower room, an angry horse with nightmare eyes. Renaissance schlock adorned the ballrooms, Biblical scenes heavy with bloody thunderclouds and gross nudes.

The dead clung to the fashions of their lives. The exception was il principe, whose premature enthusiasm for Van Gogh  -  he was the only person to buy from the painter in his lifetime  -  had paid off in his several exiles. Canvases worthless when bought now stood security for loans that kept the household among the wealthiest in Europe. Those daubs, at which Tom would have liked to get a look, were shut up in Dracula's private apartments, in the lower cellar depths.

In this topsy-turvy world, the most luxurious and sought-after quarters were the deepest underground, the nearest to Hell, the most like tombs or vaults. Penthouses that'd do for American millionaires were palmed off on half-living servants and enslaved blood donors.

In his months here, Tom had only set eyes on il principe once, with Penelope. He stuck to his apartments and rarely visited the party of which he was the host. He seemed like any other ancient dead man, with long white military moustaches and dark glasses like the wings of a black beetle. Nevertheless, Tom admired Dracula, for his Van Gogh craze if nothing else. That taste, once daringly radical, suggested an openness to the new uncharacteristic of the dead. Also, that  -  whatever his current circumstances  -  he could still be a dangerous man, a predator. Tom respected him. He'd leave il principe alone, and hope Dracula did the same for him.

In the mornings, before the household stirred, Tom took precious time to himself. He liked to sit in the Crystal Room, a conservatory on the first floor, looking out at the grounds through forty-foot walls of glass. Before noon, the room was a kaleidoscope of sunlight; he was rarely bugged by the dead.

He claimed a favourite chair to read the International Herald Tribune and drink continuous thimble-cups of bitter, strong espresso. The warm servants of the day shift, who rarely lasted long, were eager to keep him happy. Not a cruel fellow, he liked a little bowing and scraping. He felt he'd earned his leisure. It had taken not a little ingenuity and hard graft to get him here.

Sunlight danced around, flashing off the dragon-scale panes of the conservatory roof, illuminating columns of swirling dust, making angular patterns on the old carpet. Tom felt warmth on his face and was tempted to close his eyes and doze. He might not have to spend the day in a casket lined with Boston soil, but he'd still been up all night. Even the heart-punching coffee couldn't keep him awake forever. His habit was to siesta in the afternoon and early evening, to be out of the way when the dead rose.

Was his distaste just an American prejudice? There weren't many living dead in the States. Prohibition hadn't driven them out completely in the '20s, but they remained an underground presence, not the mushroom growth they were in Europe. Legal restrictions on their practices were stringently enforced. Tom fancied himself free from most convention, but something about the creatures crawled behind his eyes.

He opened his dressing gown at the throat and undid the top buttons of his Ascot Chang shirt. Dickie's shirt, originally. He hoped he was tanning. A Mediterranean brown would make the bite-marks stand out less. And he didn't want to be mistaken for one of the dead. He was with them so much that a wall was rising around him, separating him from the living.

It wasn't until he came to Europe, head a-buzz with his aunt's tales of bloodsucking monsters on every street corner, that he really found out anything about the dead. They weren't so fearsome.

In his own small way, he was a predator on the dead.

In Greece for no very good reason, Tom had run into Richard Fountain, a youngish newlydead. They knew each other from a weekend party in the Hamptons to which Tom had not exactly been invited. Dickie, now on the run from a tiresome girlfriend and a God-awful Cambridge College, was glad of the company, and took him back to his beach-house on Cyprus. Somehow, the Englishman picked up the idea that Tom was from money but estranged from it, a remittance man. Tom could never work out why life in England had become intolerable for Dickie, but it had, driving him south-east in a restless search for something indefinable. His course had led him to a dead peasant named Chriseis, who had turned him on their first night and ditched him in the dark.

Together, Tom and Dickie knocked around a little, hopping from island to island, having the usual adventures. Dickie, hooked on new experience, was obsessed with the dead of Greece. He rooted around everywhere for traces of Chriseis's bloodline, which he supposed went back to the vorvolukas of recent times and the lamiae of antiquity. It was a bit of a yawn but nothing that couldn't be coped with. After all, being bored was better than being in prison. It was Tom's intention never to go to jail. He loathed the idea of enforced proximity, of being in a tiny space with another man or men not of his choosing.

Through Dickie, Tom realised something important about the dead. When their teeth were stuck in your neck and your blood was washing around their mouths, they were in no position to notice you going through their pockets.

In his ignorance, Tom had thought the dead needed blood to survive the way the living needed water. It wasn't true. Warm blood could be like dope, or alcohol, or sex, or espresso, or sugar. Anything from a desperate addiction to a mild weakness. When the red thirst was on them, their famed powers of insight and persuasion turned to fuzz and fudge.

At first, Dickie was apologetic about bleeding Tom, and profusely grateful afterward. He didn't know the ropes. He said 'excuse me', 'please' and 'thank you' every time he bit some poor warm fool. Then he began to display an arrogant streak, as if he'd made Tom into his slave or something. In long, rambling monologues near dawn in the beachhouse, Dickie talked about sin and evil and gratification, of the need to go beyond guilt and embrace the full human potential. Words like 'sin', 'evil', and 'guilt' were meaningless to Tom. He had heard them often at school and been fascinated by their meanings, but only in an academic way as if they were discredited scientific theories centuries had been wasted on. The miracle was that Dickie still saw something in all that rot.

It became obvious to Tom that the arrangement could not last indefinitely. He'd had to cast around for a way of coming out of it comfortably.

A few trickles of blood fogged Dickie completely, made him uncommonly suggestible. After a month or so of this communion, the dead man no longer noticed if Tom borrowed things on a permanent basis. He liked to wear Dickie's English clothes, which were of a quality he appreciated. It was providential that they were roughly the same size.

When he accepted death, Richard Fountain threw away his life. It was only fair, then, that Tom should pick it up. He was best placed to enjoy it, after all.

Eventually, the set-up grew highly tiresome. Dickie's mad fiancee tracked them down to Cyprus. She made accusations which Tom found hurtful and upsetting. To sort things out, Tom and Dickie went off one night in a boat to argue it through and Tom stuck a broken-off spar into Dickie's chest. Though not dead long enough to turn to dust, he'd gone off like spoiled meat. Tom had tipped him over the side and watched him sink.

He fixed it so Dickie appeared to have left for an untraceable Greek island on a fool's search for the source of Chriseis's bloodline, leaving behind a small income signed over into Tom's control, 'for the maintenance of the house'. More importantly, Dickie left written instructions that Tom should have the use of his travelling wardrobe. No one was happy, especially the fiancee and the family. The cops were involved, but investigations and insinuations fizzled out.

Dickie was already deceased, so no murder case could be brought. Greece was one of those countries that had never rewritten its laws to accommodate the walking dead. If anyone was sought for the murder, it was the elusive Chriseis. The authorities had no incentive to search for a corpse that was probably unidentifiable mould anyway.

The money carried Tom to Italy and, despite his reluctance to get mixed up again with the dead, eventually washed him into the Palazzo Otranto.

And against Penelope.

She had been dead a long time. Dickie would have said she knew the ropes. If you got close, you could tell her age. Her skin was white, but with an undertint of corruption that was almost bluish. If she were scratched with silver, Tom thought her wounds would peel open, festering. Her face and limbs were perfect, but she had scars, angry red circles, on her breasts and stomach, like bullet holes.

On Malta, he was approached by an English subaltern who originally mistook him, because of his clothes, for Dickie, with whom he had been flogged at school. The young officer had a package, brought out from England to pay off a favour. It was to be taken to an exile in Rome. Tom was offered the use of an already-booked room at the Rinascimento in Campo de' Fiori if he would deliver the package. Tom had planned to go on to Rome anyway, and this was as painless a way of arriving as any.

He was tempted to peek, of course. The parcel was small enough to contain a fountain pen or a hypodermic syringe. He assumed from the roundabout method of delivery that it was an artifact on its way to a new owner, perhaps without the consent of the last one.

The addressee was Penelope Churchward. They met at his hotel and he handed over the package, which she said was a wedding present. Afterward, she extended an invitation which, a few days later, he was pleased to take up. He knew from the first that she was interested in bleeding him. This was a comparatively new experience for him, but he was picking up on it. Was he one of those fellows who was attractive to the dead?

Penny found Tom useful for more than his blood. Her position in il principe's household was undefined. She ran things, as much a housekeeper as a mistress. There were always chores Tom could do, like driving that dead cow Malenka through adoring hordes, or fetching goods from the city in broad daylight. He didn't even mind. There were advantages to being part of il principe's entourage and yet a living man.

When she was bleeding him, she was as helpless as Dickie, as much addled by the taste of his blood. But she was more demanding, thirstier. Her red kisses drained him. He wondered how long she could last. At times, she was quite fun. She'd known Whistler and Wilde in her warm days, though not much understood their work.

His bites itched. He rearranged his dressing gown over them. Tom wasn't yet sure what to do with Penny. Something would come to mind.

It must be past noon. The sun had passed overhead. Shadows gathered like curtains in the Crystal Room.

Dead hands slipped around his neck.

Tom didn't have to guess who.

Penelope was in a mood, he realised. Working too hard on devil-may-care brittleness, she draped herself over an armchair as if it were a patron's lap, dangling one leg like a flirty fourteen-year-old. Her foot swung like a metronome. He guessed she'd like to kick someone.

She wore slacks, cut halfway up the calves to show off her pretty ankles, and ballet pumps. Her Nehru jacket was a sombre blue shade with frivolous filaments of something shiny mixed into the weave. Her hair was pinned up under an oversize sailor's cap with a red pom-pom.

Sunglasses dangled from her mouth. She had a habit of chewing the arms, sometimes snapping them off. He saw a tiny fang biting down.

'You must amuse me, Tom,' she decreed. 'I need to be amused. Desperately.'

It was because the elder from last night and his bovine 'niece' had run into the local murderer. Penelope could have cheerfully killed them herself, but resented the fuss made about this colourful atrocity.

The Roman morning papers were full of pictures. Malenka was everywhere, her luminously smiling face and ridiculous pout contrasted with grainier, less glamorous shots of the cops at the scene of the crime.

'Malenka came to Rome to be a star,' Tom observed. 'And has got her wish.'

Penelope snorted rather than laughed.

'You don't think the little witch will turn up unhurt, do you?' she said. 'That it's a publicity stunt? There isn't much identifiable in the way of a body, according to the papers. Even that blessed dress has waltzed off.'

'Count Kernassy is definitely identified,' he pointed out.

'She'd have killed for headlines. That one would kill for lunch.'

Penelope sat cross-legged on the seat, winding her legs together in a yoga pose, and lifted herself up on her arms, swaying slightly like one of those nodding dog automobile ornaments prized by vulgar people.

'Your English pal was a witness,' Tom said.

'Irish. Katie's Irish.'

'She gave a full description of their deaths. And of their murderer, this Crimson Executioner. Of course, she might have her reasons for being a liar.'

Penelope smiled nastily at the thought of her friend being in on murder.

'She can't be mixed up with it. She met Kernassy on the plane.'

'So she says.'

Tom did not believe for a moment what he was suggesting. He was spinning out a story to distract Penelope, to amuse her. She liked to think the worst of people. Except of him, oddly enough.

'It's not Katie Reed, Tom,' she said, having thought it through. 'You don't know her.'

'How well do we ever really know anyone?'

'I'm a vampire, you American clod. I can see into men's minds and hearts, and suck them dry.'

She flipped out of the chair and was close to him, faster than his eye could register. A cheap dead trick. It was supposed to unnerve and overwhelm.

Her hands rested on his shoulders and she leaned forward, glasses still dangling from her mouth, for a quick, bloodless kiss.

Tom felt a thrill of revulsion at the nearness of the dead woman. He let her peck his lips.

She was gone again, at the other side of the Crystal Room, leaning against a fireplace. Then she was back in her chair, sitting properly, knees together.

'I don't know what we're going to tell Princess Asa,' she said. 'She'll probably go spare.'

However irritated Penelope might be with Count Kernassy and Malenka, her real goat was Princess Asa Vajda, the Royal Fiancee. It was too obvious to think her simply jealous, for Tom knew she didn't dare imagine herself as even a consort for il principe. Though she'd taken on the organising of the household, she was clearly not one of Dracula's sluts. Tom had seen them about, mindless dead women in shrouds, and a damn nuisance to any warm man within reach.

Sometimes Tom thought Penelope hated everyone but was too well brought-up to mention it.

She had a history, but it was too dull to delve into. It was as if he had walked into a movie theatre during the last reel of a complicated but not very interesting melodrama. His best policy was to ignore it, cluck the occasional agreeable or amusing comment and let the dead sort themselves out.

'Think of it this way, Penny,' he began. 'You've two free spaces in the chapel for the ceremony. You can bump up some of the poor relations.'

One of Penelope's chores was to assemble as many of Dracula's get as possible for the wedding. Il principe had been profligate for centuries, turning his mistresses and officers, disseminating his bloodline like a dog wetting trees.

'You've no idea how superstitious all those Middle European barbarians are,' she said. 'Reluctant to plonk their bottoms on a truly dead man's chair. Some still light black candles for the Devil on Walpurgis Night.'

By the time of the wedding, Tom wanted to be done with the dead. The ceremony was to be in the palace chapel, probably because the Pope wouldn't let Dracula use St Peter's. Otranto would be thronged with dead things.

The doors of the Crystal Room were flung open. Princess Asa made an entrance.

She wore six-inch high heels and a black bikini swimsuit, not an atypical ensemble for her. Transparent layers of floor-length shroud were draped over her head, fixed by a wide floppy black hat. Her waist-length hair was as dark as the proverbial raven's wing. Through all the grey lace, her huge round eyes glowed like red neons. Her cheekbones were sculptured ice, her lower lip was reckoned the lushest in Europe, and her tummy was tight as a drum skin.

On leashes, she had two mastiffs the size of ponies.

'Signorina Churchward,' she shouted. 'Can you not be entrusted with even the simplest task? Can you not fetch a valued friend from the airport without losing him to the mob?'

Penelope stood, affecting unconcern.

'Are we all to be found in our coffins and destroyed, as in the old times? You moderns remember nothing of the persecutions. Why were precautions not taken? Why was this atrocity allowed to happen?'

As she spoke, with a hollowly venomous voice, the Princess's shrouds fluttered around her like anemone fronds. She stalked the room, heels putting penny-sized holes in the old carpet, lace drifting behind in an angry froth, thin white thighs scything.

Penelope knew better than to shrug.

'Il principe will be distressed,' shouted Asa.

Tom wasn't sure the Princess had ever met her Prince. Theirs was more an alliance than a marriage, with everything negotiated beforehand. She seemed able to speak for him at all times, though. It would be interesting to see how much authority she might actually have.

One of the dogs snarled at Tom. Animals didn't like him much, which was a shame.

Princess Asa wheeled to look at him.

Her eyes burned through lace. Her eyelids curled like snarling lips. She flashed white teeth.

'I should take him from you, your toy,' she said, to Penelope. 'As punishment.'

Her dead face loomed close, eyes the size of saucers. Tom caught a whiff of grave-breath.

'But such treatment would be wasted on you,' the Princess said, wafting across the room, fluttering toward Penelope. 'You are a stupid, unfeeling woman. You care for nothing and no one.'

'As you say, Princess.'

Princess Asa picked up a Chinese plant pot older than she was, and smashed it on the floor, skewering earthy roots with a heel.

'Kneel, Englishwoman!'

Penelope's face tightened.

The Princess drew herself up, shrouds gathered, and towered over Penelope. A mediaeval tyrant in a snit, a Victorian lady with steel in her spine.

Princess Asa lifted a taloned hand in command. Her fingernails raised points in her shrouds.

Penelope went down on one knee but didn't lower her head.

'Kneel as if you meant it, woman.'

'As you say.'

Penelope looked briefly at the carpet, then got up, brushing dirt from her knees.

'Satisfied?' she asked Princess Asa.

'Eminently.'

'Good. If you'll excuse me, I have errands to run.' She looked at the shards of china and the trampled plant. 'I'll find a servant to clear up this mess. That was Tang Dynasty, by the way. Ninth century. A gift to Prince Dracula from Kah of Ping Kuei Temple. The High Priest probably didn't expect his tribute to be used as a flowerpot. Ugly object, I always thought. But apparently quite valuable.'

Penelope withdrew with strange dignity. Tom was proud of the old girl.

He was left alone with the Royal Fiancee.

She growled at him, like one of her dogs. He relaxed a little. She might make great display of her wrath, but Princess Asa was far less dangerous a creature than Penelope Churchward. For Tom, the Royal Fiancee was easy, almost disappointing.

He adjusted his collar, touching always-open bitemarks. He got his fingertips a little bloody and rolled them together.

Princess Asa, struck by red thirst, forgot his face, and looked at his sticky fingers. Pretending to have noticed her interest only now, Tom apologised and searched for a handkerchief. Then, shyly, as if it were an afterthought, he held out his hand, fingers dangling.

The Princess hesitated, looking around to see if they were observed. She gathered her shrouds and threw them up over her hat, tidying them behind her white shoulders. Her skin was like polished bone.

She moved as fast as Penelope, darting close to Tom, dipping her head, licking his fingers clean, then retreating, cleaning her mouth on gauze.

He saw how his taste affected her. Her skinny ribs rose and fell, like the legs of a contented centipede. She was shuddering with delight.

She would never give him a thought again.