Origin of the Vampyre

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

Polidori hunched over the cadaver, an odor of moth balls and mulberry wine creeping from the skin. The victim’s clothing had been stripped, folded neatly, and placed next to the other body on the credenza, including a silk cravat that had been knotted tight and ripped, likely in the tussle prior to death. He guessed the gentleman to be well into his fifties, with a body scarred by life and war. His left shoulder appeared gouged by a bayonet, the flesh stretched back into place long ago by battlefield stitching. Polidori ran his hands down the arms and around the torso, recognizing the dimple and bump of remnant subsurface metal fragments meant to kill. French Revolutionary War, he surmised, as the victim appeared too ancient for the Battle of Waterloo. The teeth, however, were doubtless Waterloo. He urged open the grey-stubbled jaw and slipped his fingers and thumb in behind the cheeks. The inside of the mouth was dry. Like parchment. There was a dull c***k as he pressed the jaw further and pulled out the dentures. He placed them on the cadaver’s hairless chest.

The chest heaved.

An arm slipped from the table to hang outstretched.

Polidori stumbled backwards in fright. He landed against the other body on the credenza, his elbow sinking into the decaying torso. An apothecary jar full of samples and formaldehyde crashed to the floor.

“My dear God.” He collected his senses and returned to the gentleman—the victim. The chest slowly dropped as air was expelled through the open mouth and nostrils. Trembling, the doctor held his ear close to the mouth. No further sign of breath. He touched his fingertips to the side of the neck. They slipped naturally into two indentations from some antiquated wound. No sign of a pulse. He squeezed the hand, but no response. He held a mirror to the lips, but no fogging.

He waited, thinking hard, and then he noticed the dentures. One of the teeth was missing. He picked them up and held them close to the lantern. They were well made. Expensive. Nicely shaped teeth collected from the dead of the Waterloo battlefield. The enamel of each was strong and without blemish, groove, or decay—more likely European than British. The estate would want to keep them.

He pulled out the tooth he’d extracted from the lower-leg wound—dull, rotten, with b****y remnants of root and gum. Definitely not part of the dentures.

Polidori took out his pipe, stuffed tobacco into its head and lit it. He sat with the gentleman for the remainder of the night, his fingers lightly pressed to the wrist of the outstretched arm. The lantern guttered and the basement dropped into darkness, but still he held the cold, cold flesh, wondering if life continued or was gone. It upset him that, despite his training, he did not truly know the answer.