Welcome to the sporadically published series “Punk Fiction,” a series of pulp horror adventure stories featuring the Order of Fafnir, a thousand year old secret society of monster hunters, who are primarily dedicated to slaying vampires. I hope to get more of these out in the future, but I knew I definitely wanted to get something done before spooky season was completely over. So here’s a Hallowe’en treat on the scariest day of the year!
The Duel
Paris, 1630
“I beg your pardon, but did you see where my wife wandered off to?” Jeroen said. He held two glasses of red wine, one for himself and one for Heleen. He stepped away for only the length of time it took to secure the drinks, but returned to find her vanished into the crowd. Henri and Juliette, the two French nobles he left Heleen with, merely shook their heads at his question. Jeroen saw some sadness in Juliette’s eyes, but Henri’s lips curled into a knowing smirk.
Jeroen smiled weakly in return and stepped away, still holding the glasses. He surveyed the room, a large space on the second floor of a Parisian villa, bracketed with columns on one side and tall windows on the other. The windows opened into the cool summer evening air, which did nothing to lessen the oppressiveness of bodies packed into a small space, the buzz of conversation, or the warbling tones of the musicians. A dozen couples lazily spun on the floor, enacting the ornate movements of some new French dance which Jeroen did not recognize. Other groups clumped here or there, laughing and talking, drinking and flirting.
None of the faces looked familiar to Jeroen. They all looked young and fresh to him, dressed in decadent Catholic finery, dripping with jewels and silk. He felt enormously out of place, despite his proficiency with the language, in his drab black merchant’s doublet and hose. He didn’t even have a weapon on his hip, as so many of the bravos did. Jeroen was painfully aware of the pepper in his beard as well, as well as the weakness in his eyes that required spectacles in lamplight. Not for the first time he wondered just why he was in Paris in the first place, instead of remaining safely in Amsterdam where he belonged.
Pieter Van der Ros, his employer, had sent him to Paris to negotiate contracts with several shipping companies, in part because of Jeroen’s mastery of the French tongue and in part because of his young and beautiful wife. Pieter believed the couple would gain him an advantage in Parisian circles, and to Jeroen’s credit, the Cornelisz charm had gained them audiences with several influential people and invitations to many parties. This evening’s was but the latest.
Jeroen felt adrift without Heleen beside him. She was the wittier of the two, and more approachable. She had a good practical head on her slim shoulders, and the two of them worked in harmony. She saying clever things, Jeroen translating. But now he could not find her, and Jeroen began to feel uncomfortable. He did not think she had simply gone to answer a call of nature, as the expressions on his French acquaintance’s visages suggested otherwise.
Jeroen picked his way around the dance floor, neck craning as he looked for Heleen. These French were damnably tall, Jeroen decided, and decidedly unhelpful. A man backed into him and jostled his arms, but with a deft twist, Jeroen kept the wine from spilling. He shot the man an annoyed look but blanched slightly as the fellow let a hand fall to the hilt at his waist. Jeroen carried not so much as a dagger. One didn’t need a weapon in Amsterdam, but these Catholics were so volatile and quick to anger.
He had heard that the king and the cardinal had been forced to outlaw dueling only a few years before. The practice had grown out of hand and young men were dying in alarming numbers over the vaguest slights. Jeroen thanked God he came from a place that took the sanctity of life much more seriously.
Moving quickly, Jeroen stepped away from the young man with the sword and hurried through a doorway into an adjoining room. He saw no sign of Heleen there, either. Nor in the next, or in the one after that. Alarm began to grow within him, a nameless dread that he could not give voice to, or perhaps would not. Nonetheless, the unease grew with every step he took.
He came to a shadowed room, more of an alcove really, lit only by a few paltry candles. He saw a couple upon a couch, the man sitting in an ornate wooden chair and the woman seated upon him in a frankly wanton embrace. Jeroen could only see the back of the woman’s head, but she appeared to be kissing her paramour rather passionately. The Dutchman quickly averted his eyes and was about to step away when, in turning his head, he saw the candlelight reflect off the hem of the woman’s dress. He felt a pit open in his belly as he recognized the red damask and silver filigree of Heleen’s skirt.
He froze in place. The wine glasses shivered in his hands as he shook with a mixture of dread, revulsion, anger, and disgust. Ten years younger than him, Heleen had the pick of several suitors when they met, and not merely for the sizable dowry promised by her wealthy father. She was a beauty, with piles of dark hair, full red lips, the fullest eyelashes Jeroen had ever seen, and two gorgeous dimples that peeked out whenever she smiled. Some of the suitors were younger and richer than Jeroen Cornelisz, but somehow he could conjure up those dimples more often than anyone else, and to the surprise of almost everyone, she had picked him. Their marriage was not one of convenience or of familial alliance, it was born in love. Jeroen invited her to Paris with him, leaving the household and the children behind, because he trusted her above all and because he needed her at his side.
And now this, making love to some stranger in a darkened room.
Jeroen cleared his throat, and when that drew no response he coughed loudly. Finally the kissing couple separated. Part of Jeroen hoped to see a stranger’s face when the woman leaned back from the man, but he saw Heleen’s dimples in the candlelight. She smiled, her lips bruised and her cheeks flushed, a glassy look in her eyes.
The man revealed looked to be of indeterminate age, pale as marble with a strong jaw and dark flashing eyes. He wore thick mustaches in flagrant disregard of popular fashion, and his black hair splayed out past his shoulders in rolling waves. His lips, too, were red, and white teeth flashed behind them as he spoke. “Away, wretch,” he said and pulled Heleen back to him.
“Heleen,” Jeroen said, his voice little more than a rasp. He mastered himself with effort and spoke again, forcing more strength into the word. “Heleen.”
His wife lolled backwards and looked at him, seeming not to see him. She smiled dumbly. “Do I know you, sir?”
The words cut more deeply than her actions. Jeroen gripped the wineglasses so tightly in his hands he briefly wondered if he might shatter them.
“Oh,” the man said, switching to Dutch. His tone became that of a man suddenly realizing something. “Are you her pimp?”
Jeroen bit hard on his lower lip to keep from screaming. He drew in a deep ragged breath. “Heleen is my wife,” he said, his own voice low and uneven.
The man smiled broadly, a predatory grin. “Is she now? Well, my friend, she has decided to trade up. Go now and leave us. You won’t want to see what happens next.” He paused, frowning. “Or perhaps you enjoy watching?”
The glass in Jeroen’s right hand flew across the room before he was conscious of casting it. But his aim, always terrible, failed him utterly. The glass sailed past the man’s smug face to crack against the wall. Wine splattered his dark doublet and sprinkled his cheek, but that was not insult enough for Jeroen’s purposes.
Jeroen raised his left hand to cast the second glass, but even as he did so, Heleen spilled to the ground and the man bounded up, quick as lightning. One cold hand wrapped around Jeroen’s wrist in a grip of iron and the other clutched at the neck of his doublet. “You are a wretch,” the man said. “Do you know me, Dutchman? I am the Marquis de Périgon of Averoigne and no one has ever crossed me without paying for it. Have you the courage to face me as a true man? Or are you weak and feckless like all northern heathens?”
Jeroen tried to grab the arm at his throat with his free hand, but it was like grappling with an iron bar. De Périgon did not budge. Indeed, his grip seemed to tighten and Jeroen found himself growing shorter of breath. The wine glass tumbled from fingers gone numb, crashing with a delicate sound upon the hard wooden floor.
“As I thought,” De Périgon said, chuckling. He released Jeroen with a slight push, and Jeroen fell backwards on to the floor himself, sitting down with a hard thump. Heleen lolled on the ground on the other side of de Périgon’s legs, stretching languorously like a cat.
“This is not happening,” Jeroen thought to himself, but de Périgon chuckled again as though Jeroen spoke aloud.
“Begone from my sight. I’ll return her to you when I’m done,” the Marquis said.
Jeroen found his feet and straightened his clothes. “Had I a weapon I would kill you.”
De Périgon, half-turned away, turned back to face Jeroen. He nodded. “Perhaps there is some honor in you, after all. The Rue d’Auseil. There is a square there, just up the hill, where you may get your chance, Dutchman. I will be there when the clock strikes two. If you be a man, find a weapon and find me. Until then, I am done with you.”
The Marquis reached out with his left hand and gave Jeroen a seemingly gentle push, but Jeroen found himself skidding back out into the hall. There a crowd of French tittered at him, apparently aware of his shame. An African in servant’s livery met Jeroen’s eyes for but a moment, and Jeroen saw only sympathy there.
Jeroen staggered away from the Marquis and Heleen and the cruel French nobles with their knowing laughter. His skin felt cold but his heart and stomach burned with flame. He loved his wife and hated her in the same moment. How could he look into the eyes of his children after this night? He stumbled in a fog, barely aware of his surroundings, until he found himself outside the villa on the cobblestoned street.
He looked around wildly, wondering if the last half hour had been a terrible dream, and spun around to look at the villa. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell began to chime. Absently he counted the rings and realized he had only two hours to find a sword and the Rue d’Auseil.
“Sir,” a voice said at his elbow. Jeroen turned mechanically and looked into the eyes of the African servant. “May I be of assistance?” the man said.
“How do you mean?” Jeroen said, still wobbly. He spoke in Dutch without thinking, but the African appeared to understand.
“The Marquis de Périgon is a creature with many enemies,” the African said, speaking Dutch himself with only a trace of a French accent. “You have allies, sir. And you will need them. The Marquis is a dueling master, deadly with sword or pistol. You stand no chance against him. Unless you accept our help.”
Jeroen’s mind whirled. He felt caught up in a fairy story. “What kind of help?”
The African nodded, as if Jeroen had already agreed. He lifted the servant’s tabard over his head, revealing homespun clothing that was humble even by the standards of a servant. He dropped the tabard to the ground and walked past Jeroen, gesturing for the Dutch man to follow. Jeroen hesitated but a moment before doing just that.
* * *
Jeroen followed the man down the street, towards a trio loitering on a street corner. The tallest of them, a man in a broad brimmed, peaked hat, with shoulders as wide as an ox handle, gestured in greeting to the African man. “Jubal, you return with good news, I trust.”
The African nodded in Jeroen’s direction. “This man, M. Cornelisz, has a grievance against the Marquis. The Marquis has challenged him to a duel.” Strangely, he switched to German and quickly explained the situation. Perhaps Jubal assumed Jeroen could not understand German? He did hear a few words he barely recognized, at least in this context. Nachtzherer. After living? What did that mean?
An older man, with the look of a sailor about him, his face cracked and seamed with wrinkles and a gold earring dangling from one lobe, hissed air through cracked teeth. “I don’t like the sound of that,” he said. He spoke French with a distinct Portuguese accent.
“You worry too much, Eduardo,” said the third man, a beardless youth with long black hair and soft brown eyes.
“Caution, as always, is well warranted,” Jubal said. “But this man’s misfortune gives us the opportunity we have sought.”
Jeroen cleared his throat. Four pairs of eyes locked on him. “I beg your pardon, good sirs, but what is going on?”
The big man stuck out a hand, which Jeroen took despite himself. “Magnus,” the big man said. “Eduardo, Iris, and Jubal,” he added, pointing in turn to his companions. “We oppose the Marquis de Périgon but lack the status or means to take direct action against him. You have need of a champion, M. Cornelisz. I would gladly wield my sword in your name if it means harming the marquis.”
Jeroen’s mind swam. Once again he felt himself in a fog, uncertain and teetering on the brink of some abyss. “Why would you aid me?”
The youth, whom Jeroen belatedly realized was not a man but a young woman in men’s clothes, took Jeroen’s hand from Magnus. “The Marquis,” she said, “is not a man, not anymore. He is a leech, a demon that feeds on blood to live. A vampire.” She spoke simply and honestly, her eyes boring into Jeroen’s. “We are sworn to destroy such monsters.”
Jeroen searched her face for dissemblance but found none. He looked to the men, each in turn, and found grim agreement writ across each face. “If what you say is true,” Jeroen said slowly, then pulled himself free from Iris’ hold and lurched backward. “My God! Heleen!” He twisted, and made as if to run back to the villa, but Jubal blocked him.
“There is nothing you can do on your own, M. Cornelisz,” he said, not without sympathy. “Please, help us put this evil to rest for all time. It is the best thing you can do for your wife.”
Jeroen struggled for a moment, but he could not move the African any more than he had the marquis. He relaxed and almost fell, his strength suddenly gone. Jubal held him upright, quietly regarding him. Jeroen wiped tears from his eyes. “What would you have me do?” he said.
* * *
“The marquis played a cruel trick on you, M. Cornelisz,” Jubal said, as the strange band began to walk through the cobblestoned streets of Paris. “The Rue d’Auseil is an ancient street, one that cannot be found unless you have already visited it.”
“Then we are lost, both literally and figuratively,” Jeroen said. “Unless, as I suspect, you know the way?”
Jubal shook his head but smiled to soften any disappointment. “None of us have. But Eduardo can see the way.”
The old sailor lifted a heavy leather sack he wore around his shoulder. Jeroen heard the distinctive clink of clay pots against one another, but upon reaching into the bag, Eduardo withdrew a small wooden bowl. A clear liquid filled it to the brim, but by the smell it was not water. Eduardo next produced a long needle carved from bone which he dropped into the liquid. He scattered a rusty powder upon the mixture and muttered strange syllables that slid off Jeroen’s ears. The needle spun lazily upon the surface of the liquid until finally coming to rest. It pointed in a northeasterly direction.
“You see?” Jubal said with a note of triumph. Jeroen did not see. He felt as though he had fallen in with madmen or a band of witches. He feared for his soul but he feared for Heleen more. He smiled weakly at the slim African man and followed Eduardo along with the rest.
The Rue d’Auseil proved to be a narrow, steep lane that climbed up a hill. The old houses leaned forward, their gables almost meeting overhead. No lights showed in any of the buildings, and the party made their way by virtue of a hooded lantern carried by Iris. Roughly halfway up the hill, as Jeroen judged, the party found a small plaza cut into the lefthand side of the road. A chestnut tree stood in the middle, no doubt creating comfortable shade in the daytime, but now throwing all into shadow. Jeroen saw a few humps that could be benches.
Quickly Jubal and his allies went to work. Iris produced candles which she lit and set about the plaza, creating a nimbus of light in the darkness. Eduardo drew shapes on the flagstones with chalk. Magnus unfurled a long cloth within which were rolled up a bevy of weapons, some of them in fragments. He placed two objects together and snapped some latches, creating a crossbow which he handed to Iris. She carefully loaded the weapon and scurried away.
Jeroen watched in amazement as the young woman clambered up the side of a nearby house to perch upon its sloping roof. She lay flush upon it and carefully loaded her weapon with a curious bolt that lacked a metal head. Jubal took another crossbow, similarly constructed out of parts by Magnus, and made his way upward to the roof of the opposite house.
Eduardo shifted his leather bag on his shoulders and stepped across the markings he had made. He seemed then to be swallowed up by the shadows. Jeroen made the sign of the cross and muttered a quiet prayer under his breath.
Magnus nodded at Jeroen. “Pray as fervently and devoutly as you may, Jeroen Cornelisz,” the big man said. “We need all the help we can get.” Magnus slipped off his cloak and threw it over the unrolled cloth upon the ground. Jeroen now saw that a basket hilted broadsword hanged low on Magnus’ right hip, while a broad bladed knife lay on his left.
“You are a lefthanded fighter,” Jeroen realized. “You will have the edge against him.”
“Perhaps. But vampires are strong and quick, and they do not take wounds like men. I’m not going to last long against him, unless Iris or Jubal can pin him with a stake.”
“That doesn’t seem very sporting,” Jeroen said, despite himself. Duels possessed rules, he understood, to keep bloodshed to the minimum. Even outlawed, the practice depended upon the participants engaging with and supporting the honor system that bound society together. Indeed, a duel was entirely about honor.
Magnus smiled thinly. “Perhaps you value your reputation above your life, M. Cornelisz, but I share no such illusions. I don’t expect to live to see the sun rise, but I will not fail to do so for lack of proper planning.”
Jeroen, rendered speechless at the man’s blunt declaration, could only flutter his hands ineffectually in response. In the confusion of the night’s events and the jumble of his own emotions and doubts, he neglected to think about the fact that this man and his compatriots were willing to fight and perhaps die in his name. True, they believed the marquis to be some kind of demon, a foe of God and mankind, but whether that was true or not, there would be swordplay this night. Then Jeroen thought of Heleen lying on the ground or perched upon that creature’s lap, and his heart hardened.
“May God guide your hand,” Jeroen said.
Magnus smiled lopsidedly. “Perhaps, but somehow I do doubt He will trouble Himself with us, tonight.”
“Indeed,” said a new voice, the deep tones of the Marquis de Périgon. The man himself seemed to materialize out of the night, appearing at the edge of the plaza wrapped in a black cloak, his eyes like shadowed pits in his pale face. “What is this, M. Cornelisz? I thought our assignation a private affair.”
Jeroen grimaced. He felt a sudden stab of fear. In his heart of hearts, Jeroen Cornelisz believed that things like vampires, werewolves, and spirits existed. But he never thought he would ever actually see one, let alone be threatened by one.
Both Magnus and the marquis stood staring at him for a long moment. Belatedly, Jeroen realized they were waiting for him to say something. “I am not a soldier,” he said slowly. His voice was quieter and more hesitant than he liked. He cleared his throat and repeated the statement, more loudly, adding, “and I had no weapon ready to hand. Sir Magnus here has offered his services as champion and I have retained him. He will fight you in my stead.”
“Will he?” the marquis said. He stepped closer, his eyes briefly glittering green in the reflected light of the candles. He looked Magnus up and down. The larger man returned the examination coldly. “He will do, I suppose,” the marquis said at last.
Jeroen backed away from the pair, only stopping when his calves bumped against a bench. The marquis ignored him, instead untying his cloak and tossing it desultorily to the ground. He drew his sword, a three-foot rapier, and took several practice swipes in the air. “This duel will be to the death,” he said to Magnus. “Jeroen here threatened to kill me, and I will not be satisfied until one or both of you lies at my feet. Is that acceptable?”
Magnus drew his broadsword with a rasp of metal against leather. He unsheathed the knife in underhand fashion, the blade pointed downward. “No quarter, asked or given.”
And with that, the marquis launched himself at Magnus, his rapier flashing like lightning. Magnus parried gamely with the broadsword or the knife, slowly giving ground beneath the marquis’ relentless assault. Metal pinged against metal, and despite Magnus’ frantic flurrying, the rapier scored two hits in as many seconds. A cut opened up across the big man’s right cheek, and the point of the marquis’s blade poked him high in the shoulder, cutting a rent in his shirt and starting the blood to flow.
Magnus fought bravely, but even an inexperienced watcher like Jeroen could tell that his champion was overmatched. The marquis moved with catlike grace and unnatural speed, his sword seemingly everywhere at once, the blade moving too fast for Jeroen to see where it went. He did not know how Magnus countered as many attacks as he did, his own massive arms a blur as his sword and knife wove a metal shield before him. But his face reddened and his lungs pumped like bellows from the effort, while the marquis looked as fresh and ready as if he’d just awakened from a nap.
Jeroen heard a “snap-chunk” sound from the roof where Jubal perched and expected a crossbow bolt to blossom from de Périgon’s back. But the marquis seemed to slide aside as if he stood in a pool of oil. The bolt slammed into Magnus’ chest, throwing the big Swede to the flagstones. His weapons clattered from his hands. He gasped and tried to breathe, tried to rise, but had no strength to do so.
Jeroen looked up to the other roof top and saw Iris on bended knee, her crossbow against one shoulder, coolly looking down at the marquis. The dark man raised his left hand, his eyes glowing with red fire, and a swarm of insects exploded from the tiles of the roof. They appeared to be some kind of black beetle or winged roach, and they swirled around Iris. They covered her like a carpet and she screamed, but the scream was cut dismally short as they poured down her throat. Iris tumbled from her perch and landed with a sickening crunch. The crossbow skittered across the flagstones towards Jeroen.
But even as Jeroen looked down at the weapon, still miraculously loaded, the marquis turned and in one prodigious bound landed next to Jubal. Jubal struggled to reload his bow, but the marquis knocked it out of his hand. Jubal went for the knife at his belt. The marquis seized him by the throat and, one-handed, lifted Jubal bodily and threw him across the plaza. Jubal sailed over Jeroen’s head and smashed into the opposite house with a crash that shook the building. He fell in a boneless heap beside the body of Iris, still writhing with insects.
The marquis stepped off the rooftop and landed lightly in the plaza, with the ease of a man descending a short set of steps.
Eduardo reappeared, stepping out of shadows. He wore a determined expression and held a small clay pot in his hand. “Burn, you devil!” He threw the pot, but again the marquis moved too quick for Jeroen to see. The pot shattered on the flags and a pool of flame erupted where it landed, burning without any apparent fuel.
The marquis appeared beside the sailor and punched the tip of his blade through Eduardo’s left eye with enough strength that the blade projected a foot beyond the back of his head. He jerked like a marionette. Another clay pot fell from his other hand, shattering at his feet and erupting in fire that crawled up Eduardo’s legs.
The marquis quickly stepped back, away from the flames, as Eduardo fell into them. Jeroen looked down at the crossbow again, only feet away. How had this gone so wrong? Jubal and his allies seemed so capable, so well prepared. But the marquis had killed them all in mere seconds. And now Jeroen was going to die.
He took two steps, leaned down, and grabbed the crossbow. But when he turned, he found the marquis upon him. De Périgon gently pulled the crossbow out of Jeroen’s hand and tossed it aside. Jeroen felt the strong grip of the marquis settle around his throat and lift him up off the ground. He gasped for breath and tried to grab the hand and arm, but he had as much effect now as he had in the villa.
“I thought to send you wandering through the city, lost and morose, but it seems you found some dragons. Know that turning to them for aid has sealed your fate, Jeroen Cornelisz. You might have lived through this night. Now I will kill you. Moreover, I have decided to take your wife with me back to Averoigne, where she will serve as a meal for my servants until they bleed her dry or they tire of her.”
He pulled Jeroen closer, his eyes like flaming jewels boring into Jeroen’s. “Your children I will let live for now. Orphans come into whatever inheritance you leave for them. But in time, I will punish them as well. Perhaps on the eve of a wedding, or at the birth of a child. Then I will appear and bleed them dry.
“Know, wretch, that you have condemned your family with your temerity. Your daring cannot be countenanced. I am eternal, older than this city or the faith you profess to follow. Verkingetorix himself once begged me for aid, and I withheld it, as I foresaw the ascendancy of the Rome Folk. Just as I anticipated their eventual collapse, and the rise of barbarian kingdoms in their wake. You are less than a man to a being such as a I. You are naught but cattle.”
And the vampire drew Jeroen closer. He felt sharp teeth sink into his throat, felt the heat of his flesh tearing, felt his blood pumping into the demon’s sucking maw. Jeroen’s vision dimmed and he too slipped away.
In the distance, a clock tower chimed twice.