The Vampire (THE VAMPIRE Book 1) (23 page)

Finally, after what seemed an endless interval, Augere became less watchful; less guarded. His shift in manner didn’t put Jason any more at ease.

“I am going upstairs to gather some things. You will stay here, in this room. If anything…unusual…occurs, call out to me, quickly.”

Anything—unusual?
Jason had to wonder.
Like what?
They were already at dead center of unusual as far as he could tell. But Jason nodded. “Is there anything else you need me to do?” He had to ask. He was still hoping to be able to get outside. Quickly.

Augere reflected for a moment. “Check all of the drawers in this room. Collect any papers, documents, or anything that appears to be of any value or importance.”

Jason nodded. He was feeling a little ill now. He wished he had a bottle of cold water.

Augere walked up a large wide staircase and out of sight.

The room held several small tables and a small desk. Jason began going through any drawers and removing anything he found within them: musty yellowed papers; old buttons; small tins of some substance; a few trinkets and bits of string. Small uselessly saved items. But then he found pieces of silverware—real silver probably—Jason thought. More pieces of silverware lay on the table at the place settings also. Jason walked to the table again for a closer look. Some kind of substance sat on the plates; it did not look like dust. He wondered if it might actually have been food, left on the plates. It shocked him a little to think that. Maybe he was wrong. He really wanted, needed, to sit down now for a while. His forehead was damp with perspiration. He pulled one of the chairs a little further back from the table and it creaked in complaint. The chair next to it lay sideways on the floor. He badly wanted to sit down, dust or not, but a black tarry residue covered the seat; it had oozed, once upon a time, over the once beautiful upholstery, down the legs of the chair and then pooled onto the floor. Had varnish…melted and done this? Jason did not know if that was even possible. It was hot enough in here, that much was certain. Jason tried another chair. The same black tarry substance, similar to the other chair was present. All of the chairs he looked at had the same substance. They all appeared to be ruined. He was feeling uncomfortably unwell now. The weariness of the long train trip, the stifling choking heat since their arrival, his current thirst and the return of his scratchy throat were bothering him.

He tried to move slowly around the room so he did not disturb and unsettle the dust more than he had to. He continued to go through the drawers as quickly as he could. The sideboard; the small desk. He found a yellowed rolled parchment in a desk drawer. He carefully unrolled it, fearing it might disintegrate in his hands, and he began to read, with difficulty, a spidery handwritten document. Due to the darkness in the room and the faded elaborate writing, Jason took the document closer to the window to catch what little light was available and read:

Letter of request dated 4th of April 1786 and issued by the government of his Majesty King Louis XVI
. Jason could make out a fair amount of the French wording. This had to be a reproduction, he surmised. He couldn’t make out a few faded words, but then he read:
hereby requests safe passage and protection be granted to the here named French citizens Francois Louis Augere, pere, ne 2
^nd
May 1749 and Laurent Lucien Augere, fils, ne 3rd October 1777, of Bordeaux France
. The document went on to give a description of the bearers.

An official looking seal illuminated the bottom.
Wow…if this is an authentic document that would really be something
. It would have to be one of Mr. Augere’s very distant relatives, of course. This could be priceless; certainly quite valuable to Mr. Augere, anyway.

He found another document rolled up under that one. This one was in English, but no less difficult to read.

It was issued by the government of the United States and in the upper right hand corner was printed “passport # 795.” Below that:
Granted this day, 4th of February 1804 with an expiration of six months hence. Provided to the citizen of France known as Laurent Lucien Augere, by the territory of Louisiana in accordance with his/her vow and oath of allegiance to the United States of America, with all rights, privileges and benefits of American citizens being granted and bestowed upon him/her per acquisition of the Louisiana territory
. An oath of allegiance followed:
Further I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion. So help me God. Signed this day 4th February 1804
. It was signed: Laurent Lucien Augere.

Jason was impressed. He had never seen much less held documents as old, and possibly as authentic, and therefore as priceless, as these might be. No doubt Augere would consider them to be valuable. But shouldn’t these have been better protected? Who would neglect family documents with such historical significance as these, and just toss them into a drawer? Maybe they weren’t real. He very carefully rolled them up again.

Augere’s distant family and namesake. Amazing, if they were real. A new detail nagged at him suddenly, but he was now feeling too nauseated and ill from heat and the dusty close environment to focus on it.

He had finished checking the last drawer and had amassed a small pile, including all of the silverware, when Augere appeared at the top of the stairs holding a bulging tapestry bag by its handles.

Jason was startled by a sudden loud whooshing sound behind him. He whirled around to look. On either side of a dirty mirror over the fireplace hung two large paintings, presumably portraits, covered by tattered, faded grayish cloths. The sound Jason had heard was the cloth on one of the life size portraits simply disintegrating and falling into two pieces, with the larger of the two pieces separating and falling to one side, revealing the image below. Jason gazed at it while behind him Augere descended the stairs. The portrait revealed a young man, standing in a casual pose, in a white military type uniform with the jacket negligently and causally unbuttoned at the top and a white shirt opened at the collar. The colors seemed to have stayed true, but even if a little duller, were still fresher than one might have expected given the state of ruin and decay of all the other items in the room. The image was so lifelike and so vibrantly captured it was as if another living presence was suddenly in the room. And the portrait was the exact likeness, the striking and absolutely accurate resemblance of Augere, who now stood right beside him.

Jason stood staring at the painting. He could barely take his eyes from it. The surprise of it totally shook him. The resemblance of Augere to his distant relative was absolutely uncanny. The person standing in front of him could have posed for that. Yesterday.

“That is an amazing likeness,” Jason stated.

Augere did not look at the painting. He was trying to stuff the items Jason had collected into the tapestry bag, taking little care with the precious documents, Jason noticed, too late to warn him of their significance….
So maybe they weren’t the originals after all
.

“Do you think so?” he stated in a dull tone that reflected his lack of interest in the comment Jason had made.

“It could be you,” Jason stated, returning his gaze to the image. “Who is the subject of the other portrait?”

Augere turned his attention briefly to the other portrait, still covered and hidden by its dirty tattered cloth. He only glanced at it for a moment, then turned away and brusquely replied, “I do not know.”

Something heavy, dark and oppressive was here, and it seemed to have little to do with the decadent and neglected old house or the heat and dust trapped inside. Whatever it was, it hung in the very air of the place. For a moment, it seemed to emanate from that other covered portrait. Jason suddenly wanted to be far away from it or maybe just far from this house.

“We can go now,” Augere said.

Jason breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

They walked the dozen or so blocks back to the hotel. By the time they reached there Jason wanted a shower and a nap. He awoke later too tired and not well enough to go on the ghost tour as he had planned. He barely wanted to get dinner, having little appetite. He did leave the hotel for a while and picked at fruit and a salad but mostly he wanted cold beverages. The thought of the long train ride again starting early tomorrow was already making him feel weary. Once the sun had set he was able to walk around some and see the sights. The beautiful green oasis of the park like squares laid out in neat grids every couple of blocks totally charmed him. He didn’t do half of all he had planned to. There was just not enough time, and he was not feeling up to doing much.

Later he sat alone by the rooftop pool at the hotel, enjoying his third tall cold beverage minus alcohol. He thought about the events of the day and though he would not have refused Augere’s company, for right now he was glad to be alone with his thoughts.

He was intensely curious about the house. It must have belonged to Augere’s family. Why had no one been there—in forever? The outside of the house had looked particularly maintained and attended to so as not to draw attention. He could understand the desire to hide the condition of the interior. But why was it in the state it was in? And why come all this way, and by the longest way possible, to spend less than an hour in the house? Everything about this trip lay shrouded in mystery. It was all so strange and so secretive. None of it made sense to him, but then it wasn’t his place to ask, or apparently to know the details.

Both of the portraits, the one seen, and the one unseen, haunted him. Perhaps Augere really had not known anything about those two portraits, which seemed unlikely. The one that bore resemblance to him—he at least had to have known about that. There had to be an interesting story there. It appeared he just did not want to say.

A slightly cooling breeze came off of the Savannah River, but it did little to refresh him. He felt too warm still, nearly feverish. He reluctantly headed to his room a lot earlier than he might have usually, seeking the welcoming efficiency of the air conditioning. He was disappointed he had not seen more of Savannah. He fell asleep quickly but dark dreams, and vague, half remembered images disturbed his rest.

Chapter 12

Aftermath

Jason arrived at a stately, elegant home; a house that had once belonged to royalty. In fact a king had visited here recently. It was a large house, several stories, and it had been quite a palace once. Though the outside suggested it was quite new, fresh, and alive even, the inside was dark, decadent and decaying, and had a sense of abandonment. Jason wanted to explore the house; Augere was there with him, entering the house alongside him, though he did not see him.

Jason walked into a room that looked contemporary but not overly modern. He walked through this room, and then entered another, and then another, each room seemingly older in appearance than the previous one. The furnishings changed, looking decades older and noticeably dustier. When he should have come to the end of the rooms, the house went on and on. The house did not appear to be this vast from the outside. He began to feel nervous and thought perhaps he should go back. But it was too late! That thought filled him with panic. Why was it too late? He went on, even though he did not want to. The rooms became darker, more shadowy; the air was choking with the dust of decades. Old musty smells filled his nostrils and he could not escape them. Still he went on, amazed and fearful at how extensive the house was. Finally the rooms became so densely dark and dim it became difficult to make out shapes or to find his way. The furniture crumbled as he watched; it was impossible to avoid the choking clouds of dust that threatened to swallow him and he was in despair.

He came to a room that held a table and what appeared to be a box sat on the table. Everything was covered in heavy cobwebs. He was hesitant to go nearer. He was expected to go to the box and to open it, to look inside.
Please…
he was pleading, but no one else was there.
Please…I don’t want to know…
his shaking hand was already on the box lid…he was about to raise it but he was so afraid to do so now. Something was different about the box suddenly. Something he had not noticed before. The box was a different shape now and it filled him with dread.
I don’t want to see…
he was physically pushing away from it now, trying to move away and to look away and the box looked like a coffin to him now—

Jason woke suddenly and sat up in bed. He quickly switched on the bedside lamp. His heart was pounding; he looked all around the hotel room, trying to orient himself. He was safe. There was no box, no spooky dust-choked room. He shivered in the cold of the air conditioning but it felt good to him and it helped to calm him.

He lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes. The light was still on when he finally fell asleep again until morning.

At breakfast, as he was drinking a second cup of coffee, he wrote down all the details he remembered from his dream. No doubt influenced by the events of the day before, he thought it interesting enough to reflect on later. He’d found a mystery within a mystery to unravel. Mostly the dream amused him, exhaustion combined with an overabundance of weirdness colliding with his active imagination had produced it. He was clearly frightened enough while the dream was occurring though. A lot of symbolism lay within that was intriguing to puzzle out.

Jason was glad they were on their way home as he settled back in the train seat. All he wanted to do now was sleep. Augere gazed out the window at the scenery.

Jason did sleep most of the way. He had restless moments; fragments of dreams and recurring images came to him throughout the long journey. He awoke briefly to take some cold soda and chat briefly with Augere. But he was feeling totally wiped out and looking forward to being home again. He felt weak and a little achy now and the constant scratchiness in his throat was becoming annoying and unpleasant.