Chapter Text
1950
SS Île de France en route from Le Havre via England to New York. One day out of Southhampton.
Diary of the Vampire Isabelle Eglée, April 6th 1950. Evening.
As much as I regret that I do not know if I will see my home again, I keep reminding myself that I already meant to be on this ship months ago.
How I begged Santiago to let me leave the Coven. How easy it was for him to say good-bye! How foolish of me to remain in Paris despite his smug disinterest and the danger of being found by Armand.
What did I expect, living on the edges of the city for months, finding shelter in abandoned churches and unused servants’ attics, feeding off the lost and lonely like an outcast? For Maître Santiago to take me back and make me the vampire queen of Pigalle? I am ashamed to admit I dreamt of it.
But Celeste, may she rest forever, was one of the old Innocents, practically an Elder. Bedding her was as much a political move as one of the heart. He would have never given up that claim for my sake, had Louis not intervened and destroyed the Théâtre.
He never called out to me once until he was helpless under Sam’s care in that cellar. What joy it was to feel him reach out to me at last, what anguish to see his body brutalised by Louis! Of course I resented him for turning to me only in his hour of desperate need, and even more so I resented myself for crawling to him knowing I was nothing but a consolation prize. Even broken he still held such power over me.
Still, between Celeste and me, it is I who am with him now. Eglée, who did Armand’s hair, sold popcorn and sucked off the leading man in the wings between performances. Eglée, who saw past the diva deep into endless insecurities and kissed his jaded heart. I endured.
As I write this I can hear the great engines turn the propellers, bringing us ever closer to America and freedom. It has only been two nights since our departure from France but I am already impatient to arrive.
The ship is aged but beautiful, although we are only in Third Class. Rooms are in the Art Deco style of the generation lost between the Wars. The brochure said it was a novelty of its time, and I recall there being talk of it then. Even now there are a great many wealthy people travelling with us, including some rich Americans and movie stars. Exciting!
To a point, we are both handsome and witty enough to converse with the rich and famous. But in truth we do not have much money, and that we do not belong shows in our stale clothes and old perfumes. Fortunately a cheaper ticket guaranteed all we need: a cabin, this little box we call home for the week, with no window.
Somehow these bunks are less comfortable than any coffin I have slept in. Besides that, sharing a confined space with a loved one seems to turn one savagely enraged by their habits. I wish he would not leave his blood stained shirts on the chair, prop his feet up on the bed with his shoes on, or smoke those heavy cigarettes inside this tiny, airless room! He forgets he is no longer a star or a coven master.
He will never read this. My diary is almost full and I will burn it upon our arrival, with appropriate sigils and intentions of course. Fire will erase any trace of last year’s exile and heartbreak. We will take new names and identities. It will be as if the Vampire Eglée of the Théâtre des Vampires never existed.
In the ocean liner’s main foyer, Santiago stood atop the imposing arch that bridged across the bifurcated staircase and created an easy access between the port and starboard sides. From this grand viewpoint he observed the First Class passengers below. Behind him a hexagonal mirror reflected the lights and murals that adorned the walls, creating a faint echo in his memory of the trap room that had been home at the Théâtre des Vampires.
Just months ago he would have looked down from that balcony to see the faces of the remaining coven turned up to him in admiration. Night after night, each gesture, each artificial breath had been absorbed by a hungry audience, every thread woven into his performances spinning a web to helplessly captivate mortals. He had revelled in adoration while waiting for an impulse to strike. In many ways, luring prey and acting were identical, and he was born for it all.
With Celeste regal at his side and Louis shrivelling in the walls, even now he could recall the triumphant satisfaction he had felt when he had finally directed the theatre the way he had always dreamt of. Monsieur le directeur artistique had been reduced to a demure spectator and occasionally… something else, which Santiago could not conceive to look back on now. He had perhaps gone too far, stooped too low in his hatred.
But fate had intervened and all had been lost to Louis’ destructive mania. Decapitated, Santiago’s immortal body had refused to die. Sam had gathered his head and body and put him back together with little means in a disused wine cellar. While he was grateful to the playwright, he suspected Sam’s charity and patience would eventually run out. Afraid of being left behind, too weak to care for himself, he had called for Eglée, and like a saint she had helped nurse him back to health. Crying together as soon as the blood began to flow through his eyes once more, he had silently vowed to be true to her, to love her as she deserved.
As soon as Santiago had been able to hunt on his own, Sam had urged them both to leave Paris. Armand and Louis were travelling to Cairo. He had asked how Sam knew this, but received no answer besides that Louis, the mad brute, would surely track and murder them all without second thought if he found out they were alive. And so their paths must never cross again for the duration of all of their immortal lives. America was the perfect getaway on the far side of the world - for now.
Whether or not he had really escaped loomed over him like Damocles’ Sword every night. Santiago reached up to trace the fading scar on his throat. It made him think of those he’d seen on men who had survived hangings, now on the run from the law.
The view from the staircase was popular and many First Class passengers were enjoying it without actually taking notice of one man posturing while deep in his own thoughts. A couple of ladies with perfectly arranged hair were chatting loudly nearby and he started to move away, when a well-dressed man with a Clark Gable moustache leaned on the bannister and began to talk at him, quite unprovoked.
“Have you heard? The ship’s supposedly haunted,” he declared in the carefully composed transatlantic tone that gave him away as belonging to showbusiness.
Of course Santiago had heard. He needed only open up the mind gift a minim and hundreds of voices poured in, from the stokers shovelling coal in the fire room beneath the waterline, to the passengers amusing themselves in the saloons and theatre, to the officers monitoring the journey on the bridge. If asked, none would have been able to name the threat other than there was something aboard with them. Beneath the veneer of civilisation, reverberating shipwide, was the primeval sense of being hunted.
“Aren’t all ships a little bit haunted?” Santiago asked with a pointed smirk, choosing to match the man’s nonchalant attitude rather than playing the part of a superstitious passenger.
A delicate frown appeared on the moustached man’s brow as his attention shifted, less concerned with hauntings or disappearances than his opener had suggested. His whiskey sour had taken off the edge and now he was able to approach someone he perceived to be Someone.
“Say… do I know you from somewhere?” he asked with a broadening smile showing perfect American teeth. “The pictures, perhaps?”
“Purely theatre,” Santiago responded immediately. “Othello at the York Theatre Royal, nineteen-fourty-eight.” The actual year had been 1921. He did not want to admit in front of this stranger that his last great performance had been that long ago. “Saintly Iago, they called me…” He allowed himself to revel in the memory, letting his gaze trail across the foyer again. Plenty of people on this ship were old enough to have seen him perform. Had any seen him on one of those nights in York, shared in the happiest moments of his life?
Realisation hit in that moment that he did not know when his next engagement would be. Would he even be able to pursue his craft, or be forced to do anything else to afford a bit of comfort? The uncertainty made him anxious. Surely there were vampire theatres in America?
There was no recognition in the man’s otherwise animated face. No doubt realising that no further explanation would follow, he took a sip from his heavy tumbler. “Ah, well, forgive me, I’m not much of a theatre man. Shakespeare, is it?” Another sip. Ice clattered around the empty glass.
“It is.” Santiago felt his jaw tighten with irritation. “Philistine.”
If the man recognised the insult, he had never heard it before, because he looked merely confused by the response. Santiago marked him down as a meal for later. He could not let anyone live whom he’d told about Saintly Iago, much less if that person didn’t even appreciate the work.
The foyer was filling up. A band had set up and the musicians were tuning their instruments while people streamed in eager to take to drink and entertainment after dinner.
Among them, emerging from the grand staircase beneath him, was Eglée. She was walking backwards slowly, her face tilted up to meet his eyes. He had not felt her approach, but was glad for an excuse to exit an uncomfortable conversation for a more pleasant one. Santiago walked down the height of two decks to join her on the foyer floor.
Earlier she had complained that the black sheath dress she owned was too plain for this exquisite company, but the proud way she held herself in it now made her look extraordinary. And hot.
They locked elbows and walked in silence, blending into the crowd. Together, they listened to the thoughts and whispers that filled the air above the chatter.
One elegantly dressed woman said to another that Mme Monserrat had not seen one of her maids since Southampton. They supposed she might have jumped ship there to be with a secret English lover.
A husband and wife guffawed that the elderly M. Wotton had briefly been reported missing, only to be found asleep in the smoking room and scolded by his wife an hour later.
Meanwhile, in a far corner of the room, two officers were talking fast in serious voices, while pulling on their white gloves. One of the bellboys had not reported for duty, and this information came straight from the First Mate.
Do you think they’ll find us out? Eglée asked through the mind gift, without looking at him.
He reached around her to grasp her fingers with his free hand. No one was taking any more notice of them than anyone else. No, but they know when a predator is among them.
She scoffed, and glanced up at him. Two predators. Her red lips curved into a smile that was impossible to read.
Besides what she wanted him to know, her mind was often closed to him these days. Something must have shifted within her during the time she lived in squalor, especially throughout the last winter. He didn’t understand why she had gone through such indignity just to wait for him to change his mind, leave Celeste. She had not been able to answer. But he felt that as a result, she was beginning to claim overdue respect that she had never received before; not as an usherette within the Théâtre, nor as his lover.
They came to a halt by a doorway that afforded them some privacy. Feeling safe to speak quietly, he continued. “We’re just like any of them, a harmless married couple.”
A mistake. She tensed and he felt her sharp nails dig into the fabric of his dinner jacket.
Please don’t tear that, it’s the only suit I have…
Eglée untangled her arm from his and stood to face him. “Is that what we are?” she asked, her voice low but her finely arched eyebrows raised in challenge.
The band started playing their first song of the night; a Glenn Miller cover to get people In the Mood.
“Love, we share a room, that’s improper for an unmarried couple,” he replied, remembering the inquisitive glare of the steward who had boarded them with both tickets for cabin no. 504, a glorified water closet with bunk beds. Not the usual type of accommodation preferred by an elegant pair.
Runaway lovers, or a European Bonnie and Clyde? The mind gift had easily suppressed such suspicions in the officious staff member, but it was clear they would have to be keeping up appearances.
Closing the distance between them, he took her right hand in his left and when she did not resist, he put the other hand around her waist to hold her gently for a dance. His fingertips rested lightly on the fabric of her dress, then he let them trail just a little bit too low, cupping a hand fully around her buttock and squeezing.
There’s barely any space to fuck in that cabin. He leaned close to her ear and breathed in her scent. “Mmmhhh…” The same perfume she’d worn at the Théâtre, now free of the added whiff of mildew and popcorn. I’d love to have you right here, in front of all these toffs.
He pulled his hand back around and reached between her thighs discreetly, heard her gasp and felt her coil against him even while her mind pleaded for reason. Santiago, not here… I want it too, but we can’t be that reckless. Please…
I know. His cock was single-minded about pounding into her from behind across one of the sturdy chairs now occupied by lounging mortals. The image was beyond compelling. But she was right. Not here, not now.
To ease the tension he created some space between their bodies and decided to satisfy his curiosity. “Are we not married on our papers?”
He was genuinely unfamiliar with what identities she’d had the forger Leclerc in Paris create for them. All he knew was that she had met him at the theatre years ago, and he had been willing to supply them with immaculate forgeries of all papers they needed to get them into America without issue. Eglée carried them with her at all times, inside a tiny velvet bag that hung from her slender shoulder on a long silver chain.
She was flustered now, still aroused and newly angry. Her pale cheeks flushed under her rouge, showing that she had fed recently. Lovely. “You think I would assume that kind of commitment from you?” she hissed.
He winced. “Ouch!” Upon consideration, he replied “Fair enough-“
She cut him off, pulling her wrists out of his reach. “No, I did not put myself down as your wife, Santiago!” Retrieving one passport from her bag she thrust it into his hand and watched him, flicking one unruly black strand of hair from her forehead.
Santiago opened the booklet bound in blue leather. British. She didn’t have enough faith in his language skills to make him play French, then. Inside it was the recent photograph of himself he’d had taken for this very purpose, and next to it was his name, the one he had hoped to leave dead and forgotten in the past for good.
Eglée raised one hand to her slender hip and continued. “We are Isabelle Renaud and Francis Armin.” She added with a cock of her head, “I thought you’d like that.”
His hands trembled, he felt close to tearing up his passport, jumping off this ship and swimming to Greenland, or whatever place was nearest. Away from the name and the shame. “You put… me down as… Francis…?”
Eglée ran her tongue over her left fang, batted her eyelashes and explained patiently, “Francis Armin. Like Robert Armin. The actor who first played Iago?”
He was too incredulous to even get angry with her. He probably deserved some retaliation for how he’d treated her, but this made him feel low.
“You don’t have to use it. Once we’re in America we can get new ones. It was just the first thing I thought of.” She plucked the passport out of his limp hands and stowed it away again.
In her accent, the name even sounded annoyingly charming. “Fucking Francis? Really?”
“Oui.” With her chin cocked up in self-satisfaction, she took his hand in hers, motioning for him to come along. “Come back to the cabin now, mon cœur, I need help with a bellboy.”
As the band began to play Que nadie sepa mi sufrir they slipped from the crowd, leaving the lavish A-Deck and descending the stairs towards the less fancy accommodations in the bowels of the ship, where bulkheads were slapped with thick white paint instead of fine wallpaper and occasionally a pipe protruded into the path as the available space got narrower.
Fortunately, the corridor in front of cabin no. 504 was empty. Since Eglée had the keys, Santiago leaned against the doorframe and studied her face quizzically while she struggled with the aging lock.
“Corpse in the cabin,” He stated matter of factly, an amused smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth. She glanced up at him without comment and entered their tiny space. Santiago bit his finger, affecting shock. “Oops.”
He followed her in one fluid motion then swung the door shut behind him. The problem presented itself immediately: there was the missing bellboy, with his torso collapsed out of the closet Eglée had tried to stuff him in. His drained face gazed up at them in an expression of disbelief, quite dead. The airless room was filled with the metallic stench of blood.
He couldn’t help but start laughing. “You don’t get to complain about me leaving a bloody shirt after this.”
Eglée huffed. “This isn’t funny! I made a mistake and now I need to get him out of here!” She stepped over the corpse, awkwardly trying to avoid accidentally pressing down on it in her high heels. “If I take the arms will you take the legs?”
“Yeah.” Santiago snapped to attention and started to pull off his dinner jacket, rolling his cuffed shirt up to the sleeve bands. He could tell she was frustrated with herself, but they’d both done this kind of thing too often over the years for it be anything more than a logistical problem. “But let’s wrap him in a sheet, take him to the engine room, chuck him in the furnace.”
The pragmatic approach worked. They moved quickly, using the sheet from Santiago’s bottom bunk. The bellboy wasn’t heavy for two immortals to manoeuvre, and they soon had him packaged as neatly as they could. Fortunately there was no blood on the floor, since Eglée had done a thorough job of draining him earlier.
Sitting back on the bunk when they were done, Santiago pushed a strand of yellow hair from his forehead. It would take a while to lug the corpse another two levels below and remain unseen. But they had done it to the maid after Southampton, they could do it again now.
“We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the Sea shall give up her dead, yatter yatter,” he recited, sparing out the Our Lord Jesus part. It seemed fitting, the boy being a sailor and all. Or was that only for the Navy?
Eglée chuckled. She had been leaning back on her hands but now sat forward, reached into the inside pocket of his discarded jacket where he kept his cigarettes. She pulled a cigarette out of the package and put herself astride his lap to set it between his lips. Then she kissed him, ever so gently as to not stain his face with vermillion red lipstick.
“Save it for later,” she said, and sparked a match.