This city is death.
III
Abe shared the warmth of Mrs. Sprigg’s fireplace with an old acquaintance on a February night in 1849.
[Edgar Allan] Poe has been in Baltimore these few weeks, and with Mary and the boys departed for Lexington, I thought it time for a reunion.
They’d kept up a sporadic correspondence over the years: occasional praise for Poe’s stories and poems; congratulations on Lincoln’s election victories. But tonight, face-to-face for the first time in twenty years, they spoke only of vampires.
I told Poe of Henry; of my hunts and the terrible truths they have led me to. He told me of his abiding obsession with vampires—that he has befriended an immortal named Reynolds, and is close to uncovering a “sinister plot” of some sort. He speaks with great enthusiasm and assuredness, yet it is difficult to believe most of what he says, for it is said through the mask of drunkenness. He looks weary. Aged by whiskey and bad luck. The years since our last meeting have not been kind. His dear wife has departed this earth, and success has not rewarded him with riches.
“Men kept on the edge of death!” said Lincoln. “Stored as living barrels in a cellar—their precious blood kept warm by gas flames. Are there no limits to a vampire’s evil?”
Poe smiled and took another drink.
“You have heard of the Blood Countess, I presume?” he asked.
Abe’s face made it clear that he hadn’t.
“You?” asked Poe. “With all of your gallivanting around chasing vampires? Then I beg you indulge me a moment, for she is a favorite of mine—and an important piece of our country’s history.
“Elizabeth Bathory was the jewel of Hungarian nobility,” said Poe. “Beautiful; wealthy beyond compare. Her only burden was sharing a bed with a man she did not love—a man to whom she had been promised since her twelfth year: Count Ferenc Nadasdy. He was a generous husband, however, and allowed Elizabeth to indulge her every whim. Unbeknownst to him, her favorite indulgence was a dark-haired, fair-skinned woman named Anna Darvulia. The two became lovers. It is unclear when—”
“Two women… lovers?”
“A trivial detail. It is unclear when Elizabeth learned that Anna was a vampire, or when she became one herself, but the pair were nonetheless eager to begin eternity together. Upon the count’s mysterious death in 1604, the lovers began to lure young peasant girls to C?achtice Castle * with promises of employment; with money for their starving families. In truth, these girls were meant to be the playthings of lesser gods… to be robbed of their blood and their lives. In all, Elizabeth and Anna would kill more than
“My God…”
“Ah, but it is worse, for the pair seemed to pride themselves on crafting the most gruesome, the most degrading, the most painful methods of murder. Girls were tortured. Ravaged. Consumed for days at a time. Some were suspended above the floor by hooks through their arms and legs. Elizabeth and Anna would lie beneath, using knives to make tiny cuts in the girl’s skin, letting her blood drip slowly over their bodies as they made love below. Some girls were partially crucified, their hands nailed to wooden—”
“I beg you be done with this, Poe. It is too much.”
“At last, the peasants would tolerate no more, and the castle was stormed. Inside, the mob found a dungeon filled with iron cages. Half-dead victims with bites taken from their arms and stomachs. Girls whose hands and faces had been held over flames until they were blackened to the bone. But no trace of the vampires. A trial was staged, and a pair of innocent women cast into a pit of fire to appease the peasantry. But the real Elizabeth Bathory and Anna Darvulia had escaped.
“The horrors, Lincoln… the horrors that these women were able to inflict in such a short time… the efficiency and imagination with which they murdered… there is a beauty in it. One cannot help but admire them.”
“It is vile,” said Lincoln.
“Surely life has taught you that a thing can be both beautiful and vile.”
“I was promised ‘an important piece of our country’s history.’ Pray, is there some lesson in this unpleasantness, or do you merely take pleasure in tormenting an old friend?”
“The lesson, old friend, is this: Elizabeth Bathory is, in some measure, to blame for the many vampires we enjoy here in America.”
Now Poe had Abe’s attention.
“Word of her atrocities spread through Europe,” he said. “Rumors of a vampire Blood Countess and the hundreds of girls she slaughtered. In the space of ten years, centuries of whispered superstitions turned to open hatred. Never had a story caused such fervor! Gone forever were the days of accepting vampires as a cost of life, and gone was the fear of challenging them. Vampire hunters began to appear from England to Croatia, learning from one another, chasing the undead across the continent. Chasing them into the stinking sewers and diseased slums of Paris. Chasing them down the dark alleys of London. Vampires, reduced to sleeping in crypts. Reduced to drinking the blood of stray dogs. Lions hunted by sheep! It had become intolerable to be a vampire in Europe. They wanted freedom. Freedom from persecution. From fear. And where could such freedoms be found?”
“In America.”
“In America, Lincoln! America was a paradise where vampires could exist without fierce competition over blood. A place where it was common for families to have five, or eight, or a dozen children. They loved its lawlessness. Its vastness. They loved its remote villages and its ports brimming with the newly arrived. But more than anything, Lincoln, they loved its
“When the English came to our shores, charged with bringing us back under the control of the Old World, America’s vampires took up the fight. They were there at Lexington and Concord. They were there at Ticonderoga and Moore’s Creek. Some returned to their native France, where they persuaded King Louis to lend us his navy. They are as American as you or I, Lincoln. True patriots—for America’s survival is their survival.”
“I have heard them discussed in the Capitol,” Abe whispered. “Even there, one sees their influence.”
“It is everywhere, Lincoln! And it shall only deepen, as it did for so many centuries in Europe. How long can it endure? How many vampires can cross our shores before the common man takes note of them? And what then? Do you think the good people of Boston or New York would be content to live with vampires for their neighbors? Do you believe that all vampires possess the same agreeable disposition as your Henry or my Reynolds?
“Imagine, Lincoln. Imagine what might have happened in Europe had there been no America for vampires to flee to. How long would the lions have allowed the sheep to hunt them? How long before they began to behave like lions again?”
Abe didn’t like the picture forming in his mind.
“I tell you,” said Poe, “some great calamity awaits us.”
For Poe, at least, it proved an ominous prediction.
On October 3rd, 1849, less than eight months after his reunion with Abe, Poe was discovered wandering the streets of Baltimore, half dead, confused, and wearing clothes that weren’t his own. He was hurried to the Washington College Hospital, where doctors tried to diagnose his worsening illness.
Patient suffers from high fever and delusions. Calls out for a “Reynolds” when he is conscious. Symptoms similar to typhoid, though the rapid progression suggests some other underlying cause. His case is hopeless.
On Sunday, October 7th, at five o’clock in the morning, Poe woke with a start. He uttered the words “Lord help my poor soul” and passed away.
FIG. 7-C - EDGAR ALLAN POE POSES WITH ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN MATHEW BRADY’S
