Jane Vows Vengeance

“That’s right,” said Ninon. “The women in our family have been for centuries. Of course, things have changed a great deal since Eloise’s time. Now there is great interest in my gentlemen friends on the part of the press. I have to be very discreet.”

“Understandable,” Jane said. “It must be very … interesting.”

“It is,” said Ninon. “People assume that men come to me for sex. Some do, of course. It would be ridiculous for me to deny that. But mostly they just want me to listen. This seems to be something that many wives and girlfriends don’t wish to do. I, however, am a very good listener.”

As she spoke she picked up a cigarette case from a table beside the chair. Opening it, she removed a cigarette and lit it using a small gold lighter shaped like a skull embedded with crystals. The flame emerged from the skull’s mouth. Ninon inhaled and blew out three perfect smoke rings.

“So,” she said. “You have come to talk to me about the vampire needle.”

“Is that what you call it?” Jane asked.

Ninon nodded. “I remember my aunt calling it something else, but I’ve forgotten what it was,” she said.

“Crispin’s Needle,” said Jane. “What else did your aunt tell you about it?”

More smoke rings emerged from Ninon’s mouth and floated toward the ceiling. “She said that Eloise Babineaux believed that it was a tool for the killing of vampires.”

Jane didn’t contradict her. Then Ninon looked at Lucy. “But you said that it does the opposite,” she said.

Lucy glanced at Jane, clearly not sure how to respond.

“That’s right,” Jane said as Ninon’s gaze returned to her. “From what we understand, it was believed that Crispin’s Needle could restore a vampire’s human soul.”

Ninon tapped her cigarette on the edge of an ashtray. The end glowed brightly as she took another drag. “I had not heard that,” she said.

Jane couldn’t read the woman at all. Did she think Jane and Lucy were mad? Did she know more than she was telling them? It was impossible to say.

“I understand that there’s a chapel in the house. That’s where the stained-glass window is, correct?”

“I don’t know that I would call it a chapel,” said Ninon. “A sanctuary, perhaps.”

Jane was confused. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“Eloise Babineaux was a very superstitious woman,” Ninon said. “She believed in all kinds of things—ghosts, werewolves, vampires. She thought that one of her suitors was a vampire. His name was Edward St. John. He was English, a secretary to the ambassador, the Earl Granville.”

“Granville Leveson-Gower,” Jane said. “Of course. I knew hi—”

Lucy coughed.

“I remember him from history class,” Jane concluded.

Not only had she known the Earl Granville, she had known Edward St. John as well. He had been a vampire, and a rather nasty one at that. If Eloise Babineaux had been mixed up with him, she probably did have reason to be afraid.

“Eloise heard about this needle,” said Ninon. “I don’t know where. She had the window made and placed in a room at the top of the house, thinking it would protect her. She slept in there every night.”

“Apparently it worked,” said Lucy. “I mean, she was never turned into a vampire, right?”

“She died of consumption,” Ninon replied. “Everybody did back then. It was very romantic, apart from the spitting up of blood.”

It was, Jane felt, time to get to the point. “Do you know if Eloise ever actually found the Needle?” she asked.

Ninon looked at her quizzically. “You think it exists?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Jane answered. “We think perhaps it might.”

“Would it be very valuable?” asked Ninon.

“That’s difficult to say,” Jane said. “Some people believe it was made from the nails used to crucify Christ.”

Ninon snorted. “Another fairy tale,” she said.

“Yes,” said Jane. “Well, to answer your question, Crispin’s Needle might indeed be very valuable.”

“If it exists,” Lucy added.

“If it exists,” Jane agreed.

“And what makes you think it might be here in the house?” Ninon asked.

Jane hesitated. “Just the window,” she said, knowing that any other explanation would sound insane. “As you know, it’s the same as the one in the Church of St. Apollonia.”

“Well, you’re certainly welcome to look for yourself,” Ninon said. “But understand that if you do find anything, it belongs to me.”

This thought had not occurred to Jane. Now that it had, she saw that there might be a problem. If Crispin’s Needle indeed was in the house, Jane wanted it for her own use. But of course Ninon would have a claim on it.

I might have to bite her, she thought. That would be most inconvenient.

Ninon rose from the chair. “Follow me,” she said.

They walked up two more flights of stairs, until they came to the top floor. Here the house was far less elegant, with plain wood floors and faded wallpaper patterned with shepherdesses. Ninon walked to the end of the hall and opened a door.

The room behind it was small, perhaps nine feet on any side. It was painted white, and there were no rugs on the floor. A narrow iron-framed bed was pushed against one wall. The only other furniture was an old wooden traveling trunk at the foot of the bed. It was banded in brass and secured with leather straps. The room’s lone window had been replaced by a stained-glass panel. Like the one in the church at Cripple Minton, it depicted a red heart being pierced by a long needle.

“Have you looked inside that?” Jane asked Ninon, indicating the trunk.

“Of course,” Ninon replied. “It was filled only with old nightgowns. Now it is empty.”

“There could be a false bottom,” Lucy suggested.

“Look for yourself,” said Ninon.

Lucy knelt and undid the buckles on the straps. She lifted the lid and peered inside. Then she put her hand in and tapped on the trunk’s bottom. She shook her head at Jane. “That’s it,” she said.

“And you didn’t need the key to open it,” Jane said.

“Key?” said Ninon. “You have a key?”

I might as well show her, Jane thought. She pulled the key out of her pocket and held it up.

Ninon took the key from Jane and examined it. “Come with me,” she said.

They left the room and retraced their steps, going back down the stairs and then down yet another flight. They passed through a kitchen and down a final set of stone steps into a very damp basement. It was filled with broken things: an old wringer washer, dolls with no heads, mirrors spotted with age. Everything was covered with cobwebs and dust.

Ninon went to a corner where several large cardboard boxes sat, their bottom edges fuzzed with mold. She opened one and pawed through the contents, then shut it and tried another box.

“Here it is,” she said, lifting out what looked like a small body. She brought it over to where Jane and Lucy stood and set it on a table.

“It’s a clown doll,” Lucy said.

“A Pierrot, actually,” said Ninon.

The doll was quite large, about two feet in length from the top of its white conical hat to its black-shoed feet. It was dressed in the traditional costume of white pants and a long white coat with three large black pom-poms down the front. Around its neck was a wide white ruffle edged in black, and its ceramic face was painted white with black around the eyes and a single black teardrop sliding down the right cheek. Its lips were painted a faded red. There was a crack running from its left ear down its neck.

“This used to sit in my bedroom when I was a girl,” Ninon said. “It frightened me quite badly, though, and eventually I hid it down here and told my mother that it had been destroyed by our dog. She was angry because it had been in the family for many years.”