February 28-April 1815
VIOLET’S LAMENT
Dr. Siger Holmes enters the library at Blakeney Manor,
home of Sir Percy Blakeney, where he reads the Ruthvenian. The book was
written over a hundred years ago by Armand Tesla a researcher on vampires and
the occult, and primarily focuses on the Ruthven family, which according to
Tesla has a long history of vampirism. Holmes wonders if the present Lord
Ruthven has himself joined the ranks of the undead. He thinks of Sir Percy’s
deceased first wife, Marguerite’s own return from the grave as a vampire. He is
joined by Sir Percy and Marguerite’s daughter Violet, who was named after
Holmes’ wife. Holmes and Sir Percy are close as brothers, and Holmes’ wife and
Sir Percy’s second wife Alice are sisters. Holmes and Violet discuss the
gathering at Would Newton in December of 1795 held by Violet’s parents, where a
fiery stone fell from the sky. Holmes wishes to track down Countess Nadine
Carody, who was responsible for Marguerite’s death and subsequent undeath, and
Violet insists on accompanying him. Twenty years ago, Sir Percy and Holmes
suspected that Countess Carody and Colonel Bozzo-Corona were in league. A month
prior to the Would Newton conclave, Holmes saw the Colonel’s man, Lecoq, at the
Countess’ Parisian townhouse. Agreements with the Colonel and the Brothers of
Mercy were made at the Conclave. In the Etsch Valley two months later, Holmes
and Violet are saved by a female vampire called Ziska from another nosferatu
called the Giaour. Four men approach the duo: Leo Lecoq (son of the
Colonel’s henchman), Durand, Thénardier, and Mondego. Lupin’s half-brother
Bonaparte is mentioned. The Colonel and the Countess are holed up in the Castle
of Monteleone. Three murders happened during the conclave, all signaled by the
sound of a bell tolling nine times. The Colonel’s contingent at that time
included the elder Lecoq, Kramm, Carody, and Gerolstein. A vampire called Count
Aubri attacks Holmes, Violet, and Lecoq and his men. Thénardier and Mondego
perish in the assault. Reaching the Castle at last, the survivors come face to
face with the Countess, Ziska, and another vampire, Count Yorga. The Colonel
offers Violet a place in his organization. He has long been planning to expand
his operations into Spanish California, and he wishes Violet to pose as
Durand’s daughter as part of this expansion.
Short story by Win Scott Eckert in Tales of the
Shadowmen Volume 9: La Vie en Noir, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds.,
Black Coat Press, 2012; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre
(Tome 13), Jean-Marc and Randy
Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2014. Sir Percy Blakeney, his first wife
Marguerite, and Blakeney Manor are from the Scarlet Pimpernel novels by
Baroness Orczy. Dr. Siger Holmes and his wife, the former Violet Clarke (the
great-grandparents of Sherlock Holmes); Alice, Sir Percy’s second wife (the
former Alice Clarke Raffles, Violet Holmes’ sister); the elder Lecoq (Albert
Lecoq, grandfather of Emile Gaboriau’s sleuth Monsieur Lecoq); and Lupin (Louis
Lupin, great-great-grandfather of Arsène Lupin) are from Philip
José Farmer’s seminal biography Tarzan Alive. Sir Percy and Marguerite’s
daughter, Violet Yvonne Blakeney, is from John Blakeney’s biography The
Life and Exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel (aka A Gay Adventurer.)
The Ruthvenian is a book of vampiric lore featured in many
interconnected books, comics, and films by Donald F. Glut. It is named after
the Ruthven family, the most famous member of whom is the Lord Ruthven featured
in John Polidori’s “The Vampyre.” Armand Tesla is the occult scholar and
vampire played by Bela Lugosi in the film The Return of the Vampire. The
trip to Would Newton (or Wold Newton, as it is better known), along with the
murders occurring prior to same, were depicted in Eckert’s story “The Wild
Huntsman” (The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3, Portraits of a Trickster,
Michael Croteau, ed., Meteor House, 2012.) The Countess Nadine Carody is from
Jesús Franco’s horror film Vampyros Lesbos. Colonel Bozzo-Corona, Leo
Lecoq (aka Lecoq de la Perière, Monsieur Lecoq’s father), and the Castle of
Monteleone are from the Black Coats novels by Paul Féval. Ziska is from
Alexandre Dumas père’s play The Vampire. Mondego is a relative of
Fernand Mondego from Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The Giaour
is from the poem of the same name by Lord Byron. Durand is the future alleged
father of Violet Yvonne and her sister Hélène. M. Durand and Violet’s
activities in Spanish California are detailed in Eckert’s story “Zorro’s Rival”
(More Tales of Zorro, Richard Dean Starr, ed., Moonstone Books, 2011.)
Hélène Durand is the mother of Andrea de Felipone (aka Sir Williams) and his half-brother
Armand de Kergaz in Ponson du Terrail’s Rocambole novels. Jean-Marc Lofficier
identified Hélène as Violet’s sister in his article “The Tangled Web:
Genealogies of the Members of the French Wold Newton Families – Rocambole and
Fantômas” (found on The French
Wold Newton Universe website.) Thénardier is a relative of Madame Thénardier
and her son from Victor Hugo’s classic novel Les Misérables.
Kramm is the ancestor of Dr. Cornelius Kramm from Gustave le Rouge’s Le
Mystérieux Dr. Cornélius. Gerolstein is the father of Rodolphe de Gerolstein
from Eugène Sue’s Les Mystères de Paris. Count Aubri is from Peter Josef
von Lindpaintner and Cäsar Max Hegel’s opera Der Vampyr. Count Yorga is
from the films Count Yorga, Vampire and The Return of Count Yorga.
Given his reappearance in the 1970s, Yorga must have been resurrected sometime
after his death at Dr. Holmes’ hands in this story.