Brussels Vampire Society

Keziah, a magpie in little girl form, races recklessly over the cobblestones of the Flea Market in Les Marolles neighbourhood of Brussels. If the sidewalk has anything remotely interesting, shiny, glittery or fun to offer, it is brought immediately to her attention. Her deep brown eyes seem to contain some kind of sensor, that no metal detector could match. Her parents are used to it now, as her ragtag collection of discarded dolls, pretty marbles, and mismatched barrettes grow.

“Allez, petite crevette! What have you found now?’ her father asked, his kind eyes crinkling, and her mother, laughing, already reaching in her handbag for the antibacterial spray.

“A notebook, Papa! Maman, look!”

“Wow, trésor! How are you always finding things? Let’s see…” she placed the small, black leather notebook in his palm. Its dense weight was surprising, considering its size, and black didn’t do its colour justice-- it was an onyx, obsidian like galactic black. And strangely heavy.

“Hmm maybe it dropped from one of the antique stands? It looks old. Is there anything written in it?” Vendors were packing up slowly on Place Jeux de Balle.

The pages were worn, yellowing, and crawling with symbols, elaborate and indecipherable handwriting scrawled, like spiders scattering towards the dog-eared corners.

“What does it say?” Keziah asked, peering up.”

Her parents scrutinised the paper. Notes? Drawings? Recipes? No idea. The markings were arcane, striking.

“Bizarre, her Dad muttered.

"Yes, strange," her mummy’s brow furrowed. “Listen,” she said. "We will ask Granny’s sister about it, since she knows so much about antiques…. Choux! " She shook her head. “You and your discoveries.”

She placed the notebook gingerly in the shopping bag with their haul from the bakery and disinfected her hands, spritzing Keziah’s too. She then tousled the curls of her intrepid floor-explorer child and they all headed towards the car.

The music on the car stereo was interrupted by a call and the warm voice of Oli’s childhood friend Bienvenue replaced it. “Salut la famille! Comment va?”

“Tonton Bien!” Keziah shrieked gleefully from the backseat. “I found something on the ground at the market!”

He laughed. "Of course you did, ma cherie! What did you find this time?”

“A notebook! It’s old! And we can’t read what it says!”

“Yes, perfect timing, detective, we should show you! We’re going to take it to Aunt Elaine, to see if she knows what it’s about.”

“Ha! If it can give me some clues on how to deal with my latest clients, let me know. I’m telling you, this private detective work is going to drive me crazy,” he chuckled.

“Haha, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger right... Bien!”

“Aieee, I hope so. What time shall I come by this evening?”

“Around 6?”

“Perfect! See you then. See you later, Mademoiselle K!”

She giggled back.

Later, relaxing and chatting over drinks on the balcony, they watched the sky turn from orange to lilac and pink, and the stars started to slink out into the evening.

"Are you going to show me what you found today?” Bienvenue asked the little one. His outfit rivalled the colourful sunset. He always dressed to the nines, even if just going to his best friend’s house for dinner.

“Ah yes, you have to see it," her mum Henriette said. "It’s actually a little creepy, I want to show it to my aunt Elaine and then get rid of it!”

The notebook thudded softly into Bienvenue’s hand, its weird weight seeming to pulse ever so slightly. He flicked through and the ancient ink reminded him of magnet filings dispersing.

A sullen burgundy stain on the inside of the back cover looked terribly like blood.

"Ah ouai c’est full juju this thing! Esh!" my goodness, he dashed it back onto the table. "Let me know what your aunt says. He got up to wash his hands and a shudder shot up his spine and through his broad shoulders. Drying his hands, he turned the volume up on the speakers and danced with K, who was freshly bathed and pyjama’d but never ready for bed.

"Ok little one! Bed time now! Bisous, say good night!" Her Dad scooped her up, reluctant scowl and all, and tucked her in.

Bien and Henriette returned to the balcony and the notebook emanated a peculiar forcefield, surrounded by a potent silence you could hear.

“I don’t like this thing one bit," Henriette said, her brow furrowed. "But I’m curious." She swept it into a bag and placed it carefully on the piano. She washed her hands in the kitchen, her husband returned victorious from the bedtime battle of wills and they joined their friend outside. The moon was full, an orb rising ever higher as the night went on.

***

Bienvenue couldn’t move. He was hovering in mid-air in a palatial room. The ceiling and chandelier rippled with jewel colours: an expanse of emerald green and flickering gold, ruby, amethyst. It was moving. Millions of scarabs straining against the invisible forces that held them in place. He could hear whispers and incantations emanating rising from the room below, poisonous and incomprehensible chants. Bienvenue squeezed his eyes shut with all the force he could summon yet visions came through chasing each other as if on a malfunctioning cinema projector: a cache of guns, diamonds, a towering statue of a man on a horse… it was King Leopold II… a view of the African Museum as if taken by a drone…. exquisitely crafted chocolate pralines. A single tooth, gold-plated, lay encased in an ebony box, imprisoned within its velvet interior. The images were suddenly drowned in a crimson sheet, a waterfall of blood.

“AAAAH!!” he shouted his way out of the nightmare, flailing his arms as he fell back to reality. Panting he looked around frantically to situate himself. Weak sunlight was easing through the window and guitar riff of T.P.O.K Jazz sailed through from the living room. He blinked and sat up, reaching for his phone.

"Merci," he smiled weakly...

Looking at his phone there was a message from Oli. A picture, an ad in the newspaper that read:

BLACK NOTEBOOK

LOST YESTERDAY

PLACE JEUX DE BALLES

MAROLLES, BRUXELLES

20,000 euros reward

A chill sliced the air and his stomach tensed. He called his friend.

“Whoa… what on earth?”

“I don’t know, man, I don’t know.”

“Have you called that number?”

“No, not yet. Henriette just dropped off the little one at school and is heading to visit her aunt. She took the notebook with her, to see if her aunt has any idea what it could be.”

“Well, it means a lot to someone. I don’t like the vibe, frankly...mauvaise ambiance. Let me know what you find out, ok?”

“Sure thing. Toi ca va?”

“Yeah...yeah I’m ok. Got to run though, trailing a soon-to-be ex husband and some dodgy business partner…”

“Ha! Never a dull moment in your job.”

“I’m telling you… you might need to train me and give me a job at the restaurant… food is less stressful than people! Have a good one, speak to you later man.”

****

Henriette drove up to her aunt’s house, the countryside giving a welcome change to the grey city scenery.

“Hello sweetheart! Welcome! Oh how I’ve missed you.”

Her aunt greeted her and soon they were cosy in the book-filled living room with tea and biscuits, catching up on family news and the antique business.

“Auntie, you know how Keziah is always finding little surprises on the ground… yesterday at the flea market, she found this mysterious little notebook. “ Henriette fished it out of her handbag, wrapped in brown paper, and placed it on the table. Her aunt put her glasses on and unwrapped the package humming. When her eyes met the book she seized up, her hands began to tremble and her jaw dropped in astonishment.

“Oh mon Dieu…it cannot be… this cannot…”

“Auntie! What’s the matter? What is it? “

Her aunt looked to her, her eyes wet and expression twisted. “Come…” and pulled her towards her library.

The familiar and wondrous perfume of old books enveloped them as they entered. Henriette gripped the book nervously, nestled in the crumpled brown paper, as her aunt bounced like a ping-pong ball between her shelves and towers of old documents. She coughed, as her aunt’s chaotic searching dislodged a light film of dust from one the shelves.

“Where is it… where is it…”

Her aunt had been in the antiques business for decades. She started as a young woman with a store in Sablon, now the most chic arts district between the opulent Royal Palace and the stern, domineering Palais de Justice. She moved to New York in the 90s, surprising the whole family by uprooting her business with no warning. Three decades later she returned, buying a house in the countryside where she lived quietly with her tomes and encyclopaedic knowledge of ancient art and historical relics. Sought after by fine art collectors for her expertise, she turned down endless requests from museums and galleries around the world preferring to guard her peace.

The flurry of movement stilled, and she fixed her niece with a piercing and determined gaze. She locked the library door behind them and reached up to remove the Dogon mask that hung on the wall, a gift from Henriette’s mother when she first moved to Mali, where Henriette’s father was from. She keyed in a code and with a swoosh the shelf at the end of the room began to glide noiselessly open, revealing a secret study behind it.

Henriette’s eyes widened and she clasped her hands to her mouth. “But..!”

“There are books that need extra protection, mon coeur.”

The books looked like bark, gnarly and ringed, their leathery skin reptilian. Henriette stepped into the mirror-lined chamber, and thought she could almost hear the books breathing. Crucifixes, surrealist paintings and artwork resembling that of the Flemish masters, ridged and feathered Congolese masks lined the walls.

“There are dark forces that you would not believe, my darling...” her aunt muttered. "An ancient clan. Royalty, nobility, rich aristocratic families of power and influence, a vast dynasty... vampires.”

“What?”

Henriette’s phone ringing nearly sent her jumping out of her skin. She dashed back to her handbag, to retrieve her phone with shaking hands. It was her husband.

“My darling-- There’s an ad online and in the paper… offering a 20,000 euros return for the notebook we found.”

“Oh my God…”

“Are you ok?”

“I… I don’t know. I’m just here with Aunt Elaine… she.. I.. I’ll call you back.”

“What is it?” her aunt glanced up from her flurry of documents and pyramids of books, alert and alarmed.

“It was Oli… he has seen an ad, offering 20,000 for the return of the notebook.”

“You will return it. First thing in the morning. We do not want them suspecting anything, anyone. But first we copy everything in these pages.” She turned to whip off a thick, dusty tapestry that was draped over a scanner.

“But...why? I don’t understand.” The spidery writing and symbols seemed to strain against her aunt’s industrious efforts to document and capture them in the nets of her scanner and camera. Her aunt's expression was grim, and she didn't stop to explain anything else until she had meticulously copied the notebook cover to cover.

Hours later, after a drive home that seemed to last forever, she related the weird events of the afternoon at her aunt’s to her husband. The so-called vampires that her aunt spoke of-- were also apparently diamond merchants, arms dealers, political leaders. Her aunt had raved about the complex Kosmology of BaKongo, the mystic and wise tribes of the forest who continued an unseen spiritual battle against the evil that sheltered here in Belgium, the evil that sheltered in the pages of the little notebook, its ornate cover as black as a mine.

They arrived at Palais de Justice, at 11 the next morning, the ominous building that overlooked Les Marolles, where they had been instructed to drop the notebook by the icy voice at the other end of the line they had called from the newspaper ad. An strikingly elegant woman walked directly towards them once they entered the cavernous building, her designer suit sculpted perfectly to her. She held out her hand for the notebook, and placed an envelope full of cash swiftly into Oli’s hand and she snatched it from him. “Merci.” She flashed a sickening smile. “Have a nice day!” before switching on her heels and disappearing swiftly in the shadowy direction she had emanated from.

The sleepy guard barely looked up. Oli and Henriette headed back out into the day’s weak sunlight, bewildered. An strange light flashed through the cloud over the city, above the Atomium in the distance.

To be continued...