Anno Dracula 1918 - The Bloody Red Baron (16 page)

'There, West,' Moreau said. 'The heart still beats.'

West, the assistant, tried to find a clean stretch of sleeve to wipe off his glasses.

'I am right again and you owe me half-a-crown.'

'Certainly, doctor,' West said. He had a flat accent, American or Canadian. 'I'll add it to the tally.'

'You are a witness,' Moreau said to Beauregard, the first time he had acknowledged the intrusion. 'Mr West wagered it was impossible for the heart to continue to function under such conditions, yet the resilient organ beats still.'

Moreau lifted his arm to give Beauregard a view of the heart. It pumped like a squeezing fist, though most of its tubes were severed.

'This man could live,' Moreau declared.

'Surely not,' West countered.

'Your debt will mount, my man. Observe, how tenacious these little snakes prove.'

The cut tubes writhed swiftly. An artery probed like a blind worm and reattached itself, blood flowing through it, the break healing. Layers of tissue clustered, swarming over the heart, burying it. The pulled-back ribs closed like a trap, assuming their normal formation. A wash of musculature flowed over the bones.

'The resilience of the vampire
corpus
may well be infinite,' Moreau said. 'Only human despair permits death and a man whose brain has been halved can know no despair. Instinct takes over the animal.'

The patient's head was severely pulped at the back. Flesh swarmed strangely around the eyes. Every scrap of the soldier lived tenaciously. Beauregard remembered Isolde's sad performance. In thirty years' research, Moreau and his like had not set a limit on the vampire power of regeneration.

'But without the brain,' West said, tapping the area of activity, 'the creature has no purpose, no coherence . .

Muscle strands hungrily lapped West's fingertip. He pulled his hand away and watched smugly as a cheeklike slab of flesh formed
over
a startled eye.

'This is not a living man,' said West, 'just a collection of disparate, individually mobile, parts and functions. The template of human form is held in the brain. Without that template, this senseless creature can only flow in a random search for freakish shape.'

Skin formed over the patient's mouth, ripping on teeth and healing again.

Moreau's huge face reddened with anger. 'This man is guilty of a failure of will. He has surrendered his grip on human shape.'

Moreau stood away from the cot, disappointed and angry. The patient's jaw hinged open, fangs extending like poignards, rending the new skin. A croaking exhalation emerged from the bloody hole.

'The voice is entirely lost,' Moreau said. 'This is merely an animal. It cannot be saved.'

He took a scalpel from his tunic pocket. Its blade shone silver.

'Stand back, West. This could be messy.'

Moreau knelt on the patient's abdomen, thrusting his scalpel down, cutting warty skin that had already grown thick. He sliced between the knitting ribs and punctured the heart. The patient convulsed and died. Moreau's fist sank entirely into the chest cavity. He pulled his gory hand free and wiped it on the patient's bedding.

it was a mercy,' he said, perfunctorily. 'Now, sir, who might you be and why have you ventured into my domain?'

Beauregard forced himself to look away from the ragged corpse. It putrefied fast, settling liquidly on the cot, dripping over the edges. The very old ones turned to dust. The patient had been a vampire for less than the lifespan of a normal man.

'Dr Moreau, you will probably not remember me. My name is Charles Beauregard. We met once, many years ago, in the laboratory of Dr Henry Jekyll.'

Moreau did not care to be reminded of his late colleague. Irritation boiled in his deep-set eyes.

'I'm attached to military intelligence,' Beauregard said.

'Only "attached"?'

'Quite so.'

'Congratulations.'

West was sorting through the detritus on the cot, picking out bullets and shrapnel. He wore black rubber gloves.

'I'm not yet ready to present my findings,' said Moreau, gesturing to direct attention to his array of strapped-down patients. 'I have not had enough vampires to work with.' 'You mistake my purpose, doctor. I'm not here in connection with your current work ...'

(whatever that might be) . . but to solicit information which may be of service. It is with regard to another researcher in your field, Professor Ten Brincken.'

At the mention of the name, Moreau looked up, alert.

'A charlatan,' he spat. 'Practically an alchemist.'

According to Beauregard's sources, Moreau and Ten Brincken had come to blows at a congress held at the University of Ingolstadt in 1906. That suggested the professor was not a man of insignificant stature.

'We believe Ten Brincken is the director of a secret project given the highest priority by the enemy.'

'Too much mysticism in the German mind. The Gothic imagination perverts their brains. I don't deny Ten Brincken is a daring thinker. But none of his results are verifiable. He surrounds himself with Teuton blood ritual. No control group, no hygienic conditions, no proper records.'

Judging from this clinic, Moreau had a singular definition of 'hygienic conditions'.

'No,' Moreau said, definitely. 'Whatever Ten Brincken works on will prove worthless.'

The assistant fluttered around, getting his nerve up to interrupt the great man.

'What direction was he taking in his researches?' Beauregard asked.

'Before the war? Crackpot studies of lycanthropy. Arrant nonsense. The old wives' tale that werewolves have reversible skin, hairy on the inside. Twaddle about animal spirits mingling with those of men. He seemed to suggest shape-shifters are subject to a form of demonic possession. It was all tied to bloodlines. Germans are obsessed with blood, with racial purity, with the strength of ancient vampire lines.'

'Like that of Count Dracula?'

Moreau snarled. 'There's an elder who has done his worst to sow confusion. In his superstition, he encourages fools to think of vampires as supernatural creatures. That's a sure way to stay in the dark.'

West finished his probings and peeled off wet gloves.

'I heard Professor Ten Brincken lecture at Miskatonic University in '09,' he said. Behind his spectacles, he had watery, nervous eyes.

'This is Mr Herbert West of Massachusetts,' Moreau introduced his colleague. 'He has been of some minor help to me. In time, he might have the makings of a scientist.'

'What was the subject of the professor's lecture?'

'The effects of blending bloodlines. Like breeding cattle for more meat and less string. He claimed to be able to induce shape- shifting in vampires whose line does not entail the facility. Also, he suggested his methods could "cure" many common conditions and limitations of the undead.'

'Conditions and limitations?'

'The extreme sensitivity to sunlight. Fear of religious artefacts. Allergic reaction to garlic or other wolfsbane. Even the universal vulnerability to silver.'

'Tchah,' spat Moreau. 'Blood, blood, blood. To the Germans, it's all in the blood. It's as if the
corpus
was constituted of nothing but blood.'

'Did the professor produce any of his improved specimens?' Beauregard asked. 'A vampire who could survive being pierced by a silver arrow, for instance?'

West shrugged and looked at the dead puddle on the cot. 'It was all theory.'

'To call it "theory", is to dignify muddle-headedness,' Moreau said, angry. 'Only I am doing anything like real work in the field. Ten Brincken is a dunderhead and a dullard.'

'Langstrom of Gotham University claimed results with Ten Brincken's methods,' West put in, 'but his experiment ended badly. They still haven't caught him.'

'I remember you now,' Moreau said to Beauregard. 'You were with that elder girl.'

'Thank you for your co-operation,' Beauregard said. 'You have been most helpful.'

For a moment, he was afraid Moreau would ask him for news of Genevieve. Thirty years ago, he had seemed ready to exercise a scientific interest in her. And his scientific interests always appeared to run in the direction of taking a scalpel to the subject and peering into the works of life.

'If you come by them, I'd be grateful for a look at Ten Brincken's experimental logs,' Moreau said, in an exaggeratedly offhand manner that told Beauregard how seriously he really took his rival's work. 'Drivel, I'm sure, but even fools can stumble over the odd truth. In Germany there are fewer legal checks to pure research.'

Beauregard turned to leave. The guard lurked beyond the open door, his shadow distorted on the floor.

'Don't mind Ouran,' Moreau said. 'He's been with me for many years. A good and faithful servant.'

Beauregard wondered if the red marks on Ouran's neck were surgical scars. Before the war, Dr Moreau had been forced to leave England and continue his work elsewhere. But this close to the killing ground 'legal checks' were not in operation. Humanity was suspended for the duration.

Half-way to the surface, the screaming resumed as Dr Moreau and Mr West turned their attentions to the next wounded vampire. After a few minutes in the clinic, Beauregard felt he should strip off every item of clothing and have it thoroughly cleaned. Better yet, burned.

When he emerged from the tunnel, Lieutenant Templar was waiting. Cigarette in hand, he watched a fresh-blown smoke ring drift upwards and apart. Evening crept near. Even the smell of the trench was better than the foulness of Moreau's dissecting chamber. The staccato chatter of machine-guns cut through the droning thuds of the usual mortar fire.

'Getting busy,' Templar remarked. 'How did you like the doc?'

Beauregard said nothing but the lieutenant got the idea.

'I tell you I credit no stories, but if any of my lads cop one, I'd rather have them dragged through the wire and driven in a bumpy lorry to Amiens than let them be taken down there.'

Opposite Wing HQ in Amiens was a small café where Kate sat in wait for her prey. Fortuitously, there was a small café opposite every site of military significance in France. By now, Kate was on familiar terms with them all.

She sipped blood-laced anis
,
unable to tell from which animal the blood might have come, and kept an eye on comings and goings across the road. There was much activity; Wing was busier after dark than in the afternoon. The HQ was solidly built, a converted municipal building.

The trail had led her this far.

'Bone jaw, mamzel,' said an American. 'Je m'apple Eddie Bartlett. Private, First-Class.'

She looked at the doughboy over the tops of her blue glasses. The short, grinning, impossibly young warmfellow was confident of an eager reception. The gratitude of French girls was a major incentive to army recruitment in the United States.

'You've certainly learned to "parley-voo" mighty fine, Mr Yank.'

Private Bartlett was downcast. He must have been practising his line of chat ever since his troopship left New York. His comrades brayed with laughter. She smiled and her fangs peeped out. Bartlett apologised incoherently and returned to his friends' table. She hoped he found a willing mademoiselle before a bullet found him. He was a nice-looking fellow and she regretted being cool towards him. It was not often she was mistaken for an alluring French siren. She liked the taste of Americans. Mr Frank Harris, of course, had been an American, a former cowboy. Unburdened by history, there was a lightness to their blood.

She was sorely thirsty. Blood-in-

Edwin Winthrop strolled out of Wing HQ, pausing on the steps to return the salute of a dusty sergeant. Kate pretended not to notice, but was so placed that Edwin could not help but spot her. The approach struck her as subtler than making a futile attempt to stay out of his sight. Pleased by his own perspicacity, he might in a burst of male confidence let something slip. For a moment, she thought he might add her presence to his report to Charles and pass by about his business. She tried to send out waves of vampire fascination by mental telepathy. It was all nonsense, at least in her bloodline, but it could not hurt.

Edwin made a decision. He crossed the street, dodging a motorcycle despatch rider, and bore down on her. She froze her face, suppressing a smile that might betoken a certain smugness and expectation of victory.

'Miss Mouse, is it not?'

She made casual play of noticing and recognising him.

'Edwin, good evening. You have not your guard dog about you?'

He looked about. Dravot was nowhere in sight. Even Edwin was not always aware of the presence of his protector.

'I dare say the sergeant might be concealed in a haystack somewhere nearby. In disguise, of course.'

'I should not be at all surprised.'

'He tells me you and he are old friends.'

Kate remembered the Terror.
Stories
circulated about Daniel Dravot's role in affairs of great moment, stories she had never quite pinned down. The sergeant did his duty by the angels, but when an omelette was to be made he was the sort who willingly broke the eggs.

He also tells me you are not as silly as you seem.'

She laughed to cover annoyance. 'No one could be as silly as I seem, surely?'

Edwin laughed too, genuinely. He was still puzzled by her. That was good. If he was puzzled, he was interested. As he tried to find out about her, she could learn from him.

'Are you chasing some poor general? Intent on wrecking yet another martial reputation?'

'On the contrary, I am composing an encomium to the steadfast qualities of our gallant staff officers.'

He sat opposite her. There was comment from Private Bartlett's table.

'Watch out, pal,' Bartlett shouted. 'She bites.'