Anno Dracula (48 page)

‘Carmilla? That is so,’ said Geneviève.

‘A delicate flower, sadly missed.’

Geneviève nodded agreement. This monster’s solicitousness was sickly-sweet, hard to swallow without choking. As fondly and without thought as a master pets an old hunting dog, the Prince stretched out a hand and caressed the Queen’s tangled hair. Panic bloomed in Victoria’s eyes. At the base of the throne-dais clustered a knot of shrouded
nosferatu
women, the wives Dracula had set aside. Beauties all, they rent their garments immodestly, exposing limbs and breasts and loins. They hissed and lusted like cats. The Queen was plainly in terror of them. Dracula’s enormous fingers encircled Victoria’s fragile skull and squeezed slightly.

‘My lady,’ he continued, ‘why have you not come before to my court? We should have welcomed you to our sadly missed Castle Dracula in Transylvania or to our more modern estate here. All elders are welcome.’

Dracula’s smile was persuasive, but behind it were his teeth.

‘Do I so offend you, my lady? You wandered from one place to the next for hundreds of years, always in fear of the jealous warm. Like all un-dead, you were outcast on the face of the earth. Was this not injustice? Harried by inferiors, we were denied the succour of church and the protection of law. You and I, we have both lost
girls that we have loved, to peasants with sharpened spikes and silver sickles. I am named Tepes, and yet it was not Dracula who pierced the heart of Carmilla Karnstein, nor that of Lucy Westenra. My dark kiss brings life, eternal and sweet; it is the silver knives that bring cold death, empty and endless. The dark nights are ended and we are raised to our rightful estate. This have I done for the good of all who are
nosferatu
. None need hide his nature among the warm, none need suffer the brain fever of the red thirst. Daughter-in-darkness of Chandagnac, you share in this; and yet you have no love for Dracula. Is this not sad? Is this not the attitude of a shallow and ungrateful woman?’

Dracula’s hand was about Victoria’s neck, thumb stroking her throat. The Queen’s eyes were downcast.

‘Were you not alone, Geneviève Dieudonné? And are you not among friends now? Among equals?’

She had been un-dead a half-century longer than Vlad Tepes. When she turned, this prince was a babe in arms, shortly to be delivered into a life in captivity.

‘Impaler,’ she declared, ‘I have no equal.’

... as the Prince glowered at Geneviève, Beauregard stepped forward.

‘I have a gift,’ he said, his hand inside the breast of his tailcoat, ‘a souvenir of our exploit in the East End.’

Dracula’s eyes showed the philistine avarice of a true barbarian. Despite lofty titles, he was barely a generation away from his mountain bully-boy ancestors. This prince liked nothing more than pretty things. Bright, shining toys. Beauregard took a cloth bundle from his inside pocket, and unwrapped it.

Silver light exploded.

Vampires had been feeding in the shadows, noisily suckling the flesh of youths and girls. Now everyone was quiet. It must be an illusion, but the tiny blade gleamed, a miniature excalibur illuminating the whole room. Fury twisted Dracula’s brow, then contempt and mirth turned his face into a wide-mouthed mask. Beauregard held up Jack Seward’s silver scalpel.

‘You think to defy me with this little needle, Englishman?’

‘It is a gift,’ he replied. ‘But not for you.’

Geneviève edged away, uncertain. Merrick and Mina Harker were too far off to affect this action. Carpathians detached themselves from their amusements and formed a half-circle to one side. Several of the harem stood, red mouths wet and eager. No one was between Beauregard and the dais, but if he made a move towards Dracula, a wall of solid bone and vampire-flesh would form.

‘For my Queen,’ Charles said, tossing the knife.

Tumbling silver reflected in Dracula’s eyes, as anger exploded dark in the pupils. Victoria snatched the scalpel from the air...

... it had all been for this moment, to get Charles into the Royal Presence, to serve this one duty. Geneviève, the taste of him in her mouth, understood...

... the Queen slipped the blade under her breast, stapling her shift to her ribs, puncturing her heart. For her, it was over swiftly. With a moan of joy, she fell from the dais, blood gouting from her fatal wound, and rolled down the steps, chain rattling with her as it unravelled.
Sic transit Victoria Regina
.

The Prime Minister beat his way through the harem, pushing the harpies aside, and clutched the Queen’s body. Her head flopped as
he extracted the scalpel with a single pull. Ruthven pressed his hand over her wound as if willing her back to life. It was no use. He stood, still gripping the silver knife. His fingers began to smoke and he threw away the scalpel, admitting with a yelp to his own pain. Surrounded by Dracula’s wives, their faces transforming with hunger and rage, the Prime Minister shook inside his murgatroyd’s finery.

Beauregard waited for the deluge.

The Prince – Consort no more – was on his feet, cloak rippling around him like a thundercloud. Tusks exploded from his mouth, his hands became spear-tipped clusters. His power was dealt a blow from which it could never recover. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, was King now; and the stepfather who had dispatched him to pleasurable but purposeless exile in Paris was scarcely likely to exert any great influence over him. The Empire Dracula had usurped would rise against him.

If Beauregard died now, he would have done enough.

Dracula raised a hand, the useless chain dangling from his wrist, and pointed at Beauregard. Beyond speech, he spat out rage and hate.

The late Queen had been the Grandmother of Europe. Seven of her children still lived, four of them warm. By marriage and accession they linked the remaining Royal houses of Europe. Even if Bertie were set aside, there were sufficient claimants to contest the throne. By a nice irony, the King Vampire could be brought low by a gaggle of crowned haemophiliacs.

Beauregard walked backwards. The vampires, suddenly sober, gathered. The women of the harem and the officers of the guard. The women pounced first and bore him on to the floor, ripping...

... Charles had tried to save her from harm by keeping her out of the designs of the Diogenes Club, but she’d stubbornly insisted on seeing
Dracula in his lair. Now they would probably both die.

She was thrust aside by Dracula’s women. They were on Charles, claws and mouths red. She felt the razor-kiss of their nails on his face and hands. She pulled one hell-cat – that Styrian bitch Countess Barbara de Cilly, unless Geneviève was mistaken – from the fray and pitched her screeching across the room. Geneviève bared her teeth and hissed at the fallen woman.

Anger gave her strength.

She strode to the huddle that had formed over Charles and hauled him free, thumping and stabbing with her hands. In their lair, the courtiers were soft, replete. It was comparatively easy to cast aside Dracula’s women. Geneviève found herself spitting and shrieking with the other she-creatures, pulling handfuls of hair and scratching at red eyes. Charles was bloodied, but still living. She fought for him as a mother wolf fights for her cubs.

The hell-cats scrabbled backwards, away from Geneviève, giving her room. Charles stood by her, still in a daze. Hentzau stood before them, Dracula’s champion. His lower body was human, but he had an animal’s teeth and claws. He made a fist and a point of bone slid from his knuckles. It grew long and straight and sharp.

She stepped back, out of range of the bone-rapier. The courtiers retreated, forming a circle like a prize-fight crowd. Still shackled to his dead Queen, Dracula watched. Hentzau whirled about, his sword moving faster than she could see. She heard the whisper of the blade and, moments later, realised her shoulder was opened, a red line trickling on her dress. She snatched up a footstool and raised it as a shield, parrying the next slice. Hentzau cut through cover and cushion, fixing his blade-edge in wood. As he pulled free, horsehair bled from the gash.

‘Fighting with the furniture, eh?’ Hentzau sneered.

Hentzau made passes near her face and locks of her hair floated free. From somewhere by the doors came a shout, and something was thrown to the floor before Charles...

... the strangled voice was John Merrick’s. At his feet was his sword-cane. The poor creature had wrested it from the custody of a footman. Beauregard had not expected to survive his Queen. For him, these seconds were an afterlife.

The Guardsman who had extruded a sword from his skeleton closed on Geneviève. Hentzau did not reckon a warm man worth the worry. He was light on his feet, a fencer’s muscles moving in his knees, his sword-arm keen enough to fetch off a head.

Beauregard picked up his cane and drew the silver-edged sword. He understood how the Ruritanian must feel, with a weapon as an extension of his arm.

With a tap, Hentzau whisked Geneviève’s stool from her hands. He grinned and drew back for a thrust at her heart. Beauregard sliced down, knocking Hentzau’s point out of true, and slashed back, the edge of his blade slipping under the Guardsman’s jaw, sliding through coarse fur, opening skin and scraping bone.

The Ruritanian howled in silver pain and turned on Beauregard. He launched an assault, sword-point darting like a dragonfly. Even in agony, he was fast and accurate. Beauregard parried a rapid compass of attacks. Suddenly, a thrust came. He felt a fish-hook sting just under his ribs. Throwing himself backwards, half-seconds ahead of the piercing blade, his heels skidded on the marble. He fell badly,
knowing
Hentzau would close on him and puncture his arteries. The women of the harem would drink from his fountaining wounds.

Hentzau raised his sword-arm like a scythe; the blade began a swishing descent. Beauregard knew the arc would terminate in his neck. He thought of Geneviève. And Pamela. With a convulsion, he brought up his own arm to ward off the blow. The handle of his sword slipped slightly in his sweat-slick fist and he gripped it hard.

A shock of impact ran through his whole body. Hentzau’s arm sliced against Beauregard’s silver. The Guardsman staggered back. His sword-arm fell in a dead lump, cut clean through at the elbow. As blood geysered, Beauregard rolled out of the way.

He regained his footing. The Guardsman gripped his stump and stumbled. His face turned human, moulting hair. After Hentzau’s howl had subsided to a succession of choking sobs, there came an exaggerated clanking sound. Beauregard and Geneviève turned to its source.

Prince Dracula stood on the dais. He had detached the Queen’s chain from his arm, and dropped it...

... he came down from his throne, steam pouring from his nostrils. For centuries he had thought himself a higher being, apart from humanity; less blinded by selfish fantasies, she knew she was just a tick in the hide of the warm. In his bloated state, the Prince was almost lethargic.

Geneviève held Charles to her and turned to the doors. Before them stood the Prime Minister. He was civilised, almost effete, in this company.

‘Aside, Ruthven,’ she hissed.

Ruthven was uncertain. With the Queen truly dead, things would change. Willing to try anything, Geneviève held out her crucifix. Ruthven, surprised, almost laughed. He could have barred their path, but he hesitated – ever the politician – then stepped out of the way.

‘Very clever, my lord,’ she told him, quietly.

Ruthven shrugged. He knew an empire had foundered. She guessed he would immediately concentrate on his own survival. Elders were skilled in survival.

Merrick held the doors open. In the antechamber, a startled Mina Harker stood, unsure in her shock. Everyone was reeling, trying to keep up with the rapid changes. Some of the courtiers had given up and returned to their pleasures.

Dracula’s shadow grew, his wrath reaching out like a fog.

Geneviève helped Charles out of the throne-room. She licked blood from his face, and felt the strength of his heart. Together, they would ride this whirlwind.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he tried to explain.

She shushed him.

Merrick shut the doors and put his enormous back to them. He made a long howl that might have meant ‘go!’ Something smashed against the other side of the doors and a clawed hand punched through above Merrick’s head, a dozen feet from floor-level, tearing at the wood. The hand made a fist, and enlarged its hole. The doors shook as if a rhinoceros were slamming against them. An upper hinge flew apart.

She saluted Merrick and limped away, Charles by her side...

... he told himself not to look back.

As they ran, Beauregard heard the doors behind them bursting outwards, and Merrick being crushed under falling wood and stamping feet. Another ill-used hero, lost too swiftly to be mourned.

Sweeping past Mina Harker, they emerged from the antechamber into the reception hall, which was full of vampires in livery. A dozen different rumours animated them.

Geneviève pulled him onwards.

He heard the thunder of pursuit. Among the clatter of boots, there was a single flap. He felt the draught of giant wings.

Bewildered guards let them through the Palace doors...

... her blood raced. There was no carriage, of course. They would have to make their way on foot and disappear in the crowds. In the most populated city in the world, it should be easy to hide.

As they stumbled down the wide steps, a cadre of Carpathians quick-marched up, swords rattling in their scabbards. At their head was the General everyone made fun of behind his back, Iorga.

‘Quick,’ she shouted, ‘the Prince Consort, the Queen! All will be lost!’

Iorga tried to look resolute, not delighted at the prospect of some unknown harm to his commander-in-chief. The cadre redoubled their speed and jammed into the great doorway just as Dracula’s retinue tried to come through. They should be through the main gates by the time the Carpathians had disentangled themselves.

Charles, the exhilaration of his duel fading, wiped his face with his sleeve. She took his arm and they strolled lopsidedly away from the clamour.

‘Gené, Gené, Gené,’ he murmured through blood.