Anno Dracula (9 page)

Marty’s family was with him. His wife didn’t quite know whether to be grateful to Kate or despise her.

He would live. Really live.

She was getting snatches of his past life, mostly from films he had been in. He would be having the same thing, coping with scrambled impressions of her. That must be a nightmare all of its own.

They let her into the room. It was sunny, filled with flowers.

The actor was sitting up, neatly groomed, eyes bright.

‘Now I know,’ he told her. ‘Now I really know. I can use that in the part. Thank you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, not knowing what for.

At a way-station, Swales is picking up fresh horses. The old ones, lathered with foamy sweat, are watered and rested.

Westenra barters with a peasant for a basket of apples. Murray smiles and looks up at the tops of the trees. The moon shines down on his face, making him seem like a child.

Harker quietly smokes a pipe.

HARKER’s Voice:
This was where we were to join forces with Van Helsing. This stone-crazy double Dutchman had spent his whole life fighting evil.

VAN HELSING strides out of the mountain mists. He wears a scarlet army tunic and a curly-brimmed top hat, and carries a cavalry sabre. His face is covered with old scars. Crosses of all kinds are pinned to his clothes.

HARKER’s Voice:
Van Helsing put the fear of God into the Devil. And he terrified me.

Van Helsing is accompanied by a band of rough-riders. Of all races and in wildly different uniforms, they are his personal army of the righteous. In addition to mounted troops, Van Helsing has command of a couple of man-lifting kites and a supply wagon.

VAN HELSING: You are Harker?

HARKER: Dr Van Helsing of Amsterdam?

VAN HELSING: The same. You wish to go to Borgo Pass, Young Jonathan?

HARKER: That’s the plan.

VAN HELSING: Better you should wish to go to Hades itself, foolish Englishman.

VAN HELSING’s AIDE: I say, Prof, did you know Murray was in Harker’s crew. The stroke of ’84.

VAN HELSING: Hah! Beat Cambridge by three lengths. Masterful.

VAN HELSING’s AIDE: They say the river’s at its most level around Borgo Pass. You know these mountain streams, Prof. Tricky for the oarsman.

VAN HELSING: Why didn’t you say that before, damfool? Harker, we go at once, to take Borgo Pass. Such a stretch of river should be held for the Lord. The Un-Dead, they appreciate it not.
Nosferatu
don’t scull.

Van Helsing rallies his men into mounting up. Harker dashes back to the coach and climbs in. Westenra looks appalled as Van Helsing waves his sabre, coming close to fetching off his own Aide’s head.

WESTENRA: That man’s completely mad.

HARKER: In Wallachia, that just makes him normal. To fight what we have to face, one has to be a little mad.

Van Helsing’s sabre shines with moonfire.

VAN HELSING: To Borgo Pass, my angels... charge!

Van Helsing leads his troop at a fast gallop. The coach is swept along in the wake of the uphill cavalry advance. Man-lifting box-kites carry observers into the night air.

Wolves howl in the distance.

Between the kites is slung a phonograph horn.

Music pours forth.
Swan Lake,
Act 2, Scene 10 - Scene: Moderato.

VAN HELSING: Music. Tchaikovsky. It upsets the devils. Stirs in them memories of things that they have lost. Makes them feel dead. Then we kill them good. Kill them forever.

As he charges, Van Helsing waves his sword from side to side. Dark, low shapes dash out of the trees and slip among the horses’ ankles. Van Helsing slashes downwards, decapitating a wolf. The head bounces against a tree, becoming that of a gypsy boy, and rolls down the mountainside.

Van Helsing’s cavalry weave expertly through the pines. They carry flaming torches. The music soars. Fire and smoke whip between the trees.

In the coach, Westenra puts his fingers in his ears. Murray smiles as if on a pleasure ride across Brighton Beach. Harker sorts through crucifixes.

At Borgo Pass, a small gypsy encampment is quiet. Elders gather around the fire. A girl hears the Tchaikovsky whining among the winds and alerts the tribe.

The gypsies bustle. Some begin to transform into wolves.

The man-lifting kites hang against the moon, casting vast bat-shadows on the mountainside.

The pounding of hooves, amplified a thousandfold by the trees, thunders. The ground shakes. The forests tremble.

Van Helsing’s cavalry explode out of the woods and fall upon the camp, riding around and through the place, knocking over wagons, dragging through fires. A dozen flaming torches are thrown. Shrieking werewolves, pelts aflame, leap up at the riders.

Silver swords flash, red with blood.

Van Helsing dismounts and strides through the carnage, making head shots with his pistol. Silver balls explode in wolf-skulls.

A young girl approaches Van Helsing’s Aide, smiling in welcome. She opens her mouth, hissing, and sinks fangs into the man’s throat.

Three cavalrymen pull the girl off and stretch her out face-down on the ground, rending her bodice to bare her back. Van Helsing drives a five-foot lance through her ribs from behind, skewering her to the bloodied earth.

VAN HELSING: Vampire bitch!

The cavalrymen congratulate each other and cringe as a barrel of gunpowder explodes nearby. Van Helsing does not flinch.

HARKER’s Voice:
Van Helsing was protected by God. Whatever he did, he would survive. He was blessed.

Van Helsing kneels by his wounded Aide and pours holy water onto the man’s ravaged neck. The wound hisses and steams, and the Aide shrieks.

VAN HELSING: Too late, we are too late. I’m sorry, my son.

With a kukri knife, Van Helsing slices off his Aide’s head. Blood gushes over his trousers.

The overture concludes and the battle is over.

The gypsy encampment is a ruin. Fires still burn. Everyone is dead or dying, impaled or decapitated or silver-shot. Van Helsing distributes consecrated wafers, dropping crumbs on all the corpses, muttering prayers for saved souls.

Harker sits exhausted, bloody earth on his boots.

HARKER’s Voice:
If this was how Van Helsing served God, I was beginning to wonder what the firm had against Dracula.

The sun pinks the skies over the mountains. Pale light falls on the encampment.

Van Helsing stands tall in the early morning mists.

Several badly wounded vampires begin to shrivel and scream as the sunlight burns them to man-shaped cinders.

VAN HELSING: I love that smell... spontaneous combustion at daybreak. It smells like... salvation.

Like a small boy whose toys have been taken away, Francis stood on the rock, orange cagoule vivid against the mist-shrouded pines, and watched the cavalry ride away in the wrong direction. Gypsy extras, puzzled at this reversal, milled around their camp set. Storaro found something technical to check and absorbed himself in lenses.

No one wanted to tell Francis what was going on.

They had spent two hours setting up the attack, laying camera track, planting charges, rigging decapitation effects, mixing Kensington gore in plastic buckets. Van Helsing’s troop of ferocious cavalry were uniformed and readied.

Then Shiny Suit whispered in the ear of the captain who was in command of the army-provided horsemen. The cavalry stopped being actors and became soldiers again, getting into formation and riding out.

Kate had never seen anything like it.

Ion nagged Shiny Suit for an explanation. Reluctantly, the official told the little vampire what was going on.

‘There is fighting in the next valley,’ Ion said. ‘Baron Meinster has come out of the forests and taken a keep that stands over a strategic pass. Many are dead or dying. Ceauşescu is laying siege to the Transylvanians.’

‘We have an agreement,’ Francis said, weakly. ‘These are my men.’

‘Only as long as they aren’t needed for fighting, this man says,’ reported Ion, standing aside to let the director get a good look at the Romanian official. Shiny Suit almost smiled, a certain smug attitude suggesting that this would even the score for that dropped picture of the Premier.

‘I’m trying to make a fucking movie here. If people don’t keep their word, maybe they deserve to be overthrown.’

The few bilingual Romanians in the crew cringed at such sacrilege. Kate could think of dozens of stronger reasons for pulling down the Ceauşescu regime.

‘There might be danger,’ Ion said, ‘if the fighting spreads.’

‘This Meinster, Ion. Can he get us the cavalry? Can we do a deal with him?’

‘An arrogant elder, maestro. And doubtless preoccupied with his own projects.’

‘You’re probably right. Fuck it.’

‘We’re losing the light,’ Storaro announced.

Shiny Suit smiled blithely and, through Ion, ventured that the battle should be over in two to three days. It was fortunate for him that Francis only had prop weapons within reach.

In the gypsy camp, one of the charges went off by itself. A pathetic phut sent out a choking cloud of violently green smoke. Trickles of flame ran across fresh-painted flats.

A grip threw a bucket of water, dousing the fire.

Robert Duvall and Martin Sheen, in costume and make-up, stood about uselessly. The entire camera crew, effects gang and support team were gathered, as if waiting for a cancelled train.

There was a long pause. The cavalry did not come riding triumphantly back, ready for the shot.

‘Bastards,’ Francis shouted, angrily waving his staff like a spear.

The next day was no better. News filtered back that Meinster was thrown out of the keep and withdrawing into the forests, but that Ceauşescu ordered his retreat be harried. The cavalry were not detailed to return to their filmmaking duties. Kate wondered how many of them were still alive. The retaking of the keep must have been a bloody, costly battle. A cavalry charge against a fortress position would be almost a suicide mission.

Disconsolately, Francis and Storaro sorted out some pick-up shots that could be managed.