Dracula Lives (22 page)

Quinn’s gaze was a probing searchlight from which there was no escape. “Have innocent people died? Have we got a serial killer on our hands?”

Johnny winced. “His feedings left them not quite dead, but.… Yes. Some eventually died.”

“What about you? He said you drank the elixir for years but stopped. I can see that it slowed the aging process, as it did in him. He said you’re in your seventies. You look fifty, at most. Have there been any lingering effects? Any ‘vampiric’ urges?”

“No. There were when I was drinking it, and for a while after I stopped, but something in my nature never let me succumb. Finally I found the courage to stand up to him and said no more. Over time my system has purged the poison from my bloodstream.”

Her cell phone beeped. She held up a finger for Quinn to wait and pressed a button. “Yes?” She hesitated before saying, “Out by the barn. Finishing my patrol of the perimeter. Then I was going to check on the Garden.” Johnny listened a moment and then said, “I understand. Yes. I will tell him.”

She clicked off and turned back to Quinn. “Markov’s growing paranoid.”

“Why did you lie?”

“I was buying time for us to finish our talk. His rewrite is giving him problems and taking longer than expected. He wants you to use the time to familiarize yourself with ‘the set,’ to save time later when he’s setting up the scenes.”

“This gives me time to explore the areas I haven’t gotten to. Particularly the Garden. He’s forbidden me to go down there, but, frankly, at this point, I don’t give a shit. Whatever his Flowers of Evil are, they need to be weed-whacked. His reign of terror is over.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Johnny said. “With his deadline fast approaching, I know he’s going to be calling me constantly for one thing or another. We have to seize our opportunity now to come up with a plan to stop him.”

“And for you to show me the Garden.”

“Absolutely.” She spread her arms to indicate the entire castle. “He has turned this infernal pile—and himself—into an incubator for vampires and monsters. This place and everything in it must be destroyed.”

As Johnny’s darkest secrets gushed forth from their imprisonment in the nethermost dungeon of her soul, they washed away the last of Quinn’s reluctance to accept a world that defied all reason. She couldn’t be just making all this up to further her own agenda. The horrors Markov had created here were not just the special effects of a deranged imagination. They were
real
.

“He has long been determined to end his movie on the night of the Blood Moon,” Johnny said. “He’ll almost certainly use the horror movie cliché of having midnight as his deadline. By the time he finishes his rewrite and blocks out all the action, we might only have a few hours to stop him before all hell breaks loose.”

“I don’t see any possible way he can do everything he needs to do by midnight. Do you?”

“No. But he can certainly wreak havoc trying. He probably thinks he can just put you in peril and record whatever happens, then figure out a way to edit it all into the final cut. It’s insane. It always has been.” She waved the thought aside. “Regardless, whatever ending he comes up with will undoubtedly make him the hero. I cannot let that happen. I will
not
let him emerge triumphant after all the lives he has destroyed. Like Renfield, I cannot live with all those innocent souls on my conscience.”

Johnny looked around as though scanning for signs of surveillance, despite Markov’s promise that the privacy of her quarters was sacrosanct. She pulled her chair closer, until their knees were almost touching, and lowered her voice to barely above a whisper.

“My father is the carrier of what I’ve come to think of as the Dracula Virus, and he—it—cannot be allowed to escape into the world. Ebola would pale by comparison. As bad as it is, at least Ebola has no human awareness. No evil design. The Dracula Virus does. It has all but obliterated its host—George Tilton—my
father
—and is taking him to the end stage, beyond Markov. To becoming a monster who would knowingly create a race of vampires, with him as its lord and master, to ensure that Dracula lives forever. He must be stopped, but I cannot do it alone. I know this is too much to ask, but … will you help me?”

Quinn had been anticipating this moment. “Yes. I’m not leaving until this is over.”

Hints of the gentle soul long buried inside her rose up to shimmer in her eyes. Her small nod was one of deep gratitude for someone willing to put his life on the line to save hers. He returned it, and she blinked away the emotion before going on.

“Then we must come up with
our
version of the ending now. He thinks fate sent you to be the lead in his big monster rally sequence. That’s how he justifies maybe getting you killed. After all he’s put me through, he couldn’t let me be the one getting chased by his monsters. He needed someone else. Someone who wouldn’t bother whatever is left of his conscience.” She hesitated but never broke eye contact. “Someone expendable.”

“Finally,” Quinn said. “The truth comes out.”

“In this infernal pile, truth is buried under a mansion of lies. Now it must be exhumed.” She slid the canvas bags around by her feet. “I have weapons in here that will help protect us, but I can give no guarantees. He has many at his disposal as well. The digital special effects and robots are dangerous enough, because he is losing control of them.”

“I know. He told me.”

“Then he may also have told you about the monsters that live within him.”

“He has.”

“They are much worse. Predators without a conscience. And they are getting stronger. I believe he is actually encouraging the evil part of their natures, so they will be more convincing in the climax.”

“But if they come from inside him, he can’t use them all simultaneously. Can he?”

“No, but he could combine whatever monster escapes from him with digital or robotic versions of the others to confuse us.”

Quinn shook his head. “Whatever ending he has in mind, you’ve both been telling me it will be dangerous. We can’t let it get that far.”

“Agreed,” Johnny said. “So let’s come up with a plan to stop him.”

“Where is Markov doing his rewrite?” Quinn asked.

“In the Chamber of Horrors. He always goes there to write his darkest scenes. It inspires him.”

“When we finish in the Garden we could go in together and overpower him.”

“Do not underestimate him. He is still quite strong—and resourceful. We would need the element of surprise.”

Quinn thought of the bruisers he’d knocked down playing rugby, and couldn’t imagine not being able to handle a hundred-year-old man, no matter how strong. “We could discreetly get into position on both sides of him, give each other a nod, and take him down. Then restrain him with whatever we can bring that will do the job: rope, chains, handcuffs.”

In the curt shake of her head, Johnny’s fierce determination made her almost unrecognizable as the formerly cringing servant. “When he becomes enraged, the creatures that live inside him try to break out. So far they haven’t, but if any of them do they could overpower us.”

“So what can we do to keep that from happening?”

She gestured toward her control panel. “Before we get into all that: I left a cell phone and a master skeleton key over there for you. You need to take them with you in case we get separated.”

Quinn smiled. “Thought so. They’re in my pocket.”

“Good. If you need me for any reason, just press 1 and the call button. That will get only me. I’ll leave it on vibrate, so he won’t hear your call if he’s with me. If he is, just leave a message and I’ll call you as soon as I can get away.”

“It sounds like you inherited your father’s knowledge of technology.”

“He has taught me since I was at his knee. From the day we moved here he has shown me how to do everything he does, so I can serve as his backup for all the systems of the castle. Everything he can do, I can do.” A hint of melancholy flickered across her features. “I am very much Daddy’s little girl.”

In a blink, her grim determination to bring this all to an end was back. Staring into the defiant face that might once have been beautiful, Quinn saw the indomitability of the human spirit. “Consider us the antibodies that will stop the Dracula Virus,” he said.

“Yes!”

She yanked the canvas bags around and with a few fierce swipes unzipped their compartments so Quinn could see their contents. “I knew this day would come so I have gathered up some weapons. There are essentially two types of threats he has at his command: digital and real. Against the digital, we have magnets. These are the most powerful on the market.”

She slid up her sleeves. There were magnetic bands around each of her wrists, fastened by Velcro. “I always wear two on each wrist and ankle. In effect, they create a force field around you that will keep any of his digital creations at bay. Wearing these is your first line of defense.”

“Meaning you need a second line of defense?”

“Usually they disintegrate right away, but they are clearly getting stronger. Coming closer. They always stop several feet away, but lately a few have started to advance again.” She nodded at the open canvas bag. “There are four dozen more in there. Wherever you go, carry extras. If the ones you’re wearing haven’t stopped them, start throwing them. I’m not sure exactly what happens, but since the digital monsters are computer-generated, and magnetism can fry computers, so far that has shut them down.”

“So far,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t sound like they’ll definitely do the job.”

“They might not. Especially if these things keep getting stronger.” She unzipped the large side compartment. It was full of canisters about an inch thick and five inches long. “Bear spray.”

“I saw some of that in the barn.”

“I order it in bulk and always keep plenty on hand. Hunters use it to stop bears. Take the bag with you. And carry extras—of the bands and the spray. As many as you can fit into your pockets without arousing Markov’s suspicion.”

Quinn looked at the sweatpants he was wearing. They only had two small pockets. “I’ll have to swing by my room. I’ll change into cargo pants and grab a couple things that could come in handy.”

Johnny made a curt nod.

“What about the real threats?” Quinn said. “Physical realities?”

“This is where the line between the real and the unreal gets blurred,” Johnny said. “Part of Markov’s humanity is seeping into his special effects. I’ve started preparing myself to fight the digital and the real. And the real—as impossible as it sounds—could include the monsters he might become.”

She opened the main compartment of the other bag and pulled out something that looked like it might be for killing weeds in a garden: essentially a short pipe with a nozzle at the end and a pistol grip with a squeeze trigger. A handle was attached to the top; underneath was a small fuel tank.

“What’s that?” Quinn said.

“Another of Markov’s paranoid inventions. A propane-powered flamethrower. Nothing on the market pleased him, so he made his own.”

“To use against what? I can only remember fire being used against the Frankenstein Monster.”

“Exactly.”

Quinn shook his head at the insanity of it all. “So, if it came time to use it, that would mean you torching your own father.”

“Sick, isn’t it?”

“That would be one word for it.”

“A discussion for a later time. For now, the stupid thing might come in handy.” She showed him how the flamethrower worked. “It only has a maximum range of about five feet, so keep that in mind. There’s a spare tank of fuel in this bag. Also a pistol loaded with silver bullets in case he becomes the Wolf Man.”

“
If
the myth about silver bullets stopping werewolves is true.”

“He’s Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man. Lawrence Talbot. And in that movie, silver bullets killed him. There’s also a box with two dozen extra bullets. If he changes into his vampire persona, there’s wolfbane, garlic, and a hammer and stakes.”

“This is all well and good, Johnny, but it seems like our primary objective should be to disable Markov before he gets to use any of his monsters—digital or real. Then it’s over.”

“You’re right. He’s the source of all their power. Of everything. But overpowering him might be easier said than done. He’s more unbalanced than I’ve ever seen him. He’s possessed by the need to finish his film tonight. He’ll stop anyone or anything who tries to get in his way. But—yes. If we can disable him, it should make his creations powerless.”

If. Should.
Quinn still didn’t like it, but he had to trust Johnny. After all these years, she had to know his every weakness, be able to anticipate his every move. Even so, he could see that something was still troubling her. “What?” he said.

“Disabling him and his digital minions is only the first step. I cannot stop until this place has been destroyed. If the horrors he has locked away in the Garden somehow got loose, all our efforts would be for naught.”

“How do you plan on destroying the castle?”

“I am going to burn it to the ground.”

“That could start a serious forest fire.”

“The clearing around the castle should keep the fire contained.”

Quinn started to say she couldn’t be sure about that, but the ferocity of her expression told him the matter was not open to debate. He let it pass. “Whatever we do to overpower his monsters, there may be no way around it: We might have to kill your father.”

Johnny seemed unfazed. “If it comes to that, so be it.”

They took a few minutes to walk through precisely how they were going to get on either side of Markov and take him down in the Chamber of Horrors. “Then that’s the plan,” Quinn said. “We need to get moving so you can show me what’s in the Garden.”

He started to stand but stopped when he thought of another complication. “Markov told me your brother Max recently sent him a letter, threatening to come here and kill him. Talking about his ‘days being numbered.’ Are you aware of that?”

“Yes. He showed me the letter.”

“Is there any chance Max will follow through on his threat?”