TW08 The Dracula Caper NEW (19 page)

He was a genetically engineered creation, born of human DNA which had been radically modified and raised through the expedient of time travel. Nurtured within an artificial womb, he had been born in a laboratory and then sent back into the past and given to a childless family who had been carefully selected and paid well to raise their very special charge. At prescribed intervals. Vlad had been brought back from the past to Drakov's laboratory once again, so that Drakov could embark upon the next stage in the development of his creation. Programming through cybernetic implants, surgical biomodification, serum treatments . . . for the child who was the first true vampire. years passed between the times he saw his creator, but for Drakov, it had been only a matter of days, hours or even minutes. Once he had planted his seed back in the past, he needed only to program his warp disc to take him back five or ten or fifteen years later, any interval of time he chose, to see his creation literally growing up before his eyes and guide its physical and intellectual development. And now that he had what he referred to as his "breeding stock" in the ironically named Vlad Dracula and Janos Volkov (the name meaning "son of the wolf''), he could use them to create others through the medium of infection in a fraction of the time. It could he done via an infectious bite, as had been the case with Hesketh, or with an injection of the genome taken from one of the creatures. And they were creatures, human in a sense, yet at the same time both more and less than human. A new and different species.

With Tony Hesketh, Drakov had decided to go the "traditional route." as he referred to it with amusement, following the elements of folklore associated with the Vampire myth—the seduction, the mutual drinking of the blood, sleeping in coffins during the day and establishing a psychosexual rapport with the victim. He found it useful to follow the traditions of the legend, to take advantage of Hesketh's susceptible and superstitious mindset.

In time, Hesketh would discover that whether he slept during the day or night was purely a matter of setting his biological clock and that a bed with clean sheets would be far more comfortable and would work equally as well as a coffin lined with "native earth." He had already learned that there was no reason for him to avoid mirrors, since his image was obviously reflected in them, and he had learned that crossing running water posed no problem, either. He would be able to enjoy as much garlic in his dinner as he wished and, if he chose to, he could wear a silver crucifix without the least bit of discomfort. Try as he might, he would never be able to assume the shape of a wolf or turn into a bat and fly, nor would he be able to transform himself into a mist and seep beneath a doorway. And, if he was careless, he would learn that a wooden stake hammered through his heart would certainly kill him, as would a knife stuck between his ribs or a bullet fired into his brain. But for the time being, Tony Hesketh functioned as the vampire of folklore, believing only that there were inaccuracies in the myth, that since he had no need to fear the cross, a mirror or a string of garlic bulbs, a vampire was even stronger in his "powers" than the legend would have people believe. And in his new "eternal life," Dracula was his spiritual guide. Hesketh would make the legend real and it did not matter much if he was killed, so long as he was able to infect at least a few more victims. They, in turn, would infect others, and it would spread. Biological warfare combined with murder and superstitious terror would achieve the desired result. The craving and the need for blood was real and it was that which would perpetuate the plague.

With Rizzo, as with Ransome, it was a different matter. No trappings of vampiric folklore for them. There was no point to it. They were the first pawns taken in a far more intricate, and for Drakov, much more personal game. Ransome was already infected with the vampire DNA and brainwashed through the medium of cybernetic programming to function as Drakov's agent. Rizzo would be next. Through them, Drakov planned to attack the temporal agents and, if he was successful, they would each become infected with a frightening disease.

"I would love to see the expression on my father's face when he realizes that I've struck back at him through his finest agents," said Drakov. "I will have disrupted the timestream irreparably and, at the same time, I will have shown them all the ultimate folly of their conceit, their insufferable arrogance in flouting the laws of nature."

"And when you have done this," said the vampire hesitantly, "what will become of us, of Janos and myself?"

"What do you mean?" said Drakov, frowning.

"It is a question I never dared to ask before," said Vlad "but I feel that I must ask it now. Janos and I have talked of this and it is a matter of great concern to us. All our lives, we have been prepared for this one moment and now it is at hand. What shall become of us when it is finished? What are we to do? You now have Hesketh, Ransome and this man, Rizzo. Soon you will have others. You will have no further need of us."

Drakov put his hand on the vampire's shoulder. "You and Janos are like my children," he said. "You are my firstborn, Volodya. Did you think I would abandon you?"

"I did not know what to think," the vampire said. "I have always known that you gave me life for a purpose and I have always wondered what would become of my life once that purpose was fulfilled."

"It will become your own," said Drakov. "You will be able to go anywhere you please, choose any time you wish, pick any identity you like. I will see to it that both you and Janos are well provided for."

"And we shall be able to live as normal people do?" said Dracula.

"As normal people? What do you mean?" said Drakov.

"The craving for blood," said Dracula. "The change Janos experiences every month. You will remove these?"

"Remove
them?" said Drakov. "Don't be absurd! How can I remove them?"

"But ... you have made us as we are," the vampire said.

"And you think I have the power to turn you hack into ordinary men?" said Drakov. He chuckled, then shook his head. "Volodya, you disappoint me. Have you learned nothing in all these years? You can never be ordinary. I have made you extraordinary! You are a predator! A superior being! The first of a new race! You are stronger than they are, more intelligent, quicker and with a far greater life-span. You are
a
wolf among sheep. How can you even entertain the thought of being like other men? Whatever gave you this ridiculous idea?"

"Wherever we may go and whatever we may do, we shall always be hunted," said the vampire. "We shall be hated and misunderstood . . . indeed, how can we even hope for their understanding when our very nature compels us to prey upon them? You taught us to kill them, so that we could avoid creating others like ourselves before the time was ripe, but now that the time has come, where will it end? Now that you want us to create others like ourselves, will there come a time when there are no more humans, only hominoids like us? Where shall we turn for sustenance then? We shall have to kill each other, feed on our own kind. What will happen then? What will become of us'?"

"You have intelligence," said Drakov impatiently. "Use it. It will be up to you to control your population. I have shown you how. Besides, even if you were to fail in that, it would take many generations before you would have totally exhausted your food supply. Humans breed quickly and they will always be a dangerous prey. I have not made you invulnerable. Unlike the Dracula of legend,
you
are not immortal. Although your life-span is far greater than that of any ordinary human, you can be killed far more easily than the vampire of folklore. In order to survive, you and your kind will have to become canny hunters, keen competitors. Your greatest weapon will be that humans shall find it impossible to believe in your existence."

Drakov snorted with derision. "The fools have always lacked imagination. A few short centuries from now, they will have killed off all their predators and eliminated all the diseases which controlled their population, allowing themselves to spread unchecked until their cities are all choked with life and their wilderness despoiled, their water not fit to drink and their air no longer fit to breathe. They will crowd together in increasingly dense concrete warrens, too many people in too small a space, and the stress of such proximity will affect their emotional stability and they will all start going mad. They will become base unstable creatures who will understand only the artificiality of their own urban existence. They will have lost touch with nature, having brought her to her knees, and they will forget how to survive. And then they will begin to die."

He glanced at the vampire. "In creating you and Janos, I have introduced a predator into their midst that is at least their equal in intelligence, if not their superior. One that will not be easily destroyed. I have done them all a favor."

He looked back through the iron bars at Rizzo. The transformation was complete. The werewolf crouched on the floor of the cell, exhausted from its efforts, its chest rising and falling heavily, saliva dribbling onto the floor as it panted like a dog, staring at him balefully.

"What a look!" said Drakov.

"He hates you," said the vampire. "He would kill you if he could."

"I do believe he would," said Drakov, "and do you know why. Volodya? Not because I have transformed him, but because I have revealed him to himself as he really is. A loathsome animal. A predatory beast."

As I am a loathsome animal and a predatory beast,
the vampire thought, but he said nothing. He merely stared at the pathetic creature huddled in the cell and felt unutterable sadness.

"Arthur, it's good to see you," said Bram Stoker, rising to his feet. It was early evening and the pub was crowded. Conan Doyle had worked his way through the crowd unrecognized. He approached the table Stoker was holding for them and took Stoker's hand.

"How are you, Stoker?"

"Reasonably well, Don't know that I can say the same for you, however. You look a bit the worse for wear. Sit down. Are you all right?"

Conan Doyle sat down heavily and leaned hack wearily in his chair. Stoker waved for another pint of bitters. "I have not been sleeping well," said Doyle. "These killings have all of my attention at the moment. I can think of nothing else. The matter is driving me to complete distraction. I sit up half the night, smoking pipeful after pipeful, filling the room with a latakia fog, racking my brain, attempting to arrive at some sort of rational explanation for the whole affair, but every line of reasoning I try to follow leads me nowhere. Nowhere, that is to say, near an explanation that is rational. I have just come from Scotland Yard. There has been yet another murder."

"Another one!" said Stoker. "When?"

"Apparently sometime last night," said Doyle, pausing a moment while the drink was set before him and then lifting the glass and drinking deeply. "A young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old, found in the most appallingly disgusting condition. Decency forbids me to describe it. Yet the cause of death itself was almost identical to that of Angeline Crewe. Insult to the system brought about by a profound loss of blood."

"Human teethmarks on the throat?" said Stoker.

Doyle sighed. "Yes, I am afraid so. It seems certain that we are faced with two separate fiendish killers, and yet I cannot help feeling that these killings are connected somehow, despite the fact
that we are looking at two different methods of murder. I have no sound basis for drawing this conclusion, but I feel it as an exceedingly strong intuition. You said in your message that you had some information connected with this case."

"Well, I knew, of course, that you were involved in the investigation," said Stoker. "Inspector Grayson took me into his confidence. Has he discussed our last meeting with you?"

Doyle shook his head "Not beyond telling me that the two of you spoke about that young man, Tony Hesketh, whom Grayson has been anxious to question in this case "

Stoker pursed his lips thoughtfully. "He didn't mention the name Dracula to you?"

"Dracula?" Doyle frowned. "What, you mean Vlad the Impaler? Oh, I think I understand. No, actually. it was I who mentioned the name to Grayson, while telling him about—"

"No, no. I did not mean in that connection," Stoker said. "Grayson mentioned the name while telling me about the conversation that you had with him, about the vampire legend and how it may have come about. No, what I was referring to was the fact that it was a name I recognized as belonging to someone I had recently met. An Eastern European nobleman whose name is also Dracula.•'

"Coincidence," said Doyle. shrugging. "Doubtless that was why Grayson never mentioned it. You mean that was all you had to tell me?" He was unable to hide his disappointment.

"Not quite." said Stoker. "This Count Dracula was in the company of young Hesketh when I met him. Also a coincidence? Perhaps. They came backstage to speak with Angeline Crewe. The Count seemed quite attentive towards Miss Crewe. She seemed to know him. Hesketh invited one of the other young women in the company, Miss Violet Anderson, to join them for dinner. The Count seemed quite attentive towards Violet, as well, and she did not seem to mind. All four of them left together. Now Angeline is dead, Hesketh is missing, and no one has seen Violet for at least a week "

"I see. How very curious. Has anyone inquired after Miss Anderson?"

"She had sent word that she was ill," said Stoker, "and we replaced her with an understudy, but when there was no further word from her. I became concerned and sent round to her flat to see how she was feeling. She was not at home and her landlady has neither seen nor heard from her."

"And you mentioned this to Grayson?" said Doyle.

"Well, yes and no," said Stoker. "That is to say. I mentioned having met a man named Dracula, because it seemed a singular coincidence when he brought up the name in that context, but it wasn't until after I had spoken with him that it occurred to me to look into Violet's situation, so I did not discover that she was missing until only this morning. under the circumstances, I became alarmed and, knowing you were involved, I at once sent word to you."