Frankenstein in London
Page 21
He was served by a young girl, who could not possibly have seen through his imposture, but he saw from the corner of his eye that the mistress of the establishment was looking at him quizzically, and hurried away into the shadows, selecting the same sheltered vantage-point from which Solomon Green had formerly observed the comings-and-goings in the heart of the criminal Underworld.
He had been in the booth for ten minutes before two other individuals sat down to either side of him. They were wrapped up very warmly, having just come in from the icy cold, with felt hats pulled down low over their features and scarves over their mouths. They did not unwrap themselves to display their faces, and left it to Temple to summon the waitress and order two glasses of gin. Neither of them, to judge by their contrasted height and build, could possibly be Henri de Belcamp. One was too bulky by far, and even the smaller of the two was a little too tall and not sufficiently slender.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Temple,” said the smaller of the two, in a voice not much above a whisper, but nevertheless quite distinct. “Tom has given us all a guarantee of safe conduct, so you need have no fear.”
For a moment or two, Temple could not identify the voice, and when he did, he was not quite ready to believe it. “Szandor?” he said, interrogatively.
“In person,” the vampire replied. “You must have been worried about me, in spite of the Countess’s confident assurances that I would be safe. Please tell her, when you next see her, that her confidence was not misplaced.”
Temple had only seen Countess Marcian Gregoryi once since his return to London, but he was, indeed, due to see her again very soon. She had already demonstrated her talent for gathering information interesting to the agents of the Crown, and Temple was no longer so sure that his masters would dispense with his services at the slightest excuse.
“Have you escaped from Civitas Solis, then?” Temple asked.
“They never caught us,” Szandor replied, blithely. “Fyne Court was built in the 17th century, when Jacobean tragedies were still being performed in London’s theaters. It was a time when priests’ holes and secret passages were de rigueur, along with the ghosts of knightly ancestors. When Balsamo’s men were able to get into the laboratory—without the necessity of breaking down the door—they found us gone, as if vanished into thin air. We thought it politic to lie low thereafter, though. Our hopes of conducting our research openly, in the confines of the Royal Institution, had been badly dented, if not actually dashed by the fiasco.”
“So you threw in your lot with John Devil,” Temple growled.
“We have not thrown in our lot with anyone, Mr. Temple,” said the other man, speaking for the first time. “We are conducting our own investigations in our own way.”
Again, Temple had difficulty identifying the voice. Again, his conclusion seemed more guesswork than reasoned confusion. “Lazarus?” he ventured.
The other actually laughed. “I suppose we are similar now,” he said. “There is a certain justice in that, I must reluctantly admit.”
“Frankenstein,” said Temple, dully. Once, the thought that he was in a booth in Will Sharper’s Grog Shop, sandwiched between a vampire and a man returned from the dead would have terrified him. Now, it seemed almost a relief to know that his drinking companions were no petty criminals.
“Tom Brown differs from his erstwhile friends in Civitas Solis and his erstwhile enemies in the vehm,” the vampire said, “in that he is no monopolist. I do not say that he is not a profiteer, but he really does not want to have the afterlife securely within his own gift. He is a Romantic heart.”
“And you believe that he is a better protector than His Majesty’s Secret Service or the Duke of Wellington’s legions?” Temple asked, bitterly, knowing full well that the answer was yes.
“We would like to have your amity as well, Mr. Temple,” Frankenstein said.
“Indeed we would,” the vampire said, supportively. “Of, at least, your undertaking not to join forces with Malo de Treguern or Colonel Bozzo-Corona.”
“The Colonel told me himself, only a few hours ago, that he was here in London on business, and had no interest in the afterlife,” Temple said, although he had not really believed it at the time, and was even less convinced now that Szandor had brought up the Colonel’s name.
“Business with the Gentlemen of the Night,” the vampire confirmed. “But there’s probably not a man in their ranks who does not owe a double allegiance to the All-Father and John Devil. We live in a world of confused loyalties, Mr. Temple—which can sometimes break a man in two, if he’s not careful. Please tell the Countess to mobilize all her resources to the task of keeping track of Colonel Bozzo-Corona and his shifty soldiers—and you might do worse to put some of your other men on to him as well. He’s deluded as to his origins and nature, of course, as we have all been in the past, but his mind is exceedingly sharp, and he’s an extraordinarily clever and patient planner. Unlike Tom, he is most certainly a monopolist, and one who stops at nothing.”
“Is that what you brought me here to tell me?” Temple asked, unable to sound grateful, although he felt a trifle curmudgeonly on that account.
“We brought you here to reassure you as to our health,” the Grey Man put in, “and to let you know that, whatever other crimes Balsamo might have committed, he is not presently holding any significant hostages.”
“How are you, Dr. Frankenstein?” Temple asked, with genuine curiosity. “Have you mastered your new faculties and feelings? Do you know yet what you are, and what you might make of your second lease of life?”
“I’m making progress,” the Grey Man told him.
“What about the girl?” Temple asked. “Have you managed to recover her from her captors?”
“No, alas,” said Szandor. “We cannot even be sure that she was captured, although I know how much it would wound you to think that she missed her rendezvous with you of her own accord. Tom will find her in the end—and he has agreed that when he does, he’ll hand her over to us in order that she and Victor might compare notes and assist in one another’s re-education.”
“You cannot trust him,” Temple said, flatly. “Treachery is in his bones; it’s all he can do to prevent his alter egos from betraying one another.”
“That’s as may be,” the vampire replied, equably, “but who can we trust? We can only go forward as best we can, careful not to betray our own destiny.”
“You, a vampire, speak of destiny now?” said Temple. “You speak approvingly of men who are not monopolists, and disapprovingly of men who are. It’s difficult to believe that you’re the same skeletal figure I talked to in Miremont.”
“Change is possible for all of us, Mr. Temple,” the other murmured. “Even for you. You know as well as we do that the world has already been turned upside-down; the question that remains is whether we can adapt ourselves to the new order. I am determined to do so, and so are my friends.”
“You do know, don’t you,” Temple said to the Grey Man who had once been Victor Frankenstein, “that this man is not George Singer, but a Grey Man of sorts, camouflaged by mesmeric glamour?”
“Yes, I do,” Frankenstein replied. “He is my brother now, or my half-brother, at least; we are alike in the most important matter of all. Who else is there in London who can give me a sound education in the art of life after death?”
Temple looked up as someone materialized at the table bearing a tray, and set out another round of drinks, almost as if in answer to the Grey Man’s question.
“Compliments of the house, gentlemen,” said the newcomer, who was not the little waitress but Jenny Paddock herself. “Mr. Hopkey apologizes for the fact that he has not time to say hello, but he is making himself up for tonight’s performance.” The hostess was looking directly at Temple, evidently able now to see through his disguise.
“Mr. Hopkey is neither here nor there,” Temple told her, coldly. “What of John Devil’s apologies?”
“My husband is dead, sir,” Je
nny Paddock replied, striking an offended pose, “and I’ll thank you not to insult the name of my poor, dear Tom under his own roof.”
Temple was not entirely sure whether the “Tom” she had in mind just then was Thomas Paddock or Tom Brown.
“Thank you, Mistress Paddock,” the vampire put in. “My friend meant no offense. Once we’ve drunk these down, we’ll be on our way—we all have our ships to catch, literally or figuratively speaking.”
“You’ll miss the performance,” Jenny Paddock said, seeming genuinely wounded by such neglect. “That would be a shame, for The Vampyre is a fine melodrama, rumored to be based on a story by Lord Byron himself.”
“I saw the first performance of the original production at the Porte-Saint-Martin,” Szandor said, smoothly. “I was seated directly behind Monsieur Nodier and Monsieur Dumas. Without meaning any disrespect to Mr. Hopkey’s troupe, I doubt that they could better that occasion. I no longer like the play as much as I did then—the Byronic image of the vampire has grown a little stale, has it not?”
“As you please, sir,” said Jenny Paddock, stiffly.
“It’s a pity that Sawney Ross and Ned Knob aren’t here to see their protégés perform the play,” Temple observed, obedient to a mischievous whim. “You and he were intimate at one time, I believe, Mistress Paddock—at least until Pretty Molly came between you.”
The hostess did not deign to reply to that, but returned to her counter with her dignity seemingly intact.
The three men reached out for their glasses, in no particular hurry. Temple would have downed his without ceremony, but Szandor raised his, with the unmistakable gesture of a man about to propose a toast.
Temple paused and waited. The Grey Man followed his example. Temple wondered, vaguely, whether Grey Men were capable of getting drunk. He supposed not, on the assumption that alcohol probably did not have the same effect on dead-alive as on living flesh.
“To the Necromancers of London!” Szandor declared, still speaking in his curiously distinct whisper. “Long may they thrive!”
“To the Future!” added the Grey Man who had once been Victor Frankenstein. “Long may it last!”
Feeling compelled to complete the ritual, Gregory Temple only hesitated a moment before saying: “To Life! Long may it retain the empery of the flesh!”
No one objected; everyone drank. As the fiery beverage assaulted his throat, Gregory Temple could not help but wonder whether his words were mere wisps of straw, about to be blown away by the irresistible tide of destiny and the marvelous discoveries soon to be made by the Necromancers of London.
1 Black Coat Press, 2004. ISBN 978-1-932983-15-9.
2 Black Coat Press 2006. ISBN 978-1-934543-63-2.
3 From Paul Féval’s The Vampire Countess, Black Coat Press, 2003. ISBN 978-0-9740711-5-2.
4 Black Coat Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-934543-89.4.
5 From Paul Féval’s Revenants, Black Coat Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-932983-70-8.
6 From The Vampire Countess, q.v.
7 From The Vampire Countess, q.v.
8 From Paul Féval’s The Black Coats series (’Salem Street, The Invisible Weapon, The Parisian Jungle, The Companions of the Treasure, Heart of Steel, The Cadet Gang), all from Black Coat Press.
FRENCH HORROR COLLECTION
Cyprien Bérard. The Vampire Lord Ruthwen
Aloysius Bertrand. Gaspard de la Nuit
André Caroff. The Terror of Madame Atomos
André Caroff. Miss Atomos
André Caroff. The Return of Madame Atomos
André Caroff. The Mistake of Madame Atomos
André Caroff. The Monsters of Madame Atomos
Harry Dickson. The Heir of Dracula
Jules Dornay. Lord Ruthven Begins
Sâr Dubnotal vs. Jack the Ripper
Alexandre Dumas. The Return of Lord Ruthven
Renée Dunan. Baal
Paul Feval. Anne of the Isles
Paul Feval. Knightshade
Paul Feval. Revenants
Paul Feval. Vampire City
Paul Feval. The Vampire Countess
Paul Feval. The Wandering Jew’s Daughter
Paul Féval, fils. Felifax, the Tiger-Man
G.L. Gick. Harry Dickson and the Werewolf of Rutherford Grange
Etienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon. The Virgin Vampire
01 Marie Nizet. Captain Vampire
C. Nodier, A. Beraud & Toussaint-Merle, V. Hugo, P. Foucher & P. Meurice. Frankenstein & The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
J. Polidori, C. Nodier, E. Scribe. Lord Ruthven the Vampire
P.-A. Ponson du Terrail. The Vampire and the Devil’s Son
02 Brian Stableford. The Shadow of Frankenstein
03 Brian Stableford. Frankenstein and the Vampire Countess
04 Brian Stableford. Frankenstein in London
Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. The Scaffold
Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. The Vampire Soul
Philippe Ward. Artahe
Philippe Ward & Sylvie Miller. The Song of Montségur
Frankenstein in London (The Empire of the Necromancers 3) Copyright 2010, 2011 by Brian Stableford.
Cover illustration Copyright 2011 by Daniele Serea.
Visit our website at www.blackcoatpress.com
ISBN 978-1-935558-78-1. First Printing. January 2011. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comics.com, LLC, P.O. Box 17270, Encino, CA 91416. All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The stories and characters depicted in this book are entirely fictional. Printed in the United States of America.