I must confess this had not yet occurred to me until she said it. (Don’t judge my lack of acumen, future Oscar. Things were happening at a rapid pace.) From the way he held the spear, I would wager that it is the source of his power over the vampires. Indeed, a few of them seemed to be glaring at it rather resentfully, though when Wilkins turned their way they made sure their expressions showed only adoration.
A few servants approached us and our fellow merchants.
“You,” one yelled to the peddler I had spoken to earlier. “You got any more of those lanterns?”
“No, but I have plenty of torches and pitch,” he said. “Back in my storehouse. I can give you a good price.”
“All right, that’ll have to do. You stay. The rest of you, clear off! There will be no more selling or buying today.”
The peddler went up to him and they talked for a moment, although I could not hear what they were discussing. The crowd was noisily moving off.
Ellen and I each took a handle of the cart to start the long walk back to town, but before we could begin the torch merchant called out to us. He trotted over and asked whether we had a horse to go with our cart.
“Not at the moment, but I can procure one,” I said. “Why?”
“I need to deliver a load of torches to Stonehenge Friday night. I’ll cut you in if you help me get ’em there.”
“Oh, we would be happy to, dearie,” Ellen said in her best Salisbury accent. We made arrangements to meet on Friday morning.
“This is a very good day, indeed,” he said, smiling. He trotted off with his nearly empty cart, leaving us to our own journey back.
“What a stroke of luck,” I said. “We know where it is happening, whatever it is, and we will be in the thick of it when it does.”
“And we know where they are holding Bram, Noel and Henry.”
“Er, we do?” I asked.
She nodded her head towards the estate.
“Oh, of course,” I said. “I am sure I knew that.”
“I hope Robert brings an army of mercenaries,” she said, picking up the pace to the point where I could almost not keep up. “It’s about time we sent these demons back to hell.”
Letter from the Black Bishop to Henry Irving, 4th of May 1880
My dearest Henry,
I apologise for not coming to see you in person. I am at the Stonehenge site overseeing last-minute preparations.
Please forgive me for locking you up, but it is for your own protection. I am also greatly sorry that I had to take the Stoker boy, but that too is for your own good, and the good of all, as you will see.
I was quite touched by how you ran to Bram’s aid. You are a true and dear friend; I have always valued this quality in you, and that is why it is important to me that you understand the truth.
I am not the monster you think me to be – quite the contrary. I have been chosen by God to rule the thousand years of peace, after which Christ will return to judge all. He has given me the Spear of Longinus – the actual spear that pierced Christ’s flesh. The blood on the blade gives me control of the wretched creatures of hell – vampires, werewolves and the like. I, of course, do not mean that you are wretched. In fact, the spear does not control you. (Yes, I confess, I have tried.) I have no idea why you are immune to its effects. It might be because your creator’s creator set you free all those years ago. Perhaps it is because you have devoted yourself to God. You are proof that vampires can possess free will and therefore fall under his watchful eye.
I must thank you, Henry, for you showed me a world I did not know existed. It was my research into a cure for your condition that led to my discovery of a once-great order that served God by controlling the powers of the underworld. I alone resurrected the Order of the Golden Dawn and recovered the last of the pure dragon’s blood currently in this world – and determined how to obtain more.
Unlike the tainted blood of vampires, this blood allows those who drink it to keep their free will and gain the immortality that is our destiny. The upper class shall rule, as that is our burden, and we shall serve God until his return.
Thanks to you, I have the key to open the very gates of hell. The Stoker blood was the final ingredient I needed. We took some previously and tried to perform the ritual; unfortunately, it was not enough and it must be given willingly. So you see, I needed Noel to make Stoker comply. With his blood, I shall bring forth a dragon, giving me an ample supply of the magical elixir for all the aristocracy.
As I write this, noble men and women are coming from throughout the Empire to become part of our new world order. They will become an army that I alone control.
The royal house shall also come under my command. Prince Edward has joined our cause and will be crowned king. He will, in turn, enthrone me the Archbishop of Canterbury. I will use this power for good, Henry, I assure you. We shall usher in a new era in which we can save many souls before the Second Coming. The common folk will comply. As in the olden times when they feared what lurked in the dark woods, their fear will lead them to righteousness.
Join me, Henry! You are my friend and, I believe, sent to me by God to rule by my side.
I must go now to continue preparations for the momentous event. I leave you pen and paper to reply with your answer. And, if you would, give some thought to what sort of role you would like to play in history. With your oratorical skills, I think you would make a fine prime minister.
Your friend, always,
Rev. Richard Wilkins
P.S. I, of course, cannot free you until after the ceremony. I am no fool and leave nothing to chance.
Last Will and Testament of Henry Irving, 5th of May 1880
Perhaps writing down my thoughts in these – my final hours – is a waste of time. Wilkins will find these pages and destroy them. I shall do it nonetheless and hide the pages somewhere in my cell in hope they will be found one day. Most likely anyone who does find them will think them a discarded work of fiction, but there is the possibility that they may make their way to someone who will understand the truth of them.
I am being held in what must have been a monk’s sleeping quarters, loosely chained in silver – over my clothes so it does not burn, and slack enough that I can move about in the narrow confines of my cell, but it is enough to keep me restrained. Only a slit in the wall for a window and a bare wooden platform that serves as both bed and seat. Hardly room to get on my knees and pray in here. Bars separate me from the rest of the dank cellar.
I will not become part of the Black Bishop’s plans. I have spent so many years trying to live a righteous life; to turn to evil now would make a mockery of my efforts. It is bad enough that I have unleashed Wilkins’ madness upon the world, albeit unwittingly. If not for me, he would never have discovered this underworld or been corrupted by it. I thought I knew him and could trust him, that he was a pious man. Perhaps no man is completely immune to the lust for power. And yet still I believe in the good
– Later –
Something remarkable has happened. As I was trying to write my last testament, I was interrupted by the sound of a voice, deeply resonant, with a European accent. “I can smell your despair through the wall, my friend,” it said. I froze, my pen still poised above paper. The voice sounded familiar, yet I did not think I had heard it among the Bishop’s henchmen.
“Who is there?” I called back.
“A friend. Like you, I am a prisoner of the so-called Black Bishop.”
I wondered if together we might be able to formulate an escape and said as much to my new ally.
“Do not bother. He will just summon us back with the spear,” he said, his voice edged with bitterness.
So, my neighbour was a vampire then, but not on the side of the Black Bishop.
“So, he does have some sort of magical talisman?” I asked.
“Yes. I suppose if you were to get fa
r enough away, its effect would diminish,” the voice said. He sounded Romanian, or perhaps Hungarian. “If I ever get the spear away from him, I will use it to stab him in the heart. Trapped like a rat,” he growled. “No one has ever controlled the Dark Prince!”
“Wilkins says the spear has no control over me,” I told him. I heard a scraping sound from beyond the wall, as though he had leapt off his own sleeping platform, causing it to slide against the stone wall.
“If you could get us both out of here, we could take the spear from him,” he said.
Did I dare trust this new ally? ‘Dark Prince’, one must admit, sounds a bit menacing. “If he can control you, why does he keep you locked up?”
“He is frightened of my strength. He fears that, like a trained wolf, I may one day reclaim my nature, turn on him and tear out his throat, for I am the vampire! The first to drink the dragon’s blood. I led an army against the Muslim invasion. I made them flee the Holy Roman Empire forever! The pope himself kissed my ring in gratitude, then betrayed me, hunting me down like a dog.
“Now, it appears that history is repeating itself once again,” he said. “Self-proclaimed holy men in pointy hats trying to wield a power they do not understand and cannot control.”
His voice burned into my brain and ignited a memory – it was him! The one who freed me from the clutches of the vampire queen so long ago! But, the first vampire? Could it be true? And if so, might he have the knowledge to free me from the demon inside me?
“What is the ceremony for which he is preparing?” I asked.
“They need fresh blood.”
He told me of how he became a vampire by drinking the blood of a dragon summoned from some place he called ‘the Realm’, which sounded very much like hell.
“With each generation of siring, the blood becomes weaker, the vampire more mindlessly brutal. Go far enough down the line and the vampire is nothing more than an animated corpse.”
I thought of the mindless creatures I’d seen in the Crimean. “So, with blood from a fresh dragon….”
“These fools will unleash an epidemic of vampirism they will not be able to stop,” he said. “The Bishop might be able to control a handful of vampires with the spear, but can he control a hundred, a thousand, a million?”
“But what if this is the will of God?” I asked. “The pope successfully used this power. Maybe God did lead Wilkins to the spear. Not to rule, but maybe all this is part of the end times.”
He laughed. “The creature, the so-called demon that lives inside you, do you know what it is in the Realm?”
I remembered my fevered dream. Had I been in the Realm?
“In its world, it is a harmless insect,” he continued. “A parasite that feeds on the blood of fellow creatures with no harm. Dragons shake them off like fleas. But here, it takes us over entirely. It reproduces by compelling us to pass on the parasite.”
“Is the Realm what we would call hell?”
“I think not. It is a place where the laws of nature work differently. Sometimes our worlds open up to each other and something spills in or out. Supernatural creatures are merely visitors from this undiscovered country. Imagine being the first person to see a firefly, or the honeybee if you knew nothing of honey. Would not that seem magical?”
“It must be more than that,” I argued. “For the cross and the power of Christ turns them. There must be supernatural elements at work.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe he is from there as well.”
“He? Do you mean our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ? That is absurd! There is no way he was a vampire!”
“Not a vampire, but something else from the Realm. How else do you explain the magical powers?”
“The powers of God! That is how I would explain it!” I could not believe I was arguing such a blasphemous point with a creature from hell.
“I have been there, the Realm,” he said. “I walked the ground there as I do here. It was a strange place filled with unfamiliar creatures, but it was a place like here. Trees and plants, animals and insects. Two suns in the daytime, but suns like ours, and stars at night. No people damned in lakes of fire.”
“How did you get to the Realm?” I asked, incredulous.
“There are places on the earth where you can merely walk through and back again. I travelled to such a place in the New World with a Spanish guide. I sought a cure for my…our affliction. I did not find it. That was many years ago, and now I am not sure I want to be human again. I have seen their wars. I have even been their weapon! Their atrocities are greater than anything vampires have done.”
My hopes fell. This man – this monster – had no cure for me. I turned my attention to our immediate problems to keep from falling into despair. I asked him how he came to be the Black Bishop’s prisoner.
“I was betrayed by people I hired to set up my new home in London. The Black Bishop promised to make them vampires in exchange for helping to kidnap me. Once I was brought within the power of the spear, I was powerless to resist him.”
“The spear alone should tell you the power of Christ is real,” I said, still arguing, I know not why.
“The blood on the spear, you mean,” he said slyly. “Strange how it is always the blood that holds supernatural power.”
We both were silent with our thoughts for a moment, then he asked me, “Why does the Black Bishop let you live?”
“He wants me to be a part of his madness,” I said. “He sees me as his friend.”
“Maybe you can use your friendship to your advantage. Get that spear away from him and I will do the rest.”
A chill went down my spine, for I know his power. Would it be a mistake to unleash him back onto the world? Still, I am considering the option.
Can I act the part of the loyal follower and be Brutus to Wilkins’ Caesar? Having played both Brutus and Caesar in my career, I believe I could.
Letter from Bram Stoker to Florence Stoker, 5th of May 1880
My dearest Florence,
It is with a heavy, yet resolute heart that I write what will be my final words to you. By the time you read this I will be dead. My hope is that this will mean Noel will be alive and safely returned to you. At least that is the promise the kidnapper has made to me. I have no choice but to believe him.
Giving up my life for his is the only way. I cannot tell you what this is all about, a restriction placed on me by the kidnappers. They would not allow this letter to be delivered if I did.
In these final moments of reflection, my thoughts are only of Noel and you. I know that in these past few months I have not been a model husband and father, and I am sorry. My biggest regret is that I will not be able to make amends.
I live under a curse and should have told you this in the beginning. I had thought my problems were in the past and that I could provide you with a safe and happy life. I love you very much and hope you will always remember me and tell Noel that his father loved him.
You are young and beautiful. Do not let your period of mourning go on for too long. It is my wish for you to love again and find a worthy man who can be a good husband to you and father to our son. (It would be best if this were not Oscar.)
There are dark times ahead for Christendom. Hold tightly to your faith and stay close to your friends. Ellen, Henry and Oscar will be there for you and Noel, of that I have no doubt.
Goodbye, my beautiful flower.
Love, for all eternity,
Bram
Letters from Robert Roosevelt to Theodore Roosevelt, 5th of May 1880
Dear Theodore,
Once more into battle I go! We must be victorious, for if we are vanquished, so much more may be lost than our lives. Bram Stoker and his son Noel have been kidnapped by a villain who calls himself the Black Bishop. This blasphemous reprobate is the ringleader of the vampire uprising and must be stopped at all costs.
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br /> I have procured arms and soldiers and am heading off to Amesbury momentarily. I did not garner the troops I would have liked, managing to hire only three mercenaries. However, they come highly recommended and are reputed to be fierce fighters.
Mikael is an enormous Russian who could easily be mistaken for a bear in both body and spirit. He even claims to have experience fighting vampires and I have no reason to doubt his veracity, or perhaps I simply choose not to.
Tom and Tim are Scottish twins, whom I am told fought valiantly in India and Africa. They are covered with tattoos, even upon their faces, and as they are identical it is the only way to tell them apart. They proved their usefulness to me by shooting out candle flames at fifty paces.
It is a small but fine force and we have ample rifles and handguns loaded with silver bullets and an ace up my sleeve. I hope it does not come down to me bringing out the big gun. I shall strive to make this a simple extraction with little bloodshed.
Teddy, if we fail in this, if the Black Bishop achieves whatever nefarious goal he has in mind, it can only mean trouble, not just for England but for the rest of the world. I leave it to you to warn our government and urge them to make ready. They may soon have a foe unlike any they have faced before.
Letter II from Robert Roosevelt to Theodore Roosevelt, 6th of May 1880
Dear Theodore,
Success! Partial success, in any event.
When I arrived in Amesbury with my men we met up with Mr. Wilde and Miss Terry in the market square and they told us the prisoners were being held on an estate on the outskirts of town.
Ellen told us that Bram had been taken to Stonehenge. They believe he is to take part in a ritual. She seemed upset but very much in control of her emotions for a woman. As far as they knew, Noel and Henry Irving were still being held at the estate.
“Bram would want us to rescue Noel at the expense of his own life,” Oscar said.
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