by Will Hill
Quincey had heard the story many times growing up: how Quincey Morris, John Seward and Arthur Holmwood had all proposed marriage to Lucy Westenra, his mother’s closest friend, how she had eventually accepted Arthur’s proposal, but had tragically died before the marriage could take place. A rare form of blood poisoning had taken her, and it was Van Helsing’s brave efforts to save her that had brought him into contact with the men who would become his friends. Morris himself had died abroad, in circumstances that Quincey Harker had never been able to persuade anyone to expand upon.
The events of the summer of 1891, so rich with scandal and romance and untimely death, had been turned into a novel that Quincey had been raised to regard with nothing short of contempt, a shameless attempt to turn the pain of his family and friends into entertainment, full of bats and wolves and ghostly ships. He had been forced, time and time again, to refute Bram Stoker’s version when schoolfriends and Army colleagues had approached him with the thick yellow hardback in their hands.
“Could nothing legally be done?” he had once asked his father, after his housemaster at Eton had quizzed him on the subject. “He didn’t even bother to change your names, Father.”
“Such a thing would serve only to dishonour the memories of Quincey and Lucy,” Jonathan Harker had replied. “And that is something I would never do, not for anything.”
Quincey was proud of the stance his father and his friends had taken, and always defended them with great vigour when questioned about Dracula. But if he was entirely honest with himself, Stoker’s story had crept into the corners of his mind on several occasions recently, given the creatures he had confronted in Passchendaele and Rome.
His father closed the door of the townhouse, placed a hand on his shoulder and led him up the stairs. Quincey could hear voices and laughter emerging from the rooms on the first floor, and felt his smile, which had momentarily disappeared as he stared at the portrait of the long-lost American, return to his face. The voices were familiar and carried with them a sense of easy comfort, a rapport honed and polished by decades of friendship. His heels thudded on the carpeted stairs, before his father led him across the landing and into the large room at the front of the building that looked out towards the Ritz.
Quincey frowned as he stepped through the door. Standing by the window, smiling and chatting to one another, were Arthur Holmwood and John Seward, while Henry Carpenter, the man who had been Van Helsing’s valet until he was invited to join the board of the Foundation, smiled up at them from a leather armchair. Standing by the fireplace, broad grins on their faces, were Albert Holmwood and David Morris; they were regarding him with expressions of great excitement.
Jonathan Harker walked across the room and stood beside his friends.
“My son,” he said, smiling widely. “We have much to tell you. It might perhaps be best if you were to sit down.”
“I’ll stand, thank you,” said Quincey. “What is this all about, Father?”
“As you wish, son,” said Jonathan. “It’s difficult to know exactly where to start, so I will attempt to tell you the facts, then explain how they came to our attention. Thankfully, given what you have seen, it is unlikely that you will find what I am about to tell you hard to believe.”
“Easier than it was for me, I’m sure,” said David Morris.
“And me,” said Albert Holmwood.
“Indeed,” said Jonathan, glancing over at the two young men. “Anyway, to business. What you see around you is not what you understand it to be. The Holmwood Foundation is real, and disperses funds as you have always known it to. It is not, however, administered from here in this building. It is based in an office on Jermyn Street and staffed by a group of men in Arthur’s employ.”
“So what is this place?” asked Quincey. He could feel curiosity beginning to bubble up inside him; this oblique, guarded manner was most unlike his father. “What is it that you do here every day?”
“My dear son,” said Jonathan Harker. “It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the headquarters of the Department of Supernatural Investigation. The men in this room, all of whom you know, make up its ranks, and they are very much hoping that you will agree to join us. I am too.”
Quincey’s mind reeled, as though he had been struck on the head. “Say again, Father,” he managed. “The Department of what?”
“Of Supernatural Investigation,” repeated Jonathan Harker. “The simple truth is that there are things in this world that are not human, Quincey: godless monsters that take human form, but are something other. They are commonly referred to in literature and legend as vampires, and it is our understanding that you have encountered two of these creatures yourself in recent months.”
“Vampires,” said Quincey, rolling the word round his mouth. “I thought you didn’t believe what I told you, Father. You gave no indication of doing so.”
“And for that I sincerely apologise,” said Jonathan. “I could not discuss such matters with you outside this room. Your mother is all too aware of the existence of these creatures, but there are still protocols that must be followed. As far as the world beyond these walls is concerned, vampires do not exist, and it is vital that the public continues to believe that to be the case.”
“Why?” asked Quincey. He felt as if the floor beneath his feet was no longer solid, as though his feet were resting on unsteady foundations.
“Because such knowledge would cause panic,” said his father. “For many centuries, it appears that the number of these creatures could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you what I must, and we will endeavour to answer any remaining questions you have.”
Quincey nodded, and lowered himself into one of the leather armchairs as his father continued to talk.
“The incident that brought us together, first as acquaintances, then as friends, then made us as close as any brothers, is described with great accuracy by Bram Stoker in Dracula, which I apologise for having misled you about. He was told the story by my late friend Abraham Van Helsing, the year after we returned to London from Transylvania. The Prime Minister asked Abraham to investigate the disappearance of a chorus girl who performed at the Lyceum Theatre, where Stoker worked as manager. She was dead, along with several others, having been murdered by the former conductor of the theatre’s orchestra, who was afflicted with the same curse that had possessed Count Dracula.
“It was this incident that gave terrible confirmation to our worst fears: that the creature who killed poor Lucy Westenra, whom we chased across half of Europe and who met his end at the points of Quincey Morris’s and my blades, had not been the only member of his species, and that the plague was now beginning to spread. This dreadful revelation led Prime Minister Gladstone to ask Abraham to found this Department, giving him the legal authority to police the supernatural and protect the public from it. He agreed, on the condition that we would be allowed to join him, if we agreed to do so.”
“And all of you did?” asked Quincey. “You just gave up your lives and careers to do this work instead?”
“Without hesitation,” said Arthur Holmwood. “I could not permit what happened to Lucy to happen to anyone else.”
“Nor I,” said John Seward. “The decision was an easy one.”
“Arthur was kind enough to utilise a charitable bequest in his father’s will to allow the five of us to begin work without being entirely reliant on the government purse,” said Jonathan. “The Holmwood Foundation was quickly established; we moved into this building, and began our work.”
“What work?” asked Quincey. “This is a sitting room, father. This does not look like the kind of place where secret agents conduct business.”
His mind was racing, trying to process what he was being told. If Dracula was the truth, as opposed to the malicious fiction he had always understood it to be, then what he had seen in the final months of the war was beginning to make an awful sort of s
ense.
Vampires, he thought. Out there in the real world, taking lives.
Jonathan Harker smiled at his son. “I imagine it does not. But if you accept our offer, you are going to have to become accustomed to things that are not what they appear to be.”
He nodded to Albert Holmwood and walked across the room towards a door set in the rear wall, which Quincey noticed for the first time had two keyholes. He stepped forward for a closer look, aware that the rest of the men in the room were gathering behind him. As he watched, his father and Arthur Holmwood’s son placed keys in the two holes and turned them simultaneously to the left. There was a heavy clunk; Jonathan Harker pushed the door open, held it wide, and nodded at him. Quincey walked slowly forward and felt the breath freeze in his chest.
The room beyond the door was long and wide, and looked like nothing less than the headquarters of an army. A series of shelves on one wall were full of pistols and rifles, black metal helmets, and row upon row of sharp wooden stakes. A large map of London hung beside them, covered in coloured pins and tiny handwritten notes. The opposite wall held a pair of bookcases full of old volumes and collections of files and folders and notebooks. In the centre of the room stood a long wooden table surrounded by a dozen chairs, and at the rear a pair of benches, much like the ones that had filled the classrooms where Quincey had been taught the sciences at Eton, were covered in towering, twisting sculptures of glass tubing and beakers of powders and liquids.
Against the wall behind them, a small wooden stand contained a number of weapons that Quincey didn’t recognise: long pistols with glass balls of liquid affixed to their tops.
“My God,” he whispered, staring round the room with wide eyes. “What is all this?”
“This,” said John Seward, “is the heart of the DSI. What you see around you is the result of almost three decades of toil and research, the majority of it conducted by Professor Van Helsing. This is where we work against the vampire menace.”
Ellis would kill to be allowed in here, thought Harker. This is his idea of heaven.
“So how does it work?” he heard himself ask. “Do you patrol the streets, looking for men and women who float above the ground?”
David Morris laughed. “Not exactly, Quincey. We have arrangements with a number of policemen in stations around the city. They inform us of any incidents that appear to fall under our jurisdiction.”
“And how often do such incidents occur?”
“It varies,” said Morris. “Sometimes as often as twice a week.”
Quincey nodded, deep in thought. Then something struck him. “Why are you here, David?” he asked. “Or you, Albert, for that matter?”
“I joined the Department in 1913,” said Morris. “When I turned twenty-one.”
“I joined a year later,” said Albert.
“When you were twenty-one,” said Quincey, softly. “Am I right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you never told me,” he said, fixing his gaze on his friends. “Neither of you said a word.”
Colour rose on Albert’s and David’s faces.
“They couldn’t, Quincey,” said Henry Carpenter. “Our most fundamental rule is one of secrecy. Members of the Department cannot tell anyone, regardless of how close they are to the people in question.”
“That’s correct,” said Jonathan Harker. “There were four of us when the Department was founded, which became five when Henry joined us. We were reduced again to four when Abraham passed away, and it became clear that we needed a way to ensure that the Department would live on beyond us. As a result, all descendants of the founders are offered the opportunity to join when they turn twenty-one.”
“I turned twenty-one four years ago,” said Quincey, staring at his father.
“The decision was made to postpone your invitation until the end of the war,” said Jonathan. “David is our liaison with the General Staff, and he was told repeatedly that the work of your Special Reconnaissance Unit was too important to interrupt.”
Quincey frowned. “You know about my unit?”
“Yes,” said Jonathan. “We’re all very proud of the work you did, son. I’m sorry we couldn’t speak about it until now.”
Quincey’s mind was racing with questions, but he managed to focus on one, the single most important. “So are you asking me to join now?”
“We are,” said Arthur Holmwood. “And we would be honoured if you would. I’m confident that I speak for us all when I tell you we have been looking forward to this day for a long time.”
A single unexpected thought rose to the front of Quincey’s mind.
I’m home. This is home.
“I accept,” he said. “On two conditions.”
Arthur Holmwood smiled, as though he had expected nothing less. “And what might they be?”
“Two incidents each week,” Quincey said, slowly. “That’s what you said. Do you have any reason to believe that number will go down?”
“No,” said David Morris. “If anything, we are anticipating the opposite.”
“In which case,” said Quincey, “this threat is likely to rapidly become more significant than seven men in a Piccadilly townhouse can deal with. So my conditions are as follows. Firstly, that I am permitted to bring my men into the Department immediately. Secondly, that I receive carte blanche to expand and modernise it along military lines. I cannot dedicate my time to this work unless the ambition is for this organisation to be the very best it can be.”
There was a long pause, in which the six men smiled at each other. Quincey waited for them to respond; he knew his demands had been bold, but his mind was already fizzing with possibility, for how the secret crusade that his father had described could be carried out with greater efficiency and a far wider reach, and he could accept nothing less than being at the forefront.
“I believe we can accommodate those demands,” said Arthur Holmwood, eventually. He stepped forward and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard, Mr Harker.”
Quincey gave the outstretched hand a hearty shake. “Thank you for having me, sir. It’s an honour.” A broad grin lit up his face as his friends surrounded him, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back. His father was the first to embrace him, an expression of huge pride on his face.
Twelve hours later, Quincey Harker walked through the gates to Highgate Cemetery with David Morris and Albert Holmwood on either side of him and the wide smile of a child on his face.
As he strolled through the darkness between his friends, it seemed incredible that such a small amount of time had passed since he had been sitting in his father’s study, idly wondering where the next phase of his life was going to take him. Now he was burning with purpose, with the simple, righteous determination that comes with having a mission to complete.
After the newly expanded Department of Supernatural Investigation exited the secret room at the back of the townhouse’s sitting room, Quincey had despatched a member of Arthur Holmwood’s domestic staff to the telegram office with four urgent, identical messages.
NEW WORK TO BE DONE. STOP. 184 PICCADILLY AT EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. STOP. ARMY NOT A CONSIDERATION. STOP. QUINCEY. STOP.
Harker suspected that all four of them would arrive within two or three days at the very most. He had left the wording ambiguous for two reasons: because it seemed prudent to do so, given the secrecy surrounding the organisation he was now a part of, and because he wanted to arouse their curiosity. He was confident that none of them would be able to resist coming to London to find out what he meant by ’new work’ or why he had described the Army as ’not a consideration’. He had been able to write the latter with confidence, as David Morris had assured him there would be no issues when it came to having his squad mates released from their commitments to the military; the highest echelons of the General Staff were apparently among the tiny number of people who were aware of the existence of the DSI.
The seven of them had been toasting the future when a message arr
ived from one of their police contacts in Highgate, passing on the fifth complaint in as many days of animals going missing from the streets and gardens around the cemetery. It wasn’t much to go on, and was probably little more than evidence that a particularly hungry fox was roaming north London, but it struck Quincey as an immediate opportunity to demonstrate his competence to Albert Holmwood and David Morris, the two men whose careers in the DSI were likely to run alongside his own. He told them to get some lunch and be ready to leave at dusk. They agreed, and Quincey began the daunting process of getting up to speed with the contents of the secret room as they waited for the sun to set.
The investigations and experiments that had been carried out by Abraham Van Helsing were nothing short of remarkable. Working from the basement of his home in Kensington, he had managed to tentatively list the relative strengths and weaknesses of vampires: on the plus side of the balance sheet, physical power, speed, remarkable recovery from wounds that should be fatal, some ability to hypnotise with their glowing red eyes; on the minus side, a susceptibility to sunlight, likely all ultraviolet light, and to the obliteration of the heart.
The professor had also been able to rule out several misconceptions over the course of his long study, most prominently the perceived link between religion and vampires. The pistols with the glass balls atop them had been early attempts at creating weapons armed with holy water, but had apparently proved entirely unsuccessful. Crucifixes were also useless, as were many of the legends that had filtered out of the darkest corners of eastern Europe over the centuries: garlic, running water, silver. Van Helsing’s conclusions were, in fact, straightforward: bullets and blades hurt them, their flesh could be cut and torn like any others, but little short of a direct blow to the heart would kill them. A wooden stake with a wide bore plunged into the chest was the safest and most effective means of destruction.
There was a remarkable conceptual sketch on the benches at the back of the secret room, for a weapon the likes of which Quincey had never seen before: it looked a little like a blunderbuss, but it seemed intended to fire a stake, and had what appeared to be a reel of wire attached to one side. It was one of the first items he intended to draw to Charles Ellis’s attention when he arrived in London.