by J. S. Barnes
Far be it from us to proffer any further advice, but might we not suggest that the most logical first act of the Council would be to take complete control of both the police and the military who are at present within the confines of the city and, with immediate effect, to declare martial law?
Only so firm a judgement will restore to the people of the metropolis true faith in those who stand at the helm of the great ship of state. That this suspension of recent democratic process is only temporary may freely be acknowledged to those doubters and cowards from whom we shall shortly, and with wearying inevitability, hear.
It cannot be stressed too strongly, however, in the face of such objection that the instatement of the Council in its proper place can only be accounted a victory for the ordinary law-abiding citizen and a triumph for all who wish to see this mighty nation soar once again to its awesome and appointed destiny.
LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF THE COUNCIL OF ATHELSTAN TO SUB-DIVISIONAL INSPECTOR GEORGE DICKERSON
28 January
Dear Mr Dickerson,
This letter is written to you both with pleasure and with regret. The pleasure was brought about upon receipt of news of your survival in the wake of the recent devastation at the Yard. As you will doubtless be aware, the damage caused by the bomb was widespread and multifarious. It has been gratifying to discover that some of this city’s most trusted servants in the force have been spared.
The regret, however, is occasioned by the following necessity: the immediate termination of your terms of employment. Your rank, office and all associated powers are hereby revoked with immediate effect. On this matter, we have taken advice and it is felt that your failure to prevent the attack by your own superior upon your own headquarters, coupled with your status as an alien in our nation, renders your present position untenable.
This city stands upon the precipice of disaster and to guard its ramparts we need only determined, capable and, above all, patriotic Englishmen.
Might we recommend that you return to the United States of America at the earliest opportunity, where your reputation can (one presumes) more easily be repaired? Here your survival has rendered you the leading representative of a failed and soft-bellied system. You will, we are certain, appreciate the fact that things in London must change, and change swiftly.
Yours sincerely,
?*
on behalf of G.D. Shone
President-Elect of the Council of Athelstan
* There is a signature here but it is an illegible scrawl.
LETTER FROM LORD ARTHUR GODALMING TO JONATHAN HARKER
31 January
My dear friend,
I write these words – who knows if you will ever read them? – amid fury and tumult of every sort. All around us is chaos. The worst of all our fears has shape and terrible form.
As I promised in my letter of the twentieth, I have left England in the company of my servant, Strickland, and set out for the Continent. I had hoped to wander, to explore and to seek some manner of peace.
I prayed often that, across the sea, we might escape the shadow’s reach. Yet it would seem that our doom is already set.
At Dover, travelling incognito, we obtained passage on a vessel of German origin. Our captain was a lean, heavy-lidded fellow named Delbruck whose usual demeanour was of exaggerated suspicion.
This very morning we were shown to our cabin by a suet-faced mate and ordered, in crude English, to stay away from those areas of the ship which contained its cargo. Strickland and I were to be allowed on deck only at Delbruck’s discretion.
Exhausted, as if in the wake of fever, the two of us fell asleep in that little space. Consciousness fled with unnatural swiftness.
I was woken by a hand upon my shoulder, shaking me, firmly but gently, back into reality. A picture of bleary concern, Strickland stood over me. It was immediately apparent that the ship was moving at a pace suggesting that we were already at sea.
‘My lord? Do you hear that?’
A child was crying somewhere nearby. Whether it was boy or girl, I could not discern, nor was the age of the unseen individual at that time clear.
We looked at one another for a moment as we listened to those sounds of evident despair. Before either of us could speak, all other noise was drowned out by a single continuous roar.
Seconds later, our vessel lurched violently sideways. We were both hurled to the floor and, in the melee of the event, my instinctive thought was that capsize (at the least) was now inevitable. Then, with a second, counteractive surge we seemed to right ourselves. Strickland and I rose to our feet. From overhead, from somewhere on deck, we heard the frantic cries of the sailors.
It was towards those shouts that we now moved, departing the cabin and racing towards the open air. We arrived to greet a scene of near-absolute confusion. The deck shifted beneath our feet. The surface was slippery and treacherous. White water churned and sluiced to either side of us, fierce spray drenching us repeatedly from the moment we appeared. All around us darted harried, desperate crewmen.
‘What has happened here?’ I shouted. ‘What is the meaning of all this?’
Not one of the mariners replied to my entreaty, or so much as slowed their efforts in order to acknowledge our presence.
Then we heard a voice – of the most unexpected kind – rise up behind us.
‘What we are witnessing now is only an after-effect.’
We turned to discover the speaker and, my dear old friend, I tremble now to admit to you the truth. For it was none other than—
‘Quincey?’ I cried. ‘My God, whatever are you doing here?’
Your boy seemed almost entirely without emotion. ‘I came to find you, my lord.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been fighting a battle all this time. I was not permitted to speak of it. But now I know which side has won. We must move this ship around, my lord, and go back to England.’
‘In God’s name, why?’
‘Surely you know?’ said Quincey. ‘To greet my true father now that he has returned.’
As he spoke, a new wave struck the side of the ship and we were all sent sprawling. Before it happened, at the end of your boy’s words, I saw his eyes, in a moment of uncanny horror, flash a terrible kind of crimson.*
* The letter ends here. Subsequent events made its completion decidedly impracticable.
FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF MAURICE HALLAM
31 January. I lie still in my bed in this hotel, tended by servants, visited but occasionally by Mr Gabriel Shone and comforted not at all. Something dreadful grows within me, of that I am certain. It swells. It buds. It hungers for egress.
Each word that I write costs a good deal in effort and pain. This pen is too heavy in my hand. My eyes are become treacherous things. Time is made slippery and frictionless again, and is full of pitfalls.
I feel as must have the great tragic heroes as the final act approaches – Hamlet upon learning of the proximity of Fortinbras; the Scottish thane glimpsing impossible movement amongst the trees. One cannot turn away now, nor seek to escape. The momentum is all, my destiny is set, and so it behoves me merely to speak the lines that are required and stand where my director asks me to stand. I can sense them, as of old, my audience gathering upon the other side of the curtain. I can sense their agitation and rising excitement as the denouement draws near.
My last bow will not, I fear, be a pleasant one, but it must needs be most memorable. As I lie here, drugged and weak, looking back upon my plentiful mistakes and counting my regrets, I can at least number the following fact as something like a comfort: I shall not lightly be forgotten.
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
Date unknown. I am again with Jonathan. Things seem different. We are together in a garden, a lush and fertile place which, although striking and beautiful, I do not seem to recognise or recollect.
We are sitting alone upon a wrought-iron bench. It is warm (surely the height of summer) and the air is fi
lled with the incense of English flowers and with the drowsy, comforting drone of bees. All is delight and easy comfort. All seems fair and well. Jonathan takes my hand and smiles. I see now that he is very much younger than when I saw him last. I look down and find that my own hands are smooth and quite unlined, just as they were once, before Transylvania and all that came afterwards, back when I was but an assistant schoolmistress and Jonathan merely a solicitor’s clerk.
‘Mina?’ he asks. ‘Mina, my dear?’
Even his voice sounds different – oh, how could I ever have forgotten! – so full of kindness and good humour and the subtle intimation of desire. There is not a trace of that near-constant vexation and fragility which has come to mark so much of his speech.
‘Yes, my darling?’ I feel almost giddy with the quiet thrill of the moment, its wealth of hopeful possibility.
‘I asked, my dear, if you would consent to be my wife.’
‘My goodness, Jonathan, nothing would make me happier.’
He seizes my hands and kisses them. ‘Oh my love. Oh my dear one.’
Suddenly, I pull away. ‘No.’
‘Mina?’
‘No,’ I say again, more firmly. ‘This is not how it happened. This is not how it should be.’
He smiles in understanding. ‘You mean, I think, that we should not be alone at such a moment as this? That there should be present some friendly chaperone?’
‘I do not think so… no… that is not what I meant…’
‘Mina. Please. Be not afeared. For we are not alone. Nor shall we ever be. He is always watching. See for yourself. Please. Turn around.’
Without speaking, I do as I am bidden. I turn and look behind me and I see, watching us from a distance, a single dark figure. He is forming, I realise, forming out of what seems to me to be a pillar of mist. The sight grows in definition to reveal a man, very ancient, dressed all in black, with a long white moustache and an air of inextinguishable malice.
For an instant, I do not recognise him. Then, as realisation rushes in, I understand with horror what is happening and, unable to stop myself, I loose a panic-stricken scream and—
* * *
It was at this moment that I awoke, still screaming, from the most vivid dream of my life. I gasped and struggled to breathe and became only gradually aware of my surroundings.
Just how long had passed since my encounter with the transformed Mr Amory and that hideous realisation concerning my son I cannot be certain. I felt weary – unaccountably so – from which I deduced that I had been drugged for some considerable period.
As to precisely where I was, the place felt thoroughly unfamiliar. It was very dark indeed. Nonetheless, I did not wish to remain for a moment longer in that most undignified sprawl in which I had recovered consciousness. It was, I dare say, quite an ungainly process, but I got, all the same, to my feet. For a moment I tottered, weakened and unsteady after my prolonged sleep.
My movements were still hazy and leaden and my processes of thought must have been equally impaired, for I was about to call out into the darkness, for help or attention or to ask the whereabouts of my son. Such efforts would have availed me nothing.
No sooner had I drawn an uncertain breath and parted my lips in order to speak than a great bright light was shone upon me. I blinked hard and squinted before I was able to see something of where I had been placed – for I saw now that I stood upon a kind of low stage, a long, narrow dais which had about it also something of the transept.
I became at once aware of the presence of spectators – two rows of men, unspeaking and in shadow.
All appeared to wear some form of ceremonial dress, elaborate robes which possessed a quality of the Masonic. One in particular, who stood in the midst of them, seemed to draw my attention: a lean and weathered man, patrician in aspect, who had by his feet an old Irish wolfhound which stood upright and alert. The man himself wore a look of triumph, and there was something in the posture of the animal which seemed somehow to suggest the same.
I glanced downwards and saw that I too had been dressed in some elaborate robe. At the thought of how this might have been achieved, I experienced a spasm of disgust.
‘Why are you watching?’ I called out to this audience. ‘What do you want with me?’
No answer came. The men simply looked on, staring silently. A few wriggled forward in their seats, leaning and peering, I supposed, that they might see me better.
A voice came from the pool of darkness at the far left of the stage.
‘Mrs Harker? Mrs Mina Harker?’
I answered with as much decorum as I could muster, given the profound grotesqueness of the circumstances. ‘I am she.’
The speaker came out of the shadows to join me in my pool of light. He was a tall, swaggering young man, dressed in the same robes as those in the audience (although his seemed rather grander than the rest). He would have been handsome had it not been for the black patch which he wore upon his left eye.
He was not alone. By his side there sloped an older man, rotund and florid-faced, perspiring heavily and trembling. This second figure moved only with what was evidently the most profound difficulty. An exemplar of that grossness which can be visited upon the human form, his every step was accompanied by a piteous whimper.
The final element in this vision was the fact that there was about his neck a metal circlet, and that the older man was being led by the younger as though he were some recalcitrant beast.
‘It is fine indeed to see you so well, Mrs Harker,’ said that one-eyed man. ‘From the first he told me that he wanted you to be present for his rebirth. In spite of it all, he thinks so very highly of you.’
‘Who are you?’ I asked. ‘And what is this place?’
‘Why, I am Gabriel Shone and this is the Council of Athelstan. You stand in the depths of the White Tower, at what is now the centrifugal point of power in this great nation.’
‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘You can have no conception of the force you are bringing back to life. The absolute nature of his evil!’
‘Believe me, madam, I know exactly what it is that I am doing.’
He looked down at the corpulent figure by his side. ‘Is it ready now? Is it almost ready to be born?’
In response, the man in chains could only moan. Gabriel Shone gave a conniving smile. ‘I shall take that as being in the affirmative,’ he said. ‘So – all rise.’
He held out his free hand, at which, as though they were mere puppets, each member of the Council got to his feet, standing with the solemnity of mourners at a funeral.
At the same moment, I felt strong hands reach from behind me and hold me tight. I struggled but could not move. My captor was a woman. I could smell the strange, sweet scent of her. I could hear the rustling of great wings.
‘Welcome, Ileana,’ Shone said. ‘You are just in time to witness the second coming. This dark miracle.’
The fat man moaned again. This time a small trickle of blood emerged from the left-hand side of his mouth.
‘Long,’ purred the female voice from behind me, ‘long have I been waiting for this moment.’
I felt the touch of a smooth tongue against my neck. I could not help myself but cried out, at once disgusted and… something else.
The fat man made another sound, of horror and despair. More blood came from him, trickling down his lips and chin. He fell to his knees and he groaned again. This sound aside, all was silence. Every spectator looked on without speaking. More blood came from the fat man’s mouth, and more. He convulsed, then threw up onto the ground what seemed to me a half-pint of it, crimson falling upon the floor.
He repeated this involuntary action. He was crying, I saw, and plump tears coursed down his face.
Something like a laugh escaped Mr Shone. Those slender, powerful hands which held me squeezed still tighter than before, flexing, I thought, with excitement. Once again the fat man heaved blood upon the ground, and then once more. The floor swam with blo
od and filth. He screamed, a wet and guttural sound, as one final convulsion came.
Yet more blood upon the ground. The sight and smell of it was repugnant beyond belief. He sighed and fell sideways, exhausted and drained, surely, I thought, unto the point of death.
Shone seemed disappointed. ‘Where is it?’ he asked. ‘Where is he? What is to happen now?’
‘Wait,’ said the female voice behind me. ‘Wait, Mr Shone, and be understanding at last the truth of the thing.’
Then something occurred which, even to one such as I, who has seen so much, would hitherto have seemed impossible. The blood that lay upon the ground began to move, to move of its own volition, to join together into a greater whole.
It moved then with hideous purpose towards the figure of Gabriel Shone, as though it were an animate thing, some foul creature of nightmare. Shone gasped and stepped backwards, but he was in this too late. For already the blood-thing was upon him, moving to his feet, his legs and torso, before speeding – one might almost say scampering – towards his face.
He had time to scream only once. The light of realisation flickered instantaneously across his features before the blood-creature surged into his mouth and nose and eyes. He sank to the floor, convulsing. No new sound came from me, nor from those ranks of silent watchers. He thrashed upon the ground, his head now covered, rippling with blood. As he struggled, the floor around us shook and quivered. A moment more – that was all it took – and the obscenity was over.
The tremor in the earth stopped at the moment that the figure upon the ground ceased to move. There was everywhere stillness.
In the distance, I heard the fat man moan.
The woman spoke up. ‘Master? Master, are you returned to us?’
She released me then and stepped before me. I caught a glimpse of a tall, dark-winged, inhuman creature.