by J. S. Barnes
‘We go on?’ Arthur cried.
‘We must!’ I shouted. ‘We have no choice!’
Arthur took the wheel once again. Seward had slumped upon me, dead to the world. I held down the cloth against him, though it soon grew still more sodden and useless. I spoke no words of comfort to him, for I knew not what they might be.
We drove away at speed. The remains of the vampire Salter we abandoned, without a shred of shame or regret, to carrion.
That crazed journey continued. On we went, into Newham and Leamouth, skirting as best we could around the docks, and then on into Wapping. The rain grew torrential, the sky shuddered with thunder and the storm surged. We were all of us soaked and shivering. I muttered a prayer beneath my breath and reached, for comfort, for those weapons that we had managed to bring with us, a mere fraction of our arsenal: a stake, a hammer, a crucifix and a phial of holy water, scarcely enough to deal with the most minor demon, let alone he who stands at the head of that number.
Pray God, I thought, let my son be safe. Pray God, let my wife still live.
I was lost to these miserable thoughts when I heard Arthur call out: ‘There it is! You see?’
He was right. For out of the rain and the darkness loomed towards us the great structure of the Tower. Beside me, poor bleeding Seward groaned.
‘There’s light,’ said Arthur. ‘Light all about.’
I saw what he meant: the familiar vision of the turreted tower seemed to shimmer with strange blue light. The effect, against the darkness, was thoroughly bizarre, yet I found at the sight of it that there was within me a strange urge to laugh at this thought: that it resembled nothing so much as a pudding at Christmas, when it has been doused in brandy and set aflame.
As Arthur steered the car to a halt a short distance from the White Tower, I understood for the first time that something must already have gone awry with the Count’s design. For fleeing from the Tower itself streamed dozens of furious men. Prisoners, I thought, escaping – a mob in a state of dangerous excitation. The mood was akin to that of a riot, to some act of civil disobedience which would be ended by gunfire. Yet we had no choice but to go into the very heart of it.
We stepped from the car, leaving Seward in place. I bent down towards the alienist.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But you may yet live, old friend. All may still be well.’
There was no time for any better farewell than that.
Many strangers flowed by, calling out in mingled terror and wrath. I have learned since that they were all members of the city’s criminal classes – the worst of the gangs, the Giddis Boys, the Pigtails and the Sweetmen – that every one of them was a thief or a killer or worse.
Several of them, seeing the vehicle, stopped their flight and ran towards us, their faces clenched and filthy. One of them called out to his fellows and they rushed in our direction. We were too surprised to offer much resistance. There was a brief, brutal struggle before the car was taken. Too many of them clambered on board, the effect of it horrid and bizarre.
The car disappeared then, swerving wildly away, with poor Seward still within it. He lay quite insensible, his body limp and unmoving.
‘Come on,’ Arthur shouted. ‘We need to get inside. He would wish it.’
I hesitate now to admit the truth: that I spared not a glance for the vehicle or for that dear friend of mine who lay trapped within it. It seemed to me that my course was altogether clear and absolute.
I made my choice without hesitation. I must try to save my son at any cost – even if, I see now, some part of me already realised that I was far too late.
We ran towards the White Tower, forcing ourselves against the tide of those who fled from it. We must keep our wits about us. Exhausted as we were, we must battle on against the crowd. Had we faltered even for an instant we might easily have been trampled underfoot.
Some were fleeing but others were staying to fight. A pitched battle was still in progress between the vampires and the prisoners. The blood-suckers were winning but the convicts were fighting hard.
There were many human bodies to be seen, strewn about the courtyard. We passed men in the scarlet robes of acolytes who lay sprawled upon the ground, their faces masks of blood and gore. As we dashed past, one of them cried out. A crude and splintered stake had been thrust partially into his body. He seemed in some fashion to be familiar.
‘Help me! Help me in England’s name!’
Arthur and I looked at one another. For a moment, we stopped.
‘Tanglemere,’ he said. ‘My lord.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the stranger upon the ground. ‘Lord Arthur, help me!’
Lord Godalming shook his head. ‘Vampire,’ he said simply. In a gesture of contempt I had never before seen in him, my friend spat once upon the face of the creature. It snarled and hissed.
Then Arthur reached down and, with a terrible calm, pushed the stake further into the creature’s body. It screamed its last.
As it did so, we saw a dog – an Irish wolfhound – leap through the throng. It reached its master’s side and, with what felt like a gesture of revenge, bent towards him and began to lap up the blood which pooled around him.
Godalming and I said no words but simply ran on.
We reached the gate to the Tower. ‘In here!’ I shouted. ‘We must follow the light to its source.’
With a terrible shriek of rage, she came out of the shadows, half-flying directly at us: the vampiress, her great black wings beating frantically against the air. She launched herself at Arthur and flung him downwards. She hissed and raised her head high into the air, white fangs flashing in the night.
Arthur thrust her aside before his skin could be punctured. He flung a phial of holy water and, with a shriek of agony, she drew away.
‘Damn you!’ she screamed. ‘Damn you all!’ And she swore, loudly and at length, in what I took to be her own language.
Godalming scrambled up. He had the stake and hammer. He pinned her down.
‘Run!’ he shouted to me. ‘Save your boy!’
He had the creature on the ground. She laughed bitterly. ‘Too late!’ she cried. ‘You are being far, far too late for that!’
I ran on, into the Tower. Behind me, I heard the scream of the vampiress and the awful sound of a stake being driven, with horrible relish, into her dead flesh.
Inside, the strange blue flame was more vigorous and potent. I saw from where it seemed to emanate and I followed.
Down, down, down I went in that awful edifice, down to the catacombs of the place, to its lowest and most subterranean levels. From outside, I heard the cries of the criminal rioters and the thunder of the storm. Ahead, the blue light seethed and tantalised. As I ran, I grew weary and short of breath. I ached and in my mouth I tasted blood. In my mind, I cried to God for aid and prayed that I might not, even then, be too late.
At last, I realised I could go no farther. The dank stone passageway before me led to only one place, to where everything had been tending: the crypt. It was only as I burst into that abysmal room that I realised I had upon my person not a single weapon: that Arthur had already used them against she who had been known as Ileana.
I shall never forget the scene that awaited me in that ghastly place, where the blue flame was at its most unnerving and vivid: a bleak and horrifying cellar, in which two coffins had been raised upon daises. One of these was open, its occupant loose; the other remained closed.
Count Dracula: reborn and reconstituted, though less suave and more feral in aspect than I recalled, was upright, his teeth bared, leaning against the figure of my son, who endeavoured with one hand to push the creature away. Both seemed weakened and exhausted, like bareknuckle boxers at the end of the most testing bout of their career.
‘Get away from him!’ I shouted. ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to step away from my son!’
It was the use of that name, I think, which caused the vampire to obey. He stepped back and turned to gaze at me
with mad triumph in his eyes.
‘Herr Harker,’ he said. I trembled and shook as if palsied. ‘How fit it is that you should be here once again. Here to witness the zenith of my revenge!’
The vile thing smiled and I saw my son’s blood smeared about his predator’s teeth.
‘I don’t think so, Count,’ I said, mustering a bravado that I had failed to bring forth since I was a very much younger man. ‘I do believe that I’ve seen your larder escaping from this place. And your lieutenant is even now having her head removed from her body by a certain old friend of ours.’
‘Bah! You know nothing of what you speak. I shall find new victims. And my true lieutenant still lives!’
‘It is over,’ I said. ‘All your dreams of conquest. Your dreams of a new dark age. Now give me back my son.’
‘Your son?’ The vampire laughed, and the sound was like wrenching metal. ‘Rather he is our son. He has but a little of you in him, but so very much more of me. So it was planned. So it was meant to be. He understands his inheritance. He welcomes it!’
Quincey stepped forth then, to stand between the two of us, between that dark master and me, his true (if flawed and foolish) father. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Wait.’
I said, simply: ‘Quincey?’
‘The Count speaks the truth,’ he said. ‘I have come to understand that in some manner, a portion of him was placed inside me, before my birth, through poor Mother. I have indeed a terrible inheritance. And all these long days I have fought against it.’
‘I know you have, my boy,’ I said. ‘I see that now. How difficult it has been! How nobly you have grappled!’
‘But,’ he said, ‘I shall do so no longer. For I understand that I have to accept my true destiny.’
The vampire laughed repulsively. ‘That is very good. Quickly now. There is yet time to perform the Rite of Strigoi. I need that essence which resides in him to be placed within me. I must live on.’
With a weary gesture, as of one very much older than his years, Quincey shook his head. ‘Oh, but Count,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand. In truth, Mr Hallam never prepared me for the Rite. It was he who set the convicts free.’
The vampire hissed, as though these things were to him but minor irritations.
‘And I see what it is that I have to do. You remember, Father, Van Helsing’s last words to me? You are to be the vessel. That is what he said. And I finally see now what he meant – that I was born, Count, to contain you.’
For the first time, I saw pass across that loathsome killer’s face an intimation of fear. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. You have only barely held that splinter of my essence since your birth. You would never possess the necessary power to hold all of me.’
‘But, Count,’ said my son, ‘I have long been praying to one who does.’
‘No. No! He would not intervene!’
‘But He will,’ I said. ‘I have faith in that. And I have faith in my son. And I have faith in our family!’
Quincey stood in a posture of supplication, his eyes open, gazing upwards.
The Count set himself against him. ‘You are mine,’ he said to Quincey. ‘We are part of one another.’
Instantaneously, my boy seemed to falter. ‘No…’ he said. ‘I rebuke you. I rebuke my inheritance.’
Yet he did not sound certain.
The Count pressed his advantage. ‘Accept your destiny,’ he said. The air in that Stygian place seemed to crackle.
Something passed then across the face of Quincey. A horrible expression, a vile leer of sinful hunger. It seemed as if a shadow had fallen over him, an impression of profound evil.
‘Fight it!’ I cried. ‘My dear Quincey, fight it!’
The boy rallied. He seemed to push back against the invader and, within seconds, his face was as it had been before, resolute and human.
‘No,’ the Count cried. ‘I shall not be defeated so. Not by a boy! This is not how this age can end.’
‘You defeat yourself, Dracula,’ I said with feeling. ‘For evil always does. It overreaches itself. It contains within its greed and lust the seeds of its own downfall.’
The vampire screamed in absolute rage. As he cried out, he began that dark miracle of transformation: not into a bat but into a churning column of mist.
‘God be with us!’ shouted my boy. ‘God be at our side! God help us now!’
As he spoke, the blue flame grew brighter. It seemed to swell and ripple. And the mist – strange as it sounds to relate – began to curl away, not towards the doorway or down into the crevices of that place but rather, as if compelled by some mighty force, towards the figure of my son. The light grew fiercer and I thought I heard, as though from very far away, the sounds of something almost like voices, raised in majesty and praise. All was cacophony and fear and raw, rippling power.
It ended very quickly. The mist – that which now contained all that was left upon the earth of the vampire lord – was dragged into Quincey, into his mouth and his eyes, into the very skin of him. My son shrieked and whinnied in pain, a scream of pure horror. Once, the mist seemed to move away from him, to seek frantically some escape, but the forces arrayed against him were, at the finish of it, too strong.
Within a minute, it was done. All the mist had vanished into my own boy’s form. The light flickered and dimmed and, outside, the storm itself seemed to cease. There was silence, then, as though something great and terrible had been snuffed out.
Quincey, who had but moments before seemed as adult and as commanding as a soldier twice his age ran, like a child again, into my arms.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry, my boy.’
‘Father,’ he said, and how my heart swelled to hear him call me so, ‘you need not worry. All is quite well. All will be well again.’
How sad it is to think of how wrong he was, how utterly mistaken. As I write, my eyes flood with tears.
For no sooner had he spoken this sentence, than we heard from behind us the dreadful sound of wood moving on wood. We turned to see the lid of the second coffin start to move aside, manipulated by whatever horror it was that dwelt within.
But surely, I thought desperately, surely the Transylvanian woman, Ileana, is dead.
The lid was thrust away then and that which had lain within it sat upright. In that moment, she seemed more beautiful and more terrible than I had ever seen her before. Her dark hair curled about her shoulders and her eyes gleamed scarlet.
Quincey cried out in horror: ‘Mother?’
‘Mina?’ I said. ‘Oh God. No. Mina?’
And my wife looked across at us and she licked her lips and she smiled in greeting. Her teeth were white and pointed and her fangs were dripping with blood.
‘Welcome,’ she said. ‘Welcome, my beautiful boys.’ And she laughed a laugh of horrible despair.
EPILOGUE
FROM THE PALL MALL GAZETTE
1 March
EDITORIAL: AFTER THE STORM
Almost a month has gone by since the fall of the Count and the restoration of civilian law to the peoples of this nation. Yet still we lie in disarray. Suffering has been widespread and bereavements have been many. This period of agony has been acute and without precedent. Nonetheless, we have to stand firm. We in this great country of ours must do all that lies within our power to rebuild and to grow stronger than before.
It is a source of sorrow to those of us who are presently engaged at this newspaper that any words of ours may, in however minor a fashion, have contributed to the inevitability of the catastrophe. At this distance, it may be observed that a regrettable tendency crept into those who stood at the helm of this publication, one which, in defiance of the traditions of the Gazette, slid swiftly from a state of commendable open-mindedness into one of outright credulity and even gullibility.
Reader, you may be assured that the new regime is quite different from the old. The editor at the time of the unpleasantness has been removed from his post without the least compuncti
on. That correspondent with whom he was most readily associated (and whom we need not name here) shall never again return to these pages. You have our assurance that in the future this publication, eschewing the reckless appeal of mere opinion, will cleave strictly to fact and to truth.
And as the Gazette regathers its forces, learning from the mistakes of the past and moving with courage and determination towards the future, so too must the nation itself.
LETTER FROM LORD GODALMING TO THE COUNCIL OF ATHELSTAN
15 April
Gentlemen,
Following our meeting of the fifth of this month, I should like to reiterate and to make official our determination, in consequence of long and meticulous discussion, to dissolve the Council of Athelstan.
In the end, after much debate, you will recall that our decision in this matter was unanimous. Many of you have but lately inherited your positions in direct consequence of actions taken by the Council in the days of the reign of the Count. In spite of some reservations expressed by newer members, I trust that you have come now to appreciate the necessity of this judgement.
The Council is a relic of antiquity and must be set aside. We are creatures of the twentieth century and any such outmoded systems as these must be left at long last to sink into abeyance.
Although I am now in law the head of the Council, I intend to call no further meetings, nor to use that old constitutional power for any reason whatsoever. This verdict stands until my death.
To end upon a note of optimism, why should there ever come again so dark a period as that which we have endured? Surely all that lies ahead of us now is light, goodwill and necessary progress?
Yours, in hope,
Lord Arthur Godalming
EXTRACT FROM A LECTURE, GIVEN BY DR JOHN SEWARD TO THE CLUB FOR CURIOUS SCIENTIFIC MEN, ENTITLED ‘ON THE EXTERMINATION OF VAMPIRIC NESTS’
13 August
My friends, what an honour it is to be standing before you today – an honour not just because of the wisdom and sagacity of this society to which I am most gratified to have been admitted, but also because, not so very many months ago, I believed that my death was inevitable and that no more breath was to be granted to me by my maker.