Dracula's Child

by J. S. Barnes

  I speak, of course, of the dreadful events which bedevilled this country in the winter of 1903 and in the early months of this year. Upon this subject I have begun to observe in recent weeks a kind of shared forgetting amongst the populace: a decision, unspoken yet widespread, not to discuss the details of the disaster but rather to let them slide into a kind of gentle amnesia, to allow all wounds to heal over and the waters to cover the earth.

  Gentlemen, I am not prepared – nor shall I ever be – to collude in such a fashion. We must remember and respect our history, even the very worst and most bloodstained of it, lest we doom ourselves to repetition. And this is why I have come to speak to you today: to educate and to remember.

  I wish to tell you in particular of the work that we have done in the aftermath of what, after all, was tantamount to an invasion of these shores – namely, to seek out and eradicate every nest of the vampire horde which remained.

  The best known of these was the little seaside town of Wildfold to which the policeman, Parlow, had been sent to seed and overwhelm. Yet this was far from the only instance. We understand but little even now of the biological means by which the virus of vampirism is spread and sustained. We know all too well, however, those methods which must be used in order to ensure its absolute eradication.

  This was long and bloody work. Yet did a small team, with myself at the head of it, set to our labours with determination and zeal. Although the exercise was in essence one of necessary brutality, I did my utmost to attend as closely as I could to the science of the business. During this time, as we moved from village to village and from town to town, I kept a detailed notebook. The death of every victim of the nosferatu plague is listed within, alongside the manner of their demise. For we must never forget the sacrifices made by so many to keep this country safe.

  We must remember those who have gone before us just as we must keep up our guard against a resurgence of the un-dead.

  I should like to present you now with fifteen separate findings from my recent encounters with vampire-kind. Your patience will be appreciated; I shall take questions only at the end.

  FROM THE BIRTHS – MARRIAGES – DEATHS COLUMN OF THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

  9 September

  MR G.W. DICKERSON AND MISS R.S. PARLOW

  The engagement is announced between George, son of Ephraim Dickerson of Utah, USA, and Ruby, daughter of Martin Parlow of Wildfold, Norfolk.

  FROM THE DIARY OF QUINCEY HARKER

  6 November. Till now, I never thought I’d keep a diary. In my family, decisions like that often don’t seem to end all that well.

  But today seems an appropriate time to start. Why not? For things seem better now, and safer too. And today marks my thirteenth birthday, as well as the anniversary of the evening, one year ago, which began the most horrid run of events in all my life.

  The past few months have been at the same time full of incident and also, to be honest, rather boring too. The house at Shore Green has been repaired and we’ve all moved successfully back in. We have no servants now, for reasons which, I suppose, are obvious. Poor Miss Dowell is never mentioned, though I think of her often. She was so very kind.

  Worse luck, I have been sent back to school where I am now obliged to spend all the term-times. I suppose it’s not so bad. Somerton’s a decent enough place and I find I quite enjoy the routine. I like the learning. Occasionally, I seem to have in my mind more answers than I ought. Strange thoughts and images enter my head, as though from some set of olden days, from before even my parents were born. I say nothing at all about them to the beaks. It wouldn’t do, I think, as has held true for every schoolboy in history, to seem to have too much knowledge.

  Strangely, I have come to enjoy sports much more now than ever I used to. I still do not much like team games, but I have come to relish running and athletics. I find that it is easier when caught up in exertion not to have to think too hard. Such spare time as I have I tend to spend nowadays in the school chapel. I have much to pray about: lots to thank God for, but lots to ask Him for too.

  But tonight, I have special leave to come home for this anniversary dinner. We are expecting many guests and it is an exciting thing indeed to imagine our old, isolated house filled up again with the sounds of merriment.

  Lord Arthur is to come, of course, and he’ll have Jack Seward with him. The pair of them have finished their tour of the country in which they rooted out a number of similar (if smaller) nests to those which we discovered in Wildfold. I am given to understand that it was rather bloody and wearying work, though, of course, both of those chaps carried it out with great aplomb. The doctor is returned now to practice. It took him a few months to recover from his ordeal last year but he bounced back in the end, almost as good as new. The noble lord, meanwhile, has returned to his responsibilities in the upper chamber.

  The American detective, George, will be coming too. Father says that he is still very weak and is now in a Bath chair. He’s going to bring a friend with him – Ruby Parlow. They are to be married after Christmas.

  And there is to be another guest. One upon whom I insisted. It is my birthday, after all. Arthur made the arrangements. He greased the wheels. There are advantages, he says, to being an important man again.

  So that old actor, Mr Maurice Hallam, will join us, at least for the first half of the evening. It is a long way from his prison and he will have a gaoler at his side at all times. I want to thank Mr Hallam for what he did. There is still a lot of good in him, I think, even if he himself does not quite believe that to be true.

  I wanted us all to be together tonight, all of us survivors. It seemed important somehow. Unusually, Father agreed with me. We shall all raise a toast to the late Professor – and to the memory of those who are no longer with us.

  * * *

  Later. What a happy evening, the happiest of the year by a long stretch. All attended. We’d arranged for food and drink to be brought in from the village, and a very merry feast it was.

  Arthur and Jack were both on good form, and my father was pleased to see them. I think the alienist may be contemplating getting engaged himself, although he did not say as much to the assembled company. As to who the lady may be, we’ve none of us any idea.

  George Dickerson arrived after them, pushed into the house in his chair by Ruby Parlow. I thought they seemed really rather contented. I apologised profusely and in full to the American for what I had to do to him on that terrible night in February.

  ‘Now, you needn’t worry yourself about that, young fellow,’ said the man in the Bath chair. ‘You only did what you had to do. Truly, I see that now. And I raise my hat to you, Master Harker, for your courage and good sense.’

  ‘But, Mr Dickerson,’ I began, ‘all the same…’

  ‘You need say no more,’ said Miss Ruby Parlow quickly. ‘Trust me. He understands.’

  George beamed up at me, a shade too enthused in his agreement.

  There would have been much more that I wanted to say but perhaps it was for the best that we were interrupted then. Mr Hallam arrived next, a stern, stout, bald man at his side whose pockets always seemed to jangle when he walked. The actor shook my hand very warmly.

  ‘You did the right thing, Mr Hallam,’ I said to him as soon as I laid eyes on him, for I have not been allowed to see him in his prison cell, nor have I been permitted to write. ‘I owe you my life. This whole nation, sir, owes you a very great debt.’

  He smiled sadly. ‘Ah, Quincey, my dear, I may have done the right thing upon one occasion, yet has there been a near-infinity of instances when my personal judgement has been immensely poor.’

  ‘I’m probably too young,’ I said, ‘to know this for certain, but I think that learning good judgement, however late and whatever the cost, is one of the reasons why we were given life in the first place.’

  At my reply, he seemed surprised. ‘I hope you are right, young man. I really do.’

  The captor at his side gave me a strange look and took se
veral steps away.

  My father came downstairs then and bade us all go through to dinner. We obeyed, and we had such a lovely feast. Conversation flowed very naturally and it felt to me as though a process of something like healing was taking place all around us. Father, I noticed with quiet pride, took not a drop of strong drink all night.

  It was only after the eating was done that Mother was finally brought up. She does not care now for the sight or smell of food as we know it. She waited in the shadows of the cellar till we were done.

  All present were very pleased to see her, though they seemed understandably nervous in her presence. The men (save, of course, for George Dickerson) rose when she entered. Oddly, she seems younger now than she used to be, and more powerful too. She moves with a feline grace.

  ‘Thank you all for coming,’ she said, dazzling them with her charm. She might almost have been any matron welcoming her guests. She took her place at the head of the table, beside my father. Our guests relaxed substantially, if not entirely.

  ‘I should like to propose a toast,’ said Arthur, ‘to all our absent friends.’

  ‘To the Professor,’ I said.

  ‘To my father,’ said Ruby Parlow.

  ‘To Caroline,’ said Lord Godalming stridently, ‘and to Mr Strickland also.’

  ‘To that fool Quire,’ muttered the American. ‘And to young Thom Cawley.’

  ‘To Miss Sarah-Ann Dowell,’ said Dr Seward, almost too quietly for any of us to hear.

  We all fell silent at this awful litany of names, at the realisation of quite how many had been lost.

  A few seconds later and the aristocrat tried to lighten the mood. ‘Charge your glasses,’ he said. ‘And let’s toast to the future!’

  We all took a fresh drink and raised our glasses into the air.

  ‘To the future!’ we cried. ‘To the future!’

  ‘My dear?’ This was my mother. She looked imploringly, almost desperately, at my father. ‘I am thirsty also. I know it’s not quite what we agreed but… may I?’

  My father turned his gaze meekly from the others and looked with adoration into her eyes. ‘Of course. Of course you may, my darling Mina.’

  And then, as I have seen now a hundred times, she took his pale, stippled hand in hers. He pushed up his shirt sleeve with ease, for he no longer troubles himself to don cufflinks, in order to make possible such necessary access.

  With practised ease, my mother found a vein. Of course, everyone looked away or consoled themselves with a swig of their liquor. But we heard it. The sound of the vampire-queen taking sustenance from the only place from which she allows herself nowadays to drink. My father was very good and placid, though he whimpered once or twice before the thing was done.

  Once it was over and my mother had wiped her lips, conversation started up again. At first, it was fitful and uneasy, but it grew soon enough in confidence and volume. There was a clinking of glasses, a pleasant hubbub and even, after a while, some sporadic, hesitant laughter.

  It was, I thought, almost as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened here at all.

  EDITOR’S POSTSCRIPT

  It has been an interesting, if often melancholy, journey that I have taken in the collation of these documents. Much that I have read during this process I found both difficult and troubling, yet I have replicated it all here as completely as possible so that the entire truth of the business might at last be known.

  As to why I have done so now, just as our country goes to war, I have a further explanation to present. I have volunteered for duty in this new conflict and I am to leave for France in the morning. When – or even if – I shall return, I have not the slightest knowledge or presentiment. This bundle of papers I shall despatch to a trusted publisher before I depart.

  I have a confession also. For many years, that which by the power of prayer I took within my soul in the catacombs of the White Tower has lain dormant and still. It slumbers. It dreams. From time to time, perhaps unwittingly, it has shown me certain inexplicable things. To date, I have been able to contain it. With the coming of this war, however, I have felt an increasing restlessness. That which is trapped within me scents the coming bloodshed. It longs to escape and be loose in the world, and I fear that it has already begun to scheme.

  For this reason, you must heed my warning. I am fearful that my prison will not hold him for very much longer. There is a new savagery rising, one which will seem to him to be the most perfect of habitats.

  Put simply and in the plainest language: Count Dracula is hungry again.

  Lieutenant Quincey Harker

  Dover

  13 October 1914

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author would like to thank:

  My agent, Robert Dinsdale.

  My editor, Craig Leyenaar, Jo Harwood and all at Titan Books.

  Ben and Michael for their wit and companionship.

  My parents and brother for their love and support.

  And Heather, of course – my own Mina Harker!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J.S. Barnes is the author of three previous novels – The Somnambulist, The Domino Men and Cannonbridge – as well as numerous audio originals for Big Finish and Audible. He has taught Creative Writing internationally for more than a decade and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Review.

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