They considered this in silence for a moment. Trigger said, “I fear I am with Mr. Smith, Mr. Bent. You seem to be a little ahead of us. . . .”
“It could not be a stronger connection if it were pinned to the front of a steam omnibus crashing through your bay windows, Trigger. The artifact in Maria’s head is Egyptian; she also has Annie Crook’s brain. John Reed has gone off to Egypt. Could the artifact be from the Rhodopis Pyramid, like everything else seems to be?” He threw his hands into the air. “I’m going round in effing circles. I can’t think straight. The mysterious Mr. W. seems to be casting a very long shadow over a lot of seemingly unconnected events.”
Trigger steepled his long fingers beneath his chin. “Perhaps it would help if you could share with us your information on this Annie Crook, Mr. Bent.”
Mrs. Cadwallader knocked and bustled inside, glaring at the journalist. “Captain Trigger, there’s a half- starved waif on the doorstep, asking for him.”
“Ah, the Fleet Street Irregulars,” said Bent. He followed the housekeeper to the front door and returned in a moment, smiling. “The little buggers have done it. There’s a sighting of a party matching Maria’s description near Victoria Embankment.”
“You can tell us of Annie Crook on the way,” said Trigger. “Mrs. Cadwallader! Please organize us some transport, posthaste!”
Maria had prevailed upon Sickert to wind her, and although he had complied she feared the act had shattered what was left of his fragile mind. He sat in his chair, rocking and mumbling to himself, as she buttoned herself up and took her leave of his studio.
So. Her humiliation was complete. She was not only a clockwork toy, she was one with stolen memories, lifted from the mind of a common whore. Was it any wonder Gideon Smith had shunned her so? She must wear her degradation like a perfume. Now she knew why she so readily—and, yes, expertly—carried out Crowe’s debased demands. Like a dog to its vomit, she had returned to her wicked ways, even after death.
Maria walked again. There was no one in London she could count on. Who would want to see her, now that she knew she was an evil, unholy thing that had snatched rudely at a life she had no right to? Even though she now saw flashes of her former life, like half-recalled dreams, she could not remember anyone whom she might have called friend, then or now. She was truly alone.
Her steps took her to the river, and she stood on the Victoria Embankment, watching the sluggish flow of the Thames as the electrified lights strung along its length fizzed into pale life. A fog was rolling off the river, thick and sinewy around her ankles, and rising. Two sweethearts walked by, arm in arm, and what ever contraption Maria had for a heart ached.
Perhaps she should throw herself into the Thames. She didn’t even know if that would do the job. But maybe, as she sunk to the bottom like a stone, dragged by her brass and iron workings, she would achieve some kind of peace.
There was a distant clamor of howling dogs, and beneath the caterwauling Maria heard another, closer sound. More passers-by. She would wait until they had disappeared, to save any chance of anyone trying to save her. She turned to see who it was, then gasped. Out of the yellow fog shambled a shape, thin and elongated, buoyed along on the rhythmic scraping of its feet on the cobbles and a hissing exhalation of tomb-dry breath. As it emerged from the wreaths of mist Maria made out the glint of something sharp and cruel at the end of its clawlike hands. Was this the Jack the Ripper Gideon had spoken of, who murdered London’s fallen women? A fitting end to her miserable existence. But as the figure stepped into the corona of light from the lamps she let loose a terrified scream that the smog all around her seemed to absorb into a leaden nothingness, of no interest to anyone.
15
Vampires of Shoreditch
The dirigible touched down at the Highgate Aerodrome, the tug-blimp guiding the vast leviathan of the sky into a berth where muscular stevedores grappled the trailing cables on to the huge iron rings set into the stone apron.
Bathory and Stoker disembarked and were directed to a waiting rank of steam-cabs, rickshaws, and horse-drawn carriages. They arranged for the box of earth and the countess’s other baggage to be kept in storage at Highgate, then Stoker murmured, “Where should we begin?”
Bathory looked into the middle distance, her eyes narrowing. “They are here, in London. I can almost smell their briny stench.”
As they settled into a steam-cab Stoker said, “Can you perhaps fix their location?”
Bathory concentrated, then shook her head. “South of here, is the best I can suggest. The closer we get, the more brightly they will shine.”
“A tour of London, please,” said Stoker to the cabbie. “Head south, perhaps cross the river at Waterloo Bridge. I would show my companion the sights.”
As the steam-cab trundled off, Stoker said quietly, “I took the liberty of drawing some more blood in the bathroom of the dirigible.”
She nodded gratefully and took the glass bottle he surreptitiously passed over to her. “I cannot thank you enough for this, Bram,” she said. “But it must be weakening you.”
“Nonsense.” He smiled. “I am a strong Irishman with blood to spare.”
As Bathory sipped at the bottle, Stoker reflected he did, in fact, feel a little lightheaded, but as he looked at the back of their driver’s head, his neck exposed, he wondered how many lives he had thus far saved, even if they may have been, in Elizabeth’s opinion, not worth saving.
Bathory finished her meal, dabbed the corners of her mouth with her handkerchief, and looked out the window as they trundled into London.
“You have been here before?” Stoker asked.
She nodded. “On occasion.”
He thrilled at the thought of Bathory and Dracula wandering among mortal folk, preying on them when their bloodlust overwhelmed them. “Are there many like you? Vampires?”
She looked at him. “Many,” she said. “Especially on the Continent. England has, traditionally, not been a welcoming place for our kind. But we thrive in the mountains and forests of Europe. Germany, especially, has many resident vampires, as does Italy.” She smiled at some memory of long ago. “Some Carnivale nights in Venice, there are more vampires than humans on the streets.”
“And, wherever you go, do you . . . hunt?”
She nodded. “And we are hunted. Man and vampire find it difficult to live in harmony.”
“Hardly surprising,” sniffed Stoker, “when you steal our blood.”
Bathory shrugged. “It is the way of things, the natural order. Just as man eats the animals on the farm, so we must feed on mortals.”
Stoker looked at her for a long time. “Is that how you see me, Elizabeth? A . . . a sheep, or a cow, perhaps, to be milked for your sustenance?”
She laid a hand on his thigh and he closed his eyes, overcome. She whispered, “The blood pact was your idea, remember, Bram. And I am no more an animal than you. When you are hungry, do you tear apart a sheep in a field?”
“Of course not!”
“No. You control your appetites. You wait until an appropriate moment, and for appropriate food. So it is with me. I choose carefully.” She smiled, showing her canines. “And I enjoy my food.”
The steam-cab continued in silence for a while, then Stoker said, “I hope you do not mind me asking, Elizabeth, but the Children of Heqet have proved too strong for you and in overwhelming numbers twice before. How do you intend to fight them this time?”
She hesitated. “I said there were few vampires in London, Bram, but not none. I intend to procure some help. There is a . . . nest in Shoreditch.”
Stoker felt unaccountably stung. He had somehow thought this adventure was for he and Bathory alone. “Vampires? A nest?”
She nodded tightly. “Common vampires,” she said. “Not highborn like Dracula and me. A touch . . . difficult. But vampires, nonetheless. Can you ask the driver to take us there?”
Stoker tapped him on the shoulder. “Shoreditch,” he said.
The driver dep
osited them on Shoreditch High Street, a wretched thoroughfare Stoker had never had the misfortune to visit in all his time in London. A warren of mazelike alleys and streets spread like a tumor, raw sewage roasted in the summer sun, and rats as big as dogs gamboled in plain view. They saw a man beating three small girls with a switch for some slight or other; Bathory murmured, “There would be good feeding here. I can see why Varney chose this foul place.”
“Varney?” asked Stoker.
“One of the old school,” said Bathory. “He was turned in the English Civil War. He was once a nobleman, Sir Francis Varney, but he lost his fortune and now scrabbles for a living with his family.”
“His family? You mean . . . ?”
Bathory nodded. “Those he has turned, and those they in turn have turned. All vampires have an allegiance to their dark father or mother.”
“Your army of wronged women in Castle Dracula.” Stoker nodded.
She sighed longingly. “How I wish they were with me now. Then I would not have to beseech such a lowly hound as Varney for assistance.”
A man reeling with gin crossed their path and smiled broadly at Bathory, his fetid breath emerging like a cloud. He was about to say something vile and inappropriate, but Bathory gave him a look that obviously reflected his own mortality, and he slunk away like a chastised mongrel.
A low arch led to a narrow courtyard rank with vermin and the stink of ordure. There was one barn- style door, uninvitingly closed, and Bathory nodded at it. “He’s in there. Listen, Bram, I need you to do exactly as I say. What ever you see, what ever I say, you must keep your own counsel and utter nothing. There are . . . protocols to follow when vampires deal with each other.”
Stoker nodded and swallowed dryly. “I understand,” he said. “Shall we get this over with?”
Bathory rapped smartly on the door. “Varney! Open up. You have a visitor from Castle Dracula.”
There was silence for a moment then a shuffling from within, and Stoker heard several bolts sliding back before the door opened a crack. It was pitch black within, and he could just make out a pair of white eyes set in a dirty face, framed by brown hair.
“It’s a terrified-looking gent and a woman with big knockers,” said a voice.
There was a ripple of unpleasant laughter from within. Then the face disappeared, as though yanked away, and an eye of a most alarming yellow hue appeared at the crack, then widened with surprise. The door creaked further inward and a figure stood in the shadows. A dozen or more pairs of eager eyes were faintly reflected behind it in the darkness.
The owner of the yellow eyes was thin of body, wrapped in a dirty, dark cloak, with a bulbous, liver-spotted bald head. His face was long and taut, a thin, viperish tongue flicking over extended canine fangs, his nose barely two nostrils set in his snow-white flesh. He hunched over as though his huge head was too heavy for his wasted body to carry, but even so he was almost as tall as Stoker. The yellow eyes trailed over Stoker greedily, then flicked back to Bathory.
“Countess Bathory,” said the thing, its voice dripping with snakelike sibilance. “What an unexpected pleasure.”
Bathory inclined her head slightly. “Varney. It’s been a long time.”
Varney shrugged his bony shoulders. “Fifty years? Seventy? I am trying to think . . . was Queen Victoria on the throne when we feasted upon children that full moon night in Greenwich?”
Stoker glanced at Bathory, but she did not look back at him. “Your hospitality on that occasion was most welcome.”
Varney put a long finger with a cruel, yellow nail to his bloodless lips. “Indeed. And yet . . . no reciprocation was forthcoming. No invitation to Castle Dracula landed on my doormat.” He grinned horribly. “Unless it was lost in the post, of course.”
Bathory nodded. “I apologize, Varney. It was most thoughtless of us. Events, unfortunately, have overtaken our desire to be good hosts at Castle Dracula.”
“And now, here you are, on my doorstep once again,” said Varney. He looked at Stoker. “But this time you bring a gift, yes? A little something for Varney’s larder?”
Bathory took a step forward until her beautiful face was an inch from Varney’s hideous visage. “My time is short, Varney, and my need great. Are you going to invite us inside, or would you prefer to conduct business in your doorway?”
Stoker had no desire to go into the dark space where flies buzzed ominously, but Varney acquiesced and stepped back, and Bathory strode forward, Stoker close behind.
There was a dry scraping of matches and an oil lamp was lit, casting a pale orange glow. As Stoker’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he put his handkerchief over his mouth to stop himself from gagging. The smell! It was only when the oil lamp began to burn properly that he saw the source of it; he was standing in a single space with a dirt-covered floor, perhaps thirty feet square, and in one corner were piled the putrefying corpses of half a dozen naked dead.
Varney grinned savagely at Stoker’s falling face and spread his thin fingers toward the charnel scene. “Something to eat, Countess?”
She shook her head and smiled, showing her fangs. “I brought my own.”
It took Stoker a moment to realize she was referring to him, and he looked at her in horror. Now that she was with her own kind, would she revert to type, forget their blood pact? Beyond Varney there were eleven or twelve other vampires, all young men. None were as grotesque as their—what had Bathory said? Their dark father?—but all had unnaturally white eyes and distended fangs. Varney said, “So you have. Are you planning to share?”
“Not at the moment,” said Bathory. “He is a rare vintage.”
Varney nodded. “Then this is evidently not a social visit, Countess. Perhaps we should get down to business. First, though, how is your husband? How is Count Dracula?”
Bathory cast down her eyes. “Varney, Count Dracula is dead.”
The vampire put his hands together under his nose, his eyes widening. “Oh. Oh. How terrible.” He paused, scrutinizing Bathory. “Then that is why you have come to me.”
She nodded.
Varney clapped his hands together. “You have come to present yourself to me like the bitch in heat you are.”
Stoker held his breath. What on earth was this fool doing?
But Bathory knelt down in the filth before the slavering creature and put her hands forward, palms down on his thin, bone-like thighs. Oh, how Stoker had wished for her to touch him like that! Now, all he could do was gaze on in horror as she said, “Yes, Varney. I wish you to be my master. I wish you to take me as your wife.”
“Elizabeth, no! In the name of God!” cried Stoker.
Varney looked at him with interest. “He is rather outspoken, for lunch.”
“Ignore him,” said Bathory breathlessly. “What do you say, Varney? Have you not desired me for centuries? Have you not lusted after me, dreamed of the ministrations of these hands on your wracked body, imagined crawling over my flesh and debasing me in all the fashions you have learned over the years?”
He clapped his hands delightedly. “We shall wed this very day! Then we shall make our home in Castle Dracula!” He turned to the vampires assembled behind him. “Countess Bathory has populated the castle with beautiful females.”
There was a cheer from Varney’s foul family.
Bathory stood, and even though Stoker was crazed by fear he noticed a change in her, a shedding of the false subservience she had demonstrated in the face of Varney.
“Good,” she said. “I accept your proposal of marriage, Varney, and in doing so I invoke my ancient right to a blood dowry.”
The cheering tailed off and Varney looked at Bathory, his yellow eyes narrowed. “What? What did you say?”
She smiled. “Simply exercising my rights as a widowed vampire, Varney.”
He bared his teeth. “I will still best you, Countess. Then you will feel my wrath yet further in our conjugal pit.”
Stoker gasped as Varney, with barely the clenching of a s
ingle muscle, leaped straight upward and twisted so he clung to the bare brick ceiling, his cloak hanging down in tatters. Bathory hissed and stepped backward, adopting a fighting stance, her fingers curled like claws. There was a heartbeat, then another, then the battle was joined.
Varney flew at Bathory with a blood-chilling scream, but she adeptly cartwheeled to the left, landing with her booted feet on to the wall and crouching there for a moment before leaping back toward him and raking her nails along the back of his bald head. He yelped, and she stood and licked his ichor from her fingers.
“First blood to me,” she said.
“And last to me,” yelled Varney, tumbling forward in a somersault and slapping Bathory across the face. Her head whipped to one side, then back, and she launched herself at him.
Stoker backed into a corner and watched, horrified, as the unholy, impossible ballet unfolded before him. The combatants defied all laws of physics and gravity that Stoker knew to be absolute, bending time and space to perform feats of athletic battle. One moment saw them flying through the fetid air at such a crawl it appeared as though a kinetoscope film had been slowed and stretched; the next they were a flurry of limbs, a wind of claws. The other vampires cheered on Varney and cast hungry glances in Stoker’s direction; he knew if Bathory fell, he was to be their victory feast.
But fall she did not. Varney gradually slowed and weakened under her onslaught, and after a misplaced strike he fell into Bathory’s outstretched arms. Their eyes met momentarily, then she opened her mouth and sank her fangs into his thin neck.
There was a long silence as she fed hungrily, then let the withered corpse of the vampire drop heavily to the floor. Stoker felt his bile rise and his heart sink. How could he even think about civilizing such a creature? Bathory stood before Varney’s family, her eyes shining.
“Your master is dead,” she said. “Now you belong to me.”
Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl Page 16