by John Burke
When the conditions were right . . .
Alan Kent crossed the cellar warily. He held the candle out. Its light fell on the trunk which Klove had left against one of the pillars. Klove had left the lid open after removing the precious contents, partly because he was in a hurry and partly because, essentially, it no longer mattered. Let the man look. Let him be puzzled. There was so little time left for him to experience any emotion, any sensation.
On the wall behind the trunk was hanging a fine black cloak with scarlet lining. The Englishman did not even notice. It meant nothing to him.
As a sacrifice he was unworthy. But neither was he worthy of life.
The candle flame fluttered and then sent up a thin wisp of black smoke as it steadied itself again. Its light fell on the inscription engraved on the plinth of the coffin.
Alan Kent stooped.
Klove himself had lovingly, slowly, meticulously carved the inscription. In spite of all his master’s promises he had regarded it as a last loyal duty. Now he felt exultantly that there would be many more duties to fulfil.
With his eyes closed he could still clearly see the letters that Alan Kent was illuminating:
COUNT DRACULA
No date. No mawkish quotation. No platitude about resting in peace. For the Count would never rest. Peace was for cowards. And perhaps fools were allowed to rest in peace when their time had come. What else was there for them?
Alan turned and surveyed the cellar once more.
Klove watched from the darkest corner. He watched as the victim found the alcove in which Klove slept. In a castle with a wealth of bedrooms and no living lord or family, no other human being but himself, Klove had taken no advantage of the luxury at his disposal: he had chosen to sleep on his old rough bedding, brought down now to a coign of the cellar close to his master’s tomb—a tomb which only he knew to be empty.
Alan Kent pulled back the blanket which served as a curtain. He looked down, bewildered, at the truckle bed.
Klove stepped out. He walked slowly because there was no hurry. The ritual did not demand any special dignity or formality from him, but in the service of his master he instinctively walked with decorum and made no unseemly fuss. He reached the alcove and took the edge of the blanket in his hand.
The Englishman started, and turned to face him.
Klove took out his knife. He still felt that he was moving without haste, but he knew exactly what he was doing and even the swiftest motion had a beautiful timelessness about it. It was as though his master stood at his elbow, issuing commands in that unruffled deep voice of his, making sure that all would go well.
The knife rose and descended. It went in so easily. Alan Kent opened his mouth as though to protest, but the choked, strangling sound he produced meant nothing. He sagged back against the wall. Calmly yet speedily Klove drew the knife out and stabbed again. He drew a red line across the man’s throat and watched with satisfaction as it widened.
The blood was flowing well. He dropped the knife and caught the body as it slumped to the floor. Now he had to work fast . . . faster. Reaching the edge of the plinth, backing away and dragging at the feet of what was now a corpse, he propped it up so that the precious fluid should not run away too madly. Then he strode back to the cellar wall and unlooped the rope which had been tied to a stanchion, waiting.
Waiting. There had been such an eternity of waiting, with everything ready—a trap into which no one would walk. Now four of them had been driven to the edge of the trap. And one had taken the last few steps.
He hurried back and fastened a loop of rope round Alan Kent’s feet. Then he reached for the far end of the rope and hauled on it, bracing his feet wide apart on the stone flags.
The corpse rose into the air, head down. As Klove weighed down on the rope and finally lifted the dead man from the ground, the weight swung out and at last he manoeuvred it into position above the coffin. He made a loop round the stanchion and tightened it with a knot.
Blood from the knife wounds dripped steadily on to the lid of the coffin. Klove dug his long fingers under the heavy lid and shifted it sideways. He could not lift it more than a fraction of an inch. He had to apply his shoulder in a strenuous heave, so that the lid slithered sideways and toppled with a crash to the floor.
The corpse, head down, turned slowly on the end of its rope above the open coffin—the empty coffin.
Klove fetched the urn.
Reverently he unscrewed the top of the container. He rested the brass bulge of the side against the edge of the coffin, then tilted it over. A fine stream of grey ash began to pour on to the bottom of the coffin. Getting a good grip, Klove reached out and kept the thin stream moving, making an even distribution over the whole surface.
When the urn was empty, he stood back. His reverence for the urn had gone. It was now an empty vessel of no value. He threw it aside and reached for his knife again.
With his free hand he seized Alan Kent’s hair and steadied the corpse. He applied all his strength, pulling downwards with one hand and hacking with the other. A torrent of blood began to pour down, soaking into the grey ash.
The head at last came free. Klove tossed it aside.
Over the edge of the coffin there crept a greyish mist. Klove stared at it in rapture. He was afraid, but at the same time he was filled with the anticipation of what was to happen. Until now he had not been sure. He had gone through the ritual ordained by his master but he had not known if it would all come to nothing. Now, as the shimmering haze rose above the sombre wooden side of the coffin, he sank to his knees.
The mist thickened. One of its coils did not drift away but curled back on itself. Out of the strange contortions, out of the tendrils blown by a wind where there could not possibly be any wind, a solidifying shape clamped down on the edge of the coffin. There was a vague impression of bone, of blood vessels, of muscle and sinew.
And suddenly there was a hand. It was thin, grey, transparent; and then it was solid, and it clung to the woodwork, and it took the strain and began to drag up what had formed inside the coffin.
There was a clap of thunder.
Klove moaned in an ecstasy of terror. He kept his eyes down even when the voice spoke to him. He nodded in answer to the first command he had had for these few years that had become so many; nodded because he could not trust himself to speak. And then, with the briefest of deferential bows, he scurried away, up the steps from the cellar, across the hall and up the stairs and to the door of the bedroom through which Alan Kent had walked such a short time ago.
He tapped on the door. His hands were drenched in blood but after that swift knock he kept them down at his sides.
The door opened. Helen Kent gasped as she saw him standing there, so close to her.
“There has been an accident, ma’am,” he said, his eyes lowered. “Your husband . . . please, you must come at once.”
He started away, knowing that she was following. She called after him. He kept his distance, forcing the pace and pretending not to hear her babbled entreaties. They went down the stairs and on towards the cellar steps. He was ahead of her still, but at the foot of the steps he stood to one side and allowed her to catch up.
He threw out his arm, the red hand gesturing her on into the cellar.
“I’ll wake the others.”
She stepped forward, and he waited for a moment on the bottom step to watch her.
The figure of her husband dangled from the rope, twisting gently. Blood still surged from what had been the neck. Helen brushed her hand across her eyes. She must be thinking that she was in a nightmare and that it could all be wiped away.
She jarred her feet down as she walked forward, as though to wake herself up.
Then she realized—Klove took pleasure in seeing how it hit her, how she knew all at once that she was awake and that what she saw was true—that the headless corpse was her husband’s.
She screamed. It was music such as had not been heard in the corridors and cell
ars of the castle for a long, long time. She screamed; and she turned back, wanting to run, wanting to flee in any direction, anywhere to get away from here.
A slim shape stepped across her path. Klove shrank back, edging away up the stone staircase.
The scarlet-lined cloak was where it belonged, across his master’s shoulders. The hands that were like talons were reaching out, sinewy and alive again. As Helen Kent reeled to one side, the long fingers caught her and held her upright. The canine fangs gleamed exultantly.
Count Dracula was smiling.
5
A hand was digging into his shoulder and shaking him. In a waking dream he tried to fight off a phantom coachman who gripped him and tried to fling him from the box.
“Charles . . . wake up.”
He opened his eyes and blinked, longing to sink back into sleep again. The light was too bright. Confusedly he pushed himself up on one elbow. They must have slept late—a welcome rest after the hazards of the day before.
Diana was standing over him, looking fresh and smart in a trimly belted dressing-gown. Charles had almost no complaints to make about his young wife on any score, but there were times when he did feel that she was intolerably active and clear-eyed in the mornings.
“What is it?” he mumbled. He rolled over and got the travelling clock on the bedside table into focus. It was after eleven o’clock. “Good Lord! Why didn’t they wake us? Or are the others sleeping it off, too?”
“They’re not here.”
“Where are they?”
“They’ve gone.”
He tried to make sense of all this. It required too much of an effort. “What do you mean, gone?”
Diana was very nearly in tears. “Gone. Everything. Luggage . . . everything.”
Her obvious unhappiness brought him fully awake. He kicked back the bedclothes and swung out of bed.
“You’re imagining things.”
She shook her head. He reached for his velvet dressing-gown and went out into the corridor. She followed him, and they went to the open door of the room which Alan and Helen had occupied.
At first glance he thought he must have made a mistake. This was an unfamiliar place, they had been dizzy with tiredness last night, he could have got his bearings wrong.
The room was tidy. The bed had a single thin coverlet on it and no more. There was no luggage, and the room did not appear to have been used for months.
He turned back.
Diana said: “It was this room. I know what you’re thinking, because I wondered, too. But this was it. I’m sure of it.”
Charles was sure of it also, deep down inside. But reason fought against memory. There was no trace of his brother or of Helen here; and that was absurd, if this had really been their room. It was easier to believe that he was mistaken in the door than that they should just have been spirited away.
He went to the fireplace. There was not even a trace of ash, although a fire had burned here cheerfully last night.
He snapped: “Where’s that fellow . . . what was his name . . . Klove?”
“He’s not here, either. I rang for him—I went downstairs, just to see.”
It was ludicrous. Somewhere there must be a logical explanation. Charles left the room and went along the corridor to the gallery and the head of the stairs.
“Klove . . .”
The hall below him was empty. The table at which they had sat last night and eaten so gratefully was bare.
“Klove!”
Only an echo, just as there had been when he had first walked into the castle and tried to attract some attention. He glanced back to make an irritable comment to Diana and found she was not there. He suffered a moment’s panic. Were people in this mysterious place snatched away into thin air?
He hurried back to their room and found her stuffing clothes into the suitcases. She was panic-stricken. It was unlike Diana to be so indifferent to the creases and pleats of her dresses.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to leave.”
“Without Alan and Helen?”
“They went without us, didn’t they?”
“I don’t know. We can’t tell just what—”
“Whatever way they left,” Diana sobbed, “they left. Without a word, without a trace. And I want to go.”
“But—”
“Now!” she howled at him.
He had never seen her in such a state. It would be futile to attempt to reason with her. Until they were out of here, discussion was impossible.
He helped her to pack, trying to slow her down and restore some kind of order. Diana did her best to please him, now that he had agreed to leave; but she could not concentrate and her trembling fingers were soon cramming things in as clumsily as before.
The cases were heavy. Charles was about to suggest that they leave a couple of them here and send for them in due course, or that they leave all of them and walk down to the crossroads in the hope of picking up some transport eventually. One glance at Diana’s face stopped him. He could tell that she would not contemplate it. Nothing of theirs should be left in this frightening place. They would walk out and take all their possessions with them and not look back.
Carrying two cases each, they plodded slowly down the stairs.
Their footsteps echoed across the hall. It had looked so welcoming last night. Today it was bleak and unyielding. Charles admitted to himself that he would not be sorry to get out into the open air.
Outside it was windy and cold. A prickle of frost caught at their fingers and cheeks as they stumbled out over the bridge and across the moat. After walking a hundred yards so that they were well clear of the castle, Diana put down the cases and bent her arms ruefully. They had to rest several times on the way down: their progress was a lot slower than their journey up the hill had been, drawn by those uncanny black horses.
With every dragging step Charles grew more and more reluctant to leave the castle without solving its mystery. Flight had been the only thing in Diana’s mind. But when they were far away, congratulating themselves on their escape, how would they explain to each other or to their friends at home the utter disappearance of Alan and Helen?
Perhaps the other two had been disturbed by something and gone on ahead. He tried to tell himself that, to make excuses. But where would they have gone? And would they have fled without as much as a word, without waking Diana and himself . . . ?
They reached the crossroads and thankfully piled the cases up beside the woodcutter’s hut. The roads in all directions were blank and deserted.
Charles looked back the way they had come. The snowcapped turrets and battlements of the castle were just visible from this angle. Picturesque in the morning light. Tempting the traveller . . . luring him up the winding road.
He could not turn his back on it like this. If anything had happened there to his brother and Helen, it was up to him to find out what it had been.
Diana read his thoughts. “Charles, I won’t have it. You’re not—”
“I’ve got to go back.”
“For my sake . . .”
“And what about Alan’s sake? And Helen’s. How could I live with myself if we left them and never knew, never heard of them again?”
Wretchedly she slumped down to the grass before the hut. She nodded, knowing he was right but not wanting to accept it.
“At least let’s get to Josefsbad first. We could get help there.”
“What help? From all we’ve heard the locals do not even admit the castle exists. They refuse to see it or to talk about it.”
Diana took a hasty glance back up the road as though afraid of seeing the horses and coach thundering implacably towards them. She steeled herself. “Very well. If we have to go back—”
“I go on my own,” said Charles firmly. “You’ll stay here. If any coach passes, try to stop it. Provided,” he added sardonically, “it has a driver. If you can persuade the man to come up to the castle, so much the better. If not, go on into
Josefsbad—or at the very least send our luggage on, and wait for me.”
“Wait?” she echoed fearfully.
“It’s half past two now,” he said. “I shall be back by half past six, whatever happens.”
“Whatever happens.” Another echo, dull and despairing.
Charles took her in his arms and tried to convey a feeling of confidence to her.
“I’m not going to take any unnecessary risks,” he promised her. “But we’ve got to find out. We’re not going to be defeated by . . . well, by an empty building.”
“It’s dark by five o’clock,” she whispered.
“You’re not frightened of the dark.”
“I am here.”
“I’ll try to be back sooner.”
He kissed her again and she responded fiercely. Then he disengaged himself and, before she could make any sudden appeal to him, strode back up the road.
In daylight the castle looked no more than a heavy old period piece, designed in a jumble of different styles. Charles tried to remain objective about it as he approached. It made his task easier if he thought about it as a mélange of architectural follies rather than one entity, one sinister building with a dark spirit of its own.
The bridge was in bad repair. The icy surface of the moat was littered with a fine spray of stones and fragments from the wall. Erosion ate its way through the fabric of the castle. But it was massive and secure, pinned to its rocky hillside. It would take centuries before the place crumbled. By that time there might be nobody in the country to remember its reputation or to feel curious about the secrets it might still hold.
Charles went to the door and pushed it open.
They had seen little of the interior apart from the hall and their bedrooms. Normally it would not have occurred to him to prowl inquisitively through the corridors and rooms of another man’s home. But the man to whom it belonged was dead, the one servant had disappeared as strangely as he had first appeared, and Helen and Alan . . .