by John Burke
Klove sat quite still as though debating this order. Then he edged to one end of the seat and let his right hand fall to his side. There was the swift flash of a blade, a knife was in his hand, he was thrusting himself forward to hurl it at Shandor . . . and Charles squeezed the trigger.
Klove seemed to have been punched in the chest. He jolted back, hung suspended on the edge of the box, and then toppled off to the ground. His knife fell a long way away. Klove did not stir.
Shandor took a step towards the wagon. Before he could reach it, the horses reared up with whinnies of fright, and bolted. Charles had to leap away as they thundered towards him. Foam smeared their distended nostrils as they went like mad things at the last stretch of the hill. They were racing for home—the dark castle looming over them, no more than a quarter of a mile away now.
Charles and Shandor freed their mounts and set off in pursuit.
They were within yards of the careering, swaying wagon as it headed for the bridge over the moat. The rear wheels spun and screeched, not gripping the road. As the horses pounded on to the bridge, the offside rear wheel jammed in a strut whose far end was secured in the castle wall. There was a shriek of wood and iron, and a splintering as the wheel collapsed. The horses were chokingly brought to a halt. One went down to its knees, bellowing.
The wagon began to tilt slowly over to one side. One of the coffins slid towards the edge. It was checked for a moment, then there was another jolt and it went over the edge of the bridge.
Shandor and Charles reined in. They watched the coffin hit the ice and slither across it, fetching up against the green-stained stonework of the castle.
There was another long, grim box still on the wagon. Charles flung himself down from his horse and ran towards the precariously balanced wagon. Shandor was close behind him. The wagon shifted ominously beneath them as they got a grip on the lid of the coffin and raised it.
In the bottom of the box, tied hand and foot, was Diana. Her eyes were wide open. At first Charles was sure that she did not see him—that she was already possessed, already one of Dracula’s minions. Then a tear trickled down her cheek and she tried to smile.
Charles reached down towards her, but Shandor grabbed his arm.
“I’ll look after her. You take care of . . . of him.”
Charles looked over the edge of the drop and saw the light fading in the ice of the moat. The other coffin was a dark hulk against the wall.
“You must hurry,” Shandor urged. “The light’s going.”
Charles lowered himself from the wagon to the bridge, and then slithered down the steep bank to the ice. The moat was a dark chasm between the bank and the lowering castle.
He tested the ice. It creaked beneath his weight but seemed solid enough—and it had certainly borne the weight of the box containing Dracula.
Charles walked towards the coffin.
The last red finger of sunset was withdrawn from the highest turret of the castle. He could hardly see the fastenings of the lid, which were much more complex than those on the box in which Diana lay. He fumbled to free the catches.
“Too late!” The voice came from the bridge. He paused and looked up. Shandor, with Diana beside him, resting on his arm, was shaking violently. “It’s too late, Kent. Get away from there at once. It’s too late.”
Charles half turned back towards the coffin, undecided. As he did so, the lid flew back with a crash, and a long, bony hand stabbed out at him. The talons closed on his wrist, as cold and as unbreakable as iron.
Diana screamed.
Charles tried to brace his feet so that he could grapple with the creature rising from the coffin, but on the ice there was no foothold.
“Shoot him!” Diana was crying. “Why don’t you shoot?”
“It would do no good, my dear.”
Charles saw Diana snatch the rifle from Shandor; and then Dracula was triumphantly out of the box. The two of them lurched towards the wall. Charles struck the Count across the face, but the effort overbalanced him, and Dracula resettled his grip and began to drag him contemptuously along.
There was the crack of the gun. A long chip of ice was blasted from the surface a few feet away. A small fountain of water bubbled up. Charles felt Dracula sway to one side.
The water rippled across the ice and then ebbed away again.
“Yes!” cried Shandor. “Running water . . . !”
There was another shot. And another. Dracula drew in a hissing breath like a curse, and thrust the two of them against the wall. Yet another bullet struck into the ice nearby, and this time a long, dangerous crack zigzagged across the surface.
With a snarl of rage Dracula let go. Charles was free. He half skidded, half ran away. The ice bent perilously beneath his feet, and cold water clutched at one ankle. He threw himself forward, let himself go, and went prone on the ice, sliding at last to safety against the bank.
As he scrambled up on to the grass, he heard a score of grinding, screeching cracks behind him. Shandor re-loaded and fired again, and the smack of the bullet was followed by a torment of breaking ice. Fissures joined up and water bubbled over the raw edges.
Dracula was trying to edge along the wall to a buttress by which he might hoist himself up to safety.
Breathless, Charles made an effort to reach the top of the bank and rejoin Diana. But he was nearly exhausted. And the frenzied movements of that dark figure on the ice were as hypnotic as the deadly creature had always been.
Shandor aimed again; and fired.
It was as though he had taken one end of the breaking ice in his hand and torn a massive strip from it. The surface on which Dracula stood was ripped away from the rest, and began to tilt. The vampire let out a vengeful howl and raised his claws towards the two on the bridge. Then he fell, groped for support that wasn’t there, and plunged into the water. Up to his armpits, he managed for a few seconds to cling to the ice. Then another fragment came away and slowly, remorselessly, he was sucked down.
The wicked face was thrown back for an instant, the mouth making a last wild appeal to a thousand guardian demons. Then the water closed over it. The dark cloak swirled on the surface like a sombre lily before it, too, was drowned.
Charles groped his way to the top of the bank, and Diana hurried to meet him. Shandor followed at a tactfully slow pace. He kept his eyes on the moat as though afraid that this might still not be the end, that the scourge of Carpathia might still have escaped utter destruction.
But on the surface of the dark water were fragments of ice and nothing more. Count Dracula had gone and would never return.
Rasputin–The Mad Monk
1
The inn was usually a warm, friendly place. Here men drank and talked and sang in order to forget, if only for a few hours, the grim eternity of the Siberian forests and wastelands outside. Sometimes, when they were fuddled with the raw spirit, they quarrelled; yet when the fighting was over they became friends again. There were too few human beings and too much that was icily inhuman in this land for men to make enemies of their fellows.
Tonight the usual babble of talk and argument was hushed. As the innkeeper and the doctor came slowly down the creaking, narrow staircase, all heads turned towards them. The innkeeper faltered. It was bad enough without them staring at him. Bad enough to see his wife writhing and twisting on the bed, and then lying as still as death—to shut it out, his customers ought to have been noisy and exuberant, they ought to have kept him so busy that he would not have time to think about anything else.
“Keep her warm,” the doctor was booming in that bluff, meaningless voice of his. Starvation, fever, and misery were commonplaces in his life. “If she recovers consciousness, give her a little brandy.”
“And if . . . if she doesn’t, Doctor?”
“Send for the priest.”
A murmur of sympathy ran round the room and died away. The customers got to their feet. The innkeeper wished that they would sit down and drink and pretend that everything wa
s normal.
The doctor was pulling on his gloves. He took his time. He appeared to be waiting for something. The innkeeper watched the slow movements, the abstracted poking of fingers into the gloves, and then realized what was required of him.
“Oh, your fee, Doctor.”
The doctor shrugged. “Whatever you can afford.”
The innkeeper drew a few coins from his pocket. A few wretched kopecks, no more. But if he took money from behind the bar, there would be none left to buy food for the rest of them, or to replenish his stocks when the merchant came next month. He held out his palm.
The doctor looked at it without marked enthusiasm, then took the kopecks fastidiously and pocketed them.
“Business has not been good, then?”
“With my wife being so ill—”
“Quite, quite.”
The episode was closed. The doctor wanted to be away. He went to the door and waited for the innkeeper to hurry past him and open it. A drift of snow swirled in across the floor.
When the innkeeper turned back into the room, one of his friends stepped forward awkwardly. It was Dmitri, a burly great brute who was probably the inn’s most troublesome customer and yet at the same time a man of great heart.
“Anything we can do, Karl . . .”
But what could they do? They were not doctors; and even a doctor had shaken his head and gone away. They were not miracle workers.
Karl made his way back to the stairs. He nodded towards the bar.
“If you want serving, please just ring the bell and I will come down.”
“Don’t you worry.”
“Go on up to her, Karl . . .”
He went up. His footsteps slowed as he reached the top of the flight and saw the guttering, swaying light of the candle through the doorway beyond. Going in there would do no good. Nothing would do any good any more. But he stooped beneath the low lintel and approached his wife’s bedside.
She was scarcely breathing now. She was as pale as the moonlit snow outside, and the chill of that interminable world was seeping into her bones. The fever had slackened its grip for a while: but which was worse, the burning fever or the cold of the grave?
Their son Vassily and daughter Nadejda sat at the side of the bed. They looked hopefully at their father, silently imploring him to tell them that the doctor had been reassuring, that there was still a chance.
He could not bring himself to speak or to shake his head. He stood over his wife, his Tanya who had worked so hard beside him and suffered so much with him and been such a joy to him, and he stared into her face and was suddenly, terrifyingly certain that she would never again open her eyes and smile at him.
“Father . . . ?”
Vassily’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. Karl ignored it. He crossed to the wall where the ikon hung, and sank to his knees below the scratched, gilded face on the smeared red background. He began to pray.
The floor beneath his knees shook gently, and from downstairs there was a loud crash. Someone had slammed open the door of the bar. Someone, impatient by the sound of his heavy tread, would be wanting a drink. He would have to wait.
“Landlord!”
There was a subdued murmur of voices as the regular customers tried to explain. A few phrases drifted up the stairs.
“Sickness in the house . . .”
“Nothing a few litres of wine can’t put right.” The bell jangled a summons. “Landlord!”
Karl tried to shut the disturbance out of his mind. He thought of Tanya and prayed for her—for her body and for her soul, for her life . . . and, if her life was not to be spared, then for the gentlest of rests for her.
Footsteps came stamping up the stairs. Vassily let out a gasp of protest and went to the door. Karl muttered an “Amen” and got up from his knees.
A tall, massive figure filled the doorway. He was bearded, and above his beaked nose his eyes were aglow with a feral violence. He wore a loose, sack-like garment which might almost have been a monk’s habit—the makeshift clothing of a wandering holy man, a starets, rather than the member of any formal order. Yet in his face there was something demoniacal rather than holy.
Father and son stared. Vassily had clearly been waiting to strike the intruder, but his sheer size and awe-inspiring features were overwhelming.
It was Nadejda who spoke first. She said simply: “Our mother is sick.”
The man appraised her. It was a sensuous, disturbing look. There was certainly nothing holy in it. Then he stooped and advanced into the bedroom. For a long minute he gazed at Tanya’s drained, exhausted face. Then he laid one massive hand on her brow. His fingers were coarse yet their movements were gentle, almost graceful.
“There is fever in her.”
“We know that,” said Vassily aggressively.
“Fever in her,” said the man loudly. “But I shall draw it out.”
Karl watched as the stranger applied both hands to Tanya’s head. They touched, stroked, soothed; fell into a steady rhythm.
“Who are you?”
“It is of no consequence.” The man spoke without turning his head and without a break in his hypnotic motions. “I am Grigori Rasputin—but names are of no consequence.”
Suddenly Tanya let out a sigh. It dropped into the agonized silence of the room like one single, echoing note.
Karl staggered forward.
Rasputin stopped. He raised his right hand and held it out before him as though it were contaminated. In the flickering light Karl could see that it was soaked with sweat.
“The fever has left her,” said Rasputin. “I have taken it into my own hand.” Abruptly he thrust it at Vassily. “Feel.”
The boy was afraid. He backed away. Nadejda put out a tentative hand and touched Rasputin’s.
She screamed. “It’s burning.”
Rasputin looked round the roughly furnished room. When he saw the ewer of water on the washstand he strode towards it and plunged his hands in. He stood quite still for a few seconds, then withdrew his hands and turned to Vassily.
“Throw it away. At once.”
Vassily glanced at his father. Karl nodded peremptorily. The boy took up the ewer and hurried from the room. A burst of questions buzzed around him as he went down the stairs.
Karl hardly dared to speak. But he had to know. “Is she better?”
“She won’t die, anyway.” Rasputin looked down at the bed again, and suddenly, brutally shouted: “Open your eyes, woman. You’re cured.”
Tanya’s eyes opened. She licked her dry lips.
“Karl . . . ?”
He collapsed beside her, seizing her limp hand and kissing it. He could not believe it. But she turned her head on the damp, hot pillow and looked at him; and she smiled.
Karl got shakily to his feet once more. The stale animal smell of Rasputin filled the room. The man’s grin was sardonic, almost contemptuous. But he had worked a miracle. The dirtiness and weirdness of him were of no importance compared with that.
Karl said: “How can I repay you, sir?”
“With a bottle of wine. No . . . two bottles.”
“But that is not enough.”
“Enough to start with.”
Rasputin let out a rasping laugh. All at once he was gay. He turned towards the door, smacking his hand jubilantly against the wall as he went. Karl glanced at his wife, who stretched herself in the bed with a long, satisfied groan, and smiled at him once more. She tried to wave, telling him that he must get back to his business.
Karl hurried out after Rasputin.
The huge stranger clattered down the stairs and stamped out into the centre of the room.
“Light more lamps,” he yelled boisterously. “Open the shutters.”
“Lamps . . .” The innkeeper, dazed and grateful, tried to keep up with him. “Shutters. Yes.”
“Tell your daughter to put on her prettiest dress.”
“But—”
“We’re going to have a party.”
“Your wife is cured,” roared Rasputin. “What better reason for a celebration?”
Karl was beyond arguing. He grabbed two bottles of wine from behind the counter, and looked round for the corkscrew.
“Here!” Rasputin snatched one of the bottles from him, smashed the neck on the stove with one crisp blow, and poured a good half of the contents down his throat without swallowing.
The other customers looked uneasily at one another. But Karl, frightened of offending the man who had brought such good fortune to the inn, bustled out and filled their glasses. And then they were all talking at once, and slapping him on the back, and drinking a toast to the mysterious stranger.
Pipes were lit. The stove was stoked up. The room was soon thick with smoke. Vassily, wary at first of the uproar, was soon caught up in the atmosphere and went to fetch his accordion.
“Your daughter,” Rasputin insisted. “Her prettiest dress—yes?”
Karl sent Vassily to fetch Nadejda. If the healer wished to have a party, then a party there must be. And if he wanted a pretty girl to grace the bar, she must be summoned.
Nadejda came shyly and reluctantly. But she was given no time to protest. As the accordion began to grind out its tunes once more—Vassily was conscientious rather than accurate—the customers clapped their hands and beat out a faster and faster rhythm, and Nadejda was swept into Rasputin’s long, powerful arms and whirled round the room. There was very little space, but Rasputin was surefooted and swift. He danced madly within inches of the customers’ toes, swung along the whole extent of the bar, and laughed exultantly down into Nadejda’s upturned face.
The girl was beginning to be frightened. Karl knew it but could not intervene. He helped himself to a burning draught of brandy, and then another. Rasputin was right. Was there not good cause for celebration?
The dancers whirled round, and the room itself began to do a crazy dance.
Karl edged his way round the bar, dodged the couple as they swung close to him, and joined one of his old friends.
“Good news,” he said thickly. “Good news, isn’t it? Wonderful.”