Dracula's Demeter: The Vampire King's Stunning Sea Voyage

by Doug Lamoreux

  “When did he go forward?”

  Amramoff wrinkled his nose, pulled his yellow beard in annoyance. “I saw him when I first came on. He's been forward since. What is the matter with you? What are these questions?”

  “Has there been anyone in the stern with you in the last few minutes? Have you seen or heard anyone; anything?”

  “There has been no one. What or who, in the name of the Emperor, were you expecting?”

  “Nothing,” Harrington said, coming back to the wheel. He felt slightly dazed. “No one.” He headed below, muttering to himself, “My mirror played a trick on me.”

  But the Englishman knew it was not the mirror. It was his eyes or, perhaps, his mind.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Friday morning, 23 July, Swales brought the girl's breakfast and, two steps in, halted in alarm. “Are ye sick?” Harrington was a pallid sight. “Ye' look like ye've seen Popescu's boh-ghost.”

  “I have,” the scholar said, securing the door. “I've either seen the ghost or I've lost my mind.”

  Swales deposited the plate on the desk. “I think, lad, ye ought make me wise.”

  Harrington did, as best he could, relating the events of the previous night; the bone-white face in the porthole, the absence of a reflection in the looking-glass, his race to the deck, and the vanishing act. “There is a monster on the ship.”

  Swales lifted Popescu's book. “Ye get thaat from this?”

  Harrington arched his brow. “I've been reading that, yes. You gave it to me.”

  “Aye, t' keep ye awake.”

  “Well, I'm finally awake – to what is happening.”

  “There are no ghosts.”

  “I'm not talking about ghosts. I'm talking about something that happened. Did you read it?”

  “I thumbed it 'efore I dropped it off.”

  Harrington took the book. “You weren't convinced?”

  “O' what? I dinna study it? I'm no scholar. An' though I've travelled from here to there, I'm no' a man o' the waarld like yesel'. That German is mostly Greek to me. Besides, the subject matter is no' science? It's hy-pear-bole. Superstition. An interestin' read, if ye're no' too par-ticular an' ye like that sort o' thing. Better still, a serviceable paperweight. There's nowt to convince me o' anythin'.”

  “Where's your open mind?”

  “D' ye no' hear me?” Swales laughed derisively. “I've sailed this whole damn waarld, lad. Seen queer things in queerer places; snake charmers to cannibals, shite t' turn yer hair white an' stand it on end. An' I've learned a thing or two – in me own dense sort o' way. My mind is open. But if I'm to be convinced – aboon anythin' – t' will require substance; no' folklore.”

  “That's all you think it is?”

  “O' course. D' no' tell me ye' believe this nonsense because o' Popescu's book?”

  Harrington frowned. “It isn't just his book. I've read of these things… before my trip to Europe.”

  “What things?”

  “Ekaterina's loss of blood. Phantom's walking the deck and disappearing at will. Men vanishing in the night.” He searched the floor, thinking. “There was one… The subject matter was similar to Popescu's book; superstitions, ghosts, ghouls…” Harrington snapped his fingers. “The Magia Posthuma by von Schertz. A… Catholic lawyer who studied the case of an earth-bound spectre that attacked the living. It detailed incidents of a plague called… vampirism in Serbia, Moravia, Transylvania. Blood drinking… and the mastication of the dead!”

  “Masti-cation?”

  “It means to chew…”

  “I gawm damn well what it means, lad! It's a fairy-tale!”

  “The stories were supposedly true. The locals believed them. They were literally exhuming their own dead, disfiguring the corpses, reburying them with charms to ward off the evil eye and prevent…”

  “Prevent what? D' ye hear yersel'?”

  “I'm telling you what the book said; to prevent their rising from the grave. To prevent their attacks on the living. To stop the spread…”

  “O' a non-existant disease.”

  “I admit, the authorities saw it that way; passed laws to curb the vampire hunters' activities. Made it illegal to open graves and destroy corpses.”

  “Just so. It's insanity. There's no evidence; can be none as it's all superstition.”

  “There is a vampire aboard the Demeter.”

  The young scholar said it so plainly, so calmly, the sentence stunned the listener. The cook stared agog - unable to respond. To end the deafening silence and keep an upper hand in the argument, Harrington soldiered on. “Even before we left Varna there was talk of this voyage being cursed.”

  “Talk, yes! There's nothin' new in that. Sailors grumble.”

  “This is different. Something is wrong; I saw it last night. I didn't read it in a book, I saw it! Oliver, there is a vampire aboard this ship. Weigh the facts.”

  “What facts?”

  “In Varna, the first had difficulty signing crew.”

  “These are facts?”

  “Listen, will you? It is a fact he had unusual difficulty signing crew. Experienced seamen walked away claiming there was something wrong with this ship.”

  Swales took a frustrated breath, then nodded. “O-right.”

  “A week and a half ago, Petrofsky reported a stranger on deck who, when he called, jumped overboard. He swore to it. Several days later, Ekaterina was found ill with wounds on her throat. That same night Petrofsky went missing. Do men simply disappear?”

  “He killed his-sel'!”

  “There is no proof one way or the other. So, to continue… The night of the 16th, Olgaren reported another strange man on deck who also vanished without a trace; a different man, younger. Now, was he younger? Or merely revitalized?”

  Swales growled in disgust.

  “Since that night,” Harrington said, carrying on. “We've had four forsaken days of weather that every man in the crew has called `otherworldly'.”

  “Storms a' sea happen all the time.”

  “In the cloudless Mediterranean? You know as well as anyone this is not storm season for these waters. Yet we've had four days of unrelenting rain and wind. It's unnatural. It's evil.”

  “Ye're bein' ridiculous! Ye're tellin' me some… monster… aboard ship, is controllin' the weather? Go on! Pull t' other one!”

  “Wednesday morning, Katya was sick again. On the verge of recovery, her wounds reopened and she suffered a relapse. Why? And how do you explain last night? The face suspended outside the port that does not reflect in the glass? And, like the others, vanished into thin air?”

  “It's nonsense!” Swales exploded. “Shear an' utter nonsense! If ye' believe any o' this, ye're out o' yer mind! An' ye' can't think fer one minute I'll have anythin' to do w' this?” The cook turned angrily away, caught the edge of the desk and took a breath. Silence consumed them.

  In her sleep, Ekaterina moaned. Swales and Harrington both stepped toward her bed. She relaxed as the spasm passed and they looked at each other - embarrassed.

  “I'm sorry, Trevor,” Swales said. “I did no' mean that. Me father, for all I love `im, is a bully, unable to admit he's e'er wrong. If he can't out-argue ye, he'll tongue lash ye a double share, insult and brow beat ye, embarrass or frighten ye into silence; then take yer silence for agreement. Despite my best efforts, there's too much o' the old whaler in me. I… I do no' want what ye're sayin' to be true.”

  “But you know it is. You believe.” He waited and, finally, Swales nodded. “You knew before I did. That's the reason you borrowed that book from Popescu.”

  “Aye, because I'm an old fool. Ye were meant t' talk me out o' it. But ye're a fool yer-sel.”

  “We must find this monster and destroy it.”

  Swales sagged into the chair, nodded and sighed. “We'll have to do it alone. T'would be pointless to try t' convince the cap'n. We'll no' be believed. An', o' the crew, the only one would hear us would be Popescu, who'll rant an' rave but no'
help.”

  Harrington squeezed the old man's shoulder. “Then we do it alone. We give Ekaterina what protection we can, then we find this thing.”

  * * *

  A cold dinner was eaten by wet sailors. After, their rum ration was again passed-over due to the still-dangerous weather conditions. The crew went unhappily about their duties while Swales, his mess cleaned, returned to the sick cabin with a flour sack in his hands; the collected spoils from a private quest. He found Harrington changing Ekaterina's bandage. The sleeping girl looked tiny and frail.

  “There was no blood on her hands.”

  “What's that?” Swales asked.

  “The morning we found her, there was blood on her lips, in her mouth, on her chin… none on her hands. If it was hers, how did it get on her lips?” Harrington turned looking pale. “If it wasn't…” Hate filled his eyes. “She's been forced into some awful baptism… some black communion. There is a poison flowing through her, changing her.”

  “Enough, lad,” Swales said, depositing his sack on the desk. “We have work.”

  Swales was right, there would be a time. Harrington bit it off and moved to the desk. “I want you to know,” he said stiffly. “I made these because you asked.” He drew a cloth-wrapped package from the bottom drawer and, laying it out, added, “They go against everything I believe in.”

  “Aye, so ye said already.” Swales frowned. “Let's see 'em.”

  Harrington drew back the top wrap. Beneath lay three handmade wood crosses.

  “Oh aye, a fine job,” Swales said. “Ye'll make a ship's carpenter yet.”

  “Then I'll die a happy man.”

  Both let that go without comment. It wasn't the first time either had spoken without thinking.

  “If ye were no' a heathen bastard… If ye'd bought the lass a cross like e'ery other man in the waarld, `stead o' that fine french necklace, ye'd no' have had to take the trouble w' these.” Swales tapped one of the crosses, then pointed across the cabin. “Tie one o'er the lass. An' do no' look at me so. T'was the whole feckin' point.”

  Harrington secured a cross to the bunk frame above Ekaterina's head. He'd bickered with Swales upon receiving the assignment, and wrestled with himself while putting them together, for he still refused to believe in an all-powerful Being controlling the world. But he had to admit, inexplicably, he felt safer with the icons in the room and satisfied with this one keeping Katya company. “What have you in the bag?” he asked, turning back to Swales. “Steal anything useful from the galley?”

  “If it's my galley, it's no' stealin'.” Swales drew out several bulbs of garlic. “My last two,” he said, grudgingly.

  Harrington's smile threatened to become a laugh. He'd surrendered his atheistic sentiments for the cause, Swales could unhand some garlic. “Don't forget the port.”

  The old man separated the cloves and, using them like chalk, smeared the meat and juices into the wood around the porthole frame. He did the same on the top sill and down the door jambs. He finished scratching a garlic cross on the inside surface of the door.

  He returned to his bag and withdrew a box. He opened it, sniffed, grimaced and made his distinctive grunt. “Mustard seed. Does it work if it's goin' bad?”

  “I don't know if it works when it's fresh. We're following Popescu's book. There,” Harrington said, pointing to the deck in front of the door. “On the floor, the width of the sill, so… it… cannot pass.”

  Swales shook out the contents of the box, a line of mustard seed across the opening that – superstition said – the creature could not cross. Behind him, Harrington pulled a wad of string from Swales' bag. “What's this?”

  “D' ye no' remember? Tie a knot in the string e'ery three or so inches, as ye're able, so the fiend will be forced to pick it up an' count the knots one by one 'efore he can pass…”

  Harrington rolled his eyes.

  “We're shy most o' the things the German book calls fer,” Swales explained. “… a wild rose, poppy seeds, a thorny switch o' hawthorn, holy water. Disgraceful really. With so many damned seaman aboon, ye'd think we'd be better prepared to ward off evil.”

  Harrington tossed the string back in the bag without tying any knots in it. “That's the lot,” he said. “And a sorry lot it is.”

  “No' if any o' it works.”

  “Your confidence overwhelms.”

  “Oh, lad, it's no' as bad as all that. Ye're goin' to see to a few other important items.”

  “I am? Such as?”

  “Later, lad. One t'ing at a time.” Grinning like a demon, Swales reached into his pocket. “Fer instance.” He withdrew a string of blue and white rosary beads and a crucifix that glinted in the lamplight.

  “Where did you get…” Harrington stopped himself as a look of alarm blossomed. “Popescu! He'll lose his mind when he finds it gone.”

  Swales snorted a laugh. “Luv to see that! Assumin' he has one. Pure silver or I'm a mermaid.”

  “It's beautiful. He will go crazy.”

  “Fek `im, he's already crazy. 'esides… by the time he comes off watch, it'll no longer exist. It's goin' t' vanish just like poor Petrofsky. We're goin' to melt it down.”

  “For what?”

  “Trevor, ye know more than any one man I e'er met. So how is it ye're so damned dumb? Ye read the book. We're goin' to make silver bullets.”

  Harrington screwed up his face. “Those are… for werewolves, aren't they?”

  “Oh, aye. But if they work fer the one, why no' t' other? Particular if they come from a silver cross! Can ye argue thaat?”

  “No, but - now I am confused,” Harrington said with a scowl. “We haven't a gun.”

  Swales shook his head. “We have no gun, yet,” he whispered. “But unless I miss me guess, an' unless he's diff-rent than e'ery other master to e'er put to sea, Captain Nikilov does.”

  “You said earlier it would do no good to tell the captain; that he would not assist us.”

  “Aye. So I believe.”

  “You mean you intend to steal a gun from the captain?”

  “Jings, lad, no! I'm too old for that shite.” Swales laid the rosary gently on the desk, then turned to Harrington in all sincerity. “Ye're goin' to steal it.”

  * * *

  The gray cloud seeped through the fore hold door into the between-decks companionway. It hovered, then started aft. It passed the crew's quarters (undetected by those speaking inside) and floated on to the hall's dead-end and the door of the passenger's cabin; the girl's room. The mist began to seep into the cracks in and around the door. An instant later, the mist exploded back into the companionway.

  It swirled and transformed into the dark vampire. Dracula gasped, shaken. Tears ran down his cheeks. He staggered and caught the walls to hold himself. As he recovered, he grew livid. He smashed his fists against the bulkhead. Beneath his black and iron mustache, he sank his teeth into his lower lip until his own fluids ran. “Damn you, sheep,” he whispered. “You cannot protect this girl. She is already mine!” He coughed, the fetid odor of garlic clinging in his flared nostrils. He fought to catch his breath.

  The door to the crew's quarters came open and Amramoff's voice rang out, “I've got to relieve Smirnov.” He stepped out, turned abaft, and shouted, “Mother of God!” He fell back into the dorm. “My God!” he screamed, from the floor, pointing through the door. “My God!”

  Exclamations erupted; Popescu above the others, demanding, “What is it?”

  “A rat!”

  “You are screaming like a woman over a rat?”

  Olgaren, ducking for the sill, stepped over Amramoff and moved into the companionway. He looked aft, saw it too, and gasped, “Oh, it is huge!” A remarkable comment coming from the massive Russian. Amramoff, back on his feet, jammed the doorway with Popescu trying to pass at the same time. They wrestled out for a look.

  “Lord!”

  The gray-streaked black rat, twenty-five pounds at least, stared from the floor at the juncture to the captain
's and passenger's cabins. It bared vicious fangs that, Olgaren didn't wonder, could have ripped the head off his Ovcharka (the family's sheep dog). Its beady eyes glinted red. It squealed – a noise to ice the spine. Its vile claws scratched the deck as the creature darted to the starboard. Its leathery rasp tail, the last of the animal visible, snapped the bulkhead like a bullwhip, then it too disappeared around the corner.

  * * *

  On duty at the wheel, the second mate had let his mind wander. Lost in thought, he was startled when the cover on the starboard scuttle, behind him, shot into the air as if an explosion had taken place below. There was no concussion merely a poof, as if a magic trick had been performed, and the lid went flying. Only luck and the wind dropped it back on the deck instead of in the Atlantic.

  So taken aback was he, Eltsin failed to notice the mist that followed as the cover left its place. What he did notice, a beat later, were the seamen piling out from below like circus clowns; Amramoff, the character, Olgaren, the auguste (just squeezing through), and Popescu, the aggrieved whiteface, bringing up the rear as usual.

  “Did you see it?” the ship's carpenter demanded.

  “Again with `Did I see it?',” Eltsin shouted. “What is everybody seeing that I see nothing?” He arched his brow. “What are you talking about? What are you men doing?”

  “The rat,” Olgaren put in. “The big rat; did it come this way?”

  “Nothing `came this way'!”

  Amramoff shook his head, looking the deck over. It wasn't that he didn't believe the second, he just didn't believe what he'd seen. Olgaren joined him. Popescu stood and crossed himself. Eltsin watched them, certain all three had lost their minds.

  Smirnov, on watch, appeared around the deckhouse moving aft. He saw the sailors probing the shadowed deck and asked what was happening. Eltsin shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “It was there,” Amramoff muttered. “Then it was gone.”

  Eltsin and Smirnov watched the hunters scour the deck then looked nervous questions at each other. What in the world was `It'? Where in the world could `It' have gone?

  Chapter Twenty-four