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

by Doug Lamoreux

  Amramoff drug himself from the depths, shook his cone head and hair like a party favor, and groggily pulled his boots on. He grabbed his kerchief, dangling from his shelf, and shambled out, closing the door behind.

  “Take the watch, Pasha,” the second said. “We're still berthed. Just keep her trim. If God ever rejoins the voyage, well… we'll see.” He turned his attention forward, down the dark companionway.

  “You all right?”

  Eltsin did not answer but pointed, absently, to the stairs and the deck. Amramoff obeyed, climbing up and out into the fog. The second turned back into the ship feeling the feeling, whatever it was, stronger than ever. He moved slowly forward in the dark between-decks.

  Something beyond the hold door - was calling him.

  * * *

  Eltsin struck a match. Its glow, though he didn't know how or why, found him already standing in the forward hold. He put the flame to the lantern then lifted it from its bracket. He scanned the dark; boxes (tarped and not), barrels, cartons, and stark shadows all around. The door to the companionway was closed, and he had no memory of having passed through it. The feeling had carried him there.

  “What are you?” Eltsin whispered. “I know you are here! You are responsible for… what's happened to the crew. You are the cause of this weather. You have beaten us to death.” He cleared his throat, his voice rising in anger. “I'm not afraid of you! I am going to find you! I will destroy you!”

  Behind him, unseen, in silence, a spider descended from the overhead on a silken thread.

  She was a Mediterranean black widow, roughly the size of the new 10 ruble gold coin, and she glinted black with thirteen red spots on her round abdomen. Her eight legs flexed like skeletal fingers as the creature spun her way to the deck. Her tiny body teemed with deadly venom. To her side, on her own thread, descended a second spider as if they were running a race. Beside the second, came a third. And another. And another yet.

  The hairs stood up on the back of Eltsin's neck. His arms turned to goose-flesh. And, for the life of him, he did not know why.

  Then, before him, he saw a black spider drop from the overhead. It descended on a silken tether, spinning as it fell. Beside it came another. And, beside that, another still. He drew in a lung-full of stale, wet air and, with a shaking hand, lifted his lantern. The amber glow ushered in his horror. Dozens of them! Black widow spiders falling from the overhead like rain, trailing silver bars of silk to the deck.

  “My God!”

  So engrossed was Eltsin in his terror, he nearly missed hearing the laughter altogether. Finally, it settled in his ears and on his psyche; a rich timbered laugh that shook the second to his core. He turned, bringing the lamp's yellow light, to see the web wall and spiders behind him and, beyond that, the figure of a man standing in the shadowy depths of the hold. Eltsin halted, his lantern shaking as he fixed the beam upon the stranger, and gasped!

  The light was reflected by red-looking eyes set in the white face of an old man; the tall, old man described by Petrofsky – dead and gone Petrofsky. He was looking at the ship's ghost!

  Too horrified to form intent, Eltsin moved on instinct fueled by blind fear. He had to escape the hold! He ran – smack into the vertical webs behind him. He screamed, disgusted by their sticky grasp, tripped, and fell violently on his face. His lamp hit the deck with a clang; still intact, still lit. Rising, clawing at the web silk, the second stumbled again and fell into his hammock – still swaying in the same spot he'd hung it so many days before.

  The spiders attacked, dozens of them skittering over the hammock, his clothes, his flesh in the gloom. They began to bite. Eltsin screamed, repeatedly, shocked by the agony. Their attack was relentless, excruciating, and covered his body; arms, legs, chest and face. They bit him and injected their venom.

  Eltsin groaned from the pain. Welts rose quickly around the bite wounds; dozens of them, swelling, seeping blood. His muscles began to cramp. His breathing to falter. His bleeding lower lip tripled in size. His left eye disappeared behind a swollen lid.

  A new pain stung his widely dilated right eye. Tears welled, further blinding him, as a bright light stabbed. Gasping for breath, struggling to see, he could just make out the stranger's silhouette – the devil in the hold – standing above him with what must have been his own dropped lantern.

  “The spiders,” the devil said, laughing. “They spin their webs for the unwary fly… for the blood is the life.” He held the lamp near his white face, his red eyes, his sharp teeth – and he blew out the flame.

  In the pitch black of the dank hold, Georgiy Eltsin screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Even Popescu found reason for cheer Thursday morning, 29 July. The ship lay steady at anchor and the storm, as far as he could hear and feel, was finally over. He wasn't cheerful, of course, but he had reason for cheer – until he stepped on deck. His discovery of Amramoff at the wheel, instead of the expected second mate, put him right on edge again, “What are you doing here?” he grumbled.

  The carpenter stared back – stricken – offering no reply. Terror filled his eyes.

  “What's the matter with you? Where is the second?”

  Amramoff's lips quivered. Popescu grabbed the steersman by the shoulders. “Pasha, where is Georgiy Eltsin?” The Russian began to cry, shaking his head uncontrollably. “All right. It's all right.” Popescu squeezed his shipmate's arm. “I'm going forward for a look…”

  “N-No!” Amramoff sputtered, tears running into his beard. “No, don't go! He went forward and he never came back!”

  “The second mate?”

  “He went forward. He never came back!”

  “He is not below. He's not in his bed.”

  Amramoff merely trembled and cried.

  “Stay here; stand the helm. Can you just hold the wheel? I'm going forward to look. I will be right back.” Popescu was not a courageous man. But the carpenter was not helping and, frankly, was frightening him so the Romanian wanted to get away. “Stay here. Hold the wheel.”

  Popescu headed forward. He made the foredeck quickly, then slowed. Beyond the deckhouse, he paused for a handful of water from a starboard rainbarrel (his mouth had gone dry). He splashed his face, took in a chest-full of air, and… advanced ten steps when he stopped cold.

  The forward hatch doors lay open.

  “Mr. Eltsin? Hello. Georgiy, are you there?” He inched forward until the whole of the hatchway opening came into view and froze at his own gasp.

  An enormous spider web, in an intricate pattern of silver-gray, covered the inside of the hatchway. He crossed himself and strained to peer into the hold beyond the cloud of web work. “Mr. Eltsin, are you there?”

  Popescu reeled back, dizzy with vertigo. He gulped air to clear his head. He turned to the stern, his heart racing, and shouted, “All hands on deck! Everybody on deck!” The ship's bell began to ring. Amramoff had, apparently, emerged from his stupor. “All hands on deck! Everybody on deck!”

  * * *

  Within minutes, what remained of the crew were on deck; the captain, mate, Swales (looking ancient), Olgaren, Harrington, Amramoff (still at the helm, but alert again) and the shaking Romanian who'd called them up. Popescu led all to the open forward hold. Their exclamations as they drew near, from awe, to alarm, to abject terror, made it obvious all were as startled and impressed by the silken web work as he. All except the first mate.

  “It's a spider web!” Constantin said with distain. “So what!”

  “Mr. Eltsin is missing.”

  “What has one to do with the other?” The mate tore away the edge of the web above the ladder. He kicked a hole through it, ghostly whisps clinging to his boot, and started down. For a moment, his lantern glowed warmly from the silent dark. Then Constantin screamed, not in terror, but in anger; unbridled rage. A blue fire oath flew from the hold, followed by the repeated sounds of his heels against the deck. Then came a shout over the stomping. “Karakurts!”

  It was the Balk
an name for a deadly spider and looks of horror traveled around the deck. The collective shock was interrupted by another shout.

  “Get down here and help me!”

  Olgaren dropped down, stomping the black widows to paste. The others filtered down, joining their dance, stomping the remaining spiders, chasing those that tried to escape, struggling through and tearing down the web work curtains stretched through the hold.

  “Watch yourselves! Be alert, in numbers they kill!”

  It was good advice, delivered almost too late, as one particularly large black widow dropped on Olgaren's shoulder. He hollered, stumbling off-balance, as he slapped at it. He fell over… something… Eltsin's hammock. Olgaren shook the spider off. He turned to catch his breath - and froze in horror. The Russian let fly a scream none aboard could ever have forgotten; the terrors of his soul rising at once.

  In the hammock (rocking beneath him to the swell of the anchored vessel), wrapped with the hammock in a cocoon of spider's silk, gray as a marble statue at the gateway to hell, was the ship's second. What little of Eltsin was visible showed him horribly bitten, swollen; one eye staring lifelessly out in terror. Ignoring Olgaren, the black widows scrambled over their web-enclosed work of art.

  * * *

  The details can be guessed, the exclamations as each man was made aware of what lay there; the wails, the whispers, the dumbstruck stares that followed! Popescu's self-righteous claim Eltsin bearded the lion in its own den, Harrington's snigger at the pompous Romanian mixing his biblical metaphors, Constantin's irate oaths as he ordered Popescu, then everyone, to shut their heads. Eltsin's hammock was cut down. The decimated, silk-wrapped corpse was lifted to the deck, hauled to the bulwark, and wrapped in anchor chain.

  “Throw it over,” Nikilov said in a whisper.

  “Sir?” Olgaren asked. “What about a burial?”

  “The captain did not require a body for Petrofsky's service,” Constantin growled. “He doesn't need one now.” The men, silently staring at the deck, only made him angrier. “You were all so eager to lighten the ship's load before… Throw the damned thing over. Get it off the ship!”

  With a handful of spiders still weaving on Eltsin's hammock cocoon, and without ceremony, the late second mate was chucked into the sea. The glum lot stared after it until the captain asked for their attention. “Mr. Swales, Mr. Popescu, eh Mr. Harrington, if you are willing, young man,” Nikilov said. “Please return to the hold. Make sure of these… spiders. Every one of them must be done away with. Diligence, with all care.” The three started below, and even Popescu kept his dissent to himself.

  “Mr. Constantin, it is past time we got underway. Set sails, while I figure where in heaven's name we are.”

  The captain went for his sextant, while the mate, Olgaren and Amramoff went aloft.

  * * *

  Finally underway again, on a smooth N.N.W. heading, captain and mate took the helm and watch and dismissed the crew to eat. Nikilov might not, and Constantin assuredly would not, have done had they known the crew would turn the quiet meal (no one was hungry) into a clamorous meeting. Not surprisingly, the superstitious Popescu led and, in short order, had the others near panic.

  “Wurdulak! What is that?” Amramoff stroked his pointed beard. “What is the Wurdulak?”

  Popescu, who'd introduced the word, now hesitated. Harrington answered for him. “The vampyre. The dead man who drinks blood.”

  “What? Why a blood drinker?” the carpenter asked the scholar. He turned his question, and his questioning eyes, on Popescu. “Who has had their blood drinked?”

  Harrington opened his mouth and Swales kicked him under the table. “Hey!” he yelped, twisting in the cook's direction. Swales shook his head. The rest of the group, intent on Popescu and his outrageous claim, ignored their antics.

  “Whose blood,” Amramoff reiterated. “Why this… Wurdulak?”

  “Can you explain three men dead?” Popescu asked.

  “Accidents happen at sea. That's not news. They say the Gloucester fishing fleet alone loses a hundred-fifty men a season on the Banks.”

  “But they know how and when; ships and dories lost, men overboard in storm, accidents. We float. We have had no accidents, save Petrofsky's hand, and the head knock from which young Funar seems unable to recover.” Popescu ignored Swales cold stare. “These are our only accidents. Funar lives. Petrofsky did not die from his hand. No. He disappears, without a peep, on a calm night. Smirnov too; no ripple, merely gone. Who or what killed them?”

  “A monster killed them? Who then? Who is this blood drinking corpse that haunts us, Bogdan? Who is this Wurdulak?”

  “Feliks Petrofksy.”

  The wind whistled down the stove pipe. The sea raced past the side of the vessel. No one breathed in the mess. Until… Olgaren spoke the first words, outside those to Amramoff, he'd spoken in days. “Petrofsky,” he said, simmering, “was a friend of mine.”

  “Yes, of course,” Popescu replied, unphased. “That is the point. The Wurdulak befriends all of his victims. He attacks only friends and family. He made friends with everyone in the crew. Yet, he harbored darkness and sadness. Because of this ship, the rumors of a curse…”

  “Spread by you!”

  “Was I alone?”

  Olgaren looked to the others then, embarrassed, shook his head. Energized by this minor victory, Popescu continued. “Petrofsky killed himself because of his fear. In doing so, he fullfilled his own prophecy. He is cursed and returns from the dead to feed off of his friends. He will kill us all.”

  “Nonsense!” The room was abuzz with cries of “Ridiculous superstition!” One raised his hands for silence. “The second did not die by some blood drinker. Eltsin was killed by spiders.”

  “Aye.” Popescu spit his disgust. “The devil's spawn. Petrofsky is a Wurdulak because he killed himself. His suicide made evil manifest. Because of him, the devil commands this vessel – and the legion of hell to attack it.”

  Amramoff joined Olgaren with a derisive noise of his own.

  “Have you ever seen so many black widows? So many deadly vermin? You saw it.”

  “We all saw,” Amramoff said. “So what? What are you talking about?”

  “This ship. The curse on Demeter.”

  “Blah, blah,” Olgaren said, slapping the table with a frightening BANG. “You make us out idiots. What are you? The curse. Blah, you talk. I ought to cut your lying throat!”

  “Go ahead,” Popescu said. “Or just wait and the curse will do it for you.”

  “What are you talking about!” Olgaren jumped up, rapping his crown on an overhead beam. He growled and gripped the top of his skull. No one dared laugh. Through gritted teeth, he demanded again, “What are you talking about?”

  “We are a doomed ship. Those that the Wurdulak does not kill, the devil will.”

  Cries went round again. “Easy, lads,” Swales said. “T'is a strange waarld. As fer masel', I believe 'im.”

  A clamor again. Harrington, afraid for Ekaterina, worried their plans would fall apart, returned the favor and kicked Swales. “Here!” the cook yelled. He raised a hand to the Englishman, signaling all was well, then turned to the others. “Here now, all of ye! What I meant was…” He turned to Popescu. “I believe you believe this super-stition. But thaat's what it is, lad. E'ery country, e'ery village has them. My own adopted town, Whitby, our destination, has a haunted Abbey where a White Lady is said t' walk the broken halls. Fer centuries they've seen her in the top window.”

  “Then she is real!”

  “She's a reflection o' the sun off a bit o' metal flashin'. I'll show ye when we get there.”

  “I fear we will not get there,” Popescu whispered. He crossed himself. “You may not believe in your White Lady, but I do. And I believe in Demeter's monster.”

  * * *

  The meeting broke up. The men floated out, to the deck or their berths. Popescu delayed his departure to keep an eye on Swales and Harrington. Something about them had
spurred his curiosity. He peered out to see the cook following Harrington to the passenger's cabin. Swales darted a look back as they turned the corner but Popescu had already retreated. The Scot saw only empty hall. Swales returned his attention aft, speaking to Harrington; both unaware they were overheard.

  “Why in hell did ye kick me?”

  “For the same reason you kicked me. Oliver, no one believed Popescu. They won't believe us either; and we cannot have interference. We must protect the ship and crew, but Ekaterina comes first.”

  Popescu pricked his ears at the unfamiliar name. Who was Ekaterina? Before he was able to give the question voice, he got his answer. Harrington opened the cabin door and greeted someone inside. The eternally ill deck boy replied. Yet, something about Funar's voice was… different.

  Popescu slipped toward the juncture to better see and hear. The cook and the English passenger were just entering. Popescu stole a glance between them, managing a look, as they closed the door. He could not believe his eyes. A sickly looking Funar was on his bunk in a flowing night shirt. But dressed so, without a smudged face and his trademark knit cap, it was plain as day…

  Funar was… a young woman!

  * * *

  “How are you?” Harrington asked, his hand against Ekaterina's forehead. She was pale, her skin clammy and cool.

  “Tired. I was about to lie down.”

  “That's an excellent idee,” Swales said, over his shoulder. “Get yer-sel' settled, while I bend Trevor's ear.” He led Trevor across the cabin, and whispered, “There's no time like the present, lad.”

  “I'm sorry?” Harrington asked, lost.

  “The gun. Unless this undead thing is daft he'll know we're comin' for `im. We need that gun. The sea's calm, the crew, cap'n and mate are on deck. If yer're e'er goin' to get it, t'will be now.”

  “But we haven't made the bullets.”

  “I ha' no' been keen t' light a fire, have I? One thing at a time. An' right now, the cap'n's cabin is toom!”