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

by Doug Lamoreux

  “Katya, you should be resting.” He hurried to her side and led her back to her cabin.

  “Have pity on him, I beg you.”

  “Pity?”

  “This man. This monster that haunts us. Whatever he is, he was once a creature of God and must be pitied.”

  He hadn't told her of Oliver. She had no way of knowing the depth of his hatred. “After all that he's done to us,” he said, helping her into her bunk. “I pray for the chance to send him to hell!”

  “Don't say that, Trevor. Dear Lord, please! One day soon, I could be a creature like him.”

  “Katya, don't even think it!”

  “It's true. It could well be true. Soon you may need to destroy me! Would you send me to hell? Dear God, Trevor, am I doomed to the pits of hell? Will God deny me his heaven! Destroy him if you must. But, please, don't hate him.”

  * * *

  The rain was again a storm, thunder rolled and lightning flashed. It was nearly ten at night before Ekaterina finally fell back to sleep and, for the first time in a long while, seemed free of the nightmares. The calm looked good on her.

  During his vigil, he'd torn linen into strips and hid them away. Now, he pulled these bandages from a desk drawer and put them to use. Quietly, and ever so gently, one limb at a time, he tied Ekaterina's wrists and ankles to the four posts of the bunk. Whatever was to come, he had no intention of Katya being pulled into the mix, either by her own stubbornness or by the evil thing in the hold. He needed no more trouble or interruptions. He'd already lost the daylight and there was no more time to waste. What he'd planned would be difficult enough. Secure in the knowledge she was safe, he slipped from the cabin.

  Harrington retrieved his kit from the galley, for Oliver's memory, for Ekaterina's life, for England's salvation. It sounded like high melodrama but was also true. The dangers increased with every moment, every mile, that passed. He threw the bag on his shoulder and headed for the hold.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Harrington pushed into the forehold. He descended with a firm grasp on the stair rail as the thunder boomed and the ship heaved and rolled with the heavy sea. Harrington ignored the storm, lit the kerosene lamp, pulled a pry bar from the kit, and started at the boxes.

  He was overwhelmed with an eerie feeling of already having been and done as he opened the first box and found only dirt. Then again. And again. Nothing but dirt. The odd feelings were soon replaced by the old frustrations. He panned the lamp about the hold, thinking this endeavor was going to take forever and feeling sorry for himself. He barely finished the thought before he shook his head in shame. The earlier inspections found nothing but dirt and the monster had been there all the time, waiting to begin his reign of terror. From this lair he'd perpetrated his abominable horrors against Ekaterina and methodically killed the crew. The monster was here. If it took forever to find him… it took forever. He would find the hellish creature!

  He bent to another box and began prying on the lid, oblivious of the mist escaping from a casket across the hold. He continued to work, unaware of the change in that mist as it materialized into the vampire behind him.

  “I am glad you found your way here.”

  The voice was deep, melodic as a church organ, beautifully spoken English, with a decidedly eastern European accent, likely Romanian. His scholar's mind deciphered this on its own, while the startled Harrington jumped and caught the top of a barrel for balance. He clutched the pry bar and stared into the gloom at the phantom. Olgaren's young phantom!

  Renewed, Harrington guessed (if Popescu's book were right), by his recent attacks on Ekaterina, Swales, and the missing Popescu; his vigor restored by their blood. These thoughts passed through his mind in a flash. In the same instant, he took in the cloaked figure, as the frightened crew had described. His eyes were piercing, face and hands stood out white as chalk. Then it dawned on Harrington, it had spoken to him. The Englishman cleared his throat. “Excuse me?”

  “I am glad you are here. You will find much of interest before the night is out.”

  “Interest?”

  “You appear to be searching for something.” He waved his hand at the opened box on the deck behind Harrington, then at the bar in his hand. “I understand, being a curious creature myself.”

  “Creature?”

  “The usage is incorrect? Forgive me. I have made a long study of your language. But it is quite possible I am a poor student.”

  “Who are you?”

  The creature smiled, showing sharp teeth. “Forgive me again. I am Dracula. Count Dracula.”

  The vampire returned the startled Englishman's stare and, taking him in, was reminded of the young man he'd left behind in his Transylvanian castle over four weeks since; a play thing for his brides. Jonathan Harker… now dead or something worse. He abandoned these thoughts and returned his attention to this one.

  “You are a scholar also, yes?” Dracula asked. His smile vanished. “But your curiosity puts you in danger. From books, you acquire knowledge but not understanding. You learn of things best left alone but have not the wisdom to leave them. Thus, you foolishly trespass.”

  Harrington opened his mouth to speak. Dracula stopped him with a gesture.

  “Your presence belies any denial, please. But allow me to sate your curiosity. Like you, I too am a reader. Through books I have come to know and love your great England. I long to go through the crowded streets, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its death, and the drama, the pleasure, the pain that makes what lies between. I am but a little way on the road I would travel. Soon, very soon, Whitby. Then… London. The great city that invites those willing to join in her… life. Unlike you, I will not be trespassing. I will be welcomed; celebrated as nobility.”

  “Nobility?” Harrington looked at the caskets about them. This was the Transylvanian nobleman spoken of, the owner of the boxes. How much worse the affair suddenly seemed to think this loathsome creature could pass itself off as human. He intended not only to feed off England but to walk among her people as one of them. “You are responsible for what has happened to the crew of this ship?”

  Count Dracula did not even consider the question but waved it away as a trifle. Though terrified, Harrington recognized his duty. Feigning a casualness he did not feel, he stepped toward his sack on the floor. “You are responsible for what is happening to Ekaterina?”

  “Delicious!” the dark one said with a laugh. His eyes glinted red.

  In that instant, Harrington's fear left him, replaced by fire. “I am going to kill you!”

  Dracula laughed again, a booming laugh to match the thunder.

  Harrington dove for the kit, from his knee grabbed the handmade cross and slid it across the deck in the monster's direction. It came to rest at his feet and, in the lamplight, threw an elongated shadow onto his legs. Dracula howled and jumped back shielding his eyes. He lashed out at a stack of cargo over his left shoulder, tearing the bindings and throwing down the boxes. A brown cloud erupted and the offending icon disappeared beneath a wave of sawdust. Dracula lashed out again, at the containers to the right, shoving a barrel over into the mix. As it toppled, the lid flew off spilling illuminating oil. The kerosene splashed, yellow and cold, across the deck, the fallen cargo, the tarped boxes, the cross lost somewhere below, and Harrington on his knees.

  The scholar sputtered, moving to rise, soaked in kerosene.

  The ship rolled. The pool of oil rushed back across the deck and splashed over the vampire's feet and up his legs. Dracula ignored the deluge, turning on Harrington, shrieking, “I am master. None… will master me!”

  Harrington, covered in oil and beyond caring, jumped forward and yanked the lantern from its bracket on the mast. “I will destroy you!”

  “And this ship? And her crew? And… your lady fair, your Kat-ya,” the vampire said, mocking him. “Will you burn her as well?”

  Harrington stared helplessly at the flame in his hand, the splashed oil, an
d the vampire. Swales was dead, the crew all but lost, Ekaterina on the verge of becoming one of these things! His home waited unknowingly to be next. He was out of weapons with which to fight this creature. If he didn't destroy him now, what else mattered? He raised the lantern and shouted, “I'll kill us all before I'll allow you to reach England!”

  Dracula snarled and stepped toward him.

  Harrington smashed the lamp on the deck. The kerosene erupted. The hold was aflame; the vampire on fire. Screaming, Harrington was burning too.

  “No,” Dracula shouted, stretching his arms, stretching his fingers to the overhead. “NO!” There followed a series of loud CRACKS, heard over the blaze and the storm as the battens above snapped and blew off. A tremendous gust followed as the hatchway doors flew up and open.

  Lightning flashed above the billowing canvas on the square-rigged foremast towering over the open hatch. The cold rain poured in and, while Harrington and the vampire screamed their lungs out, extinguished the fire. Harrington teetered in the gray mist, badly burned, and fell to his knees groaning. Dracula, burned as well, instead of buckling to the pain, glared and gritted his sharp teeth.

  Then Harrington, on his side in agony, witnessed the unbelievable again.

  The monster was there, then he wasn't. The wounded Englishman, his consciousness slipping, didn't know what happened. Suddenly all that remained were the red eyes and vicious fangs embodied in the form of a huge black wolf. On all fours before him, it growled fiercely, dripping saliva. The wounded scholar thought he was hallucinating. Then it happened again, this transformation. The wolf was gone and the vampire was back. But, with his return, Harrington saw that his ruined flesh was repaired, as if he'd never been burned.

  With an angry hiss, Dracula leapt at Harrington.

  * * *

  On deck, Amramoff stumbled, swimming as he walked, fighting to the fore of the ship against the wind and the waves. He'd spotted the open hatch doors. The Emperor alone knew how they'd come undone, but the battens were matchsticks. They had to be closed before the ship foundered and he was going to close them. Olgaren, holding on for life at the corner of the deckhouse, saw him and followed. Nobody, he thought, ought to face this sea alone. The storm was too devastatingly loud for either to hear much of anything, but they found each other with a nod of respect at the brink of the opening.

  Lightning flashed and Amramoff paused as they lifted the doors closed. “Did you see that?” he shouted, pointing below. Olgaren shrugged and waved at his ears. “DID YOU SEE THAT? Something moved… in the hold. SOMETHING… IN THE HOLD!”

  Olgaren, pushing the rain from his eyes with a soaked hand, stared. The hold was black as pitch. There was nothing. More, there couldn't be anything and he shouted as much back.

  They threw the doors shut. Amramoff grabbed a coiled line from the main mast pin rail and together they tied the covers down. The hatch secured, they fought their way back toward the stern.

  * * *

  Despite the blaze, Demeter's hold suffered surprisingly light damage. The rain had so quickly extinguished the fire that, outside of the spilled oil, little else had been consumed. The same could not be said for Harrington. His clothes were blackened rags, he was horribly burned and in agony.

  With the hatchway secured above, and the lamp broken, the hold was again in darkness. The downpour had stopped but the cargo was soaked and the air thick with steam. Dracula stepped from the swirling cloud, seeing as if in daylight, with murder in his eyes. He grabbed Harrington by the remnant of his coat front and lifted him, yowling, off the deck.

  Nearing madness, perhaps to block the soul-searing pain, Harrington's mind was flooded with questions. How could this creature accomplish such a transformation? What was he? Why did his clothing change with him? Then again, why not? Were not his clothes, all clothes, organic; made of clay like him? But how a wolf? And why a wolf? What had Oliver said, a rat, a bat… Poor Oliver!

  He was snapped from his delirious wanderings by the monster drawing him near. Their noses all but touched as he stared daggers into the Englishman's agonized eyes. Harrington saw the hate. He felt the heat, smelled the rot, of his acrid breath.

  “Impudence,” Dracula whispered acidly. “To match your wits against mine. I promise you a most terrible death.” Unable to escape, or even struggle, Harrington was helpless as the Count held him dangling above the deck. The vampire closed his eyes and quietly called, “Ekaterina.”

  “What do you want with her, you fiend?” Harrington cried. “Leave her alone!”

  Dracula merely smiled.

  “She won't come. I've seen to it,” he screamed through the pain. “She loves me. There's nothing you can do. She is released from your influence.”

  Dracula answered, “You are a fool,” and the between-decks door came open.

  Harrington gasped. There, on the ladder platform, free from her bindings, stood Ekaterina. Her right wrist was bruised, her left bleeding. She had not only come at the monster's call, but had injured herself in doing so. More, she had cast off Swales' shirt and now wore the white flowing dress she'd secreted aboard. Lit by the companionway lantern, she looked an angel. But could an angel be summoned by a demon? Despite the pain, and the vampire's grip, Harrington gasped, “Katya!”

  “Ekaterina,” Dracula said, beckoning the girl. “Come.”

  She seemed almost to float down the stairs and, as she drew near, Harrington was overcome by the sight. It was a bastardization of one he'd witnessed before. That fateful night her father and brothers began shooting, Ekaterina had looked down on him from her window wearing the same lovely dress. Now everything was different; tainted. The bodice hung untied, the cincture dangled loosely about her hips, the high neck was torn exposing the milk-white skin at her throat and shoulders. Beauty… dragged through hell. She continued to move, as if floating, across the hold; her full attention, her adoration, on Dracula as if the Englishman did not exist.

  Forcing Harrington to his knees, Dracula stared into Ekaterina's eyes, bored into her mind, commanding her without uttering a word. She obeyed, drawing the cincture from her waist, and letting her skirt dance on drafts of air in the cool hold. She stared unblinking at her master, twisting the ends of the belt around her fists, then turned to the crippled scholar.

  “Katya!” Harrington screamed. His scorched wounds weeping blood and fluid, Harrington lifted his hands to protect himself. Dracula slapped them down and he hadn't the strength to raise them again.

  With no indication she'd heard him, Ekaterina looped the sash about Harrington's neck and held the ends waiting. Dracula, holding the helpless Englishman, raised his red lips in a cruel smile and nodded his assent. Ekaterina obeyed, drawing tightly on the ends of the cincture. Harrington gasped, gagged. She pulled with all her might; harder, tighter. She gritted her teeth, and pulled. Sweat burst from her pale forehead, and she pulled. The garrote dug into Harrington's throat and was swallowed by the swelling flesh. All the while Ekaterina stared, unblinking, into the eyes of the vampire.

  Harrington's already burned throat turned white, then red. His breathless face went ash-gray, then cyanotic blue. His gagging halted; his breathing ceased. His dilated pupils disappeared as his eyes rolled into his head. Pin-point red petechial hemorrhages burst in clusters in his eyes. Accompanied by rumbling thunder, his lifeless eyes rolled down. His chin fell slack. His bloated, blue tongue dangled.

  “Excellent.”

  Ekaterina, smiled gratefully, relishing Dracula's praise. Her eyes still locked on her master, she loosed the cincture and let the strangled Harrington fall to the deck.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  In the hold, lamplight stealing in from the companionway, overtop of Harrington's burned and strangled corpse, Count Dracula lifted Ekaterina to him. Breathing heavily, she swooned and turned her head offering her master her naked throat and the bruised site of his earlier violations. He groaned and sank his teeth into her neck. The flesh tore as the wound reopened and Ekaterina cried out. Th
ere was a spurt of blood, her groan matching his, and the vampire drank.

  He drained her blood nearly to the end. The girl collapsed into Dracula's arms and still he drank. She moaned again and the vampire, feeling her life ebb, forced her away from him. He eased her to the floor at his feet.

  He turned from Ekaterina, grabbed Harrington as if his corpse weighed nothing, and lifted him onto his shoulder. He carried him up the straight ladder, pushed the hatchway open (breaking Amramoff's lashings), and stepped from the hold. The rain had stopped, the fog was thicker than ever. No one, save a vampire, could have seen their hand before their face. Dracula lowered Harrington into his arms and, moving through the dark and fog as if it were mid-day, carried him toward the port rail. (Intent on his mission, the vampire failed to notice Popescu's crucifix and rosary slip from Harrington's torn waistcoat pocket and fall to the deck.)

  At the bulwark, like the old cook throwing out galley scraps, Dracula chucked Harrington's body into the cold English Channel. He smiled triumphantly, watched the corpse disappear into the waters astern and for the longest time stared after it.

  When Dracula finally turned away, Ekaterina was behind him. It was no surprise. While her step was now as stealthy as that of a cat, he'd heard her as if she were the stomping Olgaren. Rivulets of blood ran down her neck and chest. She smiled. Her eyes glistened red by the light of the oil lamp and her now-elongated teeth indented her soft red lower lip. They stood together in the fog, on the foredeck, the wind whipping his black cloak and her white gown; the masters of the night.

  * * *

  Again in the hold, Dracula threw a tarp off the stacked cargo, pulled a lid off one of the boxes quite near his own, and dropped it to the side. Then with a grating scratch of wood he lifted the box, dumped a portion of its dirt onto the floor, and laid it back flat. Behind him, watching, covered in blood, Ekaterina hummed and ran her fingers through the tangles of her matted hair. Dracula stared, thinking of his wives and, strangely, taking the measure of his regret. The lusts that led him from his casket to this woman were gone.