They did the same among the bunkers, where gunpowder was stored for the making of the shells. Then they joined the Van Helsings at the ruins of the front gate.
“Aye, ’tis going to be a bonny boom.” Renfield beamed. “A splendid show. Pretty flowers of flame. A bouquet of boom. Pity we’ll miss it.”
They waited for Dracula, who soon arrived, drenched in blood. When Lucille went to him she inadvertently clutched his limp arm and he winced.
“Let us remove ourselves,” Van Helsing said and led the way out of the compound. “I fear that we were expected and our enemy may have reinforcements nearby.”
“’Twill be a most exhilarating cataclysm, Master,” Renfield said to Dracula. “The best I ever rigged. Cannae we tarry and watch?”
“No tarrying,” the vampire replied as he held his injured arm, flinched. Cars and trucks rushed past as the workers fled, some of them yawping at Dracula.
Lucille saw two Rottweilers sprint out of the gates and down the street, their claws clicking on the bricks like high heels on terrazzo. The dogs ran with their mouths agape in what could only be described as joy, a jubilance known only by those who face freedom for the first time after a life of indenture.
The Van Helsing Bentley was up the block. The group ran across the brick-paved street to where it was parked. Midway Dracula staggered and fell. Lucille and Harker were instantly at his side, helped him to his feet, and carried him to the Bentley.
Van Helsing held the car door open so that the vampire could be deposited into the back seat. Van Helsing sat himself behind the wheel, and Lucille took the back seat alongside the Prince. Harker was halfway into the car when he stopped to look around.
“Where’s Renfield?” he asked.
“He was right behind us,” Lucille said. She searched the street, but there was no sign of the British Sergeant.
“We’ll go back for him,” Van Helsing suggested.
“Father,” Lucille said. “There is something wrong with the Prince.”
“No,” Dracula protested. “Find the Sergeant.”
But it was evident that the vampire’s strength was failing. The cause of his sudden weakness Lucille could not imagine. Wasn’t he immortal, shrugging off bullet wounds as though they were mosquito bites?
“You push off,” Harker said. “I’ll find Renfield. I have an idea where he went.”
He leaned into Lucille. “See to the Prince. I’ll meet you in Brasov. Go before the explosions alert every soldier in the area.”
And he ran back toward the factory.
The Professor started the car and drove away. They had not driven a mile when the concussion of an explosion made their car shudder on its wheels. Lucille glanced back through the rear window and saw the bright, early dawn that had been created by the missing Sergeant.
FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER
(transcribed from shorthand)
My original reconnaissance was from the roof of a six-storey office building just to the north and across the street from the munitions factory. From that height we had a clear view of the entire prison compound and a glimpse of what the factory roof windows allowed. Renfield had accompanied me on the earlier jaunt to recce the targets for his own specialty. We spent an entire day and much of a night watching the location through our field glasses.
I now assumed that the barmy Sergeant had returned to our roost to watch the spectacle he had wrought. A box seat for the best show in town.
The front door was ajar, its glass shattered, glittering shards scattered across the vestibule. Renfield had obviously broken in. He was here. I entered the building at a full sprint, climbing the stairs two and three at a time.
I was on the third floor when the first explosion blew out the stairwell windows. I threw myself to the floor. Broken glass rained down upon me. I pushed myself back to my feet, gingerly brushed the splinters from my clothes, and looked out the empty pane. I saw a series of massive explosions as the factory was torn apart before my very eyes. Bricks flew into the air and rained down like stony hail. Debris pelted the street, the barracks, and outbuildings.
This conflagration was followed by secondary explosions as gas lines blew, spewing flame as if from a dragon’s mouth, accompanied by a deafening roar.
Then the pallets of shells began to go off. One pallet of artillery went up in a cataclysm of flame and shrapnel, then another and another in a chain reaction of phenomenal proportions, some shells arcing into the night sky like Jubilee rockets.
I could not pull myself away from the pyrotechnics, hoping that Renfield was enjoying his handiwork. I thought I heard his childish laughter from somewhere above me.
Then a low rumbling was added to the boom and tumult of the unending eruption outside. It took me a few seconds to recognise the sound, footsteps in the stairwell below me, a great many feet pounding the steps.
I popped through the third-floor access door, closed it behind me, and found myself in a dark hallway lined with offices. Cracking the stairwell door once again, I was able to look down and see a dozen SS troops hurrying up the stairs, guns at the ready. They raced right past my floor and to the roof. I closed the door and took a deep breath and tried to assess the situation.
Obviously I could not go up or down. I hoped I was in error about Renfield’s destination. This hope was proved wrong in a short time as the Nazis descended, at a slower pace this time, two of them dragging an unconscious Renfield between them.
My hand went to my machine gun, but no further. I knew that any action would be suicidal. Nevertheless I felt ashamed at my timidity. Ashamed and a coward.
Then I heard a German voice boom in the stairwell. “Search the building! Find the others! Search every floor!”
TO: CSS REINHARD HEYDRICH, RSHA, REICHSFUHRER-SS
FROM: SS MAJOR WALTRAUD REIKEL
CC: HEINRICH HIMMLER, REICHSFUHRER-SS
(via diplomatic pouch)
MOST SECRET
In regards to your last communiqué, I will respond to your questions in the same order they were asked.
1) We were prepared for the assault. It was expected that the enemy would attack at night and in a clandestine manner. But the actual incursion was prosecuted by a much larger force than expected. According to the men present there were fifteen to thirty aggressors, armed with mortars and machine guns in an organised and formidable assault. It was only due to our preparation and vigilance locating the enemy’s reconnaissance post, plus constant surveillance, that we were rewarded with the capture of our prisoner. To be fair, we underestimated our foe and their commitment to the raid. We will not do so again.
2) The goal was not to defend the factory or to protect the list. They were only decoys, bait for our trap. The destruction of the munitions is regrettable, but I remind you that the Fuhrer himself gave the order to capture this entity “at all costs.”
3) No, we did not capture the object of this operation. My failure. If someone must be punished then I am that person. I am ready to accept my reassignment. Send me to the Russian Front.
4) We did lure the one you want into our snare. Evidence of the entity’s predation was found on some of our dead. (The corpses were in poor condition, due to the ravages of the fire and explosives. We were left with little to examine.) So the entity was among the raiders and participated in the attack. On this level, our plan was efficacious. We did draw out our quarry. We can do so again.
5) The personage we did capture will lead us to our prey. I am confident in this. He is obviously one of the British spies rumoured to be operating in our area. As such, he must be in contact with and even be a member of the underground leadership. The capture and death of these terrorists will be a great triumph for us. I am sure that the original object of our ambuscade is close to their inner circle. We will proceed to interrogate the captured individual (who is shamming a mental deficiency at the moment. See attached transcript). He will be broken. They all break.
If he does not know the information
we seek, he can be used as bait. If they will risk so much for a mere list, they will risk even more for one of their own. And this time we will be even better prepared.
Heil Hitler.
EXCERPTED FROM THE UNPUBLISHED NOVEL THE DRAGON PRINCE AND I
by Lenore Van Muller
The ride from Sfantu Gheorghe was perilous and distressing in so many ways. At their first attempt to flee the city they found roadblocks no matter which way they turned. But the local partisans had prepared for just such an eventuality. All Van Helsing had to do was look for chalk marks.
Hastily sketched arrows on the corners of buildings and light poles showed him where to turn or not; etched swastikas warned of a German roadblock ahead. These guiding marks finally enabled them to escape Sfantu Gheorghe.
Once outside the city limits they thought they were free, but then the Professor spied chalk on a concrete kilometre marker, the crudely drawn face of a pig. He slowed, confused.
Then Van Helsing drove on. He and his daughter were debating the significance of this symbol, whether it even had any relevance to them, when their headlights illuminated a farmer standing at the side of the road. The man was accompanied by a great spotted sow tethered to a rope. This most unusual apparition in the middle of the night, plus the previous curious marking, convinced Van Helsing to stop their car.
“A beautiful evening,” Van Helsing said through the car window. “Walking your pig?”
“She has trouble sleeping when the army trucks make all that noise setting up roadblocks and all.”
“Roadblocks?” Lucille asked, turning from Dracula, who lay limp and unmoving.
“On the road ahead of you,” the farmer said, a lean, weathered man with silver whiskers and rheumy eyes.
“I, too, am annoyed at the sound of army trucks,” Van Helsing said. “I wish there were a way to avoid the nuisance.”
“Follow me and Pippi then,” the farmer advised. “And turn off your lights.”
Van Helsing flicked off his headlights and used the pale hindquarters of the sow as a pink beacon to guide him down the dark dirt road.
The path was barely two ruts between freshly plowed fields. Pippi had a saucy stride that shimmied like a Paris streetwalker. Though malapert, the pig’s gait was hardly speedy, and Van Helsing had to keep the car engine barely above an idle.
Lucille turned back to Dracula, who was slumped against the seat, eyes closed, mouth open as if in the midst of a silent scream. He was obviously in pain, his strength fading, such an uncommon feeling that he found no way to fight the wave of nausea and vitiation that was overwhelming him.
Lucille was equally overcome by a sense of helplessness. She had spent enough time assisting her father and absorbing his medical tutelage to qualify as a nurse, but that knowledge was inadequate to the uniqueness of this man. He was cold to the touch, but he was always cold, and she did not know what to do to make him comfortable.
She had to face the fact that he was not human and, therefore, the usual remedies would not be effective. How were she and her father to find a way to heal him?
“Father, we must hurry,” she said once again. She tried to keep the fear out of her voice, but failed.
Van Helsing poked his head out of the window and addressed the farmer. “Sir, is it possible that we could put Pippi in the trunk of our vehicle and move a little faster?”
“Pippi’s susceptible to sickness when she rides in motorcars,” the farmer explained. “Not much farther, though.”
They finally came to a ramshackle shed at the junction of two dirt roads. The farmer brought his pig to a halt, leaned into the car.
“Take this road to the left here. Follow it until you meet up with the paved road again,” he instructed. “That will put the roadblock behind you. From what I hear, it is clear sailing from there.”
“Thank you, sir,” Van Helsing said. “And I hope Pippi has sweet dreams.”
The old man raised his right arm in a bras d’honneur, flexing his elbow while clutching his bicep with the other hand. Not the Nazi salute, but one Lucy had seen many a partisan use.
“Fuck Hitler!” he announced smartly.
The old man grinned, showing more gums than teeth, and then walked back the way he had come, his sauntering sow following.
It was a slow two kilometres farther down the designated road, if it could be called such. Still circumspect with his headlights, Van Helsing had to lean forward, hunched over the steering wheel, to make out the ruts he was following. After an interminable drive the car lurched onto pavement again.
Lucille glanced out the back window, and she could see the military vehicles a half kilometre behind, their headlights illuminating the soldiers. They were stopping every car and truck leaving Sfantu Gheorghe. Van Helsing waited until they crested a hill and were securely out of sight before he turned his headlights back on. Then he was able to speed up, and he did so with fervour.
Feeling his daughter’s distress and impatience, he pressured the gas pedal and sped toward Brasov.
The rest of the ride was uneventful. Lucille’s concern for the weakening Dracula predominated her thoughts. She watched over him, keeping his head in her lap.
He lay in a near swoon, his mind floating in and out of focus as the poison spread through his body. He tried to fix on to something, anything to maintain some hold on reality, struggling to remain conscious.
He concentrated on the woman hovering over him, her face wrought with concern. Who was this charming but formidable creature? So fearless and deadly, so fierce a beauty with moments of childlike enthusiasms and joy. How all of these contradictory aspects could be contained in one woman was amazing to him. And a godsend. If anyone was to shepherd him into this astonishing new world, it was she.
If he survived.
Finally they reached their home, and Van Helsing moved to help Lucille carry the vampire into the house. The Prince surprised them by pulling away from their aid.
“I can walk,” he gasped. His words were in stark contrast to his abilities as he immediately fell to one knee. There were no more protests as father and daughter returned to their burden.
Van Helsing steered them to his clinic, the section of the house he used for visiting patients.
Once there they set Dracula in the examining chair. While Lucille turned on the lights, the Professor cut away the vampire’s shirt to reveal his wound.
“Can you tell me what your distress is?” Van Helsing asked. “I am not edified in your . . . the specifics of your physiology.”
“I was stabbed,” Dracula said. He craned his head to examine the wound. There was a seep of dark fluid, not quite blood, a darker, more viscous liquid.
“Indeed, there is a small puncture in your anterior thoracic region, between the pectoralis major and the latissimus dorsi.” Van Helsing probed the area. “But that is mostly thick muscle. No vital organs.”
“You have been stabbed and even shot before and bore no permanent damage,” Lucille said. “I have seen this.”
“I think the blade might have been made of silver,” Dracula said. “Why that would be, I do not know. Silver cannot keep an edge and serves badly as a blade.”
“Some of the ceremonial daggers that the SS carry are made of silver,” Lucille explained.
“Silver is detrimental to you?” Van Helsing asked.
“Extremely,” Dracula answered. “It is a poison to me.”
“Interesting,” Van Helsing mused, poking the cut with his scalpel.
“Is there some kind of antidote?” Lucille asked.
“None that I know,” Dracula said. “I am not that studied in my own physiology, actually.”
“Fascinating,” the Professor exclaimed excitedly. “This was why I left you alive. There are so many questions to be answered about your species.”
“The most important one right now is how we heal him,” Lucille chastised her father.
“Of course, of course.” Van Helsing turned a gooseneck lamp to s
hine on the wound. There were faint scars from the recent bullet wounds, already healed. But there was also a raw, blackened rip in the vampire’s pale flesh, and poisonous tendrils emanated away from it under the skin. Lucille could see them growing as she watched, tiny tributaries branching away, spreading across his chest.
“The poison is spreading rapidly,” she told her father.
“I see it,” the Professor said. “But I do not know how to stop it. Antibiotics, maybe?”
“There must be a bit of the evil metal still within me. You must excise it.” Dracula winced under the prodding of the scalpel as Van Helsing probed the wound.
“A bit of silver in the wound, you say?” Van Helsing asked, frowning.
“Yes, quickly please,” Dracula hissed between gritted teeth. “And you must also remove the diseased flesh.”
“Much like cutting away gangrene or rotted tissue,” Lucille said. She went to the operating tray, filled it with her father’s instruments. She dipped each one in alcohol, not wanting to waste time heating the autoclave.
“The wound does not bleed much,” Van Helsing observed.
“Blood is something I take, not easily grant,” Dracula told him.
“Are you sure this is a recent wound?” Van Helsing asked. “The necrosis is at an advanced stage.”
“Necrosis?” Dracula asked.
“Dead tissue” was the answer from Lucille.
Dracula laughed. “I am, after all, the walking dead,” he said. “Excise the silver, please, before more of my flesh is poisoned.”
“First some anesthesia,” Van Helsing proposed.
“Anesthesia. Another new word for my vocabulary,” Dracula said. “Explicate, please.”
“A pain-killing drug,” Lucille told him and went to the cabinet where they kept the vials under lock and key.
“I am immune to such.” Dracula shook his head. “If pain mitigation were possible for me I would have succumbed to such a long time past. Please, cut out the corruption. I can feel it proliferate as we speak.”
And the poison was doing just that. Lucille could see the black spider veins coursing under the calcimine-like derma.
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