by William Hill
The night manager had mumbled and muttered to himself as they hauled him back through the stone corridors and was now sitting between them on a red leather bench, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling steadily as he slept.
“You realize what this means, boy?” asked Van Helsing.
“Yes, master. I do.”
“It means that Transylvania was not the end of this business.”
The valet said nothing.
“You played your part extremely well tonight,” Van Helsing continued. “Without you, this matter may have ended very differently.”
The valet watched as his master’s lined, weathered face broke into a rare smile.
“It is possible,” he continued, “that we may make more of you than just a valet, Carpenter.”
9
A HARD DAY’S NIGHT
Frankenstein walked Jamie down a long gray corridor until they reached a white door with INFIRMARY stenciled on it in red letters. There was a rush of cold air as the giant man pushed it open and led Jamie inside.
Rows of empty beds ran down one side of the spotlessly clean room. Lying unconscious on one of them was the man who had been carried from the helicopter. The wound in his arm gaped horribly wide, and his face was ghostly pale. A steady stream of blood ran down a plastic tube from a hanging bag and disappeared into his uninjured arm.
At the far end, three frosted-glass doors were set into the wall, marked X-RAY, CT SCANNING, and THEATER. Through the one marked THEATER Jamie could see a frenzy of movement and hear raised voices and a steady mechanical beeping. There was a figure lying on a table, surrounded by white shapes and blocky rectangles of machinery. As he watched, a spray of blood, bright, garish red, splashed against the glass of the door, and Jamie’s stomach turned.
Then the door marked X-RAY was flung open, and a middle-aged man in a white coat hurried toward them, his face red and flustered. When he reached them, he stopped, took a PDA from his pocket and poised the stylus over it.
“Name?” he asked.
Jamie looked up at Frankenstein, who nodded.
“Jamie Carpenter,” he replied.
Surprise flashed across the doctor’s face, and Jamie wondered absently why his name seemed to provoke a startled reaction in everyone who heard it.
But it was a question for another time. He was so tired he could hardly see straight, his legs felt like they were made of wet clay, and it had taken an enormous effort to simply say his own name correctly.
“What are your symptoms?”
Jamie opened his mouth but could shape no further words. He looked helplessly up at Frankenstein, who took over.
“He is suffering from post-traumatic shock, his throat is severely bruised from attempted strangulation, and he is physically and mentally exhausted. He needs to rest. Immediately.”
The doctor nodded at this and, with surprising gentleness, took Jamie’s arm and led him to the nearest bed. Jamie sat on the starched white sheet, staring up at Frankenstein, dimly aware that he was complying with the doctor’s requests to open his eyes for examination, to follow a finger from left to right, to breathe in, hold it, and breathe out as the cold metal of the stethoscope was placed on his chest. The doctor examined his neck, where purple bruising was starting to rise in ugly, violent ridges, then placed a needle in his arm, attached a saline drip, and asked Frankenstein for a word in private. The two men walked quickly over to the door and began to converse in rapid whispers, Frankenstein casting his eyes over at Jamie every few seconds.
Jamie stared at him, his sluggish mind trying to frame the questions he wanted to ask the huge man. He found he was unable to do so; the words ran away from him like sand through his fingers. When the two men finished their conversation and made their way back toward him, he was only able to manage two.
“What happened?”
Frankenstein sat down on the bed next to him. Jamie heard the steel of the frame creak and felt himself slide an inch toward the monster as his huge weight tilted the bed. The doctor was attaching a second bag to the IV drip as Frankenstein spoke to him.
“Now is not the time for explanations,” he said. “You need to rest, and there are things I need to do. I will tell you as much as I can tomorrow.”
The doctor turned the valve on the second bag, and Jamie felt a glorious calm settle over him, like a warm blanket.
“You… promise?” he whispered, his eyes already closing, and as he drifted into gentle oblivion, he heard Frankenstein say that he did.
Frankenstein stood, silently watching the teenager. Jamie’s chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of deep sleep, and his face was peaceful. The doctor had told him that the boy would be out for at least twelve hours, but Frankenstein had ignored him. He found himself unable to look at the swollen purple of Jamie’s neck; it ignited a familiar rage inside him, a rage that, were he to give in to it, could only be satisfied by violence.
He pushed it down and continued to watch the boy. He had been doing so for a long time when there was a tap on the glass of the door behind him.
He turned to see Henry Seward looking in at him. The admiral beckoned him with a pale finger, and Frankenstein pushed open the infirmary door and stepped into the corridor.
“Walk with me to my quarters, Victor,” Seward said. His tone made it clear that it was not a request.
The two men walked down a series of gray corridors until they reached a plain metallic door. Seward placed his hand on a black panel set into the wall and lowered his face to the level of a red bulb just above it. A scarlet laser beam moved across the admiral’s retina, and the door opened with a complicated series of unlocking noises.
Henry Seward’s quarters could not have been more incongruous with their gray, military surroundings. As the metal door opened, the scent of hardwood drifted out into the corridor, mingled with the aromas of Darjeeling tea and rich Arabica coffee. The two men stepped inside.
This was only the third time that Frankenstein had visited the admiral’s private rooms since Seward had taken up residence. He had spent many afternoons and evenings in them when they had been occupied by Stephen Holmwood, and occasions too numerous to mention when the great Quincey Harker had been in charge. But Seward was different from those open, gregarious men; he kept his own counsel and guarded his privacy.
The door opened onto a wood-paneled drawing room, furnished in a style that was elegant and yet unmistakably official; worn leather armchairs flanked a fireplace that was no longer in use, separated from a mahogany desk by a beautiful Indian rug, now fraying slightly at the edges, that depicted a meditating Shiva, his vast form swathed in clouds. Two doors led from the rear of the room into what Frankenstein knew were a small kitchen and a modest bedroom.
Admiral Seward lowered himself into one of the armchairs and motioned for Frankenstein to do likewise. Frankenstein squeezed himself into the seat, the leather creaking as he did so. He declined when Seward offered him an open wooden box of Montecristo cigars, and waited for the director to light his cigar with a wooden match. Seward drew hard until the tapered end was glowing cherry red and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the air. Finally, he looked at Frankenstein.
“How did you know where the Carpenters were?”
Frankenstein bristled. “The boy is fine, sir, if that’s what you meant to ask.”
“I’m glad to hear it. But, no, it’s damn well not what I meant to ask. I meant to ask how you knew where the Carpenters were.”
“Sir-”
Seward cut him off. “ I didn’t know where they were, Victor. Nor did anyone else on this base. Do you know why?”
“I think-”
“Because not knowing where they were was the best possible way of keeping them safe!” Seward roared. “If one person knows, then very quickly two people will know, then four, and so on, and so on. If no one knows, nothing can happen to them. That’s how it works, Victor.”
“With all due respect, sir, it didn’t work tonight,” Frankenstein repl
ied evenly.
He was looking directly at the director, refusing to defer to him by looking away, and as he watched, he saw the anger in Seward’s eyes fade. He suddenly looked very tired. “Marie is really gone?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Alexandru has her?”
“It’s safe to assume so at this point, sir. Although I would still recommend we attempt to get confirmation.”
And find out if she’s still alive.
Seward nodded. “It may be difficult,” he said, slowly. “There will be a great reluctance to assist Julian’s family, in any way. It won’t matter that Marie and Jamie played no part in what happened.”
Anger flashed through Frankenstein. “It should matter, sir,” he said. “You know it should.”
“Perhaps it should. But it won’t.”
The two men sat in silence for several minutes, the admiral smoking his cigar, the monster wrestling with his anger, a task to which he devoted many of his waking hours. Eventually, Seward spoke again.
“What have you told him?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Frankenstein replied. “Yet.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m going to tell him what I think he needs to know. Hopefully that will be enough.”
“And if it isn’t? If he asks to be told everything? If he asks about his father? What will you do then?”
Frankenstein looked at the admiral. “You know where my loyalties lie,” he replied. “If he asks me, I will tell him whatever he wants to know. Including about his father.”
Seward stared at the huge man for a long moment, then abruptly stubbed out his half-smoked cigar and stood up.
“I have a report to write for the prime minister,” he said, his voice clipped and angry. “If you’ll excuse me?”
Frankenstein levered himself out of the armchair, which groaned with relief. He walked toward the door and was about to hit the button that released it when Seward called to him from next to his desk. He turned back.
“How did you know where they were, Victor?” Seward asked. He was obviously still angry, but there was the ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “It will go no further than this room. I just need you to tell me.”
Frankenstein smiled. He had a huge amount of respect for Henry Seward, had fought back-to-back with him in any number of dark corners of the globe. And though he would not compromise the oath he had sworn, as snow fell from the New York sky and 1928 turned into 1929, he could allow the director this one mystery solved.
“Julian chipped the boy when he was five, sir,” he said. “No one knew he’d done it, and I was the only person he gave the frequency to. I’ve known where he was every day for the last two years.”
Seward grinned, a wide smile full of nostalgia, which abruptly turned into a look of immense sorrow. “I suppose I should have expected nothing less,” the admiral replied. “From you, or from him. Good night, Victor.”
10
THE LYCEUM INCIDENT, PART III
Eaton Square, London
June 4, 1892
Jonathan Harker, Dr. John Seward, and Professor Abraham Van Helsing sat with their host in the drawing room of Arthur Holmwood’s town house on Eaton Square, waiting for Arthur’s serving girl to dispense coffee from a silver tray. She was dressed all in black; Arthur’s father, Lord Godalming, had passed away several months earlier, and the house was still in mourning.
In the middle of the table lay the letter that had been delivered to Van Helsing early that morning, summoning him to an emergency meeting with the prime minister at Horse Guards.
“Thank you, Sally,” said Holmwood, when the coffee was served. The girl curtsied quickly, then backed out of the drawing room, closing the doors behind her.
The men poured cream into their cups, took biscuits from the plate, sipped their coffees, and sat back in their chairs. For a contented moment, no one spoke, then Jonathan Harker asked Van Helsing about the previous night’s business.
The old professor set his cup back on the table and looked around at his three friends. They had been through so much together, these four men: had stared into the face of pure evil and refused to yield, chasing Count Dracula across the wilds of Eastern Europe to the mountains of Transylvania, where they had made their stand at the foot of the ancient castle that bore their quarry’s name.
One of their number had not made it home, murdered on the Borgo Pass by the gypsies who had served the count.
Ah, Quincey, thought Van Helsing. You were the bravest of us all.
“Professor?” It was Harker who spoke, and Van Helsing realized that he had been asked a question.
“Yes, Jonathan,” he replied. “I’m sorry, last night’s exertions have left me tired. Forgive me.”
Harker gave him a gentle look that told him clearly that requesting forgiveness was unnecessary, and Van Helsing continued.
He told them of his adventure beneath the Lyceum, the orator in him taking satisfaction as their eyes widened at his telling of the tale. When he was finished, silence descended on the drawing room as the men digested the professor’s story. Eventually, Harker spoke.
“So it’s as we feared,” he said, his face displaying a calm that his voice was not quite capable of matching. “The evil did not die with the count.”
“It would appear not,” replied Van Helsing. “As to how, I confess the answer escapes me. I can only presume that poor Lucy was not the first to have been transformed by the count’s vile fluids.”
Seward and Holmwood flinched. The mere mention of Lucy Westenra’s name was still a source of great pain to both men.
“Why now, though?” asked Harker. “Why is the evil spreading only now, after the creature itself is dead?”
“I don’t know, Jonathan,” replied Van Helsing, truthfully. “Perhaps the count guarded his dark power, hoarded it, if you will. Perhaps such restrictions have been lifted with his death. But I merely speculate.” He looked at his friends. “And I must ask the same of you all,” he continued. “I ask each of you to tell me whether you think the poor business of Harold Norris was an aberration, or a harbinger of things to come. I shall depart for Whitehall shortly, a summons I am compelled to obey, and I will be expected to provide the prime minister with answers.”
Silence settled uncomfortably over the drawing room.
Tell me it was an isolated incident, thought Van Helsing. One of you tell me that. The alternative is too horrible.
“I fear this is only the beginning.” It was Arthur Holmwood who spoke, his voice even and firm. “I believe that the situation is only likely to worsen. I wish I could honestly say otherwise, but I cannot. Can any of you?”
His face did not betray the fear that the old professor knew he must be feeling, nor the great sorrow with which the death of his father had filled him. Van Helsing felt an immense warmth for his friend, who had been dragged unwillingly into the terrible events of the previous year for no greater a crime than proposing marriage to the girl he loved, but had conducted himself with enormous courage and dignity as the matter had taken its course.
“I cannot,” said Dr. Seward.
“Neither can I,” said Jonathan Harker.
The professor nodded, curtly, trying not to show the dread that had settled in the pit of his stomach. “So we are in agreement,” he said, gripping the arms of his chair and pushing himself to his feet. “It is my sincere hope that we are wrong, but I feel it in my heart that we are not. I will convey our conclusion to the prime minister. Let us hope that he surprises us with wisdom enough to heed our warning.”
The valet brought the carriage to a halt outside the grand Horse Guards building, dismounted and helped Van Helsing down onto the pavement. Two soldiers of the Household Cavalry, resplendent in their blue tunics and gold ropes, immediately approached and asked them their business. The valet produced the letter from inside his top coat and passed it to the soldiers, who examined it carefully before standing aside.
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Inside the arched entrance to the building an elderly butler, clad in immaculate morning dress, informed them that the prime minister would receive them in the study of the commander in chief of the British Army on the first floor. He hovered respectfully as Van Helsing removed his coat and handed it to his valet.
“Wait here, boy,” the old man said. “I doubt I shall be long.”
The valet nodded and took a seat in a high-backed wooden chair by the entrance, folding his master’s coat across his knees.
Van Helsing followed the butler up a wide staircase, his footsteps muffled by a deep red carpet, the oil-painted eyes of the greatest heroes of the British Empire staring silently down at him from the walls.
He was led along a wide corridor on the first floor, turning left and right and left again, until they reached a large oak door, which the butler pushed open. He stepped inside and the professor followed.
“Professor Abraham Van Helsing,” the butler announced, then backed silently out of the study. The old man watched the servant close the door, then turned and looked at the six men gathered at the far end of the room.
Seated at an enormous mahogany desk was William Gladstone, the prime minister, looking expectantly at Van Helsing. Flanking him to the left and right were five of the most powerful men in the Empire; Earl Spencer, first lord of the Admiralty; Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, secretary of state for war; George Robinson, secretary of state for the Colonies and first marquess of Ripon; Herbert Asquith, home secretary; and Archibald Primrose, foreign secretary and fifth earl of Rosebery.
What a rogues’ gallery this is, thought Van Helsing.
He walked across the study. The wall to his left was dominated by a tall row of windows, through which could be seen the green expanse of St. James’s Park. To his right, an open fire roared in an ornamental marble fireplace. Lying on the floor between him and the desk was an immaculate tiger skin, the head, paws, and tail still attached and forming a six-pointed star on the dark floorboards. Beyond the rug was a wooden chair, positioned directly in front of the one in which the prime minister was sitting.