In the Footsteps of Dracula

by Stephen Jones

  Cydonian thought about Paradis-LaCroix—and how much of Switzerland Dracula’s corporation actually owned. And he thought about how many leaders of the old Soviet Union had siphoned off funds into private Swiss bank accounts. Accounts that could be drained, or expanded, by someone with the vampire’s influence. And he thought about the tonnes of communications hardware orbiting the earth, and about how many were built by the countless businesses hidden behind dummy corporations, themselves a front for PLC. Satellites that could relay plenty of signals, other than multi-channel television systems. Signals such as missile launch codes.

  Yes, he believed Dracula could do it.

  Cydonian started to rise. “I don’t think we have anything more to discuss, Count. If—”

  “Sit down.”

  Cydonian dropped back in the seat as though a weight had been dropped on him. Even though Dracula hadn’t even raised his voice, Cydonian had responded automatically—he was a kid again, hugging concrete because his drill-sergeant had ordered another hundred push-ups.

  “I have no interest in an unhealthy world. Once the Russian civil war is under way to my satisfaction, I will pass on to the Agency effective, total cures for all serum-carried disease. Like the hepatitis variants. Not simple vaccines, you understand—but methods to eradicate the diseases entirely. Plans to destroy bacterial and viral disease are also well in hand—though here we must go carefully. PLC doesn’t want to release another HIV on the world—not even deliberately.

  “In the meantime, one of my subsidiaries—known worldwide for its confectionery—is going into the soft drinks business.”

  Cydonian shook his head. “Soda?” This was getting beyond him.

  “After the war, whilst the Americans and Soviets were busy stealing rocket scientists from the Nazis, I was much more interested in their biochemists. Many were helped across the border into Switzerland, where their research was allowed to proceed unchecked.”

  Cydonian made a connection. “The vampire factor!”

  “Indeed. Once the wartime bombing raids—those in which I had a hand—removed all records of their work and experiments, there was nothing left for anyone to pick over. I had the scientists; I had their minds. The memory of Projekt Nachtzehrer died with the Third Reich.”

  “You already owned Laboratoire Paradis,” commented Cydonian, thinking back to what he’d read.

  “And a smaller concern in Spain. Both countries—Spain and Switzerland—escaped the ravages of the war. By 1946 work into the vampire factor was well beyond anything Hitler had managed.”

  “And you found it.” Cydonian tried to move, but found he couldn’t twitch much more than a finger.

  “Better yet—I found the Dracula factor!” The vampire stood, and for the first time Cydonian got a real sense of his height and presence. Even from a hologram.

  “You know that before a human can be reborn a vampire, they must first drink a vampire’s blood. Only then can they experience the little death: be brought across to the world of the undead.” Dracula walked around to the front of the desk and sat casually on it. “It took years for research and techniques to catch up with the idea—but eventually we found it: the factor in my blood that makes me who I am, and ensures my disciples need never die. Biology, Cydonian—I told you it would define the 21st century.”

  “What you going to do with this . . . factor? Poison the water?”

  “I told you—we’re going into the drinks business. Americans so love their soft drinks. The factor can be included perfectly safely in just about any drink you might name. Colas, club soda, root beer.” He waved a hand toward Cydonian’s empty glass. “Branch water . . .”

  The only part of Cydonian that was moving was the sweat: still trickling down his back. That and his eyes. They flashed back and forth between the glass and the Count’s smug face.

  “You may already have noticed one effect: even across this satellite link—through a holographic image—you are a victim to my will. Intriguing, isn’t it. How the most recent advances in technology can still be vessels for the most ancient gifts.”

  “You’re going to make me a motherfucking vampire! You bastard! You gave your word, you—!” He felt the instant Dracula paralyzed his larynx. He was left silently flapping his mouth like a beached fish.

  “Please, Cydonian. I abhor profanity; no matter the situation. Rest assured you have my word: I have no intention of bringing you across. That would serve no purpose. I told you I have no use for a world filled with vampires; but mortal servants are another matter. The blood factor gives me total control over the human mind. A constantly reproducing pool of labor—any part of which can be brought across as the whim takes me.

  “Hitler’s astrologers were correct, in their way. But it begins in Switzerland—not Germany.

  “What I do need is a salesman: someone who will persuade the Agency’s Director that my civil war is justified; ensure the FDA finds nothing to alarm it—perhaps buy anyone who becomes too annoying a soda . . .

  “I can provide the advertising: make the market feel secure in what it’s buying. Your brother-in-law is in imports, I believe?”

  Cydonian mentally raved and tore at his paralysis. He’d been set-up from the start. His position in the Company; Jon . . .

  Light spread across the holograph screen from over Cydonian’s shoulder, instantly destroying the 3-D effect. Two shadows briefly fluttered against the ghostly image of Dracula. His two goons. Cydonian felt hands locking under his arms, raising him up.

  Something approaching control returned to his legs, and he could just about stand. He found himself looking up into the face of the giant. There was something wrong; something different.

  It was the teeth. The fangs.

  The giant grinned, displaying enlarged, needle-sharp fangs. He looked like some kind of blunt-headed shark.

  Cydonian couldn’t speak, couldn’t express his confusion. But it must have shown on his face.

  “Biology, Cydonian,” Dracula’s assured voice came to him as the giant raised a huge hand, and carefully peeled the skin off like a pale glove. “Grown in PLC laboratories from fetal human cells. For a short period, it gives us a certain tolerance to some of the more traditional methods of detection.”

  The skin dropped to the floor like a snake’s discarded scales. The giant took Cydonian’s shoulder and gently guided him toward the white cubicle. This time, the light looked much too threatening.

  “Adam was rejected from the Garden for disobeying his master,” the Count continued. “I will be taking no chances.”

  CHARLAINE HARRIS is the New York Times best-selling mystery author of the Sookie Stackhouse “Southern Vampire Mysteries” novels, which began with Dead Until Dark in 2001 and concluded with the thirteenth volume, Dead Ever After, in 2013. It was followed by the collection Dead But Not Forgotten: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse. The popular HBO-TV show based on the books, True Blood (2008–14), starred Anna Paquin as the telepathic waitress.

  More recently, she has written the “Midnight, Texas” trilogy, comprising Midnight Crossroad, Day Shift, and Night Shift, and with Toni L.P. Kelner she has co-edited a number of urban fantasy anthologies, including Many Bloody Returns, Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, Home Improvement: Undead Edition, and An Apple for the Creature.

  Charlaine Harris has won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery, the Science Fiction Romance Newsletter’s Sapphire Award, and two Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Awards.

  She lives in a small town in southern Arkansas with her husband, three children, a duck and three dogs.

  Dracula Night

  Charlaine Harris

  With humans and vampires now sharing an uneasy co-existence, Sookie Stackhouse finds herself invited to a birthday party for the Count himself . . .

  I found the invitation in the mailbox at the end of my driveway. I had to lean out of my car window to open it, because I’d paused on my way to work after remembering I hadn’t checked my mail in a coupl
e of days. My mail was never interesting. I might get a flier for Dollar General or Wal-Mart, or one of those ominous mass mailings about pre-need burial plots.

  Today, after I’d sighed at my energy bill and my cable bill, I had a little treat: a handsome, heavy, buff-colored envelope that clearly contained some kind of invitation. It had been addressed by someone who’d not only taken a calligraphy class but passed the final with flying colors.

  I got a little pocketknife out of my glove compartment and slit open the envelope with the care it deserved. I don’t get a lot of invitations, and when I do, they’re usually more Hallmark than watermark. This was something to be savored. I pulled out the stiff folded paper carefully, and opened it. Something fluttered into my lap: an enclosed sheet of tissue. Without absorbing the revealed words, Iran my finger over the embossing. Wow.

  I’d strung out the preliminaries as long as I could. I bent to actually read the italic typeface.

  Eric Northman

  and the Staff of Fangtasia

  Request the honor of your presence

  at Fangtasia’s annual party

  to celebrate the birthday of

  the Lord of Darkness

  Prince Dracula

  On January 13, 10:00 P.M.

  music provided by the Duke of Death

  Dress Formal

  RSVP

  I read it twice. Then I read it again.

  I drove to work in such a thoughtful mood that I’m glad there wasn’t any other traffic on Hummingbird Road. I took the left to get to Merlotte’s, but then I almost sailed right past the parking lot. At the last moment, I braked and turned in to navigate my way to the parking area behind the bar that was reserved for employees.

  Sam Merlotte, my boss, was sitting behind his desk when I peeked in to put my purse in the deep drawer in his desk that he let the servers use. He had been running his hands over his hair again, because the tangled red-gold halo was even wilder than usual. He looked up from his tax form and smiled at me.

  “Sookie,” he said, “how are you doing?”

  “Good. Tax season, huh?” I made sure my white T-shirt was tucked in evenly so that the “Merlotte’s” embroidered over my left breast would be level. I flicked one of my long blonde hairs off my black pants. I always bent over to brush my hair out so my ponytail would look smooth. “You not taking them to the CPA this year?”

  “I figure if I start this early, I can do them myself.”

  He said that every year, and he always ended up making an appointment with the CPA, who always had to file for an extension.

  “Listen, did you get one of these?” I asked, extending the invitation.

  He dropped his pen with some relief and took the sheet from my hand. After scanning the script, he said, “No. They wouldn’t invite many shifters, anyway. Maybe the local packmaster, or some supe who’d done them a significant service . . . like you.”

  “I’m not supernatural,” I said, surprised. “I just have a . . . problem.”

  “Telepathy is a lot more than a problem,” Sam said. “Acne is a problem. Shyness is a problem. Reading other people’s minds is a gift.”

  “Or a curse,” I said. I went around the desk to toss my purse in the drawer, and Sam stood up. I’m around five foot six, and Sam tops me by maybe three inches. He’s not a big guy, but he’s much stronger than a plain human his size, since Sam’s a shape-shifter.

  “Are you going to go?” he asked. “Halloween and Dracula’s birthday are the only holidays vampires observe, and I understand they can throw quite a party.”

  “I haven’t made up my mind,” I said. “When I’m on my break later, I might call Pam.” Pam, Eric’s second-in-command, was as close to a friend as I had among the vampires.

  I reached her at Fangtasia pretty soon after the sun went down. “There really was a Count Dracula? I thought he was made up,” I said after telling her I’d gotten the invitation.

  “There really was,” Pam said. “Vlad Tepes. He was a Wallachian king whose capital city was Târgovişte, I think.” Pam was quite matter-of-fact about the existence of a creature I’d thought was a joint creation of Bram Stoker and Hollywood. “Vlad III was more ferocious and bloodthirsty than any vampire, and this was when he was a live human. He enjoyed executing people by impaling them on huge wooden stakes. They might last for hours.”

  I shuddered. Ick.

  “His own people regarded him with fear, of course. But the local vamps admired Vlad so much they actually brought him over when he was dying, thus ushering in the new era of the vampire. After monks buried him on an island called Snagov, he rose on the third night to become the first modern vampire. Up until then, the vampires were like . . . well, disgusting. Completely secret. Ragged, filthy, living in holes in cemeteries, like animals. But Vlad Dracul had been a ruler, and he wasn’t going to dress in rags and live in a hole for any reason.” Pam sounded proud.

  I tried to imagine Eric wearing rags and living in a hole, but it was almost impossible. “So Stoker didn’t just dream the whole thing up based on folktales?”

  “Just parts of it. Obviously, he didn’t know a lot about what Dracula, as he called him, really could or couldn’t do, but he was so excited at meeting the Prince that he made up a lot of details he thought would give the story zing. It was just like Anne Rice meeting Louis: an early Interview with the Vampire. Dracula really wasn’t too happy afterward that Stoker caught him at a weak moment, but he did enjoy the name recognition.”

  “But he won’t actually be there, right? I mean, vampires’ll be celebrating this all over the world.”

  Pam said, very cautiously, “Some believe he shows up somewhere every year, makes a surprise appearance. That chance is so remote, his appearance at our party would be like winning the lottery. Though some believe it could happen.”

  I heard Eric’s voice in the background saying, “Pam, who are you talking to?”

  “Okay,” Pam said, the word sounding very American with her slight British accent. “Got to go, Sookie. See you then.”

  As I hung up the office phone, Sam said, “Sookie, if you go to the party, please keep alert and on the watch. Sometimes vamps get carried away with the excitement on Dracula Night.”

  “Thanks, Sam,” I said. “I’ll sure be careful.” No matter how many vamps you claimed as friends, you had to be alert. A few years ago the Japanese had invented a synthetic blood that satisfies the vampires’ nutritional requirements, which has enabled the undead to come out of the shadows and take their place at the American table. British vampires had it pretty good, too, and most of the Western European vamps had fared pretty well after the Great Revelation (the day they’d announced their existence, through carefully chosen representatives). However, many South American vamps regretted stepping forward, and the bloodsuckers in the Muslim countries—well, there were mighty few left. Vampires in the inhospitable parts of the world were making efforts to immigrate to countries that tolerated them, with the result that our Congress was considering various bills to limit undead citizens from claiming political asylum. In consequence, we were experiencing an influx of vampires with all kinds of accents as they tried to enter America under the wire. Most of them came in through Louisiana, since it was notably friendly to the Cold Ones, as Fangbanger Xtreme called them.

  It was more fun thinking about vampires than hearing the thoughts of my fellow citizens. Naturally, as I went from table to table, I was doing my job with a big smile, because I like good tips, but I wasn’t able to put my heart into it tonight. It had been a warm day for January, way into the fifties, and people’s thoughts had turned to spring.

  I try not to listen in, but I’m like a radio that picks up a lot of signals. Some days, I can control my reception a lot better than other days. Today, I kept picking up snippets. Hoyt Fortenberry, my brother’s best friend, was thinking about his mom’s plan for Hoyt to put in about ten new rosebushes in her already extensive garden. Gloomy but obedient, he was trying to figure out how
much time the task would take. Arlene, my longtime friend and another waitress, was wondering if she could get her latest boyfriend to pop the question, but that was pretty much a perennial thought for Arlene. Like the roses, it bloomed every season.

  As I mopped up spills and hustled to get chicken-strip baskets on the tables (the supper crowd was heavy that night), my own thoughts were centered on how to get a formal gown to wear to the party. Though I did have one ancient prom dress, handmade by my aunt Linda, it was hopelessly outdated. I’m twenty-six, but I didn’t have any bridesmaid dresses that might serve. None of my few friends had gotten married except Arlene, who’d been wed so many times that she never even thought of bridesmaids. The few nice clothes I’d bought for vampire events always seemed to get ruined . . . some in very unpleasant ways.

  Usually, I shopped at my friend Tara’s store, but she wasn’t open after six. So after I got off work, I drove to Monroe to Pecanland Mall. At Dillard’s, I got lucky. To tell the truth, I was so pleased with the dress I might have gotten it even if it hadn’t been on sale, but it had been marked down to twenty-five dollars from a hundred and fifty, surely a shopping triumph. It was rose pink, with a sequin top and a chiffon bottom, and it was strapless and simple. I’d wear my hair down, and my gran’s pearl earrings, and some silver heels that were also on major sale.

  That major item taken care of, I wrote a polite acceptance note and popped it in the mail. I was good to go.

  Three nights later, I was knocking on the back door of Fangtasia, my garment bag held high.

  “You’re looking a bit informal,” Pam said as she let me in.

  “Didn’t want to wrinkle the dress.” I came in, making sure the bag didn’t trail, and hightailed it for the bathroom.