Anno Dracula 1999

by Kim Newman

  ‘Lefty, enlarge Floor 88,’ said Hal. A cross-section of the building blew up.

  It was a floating architect’s model with dots.

  Watson pointed and counted out loud.

  Nezumi didn’t. She saw at once what Molinar suspected, and moved quickly – drawing Good Night Kiss to an approving whistle from Kuchisake – across the floor, then stabbed through a partition and ripped it away.

  Curled up under a desk was Anthony Peak. He could hide better than an invisible woman.

  She raised her sword and he held out his gloved hands and flapped.

  She expected him to try and talk his way out of trouble, but he was unable to speak. He was choking on something.

  The thief ’s face reddened as he was surrounded.

  Kuchisake shoved her shears towards his face.

  Alarmed, he coughed. The eye jewel from Mrs Van Epp’s tiara popped out of his mouth.

  ‘Meet Anthony Peak,’ said Nezumi. ‘Then wish you hadn’t.’

  DETECTIVE AZUMA

  The escape passage ran under Yokonori Street.

  Azuma and Asato were hurried along by a blast of flame, but the brickwork walls and shored-up roof held firm. This tunnel must have been built before the Bund, when the Yōkai Town docks were used by smugglers.

  The escape route came up through an ornamental well in a memorial garden for those who died in the battle of the Temple of One Thousand Monsters in December 1899.

  Asato crawled out first, finding hand- and foot-holes.

  She had elongated, double-jointed limbs. He wasn’t as flexible, but followed her. He gripped too hard and stones cracked and came loose. This would be the well’s last use unless something else was built on the cursed site of the Rose Blood Club and the police box.

  Asato stretched a long arm back into the well and hauled Azuma out.

  They stood on a gentle slope in front of a shrine. The white heads of chrysanthemums formed a Hokusai wave, black-red roses dotting the crests.

  Gunfire sounded from Daikaiju Plaza.

  Hunter and Killer at work. With the Bund PD eliminated, they were ranging free.

  His knuckle-fangs jutted.

  ‘Asato,’ he said, ‘thank you. You’re good police. If you’ve people to be with, you should go to them. You don’t want to see what I have to do next.’

  The yurei hung her head, eye peeping through wet hair.

  ‘There’s a thing you should know about me, Detective,’ croaked Asato, voice like ice cubes cracking in blood. ‘I’m, like, really into revenge.’

  She had collected one of Ota’s mass murder guns. She cradled it in her bony arms, blacknailed finger curled around the trigger.

  Azuma saw the outline of Asato’s determined smile through her hair.

  ‘That is good to know,’ he said, checking his police special.

  He reloaded.

  ‘Inugami, Saki-A, Saki-K, Saki-G, Kankichi, Brenten, Nakajima, Ota,’ Asato recited the list of the dead.

  Azuma sensed the cops’ presence in the garden.

  The spirits of 1899 were long departed, placated by the Bund founded on their sacrifice. A hundred years on, there were fresher grudges to pay off. The shrine must be sprayed with murderers’ blood before the newly dead could move on.

  Asato pumped a shell into the breech and wailed.

  The shrine shook. A blood-glutted tengu who’d been sleeping it off in the long grass stirred and bolted, vaulting over the fence as if he’d forgotten his feathered arms weren’t real wings. Asato’s lamentation rose. A warning to the doomed. A rallying cry for the just.

  ‘Asato,’ said Azuma, ‘let’s go kill killers.’

  RICHARD JEPERSON

  Christina’s image remained, but only as a screensaver. Her mind was elsewhere, working on her Ascension. With three-quarters of an hour to go till midnight, her to-do list still wasn’t completely crossed out. Which meant it wasn’t too late to stop her.

  Furīman’s bones turned to powder.

  The Princess could have done that to everyone, but craved attention. If a vampire attained cyber-godhood in the forest when there’s nobody around to kneel in awe, would her light still shine? Without subjects, there are no kings and queens. Without an audience, there are no stars.

  Richard scanned the room again.

  Radu was angrier at being fobbed off – put on hold while phoning in a bomb threat – than scared he’d be next for the swipe-and-wipe treatment. It didn’t occur to him that he was in danger. After all, he had guns, soldiers, hostages. He ought to be in charge. He ought to command respect.

  That was the song of his life.

  Colonel Golgotha’s iron hide didn’t crack. A man down, he was holding the hill. His surviving EarthGuard troops were in line, for now. He had less sway over pallbearers. They might have been influenced by Radu to throw themselves on grenades for him.

  Georgia Rae Drumgo swore in patois. It wouldn’t do to forget the wounded tigress.

  Mr Omochi knelt as if in expectation of execution. Proof that you could be calm and furious at the same time.

  The celebrity Georgia Rae had bitten was passed out.

  Chesse finally explained the young man was the manga artist who drew Rapist Man.

  ‘Rapist Man?’

  ‘A masked avenger, you know. Like the Monk and Bat-Boy in America.’

  ‘Excuse me, Rapist Man?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a hero who rapes bad women. Then they fall in love with him and turn good. It’s very popular in Japan.’

  The bleeding artist looked inoffensive. Richard reckoned he’d not been bitten deeply enough. Dan Dare and Roy of the Rovers he understood, but… Rapist Man?! Maybe he should let Christina take over the world. If this is what it was coming to…

  Chesse started licking the young man’s wounds.

  ‘He won’t mind,’ she said.

  Richard supposed not.

  Syrie did what Richard was doing – kept quiet and alert. Obviously, she wasn’t just here for the party. If the Diogenes Club and Wings Over the World shared intelligence, they might be better set to avert the coming whateverageddon.

  Radu prowled the room. He was not enjoying himself any more.

  ‘Where is Christina, do you think?’ Richard asked Syrie.

  ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘This is the Dragon’s Mouth. The original her will be above us – behind the Dragon’s Eyes. She has a private apartment there. The penthouse. She has to return regularly to her physical body, like an elder crawling back to its coffin. That might not be true after midnight.’

  ‘So it’s a case of kill her when you can because later you might not be able to.’

  ‘Think of it as strangling the future tyrant in the crib.’

  ‘Lovely image.’

  ‘She’s mad enough now. How do you think she’d be as Queen of Air and Darkness?’

  ‘Fair point. But if this is important, why send him?’

  He thumbed towards Radu, who was having blood-froth pawed off his shoulder-pad by a tiptoeing Murdleigh.

  Syrie snarled contempt and irritation.

  ‘You’re close to the counsels of the King of the Cats, Georgia Rae,’ said Richard. ‘Does the Idiot Brother speak for the throne?’

  Georgia Rae spat bile.

  ‘We’ll take that as a no,’ he said.

  ‘I here to zotz the bitch if she can do what she say,’ Georgia Rae said. ‘Our geeks and freaks figure she off herself if she try to “ascend”. What left o’ her brain will fry and she be gone. Alucard take no chances. Hell, it be like him to send two hitters without saying there a competition. But I absogoddamnlutely guarantee he didn’t give no contract to that fool there. Maybe he hire Golgotha Mon but he not let Pretty Bwah run no game. He learn that when he warm. He ain’t forgot.’

  ‘So who put Radu up to it? This isn’t something he’d think of by himself.’

  Georgia Rae chewed that over.

  ‘Someone very, very smart or someone very, very dumb.’

 
Richard shrugged. That was a) true and b) not a lot of help.

  Chesse nudged him. Her many bangles and bracelets clinked.

  Radu strode over with Murdleigh trotting beside him.

  ‘Sucks to be you,’ said Cottonmouth to the hostages, smiling.

  ‘My friend is enormously rich,’ Richard told her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a lucrative employment opportunity with Wings Over the World.’

  ‘The aid outfit? Waste of my talents, don’t you think?’

  ‘Before you can tend antelopes, you have to fight offjackals,’ Syrie said. ‘Wings has people like you on staff. Not that I am offering a job.’

  ‘Picky picky picky.’

  Even if Cottonmouth was tempted – and as far as Richard could tell, she wasn’t – she couldn’t turncloak without consequences. The Butler, armoured by dark magic, could smite her. If Syrie upended a briefcase full of cash, she’d still not get a hundred-percent take-up.

  ‘What’s the news across the nation?’ Radu asked.

  ‘This one tried to get that one to bribe me,’ Cottonmouth told him.

  ‘Tut tut tut, for shame,’ he said. ‘Has no one integrity any longer?’

  Syrie laughed, bitterly.

  ‘What’s so funny, Mrs Moneybags?’

  ‘I heard Vlad the Impaler was famous for standing up to the Turks, but Radu the Handsome was known for lying down under them.’

  Radu’s smile went hard.

  ‘You can make the slur go away tonight,’ Syrie told Radu. ‘If you stop the Princess Casamassima’s Ascension, you’ll be the Dracula they remember. The Dracula who stood up to the world-conqueror.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Thank you. That’s precisely the case.’

  He was surprised she’d admitted it. She was playing him – needling his sore points (including internalised homophobia), then fanning his ego flames. It might work but would take time they didn’t have. This was the twenty-third hour.

  ‘Did Dracula personally entrust you with this mission?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Radu said, too quick.

  ‘Personally, as in “in person”. Face to face.’

  ‘Or did you get a telephone call?’ Syrie asked.

  ‘An e-mail? Signed “Big D”.’

  Murdleigh did a strange nasal chuckle.

  ‘We communed,’ said Radu. ‘We are of the same blood. We have an understanding.’

  ‘Damballah’s serpent ass you do, Lickle Brother,’ said Georgia Rae. ‘You ain’t A-list, you’s black-list. Hell, when word get back, you’s shit-list. Killin’ family ain’t nothin’ to Alucard.’

  ‘Never mind her, Radu,’ said Syrie. ‘Focus on the now. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve Dracula’s sanction or not – it’s better for you if you haven’t – it matters that you do what you came here to.’

  Radu was torn.

  If he wasn’t Dracula’s catspaw, whose was he?

  Richard knew from his lack of bragging that someone – someone he thought was his brother – was working his strings.

  Syrie was frustrated again.

  She had a plan too. A thwarted plan. All this byplay got between her and Christina and her own ideas about putting a stop to the Ascension.

  ‘You know what you are, don’t you?’ Richard said.

  ‘What, pray?’ Radu answered.

  ‘A diversion. We waste time while the Princess makes her move. Did you ever think she might have hired you herself ? Every party needs clowns.’

  ‘You’re not amusing any more,’ Radu said. ‘Perhaps you’ll be funnier in pieces.’

  Cottonmouth’s knives came out.

  Mr Omochi stood up suddenly, sticking himself onto Cottonmouth’s silvered steel, letting her blades slide in under his cummerbund. He gripped her shoulders, eyes watering with pain, and lurched sideways in improvised seppuku, disembowelling himself. He barely grunted as he died with honour, weight toppling onto the vampire merc. Honour smelled like the contents of bowels on the floor.

  The CEO’s vampire wife Rose flew across the room. She pulled needle-tipped combs from her hair and made for the struggling Cottonmouth. The Butler flung a black shuriken, engraved with a glowing sigil, at her forehead. When struck, Madame Omochi was thrown backwards. She turned to red dust inside her jūnihitoe. The garment drifted to the floor in a wrinkled clump, comb-claws clattering.

  Cottonmouth shrugged off the gut-trailing corpse. The mess on her jump-suit annoyed her. She was close to off the leash. Eager to kill properly.

  Richard stood in front of Chesse and Syrie.

  ‘Very gallant,’ said Cottonmouth. ‘A warm old man protecting two vampire women. You realise that’s ridiculous, don’t you?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it,’ he began… but didn’t shift.

  NEZUMI

  Nezumi saw why nothing kept Anthony Peak out – or in. He could turn into a shadow on one wall, which then became a doorway in another wall. He had to be portal as well as wraith to transport his loot as well as himself.

  He could only jaunt short distances. From outside buildings to vaults. Here, he could manage only a dozen or so floors. Each trip exhausted him. That was why he was under a desk in the Security Suite after sliding out of trouble in the Dragon’s Mouth. Even without a jewel in his mouth, he could barely speak.

  Representing Light Industries, Molinar signed a waiver indemnifying the cracksman from prosecution for his activities this evening if he helped them.

  ‘What?’ he said, looking at Nezumi.

  She was sad. Not at the state of the world, but the state of Anthony Peak.

  ‘It’s disappointing,’ she said. ‘You have a gift, but all you do with it is take things that don’t belong to you.’

  ‘Karl Marx said “property is theft”,’ he quoted.

  ‘Mr Marx took it as read that theft was theft too. I don’t think he’d have liked you.’

  ‘Everyone likes me,’ said the thief, smiling. ‘It’s my raffish charm.’

  ‘Some people think you’re funny,’ said Nezumi. ‘That’s not the same.’

  ‘Being funny wouldn’t stop the same people killing you,’ said Molinar.

  ‘I’ve escaped the firing squad, you know. Guess how? It’s a mistake to put me up against a wall.’

  ‘Now you’re boasting,’ said Nezumi. ‘You’ve been bottling it, keeping your secret. You want to convince us you’re a fine fellow and regale us with exciting stories of scrapes you’ve got out of.’

  Peak slumped even more. He was seen through.

  ‘How long does it take him to recharge?’ asked Verlaine.

  Nezumi stuck the end of her sword into the crook’s foot.

  ‘Not long or he wouldn’t be shamming.’

  Everyone checked weapons. Watson slapped his perforated cheeks to get red in them to match his jacket. Kuchisake played with her shears.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Hal. ‘You can teleport, right? For real?’

  ‘I don’t call it that,’ said Peak. ‘It sounds common. I call it being slippery.’

  ‘Cool, though,’ said the boy. ‘Beam me up, Peaky.’

  ‘Nerd,’ coughed Verlaine under her hand.

  Peak was ‘recharged’, Nezumi decided. She gripped his arm, swordpoint to the back of his neck, and whispered, ‘Don’t get slippery with me.’ She marched him towards a wall.

  ‘If we don’t get where we need to go, Mr Molinar will shoot you. There are ways to kill shadows. You could be whited out. They make silver paint.’

  ‘If you’re twits enough to want to jump into a monster’s mouth, I’ll not stop you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Peak,’ she said. ‘I know you’ll slip away as soon as you can. I would ask you please to think about what I’ve said. Be better than you are. Not because you’re afraid we’ll survive and hunt you down, but because you’ll be less sad.’

  ‘I’m not sad,’ he insisted.

  Kuchisake laughed at him. If she asked him whether he thought she was pretty, he’d be in
trouble.

  He flattened against the wall, turning to an ink-black outline. His face darkened and froze.

  Nezumi put her sword to the isthmus of the shadow-stain where his neck had been.

  ‘Ready?’ she asked.

  Molinar gave her the nod.

  ‘Steady?’

  A quick look around at the rest of the krewe. All present and determined.

  ‘Geronimo,’ she said.

  RICHARD JEPERSON

  ‘Did or did I not command this fellow be killed?’ said Radu.

  Cottonmouth stepped forward, a firmer grip on her bloodied blades.

  Richard expected she’d cut through him.

  Neither Syrie nor Chesse were in a position to fight Cottonmouth, and he wouldn’t expect it of them.

  ‘I’ll enjoy this, old fellow,’ said Cottonmouth.

  She showed proper fangs – inappropriately sexy, he thought.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Richard noticed a man-shadow.

  Passing for graffiti, or an oily water-stain on white plaster. He looked like a leotard stuck to the wall using an iron-on transfer.

  In a room of living umbrellas and monster tattoos, the shadowman was almost dull.

  But he did something unexpected. He widened as if puffing up his chest. White eyes opened in his coal-dust face. A rift appeared, as if his pullover split down the front. Light spilled through the tear.

  A blade poked out and slashed down, cutting through a curtain of darkness.

  Another face – not shadowed – stuck through.

  Richard whistled.

  Nezumi had come back to the party with Good Night Kiss.

  NEZUMI

  Passing through Anthony Peak’s shadow-self – from Mr Molinar’s office to the ballroom eight floors above – was like walking through an ice shower. So cold that even she, the get of Yuki-Onna, could feel it.

  A flash of blinding purple!

  Peak could have told her to shut her eyes but she wouldn’t have taken advice from him.

  Between his doors stretched an infinity.

  People could get stranded here, wherever here was – with its violet sky, mauve plains and spiral ruins.