Anno Dracula 1999

by Kim Newman

  She was up to her ankles in blood-tinted snow.

  A woman stood nearby, watching. A woman with long dark hair. A face of frost and lips red as ripe cherries. Infinitely cold, and infinitely sorrowful and yet proud, with a glint in her ice heart, a single kind feeling amid an arctic desolation.

  In this slippage between planes, Yuki-Onna watched over her. If Nezumi stepped off the path, they could talk. There was so much she didn’t know about herself.

  But she must not be distracted. Duty before self.

  She cut a slit in the curtain and stepped through.

  Into the Dragon’s Mouth.

  She was bereft, heart-stabbed by Peak’s shadow world, but resolute. Good Night Kiss was steady.

  ‘Hello, Mouse,’ said Cottonmouth. ‘I’m just killing your sugar daddy.’

  Blood was smeared on her knives. A dead fat man lay at her feet.

  Mr Jeperson stood, empty-handed, arms spread. He’d tried charm and it hadn’t worked.

  Nezumi’s fangs sharpened.

  ‘Remember the Captain and Tennille?’ said Cottonmouth.

  Nezumi wouldn’t be drawn into a conversation.

  ‘Your loss,’ said Cottonmouth.

  In a lightning move, she holstered her blades and drew her guns – Simon Smith and Amazing Dancing Bear. She began firing, elbows stiff, aim careless.

  Nezumi cartwheeled away from the portal, awkwardly since one fist had to hang on to the sword. She drew Cottonmouth’s fire so Mr Molinar and the others wouldn’t be cut down as they came through. Firing two automatic weapons at the same time was showy rather than accurate. Guests scattered out of the way. Some weren’t quick enough.

  On her knees, Nezumi slid across the polished dance floor, under Cottonmouth’s fire, Good Night Kiss held above her bent-back head. Bullets whooshed over her.

  The katana – personally honed by the Grand Master of Great Sharpness – sliced cleanly through Cottonmouth’s right wrist and only got stuck in the bones of her left hand because the pistol stock was in the way.

  Nezumi angled herself to one side to avoid the gout of vampire blood.

  Cottonmouth’s hand, still gripping enough to fire the gun, flopped on the floor and spun like a rogue Catherine wheel. A pallbearer’s foot exploded as silver dum-dums caught him in the shoe.

  Nezumi rose like a crane taking flight.

  With a sawing move, she extracted her sword, incidentally slamming her elbow into Cottonmouth’s face.

  She stood back, sword pointed down.

  Cottonmouth tried to level Simon Smith and get a firing grip with her remaining fingers. Her nearly cut-through hand flopped the wrong way. She dropped the gun and licked her own blood. She striped her face. Her freckles stood out like sniperlights.

  She had no hands to hold her knives, but a sharply broken bone jutted from her left wrist. She stabbed at Nezumi’s throat like a con going for a prison yard rival with a shop room shank.

  Sad again – she knew they would never be friends, but liked the woman – Nezumi made a killing pass. A breakfest-egg cut. The top of Cottonmouth’s skull sheared above her eyes. Silver passed through her brain.

  O-Ren Blake. That had been her name.

  RICHARD JEPERSON

  While Nezumi fought Cottonmouth, others came through the strange door.

  Two professional guns – a man and a woman, well-tailored book-ends – took firing stances and began popping pallbearers’ masks.

  A vampire squaddie with fixed bayonet and a Japanese Lady Struwwelpeter with scissors set about scaring the wits out of people they were rescuing.

  A warm Asian man with a cyber-gauntlet scrabbled for cover. His gadget lit up like a toy raygun.

  Madame Omochi’s abandoned formal dress gathered shape and stood, assuming a fighting stance.

  Golgotha ordered return of fire.

  The Butler and Panty-Mask, his men on the spot, were harder to target than the white-masks. They dodged behind guests, shooting from cover. Richard didn’t assume none of the people with Nezumi were as scrupulous as she about not hurting innocent bystanders.

  Radu was out of the loop.

  With Cottonmouth occupied (then, very quickly, dead) and the Butler yanked off threatening-hostages duties, no one was obliged to stay where Radu put them.

  Chesse dragged her hypnotised waiter into a corner. Her fangs were splitting her gums and her eyes were crimson. She had to slake her red thirst before she could think.

  That was why untrained vampires were often useless. They got distracted, unless well-fed.

  Richard tried to stand up but his foot had gone to sleep, and – embarrassingly – Syrie now had to help him.

  ‘You got old,’ she said. ‘You know that’s curable?’

  This wasn’t the time for that argument.

  On screens, red numbers counted down.

  … 32.33. 32.32. 32.31…

  Nearly half past eleven, in old money.

  The slit in the shadow closed. The silhouette bulged like a balloon filling with water and slid off the wall – which was smudged but unbreached – then swelled out to become a huddled person.

  ‘Is that Anthony Peak?’ asked Syrie.

  Peak’s face was so white Christina might have been at him.

  He had done something that had taken almost everything out of him.

  This was how he filched the Blue Water pendant from the Nemo Collection and Munch’s Lady of the Shroud from its frame in the Oslo National Gallery. How he got out of the Mausoleum and Camp Cube, the most secure special prisons in Great Britain and Canada. Unbreachable and inescapable meant nothing to him.

  ‘You, Peak.’ Syrie shouted. ‘Where is it?’

  Even drained and used up, he knew enough to be terrified. His fangs chattered.

  Syrie strode – ignoring crossfire – towards the shrinking tea-leaf.

  Then the floor shifted. Richard’s first thought was an earthquake. It would be sod’s law for Japan to sink at the crack of the New Millennium. Christina’s shining image revolved like a vertical crankshaft. Screens carrying the Light Channel brightened by about a thousand candles, gridding the ballroom with laser-like beams that bounced off mirror surfaces.

  Connections were made. Information packets shot from system to system. Below, in the belly of the Daikaiju Building, huge wheels engaged, turbines revved. Something as big as a real dragon stirred, infused with Light and Life. Richard’s watch alarm went off, slaved to a greater gadget.

  It wasn’t even midnight.

  The Princess was getting started early.

  ‘Peak,’ Syrie was still shouting, fixated on her property rights even as the world blew up around her.

  Nezumi was back in her chosen spot by Richard, Good Night Kiss drawn (she’d lost the poster tube somewhere), protecting her principal. She’d cleaned her sword on Mr Rapist Man’s jacket.

  ‘Radu’s not the real problem,’ he told her.

  The Bey was among the crowd, showing his famous aptitude for avoiding battle.

  Richard saw him back towards the pig-pens. Angry little cherubs clutched cutlery in fat little fists. If he strayed too near, they’d have him.

  ‘It’s the Princess. She’s…’

  Then it struck him that he didn’t know what Christina Light was doing or had become.

  Just that now it was her wicked plan. And thwarting it was SOP.

  Nezumi nodded, understanding.

  SI MOLINAR

  Nezumi had briefed them. The vampires in white masks had to die.

  And Golgotha’s EarthGuard ops.

  Plus an unknown number of other hostiles.

  And Dracula’s brother, identifiable by the ridiculous width of his suit.

  Many bystanders were in peril. In theory, they should be protected. They weren’t a priority. They didn’t pay his wages, command his loyalty, or own his heart.

  He didn’t tell the little elder that.

  He admired her attitude, but didn’t share it.

  She want
ed to save everyone. He had no problem with that, if it was what she wanted and didn’t get in his way.

  He was here to save one person.

  The Fairy Princess was present in the room as a beacon, the bulb in the lighthouse. Not her, but an aspect of her.

  The floor yawed and he skidded.

  Verlaine was off balance too, but still shooting accurately.

  Someone fell – or jumped in panic – over the guard-rail.

  Unhelpful shrieks and screams. Dracula’s brother staggered, golden lads clutching his arms and legs, winding their chains around him. He shrieked at their touch. The catering staff said the high-priced donors were nasty, nippy little bastards.

  The Daikaiju Building was quake-proof – so all the architects and engineers swore. But anything that could be put up could be brought down.

  He’d heard no explosions, but Jun Zero could have laid soundless concussion blast devices. Charges in the foundations, set off by remote signal. Automated O’Blivion.

  The Dragon trembled, maybe on the point of falling.

  His priority was to get the Princess out safely. Peak would recharge in minutes, and Molinar could secure ‘Mr Portal’ as a private escape route for essential personnel, defined as her and him – and maybe Verlaine to cover their backs.

  Nezumi could save people. He wouldn’t stop her.

  Hal – a man he couldn’t help think of as a boy – was under a table, thick arm over his head to protect him from masonry that wasn’t falling yet.

  A few of the most formidable hostiles – not least, Colonel Golgotha – were still alive. They shouldn’t be forgotten.

  Another huge lurch and the floor yawed. People sledged across the polished wood on their bottoms.

  A demented little girl in a sailor suit whizzed by, smiling with too many fangs, hair-ribbons streaming.

  ‘Helter skelter,’ she shouted, clapping her hands.

  Delighted by the ride, she wanted to do it again.

  Tsunako Shiki – a permanent fixture on the Nuisance List.

  A nearby screen shone too-bright white. Red numbers flashed.

  … 28.05. 28.04. 28.03…

  A face broke through the dazzle, long nose poking the digital timer.

  Dr Pretorius.

  Doubtless delivering his great, ‘I told you so.’

  It’d not surprise Molinar if the Mad Gnome were in on it with Jun Zero.

  Hell, he might be Jun Zero.

  ‘She’s alive,’ he boomed, electricity crackling in his static-infused bird’s nest hairdo. ‘She’s alive!’

  DR AKIBA

  ‘Doc,’ said Derek, with awe, ‘I wish you weren’t blinded because you should see what I see. It’s… ah, incredible. Colossal. As in a proper colossus. It could stand with one foot on either side of the harbour.’

  Akiba felt the giant moving – displacing air, cracking paving stones.

  Hunter and Killer stopped shooting.

  Tengu and kappa left off fighting over scraps and looked up to the sky.

  Concrete was crushed at each footfall. Girders bent without breaking.

  The weight of the thing.

  ‘It’s taking its first steps,’ said Derek. ‘It has feet. Its eyes – one red, one whitish blue – have fired up. Light beams are spilling out of its mouth. So are, ah, people.’

  Akiba tasted death and blood.

  ‘Platforms are coming out of its, ah, you’d have to say shoulders… I think they’re ruddy gun turrets. That’s a walking war tower. A robot a hundred stories high. Christ on a pogo stick, but it’s a beaut! Why can’t we have a Mecha-Smaug! EarthGuard ought to be first on the list for a HQ that can come over to your place and flatten it.’

  It’s not a robot, Akiba thought – words resounding in Derek’s mind.

  It was more like a powered suit. Something alive was in it.

  ‘Blokes with face-paint are on their knees, waving their hands, bowing. I reckon that’s the birth of a new religion – or an oldie making a comeback. Other people are running away. The Gate’s still shut so there’s not any place to run. Course, if the big fellah wants to, it could boot the wall to bits. Or step over it and trample Tokyo. We couldn’t stop it. D’you reckon we should give Gokemidoro a ring? Better still, Kuran. EarthGuard will know about it by now. All they have to do is look out the window. But we could let them know some of us in the field are still with the programme, eh?’

  Sensing a puff of malice, Akiba pulled Derek to him, out of a bullet’s way. They hunkered behind an overturned hearse. The car alarm went off. Even without ears, that shrill went straight through him.

  ‘Whoa, thanks mate. That bastard Killer’s started up again! Taking pot shots.’

  Derek was annoyed now.

  ‘I know it’s you, Hairdo Kid! You and your chummie Hunter the Munter. You’re a disgrace to EarthGuard, know that? You’re off my pub quiz team!’

  A building coming to life was only worth ten seconds amazement.

  The boy with an incorporeal malign entity – dammit, a demon! – on his back had to kill again now.

  Hunter shot at the tiles around the hearse. He kept them in place while Killer scurried around to get a surer vantage point. A firing position.

  Akiba’s blank face shivered.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Derek.

  A cold, heavy shadow passed over the hearse.

  Akiba felt the rush of sour air. And the impact. The hearse jumped three feet in the air and crashed down again. Its windows burst. The alarm died.

  The shooting stopped.

  ‘Stone me, it’s only gone and stamped the bastards flat! Result!’

  Akiba felt Hunter and Killer being snuffed. Killer’s untethered demon flew here and there, seeking a new host. It flew off, a kite in a hurricane.

  Good riddance. Though it would latch on to some fool by morning.

  There were always killers. As there were always healers.

  ‘Now it’s standing there,’ said Derek, ‘off its foundations, but not grinding us all into the mud. I don’t know what we’re gonna call it… Big Bertha?’

  Daikaiju.

  ‘Yeah, good shout. Daikaiju. Hey, Akiba, you can… talk? Telesend. We had a seminar on that, remember? Tapping your ESPQ. Not sure it makes up for having a no-face. Can you set fire to things with your mind? Because that I would like to see. Oh, and – ooh, ooh – what about aquakinesis, sculpting with water? Fun for the kiddies.’

  Being so close to the Daikaiju was a strain.

  Akiba’s new senses – capacities, feelings, biological and psychic processes – were stretched. The stone and metal giant exerted the gravitational pull of a Black Hole.

  It wasn’t just a living thing. It was a personality.

  An underground gas line ignited, sending a fence of flame across the Plaza.

  Vents on the Daikaiju’s flanks gushed foam, stanching the fire before the Bund went up. The mimes hollered an ‘alleluya’.

  The giant protected its territory.

  NEZUMI

  The Bad Penny was in the room.

  Nezumi checked Hal, who was huddled with a Japanese v-girl and a passed-out warm man with throat-bites. The gothic lolita wiped her mouth, not ready to feed again.

  Tsunako Shiki danced on the tilting floor. She pirouetted like a spinning top, keeping her balance as people and objects – bottles, guns, handbags – slid past her. She was loving this.

  So far as Nezumi could tell, it was not an earthquake.

  The building moved because it was made that way.

  Mr Peak was still here. Slipperiness wore him out.

  When Nezumi saw the Woman of the Snows between portals, an ice harpoon stuck into Anthony Peak. Yuki-Onna was drawn from that purple snow plain by Nezumi passing through. He was freezing from his insides out.

  It was no more than he deserved – but it was her fault.

  She was too hard on him. He had helped – reluctantly – and was paying for it.

  She didn’t know if Yuki-Onna was her r
eal mother or progenitor of her bloodline or a household deity for frost vampires, but there was a connection. She must persuade the Snow Queen to let the poor thief go.

  Another harpy descended on Mr Peak.

  Mrs Van Epp gripped his tailcoat lapels and shouted in his face. Nezumi could guess which bone she had to pick.

  From her blazer pocket Nezumi took the ruby Mr Peak had spat out.

  It wasn’t just a jewel, but a lens. An electric component.

  She held it in front of Mrs Van Epp’s eyes. Its glow reddened her face. She calmed down.

  Without thanking her – or apologising to Mr Peak – Mrs Van Epp snatched the ruby and fit it back into her tiara. She twisted it like a knob. The coronet shapeshifted, lowering arms that formed an earpiece and a throat microphone.

  Mrs Van Epp’s tiara was a telephone!

  ‘Persian Kitty to Platform One,’ she said. ‘Code Magenta, Code Magenta. Deploy the Black Manta.’

  Her piece said, Mrs Van Epp took off her headset and sat down.

  ‘We’re done,’ she said. ‘We don’t get home.’

  WINGMAN PAUL METCALF

  The klaxon whooped throughout Platform One.

  Wings Over the World’s doughnut-shaped, high-atmosphere base was radar-invisible, beyond the ken (and the gunsights) of any nation. Personnel were recruited from around the globe, but owed allegiance only to the Council of Directors. Air was so thin and temperature so low at this altitude only vees could serve on the station. Tasked with waiting for the worst.

  In a good year, the klaxon never sounded except for Operational Readiness Inspections.

  1999 had been twenty minutes away from being a good year.

  Metcalf sat in his unlit cabin, as he did every duty shift. In his flight-suit. Gear ready and at hand. Not watching telly, reading, listening to music. Not even meditating. Just waiting. Wing Navigator Hayata joked about his monastic inclination. Metcalf knew no other way to conduct himself in this afterlife.

  His duty was serious.

  He was new-born vee. Ex-SAS, killed in the Falklands. Turned by a jolt of Lady Syrie’s blood. Many Wingmen were her get, though she spent little time with them. Once her pick was made, Dr Devilers took over with syringes, pumps and tubes.