The Bloody Red Baron: 1918 ad-2

by Kim Newman

  Theo stepped forwards, smartly. His insouciant manner was gone. This was an Oberst Kretschmar-Schuldorff ready to stick at his post until the last trump.

  . . we shall inspect the arrangements made to increase the castle's security when our commander-in-chief comes to be among his finest.'

  General Karnstein cried clear stern tears of pride. Apart from the stoic Richthofen, the fliers were shocked, bewildered, ecstatic. Even these creatures could be impressed. The great commander was coming to Malinbois. No, to Schloss Adler. Sometimes, Poe hardly dared think the name.

  Dracula.

  36

  Dark-Adapted

  'It is as if I were about to be dressed down by my parents. You both look so earnest, so cross.'

  'I am your mother in a way you don't yet understand,' Kate told Edwin, 'and Charles is your father. He brought you into this secret world. It is your duty to honour that.'

  Edwin grinned, not understanding. His smile was easy but his eyes were hard. He was a wall to her mind; given their communion, he must work hard to be so impenetrable.

  'Perhaps I shouldn't have peppered Rutledge's backside but I've likely saved his life. He was lax up there, careless. He'll be less so in future. The next fighter on his tail won't be a Camel. Lockwood got the point.'

  They stood in the shed, between lines of aircraft. Charles leaned heavily on his stick. Jiggs worked nearby, patching the tail of the Camel Edwin had 'tagged'. The oily machine smell was strong.

  Penned close between the aeroplanes, Kate saw the beginnings of the turn in Edwin. His movements were quicker. His face was colder. His sibilants hissed slightly, over sharpening teeth.

  'You've taken from Kate,' Charles said.

  Edwin, shame pricking minutely, looked down at the beaten earth of the shed. Then, flaring, he looked up and met their eyes.

  'And I've taken from you, Beauregard. And Albert Ball. And others. We all take. That is how we grow, adapt.'

  He would be eating steak nearly raw, swimming in red juice. And he would have an appetite, burning fuel like a rotary engine. He would be always hungry.

  'Don't you feel the danger, Edwin?' 'Miss Reed, without wishing to be offensive, you're a vampire. That hardly puts you in a position to lecture me about taking blood, taking anything, from another.'

  The cut in her throat, made with her own claw, stung. Healed over entirely, the phantom wound throbbed, pregnant with blood.

  'Edwin, you misunderstand the condition. You aren't a vampire.'

  'I don't wish to turn, Kate. I don't wish to die. I have a duty and I can best do my bit with your blood in me. I apologise if I hurt or upset you, but there is a greater cause than us both.'

  He looked up through the open shed doors to the sky.

  'Up there lives a monster. I am pledged to destroy it. I owe it to Ball.'

  'Either purge yourself or turn altogether. I've seen what happens to people caught half-way between warmth and undeath. You don't appreciate the risks to your mind and body.'

  Edwin appealed to Charles. 'Beauregard, you understand the risks are secondary. We don't matter. Duty does.'

  Kate squirmed inside. Her blood-links with Edwin and Charles were stirring. She sensed what was going on beneath their conversation.

  'It's not duty, Edwin. It's revenge.'

  Edwin's face closed shut.

  'My blood in you. It's fogged your mind, twisted your intentions.'

  'Richthofen must fall.'

  'Richthofen will fall. Eventually. Dracula will fall. But it can't be just you. It has to be all of us. A consensus. You're becoming like the worst of them. This isn't a game for a few mighty knights and a million expendable pawns. This is about huge numbers of people, vampire and warm.'

  'You're editorialising, Miss Mouse.'

  She was angry. 'I'm trying to save you from a great misapprehension. Probably from madness and true death. You've been through something very like hell and have focused the blame on one young Hun, when you should blame the old men on both sides who have slaughtered millions because it was easier than living. The getting and keeping of power for a tiny minority in all countries has killed us all, is killing us all.'

  'You sound like a Bolshevik.'

  'If that's what it takes. I've been a Revolutionist, as has Charles.'

  'I don't see what this has to do with me.'

  'That's just it. It has to do with everyone. You see yourself apart from us all.'

  There was a quiet, angry pause. Kate was flushed. Edwin, whom she had almost reached, retreated into the armour growing around his skull.

  'Is this leading anywhere important, Beauregard? I have an offensive patrol to fly.'

  After deliberation, Charles - older now than his years, slower and sadder - said, 'I believe you have returned to active duty too soon after your injuries.'

  'I'm fit. I'm better than fit.'

  Edwin did a deep knee-bend and sprang. He leaped twenty feet, grasping a cross-beam. His boots dangled above their heads. This was the sort of showing-off Kate expected from callous new-borns. The ones who wanted to distance themselves from the warm. The ones who wanted the living penned as cattle, who felt vampirism made them Darwinian aristocrats, princes of the earth. The monsters. Edwin dropped like a cat and stood straight and cool, boyishly proud of his feat.

  'In the first stages, it's like a drug,' Kate explained to Charles. 'There's a euphoria. Over-confidence.'

  'She's wrong, Beauregard. I have been careful. I have made of myself a weapon.'

  Charles was tempted to believe him, Kate knew. It would suit the purposes of the Diogenes Club to have this ruthless, agile creature on the books. But Charles was too good a man not to understand.

  I can't risk you, my boy. Kate has lived with her condition for thirty years. I have to listen to her.'

  'But it's so silly,' Edwin said, turning away. His wide smile was almost hysterical. 'I can do so much. We have to destroy JG1. We have to persuade the Boche to stop making those creatures.'

  Kate's ears pricked up. Making those creatures?

  'You see my point. You are losing caution. You just told me something you shouldn't have.'

  Edwin's eyes rolled, in irritation.

  'Why are we having this argument? We want the same things, don't we?'

  Charles was thinking. 'Kate, I want your word that you won't write anything about JG1 without clearing it with me first. Under DORA, you could be imperilled.'

  She was on a hook now. 'Very well, but what is the story?'

  'They're shape-shifters,' he said. 'Richthofen and his battle comrades. They don't fly aircraft. They grow wings.'

  'Good lord!'

  'They're Dracula's get. By proxy. His blood has made monsters of them.'

  It was Kate's turn to keep secrets. She understood the import of Mata Hari's confession.

  Edwin did not apologise for letting the wildcat out of the bag.

  'I shall recommend you be relieved of your duties, Edwin. You need more doctoring,' Charles said.

  Edwin did not protest.

  'He is thinking of your interests, Edwin.'

  He looked at her and kept his thoughts to himself.

  'Very impressive,' she said. 'It took me years to master that trick.'

  'Your face still gives you away. You blush like litmus paper.'

  That was almost the old Edwin.

  'I still have confidence in you,' Charles said. 'You'll be one of our best. When you've recovered from this taint.'

  They left him in the shed. As Kate helped Charles out into the open, Edwin went to confer with Jiggs, casually poking about in a Camel's engine, debating mechanical arcana.

  She worried that Edwin had not argued his corner as fiercely as she would expect. Vampire blood was stubborn stuff.

  Especially hers. Perhaps the strain was growing weak?

  In the sun, Charles cringed like a vampire. She hoped she had not made an invalid of him.

  'Let me turn you, Charles. It's the least I can do.'


  He shook his head. 'Not now, Kate.'

  'You're not like Edwin. You have the character, the backbone. You could be one of us and not go mad. Unless people like us are vampires, the monsters will win.'

  'This is dizzying, Kate. You argue your blood is poison, then you try to get me to drink.'

  'You are like Edwin. Your mind is made up beyond reason and you'll stick by it until death.'

  'Pot, kettle, black.'

  Each word was an effort.

  'Idjits, the lot of you.'

  'The warm?'

  'Men.'

  Charles laughed.

  They were outside the farmhouse. Charles pushed the door open with his stick and allowed Kate to step in. He followed.

  Captain Allard, wearing a face-shading hat, sat at a desk, looking over papers. In an armchair nearby was a fish-eyed grey-suited civilian. With a razor chill, Kate recognised Mr Caleb Croft.

  'You'll have to take Winthrop off the roster, Captain Allard,' Charles said. 'He's not right yet.'

  Allard looked sideways, to Croft.

  'Diogenes will find you another bright boy.'

  Croft swivelled his eyes from side to side, an implicit headshake.

  'We can't spare Winthrop, Mr Beauregard.'

  Charles was startled by the refusal. He was on the point of blustering.

  'It's too dangerous, Croft. The lad's a peril to himself and those who serve with him.'

  Croft said nothing. His skin was lizardy. Brutality boiled off him like steam.

  'This is too important to take the risk.'

  A contest of wills took place. Croft exuded a damp, invisible cloud. He could sap the lives of others by breathing in. He was late eighteenth century. It was whispered he was once hanged. He wore high collars to hide the rope-burn. Now he was the iron instrument of Lord Ruthven's law.

  'I fear I have sad news, Mr Beauregard,' said Croft, each syllable a hollow croak. 'Mycroft Holmes is dead. Your Ruling Cabal is inquorate.'

  Charles was stricken. Mycroft had been his sponsor in the Diogenes Club.

  'As a consequence, your operations here are suspended.'

  Croft produced a document from his inside breast pocket.

  'I have the Prime Minister's authority to take over. You have earned leave.'

  Charles's face was as grey as Croft's coat. His heartbeat faltered. Kate had a stab of concern for his health.

  'At least listen to me about Winthrop,' he pleaded.

  'He is a valuable man. Captain Allard would find it difficult to run this show without him. Your concern is noted but the Lieutenant will remain on active service.'

  'His promotion is coming through,' Allard said.

  'On your recommendation, I understand,' Croft said.

  Charles was shattered. Kate did not know whether to step in and hold him up lest he fall. No. He would not thank her.

  'One further matter, Beauregard,' Croft said. 'It would reflect well on your unparalleled record if the last order you gave before you were relieved was to place Maranique airfield off-limits to journalists.'

  Croft turned deep, dead eyes to her, and cracked open his lips in a scary smile, showing green-furred fangs. During the Terror, when the Prime Minister wavered between the Revolutionists and the standard of Dracula, Croft had issued orders that she be summarily executed on apprehension. Another woman, mistaken for her by the Carpathian Guard, was impaled in Great Portland Street.

  'Why don't you personally escort - Miss Reed, isn't it? - to Amiens, Beauregard?'

  Charles turned, hands useless fists about his stick. Kate picked up a strong impression: Charles saw himself drawing the silver-coated blade and sinking it into Caleb Croft's heart.

  'Good day, Miss Reed,' Croft croaked. 'And good bye, Mr Beauregard.'

  Together, they left. Outside the farmhouse, the morning air was chill. The clouds threatened. A flight of Camels rushed noisily past, rising into dangerous skies.

  37

  Master of the World

  The Graf von Dracula, in consultation with Ludendorff and Hindenburg, under the direct patronage of Kaiser Wilhelm and King-Emperor Franz Ferdinand, had laid plans for the great victory of the Central Powers. Soon would begin the Kaiserschlacht, the all-or-nothing push of the German armies, backed by a million men freed from the Eastern Front, against the Allied lines and, once they were breached in a hundred spots, on to Paris. When Paris fell, France would be crushed, Great Britain cowed and America startled. The Allies would make what craven peace they could. Then Poe presumed the Graf would direct his attentions to the arriviste peasant masters of the new Russia and make ready for the next generation's war.

  The newly named Schloss Adler would be Dracula's command post for this vital action. Flanked by his brood of flying demigods, the father of European vampirism would stand on the highest tower of the castle and watch his armies triumph.

  Poe was possessed by the excitement of the moment. On the battlements as the sun set, he heard the din that rang throughout the castle as unused chambers were opened. A convoy of trucks had arrived, widening and flattening the road to the castle with their wheels. Efficient engineers were installing telephone and telegraph lines.

  A group of men in uniform wrestled to erect a wireless aerial. A new steel structure already arose from the ancient pile, topped with a huge inverted hook.

  The uniforms reminded him of other soldiers in grey, of another just cause. Poe had felt as excited before, marching at the head of his troop into Gettysburg over fifty years earlier.

  earlier. That had been another all-or-nothing push, another turning point. Then, history had turned the wrong way. This time, that would not happen. Trains sped across Europe, packed with men and munitions. From his perch, he saw black segmented snakes winding across the sunset-bloodied land, heard the grinding of the wheels on the tracks. With every minute, Germany grew stronger.

  In the last few days, he had been writing. Der rote Kampfflieger was not the ghosted autobiography Mabuse had commissioned (Edgar Poe could not shackle his voice to another, not even that of Manfred von Richthofen) but a biographical sketch which spun out of control, scattering ideas and philosophies, mixing the politics of nations with the nature of the universe. Not since Eureka had he had a subject so vast.

  It took all his concentration to hold the matter of his book in his mind. As he wrote, he realised this was his last chance to redeem a reputation compromised by the wide-eyed wrong- headedness of The Battle of St Petersburg. His hands were permanently stained, fingers black with ink. His cuffs were spotted. By writing, by envisioning in minute detail a world as it should be, mankind as it should be, he could make it so. His mind, stretched near madness, must prove strong enough for the task.

  'Eddy,' Theo appeared, collar turned up against the wind Poe had not noticed, 'if you have a moment, there are a few matters we must discuss.'

  Since Orlok's arrival, Theo was burdened with a thousand duties. Through the smiling Hardt, the elder insisted on supervising in detail all matters pertaining to intelligence and security. There could not be enough checks and examinations. Tiny flaws in the records of a dozen men, from an adjutant on Karnstein's staff down to one of the castle's troop of cleaners, had been exposed and the personnel removed.

  Theo, like everyone, was newly formal. Fliers wore full dress uniform, breasts heavy with medals, at all times. Huge ledgers of military etiquette were learned by rote. Theo wore a fur- collared greatcoat over his immaculate uniform. On his tunic hung an Iron Cross earned on active service in Belgium. He had a large, flat box under his arm.

  'Firstly, your problem with Ewers is at an end. *

  Since his display before Orlok, Ewers had sulked, chattering out 'reports' on a typewriter, plotting his own advancement.

  'The Baron has settled the matter personally.'

  Poe tried not to think what that might mean.

  'Now, as you understand, our little nest is to make accommodation for a very high-flying bird. Because of JG1's re
cord, we have been able to adopt a certain casual attitude which will no longer be applicable.'

  Theo was coming around to something awkward.

  'I understand you held the rank of full colonel in the army of the Southern Confederacy?'

  'I rose to that position. Under the name of Perry.'

  Theo presented his box like a tray. He opened it, and thin paper was disturbed by the breeze.

  'Matters are complicated, you understand, by the absorption of the Confederacy into our enemy, the United States of America, but it seems you are entitled to wear this.'

  In the box, neatly folded, was the uniform of an obersturmbahnführer in the Uhlans. Poe picked up the Ulanka jacket. The quality was of the highest. A double row of buttons glittered. Theo saluted.

  'We have equal rank, Oberst Poe.'

  He tried to get used to the continual saluting. His reaffirmed rank demanded salute of almost everyone in Schloss Adler, and he was obliged smartly to return the gesture.

  'When they opened up the west tower, they disturbed the filth of ages,' Goring was saying. 'They had to send Emmelman in. He ate everything half-alive, and most of the dirt.'

  Emmelman was the kobold-flier who never reassumed human shape. A shambling heap, he was a writhing mass of wormy appendages, lumbering alarmingly through corridors he filled entirely. Even this creature was crammed into immaculate uniform.

  The Great Hall was being rearranged. The trophy wall was inviolate, but electric lights were strung everywhere, banishing shadow from the vaulted space. Centuried cobwebs were ruthlessly burned away. Cleaners grew fat on the spiders that were a perk of the position.

  'Did you see the monster in the courtyard?' Goring asked Poe. 'Barrel wider than a factory chimney. Engineers claim it can hit Paris.'

  Gun emplacements had sprung up all around the castle. Mainly anti-aircraft positions. JG1 expected to do a deal of air fighting close to home. The Allies knew what they were up against now, thanks to Albert Ball's lucky observer, and serious assaults were expected.

  'You must set everything down. This is the sharp end of history.'

  Poe outranked Rittmeister von Richthofen. He was worried this would prompt the flier to close up. Over the past weeks, he had just begun to tease thoughts and feelings out of the hero. This could bring down a steel shutter. He supposed that, if it came to it, he could order the Baron to be forthcoming.