by Kim Newman
So far as I can tell, boot scrapers are unknown in Japan.
The Abbess turned her neck three-quarters of the way round – which was just for show – and looked at Dru.
‘Your holy woman has the gift of prophecy?’ she asked.
‘She’s not altogether holy,’ I said. ‘Her name is Drusilla Zark.’
Dru curtseyed gravely and Lady Oyotsu nodded.
Meanwhile, Kostaki had set off on a recce of the temple outbuildings and grounds. He never rests until he’s surveyed weak spots in the defences. He wouldn’t sit at his best friend’s hearth for Christmas – should he have a best friend or celebrate Christmas – without first determining fallback positions in the event of a surprise attack down the chimney.
Abandoning Christina and Lady Oyotsu to smile and nod at each other while Dru got in the way, I caught up with Kostaki and asked about the scouts.
‘When will they report?’
‘When it’s safe,’ he said.
‘So, by your lights, never…’
For a second or two, he grinned – showing little mirth, but revealing something of the live heart inside his dead skin. Kostaki is a conundrum but I trust him. He was the first vampire to show me anything like respect in this new age. And nearly the last.
We came to a shrine, one of several in the temple grounds. The Japanese have more gods than they can keep track of. They rise or fall like earthly politicians. Whoever was god of this shrine was out of office. Awning slates were broken or missing; a bowl for offerings was cracked and full of rotten grass.
From this point, we looked back at the torii gate. Majin stood there, silhouetted by a green glow in the fog, motionless as a terracotta statue.
‘Drusilla says the Lieutenant’s hands are alive,’ I said. ‘More than the rest of him.’
‘Majin doesn’t stand like a lieutenant,’ said Kostaki.
‘He’s young for a general.’
‘You look young for a doctor.’
‘We both know I’m not young. But Majin is warm.’
‘He wouldn’t be our keeper if he were an ordinary man,’ said Kostaki. ‘He’s not afraid to be here, among monsters.’
Some ways of living past one’s years while wearing a youthful face don’t involve turning vampire. Blue flames. Pictures in the attic. Elixirs and potions. Not a few arcane longevity treatments come from the East. India, Tibet, China and… here.
‘Majin doesn’t stand like a general, either,’ said Kostaki. ‘He stands like a prince.’
‘He dresses down, compared to most princes – and princesses – I’ve met.’
Kostaki scowled. ‘Have you read that book? Stoker’s?’
I nodded.
‘Remember how Dracula is dressed when Harker meets him? As a coachman. That part, I believe. An old trick of princes. Wear the clothes of a servant or an ordinary soldier. It’s like being invisible.’
The Carpathian was in the Prince’s service for centuries. If Dracula weren’t, at bottom, a damn fool, he’d keep Kostaki and get shot of ruthless, scheming toadies like Iorga, Ruthven and Croft.
‘What do you think Dru meant?’
Kostaki turned to look at me. ‘Bad news,’ he said. ‘That one only ever has bad news.’
‘Are you worried about Yam and Verlaine?’
‘The witch said one of us died. Not two.’
‘And who knows what “dies” means to her?’
* * *
We continued our circuit. As we strolled, yōkai emerged to stare at the hideous foreigners. Timid at first, they grew bolder and skittered, slunk, lurched or loomed into our view.
A spindle-legged cook pot with eyes, cat-faced children with ears stuck up through white hair, a blue-skinned cyclops, a man-sized grasshopper with scales of rusty iron plate, giants and dwarves with matching Noh masks, moon-faced vampires with permanent snarls and frond-like eyebrows, a limbless torso floating on a cloud of fog, a crab-walking greybeard sage with hands for feet, a dragon-pattern kimono wrapped around a girl who wasn’t there, mushrooms with human teeth, samurai with swords or saws for hands and razor-rimmed hats, a skeleton woman holding a fan painted with a lovely mouth and nose over her skull-grin, a crawling stomach with tube-like appendages and a cocked hat pinned to its plucked-chicken skin, a bespectacled heron in bamboo armour.
Kostaki strolled casually among the yōkai, submitting to a certain amount of pawing and prodding, but bristling enough to deter nonsense. He would fight no more duels – symbolic or genuine – on his first night ashore.
I let our hosts see me. I made small bows and returned greetings. A pea-green bald merchant with folds of flesh hanging over his eyes and mouth opined that Western vampire women were ‘unmarriageably ugly’. Realising I understood him, he blushed scarlet and gabbled apologies.
The yōkai gathered and, like a living wave, swept us into the temple. Some climbed the walls and nestled in the rafters.
Lady Oyotsu made provision for us. Attendants – not yōkai – were willing to be bled. We gratefully accepted the sacrament of blood in lacquer bowls. Kostaki, ever cautious, abstained from drinking. If we’ve been drugged, he’ll be alert.
Vampire sailors have spread tales that the blood of Chinese and Japanese girls is laced with opium and jasmine, and has peculiarly delightful transportive effects. Would that it were so. The blood I drank, though welcome after so long a fast, was like that of any warm person. Through the veins of Europeans, Africans and Australian aborigines flows the same stuff – giving the lie to the pseudo-science of eugenics, which is gaining a vogue in the West. Under Dracula, even venerable British institutes of learning have to entertain any balderdash that crosses the Crown Prince’s mind. Bombarding the editorial office with telegrams, he thoroughly critiqued the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica – insisting the print run be pulped before distribution and entries on Turkish and Romanian history be completely rewritten to glorify his name.
After the feast, we listened to Lady Oyotsu play, accompanied by Abura Sumashi on a long flute made from a thigh bone. Two tiny porcelain yōkai princesses sang the lay of ‘Hoichi the Earless’. Monks ink holy sutras all over the body of a blind storyteller to protect him when he is commanded to recite the Tale of the Battle of Dan-no-ura for an audience of angry ghosts from the Heike Clan, losers of the battle. The monks miss Hoichi’s ears. With obvious results. The Japanese care little for mystery and suspense. The end of the story is given away in the title.
‘I know this one,’ Whelpdale whispered. ‘In the version I heard, it’s not his ears the monks forget to paint… jolly ouch, eh?’
Dru wanted to play with Kasa-obake. Since she’s the sort who breaks kittens’ necks with hugs, I tipped off Dravot. The Sergeant said he’d make sure Dru didn’t get us in hot water by killing the umbrella yōkai.
‘You don’t want to be botherin’ with the bloomin’ brolly, Miss Zark,’ he said. ‘Try some rice wine.’
‘An umbrella is always of use,’ Dru said, in a governessy voice.
Looking at Kasa-obake, I thought you would have to be rain-shy indeed to get any use out of him. He was an astonishing, bizarre creature. His shapeshifting – organs flattened and twisted around rearranged bones – was extreme for such an absurd, trivial result. The fellow wanted to be an umbrella. Fine. Others might want to be fire engines, teapots or streetcars. Yōkai like that would come in handy in circumstances other than drizzle.
Christina interrupted my blood-reverie with a list.
She has decided on the order our comrades should be awakened. Some names are near the bottom of her list. Vampires she feels it best to leave where they are. If Dru hurts anyone, it’ll be an accident. If Dravot breaks necks, he’ll have good reason and – thinking practically – will cover his tracks. Even Yam wouldn’t commit murder without being paid for it. But others among us have proven records of murder and rapine, and are malicious and cunning with it. Christina has a point about leaving them be until we turncloaks are settled more securel
y. However, the longer we put off opening our unwanted presents, the more unmanageable our troublemakers are liable to be. Indiscriminately preying on locals will undermine our case as refugees. We are only tolerated within the confines of Yōkai Town. Higurashi would be grateful for an excuse to rescind the provisional welcome and have Majin set about us with silver and fire.
For all my resentment of the Princess’s high-handedness, I don’t want to be in charge of this excursion. I’ll step in with bandages and ointment if anyone gets hurt, but would prefer important decisions be made by others. I am done with politics and intrigue.
Politics and intrigue, of course, may not be done with me.
4
A KNIGHT TEMPLAR I
Pain was Kostaki’s whetstone. It kept him from growing dull.
His knee stabbed if he walked, burned if he rested. It was like living with an animal; an old dog, grown sly and vicious. If he bound his injury, an ache settled in under the bandage. If he let the wound breathe, agony flowed like mercury – taking pincers to his toes, twisting a knifepoint in his hip.
He would have mended – but for the silver.
Because the metal is valuable – used in jewellery and coinage – making silver bullets used to seem a ridiculous extravagance. Effective in killing vampires, to be sure – but so was any length of sharpened wood. Enough spears to destroy a coven of nosferatu could be had for the price of a single silver shot. But the payment of Judas was favoured by modern vampire killers. Silver is a soft metal, softer than lead. All silver bullets are dumdums. They burst, seeding wounds with poison shrapnel.
Kostaki had tried taking a scalpel to his own meat and muscle. He’d stripped his knee to the bone more than once, fishing for tiny razor pearls. Some bullet fragments were mere specks. He could never find them all. His accelerated healing process worked against him. Broken bones fixed and parted sinews knit swiftly, closing around atoms of deadly metal. His body swallowed minuscule hooks.
The bullet might still kill him.
Until then, he needed his pain.
Red thirst, unslaked for five years, raged in his heart, his throat, his hands, his teeth, his loins, his head. With every rising of the moon, that need grew keener. Pain gave him strength to resist. Unfed, he grew alarmingly lean. A skeleton, sheathed in cords of muscle, wrapped in papyrus skin. Without blood, he looked more obviously like a vampire – a ghost with a body, gums receding to emphasise fang teeth, colourless complexion. If he opened his veins, a clear, soupy fluid leaked. Tasteless as ectoplasm, it was not blood. He could not bestow the Dark Kiss or exercise a power of fascination. He was cut off from a world of sensation. That, he found calming. His feelings were his alone, not aftertastes of stolen blood. At last, he was alone in his head – as he had been before he turned. His will was stronger than what remained of his flesh. In pain was clarity, balance. He would not go mad. He would not become a wolf who walked upright.
Kostaki no longer thought about blood.
He had declined the Abbess’s offer of drink. Blood donated by attendants, served in shallow bowls. He let others guess reasons for his abstinence, perhaps admiring his caution, grateful that someone else was keeping a cool head so they could indulge their red thirst. As on the ship, he kept the night watch.
He uncrossed his legs and stood, gritting his fangs as his knee burned. His sword clattered against the polished wooden floor. He had seen enough of the welcoming ceremony to grow restless. In theatres, Kostaki had an urge to poke about backstage. How were the illusions managed? Where was the switch that turned on the moon? If Juliet was older than the Nurse, what powders gave the semblance of a fresh fourteen?
In the Temple of One Thousand Monsters, he had the same impulse.
He excused himself, slid open a flimsy door, and stepped outside.
People who’d hardly noticed his presence wouldn’t mind his absence.
Alone with his aches, he reflected on the duel of single strokes. Demonstrating control, not force. Baron Higurashi was swift, precise and dangerous, but not a soldier. In a battle, Kostaki wouldn’t get within sword-reach of the man. He’d have archers – or, now, snipers – shoot him from a distance. Cut off the head, and the snake ties itself in knots. Kill the officers first, then take advantage of the confusion. He learned that from Dracula.
Once, commanders in the Carpathian Guard wore no insignia of rank so the enemy couldn’t single them out. The regiment was a fighting force then. In London, the Guard turned into a show troupe. Toy soldiers trotted out for victory rallies and state occasions. The lists were clogged with officers who bought their commissions or secured promotion through patronage. The flabby Bulgar Iorga became commandant. A boudoir general who wore a breastplate to keep his stomach in – and because he was afraid of anarchists dashing out of crowds with wooden stakes.
Titled elders and their ambitious get wanted to look the part. They wore scarlet-lined capes, tunics weighted with braid, unearned decorations, fantastic helmets, and ever-tighter, ever-redder britches. Real soldiers mocked these new Guardsmen, calling them the Crimson Bums. The male impersonator Vesta Tilley put on a moustache and fangs to sing ‘Ain’t the Girlies Glad, I’m a Right Carpathian Cad’ while a chorus paraded in red tights and gilt shakoes. Insurrectionists said they’d prefer to be hunted by the Bums. You didn’t hear medals clinking from three streets away when Special Branch were coming for you. Not to mention the coos of passers-by at all those ripe red rears jogging like apples in sacks.
Now, Kostaki wore something like his original field uniform. A plain black coat and boots scuffed to take off the shine. He’d seen too many polished prizes pulled off dead men’s feet by camp followers to wear anything else.
He walked across the courtyard to a fountain. A stone dragon, moustached like a catfish and scaled like a lizard, crouched over a shallow trough. In summer, water must trickle from its jaws. With the winter freeze, it slavered dirty icicles. Kostaki broke off a spar and idly whittled it with his long nails, making a usable knife. A row of ladles were frost-glued to a wooden beam. Too long-handled for drinking. Were the faithful supposed to purify themselves before entering the temple by pouring water over their heads? At present, they’d have to break a thick rind of ice to do it.
His mouth was dry. He shook a couple of aniseed balls out of a pill-box and sucked slowly. The tang was something – not blood, but something. He preferred aniseed to cigars. They weren’t little lights in the dark that gave away your position. Dravot smoked so constantly a blind man could smell him creeping up, no matter which way the wind was blowing.
The Princess thought he had won the right to land. But Higurashi had his orders, no matter the outcome of their game of swords. It had already been decided, and the Baron had less say about the disposal of the foreign vampires than Majin. How would he fare in a duel with the Lieutenant? Kostaki had an idea Majin also knew the tactic of killing the senior officers. His lowly rank was as much a disguise as any matronly Juliet’s wig and rouge.
The door scraped again and Danny Dravot ducked through. He walked across to the dragon fountain. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, he smeared dark red across his face.
Kostaki pointed to his own mouth. Dravot, befuddled, took moments to get the message. He pulled out a kerchief and dabbed his chin and nose. The Sergeant was not an abstainer. Blood served him as strong drink did in his warm days. It was a point of pride that a British soldier could empty every barrel in a pub but stand straight at roll call next sunrise and kill three Frenchmen before breakfast. With blood in him, Dravot was merry and a little clumsy. The English newborn’s red thirst was a tiny thing, soon sated and put away.
Up close, Kostaki saw Dravot’s face was still bloodied.
He picked a handful of cold, crackly grass from the base of the fountain and wiped Dravot’s face like a mother cleaning a muddy child in the park.
Dravot burped thanks.
Kostaki looked at the earthy clump. He crumpled the bloodied grass into a ball and t
ossed it away. He scraped his fingers against the rim of the fountain, leaving scraps of dry, dead skin. He did not bleed.
Dravot chuckled, satisfied.
A condition of Kostaki’s fast – a private compact, made with himself – was that he not boast of his pledge. He did not wish to be commended for temperance. Lady Geneviève had asked, several times, if he was properly fed. He always told her he had sufficient for his needs. In his mind, he meant sufficient aniseed balls. So he told a truth. Another condition of his vow was that he not lie about it. Even to himself.
In the Tower of London, unjustly accused of treason and conveniently forgotten, he quit blood. The yeoman warders noticed he wasn’t feeding, but didn’t care. Little enough was slopped into prisoners’ troughs. Provision for officers in disgrace was not a priority. After his release – one of those gestures of magnanimity Dracula made whenever a jubilee came along – Kostaki simply refrained from drinking.
On his first attempt, he managed three dry months. Then, crazed and despairing, he rented a scabby neck in a courtyard off St Giles High Street. The blood tasted like dung. He spewed into the gutter. ‘Never said I was no virgin, duck,’ whined the fiftyish penny whore. He paid her tuppence to go away.
After that lapse, he learned to use the pain against red thirst. He kept his vow.
At Kostaki’s discharge from the Guard, the officer corps turned their backs to him. Some were infuriated by his bitter laughter. Others had the decency to burn with shame. Colonel Brudah had Kostaki present an ungloved hand. A final month’s pay was counted out in silver coins, each pressed into his skin like a hot coal. The money was then taken back to settle his stabling account. While he rotted in the Tower, his horse was looked after.
It was assumed that Kostaki could be goaded into a duel – which he had no doubt he would lose. He expected poisoned towels and silver blowgun darts. Kostaki was no longer willing to die to prove a point. A regiment with no honour was incapable of insulting him. Red thirst and silver pain were constants. Humiliations he could endure.