by Kim Newman
Everything he owned could be packed into a simple coffin. Once the box was half-filled with Moldavian dirt. It turned out he didn’t need that comfort either. He hadn’t slept for as long as he hadn’t tasted blood. He believed he couldn’t sleep.
Long ago, as a warm child, he was told he wouldn’t grow strong if he didn’t finish his turnips. As a vampire elder, he discovered he grew stronger through starvation. Dracula’s get knew something they never talked of. They drank human blood not because they needed to, but because they wanted to. Needing was no shame. Wanting was weakness.
He was still a walking corpse, as his face made plain to all. Abjuring the act of vampirism did not make him warm again. The clock could not run backwards.
‘Fancy a promenade round the park, Brother Taki?’ asked the Sergeant. ‘I’m not one for spooning in the shrubbery, but could do with a fellah to ’old me braces while I pee into the bushes. Unsteady on me pegs at present. Must ’ave been something in the bill of fare… seasoning ’erbs.’
Dravot exhaled. Dead air and rotten blood.
Kostaki agreed to the walk.
‘Pippin,’ said Dravot. ‘Let’s recce the turf proper.’
They didn’t know enough about this place. Sanctuary was provisional. Yōkai Town could become a killing box at a clap of Lieutenant Majin’s hands.
The soldiers left the temple grounds.
Kostaki knew Geneviève didn’t understand how he could rub along with Dravot. In ’88, the Sergeant put the bullet in his knee. If he hadn’t served a purpose as a living scapegoat, the Sergeant would have shot him in the head.
…but Dravot was his brother Freemason.
The Sergeant wore the compasses on his watch chain. He had served the craft as tyler in lodges in London and Lahore. Ostensibly a doorkeeper, a Masonic tyler was much more – agent, arranger, messenger, bodyguard, assassin and whatever else a Worshipful Master decreed. For the Diogenes Club, Dravot was still a tyler.
Kostaki was initiated into the Order of the Knights Templar in Sweden. As was Dracula, cementing a temporary alliance. The Prince quit as soon as it was expedient. In old English, ‘warlock’ first meant oath-breaker. Going back on his word was the Impaler’s habit. Betrayal was Dracula’s second nature before he learned necromancy at the Scholomance. He came back from that school as a newborn vampire. Scraps of coffin wood stuck to his grave-clothes like eggshell pieces in a hatchling’s feathers. Dracula had turned, but he never changed…
When the Prince retreated with his women to sit and scheme in his Transylvanian castle, the Carpathian Guard disbanded. Kostaki spent the better part of two hundred years with the Templars in Portugal, guarding the tombs at Berzano, ascending the ranks by mastering rituals and mysteries.
When the rallying call came, the Old Guard reconvened to serve the Prince in London.
Fifteen years into the Ascendancy, too many elders of Kostaki’s vintage were truly dead. Suaver officers took their places. Newborns whose crimson arses would never touch the dirt of their native lands. Victory in Britain came too easy, a conquest by marriage. The enemy did not understand they were defeated. The casualties came after Dracula’s triumph. Under Iorga, the Guard turned into the Crimson Bums.
‘You’re broodin’ again, Brother Taki,’ said Dravot, lighting a cheroot. ‘It don’t do to brood.’
Kostaki shrugged.
If only thinking was as easy to give up as drinking.
* * *
Not all the locals were at the welcoming ceremony. This walled camp had its factions and the Abbess was not an undisputed authority. Off the temple grounds, Kostaki sensed watchful eyes in the fog. Sometimes, an odd number of eyes. In prisons, monasteries and outposts, new faces offer relief from boredom. Here, the exiles were more than a novelty. Assessment would be cold. If deemed a threat, they would be disposed of. That might be the intended stratagem.
‘What a ruddy shower,’ said Dravot, waving his cigar. ‘The Mother Superior with an India rubber neck, the brolly bloke, the baked potato on legs… If that little lot is reckoned presentable enough to parade before the Princess, imagine the ones who ain’t. I’ve seen rum coves in my time, but these yokey wallahs take the bleedin’ biscuit… and the broken bits left in the barrel.’
‘Yōkai,’ said Kostaki.
‘Yokey. That’s what I said.’
‘They’re just vampires. Like us.’
‘Speak for yourself, Brother Taki. They ain’t like me. They is natives. Natives is the same all the world round. Smile to your face and a kris in your back as soon as you turns.’
‘In England, few smiled at my face.’
Dravot chuckled and puffed. ‘That says considerable much about your face.’
Sergeant Dravot hadn’t appreciated the Carpathian Guard swanning around London like the new owners. For once, the English were treated as they treated natives. High-handed foreigners pushed to the front of queues, demanding service – peevish when shopkeepers spoke no Magyar or Romanian. They commandeered goods and services, which often included women, and occupied the best row at plays and concerts, pretending not to understand when patrons seated behind asked them to doff their plumed helmets.
Kostaki understood the kris in the back, as he understood the silver in his knee. But that treatment hadn’t turned the Carpathian Guard into the Crimson Bums. Subtler traps were sprung, without the Diogenes Club even taking a hand. Eventually, the English took pity on the invader and condescended to issue invitations. Club membership was offered. Pews in churches set aside. More blood was freely given than could have been taken by force. It was put about in ‘circles’ that your Carpathian wasn’t necessarily a rotter. Some were good sports. Respect was accorded Dracula’s get as honorary, provisional Englishmen. That – not dynamite and silver – pulled the fangs. In the end, smiles were crueller than knives.
They had walked a distance from the temple.
Near the seafront were facilities of shipping companies, abandoned when the walls of Yōkai Town went up. Sturdy shells of buildings. Stone and plaster, rather than wood and paper. Defensible.
Squeezed between two dark warehouses was a thin building. Its arched windows were boarded over. Stone steps led to a stout front door. On the lintel was carved an ichthus – the sign of the fish. The first Christian emblem, used even before the crucifixion. Persecuted as apostate Jews and rebels against Rome, early Christians identified each other with the Galilean gesture – an oval monocle of thumb and forefinger. Templars still used the ichthus salute.
No one ever suggested vampires should shun the sign of the fish.
‘That’s a church,’ Kostaki told Dravot.
‘I thought we came from the temple,’ said the Sergeant.
‘No, a real church. A Christian church. Catholic.’
Dravot exhaled smoke. ‘Them beggars gets everywhere, Brother Taki.’
Japanese characters were daubed on the door.
‘Condemned by order of the Great Pooh-bah,’ suggested Dravot.
‘That’s likely,’ Kostaki agreed. ‘The Black Ocean Society see the Holy Church as a foreign influence. They are against foreign influences.’
‘Can’t say as I blame ’em. Didn’t much like chapel afore I sprouted fangs. And I’ve grown awful weary of ’aving crosses and crucifixes waved at me conk since.’
‘I prefer crucifixes to crosses.’
‘There’s a difference?’
‘You know as well as I, Brother Mason. A crucifix is an image of Christ crucified. A cross is empty. With the crucifix, you know where Jesus is. Pinned where he can’t hurt you. The empty cross means He is risen.’
As a Templar, Kostaki was a warrior of God – but he had surrendered his own salvation. Holy wars were won by damned soldiers like him. The warm boyar Dracula styled himself defender of the faith, but cynically slaughtered Christian and infidel alike. As a vampire, the Prince sometimes swore allegiance to the Devil – an easy enough pledge to make (and break) if one thought to evade Hell by not dying. B
erzano Templars were excommunicated, yet served Christ. Postulants must sin ritually, without pleasure, without pity. Initiation rites involved fornication, sodomy, blasphemy, idolatry (bowing before Baphomet) and a hundred other mortal sins. Including vampirism. Without hope of Heaven, a knight was free to do the Lord’s dirty work. Even Jesus shouldn’t have to know what Templars did in His name. Kostaki had done worse at the behest of popes than on the orders of Dracula.
‘I smells a rat,’ said Dravot.
A pile of rubbish by the church steps shifted, showed blinking eyes – just the two of them – and bolted. The startled specimen ran in a cringing crouch, as if used to being beaten with sticks. Dravot, vampire-swift, blocked the path. The ragman scuttled backwards and blundered into Kostaki. The smell of drink stung Kostaki’s nostrils. Not bothering to draw his sword, he put his ice-blade to the man’s throat.
‘Mestres, mestres… misericórdia, misericórdia!’
The ragman was a warm Japanese, emaciated and unhealthy. Relatively young. His patchy beard and unkempt hair were black. His grubby skin was marred by gritted old scars and fresh raw sores. Scabs on his neck and limbs showed he’d been bitten often.
‘Mestres… misericórdia!’
‘That’s not Jap jabber,’ said Dravot.
‘It’s Portuguese,’ Kostaki said. ‘Português?’
‘Sim, sim, eu sei,’ said the ragman. ‘You are from Portugal.’
‘What’s the Chinaman saying?’
‘That we’re Portuguese.’
Dravot clucked. ‘Tell ’im we bloody ain’t.’
‘To him, all Europeans are Portuguese… like some think all orientals Chinese.’
Dravot shrugged.
‘Who taught you this language?’ Kostaki asked.
‘Father Rodrigues, many years ago. I serve Father Rodrigues. Serve his line.’
‘A warm josser who won’t quit the Yokey Pokey,’ Dravot observed. ‘Is ’e loony? Or just a blood-nancy? Look at the cankers on ’im. It’d take a long dry spell to make me draw from this well.’
Of course, it had been a long dry spell.
‘He’s not a madman, just afraid,’ said Kostaki. ‘In this place, I’d think him mad if he weren’t afraid.’
‘Stop further terrifyin’ the poor basket with your ice-sticker then.’
Kostaki crumbled his makeshift blade and dropped the pieces. He stood back.
‘What is your name?’ Kostaki asked.
‘Kichijiro,’ said the ragman. ‘I am good Christian.’
Kostaki raised his hand to his eye, making the ichthus. Kichijiro bowed low and looked up. His smile showed missing teeth.
‘What is this place?’
‘Their church, shelter, crypt. The disciples of Rodrigues. Those he make like him. Make like you.’
Kichijiro put his hands beside his mouth, kinking his forefingers like fangs.
‘Like us?’ Kostaki prompted. ‘Vampires. Drinkers of blood. Kyuketsuki.’
The Japanese nodded vigorously. ‘Vampiros Português,’ Kichijiro said. ‘Nosferatu.’
Dravot’s ears pricked at that.
Kostaki looked up at the church door. While they were paying attention to Kichijiro, it had been pulled inward.
In ghost stories, doors creak. A door opening silently is more sinister.
Someone stood at the top of the steps, shadowed under the arch.
Kostaki’s hand went to his sword-hilt. Dravot reached inside his coat for his revolver.
A lucifer flared and a candle flame grew, illuminating a face.
‘Welcome, brothers,’ said the vampire, in English.
He wore a black vestment and a long white silk scarf. His brick-red hair was cut and combed European-style, but his features were oriental. More Chinese than Japanese. His almond eyes were golden. Thin lips drew back from pearl fang-tips. In his hand was a brass candlestick.
Kichijiro shrank from the vampire – his mestre.
Kostaki knew what the ragman was. In English slang, a Renfield, named after Dracula’s short-lived English minion, famous in a book no one was supposed to read. More than a servant, less than a lover. Watchdog, valet, messenger boy and day labourer. Bitten if needs must, but never turned – though many a Renfield nurtured the illusion that the Dark Kiss was promised. Some were kept alive beyond their allotted span, but only as working animals. Elders would butcher them without qualm if it became expedient. Masters grew blind to the commingling of love and hate in minions’ eyes. Kostaki had heard of haughty elders spitted in their catafalques by Renfields who suffered one whipping or blood-rape more than the tatters of their pride could stand.
‘I am Dorakuraya,’ said the vampire. ‘Enter freely and of your own will.’ He held up his candle. Behind him was a black curtain. ‘Come freely, go safely and leave some of the happiness you bring.’
Kostaki thought Kichijiro’s mestre had learned that and was reciting.
‘An invitation it would be churlish to refuse,’ said Dravot, pulling his empty hand out of his coat. ‘I’m Daniel Dravot, Esquire, late of the Queen’s Own Right Royal Loyal Light Infantry. This corpse-faced specimen is Brother Kostaki, late of the Carpathian Guard – but ’e will swear on ’is solemn word as a foreigner that ’e has no more truck with those scoundrels. We is adventurers, come from a far land seeking our fortune. We meet on the level and trust to depart on the square.’
Dorakuraya bowed graciously.
Kostaki recognised his name – it was how the Japanese said ‘Dracula’.
The curtain was lifted. Kostaki and Dravot followed Dorakuraya’s candle flame. Kichijiro slunk after them like a shamed dog.
Lamps burned low and red. The church was desecrated. Behind the altar stood a man-sized upside-down cross. Ugly nails stuck out of stained wood, suggesting recent crucifixions. A tang of spilled blood made Kostaki’s eyes water and his fangs prick. Scarlet cloth spotted with black wax draped the altar. A fouled Bible lay at the foot of the lectern, where it could readily be trampled.
Kostaki heard a scratching above.
In the vaulted ceiling roosted a colony of large bats. The flagstone floor was speckled with their guano. Rats and insects nested in the wreckage of smashed pews. Cobwebs hung over everything.
Amid this filth, Dorakuraya was immaculate.
Not so the other vampire in the church.
As Kostaki and Dravot stepped out of the vestibule, a disreputable Japanese rolled out of a hammock and landed like a cat. He ambled towards them with a peculiar gait – strutting and slouching at the same time. His topknot wasn’t tied properly and he had a few days’ growth of beard. A pair of sheathed swords were tucked into the belt of his kimono: a long katana and a short wakizashi.
Shrugging as if infested with itch-inducing bugs, he pulled his arms into his robe and scratched. Empty sleeves flapped like useless wings. He snarled lazily, showing cat fangs.
‘My brother-in-darkness,’ said Dorakuraya.
The shabby samurai looked dubious about this claim of kinship. He little resembled his ‘brother’. Kostaki assumed they were related by bloodline not blood. Turned by the same father-in-darkness.
‘This is Kostaki and this is Dravot,’ said Dorakuraya.
The other vampire grunted and shrugged again, still wriggling in his clothes. He wasn’t too concerned about formal introductions.
Finally, Dravot asked, ‘What’s your name, chum?’
‘Sanjuro,’ snapped back the vampire.
It was an odd name – Thirty.
‘Thirty what?’ Kostaki asked.
The vampire looked around the church, then up at the roost. ‘Komori,’ he said, sticking his arms out through his sleeves. ‘Sanjuro Komori.’
A laugh cracked in Kostaki’s throat.
‘What’s funny?’ Dravot asked.
‘His name means Thirty Bats.’
‘Sounds like a Red Indian brave.’
‘Or an alias.’
Komori had given them something to call him. That w
as as far as he felt obliged to go. Dorakuraya, however, gave the impression he wouldn’t want his assumed name – and what it implied – called into question.
‘You are nosferatu,’ said Dorakuraya. ‘Dracula’s get.’
Kostaki admitted he was of the Dracula line. So did Dravot – whose blood was watered several times.
‘We are cousins,’ said Dorakuraya. ‘We also carry the blessed blood. We have it from the Prince’s disciple, Sebastian Rodrigues.’
Kostaki murmured noncommittally. Until Kichijiro mentioned the name, he’d not heard of Rodrigues. A Portuguese missionary, passing through Wallachia on his way to Japan centuries ago, could have received the Dark Kiss from Dracula or – more likely – one of his wives. The Prince wooed and turned his women personally, but had male get by proxy. This Rodrigues might have been a pawn in a scheme of Eastern conquest set aside when Dracula turned his attention to England. It was also possible that Dorakuraya’s father-in-darkness was a liar. Claiming lineage from Dracula was like posing as rightful heir to the Hapsburg or Stuart thrones. A lot of ambitious bastards tried the trick. Few successfully.
‘I am doubly the priest’s get,’ said Dorakuraya. ‘A son of the Black Mass, conceived in blasphemy. On that altar.’
‘Can’t ’ave been comfy-cosy,’ observed Dravot.
Dorakuraya’s red hair must come from his father. The colouring wasn’t common in Japan – or Portugal, either, come to that. It was a trait of some vampire bloodlines, like red eyes, hairy palms or sixth fingers. The mother must have been Japanese. A prostitute, most likely. The Black Mass requires veneration of a harlot in place of the Virgin. Latin chanted backwards. And blood that turns to wine – or, at least, is drunk like wine.
Could Father Rodrigues have been a Templar? Some lodges bowed to Satan rather than Baphomet. Doctrinally, a Christian goat-devil was indistinguishable from a pagan goat-god.
Dorakuraya made a reverse sign of blessing – bottom to top, left to right, with the left hand.
‘In the name of the fucker, the spawn and the Holy Goat,’ he blasphemed.
‘God’s ’oly trousers,’ whispered Dravot, impressed.