Anno Dracula--One Thousand Monsters

by Kim Newman

  Cerral kept his distance for a few days, but started talking to me again, which at least got me back into the marginal fraternity of the ghouls. He’d played the toe-tag joke on others before me.

  Plainly, the reasoning went, it was silly to be terrified of poor clever Gené or that ponce of a Marquis. If they were vampires, then vampires must not be so terrible after all. So, the ghouls pestered me with questions. Medical student questions. Drinking blood – what does it taste like? How can you live off it? Do you need the pissoir? Powers of fascination – could one prevail on a tutor to alter grades? They were disappointed by my answer to that. Rapid healing – a revelation. Students gawped as penknife cuts on my arm closed in seconds and I wiped away blood to show unscarred skin – though I didn’t like to take that trick too far. Vampire blood is dangerous stuff. I didn’t want to expose anyone to its transformative, quickening effects. Fangs – how can dentine serve as erectile tissue? Aversion to direct sunlight – ah, yes, that explained the smoked glasses! Could I fly? Or float? Shapeshifting – had I been the Beast of Gévaudan?

  After the shock that I was what I was came slow realisation of all the other things I was.

  Etiquette about enquiring after a woman’s age was suspended. Over and over, I was asked how old I was. I know, Charles, that you have reached that age when you have to think for a moment before answering that question and quite often are a year – or two! – out in your response. You can’t believe you are nearly fifty, poor love. Methuselah is put in the shade. Think what it’s like for me – after so many years of trying to keep ever-changing supposed birthdates and ages and names in my head – when asked flat out to tell the truth.

  I was born in 1416. That’s what I took to saying. Boldly.

  Which famous people had I met?

  Jeanne d’Arc? No, but I saw her several times from the back of crowds, including at her execution by the vile English (spit!). I hacked off my hair like hers when I first took to doctoring. Marshal de Rais? Yes, but I don’t want to talk about that, ever. Cyrano de Bergerac? It was the same size as everyone else’s, so far as I could tell. Kings and queens? No, I didn’t move in those circles, and I wasn’t an intimate of Napoleon either, for all that I cut off legs, dug out shot and sewed up wounds in his army. I didn’t imagine then that I’d be invited to Buckingham Palace within a few eventful years. Or how that would turn out.

  Other vampires? Dracula? Once, but in the company of other elders, many more distinguished, most now destroyed. Ruthven? Yes – funny story, though he wouldn’t remember it. The Devil? Not so far as I knew. I hadn’t signed any pacts in blood to become what I was. Where had I travelled? What had I seen? Was I really from Martinique? Did I have any living relatives… or dead relatives still among the living? How old were you when you died? When did you die? Where are you buried? Yes, some poor fool actually asked that to my face. Over and over, I said I wasn’t dead but no one took it in. I was the first vampire any of them had met… so far as they knew.

  Was Sarah Bernhardt a vampire? Not then. Oscar Wilde? I said not, but he might have been newborn already. He was first in any fashion, they said… and first out, too. That was another thing they asked. Was there a cure? Could I go back? Would I want to? Would anyone?

  Did I want to bite them?

  If I didn’t answer, they were suddenly afraid again. Maybe I wasn’t just poor clever Gené… maybe I was the diabolically cunning, unendingly deceptive Vampire Dieudonné. If I said no, that I had supped enough already, they pressed for details I was no more willing to give than if they’d asked me who I’d slept with last. If I said yes, then it was a provocation and a threat.

  These were medical students – young, bright, curious, mostly open-minded. Not all were men. And they already knew me well enough to accept me as part of the scenery – not a harpy siren come from Hell intent on blood-raping the lot of them and making them my undead slaves. The ghouls knew death and were unsqueamish about its most grotesque aspects. This, without me especially seeking it, was the best possible human society I could have in a city where vampires were known about, but not numerous.

  And it took them two hours to get to the question they most wanted answered.

  ‘How many have you killed?’

  I’ve been in battles, wars. I’ve been attacked and fought back. I have killed, and I have also saved lives, shown mercy. Yes, but… how many people have you killed – and fed off? Killed with your teeth?

  You, Charles, are the only person I’ve ever volunteered the answer to that question – which, pointedly, you did not ask.

  Three.

  Not a day goes by that I don’t think of each one of them. So many names and faces I have forgotten.

  But not those.

  Dafydd le Gallois, Sergei Bukharin, Annie Marriner.

  Names not remembered by history. Faces remembered only by me.

  The ones who died of me. Who invited me in, let me bite and were too weak, too willing. Or met me when I had less control of myself, when red thirst ruled, when something in me which I will not disown made me the monster vampires are popularly supposed to be.

  Three.

  I didn’t answer, and that was answer enough for the ghouls.

  Cerral changed the subject, but the evening was over and the long night begun.

  * * *

  Within a fortnight, the vampire-slayers came for me.

  Captain Kronos laid in wait outside the morgue, leading a band of torch-bearing hirelings of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. They pursued me to the steps of Notre Dame – where the mediaeval doors were slammed in my face. Kronos slipped inside my guard with an elegant move and slid his sword gently between my ribs, piercing my newly broken heart. I saw a glint of regret and pity in his beautiful blue eyes as I turned to dust floating on the first rays of dawn.

  Except it wasn’t like that.

  I had worked a long night’s shift among the dead. Waiting for me at daybreak was a liveried lad with a billet-doux from Hippolyte Modéran, assistant clerk in the university’s Department of Admissions. I was invited to call at his office to review discrepancies in my filed documents. I knew at once that I couldn’t get away with ignoring the casual summons. The next liveried lad would be taller and armed. I tipped the message-bearer a sou, as was customary. I remembered how kind Jeanne was to the workman who made a mess of tying her to the stake at her burning. When he dropped the rope, she held one end of it to make his job easier. I wondered then why she didn’t spit in his face. Now I know. Force of habit. It is harder than you think to stop being kind.

  So, to make things easier for everyone (else), I walked to the Latin Quarter and presented myself at the edifice in Place de la Sorbonne. I was directed to a less imposing building across the square from the old college. Inside was the domain of M. Modéran. Here were kept the records of past and present students.

  I sat all day in a waiting room, missing lectures. Students came and went. Pressing matters were addressed – misfiled documents, changes of address, bills to be settled, refunds to be issued. The assistant clerk’s assistant regularly told me I would be seen in turn, but didn’t look me in the eye. I wished I’d brought something to read.

  I’d almost slipped into a state of lassitude when my name was called.

  It was the end of the working day. Outside the windows, a new night had begun. The city of lights began to sparkle. Paris is never truly dark.

  In his office, Hippolyte Modéran was in shirt-sleeves, sat on a chair away from his neat desk, being shaved by his valet. His tailcoat and top hat adorned a dressmaker’s dummy with a wickerwork head. Another servant brushed his opera cloak. A grand fellow for an assistant clerk, then – but the University of France is a grand institution. Its functionaries put up a front.

  M. Modéran apologised as profusely as was possible without moving his mouth. The keen blade scraped foam from his cheeks.

  There were minute spots of blood.

  Was this a deliberate provocation
? Or just thoughtlessness?

  I touched my tongue to the points of my fangs.

  ‘Regrettably, this meeting must be brief, Mademoiselle Dieudonné,’ he told me. ‘Madame Modéran and I have a box tonight. De Boscherville’s Don Juan Triumphant. Have you seen it?’

  ‘I don’t get time for the opera. My studies are demanding, and there’s my work at the morgue.’

  ‘Ah, yes, well,’ he said, expression changing with each word, foam dripping on the towel round his neck. ‘That need not be the situation from now on. A bright side, hein? All the things you will have time for.’

  ‘When I am expelled?’

  ‘Oh no, Mademoiselle Dieudonné,’he responded. ‘You are not expelled, for you were never here.’

  ‘I don’t see—’

  ‘You could not have been here for you – the student who gave these references – do not exist. You were not born where these papers say you were. You did not attend the schools listed. The referees who attested to such things were, shall we say, in error. In fact, the documents are in such a sorry state it would be best if you withdrew them altogether, then there would be no question of fraud or forgery, or taking a place which should have gone to a candidate who is—’

  ‘Is what, sir?’

  ‘You know very well.’

  ‘A man?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  At that point, I might as well have converted to Judaism to complete the trifecta of checks against me in the ledger of unacceptability.

  ‘Are you not, Madame, a trifle old to be a student?’

  I had slipped from Mademoiselle to Madame, I noticed.

  ‘For the sake of argument—’ I began.

  ‘More tiresome words never were spoken. Whenever anyone says “for the sake of argument”, one knows nothing good will come of it.’

  ‘For the sake of argument,’ I insisted, ‘what would be my position should I not withdraw my documents?’

  ‘Out of my hands, I’m afraid.’

  Newly shaved, M. Modéran sprang up and peered into a hand-mirror, giving his moustache and chin-thatch minute examination. He caught sight of a blurry shadow and shook with undisguisable disgust.

  Then he was fascinated.

  I was his first vampire. The mirror brought that home.

  Had he arranged for two servants – broad-shouldered fellows, not at all like the dainty prisses you think of when valets are mentioned – to be in the room during our meeting? Was that why the wait had been so long? The barber cleaned his razor but did not put it away, or even close it. He folded it back, so the blade rested across his knuckles sharp-side out. An apache trick, not unknown to the High Rip gangs of Whitechapel.

  ‘Fraud and forgery are serious crimes,’ said M. Modéran, fussing with his white tie. ‘And a police investigation would be thorough. I should not care to be subject to such scrutiny. Who knows what might turn up?’

  M. Modéran set mirror and towel down on his desk. The other valet had his tailcoat ready for him to shrug into. It was a little tight around the shoulders.

  ‘Skeletons are often found in cupboards, I understand,’ he went on. ‘Or placed there in medical student jests with unfortunate consequences. You see the reasoning? You are an intelligent… person.’

  ‘I have degrees from this and other universities.’

  He barked a humourless laugh at that. ‘Yes, we know. We keep records. No one thought to look back to see if you had been here before. I should address you as Dr Dieudonné – though if that title were obtained under false pretences, we shall have to see about getting you struck off. What with this English tribulation, we shall have to institute measures against other impostures. An additional clerk will have to be engaged to go over all the books.’

  The cloak and hat were handed to him.

  ‘I appear to be in want of a position,’ I said.

  ‘I should not advise applying for this one,’ he said, popping his hat on. ‘Hiring policies are being settled upstairs. Employment of the dead is a nettle unlikely to be grasped for a few years yet. Still, I suppose you’ve learned patience. You have had more than enough time. Good evening.’

  I was given the fat folder of documents, relieved of my student identification papers and escorted from the building.

  I hear Don Juan Triumphant has one or two stirring tunes but is otherwise a dreary evening’s wallow in self-pity.

  I hope it gave M. Modéran a splitting headache.

  15

  YOKAI TOWN, DECEMBER 19, 1899

  This evening, a gong rang inside the statue by the gate. The clanging reverberated in its chest and boomed out of its snarling mouth.

  I went to see what the fuss was about. A small group gathered. Kostaki and Dravot were there, a head taller than the yōkai around them. Whelpdale hurried past, bright-eyed as if he had a notion of something to his advantage.

  Lieutenant Majin stood alone on the observation platform, arms folded, cape stirred slightly by the wind. He looked down on us over the rim of the giant’s helmet. I fancied he was searching the crowd for a particular face he did not find. Christina is still asleep. If the summons was for her, it was wasted.

  With a grinding, the gate opened. Soldiers roughly escorted a coffle of prisoners into Yōkai Town. At the head of the line hopped Mr Yam, an o-fuda nailed to his forehead. In case the binding spell was ineffective, weights hung from his chains. His hair was unbound. His chin was blackish red with congealed blood, though his sucked-in cheeks and shining eyes suggested he hadn’t fed.

  How had he been caught? Did a posse of samurai cowboys rope him? Or could Majin bring the Chinese elder down with magic gestures? Seeing Yam humbled and yoked did not give me comfort.

  Shackled to him were others. A woman in a padded kimono with a shapeless sack over her head. An extraordinary ball of glossy black hair surrounding a pale girlish face. A young Japanese man in a white European-in-the-tropics suit. He had a pulsing rift in his forehead and the bridge of his nose. A hatchet might once have been sunk in his face and pulled out again.

  The soldiers kept a wary distance from the day’s catch. Our old friend Kannuki was sergeant of the detail. His uniform must be custom-made. A Black Ocean banner stretched between poles stuck up from his tunic. In his huge hands, a rifle looked like a child’s toy.

  Kostaki walked to greet his spy. A bullet – a plain lead slug, for show – kicked into packed snow at his feet. He stopped and looked up. A rifle poked out of the statue’s left eye.

  Kannuki took a set of keys from his foot-wide leather belt and unfastened chains. The yōkai I didn’t know stamped, trying to get feeling back in their legs. Yam swayed but stood in place. Kannuki tore the parchment from his forehead and threw it away. He stepped out of biting range and aimed his rifle at the jiang shi.

  Yam’s mouth sagged open and greasy blood spilled out.

  Majin tossed an object from the platform. It landed at Kostaki’s feet – a wriggling, slithering thing like a fleshy centipede. Yam’s tongue.

  I assumed our intelligence mission was compromised.

  If Verlaine wasn’t here, she was most likely dead.

  Yam sank to his knees. I went to him with my medical bag. No one shot me.

  I wiped the elder’s chin and mouth with cotton wool. Besides having his tongue ripped out, he was defanged. The jiang shi was already healing, physically. New teeth-buds were sprouting. However, the violation of his person represents an enormous loss of face. I found forceps in my bag and got a grip on the nail stuck in Yam’s forehead. It didn’t come free without a struggle. I dressed the wound with a pad and bandage. Blood seeped through. The stain resembled a third eye. A weeping third eye.

  I looked up at Majin. He did not look at me. He was interested only in the Princess.

  Does he think he has surrounded our stones? By breaking Yam, he has countered Kostaki’s first move. Another message is sent. Yōkai Town is his to rule or wreck. He plays five or six games at once. He must believe those of us who were
at Suicide Garden appreciate the rewards of bowing to him and the risks of remaining defiant.

  At the gate, Whelpdale had a conversation with Kannuki, handing over a book-shaped parcel and receiving a sack of goods. Black Ocean, meet Black Market.

  Kostaki stepped over the bullet divot and joined me. ‘Whatever Yam saw out there, he won’t tell us about it till his tongue grows back,’ I said.

  ‘We aren’t learning,’ said Kostaki. ‘We are being taught.’

  I agreed with him.

  Majin waved his gloved hand and disappeared inside the giant’s head. I assumed he could still see us.

  Kostaki knows all about Jisatsu No Niwa. He wonders why he was not invited to the Suicide Garden. I think the display was for Christina’s benefit and Yam is for Kostaki’s. An afterthought.

  Kostaki is keeping something from me. Maybe from kindness, maybe from shame. I have not the patience to get him to share his worry; I have enough of my own. But he has become uncommonly thoughtful. On the voyage here, he was a man of action. He did what had to be done, swiftly and directly. Now he mulls things over and keeps quiet. When people act out of character, it is seldom good news.

  Dravot – who at least is still himself – arranged for a cart to take Yam to the men’s dormitory. The other newcomers were received by Abura Sumashi and Kasa-obake. The hairball yōkai shut her eyes and her locks curled and spiralled, like fast-growing water-weeds or a tangle of black snakes. She seemed asleep, held upright by living hair. Her captors had bound her with ribbons, combs and pins, which now shook loose and scattered. The cleft-headed man – can we call him hatchet-faced? – helped her get steady on her unseen feet. He took a pair of dark glasses out of his top pocket and fit them onto his head as if to prevent it falling apart. In his raw gash, small teeth glistened. His apparent wound is a vertical mouth. How wide can it gape?

  The woman with the sack on her head blundered against soldiers – who backed away from her – and the wall. No one made any effort to help her. Even other yōkai edged out of her range. Her hands were unbound. She tried to get free of the sack by shaking her head or scraping it against the wall. She threw herself about spasmodically. Recognising the early stages of a fit, I had concerns for her condition.