The Dracula Tape

by Fred Saberhagen

  I of course brought no coffin half tilled with earth along in my compartment. But in the car rode a steamer trunk, capacious and fashioned of cattle hide nearly half an inch thick, which three strong porters had groaned to load aboard the train. It was labeled as the property of Dr. Emile Corday, going on to Bucharest.

  On the first leg of our journey, before reaching Paris, I made no effort to see Mina, being content to exchange wordless mental reassurances with her a time or two. I had some concern that the men would recognize me, despite all I had done to alter my man-form appearance. My hair I had combed down over my forehead scar, I had shaved off both beard and mustache, and was cultivating rich brown sideburns that gave my face a fuller look.

  The shape of my nose, and the usual hue of my skin, which my foemen kept describing variously as “pallid,” “greenish,” or “waxen,” were somewhat harder to disguise. To alter the former materially proved impracticable, and to change the latter to a ruddy, healthy, trustworthy glow required massive daily doses of mammalian blood; beef and pork were generally the most readily available.

  By the evening of October twelfth, as I have said, my foemen and I were both in Paris. We stood not far apart inside the Gare l’Est, I squinting behind dark glasses in the glare of the station’s new electric lights. Around us, with measured dignity, preparations went forward for the departure of the most famed vehicle of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Europeens, or indeed of any other railway establishment before or since. The Orient Express had then been in operation for some eight years, and was at the peak of its considerable elegance, if not yet of its fame. The baggage allowance per passenger was ample for Dr. Corday’s massive trunk. I was assigned a cabin deluxe in a car next to that wherein my five hunters shared two. Ladies in that era were usually sequestered in their own voitures-lits, and at least during the customary hours of slumber; and I rejoiced to discover that Mina would be in a compartment alone when I could come to her.

  Departure was timed to allow full serious Gallic consideration to be accorded to the evening meal aboard. Oozing from the window of my cabin as the Orient Express chugged east across the darkened countryside toward Strasbourg, I retained man-form — a bat would have been blown away at once in the gale of sixty miles an hour created by our motion — endured coal smoke and flying cinders, climbed to the top of the swaying, speeding car, and made my way from one car roof to another toward the rear of the train.

  Hanging over the side of the train to peer into windows as I passed, I soon located the dining car, and studied its interior to see whether my enemies might be at table, and whether I could catch a glimpse of my beloved. I might have been looking into the dining room of a fine hotel. Waiters wearing breeches of blue silk, white stockings, and buckled shoes were pouring chilled champagne. The light of fine lamps, swaying only gently with the motion of the train, fell upon mahogany paneling and heavy furniture of solid oak.

  And there indeed was Mina, lovelier than ever in a new open gown. Beside her at table sat her husband, gray and changed even as she had said, staring fixedly into space. With the now oddly matched couple dined Drs. Van Helsing and Seward; across the aisle, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris, both in tweeds that might do well as shooting costumes, made hand gestures that suggested they were discussing the flight paths of game birds, or mayhap of bats, over their veal cordon bleu.

  All seemed to be going according to plan. But judging from the fresh, full condition of the plates, Mina was not likely to be back in her sleeping compartment for some time. Meanwhile I could try to ascertain just which cabin was hers, and this I proceeded to attempt, making my way to the ladies’ sleeping car and peering down as well as I could into its series of windows. Unfortunately these apertures were all so heavily curtained that I could learn nothing; the noise of the train was such that I could hear no sounds from inside the car. At last I came to one window with curtains open enough for me to see that the compartment inside was untenanted at the moment. I moved to slip inside, but found my way suddenly barred — it was the old familiar block against entering a domicile unasked.

  Mumbling imprecations to myself, and wondering if Mina would realize that I needed another invitation to be able to come to her, I crawled on to the end of the train. The last car, as I soon learned, contained a smoking lounge and library, and its end was graced by a small observation platform.

  Anxious to be out of the rush of wind and greasy smoke, I gave this platform only the most cursory look before swinging myself down onto it, and missed seeing the dark form of a man who stood motionless in a corner and gazed out at the scattered lights of farms and hamlets that flew by us in the night. In the surrounding roar of air and iron I could not hear his lungs or heart, and the glowing signal of his cigar became visible only when he turned to face me. I realized that I had been an instant too late in taking my own stance at the rail, as an interested observer of the countryside; yet I looked back at him as insouciantly as possible, daring him, as it were, to believe the evidence of his own eyes concerning my arrival.

  He was a man about thirty-five years of age, of middle height, with a small, well-trimmed beard and brown, liquid, intelligent, and somehow powerful eyes. He removed the large, black cigar from his mouth and stared at me with the frank astonishment of one who could indeed believe his eyes’ report that I had come down from the roof.

  Casually I snapped my collapsible hat back into shape and replaced it on my head. Then I nodded affably to my companion and prepared to engage him in conversation; it was necessary to learn whether my own survival was going to require throwing this unfortunate person from the train, or whether he could be brought around to the belief that he had not really seen what he had seen at all.

  “Bon soir, monsieur,” I offered, and switched to German when his rather hesitant reply came in an accent that betrayed his greater familiarity with that tongue.

  “Good evening,” he answered, and had to stare a moment longer before blinking and offering an apology. “Pray forgive my staring. But — but I was lost in thought here, and it seemed to me that — that you arrived here on the platform … as if from nowhere.” Hesitant though his words were at first, they soon acquired a tone of firm dominance that was evidently more natural for him.

  “Quite understandable,” I murmured. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Emile Corday, of the Akademie der Wissenschaften, in Vienna.”

  He was nonplussed again; once more I had blundered. From behind my glasses I scanned the passing scenery, looking out for a haystack into which I could toss him, thus getting an inconvenient observer out of the way for an essential day or two, if not forever. It was beginning to look as if his departure from the train would be required, but I was loath to take his life.

  “The Akademie …?” he muttered. “But I myself … that is, I thought I was fairly well acquainted with all …”

  “Ach, of course I have not been active there for some years. I am at present in the employ of a London firm … no, thank you, no cigar, Herr —?”

  He reached to grasp my hand by way of self-introduction, and opened his mouth to announce his name, but at that moment we plunged into a short tunnel and his words were lost on me.

  After such intensive dousing in engine smoke as the tunnel had afforded us we moved by common consent to re-enter the interior of the train. It was of course the smoking car we entered; I froze momentarily, anticipating immediate and desperate action, when I recognized two of the — exclusively male, of course — inhabitants as Arthur and Quincey, who seemed to have just seated themselves and lit cigars.

  I contrived to sit with my back to them as my new companion and I took seats not far away; he had his own cigar new-lighted and was likely to wish to remain in this car for some minutes. Nor did I wish to leave him until I was sure how much he had seen, or thought he had seen, of my inhuman acrobatics.

  The voices of Quincey and Arthur were pitched too low for ordinary ears in my position to have p
icked them up, but I had little difficulty.

  “In Texas we call a who-er a who-er,” Quincey was whispering with some vehemence. “You sure that li’l red-haired piece is one, whyn’t we up and put the question to her? Ask her if she’s got a girl friend aboard, too. Things’d be more comfortable that way.”

  “It isn’t always done that directly and bluntly, old fellow, as you never seem to learn. This is not Africa, after all, nor the South Seas.”

  “That’s what you said in London, too. And matters there worked out pretty well, the way I handled it. Right?”

  “The woman there was absolutely terrified, dear chap, after you claimed to see a bat, and fired your Colt out the window for target practice …”

  “My practice is at present rather limited,” my new friend was saying, closer to my ears. He seemed in a way attracted to me, as one unusual person is sometimes drawn to another even when neither knows the exact quality of the other’s strangeness. “I have devoted so much energy lately to these researches on the effects of cocaine, and on the energies of the mental process as they may affect the physical health.”

  This last caught my attention with a jolt. “Most interesting, Doctor,” I said with feeling. I had surmised his title by now if I was still ignorant of his name.

  My companion had fallen silent, pondering something, letting his cigar go gray.

  “Shouldn’ta had that las’ brandy if this’s to be my night to howl, but t’ hell with it. Now I’m gonna mount that red-haired catamount or know th’ reason why … Art, you are sure she’s a who-er?”

  “Quite, quite. One can learn from listening to the servants, you know, even as they learn from us. One must conduct negotiations through them, I’ll wager, for the favors of this auburn-haired charmer and any companion she may have aboard …”

  “And did you say you had a practice now in London, Dr. Corday?”

  “Ah, not precisely, Doctor, no. Rather I am a consultant there on various physiological and medical matters … for several firms …”

  My processes of invention, never very strong, were flagging rapidly. I did, however, by speaking slowly and with thoughtful pauses, manage to stall my interlocutor until Quincey and Arthur had got up again and left the car, evidently to begin negotiations. I thought Arthur trailed rather reluctantly behind his friend; Lucy had been in her grave for only three weeks, and dead for only two. Perhaps I was naive, but it came as something of a surprise to me to learn that ladies of the evening regularly rode the wagons-lits in luxury across the Continent. But why not? Money and boredom both abounded on the Orient Express, and I believe there is something intrinsically exciting in the quick motion of a train.

  When my new friend and I did leave the smoking car I arranged matters so that he preceded me through the train, opening doors as we came to them; thus I was given an invitation into each sleeping car that I had not yet visited. At this early hour of the night the ladies’ car was of course still passable by gentlemen. Inside it, only glass panels and a frame of wood separated the compartments from the more or less public aisle; but damask curtains covered most of the glass, and I still did not know in which compartment Mina was going to lodge.

  “Ah, it is an extravagance, this train,” my unwitting benefactor murmured after we had passed on into a gentleman’s car and were pausing before the door of a cabin that was evidently his own. “For myself, that is. But I wanted to be alone, and in peace for a time, to think … there is so little time for thought.”

  “I have noticed that in my own affairs,” I rejoined sympathetically. “Well, I trust I have not unduly distracted you from your thoughts, Doctor. Your research sounds immensely interesting and I look forward to hearing more of it in the near future.”

  “You are going to Vienna?” he asked.

  “A much greater distance. Business will eventually take me as far as the Black Sea.”

  “Well, we shall certainly have time to talk tomorrow … at breakfast, perhaps?”

  “Why not?” I would always be able to plead some minor indisposition while at table; and if it became necessary I could even swallow some bland food, to be regurgitated later.

  “As for interrupting my research, distracting me, Dr. Corday, do not give it another thought. No, you have given me …” He broke off with a little laugh. “Food for thought,” seemed to be the unstated conclusion of his sentence. “Do you know, when first I saw you on the platform there tonight, I fancied you had …” But at that point he had to break off again, with a little smile followed at once by a very serious look of introspection. What he thought he had seen out there was too ridiculous for casual, social discussion.

  I answered his smile. “I look forward to hearing of it in the morning.” And I bade him goodnight and went on to my own room.

  Once in, I locked my door and of course went out again through the closed windows. Hat folded into my pocket against the blast, I worked my way aft again toward the women’s quarters. Intelligent, practical Mina had contrived to open her window curtains enough for a cinder-scorched wayfarer hanging from the train roof to see inside, where she and Jonathan now sat primly tête-à-tête.

  Primly is perhaps not the right word, for as he sat there he was whetting his huge, murderous new knife, the weapon with which he hoped to send me to eternal punishment. It was a type of knife called Kukri, as I recall, favored in those days and earlier by the Gurkhas of Nepal, and acquired by Quincey or Arthur in their travels. As I stared at this evidence of how stubbornly my enemies still relied on metal to accomplish my demise, my plan for their deception began to take its final form.

  Shortly Jonathan rose and, with a few words to his wife, which I could not hear, thrust the keen blade into a scabbard underneath his coat, bade her a chaste goodnight, and left. As soon as he was gone and the door of the compartment locked Mina came over to the window. Her face was wan but the sight of my own visage, inverted just outside the glass, brought some animation to her countenance, and she remembered to beckon an invitation to insure my ability to enter. A moment later and we were in each other’s arms.

  Mina reported that, as far as she could tell, the men were still all firmly convinced that I lay as inert cargo aboard Czarina Catherine. She had been doing what she could to reinforce this opinion, with her changeless reports of watery noises and darkness, at her regular morning hypnotic sessions with Van Helsing when she pretended to be entranced after he had made a few mesmeric gestures.

  “It will take us at least three full days to reach Varna, where they plan to intercept the box,” she told me. “Vlad, are you sure that your presence aboard the train can be kept secret from them until then? When and where will you rest?”

  “I am getting off at Bucharest,” I explained. “And I have made provision, too, for resting whilst on board.” And with scarcely a qualm I told her of the great leather trunk that rode in the baggage car, half filled with good Transylvania earth. I felt scarcely a qualm, as I say, in telling her; not for centuries had I trusted any breathing soul with knowledge so vital to my survival. To lose my trunk or be deprived of using it would place me in a desperate strait — though admittedly not quite so desperate as if I had been wrecked in the North Sea on my way to England. The Express was hurtling eastward, hour after hour; and from near the Franco-German border it might have been possible for bat, wolf, and man, traveling sequentially, to regain the homeland before being destroyed by exhaustion and the sun.

  When Mina and I had pleased each other as best we could that first night in the swaying train we lay companionably together side by side upon the narrow bed; I with my acute hearing found some amusement in parts of a conversation that penetrated train noises and thin partitions to reach my ears from a neighboring compartment. The persons talking were a young lady, who I suspect had auburn hair, and a young man who by daylight probably wore blue silk and white stockings in the dining car, and by night evidently served in a more enterprising and lucrative capacity as the lady’s business agent.

&nb
sp; “What is it makes you smile so, Vlad dear? I confess that my own heart is heavy, whilst your life and Jonathan’s remain both in grave danger.”

  “I am pleased that Arthur and Quincey have plans for less destructive work tonight.”

  “Really? What do you mean?”

  Mina was quite interested as I explained. Perhaps because of the nature of our special relationship, she discussed openly with me matters she would have been reluctant to mention to her husband.

  “At least it must distract them from their cruel thoughts of harming you,” she murmured. Then shortly I said it was past time for me to go, if I was to manage to dine on beef blood and to get some rest before the dawn.

  “Now do be careful,” she warned, “especially going atop the moving train.”

  I kissed her hand. “I shall take care. But really, I am no more likely to fall from the train top than you would be to topple over when crossing a level and unmoving floor. And for your sake too it is time I left; for you must rest. The good professor will no doubt come round for his usual report before dawn, or have you brought to him to deliver it.”

  “And what am I to tell him in the morning?”

  “Let it be the same report as before — wind and waves, and the darkness of the hold.”

  The kitchen or galley portion of the voiture-restaurant was not deserted even at that hour. Bakers and scrubbers worked industriously so that the passengers should dine and sup in serenity and plenty on the morrow. But after biding my time at a window I entered in mist-form and abstracted some beef and lambs’ blood — congealed, but better than nothing — from carcasses kept in a massive icebox toward the rear. Then, hunger appeased and ruddy cheeks preserved for a few hours more, I sought the privacy of my great cowhide trunk.