Stoker's Wilde

by Steven Hopstaken

  Once again, I must ask Stoker for help.

  From the Journal of Bram Stoker, 29th of April 1880

  9:12 p.m.

  Well, thanks to Oscar my life has once again been put in danger, and to top it off I spent a good part of a day in jail!

  Not all is lost, however; we have dealt a blow to the vampires and valuable information is now in hand. We know Wotton and his lackeys are once again in London and for some nefarious reason other than feeding.

  Oscar came to me early yesterday with the whereabouts of the vampire Leech and by association his boss Wotton.

  Robert was away and Irving was sleeping, so that left just Oscar, Dr. Hesselius and myself as the hunting party. This made me very wary as we had no idea how many vampires were waiting for us, or what our plan of attack would be once we arrived there.

  Dr. Hesselius insisted we stop at a Catholic church to stock up on holy wafers. He assured us we would be undetectable to vampires with fists full of holy wafers in our pockets, and this gave us more courage than we should have had otherwise.

  We entered the old dry-cleaning factory stealthily through an alley door and found the main floor to be empty. However, there was a crack in the floor big enough to peer into the cellar and we could see two of the creatures moving about below.

  We went onto our stomachs and crawled to the crack to listen. We suddenly heard a piglet squealing with much fright. Oscar cautiously peered into the crack and reported there were two vampires below.

  “Dripp and Leech,” he whispered. “They are the ones that took Derrick. Leech has the pig.”

  Perhaps Oscar’s voice was covered by the sound of the piglet’s squeals or maybe the wafers in our pockets did offer some sort of protection, but in any case, the vampires did not hear us.

  I peered into the hole ever so briefly and recognised the one not holding the pig as the vampire that had attacked me my first month in London. His flinty face was forever burned into my memory. Dripp was as dry and dusty as Leech was slimy and greasy. Each had the look of a corpse to them. Had I not known they were the Un-Dead I would steer clear of them for fear of typhoid or cholera.

  “I ain’t eatin’ pig blood again, it tastes awful!” Dripp protested. “Besides, it does nothing to fill my belly.”

  “His lordship says we can’t be feeding off the locals, at least not yet, or we could give ourselves away,” his partner replied. “After Saint George’s Day, it will all be different. It will be a banquet and we’ll be able to feast on whoever we wish. Me, I’ve got my eye on the butcher. Some rich, meaty blood in that one, you can count on it.”

  “Yes, well, grand plans for tomorrow are all easy to talk about, but they don’t do anything for the here and now. Where is ‘his lordship’ anyway?” Dripp asked, in a mocking tone. “You can bet he’s not eating pig.”

  “Back up north to get it all ready,” Leech said. “He’ll be back tonight. Maybe he’ll bring us food.” Leech bit into the pig’s throat and there was a loud squeal and then the piglet went silent. We could hear Leech’s disgusting slurping as he sucked the poor thing dry. “Aww, you’re right, that is terrible. And if anything it has made me more hungry!”

  “There’s plenty around here no one will miss. I won’t tell his lordship if you grab a snack on your way out to keep an eye on Stoker,” Dripp said. I froze as Oscar and Hesselius looked at me warily.

  “On my way? It’s your turn to watch ’im!”

  “You work for me. I’m in charge when Wotton’s away, and I say you’ll go.”

  Leech growled at him then relented. “Awww, all right. I wish we could just kill him.”

  “What would be the point when we can’t even eat that disgusting blood of his? Save it for the ceremony,” Dripp said. He spat as if remembering the bad taste left in his mouth by our encounter months ago, and I felt a small surge of satisfaction.

  “I have a plan,” Oscar whispered. “Get up, get out of here.”

  As quiet as we were getting to our feet, the vampires had heard us.

  “What was that?” Dripp said.

  “I dunno,” Leech said. “Rats upstairs?”

  Oscar went over to a large metal can that had Petrol Solvent written on the side. He dumped its contents and it spread over the floor.

  Hesselius and I bolted back out into the alley, for that must surely have alerted the vampires to our presence.

  Oscar followed with an oil lamp in his hands. He took a match from his pocket, lit the lamp and tossed it inside. The petrol burst into flames remarkably fast.

  We heard Dripp yelling as he reached the top of the stairs.

  Hesselius pulled a wooden stake from his bag. “Let’s wait here and stake them if they come out.”

  Then we heard the police whistle. I turned to see a police detective glaring at us. He drew a gun and spat out the whistle. “Hold it right there!”

  Had it been a constable with a billy club I am sure we would have continued to make a run for it, but we weren’t going to outrun a bullet. We froze in our tracks.

  The police detective took us down to the station and ‘processed’ us for arson.

  “When did police start carrying firearms?” Oscar asked me. “It’s downright uncivilised. This isn’t America.”

  A constable was going through Dr. Hesselius’s bag and describing the objects as another constable wrote them down in a big ledger.

  “Three wooden stakes, two bottles of water, fifty digestive biscuits….”

  “Eucharist wafers,” Hesselius corrected.

  The constable rolled his eyes and continued, “Fifty Eucharist wafers, four silver chains, two heads of garlic and a ham sandwich wrapped in paper.”

  The arresting detective led us down the hall towards the holding cell. He took off our handcuffs. “You lot seem pretty well-dressed for arsonists. Why were you burning that building down?”

  “Rats,” Oscar said. “It’s infested with them and as you know they are thought to carry the plague.”

  A street urchin ran up to us and pulled on the detective’s jacket. “Please, sir, let my da’ go, he didn’t do nothing wrong.”

  “Tomorrow, son. Let him sleep it off today and give your mother time to recuperate from the beating he gave her.”

  “I say, child, how would you like to earn a shilling?” I asked him.

  “A whole shilling?”

  I directed the child to the carriage we’d left waiting at the corner of Whitechapel and Commercial Road and instructed him to tell the driver where we were and to fetch Henry. The lad dashed off.

  The detective put all three of us into an already overcrowded cell, packed with every kind of unbathed miscreant one could imagine. Not even the smell of Oscar’s cologne could overpower the stench.

  A slight, handsome young man approached us. Even in jail, Oscar knew someone, for the man addressed him. “Ay, Mr. Wilde, sir, good to see you again.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Oscar said, turning away from the young man in embarrassment. “I haven’t seen you before in my life.”

  “It’s Joseph Smalls, sir. I talked to you the day they brought Frank Miles to the asylum,” he said. “And when you visited him a few times.”

  Oscar turned back to get another look at the man. “Oh, sorry. I do remember you now. Glad to see you are…better.”

  “Just had the DTs is all. Thanks for asking. Frank is doing well; he was out of the straightjacket when they kicked me out.”

  There was a fight at the back of the cell and we all got pushed forwards against the bars.

  “Hey, watch it!” Smalls yelled. “We gots some gentlemen up here.” He shoved back with all his might and that bought us some room.

  Meanwhile, I was fuming. Once again, I found myself in a precarious position at Oscar’s hand, and I told him as much. He scoffed at my concerns.


  “You could have said no to coming along. We could have waited for Irving to awaken, but you were the one that wanted to go straight away. Why, I just killed two vampires with my quick thinking! Isn’t that what we do now?”

  I reminded him that his ‘quick thinking’ has landed us in jail and most likely for a very long time! And we don’t even know for certain that the vampires went up in flames.

  “I am sure my mother or your vampire can get us out of this,” Oscar said calmly.

  “Your mother’s and Henry Irving’s connections will have little sway with the court. We were caught red-handed by a high-ranking detective.”

  “You are always doom and gloom, aren’t you?” Oscar said. “Perhaps this is why you attract evil like cats to dead fish.”

  I know not why this infuriated me so, but it got my dander up. I grabbed him by his purple waistcoat and shoved him against the bars.

  He groaned dramatically. “Help! Constable, I’m being manhandled by a ruffian!”

  “It does us no good to be arguing among ourselves,” Hesselius said, breaking us apart. “Even if we go to jail forever we must get word out that the vampires are planning something.”

  “That’s right, Stoker, didn’t they say they needed you for something? Possibly your miracle blood again.” Oscar said. He wasn’t chiding me with this, though it felt as though he was. “A ceremony? What could that be?”

  “But they mentioned Saint George’s Day. That was last week,” I said.

  “Ah, but that’s according to the Church of England,” Hesselius replied. “Perhaps they are using the Eastern Orthodox calendar. That would place it on the 6th of May.”

  “Next week,” Oscar said.

  It was then we realised Smalls was privy to our entire conversation. He looked at us with bewilderment, fear and avid curiosity. Perhaps he thought we too belonged in the asylum.

  We waited in that cell for what seemed like days but was only a few hours. Then the detective came with the keys. His eyes were all glassy as if he were drugged on opium.

  Henry entered behind him.

  The detective silently opened the door.

  “You must hurry,” Henry said. “Step out of the cell, calmly now. I don’t know how long I can keep him mesmerised.”

  Smalls and several other prisoners also took this opportunity to escape.

  We made our getaway to a waiting cab.

  “See, Stoker, your vampire did rescue us,” Oscar gloated. I grudgingly conceded this was true.

  “I’ve wiped the detective’s and the other constables’ minds of the events. I hope that is enough to avoid the pressing of charges,” Henry said. “It doesn’t work on everyone and sometimes the memories come back.”

  It has been a full day with no visit from Scotland Yard, so I am hopeful that we are free and clear.

  However, once again I fear for my life. What could Wotton possibly want with me? What is this ceremony they speak of? Saint George’s Day is but a week away. Am I safe until then?

  Hesselius has vampire-proofed our house by hanging garlic and wolfsbane around the windows. I have taken to wearing extra silver crosses and carrying a pistol with silver bullets. I pray I won’t need it.

  Letter from Bram Stoker to Oscar Wilde, 1st of May 1880

  Oscar,

  Something most dreadful has happened, and I turn to you in my hour of need. The Black Bishop is not dead as we thought, and he has taken Noel! Why did we allow ourselves to believe that our foe was defeated so easily? I cannot let Florence and Noel pay for that mistake!

  Three of the Bishop’s men came in while I was at the theatre, struck Florence down, took Noel and fled. They left a black bishop chess piece and a note, which I have enclosed for you alone to read.

  Florence is hysterical and has had to be sedated. I am to go to Amesbury immediately. A carriage waits for me outside and a boy waits at the back door to deliver this when I am gone. I must keep this from the police but wanted you to know the truth.

  I know not what I shall find in Amesbury. Do not try to rescue me; Noel is my priority and I do what I have to do. But once he is safe, you and the others must carry on our work, if you are willing.

  I have sent for your mother to sit with Florence. Tell her there is hope I can negotiate Noel’s return and that it is of the utmost importance that Florence not contact the authorities.

  Florence and I are counting on you, Oscar. I am sorry to place this burden on you, but I know you will shoulder it for Florence’s sake. Tell no one of this but your mother. As you can see by the ransom note, discretion is vitally important here.

  Forever in your debt,

  Bram Stoker

  Black Bishop’s Ransom Note

  Mr. Stoker, I realise you are very upset right now; however, you must follow these instructions carefully if you are to have your son returned alive.

  A carriage will arrive on the hour to take you to the railway station. You are to get on the train to Amesbury. There an associate of mine will be waiting to bring you to me. You are to come alone; do not contact the authorities or your troublesome cohorts.

  I have a simple proposal. When you fulfil its terms, your son’s life will be spared. Follow my directions and you have my word that Noel will be returned into his mother’s arms unharmed.

  You can rest assured he is being properly looked after. I have hired a nanny and wet nurse to attend to his needs. We wish him no harm, but we do need you to perform a task for us, indeed, for the benefit of all humanity. It involves a bit of your special blood.

  Sincerely,

  The Black Bishop♝

  Letter from Ellen Terry to Lillie Langtry, 1st of May 1880

  My dearest Lillie,

  My heart is still racing as I write this – forgive my trembling hand. So much horror for one afternoon! I am heartsick and fretful. We have been dealt a great setback in our efforts against the Un-Dead.

  First and foremost, my beloved Bram’s son Noel has been kidnapped by ‘the Black Bishop’! We did not kill the fiend as we had thought; that was all a ruse.

  In exchange for his son’s safety, Bram has been summoned by the Black Bishop to perform some task. I cannot describe the dread and foreboding I feel now. I wish I were the type of woman who faints. Unconsciousness would be a sweet oblivion.

  Secondly, we were attacked by vampires and one of our comrades is dead! My heart is heavy at his loss, but his bravery saved my life and has given us hope that we can rescue Bram and Noel.

  It started late this morning. It is Monday, so the theatre was empty except for myself and Anthony, a craftsman who was fixing the lift built into the stage. We are currently performing Romeo and Juliet and the lift is supposed to bring up the tomb set for the final death scene, but it malfunctioned at Sunday’s performance. The set came up but would not drop again.

  “Drat,” Anthony said, wiping grease from his hands with a rag. “Needs a new gear and I don’t have the right size. Back in a bit.”

  As he left, Oscar and Robert came rushing in, alarmed to find me there by myself.

  I didn’t tell them I was there to meet Bram, as it was the only time during the week we could be alone, opting instead for the half truth that I often rehearse by myself on Mondays.

  They told me of Noel’s kidnapping and showed me a letter from Bram to Oscar as well as a ransom note from the Black Bishop. Bram himself is the ransom! He has rushed off to Amesbury to trade his life for Noel’s.

  I have not been feeling well lately and nearly became sick to my stomach at the news. Robert helped me to a chair on the stage near Juliet’s casket. I did not fail to see the irony in being surrounded by the final scene in the story of star-crossed lovers who died rather than be parted. I felt at the moment that I would never see Bram again.

  Oscar, who has taken to carrying a walking cane wherever he goes, pulled a hidd
en sword from it, pointed the blade to the sky and proclaimed, “We will kill the bastard for good this time!”

  We sent for Dr. Hesselius, awoke Henry from his sleep and set about developing a rescue plan. The note was very specific that we were not to go to the authorities, so we were on our own.

  “I should go and do some reconnaissance,” Irving said. “Perhaps I could even join their ranks.”

  “Not bloody likely!” a voice yelled from the balcony, startling us all.

  We looked up to see four vampires in the balcony.

  “Dripp!” Oscar yelled.

  “Surprised to see us?” he laughed. “Thought you roasted me and Leech in the fire, did ya?”

  “Takes more than a little fire to kill us,” the one I guessed was Leech said.

  With Dripp and Leech were a ginger-haired vampire and one that could not have been much more than a boy when he was turned.

  They leapt down onto the stage, more swiftly and gracefully than I would have imagined. Before any of us could react, Dripp plunged a silver dagger into Henry’s chest, barely missing his heart, for I thought for sure he had struck it! Henry staggered back and collapsed.

  The other vampires were fighting Robert, Oscar and Dr. Hesselius. My dear friends were no match for vampire strength. The monsters could have quickly killed them but took great joy in toying with their opponents, like bullies slapping small children.

  The ginger-haired vampire was laughing as he absorbed Robert’s punches to his face.

  The young vampire kept pushing Oscar down every time he got to his feet. He did this with only his index finger. He too found it most amusing.

  Leech was merely holding Dr. Hesselius back and watching the others, egging them on.

  “That’s right, it’s fun to play with your food!”

  With their attention away from me, I rushed to the house curtains.