by Dacre Stoker
“You’re telling me a countess started this fire to kill Basarab?” Holmwood asked.
Quincey nodded.
Holmwood gave Mina a stern look. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Countess Bathory, the deaths of Jonathan and Seward, and the telegram from Van Helsing all added up to one possibility: that Dracula was alive and back in England. The other possibility was too terrible to think about: that Dracula knew the secret she’d kept from him and was coming to claim what was his by any means necessary, even if that meant working with Bathory and killing her.
“What is it?” Quincey asked, seeing her distraction.
“Dracula is alive. Here in London . . .”
“Mina Harker! Arthur Holmwood!” a familiar voice called out. “Stay where you are!”
Mina looked up to see two police carriages emerging from Tavistock Street. Cotford jumped out of one carriage, Sergeant Lee following suit.
“You are wanted for questioning,” Lee said. “Do not move.”
Several policemen leapt out of the carriage. Lee led the charge, using his immense frame to cut a path through the crowd.
There was no time to lose. Mina pushed Quincey toward Holmwood and shouted, “Take the horse!”
Holmwood leapt upon his stallion, uncovering its eyes.
Quincey, bemused, cried, “What’s going on?”
By way of response, Holmwood took hold of his collar and hoisted him onto the horse.
“Stop them!” Cotford cried. “Do not let them escape!”
Holmwood drew a pistol from his pocket and fired into the air above the heads of the crowd. The onlookers screamed and ran for their lives. A constable raised a rifle, and his finger hovered over the trigger. Sergeant Lee pushed the barrel upward into the night sky. “Don’t fire into the crowd, you idiot!”
Holmwood fired the pistol again, clearing a wider path.
“Have you gone mad?” Quincey yelled.
“Many years ago, Master Harker,” Holmwood replied with a roguish gleam in his eye. He kicked his heels into the stallion’s side. “Hah!” The horse bucked and raced off at a gallop north toward Bow Street.
“Stop!” bellowed Cotford, raising his gun and aiming it at Quincey’s exposed back. Now that the crowd had parted, he had a clear shot. From the look in his eyes, he intended to take it.
“No! Not my son!”
Mina ran forward and put herself between the gun and Quincey’s back, blocking Cotford’s aim.
“Damn it!” Cotford cursed. He shouted to his men. “After them!”
Two policemen gave chase on foot while Lee and the others started back for the nearest carriage.
Cotford stopped Price and another young constable, Marrow. “Hold it! You two stay with me.” Then the Irish bloodhound turned his anger on Mina. “Thank you, Mrs. Harker. Now we have a positive identification of your son. Where are they going?”
She drew herself up. “I haven’t the foggiest notion. And what does my son have to do with any of this?”
Cotford screwed up his face, preparing to unleash his fury, when an earsplitting shriek froze them all in place. Every head turned to see a woman running down the road.
“Murder! Murder!” she screamed.
Cotford, Price, and Marrow dragged Mina to where the Holmwood carriage had crashed.
This was a night London would never forget. A spectacular fire, a miraculous escape, and now a woman murdered in public, impaled through the heart. Cotford examined the walking stick that was protruding grotesquely from the dead woman’s bloody chest.
Playing to the crowd, he announced triumphantly: “The murder weapon bears the Holmwood family crest.” He took hold of Mina’s arm and spun her around, showing off her blood-spattered clothing. “Would you be good enough to tell me how you managed to get so much blood on you?”
“My son was injured in the fire at the theatre.”
“Sir, look at this,” exclaimed Constable Price as he picked up the bloodied katana.
Cotford handed Mina over to Constable Marrow and inspected the broken blade. JONATHAN HARKER.THE ANGLO-JAPANESE ALLIANCE read the bloodstained inscription. “How very thoughtful of you to use a weapon with your husband’s name upon it.”
Mina opened her mouth to respond but could find no words that would rationally explain away the evidence.
“Rest assured, Mrs. Harker, I will be thorough,” said Cotford with a smile. “We will test blood types and I’m sure it will confirm that the blood on you and on this blade is the same. You murdered that woman.” He turned to Constable Marrow. “Fetch the surgeon. This time there will be no cause for doubt. I will oversee the evidence collection myself.”
Mina tried hard to keep her expression blank, but she feared that she would soon find herself hanging at the gallows.
Countess Elizabeth Bathory stood upon the green copper dome opposite the ruins of the Lyceum Theatre. Smoke rose, carrying to her the intoxicating aroma of seared human flesh. From her vantage point, she observed the movements of each of the players in her great game. Arthur Holmwood and the boy appeared to have sacrificed the woman to secure their escape. So much for chivalry. Inspector Cotford had followed the trail of bread crumbs she had left for him. Her strategy was playing out just as she had hoped. She marveled at the simplicity of the human mind. How easily humans could be manipulated! No wonder God chose to put them above all His other creations.
A wild laughter began low in her loins, rose up through her, and exploded out of her mouth. She was truly a supreme being. By the end of this night, her game would conclude. The losers would be dead, and she’d have another victory over God. Her survival was secure. Without a doubt, she was the fittest.
Bathory gazed at the flaming ruins of the Lyceum Theatre, reveling in her victory over Basarab. “Good night, sweet prince.”
With that, she spun away into the night, and to the wild work yet to be done.
CHAPTER XLI.
Quincey’s fingers were like iron hooks, holding fast to Arthur Holmwood’s coat, barely able to keep his seat on the horse’s bare back. Police whistles echoed though the maze of streets. They raced past a fire engine. The firemen aboard pointed them out, and the driver rang his bell to alert the police. Without a moment’s hesitation, Holmwood reined in the horse and changed direction abruptly, almost causing Quincey to slip backward onto the cobbles. Quincey felt helpless, hardly the gallant warrior against evil he so wanted to be.
Quincey stole a glance over Holmwood’s shoulder to see a police vehicle careening toward them. Once again, Holmwood yanked on the reins, and the steed altered course, now galloping through the Alexan dra Gate into Hyde Park. The motorcar would not be able to follow them along the narrow Buck Hill Walk. It seemed that technology had its limitations.
Holmwood halted the stallion at the Serpentine, and Quincey relaxed his grip for the first time in ten miles. Holmwood’s eyes scanned the park for the best escape route. “We have to find our way without being detected, and reach Van Helsing.”
“That madman threatened my life,” Quincey fumed. “I’m not going anywhere near him.”
“Don’t be a child. Van Helsing has seen Dracula. We need his help.”
“The police are everywhere. We don’t even know where the bastard is hiding.”
Holmwood removed a folded telegram from his jacket pocket and flourished it. “He was at the Great Eastern Hotel. Everything we need to find him is in this tele—” He stopped suddenly, listening to something, still faint in the distance.
Quincey had the same unsettling feeling he’d had when he survived the roof collapse at the theatre. Something was definitely happening to his body, and he did not know what it was. He recognized the approaching sound long before Holmwood. “Dogs!”
“Bloodhounds,” Holmwood added after a while.
To Quincey’s surprise, instead of galloping away, Holmwood dismounted and pulled Quincey off with him.
“What are you doing? We won’t stand a chance on foot!”
“A horse may be swift, but he is most definitely not brave. At the first sight of a snapping dog, he will buck and we’ll both end up on our arses.” With a sudden yell, he slapped the horse’s rear and watched as it galloped wildly through the park. “Follow me,” he whispered. He struck out northward with Quincey in tow, at one point breaking a branch from a tree and walking backward, brushing away their footprints, leaving only the horse’s trail toward the east. “Our scent will travel in both directions. At best, it will delay our pursuers. At worst, it will at least split them up.”
Quincey felt like an uneducated child playing at soldiers. How foolish he was to think he could play the warrior. He followed in Holmwood’s footsteps, more impressed by his companion’s battle prowess with each passing second.
The two men emerged from the park, crossed the Bayswater Road, and headed for Paddington station. Quincey was not surprised to see that the entrances to the station were teeming with police. They turned their collars up as they crossed Praed Street. A ringing phone in a blue kiosk drew the attention of the constables. One of them took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. It was painfully clear to Quincey that technology was now helping to spread the news of their escape faster than they could run.
Distant barking shattered his train of thought. Holmwood’s gambit had been unsuccessful. The bloodhounds were still hot on their trail. The police at the station were now on full alert, searching in all directions. Holmwood gripped Quincey by the arm and steered him away from the station, angling through the adjoining hospital grounds. People were milling about outside, concerned about their loved ones inside. Quincey realized that Holmwood was betting their lives that these people were too preoccupied with their own woes to notice two fugitives slipping through their midst. They tried to walk as slowly and as casually as possible to avoid arousing suspicion as the baying of the hounds drew closer and closer. The family members looked around, their reveries interrupted. Basic survival instincts screamed for Quincey to run.
Holmwood felt Quincey’s tension. He held him fast and whispered through gritted teeth, “Don’t!”
“We’ll never make it through the streets. The police are everywhere.”
“We’re not going through the streets,” his companion replied with a smile. “We’re going under them.”
A moment later, Quincey suddenly lost his footing and toppled downward, stopping just short of planting his face into foul-smelling water. He found himself in front of a small, urban canal. Holmwood descended beside him and, without a moment of hesitation, marched into the putrid water despite wearing his finest leather shoes. He looked back expectantly at Quincey. Quincey looked down at the canal. It reeked of filth and human waste.
The dogs grew louder. The police were fast approaching.
Holmwood hissed, “The stench of the sewage will throw them off our trail. Move along. Now!”
Quincey clamped his hand over his nose and mouth to ward off the stench and followed him. They were supposed to be the heroes chasing the foul villains, he mused, yet here they were, covered in fifth and pursued by hounds.
Fortune finally seemed to favor them: As they rounded a bend, they discovered a rowing boat that had been discarded on the shore. The weathered stencil on the side of the boat read: METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS. They pulled the boat into the water, and Holmwood took hold of the single oar and began to row. As they approached the War-wick underpass, he surprised Quincey by turning right instead of left, which would have taken them westward and out of the city.
“You’re going the wrong way.”
Arthur flashed him a glare. “Van Helsing stated in his telegram that Dracula attacked him in his room at the Great Eastern Hotel. The next line is the key: ‘Renfield is my sanctuary at the grand house of the patron saint of children. Beside the cross of the king.’ Van Helsing is still in the city.”
Quincey didn’t care. He placed his hand on the oar, halting Holmwood’s momentum. “We should get away while we can. We can always return when things quiet down.”
It was as if a fire were blazing behind Arthur’s eyes. There was bravery in that fire, and there was something else: a touch of madness. Quincey was reminded of the look he’d seen in Van Helsing’s eyes.
Holmwood shoved Quincey’s hand off the oar and continued toward the city.
After a while, Quincey noticed a gurgling sound coming from beneath his seat. Of course. The boat had been abandoned because it had a leak. Quincey stared at the rancid water filling the boat and glanced about for something with which to bail out the water. There was nothing. Holding his breath and swallowing back vomit, he cupped his hands together and scooped water over the sides. But it seeped in faster than he could bail it out.
Holmwood paddled as fast as he could, passing unseen through several tunnels under the streets as the canal continued around Regent’s Park. “I should have joined the damned rowing team at Oxford instead of the fencing squad,” he muttered.
Quincey soon realized that, even with his bailing, their vessel was not going to hold them afloat for much longer. The water was already well past their ankles. Coming to the same conclusion, Holmwood maneuvered the boat out of the tunnel and back aboveground. They abandoned the leaky boat on the shore next to the Gas Works Depot. Quincey followed Holmwood as he walked briskly southward, his waterlogged shoes squelching. His heart grew heavy at the sight of a serpentlike tendril of smoke slithering across the night sky. The Lyceum was still smoldering, as it would for days. The fire had destroyed his dreams as well as the theatre. Basarab would never be able to answer the many questions he so wanted to ask. Basarab! Quincey wasn’t sure whether he should mourn or curse his mentor. There were so many questions burning in his heart, and the answers were lost in the flames. He felt ruined, and old. Death was approaching, he could feel it.
After a while, he realized that Holmwood was leading them toward St. Pancras station. Quincey broke the silence between them. “You said Van Helsing was still in the city.”
“The telegram states ‘the grand house of the patron saint of children.’ Van Helsing has now moved to the Midland Grand Hotel. The one situated over St. Pancras station. St. Pancras is the patron saint of children, and adjacent to King’s Cross station.”
Quincey did not share his companion’s enthusiasm for cracking Van Helsing’s code. To get to the hotel, they would still have to pass both stations, which were sure to be swarming with police.
As they neared the hotel, Quincey was awestruck by its size and Italian Gothic splendor. Grand was an understatement. Looming against the night sky, it looked ominous and forbidding. Holmwood shoved Quincey behind one of the archways as a police motorcar approached. A tall uniformed officer emerged, holding aloft a drawing for the constables to see.
“Lee,” Holmwood muttered, recognizing the officer.
Quincey saw the crude likenesses of himself and Holmwood on Lee’s drawing. He would bet his life it was the work of one of the amateur artists working on the Strand, who offered to draw the likeness of passing pedestrians for a shilling.
Holmwood pulled out a cigar and flipped a box of matches to Quincey. Then he lowered his head and ducked under the archway out of the wind. Quincey understood the ruse. He struck the match and cupped the flame as if to block it from the elements. Policemen passed by, carrying the memory of Lee’s drawing fresh in their minds. They checked the face of each passing pedestrian but paid no attention to Holmwood and Quincey. It was perfectly plausible that two men would turn their backs to calmly light a cigar. Holmwood took a puff and placed his hand on Quincey’s arm to steady him. They waited a moment longer for Lee to climb back into his vehicle and drive off.
“Dracula has manipulated us into danger at every turn,” Quincey muttered as he followed Holmwood toward the main door of the Midland Grand Hotel. “Do you really think this crazy old man will hold the key to our survival?”
“Survival?” Holmwood paused at the main door and gave Quincey an odd look. “As long as Dracula
dies, what does that matter?” Without clarifying any further, he entered the hotel lobby.
CHAPTER XLII.
Here lies the body of Bram Stoker, former manager of the greatest actor of any age, Sir Henry Irving.
Bram Stoker tried to push away the image, but every time he closed his eyes, he could see what would surely be his gravestone epitaph. The curtain was about to fall on his life, and there would be no encore. The bitter irony was not lost upon him. He had begun his life as a bedridden child and would spend his last days as a bedridden old man. He had become a prisoner in his own body, paralyzed on his left side, unable to move, or even feed himself. He had to suffer the indignity of having to be bathed and changed as if he were a helpless infant. He had prided himself on being an honest and hardworking man, and could not imagine what he could have done to offend God. To suffer this much failure in one lifetime, it must have been something terrible. It saddened him to know that without his directorial hand in the play, his novel Dracula would soon become lost on some forgotten shelf in the back of a bookshop, whilst Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray would no doubt go on to be known as the greatest gothic novel of its day.
It occurred to him that, somewhere in heaven, Henry Irving must be laughing at him. Irving had left him the Lyceum Theatre, not as a chance to live out his dream, but rather as a slap in the face. When Bram Stoker reached the pearly gates, a drunken Irving would surely be waiting to gloat, with a Scotch in his hand and a woman on each arm. He even knew what Irving would say. I told you so, you untalented oaf. Once a bean counter, always a bean counter.
