Dracula's Child

by J. S. Barnes

  Yet I have asked myself this also: what is the point of life when it has but one texture, when the scarlet thread of transgression is removed? What is peace and security if it is brought about solely by the sword? What place have these methods in our new century? And more pertinent even than these: to whom will the Count turn for sustenance when his stock of recidivists is exhausted?

  JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

  9 February. A day has passed since I escaped from captivity. One day since I set Sarah-Ann free.

  I had thought first to make my way to London where, it seems, the heart of this madness lies. Having disposed of the body of my gaoler, having bathed, dressed and made myself respectable once again, I left the house at Shore Green. I packed into a satchel a few essentials (that bloodied makeshift stake included) and I went on foot to the railway station.

  As soon as I reached the village, I realised with horror the scale of the task before me. For while I have been held captive the world has shifted around me. England herself has altered. There is something in the air now which was not there before – a kind of weary, watchful acceptance of the new order.

  I walked through the village with as great a degree of discretion as I could muster and made my way towards the station. As I did so, I attracted many looks of suspicion. Men and women whom I had known turned their gaze away from me. Doors were slammed at my approach and shutters pulled hurriedly down. A memory reared up – of my approach to Castle Dracula, of the fearful peasantry who had wanted to play no part in my story, they who wished only to survive at any cost. It was, I thought, as though the past were in some fashion first impinging upon and then colonising the present.

  How swiftly has this spread, and with what devilish speed! If it is so here in Shore Green, who knows what it must be like in the city?

  I held my head down and hurried on. I must not succumb to fear. I must only go on. All must now be swift, decisive forward motion. Quincey and Mina need me – as, perhaps, does England.

  At the station itself I was met by a locked gate and a surly signalman who stood before it, his fat arms folded and his bewhiskered face set into an expression of constant disapproval.

  I held up my hand in greeting. He gazed at the gesture in distaste.

  ‘Station’s closed,’ he said, and the words hung heavily between us.

  I waited for an explanation, though none seemed forthcoming. ‘And why is that?’

  He gave a sour smile. ‘I couldn’t rightly say, sir. No, I couldn’t rightly say.’

  ‘But I need,’ I said, ‘to get to London.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to go by another way. Won’t you, sir?’

  ‘How, if not by train?’

  He took his time before replying. ‘By horse, sir. Or by carriage. Or by foot. After all, those things all used to be just fine, didn’t they? There wasn’t no need for the railway in my grandfather’s day. Or for any motor cars neither.’ He looked almost affronted at what I had said, as though there were something offensive in the very notion of swifter transportation.

  I turned without replying and stalked away, back towards the village.

  The fat man called after me. ‘Mr Harker, ent it? Mr Jonathan Harker?’ He laughed – an awful, knowing chuckle. The sound of it made me shiver.

  I did not go back to Shore Green in the end but struck out into the countryside. I felt that I needed to get clear of the place and not tarry a moment longer. The Count, after all, through Sarah-Ann, knew of my earlier whereabouts.

  I still meant at that time to go to London. I was striding around the edges of a farmer’s field, on a complex route which would, I hoped, lead me eventually to the city of Oxford (from where my journey to London might surely be less conspicuous), when I heard a voice in my head.

  The voice was real and not the product of my imagination. Of that, I am quite sure. I have seen many peculiar things in my life and I have long ago learned how to distinguish dream from reality. This was assuredly in that second camp.

  The voice was one which I had not heard for months. It was that of Professor Abraham Van Helsing.

  He spoke just one word to me. No, rather a name than a word. A proper noun.

  ‘Wildfold.’

  I stopped short and whirled about. I was alone in that place. No human was with me. In the undergrowth something stirred. There was a flurry of anxious bird calls.

  ‘Who—’ I began, but in my heart I knew the answer to my question. My voice sounded ridiculous in this desolate place.

  The Professor spoke again. I felt his presence as strongly as if he had been standing at my side. ‘Wildfold,’ he said again, and then he was gone.

  Knowing that he had departed, I fell to my knees and began to pray. I begged for forgiveness and I sought succour. I declared myself a sinner and I asked for guidance. I humbled myself before my God.

  When I rose, I had a new destination.

  I go now, as swiftly as I can, to the place that was named, moving largely at night, keeping myself out of sight. There may be further perils ahead of me, but I am determined to reach it.

  So I travel in secret. I travel in fear. And I travel with vengeance in my heart.

  LETTER FROM CECIL CARNEHAN TO ARNOLD SALTER (ENVELOPE UNOPENED)

  9 February

  My dear Arnold,

  I felt compelled to write to you. I have, perhaps, in the past been a trifle haughty as to your abilities and unjustly dismissive of your many achievements.

  I want you to know now I am quite happy to admit my mistakes and oversights. Finally I understand. At last, I see the truth of things. There was a time – and you will forgive my candour – when I thought your opinions merely useful, a means by which to attract older readers and increase sales. Now, however, as a direct consequence of an encounter which I shall relate, I truly believe, in my very heart.

  The last week has been unusually hectic. While as a newspaperman I have found it exhilarating, as a patriot I have found it troubling. At least, until tonight.

  It was late and my stint at the office had been a long one. Having pursued my labours for the day to their limit, I took myself down to the Strand and to a Turkish bath there, a place I have come to frequent. There is (or, at least, there was) something soothing in the experience.

  As is my custom, I spent time in each room of the house. The last, as you may be aware, is filled with steam – great, billowing clouds of it which put one in mind of the worst of the city fogs. The result is, typically, cleansing and so it proved tonight, albeit in a different way.

  I sat alone in the final room, the steam surging around me, coiling against the walls. I breathed in deeply through my nose, and as I felt my skin prickle pleasingly I cast my mind over the events of recent days: the uproar in the underworld, the ascendancy of the Council, the chaos at the heart of the Empire, and the sudden arrival of that gentleman who seems now to stand at the peak of it. I turned matters over and over, trying to see the pattern. There were, I concluded, certain possibilities in it, all of very considerable gravity. I wondered what we had let in – indeed, what we had invited in – without ever understanding its true nature. And I wondered also, dear Arnold, about your role, about how much you really knew and how much you understood.

  At this moment, when you were uppermost in my mind, I realised that I was no longer alone in that steam-drenched space. I could make nothing out. I could hear nothing at all. I was aware just the same that something in that room had changed and now held a new presence. I sat quite still and listened.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, although my words sounded puny, foolish things. No answer came, and so I assigned the incident as an example purely of my imagination. Still feeling ill at ease, I rose to my feet and meant to leave – and then I heard emanate from the fog a low chuckle.

  ‘Hello?’ I said again, an edge of fear no doubt by now quite audible in my voice. ‘Who’s that?’

  A voice issued forth – European in accent. ‘Good evening, Mr Carnehan.’

 
‘Who are you? Who’s there?’

  The voice came again, resonant with distant lands and half-forgotten knowledge. ‘You know who I am, Mr Carnehan.’

  ‘I…’ A sequence of thoughts, each more dreadful than the last, tumbled through my consciousness. ‘I…’

  The voice rose to a roar. ‘YOU KNOW WHO I AM, MR CARNEHAN!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, very softly. ‘I know.’

  As I watched, I saw a figure emerge from the mist. I should make it clear that this was not an instance simply of a person walking into view, but rather of a creature seeming to materialise out of the steam.

  (You will remember all the old stories, Mr Salter. You will know the many forms that their kind can take.)

  I watched, frozen in fascinated fear, as the dark man came into being. His eyes blazed like hot coals; his form was all sinew and muscle. My ears rang as though there were some great and violent sound nearby, although the room was silent. My stomach clenched. My nose began to bleed.

  ‘Count…’ I breathed and, without understanding precisely why but acting solely on instinct, I found myself upon my knees.

  ‘I wished to seek you out, Mr Carnehan. I wished to thank you for all that you have done. And I wished to ask you one question.’

  ‘Anything…’ I murmured.

  ‘Would you like to be for ever as you are now?’

  I could not bring myself to look up. Yet I murmured ‘Yes’ all the same.

  And then it was upon me – the ancient thing, that DEAD thing – and it was draining me of all my life and vigour. The pain was beyond imagining, but I invited it. Indeed, I urged him on. I begged him to continue.

  He left me there, like offal. But when I awoke again, I was changed.

  So you see, Mr Salter, I do finally comprehend. I understand the change that has swept over our island. And, you will be gratified, I have no doubt, to hear that as I write I am filled up with savage joy.

  Yours,

  Cecil

  PS. I do believe I shall write the editorial myself tomorrow. The people deserve, after all, to hear the truth – or, at least, as much of the truth as their sanity can at present stand.

  FROM THE PALL MALL GAZETTE

  10 February

  EDITORIAL: WE WELCOME THE FIRM, SAGACIOUS LEADERSHIP OF THE COUNT

  Ten days have passed since the Count took control of the Council of Athelstan and, by extension, London herself. During that time, he has restored order. The curfew has endured and the state of emergency continues.

  Nonetheless, the metropolis feels safer than it has almost within living memory. The spirit of the place seems calmer now and more at ease. Reports of crime, of almost any kind, are greatly reduced. There is a security to our lives which feels apt and welcome, as though we, as a people, are relearning the lessons of our forefathers and returning to a simpler and more contented time.

  The means by which the Count ascended to his present position may have been forged from crisis, yet he is building a better future on the ashes. Not for nothing, we suspect, has he attracted the enthusiastic support of the highest in the land – not only the so-called ‘Tanglemere Faction’ but the Prime Minister himself, the Earl of Balfour. The King’s continued silence may be taken, we think, as tacit approval.

  Might we then humbly suggest that the period of emergency be prolonged and that the Council remain in control until its wider objectives are achieved? Might we also suggest that the realm of its influence be extended? London ought not to be a fortress, after all, but rather an example to the rest of the country, and to the Empire that lies beyond her.

  As Mr Salter has written time and again in these pages, society has been crying out for leadership of a robust sort. For too long we have pined for safety and for certainty, for determination and resilience. It is, perhaps, an accident that such leadership has been provided by a man about whom we know so little. On this score, we expect to learn very much more upon Mr Salter’s imminent return from the White Tower.

  Yet it would seem to all of us here at the Gazette to represent an error to try in any fashion to thwart the Count when he has achieved such happily productive results. He is a figure of inspiration to us and one to whom we all owe a great debt. Besides, who would dare to cross him now?

  PERSONAL MEMORANDUM BY FORMER SUB-DIVISIONAL INSPECTOR GEORGE DICKERSON

  10 February

  I do believe we’re the only fellows left in this afflicted nation who’d dare now to cross the Count.

  I write this beside new friends. We all carry satchels filled with stakes and holy water. The scent of blood is in our nostrils and in the course of the past few days we have gotten ourselves quite an appetite for the killing of vampire-kind.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m letting my yarn run away with me. I should begin, near as dammit, at the beginning.

  * * *

  The day after the Yard burned down I got myself a parcel in the post. It had inside it the diary of Commissioner Quire. No note or explanation. I read the thing real quick, disturbed but not, I guess, surprised. I’d seen and heard too much by then not to have suspicions of my own. Though I don’t believe I’d imagined the reach of it. Oh, but he was useful to them! Wasn’t he? Old Quire.

  A day after I got the diary I was sent a letter which threw me off the Force on the direct orders of the Council. I felt no shock. Anger, sure, and outrage too, but by then I’d seen the direction of things. I understood the tide was coming in and the rain was pelting down but that we’d all been so distracted by the colours of the horizon that we’d not noticed the water pooling by our feet.

  What could one man do? The Council controlled the state. The darkness controlled the underworld. The police force was routed, gutted, gone. All was in disarray. But by then I’d started to see that it was a chaos which was meant. Which was planned and designed.

  I drank that night. Too much. I slept. And when I slept I dreamed.

  Till then I’d never given much thought to my dreams. Never paid them mind. As a policeman – what the British call a peeler or a crusher – I always had to deal strictly in reality. In facts and clews.

  But somehow, the way the world is now, dreams seem more important than before. Even to a fellow like me.

  In fact, I’ve got a theory as to why this could be. I think they’re his element. I think, in some queer way we don’t fully understand, the Count is a creature of dreams.

  So that night, as I dreamed, I saw Parlow again. Martin Parlow who left London just before everything went bad. Parlow, my mentor and friend, who went home to a town called Wildfold to see his daughter and bury his wife, a good man and a fine Jerry who vanished and who never came back.

  In the dream he stood on a cold grey beach, on dark stones in twilight. The sky was clouded. The sea whispered behind him. In the distance, there was the ruined hulk of some ship left ages past to rot on the shore.

  He smiled. No humour in it. ‘The answer’s here, son,’ he said. ‘Everything you’re looking for. It’s in Wildfold. With me.’

  At this, I started to ask what he meant, only to realise that in the dream I couldn’t speak at all but only listen.

  ‘Wildfold,’ he said again. ‘That’s the only chance we’ve got to stop it. So you’d better hurry. Don’t you think so?’

  He nodded, just once. Like old times.

  ‘Spit-spot,’ he said, and winked.

  Then the dream ended, sudden as a blade.

  I woke up and found the earth around me shaking. As I came back to consciousness, the tremor subsided. I knew what it was, having spent some years in California, though I did not know the cause. I did know, however, just where I had to be. And what I had now to do.

  * * *

  It was still dark when I left my lodgings with a single suitcase and a heavy walking stick and started on foot for the station at Liverpool Street.

  The streets had changed. They had had a different quality, ever since the first explosion. I’d seen it in the criminals – in the s
well of hostilities between the Pigtails, the Giddis Boys and the Sweetmen. Folks were swifter to anger. They were hungry for violence. There was everywhere a fearfulness and a sense of dread.

  Yet even knowing these things I was still much struck by the emptiness of the streets that morning. By their desertion.

  There were folks abroad of course, though I did not see their faces. They clung to the shadows and hid themselves in alleyways and cloaked themselves in darkness. I gripped my stick and hurried by. Occasionally, I heard voices but they were always from a distance.

  Often I felt sure I was being watched. Strange eyes looking over me. Twice I heard laughter, shrill and desperate. Once, from the shadows which clustered around a doorway in a row of tenements, I heard a murmured invitation. I ignored it and strode on. There was broken glass underfoot, and trash left to rot in nooks and corners. When I passed a hole-in-the-wall tobacconist I heard from within a shriek of dreadful pleasure, fearful agony in every note of it.

  Thoroughfares and crossroads were all but empty and reeking of menace. From somewhere very far away I heard what might have been a scream. I had meant to hail a cab but I saw not a one, their absence adding to the sense of desolation.

  As I approached the district in which Liverpool Street is contained, dawn came up and the streets stirred into something more like life. I started to see other travellers making their way towards the station. A stream of passengers, all laden down with suitcases and bags. Some had children. Some carried large and heavy possessions. One family had a canary in a cage. No one spoke. The mood was grim. Everyone – I felt certain – was trying to escape, though I doubt that any of them, if asked, could have told you just what it was that they were running from.

  In the last half mile before the station loomed into view I was followed. Not by a beginner but by no expert neither. Once I paused and turned my head and caught myself a glimpse of my pursuer. It was a young man, lean and pale. I had seen him somewhere around. That much I knew. But I could not have told you just when or where.