Dracula's Child

by J. S. Barnes

  Next I heard a scuttling sound, as though there were some animal in the room. There was a hopeless scuffling before silence fell again.

  ‘Who is it?’ I said. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘I wanted to thank you, Mr Salter,’ said that deep, strange voice again. ‘For all that you have rendered unto me.’

  ‘I’m… not sure…’ I began, only to be cut short as he stepped forward out of the gloom and stood mere inches from my face.

  He was tall and very pale, with a great moustache and a high forehead and a quality about him of nobility. I looked into his eyes and saw in them my death.

  I had never seen the man before but somehow I knew him well.

  ‘You have seen me in your imagination, I think, Mr Salter,’ he said, as though he had in some fashion read my thought. ‘Lost as you were in all your dreams of England.’

  ‘What are you, Count?’ I asked, and once again my voice piped like a boy’s.

  He smiled. I saw his incisors, but I felt no surprise and I did not flinch from them. I was mesmerised, held fast like a mouse before a cobra.

  ‘I am the culmination of your deepest desire, Mr Salter. I am the past and I am the future. I am Alpha. And I am Omega.’

  There was much more I wished to ask him, but it was already too late. He fell upon me, sank his teeth deep inside and drank his fill. It is my curse that I can remember the experience in precise and visceral detail. I remember how painful it was – and how horribly pleasurable also.

  * * *

  When I woke, a day and a night had passed and I had been changed. There will be no more words from me. I am no journalist any longer but only his creature. I dwell, like him, in darkness. I feed on what is given to me – on those criminals and reprobates he keeps penned in this place. I follow his orders, those of Mr Hallam and those of a raven-haired beauty whom I suspect to have killed as many men as the worst tyrants of history. There is another here also – another of his kind – though they have yet to speak to me.

  I wait for sustenance and for my orders. Such is now my existence: hunger and obedience. He has some particular task in mind for me, he says – a small but vital part of his design.

  As I lie amongst the dead my thoughts run often towards the past, of my Mary and the life we shared. Above all, I wonder about the part that I have played in bringing this new world into being.

  What would now be different, I wonder, had Tanglemere not swayed me from self-murder? How might a great many tragedies have been averted if only I had found the courage to jump?

  DR SEWARD’S DIARY

  (kept by hand)

  11 February. Dear God, may it not yet be too late to set the world aright. The good Lord willing, may we yet beat back that shadow which has fallen over us all.

  Three essential facts must be recorded:

  (i) A crew of light has been established. Jonathan Harker stands at the head of it. Lord Arthur Godalming, the American policeman, Dickerson, Ruby Parlow and I are its constituents. Young Quincey – for reasons which remain opaque – is our conscience and our guide.

  (ii) We have decided to attack the Count directly during the hours of daylight. We shall locate his base of operations and find where it is that the vampire lies. We shall drive a stake through his heart and sever his head from his body.

  (iii) To that end, Lord Godalming, Ruby and Quincey himself have gone to Ely, where they will establish a base of operations and acquire an arsenal of weapons for use against the Count. It is from that small city that we shall make our final approach to London.

  Before the others left, we buried Strickland and what remained of Ruby’s father. He made, I fear, a most ugly cadaver, for his chest was staved in and his head had been quite separated. After a ragged and impromptu funeral, we all stood together in the church and prayed devoutly for the strength to carry on, and to execute all that must still be done. These words complete, the others began the journey to Ely while Jonathan, Mr Dickerson and I stayed here, pledging to join them as soon as we might.

  We had some bloody labours before us. Wildfold had been infested and we volunteered our services to rid ourselves of what remained of the taint.

  It took us many hours to achieve that end. Much of it was carried out in the grimmest of silences. For safety’s sake, we went together from door to door. While it was light we found plenty who were sleeping and dragged them out into the day. Those numerous executions which we had to carry out we did without the slightest pleasure. On every occasion, as the head was severed at the neck, the vampire’s features regressed to those of some earlier time. So far as I am concerned, let the historical record show what it may: our acts were not unconscionable ones. We have done no killing in this place but have only set poor souls free.

  I wish to dwell no longer than is necessary on these sad duties. Nonetheless, there are four further items of interest.

  (i) I do not think that I have ever seen Jonathan Harker in quite so energetic a state. For so long have I known the drowsy toper of Shore Green, this fresh rendering of the man strikes me as entirely original.

  (ii) I have been thinking again about the effect of the Renfield diary upon me. I said as much to Mr Dickerson as we dragged an elderly vampire out into the day and removed her frail bony head from its scrawny neck.

  ‘I have theorised,’ I remarked, as we cast the writhing creature down upon the ground, ‘that it was a kind of trap. One that was left behind for me long ago.’

  The conversation enjoyed a hiatus as Jonathan brought down the blade.

  Once it was over, the American said: ‘You think that the vampire can do such a thing? You believe he was thinking so damn far ahead of himself?’

  It was Jonathan who answered, though I was thinking as much myself.

  ‘Consider his extreme longevity, Mr Dickerson. The Count does not see time as we do. He is thinking always of the future and the past.’

  These thoughts made us sober. We said no more but only laid the body aside for the pyre and moved on.

  (iii) I have learned what became of poor Sarah-Ann. Jonathan told me that he set her free, just as we have given the poor wretches here their liberty. I deduce that there is much that he has not told me. I shall pray for her soul, and also for my own. For did I not send her to the Harkers? Did I not place her in harm’s way? Merciful God, is there no end to my foolishness?

  (iv) One of the faces today will haunt me for as long as I live. It was a small boy. He cannot have been more than eight or nine years old when he was changed. The creature he had become cried, as a human being might cry, when we dragged it from its nest in the schoolhouse and beheaded it. With his last breath he begged us to spare his life. For all our grand talk of war and of justice, I shall not forget the true cost of the Count’s appetite and avarice. I shall not forget the sound of a child crying out for mercy in the last moments before his extinction.

  FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF MAURICE HALLAM

  11 February. I have in this place – in this White Tower – become in all but name a prisoner, held captive at the heart of this great city as was Jonathan Harker, all those years ago, confined in that distant and sin-draped castle. Such, at least, is the story that I have heard often at my master’s knee.

  My work continues as the Count’s power grows. I am allowed egress only upon occasion, to deal with the government or with the newspapers or with some other tedious representative of the people. I am, as I have come to understand, what I was always meant to be: the Count’s voice in the wider world. Yet, in the wake of those ten days which established the foundation of his influence, more and more of my time is spent in solitude in my quarters.

  I find that I am beset by drowsiness. The influence of the vampire swells daily as the bounds of his kingdom grow. Each twilight brings with it some fresh emissary, come to pledge their allegiance.

  I can do nothing. I can barely bring myself to stir from this room – barely bring myself, indeed, to set down even these thoughts. I think often of the choices
that I have made in my life which have brought me to this pass. I know that I am become his creature, that I am mired too deep for there to be any prospect of redemption. This I mourn, yet I know, in truth, that I have now so much for which to atone that any true restitution is impossible.

  But wait. A knock upon my door. The voice of Ileana. I am summoned to the crypt. The master has some new and dreadful task for me to perform. More – I pray – later.

  DR SEWARD’S DIARY

  (kept by hand)

  12 February. Our work in Wildfold is now complete. That village is no more.

  These words I write upon a train, speeding towards Ely. We have attracted many glances of hostility. I dare say we smell of perspiration and unhappy labour, of smoke and of blood. Yet no man has tried to stop us.

  How very odd it is to be abroad once more in England, now that the shadow of Dracula has fallen so absolutely upon it. Our journey has been quiet and without incident. The railway service, it seems to me, has never been better or more reliable.

  Nothing is said aloud. No overt indications are visible that there has been a coup d’état in our democracy, only, perhaps, in the people a certain quality of the lulled and cowed, an acceptance of the new reality.

  Although we have been largely left alone in our carriage, we three have found ourselves with little appetite for conversation. Yet when Jonathan drifted into sleep (of, it seemed to me, the most fitful and unhealthy kind), my American companion leaned forward in his seat and said, almost in a whisper: ‘You saw him, didn’t you? Back in the old days?’

  There was no need for me to ask for him to clarify the object of his sentence. I checked to see that Jonathan still slumbered before I replied.

  ‘Only twice,’ I said. ‘Once, in London, when we had run him to ground, when he pledged to seek revenge against us all. And then again, in Transylvania, in the last moments before his death.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  I took a moment before replying.

  ‘Doc?’

  ‘I think it is most probably a mistake,’ I said, with as much calm detachment as I could muster, ‘to think of Count Dracula as being in any way like us. He may once have been human. Yet he has passed long ago into something quite different. A whole new species.’

  ‘Then it is your suggestion, sir, that his motives are completely different to those of ordinary men? That he is entirely unpredictable? What I have heard called a loose cannon?’

  ‘Oh, on the contrary. I have come to believe that his motivations are clear cut. Indeed, they are driven by the very nature of his distance from our race.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well… he is profoundly lonely. He is consumed by it. He hungers, I think, for a kind of connection, although its mode of expression is curious indeed. Some of us – he would contend, I think, the best of us – he wants to make into something like him. In point of fact, he did just that to a most spirited young lady of my acquaintance. Others – the least of us – he sees only as subjects or food. The Count is a feudal creature at heart. He seeks now, I suspect, to return to some simpler time.’

  ‘To a time, you think, when he was fully human?’

  ‘It is possible,’ I said. ‘More than that – it is likely… But these are only speculations. Mere theories. And in the end…’

  I could find no more words after this, and the American gave me a look of odd concern. ‘Jack?’

  ‘Well, I suppose none of it really matters now. Who he was or why he acts as he does. All that I really care about is tracking him to his lair and sawing his head from his body.’

  Dickerson nodded in gruff acquiescence as the train thundered onwards and as Jonathan stirred and groaned, the victim, no doubt, of bad dreams.

  FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF MAURICE HALLAM

  12 February. I believe that I have just strength enough to set down what occurred last night, after I was summoned from my chamber. How cruel a mistress is long life, how playful a sadist!

  For the first time since His return, the crypt was illuminated. This had been achieved not by candlelight or by electricity but rather by a strange blue flame, the source of which I was quite unable to discern. It lit the close, dank walls of the crypt with a weird azure light that lent the scene something of an artistic quality, as it had been arranged, perhaps even for my own benefit, by some poor, lost artist of the Bedlamite persuasion.

  In the centre of the chamber stood, upon a pair of raised daises, two wooden coffins. Both were closed, yet I did not have to dare to look inside them to feel certain that they contained at least some necessary residue of earth from the homeland of the Count. Between them, in the manner of a latter-day Cerberus, crouched the wolf.

  Dracula himself, dressed all in black, stood at the centre of the scene. At his side stood Ileana.

  ‘My Lord. We are well met.’ I gazed deeply at the ground. It does not do to look for any longer than is necessary upon the dread face of the vampire-king.

  ‘Look at me.’ His voice, deep and terrible as ever, nonetheless possessed, I thought, some additional quality, some frayed element, some new, disquieting note.

  I had no choice but to obey. I raised my eyes and steeled myself to look upon him.

  He seemed older than before. His moustache had grown more white and there were lines upon his face which I had not seen before.

  ‘My servant. You have done well.’

  ‘Thank you, my Lord. I have done only that for which fate has moulded me.’

  ‘Does our power grow?’

  ‘It does, my Lord. The country is with you. Though I note that the King has yet to offer his support.’

  Ileana smiled. ‘The King is sleeping often now,’ she said. ‘He is… as once was my poor Ambrose.’

  ‘That is good. And yet…’ Dracula seemed then almost to stagger a little where he stood. It was a moment of fragility entirely without precedent. ‘My body is not as strong as I had hoped. My true nature is as fire within it, burning through this mortal flesh. I need…’

  ‘Sustenance, my Lord?’ I said. ‘Surely your larder of the criminal classes has yet to run dry?’

  At this, the beauteous Ileana bared her teeth and hissed.

  ‘I require complete restoration,’ said the Count. ‘I must draw succour from the only one still living who bears my imprimatur.’

  ‘How, my Lord… will that be brought about?’

  He smiled. ‘In the days of the last century, I placed a portion of my essence within a certain woman who passed it to her child. For years this inheritance has been rising within him – my vessel. At any moment it shall overwhelm his human nature.’

  ‘My Lord,’ I said, ‘I think I know the name of this boy. I do believe that I can guess it. Was his mother not brought before the Council?’

  ‘Silence,’ hissed Ileana again. ‘You shall not speak of her.’

  ‘The mother is not of your concern,’ said the Count. ‘Only the boy.’

  ‘What would you have me do?’

  ‘Ileana is to bring him to me. He shall be with us soon after midnight tomorrow. And in that potent hour which falls before the dawn we shall perform the Rite of Strigoi.’

  I frowned. I thought of a moment, months past, when we had stood amongst the gypsies. Had Ileana used that strange word then? I believe that she had. For how long has every detail of this black scheme been laid?

  The vampiress smiled dangerously. ‘You know of the Rite, my friend?’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘at least I believe that I know – that name.’

  ‘The Rite will take what is within that child,’ said Count Dracula, ‘and place it once again in me. I shall be made whole.’

  Ileana purred beside him, in happy expectation of this eventuality.

  The Count continued. ‘Such is the duty of a son to his father. The young must be sacrificed as was the child of Abraham, long, long ago.’

  ‘My Lord,’ I said, ‘what must I do?’

  ‘You must, upon his arrival, prepa
re the boy for the Rite.’

  ‘And what…’ I swallowed with discomfort. ‘What will that task entail?’

  * * *

  Dear God, that I should ever have asked that question! For, once I had spoken, the Count moved closer, and he told me the dreadful truth of the thing – those awful depredations and unspeakable violations.

  Can I do as he demanded? Can I find it within myself to make those blasphemous preparations? Surely, surely I cannot. Yet I have no alternative should I wish to ensure my own survival.

  How fortune mocks us! For I had fondly imagined that I could go no deeper into damnation. Instead, in the wake of the Count’s instructions, I understand that all this while I have been standing merely at the brink of the abyss.

  DR SEWARD’S DIARY

  (kept by hand)

  Later. We arrived this afternoon in Ely, during that tepid hour which lies between two and three. Four facts of significance have become apparent. While we have been in Wildfold, Arthur, Quincey and Ruby have found themselves accommodation in a small boarding house, run by an elderly woman by the name of Smallbone. During our absence, they have acquired a deal of further weaponry. Not only holy water, garlic, stakes and hammers, but much along more conventional lines also, including five pistols and a brace of knives. For who knows what human allies the vampire may have drawn to his side, loyal to his dark majesty and willing to do anything in his service?

  The malaise in our nation which has, since my escape from Wildfold, been evident to me continues to spread and to deepen. Here in the streets of this formerly quiet and well-ordered place there is a tangible sense of suspicion and fear. Like ink dispersing through water, the influence of the Count is spreading, tainting all that it reaches, bringing out in every man and woman the very worst of themselves.