Dracula's Demeter: The Vampire King's Stunning Sea Voyage

by Doug Lamoreux

  He thought of a prayer his mother taught him as a child, closed his eyes searching for the words after all the years and, as they came to him, whispered them quickly out loud. Then again. Over and over, with his eyes clamped shut and his grip tightening on the spokes. He began to relax, feeling better. Popescu opened his eyes – as a tall stranger stepped from the fog.

  It was Olgaren's ghost. It had to be. Draped in black, with a pale white face, Olgaren's ghost! “Ajuta-ma, Dumnezeu,” Popescu gasped, beseeching God. He lifted his trembling hand, twisted into the sign of the mano fica, to deflect the fiend's evil eye.

  The stranger smiled, laughed, then leapt. Popescu screamed but the vampire, already upon him, cut it off. He pulled the Romanian from the wheel as if he were a child and, wrenching his head to the side, bit him viciously in the throat. When he pulled away, several minutes later, Popescu hung limp. Dracula gasped, blood running down his chin. He snarled, for he'd sated his hunger but not his rage. He dragged Popescu from beneath the mizzen boom to the side of the rudder gearhouse. He lifted the seaman's body above his head and heaved it mightily over the rail. The corpse splashed, thirty-feet astern, in the cold English Channel and vanished in the dark as the ship raced on.

  * * *

  Swales, moving slowly down the slippery deck, was headed aft through fog thicker than his own pea soup when he heard Popescu scream; first in terror, then in pain. Goose flesh erupted on his skin and the old man froze in place. “Dear Gog,” he whispered under his breath. His instinct was to run – but to where? He was in the middle of the English Channel. And, damn blast it to hell, he was too old to be running. He started again, straining to make out the port side corner of the deckhouse. He found it by feel as much as sight and continued aft, left hand on the deckhouse bulkhead, right hand fingering the bulwark pinrail – trying to stay in contact with something solid, something real – his fear growing exponentially with each step.

  “Popescu.” He'd meant to shout, but his voice failed, and it arrived as a gravelly whisper. He cleared his throat and gave it some air. “Popescu! Give a shout, lad, so's I gawm ye're there.”

  Silence and the sea. Nothing more.

  Swales reached to his pocket, looking for his pipe (as much to chew on as to smoke), and found only a ship's biscuit. He furled his brow and swore under his breath, mentally kicking himself for his forgetfulness, as he cleared the aft corner of the deckhouse. He paused by the rum casks, just below the main boom and, staring aft, whispered, “Bogdan, what's the scowderment, lad?” He ran his hand along the boom, to guide him, and took three wobbling steps aft when the fog parted like a theater curtain. At center stage, he could just make out the lolling ship's wheel rocking on its axis; to the port, to the starboard, with the motion of the waves. He strained his eyes and realized the rudder was unguided, for the wheel was untended. The steersman was nowhere to be seen.

  “Popescu?”

  Nobody and nothing to see for the fog. Swales swallowed hard and hobbled to the wheel. He took a breath and control of the helm. He wiped the moisture from the face of the compass with his sleeve, then snorted at his own ridiculousness. By the needle, their bowsprit was pointed east. But he hadn't the slightest notion where the ship was or what course had been ordered.

  “Popescu!”

  He may as well have been standing on the moon and, a moment later, wished he was.

  The fog billowed and the starboard corner of the deckhouse became visible. Taking shape beside it, in the mouth of the companionway, stood a dark cloaked figure. It was not Popescu, nor was it anyone the Scot had ever seen before. It flashed through his mind that, were it not for the fellow's beard, he looked exactly as Olgaren had described his ghost. Then it spoke. “Popescu?” the ghost said, aping him. “Pop-es-cu!” It laughed; guttural, rumbling.

  The fog cleared further, as if driven off by magic, and the old cook realized that the figure mocking him was no ghost. It was clearly the monster for which he and Harrington had been searching. As evidence he saw now that, what he had mistaken for the creature's beard, was in fact his lower lip, chin, and throat awash in dripping blood.

  “Crivvens,” Swales gasped in a whisper.

  The creature's eyes gleamed. He recognized the Scottish slang for Christ defend us!, smiled, displaying bloody fangs, and answered, “He can't.”

  Swales throat had gone dry. He could not speak, but could only stare.

  “You would cross swords with me? I commanded legions centuries before you were born. You are, all of you, my jackals, to do my bidding or to die by my hand, as I see fit.”

  As angry as he was afraid, Swales met the monster's leer with the Scottish version of the stiff upper lip. He eased his hand from the wheel, reaching…

  Dracula saw the move and, still mocking, the blood congealing on his lips, asked, “More gar-lic?”

  Swales grunted and answered, “More effective than garlic.” He reached for his coat pocket, intent on defending himself from this hell-spawned demon. Only then, as time stood still and an age seemed to pass, did the old man realize his oilskin, his faithful pipe, and the rosary crucifix for which he reached lay useless in the mess below.

  The fear dawned in Swales' eyes and, like a cat on a mouse, Dracula pounced. The Scot struggled, fighting a match would have swelled the breast of Robert the Bruce with pride. But Swales was a seaman (an exhausted, arthritic old seaman at that), not a warrior. The vampire bared his fangs, snapped, and savagely tore Oliver's throat out.

  * * *

  Harrington heard a scream of terror and recognized it instantly as that of his friend. He raced on deck, scanned the darkness, cursed the fog and, soon, found Swales alone on the mizzen deck behind the wheel. He lay in a growing crimson pool, his hand on his throat trying desperately, uselessly, to stem the flow of his own blood. The fiend, whoever or whatever had attacked him, was gone.

  There came a shout behind.

  Like spirits, the first mate materialized starboard of the deckhouse coming aft through the fog, while Olgaren carried an oil lamp up from below. They moved cautiously and, together, discovered the wheel untended. When Swales groaned and Harrington moved, behind the rudder gear box, both jumped. Olgaren raised his light. Constantin raised his voice. “Who are you?” the mate demanded, waving a handspike as if it were a club.

  “It's Harrington,” the scholar called out from his knees.

  “Who's the other? Amramoff?”

  “Pasha is below,” Olgaren said, butting in. He laid a meaty hand on the first's tunic. “He's sleeping; dead to the world. It was Popescu steering.”

  Constantin rounded the gear box and stepped onto the mizzen. “Who have you there then?” He was nearly atop them when the fog allowed the mate a look. He could only gasp. The big Russian behind stared in mute horror. The Englishman was cradling their cook in his arms. Swales, from the chin down, was soaked in his own blood. The details of the old man's injury might only be guessed at but they were extensive.

  “It's Oliver Swales,” Harrington said, laying his cheek on the old man's head. “He's been attacked. I did not see by what.”

  “Popescu?”

  “I don't know. I haven't seen him.”

  “What can we do?” the first asked.

  “Nothing.” Harrington considered for a moment, but knew better. “No, nothing.”

  “Come,” the mate said, taking Olgaren's lamp. “We'll find Popescu.” He faded into the fog. Olgaren followed without a word and he too disappeared. An instant more and the glow of their lamp vanished as well.

  “Hang in there old man,” Harrington cried. He pulled a kerchief from his coat pocket and tamped his throat. The effort was useless but he tried all the same. “You're going to be all right.”

  “No,” Swales gasped, clutching at the young man's sleeve. “I must… gang ageeanwards home. My daughter… does no' like… be kept waitin' when it's tea… it takes me time t' crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many o' `em.” Swales was staring past Harrington, beyond the
fog and the sails. He was staring out to sea - from the east cliff of the Whitby cemetery. In his mind's eye, he threaded the tombstones, headed for the long curve of concrete steps (how many times, as a boy, he'd counted all 199 of them) leading from the kirk-yard, to the drawbridge below, over the river and on to home. To a daughter and a father he hadn't seen in years, and now never would again. His breath came in gasps, blood bubbling from his lips, his words in weak bursts barely audible above the billowing canvas and the churning sea, “So many steps… so many steps… 'efore I'm home.”

  Swales died in Harrington's arms.

  Chapter Thirty

  The captain started from sleep and sprang up sitting in his bunk; all of his senses on fire. He was not alone. There was someone else in the cabin. He caught his breath. “Who's there?” No response, no movement. He darted his head, straining in the dark and, as his eyes adjusted, could just make out a human form sitting nearby. It was Constantin - just sitting and staring at him.

  “Iancu! Lord, you…” He stopped himself. “What are you doing?”

  Still no answer. It was unsettling. The captain rose, grunting. He stepped past his frozen mate, struck a match at his desk, and held it to the glittering face of his ormolu clock.

  It was Nikilov's one bow to materialism and his only valuable possession; the mantle clock inherited from his parents. The French sculpture featured Napoleon and his Archduchess bride seated upon thrones with an angel, and the clock face, between them. As art, it meant nothing. Nikilov didn't know chiseled rococo from his knee and had never heard of François Linke. Its supposed allegorical allusion to the pagan gods Mars and Venus meant even less. What mattered to the breathless seven-year old he was (when first he heard its story), were the thrills received, the horrors conjured by the details of its manufacture. The clock was covered in nitrate of mercury, layered with powdered, high-karat gold, and fire-gilded; the mercury burned off and the shining gold permanently adhered. The process created eternally beautiful art – and killed the artist. The fumes from the burned quicksilver poisoned the gilders. They lost their hair, their teeth, their sanity, and their lives by the age of forty. And so the time-pieces became death clocks. What could be more appropriate, the captain wondered, with the first mate of his doomed ship sitting there like a corpse, than to check the time using a death clock?

  No! Nikilov was suddenly angry. Not his ship! Not his mate! He lit his lamp and examined Constantin in the amber light. Swollen, red eyes; the man had been crying. “What has happened?”

  “They are gone,” Constantin whispered. “Swales from the watch. Popescu the wheel.” The first began to cry again. “Popescu is missing, his post abandoned. The cook is there, near the helm, dead. His throat…” Constantin faltered.

  Nikilov considered the news in silence. “Who is at the wheel now?”

  “Olgaren and Amramoff both. One wouldn't go without the other.” He ran his fingers over his dry lips. “They're there together in the fog. They're the only ones left.”

  “The only ones? The Englishman? The girl?”

  “They're all right… I assume.” Constantin waved them away. “I was not speaking of them. I meant the crew. Of nine, only four remain, Olgaren, Amramoff, you and I. We are the only ones left.”

  The words reverberated in the captain's mind. “The only ones left…”

  * * *

  Oliver Swales' weighted, canvas-wrapped body, barely visible in the fog, sank into silence. Buried at sea without a grave marker, just the way Oliver would have wanted it.

  It was Sunday morning, 1 August. Harrington stood numb as he watched all that remained of his friend vanish from sight into the depths of… who knew where? They were supposedly in the English Channel. If true, they were somewhere between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, somewhere between England and continental Europe. In the neverending fog, who knew exactly where?

  Harrington turned to see Nikilov behind him, a bible in his hands, unopened, unused. The Englishman had not waited for a ceremony, merely sewed up the canvas, lifted the cook's body over the gunwhale on his own, and released him into the deep. Neither Ekaterina nor the other three seamen aboard had attended. That was fine with Harrington. The captain made no interference. He merely watched until Swales was gone. Now his eyes were closed and, the scholar assumed, he was praying.

  Harrington walked away.

  * * *

  Nikilov had hoped, it seemed now without reason, that reaching the English Channel would cure all their ills. From the Mediterranean, to the Atlantic, to the Bay of Biscay they had been beaten and bruised by the wind and rain, more than any captain could have expected his ship and crew to endure. Through it all not another sail or ship had been sighted; not one. He'd hoped that reaching the channel would change that, that they would have to see another vessel, could signal for help, and get his ship into port. Any port, anywhere. But the fog had prevented their seeing, or signaling, anyone.

  To make matters worse he could no longer, to any great degree, control the course of his ship. The sails were fully set and, God help them, would have to remain so. They dared not lower them, for they had neither the strength nor manpower to raise them again; not with their square-rigged foremast. He had no choice but to run the ship before the wind and steer her northwesterly as best he could. The only factor in their favor was his knowledge the coast of England had to be to their port – somewhere.

  Blind, deaf and dumb, through two more relentless days of fog, with no way to determine their progress, the captain sailed on. No sun, no moon, no stars. His sextant and maps useless, with only his experience and guesswork to guide them. But Nikilov had no good feeling about it. His senses told him Demeter was racing to some terrible doom.

  “Captain?” Nikilov lifted his head, aware for the first time someone else was present. It was Olgaren, with his cap in his hand. “Captain, you all right?”

  “Yes. All right.”

  “I come for church. Amramoff is steering, but I come for church.”

  It was Sunday, wasn't it? How could he have forgotten? A Holy Bible in his hand and, yet, he'd forgotten the Sabbath. “Thank you,” the captain said, with something akin to a smile. “There'll be no worship today, Moisey. If Pasha can spare you, try and get some sleep.” The man nodded his massive red head and hesitantly started aft. “Mr. Olgaren,” Nikilov called after him. “You are a good man.”

  Olgaren reddened and was gone. Again, Nikilov had the bow to himself. Only three of his crew remained, Olgaren, the ship's carpenter, and his first mate. The condition of each, physically and mentally, was questionable at best.

  Olgaren and Amramoff soldiered on. Not that they had conquered their fear – they were all, Nikilov included, terrified – but that they reached some place in their minds beyond the fear. They accepted the situation as it was, without the necessity of understanding, and now went about their work stolidly. They would take the future as it came; God's best or the devil's worst. Despite his nagging despair, the captain couldn't help but feel pride for his stalwart men.

  Nikilov was less than proud of his first. Truth be told, resentment was beginning to brew. They were near England but far from safe. He needed every man and now he doubted his mate. Constantin was no longer eating. He'd taken to silence and long bouts of sleepless wandering about the deck. He stared blankly into the darkness by night, the fog-enveloped sea by day, without appearing to see anything at all. Once the hardest (most stubborn?) of all of Nikilov's men, he seemed now completely demoralized, as if his strong nature had, in the end, worked against him. His inability to control the situation, to rise above it, was eating away at him. Nikilov feared for the mate's sanity and was at a loss as to what to do about it.

  Not that he didn't have compassion for his first mate; he did. But what had he really expected? Olgaren and Amramoff were, after all, Russian. Constantin, it went without saying, was Romanian.

  * * *

  In the middle of the afternoon, following a brief respite, the rain came
again. The few remaining hands were called on deck to sail, to save, the vessel. Everyone responded… except Harrington.

  It was not cowardice that made him ignore the call to stations. If anything, it was a new level of courage. To fight the storm and keep the ship afloat was important, he knew that. But, obviously, not the answer to the cause of their difficulties. Without meaning to be clever, they were merely treading water. With everyone else busy on deck, Harrington would answer the call in another way. To truly save the ship and those left aboard her, he knew, they needed to rid her of the parasite below. The vampire had to be destroyed.

  The deck work was made more difficult with the crew depleted. Likewise, his duty was more difficult without his friend and colleague. Be that as it may, he was in Swales' room, little bigger than the old man's bunk, just off the hot galley larder, making sure of the materials they had put together; a cross (he'd had to fashion a new one), stakes, carving knives, matches, and a hammer borrowed from Amramoff. It was all guesswork, of course, based on superstitious writings, half-remembered scholarship, and shots of slivovitz. He grabbed the kit and started out, but paused in the galley. There, on the counter, collected and forgotten, lay Oliver's oilskin, his pipe and tobacco, and Popescu's rosary.

  Sadness swept over the Englishman. “Your death shall not be in vain, Oliver,” Harrington whispered, as he slipped the rosary into his waistcoat pocket. “I won't allow it. This creature will suffer for what he did to you and Ekaterina! I swear it, my friend! I swear it!”

  “Have pity on him, Trevor.”

  Ekaterina's voice, whispered and feeble, nevertheless startled him. He spun round to see her, in Swales' nightshirt and bare feet, beside the mess table. She could barely stand for the pitch and roll of the ship, was pale as a ghost, with desperate sadness in her eyes.