The Dracula Tape

by Fred Thomas Saberhagen.

  We three sat down in the dining car together. I ordered only cafe au lait, which I could swallow if there were compelling cause to do so.

  "And are you too, Mrs. Harker," I asked, "traveling only to Vienna?"

  "Ah, no. My husband's plans are grander. He has arranged a holiday for our party, at some spa on the Black Sea or nearby. His plans are still somewhat mysterious."

  "I love a mystery, madam. Would that it were possible for me to join you."

  "That would indeed be pleasant-doctors. Both of you."

  The man I thought of as Floyd had been pulling at his beard and glancing intently from Mina's lace to mine and back again. I realized belatedly that my hair had fallen aside from the center of my forehead.

  "Dr. Corday," he began hesitantly, "I hope you will not think me impertinent-I really have some professional interest-would you think me rude if I were to inquire how you happened to come by the small scar on your forehead?"

  "Not at all, Doctor. I incurred that peculiar mark some five months past, at the hands of an acquaintance of mine." As I spoke I realized how much my conversational English had improved since I first encountered Harker in Castle Dracula. "Guest in my house at the time; given to nightmares, unfortunately. Chap became quite violent on one occasion, and we were both of us in good luck that no more serious injuries occurred."

  "Thank you. I-I was emboldened to ask because…" His eyes drifted again to the mirror image of my scar, that stood in bold red upon the fairest brow in all the world.

  "The scar upon my forehead is a sensitive subject with me," said Mina boldly. "If you are curious, know that it is the result of a physician's faulty treatment. I wish to speak no more about it."

  "Your pardon, madam."

  "Not at all, Doctor." Mina's voice was reasonably gay again.

  "Dr. Corday." The Viennese turned to me, obviously with a change of subject in mind. "You were telling me of your consulting service in London." Blocked in one investigation, he would pursue another. And his voice now held a hint of command: how could I refuse to answer his queries directly now, when such a change in the conversation would serve to cover a lady's embarrassment?

  Coming toward our table were two waiters bearing food and drink through the car, one had a black eye. And behind these, as a ship of the line was wont to enter battle behind a screen of skirmishing destroyers, came my old foe the conductor. Doubtless he was just passing through the car-not even a wanted murderer would have been interrupted in mid-meal on that train-and meant to bide his time before confronting me again. But the presence of Mina inspired me, and I launched into a sudden speech that was as much for the conductor's benefit as it was for my possibly dangerous breakfast companion.

  "You see, my friends," I announced rather loudly, "in London I function chiefly as a consultant for Moule's Patent Earth-Closet Company."

  "Moule's-?" Floyd dabbed uncertainly with a napkin at his fine brown whiskers.

  "Earth-Closet Company, of Covent Garden. Moule's Company now make earth closets for the garden, closets for shooting boxes, closets…"

  A look of refined social horror, I saw with concealed jubilation, was now welling up in the doctor's face. The same expression was mirrored in Mina's countenance, and in the conductor's lordly visage as well, where, as I saw to my relief, there was also the dawn of a certain understanding.

  "Closets for cottages, closets for anywhere. Earth closets complete are now made, fitted with pull-out apparatus; fitted with pull-up apparatus…"

  I did not see then, and do not now, why subject matter fit for the front page of a respected newspaper should be abhorrent at table; doubtless this attitude is a result of my irrepressible medieval barbarism. Giddy with success and relief, however, I pressed on, driving the foe metaphorically before me:

  "Closets made of galvanized or corrugated iron, to take to pieces for easy transport. Can be put together in only two hours. To work satisfactorily only require to be supplied with fine and dry mold. Closets built on this principle never fail, if properly supplied with dry earth; of which, for demonstration purposes, I am carrying a supply of superb quality in my trunk in the baggage car at present…"

  ***

  At Ulm the train crossed the Danube and I thought briefly of getting off and trying to make the rest of the journey by water. Breakfast had concluded in morose near-silence and I was not sure that Mina would be willing to speak to me again for some time. But my calculated boorishness had had the desired effect, where any amount of suave verbal fencing might well have failed; the Viennese had broken off his questions, and whenever the conductor passed me he now made sure to avert his gaze. I was a social time-bomb liable to explode again at any moment aboard his train.

  But my ticket read through to Bucharest, and to get off sooner would draw even more attention to myself. Enough was enough. No one would bother my trunk now, by day or night.

  At Vienna, my young doctor-friend with the so-thoughtful eyes got off the train. He was courteous to stop to offer me a handshake before we parted, at which time he also raked me with one more friendly but penetrating glance that showed I would not soon be forgotten.

  "Auf Wiedersehen, Dr. Corday. It has been a fruitful journey for me-a most fruitful journey in some respects…"

  I returned his handclasp warmly and with mixed emotions. I would under other circumstances have enjoyed his company and delighted in his penetrating thoughts, but at the moment I was quite glad to see his back.

  Budapest was only a short stage farther on our journey, and by the evening of October fourteenth we had passed the stops at Szegedin and Timisoara, the latter once the Hunyadis' headquarters. Yes, I was now nearing home. Again and again I breathed the air, simply to catch now and then, through numbing coal smoke, the living odors of the dear land of my youth.

  I visited Mina at night and brought her up to date on all my plans before it came time for me to leave the train. To my relief, she accepted with her usual intelligence my apologies for my performance at the breakfast table.

  "For the present," I then counseled her, "continue to give them their reports, darkness and water, and so forth, as before."

  "And when the ship lands at Varna, Vlad? Will they not haste to board her, and by bribery or force find means to open the box? And when it is found empty, will not your plans be ruined, and I fall under the most serious suspicion?"

  "I mean to see to it that they do not board Czarina at that port. I must get them to chase the box; with your help I must keep it moving ahead of them, by land or by riverboat, but not so far ahead that they fail to keep following. The deeper they penetrate my territory, the greater my advantage; for there the knowledge of geography, language, and custom is all mine; they will be strangers in a strange land indeed. Also I will be able to enlist auxiliaries as required."

  "Vlad." She was very serious. "As I have pleaded with Jonathan for your life, as much as I dared to do so, so now I would plead with you for his. I ask you, for my sake, to spare him, should the time ever come when he is fully delivered into your hands."

  "Far greater gifts than his life would I gladly grant you, if you did ask for them." And once again I kissed her hand.

  TRACK EIGHT

  By about five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifteenth my enemies and Mina were ensconced at the Odessus Hotel in Varna. Had I taken the train that far with them I should then have been about five hundred kilometers, or three hundred miles, from home, as the bat flies. But I had been resting snugly in my trunk-the lock forced together firmly from inside-when it was unloaded on schedule, in broad daylight, at Bucharest. By getting off the train there I had reduced the distance to my home by about one third from the Varna figure, which enabled me to feel somewhat more secure. Besides, there would have been little for me to do in Varna, beyond dalliance. I had decided that the ship was not going there after all.

  At any rate, Czarina was not even due to reach the Dardanelles till the twenty-fourth. There was plenty of time, and I decided to go home
at once, there to arrange some reception for my guests.

  In Bucharest I knew where I could obtain a cart and horse that I, in native clothing, could drive myself without attracting any particular attention. Dressed once more in costume of my homeland, and with the leather trunk as almost my sole luggage, I took the road back to the high Carpathians. Dozing by day at the side of some small, seldom-traveled way-already home was near enough that the common roadside earth would let me get a kind of rest-and traveling steadily by night, in three days I won my way so far up the slowly climbing roads that with the third sunset I felt sure that I would need my trunk of earth, and therefore my wagon, no longer. The horses I soothed and sent to stand in the yard of a poor farmer, who when it came time for plowing in the spring would bless the hand that had sent them to him. The cart, a poor thing, I left by the roadside, still holding the trunk, from which I had spilled and scattered the earth, lest such cargo here give rise to too much speculation. I do not often bestow largesse upon the lazy world, but considered that my homecoming deserved some unusual celebration.

  Before going to the castle I stopped at a spot some miles distant, where the Szgany sometimes camped. A few were there, with their wagons and barking dogs and ragged children. The counterfeit ruddiness of my days on the train had faded; my hair when it blew before my eyes looked lank and gray, and the Szgany knew me at once. I frowned to note that the first to see me gave me hangdog, sullen almost reproachful looks. When they called Tatra out of a wagon, matters were different. His leathery face worked with joy as he beheld me, and he came forward at once to fall on his knees and kiss my hand.

  "Master! Long have we waited for your safe return. My wife and seventh daughter have worked the spells three times, at dark and full of moon…"

  "Yes, yes. Well, here I am. How are things at the castle?"

  His face took on some of the others' sullenness. "We were not welcome there."

  "Not welcome? In my home? Who has told you so?"

  A hint of coming satisfaction touched his lips with a smile. "The ladies three who dwell there, master. They said they spoke with your full knowledge and authority. I doubted them… but I am only mortal man."

  "You will be welcome now, my friend. But first there is another matter I must discuss with you." I informed Tatra of the approach of my enemies, and of the effort I was soon going to require of him and his men. I did not tell him that I was not going to be inside the box at the time when he received it downriver; I could not expect him or his men, if they knew that, to defend the box as wholeheartedly as might be necessary. Tatra in turn told me of certain things that he had witnessed in the castle, before being excluded therefrom, and I was frowning when I took my departure from the gypsy camp.

  Anna, Wanda, and Melisse knew of course by this time that I was coming home, as they would have known across the vast miles had some sharp stake of English yew been forced into my rib cage to drive my spirit out. They were waiting on the battlements when the chief bat came down out of a rainy midnight sky. Anna, fairest and boldest of the three, actually put out her wrist for me, with a mocking smile, as if she thought I might perch there like some pet bird.

  Melisse, tall and dark, and Wanda, her shorter, fuller-breasted sister, were in the background, not quite daring such impertinence but brave enough to give out nervous little laughs when Anna was not punished instantly. I wanted to see exactly how matters stood here before I acted.

  In tall man-form I stood with my back to the rainswept parapet and looked down at the three white faces looking up, and soon the laughter stopped.

  "I am informed," I stated then, "that you are molesting the local people here. That you have abducted young men from the villages and held them prisoner. My orders were that you take no lovers nearer than a score of leagues, and that you take none by force-"

  It may be that I have an extra sense for danger. Or it may have been some combination of hearing, subtle mental alarms, and the sight of unconcealable anticipation in the women's faces that warned me to spin round on guard. A peasant youth with lank blond hair and straggly, sprouting beard was rushing at me just inside the parapet, charging with a stout wooden spear, its sharp point fire-hardened, leveled at my midsection. I pushed the thrust aside with one hand, wrenched the weapon from him, and seized him in a killing grip.

  But before my hands put on the force that would have crushed his spine I looked into his face. No secret agent of Van Helsing, this. Only a farm lad, strong as a young horse and handsome as a god, or had been before his strength was drained away through the six small red points that now marked his throat. He had spent almost his last strength in rushing to kill me, and now his eyes gazed back at mine almost indifferently.

  I let him drop to the stone walk, picked up his weapon, broke it to splinters in my hands, and threw them into the abyss. All the while I was looking at the women.

  Anna sighed, then raised her chin proudly as ever, returned my gaze, and waited. Melisse suddenly brought hands up to hide her face. "Oh, Vlad," cried Wanda, "he did come from more than a score of leagues away!" Then in a breaking voice she said: "I warned them not to try to kill you."

  "Your cry of warning just now to me, my dear," I answered, "was so soft that I heard it not."

  Then I went on, almost as if nothing had happened: "The Szgany are returning. And there come also some English folk, whom you are not to touch. As for your punishment, for disobeying my orders and then trying to take my life, the first part of it is this-to wait." Memories of old happiness with these women came to me as I looked at them, and made me smile; and first Wanda and then Melisse began to whimper in the rain.

  Hardly a word more did I hear from any of them. I carried the peasant youth below, to what had once been Harker's room, and examined him. Despite all the blood that had been taken, he was not yet nosferatu, or at least his case was still doubtful. I pondered the situation and realized, with a sigh, that it was my duty as lord of Castle Dracula to restore him as best I could to his own home. There was not another living soul at hand whom I could entrust with such a mission, and after obtaining a horse and cart from Tatra I set out to do the task myself, despite the days that it must occupy.

  Meanwhile there was my daily chore of keeping track of the Czarina Catherine at sea, by means of her splinters and dust that I kept in my possession. I continued to see to it that her winds were favorable, as if I were in fact depending on her in my race for home. Since the enemy were waiting for her at Varna, I had decided not to land her there at all, and so blew a few more well-chosen winds about the ship, with fogs so that her crew would be at a loss to know which way to steer and I could drive her where I willed.

  By the time the crew knew fully what was happening to them they were in the mouth of the Danube at the port of Galatz, somewhat closer to my own domain than I had been in Bucharest.

  The docks at Galatz were new and efficient, having been begun only in 1887, and the place was a thriving port. The unloading of the boxful of earth was seen to by my unwitting agent, one Immanuel Hildesheim, slurred by Harker in his journal as "a Hebrew of rather the Adelphia Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep." Hildesheim, acting under written instruction from a Mr. de Ville of London-a near relative and close friend of Dr. Corday, of course-gave the box over to Petrof Skinsky, whom I mentioned earlier in connection with my departure from my homeland.

  The posse, when they learned of the ship's arrival in Galatz, lost no time in entraining there from Varna, a comparatively short journey of some three hundred miles by rail. They of course brought Mina along. As the train passed through Bucharest she stared out through its windows, hoping unreasonably to catch some sight of me.

  In Galatz the adventurers interviewed Czarina Catherine's captain, a superstitious but opportunistic Scot who had suspected that something more than natural good luck was behind the astounding swiftness of his voyage, yet had clubbed his restive crew into submission and enjoyed the ride as being good for business. Information gleaned from the capta
in led Van Helsing and his men to Hildesheim, and thence to Skinsky, whose body with its throat cut was found in a nearby churchyard just as they were asking for him. I suppose he had tried to cheat the Slovaks in some way, and was killed by them, but of course the implication in my enemies' records is that I was responsible for his death.

  Exhaustion was setting in among the hunters, who for a time lay about dispiritedly in their several rooms at the Galatz hotel. Quincey nursed his scalp wound, that was somehow never mentioned in any of their journals. Mina began to fear that they might not, after all, push on to the conclusion she and I were trying so hard to arrange. She therefore decided to spur them on by drawing up a logical-though of course fallacious-chain of reasoning, showing where the box that had become their grail was now most likely to be found.

  Although I had no hand in formulating Mina's report it was quite accurate about the coffin's location. Of course its usefulness to my foe rested, as she knew full well, upon two false premises: first, that I could not move, or chose not to move, toward my home by my own efforts, but preferred to be conveyed by others; and second, that I was within the box that had come by ship. When she had finished presenting her report and logical analysis to the men they were delighted by it and reinvigorated for the chase, and she promptly got out of their way again. Van Helsing himself paid her intelligence a verbal tribute which was perhaps somewhat tarnished by the words with which he closed his speech: "Now, men, to our council of war…"

  Mina's conclusion was that my box was being shipped by water closer to Castle Dracula, and so Arthur and Jonathan were detailed to take up the pursuit by chartered steam launch, ascending the river Sereth toward its junction with the Bistrita, which latter stream, as Mina had noted, ran "up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula's castle as can be got by water." Quincey and Dr. Seward, accompanied at first by two men to look out for their spare horses, were to follow generally along the right bank of the Sereth, being ready to take action on land wherever the box carrying the vampire might be put ashore.