From The Journal of Jonathan Harker, 15 November—.
Somewhere between dreams and wakefulness, I now know that there is another state. A limbo-life more imagined than real. A land of phantoms and sensations. It is a place I visit each night after darkness falls. Sometimes it is sensuous, sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes foul beyond redemption. It extends only to the borders of the library, and its inhabitants, mostly in states of undressed arousal, are perfumed with excrement. These loathsome creatures insult, entice, distract, disgrace, shame and seduce me, clutching at my clothes until I am drawn among them, indistinguishable from them, enthralled by their touch, degraded by my own eagerness.
I think I am ill.
By day, my high stone world is once more quiet and rational. Would that it were not, for there is no comfort to be had from the news it brings me. The road leading to and from the castle is now quite impassable. It would take a team of mountaineers to scale the sharp gradient of the rock face beneath us. The Count has failed to return, and of his impending plans there is no word. My task in the library is nearly over. The books—all save one single final shelf—have been quantified and, in many cases, explored.
I begin to understand the strangely parasitic nature of my host. His thirst for knowledge and his choice of literature betray his true desires. There are volumes in many languages here, but of the ones I can read, first editions of Nodier’s Infernalia, d’Argen’s Lettres Juives and Viatte’s Sources Occultes du Romantisme are most familiar. Certain medical periodicals and pertinent copies of The London Journal add subtler shades to my mental portrait of the Count. Of course I knew the folk-tales about his ancestry. They are bound within the history of his people. How could one travel through this country and not hear them? In their native language they do not seem so fanciful, and here in the castle, confabulations take on substantiality. I have heard and read how the Count’s forefathers slaughtered the offspring of their enemies and drank their blood for strength—who has not? Why, tales of Eastern barbarism have reached the heart of London society. But I had not considered the more lurid legends; how the royal descendants lived on beyond death, how they needed no earthly sustenance, how their senses were so finely attuned that they could divine bad fortune in advance. Nor had I considered the consequence of such fables; that, should their veracity be proven, they might in the Count’s case suggest an inherited illness of the kind suffered by royal albinos, a dropsical disease of the blood that keeps him from the light, an anemia that blanches his eyes and dries his veins, that causes meat to stick in his throat, that drives him from the noisy heat of humanity to the cool dark sanctum of his sick-chamber.
But if it is merely a medical condition, why am I beset with bestial fantasies? What power could the Count possess to hold me in his thrall? I find it harder each day to recall his appearance, for the forbidden revelations of the night have all but overpowered my sense of reality. And yet his essence is here in the library, imbued within each page of his collection. Perhaps I am not ill, but mad. I fear my senses have awoken too sharply, and my rational mind is reeling with their weight.
I have lost much of my girth in the last six weeks. I have always been thin, but the gaunt image that glares back at me in the glass must surely belong to a sickly, aged relation. I appear as a bundle of blanched sticks by day. I have no strength. I live only for the nights. Beneath the welcoming winter moon my flesh fills, my spirit becomes engorged with an unwholesome strength, and I am sound once more.
I really must try to get away from here.
From The Journal of Jonathan Harker, 18 December—.
The Count has finally returned, paradoxically bringing fresh spirits into the castle. For the life of me I cannot see how he arrived here, as one section of the pathway below has clearly fallen away into the valley. Last night he came down to dinner, and was in most excellent health. His melancholy mood had lifted, and he was eager to converse. He seemed physically taller, his posture more erect. His travels had taken him on many adventures, so he informed me as he poured himself a goblet of heavy claret, but now he was properly restored to his ancestral home, and would be in attendance for the conclusion of my work.
I had not told him I was almost done, although I supposed he might have intuited as much from a visit to the library. He asked that we might finish the work together, before the next sunrise. I was very tired—indeed, at the end of the meal I required Klove’s helping hand to rise from my chair—but agreed to his demand, knowing that there were but a handful of books left for me to classify.
Soon we were seated in the great library, warming ourselves before the fire, where Klove had set bowls of brandy out for us. It was when I studied his travelling clothes that I realized the truth. His boots and oil-cloth cape lay across the back of the chair where he had supposedly deposited them on his return. As soon as I saw that the boots were new, the soles polished and unworn, I instinctively intuited that the Count had not been away, and that he had spent the last six months here in the castle with me. I knew I had not imagined what I had seen and done. We sat across from each other in two great armchairs, cradling our brandies, and I nervously pondered my next move, for it was clear to me that the Count could sense my unease.
“I could not approach you, Jonathan,” he explained, divining my thoughts as precisely as an entomologist skewers a wasp. “You were simply too English, too Christian, too filled with pious platitudes. The reek of your pride was quite overpowering. I saw the prayer book by your bed, the cross around your neck, the dowdy little virgin in your locket. I knew it would be simpler to sacrifice you upon the completion of your task.” His eyes watched mine intently. “To suck your blood and throw your drained carcass over the battlements to the wolves.” I stared back, refusing to flinch, not daring to move a single nerve-end.
“But,” he continued with a heartfelt sigh, “I did so need a good man to tend my library. In London I will easily find loyal emissaries to do my bidding and manage my affairs, but the library needs a keeper. Klove has no feeling for language. To be the custodian of such a rare repository of ideas requires tact and intellect. I decided instead to let you discover me, and in doing so, discover yourself. That was the purpose of the library.” He raised his arm, fanning it over the shelves. “The library made you understand. You see, the pages of the books are poisoned. They just need warm hands to activate them, the hands of the living. The inks leaked into your skin and brought your inner self to life. That is why Klove always wears gloves in this room. You are the only other living person here.” I looked down at my stained and fragrant fingers, noticing for the first time how their skin had withered into purple blotches.
“The books are dangerous to the Christian soul, malignant in their print and in their ideas. Now you have read my various histories, shared my experiences, and know I am corrupt, yet incorruptible. Perhaps you see that we are not so far apart. There is but one barrier left to fall between us.” He had risen from his chair without my noticing, and circled behind me. His icy tapered fingers came to rest on my neck, loosening the stiff white collar of my shirt. I heard a collar stud rattle onto the floor beneath my chair.
“After tonight you will no longer need to use my library for the fulfillment of your fantasies,” he said, his steel-cold mouth descending to my throat, “for your fantasies are to be made flesh, just as the nights will replace your days.” I felt the first hot stab of pain as his teeth met in my skin. Through a haze I saw the Count wipe his lips with the back of a crimson hand. “You will make a very loyal custodian, little Englishman,” he said, descending again.
Here the account ends. The library did not accompany Count Dracula on his voyage to England, but remained behind in his castle, where it continued to be tended by Mr. Harker until his eventual demise many, many years later.
THOMAS LIGOTTI is one of the foremost contemporary authors of supernatural horror literature. In this genre, he has been classed with Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft.
His first collection of stories, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, was originally published in 1986 and has been revised and expanded since. Other books include Grimscribe: His Lives and Works, Noctuary, The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein and Other Gothic Tales, The Nightmare Factory, My Work is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror, and Teatro Grottesco.
The recipient of numerous awards, including the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award, in 2010 Ligotti published The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror, a study of the intersection between pessimistic philosophy and supernatural fiction.
The Heart of Count Dracula, Descendant of Attila, Scourge of God
Thomas Ligotti
Count Dracula travels to England, where he is about to lose his heart . . .
Count Dracula recalls how he was irresistibly drawn to Mina Harker (née Murray), the wife of a London real estate agent. Her husband had sold him a place called Carfax. This was a dilapidated structure next door to a noisy institution for the insane. Their incessant racket was not undisturbing to one who was, among other things, seeking peace. An inmate name Renfield was the worst offender.
One time the Harkers had Count Dracula over for the evening, and Jonathan (his agency’s top man) asked him how he liked Carfax with regard to location, condition of the house and property, and just all around. “Ah, such architecture,” said Count Dracula while gazing uncontrollably at Mina, “is truly frozen music.”
Count Dracula is descended from the noble race of the Szekelys, a people of many bloodlines, all of them fierce and warlike. He fought for his country against the invading Turks. He survived wars, plagues, the hardships of an isolated dwelling in the Carpathian Mountains. And for centuries, at least five and maybe more, he has managed to perpetuate, with the aid of supernatural powers, his existence as a vampire. This existence came to an end in the late 1800s. “Why her?” Count Dracula often asked himself.
Why the entire ritual, when one really thinks about it. What does a being who can transform himself into a bat, a wolf, a wisp of smoke, anything at all, and who knows the secrets of the dead (perhaps of death itself) want with this oily and overheated nourishment? Who would make such a stipulation for immortality! And, in the end, where did it get him? Lucy Westenra’s soul was saved, Renfield’s soul was never in any real danger . . . but Count Dracula, one of the true children of the night from which all things are born, has no soul. Now he has only this same insatiable thirst, though he is no longer free to alleviate it. (“Why her? There were no others such as her.”) Now he has only this painful, perpetual awareness that he is doomed to wriggle beneath this infernal stake which those fools—Harker, Seward, Van Helsing, and the others—have stuck in his trembling heart. (“Her fault, her fault.”) And now he hears voices, common voices, peasants from the countryside.
“Over here,” one of them shouts, “in this broken down convent or whatever it is. I think I’ve found something we can give to those damned dogs. Good thing, too. Christ, I’m sick of their endless whining.”
MANDY SLATER spent most of her early life in Canada, but returned to her native England to live in the mid-1990s.
Her anthology appearances have included Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, Sex Macabre, 100 Twisted Tales of Torment, The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers’ Dreams, Dark Terrors: The Gollancz Book of Horror and Zombie Apocalypse!
She has also worked as an assistant film publicist in Romania (on Last Gasp, starring Robert Patrick and Joanna Pacula) while, as a media journalist, researcher and photographer, she has contributed to X-Pose, Secret City: Strange Tales of London, Locus, Sci-Fi Entertainment, Sci-Fi Wire, SFX, Science Fiction Chronicle and Sci-Fi Magazine, among other publications.
Daddy’s Little Girl
Mandy Slater
The decades pass, and Dracula travels widely, never staying for more than three or four years in one place. But now his past is about to come back to haunt him . . .
The call of the night beckoned, but I ignored it and hailed a taxi instead.
The streets were empty tonight. Only the sound of a few motor cars, and the occasional clip-clop of a horse-drawn carriage interrupted the silence. Although I was tempted to book a room at The Grand and ignore my problems, I had to leave the city. The dank smell of the metropolis left a foul, acrid taste in my mouth, which was a further blow to what was rapidly becoming the worst week of my existence.
The previous night’s excursion had left me mentally drained. That despicable man Crowley had stared at me all evening. There was something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He spouted nonsense about magic and religion—obviously a self-deluded crackpot. It was no wonder that his last mistress had committed suicide. I should have known better than to frequent such an establishment as the Gargoyle Club. Places like that always brought out the worst dregs of society. Nowadays, nightclubs like the Kit-Cat were more to my taste.
The taxi dropped me off at the train station and I could barely see the driver speed away in the rapidly descending gloom. I hastily purchased my ticket, and found my train quickly, climbing into the comfort of the first class carriage with a sense of relief. Moments after I closed the door with a hollow thump, the train began to move forward.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him. And at the end of my journey he would be waiting. He was tangled in my thoughts like a spider in a web. Why here? Why now?
Our disagreement had been a stupid one; they always were. I hadn’t seen him in years. He said he’d contact me, but he never did. I wrote a few cards, posted a letter or two, but there was never any reply, never so much as a hastily written scribble or a wispy voice on the other end of a telephone line.
I’d tried to justify his behavior in my mind. I kept telling myself that I moved a great deal—perhaps the mail was never forwarded? He was always busy, ruling his empire with an iron fist, manipulating the masses, commanding the multitudes. The powerful ones never had time—or so they said.
I guess you could say I gave up on him after a while. Or maybe, just maybe, he gave up on me. Perhaps I never really lived up to his expectations. Following in his footsteps had always been a nightmare. There was such a mystique surrounding him.
The adopted ones always exceeded me in their achievements. I often heard their accounts, read about their adventures in the newspapers. Following the headlines had become a daily ritual. Perhaps I hoped to catch a fleeting reference to him. I thought I did once, just after the war. The name was wrong, but then he rarely used the real one nowadays. Legends had myriad titles.
He had wealth now, and he had it in abundance. I wondered if it made him happy. The endless parade of women never did. I’d watched them too. I was good at watching. Perhaps observation was my only real talent on this earth, although I never seemed to learn from it.
My anxiety about the forthcoming appointment was interrupted by a hesitant knock on the door of my compartment. I quickly switched on the reading light. It might look suspicious if someone found me staring out into the darkness.
“I was wondering if I could come in?” a male voice asked from the other side of the doorway.
I opened the door cautiously, expecting the ticket inspector on his rounds. But it was that man Crowley again.
“Oh, excuse me,” he said, acting surprised. “I was looking for an associate of mine, and I thought she was in this compartment.” “I’m afraid not sir. Excuse me, but I really must get back to my book,” I added, hoping he would disappear to whence he came, and quickly.
“Yes, of course. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but have we met before?” He suddenly smiled. “Yes, I remember now, you were at the Gargoyle Club last night. What a small world . . .”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t remember,” I lied, my teeth clenching as I tried to close the door on his fingers.
It was then that he brushed past me and sat down. I was so surprised by his brusque manner, that
words escaped me.
“Well, if I can’t find my associate, perhaps you’d honor me with a conversation? I have a least an hour before I reach my destination. Assuming of course you don’t mind?” He smiled again. My skin crawled.
I wanted to tell him to get out and let me be. The note that I had received the previous evening had left me drained. Somehow, I no longer felt in control of my own actions.
“I’ve not encountered someone with such beauty as yours in a long time,” he purred. “And you have a touch of the True Power, although I doubt you know that . . .”
“Really sir,” I said firmly, “I must ask you to leave at once.”
Then he scowled. “Don’t play the proper little miss with me. What’s that expression everyone’s using? ‘You can do anything you like so long as you don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.’ I don’t see any horses here, madam. After all, most women who frequent the Gargoyle Club are after one thing and one thing only.” He licked his lips in anticipation.
At that moment, there was another knock at the compartment door. I could hear a tiny voice squeaking from the other side. “Are you there, Aleister? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“Ah, my companion, what perfect timing. Let her in my dear, let her in,” he demanded.
Without hesitation I opened the carriage door. Crowley had a certain presence, I’d acknowledge that. A tipsy, redheaded trollop stared back at me. Then she brushed past and collapsed into the lap of her lover.
“Come my dear,” he said while struggling with the woman’s clothing. “Why don’t you join us? I have delights to show you beyond your imagination . . .”
The woman laughed, a shrill screech that threatened to overpower the din of the steam engine. The situation was quickly getting out of control. I sighed, realizing there was no other way. “If that’s what you really desire . . .” I said simply.
In the Footsteps of Dracula Page 5
