Anno Dracula ad-1

by Kim Newman

  ‘What a cold, dark, silence perfection would be,’ Geneviève said. ‘I imagine an ultimate universal improvement would be something very like death.’

  28

  PAMELA

  ‘I seem suddenly to have developed a warm, almost affectionate, feeling for Dom Augustin Calmet,’ Geneviève said. Beauregard was amused.

  In the cab on the way back to Whitechapel, she was close beside him. Clayton, engaged for the night, knew where they were going. After his unexpected trip to Limehouse, Beauregard was happy to be driven about London by someone he knew to be in the employ of the Diogenes Club.

  ‘Many brilliant men struck their contemporaries as mad.’

  ‘I don’t have any contemporaries,’ she said. ‘Except Vlad Tepes, and I’ve never met him.’

  ‘You follow my reasoning, though?’

  Geneviève’s eyes flashed. ‘Of course Charles...’

  She had the habit of using his Christian name. In another that might be unseemly, but it was absurd to insist on arbitrary rules of address with a woman old enough to be his ten-times great grandmother.

  ‘It is possible the murders are experiments,’ she continued. ‘Dr Knox needed dead bodies, and wasn’t too scrupulous where he got them; Dr Jekyll and Dr Moreau need un-dead bodies, and could quite conceivably not be above harvesting them from the streets of Whitechapel.’

  ‘Moreau was mixed up in a vivisection scandal a few years ago. Something particularly revolting involving a skinned dog.’

  ‘I can believe it. Inside his white coat, he’s a cave-dweller.’

  ‘And he is a man of some strength. Expert with the bullwhip, they say. He’s knocked about the world a great deal.’

  ‘But you don’t think he’s our murderer?’

  Beauregard was mildly surprised to be so anticipated. ‘I do not. For one thing, he is reckoned a surgeon of genius.’

  ‘And Jack the Ripper knows his way about the insides of a body, but trawls through entrails with the finesse of a drunken pork butcher.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He was used to having to explain his reasoning. It was refreshing, if not a little alarming, to be with someone who could keep up with him.

  ‘Could he deliberately botch the job to throw off suspicion?’ she asked, then answering herself, ‘No, if Moreau were stark mad enough to murder for an experiment, he wouldn’t jeopardise his findings with intentional carelessness. If he were our Ripper, he’d abduct the victims and remove them to a private place where he could operate at his leisure.’

  ‘The girls were all killed where they were found.’

  ‘And swiftly, in a frenzy. No “scientific method”.’

  The vampire bit her lip, and was for an instant the image of a serious sixteen-year-old in a dress made for an older and more frivolous sister. Then the ancient mind was back.

  ‘So Dr Jekyll is your suspect?’

  ‘He is a biological chemist, not an anatomist. I’m not at all up on the field, but I’ve been wrestling with his articles. He has some odd ideas. “On the Composition of Vampire Tissue” was his last piece.’

  Geneviève considered the possibilities. ‘It’s hard to imagine, though. Next to Moreau, he seems so... so harmless. He reminds me of a clergyman. And he is old. I can’t picture him dashing about the streets by night, much less possessing the sheer strength the Ripper must have.’

  ‘But there’s something there.’

  She thought a moment. ‘Yes, you’re right. There is something there. I don’t think Henry Jekyll is Jack the Ripper. But there is an indefinably peculiar quality about him.’

  Beauregard was grimly pleased to have his suspicions confirmed.

  ‘He’ll bear watching.’

  ‘Charles, are you employing me as a bloodhound?’

  ‘I suppose I am. Do you mind?’

  ‘Woof woof,’ she said, giggling. When she laughed, her upper lip drew back ferociously from sharp teeth. ‘Remember not to trust me. I used to say the war would be over by winter.’

  ‘Which war?’

  ‘The Hundred Years’ War.’

  ‘Good guess.’

  ‘One year, I was right. By then, I didn’t care any more. I think I was in Spain.’

  ‘You were French originally. Why don’t you live there?’

  ‘France was English then. That was what they said the war was about.’

  ‘So you were on our side?’

  ‘Most definitely not. But it was a long time ago, and in another country, and that girl is long gone.’

  ‘Whitechapel is a strange place to find you.’

  ‘I’m not the only French girl in Whitechapel. Half the filles de joie on the streets call themselves “Fifi La Tour”.’

  He laughed again.

  ‘Your family must have been French too, Monsieur Beauregard, and you reside in Cheyne Walk.’

  ‘It was good enough for Carlyle.’

  ‘I met Carlyle once. And many others. The great and the good, the mad and the bad. I used to fear someone would track me down by correlating all the mentions of me in memoirs through the ages. Track me down and destroy me. That used to be the worst that could happen. My friend Carmilla was tracked down and destroyed. She was a soppy girl, fearfully dependent on her warm lovers, but she didn’t deserve to be speared and beheaded, then left to float in a coffin full of her own blood. I suppose I don’t have to worry about that dread dark fate any more.’

  ‘What have you been doing all these years?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Running? Waiting? Trying to do the right thing? Am I a good person, do you think? Or a bad person?’

  She did not expect an answer. Her mix of melancholy and bitter came out as amusing. He supposed being amusing was her way of coping. She must be as weighted with centuries as Jacob Marley was with chains.

  ‘Cheer up, old girl,’ he said. ‘Henry Jekyll thinks you’re perfect.’

  ‘Old girl?’

  ‘It’s just an expression.’

  Geneviève hummed sadly. ‘It’s me exactly, isn’t it though? An old girl.’

  What was it she made him feel? He was nervous near her, but excited. It was much like being in danger, and he had trained himself to be cool under fire. When he was with Geneviève, it was like sharing a secret. What would Pamela have thought of his vampire? She had been perceptive: even with agony knifing into her, she could not be lied to. To the end, he told her that she would be all right, that she would see home again. Pamela shook away his assurances and demanded he listen. For Pamela, dying was hard: she was angry, not with the fool doctor, but with herself, angry that her body had failed her, was failing their baby. Her fury burned like a fever. Gripping her hand, he could feel it. She died with something unsaid; ever since, he had been picking at the scab, wondering if there was anything to understand, wondering what the urgent thought was, the thought Pamela was not able at the last to force into words.

  ‘“I love you.”’

  ‘What?’

  Geneviève’s cheeks were dewed with tears. For once, she seemed younger than her face.

  ‘That’s what she was saying, Charles. “I love you.” That’s all.’

  Angered, he gripped the handle of his cane and thumbed the catch. An inch of silver shone. Geneviève gasped.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she said, leaning against him. ‘I’m not like that, really. I don’t pry. It’s...’ She was weeping freely, tears spotting her velvet collar. ‘It was so clear, Charles,’ she insisted, shaking her head and smiling at the same time. ‘It came spilling from your mind. Usually, impressions are vague. For once, I had a perfect picture. I knew. What you felt... oh Lord, Charles, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know what I was doing, please forgive me... and what she felt. It was a voice, cutting like a knife. What was her name?’

  ‘Pen...’ he swallowed. ‘Pamela. My wife, Pamela.’

  ‘Pamela. Yes, Pamela. I could hear her voice.’

  Her cold hands latched upon his, forcing his ca
ne shut. Geneviève’s face was close. Red specks swam in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘You’re a medium?’

  ‘No, no, no. You’ve carried the moment around with you, nurturing the hurt. It’s in you, there to be read.’

  He knew she was right. He should have known what Pamela was saying. He had not let himself hear. Beauregard had taken Pamela to India. He knew the risk. He should have sent her home when they found she was with child. But a crisis arose and she insisted on staying. She insisted, but he let her insist; he did not force her back to England. He was weak to let her stay. He did not deserve to understand her at the last. He did not deserve to be loved.

  Geneviève was smiling through tears. ‘There was no blame, Charles. She was angry. But not with you.’

  ‘I never thought...’

  ‘Charles...’

  ‘Well, I never consciously thought...’

  She raised a finger and laid it against his face. Taking it away, she held it up before him. A tear stood out. He took a handkerchief, and wiped his eyes.

  ‘I know what she was angry with, Charles. Death. Of all people, I understand. I think I would have liked, would have loved, your wife.’

  Geneviève touched her finger to her tongue, and shuddered slightly. Vampires could drink tears.

  What Pamela would have thought of Geneviève hardly mattered. What was important, he realised with a gaping in his stomach, was what Penelope would think...

  ‘I really didn’t mean for all this to happen,’ she said. ‘You must think me fearfully wet.’

  She took his handkerchief, and dabbed her own eyes dry. She looked at the damp-spotted cloth.

  ‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘Salt water.’

  He was puzzled.

  ‘Usually, I cry blood. It’s not very attractive. All teeth and rat-tails, like a proper nosferatu.’

  Now, he took her hand. The pain of memory was passing; somehow, he was stronger.

  ‘Geneviève, you consistently underestimate yourself. Remember, I know for a fact that you don’t know what you look like.’

  ‘I can remember a girl with feet like a duck’s, and lips that don’t match. Pretty eyes, though. I’m not sure, but I hope that was my sister. Her name was Cirielle; she married the brother of a Marshal of France and died a grandmother.’

  She was sharp again, in control of herself. Only the slight flush on her neck betrayed any emotion, and that was fading like ice in sunlight.

  ‘By now my family must have spread over the globe, like Christianity. I expect everybody alive is related to me somehow.’

  He tried to laugh but she was serious again.

  ‘I don’t like myself when I gush, Charles. I apologise for having embarrassed you.’

  Beauregard shook his head. Something had broken between them, but he was not sure whether it had been a bond or a barrier.

  29

  MR VAMPIRE II

  Charles’s tear still tingled on her tongue. She’d not meant to taste his grief but had been unable to help herself. In her old age, she was getting cranky and hard to fathom. Most elders went mad. Like Vlad Tepes. From Charles, she had a bubble of memory. The grip of a thin hand, the smell of dying blood, the heat and dirt of a far country, the fierce struggle of a woman to live, to bring life to the world. Alien feelings, alien pain. Geneviève could not become pregnant, could not give birth. Did that mean she was not truly alive? Not truly a woman? It was said that vampires were genderless, the sex of their bodies as functional as the eyes on the wings of a peacock. She could take pleasure in love-making, after a fashion; but it did not compare with feeding.

  All this from a tear. She swallowed and licked the roof of her mouth until the mind-taste was gone.

  ‘We’re nearly at Toynbee Hall,’ Charles said.

  They were by Spitalfields Market, in Lamb Street, just around the corner from Commercial Street. The market, open until dawn, was well-lit, and crowded. The noise and smell were familiar.

  With a lurch, they came to a halt. Geneviève was thrown forwards, against the wooden shield that fastened over the front of the hansom. Charles caught her and helped her up, but she found herself on her knees in the tiny floorspace. She could not see out of the cab. The horse neighed in hysteria, the cabby trying to rein her in with ‘whoa’ and a hard pull.

  Geneviève knew something was wrong.

  With a horrid wrench, the neighing abruptly stopped. The cabby swore and bystanders yelped in terror. Charles’s face drained of emotion. He was a soldier moments before the charge. She’d been seeing that expression on the face of soon-to-be dead men for centuries. Her eye-teeth extended, and she salivated, ready for attack or defence.

  There was a heavy thump on the top of the cab. She looked up. Five yellow fingers, nails like hooked knives, stuck through the wood. They flexed like bone-jointed worms and a fist ripped away a section of the roof around the trap. Through the splintered slit, she glimpsed a ripple of yellow silk. Her hopping persecutor had returned. A wrinkled face pressed close to the hole, mouth gaping to show rows of lamprey-teeth. It grew and grew, ripping into the cheeks, exposing glisteningly muscled gums. The elder chattered, lips shrivelling to nothing, sparse moustaches sprouting from raw, wet flesh.

  Hands took hold of either side of the hole, and peeled away more wood. Layers of varnished carriage-wood shattered, singing like broken violin strings.

  Charles had drawn his sword-cane and was looking for a point of thrust. She had to carry the fight to the enemy before Charles tried to be her protector and got himself butchered.

  From the floor of the cab, she launched, pushing hard, gripping the edges of the tear and pulling herself up. She burst through the gap, jagged edges ripping her good dress and blunting on her skin. The cab was rocking under the weight of the Chinese, who was balancing on the cabby’s box. She saw the driver sprawled on the pavement a dozen yards away, trying to sit up amid a crowd of gawkers. A cold wind blew her unbound hair about her face and whipped her dress around her knees. The cab wobbled under their shifting weight, anchored only by the dead horse.

  ‘Master,’ she addressed herself to the vampire, ‘what is your quarrel with me?’

  The Chinese changed. His neck elongated, dividing into prickle-haired insect segments. The arms extending from his bell-shaped sleeves were several-elbowed, with human-shaped hands as big as paddles. His head swung from side to side on his snakeneck, a yard of coiled pigtail lashing his shoulders. The queue ended with a spiked ball woven into his rope of hair.

  Something at once wispy and prickly brushed her face. It was a cobwebby rope grown from the vampire’s face. While she watched his hands, he had reached for her with his joined eyebrows. Hairs like pampas grass scratched her skin. She felt a trickle on her forehead. The creature was trying for her eyes. She made a fist and swung her forearm against the brow-snake, wrapping it about her wrist several times. She pulled hard: thin strings cut through her sleeve and noosed her wrist, but the vampire was off-balanced.

  She was yanked from her own perch as the Chinese tumbled from the box. He slipped through the air like a fish through water and landed perfectly on his sandals. The brow-snake let go of her arm. Feet-first, she slammed into a wall. Then she fell on to cobblestones. Her ankles jarred from the impact with the wall, she tried to stand. The heel of her hand sank into a rotted half-cabbage and she skidded, sprawling again. She tasted filth against her face. Deliberately, she lifted herself on to her elbows, then on to her feet. The elder had managed to hurt her, which was not supposed to be easy. His power made her a child.

  She got the wall behind her and gathered strength. Her face burned as the skin tightened. Her teeth and nails grew, splitting the flesh of her fingers and gums. She tasted her own blood.

  They were in the market, in a messy space between stalls. A row of dangling beef carcasses lined the concourse between them, shifting on their iron hooks. The stench of dead animal blood was all around. The crowds had gathered in a circle, giving the elders room t
o fight but also cutting off any retreats.

  Pushing against the wall, she flew at the vampire. He stood steady, arms apart. Her hands brushed his robe as, a quarter-second before she reached him, he stepped aside. As she passed, he stabbed her in the side with his pointed fingers. Her dress was shredded, and her skin punctured. She slammed into a cold side of beef, and staggered away, colliding with spectators. They held her up and, with a cheer, pushed her back at the Chinese. It was like a bare-knuckles fight, the crowd continually throwing the pugilists at each other. Until one or other refused to get up again.

  She would have given odds against herself. According to superstition, she could halt the Chinese vampire’s assault by tracing a prayer to Buddha on a sheet of yellow paper and pasting the incantation to his forehead. Or by scattering sticky rice in his path to fix him to the earth and, holding her breath to be invisible to the un-dead, cut him into pieces with lengths of blessed, blood-inked string. None of which appeared to be of any practical use.

  Long arms stretched like the steadying wings of a crane, the elder kicked her under the chin. His sandal toe hooked on her jaw, lifting her into the air. She landed badly, coming down heavily on a trestle table. Laid out in flour on wax paper had been a row of kidneys. The trestles collapsed and she was on the floor again, surrounded by lumps of purple meat. An unbroken lamp rolled on the cobbles, sooty flame bursting from its side-vent, glass bulb of purple paraffinoil weighting it down.

  She looked up and saw the Chinese vampire strolling towards her. He had green eyes in his withered leather mask of a face. His movements were as precise and purposeful as a dancer’s. His silks rustled as he walked, like the wings of insects. To him, this was a show, a demonstration. Like a bullfighter, he wanted applause as he made his kill.

  There was a blur of movement behind the creature, and he paused, delicately cocking a pointed ear. Charles was closing on him, sword a silver flash. If he could get the point into the elder’s body and transfix him through the heart...