Anno Dracula ad-1

by Kim Newman

  The vampire’s arm bent backwards in three places and his hand fastened on Charles’s wrist, halting the sword-lunge. As he twisted his grip, the sword revolved like the hand of a clock, never quite scraping the Chinese’s garments. It fell with a clatter on the cobbles. The vampire flipped Charles over, tossing him away with his weapon. The crowd groaned in sympathy.

  She tried to sit up. The kidneys were like large dead slugs, bursting under her weight. She was smeared with their discharges. The elder returned his attention to her and stretched out a bony arm, sleeve seeming to swell in an unfelt breeze. From the dark of his robe was disgorged a fluttering cloud that grew like the impossible billows of a magician’s scarf. Darting and chittering, the cloud swarmed towards her. A million tiny butterflies, many-coloured beauties whose wings caught the light like a scattering of diamond fragments, closed around her. They clustered on the meat, devouring it instantly, and bothered her face, seething around the scraps stuck to her skin, worrying the corners of her eyes.

  She kept her mouth shut tight and shook her head violently. She wiped at her face with her wrists. Every time she loosed a swath, the butterflies would gather again. She reached out for the fallen lamp, and pinched out the flame. After yanking free the still-hissing wick, she emptied the lamp over her head. The butterflies were washed away, and the smell of paraffin-oil stung her nostrils. One spark, and her head would be a candleflame. She scraped dead butterflies out of her hair, and threw them away by the mucky handful.

  The elder stood over her. He bent down and picked her up by her shoulders. She hung from his hold like a length of cloth. She let herself relax. Her toes scraped cobbles. Maybe there was amusement in the dusty emerald of his ancient eyes. His needle-rimmed maw came close to her face, and she smelled his perfumed breath. From the teeth-circled red cleft emerged a pointed, tubular tongue like the proboscis of a mosquito. He could drain her dry, leave her a husk. She might live, but that would be the worst outcome.

  Her feet flat on the ground now, she was looking up at the creature. She let her head flop back, and exposed her throat in submission. The tongue snaked towards her, its worm-toothed aperture pulsing. She gave him a few seconds to relish victory and grabbed him just under his armpits, nails stabbing through his robe and scrabbling against his ribs. Mouth agape, she lunged up at his face and bit. She caught his tongue and clamped her jaw tight around the wriggling meat. A peppery taste flooded her mouth, choking her. The tongue, stronger than a snake, fought her jaw-grip. She felt the filthy thing throb. Around his tongue, the vampire screeched in fury. She was hurting him. Her teeth sawed through gristle and muscle and, with a click, met. The tongue-end in her mouth writhed, and she spat it out.

  The vampire spun away from her, a gush of oily black exploding from his mouth-hole and splashing down the front of his robe. He still cried, screams emerging in bubbles of blood. The creature would not be feeding on her. She wiped her mouth on her ruined sleeve, coughing and spitting, trying to purge the taste. Her whole mouth was numbed, her throat burned. The elder, spinning, flailed at her again. His blows buffeted her against a wall and he began to work on her like a boxer, hammering her belly and neck. He was angry now, and not so precise. All he had was force, no skill. Pain spread through her body. He took her head as he must have taken the horse’s and wrenched it to one side. Her neckbones parted and she howled in her hurt. The vampire threw her down and kicked her in the side. Then he jumped on her ribs. She heard her own bones breaking.

  She opened her eyes. The vampire was sneering down, keening like a wounded seal. His lower face was a steaming mass of flesh and teeth, trying to mend itself. Saliva and blood dripped on her. Then he was gone and other faces were crowding around.

  ‘Let me through,’ someone said. ‘Move aside, for the Lord’s sake...’

  She hurt. Her ribs were fixing as she breathed, stabbing pains receding with each wave. But her neck was out. And she was bone-weary, her vision clouded red. She was aware of the filth in which she lay, the crusted blood on her face. She no longer had even one good dress.

  ‘Geneviève,’ a voice said, ‘look at me...’

  A face was close. Charles.

  ‘Geneviève...’

  30

  THE PENNY DROPS

  Deeming it best not to move her, he sent Clayton to Toynbee Hall for Dr Seward. In the meantime, he did what he could to make her comfortable. A pail of clean-ish water had been filled from a standpipe; he took a cloth to her face, wiping off her mask of blood and dirt.

  Whatever it had been, it had left, bounding with a peculiar hopping gait. Beauregard wished his sword-cane had skewered the thing. He was revising his opinions on vampires in general, but that monster should not be alive.

  He dabbed her face and she held his hand tight. She groaned as broken bones moved. He was reminded of Liz Stride at the last. And of Pamela. Both of those were lost, death coming as a mercy. He determined to fight for Geneviève Dieudonné. If he could not preserve one life, what use was he? She tried to speak, but he soothed her to silence. He picked a crushed butterfly out of her hair and flicked it away. Her head sat unnaturally, neck kinked at an angle, a bone jutting under the skin. A warm woman would be dead.

  The crowds who had enjoyed the fight were still there, putting the market back together. A few loafers hung about, hoping to see more blood. Beauregard would have liked to floor one or two of them with kung-fu kicks, just to give the public a show.

  Clayton returned with a dumpy woman. It was Mrs Amworth, the vampire nurse. Another man from the Hall, Morrison, was with them, carrying a doctor’s bag.

  ‘Dr Seward is off somewhere,’ Mrs Amworth explained. ‘You’ll have to make do with me.’

  The nurse gently pushed him aside, and knelt by Geneviève. He still held her hand, but she winced as her arm shifted.

  ‘You’ll have to let go,’ said Mrs Amworth.

  He put Geneviève’s hand down, arranging her arm by her side.

  ‘Good, good, good,’ Mrs Amworth said to herself as she felt Geneviève’s ribs. ‘The bones are setting properly.’

  Geneviève half-sat, coughing, and then slumped.

  ‘Yes, that hurts,’ Mrs Amworth cooed, ‘but only to make you better.’

  Morrison opened the bag and set it within Mrs Amworth’s reach. She took out a scalpel.

  ‘You’re going to cut?’ he asked.

  ‘Only her dress.’

  The nurse slipped the blade under Geneviève’s neckline at the shoulder and slit down the arm, peeling away what was left of the sleeve. There were purplish patches on her upper arm, which Mrs Amworth squeezed with both hands. There was a pop and the shoulder socketed properly. The livid blotches began to fade.

  ‘Now, the trick,’ Mrs Amworth said. ‘Her neck is broken. We must set it quickly, or her bones will repair themselves wrongly and we’d have to break the spine again to fix her.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘You and Morrison take her by the shoulders, and hold on for your lives. You, cabby, sit on her legs.’

  Clayton was appalled.

  ‘Don’t be bashful. She’ll thank you for it. Probably give you a kiss.’

  The cabby anchored himself over Geneviève’s knees. Beauregard and Morrison pinioned her shoulders. Only her head was free. Beauregard fancied Geneviève was trying to smile. She bared her fearful teeth.

  ‘This will hurt, dear,’ Mrs Amworth cautioned.

  The vampire nurse took Geneviève’s head, slipping her hands under her ears and getting a solid hold. Experimenting, she moved the head slightly from side to side, pulling the neck. Geneviève’s eyes screwed shut, and she hissed, teeth meshing like the halves of a portcullis.

  ‘Try screaming, dear.’

  The patient took the advice, and gave vent to an elongated screech as Mrs Amworth pulled hard and popped Geneviève’s skull back on to her spinal column. Then, straddling the patient, she took a strangler’s grip on the throat and wrestled the vertebrae into place. Beauregard s
aw the nurse straining as she accomplished her cure. Her placid face was reddened, fangs burst from her mouth. He was, even after all his experiences, shocked at the transformation.

  The four of them stood, leaving Geneviève to wriggle on the floor. Her screech was a series of yelps now. She shook her head, hair whipping about her face. He thought she was swearing in medieval French. She rubbed her neck and sat up.

  ‘Now, dear, you must feed,’ Mrs Amworth said. She looked around, at him.

  Beauregard loosened his cravat, and undid his collar. Then, he froze. He felt the pulse in his neck against his knuckles. A shirt-stud came loose and wriggled between his shirt and waistcoat. Geneviève was sitting up, a wall against her back. Her face calmed down, losing the demon rictus, but her teeth were still enlarged, jutting like sharp pebbles. He imagined her mouth on his neck.

  ‘Charles?’ someone said.

  He turned around. Penelope stood by a stack of cabbage crates. In a fur-collared travelling coat and gauze-clouded hat, she was as out of place as a Red Indian in the House of Commons.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  His instant reaction was to redo his cravat, but he fumbled and his collar flew absurdly loose.

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘She must feed,’ Mrs Amworth insisted. ‘Or she might collapse. She’s all used up, poor thing.’

  Morrison had rolled up his sleeve and presented his wrist, which bore several tiny scabs, to Geneviève’s mouth. She held her hair out of the way and suckled.

  Penelope looked away, nose wrinkling up in disgust. ‘Charles, this is filthy!’

  She nudged a head of cabbage aside with a pointed boot-toe. The loafers clustered behind Penelope exchanged inaudible jokes. The occasional explosion of rude laughter washed by without touching her.

  ‘Penelope,’ he said, ‘this is Mademoiselle Dieudonné...’

  Geneviève’s eyes rolled up to look at Penelope. A dribble of blood emerged from the corner of her mouth, ran down Morrison’s wrist, and dripped to the cobbles.

  ‘Geneviève, this is Miss Churchward, my fiancée...’

  Penelope did everything possible not to say ‘ugh’ out loud. Geneviève finished, and returned Morrison’s arm to him. He wrapped a handkerchief around his wrist, and refastened his cuff. Red-mouthed, she stood up. Her torn sleeve flapped away from her bare shoulder. She held half her bodice to her chest, and curtseyed, wincing somewhat.

  There were policemen in the crowd now, and the loafers dispersed. Everyone in the market found something to do, picking through stalls, hefting crates, bartering prices.

  Mrs Amworth put an arm around Geneviève to steady her, but Geneviève gently eased her away. She smiled at her own ability to stay upright. Beauregard thought she was light-headed, her feeding following so close upon her injuries.

  ‘Lord Godalming said you might be found in the vicinity of the Café de Paris in Whitechapel,’ Penelope said. ‘I had hoped his information misleading.’

  To attempt an explanation would be to admit a defeat, Beauregard knew.

  ‘I have a cab,’ she said. ‘Will you return with me to Chelsea?’

  ‘I still have business here, Penelope.’

  She smiled with half her face, but her eyes were blue steel specks.

  ‘I shall not enquire as to your “business”, Charles. It is not my place.’

  Geneviève wiped her mouth on a scrap of her dress. Sensibly, she faded into the background with Mrs Amworth and Morrison. Clayton stood about bewildered, a cabby without a cab. He would have to wait for the knacker to come for his horse.

  ‘Should you wish to call on me,’ Penelope continued, laying out an ultimatum, ‘I shall be at home tomorrow afternoon.’

  She turned and left. A porter whistled and she turned, cutting him into dead silence with a stare. The cowed man slunk into the shadows behind a row of beef sides. Penelope walked off, taking tiny steps, her veil drawn low over her face.

  When she was gone, Geneviève said ‘so that’s Penelope.’

  Beauregard nodded.

  ‘She has a nice hat,’ Geneviève commented. Several people, including Mrs Amworth and Clayton, laughed, not pleasantly.

  ‘No, really,’ Geneviève insisted, gesturing in front of her face. ‘The veil is a pretty touch.’

  Inside himself, he was exhausted. He tried to smile but his face felt a thousand years old.

  ‘Her coat is good, too. All those little shiny buttons.’

  31

  THE RAPTURES AND ROSES OF VICE

  Don’t s’pose we done ’im in, does yer?’ Nell asked, squatting on the bed, prodding the naked man with a long finger. He was face-down in a pillow, wrists and ankles loosely tied with scarves to brass bedposts. The nice white cotton sheets were spotted and stained.

  Mary Jane was preoccupied with dressing. It was hard to set a bonnet without a mirror.

  ‘Mary Jane?’

  ‘Marie Jeanette,’ she corrected, loving the sound like music. She had tried to be rid of her brogue, until she realised men found it pleasing. ‘I’ve been tellin’ you for close on a year. ’Tis Marie Jeanette. Marie Jeanette Kelly.’

  ‘Yer Kelly don’t go with yer “Marie Jeanette”, Duchess.’

  ‘Tish-tush. And pish-posh too.’

  ‘That bloke what took yer to Paree didn’t do the rest of us no favours.’

  ‘Any favours.’

  ‘Pardon me fer suckin’, Duchess.’

  ‘And don’t you be talkin’ unkindly of my “Uncle Henry”. He was very distinguished. Probably still is very distinguished.’

  ‘Unless ’e’s a-rottin’ from the pox yer give ’im,’ Nell said, without real meanness.

  ‘Be away with the cheek of you, now.’

  Mary Jane was finally happy with her hat. She was careful about her appearance. She might have turned vampire and she might be a cocotte, but she wasn’t going to let herself go and become a fox-face horror like Nell Coles.

  The other woman sat on the bed, and felt around the poet’s neck, still sticky with his own blood.

  ‘We done ’im, Mary Jane. ’E’s bleedin’ dead, an’ ’e’ll turn for certain.’

  ‘Marie Jeanette.’

  ‘Yeah, an’ I’m Contessa Eleanora Francesca Muckety-Muck. Come ’ave a butchers.’

  Mary Jane looked Algernon up and down. There were tiny bites, old and new, all over his body. His back and bottom were striped with purple welts. He had provided his own rods and encouraged them to put their backs into the whipping.

  ‘He’s an old hand at this, Nell. It’d take more than a flogging and a few love-bites to finish off this old cocker.’

  Nell dipped a finger into the blood pooling in the small of Algernon’s back and touched her rough lips. She got hairier with every moonrise. She had to brush her cheeks and forehead now, sweeping her thick red hair back into a flaring mane. She stood out in a crowd, which had been good for business. Customers were peculiar. She wrinkled her wide nose as she tasted the blood. Nell was one of those who got ‘feelings’ with her food. Mary Jane was glad that didn’t happen to her.

  Nell made a face. ‘That’s bitter,’ she said. ‘Who is the cove, anyway?’

  ‘His friend said he was a poet.’

  A square-rigged gent had sought them out, and paid for a carriage from Whitechapel to Putney. The house was almost in the country. Mary Jane understood Algernon had been sick and was taking the air for his health.

  ‘Got enough books, ain’t ’e?’

  Nell couldn’t read or write, but Mary Jane had her letters. The small bedroom was lined with bookshelves.

  ‘Did ’e write ’em all?’

  Mary Jane took a beautifully bound book down from a shelf, and let it fall open.

  ‘“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath,”’ she read aloud. ‘“We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.”’

  ‘Sounds lovely. Yer reckon it’s about us?’


  ‘Doubt it. I think ’tis about Our Lord Jesus.’

  Nell made a face. She cringed if someone showed her a crucifix, and couldn’t bear to hear the name of Christ. Mary Jane still went to church when she could. She had been told God was forgiving. After all, the Lord returned from the grave and encouraged folk to drink His blood. Just like Miss Lucy.

  Mary Jane put the book back. Algernon started gulping and Mary Jane held his head up. There was something in his throat. She burped him like a baby and let his head drop. A reddish stain seeped into his pillow.

  ‘Come down and relieve us from virtue, Our Lady of Pain,’ he said, clearly. Then he slumped insensible again, and started snoring.

  ‘Don’t sound dead, does he?’

  Nell laughed. ‘Garn, yer Irish cow.’

  ‘Silver and stake my heart will break, but names’ll never hurt me.’

  The other woman fastened her chemise over furry breasts.

  ‘Doesn’t all that hair tickle?’

  ‘Never ’ad any complaints.’

  The poet had just wanted a whipping. When his back was bloody, he had let them bite him. It had been enough to finish him off. After that he had been as harmless as a baby.

  Since she turned, Mary Jane had been opening her legs less. Some men wanted the old-fashioned mixed in, but a lot only liked to be bitten and bled. She remembered with a thrill of nasty pleasure what it had been like when Miss Lucy was at her throat, tiny teeth worrying at the wound. Then the taste of Lucy’s blood, and the fire running through her, turning her.

  ‘Ladies of Pain, are we?’ Nell said, belting her dress around thick red flanks.

  Mary Jane’s warm life was hazy in her mind. She had been to Paris with Henry Wilcox; that she knew. But she remembered nothing of Ireland, of her brothers and sisters. She knew from what folk who knew her said that she had come to London from Wales, that she had buried a husband, that she had been kept in a house in the West End. Once in a while she would have a glimpse of memory, seeing a face she knew or coming across an old keepsake, but her old life was a chalk picture in the rain, running and blurring. She had been seeing clearly since her turning, as if a dirty window had been wiped clean. Occasionally, when she was full of someone else’s ginny blood, her former self would flood back, and she’d find herself puking in a gutter.