by Kim Newman
‘If you think this a Herculean labour,’ she said as he discovered yet another set of hooks on the thigh of her skirt, ‘you should have tried to court a high-born lady in the late fifteenth century. It is a miracle my generation have any descendants at all.’
‘Things are easier in hotter climates.’
‘Easier does not always mean more pleasant.’
They lay together, warmed by their bodies.
‘You have scars,’ she said, following the slice-mark under his ribs with a fingernail.
‘The service of the Queen.’
She found the two bullet-wounds in his right shoulder, entry and exit, and tongued the long-healed pockmark under his collarbone.
‘What exactly is it that you do for Her Majesty?’
‘Somewhere between diplomacy and war there is the Diogenes Club.’
He kissed her breasts, his own teeth pressing delicately into her skin.
‘You have no scars at all. Not so much as a birthmark.’
‘For me, everything heals on the outside.’
Her skin was pale and clear, almost but not quite hairless. She adjusted her position to make it easier for him. She bit her full underlip as he gently settled his weight on to her.
‘There now,’ she said. ‘At last.’
He sighed slowly as they slipped together. She held him tight with her legs and arms and reached up with her head, attaching her mouth to his neck.
Icy needles shocked him and, for a moment, he was in her body in her mind. The extent of her was astonishing. Her memory receded into the dim distance like the course of a star in a far galaxy. He felt himself moving inside her, tasted his own blood on her tongue. Then he was himself again, shuddering.
‘Stop me, Charles,’ she said, red drops between her teeth. ‘Stop me if it hurts.’
He shook his head.
48
THE TOWER OF LONDON
A letter under the seal of Lord Ruthven was passport enough to gain him an audience. The new-born Yeoman Warder seemed to plod down the stone-walled stairwell while Godalming followed with a darting lightness of step. It was an effort to contain his energies. He was excited, almost exploding. The guard was so much slower than he, in thought and motion. He was only gradually becoming aware of the breadth of his new capabilities. He had not found his limits yet.
Just after nightfall, he had encountered while walking in Hyde Park a young lady of his acquaintance. Her name was Helena Such-and-So-Forth, and she had sometimes come to Florence’s after-darks, usually with one of Mrs Stoker’s fatheaded theatrical cronies. He had reached out with his gaze and held her fascinated. Guiding her into a convenient gazebo, he had made her shrug her way out of her garments. Afterwards, he opened her neck and sucked her almost dry. She had been alive when he left, barely.
Now he was full of the taste of Helena. Sometimes there were little explosions inside his skull and he knew more about the warm girl. Her tiny life was his. With each feeding, he became stronger.
Above was the White Tower, the oldest part of the fortress. Nearby was the Cell of Little Ease, a four-foot-square chamber constructed so a prisoner could not lie down. It had held such enemies of the crown as Guy Fawkes. Even the less unpleasant rooms were bubbles in stone, allowing no possibility of escape. Each stout wooden door was inset with a tiny grille. From some of the tenanted cells, Godalming heard the groans of the damned. The prisoners were near starvation. Many had taken to biting their own veins, seriously injuring themselves. Graf Orlok was notoriously harsh on his own kind, punishing them for their treasons with an imprisonment that amounted to slow death.
Kostaki was kept in one of these cells. Godalming had made enquiries about the Guardsman. An elder, he had been with the Prince Consort since Dracula’s warm days. Since his arrest, he had apparently not uttered a single word.
‘Here, sir.’
The Yeoman Warder, faintly silly in his comic opera costume, took out his keyring and unfastened the triple locks. He set down his lantern to wrestle with the door and his enlarged shadow danced on the stone behind him.
‘That will be all,’ Godalming told the guard as he stepped into the cell. ‘I’ll call out when I’m finished.’
In the gloom, Godalming saw burning red eyes. Neither the prisoner nor he needed a lantern.
Kostaki looked up at his visitor. It was impossible to perceive an expression on his ragged face. It was not rotten, but hung on his skull like old linen, stiff and musty. Only his eyes betokened life. The Carpathian, who lay on a straw-stuffed cot, was chained. A silver band, padded with leather, circled his good ankle, and stout silver-and-iron links fixed him to a ring that was set into the stone. One of the elder’s legs lay useless, a wadding of soiled bandage about the smashed knee. The stench of spoiled meat filled the cell. Kostaki had been shot with a silver ball. The elder coughed. The poison was in his veins, spreading. He would not last.
‘I was there,’ Godalming announced. ‘I saw the supposed policeman murder Inspector Mackenzie.’
Kostaki’s red eyes did not move.
‘I know you are falsely accused. Your enemies have brought you to this filth.’ He gestured around the low-ceilinged, windowless cell. It might as well be a tomb.
‘I passed six decades in the Château d’If,’ Kostaki announced. His voice was still strong, surprisingly loud in the confined space. ‘These are by comparison quite comfortable quarters.’
‘You’ll talk to me?’
‘I have done so.’
‘Who was he? The policeman?’
Kostaki fell silent.
‘You must understand, I can help you. I have the ear of the Prime Minister.’
‘I am beyond help.’
Water seeped up between the cracks of the flagstones. Patches of green-white moss grew on the floor. There were spots of similar mould on Kostaki’s bandages.
‘No,’ Godalming told the elder, ‘the situation is very grave, but it can be reversed. If those who scheme against us can be thwarted, then there are many advantages to be won.’
‘Advantages? With you English, there are always advantages.’
Godalming was stronger than this foreign brute, sharper in his head. He could turn the situation so he emerged as sole victor. ‘If I find the policeman, I can uncover a conspiracy against the Prince Consort.’
‘The Scotsman said the same thing.’
‘Is the Diogenes Club mixed up in this?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Mackenzie mentioned them. Just before he was killed.’
‘The Scotsman kept much to himself.’
Kostaki would tell what he knew. Godalming was certain of it. He could see the gears turning in the elder’s head. He knew which levers to depress.
‘Mackenzie would wish this cleared up.’
Kostaki’s great head nodded. ‘The Scotsman led me to a house in Whitechapel. His quarry was a new-born, known as “the Sergeant” or “Danny”. At the last, his fox turned on him.’
‘This was the man who killed Mackenzie?’
Kostaki nodded, indicating his wound. ‘Aye, and the man who did this to me.’
‘Where in Whitechapel?’
‘They call the place the Old Jago.’
He had heard of it. This business kept running back to Whitechapel: where Jack the Ripper murdered, where John Jago preached, where agents of the Diogenes Club were often seen. Tomorrow night, Godalming would venture out into Darkest London. He was confident this Sergeant was no match for the vampire Arthur Holmwood had become.
‘Keep up your pluck, old man,’ Godalming told the elder. ‘We’ll have you out of here directly.’
He withdrew from the cell and summoned the Yeoman Warder, who refastened the thick door. Through the bars, Kostaki’s red eyes winked out as he lay back on his cot.
At the end of the corridor, framed by an arch, stood a tall, hunched nosferatu in a long, shabby frock coat. His head was swollen and rodentlike with huge poi
nted ears and prominent front fangs. His eyes, set in black caverns that obscured his cheeks, were constantly liquid, darting here and there. Even his fellow elders found Graf Orlok, a distant family connection of the Prince Consort’s, a disquieting presence. He was a crawling reminder of how remote they all were from the warm.
Orlok scuttled down the passageway. Only his feet seemed to move. The rest of him was stiff as a waxwork. When he was close, his flamboyant eyebrows bristled like rat’s whiskers. His smell was not as strong as that in Kostaki’s cell, but it was fouler.
Godalming greeted the Governor but did not shake Orlok’s withered claw. Orlok peered into Kostaki’s cell, pressing his face close to the grille, hands against the cold stone either side of the door. The Yeoman Warder tried to edge away from his commanding officer. Orlok rarely asked questions but had a reputation for gaining answers. He turned away from the cell and looked at Godalming with active eyes.
‘He still won’t talk,’ Godalming told the nosferatu. ‘Stubborn fellow. He’ll rot here, I suppose.’
Orlok’s rat-shark-rabbit teeth scraped his lower lip, the nearest he could manage to a smile. Godalming did not envy any prisoner entrusted to the care of this creature.
The Yeoman Warder escorted him up to the main gate. The skies above the Tower were lightening. Godalming still trembled with the sustenance he had taken from Helena. He had the urge to run home, or to dive under Traitor’s Gate and swim.
‘Where are the ravens?’ he asked.
The Yeoman Warder shrugged. ‘Gone, sir. So they say.’
49
MATING HABITS OF THE COMMON VAMPIRE
His house was interesting, his books and pictures confirming her intuitions. In his library, she found a reading desk piled with volumes, many with places marked. His interests were eclectic; currently, he was absorbed by A Modern Apostle, and Other Poems by Constance Naden, After London by Richard Jefferies, The True History of the World by Lucian de Terre, Essays on the Endowment of Education by Mark Pattison, Science of Ethics by Leslie Stephen and The Unseen Universe by Peter Guthrie Tait. Among his books, Geneviève found framed photographs of Pamela, a strong-faced woman with a pre-Raphaelite cloud of hair. In pictures, Charles’s wife was always frozen in sunlight, at ease in her stillness while others in her group posed stiffly.
She found pen and ink on a stand and considered leaving a note. With the pen in her hand, she could not think of anything she needed to say. Charles would wake up and find her gone but she had no excuses to make. He knew about being bound by duty. Finally she just wrote that she would be at the Hall this evening. She assumed he’d return to Whitechapel and that he would look in on her. Then they might have to talk. After a moment, she signed the note, ‘love, Geneviève’, the accent a tiny flick above her flowing signature. Love was all very well; it was the talking about it that enervated her.
On the third attempt, Geneviève found a cabman willing to take an unescorted vampire girl from Chelsea to Whitechapel. Her destination might not be outside the Four-Mile Radius, that arbitrary circle beyond which hansom cabs were not obliged to venture, but cabbies often had to be overpaid to discharge duties which lay in that Easterly direction.
En route, lulled by the gentle trundle of the wheels and her sense of satisfied repletion, she tried not to think about Charles and the future. By now she had suffered enough involvements to guess accurately what they could expect of life together. Charles was in his middle thirties. She would stay sixteen, unchanged. In five or ten years, she would seem his daughter. In thirty or forty, he would be dead; especially if she continued to feed off him. Like many vampires, she had, with the insistent complicity of her victims, destroyed those about whom she cared deeply. An alternative would be to turn him; as his mother-in-darkness, she would nurture him into a new life, finally losing him to the wider world as all parents must lose their children.
They crossed the river. And the city became noisier, more cramped, more populated.
There were vampire couples, even vampire families, but she thought them unhealthy. After centuries together, they tended to meld into one creature with two or more bodies, leeching off each other so much that they lost their original individualities. If anything, their reputation for extreme cruelty and ruthlessness was worse than that of the worst of the un-dead outlaws.
It was a cold, drab morning. They were well into November, past Hallowe’en and Guy Fawkes’ Night, neither much celebrated this year. The fog was so thick that the sun did not penetrate down to the streets. The cab made slow progress.
This time, the world was truly different. Vampires were no longer secret things. She and Charles would not be unique, hardly even out of the ordinary. Their little love must be playing out in a thousand variations up and down the country. Vlad Tepes had not bothered to think through the implications of his rise to power. Alexander-like, he cut the knot; loose ends fell where they might, without any guidance or judgement.
Last night, with Charles, it had been more than feeding. Despite her worries, she remained elated by his blood. She could still taste him, still feel him inside.
The cabby opened his trap and told her they were in Commercial Street.
50
VITA BREVIS
He did not intend to roll up in a hansom and saunter about the vilest hole in London as if taking a constitutional in Piccadilly. Not that any driver would dare venture into the Old Jago, for fear his brass would be tarnished, his fare stolen and his horse exsanguinated. The last time Godalming had been in Whitechapel, dogging Sir Charles’s heels, he had gathered how teeming the quarter was. It might take weeks of patient work to find his Sergeant but find the man he would. With Mackenzie dead and Kostaki imprisoned, he had no rivals on this track. Only he knew the face of the quarry.
As he strolled up Commercial Street, Godalming whistled ‘The Ghost’s High Noon’, from Ruddigore. Not politically a sound tune for an intimate of Lord Ruthven, it was hard to work out of the head. Besides, when he had unshakable evidence that the Diogenes Club conspired against the Prince Consort, he would be forgiven anything. His long-ago warm association with Van Helsing would be wiped from the record. He could name his own position. Arthur Holmwood was on his way up.
His nocturnal vision had improved markedly. The entire quality of his perceptions shifted with each night. The fog that shrouded the people on the street was to him merely a faint fuzziness. He could distinguish an infinite variety of tiny sounds, scents and tastes.
Even if Ruthven lived forever, it was unlikely he could keep eternally on the right side of the Prince Consort. He was too temperamental for his position. Eventually, he would fall from grace. When that happened, Godalming would be in a position to dissociate himself from his patron. Perhaps even to replace him.
Some time tonight, he must feed. His appetites grew with the increase of his sensitivities. What was once a fumbling business – wrestling some tart before ripping into her with swollen, painful teeth – became easier as he found himself more able to impose his will upon the warm. He merely had to issue mental orders to his chosen conquest and she would come to him, baring her neck for his satisfaction. It was smooth and peculiarly delightful. His approach became delicate and he was able more to relish the pleasures of feeding.
It was time he made more vampires, like Penelope Churchward. He would need concubines, catspaws, maidservants. Each powerful elder had his retinue, adoring get who served their master’s interests. For the first time, he wondered what had happened to the new-born Penny. She had stolen a suit of his clothes. He must seek her out and bend her to his purpose.
‘Art?’ came an educated girl’s voice. ‘I say, it’s Lord Godalming, isn’t it?’
He looked at the girl and his thoughts crawled down. It was like being dragged from a mountain peak into a muddy trough; forced to consider petty pursuits after having had the prospect of things colossal.
‘Miss Reed,’ he purred, ‘how pleasant to find you.’
Kate Reed looked
at him strangely, almost shocked. He considered feeding off her, but was not ready. Vampire blood was heady. Only true elders could survive a diet of the stuff, exhorting tribute from their vassals. He was not yet strong enough, but Kate might make a suitable vassal in the new century. Doubtless weak, she could be easily shaped into a pliable devotee.
The girl looked taken aback; disgust leaked out of her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I see I was mistaken.’
Since turning, she had changed. Godalming had badly underestimated Kate Reed. She had found him entirely transparent. His thoughts had been written on his face, or so boldly in his head that even a poor new-born could distinguish them. He would have to be more careful. The girl retreated swiftly, almost running. She would not welcome his attentions in the near future. Still, he had time. Eventually, he would claim her. He would make a project of it.
He resumed his whistling, but the tune was shrill and erratic to his own ears. With considerable irritation, he realised Kate Reed had rattled him. He was so taken with his new abilities and perceptions that he had neglected the mask that had been a part of him long before he left his warm days behind. He had let another see him as he truly was, which was unforgivable. His father, his human father, would have thrashed him soundly for showing his hand in such a blatant fashion.
He wanted to be among people, hidden in a crowd. There was a public house, the Ten Bells, on the other side of the road. He might find a woman there. He crossed the street, dodging out of the path of a cart, and pushed into the pub...
... there were a few warm folks scattered in the crowd, but mostly the Ten Bells was a vampire pub. Godalming resisted the meagre temptations of a pint of pig’s blood, but found company with a pair of new-born whores. To everyone but his quarry, he would seem a slumming murgatroyd from the West End. He wore his frilliest shirt and his tightest jacket, and looked the part of a bloodthirsty, empty-headed poseur.
