Anno Dracula 1999

by Kim Newman

  Syrie gave a little disgusted cluck.

  Radu stuck out his lower lip in a pantomime of offence.

  Syrie turned on her basilisk stare. Salad shrivelled. Ice sculptures went liquid. Birds that picked at the dragon’s teeth fell dead.

  Radu tittered.

  ‘We can play duelling side-eye all evening, Madame Van Epp,’ he said. ‘My Adonis against your Aphrodite; my powers of fascination against your enchanting glamour; my title and lineage against your pots and pots of cash.’

  Syrie could kill with a glance. The Bey must have on a glance-proof vest under that big square sleeping bag he called a suit.

  She turned away and Radu made an ‘I thought so’ click.

  Cottonmouth, one of EarthGuard goons, had a gun casually pointed at Syrie’s back. She was waiting for the nod – a prince’s ‘kill them all’ nod.

  Richard decided he definitely didn’t fancy Cottonmouth.

  Except he did, a bit. It was the freckles.

  There he went again. No wonder he got thrown out of balloons.

  ‘Dracula, as everyone knows, means “Son of the Dragon”,’ continued Radu, warming to a favourite subject. ‘My father was Vlad Dracul, “the Dragon”. King of Wallachia. My brother and I are both Sons of the Dragon. I – am – Dracula. Just not that Dracula. I’m the other one. The better-looking one. When I kicked Vlad the Bad out of his castle and took the throne – a thing that actually happened which you never hear about in those self-serving lectures about his blundering, blood-soaked reign – the coiners of Wallachia were relieved to stamp my perfect profile on the money instead of the Impaler’s ugly beak.’

  Self-serving lectures were evidently a Dracula family trait.

  Richard looked at the Bey. He sounded English, though he’d seldom visited Britain.

  His tone was National Theatre come to Hollywood. Dance, Irons or a Fiennes playing wicked non-specific foreign.

  Richard looked about for an Action Hero. Willis in a ripped vest. Kilmer in the Monk’s hood.

  Nezumi was there, sword sheathed. Biding time.

  Young Sigourney Weaver, Michelle Yeoh, Linda Hamilton.

  In a movie, this would go well. Unless Radu had script approval and rewrote the ending.

  From where Nezumi stood, Nezumi had Cottonmouth in check. Knowing where to stand was an undervalued martial skill.

  Radu flattered himself with his affected manner. He was no BAFTA/Oscar hopeful.

  He was the Frank Stallone of Transylvania.

  Was he really in control here? It seemed horribly likely.

  Colonel Golgotha was his sword-arm. The sham – or bent? – EarthGuard crew and the pallbearers were his shock troops. The gun-bunnies had struck hard and fast to take out potential opposition. No Action Heroes left standing!

  The Bey also had Mr Horror, the Vampire Dolly, and who knew how many others on the payroll. He had thrown Aum Draht into the fray first.

  Radu showed up with force enough to take the party and hold it for a few hours.

  Until midnight.

  After that, well, other arrangements would be made.

  The Princess must regret sending an invitation to the House of Dracula. Where was she, come to that? Not tossed out of the Dragon’s Mouth.

  Might Christina be off somewhere with a silver knife pressed to her eyeball, opening a vault or transferring electronic funds? There must be a literal prize in view. This was a lot of trouble to go to spoil an evening.

  Or was the Princess hiding her literal light under a figurative bushel?

  Also biding time.

  Knowing all eyes would follow him, Richard walked to the buffet.

  In comfortable individual pens sat human pigs. Chubby, near-nude cherubs, steel spigots stuck in their sides. One pen was empty. Fear tears dripped from the chin guards of porky masks. The pigs wore sashes with ‘2000’ on, representing the New Year. When ‘Auld Lang Syne’ struck up, posh vampires would tuck in to these symbolic babes. They or their families were being rewarded – as it were – handsomely. Their blood would be of the rare degree of purity known as ‘golden’. These fat lads wouldn’t have had an impure thought in their lives.

  The secret of ‘golden’, and the reason it was officially banned in most countries, was gelding and crating donors, keeping them artificially child-sized into their twenties. They were milked for no more than six months. A huge cash bonus went to those who survived. Ex Golden Boys owned islands, record labels and luxury yachts. Many turned vampire, grew back their balls, and set about taking revenge on the world.

  Other fare was on offer. Blue and Red Label Sprünt in barrels of ice. Laboratory rats injected with absinthe. Raw steak snacks. Fish swimming in shallow tanks – the idea was to sliver live sushi off their flanks. Plenty of Champagne Krug, Vintage Brut 1988. The most expensive sparkling wine in the world, if only arguably the finest.

  ‘I’m sure the Princess won’t mind if I uncork one of these early,’ said Richard.

  A pallbearer stepped in as wine waiter. His white mask had a red diamond teardrop below the left eyehole.

  At the pop, the pigs squealed and shivered.

  The cork sailed over the balcony.

  By the time it landed, it’d have enough impetus to crack pavement.

  Brut frothed into a flute. Richard pricked his finger with a sushi scalpel and dripped blood into the fizz, which he handed to Syrie.

  He took the second glass himself.

  Nezumi, he decided, was too young to drink. If he treated her like a child, others might think she was one and be surprised later.

  ‘Peak,’ he called. ‘Refreshments?’

  The cracksman had slid into shadows, but popped out and hustled over.

  He picked up a bottle of Millennium-branded Sprünt.

  ‘“Limited edition”,’ said the thief, reading the label. ‘Any century that extends the concept of “limited editions” to fizzy drinks deserves to be on the way out.’

  Richard wouldn’t argue with that.

  He raised his glass to the Bey and clinked it against Syrie’s. He sipped. Perfectly chilled.

  No sense wasting the Princess’s hospitality.

  Peak twisted off the top of his bottle and chugged.

  One or two guests muttered. Their early drinks were drunk and they suddenly realised how thirsty, hungry or sober they were. When the first fearwave receded, physical needs became insistent. At the best of times, vampires wanted blood. Rounded up by goons with guns, VIVs felt red thirst like a lash. They wanted to rip veins and quaff gallons. A natural response. Christina’s guests weren’t used to being threatened. They were princes and princesses too. Rich, famous, notorious, handsome.

  As Radu had said, ‘the Soft’.

  Richard sipped, didn’t gulp.

  Syrie knocked it back. Her eyes went red.

  The blood droplets in her champagne sparked in her.

  Richard knew what she wanted to do to Radu. And, flatteringly, to Richard.

  He had promised. No more eccentric women. Or was that no more new eccentric women? Were return engagements ruled out?

  Richard summoned the pallbearer to refresh his glass.

  ‘Help yourself, Mr Jeperson,’ said Radu. ‘We all deserve to be sated.’

  Golden Boys shifted and squeaked in suppressed terror.

  Connoisseurs reckoned the finest ‘golden’ came from Eton schoolboys, Mormon missionaries, and African orphans adopted by American celebrities.

  Radu wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Why had a minor royal turned up at the Princess’s party dressed like the front man of Talking Heads? With a paramilitary retinue.

  Richard saw Nezumi had her eye on the Bey. She was tempted to cut him down.

  Though, at that prompt, his gunmen might massacre the guests. Radu was a murderer. They’d all just seen that.

  The pile of bodies made him a mass murderer. A warlord. His brother impaled whole towns. He must want to top that score. Weak rulers thought i
n terms of numbers. Heap skull upon skull till you’ve built a tower. A strong tyrant knew how few to kill.

  This wasn’t simple bad manners. This was a wicked plan. Being carried out.

  The Diogenes Club had a standing policy on wicked plans. They were to be thwarted.

  Richard’s glass was empty again.

  DETECTIVE AZUMA

  The Bund’s small police department operated out of a kōban, a two-storey brick building on Yokonori Street. Handy for the bloodletting bars where the local law must find many repeat offenders. It presented a friendly face to tourists who staggered in with unsought-for neck scratches.

  The police box might have been assembled from a kit. This was the site of the Rose Blood Club, a fangbang joint the yakuza once fancied as a point of entry into the tightly controlled Bund vice market. Inugami took down the vampire oyabun Kageyama and had the sex dungeon converted into cells. There, a considerably less friendly face was presented to perps who pissed off the Wolfman in any way, shape or form. Kageyama’s back tattoo still hung where sweating crims could see it. Inugami added to his collection of human hides from time to time.

  Without the Sakis, the department’s strength was halved. Despite a patch populated with monsters and theoretically outside the law, Inugami kept registered crime lower in the Bund than any other central Tokyo district. Scumballs like Kageyama who flew over the Wall expecting a wide-open town were sharply reminded that the police here didn’t have to act in accordance with Japanese law either. Bund-resident perps knew not to ruffle the Wolfman’s fur.

  The cops’ job tonight was crowd control, finding lost children (preferably without scabs), giving directions, and slacking off to party. Most officers got a second pay packet as security for Light Industries and took that gig more seriously.

  Azuma pushed open the glass double doors and found Sergeant Kankichi manning the front desk. His shield was pinned to the drooping tit pocket of a Hawaiian shirt. A fishbowl of laboratory-bred white mice was within reach. He chewed while watching a pinky video on a television that should have been tuned to surveillance cameras. According to the oversized box, this specimen of the pornographer’s art was Bakeneko in a Bathhouse. The soundtrack featured alarming miaows. The leading lady could do a lot with her tail.

  Sarge grinned, furry pulp caught in his fangs.

  ‘Beatster in the house,’ he shouted.

  The mice were injected with plum brandy. Sarge was well on the way to drunk.

  ‘Where’s the Wolfman?’

  ‘In his office, howling at the moon.’

  When Inugami was dismissed, lumps like Sarge would stay on. All precincts had a couple like him. Not bent, just lazy – head full of other things he could be doing, but not about to toss the badge that got him free booze and cooze. A cash-in-hand look-the-other-way merchant.

  Azuma walked round the desk.

  ‘You didn’t say “pretty please”,’ said Sarge. ‘On New Year, you have to say “pretty please”.’

  Azuma grabbed a handful of mice and dropped them on the blotter.

  Sarge’s snacks scattered, squeaking gratefully.

  ‘Pretty please,’ said Azuma.

  ‘Have it your own way,’ said Sarge, pressing a button. The secure door unlocked.

  In the short corridor, Azuma found the monkey-faced Officer Ota loitering by a rack of rifles, pistols, swords and combat knives – rapt as a fat boy about to shoplift from a candy cart.

  ‘Ota,’ he said, ‘break out the guns. War is coming.’

  Suddenly excited, the cop fumbled with a bicycle lock fixed to the sliding glass of the weapon rack. Ota was the Bund’s One-Man Emergency Action Team. Colleagues poked fun when he ordered exotic hardware from American catalogues. That might change. The Dick Boys had machine guns. The koban would need more than yo-yos.

  Officers Brenten and Nakajima came out of the interrogation room, shirts unbuttoned to the waist. Their hachimaki declared pātī gokaku – success at party! The room pulsed with pop music and disco light. Inside, two bakeneko danced while cuffed to the table, not about to be upstaged by the catwoman in Sarge’s video.

  ‘Give everyone guns,’ he told Ota.

  ‘Us too?’ shrilled the puma girls.

  ‘Yes,’ said Azuma – not the answer they expected.

  Brenten – Inugami’s beta wolf – snarled.

  ‘Gloves on,’ Azuma said. ‘You’ll need to handle silver bullets. We’re all vampires here – monsters. Worse will come soon.’

  Nakajima, the station’s apprentice, was open-faced and puzzled.

  ‘The Sakis are dead,’ Azuma said.

  That got everyone’s attention.

  NEZUMI

  ‘Sir,’ said Cottonmouth, raising her machine gun – Amazing Dancing Bear – to attract attention.

  Radu, her principal, bade her speak.

  He gestured as if still used to last season’s lacy cuffs, rattling his wrist-bones like dice.

  Cottonmouth jerked her gun at Nezumi. ‘Weren’t we killing the security?’

  Nezumi knew where this was going.

  ‘No offence,’ Cottonmouth said to Nezumi, ‘but it was in the mission brief.’

  Radu didn’t appreciate the distraction. He had been parading himself.

  ‘What are you bothering me with now, silly woman?’

  Cottonmouth’s eyes narrowed.

  Was she irritated enough to let it drop?

  No. She was a professional.

  A pity.

  ‘This girl is security,’ said Cottonmouth. ‘She came with the Man From the Diogenes Club.’

  ‘Missy Katana?’

  ‘Her sword is called “Good Night Kiss”.’

  Radu smiled at that.

  ‘Nezumi,’ he said, pleased with himself. ‘That means “mouse” in Japanese.’

  ‘It also means “rat”,’ said Cottonmouth. ‘Less kawaii.’

  ‘I’ve nothing against rats. Some of my best friends look like rats.’

  Radu considered Nezumi. He’d killed to make an impression. On his orders, many more were dead. He wouldn’t hesitate to have a mouse squashed.

  It would, she admitted, be a sensible precaution.

  If unkilled, she would stop him.

  He would feel the Good Night Kiss.

  That was in her mission brief. Not that the Diogenes Club put it in writing. It was more a question of ‘soldier on, old girl, and mind out for rogues and rotters’.

  Radu smiled at Nezumi like an uncle with one hand around a bag of jelly babies and the other in his Y-fronts. Then he raised a quizzical eyebrow at Mr Jeperson.

  ‘Would you be bereft if we did away with the little dear?’

  Mr Jeperson would not let them kill her. He would die saving her.

  It was quite British and more than a little irritating.

  That was not how it was supposed to work. Dying and saving was her job. In many ways, her principal was not a professional.

  Cottonmouth clicked off the safety on her machine gun.

  ‘Not the noisemaker,’ Radu told Cottonmouth. ‘Our poor ears have had enough of that. Do her with cutlery.’

  Cottonmouth holstered Simon Smith and Amazing Dancing Bear.

  She drew the Captain and Tennille from her thigh-sheaths. Steel core, silver-plated fighting knives. The fangs of a snake.

  ‘I would prefer to kill him,’ Cottonmouth told Nezumi, in rapid Japanese so her principal couldn’t follow. ‘But it’s bushido. Loyalty to the lord. Leave no one alive who might be trouble later.’

  That wasn’t how Nezumi understood the code but she recognised Cottonmouth’s version of it.

  Cottonmouth expected Nezumi to go for her katana.

  Inside the second it would take to unsheathe Good Night Kiss, the vampire would strike fast as the snake she was named for. Nezumi would have to raise her right arm to draw the sword – and Cottonmouth could stick the Captain into her ribs, just below the armpit, point deep enough to puncture her heart. Tennille would follow, ac
ross her neck. A heart-stab and a decapitation cut.

  She did not think she’d go to dust.

  Truly dead, she would turn to snow – a soft white sculpture, falling apart at the first waft of warmth.

  So she did not draw her sword.

  She made knives of her hands to strike at Cottonmouth’s wrists.

  Cottonmouth saw Nezumi think it through.

  She smiled in admiration, one fang peeping from her lips.

  ‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘I’d offer to make it quick, but you wouldn’t be you if you took me up on it. You are so much older than me. But you turned too young. You don’t have the heart. And you won’t have the reach.’

  Cottonmouth advanced towards her. She stepped back.

  That showed weakness. Too obviously.

  ‘You’re not afraid,’ said Cottonmouth. ‘So you’re trying to get to where you want to be.’

  Cottonmouth stopped and looked beyond Nezumi.

  The pig-pens and the drinks table, and the guard-rail – beyond that, the Tokyo night. A wind that would freeze the warm barely troubled the undead. Muted city sounds from below.

  ‘What is it you want? An ice-pick, a corkscrew, ten green bottles?’

  Nezumi had known Cottonmouth would think she was manoeuvring to pick up a weapon.

  Prevailing was only possible if the enemy couldn’t conceive of your stratagem.

  The tutor who told her that was infuriating, of course. It took her years to see he didn’t just mean do something ridiculously stupid in the hope your enemies ruptured themselves laughing.

  ‘What is all this delay and jibber-jabber?’ said Radu.

  Cottonmouth’s principal was not patient.

  Having decided Nezumi should die, he wanted it over with.

  Radu had other things on his mind. Mr Jeperson would know that and be working on it. Nezumi had seen him dose Mrs Van Epp’s champagne with his blood. He was including the woman in his circle. Practically recruiting her. Whether she wanted it or not, she was on the way to becoming a Lovely.

  Cottonmouth would not be hurried along. She was clever.

  Many excellent ronin died because they tried to please impatient lords. This vampire – a new-born? – would not join their company. Given a task, she’d take her own time. She’d kill Nezumi properly, with as little risk to herself as possible. In a moment, she’d put her knives away and retrieve her guns. Despite her principal’s request, noisemakers were the best tools for this job. Whether Nezumi charged or fled, she’d be cut down. With a silver heart-shot to finish.