“Remove these things,” he said bleakly. “I have brought my own provisions. You may eat that supper yourself.”
Another bow. “The Herr General is too good, but I will sup at midnight—it is not long. Now, I will clear the things away. Your man will fetch what you want.”
He began to gather up dishes. Watching him stoop over the table, von Grunn thought that he had seldom seen anyone so narrow in the shoulders—they were humped high, like the shoulders of a hyena, suggesting a power that crouched and lurked. Von Grunn was obliged to tell himself that he was not repelled or nervous. The steward was a stranger, a Slav of some kind. It was von Grunn’s business to be scornful of all such.
“Now,” he said, when all was cleared, “go to the bedroom and tell my orderly—” He broke off. “What was that?”
The other listened. Von Grunn could have sworn that the man’s ears—pale and pointed—lifted voluntarily, like the ears of a cat or a fox. The sound came again, a prolonged howl in the distance.
“The wolves,” came the quiet reply. “They speak to the full moon.”
“Wolves?”The general was intrigued at once. He was a sportsman—that is, he liked to corner and kill beasts almost as much as he liked to corner and kill men. As a guest of Hermann Goering he had shot two very expensive wild bulls, and he yearned for the day when the Fuhrer would graciously invite him to the Black Forest for pigsticking. “Are there many?” he asked. “It sounds like many. If they were not so far—”
“They come nearer,” his companion said, and indeed the howl was repeated more strongly and clearly. “But you gave an order, general?”
“Oh, yes.” Von Grunn remembered his hunger. “My man will bring me supper from among the things we have with us.”
~ * ~
A bow, and the slender black figure moved noiselessly into the bedroom. Von Grunn crossed the floor and seated himself in an armchair before the table. The steward returned, and stood at his elbow.
“Pardon. Your orderly helped me carry the other food to the castle kitchen. He has not returned, and so I took the liberty of serving you.”
He had a tray. Upon it were delicacies from von Grunn’s mess chest—slices of smoked turkey, buttered bread, preserved fruits, bottled beer. The fellow had arranged them himself, had had every opportunity to ... to—
Von Grunn scowled and took the monocle from his eye. The danger of poison again stirred in his mind, and he had difficulty scorning it. He must eat and drink, in defiance of fear.
Poison or no poison, the food was splendid, and the steward an excellent waiter. The general drank beer, and deigned to say, “You are an experienced servant?”
The pale, sharp face twitched sideways in negation. “I serve very few guests. The last was years ago—Jonathan Harker, an Englishman—”
Von Grunn snorted away mention of that unwelcome people, and finished his repast. Then he rose, and stared around. The wolves howled again, in several directions and close to the castle.
“I seem to be deserted,” he said grimly. “The captain is late, my orderly late. My men make no report.” He stepped to the door, opened it. “Plesser!” he called. “Captain Plesser!”
No reply.
“Shall I bring you to him?” asked the steward gently. Once again, he had come up close. Von Grunn started violently, and wheeled.
The eyes of the steward were on a level with his, and very close. For the first time von Grunn saw that they were filled with green light. The steward was smiling, too, and von Grunn saw his teeth—white, spaced widely, pointed—
As if signalled by the thought, the howling of the beasts outside broke out afresh. It was deafeningly close. To von Grunn it sounded like hundreds. Then, in reply, came a shout, the voice of the unteroffizer uttering a quick, startled command.
At once a shot. Several shots.
The men he had encamped in the courtyard were shooting at something.
With ponderous haste, von Grunn hurried from the room, down the stairs. As he reached the passageway below, he heard more shots, and a wild air-rending chorus of howls, growls, spitting scuffles. Von Grunn gained the door by which he had entered. Something moved in the gloom at his very feet.
A chalky face turned up, the face of Captain Plesser. A hand lifted shakily to clutch at the general’s boot top.
“Back in there, the dark rooms—” It was half a choke, half a sigh. “They’re devils—hungry—they got the others, got me—I could come no farther than this—”
Plesser collapsed. Light came from behind von Grunn, and he could see the captain’s head sagging backward on the stone. The side of the slender neck had been torn open, but blood did not come. For there was no blood left in Captain Plesser’s body.
Outside, there was sudden silence. Stepping across Plesser’s body, the general seized the latch and pushed the door open.
The courtyard was full of wolves, feeding. One glance was enough to show what they fed on. As von Grunn stared, the wolves lifted their heads and stared back. He saw many green-glowing eyes, level, hard, hungry, many grinning mouths with pointed teeth—the eyes and the teeth of the steward.
He got the door shut again, and sagged upon it, breathing hard.
“I am sorry, general,” came a soft, teasing apology. “Sorry—my servants were too eager within and without. Wolves and vampires are hard to restrain. After all, it is midnight—our moment of all moments.”
“What are you raving about?” gasped von Grunn, feeling his jaw sag.
“I do not rave. I tell simple truth. My castle has vampires within, wolves without, all my followers and friends—”
Von Grunn felt for a weapon. His great-coat was upstairs, the pistol in its pocket.
“Who are you?” he screamed.
“I am Count Dracula of Transylvania,” replied the gaunt man in black.
He set down the lamp carefully before moving forward.
<
~ * ~
NANCY KILPATRICK
Teaserama
NANCY KILPATRICK is an award-winning author who has published eighteen novels, around two hundred short stories, one non-fiction book {The Goth Bible) and edited ten anthologies. She writes mainly horror, dark fantasy, mysteries and erotica and is currently working on two new novels.
Some of her more recent short fiction has appeared in: Blood Lite and Blood Lite 2 (Pocket Books), Hellhound Hearts (Pocket Books), The Bleeding Edge (Dark Discoveries), The Living Dead (Nightshade Books), Don Juan and Men (MLR Press), Vampires: Dracula and the Undead Legions (Moonstone Books), By Blood We Live (Nightshade Books), The Bitten Word (Newcon Press), Campus Chills (Stark Publishing) and Darkness on the Edge (PS Publishing).
With David Morrell she co-edited the horror/dark fantasy anthology Tesseracts Thirteen (Edge SF&F Publishing), and she is the editor of Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead and its sequel from the same imprint. Other recent publications include her graphic novel, Nancy Kilpatrick’s Vampire Theatre, and a collector’s edition of the erotic horror series The Darker Passions.
Dracula’s financial fortunes have multiplied over the decades, and he finally foresakes his homeland for the New World. But he is about to be smitten by the charms of an aspiring showgirl who poses provocatively to pay the rent...
~ * ~
THE LEGGY BEAUTY wearing impossibly high stilettos pranced across the silver screen. Tall, raven-haired with bangs, midnight undergarments gracing her slim yet curvaceous pale figure, she seemed to be the only star of these unusual movies able to do anything more than hobble in the patent-leather shoes. She undulated with a frolicsome grace that ignited him, and his ashes had been long cold.
Much to his amazement, humanity was changing. Five centuries he had walked the earth, nightly supping from the veins of these crass mortals. What he had imbibed contained not just vital nourishment for him, but the sum total of his cretinous victims’ values. He had come to see humans as less than insectoid, with nothing to offer him but the blood. But
now, oddly, he felt an infusion of life where he had expected none.
Vlad rewound the film around the reel and replayed the short black and white story for the tenth time. Varietease was one of his favourites, featuring Lili St. Cyr, and, more to his taste, Miss Bettie Page! This Bettie was a marvel, the woman of his dreams, were he still able to dream. Fetching, attractive, and most of all playful in her sensuality. Females in his youth had expressed either violence towards him, or had proven passive enough to retain his interest. Early on, when natural life had bubbled hot in his veins, when he had been full of passion, a warlord, fighting the Turks to retain his territory, and his own countrymen for power, he demanded his women be subdued. Life had been brutal enough back then—his mortal death verified that fact. Why fight with a woman in the boudoir? Oddly, immortality proved far easier, not particularly violent, yet he found himself less than enthralled with the ‘humanizing’ global changes. He was alone. Always. Stalking vapid prey through the streets of European and North American urban forests, destined to find none in sympathy, no empathy from the living, none in the progressingly dispassionate centuries to inspire his appetites…This turn of the tide had left him depleted. Existence in a bland world produced ennui in one such as himself, one of immense substance. And he knew the cause: humanity. They were worse than peasants. Worse than the insects that crawled from the earth’s graves. They viewed his state of ungrace far too simplistically, as they viewed their own pathetic lives. And that was the problem. They were neither terrified of him—hellbent on destroying him as those in the past had been—nor utterly enamoured. He lost interest in his snivelling soul-pale victims before he had drained the last drops of their vitae.
He watched the two lovelies cavort on screen, focusing mostly on Bettie. She was young, winsome. She forced him to feel himself an anachronism, and that he could not, would not tolerate! He was Vlad Tepesh! Prince of Transylvania! King of the Living Dead! Lord of the Darkest Night! And he would have more than banality. He would have love.
As if out of a mist his celluloid vision turned towards the camera, towards him. He watched his pristine darling glide with the grace of a she-wolf. She played with the other, revelling in her role, whether as the giver or the receiver. Miss Page enjoyed herself to her naughty fullest. He longed for a woman who could enjoy herself. Who could appear so sweet and alluring and yet obviously kindle his intense passions. He deserved to enjoy himself as well. And, as always, he would have what he wanted.
The dark-haired beauty, who reminded him so much of his second wife, flirted with the camera lens. She seemed to stare right at him, a brazen, teasing look, one that he felt moved to tame. The other on screen punished her mildly—he would be more firm, that was certain. But even mild chastisement titillated him. This decade was truly a turning point in history, and like nothing else he had experienced. Oh, there had been French postcards, and those mild Victorian moving pictures at the turn of the last century. And he’d encountered a sufficient share of ladies of the night during his nocturnal wanderings. But never in several centuries had he witnessed such verve, such panache, such ... full-blown erotic expression on a woman as fresh as the one he saw before him now.
Beside him lay an assortment of publications and film canisters, all featuring Miss Page: girlie magazines with cheesecake shots; Cartoon and Model Parade No. 53; various calendars; Playboy Magazine, January 1955, featuring Bettie as the centrefold, photographed by Bunny Yeager ...
Ah, Bunny Yeager. He remembered with pain spiking his heart the events of but one year ago. It had taken some time to find Bettie, but when he did he acted at once. He discovered that Miss Page had gone to Florida, to be photographed by Yeager. Travel arrangements were made, and he arrived in Miami at the end of an arduous journey which spanned several days of riding by night on a train, only to discover after much searching that she had gone that day to a remote tourist attraction called Rural Africa, some seventy miles north of the city, and had not yet returned.
He discovered the location of her apartment—information in this less-congested city was not difficult to obtain with his powers—and there he awaited her return. She did return, but rather than retire, she proceeded to a main building. He watched her through a window, talking animatedly with several others, dining, relaxing, sewing a small leopard-skin garment out on the verandah while she chatted, one of the adorable outfits she wore. And all the while, his ardour grew. She was as effervescent in the flesh as on the screen. He determined that this night she would be his! Finally, just after 1.00 a.m., she left the main building for her cottage close by. This was the first time he had found her alone. He watched her walk along the path, as stunned as a novice lover, unable to approach her, fearful of rejection. She entered her residence and bolted the door. He rebuked himself. How had he been reduced to this! He, a voivode, Prince of Wallachia! Destroyer of the Ottoman invaders, and the betrayers who called themselves countrymen! His childish hesitation now meant that she was inaccessible. He could not gain admittance without an invitation, and without contact with Miss Page, he would not receive one.
The frustration drove him to her window in the alley at the back, where he peered inside through a break in the Venetian blinds. He watched her undress for bed. He held his breath; the sight of her sublime physique stunned him to silence. Such beauty felt unearthly, as if a cloud had parted and this angel had fallen from heaven—did they know she was missing? Unawares, his fingernails clawed the screen over the window. Only when she turned, a delicious look of terror streaking her features, did he realize what he had done.
Quick to remedy the situation, he decided that when she came to the window, he would instil the thought in her mind, through the glass, to open the window, to admit him. He pulled the screen away, for a better contact, and watched her snatch an article of clothing with which to cover herself and hurry toward him until she was so close he could only see her waist. He paused, waiting for the blind to lift.
“I’ll give you two seconds to get away from this window or I’ll blow your brains out!”
Startled by her booming voice, he had no idea she possessed a weapon. The pistol would not harm him, of course, but the noise would draw others. His sense returned and he retreated, biding his time until the following night, when he would find a way to meet her outdoors, to look into her eyes, to capture her will and make her his own.
But the following evening she was gone. Enquiries let him know that the photo shoot had been completed and Miss Page had returned to New York. He felt devastated. Thwarted like a mere schoolboy. Unable to grasp this failure. There had seemed nothing to do but return to New York himself and plot out a further opportunity.
Varietease finished and the end of the film spun off the feeder reel. It was one of his favourites, but he liked the others as well, the ones with the girls play-spanking each other. The one where Miss Page helped tie another to an oak. Miss Page was a woman of unusual thespian talents. She excelled as both the discipliner and the disciplined, and that he found exceptional. He especially enjoyed that odd contraption, so like a medieval instrument of torture, on which a woman tied Miss Page, spread-eagled, upright, only to pull on both ends of the rope and lift the enchanting Bettie off the ground. Four centuries of seduction of increasingly insipid mortals had left him a tad jaded; his libido had grown as quiet as had his once-beating heart. And now, at this juncture in history, in this metropolis of New York City, he was revived. Had he been capable of tears, he would have cried them—tears of joy.
A glance out the window and he could see how the night quivered. He felt youthful, driven by something other than pure bloodlust. This city was the hub of the universe. The dawn, as it were, of a proverbial new day. It also teemed with human beings. Finding blood was never a problem. Finding Miss Page alone had been. She was popular, always busy, always accompanied. Two years of effort on his part had resulted in constant frustration. But he sensed that time, though eternal, held an urgency he had not experienced for centuries, and he va
lued that tension.
He snapped off the projector and grabbed up his cane to begin the search for Miss Bettie Page.
~ * ~
Irving Klaw’s studios, he had only recently learned, lay close by, in a warehouse. Rumour had it, Klaw was shooting Teaserama, and Vlad hastened to make his way there before the filming was completed.
En route, he stopped at a kiosk to flip through a new publication, with still photos from Strip-o-Rama, one of her films. There was the sparkling Miss Page, in all her titillating glory! This era was indeed marvellous. Nothing left to the imagination. He felt he had finally come home in a sense, returning full-circle to the core of life. Finally society was opening, like the wounds of pierced flesh, and the lifeblood poured forth for all to drink at will. And at the centre, Miss Page, a woman into whom he seriously wanted to sink his fangs.
“She’s a doll, all right. Have a gander at that, bub.”The rat-like man who ran the kiosk nodded at a calendar hanging from the back wall.
The Mammoth Book of Dracula - [Anthology] Page 8
