Anno Dracula--One Thousand Monsters

by Kim Newman

  ‘Kawataro might itch to add a porcelain doll to his collection, but he has no use for the rest of us.’

  ‘He keeps saying gaijin as if he’s bitten a lemon.’

  The first expression you learn in any language is their insult for everyone else. G-words: gringo, goy, gweilo, giaour, gentile, gadje.

  ‘Kawataro had to be reasoned with,’ said Kostaki.

  The kappa rubbed his cracked head-plate. Mr Yam smiled threateningly at him. His mouth was crowded with sharp new teeth. Kawataro shrank even smaller and adjusted his yoke like a too-starched collar.

  ‘Christina talked to me in my mind,’ I admitted.

  Kostaki shuddered. ‘She worries me. Always has.’

  ‘But she’s our leader.’

  ‘No one else will take the baton. I served under Dracula. I know what it is to have a monster on the horse at the head of the charge. Victory is assured, but so’s the next battle and the one after that, and so on forever. A shining path in front and mass graves behind.’

  ‘If we don’t line up behind our fairy princess, what happens?’

  Kostaki shrugged. The Captain understood the situation and was awaiting orders. From someone. He was a soldier, not a natural member of a steering committee. He’d do what had to be done and not chew it over till he got bellyache in his head.

  ‘Where’s Dravot?’ I asked.

  ‘Opening crates. The Princess said it was better to die awake. What she means is that she needs minions who understand what she’s telling them to do.’

  ‘That might upset the yōkai. So many of us – kyuketsuki gaijin – up and about.’

  ‘The yōkai are already upset by the tremors, the sunken boats, the spreading fires, the sucked-empty corpses, the giant webs—’

  ‘The icebergs?’ I suggested.

  Kostaki looked away from me to see what I saw.

  Jagged peaks rose from the land and sea. The water was turning to ice. Crested breakers curled and stiffened, becoming sculpted Hokusai waves. Hulls cracked as boats were caught by the sudden freeze. Sails frosted and became brittle. Lanterns went out. The ice spread rapidly, as whole sections of the sea became solid. With a wrench of the wheel, Popejoy turned the launch away from an advancing ice shelf. He sought a channel through the expanding floes. We zig-zagged, blocked at every turn. Kawataro, not appreciating he was no longer in command of his boat, gave the helmsman a tongue-lashing. Fortunately, Popejoy didn’t understand threats of keel-hauling and yardarm-hanging in Japanese. Mr Bats elbowed the kappa to keep him quiet.

  ‘Where did you find the samurai?’ I asked Kostaki.

  ‘He keeps his head down, usually, but was compelled to volunteer. A good one to have at your side. He grunts like a hired sword, but he’s a man of honour. Watch out for his brother-in-darkness, though. A redheaded devil in black. He has his own ambitions. A priest of Satan, he calls himself Dorakuraya. He sees himself as the Dracula of the East.’

  ‘I haven’t kept up with Who’s Who,’ I said.

  ‘Another to be wary of is Tsunako Shiki. A child-thing, and a little pest. She plays silly games at the worst possible time. Majin might have turned her loose, or she might be stirring up trouble for her own amusement.’

  Kostaki was rattled. If we’d had more leisure time, that would have disturbed me. It took a lot to get under his skin. I committed the names to memory. Dorakuraya. Tsunako Shiki.

  I looked back at Castle Kawataro. Ice swarmed over my former prison like white-clawed ivy. We were trapped by winter whatever course we took. We circled in a dwindling patch of sea.

  ‘Never seen an iceberk ashores afore,’ said Popejoy. ‘Musk be me squinky eye.’

  I looked landward and was astonished.

  ‘There’s that,’ said Kostaki. ‘It just appeared.’

  A mountain sprouted on the site of the Temple of One Thousand Monsters, perhaps five hundred feet from base to tip. Christina had said this would happen, I remembered. Had she got it from Drusilla? The snow-dusted slopes glistened with reflected firelight, but it also had an inner glow. Steady, greenish light, like the bioluminescence of cavern fungus or deep-sea fish. A monument to pure cold. I imagined a frostlashed eye near the summit. Yuki-Onna looking down on us all.

  ‘Someone is waking up,’ I told Kostaki. ‘Not one of us.’

  ‘The Ice Queen,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  His inflexion was curious. Flat. Not himself. With his dead face, he was difficult to read. I had been relieved that he’d come to my rescue. Now I saw how all this affected him. He was out of his depth. If he was worried, only the profoundly ignorant could presume not to be. Everyone was changing. Clare. Christina. Kostaki. Except me. I was still stuck with who I was – though now I had a sword.

  The ice mountain radiated cold the way a forest fire radiates heat. As water froze under our bow, the launch lifted out of the sea. We skidded across the ice, rudder snapped, motor choking. The propeller finally stuck and held like an anchor. The jolting halt flung us forwards in a jumble. Tengu squawked and Popejoy muttered nautical expressions. The boat tipped to one side. Only Mr Bats stayed upright. He had a cat’s agility.

  At first impression, I was taken with the ronin. A touch of Captain Kronos in his deft swagger. With a shave and some pomade, he’d be a handsome devil, too.

  We sorted ourselves out. I patted my belt to make sure I still had the katana.

  It was no longer possible to say where the shore had been. The frozen sea and the frozen land were all one.

  ‘We walk,’ said Kostaki.

  ‘Is the ice thick enough to support our weight?’ asked Kawataro.

  Yam tossed the kappa lord over the side. He landed with a thump. The ice cracked but did not break. Kawataro scrabbled to his webbed feet and made a run for it, forgetting the yoke. His chain stretched to its limit with a gallows crack. He fell, croaking and spluttering. Tengu laughed at their hated rival. I’d lost any desire to get my own back, even though the fool had treated me badly.

  Yam smiled cruelly again. He had demonstrated the ice would hold us up. At least those of us who weighed as much as children. Which, mercifully, included me.

  I swung out of the launch and dropped in a crouch, making the mistake of landing on all fours. My palms stung as I pushed my hands against naked ice. Bloody prints were left behind when I stood and steadied myself. I healed quickly but my skin tingled.

  ‘Careful about that,’ I said, as Kostaki climbed down beside me. ‘It’s what they call “black ice”. It bites. You usually find it only in Arctic waters. It shouldn’t be this cold here, even in winter.’

  One of the tengu muttered about Yuki-Onna.

  Obviously, the Queen of Unnatural Cold was making her presence known.

  Yam hopped out of the boat and bounded away, dragging Kawataro as if the kappa were a fat dog reluctant to be walked by an energetic master. Wherever Yam landed, star-shaped cracks radiated. Water welled and froze instantly in flower-snowflake patterns. The air itself was icy. If I breathed in, beads formed in my mouth.

  Kostaki wasn’t happy on the frozen sea.

  ‘Are you worried about crossing running water?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s superstition. I don’t like fighting on ice.’

  ‘You’re not elder enough to have fought with Alexander Nevsky in 1242.’

  ‘No, I fought with Carl Gustav of Sweden in 1658. Transylvania was ill-used in that war. A monk with a rifle fired at Dracula’s feet, ice cracked under his boots and the Prince took a chilly dunking.’

  ‘What happened to the monk?’

  Kostaki raised his forefinger in an impaling gesture.

  ‘Kawataro’s wrong,’ I said. ‘The cold would kill a warm body, but not a vampire. We’d just sleep until spring thaw.’

  ‘I’ve been asleep. I didn’t like it. Clare Mallinger was asleep. Look what happened to her.’

  ‘I take your point.’

  I also had my doubts about spring thaw. This wasn’t natural winter. This was Yuki-Onna, do
ing what she’d done to see off that first jorōgumo challenger and damn the folks who had to scrabble through seventy years of famine.

  Mr Bats slouch-walked across the ice, shifting his weight. He wore two swords, crossed on his back.

  Kostaki caught me watching the ronin and shook his head. ‘Mr Bats?’ I asked Kostaki.

  ‘When we asked him his name, he said “Sanjuro Komori”. Thirty Bats. He was looking at a colony of bats. When the Princess asked him his name, he said “Sanjuro Tsurara”. Thirty Icicles.’

  ‘He was looking at icicles?’

  ‘Yes. I prefer bats to icicles.’

  ‘So, Mr Bats?’

  ‘He answers to it.’

  ‘It’ll have to do then.’

  Out on the ice, sound was muted. We saw fires raging ashore. Yuki-Onna’s glacier tomb was swelling. We felt great movements in the ground, rippling through the sea like a tide. But we heard only small sounds. Seabirds cawing. Ice cracking and creaking. Tengu clucking. Kawataro’s chain rattling. It was easy to think of Yōkai Town as a toy theatre. With each step, we got closer to the play.

  Japanese Noh dramas seldom have happy endings. Suicide Garden was a light comedy compared to what lay ahead. Christina had convinced me of that. And, in a different way, so had Kostaki.

  What was wrong with him?

  We walked until we had frozen earth rather than frozen water under our boots. The ground shifted and ruptured. Everyone was wobbly on their legs, except Mr Bats – he leaned this way and that, deftly avoiding falling bricks and sidestepping upheavals. Yuki-Onna’s cold struggled with the heat of Majin’s dragon eggs. Creepers of ice bound dirt, stone and ghosts together against the forces straining to tear the town apart.

  At a crossroads, a collapsed shrine was wreathed in cobwebs. A dead abumi-guchi priest, eyes popped and fur bloody, was stickily roped to the ruins. At the sight of this, the tengu and Popejoy made similar ak ak ak ak ak ak noises. They understood each other.

  Clare had passed this way.

  Rockets fired over the wall and exploded in the sky above Yōkai Town. Streamers and stars. Coloured streaks and fireballs. Delightful shapes. Fireworks (hana-bi) and artillery. The Imperial Army was providing lighting effects.

  We saw the silhouette of the statue by the gate. I noticed its two faces – the one on its head and the one on its belt buckle – were not just rictusgrinning oni, but classical Greek masks of tragedy and comedy. That must be deliberate.

  On top of the statue’s helmet stood the man with the flapping military cape and the white hands. The sigils on his gloves burned scarlet.

  Lieutenant Majin. The Demon Man.

  22

  YOKAI TOWN, DECEMBER 22, 1899 (CONTINUED)

  Arobed giant – snaggle-toothed oni mask held in place by a Black Ocean headband – strode through a flock of tengu, swinging an implement that might have been Gargantua’s croquet mallet. The flock scattered. The barrel-sized hammer flattened a head against the town wall. A tengu’s big dead eyes and broken beak stuck out of a smear of blood, bone and feathers.

  I recognised the lesser demon as Kannuki.

  The hulking imbecile was enjoying himself. He pounded the alreadydead tengu’s chest, breaking ribs, bursting organs.

  Kostaki pulled out Kawataro’s Peacemaker and aimed at the red mask. The gun misfired and burst. Kostaki’s sleeve caught light. Prejudice against firearms confirmed, the Carpathian threw the hot pieces away and patted out flames. The kappa lord didn’t have anyone in his service to properly clean and maintain his American toy.

  Kannuki stuck a real tongue through wood lips.

  He raised the mallet above his head.

  Mr Yam jumped out of shadows, pigtail streaming, robe flapping. He hopped back and forth around the giant – Kannuki’s mean little eyes registered incomprehension – then sprung away again. The jiang shi had looped Kawataro’s chain around the thug’s neck. Kannuki would have to put his hammer down to disentangle himself. He didn’t want to let go of his favourite killing tool.

  Mr Yam crouched, embroidered robes trailing in the snow… then his thighs pumped like grasshopper legs, and the spring-heeled jiang shi launched into the air. The chain snapped tight. Kawataro was pulled off his feet, scream stopped short by his tugging yoke. Kannuki was lifted from the ground. His hammer fell from his grip. Hoisted on the chain, he hung – tense, and then limp. Blood trickled from his mask’s mouth.

  Tengu raised a racket of applause.

  Kannuki wasn’t finished. Slowly, he brought his hands up to the chain. His big, blunt fingers scrabbled against links that bit into his throat. Kawataro, gulping for air, was dragged towards him.

  The chain parted. Kannuki dropped to the street…

  Popejoy gave the giant a tremendous punch in the mask. Kannuki was felled. Bird-men danced around his head. His mask fell away in pieces. His nose was mashed, his teeth broken.

  ‘Not so funny when it’s your face getting flattened,’ I said.

  ‘I hates all palookas what ain’t on the up and square,’ explained Popejoy.

  Kannuki grinned through blood. The tengu fell on him.

  Since someone had to, I knelt by the dead giant, driving away the tengu. I untangled the chain before Kawataro choked to death. Furious at the unwanted kindness, he tried to spit-lash me with his tongue. I held up the katana and his extended member scraped across it. His eyes bulged with panic, until he realised the sword was sheathed. He’d licked the wood scabbard not the whisper-sharp silver blade.

  Smaller oni-masked marauders patrolled Yōkai Town, stabbing, burning and shooting anyone or anything. They had licence. They counted bloody coup until they ran into yōkai who could defend themselves. Though many fell, dozens more poured through the gate.

  Christina had said Majin wasn’t the only worshipper of Taira no Masakado. This must be his congregation – drawn from the ranks of the Black Ocean Society, but devotees of older beliefs, committed not to empire but apocalypse. A Hokusai wave of black fire.

  I saw Mr Bats surrounded and drew my katana to rush to his assistance. But before I had my sword fully unsheathed, the ronin put down eight men. With a sword in each hand, he made clean, simple, breathtaking passes. He sliced spines, stomachs, necks and legs. Heads flew free and lopped limbs fell twitching. The masked men died before they could yelp. The ronin stepped aside casually to evade clumsy counter-chops and fountains of warm blood.

  Black Ocean assassins must chew something to hop themselves up before going into battle. When punctured, their veins spurted like firehoses. Arterial spray can decorate a room, but generally warm bodies don’t function like fountains. The soldiers’ blood pressure and heart rates must be dangerously elevated. Samurai berserkers who survived the fray – admittedly, none who got within a sword-length of Mr Bats would be on that list – were likely to succumb to seizures and strokes. Majin cared as little for their lives as ours.

  My fangs were as sharp as the katana. So much blood spilled. Wasted.

  The tremors grew in frequency and severity. With each jolt, my knees went watery. My sense of balance was thrown out of true. Crossing a street in the quake zone was like dancing over rolling logs in a raging torrent.

  It was snowing – or else sheets calving off the ice mountain above Yuki-Onna’s cold grave were becoming tiny wind-propelled splinters. My face stung but not just with snowflakes. I wiped my cheeks and looked into my hands to see a mess of blood and crushed blue butterflies. The air was full of avatars of Taira no Masakado. Kostaki waved his carrack, which just attracted attention. Individual butterflies could be cut apart. A swarm couldn’t be stopped by any number of swords.

  Kawataro caught butterflies with his tongue. More landed on his broad green face, covering his leaking plate, his eyes, his wide mouth, stopping up his ears, his mouth. He chewed and spat and choked.

  I scraped butterflies out of my hair. They were inside my clothes, wings cutting like wafer-thin razors. Being killed by vampire butterflies sounds poetic. It feels l
ess romantic.

  One of the tengu stumbled and was buried in a drift of beating wings, which writhed and heaved and flew apart, leaving a picked-clean strew of delicate bird bones.

  A blanket of intense heat fell on us from above.

  For an instant, we were surrounded by tiny scraps of flame. Then the butterflies were a scatter of ashes on the snow.

  The heat passed.

  Above us flew O-Same. The woman of fire, with a furisode of exquisite overlapping flames. Wherever she flew, butterflies died.

  I looked to Kostaki. He wiped blood and ash out of his eyes.

  Now we could feel foolish. But what was left of the tengu was testimony to the cruel power of Taira no Masakado’s tiniest followers.

  ‘Hullo, chums,’ said Drusilla, happening along as if out for a stroll. ‘Lovely weather we’re having, I don’t think.’

  She twirled a parasol with a painted eye – not Kasa-obake, but a paper imitation. Its spiked ferrule was bloodied.

  ‘Have you met the Ice Lady?’ Dru asked. ‘She’s ever-so ever-so. Christina found her in the basement. A cold customer.’

  ‘Yuki-Onna?’ I said.

  ‘A chill wind,’ Dru responded. ‘Winter draws on… and so winter drawers on.’ She lifted her skirt above her ankles to show woolly stockings.

  An oni-soldier ran past, hands pressed to his neck. Blood streamers trailed from his bite wounds. He was yanked to a halt – like Kawataro at the end of his chain – and contorted, spine curving like a longbow. His bites were worried at by teeth I couldn’t see. Flaps of skin tore. His eyes looked in terror through his mask and then went dull. Threads of blood spurted from his wound with each pulse. A woman-bubble glistened in firelight.

  Suzan Arashi, the glass geisha.

  For tantalising seconds, it was possible to appreciate the sculptured perfection of her nude form outlined by rivulets of fresh blood. Her face bloomed out of nowhere, an eyeless, beautiful mask of red gauze. When the soldier died, Suzan faded away. Fire behind her was distorted as if seen through a flawed window.