Countess Dracula (22 page)

‘It is urgent,’ he insisted. ‘I would have waited until tomorrow otherwise.’

‘I’m surprised you got past the front door,’ she said, knowing full well that he hadn’t. The security at these parties was second to none.

Again he paused, clearly deciding how honest he should be. ‘I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘The guy there refused to let me in so I came over the wall.’

His honesty was so unusual – these walls rang with falsehood and deception, she could scarcely remember the last time someone had been so direct inside them – that she decided to accept him. After all, if she wanted to survive the forthcoming collapse might he not be her surest way of doing so?

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you have your reasons, and who am I to stand in the way of the police?’

He noted her shift of mood, gave a half-smile and nodded. ‘Nice to meet someone who finally wants to help an officer out.’

‘I’d always do my duty as far as that’s concerned,’ Patience replied. ‘But it can be so difficult to know what to say, can’t it? To know if one should say something? When all you have are suspicions …’

She wondered if she was laying it on too thick. Her natural assumption had been that she would have to convince him that she was of use, that she might be someone whose testimony would make a difference. By the look on his face, though, she could tell that he was desperate for information. Her simple presence was enough to excite him without her dropping hints.

‘And you have suspicions now?’ he asked.

‘Things are not as they should be,’ Patience said. ‘There’s something wrong in this house – I only wish I could put my finger on it.’

‘Well, perhaps I might be able to help you do just that,’ he suggested. But he had no time to go any further because that was when the screaming started.

The sensation took some time to sink in for Elizabeth, her body a riot of post-coital feelings. The first clue that something was amiss came from a woman on her right.

‘My God!’ the woman shrieked. ‘What am I lying on?’

This was followed by people shifting all around her, their passion lost as they uncoupled and pulled themselves to their feet. The woman’s disgust was mirrored by others and Elizabeth sat up, looking over her shoulder to see what it was that had turned everyone’s stomach. There was nothing there. That was when it clicked, when the burning of her skin began to register and she held her hands up to her face. They were terrifying: the skin hung between the bones and the soft blue light of the pool passed faintly through the translucent flesh of her palms.

‘Not now,’ she whispered. ‘It can’t happen now.’ Her voice sounded like it belonged to a grave, a cracked, brittle thing that failed to convey properly the words in her head. A death rattle.

Elizabeth got to her feet, her legs unsteady, mostly because it felt as though she had several feet of rubber sheeting draped over her. Her breasts had poured themselves down her chest and the muscles in her arms were hanging down like leathery wings.
It must match my mask
, she thought, putting her spindly fingers to the bat mask that she still wore. A monster from head to toe.

A woman screamed, rubbing at her naked skin as if desperate to wipe any trace of Elizabeth away. The action was infectious, panicked yells and roars of disgust spreading through the small crowd as they pushed away from her and made a run for the exit from the garden, all lust eradicated.

Henry pushed himself out of the pool, scanning the crowd of people, trying to spot Elizabeth and failing. She reached out to him and he backed away from her, moving into the sideshow area that they had passed through earlier.

The general panic had spread here too, though those who dallied at the stocks and the buffet could hardly know what had caused such a change in mood.

‘Please!’ croaked Elizabeth, moving after Henry. ‘Help me, won’t you?’

He backed against the buffet table, dislodging the recumbent woman who rolled through plates of finger-food before running away across the lawn, her hair streaked with guacamole.

*

Fabio entered the pleasure garden just as most of the others were leaving it. He saw Henry – naked, of course, the young fool – and behind him a creature that he would scarcely have been able to believe in had he not seen its precursor earlier. By God, though, she had degenerated even further. Elizabeth now looked less than human, like something out of a Lon Chaney picture.

‘Henry!’ he shouted. ‘Get away from her! She’s dangerous, I tell you, she’s a killer!’

The young man looked towards him.

‘Fabio? I don’t … what is it?’

‘It’s Elizabeth, you idiot, the real Elizabeth!’

‘That’s not …’ Henry said, staring at the mask the creature wore. ‘That can’t be you.’

‘Of course it is!’ she insisted. ‘I’m just ill, I just need you to help me …’

Elizabeth stepped towards him and he tried to back away. But the table was in his way and it toppled to the ground, showering them both in crudités, cheese slices and whipped cream. A large gateau crashed to the floor between them and exploded out like the head of a suicide-by-shotgun victim.

‘But you’re …’ His face contorted with disgust. ‘You’re horrible!’

Elizabeth couldn’t bear to hear that, however much she might agree. She pulled herself towards him, her stare falling on the handle of the knife that had been used to cut the cake. She grasped its wooden handle, roaring wordlessly as she fell upon him, tearing at him with her yellow nails and a sharp steel blade.

‘I’m beautiful!’ she screamed. ‘The most beautiful thing you’ll ever see.’

Fabio made to move towards them, uncertain what to do but uncharacteristically determined not to leave Henry to his fate.

‘You,’ came a voice from his left and he looked up to see Nayland with a gun in his hand.

‘Frank! We have to stop her!’ Fabio shouted, ‘You can’t let her go on like this!’

‘You have no idea,’ Nayland replied. ‘No idea at all.’

‘I saw you!’ Fabio said. ‘I saw what she does … the girls … the blood …’

Nayland nodded. ‘It’s horrible,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s what she needs.’

He raised the gun and calmly shot Fabio in the head.

The fat man stumbled, the look of disbelief on his face turning to one of vague irritation as his legs went out from beneath him.

Elizabeth looked up from Henry’s torn features, a grotesque creature squatting on his bleeding corpse.

‘Oh, Frank,’ she said. ‘Look at what I’ve become.’

She stared down at Henry, his beautiful countenance now nothing more than a ruin of open wounds.

‘You’ll always be beautiful,’ said Frank, tapping at his temple with the still-smoking barrel of the gun. ‘In here.’

She looked back down at Henry as blood from his wounds pumped into the grass. Precious blood.

‘That’s not enough,’ she said. ‘Never enough.’

Elizabeth buried herself in Henry’s body, rubbing herself against him in a disgusting reflection of their recent lovemaking. She smeared herself with his blood, not knowing if it would have the effect she craved but determined enough to hope.

When she raised her head again she was a vision of red. Meat hung from the wooden nose of her bat mask. The brutal countess, the very embodiment of her namesake.

‘Why is it never enough?’ she asked.

Nayland shrugged. ‘That’s life. Now run.’

Elizabeth did as he suggested, the new blood putting a spring in her step as it worked its limited magic on her decaying bones.

Harrison arrived at the garden in time to see the creature leaping through the bushes in the distance. He reached for his revolver, only then discovering its absence.

‘Shit,’ he said, aware that a shot had been fired and that he had little with which to defend himself. As it was there seemed to be no need. The man with the gun – Frank Nayland, he realised, recognising him from his photo – was turning it on himself rather than picking another victim. It suddenly dawned on Harrison whose gun Nayland was holding and a shitty night took one final plunge into despair. He’d be lucky not to lose his badge after all this.

‘Put the gun down, sir,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm and measured. ‘There’s no need for anyone else to get hurt.’

‘There’s always a need,’ Nayland replied, though after a moment’s reflection he lowered the gun. ‘No point,’ he said. ‘I died a long time ago anyway.’

He tossed the gun to the ground and Harrison dashed forward to pick it up.

The detective looked around, taking in the two dead bodies and, bizarrely, the line of naked people chained to a set of old-fashioned pillories and stocks. As one they were thrashing, their gagged mouths choking on panicked pleas to be let loose.

‘What the fuck has been going on here?’ Harrison wondered aloud.

Elizabeth ran, feeling every extra burst of life that coursed through her as the blood began its work. She had no long-term plan, no idea how she was going to get out of the situation she had created for herself. None of that mattered. She was a creature of the now, an animal of instinct.

She ran through the canyon, aiming for the farmhouse and her supply of blood. She would restore herself, then think of the future. Maybe she could just slip away somewhere – or maybe she could even blame it all on Nayland? After all, would anyone really believe her capable of the things she had done? Surely not. The world loved her. The world would forgive her anything. Just as soon as her beauty was returned. As soon as she was herself again.

It took her half an hour to reach the farmhouse, her feet bleeding but beneath her attention, a ragged, wild-haired beast painted black in the moonlight with the blood of her lover, the man she had intended to marry.

To hell with him. There would be others.

Elizabeth had to force the lock on the door, using the handle of an axe that lay in the undergrowth nearby. She roared her frustration at the chain but the links were only as strong as the handles they were looped through and they couldn’t keep her out for long.

Once she was inside she ran to the bathtub, fetching a heavy jar of blood and tipping it in. She climbed in, looking up at the still-swinging bodies of her donors. Two parallel beams of moonlight lit them up like spotlights on premiere night.

‘Not me,’ Elizabeth said, ladling the blood over her as she stared up into their dead eyes. ‘Never me.’

Eventually she climbed out of the bath, dripping a trail of blood behind her as she walked towards the open doorway and into the light beyond.

She was exhausted, barely able to keep her balance as everything finally caught up with her, the adrenalin burned away in a last desperate act of self-preservation.

She would clean herself up in a moment, she decided, but it was best to make sure that the blood did its work first. Maybe that had been the problem, maybe she hadn’t let it soak in for long enough?

Outside the cool air chilled her wet body. She shivered, nipples stiffening on breasts that she was once more proud to call her own. She smiled and leaned back against the door, absurdly happy, guilt less and free.

There was a growling from the darkness of the trees. It was too dark to see anything but she heard a low snort from a few feet to her left, then another from her right and, out of the night, the pack of coyotes began to advance.

It took her a moment to register that she was in real danger. She had become so accustomed to her invulnerability, so convinced that she was untouchable by anyone or anything that for an instant even the sight of these wild dogs as their snarling faces emerged into the moonlight around her seemed like something that was beneath her.

‘Scat!’ she shouted, kicking dust at the leader of the pack. ‘Get away!’

It ignored her, growling once more and exposing its fangs as it continued to advance.

Elizabeth turned to run back inside. Her wet feet skidded in the trail of blood she had left behind her and she fell forward, hitting the ground with a cry, the door still wide open behind her.

‘Stupid,’ she said, holding her hand up to her mouth, lips swelling from where her face had hit the ground. ‘Hit my face. Beautiful face.’

Behind her, the lead coyote gave one last growl before it jumped. Elizabeth rolled over, desperately trying to hold it off with her hands. It was far too strong, and it was not alone as the rest of the pack descended, wild with hunger at the scent of blood and old meat, drooling from their jaws at finally being let in here to the building that had called to them for so long.

‘Not my face!’ Elizabeth screamed as the beast’s jaws snapped a mere inch from her nose. ‘Not my beautiful face!’

The coyote snapped at her fingers, tearing them away at the knuckles before lowering itself to her throat. It clamped down with its jaws and yanked them up. Elizabeth gave one last gurgling shriek.

The coyote agreed with her on one point: her face
was
beautiful. The closest that a coyote could come to such an appreciation flashed through its animal mind as it tugged at the flap of flesh below her chin and tore it from her still-screaming skull. Rich and wet, it slipped down the creature’s throat like a blood-soaked caul. It was very beautiful indeed.

NEWSPAPER HEADLINES APPEAR ON-SCREEN:

‘HUNGARIAN ACTRESS ON THE RUN AFTER KILLING MAID’

‘“SHE KILLED FOR BLOOD!” CLAIM POLICE OFFICERS IN SASDY INVESTIGATION.’

‘COUNTESS DRACULA! – THE HOLLYWOOD HORROR CONTINUES!’

‘“SHE MADE ME HELP HER,” INSISTS FRANK NAYLAND. “I TRIED TO STOP HER …”’

[INTERTITLE: THREE WEEKS LATER]

THE CAMERA PASSES THROUGH THE BARS OF A POLICE CELL TO FIND NAYLAND, A BROKEN MAN, BEARDED AND PALE, A SHADOW OF HIS FORMER SELF, LYING ON A BED. DETECTIVE SCOTT HARRISON ENTERS, GIVES NAYLAND A LOOK OF OPEN DISGUST, THEN SITS DOWN ON A CHAIR THAT HAS BEEN BROUGHT IN FOR HIM.

‘Looks like you’re going to get away with it,’ said Harrison, not hiding the contempt in his voice.

‘A probable life sentence? For helping her hide a body?’ replied Nayland. ‘Hardly getting away with it.’