Lord of the Vampires (32 page)

As for Arthur himself, he bore up admirably well. His expression showed the strain of returning to this place of grief, but only subtly; and it did not change the nearer we drew to the tomb.

Once there, I quickly unlocked the door, then turned to John and said: You were with me yesterday; was Miss Lucys body in her coffin?

It was, he affirmed solemnly.

I pushed the heavy iron door open, to the tune of metal scraping against stone; seeing that the other three men lingered, hesitant, I walked in first, then lit the lantern. The light it cast was dim; I wanted to draw as little attention to our entry as possible.

Once I was inside, the others entered, and I directed them over to Miss Lucys coffin. Once more I set down my bag and retrieved the turnscrew, and with it unscrewed the lid, then removed it. The lead casing I had drawn back over the corpse; when Arthur saw how it had been rent, he blanched, but still remained silent, waiting.

I pulled down the leaden flange to reveal a dark, empty coffin. It was as I expected, for I had come before sundown that evening to remove the talismans. I knew Arthurs heart, and realised that to reveal her asleep and beautiful would do no good. Tonight would have been their wedding-night; thus I had to show her as the monster she had become, without any trace of beauty or romance.

Tell them, I commanded John.

So John spokemost eloquentlyof our earlier visit to the tomb. Man of medicine that he is, he explained averting his own gaze when he saw the flicker of pain and disgust in Arthursthe decay process, and , what one could expect of a corpse in a weeks time. Yet there had lain Lucy, unspoiled and perfect, more beautiful than ever she had been in life.

Quinceys eyes narrowed above his long waxed mustache; Arthurs strained expression never changed, though his pallour grew.

And now outside, I said, and led them out into the sweet, cold air. My three companions remained silent

Arthur clearly deep in thought in an effort to decipher the mystery of the disappeared corpse, John anxious at what he knew he would soon see. And Quinceyhe is as pragmatic and open-minded a man as I have ever met. He had given up trying to make sense of the empty casket, and so now waited patiently to see what would come next before arriving at any conclusions. With remarkable casualness, he took a roll of tobacco from his jacket, cut a plug, then began to chew.

In the meantime, I had taken two more items from my bag: the sacred Host (charged with as much power as I could inject into an object) and a mass of putty. The Host I crumbled into the putty, kneaded it, and rolled the mixture into strips. These I used to to seal off the crevices around the door.

Then I directed the others to hide near the tomb where they would not be seen by one approaching. So we remained, silent, for an eternity: fifteen, perhaps twenty minutes.

Abruptly, I spotted a swift-moving white figure advancing through the yew treesa white figure that clutched something dark to its breast. I signalled the others, and pointed.

At that instant, the white figure stopped, and bent down over the dark object; there came a childs sharp cry, then silence.

John, Quincey, and Arthur all three started at the sound; John made to move forward to rescue the child (as did Quincey instinctively, though he could not have known the depth of the danger the child was in). But I motioned them back, and they obeyed reluctandy.

Soon the mysterious figure grew closer, closer, and in an errant shaft of moonlight, Lucy Westenras features became clearly visible.

Her features, I say, but all else was different. There were Lucys eyes grown hard and seductive and cold; and Lucys lips, no longer tender and sweetly smiling, but sensuous and mocking, pulled back to reveal long, sharp teeth. And from those lips dripped bloodfresh and crimson, dribbling in a thin line down her chin and onto the virginal linen of her burial clothes.

I moved out at once from behind the tomb, with my three companions close behind me. At the sight of us, she hissed like a threatened feline; and then, upon recognising Arthur, threw the poor child to the ground with infernal indifference.

Arthur, she said, her voice soft and languid as a purring cats. My sweet husband, come!

I glanced sidewise to see Arthur advance towards her, his arms outstretched, his formerly grief-dazed eyes now dulled by trance. He saw her, yes, but not as she truly was.

I leapt between the two lovers, taking a small golden crucifix from my coat pocket and lifting it high in front of her face. This I did with some anxiety, for I had no way of knowing whether she would be impervious to the talisman or not. Certainly, she was young and inexperienced, and therefore far, far weaker a foe than Vlad himself; but she was the first spawn of the new vampire, of Dracula the All-Powerful.

Through some inexplicable grace, the latter held true. She proved susceptible. At the sight of the cross, she snarled, then recoiled. I stepped sideways, forcing her into a narrow opportunity, which she took. With preternatural speed, she dashed towards the door of the tomb, intent on finding shelter there (indeed she was a neophyte, for any I experienced vampire would have simply disappeared, then fled to another hiding-place, far from threatening mortals).

I signalled my companions to surround me, and the four of us approached the tomb door in a half-circle, effectively capturing her between cross and Host. She hesitated, a trapped animal trying to size up her options: should she yield, fight, or flee?

Fury contorted her features. So she turned upon us, eyes narrowed but ablaze with hell-fire, mouth pulled into a square rictus lined with sharp triangular teeth. It was the face of a she-demon from the Pit, and at the sight of it, Arthur let go a horrified gasp.

Without turning my face away from the monster, I ailed out: Lord Godalming! Friend Arthur! Do you give me permission now to proceed in my work?

I did not need to see his expression to know it was tortured; the pain in his voice was enough. Do as you will, he said with a groan. Do as you will. There can be no horroi such as this ever again!

I set my lantern down, and moved towards the hissing vampiress; my intent was to dig away from the chinks some of the sacred mixture, so that Lucy might enter, then be resealed. But before I could accomplish this, there came a sudden burst of windso strong that it knocked me away from Miss Lucy onto my back in the cold, damp grass.

The whirlwind grew so forceful that it pinned me to the ground, so loud that I could hear nothing of my companions behind me. I struggled to lift my head and saw before me Miss Lucy, grinning sultrilylocked in an embrace with Vlad.

It was the most horrid of sights, for she looked up at him with violent adoration, whilst he stood behind her, one arm wound tight around her waist, one hand upon her breast. I could not imagine how Arthur bore such a sight; I believe it would have shattered me, were I in his place. As he looked down at her, such a passionate gaze passed between them that I was surprised they did not couple there and then.

Then he raised his face to me; it was livid, full of a madmans fury, a madmans hate. Yet young and vital beneath its full, wavy crown of blue-black hair, drooping mustache, and goateeand so unnaturally handsome that even I felt its magnetic pull.

How dare you think to harm her, our beloved! he thundered, in a voice three times louder than the wind. How dare you!

Abruptly the wind ceased. He cast Lucy aside as cruelly as she had dispensed with the child, and reached out with a sculpted alabaster hand for my neck.

And JohnJohn, who of all of them knew what a deadly risk he was takingdashed between us, and struck out at the Impaler with bare mortal hands.

The blows annoyed Vlad no more than a fly might a man. As John swung harder, harder, the vampire laughed, revealing dimples in the porcelain skin that framed his mustache; laughed, as he picked John up by leg and arm and held him overheadthen turned, facing the unyielding white marble of the tomb.

Arthur began to shout, and moved in closer, threatening; Quincey merely drew his pistol from his coat, and fired once, twice, thriceeach time striking Vlad directly in the chest. But the bullets merely exited his undead body without causing harm, and the perplexed Texan looked down at his gun, then back up at his target with wide, wide eyes.

Even with his former strength, the vampire could easily have dashed out the mans brains with such a move. As it was, I had no hope for Johns survival, and with a fathers desperate, unthinking love, I cried out:

Stop! Stop! It is my
son
you hold in your arms! Kill him and you kill yourself!

I had worked so many years to protect my only heir by hiding the truth; now the truth was my only hope of saving him. Vlad paused, then frowned up at John and said, You lie!
He
does not think he is your son! But an instant later, a subtle doubt came over his featuresreflecting, perhaps, Johns own mental wavering on the subject.

That instant was seized by us three mortalsArthur, Quincey, myself. We hurled ourselves bodily at Vlad and John; the vampire, of course, was unmoved, but the attack evoked within him such fury that he loosened his grip on my son and instead caught hold of me, whilst the others pulled John to safety. Even in the midst of my relief, a horrifying thought occurred: Where was Lucy? And would all her lovers be able to resist her without my help?

Yet I could see nothing but the Impalers face, for he had grabbed my throat with his cold, cold hands and stared so close into my eyes that I could smell his fetid breaththe stench of the rotting deadere he spoke.

Vlads countenance gleamed so brilliant, so white-hot with fury, that I closed my eyes bedazzled, but the image still remained. I am tired of you and your games, old man! he roared. For things have come full circle. Not so long ago, you were strong and sure and invincible, and I decrepit, aged, hopeless; I needed you for my very survival. But now
you
are the old, feeble man without a hope, and
I
am the one invincible! Bow down and worship mefor now it is you who need
me
to live.

I croaked, opened my eyes, and moved my head, indicating that I wished to answer. And when he eased his crushing grip upon my neck, I did not hesitate, did not waver. I said simply, Kill me.

At that he let go a scream of frustration that left me near deaf. And when he recovered, he sneered:

You are so arrogant, so self-assured! You think I cannot kill you, that I am afraid because of the covenant! But hear this: I need it no longer to survive.
I
am the
maker
of covenants! And you and your friends are dead.

The world swung suddenly sideways as he lifted me high above his head, hands still round my throat so tightly that I could scarce draw a breath, and was too dizzied to see what had become of my friends. I prayed that they had flednot only for their own safety, but that they might be spared the horror of seeing their only vampire expert done in by the object of his hunt.

I blinked, and the world swung round again, and became a dim white wall of marble. This was to be my fate, thento have my brains dashed out against the Westenra tomb. It was not so terrible a fate (considering the horrendous alternatives), but in the exceptional detachment brought about by mortal fear, I regretted leaving my friends, including Miss Lucy, in such a hopeless situation. And even, curiously, the terrible mess I would leave behind, which some poor working-class soul would be forced to clean up.

The hands holding me drew back, then propelled me like a slingshot at the marble. I must have been in flight no more than the merest fraction of a second, as we were no more than twenty feet away from the wall. Yet I remember it as clearly as if it had taken several minutes, for I was aware of many things: of the cold wind whistling past my stinging ears, of my regret at leaving Gerda (though I knew John would care properly for her), of my regret at not living to hold my mothers hand upon her deathbed, of my regret at not having freed Miss Lucy from the curse, of my regret that John should always wonder whether I had lied when I claimed him as son.

Of my regret, of my regret, of my regret.

And of the marble looming, and even in the dim light, my noting every swirl within the stone with morbid fascination. How should my blood look there? My brain?

Look, Bram, here is Death coming: close your eyes, and be grateful that you have died uncursed.

So I did and was, and tensed my body, waiting for impactwhich, God willing, would be too swift to inflict unbearable pain.

Impact did not come.

Oh, I was still in midair and waiting, heart hammering like a prisoner bent on release. But I seemed to have been gently and impossibly stopped by an invisible cushion of some sortboth soft and firm, and infinitely comfortable, and holding me aloft without effort. Was this death? Was this an after-life wherein I sweated and feared and listened to my pulse pounding in my veins?

I opened my eyes and saw white marble, a mere inch from my nose.

Behind me, an enraged Roumanian curse, and from the Lucy-demons throat, a shrill, frightened cry. Then the night grew suddenly calm, and I felt within the great sense of peace that comes when the vampire has fled.

And as I stared, relieved, into the swirling marble, I felt and saw a change. The soft cushion of air surrounding me hardened, until I felt skin and sinew and bone supporting rne. Slowly I came to realise that my chin was resting upon a hard, bony shoulderand that not a tall one; and in the periphery of my vision, I saw black cloth, upon which lay hair of radiant white.

I began to weep. And by the time small, strong hands had set me upright on the ground, I was laughing and weeping together. I could not stand, but sank down upon the earth and looked up into eyes so depthless I could not have named their colour, for they contained them all eyes infinitely young and infinitely ancient, infinitely severe and infinitely loving, infinitely sorrowful and infinitely amused.

Arminius! I cried, in reproach and joy. Arminius, why did you not come sooner?