The Sphere (25 page)

“What luck they’re such imbeciles!” exclaims Sherlock with relief after we leave the apothecary. “His master’s
alchemy
... Those two won’t be giving us any trouble. No one will find out about the disappearance of Jekyll and Hyde, but now we must reevaluate our theory. It’s clear that the misshapen ones have nothing to do with it. We’ll investigate the Count today.”

My heart leaps and somersaults—today, at long last, the big day! I’m going to meet the king of the dark ones, as Morgan calls him. My time in the Sphere has taught me to appreciate the dark beings. Their roles are really much more fascinating than the Sphereans of light. And today I’m going to meet the one who stands out from all the rest for both his power and his great wisdom. According to Morgan, he is the most influential of the beings of the night, and all the nocturnal ones bow down before him, whether or not they belong to his role group.

To my surprise, Sherlock doesn’t wait a single second to begin investigating the Count. We find Morgan and Beatrice and set off directly to the mysterious Spherean’s house. The anticipation makes the walk through what used to be the botanical garden in St Andrews seem even longer than usual. Obviously, there’s not much left of the garden as I knew it when I was alive. Instead of colorful flowers and neatly trimmed grass, we walk along beneath trees so tall they nearly block out the whole sky. Their trunks twist monstrously, reaching impossible heights and spreading out lush leaves. There is a thick fog that Beatrice says never leaves this place, day or night.

At last we reach an imposing mansion, where two stone columns crowned with a lion guard either side of a heavy gate with an intricately looped design. In the street the weather was pleasant, but near the gate I can feel a wintry chill coming from the garden. Sherlock pulls on a thick cord that activates a gear mechanism. Half a minute later we hear a bell ring in the distance. A tiny figure approaches with small hurried steps, swaying from side to side on incredibly short legs. His wrinkled hands have some difficulty opening the heavy bolt on the gate. The small creature lifts his face and I see two tiny black eyes shining brilliantly, like wet onyx. I jump back with my hand over my heart. It isn’t just the surprise of suddenly seeing his eyes, it’s more his way of looking at me—his gaze is unsettling. Supernatural.

“We wish to see your master,” says Sherlock.

The small man is hardly taller than my knees. He could be an elf, if his features weren’t so terrifying. His wrinkles have wrinkles, his skin is full of craters, and his teeth end in razor-sharp points. Coarse white hairs spring out of his huge ears. He stares at Sherlock, weighing his request for a few moments, then grimaces, lets out a grunt, and gestures with a hand with twisted fingernails for us to come in.

We follow the diminutive butler over a cushion of rotten leaves. When I look down I see that the strange carpet is rippling in places from the sheer number of insects living under it.

“I shall let my master know,” says the little man when we reach the door of the huge house. “Do not enter until I say so.”

Sherlock nods. He moves his right foot back slightly and steps on something that makes a loud crunch. A yellowish liquid seeps out from under the leaves.

This place is just as special as they told me it was—not just because its aura gives me goose-bumps, but because here, unlike the rest of the Sphere, there seems to be a little bit of color. This world drawn in sepia reveals a few more shades. After a long while, the butler returns with his inhospitable air. We follow him silently to the library, where the Count is waiting.

His tall figure is turned away from us. The velvet of his heavy cloak looks almost red to my eyes. His bald head glitters here and there in the candlelight. I’m quite surprised to see that he’s an older man—I had thought that all vampires stayed young eternally, and this is the most important vampire of them all. Besides, everything I had heard about him made me think he would be attractive.

“Esteemed Count,” says Sherlock with great respect, “forgive us for bothering you.”

The man turns around to face us. His skin is extremely pale, and his eyes are lost deep within infinite sockets, terrifying to look into—like black holes with no way out.

“He’s in a bad way!” hisses Morgan.

“What is she doing here?” says the Count bluntly.

“She won’t cause any trouble, I guarantee it. I’ll make sure of it myself,” Sherlock assures him.

“I want no white arts in my home.”

“He doesn’t like fairies,” Beatrice explains to me in a whisper.

But isn’t Morgan a witch? I’ve heard more than one Spherean call her that. A lot of them have even warned me to keep my distance from her.

“Are you unwell?” asks Beatrice, with her usual sweetness.

“Certainly it is not the ideal moment for me to assist you,” says the Count, drawing his whole sentence out in a single note, “I beg of you to come back another time.”

“Esteemed Count, if the matter that concerns us were not of vital importance, we would not have ventured to disturb your peace,” says Sherlock.

The Count gives an impatient sigh.

“Very well, what is this matter?”

“We were wondering,” Morgan says, “if you had perhaps noticed any strange behavior in the creatures that you rule. You know, wolves, bats... especially the latter.”

“They are perfectly under control, as ever. Do you have some complaint?”

“No, none at all,” Sherlock hurries to answer.

I see two eyes slowly rise and appear in Morgan’s empty sockets. Two balls of green glass study the count’s face inquisitively.

“So nothing is going on,” says the Count, clearly annoyed.

Morgan stares at him, serious, thoughtful. Suddenly the Count explodes in a furious roar: “How dare you! You, a fairy, and in my house!”

The Count’s sunken eyelids have swelled up and his bottomless eye sockets have vanished. Now there are only two tiny slits in his face. We all gather into a terrified little knot, trying to protect each other as best we can.

“Most illustrious Count...” Sherlock says with total calmness, “it was not our intention to disturb you.”

“So it was me, is that it? What is the crime you accuse me of in your mind, foul fairy? My anger is suspicious. My condition is suspicious. You would search my house for the missing people. How dare you come into my home to accuse me? And you...
fairy”
—he spits the word out like a curse—“you despicable creature. Why have you left the forest? How could you allow yourself to even attempt to use telepathy on me?”

The Count’s mouth has grown to an enormous size. It opens like a cavern, and with each word a torrent of air gushes forth, forcing our eyes shut. I can feel Morgan trembling like a leaf at my side. I don’t understand how Sherlock can remain so calm, so deeply relaxed.

“No one has accused you of anything...” he says. “If you would agree to speak to me alone, I would like to clear up the situation.”

We’re afraid for Sherlock. Alone with the Count, anything could happen to him. But they agree to it.

“The women must leave my sight immediately.”

We go out of the library, leaving Sherlock alone to face the danger. The butler signals for us to walk to an adjoining room, where he serves us a cold drink in narrow glasses of very fine crystal. We drink the liquid without speaking, all our attention focused on whatever is happening in the library. Now and then we hear the sharp syllables of a word pronounced with sudden force. Then we hear a roar like a wild animal, followed by a loud bang. My hand squeezes shut reflexively and the glass gives. Three shards stick into my palm, and the rest of the glass falls to the floor, along with a tiny drop of blood. But before the blood can even touch the rug, the Count appears in the parlor like a bolt of lightning and reaches out his hand to intercept it. As soon as the drop of blood comes to rest on the pale, wrinkled skin of his palm, the count licks it, slowly, as if it were some kind of magnificent delicacy. The Count pulls me close to him and holds me tight. My companions watch, petrified. Beatrice takes her rosary from her dress pocket. Morgan’s eyes, charged with fear, communicate with me; they seem to ask forgiveness for what is happening. The silence is heavy and rich. I can hear the Count’s breath in my ear. I feel his mouth moving slowly along the length of my neck, inch by inch. Next to the soft touch of his lips I can feel an icy edge that nearly opens up the cells of my skin. His rough hand takes hold of my face and he sniffs desperately at me, like a starving wolf. Then he shoves me away. Sherlock puts down the candelabra he had picked up, ready to attack.

“But
whatever
are you?” exclaims the vampire in horror. Beatrice embraces me. “Where did you get her?”

“She came by herself,” Sherlock answers calmly. “And we’re convinced that she was never published. She came in some other way; we don’t know how. Do you understand now what I was trying to say to you in the library? Something very strange is going on in the Sphere...”

“No doubt,” the Count comes over again to look at me. “The membrane has opened, and if she was able to enter, perhaps someone else has done so, too.”

“The shadow...” whispers Beatrice.

“But who made the opening? How could the seal on the Sphere have been broken?”

Beatrice goes pale when she hears the Count’s questions.

“I do not deny,” Sherlock continues, “as I already confessed to you in the library, that we at first suspected you. The clues we have led us in the direction of someone with wings, and we thought it might be one of your subjects.”

“Bats?” asks the Count.

“Something much larger,” says Morgan.

“And why must it have been me, exactly?”

“As I said, I fear that we have lost some of the gentlest beings in the Sphere.” Sherlock’s conciliatory tone seems to soften the atmosphere a little. “Don’t take me the wrong way, but you and the sweet-natured...”

A tear traces a groove down Count Dracula’s dry skin. His emaciated features seem a thousand years older. His pale skin, stretched like the leather of a drum, is suddenly filled with deep wrinkles, and collapses like heavy cloth. With one hand he feels around for the armchair behind him and then falls back into it, letting himself weep freely. My companions and I look at one another. We have no idea what to do with the mournful figure of the Count, shrunken and sinking into the cushions, so distressed that he’s nearly disappeared inside his own garments. The terrifying creature of moments ago has become tiny and defenseless. The noise of his sobbing makes the windows rattle in their frames.

“The kidnappers go after the sweetest creatures, it is so. And they are winged,” he admits, finally gathering the strength to speak. “But they are not mine. I can assure you of that.”

I look over at Morgan, transparent in her thoughts. I know she doubts the Count’s truthfulness. With Sherlock, though... it’s impossible to tell what’s going on in his mind. I don’t know what to think. The Count’s suffering seems real to me, though it is also true that nearly all of the missing people are gentle and sweet. Little by little the Count calms down, but he remains silent as the minutes pass.

“Pardon us,” says Sherlock, suddenly ready to leave. “We’re very sorry to have disturbed your peace. Surely our world shall recover its balance on its own. Our dear Beatrice has an unshakeable faith in the perfection governed by the Creator, so we shall trust in Him to reestablish order. We will not trouble you again.”

The Count nods his head in a vague gesture of farewell. Sherlock trusting in the Creator? What’s happening to him? He can’t leave without getting more information; I saw how he acted with the druggist and Poole. He can’t be satisfied with what little the Count has said.

“Wait!” blurts the Count. “The idea that the beings you’re searching for have wings is just one possibility.” Sherlock turns back to the parlor and the rest of us follow. “They are fast, their noise is similar to flapping wings, but I would not say that they are necessarily winged beings... even though I did not see them. They came during the daytime and carried Mina off... I couldn’t do anything to stop it,” the Count’s pain is sincere, I’m sure of it. The shaken look on his face leaves no room for doubt. “I heard her screams from inside my coffin but I could do nothing to help her... Since then I have lived in torment, trying in vain to hear her thoughts. I can still feel her; I know that she is suffering, but I cannot communicate with her. I don’t know what kind of place they have trapped her in... There is something there preventing communication. Whoever took her had it all planned out. They wanted her, and they knew our nature. They fastened the top of my coffin to rob me of precious time. When I heard my love crying out I tried to get out, and when I saw that I was trapped, I destroyed the wood, which kept me from coming at once to rescue my poor Mina... My sweet Mina. Her cries grew distant so quickly that even at full speed I could not see who had taken her. The only thing they left me was her empty coffin.”

I need no explanations. I understand at once that Mina is a young woman who has been transformed by the Count to live as a vampire. His love for her... well, there’s nothing to explain. It’s greater than life itself. The Count will cooperate in whatever way necessary to find her—that was the card that Sherlock played. He knew the Count wouldn’t sit there twiddling his thumbs after his love had disappeared.

“Can we examine the coffin?” I dare to speak for the first time.

“All right,” says Sherlock with a nod. “If you’ll allow us,” he says to the Count.

Dracula takes us to a large vaulted room in which we find two caskets, one black and one white—Mina’s. The lid is open. On the cushion of white satin and lace lies a dried rose that the Count has placed there. Sherlock bends over the coffin to examine it thoroughly.

“Just as I feared. They’ve left no trace,” he says.

I look at Sherlock’s long hands clasped behind his back. The fingers of his right hand fiddle with his pipe as he cranes his neck to inspect the coffin. I come closer. Under the little pillow I see the corner of a handkerchief similar to the one we found in Ambrosio’s cell. The lace is practically identical, and there are traces of blood on it, too. I’m about to mention my big find when Morgan declares smugly: