Others came crowding around Effie, Gilbert, and the fat man, so Liam and Dracula withdrew to the far corner of the stage.
"Count, I have to ask you something," said Liam.
"What is that?"
"Up there, when were fighting Effie, did I see what I thought I saw?"
"And what was that?"
"I would swear that I saw one of Finn MacCool"s wolves. But then it was gone."
"Are you sure of what you saw? Any more sure than Everett is that he did not have a visitor earlier this evening? One that told him to take a long nap?"
"Perhaps not. But why, Count? Why did you do it?"
"Partially curiosity. When you are as old as I am you embrace the unknown. By the time we encountered Effie, I had no choice. I was a "slave to duty," " he said with a remarkably toothy grin.
Before Liam could speak the a.s.sistant stage manager came up behind the men.
"Places for act two, gentlemen," he announced.
Beast
Amy L. Gruss and Catt Kingsgrave-Ernstein
"I told you," Jerry gloated from behind Al"s shoulder. "I told you Poltwhistle"d come asking for those books. I told you you shouldn"t just go making free with valuable and delicate antiques, but did you listen? Oh no! What"s old Jerry Cartley got to say that the great and powerful Al-"
"Look!" The taller youth whirled on his heel and glared, stopping his coworker dead in his boots. It was a good one, that glare; it had often served him well when the school bullies looked for a thin, asthmatic boy to torment. Al did not scrimp on it now. "I heard what Poltwhistle said, same as you did. Keep them safe, he said." Al shoved his hands into his pockets and looked over his shoulder at the sunset. "They wasn"t safe up there with the mice in the attic." He sniffed and strode off down the street again.
"Roof leaked up there," he muttered, more as comfort to himself than by way of explanation. Jerry was useless in Al"s estimation, more interested in the pastry shop next door than in the volumes of treasure at Poltwhistle"s Papers and Antique Oddities. Tonight of all nights, when speed and secrecy was what Al needed, the dolt found the single streak of determination that beat in his flabby heart.
"Wettest summer since I came down from Scotland," Al grumbled, once more finding his stride on the sooty cobbles. A fast stride, in hopes of outdistancing Cartley"s endurance, if not his curiosity. "Rained all August, practically. I did Poltwhistle a favour, getting those books to a dry place, and he knows it! I kept them safe! Now there"s a buyer that wants them, I"ll just bring the trunk back to the shop, is all."
Jerry laughed, a phlegmy, unpleasant sound. "What"s funny then?" Al demanded through clenched teeth. "You. All n.o.ble; which is why you kited off with the Sefer Yetzer-moth, and the Sumerian wotsit, and that grim-thingummy, and left the Voltaire and Dumas up there for mouse food."
"Give me strength!" Al pleaded of the smudged sky, just visible between the last of London"s outlying warehouses. "Any idiot can come by a Voltaire, and there are so many first-edition Dumas in London you could wipe your a.r.s.e with them!" He turned and backed Jerry into the blood-slimed steps of a fishmonger"s alleyway. "But the Yetzeroth-in English? Unheard of! The Egyptian Book of the Dead-and the handwritten grimoire of the last witch hanged in England? That box held a dozen treasures, and I..." He let thesentence trail off, aware, suddenly, of the street behind him. Not crowded, but hardly bereft of curious onlookers.
Cartley"s eyes bulged in alarm. The smell of his sweat, strong in the evening"s chill, overcame the alley"s fishy ambience. Al coughed, moderated his tone, and put on a smile. "I put them in a safe place. I"ll have them at the shop first thing in the morning, just like Poltwhistle said." He patted Jerry"s woolen coat, flicked a bit of dust, and backed away.
"Now if you don"t mind, I"ll walk the rest of the way on my own. Get on home to your supper now, eh?"
Jerry"s eyes narrowed. "You just don"t want me to see if you got anything else from the shop hidden away that hasn"t been missed yet," he accused. "It"s stealing, Al. They may call it whatever they like in Scotland, but in London it"s stealing, and it"s wrong. You go to h.e.l.l for stealing."
Al smiled grimly. Just like a Londoner to take a jab at his nationality when he couldn"t win an argument any other way. "You go to h.e.l.l for b.u.g.g.e.ry too, Jerry, but that doesn"t stop you and that newsboy, does it?" He relished Jerry"s ragged gasp as he realized that Al knew his most dreaded secret. "It"s getting late; what say you run home now, else I walk along with you," he called. The fat fool backed away, mouth still agape with horror.
"Sorry, Limey," Al muttered as Cartley turned and ran into the gathering fog creeping with the evening from the river Thames. "Can"t have you tagging on after me. Not tonight."
The thin youth shoved his hands into his pockets and turned back toward his treasure trove"s hiding place. What a perfect hiding place it was, too. He scowled in annoyance.
Hardly anyone from London ever went out by way of Carfax House and the locals were all scared to. He"d heard the tales told in Purfleet inns when his studies had kept him late into the night; a clutch of witches, burned in their sleep by Elizabeth the Great"s witchfinders, haunting and wailing and searching for their lost souls-or failing that, the soul of anybody who came near.
He only told the story once, to a flirtatious pub wench who knew no more of the old place than he, and whose eyes grew round at the fear of it. Total fiction-he"d only been thinking of a tumble then, but within the month Al had heard the whole, embellished tale on three separate occasions. He seized the opportunity to add further grisly detail to the history in order to secure absolutely that solitude which his study of the lost arts required.
With the caged lunatics baying in the sanitarium next door and Al"s own little additions to the place-hollow pipes to moan when the wind blew, branches in the chapel"s ruined belfry that clattered like bones, the occasional well-placed lantern, mirror, and pane of gla.s.s-the ghost story had spread like wildfire. It was perfect.
Perfect until a month ago when a horde of carters tramped through his haven, setting huge boxes on the ground without regard for any of his carefully drawn glyphs. Bad enough that all his experiments had been smudged into oblivion, but the idiots had put the biggest one-a trunk seven feet long, five wide, and four deep-just at the entrance to his hiding place, making it impossible for him to get to his precious books.
Then the real haunting had started, more profound and horrifying than anything he could orchestrate; grisly murders in the city, sightings of fierce rats and dogs withdemonic, red eyes, the dead ship appearing in Whitby harbour after a freakish storm.
Inspecting the damage after the carters had left that first night, Al had noticed that every one of the boxes that littered Carfax were marked with the doomed vessel"s name: Demeter. He hadn"t dared go back there.
Still wouldn"t go, given his preference, but he daren"t lose yet another job or his father would, as he had promised, call him back home. Al would rather face down the devil himself than wind up trapped back in that Scottish bog of a village.
"You!" A voice shrilled from above his head, scaring the wits out of him. "You boy!"
Al swallowed his heart. The Lunatic-again. Every time he worked up the nerve to come near the house that mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d was at the window, baying like a watchdog. But Al couldn"t afford caution this time, couldn"t hide from the threat of guards or the shadowy, half-glimpsed figure that lurked in the ruin. Al hunched deeper into his collar and tried to ignore the wild-eyed man"s yelling.
"I know why you come here! It won"t work! The Master has promised it to me and you shan"t have it! You with your pitiful scratchings in the dust-you don"t know how to serve him!" Somewhere nearby, a dog began to bark.
"Look, you daft b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he hissed, glaring up at the madman, "I don"t give a haggis about your master-it"s my master"s going to have the Peelers down on me if I don"t get my books back! So do us a favour and shut your gob!" Al peered at the crumbling wall, hoping his dismissal was obvious enough. From the sanitarium"s well-tended garden, he could see Carfax House, the chapel with its cracked steeple bulking darkly athwart the night sky.
From the outside, it looked impenetrable, however... Yes, he thought. There"s still the crack in the wall, overgrown with vine and weeds. With a sigh of relief, he started forward.
"Oh little boy," the Lunatic called, sweet-voiced. "Would you like a treat?" He thrust one hand through the bars of his window, fingers pinching at something that wriggled.
"Sod off," Al seethed as the barking grew more frantic. "Shut it, or that dog"ll wake the whole of Ess.e.x!" He glared as the madman started to giggle.
"Think that"s a dog?" Another giggle, and the man howled suddenly, full-voiced and l.u.s.ty. "It"s a wolf! The Master"s servant, just like me! Like me! And not like you!" The arm thrust through again, bony finger pointing, shaking with rage or palsy. "You wheezing ninny!
You"ve not enough lives in you to serve him! You"re pathetic, you hear? Don"t you walk away from me! You forgot your treat! Come back! Don"t leave me alone!"
He burst into tears, and was still wailing when Al scrambled over the wall and out of earshot.
"Quite a piece of work, that one. b.l.o.o.d.y barking Limey. Harumph." Inside the chapel, Al leaned on the huge box and sulked. The answer to his worry was just there, blocked in by a crate he just couldn"t budge. "Ought to cull out Cartley"s tongue." He grumbled, " "Tongue of fat, b.u.g.g.e.rin" b.a.s.t.a.r.d" ought to be an ingredient in some spell or other. First time in his life he"d be useful!" He snickered briefly, wiped grime and sweat from his face, thensighed. "Ballocks."
Suddenly, Al remembered his Aristotle. He searched the chapel in a sudden fit of motivation. "Leverage!" A fallen roof-timber poked out from under a tattered curtain of cobwebs. Al seized it. "Perfect!" Wedging the board between the wall and trunk, he heaved.
The huge box creaked, shifted. Al held his breath, put a boot against the wall, and shoved harder. Just when he thought his lungs would burst, the crate slid back with a lurch and a shriek of nails on stone. Al scrambled to try the door. "Ahh, not quite- b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!"
Losing the last of his patience, he clambered over the box and slithered into his hiding place, too annoyed to care when he tore his only coat. He found the lamp by touch and examined the door"s lintel. As he"d feared, the chalk was an unintelligible smudge where the trunk slid down the wall. "Dammit, they ruined everything! I knew I should have scratched that glyph into the stone. Blast and d.a.m.n!"
He turned back to the worktable with a fierce scowl and began digging through the piled volumes thereon. "Now which book did I find that in?"
Drakul fed vigorously that night on grubby street Arabs and opium-dazed Chinese from the far reaches of the English Queen"s empire, like spice and savour to his jaded palate. Even the tame English were a welcome relish after five hundred years of bland Rumanian peasants. Delicate, these English were, and decadent as the soft, green land that sp.a.w.ned them. He thought of Lucy, pink and sweet as the roses in Hillingham"s sprawling gardens, and barked a laugh. A sweetmeat too cloying for every day, that one-better to sip a bit at a time than spoil her worth with greed. Especially with the luxury of variety to be had at no more expense than a brief journey to London.
Besides, he played a delicate game at Hillingham estate-one he had no intention of quitting untimely. Drakul had chosen his first bride, and the chase was exhilarating for all the little obstacles that her caretakers threw in his way. His animal servant had not shirked at their garlic or guards or crosses on the window, and at Drakul"s bidding had opened the way for him into the lush expanse of his bride"s private chamber. He laughed, the memory of Bersicker"s feral joy sparking fire in the back of his brain. This night would not soon be forgotten in the Westenra family, such as remained of it.
The wolf had known his business; to open the way and to terrify. Not like that idiot Renfield, who ranted and babbled and was very nearly more aggravation than he was worth.
As he thought of the man, Drakul felt the contact between them flicker to life, though he had intended no such communication. A mo-ment later, the man began shouting his usual promises of loyalty and adoration, flailing his arms through the bars and in general making a canker of himself. With a mental reminder not to drink the blood of opiated Chinese again, the Lord of the Un-Dead wheeled around to approach his sacred earth from the east, with the distant threat of dawn to his tail, and the shrieking lunatic out of earshot.
He came to earth among the weather-tumbled stones of the chapel"s burial yard, long desanctified by blood and fire. Like the chapel in his own castle in the CarpathianMountains, no prayers had been sung here for hundreds of years, and the only sacred work being done within the crumbling walls was that of the beetle and the fly.
"The perfect place for me," he said aloud, rolling the English words around his tongue as he had done with the life-blood of the Chinese girl with the flat, gla.s.sy eyes and sweet-burning pipe. "From this place of murder and sacrilege, I, Vlad Drakul ride out to meet my destiny as master of this green and pleasant land." He laughed. "Let any come against me who dare!"
The wind answered with a rush, made the trees in the sanitarium"s manicured park creak and thrash, and left behind a breath of something at once new and familiar. A boy, on the verge of manhood: his scent had haunted the chapel where the vampire"s precious Wallachian earth lay hidden. The nuances were clearer now: the boy was frightened, he did not eat well, and was not at all strong. The scent of his fear was tangible-sharp, but sweetened with an undercurrent of hunger, almost greed. He was also very, very close.
Intrigued, Drakul listened, heard the rasp of fingers on paper echoing in a bare stone room, heard a slight wheeze in the boy"s breathing, the hiss of a burning lamp. The Crypt, he thought with a smile as he entered the chapel.
One of his boxes had been moved, and behind it, a door revealed. From under this door came both a delicate life-scent and a thin streak of light. Drakul looked in. A lamp"s glow warmed a tiny room, outlining a gangly youth. He sat with his back to the door, hunched awkwardly in a chair too small for him. A table and crate-the only other furniture the cell afforded-were buried under precarious stacks of books, papers, bags, leaves... doctor"s things, but the youth was no doctor. Drakul smiled, sharpened his sight to pick out details that uncertain light might have hidden from any other hunter.
The youth had ruddy hair, coa.r.s.e and apparently resistant to attempts at England"s respectable grooming. No beard. He wore the threadbare garments of a clerk-junior clerk more likely-or he could have been a shop boy in his Sunday best. But he wore the boots of a peasant instead of the shoes that London"s gentry and all who aped them wore. Drakul liked boots. You knew what to expect from them, and the people who wore them. The vampire absently shifted his earth box out of the way and stepped around the door. The interloper did not so much as twitch. Drakul smiled. Imagine not knowing when one"s destruction stood at one"s shoulder! He cleared his throat.
The boy didn"t move. His breath did not even quicken. The smell of his mortal fear still pervaded the cell, but without the spike of panic that Drakul expected. He took a step nearer and coughed again. Still no stir, still no alarm. Drakul scowled. He was the Hammer of the Turks, terror of his country, the lord of the night, and this intruder ignored him in favour of... what?
He took another step, brought his shoes down on the stone with a clack. Still the youth did not notice, but now Drakul could see why; he was reading. The Count thought about killing him there, in the old way he might have done to a Turk on the battlefield; a quick twist of the head, and a jerk backward so he might be the dying man"s last sight. Then he caught a glimpse of the book and it gave him pause; a familiar pattern, arcane and ancient lay under the boy"s fingers. Scholomancy! Here in this place, this land and time of reason.In the hands of a shop boy. Unacceptable!
"What are you reading?" Drakul growled into the youth"s ear. At last the boy started, ancient book dropping to the flagstones with a flutter and thud. A ragged gasp escaped him as he tried to whirl in his seat, entangling his legs and upending the whole, himself, coat, chair, odds and ends from the table, and half a dozen more books into an undignified sprawl. Drakul did not laugh at the sight, though he wanted to.
The boy opened his mouth to speak, made a noise like a rat, then swallowed and tried again. His voice was tenor and loud with panic. "What"s it to you?"
Impudence! Drakul bent to pick up the book, which purred with force in his un-dead fingers. "It?" He gave the youth a broad smile, for effect. " "It" is of no consequence to me. You, however, have invaded my home, taken refuge in my holy sanctuary, and you annoy me." The smell of the youth"s alarm mingled with the lingering opiate in Drakul"s blood and rushed to his head like a tide. Pleasant, but inopportune.
The youth pressed his lips together, all colour draining from them. His nostrils flared with quick, shallow breaths as he gathered himself into a less precarious seat on the floor.
Drakul waited only so long for a response. "Make no mistake, boy, you are no match for me. I demand answers and will have them. What are you reading?"
"Words." He smiled, actually smiled, and an unwelcome scent wafted past Drakul"s nostrils. Satisfaction? Inconceivable!
"Clever. So clever, but you must not believe that will win your life from me." He stood, turned the book over in his hands. "I have seen times when clever men like you were burned, hanged, broken, and," a smile to remembrance here, "impaled simply for possessing such a volume." He looked down. "Knowledge of the Devil, the men of G.o.d called it, as they did the Devil"s work against science."
"I don"t believe in G.o.d." The boy jutted his chin in defiant dignity. Drakul raised an eyebrow at the claim, and he elaborated, "I believe in what I see. I"ve never seen G.o.d or the Devil." He swallowed, the apple of his throat bobbing. "They don"t exist."
"You have seen the Devil now!" Drakul reached out his shadow to the cheap lamp, smothered the flame effortlessly. In the sudden and shocking darkness, his eyes were as blind as those of his prey, but the youth"s gasp and scramble betrayed his movements. The vampire laughed, reached with a clawed hand toward the radiant terror, "I expect that you will call out to G.o.d before we part!"
Suddenly the boy scrambled forward, threw his arms around the Count"s person, and slapped something against his sternum. "By Gevurah I invoke you!" Those words were half-familiar, but the power quickened the air, this Drakul knew.
"By Chockmah and Netzach I invoke you!" The incantation rose to a breathless shrill as Drakul seized the boy"s narrow throat. "By Kefer and Malkuth I summon you! Come Uriel, Archangel of the Dead to my aid!"Ghost light, chill and blue, swirled around the vampire, searing, freezing his long-dead skin. A million tiny motes coalesced into a ball of fire, then shocked like lightning, like a battering ram into Drakul"s breast. The force flung him into the crumbling wall as his prey scrambled out of reach, then bolted for freedom.
Half a mile down the road, Al risked a backward glance. "He"s-he"s not coming after me. It worked. It worked!" He slowed, but his thoughts did not. "Ye G.o.ds, it worked. It"s for real!"
Al"s disbelief found its way into sporadic mirth. He vaulted a stile and took off across a pasture, hardly minding his wheezing lungs. "Fancy, I did that. Me! I could have-out of the way, bleedin" sheep!-but I didn"t-b.a.s.t.a.r.d!-and now-" He shouted gloating laughter to the sky. Across the river, London"s great clock tower chimed four.
He reached a village and slowed to a trot, sensing safety in the surrounding cottages, though he still rambled aloud in wonder at his discovery. "The power in those books! I could rule the world! The books-oh ballocks!" Cold reality jolted him out of his smugness: in his panicked flight from Carfax"s ancient crypt, he"d left the books behind-all but the one he clutched.
The breath caught suddenly in Al"s chest. Pain squeezed it tight. He stumbled to a halt, sobbing for air as he tried to examine the lone book he"d managed to win. It was too dark, and the moon had long since set. Al turned the rough leather over in his hands, peered close, held it up to his face, and squinted some more. All in vain. He swore heartily. Then, through the tangled hedgerow, a gleam of light caught his eye. A church! Dozens of candles in the window, and a bench out of the wind in which to read. St. Catherine"s, the carving over the door read. Al took only that much notice of it as he strode up to the church"s window, looked at the book, and swore.
"Holy sodding ballocks of Christ! It"s the b.u.g.g.e.ring German one!" Suddenly he felt like crying. Al trudged back to the church"s front steps and sank down to brood. "You have to go back, you know," he told himself, sniffing. "Nothing for it. You have to get those books.
Poltwhistle will serve you up to the Peelers if you don"t." His foot began to cramp. Al absently yanked his boot off, getting sheep dip on his hands in the process. Dammit! He wiped the filth on the church"s steps, then ma.s.saged his foot, mind racing.
"He"s dead. You killed him, you know. You saw him." He paused, for he hadn"t actually seen. "But you felt it happen." Al stood up, hopping on one foot to pull his boot back on.
"There now. Going back. For the books. Off you go-" The back of his neck p.r.i.c.kled; a pair of glowing garnet eyes blazed out of the darkness at the end of the lane.
"s.h.i.te!" Al lurched toward the door, boot half on, and pulled at the latch with all his might. "Ballocks!" Tripping across the threshold, he hit the stone floor and rolled. His boot flew free. He s.n.a.t.c.hed his foot to safety, watched in horror as the creature appeared out of the darkness. Skin white, bloodless, and waxen but for a single slash of red across the forehead, lips pulled back in a rictus of fury. Pointed, long teeth like a feral wolf in those red lips. His hands were talons. Al felt his heart skip as the eyes, crimson and filled withhate, bored into his for a moment. Then the spell of horror broke and Al realized that the monster was coming toward him. Fast.
"NO!" he screamed, scrambling back. "Get away!" The creature reeled from the church"s threshold with a furious snarl. After several breathless moments, Al worked up the nerve to shut the door.
No sooner did the latch click than the monster spoke from the other side in a voice as cold as the grave and rumbling with anger. "Open the door. Now."
Al backed away, hysteria tightening his laugh to a giggle. I sound like the Lunatic! He swallowed hard. "Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely, sunbeam!"
Something hit the door, made the ancient timbers creak and shiver like matchwood. Al jumped, backed farther. A reek of scorched hair filled his nose as the steely voice commanded him again. "Let me inside!" The tone, icy, murderous, shook Al"s bravado to the core.
"Oh no!" Al whispered, shaking his head. "I will not open that door! You can just stay outside and rot! By Gevurah I inv-"
"DESIST!".
With a sudden horror, Al found that the Qabbalic names of power fled his mind like water. He couldn"t remember them. Any of them!
A paving stone hurtled through the window, scattering the candles across the floor. Al scrambled to stamp out the flames, his breath coming in sobs as he realized the trap in which he"d snared himself. Much good all that study does you now, he thought, sinking to the floor beside the church"s font.
He screamed as another stone smashed in through the window, splintering the rear pew. Couldn"t grab Agnes Nutter"s grimoire, could you? Couldn"t grab the Yetzeroth. Oh no! You had to go and get a b.l.o.o.d.y useless book in b.l.o.o.d.y useless German!
"Come out and your death will be quick!" The monster bellowed. "I"ll spit you on a sharp stake. I"m merciful." That won a giggle from Al. "Laugh, do you? My servants will hunt you down and destroy you! You cannot imagine my reach!" His rant grew desperate, more a child"s tantrum than a devil"s promise. "Animals, elements obey my will! I have mastered the arts in which you merely dabble! Your lifetime is the blink of an eye to me, your insignificance so slight it is-insignificant! d.a.m.n you- open the door!"
Al whirled to shout at the door and the horror it held at bay. "SOD OFF!" He sobbed, "Shut up, shut up, shut u-" His breath and his litany of despair caught short as he realized that there was only one thing to do.
The door opened. Framed in the threshold slumped his lanky tormentor, head down, defeated. Drakul blinked, then laughed, scenting victory in the boy"s terror. "Comeforward, slave. Come and meet the death I promised you." He crept from the shelter of his holy sanctuary like a dog on its belly. Drakul licked his lips, tasting already the rush of triumph. This one he would kill utterly. No un-death for this boot-wearing, too-clever peasant.
Drakul seized his prey as he came within reach, shook him to see the fear in his eyes.
"Now who is the clever one?"
In answer the youth spit, spraying a mouthful of burning holiness into the vampire"s face. It blinded him, sending him reeling to his knees.