Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl (23 page)

She hesitated. “I said there were
few
vampires in London, Bram, but not
none
. I intend to procure some help. There is a . . . nest in Shoreditch.”

Stoker felt unaccountably stung. He had somehow thought this adventure was for he and Bathory alone. “Vampires? A nest?”

She nodded tightly. “Common vampires,” she said. “Not highborn like Dracula and me. A touch . . . difficult. But vampires, nonetheless. Can you ask the driver to take us there?”

Stoker tapped him on the shoulder. “Shoreditch,” he said.

The driver deposited them on Shoreditch High Street, a wretched thoroughfare Stoker had never had the misfortune to visit in all his time in London. A warren of mazelike alleys and streets spread like a tumor, raw sewage roasted in the summer sun, and rats as big as dogs gamboled in plain view. They saw a man beating three small girls with a switch for some slight or other; Bathory murmured, “There would be good feeding here. I can see why Varney chose this foul place.”

“Varney?” asked Stoker.

“One of the old school,” said Bathory. “He was turned in the English Civil War. He was once a nobleman, Sir Francis Varney, but he lost his fortune and now scrabbles for a living with his family.”

“His family? You mean . . . ?”

Bathory nodded. “Those he has turned, and those they in turn have turned. All vampires have an allegiance to their dark father or mother.”

“Your army of wronged women in Castle Dracula.” Stoker nodded.

She sighed longingly. “How I wish they were with me now. Then I would not have to beseech such a lowly hound as Varney for assistance.”

A man reeling with gin crossed their path and smiled broadly at Bathory, his fetid breath emerging like a cloud. He was about to say something vile and inappropriate, but Bathory gave him a look that obviously reflected his own mortality, and he slunk away like a chastised mongrel.

A low arch led to a narrow courtyard rank with vermin and the stink of ordure. There was one barn- style door, uninvitingly closed, and Bathory nodded at it. “He’s in there. Listen, Bram, I need you to do exactly as I say. What ever you see, what ever I say, you must keep your own counsel and utter nothing. There are . . . protocols to follow when vampires deal with each other.”

Stoker nodded and swallowed dryly. “I understand,” he said. “Shall we get this over with?”

Bathory rapped smartly on the door. “Varney! Open up. You have a visitor from Castle Dracula.”

There was silence for a moment then a shuffling from within, and Stoker heard several bolts sliding back before the door opened a crack. It was pitch black within, and he could just make out a pair of white eyes set in a dirty face, framed by brown hair.

“It’s a terrified-looking gent and a woman with big knockers,” said a voice.

There was a ripple of unpleasant laughter from within. Then the face disappeared, as though yanked away, and an eye of a most alarming yellow hue appeared at the crack, then widened with surprise. The door creaked further inward and a figure stood in the shadows. A dozen or more pairs of eager eyes were faintly reflected behind it in the darkness.

The owner of the yellow eyes was thin of body, wrapped in a dirty, dark cloak, with a bulbous, liver-spotted bald head. His face was long and taut, a thin, viperish tongue flicking over extended canine fangs, his nose barely two nostrils set in his snow-white flesh. He hunched over as though his huge head was too heavy for his wasted body to carry, but even so he was almost as tall as Stoker. The yellow eyes trailed over Stoker greedily, then flicked back to Bathory.

“Countess Bathory,” said the thing, its voice dripping with snakelike sibilance. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

Bathory inclined her head slightly. “Varney. It’s been a long time.”

Varney shrugged his bony shoulders. “Fifty years? Seventy? I am trying to think . . . was Queen Victoria on the throne when we feasted upon children that full moon night in Greenwich?”

Stoker glanced at Bathory, but she did not look back at him. “Your hospitality on that occasion was most welcome.”

Varney put a long finger with a cruel, yellow nail to his bloodless lips. “Indeed. And yet . . . no reciprocation was forthcoming. No invitation to Castle Dracula landed on my doormat.” He grinned horribly. “Unless it was lost in the post, of course.”

Bathory nodded. “I apologize, Varney. It was most thoughtless of us. Events, unfortunately, have overtaken our desire to be good hosts at Castle Dracula.”

“And now, here you are, on my doorstep once again,” said Varney. He looked at Stoker. “But this time you bring a gift, yes? A little something for Varney’s larder?”

Bathory took a step forward until her beautiful face was an inch from Varney’s hideous visage. “My time is short, Varney, and my need great. Are you going to invite us inside, or would you prefer to conduct business in your doorway?”

Stoker had no desire to go into the dark space where flies buzzed ominously, but Varney acquiesced and stepped back, and Bathory strode forward, Stoker close behind.

There was a dry scraping of matches and an oil lamp was lit, casting a pale orange glow. As Stoker’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he put his handkerchief over his mouth to stop himself from gagging. The smell! It was only when the oil lamp began to burn properly that he saw the source of it; he was standing in a single space with a dirt-covered floor, perhaps thirty feet square, and in one corner were piled the putrefying corpses of half a dozen naked dead.

Varney grinned savagely at Stoker’s falling face and spread his thin fingers toward the charnel scene. “Something to eat, Countess?”

She shook her head and smiled, showing her fangs. “I brought my own.”

It took Stoker a moment to realize she was referring to him, and he looked at her in horror. Now that she was with her own kind, would she revert to type, forget their blood pact? Beyond Varney there were eleven or twelve other vampires, all young men. None were as grotesque as their—what had Bathory said? Their
dark father
?—but all had unnaturally white eyes and distended fangs. Varney said, “So you have. Are you planning to share?”

“Not at the moment,” said Bathory. “He is a rare vintage.”

Varney nodded. “Then this is evidently not a social visit, Countess. Perhaps we should get down to business. First, though, how is your husband? How is Count Dracula?”

Bathory cast down her eyes. “Varney, Count Dracula is dead.”

The vampire put his hands together under his nose, his eyes widening. “Oh. Oh. How terrible.” He paused, scrutinizing Bathory. “Then that is why you have come to me.”

She nodded.

Varney clapped his hands together. “You have come to present yourself to me like the bitch in heat you are.”

Stoker held his breath. What on earth was this fool doing?

But Bathory knelt down in the filth before the slavering creature and put her hands forward, palms down on his thin, bone-like thighs. Oh, how Stoker had wished for her to touch him like that! Now, all he could do was gaze on in horror as she said, “Yes, Varney. I wish you to be my master. I wish you to take me as your wife.”

“Elizabeth, no! In the name of God!” cried Stoker.

Varney looked at him with interest. “He is rather outspoken, for lunch.”

“Ignore him,” said Bathory breathlessly. “What do you say, Varney? Have you not desired me for centuries? Have you not lusted after me, dreamed of the ministrations of these hands on your wracked body, imagined crawling over my flesh and debasing me in all the fashions you have learned over the years?”

He clapped his hands delightedly. “We shall wed this very day! Then we shall make our home in Castle Dracula!” He turned to the vampires assembled behind him. “Countess Bathory has populated the castle with beautiful females.”

There was a cheer from Varney’s foul family.

Bathory stood, and even though Stoker was crazed by fear he noticed a change in her, a shedding of the false subservience she had demonstrated in the face of Varney.

“Good,” she said. “I accept your proposal of marriage, Varney, and in doing so I invoke my ancient right to a blood dowry.”

The cheering tailed off and Varney looked at Bathory, his yellow eyes narrowed. “What? What did you say?”

She smiled. “Simply exercising my rights as a widowed vampire, Varney.”

He bared his teeth. “I will still best you, Countess. Then you will feel my wrath yet further in our conjugal pit.”

Stoker gasped as Varney, with barely the clenching of a single muscle, leaped straight upward and twisted so he clung to the bare brick ceiling, his cloak hanging down in tatters. Bathory hissed and stepped backward, adopting a fighting stance, her fingers curled like claws. There was a heartbeat, then another, then the battle was joined.

Varney flew at Bathory with a blood-chilling scream, but she adeptly cartwheeled to the left, landing with her booted feet on to the wall and crouching there for a moment before leaping back toward him and raking her nails along the back of his bald head. He yelped, and she stood and licked his ichor from her fingers.

“First blood to me,” she said.

“And last to me,” yelled Varney, tumbling forward in a somersault and slapping Bathory across the face. Her head whipped to one side, then back, and she launched herself at him.

Stoker backed into a corner and watched, horrified, as the unholy, impossible ballet unfolded before him. The combatants defied all laws of physics and gravity that Stoker knew to be absolute, bending time and space to perform feats of athletic battle. One moment saw them flying through the fetid air at such a crawl it appeared as though a kinetoscope film had been slowed and stretched; the next they were a flurry of limbs, a wind of claws. The other vampires cheered on Varney and cast hungry glances in Stoker’s direction; he knew if Bathory fell, he was to be their victory feast.

But fall she did not. Varney gradually slowed and weakened under her onslaught, and after a misplaced strike he fell into Bathory’s outstretched arms. Their eyes met momentarily, then she opened her mouth and sank her fangs into his thin neck.

There was a long silence as she fed hungrily, then let the withered corpse of the vampire drop heavily to the floor. Stoker felt his bile rise and his heart sink. How could he even think about civilizing such a creature? Bathory stood before Varney’s family, her eyes shining.

“Your master is dead,” she said. “Now you belong to me.”

She turned to Stoker, and he felt terror, but then he saw her soften and smile. “Bram,” she said. “I can feel them. The Children of Heqet. Varney’s blood has empowered me. They are near the river, north of here.” She turned to the vampires. “Run as dogs, cross the river.” She stared into the gloom. “Embankment. Quickly.”

The vampires fell to their knees and commenced such a howling and screeching Stoker had to close his eyes and clamp his hands over his ears. When he opened them again, there were a dozen hounds of varying size and breed tearing around the room, until Bathory flung open the doors. Dusk had fallen and the animals ran out into it, barking and yelping and disappearing into a fog that swirled and crept up the maze of narrow Shoreditch streets.

As Bathory and Stoker hurried after them, she said, “When old vampires like Varney and myself choose a mate, there are certain practices we must observe. They go back centuries, to when the world was wilder and more savage. A male can take a widowed female as his wife, but she may invoke the ancient trial of blood dowry to ensure his suitability, or if she is unhappy to willingly submit.”

“It was a risk, though,” said Stoker. “You might have lost.”

She smiled. “I knew I wouldn’t. Vampires like Varney . . . well, they’re like most men, mortal or not. You always think you are right, and stronger, and better. Your arrogance is quite astonishing, really. I blame your mothers.”

They left Shoreditch and hailed a cab. “Embankment, fast as you can,” gasped Stoker. How could Bathory look so like a human being yet be so savagely
other
? Not for the first time since he’d met her, he felt within him the collision of fascination and revulsion, but now they were joined by another emotion: raw, primal fear.

The sound of howling rose through the fog ahead of them as they turned off Waterloo Bridge.

“Let us out here,” said Bathory. She alighted from the cab and stood with the fog swirling around her, the flow of the Thames to her side, sniffing the air. The dogs, somewhere ahead of them, fell silent.

“Do you sense them?” whispered Stoker after paying off the cab driver. “The Children of Heqet?”

“Hush,” she said, and closed her eyes. There was silence, then a piercing scream.

Bathory opened her eyes. “There. Now!”

She began to run and disappeared into the fog, Stoker hard on her heels.

16
The Attack on Embankment