The Mammoth Book of Dracula (84 page)

“Perhaps. But they wouldn’t appreciate how large a part the Agency has in the destabilization of Russia. The policy for the past decade has been to keep Russia on the brink of collapse, constantly warring with itself, to prevent the resurgence of its old Imperialist dream. Good as the game was, no one wants to see the Cold War back—not when the same methods can be used to keep an old enemy on its knees and helpless.”

“Excuse me while I stand and applaud your grasp of politics, Count. What’s all this got to do with your favour?”

“I want a small nuclear war.”

Now Cydonian did lean down and pick up the bourbon bottle. He poured himself a stiff one and took a mouthful.

“You’re fucking crazy!” he said, after the bourbon’s heat had eased off. “The radiation—fall-out!”

“Do you really think I would jeopardize the hub of my operation: Switzerland? My calculations indicate that the risk to the northern hemisphere is minimal. Certainly no worse than the Chernobyl incident. Inconvenient—but not terminal.”

“You can’t calculate risks like ball-game percentages!”

“For twenty years or so, it has become increasingly difficult for me—and my contemporaries—to step outside,” Dracula replied calmly. “Even on the most overcast day. I have every reason to believe this is due to the constant erosion of the ozone layer. You see, Cydonian, vampire and mortal have much in common: the sun is lethal to us both, unless it’s shielded effectively. Thanks to humanity’s usual carelessness, we are all in some danger.”

“Then just come out at night, like your legend says you do.”

“Difficult, when I am supposed to be the owner of a vast corporation.”

“My heart bleeds.”

“Indeed. Lucky for us both.”

Cydonian gulped at his drink. The fear was back. “But I still don’t see the connection.”

“Nuclear winter. Even with a strike as small as the one I propose, the amount of ash and dust thrown into the atmosphere will blanket the sun for years.”

“Further damaging the ozone layer!”

“I’m impressed, Cydonian. Yes, for a few years the ozone layer will be severely compromised; but it can repair itself. During the decades of nuclear winter, all the damage will be fixed.”

“By which time you and all the other nightcrawlers will have taken over the fucking planet!”

“Of course, I cannot rescind my gift. Regardless of your decision.” Dracula waved a hand at the video wall. “It’s too late for that.”

Cydonian wanted to fidget. He was sure there was a trickle of sweat starting at the base of his neck. The leery old son-of-a-bitch wouldn’t give in just like that!

“What’s your game, Count?”

“I don’t play games, Cydonian. You should know that.” His eyes were red now—dark and hot. “If you won’t instigate total civil war in Russia, I will be forced to cause the war myself. It will be a little more difficult—I don’t have a seasoned network already established—and take a while longer. But the results will be the same. There are, I believe, many in the Ukraine who would dearly love to make their old masters a present of the millions of tonnes of nuclear missiles they inherited. Do you doubt I can arrange it?”

Cydonian thought about Paradis-LaCroix—and how much of Switzerland Dracula’s corporation actually owned. And he thought about how many leaders of the old Soviet Union had siphoned off funds into private Swiss bank accounts. Accounts that could be drained, or expanded, by someone with the vampire’s influence.

And he thought about the tonnes of communications hardware orbiting the earth, and about how many were built by the countless businesses hidden behind dummy corporations, themselves a front for PLC. Satellites that could relay plenty of signals, other than multichannel television systems. Signals such as missile launch codes.

Yes, he believed Dracula could do it.

Cydonian started to rise. “I don’t think we have anything more to discuss, Count. If—”

“Sit down.”

Cydonian dropped back in the seat as though a weight had been dropped on him. Even though Dracula hadn’t even raised his voice, Cydonian had responded automatically—he was a kid again, hugging concrete because his drill sergeant had ordered another hundred push-ups.

“I have no interest in an unhealthy world. Once the Russian civil war is under way to my satisfaction, I will pass on to the Agency effective, total cures for all serum-carried disease. Like the hepatitis variants. Not simple vaccines, you understand—but methods to eradicate the diseases entirely. Plans to destroy bacterial and viral disease are also well in hand—though here we must go carefully. PLC doesn’t want to release another HIV on the world—not even deliberately.

“In the meantime, one of my subsidiaries—known worldwide for its confectionery—is going into the soft drinks business.”

Cydonian shook his head. “Soda?” This was getting beyond him.

“After the war, whilst the Americans and Soviets were busy stealing rocket scientists from the Nazis, I was much more interested in their biochemists. Many were helped across the border into Switzerland, where their research was allowed to proceed unchecked.”

Cydonian made a connection. “The vampire factor!”

“Indeed. Once the wartime bombing raids—those in which I had a hand—removed all records of their work and experiments, there was nothing left for anyone to pick over. I had the scientists; I had their minds. The memory of
Projekt Nachtzehrer
died with the Third Reich.”

“You already owned Laboratoire Paradis,” commented Cydonian, thinking back to what he’d read.

“And a smaller concern in Spain. Both countries—Spain and Switzerland—escaped the ravages of the war. By 1946 work into the vampire factor was well beyond anything Hitler had managed.”

“And you found it.” Cydonian tried to move, but found he couldn’t twitch much more than a finger.

“Better yet—I found the Dracula factor!” The vampire stood, and for the first time Cydonian got a real sense of his height and presence. Even from a hologram.

“You know that before a human can be reborn a vampire, they must first drink a vampire’s blood. Only then can they experience the little death: be brought across to the world of the undead.” Dracula walked around to the front of the desk and sat casually on it. “It took years for research and techniques to catch up with the idea—but eventually we found it: the factor in my blood that makes me who I am, and ensures my disciples need never die. Biology, Cydonian—I told you it would define the twenty-first century.”

“What you going to do with this ... factor? Poison the water?”

“I told you—we’re going into the drinks business. Americans so love their soft drinks. The factor can be included perfectly safely in just about any drink you might name. Colas, club soda, root beer.” He waved a hand towards Cydonian’s empty glass. “Branch water...”

The only part of Cydonian that was moving was the sweat: still trickling down his back. That and his eyes. They flashed back and forth between the glass and the Count’s smug face.

“You may already have noticed one effect: even across this satellite link—through a holographic image—you are a victim to my will. Intriguing, isn’t it. How the most recent advances in technology can still be vessels for the most ancient gifts.”

“You’re going to make me a motherfucking vampire! You bastard! You gave your word, you—!” He felt the instant Dracula paralysed his larynx. He was left silently flapping his mouth like a beached fish.

“Please, Cydonian. I abhor profanity; no matter the situation. Rest assured you have my word: I have no intention of bringing you across. That would serve no purpose. I told you I have no use for a world filled with vampires; but mortal servants are another matter. The blood factor gives me total control over the human mind. A constantly reproducing pool of labour—any part of which can be brought across as the whim takes me.

“Hitler’s astrologers were correct, in their way. But it begins in Switzerland—not Germany.

“What I do need is a salesman: someone who will persuade the Agency’s Director that my civil war is justified; ensure the FDA finds nothing to alarm it—perhaps buy anyone who becomes too annoying a soda ...

“I can provide the advertising: make the market feel secure in what it’s buying. Your brother-in-law is in imports, I believe?”

Cydonian mentally raved and tore at his paralysis. He’d been set up from the start. His position in the Company; Jon ...

Light spread across the holograph screen from over Cydonian’s shoulder, instantly destroying the 3-D effect. Two shadows briefly fluttered against the ghostly image of Dracula. His two goons. Cydonian felt hands locking under his arms, raising him up.

Something approaching control returned to his legs, and he could just about stand. He found himself looking up into the face of the giant. There was something wrong; something different.

It was the teeth. The fangs.

The giant grinned, displaying enlarged, needle-sharp fangs. He looked like some kind of blunt-headed shark.

Cydonian couldn’t speak, couldn’t express his confusion. But it must have shown on his face.

“Biology, Cydonian,” Dracula’s assured voice came to him as the giant raised a huge hand, and carefully peeled the skin off like a pale glove. “Grown in PLC laboratories from foetal human cells. For a short period, it gives us a certain tolerance to some of the more traditional methods of detection.”

The skin dropped to the floor like a snake’s discarded scales. The giant took Cydonian’s shoulder and gently guided him towards the white cubicle. This time, the light looked much too threatening.

“Adam was rejected from the Garden for disobeying his master,” the Count continued. “I will be taking no chances.”

<>

~ * ~

CHARLAINE HARRIS

Dracula Night

CHARLAINE HARRIS is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse “Southern Vampire Mysteries” series, which to date includes
Dead Until Dawn, Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World, Dead As a Doornail, Definitely Dead, All Together Dead, From Dead to Worse, Dead and Gone
and
Dead in the Family,
along with various omnibus editions, companion volumes and the short story collection
A Touch of Dead.
The popular HBO TV show based on the books,
True Blood,
stars Anna Paquin as the telepathic waitress.

The author’s other novels include the “Harper Connelly”, “Aurora Teagarden” and “Lily Baird/Shakespeare” series. She has won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery, the
Science Fiction Romance Newsletter’s
Sapphire Award, and two
Romantic Times
Reviewers’ Choice Awards. She lives in a small town in Arkansas with her husband, three children, a duck and three dogs.

With humans and vampires now sharing an uneasy coexistence, Sookie Stackhouse finds herself invited to a birthday party for the Count himself...

~ * ~

I FOUND THE invitation in the mailbox at the end of my driveway. I had to lean out of my car window to open it, because I’d paused on my way to work after remembering I hadn’t checked my mail in a couple of days. My mail was never interesting. I might get a flier for Dollar General or Wal-Mart, or one of those ominous mass mailings about pre-need burial plots.

Today, after I’d sighed at my energy bill and my cable bill, I had a little treat: a handsome, heavy, buff-coloured envelope that clearly contained some kind of invitation. It had been addressed by someone who’d not only taken a calligraphy class but passed the final with flying colours.

I got a little pocketknife out of my glove compartment and slit open the envelope with the care it deserved. I don’t get a lot of invitations, and when I do, they’re usually more Hallmark than watermark. This was something to be savoured. I pulled out the stiff folded paper carefully, and opened it. Something fluttered into my lap: an enclosed sheet of tissue. Without absorbing the revealed words, I ran my finger over the embossing. Wow.