Dracula's Ghost - Afterimage: Chapter 16
Part III: The Witch of Endor
I.
Budapest
1956
6:30 AM
Holmes rose with the morning twilight and ventured outside. In theory, the Russian soldiers who occupied the city would set up watch positions to monitor the traffic, but in reality, they would be exhausted after the long ride from the Soviet border. Most of them would have fallen asleep by now, and even the disciplined ones would be lax and inattentive. It needs to happen today, Holmes thought as his eyes panned the street. He had been waiting for seven days, and further delay risked both the boy and his mother. Holmes busied himself with his pipe, and his eyes wandered upward, toward the rooftop on the far side of the street.
The owl was perched in the bricked-up casement of a second-floor window, the speckled down of its head yielding to lustrous plumage of brown and white. Eurasian pygmy owl, Holmes thought, one of the smallest species in Europe. Odd to see one in the city. A gunshot echoed in the distance, and the owl ruffled its feathers nervously, but the bright eyes never left his own.
“Hello there,” he said softly. “Do you have something to show me?”
The owl, perhaps hearing his voice, swooped from its perch and flew down the center of the street. It landed atop a streetlamp, too distant for even Holmes’s keen eyes to follow but close enough to hear the staccato cry of its call. The owl return, circled once, then disappeared in the same direction, and Holmes began walking.
Today. It will happen today.
II.
7:45 AM
I never should have made it this far, Plekhanov thought. The destination was marked on the map, and though Budapest was shot through with checkpoints, police and soldiers waved him onward with an ease that he found disquieting. The boxes remained in the back of the truck, and Quincy had given his final instructions – this box, and not that one, was to be unloaded – before disappearing with the rising sun.
“Good morning.” The stranger spoke in oddly accented Russian. “Do you need help with something?”
“You can help me unload this damned crate.”
“Typically, the departed are interred with more ceremony.”
“It’s not a body.” Plekhanov stared at the box, slightly aghast. “Just… soil. I think they’re planting flowers around the cemetery.”
“Of course.” The stranger ignored his lie. “There’s a gravedigger’s shed by the fence. We can leave it there.”
They manhandled the box to the shed and laid it to rest on the earthen floor. The stranger’s peculiar accent reminded him of Sarah. She is here, somewhere in Budapest. Plekhanov did not believe in fate, but he did believe in planning, and the confluence of odd foreigners seemed an unlikely coincidence.
“I have an English friend,” he said. “I wonder if you might know her.”
“England is a big place. Not like Russia, mind you, but I haven’t met everyone who lives there.”
“Perhaps not, but there aren’t many English speakers in Budapest.”
“No, I suppose not.” The stranger drew deeply from the pipe. “Why don’t you come with me, and we can talk it over?”
“What about the truck?” Plekhanov said. Leaving the second box made him uneasy.
“I know a place where we can park it out of sight.”
Plekhanov slid behind the wheel, and Rupert Holmes climbed into the seat beside him. He drove, slightly unnerved by the military trucks that passed as he wound through the streets. They were stopped once as a line of tanks passed through an intersection, and Plekhanov tensed visibly at the sight of Soviet troops.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a warehouse northwest of the cemetery. We can park there.”
“What then?”
“Then,” Holmes said, “we wait for sunset.”
III.
9:00 AM
“Archie?” Sarah moaned, not fully coherent. “Where’s your father?”
“Papa’s gone, mum. He died in the war, remember?”
“That’s right.” Her eyes drifted open. “I must have been dreaming.”
“Mum, you need to wake up.” He shook her arm. “We need to find a way out of here.”
“The sun is shining, so we still have time.” Sarah’s voice was dreamlike, but an odd shiver ran through her body, as if an old nightmare had frightened her. “He can’t hurt us while the sun is out. The others will be here soon, and it’s safer if we move together.”
“Mum, you’re not making any sense,” Archie said. Sarah’s limbs were heavy and her eyes unfocused. “No one is coming for us.”
She drifted into a deeper sleep, and Archie tried to rouse her without success. He slipped out of the cell and passed through the long tunnel. We just have to make it through the gate, he thought. After that, I’ll carry her through the streets if I have to. He paused to listen at the bottom of the stairs, and in the distance, Archie heard voices and the opening of cell doors, a sharp ringing of metal upon metal. Gradually, the silence returned, save for the steady drip of water from the overhead pipes.
Archie retreated to his mother’s cell and knelt at her side. God, she feels so cold.
IV.
9:30 AM
The prisoners a motley collection of some thirty-odd men, were normally awakened by six, fed a meager breakfast, and shuffled off for whatever duties – work, interrogation, sentencing – awaited them. When the daily routine was disrupted, they became restless and banged at their cell doors. No one came, and the more imaginative among their number began to grow fearful. Perhaps they had been left to starve, or they would be murdered by the approaching Russians. The banging grew louder, and the inmates shouted for the guards, their voices growing shrill when there was no answer.
The German lay on his bunk. The interrogators had pressed him relentlessly on the death of Vladimir Korzh, and when he provided no useful information, he had been declared a socially undesirable element. Three years in a labor camp, they had explained. The formality of his sentencing would occur next month, but prison held no terrors for him – he was unlikely to survive to see the inside of a courtroom. He contemplated his cell door for several minutes before probing at the doorframe with his fingers – to his surprise, the door swung inward. The prisoner retreated to his bed, fearful of trap, and waited for another ten minutes before creeping into the hallway. He whispered a few words of encouragement through the doorway of the neighboring cell and went off to find a set of keys.
The hallway was dark, and in the dim light, he nearly tripped over the body. The guard had been severely mauled, the muscles of the neck torn in the manner of a rabid dog, but the German knew better. He rifled through the dead man’s pockets, flinching as his fingers brushed the skin, and when the keys were in his hand, he staggered away, glad to be finished with the task.
Why leave my door unlocked? Never a man of exceptional intelligence, the German grasped the truth by instinct. He is playing games with us. He contemplated the stairway to the lower level, then retreated as his courage failed. Instead, he wandered the empty hallway and slipped the key into each locked door.
An hour later, the last prisoner walked free.
V.
10:45 AM
No good, Diels thought as the crowd blocked his view of the prison gates. We need a better vantage point. The priest tugged at his coat and they began to walk, moving aimlessly as Diels watched for tails. He found the lack of surveillance disconcerting, for under normal circumstances, a western diplomat could not walk openly without a team of minders, yet no one followed. The soldiers, on the other hand… Diels had not seen so many Russian troops since the fall of Berlin. Young conscripts from Leningrad and Vladivostok surrounded the Soviet Embassy and established smaller outposts in a series of concentric rings, their eyes on the passing crowds, weapons ready. Cristofor led them to a department store, a Stalin-era monstrosity with bare shelves and idle clerks, and Diels found a third floor window that faced the prison.
The gatehouse was built into the prison wall, and a smaller overlook protruded from the roof in a broad spire, giving the whole structure the odd appearance of a church. Large windows, topped with brick arches and protected by iron bars, flanked both sides of a heavy door. Diels searched the crowd for soldiers or police and found nothing.
“Rudolf – over there.” Cristofor pointed to the crowd.
The door opened, and a knot of prisoners filed through. They paused every few steps, like men walking through a minefield, and the crowd approached them with equal reluctance. Slowly, the freed captives were absorbed into the throng, and the crowd around the gatehouse began to thin away. There’s enough Russian firepower in the city to level the place to its foundations, yet the most secure prison in Budapest simply opens its doors. Diels searched the throng but saw no one resembling Archie or Sarah Spencer.
“Come on.” He grasped Cristofor’s arm. “I want to get a closer look.”
“At the crowd?”
“No.” Diels gave a last glance around the empty store. “We’re going inside.”
“If anyone catches us inside, they’ll shoot us in the cellar.”
“Don’t be so worried,” Diels grinned wickedly. “If it comes to that, a priest should already be prepared for the next world.”
VI.
Purfleet
The late morning sun felt good upon her skin; a welcome distraction from her captivity. Evangeline’s feet were free, but her hands remained tied, and a length of rope secured her neck. Acwulf carried the shotgun – her shotgun – casually in one hand as they stood at the remains of the old pond. He stared into the silted puddles that collected among the weeds.
“I almost envy you,” he said. “Tonight, you will be honored by the company of a great man, one who is most eager to meet you.”
“I don’t feel honored at all.” She worked her wrists against the knots. “Perhaps you should go in my place.”
“Perhaps I will, in due time.” He noticed the movement of her hands and smiled. “I won’t kill you for trying to escape, but a shotgun blast can easily take off a foot. It’s quite painful, as I remember it.”
She frowned. “How did you survive?”
“When the sun sets, you will find out.”
VII.
Budapest
1:30 PM
We should have moved faster, Cristofor thought. Diels manipulated the broken neck of the guard, and Cristofor winced at the grinding of bone against bone. Another corpse lay deeper in the hallway, his throat unmarked but the neat hole of a bullet wound beneath the chin. Cristofor said a quick prayer over the bodies as the sun passed its apogee and began its descent toward the western horizon.
“What are those?” He pointed to a pair of cylinders that rested against the wall.
“Flamethrowers.” Diels ran his fingers across the metal. “They use compressed nitrogen to shoot a stream of gasoline – terrifying to face if one is sitting in a trench.”
Another body rested on the bed of a nearby cell, and Cristofor touched the neck carefully, his skin crawling at the sensation of dead flesh beneath his fingers. The priest placed his hand upon the chest and whispered another prayer. “Almighty God who raised the dead to life, we pray that…”
A hand grasped his own, and Cristofor stumbled back with a cry.
“Not dead yet.” Captain Sokolov’s chuckle was a wet rasp. “Merely… resting.”
The priest took several deep breaths to calm his nerves. He wasn’t breathing when I touched him.
“Go to the lowest level of the prison. There’s a long tunnel at the end of the hallway, and you’ll find what you’re seeking at the far end.” He began to cough, a rancid exhalation that reminded Cristofor of gangrene. “As for me, I should be going.”
“You’re sure you can walk?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine.” Sokolov managed, with effort, to stand. “A little fresh air will be good for my lungs.”
Cristofor stared as he stumbled into the hallway and vanished. For the love of God, I thought he was dead. Diels clapped his back.
“Let him go. We need to find our friends and get out of here.”
VIII.
2:00 PM
Archie slept, and whispered voices echoed through the recesses of his dream world. In the empty hallway, he heard the blubbering voice of a man – Archie could not tell if he was crying or praying – cut short by a gunshot. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and drew the blanket about his neck and shoulders and listened for his mother in the darkness. “Don’t leave me alive to fall into his hands.” Sarah had tried to warn him, but It had devoured her while he slept, just as it had devoured his grandparents, and Lucy, and Rupert Holmes. They’re waiting for you now, he thought, and they would be reunited forever, skulking through the darkness of the prison basement and waiting for an unwary traveler to stumble down the stairs. A hand brushed his arm, and when he opened his eyes, Archie would see the dead face of his mother. He would have time for one final scream before –
“Archie?” Sarah jostled his arm, and he stifled the cry that welled in his throat. “Someone is in the hallway.”
He heard nothing at first, and Archie held his breath as he willed the jackhammer beating of his heart to be still. The distant footfalls resounded from the concrete with the irregular tick-tick-tick of a broken metronome – not the steady tread of an approaching fiend, but the meandering ramble of a window shopper – someone was peering into the adjacent cells. They drew closer, and he could hear the murmuring voices of leisurely conversation. Guards don’t talk that way, Archie thought, they either grunt or shout. Finally, an aching heartbeat later, there was a laugh, and Archie recognized the voice.
“Diels! We’re at the end of the hallway!”
The door swung inward, and Rudolf Diels stared at him, as if surprised by his sudden presence. When the German finally spoke, it was to his mother.
“Hello, Frau Spencer. We’ve never met, but I think you know who I am.”
“I do,” she said. “You saved my life once.”
“Perhaps we should talk elsewhere, before someone discovers us.” Diels glanced at his companion, a dark-haired man in priest’s garb. “Can you get us back to the West German embassy?”
The priest frowned. “It should be an easy walk, but if there’s trouble in the street, the Red Army gets a vote.”
Diels led them up the stairs, and Archie followed, a steadying hand on his mother’s arm. Sarah appeared haggard and a little frail, and the sound of their footsteps on the metal stairs jarred Archie’s nerves. The air grew fresher as they ascended, but Archie detected a faint, slightly rancid odor remembered from his wartime experience – the smell of blood. The ground-floor cells were emptied of their contents, and the bodies of the guards watched only a prison of ghosts. Archie bent to examine the wounded throat – An animal attack? Perhaps a guard dog gone mad? – and removed a pistol from the guard’s belt. They stepped through the prison gate, and the world outside was pandemonium.
A stray bullet snapped past his head, and Archie stumbled back, grabbing his mother’s arm as a flurry of gunshots erupted at the far end of the street. The retreating men wore civilian clothes and carried old hunting rifles, but they took cover in doorways or crouched behind lampposts, disciplined enough to avoid headlong flight. One of their number fell, and two companions dragged him to shelter as a third man retrieved his rifle. The partisans continued their retreat as a tank rumbled around the corner, followed by uniformed troops.
“This way!” Cristofor waved an arm, and they stumbled into the street. “We need to go now, before we’re cut off!”
In the empty shell of the prison behind them, a single flamethrower rested against the block wall, a lone sentry whose missing companion went unnoticed.
IX.
3:30 PM
Rupert Holmes considered his options as they sheltered inside the warehouse. This box, and not the other, Plekhanov had explained. What is he up to? Terrible things were afoot, and their best option was to stick together and find safety, or at least courage, in numbers. Dracula, he thought, the name that had struck terror into Jonathan Harker for decades. He is here in Budapest. Holmes reached a decision.
“What the hell are you doing?” Plekhanov jumped as he retrieved the tire iron and crawled into the truck. Outside, more gunshots resounded as he pried at the wood, and Holmes worked his way around the edge as the main gun of a nearby tank fired, rattling the windows. The nails came loose with a scream, and Holmes lifted the lid. The box was empty, save for a thin layer of soil.
“Thought you might have some weapons in here,” he said. Another explosion stirred a cloud of dust and coated them in a brown haze. “We need to move.”
“He’s in the other box, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Holmes said. “He’s in the other box.”
He glanced at the sun’s position in the west. Holmes would have preferred to stay hidden until the daylight faded, for they would be shot as spies if the Russians caught them in the open. At sunset, the dead would mingle with the living, and though the dead held no terror for him, the man himself was another matter entirely. Either way, we need to find Quincy. He slipped from the warehouse, and Plekhanov followed at they were swallowed up by the chaos of the streets.
X.
Purfleet
Acwulf stared at the cloudy sky, trying to gauge the sun’s position. In Budapest, the light will be fading. He felt a touch of sadness, for the spectacle would have been glorious to witness, but he was needed here. The living descendant of Quincy Morris must not be allowed to retain control over Carfax Abbey. The shabby estate in Purfleet was inextricably tied to the old castle in Romania, and He could not reclaim his rightful home until the pretender was removed.
Soon enough, it will be finished in Budapest, he thought. And once he has accomplished his aims, there, he will return to London.
XI.
Budapest
5:30 PM
They skirted the edge of the fighting, moving north and west in a great loop that carried them away from the embassy. The sun was little more than a thin band on the horizon, and as the shadows lengthened, Sarah was overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. The setting sun had lent sharpness to her vision, strength to her limbs, and the ruthlessness to shed blood as needed, but these gifts now deserted her in the hour of greatest need.
She nudged Diels. “How far to the embassy?”
“Judging by the gunshots, it might as well be on the moon,” he said. “There’s no way we’ll get there before sunset, but I can’t think of a better option.”
Sarah closed her eyes. Step by bloody step, Dracula brought us all to this very place. Quincy would be here as well, carrying on the blood feud that had survived his death, and if they could only reach him… But where is he? Sarah’s eyes widened in recognition.
“Can we make it to Kozuma Street Cemetery?” It’s the one place in the city where he would know to find me.
“Are you sure?” Diels asked, then turned to the priest. “How quickly can you get us there?”
“Thirty minutes,” Cristofor said, “if we aren’t harassed by the soldiers. Are you certain?”
“Yes.” Sarah nodded, her jaw tightly set. Perhaps the wolf will guard us as we wander the forest, and perhaps he will eat us. Right now, we have no other choice.
XII.
6:00 PM
They crossed the street and passed through the ruins of destroyed houses, skirting the open ground to the south. Plekhanov had learned stealth as a partisan, but he marveled as Holmes moved in utter silence, slipping into the shadows with such ease that he seemed to vanish at will. A pair of Russian soldiers passed, and Holmes followed. He returned a moment later with grenades and a pair of captured rifles. An image flashed through his mind, of a monster tearing at a man’s throat. Sarah kills like that, Plekhanov thought. So does Quincy Morris.
“How did you do that?” Plekhanov asked.
“Slipped up behind them and gave their heads a twist,” Holmes said. “If you’re quick, you can finish them both before either one knows what happened.”
The empty space to their right was an expanse of field and stunted trees and Plekhanov lifted an arm. “Let’s cut through – we can use the trees for cover.”
“No,” Holmes said. “There’s a big statue of Joseph Stalin on the far end, and we need to steer clear.”
“You’re afraid of a statue?” Plekhanov shook his head – if it were up to him, they would pass by simply to piss on the great leader’s boots.
“It’s a bad place.”
XIII.
6:55 PM
Cristofor moved in front as they walked, and at the northern edge of the Varosliget, he waited for the others to catch up. For God’s sake, move faster! Daylight was fading rapidly, and after the experience of Hof, he had no desire to be out after sunset. He was also worried about Sarah Spencer. She had seemed healthy when they left the prison but moved with the halting limp of a wounded soldier. A trickle of blood ran from her foot, and Cristofor wondered if she had fallen.
“Can you make it?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Sarah held her son’s arm for support, and her voice was thin and reedy. “I’m cold – it’s like nothing I’ve felt before.”
“We’ll never make it to the cemetery.” Diels’s face was grim. “They’re fighting all around us, and we’re cut off.”
To their right, there was a long chatter of automatic weapons fire, and Cristofor dropped as a bullet snapped past his head. He crawled to where the others lay prostrate.
“How long until sunset?” he shouted. Diels looked at the sky and held up five fingers.
The old church, he thought. Get everyone there and you can shelter until the sun comes up.
“Come on!” he shouted. “I know a place where we can take shelter!”
He pointed to a low wall and counted down, one, two, three, and they were running. Cristofor had survived four years in occupied territory, and he ran in short bounding sprints – up, he sees me, down – that would have pleased any veteran of the front lines. Sarah appeared half-dead in the fading light, but movement appeared to loosen the miasma that settled about her, and her stumbling gait picked up speed as they ran. He made another bound as tanks and infantry passed to their right, and Cristofor prayed between panting gasps that no passing soldier would turn in their direction. At the edge of the skating rink, there was more gunfire, and he veered south toward a broad parade ground. He stumbled to a halt, confused. What happened to the church?
Overhead, the first stars appeared.
“What is it?” Diels pulled up short behind him.
The church, his wartime shelter, was gone, and in its place, Cristofor saw only a giant pedestal with a name written on the base in large block letters. STALIN. Above the inscription, a huge pair of metal boots marked the last remnant of the deposed idol. The great leader’s body lay at the base of the pedestal, his enormous head resting several meters to the right of the torso. The old church in Hof, he remembered. Once-consecrated ground, no longer holy.
And Sarah became weak and listless when we entered the park.
“Cristofor!” Diels shook him. Behind him, Archie Spencer stumbled into the square with his mother. “What is wrong?”
“I’m sorry, Rudolf.” Cristofor stared at the statue that occupied the desecrated ground. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Behind them, the sun disappeared below the horizon.
XIV.
Purfleet
“Get up, Fraulein – it’s time.”
A gust of wind rustled her skirt as they stepped through the doorway, and in the distance, she heard a deep rumble of thunder. Evangeline suppressed an urge to giggle as Acwulf led her to the door – if I’m about to die, I should be walking down a darkened hallway, not into the fresh air. Above them, thick clouds blocked the afternoon sunlight, and Acwulf grinned at her.
“I told you that this is a place of power. Darkness has come early.”
XV.
Budapest
7:00 PM
His vision improved with the sunset, and Holmes imagined that serpents or wolves must perceive the world in a similar manner, a panorama of shadows and movement unknown to human senses. Russian soldiers advanced through the darkness, a steady leapfrog from left to right, and the guerillas retreated beneath a flurry of bullets. The dead moved as well, and Holmes could distinguish them from ordinary men as easily as… as easily as night and day, he thought. They skittered through the rubble like spiders, unwilling to confront the bands of armed men, and waited for an opportune moment to pull an inattentive soldier or peasant into the shadows.
Quincy was somewhere nearby, closer than Holmes had perceived in years, and the presence of Sarah Spencer flickered at the edges of his perception. Then she was simply… Gone, as if she dropped into a deep hole. The loss worried Holmes, for it suggested that Sarah had been killed…
Or that something worse had happened.