I.
Van Helsing
1893
“An angel touched my brain once,” the patient says. Dealing with madmen is not his specialty, and Abraham Van Helsing merely nods, his expression neutral.
“You don’t believe me?”
“We have only met,” Van Helsing says. “I am hardly the man to judge your story. Tell me more.”
“Well, your average rector will tell you that the prestidigitation of the universe upon the epithelium of the cerebral cortex is a glorious and beautiful thing, and they would be right.” The patient smiles, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth. “However, I can assure you that not a single one of them knows that of whence they speak – unlike myself, of course. What they won’t tell you, knowing nothing of the immense mystery of the divine, is that the beatific vision does not cohabit with the crude gray matter of flesh and bone.”
“Slower please.” Van Helsing holds up a hand. “My English is not so good as yours. And tell me your name.”
“Of course! My name is Renfield. Robert M. Renfield. Or is it Richard? I don’t really remember anymore. To put it simply, when an angel touches your brain – as happened to me – your brain rots. And it is marvelous, though it resulted in the unfortunate incident with the cleaver. Or was it an axe?”
“What about the flies and spiders?”
“Do not believe Seward about the flies.” Robert M. Renfield, or perhaps Richard, scowls at him. “Seward lies.”
“I will keep that in mind. Your observations on theology are quite interesting, but I believe you wanted to discuss other matters.”
“Your case in London, the unfortunate young woman?” Renfield smiles again as he sees the expression on Van Helsing’s face. “Seward thinks that I can’t overhear when he talks in the hallway. The young woman, the touch of angels – not two different subjects. Indeed, I would say that she has been the object of divine visitation herself. This young lady, has she been weak… bloodless?”
“These are matters between a doctor and his patient.” Abraham Van Helsing arranges his face so that Renfield does not see his shock. “I’m afraid I can say no more.”
“Of course not.” R. M. Renfield spends thirty seconds contemplating the tips of his fingers. “But rest assured, her condition is not the result of some earthly malady. Of course, you can take your chances if you prefer to disregard the words of a madman.”
“There is wisdom to be found in many places,” Van Helsing says, then adds after a moment’s hesitation, “Are you mad?”
“Heavens, no! After the unfortunate… incident, I was arrested and informed that I would be hauled before the court to stand trial. Having spent the night contemplating the horror of being dropped into the void at the end of a hangman’s rope, I proceeded – not due to insanity, but by means of a well thought-out and crafted plan – to free myself from the hands of the executioner in exchange for an indefinite stay under the loving care of Doctor John Seward, MD, PhD, Esq., etc., etc. Had I known then what I know now, I would have opted for the rope. Anyhow, I suspect that the young lady’s problems lie somewhat near at hand.”
Renfield casts an ominous glance through the window, toward the gloomy old ruin that is Seward’s nearest neighbor. The lunatic speaks in half-truths and riddles, but Van Helsing’s own exploration of spiritual matters, a desperate quest for consolation from Isaak’s (angel, he thinks, and the word dies as he looks at Renfield), leave him open to all possibilities. Some claim that madmen, their minds unencumbered by rationality, can see the next world more clearly.
“This angel.” Van Helsing stares with such intensity that Renfield looks away. “If such a being were afflicting my patient, how would I make contact with it?”
“Let me go, and I’ll take you to him.”
“For now, Doctor Seward has ordered that you remain confined.” He turns to leave. “However, we shall talk again.”
“Professor Van Helsing? A final word please.”
Abraham Van Helsing pauses in the doorway.
“For the record, I did not soil myself in court. I told you already that Seward lies.”
II.
Romania
1989
The sun rose in the east, peering over the high mountains and bathing the old castle in a roseate glow. In the years that followed the war, a deadly game of cat and mouse had played out between the Romanian People’s Army and the guerillas that resisted Communist rule, yet few that ventured into the Carpathians discovered its secrets, for the castle willed that none should find it, and thus, it remained hidden from prying eyes.
A place frozen in time, it was little changed since the arrival of Sarah Spencer in 1933 or the departure of Quincy Morris in 1956. The great hall and looted library lay silent, the decaying chapel continued slowly to return to the earth, and the parlor, where a trio of ghastly women had tormented Jonathan Harker nearly a century before, held only silence. The northeast courtyard still led to the staircase, a winding series of cuts in the stone face of the cliff, but the empty village at its base was gone, its rotting structures fully claimed by the forest. It lay dormant, and even the ghosts fell into silence.
Its slow awakening began in 1975 with the confluence of two events: the death of a German fugitive in Madrid, and the opening of a forgotten grave a hundred kilometers to the southeast. Like a sleeper in the predawn darkness, the castle was reluctant to stir, but a voice – distant and frail, like an old man’s whisper, but familiar – resonated weakly within the broken stones. Time passed, and the voice grew stronger, more insistent, until it answered that distant cry.
The castle was pleased, for it had bent to the will of Quincy Morris, but it pined for its true master.
III.
Amsterdam
Sarah Spencer lay in the hospital bed, and though she had awakened overnight and taken a little soup, her mind had been clouded, her speech incoherent. Alexandr Plekhanov held her hand as she slept, but her only reaction to his touch was a brief spike of her heart rate measured on the EKG. The doctors remained puzzled by her condition – she might recover in a week, or she could be dead by tomorrow. The mirror image of a medical miracle, Plekhanov thought, a woman dying for no apparent reason.
The electrodes on her scalp indicated minimal activity, but she began to dream as the Russian stroked her clammy fingers, and her mind became alert as her body thrummed with a youthful vigor not felt in years. The breeze tousled her hair and raised gooseflesh on her bare arms as she wandered the old cemetery, and a few drops of dew collected on the hem of her dress as she brushed an errant leaf from her father’s tombstone. The geography was all wrong – the Harkers were buried in the curated lawns to the east – but in the strange netherworld of her dreams, it seemed fitting that father, mother, and brother would rest among the tangled vines and crumbling headstones of the old burial ground.
“Well?” The familiar voice startled her, and Sarah’s body tensed with fear. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
“Hello papa,” she said. “It’s good to see you again.”
Jonathan Harker was dressed in a dark burial suit, but thirty years had vanished from his face, and Sarah wondered whether his appearance was a mere façade, a lingering afterimage that existed only in her memory. She reached outward and touched the dark coat, and Sarah felt the rough texture of wool as a faint aroma of liquor and tobacco smoke tickled her nostrils.
“Am I dead?”
“Dead?” Her father grinned in amusement. “You are seeing a part of the world that remains hidden from most, but for the moment, I’d say that you are very much alive.”
They stood outside an old mausoleum, and a stone angel, its features worn away by ninety-six years of wind and rain, guarded the doorway. The grave of the twice-murdered woman, Sarah thought as a series of images, nightmares relived through the memories of Quincy Morris, intruded upon her thoughts. After the first death, we came with stakes and scalpels, and Arthur carried out the deed as the rest of us read from the psalter…
“I never met her,” Jonathan said, “but my actions changed the course of her life.”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen.” She stared through the iron bars of the doorway, half-wondering what rested now beneath the stone slab of the tomb. “You couldn’t have known what He planned to set in motion.”
“No,” her father said quietly, “but I carried the guilt of her death for the next forty years. When we are young, we hope for triumphs, but we often find that our sorrows and regrets make us what we are. Come on – I have something to show you.”
Sarah blinked, and they were on the far side of London.
The old docks had been rebuilt during the first war and enlarged during the second, but with the onset of peace, the town withered as the shipyard decayed into slums, the home of derelicts and rats. The planks beneath her feet were solid, but the wharf was utterly devoid of life. Purfleet as I remember it from childhood, Sarah thought. We were still riding in horse-drawn carriages, automobiles were little more than a novelty, and radios wouldn’t be used for another twenty years. Her older brother had loved the shipyards, and John Quincy Harker’s greatest desire had been to join the Royal Navy. Instead, he had ended up at Sandhurst and had fallen at the Somme, and she often wondered how his life would have played out if he had not died in France. The warehouses and tenements passed in a blur, and they stood upon the weed-choked lawn of an old house. She had seen it once from a distance and had briefly taken ownership of the property after 1933, but Sarah had never ventured onto the estate – she preferred to keep her distance from Carfax Abbey.
“What are we doing here?”
A few scraps of paper fluttered past on the breeze, and Jonathan Harker stooped to gather the torn pages. Sarah took one and recognized the writing as her mother’s own script. “This vampire which is amongst us… is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead… he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat…”
“I loved fairy tales when I was a child,” he said, crumpling the papers in his fist. “Sir Jonathan the brave, venturing forth to slay the dragon in his lair. I killed a dragon in 1893, not knowing that an egg was left behind to hatch – like a phoenix, or a snake eating its own tail, He dies but gives birth to himself once again. And now, he is on the move.”
“What do we do?” Sarah asked.
“My dear, I don’t believe that we do much of anything, for you are still in the hospital, and I am still dead. My grandson, on the other hand…”
“No,” she said firmly. “Leave Archie out of this.”
“It isn’t my choice.” Jonathan pointed. “He’s hated this place for years, hasn’t he? Archie knows little, and he doubts what he does know, but he understands that Carfax Abbey is tied up with your misfortunes. I’ll wager, he’s been thinking it over for some years now.”
Sarah nodded. Archie had been quite smitten with Evangeline Morris, but they had fallen out in 1975 over Carfax Abbey. Archie wouldn’t tell me what happened, she remembered, but he wanted her to sell the place. Sarah had been quietly pleased by the split, for she could not bring herself to trust a descendant of Quincy Morris.
“Our enemy wants this place,” her father said, “just as he wants his own home, for Carfax Abbey and the old castle are joined across time and space. We must ensure that he does not get it.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” Jonathan paused and looked up, squinting at a window on the upper floors. Is someone watching us? “I suspect that he will move against the house in his own good time, and I pray that he proceeds with care. When a dragon vacates its home, it frequently leaves traps to discourage trespassers.”
“What kind of trap?” she asked.
Jonathan Harker shrugged, as perplexed as she, and Sarah gazed at the paper in her hand. If I knew the truth, perhaps I could figure out a way to warn him.
“He have still the aids of necromancy…”
IV.
Gdansk
Polish People’s Republic
The old warehouse was a dilapidated ruin a quarter mile from the shipyard, and Rupert Holmes paid cash for the space – one hundred American dollars upfront, with another hundred promised upon departure, on the conditions of no questions asked and no trouble from the authorities. In truth, Holmes expected this phase of the operation to proceed smoothly, for the soldiers and customs officials manned their checkpoints halfheartedly and paid no attention to the Englishman in their midst.
The problem is not here, he thought. He had been followed for some weeks, hence the dead men in Przemyśl. Someone was onto his movements, but he could not gauge the extent to which he was compromised. The enemy relied on human agents – just as Holmes operated as part of a different network – but he could only guess at its size or geographic reach. At any rate, Gdansk was relatively safe. The problems, Holmes knew, were the transport from London and the final southward push. The journey from London was largely out of his control, but Holmes asked the proprietor of the warehouse about conditions to the south, and the old man, a gap-toothed resistance fighter from the last war, had shaken his head. “Romania isn’t Poland, and if they catch you…” The proprietor drew an index finger across his throat. “One hundred American dollars isn’t nearly enough money for that kind of risk.”
V.
Târgoviște
The knock came as the sun set, and the American took a deep breath as he stared at the front door. The police visited his room every few months, and though there was nothing of interest among the jumble of dirty clothes and old books, he was a foreigner, and foreigners living in Romania – notwithstanding the regime’s claims of international brotherhood – were objects of suspicion. The American became more anxious with each successive visit, for he was certain that he would be arrested at some point. When that happened, his face would be plastered on the front page of every newspaper in Romania, his name read aloud over each radio broadcast. The spy. The foreigner. The infiltrator who steals children. In some alternate universe, his sentence in a Florida prison would be over by now, and though he would be begging on a streetcorner or working in a sweatshop for minimum wage, that alternate version of himself would be free, as free as he had been when he fled his homeland. The American knew of the horror stories of Gherla prison, and he wondered what the authorities would do to a foreigner who had kidnapped (he could not bring himself to say murdered) children. The door swung inward, and he braced himself for the rush of uniformed men.
“Good afternoon.” He looked up in surprise as Acwulf Kiel entered the room. “I hear that you did well during the last search of your living quarters. They found a couple of banned books, a little contraband, but nothing of substance.”
“I thought all of my books were approved.”
“Fashions change, and the law changes to accommodate.” Acwulf clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course, there are things, such as crimes against children, that are judged more harshly. Speaking of which…”
“Oh God,” the American groaned. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing of great concern, but the police have been skulking around various orphanages around the country. A man named Corbu was taken into custody, but he died under interrogation, so that avenue of discovery is closed to them. Of course, it’s always possible that the Securitate will remember the foreigner living in their midst, and if they decide to pay you a visit… let us remember that you are no longer in California.”
“Florida,” he corrected.
“Of course. It was in Florida that your troubles occurred. As I was saying, this is not America, and the Securitate don’t need proof of your involvement to put you in prison.”
“But you said I would be protected!”
“And you are protected. Corbu is gone, and anyone else who might remember you will likewise be repressed. You’ll have to leave Târgoviște, but that was bound to happen in any case – we are finished here, and we are moving to the next phase.”
“I don’t understand. The next phase of what?”
Acwulf smiled, and the grin was like death itself. “I will explain more when our preparations are complete.”
VI.
London
I let the blood drain into the box…
Evangeline Morris woke up late and made tea, and though her belly rumbled, she found nothing of interest in the refrigerator. She decided to go out for brunch instead. English cuisine, she thought, best in the world – the Brits could laugh about their awful cooking, but Evangeline had grown up on fried dough and fatback, and she quite enjoyed the food. “Hire a servant who will cook you a proper meal,” Archie tutted in an old memory, and Evangeline smiled. Americans don’t hire butlers and cleaning ladies, she recited from memory. If I hire a servant, I’ll get a handsome farm boy and use him for other activities. Archie had threatened to post an advertisement in the Times, and for the next week, she had half-expected a parade of young lads on her doorstep, applicants for the domestic servant’s position. In all honesty, she preferred things as they were, for Evangeline wanted no one prying into her affairs.
I made a cut in the palm of my hand. She never spoke of that night in 1957, but Evangeline had slept poorly for weeks afterward, certain that each sunrise would bring news of odd disappearances or unexplained deaths. There were none, and if a fiend walked the streets of London, his movements were oddly quiet. The first envelope appeared on her doorstep in March, a simple request for a black duster and a pair of leather boots. A duster, Evangeline thought, not a cape coat or Mackintosh. Something requested by an American. Other requests followed – for books and newspapers, for small amounts of hard currency, for investments in commercial properties and maritime operations. In 1975, she had provided a map of hospitals and warehouses in Madrid, and four years later, she, along with Sarah Spencer, had made arrangements for the education of a young Dutch girl. You cut the palm of your own hand and let the blood drain into the box, and when you do that, he owns a piece of you.
An envelope, passed through her mail slot as she slept, lay in the foyer. Its paper was of fine quality, though her nostrils detected a hint of offensiveness as she broke the seal. The sentences were written in flawless script, and Evangeline marveled at the elegance of the lettering, for the author wielded the pen with exceptional steadiness – not a stroke was out of place, not a single letter was smudged. She carried the paper to her office and drafted a reply, her meal forgotten as she checked off the items on her mental list – date of departure, route, and cargo. The last item was of secondary concern, for the ship carried only one cargo of importance, and whatever else went into the hold was little more than ballast. Evangeline finished her reply and sat at her desk as she silently repeated the doubt that rose in her mind.
What have I let loose into the world?
VII.
Amsterdam
The girl was quite pretty, a red-haired doppelganger of Caroline Munro, and she shifted her weight nervously from one foot to another as Archie invited her inside.
“You’re Katrina, aren’t you? My mother –”
“Paid for my scholarship in London. I came back for a few days to settle my father’s estate.”
“I’m sorry to hear of his passing.” The statement hung in the air like a false profession of love, for Archie suspected the funeral ceremony had been a meager affair. Everyone in the Netherlands knows about her grandfather. He was grateful when she changed the subject.
“I came to see your mother about… is she home?”
He served tea with slices of black bread, and they sat in silence as the tea grew cold and the butter softened in its serving dish. Katrina Van Helsing picked at her meal without enthusiasm. She’s delaying, Archie thought. Whatever was on her mind, she struggled like a criminal under interrogation, perhaps weighing the harshness of punishment against the awful uncertainty of waiting for the axe to fall. The minutes ticked away in silence, but when she began to speak, Archie was certain that the words would pour out in a torrent…
“I found some papers among my father’s possessions. The journal of a man named Abraham Van Helsing.”
VIII.
“What did you tell her?” Plekhanov sipped at his drink. He had spent the day at the hospital with his mother and was in no mood for surprises.
“Tell her?” Archie shrugged. “She knew most of the story already. All she really wanted was confirmation of what she believes – or wants to believe – already.”
“So, this man Abraham wrote everything down… ochen' podrobno. I’m guessing that you told her that the upyr is a child’s fairy tale, not appropriate for a grown woman. Is that correct?”
“I told her,” Archie said, “that I don’t know the truth – I have the word of my mother and some odd memories from Budapest, but nothing concrete. I did tell her that everyone touched by that story carries it around afterward – it’s like a bloody curse of some sort – and the best thing for her would be to stay as far away as possible. My mother clearly thinks otherwise, for she paid for the girl’s education. For Christ’s sake, what was she thinking? And why would she come here over a story that – true or not – must strike a normal person as madness?”
“I knew her father, and he was a good man.” Alexandr Plekhanov poured a generous quantity of vodka into their glasses. “Her grandfather? When you say the name Van Helsing in Amsterdam, that’s who everyone remembers – a war criminal and murderer. This girl is looking for something to buy back her own name, and perhaps that is unfair – I think she has a good heart, like her father did. This man, or whatever he was, that attacked your mother – I met him, and I watched him die in Budapest. That is why Sarah is not troubled as she was before. If she goes to London, perhaps this girl will discover the truth, perhaps not – either way, she gets to see herself as something more than the offspring of a dead Nazi.”
They drank in silence, and Plekhanov was grateful that Archie had no further questions. In truth, he was troubled by the confluence of Sarah’s collapse and the appearance of the Dutch girl. Quincy Morris died in Budapest in 1956, he thought. The other man – the one they called the Dragon – died a half-century before that, yet he was there as well.
IX.
Madrid
1975
He awakened as the sun passed below the horizon and moved southwest from the empty warehouse that held the truck. The route took him past the Cementerio de la Almudena, and he lingered for a moment to admire the domed chapel, the dense rows of concrete vaults, and the arched northern gate whose design hearkened back to the city’s Moorish heritage. The great necropolis gave him an indefinable feeling of comfort, and he could have wandered the grounds for hours, but he moved onward, for there was work to be done.
The streets were mostly empty, and the remaining pedestrians vanished as he walked the streets and the clock tolled onward toward midnight. Once, he met a young couple flouting the city’s curfew, and he ducked into the shadows as they passed by, hands entwined and lovers’ eyes directed at each other. Beneath the streetlight of a corner pharmacy, a tricorn-hatted guard did see him, and the sentry followed as he sauntered onward. He was alone, and it would not do to have a platoon of troops at his heels, so he slipped into a darkened doorway, and when the unfortunate guard drew near, he saw nothing more than a brief flash of teeth and a blaze of red eyes. For a bare instant, he paused to admire his handiwork – the dead man’s neck remained unmarked, despite the whine of unsatisfied appetite that buzzed in his ears – and continued onward toward the hospital.
Blood. His enemy was a powerful sorcerer, yet in death, some of the enemy’s former abilities had passed to him, a left-handed gift bequeathed by his tormentor. Blood and vengeance. Rupert Holmes had traveled to Madrid on his behalf, and the Englishman’s last report urged him onward – the German would die, but not before his payment was extracted in full. And, of course, love. All of these things were on his mind as he drifted into the darkened room, where Otto Skorzeny lay dying. The sick man retained little power of speech or movement, but he was awake, and his eyes widened as a shadow, out of place with the others, approached the bed. The death of one enemy will hasten the end of another. He opened the blinds, and moonlight flooded through the window as Quincy Morris revealed himself to the dying man.
“Hello, Otto. I’ve waited so long to meet you.”