Dracula's Ghost: Apocalypse - Chapter 15
Part III: The Owl and the Dragon
I.
Van Helsing
1893
He stands in the middle of an overgrown tidal flat, a place that he visited when his son was a child. Abraham Van Helsing has no interest in shooting birds or hares, and it is too cold to be stomping through the mud, for the first snows have already fallen, and the wind bites ferociously into his skin. Why Isaak would choose to bring him hunting on such a blustery day is beyond him. No… you’re not really here. Last night, he camped with Mina at the edge of the plateau, and he remembers building a large fire to protect them from the cold. And from other things, Van Helsing remembers. The sun had been setting, and he remembers being afraid, so very afraid, but the thought flies away on the wind that gusts over the marsh. We huddled together in the dark, he remembers with some difficulty, and the horses, the horses became agitated. And then the women appeared…
When the attack comes, it strikes him with the force of a hammer blow, and Van Helsing staggers beneath its weight.
His nephew stands at the edge of the path, a shotgun draped over one arm, and Van Helsing watches as wisps of smoke curl upward from the breech. Pym stares at his feet, but the snowy air and the smoke drifting from the shotgun obscures his view, and he cannot make out what his nephew sees until he recognizes the boots – I gave those boots to Isaak at Christmas. He steps closer and observes that the shotgun blast has removed a chunk of Isaak’s left side and mangled the upper arm, a grievous wound sufficient to cause death in a matter of minutes. The horses, he remembers. They killed the horses last night. The devil had not left his temple unguarded, and he shudders at the memory of the ghostly women that slipped from the darkness, eerily beautiful even as they tore the horses’ throats away. Van Helsing had waited until first light, when the dead returned to their tombs, and set out across the grim plateau. They cannot move in the daylight, but they have other weapons. He tries to remember the task at hand, but it is difficult to think in the presence of his son’s corpse.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Uncle Abraham?” Pym smiles with bloody teeth. “The effect upon one’s psyche is quite fascinating. I thought that I would feel afraid, or even guilty, when I pulled the trigger, but in truth, it’s delightful – makes a man feel like Zeus sending lightning from Olympus, or the angel of death smiting the firstborn of Egypt. Really, you should try it when you get the chance.”
“You won’t get away with it,” Van Helsing says, but there is no conviction in his voice.
Pym Van Helsing laughs, the silvery, musical sound of a waterglass played by a cunning hand. His nephew has always been handsome (though Isaak was the better man, his mind asserts), but in the moment, he is beautiful, his smooth, almost feminine face, ringed in masses of blonde hair, his eyes like pale sapphires. The recognition stirs a memory in Van Helsing, but it floats just out of reach and is wafted away on the current of rage, red and beating, that washes over him.
“Would you like to try it?” It is his nephew’s voice, but Van Helsing is certain that the words emanate from his dead son. “Of course, there’s no one here but you and I – and poor Isaak, of course – but don’t let that stop you. You can even use my shotgun, if you like.”
“The police will find you…”
“The police?” Pym’s tongue darts outward, moistening the full red lips. “The police have already been here! I was perfectly horrified, of course, that my beloved cousin would step in front of me at the instant that I lined up on a hare, but they were very understanding. An unfortunate accident – do you understand what I am saying? An accident. If you want justice for your dead son, you’ll have to take matters into your own hands. All you have to do is take the shotgun…”
“No.”
“… And shoot him.” Isaak’s head turns upon dead shoulders as he sits upright. “You can have your revenge, and we can be together again when the sun sets.”
“I’m so sorry, Isaak – I can’t.”
“You fucking weakling – take the gun and kill him!” The voice echoes through the empty hallways of the castle, across the barren plateau and the leafless trees of the forest. Later, Abraham Van Helsing will be certain that Mina has cried out, a clarion of woe and pity that jolts him from his trance, but in the moment, he hears only his own wail as he stumbles backward and falls upon the broken stones of the chapel.
He sits upright, his back aching, then forces himself to his feet. A breeze blows through an opening in the wall, but the air is stale and unwholesome, the odor of a place shut up for too long. His dead son and murdering nephew are gone, their shades banished into whatever dark recess of his mind had conjured them, and for the second time that morning he peers into the open coffin. The dead woman’s hair falls about her shoulders in perfect blonde ringlets, and the pale sapphires of her eyes stare vacantly upward. God in Heaven, he thinks, remembering how his hand reached for the shotgun. An instant longer, and he would have been trapped within his own dream, pursuing the phantom of his nephew across a wasteland conjured by his imagination, within sight but just out of reach as the hours ticked away until sunset.
I slipped through her fingers, and she will not have me again. Abraham Van Helsing retrieves his bag, and as the morning sun approaches its apogee, he fumbles through his medical bag before peering into the coffin one final time, a sharpened stake in his hand.
II.
Amsterdam
1989
Archie sat at his mother’s bedside, holding her hand and whispering into her ear as the sun rose and night became day. By an unspoken agreement with Alexandr Plekhanov, they had taken to watching her at night, for her rare bouts of semiconsciousness occurred after sunset. And if she dies after the sun goes down, Plekhanov wants to be sure that she is not left unattended. Just in case… A pang of guilt stabbed at Archie’s chest, for the Russian would be looking after his mother for the foreseeable future.
Plekhanov was already awake when he returned home, and Archie sipped hot tea and ate half a bowl of honeyed buckwheat porridge. He had held up well, Archie thought, for the townhome remained neat, and the Russian had maintained a routine of regular walks each morning. The only sign of stress that he betrayed was a tiredness, akin to a mild case of narcolepsy, and Archie wondered whether Plekhanov, like himself, was tormented by dreams. His conscience pinged him again, but his mind was made up.
“I need to go back to London,” he said.
III.
Romania
The convoy, thirty well-armed men in military uniforms, headed north from Bucharest, and the great horseshoe of the Carpathians yielded to lowlands as they descended into Brasov. Suta weighed the option of continuing their northward flight, but the Polish border was three hundred kilometers distant, and the Securitate’s first step, once his treachery was uncovered, would be to carefully monitor every crossing. They turned west as his thoughts returned to the old listening post, safely hidden among the high peaks – Ceausescu had the state radio and television network, and they needed something to even the odds. The convoy made another turn when they reached Sibiu, and as morning turned to afternoon, the colonel gazed through the windscreen as they began to climb again, praying their great looping route would throw off any pursuers.
IV.
Ustka, Poland
The Poles relished their newfound freedom, and Holmes was pleased to find a street vendor hawking sausages at the water’s edge. “Czy to dobrze?” he asked, and Holmes nodded. Yes – very good. He sniffed the mingled aromas of seaside air and the vendor’s wares and found it very good indeed. Fifty years of suffering, he thought, caught between the twin evils of Hitler and Stalin. Perhaps it’s over at last. Beside him, Katrina Van Helsing devoured her food, and Holmes wondered when she had last eaten. She had been mostly silent since their return to land, avoiding his eyes and resisting all attempts at conversation, and when her meal was finished, she left him and walked to the water’s edge. Holmes joined her.
“Why me, Mr. Holmes?” The incoming waves lapped at their feet, and he noted the flecks of blood on her shoes. “Of all the people in the world, why me?”
“You read your uncle’s papers,” he replied. “Harker, Seward, Morris, Van Helsing. Poor Seward, whom I met only at the autopsy suite, left no children, and the surviving descendants of Jonathan Harker are… too old? I don’t know half the logic behind his actions, but Quincy thought you essential. Van Helsing – the last survivor of the line, and the only one still fit for a long journey.”
“The funny thing is, I wanted to believe.” Katrina twisted a knot of hair around one finger as she spoke. “My grandfather was an evil man, and I wanted to believe that I was more than the disgraced offspring of a murderer. But now that I’ve seen with my own eyes…”
“You’re having second thoughts.”
“I’m thinking that my uncle would have thrown that miserable box into the ocean instead of tucking it onto a lorry. I saw what Quincy did on the ship, and it saved my life, but I can’t help feeling that I’m letting a monster loose into the world.”
“You’re right,” Holmes nodded, “and he is our only weapon against a far deadlier foe.”
“We’re going to die out there.” She stared toward the horizon. The sky was the cloudless blue of early autumn, but the breeze was cold, a harbinger of the coming winter. “We’re going to die, and we’re going to fail, and all of it will have been for nothing.”
“Perhaps we will die,” Holmes replied, “but I don’t believe that we – that you – will fail.”
“Why not?”
“He chose you for a reason.” She placed a hand upon his arm, and Holmes found himself steadied by her touch. “You fear your grandfather’s legacy, but I believe that Quincy looked at you and saw your uncle’s heart – not your grandfather’s. And that gives me hope.”
Katrina continued to stare toward the horizon as she dipped a toe into the lapping water. She was too far from home, stranded on the shore of a foreign country without options, without hope. “I saw your future, dear granddaughter.” She had been convinced of the certainty of her own death, but Jos had been proven wrong, and if her escape had been a matter of inches, she had escaped – the cold breeze, the tang of sea air, the spicy taste of sausage that lingered on her tongue, were proof enough. “Don’t be so sure of yourself,” her grandfather whispered from the outer darkness. “The next time your ship sinks, you won’t be so lucky.”
Perhaps I won’t, she thought. Next time, perhaps, the ship will sink. The sick feeling of dread did not abate, but the cajoling voice of Jos Van Helsing only strengthened her resolve. Sometimes, you have to jump in the water and swim.
V.
Bucharest
“Well? Where is he?”
Iulian Vlad stood at attention, his eyes focused on the opposite wall as the Boss raged about the office. He had been aiming for the downfall of Acwulf Kiel and had managed only to ensnare the hapless colonel – and Mihai Suta had slipped out of Bucharest in a callous act of disloyalty. Perhaps, dear Nicu, the army’s betrayal can be used to our advantage. Now the Securitate was the only trustworthy center of power that remained, and the president would lean upon them for guidance. A few glib reassurances would be enough to appease the Boss’s wrath, and Nicolae Ceausescu would never consider that the author of this debacle stood mere feet in front of his desk.
“I heard that a thousand men followed him into the mountains.” Ceausescu’s voice was tinged with an edge of real fear. “Who was watching the army? I want full accountability for the mistakes, and –”
“Our estimates are somewhat lower.” In truth, the Director General suspected that no more than fifty men had abandoned their posts. “Let’s say that there are two hundred traitors among the ranks of the army…”
“There are more than that, I can assure you.”
“Of course, but most will not rise on their own initiative. They will wait to see where the wind is blowing, and when the colonel’s treason fails, they will return to their barracks – and that is when we will strike.”
“And root out all disloyalty.” The redness in the Boss’s cheeks was beginning to fade. “One more thing, Iulian – where is Acwulf?”
“With the other traitors, perhaps…”
“No – I’m not convinced of his guilt. Find him and bring him to Bucharest, so that I can have a word with him in person. Understand?” The Boss, satisfied that his point had been made, began to fiddle with his tie. “That will be all for now.”
He left the presidential palace and returned to his car, a Mercedes, which he had smuggled from Germany at great expense. Few citizens were allowed such amenities, and the Director General had no intention of endangering his own position for the sake of a single agent. For fourteen years, that damned German ran his own network right under our noses. Iulian Vlad cursed at his own poor judgement, for he had tasked the army with Acwulf’s arrest, and they had bungled the job in spectacular fashion. And why the President wants him alive is beyond me. That problem, at least, was an easy one to solve. It’s a simple matter to arrange a disappearance.
And if I have my way, he won’t survive to see the inside of an interrogation room.
VI.
Amsterdam
“There are many kinds of angels… the highest ones linger outside a lady’s bedroom window as she sleeps and comfort her with kisses.”
Sarah Spencer wandered the cemetery as the wind stirred the dry leaves at her feet and the nightmare lingered in her mind. She had been lying in a hospital bed, unable to move or speak, and she had been so old that the face of her son was marked with the wrinkles of old age, his red hair gray and thinning. “I need to go, mum.” Archie had gently clasped her fingers as he whispered in her ear. “I have to attend to some business in London, and… if I don’t come back, I want you to know that I love you. You were everything that I could have asked for, and so much more.”
He acts without thinking, she thought. Archie had always been an impetuous boy, and Sarah laid the blame partly upon his upbringing – he had been half-feral during their years in India – and partly upon her own neglect. Behind his mild demeanor, her son was fierce and utterly fearless, and those traits pleased her immensely, but she had failed to instill balance in her child. He has too much of his grandmother and not enough of his grandfather. Jonathan Harker could have taught the boy caution, but Archie had been given a double portion of Mina’s spirit, and Sarah feared that his bravery would be his doom.
Does he know what is in Carfax Abbey? The enemy had left a guardian, and that knowledge had lain quietly for ninety-six years. Neither her father nor Quincy Morris had suspected the truth. Sarah knew, because in the twilight world between life and death, she could see him, skulking about the roof and peering through the high windows. “The lower angels linger around churchyards, and the least of them are fit for very little, save perhaps for guarding an empty house.” She sat on an old tombstone and wept, for the lingering nightmare was her reality; somewhere in the world above, she was dying, alone and helpless, as her son went forth upon a doomed quest.
Archie has no idea that he is walking into a trap.