Dracula's Ghost: Apocalypse - Chapter 2

Part I: First Voyage of the Ceres

Table of Contents

I.

Dracula

Long ago, I was a prince.

The acolytes walk through the mountains for days, and he does not remember his last meal, or the last time that he lay upon a rough pallet to catch a few hours of sleep. They walk through rain and snow, utter darkness and scorching daylight, through weather that does not fit the season and seasons wholly different from what he remembers of the calendar. He has lived here for a lifetime, and he knows these mountains well, yet the path is unfamiliar. They should have reached their destination long ago, yet they continue to walk for days, months, centuries.

Later, when all has gone horribly wrong and reflection is no more than a brief diversion between bouts of slaughter, he will wonder whether the memories of his former life are truly his own, for as the peasants avoid the high mountaintops and the castle decays about him, his recollections seem to be those of another, and he knows himself only as a gibbering, red-eyed ghoul that leaves ruin in his wake. As the centuries pass and he regains (gains?) the ability to reason, he will cherish these memories like ingots of gold hoarded by a dragon, and he will seek out books, maps, minds with useful memories, upon which to build the edifice of his past. Eventually, he will seek the aid of a solicitor’s clerk named Jonathan Harker, a stepping stone upon which to build the future.

For now, however, there is only the endless walk.

Scholomance is located on the shores of a deep alpine lake, which peasant folklore sometimes identifies as Lake Bâlea, but he knows better, for as the group crosses the gap between the mountains and he glimpses the shoreline for the first time, the waters of that narrow tarn are unlike any that he has ever seen, a dazzling blue not meant for human eyes. Likewise, the forest of the surrounding mountains are a deep verdant green, the mythical woods of some fairy-land or Valhalla of which he dreamed as a child, and he wonders for a moment whether he has died and been carried away – against all odds – to Paradise. The air is utterly silent, and if he listens closely, he imagines he can hear the beating heart of the earth itself, slowly dying and being reborn.

“Oh my – there seems to have been an error.” The witch counts off their number in an exaggerated cadence as the acolytes shift uncomfortably in their black robes. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten… eleven.  Let us begin with the first lesson – what is wrong with the count?” 

“One too many.” He suspects that several of the others have deduced the answer, but he is the first to speak. “There are supposed to be only ten of us.”

“Very good.” The witch’s eyes are milky white, and it moves with the frailty of extreme old age. “In the world outside, you’re known for your courage and ruthlessness, but I never expected such cleverness in a young boy. Now, my young warrior… if there are eleven in this little group of pilgrims, but I only have room for ten students… why do you suppose that is? Has there been a mistake somewhere?”

I never expected such cleverness in a young boy. He is startled by a glimpse at his own hands, for though he set off from his home in middle age, the skin of his forearms is hairless and unblemished, the palms of his hands free of calluses. Something about this newfound youth troubles him, and the answer sticks in his throat.

“Go on,” the witch purrs. “Tell us the answer, unless you think one of the others more worthy.”

“Because the eleventh is the price of admission for the others,” he says.  “At Scholomance, the Devil claims the eleventh scholar as his due.”

“Very good.”  A smile spreads over the wrinkled face, and he notices the rotted teeth.  “Who should we choose?  You pick.” 

He looks about the circle. The faces of the others are indistinct, and though they have spent (Weeks? Years?) in each other’s company, he struggles to remember their features. The youth, however, he sees clearly, a boy of perhaps eighteen who breathes through his open mouth as his eyes cast nervous glances at his companions. He looks at the boy and sees a weakling – a small, resentful child who hopes that mastery of the dark arts will give him all that has been denied him in life. The boy does not belong here with the strong – with him – and he senses it in the darting gaze and rapid breaths. As he points, he suspects that the youth knows it as well.

“You do it,” the witch says as the milky eyes hold his own.

The knife is in his hand, though he has no memory of drawing from the sheath at his belt. He has killed in battle and has even committed what might be called murder when the ends suited him, but now he hesitates – he feels no compassion for the boy, but to accept the witch’s challenge seems fraught with consequence, and he hesitates on the cusp of action. Not too late to turn back… There is a flash of sunlight upon steel, a sharp cry of pain and fear, and the boy lies dead upon the earth. He closes his eyes, breathing deeply, and when he opens them again, there is no body at his feet – there is only a dark stain, as if the earth itself has swallowed the youth whole.  He allows himself a smile, though his amusement is tinged with an undercurrent of fear as he breaks the silence.

“Perhaps he should have been a priest instead.”

II.

Amsterdam

1989

She had lived in London for the last five years, and if her father had not died suddenly, Katrina Van Helsing would have been content to remain there, biding her time until the fall of 1990, when she would enter Stanford Medical School and escape the confines of Europe for good. Her father, had he possessed any sense, would have joined her in London, far from the tabloid headlines and the disapproving looks of neighbors, but Eric Van Helsing had insisted that she go alone. “You’re a grown woman now, and you don’t need me tagging along behind you. Besides, it’s not as bad as you think – all kinds of people made bad decisions during the war.”

Yes, there were plenty of collaborators, she thought, but not many sold their souls to Adolf Hitler. Her grandfather had been a true believer, and when the Germans invaded in 1940, Jos Van Helsing became one of the first enrollees in the Niederlande SS volunteer unit.  By the end of 1941, he had seen heavy combat on the Eastern Front, and in 1943, Jos returned home to root out the country’s Jewish population.  140,000 Jews in the Netherlands in 1939, and seventy-five percent of those were murdered by 1945.  How many were killed on his orders?  How many were killed directly by his hand?  If he had been captured at the war’s end, Jos Van Helsing would have hanged as a war criminal; instead, he had escaped to Argentina.  For thirty years, and for most of her own childhood, he had remained there, an obscure cattle rancher slowly forgotten in his homeland.  All of that had changed in 1975, when the newspaper ran a black banner headline above a grainy photograph:   

DUTCH WAR CRIMINAL SPOTTED AT SKORZENY FUNERAL

Four years later, her grandfather was arrested in Buenos Aires and extradited to the Hague, where he was sentenced to life in prison. Katrina had been thirteen, and each successive day had brought her a fresh experience in some new circle of hell – a swastika was painted on her gymnasium locker, old photos of Jos were taped to the walls, and she endured the whispers of classmates as she passed in the hallway. One day, an older boy had followed her to the water closet.

“My family was in the resistance, and we killed every collaborator that we found. Make it worth my time, and maybe I’ll let you live.” A different girl, one whose grandfather was no war criminal, might have cried for help, but Katrina was the offspring of a Nazi, and she had not dared to scream. The boy had grabbed her wrist and pawed at her skirt before she managed to twist free, and Katrina had fled the gymnasium, spending the rest of the afternoon in a fugue state of shame. It's not your fault, her mind insisted, but the words refused to sink into her consciousness. Instead, she took comfort in another mantra as she wandered, alone and friendless, through the streets.  Leave this place.  Leave and go where no one knows your name. Jos died in prison in 1986, and Eric Van Helsing had outlived his father by three years. Barely fifty, and already an old man, she thought sadly. By then, Katrina was studying in London, her tuition paid from an obscure scholarship for promising students, courtesy of the Arthur Holmwood Memorial Foundation. How they had selected her, Katrina never knew.

Her grandfather had written her exactly once:  Dear Katrina, I hear you’ve decided to go into medicine.  My great uncle Abraham was a doctor, and well regarded in his time, but given the Jewish connotations of his name and the rumors that swirled around his state of mind, for I hear that he was quite mad, you should weigh this information when considering your choice of career. Tell your father to send money for the prison commissary. Katrina had thrown the letter in the rubbish bin without bothering to answer.  She remembered it now, as she combed through the pitiful remnants of her father’s possessions, boxed away by one of his few friends. Plekhanov – the Russian. Katrina remembered him vaguely, a cantankerous man who seemed barely more than a street criminal but who treated her warmly and lived, oddly enough, in one of the better sections of the city. The box included a pile of unanswered letters from her grandfather (long proclamations of fealty to Adolf Hitler interspersed with requests for money), an old journal, and her letter from the Arthur Holmwood Memorial Foundation’s London office. Her contact in London, who provided a small stipend and assisted her with living arrangements, had been an Englishman named Rupert Holmes, but the letter was signed by a woman named Sarah Spencer. Katrina rubbed the paper between her thumb and forefinger, trying to remember if she had ever met anyone by that name. The foundation’s letter and the old journal went into her handbag, items of interest to be perused at her leisure.

Her grandfather’s letters went into the trash.

III.

Strait of Dover

The ferry bounced as it plowed through the waves, and Archie watched from the stern as the white cliffs receded in his wake. When he reached Calais, the train would take him through Brussels, Antwerp, and Rotterdam before debarking in Amsterdam by mid-afternoon. Four countries in four hours, he thought, from war to quasi-unity in a generation. Archie hoped that agreements in London and Paris and Bonn – and perhaps soon in Berlin and Warsaw and Prague – would herald the birth of a new world, for the collapse of the old empires had birthed a quarter-century of bloody fanaticism and four decades of stalemate between east and west.

He had arranged the trip after a call from Amsterdam, and though his mother’s voice had sounded normal Archie had been unnerved by the unexpected ringing of the telephone. Sarah Spencer wrote frequently, but her visits to London were rare (Sarah disliked the Channel crossing), and she never called. Archie had asked if everything was all right.

“Of course it is – can’t a mother call her son every now and then?”

The wind blew a mixture of salt air and diesel smoke into his face as Archie read the newspaper. Hungary to end one-party rule.  The Hungarians had dismantled their border fence the prior month, and the Soviet Union had done nothing to stem the flood of East German refugees that passed through Budapest en route to Vienna and Bonn. Commuter assaulted in London Underground.  A businessman had been accosted after working late and was recovering in the hospital.  Completion of Chunnel scheduled for 1993.

Chunnel? For the love of God, who came up with such an awful name? The concept made him uneasy, for a tunnel that ran beneath 300 meters of seabed seemed little more than a tomb, its train an oversized coffin. His mother, who avoided the sea but had no fear of dark places, had scoffed at his uncertainty. “It’s just a train. They’ll reinforce the tunnel with concrete and pump in fresh air. Frankly, I’d like to see it myself, if I live long enough.”

IV.

London

The dog was a wire-haired mongrel of no particular talent, its bloodline a mixture of herders, rat catchers, fighting dogs, and various other breeds. It specialized in nothing, but the vestigial traits bestowed by its lineage worked to the dog’s advantage, for in shedding the specialization of its more refined cousins, it became a generalist, adept at survival in the empty car parks and back alleys, or in the intermittent patches of green space that dotted Greater London like a chessboard.  He survived upon handouts and discarded scraps and eluded the animal welfare officers that prowled the city for his kind. 

His favorite haunt was the cemetery, for the trees that grew among the tombstones provided shade and tight places for hiding, and when the crowds were not too thick, he could emerge onto the heath and luxuriate in the tall grass.  There was plenty of game as well, and though he caught little, the chase kept his muscles strong, his joints supple, and the occasional catch produced an exultant joy so great that it seemed to burst from his protruding ribs. The dog enjoyed the company of the people that wandered among the graves, for he was no wolf to shirk from civilization, but he maintained a safe distance, always watchful for rock-throwing children or uniformed men with catch poles. In the daytime, the cemetery was populated by a cross-section of the city – parents pointed out ancestral graves to their young children, old men and women visited departed parents or spouses, and historians studied the tombstones carefully, perhaps attempting to discern the mysteries contained therein. These vanished with the setting sun, and the nighttime crowd was a younger, rowdier bunch that scaled the walls to share cigarettes and beer and to swap stories as they wandered among the graves.

“Everyone knows the woods are haunted. I heard it’s the restless spirit of the last witch burned in England.”  

“Nah, mate, it was Jack the Ripper – he was a distant cousin of the queen’s, and they covered up what he had done, but they wouldn’t bury him with the rest of the royal family.  Every now and then, a tart walks across his grave, and she’s never seen again.”

“That’s bollocks.  What I heard…” 

“Maybe it’s the groupie that overdosed at a Zeppelin concert in ‘75…”

“That was the Stones, not Zeppelin, and it happened in Manchester in ’77. The girl from ’75 was carried off by the vampire – don’t laugh at me, you twit! It happens all the time. I had a friend in Birmingham…” 

“Fucking Birmingham?  Who ever heard of a vampire in Birmingham?  Now my cousin, he knew of a chap from Exeter…”

The woman who walked the path on this particular afternoon carried no catch pole, so he followed from a safe distance but did not bother to remain hidden. A keen observer of his surroundings, the dog’s existence was a world of sensation and association, and every sound taken in by his ears, every smell that tickled the receptors of his nose, was taken in and cataloged within his brain for future reference. This woman had a friendly smell, soap tinged with perfume that reminded him of strangers with food, but something about her gait made him slightly anxious. Most visitors lumbered about and took no notice of their surroundings (had the dog’s brain been equipped for hypotheticals, he might have wondered how they survived at all), but the woman moved slowly, her posture erect as her eyes scanned the trees. The dog maintained his course behind the woman – he was not especially brave, but he was curious, and he was fast. If the man appeared with his catch-pole, the woman would be easier prey.

The wind shifted, and the dog picked up a new scent as the air wafted past his nostrils. It was an odd smell, one that reminded him vaguely of the dead fish that he had found at the edge of a pond, but where that had been a luxuriant aroma – he had happily rolled in the stench for a good five minutes – this smell disquieted him, and a sharp whine arose in his throat. Evangeline Morris paused at a fork in the trail and rubbed her lips with one hand, then retreated in the direction of her car, walking quickly. The dog faded into the bushes as she passed.

The odor continued to vex him, for though the dog was familiar with danger in all its guises, from catch poles to city buses to larger dogs, this scent smelled of none of those things. Six months ago, a bull mastiff had mauled one of his legs, and something about that smell released a flood of images in his mind – blood, the flash of moonlight on sharp teeth, the stench of healing wounds. The memory raised the hackles on the crest of his neck, but the dog remained curious, for a bad dog might be guarding a cache of food, and perhaps he could steal a morsel. He continued down the path, his senses alert and his muscles tensed for flight at the first hint of danger.

The journey ended in a small clearing, and the dog lifted his leg at the base of the stone angel. The entrance to the structure was barred by a rusted gate, and this place had been deserted for a long time – not even mice sought shelter within its walls.  However, the stench was stronger than ever, a smell of old sweat and blood, and after a moment, the association clicked into place. He had killed the occasional grass snake in parks or backyard gardens, but he was always wary of the small reptiles, perhaps warned by instinct against a fatal bite.  This snake was larger and more dangerous, and though it remained hidden from view, the air was foul with its scent.  Snakes were stealthy and swift by turns, much faster than humans with catch poles, and this one smelled large enough to make a meal of him. 

Perhaps it was watching him now, waiting for him to make a fatal misstep. 

His courage failed, and the dog fled from the tomb, not looking back to see what might follow.

V.

Amsterdam

She rose early and walked to the art gallery, basking in the rising sun as she strolled by the canal. Sarah had dabbled in painting since 1956, and though her own pieces were fairly crude, the practice gave her an appreciation for the workmanship of the Old Masters and the craft of street artists who toiled on the banks of the canals. Several pieces hung on her walls, and she pondered them frequently, wondering which of the unknowns would be remembered in a hundred years. The portraits and landscapes were a soothing palliative, something to calm her nerves, though she felt relaxed and happy this morning – last night’s sleep had been untroubled by bad dreams, and her visit to London seemed almost like a dream itself.

She crossed the street and stopped dead in her tracks. Rudolf Diels watched her from the far side of the canal. Pedestrians walked past the dead man, and Diels took no note of them – his eyes were firmly affixed upon Sarah. She turned away and continued walking, and when she dared a backward glance, Diels was gone.

The gallery was small and dimly lit, and she lingered among the paintings, casting the occasional glance toward the street, even as she reminded herself that there was nothing to fear from the dead. Ghosts are only ghosts, nothing more. Besides, the sun is shining outside. All the same, she could not shake the sensation of gloomy dread that settled upon her. That’s because Rudolf wouldn’t simply appear. If he is here now, something bad is about to happen. Sarah huddled in one corner of the art gallery, breathing deeply as she worked up her courage, and stepped into the street. She had left no note when she departed, and Alexandr would be worried if she was not home soon.

She walked quickly as she approached the canals, shivering a little in the morning air. A railway crossed the canal, and where the railbed passed over the water, a series of counterweights served to raise and lower the span for the passage of maritime traffic. Those counterweights loomed ominously above her now, a gibbet built for giants, and she ducked quickly into the tunnel. The off-white bricks were decorated with graffiti, and though there was little traffic, Sarah hugged the wall, as if to step into the open was to court certain death.

She looked up. On the opposite side of the underpass, Rudolf Diels stood in the bicycle lane.

Sarah’s breath caught in her throat. Diels was dressed in a woodsman’s garb, and the shirt was soiled by a large bloodstain that spread outward from the center of the chest. Go back, Rudolf. Her mind repeated the words like a mantra as she continued to walk, her eyes resolutely forward. Go back to wherever you came from.

The road made a slight left turn as she exited the underpass, and Sarah crossed the street to the row of houses. Diels lingered at the fringe of her vision, and others joined as she quickened her pace. A woman stood at the edge of the canal, her dress soaking wet and her long hair matted with leaves. Sarah remembered her face but not her name, and in the extremity of her fright, she could not remember where they had met. A man in priest’s garb joined her. I met him in Vienna… no, Budapest. I met him in Budapest. The muscles of her legs felt old and frail as she drew nearer to home, passing Jack Seward, who she remembered from childhood, and Arthur Holmwood, who she knew only from photographs. Seward was covered in burns, and Arthur wore an expression of deep unhappiness. They’re all waiting for me, Sarah thought. Everyone who was touched by Quincy Morris is waiting for me. My mother will be waiting when I get to my front door, she thought. She will have a wounded throat and scarred forehead, and when the front door opens, she will pull me into a dark place. She kept walking, her feet carrying her inexorably forward, as she rounded the corner. The front door stood open like the entrance to a tomb, and Sarah froze at the sight of the man who greeted her. Another pedestrian approached, perhaps sensing her distress, but Sarah did not notice – the veil between this world and the next had been rent asunder, and she stood trembling at the threshold.

“Sigmund?”

“I’m sorry, Sarah. I tried to protect you.”

The ground rushed upward to meet her, and though her head struck the flagstones, there was no pain, no sensation of vertigo – indeed, she felt surprisingly weightless. The pedestrian rushed forward, and though he had seen her fall, his first impression was that the woman had been dead for a long time, for her skin was colder than the surrounding air. Finally, he noted her shallow breathing and after an instant of hesitation, began pounding upon the door.

V.

Romania

The house lay at the terminus of one of the long hollows that carved through the foothills of the Carpathians, the decaying abode of some long-forgotten nobleman or an industrialist from the last century. Târgoviște, where the American lived, was fifty kilometers to the south. He had lived in Romania for the past ten years, trading a failed academic career and a long prison sentence for the drab existence of Nicolae Ceausescu’s would-be utopia, and he traveled freely about the country, driving his little Trabant when gasoline was available and riding the train or walking when the tanks were empty. The Communist authorities, by some tacit but ironclad agreement, ignored him completely.

Mostly ignored, he thought, for he had several contacts in the Securitate, Romania’s secret police, and he performed occasional tasks at their behest. Most of these were fairly menial jobs, translating English documents into Romanian or reporting on the comings and goings of his neighbors, but his work had taken an odd turn over the last twelve months. The American was a familiar sight around the orphanages of Bucharest and Ploesti where he delivered payments in cigarettes and other contraband via prior arrangements. In turn, the orphanages delivered packages into his care, and the American made his deliveries to the old house, following the same procedure for each delivery. Always arrive at least one hour before sunset.  Secure the package in the basement and lock the front door when you leave.  Return twenty-four hours later, and payment will be left at the top of the cellar stairs.

The American hefted the bag of gold in his right hand – his own needs were minimal, and he had no desire for luxury beyond the occasional night of companionship in Bucharest and the low-quality narcotics that were smuggled across the Turkish border. The large windows were secured with boards, and he gauged the light that penetrated the gaps in the wood. Never – under any circumstances – linger after the sun sets. It was time to go, but something caught his attention, and he returned to the top of the stairs. The quality of the shoe had surprised him, for Romanian footwear was generally of shoddy workmanship, little better than cardboard, and even these were too valuable to discard – the children that he brought to the house were mostly barefoot. This child, a girl, had been wearing a school uniform – navy vest over a shirt of lighter blue, woolen gray skirt – when he took her from the orphanage, and the quality of her attire suggested a family of some standing. Odd that such a girl would end up where she did.

He pitched the shoe down the cellar stairs and left without a backward glance.

VI.

Madrid, 1975

They removed the first tumor from his spine in 1970, and though he made his peace with death – Otto Skorzeny found it ironic that he should die in bed after half a lifetime as a fugitive – the cancer did not return, and for a while, it seemed that he would recover fully. As the previous winter turned to spring, he had developed a hacking cough, and when he began to spit up blood, he returned to the doctor. The radiation treatments slowed the progress of his disease but did not halt its march through his body, and the doctor gave him no more than six months.

The cancer, the slow-motion failure of his body, did not frighten him – the ghosts did. Twice, he saw a man watching him, once as he drove to the hospital for treatment, and a second time lingering outside his private room late at night. Skorzeny knew the man well enough – he had put two bullets into the Englishman in 1933. You’re dead. Sometimes, during bouts of fitful sleep, he dreamed of another ghost, a long-haired Romanian woman that he had killed shortly after the death of the Englishman. Soon enough, every dead Russian from Stalingrad, every Jew murdered in Poland, will be showing up at my doorstep, demanding a reckoning for my sins. The thought made him smile grimly, but no others came to call – only the dead Englishman lingered nearby, and only the Romanian woman haunted his dreams.

I am afraid, he thought. Not of death itself, but of what I will see at the end.