Dracula's Ghost - Chapter 15
A Man of Diabolical Cast
FIFTEEN
Galatz, Kingdom of Romania
1893
The ship, bound for Varna, is blown off-course by the storm. When the fog clears, the crew find themselves at the mouth of the Danube, nearly two hundred miles north of their destination, and the captain orders them to put in for the nearest port. He is surprised to find an agent waiting for them at the docks. Just before sunrise, the captain thinks, too early for Customs to inspect the cargo.
I.
Hungary
1933
They passed fallow fields and empty villages as they drove across the plain. Sarah felt a little better by the second day; her appetite improved, and on occasion, she even found herself smiling. Even so, Sigmund’s death remained an open wound, and when she cried, Sarah turned away from the woman at her side. Do not trust her.
“Where are the people?” Sarah asked as Gabriela swerved to avoid the fox in their path.
“Most of them were killed in the Red Terror. The Communists came after the War, and they murdered royalists, priests, and peasants that resisted collectivization.” Gabriela pointed toward a field. “My husband is out there somewhere. He crossed the border to trade smuggled grain for liquor and tobacco and never returned. I was nineteen years old.”
She let her thoughts return to the summer of 1916. Her parents had taken the news John Quincy’s death quietly. Mina politely excused herself, and Sarah listened to her sobbing behind a locked door until a maid shooed her away. Mina would say later that a piece of her had died with John Quincy, but she emerged whole, if wounded, from the ordeal. Her father had listened patiently as His Majesty’s representative explained that there would be no special citation for gallantry, given the number of men that had died that day. Jonathan Harker had nodded his understanding, certain that John Quincy and the others had done their duty as best they could. Over time, she noticed subtle changes in her father - long silences, a tremor in his right hand that never quite faded - and Sarah recognized that some vital cord in his psyche had frayed with the loss of his son. It was only because of Amy, she suspected, a surrogate daughter who lent him purpose in his most desperate hour, that Jonathan had not broken completely after Mina’s death.
“What happened after your husband died?” She searched Gabriela’s dark eyes for sadness and found only resignation.
“The royalists seized power, and the White Terror murdered socialists, trade unionists, and intellectuals.” Gabriela turned onto a smaller road that was little more than a path. “The killers became victims, and the victims became killers.”
The fields yielded to a tangle of stunted trees, and the road ended at the bank of a small river. Other than the occasional birdsong, the air was silent. Gabriela whistled, and two boys, gaunt and filthy, emerged from the brush. They smiled shyly at the women and spoke to Gabriela in an unknown tongue before vanishing into the brush. They returned ten minutes later, riding the current on a large raft.
“Welcome to Romania.” Gabriela smiled as the boys pushed the car onto the raft. “Climb aboard, please.”
They floated downstream for five miles before exiting on the south bank.
II.
London
Jonathan’s bladder ached, but he lay still, dreading the pounding of the morning’s hangover. Sunlight streamed through the window, and he reached for the pocket watch at his bedside. Half past ten. The dreams had been exceptionally vivid – hot wind across the grassland, riders on black horses bearing down on him, and that awful box. The dream repeated throughout the night, a recurring cycle of horror and despair, and he tried to remember its terrible denouement. After ten minutes, he gave up – he still had work to do, and Holmes would be waiting for him. Jonathan staggered out of bed and went downstairs. Holmes sat on the sofa and nursed a cup of tea, his own eyes bloodshot. Having a few bad dreams of your own? He presented the check and explained that in calculating the amount, he had made a best estimate of Holmes’s expenses and his possible loss of employment.
Holmes whistled at the amount. “This trip must be more dangerous than I thought.”
Two hours later, Jonathan made his travel arrangements, nodding patiently as the clerk went over the railway schedule. Direct from Paris to Istanbul, with stops in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Bucharest. His other request was somewhat incongruous with the railway ticket in his pocket, but if the clerk considered it odd, it was not his job to question a customer’s wishes. When he was finished, Jonathan had a light lunch before driving to the airfield.
The plane’s innards were open to the air as Amy fiddled with the engine. Jonathan did not bother to ask – she had tried to explain wingspans, pistons, and various other minutiae, but to Jonathan, the workings of an airplane were one step above sorcery.
“How’s everything coming?”
“The weather might be a little sporty, and the passenger door pops open in midair if you aren’t careful to latch it properly. Otherwise, it’s a piece of cake.” Amy placed her wrench on a worktable. “Your expense check looks a little heavy though. What are we smuggling? Bootleg liquor? Opium?”
A pang of guilt stabbed at his heart. Mina would have loved her. She saw the look on his face, and her smile faded.
“What’s bothering you, sir?”
“I’m just worried because it’s a dangerous journey,” he said. “If we stick to the plan, you should be all right.”
“I should be all right,” she nodded. “I trust you John, but is there something more you need to tell me?”
Oh, there is, Amy. There is so much more. “Just remember what we discussed, and don’t deviate from it for any reason.”
Amy returned to the engine, and Jonathan wondered if she was having second thoughts. She twisted at a bolt, and an oddly-shaped piece of metal - a carburetor or a piston? - came loose from the engine. She dropped the part onto the worktable and wiped the grease from her hands with an old rag.
“I flew solo from London to Darwin.” She examined the dirt beneath her nails and avoided his eyes. “It’s not me that I’m worried about.”
His day ended in the nave of Westminster Cathedral. A lifelong, if half-hearted, English churchman, Jonathan’s friendly relations with the parish priest did little to enhance his reputation, a whiff of latent papistry frowned up on by London’s upper classes. The priest listened to the latest news on Sarah’s disappearance, nodding sympathetically as Jonathan talked, before pronouncing the blessing upon the vial. Exorcizo te, creatura aquæ, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis. The holy water felt warm in his hand, comforting. Jonathan prayed that it would find no use at the far end of his journey.
III.
Sibiu, Romania
The house was located at the edge an abandoned farm, five miles past the warehouses and railyards at the edge of the city. It had been a beautiful place in its time, Sarah thought, but boards covered the broken windows, and a dozen tiles were missing from the roof. A turret was attached to the western end of the house, and Sarah saw a single concession to modernity - a radio antenna - at the top of the spire. The place reminded her of the old ruin that bordered Jack Seward’s asylum in Purfleet, and Sarah found the notion oddly disquieting. To the south, dark green foothills yielding to the bare rock of mountains on the horizon.
“Can you take me to the telegraph office tomorrow?” She sipped at the tea that Gabriela set before her. “I need to cable my father.”
“No need,” Gabriela said. “You leave tomorrow.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said, her demeanor cautious. “Still, I should get in touch with my father to let him know that I’m on my way home.”
“No. The telegraph line to London goes through the office in Munich.” Gabriela pointed to the window. “My instructions were to take you to the mountains, and your father would meet you there.”
“I see.” Do not trust her Sarah. Whatever happens, do not trust her. “And how will my he know where to meet me?”
“Because he knows the location of the castle.”
“He should.” Sarah met her eyes with a steady gaze. “Forty years ago, it nearly killed him. The whole thing would be amusing if the consequences weren’t so bloody serious.”
“It is serious. The Germans learned of the castle, and they used you as bait to draw him out.”
“Then for God’s sake, get me back to London! Please.”
“I can take you to Bucharest,” Gabriela said. “The British embassy will ensure your safe return to London, but the Germans want what you have, and they have a long reach.”
Sarah tugged at a lock of blonde hair. Do not trust her. Blind, she groped for an answer.
“There’s someone else in the old castle, isn’t there?” Gabriela nodded, and she continued. “Who?”
“I am not permitted to say.”
“Dracula? The same man that tried to kill my father?” Sarah’s voice was stronger now, insistent.
“I told you, I am not permitted to say. He guards his name carefully, and I cross him at my peril.” Gabriela shrugged. “I told him that you would be difficult to convince, and he asked me to convey two things. First, he will not harm you or your father, and he will protect your life with his own if necessary.”
“And the second?”
“If you come, the Germans will never trouble you again. Ever.”
IV.
Munich
“Good evening, Otto. How was the trip from Vienna?”
“Uneventful. Figured I would be arrested on my return.”
“Arrested?” Reinhard Heydrich raised both eyebrows in surprise. “We are civilized men, Otto. We don’t punish our comrades for a failed mission.”
Failed mission, indeed. The debacle in Vienna resulted in at least twenty dead, including two of his own agents. Skorzeny winced at the memory of Alice, her remains smeared across the length of the bridge.
“Besides,” Heydrich continued, “we have what we need. Frau Spencer is superfluous, and we will move forward without her.”
“And her father?”
“According to our contacts in London, he has been checking the railway timetables from Paris to Bucharest. That train passes through Munich, and he will be in our hands soon enough. Let me worry about Harker, Otto. What about the other preparations?”
“Two trucks, plus enough food, fuel, ammunition, and flares for a weeklong expedition.” The corners of the scarred face turned downward. “However, there is a staffing problem - Hans tells me that he got the wrong orders.”
Heydrich did not flinch. “What seems to be the trouble?”
“This is supposed to be a military and scientific expedition, but there are no soldiers in the whole bunch. Just three veterans, and one of them…” Otto Skorzeny’s huge brow wrinkled in consternation as he tapped his forehead. “The rest? A few street brawlers, at least one criminal, a couple of callow youths, and one chemist from Berlin.”
“Well, there you have it, Otto. Three veterans and a chemist – a military and scientific expedition!” Heydrich chuckled at the joke.
“A low-level flunky who spends his days doing spectro-photo-something-or-other for a dye manufacturer. Not the genius I was expecting.”
“Vagrants who signed up for work relief or latecomers who joined the Party out of careerism.” Heydrich’s lips curled upward. “Unmarried childless men who are unlikely to be missed if something goes wrong.”
Skorzeny had not eaten all afternoon, and he ordered dinner at a nearby beer hall. His scars and rough demeanor made him appear simple to the unobservant, and Skorzeny was happy to cultivate the impression. In his experience, people who underestimated his intelligence were more likely to reveal what he wanted to know, and Comrade Heydrich shared that flaw on occasion. Spectro-photo-something-or-other. He took a swallow of beer, and the bitter liquid soothed his throat.
His food arrived, a steaming plate of sausages with a side of sauerkraut, and Skorzeny ate. As second-in-command of the operation, Skorzeny was familiar with the details of the Englishman’s diary. The entire story was bunk, a search for hidden gold with just enough ghost story to appeal to the more mystically-inclined folks in the SS. Men such as Heydrich. The chief was, at least in his own mind, leading them to a haunted castle where hungry ghosts devoured the living. The notion, however fanciful, left him uneasy. Unmarried, childless men who are unlikely to be missed if something goes wrong. What are you planning, Reinhard?
V.
London
Jonathan parked a half-mile from the cemetery, and they continued on foot. Moonlight glittered among the branches and cast a weak glow on the stone arch and iron gate. One advantage of wealth, Jonathan had explained, was the freedom to contribute to various charities, including cemetery maintenance funds. He gave freely, and the recipients expressed their gratitude with small tokens of appreciation, such as keys to the cemetery gate. Holmes followed him through the portal as the iron bars to swung closed behind them. Holmes felt ill at ease, and the leather strap of the bag chafed his shoulder.
“You do know that it’s illegal to loiter in a cemetery after sunset, don’t you?’
Jonathan grinned. “In that case, I suppose you should arrest me,”
“Can’t. I turned in my resignation at the Home Office this morning.”
Holmes kept the torch in his pocket as they walked. Lucy Westenra’s final resting place was eerie enough in the daytime, and he would be damned if he would waste his battery before they arrived at their final destination. Lucy Westenra. Dear friend of Mina Murray and fiancé of the late Lord Godalming. A vivacious girl of nineteen, deprived of her life by a chance encounter with a monster. Holmes tried to concentrate on the face from Katherine Holmwood’s picture and saw only the grinning horror of his childhood memory. He cleared his throat, grasping for a means of escape.
“You’re sure we have to do this?”
“I can find the castle well enough on my own,” Jonathan said.
“And?” Holmes waited, silent.
“If we leave the map behind, perhaps someone will come looking for us if we disappear. Do what needs to be done.”
They slipped into the woods, and Holmes followed as Jonathan picked his way through the branches. Somewhere to their front, they heard movement, and Holmes stood frozen in place, fearing what might emerge from the shadows. Jonathan switched on his own torch, and the fox halted in mid-stride, watching them, before continuing into the brush. Finally, they reached the tomb, and the eyes of the stone angel followed him as Holmes played his torch over the inscription.
“Jack hid the map in the one place where Arthur would not – dared not – search,” Jonathan said. “Arthur had some mad idea of the castle holding a kind dark power, and in the final year of his life, no one trusted him with the knowledge.”
“You thought he would seek out the castle again?”
“Perhaps.” Jonathan daubed at his lips with his free hand. “All the same, I couldn’t wipe away the final traces of our secret - for Mina’s sake.”
Jonathan turned a key in the lock, and the rusty gate swung inward. Holmes hesitated, then followed him inside. The enclosure was perhaps ten feet deep, and a pair of concrete vaults, for Lucy and her mother, lay on either side. Holmes tried to imagine the grisly scene as Jonathan levered away the heavy slab. Arthur Holmwood, Abraham Van Helsing, Jack Seward, and Quincy Morris open the leaden coffin and find not a decaying corpse, but the preserved remains of a beautiful woman. Still, they are not fooled, for they have seen her in the darkness, and they know her true nature. Two men read from the psalter while Van Helsing lays out his butcher’s tools and Arthur prepares to strike with the hammer… The leaden coffin had been opened, and Holmes noted the neat seam where the lid had been soldered shut. A second, smaller cut had been made inside the first, and Holmes noted its edges, folded shut but not soldered. Jonathan pried open the lid, and Holmes peered into the coffin.
The burial shroud was mostly gone, rotted away by contact with putrescent fluids, and the corpse was reduced to bone. A wooden stake, roughly the diameter of his forearm and sawn flush with the ribcage, protruded from the left of the sternum, and the grisly sight produced a wave of bile in Holmes’s throat. Still, the sight troubled him less than he expected. Old bones, no different from the men whose lives were wasted in the trenches. The monster that had skulked in the tomb’s recesses had departed, its earthly vessel smashed and decaying. A leather bag rested in the lap of the skeleton, and separated finger bones lay scattered across its surface. Jonathan lifted the bag and rifled through its contents before closing the coffin. Their task complete, they returned the slab to its original position and stepped from the tomb. Holmes lit his pipe and leaned against the stone wall, staring at the dark expanse of Hampstead Heath as he smoked.
“Are you all right?” Jonathan placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I suppose I’ll manage,” Holmes said. “That stake in her chest. Must have been dreadful to do what they did.”
Jonathan produced a long cigar from the pocket of his coat. A gust of wind caught his lapel, and Holmes saw a glint of silver in the moonlight - a crucifix, hanging from a heavy chain. It never ended for him, did it? Forty years have gone by, and he is still afraid.
“Arthur wouldn’t talk about it for years,” Jonathan said. He took a long draw from the cigar and exhaled, and the smoke was carried away on the breeze. “The thing in the coffin twisted and screeched as he pounded that stake, but at the very end, this vampire or devil or monster, whatever you want to call it, was gone, and it was just Lucy again. Just a scared girl who didn’t understand what was happening. And Arthur’s face was the last thing she saw before she died.”
VI.
Somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains
The car rested in a gap between two mountains, idling at the roadside. To their left, a narrow path disappeared into the forest. To the right, the first rays of sun appeared through the trees.
“I can still take you to Bucharest,” Gabriela said.
Sarah contemplated the forest from the passenger’s seat. A few hours of restless sleep had not refreshed her, and her mind felt fogged and dull. Her dreams had been filled with visions of Mina Harker, staring from the darkness with unblinking eyes and smiling with sharp teeth. There was no reason to believe the woman at her side, but if her father knew, or guessed, the reason for her abduction, he would have a marker for the endpoint of her journey. If there was any chance of finding me, he would take it, no matter the risk. She opened the passenger door.
“How far?”
“About a half-day’s walk. There is one more thing.” Gabriela held out her hand, and Sarah accepted the crucifix. “I promise you will be safe. Still, you should wear this at all times.”
The path ascended then wound through the trees, a narrow vein of bare earth in the sea of oak and beech. The leaves were beginning to turn, and in another month, she thought, the view would be glorious. The sun rose higher as she walked and colored the sky in a hard, cloudless blue. Sarah’s mouth was dry, and her feet began to ache. She scaled a final hill, and the plateau opened before her, perhaps a mile long and half as wide. The center of the flat space was occupied by a meadow, and small trees sprouted along the edges as the forest tentatively reclaimed the open ground. At the far end, high mountains, capped by bare rock, rose above the plain. Overhead, the sun reached its zenith.
Her eyes focused on an oddity at the far end of the meadow. The rock formation was not the fractal shape of erosion or tectonics, but a horizontal line, something made by human hands. The stones beckoned to her, but Sarah hesitated, remembering the voice of her mother - or the thing that wore her shape - whispering to her in last night’s dream.
“You’re going to die out there.”
Perhaps I will, Sarah thought. If there was any truth to the stories, other possibilities, far worse, loomed over her. She thought of her father again. A serpent hides in the tall grass and strikes at the unwary foot. Tread slowly and watch every step.
Quickening her pace, Sarah made her way forward as the sun began its long descent toward the west.