Dracula's Ghost - Chapter 3
The Shadow of Carfax Abbey
Somewhere in the Carpathian Mountains
1893
The books accumulate in the library for a hundred years before she notices that something is different. He amasses gold and silver from the hordes of treasure buried in the mountains and writes thousands of letters, their nature and purpose a mystery, to correspondents in distant lands. Visitors come, and he learns their secrets, wringing every bit of knowledge from their minds before throwing them away. Those are happy times, for she feasts on what remains. Now, however, things are different.
How could he do this to her? The thought of Him, sitting meekly with the pathetic little man, provokes another spasm of rage. On the Englishman’s first night in the castle, she had slithered through the darkened hallway to his bedroom, ready to slip through the doorjamb, only to be stopped by a firm grip on her arm. “Do not lay a finger on him, or you will pay.” His eyes had drifted eastward, in the direction of the rising sun, and she had slunk back to her crypt. It was no idle threat, but she was hungry, and soon afterward, she had nearly succeeded. When the young fool fell asleep in the sitting room (a forbidden area, whose door she had quietly unlocked) she had drifted through the window with her sisters, salivating at the prospect of a feast, only to be thwarted by His unexpected return. The failure lingers bitterly in her throat.
It is barely comprehensible, but she forces herself to admit the truth – He is leaving. She sees the maps and pores over the books with their odd writing. Those words - England, London – ring ominously in her ears, and she taunts Him with those same words in whispers, in horrid screeches, in a high mocking singsong. She taunts Him to hide the truth – she is terrified. Alone. It is a word that she has scented on young girls walking lonely roads, teenage boys tending their flocks by moonlight, old men and women, sick and abandoned in isolated hovels. Alone. If He is leaving, what will become of us? The thought fills her with dread, sharper than wooden stakes, more searing than the glow of the eastern sky at dawn.
Jonathan Harker moans and pulls the covers tightly around his throat. From her own vantage, just outside the window, she whispers a few soothing words, and he settles into a deeper sleep - she is capable of kindness as well as cruelty. Tomorrow night, he will be theirs. He is a fine young man, she thought. A strong man. It occurs to her that if their visitor were to return to England (the word sits in her mouth like a dead fish), then His secret would no longer be safe. Perhaps He would wake at sunset to find his deep harbor, the haven for which he has labored for a hundred years, no more than a mud flat. She watches the sleeping form a little longer. No. I think you shall never see England again.
After all, she is hungry.
I.
Romania
The sun rose in the east, peering over the high mountains and bathing the ruined castle in a roseate glow. It rested at one end of a long plateau and was mostly intact, though the circular battlements were crumbling, and a portion of the southeast wall had collapsed into the gorge. No one knew its name, for the original builders left no records.
The structure was long and rectangular. Unlike the ornate dwellings of later centuries, this castle was a fort, and no plunder seized from Muslim Turks to the south or Catholic Hungarians to the west, no ornate decoration of the stone interior, could obscure that fact. Some five hundred years prior, a Voivode of Wallachia observed the strategic value of the location and rebuilt the old fort. The Voivode constructed a series of stone steps, which led to the river in a series of treacherous switchbacks, using captured slaves to carve out the rock. Most of the slaves died, weakened from hunger and overwork, and upon completion of the project, the survivors were murdered on the Voivode’s orders. So it was claimed, at any rate – the Voivode had many enemies, and not all of them told the truth.
No trees grew beyond the walls. Perhaps the ground was cursed, haunted by the doomed souls who had built the stone steps, or perhaps, as more rational minds might have observed, the builders cleared much of the topsoil, leaving no ground in which trees could take root. Whatever the reason, only grasses grew there. The ridges to the north were mostly oak, beech, and hornbeam, while across the river, where the mountains were higher, spruce and fir predominated. Beyond those, the highest peaks were bare, covered only by rock and lichen. Snow lingered atop the peaks for much of the year and dominated the skyline with their beauty. The river bisected the mountains in a serpentine path, carving rapids and deep pools into the stone. Further upstream, the channel grew wide and shallow, and here, the occasional island or sandbar could be found. Most of these were washed away by the spring rains, only to be born anew as floodwaters deposited silt along the channel in a never-ending cycle of birth and death. A few of the strongest islands survived the annual cycle, growing wider and longer as nature’s bounty accumulated along their edges.
The castle was used for a hundred years after the Voivode’s death before falling into ruin around the beginning of the sixteenth century. Some two centuries later, the Hapsburgs built a north-to-south road across the mountain passes, and the old structure was rediscovered by surveyors. A secondary road, little more than a trail, was cut through the forest, and its isolation was ended for a time. Austrian soldiers used the castle as a military outpost for several months before abandoning the structure. their numbers were thinned by hunger and disease.
Scattered farms and villages dotted the surrounding forests. The nearest was located along the river, a bare half-mile from the stone steps. Perhaps fifty people had lived there, cutting trees, fishing, or scraping a meager living from the soil. The village was deserted by the closing months of the War, its houses crumbling and the cemetery on its outskirts overgrown with weeds. No one remembered whether the inhabitants had been driven out by German deserters or ravaged by the great flu that devastated the world.
The castle lay silent, mostly forgotten.
II.
Near Bombay Harbour
British Indian Empire
1933
The ship would not leave for another month, but Sarah Harker Spencer was already packing. They had lived in India for five years now, shuffled from the Grand Fleet to the Eastern in the great postwar drawdown. The needs of the navy outweigh the needs of the few, she thought. But not for much longer. Arch was completing a tour at sea, and when his service with the Royal Navy was ended, she would be waiting for him in London. Six more months before we see each other again.
Outside, His Majesty Archibald the Second was running free under the late morning sun. Probably searching for cobras under the house. Venomous snakes were endemic here, and Sarah had given the boy an early education in herpetology. These are cobras, Archie. They are docile enough if given space but deadly if mishandled. That one is a Russel’s viper. Do not approach it under any circumstances. Thankfully, the boy’s curiosity was tempered with a healthy dose of common sense.
His moniker came from an audience with Prince Albert of York when the boy was five. Archie, impressed by the royal regalia, had loudly announced his own desire to be king until the prince explained, his own laughter barely suppressed, that Archie would have and cut off his head and seize the throne. In a royal compromise, the prince had anointed the boy as His Majesty Archibald the Second, while his father – the newly crowned His Majesty Archibald the First – stood to one side, red-faced.
Now, at nine years old, he was an intelligent, quiet boy, much as she imagined her own father. The boy’s penchant for hunting serpents in the dark, her husband insisted, came from his mother’s side. A Harker family trait if there ever was one, Sarah thought, absently fondling the locket about her neck.
Sarah knew few particulars of the trouble that followed her mother and father, but she gleaned enough information from John Quincy to understand the broader picture. They were close, despite the nine-year difference between them, and she could tell him anything - the taunts endured at school, the loneliness, the horrid neighbor who called the Harkers a family of criminals. John Quincy, in turn, confided in her. Mama and Papa. Uncle Art and Jack. A half-mad Dutchman named Van Helsing, and the American - Quincy Morris. At this point, John Quincy’s voice would become a long drawl - “Howdy partner” - and Sarah would giggle at the sound. She hardly knew what to make of his outrageous stories – Papa met a monster on the Continent, and when it came to London, it killed Mama’s friend Lucy – but Sarah found her skepticism tempered by the absolute certainty of her brother’s own belief.
She felt his absence every day. Sarah daubed at her face, surprised by the wetness of her cheeks, as Archie burst through the door.
“Mama, I found two cobras living under the house! I’m going to name them Nag and Nagina, like in Kipling.”
She hugged him tightly. “I think those are excellent names. Nag and Nagina it is.”
III.
Dresden
“Your father – greatest tenor to come out of Saxony. One of the greatest in Germany. How’s the soup?”
The harpsichordist was perhaps fifty, his dark curls marred by streaks of gray and the upturned mustache sprinkled with salt and pepper. He’s going a little soft in the middle as well, but who can blame him? They were, after all, in the best restaurant in the city.
The thin man looked back at his companion. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“The soup. Do you like it?”
The thin man stirred the soup with his spoon. He had a great many interests, from flying to naval affairs, but appreciation of the culinary arts eluded him. From the corner of his eye, he watched the harpsichordist’s nose wrinkle.
“Sorry. The soup is excellent. Martial life leaves me unaccustomed to such fine fare.”
“I see. I thought you were out of –” The harpsichordist saw the look in his eyes, and the words died in his throat. Good. To avoid an awkward silence, the thin man changed the subject.
“Do you like it here?”
“Of course! Can’t you tell?” He patted his ample belly. “Finally, the lamb is here! Let’s eat, and you can tell me what brings you to our lovely city.”
The steaming plates were set before them, and the harpsichordist dug in. He prattled relentlessly as he ate, filling the space between bites with local news, effusive praise for the thin man’s father, and tidbits of gossip from the conservatory. The thin man filed away the gossip for later use and ignored the rest.
“So then the conductor, a ridiculous little prat of a man, says to the tenor – what’s wrong? You haven’t touched the lamb.”
“I have a question for you, Gustav.” The hint of a smile played around the edges of the lips. “When the Cumaean Sybil gave her virginity to Apollo, she extracted a promise in return. Do you remember what it was?”
“She held up a handful of sand and made the god promise that she would live as many years as those grains of sand.” A drop of gravy lingered on the mustache. “But she neglected to request eternal youth, and she aged until only her voice was left.”
“A tricky business, extracting promises from the gods.” He nodded in sympathy. What did you promise her?”
“Reinhard, that was a long time ago.”
“It was. And in the intervening years, you became respectable and pious. How old was she?”
“Sixteen.” The harpsichordist stared at the gray lump of meat on his plate.
“And quite pretty, I’m sure. Understandable for a young man with nothing to lose.”
“As you would know.”
The thin man ignored the remark and stared out the window. Across the Elbe, the cathedral shone prettily in the noonday sun. According to the informants, his dining companion was a faithful congregant.
The harpsichordist broke the silence. “What do you want?”
“Me?” He looked across the table, surprised. “I only came to tell you that the Fuhrer admires your work and has requested your appearance for a concert in Berlin. Forgive me, my mind wanders sometimes. Of course, if you wished to make a donation to the Party – strictly voluntary and for the rebuilding of Germany – it would be appreciated.”
The harpsichordist stared at his shoes as the thin man produced a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He scribbled absently on a scrap of paper, and the harpsichordist gave a resigned nod as he placed the paper into his own pocket. A fair amount, even if he has to skip a few meals at Dresden’s finest restaurants. The thin man looked at his own plate, where the lamb was getting cold.
“Now, let’s eat. I’m starving.”
IV.
London
1908
Scotland Yard began sniffing around the Harkers’ doorstep after the coroner’s verdict, an obvious whitewash of Arthur Holmwood’s suicide, was rendered in 1904. Sufficient evidence emerged from Lord Godalming’s private papers to suggest the murder of his fiancé, and Inspector Francis Wilson and his partner, a sallow Scotsman named Edward Harding, were assigned to the case. They found no smoking gun or bloodied knife, but the information that they did uncover was troubling. Lucy Westenra had been a close friend of Mina Harker (née, Murray), and the death certificate had been signed by none other than Doctor John Seward. Nothing tied Jonathan Harker directly to Miss Lucy’s death, but Wilson was certain that a connection existed. A connection such as the missing owner of Carfax Abbey, he thought.
The sale of the old house had been arranged in 1892 by a solicitor in Exeter, one Peter Hawkins. A solicitor who died quite suddenly and left his entire fortune to his ward – a twenty-year-old girl named Mina Murray. Peter Hawkins’s clerk was none other than Jonathan Harker, Mina’s then-fiancé. Harker traveled to the Continent in the spring of 1893 and returned, quite ill and possibly mad, toward the end of summer. Perhaps Harker was treated in John Seward’s madhouse, they speculated, and though that specific path led nowhere, Wilson gleaned a few interesting tidbits in the course of his investigation. Something about a property sale to an old Lord, who moved to London from Germany, or perhaps Russia. As he assembled the pieces, Wilson discovered, to his amazement, another missing person connected to the Harkers. An American named Quincy Morris, a friend of Jonathan Harker and a rival for the affections of Lord Godalming’s dead fiancé, vanished somewhere on the Continent, purportedly dead after a brief illness.
In 1908, they brought the whole lot in for questioning, with particular focus upon Mina Harker. Three counts of murder - your husband is going to hang, and you’ll hang with him if you don’t help yourself. Do you want to live to see your children again? Wilson expected her to crack easily, but the damned woman never batted an eye. The interrogations of Jonathan Harker and Doctor Seward proved similarly fruitless. The only useful information was provided by Katherine Holmwood, Lady Godalming. Romania. Arthur - Lord Godalming - talked in his sleep and mumbled to himself in his waking hours. It was constantly on his mind in his final year.
With the interrogations going nowhere, Scotland Yard decided to request the exhumation of Lucy Westenra (Wilson personally informed Seward and took great pleasure in watching the color drain from the doctor’s face), but almost immediately, they ran into trouble. First, Lucy’s name was missing from the cemetery records, and no one knew the location of the grave - perhaps the Harkers did, but they were no longer on speaking terms with Scotland Yard. Second, Miss Westenra left behind no next of kin, and the magistrate refused to sign the exhumation order without more substantive evidence. In a last-ditch effort to salvage the case, Scotland Yard sent Harding directly to Romania. Wilson was certain that they would find the grave eventually, and the barest scrap of evidence would be sufficient to convince the magistrate. Harding cabled once, from Bucharest –
Then vanished without a trace.
The case limped forward until 1914, when it was forgotten with the outbreak of the War. Wilson continued to ponder the official records, carefully scrubbed of all references to Lucy Westenra, Quincy Morris, Carfax Abbey, or nameless, aging noblemen from the Continent. He also wondered why the Harkers spent an inordinate effort searching through London’s birth records between 1885 and 1890. The search was undoubtedly related to Lucy Westenra or Carfax Abbey, but the connection, if it existed at all, remained deeply hidden.
V.
Prussian Security Police Headquarters, Department A
Berlin
1933
Rudolf Diels placed his feet on the desk and watched the setting sun. He hated the afternoon meetings, but it was important to show respect to the number two man in the National Socialist German Workers Party. If one believed the rumors in Berlin, his future with the party was going to be shorter than expected, but Gregor Strassor was a good source of information. Diels, who always knew where the wind was blowing, had joined the Party following Adolf Hitler’s elevation to the Chancellery. Early on, he had noticed certain oddities about the Party elite, including their obsession with astrology and Germanic folklore, but Strassor’s tale of the Tommy’s captured journal outdid them all.
The whole thing was ludicrous - when the guns fell silent, soldiers passed the time in a myriad of ways, and a British soldier had amused himself by penning his own fairy tale, complete with monsters and haunted castles. Diels wondered what the boy would think of the uproar that he had created in Berlin. In 1926, a Party intellectual, some crank with a head full of pseudoscience, discovered the journal in the archives of the Wehrmacht and studied its contents obsessively. This individual, if one believed Strassor, labored over the journal for three years, cross-checking its contents against maps, astrological charts, and old newspapers. In 1929, with his funds drying up and his marriage failing, he ventured to Romania, his third trip in as many years. And if one believes poor Gregor, he found what he was seeking. The real location of the castle was misidentified in the Tommy’s journal, but he put the clues together. And then? Poof – our intrepid scientist vanishes without a trace. The SS took the disappearance as evidence of the journal’s authenticity, and they were pursuing new leads, apparently through the father of the dead soldier.
Strassor spent the rest of their conversation feeling him out, one dog sniffing the rump of another, in his search for allies, and Diels offered noncommittal words of support. Gregor Strassor remained one of the faithful - a throwaway remark about Himmler’s deputy prompted a cold rejoinder that Heydrich ("unlike some I could mention”) had joined their ranks before the Party attained power. As if the old man’s opinion mattered now - in the whirlwind of Adolf Hitler’s ascension, the Fuhrer was looking to prove that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was more than a rabble of drunks, criminals and brawlers, and his backers – the Junkers in the east and the industrialists in the Ruhr – wanted Strassor gone. Not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but soon.
With the proper incentive, perhaps Heydrich could be gone as well. Diels cared little for intraparty squabbles, but Heydrich had an eye for his own position, and that he could not tolerate. If the British learned of certain improprieties involving German citizens, and if Heydrich’s men were arrested as a result, the ensuing controversy might lead to the downfall of his rival. A direct call to London was too risky, but Diels had other methods, which he put to good use. He also put his best investigator to work. Sigmund was a veritable bloodhound, and if there was evidence to be unearthed, Diels could count on him to find it. Poor Sigmund, Diels thought. He’ll be forced out soon enough. Rudolf Diels accepted the realities of the new Germany and bowed to necessity - the fate of the Jews was not his problem, and his own career could hardly thrive if he stood on principle. Still, it was a shame to lose such a competent and loyal man.
VI.
Purfleet
It was after midnight when the Rolls Royce sputtered up the driveway. Seward killed the motor and relaxed and listened to the soft ticking of the engine. After several minutes, he stepped out of the car, weaving a little as he walked. A faint odor of decay wafted from the river as the clouds dissipated on the south wind, and the lingering aroma drew Seward’s eyes toward Carfax Abbey. If I could, I would leave no stone upon another and sow salt in the remains.
As the wind became still, another scent reached him, and Seward’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Is that cigarette smoke? In a lifetime dealing with madmen, inattention could be fatal, and Seward drew the revolver from his pocket before unlocking the door. The house was not wired for electricity, and Seward fumbled as he lit the lantern. The lamp cast a steady glow on the front parlor, and two sets of footprints, smaller than his own, left a maze of tracks on the dusty floor. The house was secured by heavy doors and barred windows, but he had removed the bars from the pantry window to improve his view of the garden. Jack, you’ll feel like a fool if you get yourself killed for the sake of good scenery.
He crept down the hallway toward his office, wincing as a floorboard creaked underfoot. The desk and file cabinets had been ransacked, and he seethed at the clutter that despoiled his sanctuary. When I find you, I’m going to gouge out your eyeballs with a letter opener. Seward moved quickly toward the pantry. Catch them as they go for the rear window, he thought. Behind him, the office door moved, and a shadow stepped into the hallway.
The window to the garden was wide open, just as he expected. Its wooden frame had been pried apart by a heavy tool, and fragments of glass lay scattered about the pantry floor. As he peered through the open window, Seward heard the creak of a footfall on a loose board. He turned, and the revolver in his right hand came up as he raised his left to protect his face. The office door, you ass! You didn’t check behind the office door!
Something heavy crashed into his right arm, and the revolver was knocked from his hand. Seward fell to his knees, dazed, as he took a hard punch to the chin. The lantern flew from his hand, and a pool of flame spread across the floor as the globe shattered. He strained to focus on the man outlined in the flames as he struggled to his feet. All right, you son of a bitch.
Swinging a meaty fist, Seward charged as the flames climbed the wall behind him.