Anno Dracula (43 page)

Visser, the warm private detective he kept on a retainer, had assembled dossiers on them. Alucard knew the names of the four people Striescu had killed in the United States, three on earlier state visits and one two nights ago. From the creature’s colour, the tally might be up to five.

Striescu was the muscle and Feraru the money; senior academician Crainic was a thinker. Under Ceauşescu, he’d toiled as a haematologist. Competent, but no Sarah Roberts or Michael Morbius. Last Christmas, as revolution - sparked by a general strike in Timişoara - spread throughout Romania, he was pushed into taking a stand. Token vampire on a committee of dissidents, churchmen and out-of-favour army officers. Less strident than Meinster about
nosferatu
supremacy, Crainic also argued that Transylvania should be a state separate from Romania - with a sliver of Hungary claimed to fatten the shape on the map - and that the new country be given over to the undead.

If this happened and Meinster assumed the position to which he felt entitled, the Baron would become the first vampire sovereign since Dracula. The trick would only work if he kept men like Crainic about him. The velvet dandy’s idea of rule was sitting on a throne in superb clothes issuing proclamations to scurrying minions. The senior academician had the nit-picking concentration necessary to stay on top of the night-to-night running of even a small government. But Crainic’s hard work and cleverness would not be enough. He’d survived so far by keeping his head down. He didn’t have the political savvy that had kept Lord Ruthven in or near the office of British Prime Minister for over a hundred years.

Feraru was from money and in it for the money. Raised in Britain, he’d returned to his ancestral castle when the red dominoes tumbled. The Feraru bloodline was founded by a now-enfeebled elder - a revered, mindless patriarch whose blood was siphoned to turn each rising generation of remote descendants. Feraru was one of many pre-Soviet landowners, warm and
nosferatu,
flooding to the Carpathians to reclaim estates formerly appropriated by now-collapsed governments. Hailing themselves the saviours of oppressed peoples, but nakedly intent on bleeding the peasants dry again. Crainic wore a shabby greatcoat and peaked cap like a middle-aged student, but Feraru was City of London yuppie style on the hoof: Savile Row suit-jacket open to show red trader’s braces, cowhide Filofax chained to the hip, red-framed round spectacles, skinny tie with a $$$ pin. He also affected the red-lined black opera cape tradition associated with Count Dracula. Alucard didn’t believe the Father had worn such a thing except when visiting the opera, but the cloak was an essential accessory for a certain breed of showily militant vampire.

Crainic would try to persuade, Feraru would try to bribe. Striescu was another matter.

Even when he turned away, Alucard knew exactly where Striescu was standing. A wall of burning light lay between the
ex-Securitate
man and his own back. Not an accident. Striescu was a kick-in-the-door-at-four-in-the-morning murder merchant. A habitual turncoat, he’d killed for the fascist Iron Guard in the 1930s and the communist Gheorgiu-Dej in the ’40s and ’50s, then settled in under Nicolae and Elena for thirty years of brutal grind. Striescu’s speciality was taking care of ‘counter-revolutionary elements’, assassinating dissidents at home and abroad. Late last year, he’d scented blood in the changing winds. Now he murdered on the QT for the strange coalition between President Ion Iliescu’s National Salvation Front and Baron Meinster’s United
Nosferatu
Party.

Last Boxing Day, the Ceauşescus were hustled into the snowy courtyard of a Târgovişte barracks to be executed. They were puzzled and furious at their conviction by a drumhead court on charges of ‘acts of genocide, subordination of state power in actions against the state and the sabotage of the national economy’. Striescu was among the armed spectators who fired from the crowd, competing with a Parachute Regiment firing squad to put bullets into his former bosses.

Alucard dimly recalled a time when Meinster and Nicolae were best buds. His mind skittered away from that past. To him, it was a prehistory, a dream. If he thought of Dinu Pass, he remembered Dracula, not the partisans. In the Keep, an elder vampire turned a warm boy. The Father found a prospective son. Which of these had he been? Now, at heart, he was both.

These three were the supplicants. And he was the elder.

Feraru shaded his face, finding at last a use for his cloak, raising it like a parasol. He was tanning unevenly, freckle-blotches on his bone-white forehead and under his screwed-shut eyes. The others knew better than to look at the light.

Crainic held out a cream envelope, bearing the Meinster seal. Alucard reached into the shadow and took the letter. He opened it one-handed and eased out a stiff sheet of paper. The letterhead was elaborate, in gold and red; the message was conventional. If Meinster connected John Alucard with a boy he’d once sacrificed to the Father, he didn’t mention it.

‘The Baron recognises you as influential in the international
nosferatu
community,’ said Crainic.

‘They do say that,’ said Alucard. And more.’

Ah y-yes,’ got out Feraru, ‘“King of the Cats”.’

Alucard didn’t argue with the title. Crainic gave Feraru a sharp side-glance. The Romanian scientist thought the English businessman a twit. Already: divisions in Meinster’s ranks.

‘Your support would mean much,’ continued Crainic.

‘What kind of support? Surely, you’re not here with a begging bowl?’

Seductive ‘elders’ with red buckets were a plague at the Viper Room and other vampire hot spots, extorting dollars for ‘the Cause’. Most were new-borns with bogus titles who’d never been nearer Transylvania than Toledo, Ohio.

‘Support doesn’t have to mean money,’ said Crainic.

‘Though dosh would be ever so nice,’ put in Feraru.

Striescu said nothing. Alucard knew, without even snooping, Meinster had given the
Securitate
man provisional orders to kill him. He was unsure of the circumstances which would trigger an assassination attempt. The Baron was ambitious, stupid and ruthless enough to give it a try on the slightest provocation. If Striescu made a move now, Alucard would toss him off the deck and watch him turn into a comet on the long fall to the lawns below.

‘Why do you want Transylvania?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t we outgrown the territory?’

‘It is our home,’ said Crainic. ‘It is not just soil. Even you, an American, must feel that.’

Crainic didn’t know John Alucard might once have been Ion Popescu. Or was willing to pretend ignorance. Alucard had changed a lot since the Old Country. Meinster would most likely not recognise him, he’d never taken much notice of other, lesser people.

‘This is my home,’ Alucard said, indicating the city, but meaning America. ‘It’s a good place for us. Far better than rainy, rocky Transylvania.’ The sun was up. Warm workmen emerged to take care of lawns and pools. A small army of Mexican Morlocks came out of underground cottages to see to the many, many jobs necessary to keep Alucard’s
castillo
running. He had imagined and built his estate to exceed the eye-catching magnificence of the palace down the block where Aaron Spelling lived.

‘I have the best of the old world and the new,’ he said.

‘If Transylvania is ours without question, all vampires will be safer,’ said Crainic. ‘There will always be somewhere for us. Asylum when the warm pass laws we cannot observe, sanctuary when we flee from the justice of cattle.’

‘Meinster can guarantee this?’

Crainic nodded.

‘Okay,’ said Alucard. ‘I’ll do what I can for the Baron.’

Feraru smiled unguardedly and grabbed Alucard’s hand, forgetting the sun for a moment. Crainic looked for a loophole but could see none. Striescu almost imperceptibly stood down.

‘I’ve an idea I think the Baron will go for,’ said Alucard, letting Feraru have his hand back. ‘A showcase, something to make the world take notice, to raise an enormous amount of money, an occasion for us all.’

Feraru was already interested and enthused.

‘Picture this,’ said Alucard, raising his hands to frame a Cinerama screen, ‘a concert for Transylvania.’

Feraru, who had never lived behind the Iron Curtain, got it at once. Crainic was puzzled.

‘I’m not the only vampire in show business. There’s a common misconception that to be turned is to lose the creative spark. Some of us have devoted our lives to disproving that. Right now, the top-selling album and single in the
Billboard
charts is ‘
Vanitas’,
by the vampire Timmy V His picture is on the bedroom wall of every warm teenager in the world. He’s in the frame to play Peter Pan for Steven Spielberg. Timmy’s appeal is mainstream, not ghetto. And I can get him. He isn’t the only one. All the vampires of rock,
nosferatu
and warm, would claw each other to get on the bill. Those who don’t make the cut will be in career limbo for eternity. For this, the Short Lion would come out of his latest retirement. That fop is still the biggest name vampire ever to fill a stadium. I see a dusk-till-dawn concert on the site of the original Castle Dracula, with live link-ups to events all around the world. The Hollywood Bowl. Stonehenge. Opar in Kenya. The world’s first Draculathon. TV, pay-cable and theatrical rights. Vinyl, cassette, CD, video and as-yet uninvented new media sales to infinity. Constant repackaging, always holding something back for the next release so the rubes will buy it over and over again. T-shirts, buttons, posters, pogs, tattoo transfers, souvenir programmes, coffee-table books, action figures, comic books. We even get a cut of the backlash, licensing our mutilated logo to jaded cynics turned off by the hype but who will happily wear “I Don’t Give a Flying Fox for Transylvania” T-shirts. All profits, after expenses, go to the Transylvania Movement. Think of a number, take it to the power of 999.95, and you’d still be underestimating the money. If Americans are led properly, given a story they can follow with a happy ending in sight, they become insanely generous. This will make them all, warm and
nosferatu,
our sympathisers. I can deliver this.’

‘And what do we have to do?’

‘Senior academician Crainic, you have to strike with perfect timing - at the climax of the last act, just before dawn,’ said Alucard. ‘Timmy V and the Short Lion, who have never before shared a stage, duet on the Free Transylvania anthem - John Lennon’s “Imagine”, the greatest song ever written by a vampire. Then, you must announce that you have taken power. Your Baron must appear among the stars. I know you have trained men and I know the West has covert units to commit to the crusade. I produced
Bat-21,
remember. What you have never had, not until now, is an
occasion
.’

‘When would this be?’ asked Crainic.

‘Let me see, when would be appropriate? We’ve missed the Eve of Saint George’s, April twenty-second. That would only play in Romania, anyway. The point is to bring Transylvania to the mall, not stuff old world guff down American throats like some devil-kissed PBS special. Hallowe’en is over-commercialised these days. We’d have to compete with jack o’ lanterns, razor-filled apples, John Carpenter sequels and an extended episode of
Roseanne.
What would you say to December twenty-first? The longest night of the year.’

‘The first anniversary of the Timişoara rising.’

Alucard had let Crainic make the connection, buzzed by street-fighting flashbacks. The senior academician had joined warm and
nosferatu
alike in the soccer chant of ‘Ole ole ole ole, Ceauşescu nu mai e!’ (‘Ceauşescu is no more’). He’d covered a startled priest with his own body when the
Securitate
opened fire. The best thing about a December date was that a longer night meant more acts, more commercial breaks, more sponsorship, more material for the boxed set.

‘Excuse me, please,’ rasped Striescu, ‘what are “pogs”?’

‘Collectible cardboard discs,’ Alucard explained.

‘I see,’ said the thug, no wiser.

‘We have six months to put the show together. That’ll be my department. I’ll give you the rock. You must guarantee me the soil.’

Crainic, cautious, looked to Feraru, who was ecstatic.

‘It’ll be bigger than Live Aid,’ said the new-born, ‘than Woodstock. We could even get Cliff Richard.’

Alucard had no idea who that was, but let it pass.

‘I’ll speak with Baron Meinster,’ ventured Crainic.

‘Give him my best regards,’ said Alucard.

All three visitors were now fully backed up against the wall of the turret that rose above the deck, shaded only by the crenellated frill of a Spanish-tile overhang. Feraru kept forgetting himself and sticking his hands out into the sun, raising welts and giving out little squeals.

‘Now we should get you indoors. I can have company sent over if you have the red thirst or any other entertainment needs. This town has very discreet services I think you might enjoy.’

The three couldn’t step through the door swiftly enough, the prospect of cool shade more exciting than that of warm blood. Alucard lingered a moment to look up at the sun, safely tucked behind a single thin cloud as if the Father were on high, shading his favoured get.

Pleased with himself, he followed his guests inside.