Anno Dracula (63 page)

Alucard’s entourage flew in a Super Jolly CH-53, larger than the Sea Knight Czuczron had blown up, with manned door-guns and a belly full of Bat-Soldiers. He hadn’t had a backing band to throw away, but the stratagem had meant writing off a Huey as collateral damage. For show,
someone
had to be on board - Dirk Frost. He’d been told he was making an urgent drac delivery to the dressing rooms.

Meinster had too much self-belief to double-check the good news. By now he’d be as distracted as a boy on Christmas morning, opening all his presents at once. Street-fighting had started in Timişoara, expected flashpoint of the Transylvania coup. Key elders had taken positions around the province and were practising their speeches. Behind them, quiet vampires held hardwood daggers and Kalashnikovs. In Bucharest, President Iliescu would soon discover phone-lines into Transylvania were down. The concert’s enormous broadcast bandwidth blotted out military and civilian radio communications. With the T5 under Alucard’s command, even an international distress call would go unanswered. Iliescu would have to watch the revolution on television like everyone else. On CNN, it would appear in a tiny iris in a corner of the screen as the pop concert dominated the image.

‘We are now entering Romanian air-space, sir.’

They had flown across Turkey and Bulgaria. Alucard looked out of the armoured glass window of a nearby gunport.

‘Is this a homeland, Iorga?’ he asked.

The elder scowled, uncomfortable. Some people around here had long memories.

The dark landscape was nondescript. The few towns were like signal fires in a black plain. Fir trees rose like a forest of stakes. Below was Wallachia, homeland of Vlad the Impaler. In warm life, Dracula ruled not Transylvania but its neighbouring province. If that history, which the Father remembered in flashes, was indeed his own. Holly could steal whole lives at a feeding. Some argued that the Dracula who came to London in 1885 was not the Dracula who had been Vlad Tepes. It didn’t matter who the Father had been; the question was who he was now.

‘Bogeys, sir.’

Bat-shapes rose from the trees.

The Delta Force door-gunner locked and loaded. Silver slugs shone like ball-bearings in his ammunition belt. He angled around, getting a fix on the flitting wings.

Alucard indicated they should hold fire.

The bat-creatures fell into a holding pattern, keeping pace with the Jolly.

‘Our escort has arrived, gentlemen,’ Alucard announced.

The door-gunner stood down.

Ahead rose the jagged peaks of the Carpathians. The pilot took the helicopter up, out of shadow and into clear night sky. The escort kept pace, even up here where the air was thinner and colder. They crested the mountains and were over Transylvania.

Some part of him felt home.

Another part remembered why he had left.

Alucard folded back inside himself and the Father took over. Gorse noticed the shift and removed the earpiece he had tuned to the BBC World Service. He gave a curt nod of respect. It passed around the helicopter. Everybody knew they were in the Presence.

‘Now,’ said Dracula. ‘The music.’

The radio operator flicked switches. Ralph Rockula and Lesley Gore were duetting with ‘Judy’s Turn to Cry’. The song filled the interior of the helicopter.

Dracula smiled.

‘Shazam,’ said Penny, sending Josie Hart to the Phantom Zone.

Holly came back, ears ringing from music and applause, cat-suit stretched onto her taller shape. They were backstage, in a red room. The green room, full of flowers and live snacks, was for acts about to go on; the red room, a bare space which didn’t encourage anyone to stick around, was for those who had just come off. Over the p.a. system, Elton John and Kiki Dee introduced each other, then segued into a duet, ‘Bleedings (Woe-Woe-Woe, Blee-eedings)’.

Josie had gone down a storm. Holly still felt the buzz in her mind and the thrill in her insides. A mental loop of ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’ stuck in her skull. Sweat cooled on her face and back. But the singer was packed up and back in her box.

‘Good show, Holly,’ said Penny, producing a plastic-shrouded suit on a hanger. ‘You slew them where they stood. Want to do the Snooty Bitch now?’

A Josie-esque pout, unbidden, plumped Holly’s lower lip.

‘If I have to.’

‘I’m afraid you do. It’s no pleasure for me either. I have to look at her.’

‘I have to look out from
inside
her, Penny.’

‘Oh yuck.’

She let herself change slowly, putting Patricia Rice on like a disguise. She shucked out of Josie’s rainbow-patterned leotard (with cat tail) and silver wig (with cat ears). Penny helped her into Patricia’s Evita-in-waiting trouser suit.

‘How do I look?’

‘Like her. But you’re you in the eyes.’

Patricia was struggling. She took over sometimes, if Holly’s guard was down. That wouldn’t happen tonight. This was Patricia’s last public outing. When concert and coup were done, Holly intended to purge herself of her troublesome tenant. Penny was sure that could be done, like having a tooth out.

A backstage minder barged in, clipboard in hand.

‘Where’s Josie gone?’ he asked.

Holly and Penny shrugged.

‘They’re all like this,’ said the roadie. ‘Hell, she’s done her turn, so who needs her any more? She can go bleed this god-rotten country white. Just so long as she signed the release.’

The roadie left. Holly and Penny giggled.

‘We must go to the castle,’ said Holly. ‘I should be at my husband’s side at daybreak, when all he deserves will be his.’

‘That’s good,’ said Penny. ‘It’s Patty-Pat to the tee.’

Outside, concert chaos continued. The stands were full to overflowing. Big acts jostled to milk their minutes in the spotlight. Swan was throwing superstars onto the stage in fours and sixes, to cram in as many as possible. Ringo Starr hurried past in starry Merlin robes and a pointed wizard hat, grateful for the opportunity to clank a triangle five times during a multi-celeb singalong of ‘Midnight at the Oasis’. As Sade hit her highest note, shattering watch-faces and spectacles across the valley, the public address system cut in.

‘This is a health warning. Vampires, do not drink the brown rats’ blood. Do not drink the brown rats’ blood. It carries a virulent strain of...’

The announcement shut off and Sade shrilled back.

Penny and Holly looked at each other. Who knew what kind of plague was raging through the audience?

The Short Lion, allegedly back from the dead again, still wasn’t here. Reports had his train steaming through darkest Transylvania towards the special station at Bistritz. Timmy V, body guarded by six Thai boxing priests, had twitched first and shown up, but threatened to leave unless his demands were met. Timmy wanted two dozen white mice, now.

Mobs of torch-bearing concert-crashers, ink still wet on their forged tickets, clashed with the security squads. They were for the most part European Hells Angels and
Securitate
vampires, desperate to get in before the show turned to dust and discarded food wrappers at dawn.

The path from the stage to the castle was busy, but Holly and Penny had no trouble walking against the tide towards the ancestral seat of European vampirism. Unsurprisingly, given her efforts as an anthemist, Patricia was tone-deaf. The music was just noise in her skull. That cut out a distraction.

‘Let us pass,’ Patricia snapped at anyone in the way.

They entered the Great Hall, then made their way down to the crypt where Meinster’s command centre was set up. The neglect Jonathan Harker had observed was long since repaired, all the dust and cobwebs cleaned away. Thick electrical cables snaked along the flagstone floors like Ariadne’s thread. Patricia inspected uniformed staff, and grimly enjoyed handing out criticisms of overlooked flaps and buttons. The Baron’s men were impassive but respectful.

Wobbly sliding doors opened to admit them to Baron Meinster’s lair. It was modelled on the bridge in the original
Star Trek
series.

Raised on a dais to give him commanding height, the Baron lounged in a black Captain Kirk swivel chair, issuing orders to the faithful, poodles unruly in his lap. He wore a claret-coloured frock coat, tight around the torso but generously flared below the belt, with pleats in the sleeves and neon-lime frogging on the wide lapels. Crainic stood in the Spock position, phone clamped to one ear and finger in the other, face discoloured by anxiety and illness. Czuczron, a
Next Generation
fan, loitered like an out-oftime Riker, wondering how to usurp action hero honours (and girl guest stars) from the Captain. His dashing Carpathian Guardsman’s uniform was complete with non-ceremonial sword. Three vipers manned the Uhura, Sulu and Chekhov positions - relaying messages, fiddling with dials and switches on mixing boards.

‘We have the town hall in Timişoara,’ said ‘Sulu’, Rose Murasaki, a delicate blood flower in traditional Japanese dress. Foot-long needles held her hairstyle together. ‘The militia have come round. Striescu is in control.’

Meinster clapped and worked the jaws of his poodles.

‘Come in, Patty-Pat. Everything is going to plan. Nothing can possibly go wrong.’

A poodle began to pee ammonia, like a vampire bat. The Baron skilfully directed the stream away from his velvet trouser-cuffs and towards Crainic’s corner. Crainic’s eyes flicked to Holly and Penny.

‘Unscheduled vehicle over the helipad,’ said ‘Chekhov’, a fright-faced, malodorous elder named Czakyr. ‘With a swarm of attendant fliers.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I’m just getting that information, Baron. They are identifying themselves. It’s the Short Lion.’

‘Isn’t he on a train?’

‘Apparently not,’ said Crainic.

‘That explains the fliers,’ put in Holly. ‘Probably his fan club.’

‘I suppose we should clear the minstrel to land,’ mused the Baron, ‘or that Swan fellow will throw another of his hissy fits. Though, after his last LP, it’s tempting to bring the Lion down with a photon torpedo. However, one can’t stop de carnival, no matter how pressing other matters might be. Let them land, but insist the Short Lion come directly to me. Get a sketch artist in here. We must preserve the moment of our meeting. After all, I’m about to become more famous than he is. We should get some piccies of him paying homage, kissing bottom and so forth. Agreed?’

The last word was addressed to Patricia.

Holly nodded. Czakyr passed on the instructions.

‘Resistance in Cluj,’ said Rose Murasaki.

‘It must be crushed,’ said Meinster, holding up a fistful of poodle. ‘Crushed utterly.’

The Baron was enjoying himself. Between orders, he hummed along to the concert, which was relayed in on audio and playing on CNN. At Stonehenge, the London Company of the musical
Bats
were prancing with paper wings and singing ‘Count Boris Bolescu and the Black Pudding’.

‘The warm used to be afraid of us,’ said Penny, looking at the monitor.

‘They will be again,’ promised the Baron.

‘You never said a truer word,’ said Holly.

The Baron chortled, and whispered to his poodles.

‘Striescu is dead,’ said Rose and Crainic at the same time. They looked at each other and at their phones, wondering if they were speaking to the same person.

Meinster frowned. This was not on his schedule.

‘His lieutenants must extract reprisals,’ he decreed. ‘Instant, bloody, disproportionate.’

‘His lieutenants killed him,’ said Rose.

Meinster was shocked and annoyed. A photographer, darting out of an alcove, took a shot with the blinding flash necessary to fix the Baron on film. The lightblast lingered in everyone’s eyes. So did the Baron’s pout of acute discomfort.

‘I want that film,’ he said.

The photographer bleated that he had been summoned to take pictures.

‘An announcement is being made,’ said Crainic, interrupting the interruption. ‘Look.’

CNN had a feed from Timişoara. Outside the city hall, a mob were kicking apart a crumbling corpse. Someone read out an admirably thorough list of Striescu’s crimes. On the balcony the unmistakable scarecrow shadow of Orlok was cast against the building, arms and talons outspread. The Graf himself could not be caught by electronic devices like television cameras.

Meinster’s face went grey under powder. Graf von Orlok was the one vampire everyone remembered to be afraid of.

‘He’s on his way down,’ said Czakyr.

‘Who?’

The elder shrugged. ‘The Short Lion?’

‘Not a good time. Patty, deal with it.’

Holly nodded but did nothing.

‘It’s not just Striescu,’ said Rose Murasaki. ‘In Cluj, five elders are down. All over the place, it’s happening. A coup within a coup. Our ringleaders are being staked from behind, and minions are taking their places.’

‘Such treachery will be punished,’ screamed Meinster. His poodles picked up his mood and yapped ferociously. ‘Who are the culprits? Who must I kill?’

Crainic and Czuczron looked at each other.

‘How close are my enemies?’ asked Meinster.

‘In Cluj, they say
he
has returned. And in Oradea, and Lugos, and Sibiu. Responsibility is being claimed by... the Order of the Dragon.’