Anno Dracula (Anno Dracula #1)

Anno Dracula (Anno Dracula #1) Page 21

IN MEMORIAM

Dr Seward's Diary (kept in phonograph)

29 SEPTEMBER

Today I went to Kingstead Cemetery to lay my annual wreath. Lilies, of course. It is three years to the day since Lucy's destruction. The tomb bears the date of her first death, and only I  -  or so I thought  -  remember the date of Van Helsing's expedition. The Prince Consort, after all, is hardly likely to make it a national holiday.

When I came out of the woods a little less than three years ago, I found the country turning. For months, as the Count climbed to his current position, I expected always to be struck down. Surely the invader who took such delight in the public ruination of Van Helsing would eventually reach out his claw and smash me. Eventually, as the fear subsided to a dull throb, I supposed I had become lost in the teeming crowds that so attracted our new master. Or maybe, with that diabolical cruelty for which he is famous, he had decided that allowing me my life would be a more fitting revenge. After all, I pose little threat to the Prince Consort. Since then, life has seemed a dream, a night-shadow of what should have been...

I still dream of Lucy, too much. Her lips, her pale skin, her hair, her eyes. Many times have dreams of Lucy been responsible for my nocturnal emissions. Wet kisses and wet dreams...

I have chosen to work in Whitechapel because it is the ugliest region of the city. The superficialities which some say make Dracula's rule tolerable are at their thinnest. With vampire sluts baying for blood on every corner and befuddled or dead men littering cramped streets, one can see the true, worm-eaten face of what has been wrought. It is hard to keep my control among so many of the leeches but my vocation is strong. Once, I was a doctor, a specialist in mental disorders. Now, I am a vampire killer. My duty is to cut out the corrupt heart of the city.

The morphine is making itself felt. My pain recedes and my vision becomes sharper. Tonight I shall see through the murk. I shall slice the curtain and face the truth.

The fog that shrouds London in autumn has got thicker. I understand all manner of vermin  -  rats, wild dogs, cats  -  have thrived. Some quarters of the city have even seen a resurgence of medieval diseases. It is as if the Prince Consort were a bubbling sink-hole, disgorging filth from where he sits, grinning his wolf 's grin as sickness seeps throughout his realm. The fog means there is less distinction between day and night. In Whitechapel, many days, the sun truly does not shine. We've seen more and more new-borns go half-mad in the daytime, muddy light burning out their brains.

Today was unexpectedly clear. I spent a morning tending severe sun-burns with liberal applications of liniment. Genevieve lectures the worst cases, explaining that it'll take years for them to build a resistance to direct sunlight. It is hard to remember what Genevieve is; but at moments, when anger sparks in her eyes or her lips draw back unconsciously from sharp teeth, the illusion of humanity is stripped.

The rest of the city is more sedate, but no better. I stopped off at the Spaniards for a pork pie and a pint of beer. Above the city, looking down on the foggy bowl of London, its surface punctured by the occasional tall building, it would be possible, I hoped, to imagine things were as they had been. I sat outside, scarfed and gloved against the cold, and sipped my ale, thinking of this and that. In the gloom of the afternoon, new-born gentlefolk paraded themselves on Hampstead Heath, skins pale, eyes shining red. It is quite the thing to follow fashions set by the Queen, and vampirism  -  although resisted for several years  -  has now become acceptable. Prim, pretty girls in bonnets, ivory-dagger teeth artfully concealed by Japanese fans, flock to the Heath on sunless afternoons, thick black parasols held high. Lucy would have become one of them had we not finished her. I saw them chattering like gussied-up rats, kissing children and barely holding back their thirst. There is no difference, really, between them and the blood-sucking harlots of Whitechapel.

I left my pint unfinished and walked the rest of the way to Kingstead, head down, hands deep in my coat pockets. The gates hung open, unattended. Since dying became unfashionable, churchyards have fallen into disuse. The churches are neglected too, although the court has tame archbishops, desperately reconciling Anglicanism with vampirism. When alive, the Prince Consort slaughtered in defence of the faith. He still fancies himself a Christian. Last year's Royal Wedding was a display of High Church finery that would have delighted Pusey or Keble.

Entering the graveyard, I could not help but remember everything again, as sharp and hurtful as if it had been last week. I told myself we destroyed a thing not the girl I had loved. Cutting through her neck, I found my calling. My hand hurt damnably. I have been trying to curb my use of morphine. I know I should seek proper treatment, but I think I need my pain. It gives me resolve.

During the changes, new-borns took to opening the tombs of dead relatives, hoping by some osmosis to return them to vampire life. I had to watch my step to avoid the chasm-like holes left in the ground by these fruitless endeavours. The fog was thin up here, a muslin veil.

It was something of a shock to see a figure outside the Westenra tomb. A slim young woman in a monkey-fur-collared coat, a straw hat with a red band on it perched on her tightly-bound hair. Hearing my approach, she turned. I caught the glint of red eyes. With the light behind her, she could have been Lucy returned. My heart thumped.

'Sir?' she said, startled by my interruption. 'Who might that be?'

The voice was Irish, uneducated, light. It was not Lucy. I left my hat on, but nodded. There was something familiar about the new-born.

'Why,' she said, ''tis Dr Seward, from the Toynbee.'

A shaft of late sun speared through and the vampire flinched. I saw her face.

'Kelly, isn't it?'

'Marie Jeanette, sir,' she said, recovering her composure, remembering to simper, to smile, to ingratiate. 'Come to pay your respects?'

I nodded and laid my wreath. She had put her own at the door of the tomb, a penny posy now dwarfed by my shilling tribute.

'Did you know the young miss?'

'I did.'

'She was a beauty,' Kelly said. 'Beautiful.'

I could not conceive of any connection in life between my Lucy and this broad-boned drab. She's fresher than most, but just another whore. Like Nichols, Chapman and Sch?n...

'She turned me,' Kelly explained. 'Found me on the Heath one night when I was walking home from the house of a gentleman, and delivered me into my new life.'

I looked more closely at Kelly. If she was Lucy's get, she bore out the theory I have heard that vampire's progeny come to resemble their parent-in-darkness. There was definitely something of Lucy's delicacy about her red little mouth and her white little teeth.

'I'm her get, as she was the Prince Consort's. That makes me almost royalty. The Queen is my aunt-in-darkness.'

She giggled. My pocketed hand was dipped in fire, a tight fist at the centre of a ball of pain. Kelly came so close I could whiff the rot on her breath under her perfume, and stroked the collar of my coat.

'That's good material, sir.'

She kissed my neck, quick as a snake, and my heart went into spasm. Even now, I cannot explain or excuse the feelings that came over me.

'I could turn you, warm sir, make royalty of you...'

My body was rigid as she moved against me, pressing forward with her hips, her hands slipping around my shoulders, my back.

I shook my head.

''Tis your loss, sir.'

She stood away. Blood pounded in my temples, my heart raced like a Wessex Cup winner. I was nauseated by the thing's presence. Had my scalpel been in my pocket, I'd have ripped her heart out. But there were other emotions. She looked so like the Lucy who bothers my dreams. I tried to speak, but just croaked. Kelly understood. She must be experienced. The leech turned and smiled, slipping near me again.

'Somethin' else, sir.'

I nodded, and, slowly, she began to loosen my clothes. She took my hand out of my pocket and cooed over the wound. She delicately scraped away the scabs, licking with shudders of pleasure. Shaking, I looked about.

'We won't be disturbed here, doctor, sir...'

'Jack,' I muttered.

'Jack,' she said, pleased with the sound. 'A good name.'

She tugged her skirts up over her stocking-tops, and tied them around her waist, settling down on the ground, positioning herself to receive me. Her face was exactly Lucy's. Exactly. I looked at her for a long moment, hearing Lucy's invitation. I became painfully engorged. Finally, it was too much for me and, greatly excited and aroused, I fell upon the harlot, opening my clothes, and spearing her cleanly. In the lea of Lucy's tomb, I rutted with the creature, tears on my face, a dreadful burning inside. Her flesh was cool and white. She coaxed me to spend, helping me almost as a nursing mother helps a child. Afterwards, she took me wetly into her mouth and  -  with exquisite, torturous care  -  bled me slightly. It was stranger than morphine, a taste of rainbow death. Over in seconds, the act of vampire communion seemed in mind to stretch on for hours. I could almost wish that my life would drain away with my seed.

As I buttoned myself up, she looked elsewhere, almost modestly. I sensed the power she now had over me, the power of fascination a vampire has over its victim. I offered her coin, but my blood was enough. She looked at me with tenderness, almost with pity, before she left. If only I had had my scalpel.

Before making this entry, I conferred with Genevieve and Druitt. They are to take the night shift. We have become an unofficial infirmary and I want Genevieve  -  who, though formally unqualified, is as fine a general practitioner of medicine as I could wish  -  to be here while I am out. She is particularly concerned with the Mylett child, Lily. I fear Lily cannot last out the weekend.

The journey back from Kingstead is a blur. I remember sitting in an omnibus, lolling with the movement of the vehicle, my vision focusing and unfocusing. In the Korea, Quincey got me, in the spirit of experiment, to smoke a pipe of opium. This sensation was similar, but much more sensual. Every woman I chanced to see, from skipping golden-haired children to ancient nurses, I desired in a vague, unspecifiable manner. I would have been too spent to act upon my desires, I think, but they still tormented me, like tinily ravenous ants crawling on my skin.

Now, I am jittery, nervous. The morphine has helped, but not much. It has been too long since I last delivered. Whitechapel has become dangerous. There have been people snooping around all the time, seeing Silver Knife in every shadow. My scalpel is on my desk, shining silver. Sharp as a whisper. They say that I am mad. They do not understand my purpose.

Returning from Kingstead, in the midst of my haze, I admitted something to myself. When I dream of Lucy, it is not of her as she was when warm, when I loved her. I dream of Lucy as a vampire.

It is nearly midnight. I must go out.