The Bloody Red Baron: Anno Dracula 1918 Read online

  Kate had been Charles's shadow all evening. He was among the most perceptive of his ungentle profession but her night- skills grew more acute by the year. Paris offered crowds enough to be usefully lost in. Being titchy helped. Weaving between bigger people, she was a perfect mouse: scarf about her lower face, mittened hands muffed in her coat-sleeves, knitted cap over the tops of her ears.

  Everyone else looked up but she regarded the pavement, hearing rather than seeing the way, fixing on Charles's voice. The racket of the air raid obscured most of what was said but Charles's timbre was easy to distinguish. Those of her bloodline had sharp ears, a useful trait in a reporter.

  The Zeppelins were on the other side of the river. Hovering above the cloud, they could not be seen but the drone of engines was constant. Fairly distant bomb-bursts were overlaid by immediate shouts of defiance and abuse. Useless shots were fired into the sky. The ground shook with each explosion. Fires spread.

  Someone on the run bumped into her, dislodging her spectacles, and apologised in rapid French. Snake-quick, she caught her glasses and put them back on, blinking. The running man, scarlet-lined cape flapping, was lost in the crowd. For a moment, she thought her quarry lost but she caught Charles's voice, stray words drifting through din.

  Panic spread as the Zeppelins drifted towards the quarter. Bombs still fell, whistling and bursting. Tonight, the Germans dropped only incendiaries, damaging buildings. At other times, Dracula's airships poured flaming liquid that adhered to living flesh. The stuff, which water would not douse, burned to the bone. Vampires might be hardy but fire and silver were lethal to them. With Europe overstocked by the undead, the war had prompted the development of infernal devices that would have given the late Van Helsing unpleasant delight. Manufacturers .; with stock in silver mines became munitions millionaires '4 overnight. Lady Jennifer Buckingham of the Women's Volunteer Ambulance Brigade led a silver drive, persuading the wealthy to give up coffee pots and candlesticks for bullets and bayonets.

  While Charles attended the Theatre Raoul Privache, Kate had loitered outside, noting the comings and goings of patrons. Spotting Edwin at once, she was reminded of Charles in Whitechapel during the Terror, secretive yet puzzled. With Edwin came Dravot, a sure sign. Being familiar with the speciality of the Raoul Privache, she was unsurprised when the Englishmen left before the end of what might be termed the first act. Even after thirty years as a supposed creature of Gothic dark, elders gave Kate the horrors. Isolde, among the oldest of the old, was hardly a healthy advertisement for eternal life.

  A party of Americans blundered between her and the quarry. One was wounded, losing his footing through excess of champagne or in some incident related to the raid. Fresh blood . poured profusely from a gash in his head, streaming down his young face, spotting his uniform. The blood was an endlessly ! fascinating mingle of gold and scarlet. She was twisted by desire.: With sweet pain, her fangs slid from their sheaths. She had not fed in several nights. She would have to deal with the inconvenient business soon. Sharpened nails crowded inside her mittens.

  The soldiers stared. She must look a fright. Her scarf fell away from her mouth. She could taste blood on the air. The wounded doughboy was terrified. There were plenty like him: farm lads who had never seen a real vampire, heads full of scary stories. With difficulty, she closed her lips over still-sharp fangs. She tried to smile but it hurt her face. Perhaps, after all, she was becoming a monster.

  After a final huddled chat, Charles and Edwin parted. Charles, she realised, was returning to his suite at the Hotel Transylvania. Dravot, on the other side of the street, ambled after Lieutenant Winthrop as if taking a nightly constitutional. Plainly, he was the latest catspaw of the Ruling Cabal. Kate was not sure the sergeant had not noticed her.

  On impulse, she let Charles return to his deserved rest and took off after Dravot. As the sergeant shadowed Edwin, she shadowed him. It was another test of her abilities. With proverbial cat-like tread, she darted from dark to dark. Distinguishing the sergeant's heavy, distinctive bootfalls among the numberless sounds of the night, she fixed on them.

  Emerging from the theatre, Edwin looked rattled by what he had seen. It was said Isolde had once regenerated her entire body like a lizard growing a fresh tail. There were similar stories about the resilience of the Dracula line. Considering the wretchedness of Isolde's situation, it seemed to Kate that absolute bodily indissolubility was not a path to perpetual happiness. Charles had shown him Isolde to make a point. What had the self- dissecting freak to do with Mata Hari? And, pace Corporal Lander's account of Mata Hari's confession, the Château du Malinbois?

  Having seen failed shape-shifters, Kate did not exert herself in that direction. Teeth and claws came when needed but she had no ambitions to extend her repertoire. When she was a warm child, Mama warned her not to pull faces because 'if the wind changes, you'll get stuck that way'; now, there were too many would-be werewolves loping about, 'stuck that way'.

  Edwin and Dravot walked towards an area damaged in the raid. A market building burned, surrounded by bucket-passing firemen and unhelpful crowds. The wrought-iron skeleton was black against harsh flames, buckling and screeching in the heat. The steam of overcooked vegetables stung her sensitive nostrils. Somewhere near, a horse whinnied in pained panic. Kate saw the animal struggling between the shafts of a fire engine. A shiny- caped man tried to pat out a persistent patch of flame on its flanks.

  Dravot stopped and looked up. Kate did the same. Zeppelins were up there, arrogant crews calmly dropping fiery death. She heard engines buzz. French aeroplanes flew to defend the city. An airship could outclimb anything the Allies could put in the sky. Winged shapes passed overhead. The Allies prized their much-trumpeted 'air superiority' over the Central Powers, but Dracula and the Kaiser would not be content to let it lie. That madman Robur was still championing the cause of the aerial dreadnought.

  The nails of her right hand became claws again, puncturing her wool mitten. Sometimes her body was alert to danger before her mind. Dravot was not where he had stopped. It was time to withdraw from the engagement. She had other ways of pursuing the story. Staunchly loyal to his masters, the sergeant was as much a killer as the men in the Zeppelins.

  Frank Harris had taught her a journalist's first loyalty ought to be to the truth, not to patriotism or propaganda. The position did not find many supporters during the war.

  A wall collapsed, scattering hot bricks across the street, pushing crowds back into side roads. A waft of hot air swept past.

  Through a curtain of flame, Kate recognised Dravot. She was pleased there was a fire barrier between them and counted herself lucky.

  'You, Miss Mouse, come here ...'

  The words were English, the tone commanding. It was Lieutenant Winthrop. She did as she was told.

  A tumble of burning vegetable mush crept towards her shoes like molten lava. A warm grip took her arm and hauled her into an alley. If she fought, she could tear Edwin to pieces. Then she would have to face Dravot, who would doubtless render her the same service.

  'Following in my footsteps, eh? It seems I've snared a little spy. A miniature Mata Hari.'

  While she had fixed on Dravot, Edwin had hung back and waited to take her from behind. Her failing had been blithe overconfidence. There was no point in fighting it out. After all, they were on the same side.

  I have not the ssslightessst idea what you mean, ssssssir,' she tried to explain, hissing through a mouthful of jagged teeth.

  This was no time to be aroused. She heard the tiny pulses of Edwin's neck and heart. As he smiled at her, the blue vein ticked in his temple.

  Unexpectedly, Edwin laughed. 'I say, you sound fearfully silly.'

  She willed her fangs to recede. Inside tight fists, nails dwindled.

  'My name is Kate Reed, and I am a volunteer ambulance driver. You can ask Lady Buckingham or Mrs Harker for my references.'

  He did not seem impressed.

  'I assume you have followed me because
of an intuition that I might come to some dire harm which would require your angelic ministrations?'

  To pretend to be an even greater twit than she felt herself to be, she tried to project sheepish meekness. He let go and looked her up and down. She knew how odd she must seem in her disguise.

  'I'm out for a stroll,' she claimed, loosening and rewinding her scarf with dignity.

  'In an air raid?'

  The fires were dying. Dravot had stalked around the blaze. He stood at the end of the road, a dozen yards away. She concentrated on drawing in her claws. It was important the sergeant did not think her a threat to his master.

  'You've soot on your face,' Edwin told her, unkindly.

  She rubbed her cheeks with mittens. He tapped his forehead and she concentrated on that area.

  'You're just making it worse. With those specs, you look like a mole.'

  As a child, Kate had been called 'Moley'. Penelope Churchward, the princess of their circle, thought the nickname remarkably amusing. No one heard much from Penny these days.

  'You are gallant, Mr Staff Officer.'

  'Lieutenant Winthrop, at your service.'

  He presented his hand as if it were a calling card. She took his fingers and gave a gently painful squeeze. He set his teeth grimly but fixed a smile over the hurt.

  'Pleased to meet you.' She curtseyed, letting him go.

  He flexed his fingers to make sure they were all working.

  'You're the Katharine Reed who writes so cleverly for the Cambridge Magazine, are you not? The intrepid lady journalist who called for Field Marshal Haig's prosecution on the grounds of criminal negligence?'

  Kate's heart sank. If Edwin knew who she was, he would probably insist she get the Mata Hari treatment. She imagined Dravot wrestling her head off with quiet satisfaction.

  'I have had the honour of writing for that periodical,' she replied, non-committally.

  'I understand you're quite the heroine to those front-line troops who manage to have the Cambridge smuggled past the censors.'

  He sounded as if that was meant as a compliment.

  'And were you not imprisoned after the Easter Uprising? I seem to have your name lumped in with the Gore-Booths and Spring-Rices of this world. A Fabian and a Fenian.'

  'I write what I see.'

  'I'm surprised you can see anything through those goggles.'

  He sounded as if that was meant as facetious.

  'Has anyone ever suggested to you that alluding persistently to a person's infirmities might be considered impolite?'

  Edwin smiled broadly but was not fooled. There was grit in him. He was not the usual silly-ass staff officer. Of course, she had known that. The lieutenant did not spend his time counting tins of bully beef. He was in with the Diogenes mob.

  She decided to play the reporter.

  'Do you have any views on the current state of the war? Is Allied command of the air under threat?'

  He shrugged, unquotably.

  'With the Russians out of it, do you fear a German spring offensive?'

  His smile hardened slightly, but he said nothing.

  'If you have nothing to say on the subject, would you mind if I bade you goodnight and went on my way? I, at least, have work to do.'

  He stood back, spreading his hands.

  'Not at all. Good night, Katharine.'

  'That's only my name in print. Everybody calls me Kate.'

  'Very well. Good night, Kate.'

  She nodded, nicely. 'And a good night to you, Edwin.'

  He was not caught. 'I didn't tell you my name.'

  She tapped her nose. 'I have sources, Lieutenant.'

  Before he could quiz her further, she withdrew. As she walked off, she heard Dravot move to confer with him. To her relief, the sergeant was not sent after her. The further away she was, the more comfortable she felt.

  The Zeppelins seemed to have slunk back to Germany. Firefighters were getting the blazes under control. It was snowing again, slushing into the gutters. Within hours, all the water pumped at the fires would freeze, making a skating rink of the quarter.

  She reviewed her sitiuation. Never again would she get within a hundred yards of Edwin Winthrop without being noticed. And he would talk with Charles, which would get her name added again to the list of those unwelcome in the vicinity of the war. She must come at this Malinbois business from a completely new angle. More than before, she was convinced something tasty was afoot.

  12

  Bloodlines

  'The world has made of me what it would, and I make no excuses for myself. I have followed the dictates of my heart, even when such a course was unwise. I am to be shot as a spy but, in truth, I have scant talent for espionage. You, above all, know that, Charles. I am a courtesan, simply. I am kindly called the last of the grandes horizontales. I suppose that in this cruel century I must be considered a prostitute, merely...'

  The document was the holograph confession of Gertrud Zelle, known to the popular press by her stage name, Mata Hari. Winthrop had intended to defer studying the manuscript but found himself on the train to Amiens, confined in a compartment with a Captain Drummond whose win-the-war tirade was unutterably irksome. The red-faced, beefy vampire was a fine specimen of the bulldog breed, which is to say he was barking mad. An advocate of the 'one-big-push' strategy, Drummond insisted the blueprint for victory was that all the Allied armies should go over the top at the same time.

  'The sausage-eaters will turn tail and scarper,' Drummond said, grin displaying interlocking fangs in his square jaw. 'Your dratted Germ-Hun doesn't have the stomach for a proper scrap.'

  After four years of murderous, costly squabbling over a few muddy miles, Drummond struck him as insane. A pair of lieutenants, fresh from training, were converts to the captain's way of thinking. Winthrop doubted they would survive a week in the lines. The Hun might not have the stomach of the Tommy, but he certainly had entrenched machine-gun positions.

  'It's the only cursed way,' Drummond said, as passionately thick-headed as a campaigning politician. 'One big push to Victory.'

  The lieutenants agreed, swearing to be in the first wave. Drummond had just killed them, and probably all the men under their command.

  'If the fathead politicians would let us out of the trenches, we'd give the swine of Saxony and the poltroons of Prussia the sound biffing they so richly deserve. With the Kaiser hoisted on a sturdy stake, we should shove on into the Russias and sort out the blasted Bolshies.'

  Winthrop imagined the tide of war surging around the world, sweeping through continents like a dreadful winter.

  'Mark my words, the real enemy is the clique of homicidal, alien Jews that has done for the weak-blooded Romanovs.'

  Drummond concluded his editorial and got down to gory stories of Germans killed with bare hands and teeth. Winthrop pleaded urgent business and read on.

  I am Dracula's get. I was one of his mistresses. When the Graf settled at the Kaiser's court, he turned several of us. In life, he was an Eastern potentate. Always, he must have a harem. He would fiercely deny it, but his habits are Ottoman. Fortunately, I was a passing diversion. He is uncomfortable with women of this century. We are difficult to bend to his will. He prefers the pliable, superstitious fools of his own time. The favourites, the ones he calls wives, have been with him for centuries. They have child minds and beast appetites, all 'I want' and 'give me' and 'now'. I am not of that breed, but I fear degeneration is inevitable. Now I shall never learn whether my bloodline harbours the taint.

  When he turned me, I was his property. His slave to use as was his whim. Even now, Dracula owns me. Dawn will set me free. After a few eternal months in the summer of 1910, the Graf loosened the collar. First, he yielded exclusive rights. I was obliged to serve the pleasure of his Carpathian cronies. Many elders drink only the blood of new-borns. They regard the warm with disgust. I was the consort of Armand Tesla. Before his fall, Dr Tesla was chief of Dracula's secret police. A cruel elder, his amusement was to drip
holy water on to the flesh of newborns. It doesn't work on every line, but for some this is disfiguring. There is no explanation in science. The admission is unfashionable, but we are not creatures of nature. Vampires are monsters. When angered, Tesla would threaten my face. Even if I survived, my life as a courtesan would end. But the doctor came to value me, so I was spared.

  Tesla schooled me as a spy and introduced me to diplomatic circles in Berlin, London and Paris. He became second only to the Graf in influence and power, which is why Dracula killed him. You knew that, too. I can tell by your face. A woman doesn't need to be able to read minds, though some vampires can. It is his weakness, Charles. Anyone about him who shows himself too able, he will become suspicious of. And he will destroy. He is a proud descendent of Attila but nations can no longer be ruled like barbarian tribes. Germany and Austria-Hungary need the capable men Dracula has assassinated. Only fools and the slyest of traitors survive. One man, even Dracula, cannot hold together such an empire. He failed in Britain and he will fail in Germany. Your responsibility is to ensure that enough of Europe survives his fall to start again.

  Captain Drummond was still chuckling over his personal plans for 'Lenin, Trotsky and their unwashed shower'. Winthrop shivered. Dracula was hardly Europe's last monster.

  'When Tesla fell, I became an inconvenience and was sent to Paris. I was set up in apartments and resumed my life as a dancer. Mabuse, Tesla's successor, ordered me to ensnare as many dignitaries as I could.'

  The woman was accused of prising the plans for a French offensive out of General Mireau, another advocate of the Drummond way to mass suicide. This was the charge upon which she had been executed.