The Bloody Red Baron: Anno Dracula 1918 Page 25

  Richthofen stood on the lip of the platform, wings spread like black sails. Kurten, roped at the waist to Haarmann lest he be swept off the platform, fastened the hooks of the Baron's boots, binding his legs together up to the knee. Leather pouches slung round the flier's thighs were packed with extra drums of ammunition. An armoured helm fitted over his head, cut away from the flaring ears. Some of the Baron's comrades wore protective goggles in their shapeshifted form, but Richthofen scorned such comforts. His eye-sockets had risen into gogglelike ridged orbits.

  Poe fought the wind and moved nearer the Baron. Theo called, telling him to be careful. Under his breath, Ewers prayed Poe be carried off into the air and dropped into the forest.

  The Baron turned to look back and opened his mouth, baring foot-long fang-teeth. The inside of his mouth was a startling red, a wound in his black-furred face.

  'I'm hungry, poet,' he said. 'How does their nursery rhyme go, "I smell the blood of an Englishman"?'

  Poe was startled. He had not thought the shape-shifted Baron capable of ordinary speech. His voice was surprisingly little changed.

  'If you have to, write my obituary.'

  Richthofen's shoulder-joints revolved as his wings lifted. He tipped forward, falling stiffly from the platform. His wings caught the air. A backwash forced Poe to his hands and knees.

  The Baron dipped beneath the platform. Then he soared above it, spiraling towards stars. He did not flap his wings constantly, but glided on the currents, forcing himself through the air by will-power. An occasional beat was enough to keep him aloft.

  Poe tried to stand, but was struck shivering. His boot slipped and he fell hard, sliding towards the edge. The Baron had been a wind-break. Now Poe was the only speck on the platform, winds threatened to dash him away. He stood again, carefully, and made a firm footing. Richthofen was nearly over the trenches, visible only because fires gave his underside a faint reddish glow. His flight was swift and elegant.

  Returning to the tower, Poe was pulled inside by Theo.

  'You should be more careful, Eddy. I'd have a thorny time explaining your loss to Mabuse.'

  Poe was still shivering.

  The scientists huddled, filling out forms, arguing minor points. The attendants put things away. General Kamstein stood where the Baron had changed, looking down at Richthofen's abandoned robe. Like a valet, Kurten whisked the garment away and brushed it off.

  Theo clicked his heels and saluted. Karnstein returned the honour.

  'Manfred is a brave lad,' the elder said. 'I pray he'll return safely.'

  if I chose to worry about anyone, I should save my fears for those who will be hunted down by Baron von Richthofen. He is, after all, invincible.'

  Karnstein's face was grey, true age showing through apparent middle years.

  'Kretschmar-Schuldorff,' he said wearily, 'no one is invincible.'

  32

  A Restorative

  Kate awoke in the echoing dark of her skull, eyes sealed by the grit which formed if she slept through two or three days. The thread binding her to an unaging corpse was weaker than since her death. Her body was a hotel, suddenly emptied by a change of season or the outbreak of international crisis. No longer a home.

  Fierce heartburn told her feeding was a matter of urgency. Extreme urgency. Her swollen and jagged fang-teeth were broken marbles in her mouth. She was drooling, losing needed fluid. With a gulp, she swallowed spit.

  Her eye-gum cracked. It was night. She was still in Edwin's billet. In addition to her dress, a sheet had been tucked around her. The makeshift sleep-clothes smelled off. She wasn't wearing her specs.

  A man sat on the bed. In the unlighted room, a cigar end burned like a distant sun. His silhouette was slumped.

  'Edwin,' she croaked. Her dry throat hurt.

  The silhouette turned up a lamp. It was Charles, his face shockingly aged by the lamp's deep-etched shadows.

  'What have you done now, Kate?'

  Stabbing pain pierced her burning heart, as if she had been roused from lassitude by a die-hard Van Helsingite with a stake of hot iron.

  'Edwin ...'

  Charles shook his head.

  'Winthrop is a changed man. A much-changed man, though not perhaps quite as you expected.'

  It was not fair! Charles assumed too much, reached wrong conclusions. Blame was being unequally assigned. She could not make her voice work. She could not explain.

  I thought we agreed you were to leave France?'

  Kate made fists and thumped her chest. She was embarrassed Charles should find her in this condition. Apart from wretched feebleness, she was unclothed.

  'You are a sorry creature,' he said.

  Charles stubbed his cigar out in a saucer and stood. He creaked a little like an old man, and hung his head so as not to bump the ceiling. He knelt by her, letting out a breath of exertion as his knees locked. There was an enamel basin under the bedside table. Charles found a damp flannel and applied it to her face, wiping dried trails from around her mouth and grit from her eyes. Satisfied, he took her glasses from the table, unfolded them, and eased them on to her face.

  She saw the room in dizzying, sharp focus. Up close, the tiny lines around Charles's eyes were crevasses.

  'Thirsty,' she said, deliberately. The word was unrecognisable, even to her own ears. She was furious with herself. She must be captain of her vessel. 'Thirsty,' she said again, clearly.

  Charles half-understood and reached for a jug of water that had been beside the basin.

  She shook her head. ' Thirsty.'

  'Kate, you presume a great deal on our friendship.'

  She couldn't tell him what she meant. She could not explain why her red thirst was so urgent. She had lost too much blood, to Arrowsmith's Blighty cases, to Edwin ...

  He touched her throat. A spark passed between them. Charles understood. His time with Genevieve had taught him.

  'You are close to starved. Bled white.'

  He held the lamp close to her face. She blinked as he peered at her.

  'There's grey in your hair, Katie,' he said, harmlessly gloating. 'You look as you would if you'd not turned. A shame you can never see the effect.'

  Kate had no reflection. She did not show up in photographs. Sketches made of her could have been of a stranger. In warmth, she was hardly remembered for her looks.

  'If you'd lived, you'd have been a fine woman,' Charles said kindly.

  'I look like a mole, Charles. With untidy hair and freckles.'

  He laughed, surprised she could manage a sentence.

  'You underestimate yourself. Girls thought prettier than you grew fat and bad-tempered. You'd have become beautiful in your thirties. Character would have shown in your face.'

  'Nonsense.'

  'How would you know, Kate?'

  'When we were all alive, you proposed to pretty Penelope and hardly noticed mole-face Kate.'

  Old hurt wrinkled his brow. 'Young men make mistakes.'

  'I'd such a crush on you, Charles. When you announced your engagement to Penny, I cried for days. I was driven to the arms of Frank Harris. And look what he made of me.'

  She put fingers through her stringy hair, combing away settled dust.

  'I wish I could stay angry with you for any length of time, Kate.'

  He pushed his knees as he stood, and sat on the stool. She squirrelled back, hugging her sheet to her chest, propping herself against the wall.

  'What happened here?' he asked.

  'What has happened to Edwin?'

  Ever the harbourer of secrets, he didn't want to give anything away.

  'You first.'

  'He took blood from me.'

  He nodded.

  'But I took none from him.'

  He shook his head.

  'He seemed to have some idea of assuming vampire strength without actually turning.'

  'Is that possible?'

  'I don't know. Ask an elder or a scientist. Or look in your heart.'

  He did n
ot pretend not to understand her. In his time with Genevieve, Charles had gained some of her strengths. Through love, Kate thought, or osmosis.

  'What has ... become of him?'

  Charles was concerned for his protege. That was why he sat in vigil, waiting for her to wake.

  'He seems in good health. He has graduated from flying school. He will be the Diogenes Club's man in Condor Squadron. He has created a unique position and trained himself to fill it.'

  'But you're worried?'

  'As I said, he's changed. I do not say this lightly, but he frightens me. He reminds me of Caleb Croft.'

  Another pain-burst racked her chest. Ribs constricted her heart like a bone fist. Hugging herself, she fought to control her twitching limbs.

  Charles took out his right cuff-link, skinned his coat sleeve up to his elbow and rolled back his shirt sleeve. She shook her head, lips tight over jutting, aching fangs. Her heart yearned.

  'Am I too old a vintage, Miss Connoisseur? Gone to vinegar, perhaps?'

  Since Genevieve, Charles had not allowed himself to be bled. Kate knew this with certainty.

  He sat on the floor and pulled her on to his lap. She was shocked by the warmth of him, realising how cold she was, how close to truly dead.

  'You must, Kate.'

  He presented his inner wrist to her. There were tiny, long- healed marks where Genevieve had suckled.

  This came too late in their lives to be what she had once wished for, but it would mean survival. And with survival came unexpected second and third chances.

  'I'll take vanilla,' she said. He smiled.

  She took his hand and licked his wrist with her rough, long tongue. A healing agent in her saliva would smooth his wound within the hour. Charles smiled. He was familiar with this.

  'Go ahead, pretty creature,' he said, gently. 'Drink.'

  She sucked a fold of skin between her upper and lower incisors. Her fang-teeth gnashed. Blood filled her mouth.

  The red taste exploded. Jolts ran throughout her body, more intense than a conventional act of love. Time concertinaed: Charles's blood sparkled on her tongue and against the roof of her mouth, trickled down her dry gullet and soothed her burning heart.

  Suppressing shudders of pleasure, Kate was distanced enough to measure her feeding. If she drank from Charles's neck, there would be more to it. The wrist was far enough from heart and soul and head. Only sensations came through. His mind, with its secrets, was curtained.

  She detached her mouth from his fresh wound and looked up at his face. His smile was tight. A pulse throbbed below his jaw, a blue finger beckoning. Her hands hooked into his coat. She might climb up him, drink from the source.

  Her nose stung with the scent of blood. The trickle from his wrist called her. She drank, losing herself...

  ... she was in a reverie, blood warming her throat, stickily smeared around her mouth.

  'Thank you, Charles,' she breathed, lapping again.

  He stroked her hair gently. Her glasses skewed as she pressed her face to his wrist. He set them straight.

  She did not take much from him. But he shared the strength of his spirit. She was no longer a stranger in her body. Her aches eased. She took command of her limbs. Her muscles were supple, comfortable.

  She snuggled against Charles as he rolled down his shirt sleeve and retrieved a cuff-link from his waistcoat pocket.

  He held up the lamp again and looked at her hair.

  'The grey is gone. Red as rust.'

  She stood, steady on her feet, holding up her dress to preserve some measure of modesty.

  'A pity,' Charles said. 'I liked you older.'

  She flicked him in the face with her sleeve.

  'We'll have no more of your cheek, Mr Beauregard.'

  'You're much more Irish when you're cross.'

  She was blushing. After feeding, she was ruddy as a labourer.

  Charles tried to stand, but could not. She had forgotten he'd be the weaker, temporarily, for their communion. She helped him up.

  'There now, grandfather,' she teased. 'You should not tire yourself so. Not at your age.'

  She kissed his cheek and, modesty abandoned, wriggled into her gamey dress, settling it on her hips. There were catches up the back.

  'Could you do me up, Charles?'

  'I doubt if anyone could, Kate.'

  33

  The Killer

  'My father discriminates between a sportsman and a shooter. A shooter hunts for fun. My brother is, at heart, a shooter. Lothar loves to fly, to take risks. A sportsman hunts for the kill. I find my prey and I kill him, quickly. Each makes me stronger.'

  Baron von Richthofen, going against instinct, made a genuine attempt to explain. Theo lagged behind them, saying nothing. Poe knew he remembered the instance when the Baron had chosen to play with his prey rather than kill, quickly. Albert Ball's observer still rankled with Theo.

  'When I have killed an Englishman,' Richthofen continued, 'my hunting passion is satisfied for a quarter of an hour. Then, the urge returns ...'

  They walked by the lake shore. The day was overcast. All three vampires wore heavily peaked caps and dark glasses. Replete from a night's stalking, the Baron was more expansive than in earlier interviews. Theo had suggested Poe might find Richthofen more forthcoming outside the castle. To a huntsman, being within walls is like premature burial.

  An animal was following. Poe heard its quiet rustle in the long grass. It was some sort of small dog. The Baron had also noticed their hanger-on and darted the occasional hungry glance at its position.

  Last night, Richthofen had stalked and killed four times during a three hour flight. His bag was an RE8 spotter, a French Spad, a Sopwith Camel and a British observation balloon. Six men were truly dead, four of them vampires. The Baron's score was increased by three victories. Balloons were reckoned separately. The Frenchman, Nungesser, had had a high score. This victory, which the Baron gave equal weight in his official report, would be remembered as one of his greatest.

  'How would you rate your night's work?'

  'It was good hunting. I drank from all but one of my kills.'

  'Which is more important to you, the feeding or the killing?'

  Poe regretted the question. It prompted Richthofen to throw up his guards. At first, Poe had thought the Baron genuinely baffled by such probing; now, he realised Richthofen merely measured his words, taking care to say nothing that might alert an Air Service censor.

  The dog, a sad-eyed white beagle, emerged from the grass and padded over towards them. The cur must be surviving on dead men's scraps.

  'The victory counts,' Richthofen said, at last.

  'And what is a victory to you?'

  Richthofen turned away and looked out over still water.

  'And what is a lake to you, poet?'

  It was an indifferent lake. Murky but not reeking, unbeautiful but not grotesque. A British fighter had come down in it the night Richthofen let Ball's observer away. Wreckage had been dredged out and fixed to the trophy wall in the castle. The body of the pilot had not been found.

  'I can't tell you, but I can tell you what feeding is to me, what the blood of women means . .

  'Women,' Richthofen snorted.

  Theo looked up, killing a smile.

  'I do not apologise for my nature,' Poe said. 'Though I have been, of necessity, a soldier, I am not a killer by inclination.'

  'My brother claims he would prefer to be a lover than a fighter. But he lies to himself.'

  'To me, the act of vampirism is a tender communion, an assuagement of solitude, a reaffirmation in death of life ...'

  'You lose me, poet. Do you not kill?'

  Poe was ashamed. White, dead women haunted him. Teeth and eyes and long, long hair.

  'I have killed,' he admitted. 'When I was a new-born, especially. I did not understand the nature of my condition.'

  I am a new-born. I have been a vampire for only eight years. Professor Ten Brincken tells me I change constantl
y.'

  'But you become more a killer?'

  Richthofen nodded once. He drew a pistol from a leather holster and fired once, smartly. The beagle, surprised, was pierced through the head. It kicked, gouting blood from its ears, and lay dead.

  'Absurd dog,' Richthofen said, suppressing a shudder. For some unknown reason, he found the harmless animal as repulsive as a plague rat.

  Theo was alarmed by the casual kill. The shot resounded, assaulting Poe's sensitive eardrums. A flight of ducks burst from a clump of reeds. The dog-blood smell pricked Poe's red thirst. The animal was repulsive, but he remembered the sweetness of Gigi. At Malinbois, warm women were sometimes provided for the fliers. Poe hungered.

  'My country requires I be a killer,' Richthofen said. 'I do my duty.'

  in centuries to come, you may change greatly. Your country's requirements may change, freeing you from duties. You may become a lover too.'

  Richthofen, mild and cold and pale, looked directly at Poe. 'I have no centuries to come. I am a dead man.'

  Poe looked at Theo, puzzled.

  'I was given to understand that you turned without passing through death? You yourself told me so.'

  The Baron looked disgusted. 'I do not mean that, poet. I am a truly dead man. All of us in JG1, we are dead men with temporary use of our corpses. It is likely that we will not survive the war.'

  Theo's lips pressed in a serious line. He exhaled smoke and tossed the last of a cigarette into the lake.

  'It's Nungesser. You drank his blood. You think his thoughts.'

  The tiny coal of the cigarette hissed.

  I think my own thoughts, Kretschmar-Schuldorff. But you are right. The Frenchman was like me. He knew he was dead.

  Each victory for him was a reprieve. When I killed him, he was not surprised. He had known death would catch up with him eventually. I knew that as I tore his throat out and drank his hot blood.'

  'Do you deem those you defeat your comrades?' Poe asked.

  'The tragedy of war is the pitting of like against like. We fliers have more in common with those we fight than with those for whom we fight. I shall most likely die in the air. Oswald Boelcke, my teacher, died in the stupidest of accidents. All of us, us so-called heroes, die. We fall from the sky in flames. Only the plodding dogs will survive.'