Ian Holt - Dracula - The Un-Dead

He was drawn swiftly back into the present by the sudden silence. In the ballroom below, the young woman had passed out from the pain. He could see her chest still heaving, so she was not yet dead. Bathory threw down her whip, as irritated as a cat when the mouse will not play after its neck is broken. Seward felt hot wetness on his face, and touched his cheek only to realize that he was crying.

“Prepare my bath!” Bathory ordered.

The Women in White propelled the young woman across the pulley system’s metal track and thus transported her into another room. Bathory turned to follow, purposefully stepping on the gold cross as she did so, twisting her foot and crushing it beneath her heel. Satisfied, she continued into the adjacent room, stripping off her clothes one by one as she went.

Seward leaned out over the balcony to see if there was another window looking into the adjacent room. The rain pattered to a stop. Its din would no longer hide his footfalls on the clay shingles. Slowly and cautiously, he made his way over to the next window and peered through. The pulley system ended directly above a Roman-style bath. Dozens of candles now illuminated the sight of Bathory slipping delicately out of her trousers. For the first time, Seward had a clear view of her—without a stitch of clothing. She looked nothing like the prostitutes he had encountered in the back rooms of Camden district brothels. The wanton curves of her body, white and smooth as porcelain, would have distracted most observers from ever noticing the calculating cruelty of her eyes—but not Seward. He had seen a gaze like that before.

Yet nothing in the doctor’s bleak past could have prepared him for the macabre scene he witnessed next. The young woman, pathetic gurgles issuing from her throat, was suspended above the edge of the empty mosaic bath. Bathory stood at the bottom; arms outstretched, neck arched back, magnificently naked. She turned her palms upward. It was a signal. In that instant, the dark-haired Woman in White used her fingernail to slit the young lady’s throat and pushed her to the end of the track just above where Bathory waited. Seward saw Bathory’s fanged mouth open wide as she orgasmically bathed in a shower of blood.

Damn them all to hell! His thoughts were inflamed as he reached into the false bottom of his medical bag for a small crossbow, loading it with a silver-tipped arrow. If this rash decision should be his death, so be it. Better to be dead than to allow this perverse evil to continue a second longer.

Seward aimed the crossbow between the wrought-iron bars and prepared to fire on Bathory. That was when he spotted something. His eyes widened in shock. There was a large advertisement poster lying on the desk by the window. The poster seemed to glow eerily as if it were painted by moonlight. The oversized embossed letters stood out:

William Shakespeare’s

“The Life and Death of King Richard III”

7 mars, 1912

Théâtre de l’Odéon

rue de Vaugirard 18

Téléf. 811.42

8 heures

Paris, France

Avec l’acteur roumain

BASARAB

dans le premier rôle

He took an involuntary step back, forgetting the incline of the roof. The tile under his foot cracked and slid down to shatter on the cobblestoned walkway below. He froze.

In the grand ballroom, the blond Woman in White spun at the sound outside. She flew to the door, her soulless eyes scanning the horizon for any sign of life. She saw no one. Remaining in the shadows, she moved around to the side of the house from where she had heard the noise. Again, she saw nothing and was about to return inside the villa when she spotted a broken clay tile on the ground—stained with a drop of fresh blood. Human blood. Its pungent aroma was unmistakable. She tasted it eagerly and immediately spat it out. The blood was polluted with chemicals.

With reptilian agility, she scaled the wall to inspect the villa further. On the rooftop, she spotted a bloodstained silver knife beneath one of the windows. Only an inexperienced vampire hunter would be naïve enough to carry a silver blade.

But the Woman in White knew that her mistress was no longer safe. They had to flee Marseilles tonight. She quickly scurried back into the house.

Seward knew that Bathory and her banshees would not stay in Marseilles this evening. They would assuredly flee to Paris and, once airborne, the dead travel fast. But thanks to the advertisement he had seen, Seward realized he once again had the advantage. He knew their plans. Countess Bathory and her companions would be at the theatre tomorrow night.

He allowed himself a grim smile. That is where the battle will take place.

“I charge thee to return and change thy shape,” cried out a young man in a bowler hat, arms stretched out imploringly, speaking in a determined yet trembling voice. “Such is the force of magic and my spells: No, Faustus, thou art conjuror laureat, That canst command great Mephistopheles: Quin regis Mephistopheles fratris imagine. ”

A hiss. A wall of smoke. Then flames erupted out of thin air. From the surrounding gas lamps sparked an extra roar. The small crowd that gathered in the Luxembourg Gardens gasped in unison.

Quincey Harker, his back turned to his audience, felt a surge of pride at his ingenuity. With a whiplash smile as he threw off his bowler hat, stuck on a false goatee, placed a pointed hat upon his brow, threw a cape over his shoulders, and, in what seemed a well-practiced continuous motion, leapt up and spun around onto the edge of La Fontaine Medici. The perfect setting for a one-man pantomime of Faust, for the Medici family had been a prominent Florentine family, patron saints of avant-garde artists and long rumored to be in league with the Devil. Quincey, completely at ease on his makeshift stage, reveled not only in his performance but also in his cleverness.

He did what was known as chapeaugraphy—changing hats to change characters. It was a well-known but seldom-used performance technique due to the high level of skill required and was thus attempted only by the most talented actors…or the most arrogant.

Quincey used the shadow cast by the figures on the fountain to ominous effect as he spread his cape and held himself with poised menace and growled in a deep, devilish voice, “Now, Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?”

Quincey paused, expecting applause from his audience. There was none. This was odd. Quincey glanced up and was surprised to find the audience distracted. Something was drawing their attention to the north end of the park. Quincey tried not to let this momentary diversion throw off his concentration. He knew his talent was up to the challenge. He had performed this part at the London Hippodrome, and was so good that he’d even managed to secure the “deuce spot” just before the main attraction, Charles Chaplin, a master of physical comedy. Rumor had it that Chaplin was going to leave London to find his fortune in America. Quincey had hoped to win Chaplin’s spot. But Quincey’s overbearing father, Jonathan Harker, had smashed that dream by paying off the theatre manager and shipping Quincey off to a Paris prison with no bars—to study law at the Sorbonne.

Panic set in for Quincey as his meager audience began to disperse, heading off to investigate the commotion at the park’s north end. Checking his false beard to see if it was crooked, Quincey hurriedly bellowed one of Mephistopheles’ soliloquies as he ran down the fountain steps, in a desperate attempt to regain his audience’s attention. “I am a servant to great Lucifer, and may not follow thee without his leave: No more than he commands must we perform!”

For a moment, it appeared as if the power of his performance would recapture his audience, but all hope was lost when Mephistopheles slipped on the fountain’s wet stone, crashing onto his arse. Laughter erupted as the last of the crowd walked away.