The Kingdom of Bones

himself, had gained some notoriety in London circles before traveling out to Paris to join Mathers as a pupil.

Mathers said, “I sent an astral vampire to bring him down. He struck back at me with Beelzebub and an army of demons.”

To Stoker, it was as if the traffic around them slowed into silence and all of the color drained out of the world. He stopped, and Mathers stopped with him. Stoker turned to look more closely at the other man.

Mathers was manifestly serious in what he was saying. But his eyes were dark-ringed, small, sunk back in his head as if by madness or malnutrition. They glittered, but not in the manner of a man filled with energy. More in the way of a man adrift. They were the too-bright eyes of a helpless stranger, far out of reach.

“An astral vampire,” Stoker said.

“We battle with magic.”

And he clearly believed it, too. Stoker looked at him. Mathers was not exactly a close friend, but Stoker had known him well and for many years. His manner now was dogged, earnest, entirely sincere. It was a heartbreaking sight to behold.

Stoker said, “How do you imagine I can help you, Mathers?”

“Don’t do this,” Mathers warned. “Don’t pretend you don’t believe. I have read your book.” He reached inside the big coat and, from some capacious inner pocket, half produced a novel in yellow cloth binding so that just its corner showed. “They dismiss it as a shocker,” he said. “But I know how close it is to the truth.”

“Dracula is a fiction,” Stoker said.

“Every fiction has its original,” Mathers said, unwittingly echoing another novelist’s assertion in the British Museum’s reading room all those years before. “You tracked down the Wanderer. You found him. Don’t try to deny it.” He indicated the book. “This adventure you tell…it’s a shadow play of what you really saw. Where is he now?”

“Who?”

“The Wanderer. The real one. I have a proposition for him.”

“Don’t,” Stoker said. “Do not ask me this. Please.”

“I helped you once, Bram. Perhaps I even helped you more than you can know. Did you think your good fortunes were all your own?”

Strange that Mathers should speak of his good fortunes, when in Stoker’s own eyes so many of his hopes had fallen short of the mark. He’d thrown over his life for Irving, and imagined himself to be one of the great man’s closest confidants; and yet when Irving had sold out the Lyceum to the syndicate, he’d told Stoker nothing of it until after the deal was done. And the work in which he’d invested all of his hopes of a serious literary reputation— Mathers was right, they called it a shocker, well done of its kind but with little of lasting merit, while his publishers had given it their shoddiest binding and done almost nothing to promote it to the public.

Even Irving, whose opinion mattered more to him than anyone’s, thought it dreadful. If there was proof that Stoker’s life was not enhanced by any magic, then there it lay.

He said, “Life has treated me well enough. I might have appreciated better. But I’ve never wished for anything more than I’ve deserved.”

“Won’t you help me, Bram?” Mathers pleaded.

Stoker drew in a deep breath, let it out, and looked down.

Then he said, “Call by the stage door at eight, when the curtain’s gone up. I’ll have something for you then.”

He left Mathers in Leicester Square and walked back toward Drury Lane. He was fairly sure that he knew why Mathers wanted confirmation that there was a reality behind the Wanderer, and why he wanted to know where the current bearer of the title might be found. Mathers was a disappointed man, his life all but in ruins. He was unemployed, and probably unemployable. He and his wife had been living in near poverty in Paris. The organization that he’d helped to found had cast him out. His protege was now his enemy. His reaction was the natural response of a desperate man: Only allow me the opportunity, and I will pay any price for the chance to turn my life around.

Any price. For in a position like his, it must seem that he had nothing at all to lose. What would it cost you to give up your soul, if your soul was a dead thing already?

Now Stoker was on Drury Lane, and across the road stood the Theatre Royal. It was no Lyceum, that was for sure. It had a big stage and good seating capacity, but on the outside its proportions were clumsy and lacking in symmetry or magnificence.

Back in that unfamiliar office, he returned his hat to the hook and settled again behind the desk. He’d have no time at home today. There was still much to do before the evening’s performance. Irving planned to lead with Dante on his eighth American tour, and he had asked Stoker to prepare abstracts from the better notices for cabling ahead.

But first, Stoker drew out a blank sheet of notepaper and took up his pen.

My dear friend, he wrote. If you would place so much faith in my word, be advised by me now. Forget these notions. Nothing you might find would be as you imagine. May your God go with you. Bram.

He put five pounds in with the letter, and sealed both into a new envelope. He wrote Mathers’ name on the front and took it down to the stage door, where he placed it in the care of the doorkeeper to await collection. He left instructions that Mathers was not to be admitted to the building, nor was Stoker to be sent for even if Mathers demanded it. If he should refuse to leave, the police were to be summoned.

It felt like a cowardly act. Whatever human flaws and frailties he might have possessed, cowardice had no part in Stoker’s nature. But he could see no other way. At best he’d have to play the unhelpful brute, the treacherous friend. At worst, he might give in and tell Mathers what he wanted to know.

That would be, in its strongest sense, unforgivable.

He went back to his borrowed office, where he turned his attention to American tour dates.

THIRTY-TWO

In his suite of rooms on a second-floor corner of Murphy’s Hotel, the young man known as Jules Patenotre was contemplating his shoes. He had them all out in a line, and was trying to decide which pair to wear today. All had been burnished until the leather shone. Not by his own hand, of course. Twice a week he had the houseboy come up and shine them while he watched. Watching the houseboy distracted his mind. Jules Patenotre’s mind had a tendency to race and, if he did not take care to guide it, to seek out unexpected torments with which to entertain him.

Hotel living suited him, though. His needs were taken care of at the ring of a bell, and he was relieved of any need to keep a personal staff. He’d occupied these rooms for more than two years, ever since the Jefferson fire had destroyed his lodgings—and all his old shoes—there. No one had died, but the place had been gutted. They were rebuilding the Jefferson now. If this place should happen to burn down, he might move back in there.

When a knock came at the door, he made a quick decision and stepped into a pair of English Oxfords. He left the rest for the maid to deal with. By now, he’d have expected the visitor to have entered on a passkey. They had not, which suggested that it was someone other than hotel staff. He was expecting no one. This was awkward— one of the drawbacks of having no valet or manservant to deal with intrusion. He went to open the door himself.

A man stood there in the hotel corridor, his hat in his hands. He had a Slavic look to him. His head was shaven close, the gray stubble showing.

“Well?” Jules said after waiting for a few moments. “You knocked at my door. Do you intend to speak?”

“Sir,” the man said, and seemed to stop there. Jules studied him for a moment, and then recognized him.

“You’re Mary D’Alroy’s man,” Jules prompted. “I saw you at the Academy of Music.”

“I am sent to inform you.”

Again, Jules waited. “Of what?” he said.

“Miss D’Alroy—”

“Is a wonderful employer? That’s very loyal of you.”

He tried again. “Miss D’Alroy—”