conquest and she would come to him, baring her neck for his satisfaction. It was smooth and peculiarly delightful. His approach became delicate and he was able more to relish the pleasures of feeding.
It was time he made more vampires, like Penelope Churchward. He would need concubines, catspaws, maidservants. Each powerful elder had his retinue, adoring get who served their master’s interests. For the first time, he wondered what had happened to the new-born Penny. She had stolen a suit of his clothes. He must seek her out and bend her to his purpose.
‘Art?’ came an educated girl’s voice. ‘I say, it’s Lord Godalming, isn’t it?’
He looked at the girl and his thoughts crawled down. It was like being dragged from a mountain peak into a muddy trough; forced to consider petty pursuits after having had the prospect of things colossal.
‘Miss Reed,’ he purred, ‘how pleasant to find you.’
Kate Reed looked at him strangely, almost shocked. He considered feeding off her, but was not ready. Vampire blood was heady. Only true elders could survive a diet of the stuff, exhorting tribute from their vassals. He was not yet strong enough, but Kate might make a suitable vassal in the new century. Doubtless weak, she could be easily shaped into a pliable devotee.
The girl looked taken aback; disgust leaked out of her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I see I was mistaken.’
Since turning, she had changed. Godalming had badly underestimated Kate Reed. She had found him entirely transparent. His thoughts had been written on his face, or so boldly in his head that even a poor new-born could distinguish them. He would have to be more careful. The girl retreated swiftly, almost running. She would not welcome his attentions in the near future. Still, he had time. Eventually, he would claim her. He would make a project of it.
He resumed his whistling, but the tune was shrill and erratic to his own ears. With considerable irritation, he realised Kate Reed had rattled him. He was so taken with his new abilities and perceptions that he had neglected the mask that had been a part of him long before he left his warm days behind. He had let another see him as he truly was, which was unforgivable. His father, his human father, would have thrashed him soundly for showing his hand in such a blatant fashion.
He wanted to be among people, hidden in a crowd. There was a public house, the Ten Bells, on the other side of the road. He might find a woman there. He crossed the street, dodging out of the path of a cart, and pushed into the pub...
... there were a few warm folks scattered in the crowd, but mostly the Ten Bells was a vampire pub. Godalming resisted the meagre temptations of a pint of pig’s blood, but found company with a pair of new-born whores. To everyone but his quarry, he would seem a slumming murgatroyd from the West End. He wore his frilliest shirt and his tightest jacket, and looked the part of a bloodthirsty, empty-headed poseur.
The whores were called Nell and Marie Jeanette; they were lightly sozzled on gin and pig’s blood. Nell was remarkably hirsute with a striking faceload of stiff red bristles. Marie Jeanette was Irish with absurd pretensions and new clothes. Marie Jeanette, who was almost pretty, had an appointment later, presumably with a deep- pocketed admirer. She was just passing the time but Nell was seriously on the prowl and took elaborate care to seem intrigued, often commenting on his general good appearance and obvious sharpness. He did his best to seem a drunken, affected idiot.
Nell was outlining a supposedly tempting scheme, involving a warm third party. She was proposing that they get together in her nearby room, and he could have his pleasure of the two of them, satisfying all his interests in one bed. She kept rubbing her whiskered cheek against him, letting him sniff her animal musk.
‘Yer has to rub me the right way, Artie,’ she said, smoothing the fur on her arm, then ruffling it up. ‘Depending on what yer likes.’
He looked across the pub and saw a man at the bar, back to the room. Godalming, with a rush of excitement,
‘That man at the bar,’ he said, ‘with the extravagant moustache. Do you know him? Don’t be obvious about looking.’
If Nell noticed he was suddenly twice as intelligent and half as interested in her, she accepted the change without complaint. She was used to the requirements of her gentleman friends. Like a good little spy, she took a neatly surreptitious look and whispered to him, ‘He’s a regular. Danny Dravot.’
The name meant nothing but hearing it gave him a ticklish thrill in his stomach. His quarry had a face and a name. Dravot was almost in Godalming’s power.
‘I thought I might have known him in the army,’ he said.
‘He was in India, I hears. Or maybe Afghanistan.’
‘A sergeant, I’ll wager.’
‘Some does call him that.’
Marie Jeanette was listening to them. She must be feeling left out, awaiting her tardy suitor.
‘Does yer want me to invite him over,’ Nell asked.
Godalming looked at Dravot’s glittering red eyes. Though sharp and clever, they did not seem to notice him.
‘No,’ he told the whore. ‘He’s not the fellow I thought he was.’
Dravot finished his pint and left the Ten Bells. Godalming let him get entirely out and stood up, leaving the two whores cold. They would be puzzled but go on to the next customer. Whores were no threat.
‘’Ere, where yer goin’?’ Nell protested.
He lurched away from the table, pretending to be drunk.
‘’E’s a rum ’un,’ Nell told Marie Jeanette.
The doors were pulled open just as he reached them and he slipped out into the street, shoving aside a new-comer. Dravot was briskly marching away, towards the Old Jago. He made as if to follow but a hand was laid on his shoulder.
‘Art?’
... of all the people in the Empire, he had run into Jack Seward! The doctor was much changed. Still warm, he seemed ten years older, face weathered, hair streaked grey, colour bad. His clothes had been good once, but were missing a few buttons and none the better for dusty stains.
‘Good God, Art, what...?’
Dravot stopped to talk with a knife-grinder. Godalming thanked providence, and wondered how he might get rid of his unwanted old friend.
‘You look...’ Unable to complete a sentence, Seward shook his head and grinned. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Godalming could tell Seward was sick in his head. When last he had seen him – in Purfleet when, as a warm fool, Godalming had dared defy Dracula and wound up fleeing for his life, leaving behind his companions to face the Count – Seward had been nervous but in command of himself. Now he was a broken man. Still ticking but completely broken, like a watch that skips hours and sometimes runs backwards for the odd minute.
Dravot was deep in conversation with the knife-grinder. The man must be one of his confederates.
‘You’re a vampire.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Like
He remembered Lucy, screeching as he pounded the stake into her. The dreadful grinding of the saw against her neckbone as Van Helsing and Seward removed her garlic-stuffed head. The old anger came back. ‘No, not like Lucy.’
Dravot started walking off again. Godalming stepped around Seward and hesitated. If he broke into a run, the Sergeant would know he was pursued and take steps to evade the huntsman. Coldly ignoring Seward, he began to walk, pretending to amble, but actually moving at a measured pace, fixing Dravot in his eye. The doctor caught up and trotted at his side, giving out little yelps to get his attention like an overly-insistent mendicant. Behind them, someone else had come out of the Ten Bells. She shouted after Seward. It was Marie Jeanette. Seward had certainly changed his habits since Godalming last knew him.
‘Art, why did you turn? After all he did to us, why...?’
