Genevieve craned and saw the pathetic lump on the end of its pike. Some said Abraham Van Helsing was still alive, in the Prince Consort’s thrall, raised high so that his eyes might see the reign of Dracula over London. That was a lie; what was left was a fly-blown skull.
The main gates loomed before them, new-fangled barbed wire wrapped around the upright bars. Carpathians, midnight black uniforms slashed with crimson, hauled the huge ironwork frames aside as if they were silk curtains, and the coach slid through. Genevieve imagined Netley sweating like a frightened pig at an Indian Officers’ Ball. The Palace, illuminated by watch-fires and incandescent lamps, poured black smoke into the sky, its face an image of Moloch the Devourer.
Charles’s face was a blank, but he was focused in his mind. ‘You can stay in the carriage,’ he said, urgent, persuasive. ‘Safe. I shall be all right. This will not take long.’
Genevieve shook her head. She supposed she had been avoiding Vlad Tepes for centuries, but she would face whatever was inside the Palace.
‘Gene, I beg you,’ his voice almost broke.
Two nights ago, she had been with Charles, delicately lapping blood from cuts on his chest. She knew and understood his body now. Together, they made love. She knew and understood him.
‘Charles, why are you so worried? We’re heroes, we have nothing to fear from the Prince. I am his elder.’
The carriage halted by the maw-like porch, and a periwigged footman opened the door. Genevieve stepped down first, relishing the soft crunch of the clean gravel under her shoes. Charles followed, taut as a drawn bowstring, gathering his cloak about him. She took his arm and nuzzled against him, but he would not be comforted. He eagerly anticipated what he would find inside the Palace, but his anticipation was blackened by dread.
Beyond the Palace fences stood crowds, as usual. Sullen sightseers peered through the bars, awaiting the Changing of the Guard. Near the gates, Genevieve saw a familiar face, the Chinese girl from the Old Jago. She stood with a tall, old oriental man whose aspect was somehow sinister. Behind them, in shadow, was a taller, older oriental form, and she had a flash of a past terror, returning. Looking again, the Chinese party was gone, but her heart still beat too fast. Charles had still not told her the full story behind his bargain with the elder assassin.
The footman, a vampire youth with a gold-painted face, led them up the broad stairs, and struck the doors with his tall stick. They opened as if by some unheard mechanism, disclosing the marbled length of a vaulted reception hall.
With her single decent dress ruined, she had been forced to commission a replacement. Now she wore it for the first time, a simple ball-gown free of bustles, frills and flounces. She doubted Vlad Tepes thought much of formality but supposed she should make an effort for the Queen. She could remember the family as electors of Hanover. Her only unusual ornament was a small gold crucifix on the latest of innumerable replacement chains. It was all she had from her warm life. Her real father had given it to her, claiming it blessed by Jeanne d’Arc. She doubted that but somehow had contrived to keep it through the ages. Many times, she had walked away from entire lives – houses, possessions, wardrobes, estates, fortunes – keeping only the cross the Maid of Orleans had probably never touched.
Thirty-foot diaphanous silk curtains parted in the draught, and they passed through. The effect was of a giant cobweb, billowing open to entice the unwary fly. Servants appeared, under the direction of a vampire lady-in- waiting, and Charles and Genevieve were relieved of their cloaks. A Carpathian, his face a mask of stiff hair, stood by to watch Charles hand over his cane. Silver was frowned on at the Court. She had no weapons to yield...
... he had tried everything to dissuade her from accompanying him, short of disclosing to her the duty he must perform. Beauregard knew he would die. His death would have purpose, and he was prepared for it. But his heart sickened at what might become of Genevieve. This was not her crusade. If it were possible, he would help her escape even at the cost of his own life. But his duty was more important than either of them.
When they were together, warmed by their communion, he told her what he had told no other woman since Pamela.
‘Gene, I love you.’
‘And I you, Charles. I you.’
‘I you what?’
‘Love, Charles. I love you.’
Her mouth was on him again and they rolled together, getting comfortable...
* * *
... an armadillo wriggled by her feet, its rear-parts clogged with its own dirt. Vlad Tepes had raided Regent’s Park Zoo and had exotic species roaming loose in the Palace. This poor edentate was merely one of his more harmless pets.
The lady-in-waiting who guided them through the cathedral-like space of the reception hall wore black velvet livery, the Royal Crest upon her bosom. With tight trews and gold-buckled knee-boots, she looked like the principal boy. Although handsome, her face had lost any feminine softness it might have possessed when its wearer was warm.
‘Mr Beauregard, you have forgotten me,’ she said.
Charles, involved in his own thoughts, was almost shocked. He looked closely at the lady-in-waiting.
‘We met at the Stokers’,’ she explained. ‘Some years ago. Before the changes.’
‘Miss Murray?’
‘The widow Harker now. Wilhelmina. Mina.’
Genevieve knew who the woman was: one of Vlad Tepes’s get. After Jack Seward’s Lucy, the first of the Prince Consort’s conquests in Britain. Like Jack and Godalming, she had been in with Van Helsing’s group.
‘So that fearful murderer was Dr Seward,’ Mina Harker mused. ‘He was spared only to suffer, and to make others suffer. And Lord Godalming too. How Lucy would have been disappointed in her suitors.’
Genevieve saw into Mina Harker, and realised the woman was condemned – had condemned herself – to exist with the consequences of failure. Her failure to resist Vlad Tepes, her circle’s failure to trap and destroy the invader.
‘I had not expected to find you here,’ Charles blurted.
‘Serving in Hell?’
They were at the end of the hall. More doors loomed above them. Mina Harker, eyes like burning ice, looked at them both as she struck a panel, the rapping of her knuckles as loud in the echoing space as shots from a revolver...
... Beauregard remembered the warm Mina Harker, unfussy and direct when set beside Florence, Penelope or Lucy, siding with Kate Reed in the belief that a woman should earn a living, should be more than a decoration. That woman was dead and this white-faced court servant was her pale ghost. Seward had been a ghost too, and Godalming. Between them, the Prince Consort and the skull on the pike had to account for a great deal of human wreckage.
The inner doors opened in noisy lurches and a startling servant admitted them to a well-lit antechamber. The extensive and grotesque malformations of his body were emphasised by a tailored particoloured suit. He was not the new-born victim of catastrophically failed shape-shifting, but a warm man suffering from enormous defects of birth. His spine was drastically kinked, loaf-shaped excrescences sprouting from his back; his limbs, with the exception of the left arm, were bloated and twisted. His head was swollen by bulbs of bone, from which sprouted wisps of hair, and his features were almost completely obscured by warty growths. Mycroft had prepared Beauregard for this, but he still felt a heart-stab of pity.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘Merrick, is it not?’
A smile formed somewhere in the doughy recesses of Merrick’s face. He returned the greeting, voice slurred by excess slews of flesh around his mouth.
‘How is Her Majesty this evening?’
Merrick did not reply, but Beauregard imagined expression in the unreadable expanse of his features. There was a sadness in his single exposed eye and a grim set to his growth-twisted lips.
He gave Merrick a card and said ‘Compliments of the Diogenes Club.’ The man understood and his huge head bobbed. He was another servant of the ruling cabal.
Merrick led them down the hallway, hunched over like a gorilla, a long club-handed arm propelling his body. It apparently amused the Prince Consort to keep this poor creature on hand. Beauregard could not help but feel an
