Anno Dracula

producers Stuart Pollak and Andre Jacquemetton) which offer variant or additional scenes, including some alternate endings. I have spotted a few mistakes that somehow got through the original editing process, and discreetly fixed them – so this is closer to being a definitive text than any previous publication.

DIG DEEPER INTO ANNO DRACULA

READ ON TO FIND INSIGHTS,

ARTICLES AND MUCH MORE.

Alternate ending to Anno Dracula first printed in The Mammoth Book of Vampires

Extracts from Anno Dracula: The Movie

‘Drac the Ripper’: an article by Kim Newman

‘Dead Travel Fast’: a short story by Kim Newman

ALTERNATE ANNO DRACULA

ALTERNATE SCENES FROM

THE ORIGINAL NOVEL

Alternate ending to Anno Dracula first printed in The Mammoth Book of Vampires.

As explained earlier a novella-length sketch for Anno Dracula appeared in Stephen Jones’s The Mammoth Book of Vampires. The novel supersedes and swallows the novella, and I don’t see any point in reprinting the whole thing – almost everything from the shorter version is in the book. However, the finale played out a little differently in my first run at it. This is Section 18 of ‘Red Reign’ (the title was Steve’s), which corresponds to Chapter 57 (‘The Home Life of Our Own Dear Queen’).

The Queen’s carriage had called for her at Toynbee Hall, and a fidgety coachman named Netley was delicately negotiating the way through the cramped streets of Whitechapel. Netley had already picked up Beauregard, from the Diogenes Club. The huge black horse and its discreetly imposing burden would feel less confined once they were on the wider thoroughfares of the city. Now, the carriage was like a panther in Hampton Court Maze, prowling rather than moving as elegantly and speedily as it was meant to. In the night, hostile eyes were aimed at the black coach, and at the coat of arms it bore.

Genevieve noticed Beauregard was somewhat subdued. She had seen him several times since the night of November 9th. Since 13 Miller’s Court. She had even been admitted into the hallowed chambers of the Diogenes Club, to give evidence to a private hearing at which Beauregard was called upon to give an account of the death of Dr Seward. She understood the secret ways of government, and realised this tribunal had as much to do with deciding which truths should be concealed as which should be presented to the public at large. The chairman, a venerable and warm diplomat who had weathered many changes of government, took everything in, but gave out no verdict, simply absorbing the information, as each grain of truth shaped the policies of a club that was often more than a club. There were few vampires in the Diogenes Club, and Genevieve wondered whether it might not be a hiding place for the pillars of the ancien regime, or a nest of insurrectionists.

An engraved invitation to the Palace had been delivered personally into her hand. As acting director of the Hall, she was busier than ever. A new strain of plague was running through the new-borns of Whitechapel, triggering off their undisciplined shape-shifting powers, creating a horde of short-lived, agonised freaks. But a summons from the Queen and the Prince Consort was not to be ignored.

Presumably, they were to be honoured for their part in ending the career of Jack the Ripper. A private honour, perhaps, but an honour nevertheless.

Genevieve wondered if Beauregard would be proud to meet his sovereign, or if her current state would sadden him. She had heard stories of the situation inside the Palace. And she knew more of Vlad Tepes than most. Among vampires, he had always been the Man Who Would Be King.

The carriage passed through Fleet Street – past the boarded-up and burned-out offices of the nation’s great newspapers – and the Strand. There was no fog tonight, just an icy wind.

It had been generally decided, in the ruling cabal of the Diogenes Club, that the identity of the murderer should be withheld, although it was common knowledge that his crimes had come to an end. Arrangements had been made at Scotland Yard, the Commissioner’s resignation exchanged for an overseas posting, and Lestrade and Abberline were on fresh cases. Nothing much had changed. Whitechapel was hunting a new madman now, a murderer of brutish disposition and appearance named Edward Hyde who had trampled a small child and then raised his ambitions by shoving a broken walking-stick through the heart of a new-born Member of Parliament. Once he was stopped, another murderer would come along, and another, and another...

In Trafalgar Square, there were bonfires. The red light filled the carriage as they passed Nelson’s Column. The police kept dousing the fires, but insurrectionists started them up again. Scraps of wood were smuggled in. Items of clothing even were used to fuel the fires. New-borns were superstitiously afraid of fire, and did not like to get too close.

Beauregard looked out with interest at the blazes, heaped around the stone lions. Originally a memorial to the victims of Bloody Sunday, they had a new meaning now. News had come through from India, where there had been another mutiny, with many warm British troops and officials throwing in their lot with the natives. Sir Francis Varney, the unpopular vampire Viceroy, had been dragged from his hiding place at the Red Fort in Delhi by a mob and cast into just such a fire, burned down to ash and bones. The colony was in open revolt. And there were stirrings in Africa and Points East.

Crowds were scuffling by the fires, one of the Prince Consort’s Carpathian Guard tossing warm young men about while the Fire Brigade, perhaps half-heartedly, tried to train their hoses. Placards were waved and slogans shouted.

JACK STILL RIPS, a graffito read.

The letters were still coming, the red-inked scrawls signed ‘Jack the Ripper’. Now, they called for the warm to rally against their vampire masters. Whenever a new-born was killed, ‘Jack the Ripper’ took the credit. Beauregard had said nothing, but Genevieve suspected that the letters were issued from the Diogenes Club. She saw that a dangerous game was being played in the halls of secret government, factions conspiring against each other, with the ruination of the Prince Consort as an end. Dr Seward might have been mad, but his work had not been entirely wasteful. Even if a monster became a hero, a new Guy Fawkes, a purpose was being served.

She was a vampire, but she was not of the bloodline of Vlad Tepes. That left her, as ever, on the sidelines of history. She had no real interest either way. It had been refreshing for a while not to have to pretend to be warm, but the Prince Consort’s regime made things uncomfortable for most of the un-dead. For every noble vampire in his town house, with a harem of willing blood-slaves, there were twenty of Mary Kelly, Lily, or Cathy Eddowes, as miserable as they had ever been, their vampire attributes addictions and handicaps rather than powers and potentials.

The carriage, able to breathe at last, rolled down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace. Insurrectionist leaders hung in chains from cruciform cages lining the road, some still barely alive. Within the last three nights, an open battle had raged in St James’s Park, between the warm and the dead.

‘Look,’ Beauregard said, sadly, ‘there’s Van Helsing’s head.’

Genevieve craned her neck and saw the pathetic lump on the end of its raised pike. The story was that 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. The story was a lie. What was left was a fly-blown skull, hung with ragged strips.

They were at the Palace. Two Carpathians, in midnight black uniforms slashed with crimson, hauled the huge ironwork frames aside as if they were silk curtains.

The exterior of the Palace was illuminated. The Union Jack flew, and the Crest of Dracula.

Beauregard’s face was a blank.

The carriage pulled up at the entrance, and a footman opened the door. Genevieve stepped down first, and