from his wrist, and points at CHARLES. Beyond speech, he spits out rage and hate.
CHARLES walks backwards. The vampires, suddenly sober, gather. The women of the harem and the officers of the guard. The women pounce first and bear him on to the floor, ripping...
GENEVIEVE pulls a hell-cat from the fray and pitches her across the room. GENEVIEVE bares her teeth and hisses at the fallen woman. Anger gives her strength. She hauls CHARLES free, thumping and stabbing with her hands. GENEVIEVE spits and shrieks with the other she-creatures, pulling handfuls of hair and scratching at red eyes. CHARLES, bloodied, still lives.
The BRIDES scrabble away, giving GENEVIEVE room. CHARLES stands by her, still in a daze. HENTZAU comes forward, Dracula’s champion. He makes a fist and a point of bone slides from his knuckles. It grows long and straight and sharp, a living sword.
GENEVIEVE steps out of range of the bone-rapier. The courtiers form a circle like a prizefight crowd. Still shackled to his dead Queen, DRACULA watches. HENTZAU whirls about, sword moving fast. She hears the blade whisper and, moments later, realises her shoulder is opened, a red line trickling on her dress. She snatches up a footstool and raises it as a shield, parrying the next slice. HENTZAU cuts through cover and cushion, fixing his blade in wood. As he pulls free, horsehair bleeds.
HENTZAU
Fighting with the furniture, eh?
HENTZAU makes passes near her face and locks of her hair float free. MERRICK, a broken FOOTMAN in one hand, throws CHARLES his sword-cane. With a tap, HENTZAU whisks GENEVIEVE’s stool from her hands. He grins and draws back for a thrust at her heart. CHARLES slices down, knocking HENTZAU’s point out of true, and slashes back, edge of his blade slipping under HENTZAU’s jaw, sliding through coarse fur, opening skin and scraping bone.
HENTZAU howls and turns on CHARLES. He launches an assault, sword-point darting like a dragonfly. CHARLES parries a rapid compass of attacks, but is driven back and takes a wound in the chest. He falls down. HENTZAU raises his sword-arm; the blade begins a swishing descent. CHARLES, glimpsing GENEVIEVE, raises his own sword. HENTZAU’s arm slices against the silver blade. The sword-arm falls in a dead lump, cut clean through at the elbow. CHARLES runs HENTZAU through the heart and slides the dead vampire off his blade.*
DRACULA comes down from his throne, steam pouring from his nostrils. He is beginning a transformation, wings spreading.
GENEVIEVE hauls CHARLES towards the doors. RUTHVEN is in the way.
GENEVIEVE
Aside, Ruthven.
RUTHVEN hesitates then steps out of the way.
GENEVIEVE (quietly)
Very clever, my Lord.
MERRICK holds the doors open. DRACULA’s shadow grows, his wrath reaching out like a fog.
HALLWAY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. INT. NIGHT.
GENEVIEVE helps CHARLES out of the throne-room. She licks blood from his face.
CHARLES
I couldn’t tell you.
GENEVIEVE shushes him. MERRICK shuts the doors and puts his enormous back to them.
MERRICK (howling)
Go.
Something smashes against the other side of the doors and a clawed hand punches through above MERRICK’s head, tearing at the wood. The hand makes a fist and enlarges its hole. GENEVIEVE salutes MERRICK and helps CHARLES limp away. He bleeds badly from his chest wound.
ANTECHAMBER, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. INT. NIGHT.
As CHARLES and GENEVIEVE run, the doors behind them burst outwards. MERRICK is crushed under falling wood and stamping feet. The baying horde of courtiers floods forth. An enormous DRACULA, only glimpsed, is among them.
MARBLED HALLWAY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. INT. NIGHT.
CHARLES and GENEVIEVE emerge, startling liveried vampires. GENEVIEVE pulls CHARLES on. We hear the thunder of pursuit. Among the clatter of boots, there is a single flap. Giant wings. A draught sucks at CHARLES and GENEVIEVE as they struggle through the main doors.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE. EXT. NIGHT.
The skies are bloodied. Fires burn. CHARLES and GENEVIEVE emerge from the palace.
CHARLES (shouts)
The Queen is dead. Dracula rules no more.
GENEVIEVE looks for a way out. The crowds roar and the fence shakes. People press in. The gates buckle. CHARLES and GENEVIEVE stumble down the wide steps and run towards the gates. The CHINESE GIRL nods and MR YEE takes hold of the iron bars and breaks the lock. The gates fall in, and CHARLES and GENEVIEVE are embraced by the crowd.
CHARLES (weak)
Gene, Gene, Gene.
GENEVIEVE
Shush. We must hurry.
The courtiers swarm out of the Palace, tangling with the Carpathians, and pitch into the crowd. A riot-like tussle ensues. Torches and wooden crucifixes are held aloft. GENEVIEVE still supports CHARLES.
DRACULA, enormous and inhuman, emerges as a living shadow, and watches with red eyes.
KATE, dressed as a man, shins up a pole, and snatches VAN HELSING’s skull. She holds it up in triumph. The fighting spreads. Cries of ‘Death to the Dead’. The CHINESE GIRL points up to the skies. A deeper darkness than night falls. A great shadow is all around, thrown over the crowds. Twin red moons look down. Slow-flapping winds knock people off their feet. The bat-shape fills the sky over the Palace.
For a moment, the crowds fall silent. Then a voice is raised against the shape.
KATE
Death to Dracula!
CHARLES
Kate Reed, Angel of the Insurrection...
More voices join. Torches are tossed into the air but fall short. Stones pulled from the drive are hurled. Shots are fired. The huge shadow soars. CARPATHIANS charge the crowds, laying about themselves with sabres. The mob is easily beaten back through the main gates.
EVERYONE
Death to Dracula! Death to Dracula!
CHARLES
It’s done. His rule is broken.
He swoons and GENEVIEVE has to carry him out of the flow of the people.
QUIETER SPOT NEAR THE PALACE. EXT. NIGHT.
She lays him down and opens his clothes. His wound is bad. GENEVIEVE looks back.
DRACULA alights on the roof of the Palace: a gargoyle-shape, wings settling like a cloak. In the night, fires burn high.
MYCROFT (v.o.)
The Empire has become a powderkeg... but London is always the fuse, Beauregard. And anything might be the spark.
GENEVIEVE
Charles, I can save you. Charles, darling, drink... Turn vampire, and live.
GENEVIEVE bites her wrist. Blood bursts on to CHARLES’s face. He looks up, dying, vision blurry, and shakes his head.
GENEVIEVE
You don’t have to be like him. Like them. You don’t have to be like me. You just have to live...
