The Bloody Red Baron: 1918

'Some vampires, Edwin, have no more power to shift their shape than you or I. Notably those of the bloodlines of Ruthven or Chandagnac. Others, including those of the Dracula line, have capabilities that have never been tested to their limits.'

Isolde tore at herself, face impassive but gestures savage. Her skin hung in scarecrow tatters. Winthrop's stomach queased but he kept nausea down. The theatre stank of blood. It was a mercy there were few vampires in the audience; they might have been maddened. The performer detached scraps of her white skin and tossed them to her crowd.

'She has her disciples,' Beauregard said. 'The poet, Des Esseintes, has written sonnets to her.'

'It's a shame de Sade never turned. He'd have relished this.'

'Maybe he saw her in his day. Isolde has been performing for a long time.'

Her torso was a glistening dissection, bones visible in wet meat. She held up her skinned right arm and licked from elbow to wrist, reddening her tongue. Arteries stood out, transparent tubes filled with rushing blood.

Many of the audience were on their feet, pressing close to the stage. At the Folies, they would be cheering and whooping, making a display of gay goodfellow abandon. Here, they were intent and silent, holding breath, eyes on the stage, shutting out their comrades. How many of these men would want it known that they were patrons of the Raoul Privache?

'When she was guillotined, did someone stick her head back on to her body?'

She bit into her own wrist, gnawing through the artery, and began sucking. Blood rushed through the collapsing tube and she swallowed, gulping steadily.

'No, they buried her,' Beauregard explained. 'Her body rotted but her head grew another. It took ten years.'

She paused for breath and sneered at the audience, blood speckling her chin, then redoubled her attack. As she sucked, her extended fingers twisted into a useless fist.

'Of course, some say she hasn't been the same woman since.'

'How far can she go?'

'Can she consume herself entirely so that there's nothing left? She hasn't yet.'

Isolde's raw flesh changed colour as she sucked the blood out of it, but her face flushed, bloated.

'I think we've seen enough,' Beauregard said, standing.

Winthrop was relieved. He did not want to be a part of Isolde's audience.

They stepped into the corridor. Dravot stood by the door, reading Comic Cuts. Beauregard and the sergeant were old comrades.

'Danny, are you looking after our young lieutenant?'

'I do my best, sir.'

Beauregard laughed. 'Glad to hear it. The fate of the Empire may rest on him.'

Winthrop could not shake Isolde from his mind.

'Shall we take the air, Edwin?'

They left the theatre. It was a relief to get out into clean cold. The snow did not settle, leaving slushy residue on the pavement. Winthrop and Beauregard strolled, Dravot following about twenty paces behind.

'When I was your age,' Beauregard said 'this was not the world in which I expected to grow old.'

Winthrop had been born in 18%, after the Terror. To him, vampires were as natural a part of the world as Dutchmen or deer. From his father, he understood what every Englishman of Beauregard's generation had lived through, the mental adjustments everyone was forced to make during the Terror.

'I remember a time when Lord Ruthven wasn't Prime Minister and Edward Albert Victor wasn't King. Since neither gentleman shows any intention of dying, it may b? that they will hold their positions well beyond my lifetime. And yours, should you not take the opportunity to turn.'

'Turn? Become a thing like that>'

He nodded back at the Raoul Privache, thinking of Isolde's blood-veined eyes as she sucked herself stupid.

'Not all vampires are of her line. They are not a race apart, Edwin. Not all demons and monsters. They're simply ourselves expanded. From birth, we change in a million ways. Vampires are more changed than the warm.'

Winthrop had, of course, thought of turning. Shortly after his father's death, his mother tried to persuade him to seek the Dark Kiss, to preserve himself from mortality. At seventeen, he had not been ready. Now, he was no surer. Besides, he knew it was not a simple decision: there was the question of bloodline.

'The best woman I ever knew was a vampire,' Beauregard said, 'and the worst man.'

Miles away, there was an explosion. Tongues of flame licked the sky, outlining the whale-shape of a Zeppelin. There had been more air raids in the last month. Parisians had taken to calling the incendiary devices that fell 'Valentines from the Kaiser'. Zeppelins had to fly at such altitudes that it was impossible to drop bombs on precise targets, so anyone and anything could be destroyed. There was no real military purpose to the raids; Dracula had decreed a policy of Schrecklichkeit, 'frightfulness', to batter the morale of the Allies.

'Before we next talk, I want you to read this,' Beauregard said, handing over an envelope. 'You might call it a deathbed confession. A woman who was shot this morning told me her story and I've done my best to set it down in her own words. It's a trick worth cultivating, to remember exactly what people say. Often, you will find they have told you things they themselves are not aware of.'

Winthrop slipped the envelope into his pocket. Firebells clanged in the distance. There were bursts of Archie, too low to hurt the Zep. The dirigible drifted higher, pushing up into the clouds. There were usually five or six ships in a raiding party. If the Hun actually wanted to destroy something specific, they would send one of the big long- range Gotha bombers.

I’d like to see one of those beasts brought down in flames,' Winthrop said.

Beauregard looked up to the skies, snowflakes brushing his eyelashes like tears.

'I’m tired now and I must go. Read Madame Zelle's confession carefully. Perhaps you will find something I've missed.'

The old man turned and walked smartly away, cane clipping the pavement. Drunken Americans courteously made way for him. In his day, Charles Beauregard must have been quite someone. Even now, he was the single most impressive individual Winthrop had come across in the service of the King.

Winthrop looked around for Dravot, and saw him after a few moments. The sergeant stood calmly in the shadows under an awning. Each time he played this game, he found Dravot more swiftly. He supposed he was learning something.

10

In Lofty Circles

For all the magnificently painted ceilings and leather couches, this was another waiting room. He would pass the rest of his life in such places, hoping unconcerned dignitaries might conclude important business with time enough to spare for Edgar Poe. From terms in the army and at West Point, he was familiar with the ancient martial dictum 'hurry up and wait'. At the heart of the world's supreme military power, the rule was enshrined in national law. Prague was merely an outlying fiefdom of Berlin; this was the metropolis of waiting rooms, the central circle of prevarication. In Bohemia, Poe had fallen through cracks and been the last of the ignored. Here, he was merely the least of the hordes of the overlooked.

The hall was crowded with men whose finery suggested importance and worth. Within sight were enough feathered helms, gold tassels, sparkly epaulettes, polished buttons, medal clusters, white capes, shiny boots, brocaded waistcoats and striped trousers to outfit a comic opera company for a season. Yet supplicants paced with irritable energy or slumped in weary attitudes, revealing only powerlessness and irrelevance. Poe was a slumper, Hanns Heinz Ewers a pacer. He went back and forth like a sentry, hands clasped behind his back, neck stiff as a ramrod.

Their appointment was with Dr Mabuse, Director of the Intelligence and Press Department of the Imperial German Air Service. At nearly midnight, the building was still busy. The most Poe had gathered was that he was to be asked to write a book. He did not mention that in the last three years, he had been unable to complete so much as a humorous couplet.