The Bloody Red Baron: 1918

This was to be a moment in the history of imagination. As he neared the Graf s party, the air seemed richer, thick and liquid. Close to the warlord, Poe's step slowed as in a dream. Background noise was blotted out and Poe heard the beating of a huge heart, a drumbeat of life drowning all else.

The Graf's great head turned as he strode. His eyes passed over Poe without recognition. Poe skidded to a halt, gaping at the elder. Dracula hurried on. A pair of plumed Carpathians, one a warrior woman with a tattooed face, covered his back. Their hostile gaze drove Poe back. The elder swept through the room unquestioned, leaving supplicants in his wake. The weeping dowager had to be comforted by an aghast junior officer.

Poe felt the passing of the unusual conditions that obtained in the immediate vicinity of the Graf. Normal sounds and smells poured back in, setting his senses a-jangle.

The presence of the warlord was overpowering and did not fade fast. Ewers was electrified, unable to contain his nervous energies. Newspapers riddled with bad news from the front were abandoned. Officers hung together to propose new paths to victory. Everyone knew a big push was in the offing, striking at Paris before the Americans arrived in force.

Poe could not forget Dracula's eyes.

The eagle doors were held open for the Graf's party. They moved into the hallway and mounted a wide set of stairs. The doors closed but Poe still heard boots on the marble steps. The heartbeat pulsed in his brain, setting a pace for the progress of empires.

Over three-quarters of the vampires in the room were of Dracula's bloodline. Poe felt excluded: Virginia never knew the name of her father-in-darkness, though she thought he might be a Spaniard. He called himself Sebastian Newcastle. The vampire had sought out the poet of the uncanny and found only Mrs Poe at home, then begun the process of her turning on a motiveless whim. That neither Poe nor Virginia demonstrated an aptitude for shape- shifting proved Newcastle was not of the Dracula line. At odd times, Poe was obsessed with tracking the vampire who had turned Virginia, but his enquiries always petered out.

The waiting hall settled again. Even the Graf's heartbeat, which had chimed with the throbbing of Poe's own blood, was gone.

He looked at the front-line soldier, alone on his couch. Unlike the general and the diplomat, he had not stood in the mighty presence. His lap was stained scarlet. Blood dribbled down his breeches and into his boots. A recent wound had opened. The man might die in this waiting hall.

His hollow eyes had followed the Carpathians and were fixed on the eagle doors. Sourly, the soldier turned away and spat on the floor. As he hunched forwards to hawk, his upper body shook badly. Having emptied his throat and nose, he sank back slowly into the couch.

'This is absurd,' Ewers said. 'Such foolishness will not go unrewarded, Herr Poe. Of that you can be ...'

The clerk emerged again and looked at them.

'Ach,' Ewers was delighted, 'at last.'

'Baumer,' the clerk said, voice ringing. 'Feldwebel Paul Baumer.'

Ewers was enraged at being passed over again. He looked about for the unfortunate sergeant, ready to breathe fire in his face.

'Paul Baumer,' the clerk said again.

No one came forwards. Poe looked at the soldier and saw the last flutter of his closing eyes.

'I think this man is Baumer,' he said, looking.

The clerk tutted disapproval as his attention was called to the messenger from the front.

'Feldwebel Baumer,' he said, 'you may go in now.'

Baumer's shoulders moved but he could not lift himself. His despatch slipped from under his arm and plumped on to the marble floor.

'This is absurd,' Ewers said, as if Baumer were personally blocking his path to Dr Mabuse's office.

Poe could tell, from the change in the smell of Baumer's blood, that the man had died. His grip on his stomach relaxed and his arms eased away from his wet midriff. An insect landed on his hand and opened its wings, showing itself to be a butterfly. The clerk brushed the butterfly away as he checked the man's stilled pulse. He summoned attendants to remove the corpse. Blood pooled in the indentations Baumer left in the couch. The diplomat, indifferent to the death, caught the butterfly in his hand, considered its markings, then popped it into his mouth.

The desk seemed to cover the breadth of a tennis court. Dr Mabuse's chair was elevated so he could peer over his expanse of polished wood and gaze down on the heads of those seated on the other side. The Director of the Press and Intelligence Division displayed an obvious need for others to look up to him. Poe noted him to be a man of small stature.

Dr Mabuse had white, flyaway hair and the red eyes of a newborn who drinks too much. He wore a surgical white tunic, the Imperial Order of the Iron Cross on a black ribbon around his neck. To the evident disgust of Ewers, the director exclaimed in delight at meeting Herr Edgar Allan Poe.

'I no longer use my stepfather's name, Doktor. Edgar Poe was I born, and am I again. The memory of John Allan need trouble us nevermore.'

Dr Mabuse's eyes gleamed. 'You were an inspiration to me, Herr Poe. Your tales, 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar' and 'Mesmeric Revelations', excited my fascination with the hypnotic arts.'

Before the war, before turning, Mabuse had been an authority on the subject of mesmerism, lowering himself to public displays. Naturally, a man of his talents and influence was in charge of propaganda.

'All wars need heroes, Herr Poe. This war most of all. Since they tend by nature to be unforthcoming, all heroes need to be publicised.'

Dr Mabuse spoke as if delivering a speech. Lamps on his desk made a shadowed mask of his face, bringing out the glow in his eyes. Early in the war, Dr Mabuse had toured gymnasia, addressing students. It was not uncommon for an audience to enlist en masse following one of his lectures.

'You have heard, of course, of Manfred von Richthofen.'

'The flier?'

'The flier. Our premier warrior of the air. Seventy-two victories.'

Poe had always been interested in the possibilities of man-powered flight. When warm, he had written The Balloon Hoax', and in The Battle of St Petersburg he had predicted the use in battle of airships and fighter aeroplanes.

'It is the crowing claim of the Allies that they are our masters in the air over the Western Front,' said Dr Mabuse, lips curving in a one-sided smile. 'Before spring, that will change.'

'Germany has better aeroplanes,' Ewers muttered.

'Germany has better men. This is the secret of our victory. No matter what mechanical devices are ranged against us, we Germans will prevail through the strength of our spirit.'

Dr Mabuse took a document from his desk drawer and slid it across his desk. Poe caught it and looked.

It was the mock-up of a book cover. Der rote Kampfflieger, by Manfred, Rittmeister Freiherr von Richthofen. The Red Battle Flier. The rough illustration showed a batwinged red shadow over a falling enemy aeroplane.

'Richthofen has written his autobiography?'

'The Freiherr is a fighter, not a man of letters. If his story is to be told, it will require a great spinner of tales. You, Herr Poe.'

He began to understand what was to be asked of him.

'You want me to ghost this book?'

'To 'ghost'? Exactly. You shall be Richthofen's ghost.'

Ewers hovered in the shadows of the office. Poe wondered what his part in this was. If H.H. Ewers was so great a writer, why was he not clamouring for this honour?

'Herr Ewers will be on hand as a native German-speaker to serve as editor, should you need him.'

Ewers's brows contracted darkly. His pretended importance evaporated by the moment. It seemed he was less doppelganger than messenger boy.

'Transport has been arranged to the Chateau du Malinbois, where Richthofen is stationed with his Jagdgeschwader 1. Our modest hero has consented to be interviewed at length. Use his words if you can, but work them up into something more than a set of dry war stories. To be frank, my experience is that true heroes tend to the tedious. Capture the truth but put your own shine on it, Herr Poe. Let us have some