Frankenstein began to say something, but then the radio on Jamie’s belt buzzed, a thick whirring noise that made all three jump. He pulled the handset from his belt, thumbed the RECEIVE button and held the handset to his ear. When he heard the voice on the other end, he nearly dropped it onto the table in front of him.
“Good evening, Jamie,” said Alexandru Rusmanov. His voice was slick like castor oil. “How are you?”
The color drained from the teenager’s face, and Frankenstein and Morris leaned toward him, concern on their faces.
“Who is it?” asked Morris.
Jamie composed himself. Think of your mother. Think of your mother.
Think of your mother.
“I’m fine, Alexandru,” he said slowly, causing Morris to gasp and Frankenstein’s eyes to open wide. “How are you?”
“I’m a little bit annoyed, to tell you the truth,” the vampire replied, his tone friendly and cheerful. “I was in the middle of a party, thrown by some of my most loyal subjects, when all of a sudden I was told I had to leave. And all because some child who should already be dead has decided to take it upon himself to hunt me down. Can you imagine?”
“I think I-”
“No, you can’t!” roared Alexandru, his pleasant demeanor gone, replaced by the screeching voice of a madman. “You can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve done this night! Your tiny little human brain is incapable of even attempting to grasp the repercussions of your actions!”
Jamie closed his eyes. He had never been so scared in all his life.
“But you will,” continued Alexandru, and now he was friendly again, his voice warm and charming. “You will understand. I’ll make you understand, starting now. I’ve just killed a lot of people, and every single one of them has you to thank for their deaths.”
There was a click, and the line went dead.
Jamie was about to tell his friends what Alexandru had said, was about to try and articulate the way the madness in the vampire’s voice had made him feel, the basic wrongness of it, the terrible, unspeakable horror he had heard, when an alarm exploded through the base, and the giant wall screen burst into life. ALERT STATUS 1 IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED ALL DEPARTMENTS RESPOND
Morris ran to a console in the middle of the room. He read the screen, then looked up at Jamie and Frankenstein.
“It’s coming from Russia,” he said.
35
Carpathian Mountains, Transylvania
June 17, 1902
The fine layer of dirt and rock shifted beneath Abraham Van Helsing’s feet, and the old man’s center of balance hurtled backward. He spun his arms, his silver-topped walking stick clattering to the ground, and he pitched toward the hard ground. Then a hand appeared, as if from nowhere, gripped him around his upper arm, and steadied him. The professor, blooming red with embarrassment, spun around to see the identity of his rescuer and stared directly into the cool, steady face of Henry Carpenter, his valet.
“Thank you, boy,” he grunted. “Unnecessary of you, though. I was in no danger.”
“Of course not, sir,” replied the valet, and released his master’s arm.
You stupid old fool, Van Helsing told himself. You’re nothing more than a liability. You should have trusted this to Henry, Lord knows he’s proven himself more than capable. You proud old fool.
“Everything is fine?” called a voice from down the trail, and master and valet turned to regard the source of the question.
The man who had spoken was standing beside the low wooden cart, looking up at them with concern on his face. He was small and uncannily thin, his proportions rendered comical by the enormous fur ushanka that covered his head. His face was thin and pointed, the eyes dark, the hair of his mustache and triangular beard jet black.
“Yes, Bukharov,” snapped Van Helsing. “Everything is fine. Bring your men up to me. We should be able to see the castle once we round this bend.”
Ivan Bukharov nodded, then let loose a galloping string of Russian at the three men who sat astride aged horses before the cart. They dug their heels into the flanks of their mounts, and the wheels of the vehicle creaked into life. Bukharov swung himself nimbly up onto his own horse and clattered along the treacherous path to where Van Helsing and the valet were waiting. The two Englishmen mounted their own animals, one with significantly greater difficulty than the other, and the three men trotted slowly around an enormous outcrop of rock that caused the path to make a wickedly sharp turn to the right. They rounded it with great care and then stopped, transfixed by the sight before them.
The Borgo Pass widened and dropped before them, before rising steeply and disappearing out of sight. Above them, more than a thousand feet from the distant valley floor, perched on the very edge of the mountain like a vast bird of prey, stood Castle Dracula.
The turrets and ramparts of the ancient building were black in the cool morning light, spiked and twisted and fearsome. The central spire of the residence of the world’s first and most terrible vampire rose boldly toward the heavens, a blasphemous challenge to the authority of God, an unholy blade cutting into the pale blue sky.
Behind them came a flurry of movement and muttered Russian. The valet turned, and saw Bukharov’s men crossing themselves frantically, their eyes cast at the ground, unwilling to even look directly at the castle that loomed over them.
“So it real,” breathed Bukharov. “I was thinking legend only. But it real.”
The man’s pidgin English was a source of constant annoyance to Van Helsing, but he barely even noticed it, so lost was he in the memories of the last time he had seen this terrible place.
I was on the other side of this plain, with Mina Harker pressed into a stone crevice behind me. I drew a circle around her, and I waited. There were screams and the thundering of hooves and blood, and a friend of mine was lost.
“It’s real,” he said, composing himself. “But it is merely a building, stone and mortar. It cannot harm us; whatever malevolence it may have possessed is long gone. Now come-our destination is no more than five minutes’ ride from here.” The old man kicked his horse into life, and cantered down the shallow slope of the pass, toward the clearing where the course of his life had been forever altered.
The negotiations that had brought Van Helsing back to Transylvania-eleven years after he had sworn he would never set foot on her cursed soil again-had been long and arduous. In London, his hours were full, fuller than those of a man of his advanced years ought to have allowed, as the fledgling Blacklight began to take shape. The days were spent at the premises on Piccadilly, which Arthur Holmwood, the new Lord Godalming, had secured for them, a noble use of the section of his father’s estate that had been set aside for charitable works, planning and organizing and writing reports for the prime minister, alongside the friends with whom he had undertaken the protection of the Empire from the supernatural. The nights found him in tombs and graveyards and museums and hospitals, battling the growing number of vampires that were infecting London and its surroundings, sending them one after another to their grisly ends.
He spent precious little time in his laboratory, even though he believed that the vampire problem would ultimately be solved by science, rather than at the point of a stake. There was simply no time; it was taking all of Blacklight’s efforts merely to stem the tide of the epidemic that was washing across Europe, an epidemic that had started in the building that was casting its shadow over him as he rode down the pass. It was obvious that the four of them were going to be unable to keep the darkness at bay on their own, and tentative plans had been put in motion to increase their number. The first prospective new member was riding silently alongside the professor