Dracula in London

that-was-not-death she was radiant.

And from the look in her wide eyes, she was also quite mad.

Once a helpless innocent, now returned to prey upon the most helpless innocents of all. She had no restraints and no reason left in her addled brain. Little wonder she’d reacted so foolishly to the hunters, seeking sanctuary in a place no longer safe. She was like a child pulling a blanket overhead to keep out the monsters.

Sabra tried to fasten her attention with hypnosis, hoping to draw her from the darkness, but to no avail. What remained of the girl’s mind was quicksilver elusive; she voiced only vague ramblings about being lonely and hungry. Her eyes focused once—on Sabra’s throat—and she started eagerly forward, but Sabra put a stop to that with a rebuffing word and gesture, freezing her in place. The girl subsided, moaning miserably.

Most of the converted made the transition with little or no shock to the mind. Of course, it helped when their lovers took the trouble to acquaint them with what to expect. Sabra asked the girl for the European’s name, but she didn’t even know that much. Less than the poor lunatic from the asylum.

With no small disgust—for the European, not his pathetic victim—Sabra released the girl to return to her hiding place. She was malleable to some forms of suggestion, so Sabra took care to instruct her to sleep deeply for the next few days and nights. It would ease her sufferings. By then the old professor and his friends would have had time to return and deal with the wretch. She was entirely lost to insanity and the European’s magic; death would at least free her spirit. A tragedy, but there was no other help for it.

As for the heartless bastard who had done this to her…

Sabra returned to her hotel, sleeping lightly until midmorning, when she donned her widow’s weeds, paid the accounting, and set forth for Carfax, carrying a carpetbag of such items as she might need for an outdoor adventure. It would be only a slight rough-out for her; she’d camped in worse places in her varied travels. But, oh, the abbey was so filthy, the dust a foot deep in some places. Why were some men such pigs? She’d known wonderful exceptions over the centuries, but this European was not in their number.

She gathered wood, twigs, and vines and made a broom, the first to cross the threshold in several decades. She swept out an inner room of the house, banished its resident nest of rats, and blessed it to make it a place of power. Then she sat cross-legged in the middle of the circle she’d chalked on the floor. Before her was the scrying bowl, its water muddied by earth taken from the boxes. There she focused the whole of her concentration, trying to contact him through that link. The possibility existed he would go to ground, but from his vile treatment of the girl and the murder of the ship’s crew, Sabra judged he would be more curious than cautious. If he was that arrogant he might think himself immune to harm—a weakness she could exploit.

Sabra lost track of time. She surfaced once, days later, drawn out one night by a strange commotion in the attached abbey. The hunters were there, apparently having followed the same trail of boxes as she, and busily opening them and blessing their contents. A convocation of rats turned up, one of the European’s devisings meant to discourage burglars, but the men countered with some fierce terriers to chase them off, and continued with their work, placing pieces of the Host in each box. She smiled approval for their cleverness. It would not please their quarry.

Armed with this new advantage, Sabra later returned to her room with a fresh handful of reconsecrated soil and added it to the scrying water. When she sent her thoughts forth—now and finally!— she encountered his solid presence, and the jolt she sent him struck like an electrical shock. The returning echo carried his reaction: reflexive rage… and vast puzzlement.

Good. It was about time he noticed her.

He delayed answering. In all likelihood he’d never encountered one such as herself. Another few days passed before prudence surrendered to curiosity, and she sensed his approach to Carfax not at night, but at noon. Perhaps he thought that like his own, her un-natural powers would be at their lowest ebb in the sun, and preferred to keep things on a physical level where he would have the advantage.

She went down to the abbey to greet him, perching primly on one of the boxes, not so much to make a point, but because it wasn’t layered with dust like the rest of the stinking sty.

The great door opened, and he paused on the threshold, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness within. It left him beautifully silhouetted. If Sabra had a crossbow in hand and been so minded, he’d have much regretted the error.

Tall and thin, with a cruel sensual face, and a fierce intellect alight in tiger green eyes… yes, that poor girl had stood no chance against him at all. Few would. There was a poisonous aura around him that boded ill to any who brushed against it, like a carrier of plague.

He came in slowly, his harsh, red-flecked gaze fixing on her like a fiery arrow. He took in the boxes, certainly aware that they’d all been interfered with, made useless to him.

“Did you do this, woman?” he demanded, his voice rumbling so deep with suppressed fury that it stirred a breeze around him. The place was in need of such; the air was unbreatheably thick with grave-stench.

“I’m not responsible,” she replied, holding to an even tone. “But we must speak—”

“Who are you, woman?”

Well, she did not care for that contemptuous address. As though being a woman was a weakness. And she would never give him her true name. Names held power; he had quite enough already. “You may call me Miss Smith. And you?”

His red lips twitched. Amusement or scorn? Probably both. “I am the Count de Ville. I own this place. Why are you here?”

He had a sense of humor to go with his arrogance. With but a small shifting of accent one could pronounce it as “Devil.”

“Very well, Count de Ville. In the name of Queen Victoria I command and require that you give an explanation for your activities since you’ve come to this land.”

His stare was priceless. “What?”

I’ve never been very good at presenting credentials, she thought. “I shall be brief, but you must listen and think most carefully. The evidence is that you committed murder on the high seas, the ship on which it occurred is still at Whitby Harbour, along with its logs. The evidence is that you did seduce and willfully murder a young woman, but not before transforming her against her will to become one of your own breed, the motive as yet unknown. These are most serious crimes, Count de Ville, and they must be answered for.”

Another long stare, then a roaring bark of laughter that filled the room. “You do not know with whom you are dealing.”

Hm. Romanian accent. Probably one of those minor princes so used to having his own way that he’d forgotten how things were done in the outside world.

“I may also make the same observation,” she responded. “I remind you that you are not in your homeland, but mine, and are answerable to her laws.”

“English law?” He spat.

Older than that. Much older.

De Ville looked carefully around, scenting the heavy air.

“There are no others here, sir,” she said. “You will find this to be a most singular court.”

“You have me on trial?” He seemed ready to laugh again.

“Indeed, yes. Use your common sense and respect what it tells you about me.”

He glared. She felt an icy hand caress her protective wards. His gaze turned inward as he concentrated, eyes rolling up in his head, palms out as he delved past surface appearance. “You have Knowledge. But it is not such as to help you here.”

“Count de Ville, you are a man of great intelligence, yet you are ignoring some very important danger signs. I strongly suggest you heed them. Would I be here alone with you if I could not take care of myself? Would I have even been able to call you here if I did not have considerable skills at my disposal?”

He was silent, thinking. Past time for it, too.

“Now, sir, let’s us get to the business at hand. Explain yourself.”

“I will not.”

There were ways around that. She fixed him with her own gaze, tearing past the protective hedges now that he was close enough. What she found was revolting.

He was old, but not ancient, and another name was in his mind… Vlad, Son of Dracul, yes, that was it. She’d