They were showing mercy. If the stake-end were rounded rather than sharpened, death could take up to a week, the victim’s organs displaced rather than punctured. The Bachelor Equerry would die as soon as the point breached his heart.
Kostaki looked about. Mackenzie was leaning against a wall, regurgitating his last meal. He had done the same long ago, when he first saw Prince Dracula deal with his enemies in the fashion that earned him his nickname.
The assembled inverts saw what was happening to the Bachelor Equerry, and panicked. They had to be penned with swords. Several boys escaped, darting under Carpathian arms. Kostaki did not mind if a few scattered to the winds. The purpose of this raid was to catch the patrons of Number 19, Cleveland Street, not the unfortunates pressed into service there. One man, wearing the vestiges of canonical vestments, was on his knees praying loudly, a Christian martyr. A face-painted youth stood haughty with folded arms, gilded nakedness like imperial robes, outstaring his persecutors.
‘Good grief,’ said a well-dressed passerby to his new-born wife, ‘that man’s a member of my club.’
Mackenzie was hysterical now, slapping the inverts, excoriating them in Scots. A bewhiskered man in the red tunic of some high-ranking officer pressed a pistol into Mackenzie’s hand and begged to be decently shot as was his right. The policeman emptied the gun into the air and threw it away, spitting after it.
A knot of three new-born youths huddled together, shivering in ladies’ night-dresses, hissing through dainty fangs. Their faces were smooth, their bodies womanish. Kostaki was reminded of Prince Dracula’s concubines.
Mackenzie got himself under control and started properly to supervise his men. He presented the captives with death warrants; already filled out, but with blanks for their names. This business had to be done legally.
‘Masterful sir,’ wheedled a voice. It was Orlando. ‘Sir, if I might make so bold as to mention, there is one who has escaped your justice. An important personage is to be found in a secret inner chamber, taking his gross pleasure with two poor lads stolen off the streets.’
Kostaki looked down on the hunched footman. Under his powder, his skin was pock-marked with disease.
‘If accommodation were to be made, sir, I might see a way to assisting you, sir, in the execution of your, if I might say, sacred duty to his worshipful highness the Prince Consort, God bless him and keep him in his palace, sir.’
The warm young man’s throat swelled with blood. Kostaki had not dealt with his own needs tonight. He grabbed Orlando by the neck and exerted pressure with his thumb.
‘Out with it, worm!’
He had to relax his grip to allow the little man to speak.
‘Behind the stairs, masterful sir, there’s a secret door. And I’m the only one as knows the secret.’
Kostaki let him go and pushed him across the road.
‘Sir, the one I speak of is a powerful individual, masterful sir, and I doubt if even you could subdue him by yourself.’
Kostaki detached Gorcha and a burly new-born police sergeant from the impaling party. The next of the inverts were being lifted up to their stakes. The dying yells must be audible throughout the city. In Buckingham Palace, Prince Dracula would be raising a goblet of virgin wine to the enforcement of his edict.
Orlando scurried ratlike in front of them and sought out his secret door. Kostaki recognised his type: there were always those among the warm eager to serve the un-dead, just as there had been Wallachs who served the Turk.
‘Remember, sir, I offered up voluntary-like the secret.’
Orlando tripped a catch and a section of wall-panel sprang out. The copper-smell of blood wafted from within, along with perfume and incense. Kostaki was first through the door. The room he entered was decorated as a bower; trees were painted on the walls, crêpe foliage hung from the ceiling, dry leaves were scattered all around. The remains of a basket of fruit were squashed into the japanwood floor. Curled up by the door was a dead youth, ragged gashes all over his nude body, face a perfect blue. He might turn, but Kostaki thought him too broken to be much use as a vampire.
‘Here, masterful sir, behold the rutting beast, indulging his disgusting pleasures!’
In the middle of the room, surrounded by oriental cushions, churned a reptile form composed of two bodies. Underneath a writhing vampire was a squealing youth, blood slicking his back. The important personage was using the boy as a man uses a woman, simultaneously swallowing great gushing draughts from open veins. It was Count Vardalek, his back twice its normal length. Snake-teeth sprouted from the lower half of his face. His chin and lips were studded, fangs erupting through the flesh. His green-yellow eyes floated, pupils shrunk to pin-points.
The Count looked up and spat venom.
‘You see, sir,’ Orlando said, grinning, ‘a very important personage indeed, masterful sir.’
‘Kostaki,’ Vardalek said, ‘what does this damned interruption mean?’
He was still moving sinuously, his body bearing upon the boy’s like a serpent’s coils. His sides were lightly scaled, and the scales caught the light, rainbow patterns reflecting.
‘Captain Kostaki,’ said Gorcha, standing by with his heavy musket, ‘what should be done?’
‘Get out you fools,’ Vardalek shouted.
Kostaki made a decision. ‘There can be no exceptions.’
Vardalek gasped and gaped. He rose from his exhausted boy, and pulled a quilted robe about himself, spine settling as he dwindled to his usual height. His face rapidly resumed its human look. With a delicate touch, he reset his golden peruke on his sweat-slick skull.
‘Kostaki, we are both...’
Kostaki turned away from his comrade, ordering, ‘Bring him outside with the others.’
Out on the street, von Klatka’s eyes bulged to see the Count being led to the stake.
Kostaki looked up at the sky. In his mountain homelands, he was used to the bright points of the stars. Here, gaslight, fog and thick rainclouds robbed him of the night’s thousand eyes.
Gorcha and the Sergeant had to hold Vardalek steady. Kostaki and von Klatka stood close to the prisoner. He was smiling, but his eyes were afraid. He was not stupid. His long life was over. There would be no more gazelle-like lads for Count Vardalek.
‘We have to do this thing,’ Kostaki explained. ‘Vardalek, you know Prince Dracula. If you were spared, we’d be impaled.’
‘Comrades, this is absurd.’
Von Klatka was shifting from foot to foot like a warm fool. He wanted to intervene but he knew Kostaki was right. The Prince was proud to be known as harsh but just. His own regiment must be more rigid in its obedience to his rule than anyone else.
‘What are a few boys, more or less?’ Vardalek said.
‘Sir, masterful sir...’
Kostaki raised a hand. A Guardsman took hold of Orlando and quieted him.
‘I regret this deeply,’ he explained.
Vardalek shrugged, endeavouring to retain his dignity. Kostaki had known the vampire since the 1600s. He had never exactly liked the arrogant Hungarian, but respected him as brave and wilful. Vardalek’s preference for boys did not strike him as anything to fuss about, but Prince Dracula had strange prejudices.
‘One thing you must know,’ the Count said. ‘That elder bitch the other night, the Dieudonné creature: my business with her is not finished. I have taken steps to even things.’
‘That is to be expected.’
‘I have commissioned her destruction.’