She did not understand him. As her mind raced to catch up with him, he leaned over and kissed her, on the mouth, the warm way. She tasted him, and was reminded. The sharing of blood had established a link between them.
The kiss broke, and he stood back, leaving her baffled. Then a door was opened, and they were admitted into the Royal Presences.
Nothing had prepared her for the sty the throne-room had become. Dilapidated beyond belief, its once-fine walls and paintings torn and stained, with the stench of dried blood and human ordure thick in the air, the room was ill-lit by battered chandeliers, and full of people and animals. Laughter and whimpering competed, and the marble floors were thick with filthy discharges. An armadillo rolled by, its rear-parts clogged with its own dirt.
Merrick announced them, his palate suffering as he got their names out. Someone made a crude remark, and gales of laughter cut through the din, then were cut off at a wave of the Prince Consort’s ham-sized hand.
Vlad Tepes sat upon the throne, massive as a commemorative statue, his face enormously bloated, rich red under withered grey. Stinking moustaches hung to his chest, stiff with recent blood, and his black-stubbled chin was dotted with the gravy-stains of his last feeding. An ermine-collared cloak clung to his shoulders like the wings of a giant bat; otherwise, he was naked, his body thickly-coated with matted hair, blood and filth clotting on his chest and limbs. His white manhood, tipped scarlet as an adder’s tongue, lay coiled like a snake in his lap. His body was swollen like a leech’s, his rope-thick veins visibly pulsing.
Beauregard shook in the presence, the smell smiting him like blows. Genevieve held him up, and looked around the room.
‘I never dreamed...’ he muttered, ‘never...’
A warm girl ran across the room, pursued by one of the Carpathians, his uniform in tatters. He brought her down with a swipe of a bear-paw, and began to tear at her back and sides with triple-jointed jaws, taking meat as well as drink.
The Prince Consort smiled.
The Queen was kneeling by the throne, a silver spiked collar around her neck, a massive chain leading from it to a loose bracelet upon Dracula’s wrist. She was in her shift and stockings, brown hair loose, blood on her face. It was impossible to see the round old woman she had been in this abused girl. Genevieve hoped she was mad, but feared she was only too well aware of what was going on about her. She turned away, not looking at the Carpathian’s meal.
‘Majesties,’ Beauregard said, bowing his head.
Vlad Tepes laughed, an enormous farting sound exploding from his jaggedly-fanged maw. The stench of his breath filled the room. It was everything dead and rotten.
A fastidiously-dressed vampire youth, an explosion of lace escaping at his collar from the tight black shine of his velvet suit, explained to the Prince Consort who these guests were. Genevieve recognised the Prime Minister, Lord Ruthven.
‘These are the heroes of Whitechapel,’ the English vampire said, a fluttering handkerchief before his mouth and nose.
The Prince Consort grinned ferociously, eyes burning like crimson furnaces, moustaches creaking like leather straps.
‘The lady and I are acquainted,’ he said, in surprisingly perfect and courteous English. ‘We met at the home of the Countess Dolingen of Graz, some hundred years ago.’*
Genevieve remembered well. The Countess, a snob beyond the grave, had summoned what she referred to as the un-dead aristocracy. The Karnsteins of Styria had been there, pale and uninteresting, and several of Vlad Tepes’s Transylvanian associates, Princess Vajda, Countess Bathory, Count Iorga, Count Von Krolock. Also Saint-Germain from France, Villanueva from Spain, Duval from Mexico. At that gathering, Vlad Tepes had seemed an ill-mannered upstart, and his proposition of a vampire crusade, to subjugate petty humanity under his standard, had been ignored. Since then, Genevieve had done her best to avoid other vampires.
‘You have served us well, Englishman,’ the Prince Consort said, praise sounding like a threat.
Beauregard stepped forward.
‘I have a gift, majesties,’ he said, ‘a souvenir of our exploit in the East End.’
Vlad Tepes’s eyes gleamed with lust. At heart, he had the philistine avarice of a true barbarian. Despite his lofty titles, he was barely a generation away from the mountain bully-boys his ancestors had been. He liked nothing more than pretty things. Bright, shining toys.
Beauregard took something from his inside pocket, and unwrapped a cloth from it.
Silver shone.
Everyone in the throne room was quieted. Vampires had been feeding in the shadows, noisily suckling the flesh of youths and girls. Carpathians had been grunting their simple language at each other. All went silent.
Fury twisted the Prince Consort’s brow, but then contempt and mirth turned his face into a wide-mouthed mask of obscene enjoyment.
Beauregard held Dr Seward’s silver scalpel. He had taken it from Genevieve that night. As evidence, she thought.
‘You think you can defy me with that tiny needle, Englishman?’
‘It is a gift,’ Beauregard replied. ‘But not for you.’
Genevieve was edging away, uncertain. The Carpathians had detached themselves from their amusements, and were forming a half circle around Beauregard. There was no one between Beauregard and the throne, but, if he made a move towards the Prince Consort, a wall of solid vampireflesh and bone would form.
‘For my Queen,’ Beauregard said, tossing the knife.
Genevieve saw the silver reflect in Vlad Tepes’s eyes, as anger exploded dark in the pupils. Then Victoria snatched the tumbling scalpel from the air...
It had all been for this moment, all to get Beauregard into the Royal Presence, all to serve this one duty. Genevieve, the taste of him in her mouth, understood.
Victoria slipped the blade under her breast, stapling her shift to her ribs, puncturing her heart. For her, it was over quickly.
With a look of triumph and joy, she fell from her dais, blood gouting from her fatal wound, and rolled down the steps, chain clanking with her.
Vlad Tepes – Prince Consort no more – was on his feet, cloak rippling around him like a thundercloud. Tusklike teeth exploded from his face, and his hands became spear-tipped clusters. Beauregard, Genevieve realised, was dead. But the monster’s power was dealt a blow from which it could never recover. The Empire Vlad Tepes had usurped would rise against him. He had grown too arrogant.
The Carpathians were on Beauregard already, talons and mouths red and digging.
Genevieve thought she was to die too. Beauregard had tried to keep her from harm by not involving her in his designs. But she had been too stubborn, had insisted on being here, on seeing Vlad Tepes in the lair he had made for himself.
He came down from his throne for her, foul steam pouring from his mouth and nostrils.
But she was older than him. Less blinded by the ignorance of his selfish fantasies. For centuries, he had thought himself special, as a higher being apart from humanity, while she knew she was just a tick in the hide of the warm.
She ducked under his hands, and was not there when he overbalanced, falling to the floor like a felled tree, marble cracking under his face. He was slow in his age, in his bloated state. Too much indulgence. Too much isolation. Veins in his neck burst, spurting blood, and knitted together again.
While Vlad Tepes was scrambling to right himself, the rest of his court were in confusion. Some returned to their bloody pleasure, some fell insensate.
She could do nothing for Beauregard.§
Ruthven was uncertain. With the Queen truly dead, things were going to change. He could have barred her way from the palace, but he hesitated – ever the politician – then stood aside.
Merrick had the doors open for her, and she escaped from the infernal heat and stench of the throne-room. He then slammed the doors shut, and put his back to them. He had been part of Beauregard’s conspiracy, also willing to give his life for his sovereign. He nodded to the main doors, and made a long howl that might have meant ‘go’.