She saluted the man, and ran from the Palace. Outside, in the night, fires were burning high. The news would soon be spreading.
A spark had touched the gunpowder keg.
* This is one tiny change made between ‘Red Reign’ and Anno Dracula. In the novella, Genevieve (who – like her extracontinual cousin in the Jack Yeovil books – didn’t have an accent) has met Dracula before, and always knew about his ambitions as a conqueror. In the novel, Geneviève and Dracula only know each other by reputation. The main reason for this alteration is that I needed to drop the roll-call of vampire hangers-on, since they all got their mentions elsewhere in the book.
§ Yes, in my first draft, Beauregard dies. When I came to it again, I felt we – and Geneviève – had come to know him too well to let him go so easily. I hadn’t outlined the subsequent books, so I didn’t know he would figure so largely in them.
Extracts from Anno Dracula: The Movie
Shortly after Anno Dracula was published, I did a draft of a film script for producers Stuart Pollak and Andre Jacquemetton (who appear in Johnny Alucard). In this, I made a few tweaks to the plot and reordered the importance of some of the supporting characters. These extracts concentrate on scenes which are either original to the script or changed from the novel.
EXT. NIGHT.
A severed head, somewhat resembling Peter Cushing, is impaled on a spear. Exposed to the elements for a while, it is dilapidated. Pale moonlight emphasises hollow eyesockets. A wind blows.
A caption in Hammer Films Gothic crawls across the screen.
STENTORIAN NARRATOR
In 1885, Count Dracula travelled from his castle in Transylvania to London, intent on founding a new order of beings whose road leads through Death not Life. The story has it that Professor Van Helsing gathered together stalwart Englishmen and women to defeat the vampire, expelling him from these shores, ultimately destroying him. But what would London, what would the world, have been like if Van Helsing had failed? This is the city that might have been if the Count had prevailed. Dracula has taken by force Queen Victoria as his bride, and declared himself Prince Consort and Lord Protector of Great Britain and her Empire...
Music: the stirring preamble to ‘Rule Britannia’. A solo voice, strong but feminine, begins ‘When Britain first at Heaven’s command, arose from out the azure main, this was the charter, the charter of the land, and guardian angels sang this strain...’
We pull back to see that the spear is one of a row standing outside Buckingham Palace. The building is illuminated by barbarian torches. Other poles support impaled corpses. At the doors stand wolf-faced guards in full uniform.
‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves, and Britons never never never shall be slaves...’
EXT. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. NIGHT.
A heraldic shield: the lion and unicorn of Britain transformed into gape-mouthed monsters, overlaid with the bat standard of Dracula. This device is on the door of a carriage, drawn by black horses down the driveway. A GUARDSMAN salutes the carriage, He has a bestial snout, red eyes, vampire fangs. The main gates open, and the carriage trundles into Birdcage Walk.
EXT. LONDON. NIGHT.
The carriage proceeds through the streets. We glimpse scenes of a transformed Victorian London. Lamp-lighters touch sparks to gas-jets producing puffs of flame, well-dressed toffs bothered by street urchins, policemen march in pairs, an organ grinder plays for a horned imp. An effete DANDY, in extravagant black clothes, tries to fend off a plump WHORE: his face is skull-white but for penny-sized rouge spots on his cheeks; he too has fangs.
About a quarter of the people we see on the streets are vampires.
Some newly-raised from the dead, Victorians with large teeth; others are medieval monsters imported by Dracula. Some part-animal, others visibly decrepit or mutated, some lithe and alive in un-death. All eyes turn as the carriage passes. Some shrink in fear, some doff hats, others peer with curiosity. A WOMAN crosses herself; a POLICEMAN batters her with a truncheon.
At a crossroads, a party of Carpathian soldiers, directed by RUPERT OF HENTZAU*, a dashing vampire, erect a sharpened wooden stake. A CONDEMNED MAN, dressed in a nightshirt, struggles as the soldiers hoist him up and impale him on the stake. Blood gushes on the pavement. A vampire CHILD darts out of the crowd, laps it up like a dog, and is shooed away.
HENTZAU (reading aloud from a proclamation)
So perish all who defy the rule of Prince Dracula, Lord Protector of These Isles.
We rise above the coach as if on batwings, and look over the city. This is the West End, the well-lit civilised area, hectic with theatre crowds and night life. Human-sized wing-shapes flit between the taller buildings. The river, glinting red in the light as if its waters were blood, snakes through the city. This is the beating heart of an empire. We travel into the dark, away from the light.
EXT. WHITECHAPEL. NIGHT.
We descend into Commercial Road. Moonlight shines through thin wisps of fog on to wet cobbles. We pass a pub, the Ten Bells, from which raucous laughter and pianola music emerges. We pass Toynbee Hall, an educational institute. We pass street people –urchins, policemen, whores, loafers, slummers. We slip up to an alley, where a woman’s voice sounds, a wordless ululation related to ‘Mack the Knife’. Fog swirls thicker. It is a rich yellow, with drifts of red.
We have been following a glimpsed, shadowy figure. JACK, a man in a top hat with a black ulster, carries a medical bag. We do not see his face§. His bag chinks, as implements shift inside. He wears black gloves. JACK pauses at the entrance to the alley, struck by the strange song.
His silhouette frames against a poster. REWARD OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST OF ‘SILVER KNIFE’, THE WHITECHAPEL MURDERER. Small print details the murders of Annie Chapman and Polly Nicholls. The description is of JACK.
EXT. CHICKSAND STREET, WHITECHAPEL. NIGHT.
JACK steps into the alley. A shaft of moonlight spotlights LULU, a whore with Chinese bangs. She waves her shawl like the fronds of a sea anemone. Smiling with red lips, she continues her siren song. A tight kimono stretches over her boyish body. JACK steps towards her.
JACK clutches his bag.
LULU (slight German accent)
Mister, misssster... Such a handsome gentleman. Come and kiss me, sir. Just a little kiss.
LULU beckons, lacquered nails glittering. JACK touches her face. Even through gloves, her skin is ice. She has delicate pearl-chip fangs, and a red cast to her eyes.
JACK
What brought you to this... condition?
LULU
Good fortune and kind gentlemen.
JACK
Kind?
LULU produces a sprig of mistletoe and holds it up.
LULU
A kiss, kind sir. It’s just a penny for a kiss.
JACK
It’s early for Christmas. September.
LULU
Always time for a kiss.
LULU shakes her sprig and kisses JACK on the lips. His bag is open. He puts a silvered scalpel into her ribs, pressing lightly. LULU changes, face distorting catlike as she hisses venom in JACK’s face. Her fangs extend; she is ready to rip out his throat. The scalpel slides into her chest and blood gushes.
We pull back, as JACK incises deeper. LULU’s animal howls disturb the fog. Then, stillness and quiet. We focus on the poster.