GENEVIEVE
This can be forever, Charles. Truly forever.
CHARLES
Nothing is forever, my darling...
HALLWAY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. INT. NIGHT.
... the kiss breaks. Light falls on CHARLES and GENEVIEVE as the doors are fully opened. They are admitted.
THRONE ROOM, BUCKINGHAM PALACE. INT. NIGHT.
Ill-lit by broken chandeliers, the throne-room is an infernal sty of people and animals. Dirtied and abused paintings hang at strange angles. Whimpering, grunting, screaming creatures congregate on divans and carpets. An almost naked CARPATHIAN wrestles a giant ape, their feet scrabbling and slipping on a filthy marble floor. HENTZAU stands by smartly. RUTHVEN is also present, scented handkerchief at his nose as he views the proceedings with distaste. The CARPATHIAN jams the ape’s face against the floor and snaps the animal’s spine.
Gales of cruel laughter are cut off by a wave of a ham-sized hand. Upon the raised hand, an enormous gemstone ring – the Koh-i-Noor, centrepiece of the Crown Jewels – holds the burning reflections of seven fires. GENEVIEVE looks into the jewel, and sees through it the distorted shape of a gross figure.
We pull back to see DRACULA. He sits upon his throne, massive as a commemorative statue, enormously bloated face a rich red under withered grey. Moustaches stiff with recent blood hang to his chest, his thick hair is loose about his shoulders, and his black-stubbled chin is dotted with the gravy of his last feeding. His left hand loosely holds the orb of office, which seems in his grip the size of a tennis ball.
CHARLES (overwhelmed)
I never dreamed...
An ermine-collared black velvet cloak clings to DRACULA’s shoulders like the wings of a giant bat. His body is swollen with blood, rope-thick veins visibly pulsing in his neck and arms. He smiles, showing yellow teeth the size of pointed thumbs.
QUEEN VICTORIA kneels by the throne, a spiked collar around her neck, a chain leading from it to a loose bracelet upon Dracula’s wrist. As a vampire, she has reverted to girlhood, but still has an old woman’s dignity even in these circumstances.
CHARLES (bowing his head)
Majesties.
An enormous fart of laughter explodes from DRACULA’s jaggedly-fanged maw.
DRACULA
I am Dracula. And who might these welcome guests be?
RUTHVEN
These are the heroes of Whitechapel, Majesty. To them we owe the ruination of the desperate murderers known as Jack the Ripper. Dr John Seward of infamous memory, and, ah, Arthur Holmwood, the terrible traitor...
CHARLES looks at DRACULA’s face. It seems painted on water; sometimes frozen into hard-planed ice, but for the most part in motion. CHARLES sees other faces beneath. The red eyes and wolf teeth are fixed, but around them, under the rough cheeks, is a constantly shifting shape; sometimes a hairy, wet snout, sometimes a thin, polished skull.
DRACULA (grins ferociously)
You have served us well and faithfully, my subjects. Have they not, Vicky?
DRACULA stretches out a hand and caresses VICTORIA’s tangled hair. She shrinks. At the base of the throne-dais cluster a knot of shrouded nosferatu women, DRACULA’s BRIDES. They hiss and lust like cats. VICTORIA is plainly in terror of them. DRACULA’s enormous fingers encircle her fragile skull.
DRACULA
Geneviève Dieudonné, I have had word of you before. My lady, why have you not come before to my court? You wandered from one place to the next for hundreds of years, in fear of the jealous warm. Like all un-dead, you were outcast. Was this not injustice? Harried by inferiors, we were denied the succour of church and the protection of law. You and I, we have both lost those that we have loved, to peasants with sharpened spikes and silver sickles. I am named Tepes, the impaler, and yet it was not Dracula who pierced the heart of Lucy Westenra. My dark kiss brings life, eternal and sweet; it is the silver knives that bring cold death, empty and endless. The dark nights are ended and we are raised to our rightful estate. This have I done for the good of all who are nosferatu. None need hide his nature among the warm, none need suffer the brain fever of the red thirst. Daughter-in-darkness of Chandagnac, you share in this; and yet you have no love for Dracula. Is this not sad? Is this not the attitude of a shallow and ungrateful woman? Were you not alone, Geneviève Dieudonné? And are you not among friends now? Among equals?
GENEVIEVE
I have been un-dead a half-century longer than you. When I turned, you were a babe in arms. Impaler, I have no equal.
DRACULA glares enormously at GENEVIEVE.
CHARLES (steps forward, hand inside his coat)
I have a gift, a souvenir of our exploit in the East End.
CHARLES takes a cloth bundle from his inside pocket, and unwraps it. Silver light explodes. Vampires who have been noisily suckling in the shadows are suddenly quiet. The tiny blade gleams, illuminating the whole room. CARPATHIANS, led by HENTZAU, detach themselves from their amusements and form a half circle to one side. Several of the harem of BRIDES stand, red mouths wet and eager.
DRACULA (angrily amused)
You think to defy me with this little needle, Englishman?
CHARLES
It is a gift. But not for you. For my Queen.
He tosses the knife. Tumbling silver reflects in DRACULA’s eyes. VICTORIA snatches the scalpel from the air.
VICTORIA
The Lord forgive me.
VICTORIA slips the blade under her breast, puncturing her heart. For her, it is over swiftly. With a moan of joy, she falls from the dais, rolls down the steps, chain unravelling. RUTHVEN beats his way through and clutches VICTORIA’s body. He extracts the scalpel with a single pull. RUTHVEN presses his hand over her wound as if willing her back to life. It is no use. He stands, still gripping the silver knife. His fingers begin to smoke and he throws away the scalpel, yelping. Surrounded by Dracula’s BRIDES, their faces transforming with hunger and rage, RUTVHEN shakes inside his finery.
RUTHVEN
It is over, Prince. As a widower, you have no right to rule.
CHARLES stands still, certain of death. DRACULA is on his feet, cloak rippling around him like a thundercloud. Tusks explode from his mouth, his hands become spear-tipped clusters. He raises a hand, useless chain dangling from his wrist, and points at CHARLES. Beyond speech, he spits out rage and hate.
CHARLES walks backwards. The vampires, suddenly sober, gather. The women of the harem and the officers of the guard. The women pounce first and bear him on to the floor, ripping...
GENEVIEVE pulls a hell-cat from the fray and pitches her across the room. GENEVIEVE bares her teeth and hisses at the fallen woman. Anger gives her strength. She hauls CHARLES free, thumping and stabbing with her hands. GENEVIEVE spits and shrieks with the other she-creatures, pulling handfuls of hair and scratching at red eyes. CHARLES, bloodied, still lives.
The BRIDES scrabble away, giving GENEVIEVE room. CHARLES stands by her, still in a daze. HENTZAU comes forward, Dracula’s champion. He makes a fist and a point of bone slides from his knuckles. It grows long and straight and sharp, a living sword.
GENEVIEVE steps out of range of the bone-rapier. The courtiers form a circle like a prizefight crowd. Still shackled to his dead Queen, DRACULA watches. HENTZAU whirls about, sword moving fast. She hears the blade whisper and, moments later, realises her shoulder is opened, a red line trickling on her dress. She snatches up a footstool and raises it as a shield, parrying the next slice. HENTZAU cuts through cover and cushion, fixing his blade in wood. As he pulls free, horsehair bleeds.
HENTZAU
Fighting with the furniture, eh?
HENTZAU makes passes near her face and locks of her hair float free. MERRICK, a broken FOOTMAN in one hand, throws CHARLES his sword-cane. With a tap, HENTZAU whisks GENEVIEVE’s stool from her hands. He grins and draws back for a thrust at her heart. CHARLES slices down, knocking HENTZAU’s point out of true, and slashes back, edge of his blade slipping under HENTZAU’s jaw, sliding through coarse fur, opening skin and scraping bone.