'Drink their blood,' Ten Brincken ordered, 'it is important.'
Lothar opened his mouth, transforming it into a snout bristling with teeth, and fastened himself to Marikova's swan-neck, chewing flesh, lapping spurting blood with a long tongue. The elder's wounds healed instantly, so Lothar tore again, smearing his face with precious gore.
'See, Manfred,' he said, voice surprisingly human through wolfish lips, 'it is not so difficult.'
Lothar's clawed hands rent Marikova's ball-gown, and his jaws tore her breasts and belly. He pushed the elder on to a divan and licked her open wounds. Lola-Lola held her mistress down, whispering soothing words into her ear, gripping her hand like a midwife helping a woman through childbirth. Marikova's face was frozen in indignation, but she was strong with the strength of centuries. I did not know if I could survive the rough treatment Lothar von Richthofen was meting out to Dracula's wife.
'Baron von Richthofen,' General Karnstein addressed the flier, 'it is necessary. For the war.'
The Baron looked at me without passion, without contempt, without interest. I cannot convey the emptiness of his eyes. Some
nosferatu
have a deadness in their heart that has nothing to do with true death. We vampires exaggerate the qualities of our warm days. You can imagine the traits I have carried over and amplified from life. In Richthofen, there .must have been a coldness, a need to retreat from physical and emotional contact. For such a man to be a vampire, to be eternally dependent on such contact, must be very like perdition.
Winthrop could not bring himself to pity the Bloody Red Baron.
'Very well,' Manfred said, the good soldier obeying an order. He stepped forwards, close to me. I saw healed scars on his handsome, square face. Under his cropped hair was a fading red weal. He had recently been shot in the head.
'Madame,' he held out his hand. I took it. A queerly boyish look passed across his face, as if he did not know what to do next. I believe he had never before been with a woman.
Ten Brincken nodded to one of the attendants, who slipped my peignoir from my shoulders.
'You appear to be in excellent health,' he remarked.
Other fliers followed Lothar's example. Stalhein had Faustine pinned down, and drank from her slit wrist as from a public water fountain. Meinster opened his dressing gown like batwings and moaned in a species of pleasure as Murnau knelt before him, sucking intimate wounds.
Manfred dipped his head and touched a sharp tongue to my neck. When I say sharp, I mean it literally. Some vampires have barbed points in their tongues, to pierce their companions' skin. The Baron clamped his mouth to my wound and sucked, ferociously. I felt points of pain and an ocean of pleasure. I was near swooning. The experience had not been this intense since Dracula took me for the first time. I was warm again, alive.
'Not too much, Baron,' said Ten Brincken, tapping Manfred's shoulder. 'It can be dangerous.'
I wanted to push him away but I had to hold him to me. I felt myself dwindling.
'Baron,' Ten Brincken nearly shouted, fear lost in his devotion to science, 'enough!'
I shook. My vision clouded red. I was dying again. We can kill each other, Charles. I have seen Dracula do it, and contemptuously spit out in a great stream the blood he has taken. That was how he murdered Armand Tesla. This is true death, from which there is no returning. This is the death I shall meet at dawn.
Two attendants held Manfred's arms, wrenching him away from me. His mouth was still attached to my neck like the sucker of a carnivorous plant. With a wet snap, it came free. Manfred shook his head, my blood dripping from his lips. Unsupported, I crumpled. Ten Brincken's stepped over me to examine the Baron. That told me where I was in his priorities.
The Professor clapped his hands and called for the fliers to leave off their drinking. For those who had lost control, attendants had wooden-handled devices like tongue- depressors. A touch of a silver spatula causes enough pain to shock a vampire free of red thirst.
I felt myself lifted into a sitting position. I was as pliable as a broken doll. General Karnstein had taken notice of me. With a pointed forefinger, he slit his wrist and raised blood to my lips like water to a wounded man. I had not the strength to swallow but Karnstein let blood dribble into me. His line is pure and strong, but it was hours before I was fully recovered.
From the floor, I looked up at Baron von Richthofen. He turned away from me, but I could see the flush of my blood in his shaved hackles. Then, I fainted.
That night, Meinster's flier died. Murnau's skull became that of a huge rat, but his flesh did not change. Bone burst through his skin. The next day, we were sent from the château, duty done. That is all I know. You must think of this, for I believe it to be the important kernel of my story:
he
has shaped them,
he
has given them his blood,
he
has made them into something new.'
Winthrop must have asked her to be more specific.
I mean Dracula. He is the ringmaster of the Flying Circus, and the Red Baron is his star act.'
13
Dr Moreau and Mr West
The duckboards were warped and ill-fitting, but it was best to walk on them rather than the mud. The top layer was frozen but boot-shaped holes showed where others had sunk to the knee in viscid filth.
'We don't see many civilians parading through here,' said Lieutenant Templar, a handsome new-born with a quizzical eyebrow. The breed prefer to fight their wars from armchairs in Boodle's.'
'Boodle's is not my club,' Beauregard said, treading carefully.
'No offence meant. It shows pluck to come this far when you don't have to.'
'You are right. Would it were that I was possessed of such spirit. Sadly, I do have to be here.'
'Worse luck, then.'
The slip-trench was ten feet deep. Its higgledy-piggledy sandbag walls were mortared with frozen mud.
A projectile overshot the line, sailed above at a decent altitude, and exploded a hundred yards off, where fields were patched with the last of the snow. Earth rained down. Templar shook like a dog, raising a halo of loose dirt. Beauregard brushed the shoulders of his Astrakhan coat.
'A whizz-bang,' said the lieutenant. 'Nasty beasts. Fritz has been lobbing the little devils all week. We think they're trying to fill in this thoroughfare.'
The slip-trench fed men and materiel to the front line. If breached, the blockage would have to be cleared.
Another shell whizzed over and banged in the abused field.
'Fritz's calibrations are off. That's two they've laid back there.'