They left Ewers in the courtyard and caught up with Orlok's party as General Karnstein showed them the wall of trophies, enumerating each flier's individual victories.
'This is most impressive,' Hardt exclaimed. 'The Graf von Orlok admires the achievements of JG1. As does his estimable cousin, the Graf von Dracula.'
'It will be a great privilege for these men,' Karnstein said. 'They are new-borns. Few of their kind are chosen for such exalted service.'
Poe had missed a vital point. What service was the general speaking of?
'To commemorate the significance of this position,' Hardt said, 'Berlin has decided its name should officially be changed. The Château du Malinbois is a little too French for our taste. From now on, in honour of the eagles of JG1, this will be the Schloss Adler.'
The Eagle's Castle.
Orlok prowled by the trophy wall, spindly claws tapping his chin as he looked at the relics of the dead. He seemed not to hear the talk, though his huge rat-ears must be sharp enough to catch the tiny sounds that plagued Poe. Hardt was merely the smiling mask, the dancing puppet. Orlok was the master.
'Now, if your intelligence officer can make himself available.'
Theo stepped forwards, smartly. His insouciant manner was gone. This was an Oberst Kretschmar-Schuldorff ready to stick at his post until the last trump.
. . we shall inspect the arrangements made to increase the castle's security when our commander-in-chief comes to be among his finest.'
General Karnstein cried clear stern tears of pride. Apart from the stoic Richthofen, the fliers were shocked, bewildered, ecstatic. Even these creatures could be impressed. The great commander was coming to Malinbois. No, to Schloss Adler. Sometimes, Poe hardly dared think the name.
Dracula.
36
Dark-Adapted
'It is as if I were about to be dressed down by my parents. You both look so earnest, so cross.'
'I am your mother in a way you don't yet understand,' Kate told Edwin, 'and Charles is your father. He brought you into this secret world. It is your duty to honour that.'
Edwin grinned, not understanding. His smile was easy but his eyes were hard. He was a wall to her mind; given their communion, he must work hard to be so impenetrable.
'Perhaps I shouldn't have peppered Rutledge's backside but I've likely saved his life. He was lax up there, careless. He'll be less so in future. The next fighter on his tail won't be a Camel. Lockwood got the point.'
They stood in the shed, between lines of aircraft. Charles leaned heavily on his stick. Jiggs worked nearby, patching the tail of the Camel Edwin had 'tagged'. The oily machine smell was strong.
Penned close between the aeroplanes, Kate saw the beginnings of the turn in Edwin. His movements were quicker. His face was colder. His sibilants hissed slightly, over sharpening teeth.
'You've taken from Kate,' Charles said.
Edwin, shame pricking minutely, looked down at the beaten earth of the shed. Then, flaring, he looked up and met their eyes.
'And I've taken from you, Beauregard. And Albert Ball. And others. We all take. That is how we grow, adapt.'
He would be eating steak nearly raw, swimming in red juice. And he would have an appetite, burning fuel like a rotary engine. He would be always hungry.
'Don't you feel the danger, Edwin?' 'Miss Reed, without wishing to be offensive, you're a vampire. That hardly puts you in a position to lecture me about taking blood, taking anything, from another.'
The cut in her throat, made with her own claw, stung. Healed over entirely, the phantom wound throbbed, pregnant with blood.
'Edwin, you misunderstand the condition. You aren't a vampire.'
'I don't wish to turn, Kate. I don't wish to die. I have a duty and I can best do my bit with your blood in me. I apologise if I hurt or upset you, but there is a greater cause than us both.'
He looked up through the open shed doors to the sky.
'Up there lives a monster. I am pledged to destroy it. I owe it to Ball.'
'Either purge yourself or turn altogether. I've seen what happens to people caught half-way between warmth and undeath. You don't appreciate the risks to your mind and body.'
Edwin appealed to Charles. 'Beauregard, you understand the risks are secondary. We don't matter. Duty does.'
Kate squirmed inside. Her blood-links with Edwin and Charles were stirring. She sensed what was going on beneath their conversation.
'It's not duty, Edwin. It's revenge.'
Edwin's face closed shut.
'My blood in you. It's fogged your mind, twisted your intentions.'
'Richthofen must fall.'
'Richthofen will fall. Eventually. Dracula will fall. But it can't be just you. It has to be all of us. A consensus. You're becoming like the worst of them. This isn't a game for a few mighty knights and a million expendable pawns. This is about huge numbers of people, vampire and warm.'
'You're editorialising, Miss Mouse.'
She was angry. 'I'm trying to save you from a great misapprehension. Probably from madness and true death. You've been through something very like hell and have focused the blame on one young Hun, when you should blame the old men on both sides who have slaughtered millions because it was easier than living. The getting and keeping of power for a tiny minority in all countries has killed us all, is killing us all.'
'You sound like a Bolshevik.'
'If that's what it takes. I've been a Revolutionist, as has Charles.'
'I don't see what this has to do with me.'
'That's just it. It has to do with everyone. You see yourself apart from us all.'
There was a quiet, angry pause. Kate was flushed. Edwin, whom she had almost reached, retreated into the armour growing around his skull.
'Is this leading anywhere important, Beauregard? I have an offensive patrol to fly.'
After deliberation, Charles - older now than his years, slower and sadder - said, 'I believe you have returned to active duty too soon after your injuries.'
'I'm fit. I'm better than fit.'
Edwin did a deep knee-bend and sprang. He leaped twenty feet, grasping a cross-beam. His boots dangled above their heads. This was the sort of showing-off Kate expected from callous new-borns. The ones who wanted to distance themselves from the warm. The ones who wanted the living penned as cattle, who felt vampirism made them Darwinian aristocrats, princes of the earth. The monsters. Edwin dropped like a cat and stood straight and cool, boyishly proud of his feat.
'In the first stages, it's like a drug,' Kate explained to Charles. 'There's a euphoria. Over-confidence.'
'She's wrong, Beauregard. I have been careful. I have made of myself a weapon.'
Charles was tempted to believe him, Kate knew. It would suit the purposes of the Diogenes Club to have this ruthless, agile creature on the books. But Charles was too good a man not to understand.
I can't risk you, my boy. Kate has lived with her condition for thirty years. I have to listen to her.'
'But it's so silly,' Edwin said, turning away. His wide smile was almost hysterical. 'I can do so much. We have to destroy JG1. We have to persuade the Boche to stop making those creatures.'
Kate's ears pricked up. Making those creatures?
'You see my point. You are losing caution. You just told me something you shouldn't have.'
Edwin's eyes rolled, in irritation.
'Why are we having this argument? We want the same things, don't we?'
Charles was thinking. 'Kate, I want your word that you won't write anything about JG1 without clearing it with me first. Under DORA, you could be imperilled.'