She was on a hook now. 'Very well, but what is the story?'
'They're shape-shifters,' he said. 'Richthofen and his battle comrades. They don't fly aircraft. They grow wings.'
'Good lord!'
'They're Dracula's get. By proxy. His blood has made monsters of them.'
It was Kate's turn to keep secrets. She understood the import of Mata Hari's confession.
Edwin did not apologise for letting the wildcat out of the bag.
'I shall recommend you be relieved of your duties, Edwin. You need more doctoring,' Charles said.
Edwin did not protest.
'He is thinking of your interests, Edwin.'
He looked at her and kept his thoughts to himself.
'Very impressive,' she said. 'It took me years to master that trick.'
'Your face still gives you away. You blush like litmus paper.'
That was almost the old Edwin.
'I still have confidence in you,' Charles said. 'You'll be one of our best. When you've recovered from this taint.'
They left him in the shed. As Kate helped Charles out into the open, Edwin went to confer with Jiggs, casually poking about in a Camel's engine, debating mechanical arcana.
She worried that Edwin had not argued his corner as fiercely as she would expect. Vampire blood was stubborn stuff.
Especially hers. Perhaps the strain was growing weak?
In the sun, Charles cringed like a vampire. She hoped she had not made an invalid of him.
'Let me turn you, Charles. It's the least I can do.'
He shook his head. 'Not now, Kate.'
'You're not like Edwin. You have the character, the backbone. You could be one of us and not go mad. Unless people like us are vampires, the monsters will win.'
'This is dizzying, Kate. You argue your blood is poison, then you try to get me to drink.'
'You are like Edwin. Your mind is made up beyond reason and you'll stick by it until death.'
'Pot, kettle, black.'
Each word was an effort.
'Idjits, the lot of you.'
'The warm?'
'Men.'
Charles laughed.
They were outside the farmhouse. Charles pushed the door open with his stick and allowed Kate to step in. He followed.
Captain Allard, wearing a face-shading hat, sat at a desk, looking over papers. In an armchair nearby was a fish-eyed grey-suited civilian. With a razor chill, Kate recognised Mr Caleb Croft.
'You'll have to take Winthrop off the roster, Captain Allard,' Charles said. 'He's not right yet.'
Allard looked sideways, to Croft.
'Diogenes will find you another bright boy.'
Croft swivelled his eyes from side to side, an implicit headshake.
'We can't spare Winthrop, Mr Beauregard.'
Charles was startled by the refusal. He was on the point of blustering.
'It's too dangerous, Croft. The lad's a peril to himself and those who serve with him.'
Croft said nothing. His skin was lizardy. Brutality boiled off him like steam.
'This is too important to take the risk.'
A contest of wills took place. Croft exuded a damp, invisible cloud. He could sap the lives of others by breathing in. He was late eighteenth century. It was whispered he was once hanged. He wore high collars to hide the rope-burn. Now he was the iron instrument of Lord Ruthven's law.
'I fear I have sad news, Mr Beauregard,' said Croft, each syllable a hollow croak. 'Mycroft Holmes is dead. Your Ruling Cabal is inquorate.'
Charles was stricken. Mycroft had been his sponsor in the Diogenes Club.
'As a consequence, your operations here are suspended.'
Croft produced a document from his inside breast pocket.
'I have the Prime Minister's authority to take over. You have earned leave.'
Charles's face was as grey as Croft's coat. His heartbeat faltered. Kate had a stab of concern for his health.
'At least listen to me about Winthrop,' he pleaded.
'He is a valuable man. Captain Allard would find it difficult to run this show without him. Your concern is noted but the Lieutenant will remain on active service.'
'His promotion is coming through,' Allard said.
'On your recommendation, I understand,' Croft said.
Charles was shattered. Kate did not know whether to step in and hold him up lest he fall. No. He would not thank her.
'One further matter, Beauregard,' Croft said. 'It would reflect well on your unparalleled record if the last order you gave before you were relieved was to place Maranique airfield off-limits to journalists.'
Croft turned deep, dead eyes to her, and cracked open his lips in a scary smile, showing green-furred fangs. During the Terror, when the Prime Minister wavered between the Revolutionists and the standard of Dracula, Croft had issued orders that she be summarily executed on apprehension. Another woman, mistaken for her by the Carpathian Guard, was impaled in Great Portland Street.
'Why don't you personally escort - Miss Reed, isn't it? - to Amiens, Beauregard?'
Charles turned, hands useless fists about his stick. Kate picked up a strong impression: Charles saw himself drawing the silver-coated blade and sinking it into Caleb Croft's heart.
'Good day, Miss Reed,' Croft croaked. 'And good bye, Mr Beauregard.'
Together, they left. Outside the farmhouse, the morning air was chill. The clouds threatened. A flight of Camels rushed noisily past, rising into dangerous skies.
37
Master of the World
The Graf von Dracula, in consultation with Ludendorff and Hindenburg, under the direct patronage of Kaiser Wilhelm and King-Emperor Franz Ferdinand, had laid plans for the great victory of the Central Powers. Soon would begin the Kaiserschlacht, the all-or-nothing push of the German armies, backed by a million men freed from the Eastern Front, against the Allied lines and, once they were breached in a hundred spots, on to Paris. When Paris fell, France would be crushed, Great Britain cowed and America startled. The Allies would make what craven peace they could. Then Poe presumed the Graf would direct his attentions to the arriviste peasant masters of the new Russia and make ready for the next generation's war.
The newly named Schloss Adler would be Dracula's command post for this vital action. Flanked by his brood of flying demigods, the father of European vampirism would stand on the highest tower of the castle and watch his armies triumph.
Poe was possessed by the excitement of the moment. On the battlements as the sun set, he heard the din that rang throughout the castle as unused chambers were opened. A convoy of trucks had arrived, widening and flattening the road to the castle with their wheels. Efficient engineers were installing telephone and telegraph lines.
A group of men in uniform wrestled to erect a wireless aerial. A new steel structure already arose from the ancient pile, topped with a huge inverted hook.
The uniforms reminded him of other soldiers in grey, of another just cause. Poe had felt as excited before, marching at the head of his troop into Gettysburg over fifty years earlier.
earlier. That had been another all-or-nothing push, another turning point. Then, history had turned the wrong way. This time, that would not happen. Trains sped across Europe, packed with men and munitions. From his perch, he saw black segmented snakes winding across the sunset-bloodied land, heard the grinding of the wheels on the tracks. With every minute, Germany grew stronger.
In the last few days, he had been writing. Der rote Kampfflieger was not the ghosted autobiography Mabuse had commissioned (Edgar Poe could not shackle his voice to another, not even that of Manfred von Richthofen) but a biographical sketch which spun out of control, scattering ideas and philosophies, mixing the politics of nations with the nature of the universe. Not since Eureka had he had a subject so vast.