'They will have won the war, Theo.'
Theo shrugged. 'That was what Dracula made them for, winning the war. But as Manfred said, there is no "after the war". They are the instruments of conquest, not rule.'
'There will always be conquests.'
'Eddy, my friend, sometimes for one with such foresight you are remarkably blind.'
Poe was shocked.
Though scientists were left behind along with ground crew, and Orlok scuttled about somewhere, the Schloss Adler seemed abandoned with the departure of JG1. The fliers could be seen converging on the Attila, tiny as flies. Poe's keen eyes distinguishing them from the morass of night.
In his last chapters, Poe had written of the Baron's reaction to the loss of his brother. It was as if both Richthofens had died, but he was cursed to walk the Earth a while.
'Poor Manfred,' Theo said, understanding Poe's mind. 'He is a loyal dog, for all else,'
'I'd give anything to be with them, Theo.'
Theo looked at him and tried to smile. 'It's too late for anyone to take any notice of what we do. There's a Junkers J1 fuelled, ready for an observation tour. Would you care to accompany me?'
'You can fly?'
'Only in an aeroplane.'
Pillars of fire rose from the battle. Poe thought of the skies over the decisive conflict.
'I've never been up in . .
'For a prophet of futurity, a sad omission.'
'Very well.'
Theo grinned, with some of his old sparkle. 'The raven has wings.'
In her last seconds, Kate would have liked to forgive everybody. But she couldn't.
Her coat tightened like a straight-jacket as more cloth pulled into the wheels of the tank-tread. She smelled heavy oil and grease as she was dragged into the killing gears. Then the engine inside the tank died and she was held, crucified against the machine's side. A mechanical failure or a chance bullet or the hand of God had saved her. Briefly.
One of her hands was free. She bunched her fingers and made a knife-point of her nails. She punched the taut sheet of her coat at the shoulder and tore. Stitching broke and she was free. She fell, but got her hand round the rim of one of the stalled wheels, gritting her teeth as her barbed nails scraped against greasy steel. Hand over hand, she climbed on top of the tank. The metal was heated, as fire had recently played across it.
There were enemies inside this moving cage. Warm or vampire, they throbbed with blood she needed to drink. A rifle barrel poked through a slit and angled round. She wheeled to stay out of range and took hold of the gun. With a wrench, she pulled the thing free - raising hochdeutsch oaths from inside - and hurled it off behind her.
Putting her face to the slit, she snarled like a beast. She smelled funk inside, heard tank-men scrabbling and panicking, trapped by the stalling of their wonderful war device. Fire would pour in and cook them.
Her face was close to a pair of boots. The only polished, ready-for-inspection boots in the whole of the armies of Europe. She looked up at the soldier who stood calmly atop the tank, uncringing as if the silver and lead bullets flying around were hailstones. He wore the uniform of the United States but this vampire was older than the country.
His boots grew insubstantial, whitening into a mist. She'd heard of the trick but never seen it done. The vampire gathered himself into a wraith-shape, glowing faintly. His clothes and kit dissolved with his body, as much a part of him as his hair. A bullet struck nearby, clanging against the tank. She cringed, but was mesmerised by the elder. A man-shaped cloud floated over the slit. It elongated and funnelled down, like a puff of smoke suddenly inhaled by a smoker.
Screams cut through layers of iron and steel, shaking her to the teeth. A pistol was discharged, shot rebounding in the confined space. A red cloud burst from the firing slit, spattering her face with warm blood. She licked her face, impassioned by the blood, swallowing the terror that came with it.
Not waiting for the elder to emerge from the tank, she vaulted off the machine's back and felt earth under her. Looking back, No Man's Land was No Man's no more. Strung-out lines of grey uniforms advanced through the night in implacable ranks, stepping over their fallen, walking on in a human tide towards the Allied trenches.
A machine-gun, maybe thirty yards away, started up, and a fan of the advancing troops were scythed down. More men filled the gap. The gun ranged again, cutting more down. Then the gun was overwhelmed and silenced. The gunners were torn apart by the undead soldiers, blood splashing all around. The Germans' mouths were red.
The elder floated above the tank, reconstituting himself pretty face reddened with fresh blood.
Someone shot Kate but only with a lead bullet. It slipped through her calf. The hole healed over immediately. She heard the shot long after the stab of pain passed.
Another tank spat a line of burning petrol towards the Allies, spreading fire on the ground. All about her, men retreated, falling back or just falling.
The elder drifted towards the second tank. He must be ancient to have such control of his form. Older than Dracula or Genevieve. Pre-mediaeval. Perhaps pre-Christian. An awesome thing to have hidden among mankind for so long.
He'd have numberless names.
The flame-thrower hitched upwards and belched another burst, catching the elder full in the chest. He burned like a butterfly. Centuries of unchronicled life were extinguished in an uncaring instant, blasted to sparking shreds by brute modernity.
Someone took her arm and saved her tiny life, pulling her backwards, along with the mass of men fleeing the front lines.
'Retreat, man,' someone told her.
42
Night of the Generals
At HQ in Amiens, everyone was shouting at once. A double . dozen telephone lines were manned, staff officers hopping to pass on grave news from points along the front. Lieutenants with brooms shifted markers on a map table the size of a tennis court. Bombardment shook solid walls. There were fires in the town. Shells were falling just short of the outskirts. Fall-back positions on the roads were being hurriedly manned. This was the big push everyone had expected.
Bone-tired after another stormy Channel crossing and dispirited in the aftermath of My croft's funeral, Beauregard was shunted into a corner by panicking strategists. It was coincidence he was so close to events. He was ordered to report to HQ to hand over to Mr Caleb Croft a list of the Diogenes Club's operatives behind enemy lines. It would be almost his last duty in the war. After that, he was free to go home to Cheyne Walk and think about writing his memoirs.
Croft was expected directly from Maranique. Condor Squadron were in the skies, represented on the table by a wooden arrowhead painted red. A broom pushed the arrowhead towards the black oval that was the Attila. The blocks representing Allied troops were mixed up, probably reflecting their actual dispositions. The Central Powers had thrown so many men into the onslaught that HQ had run out of the black blocks that symbolised them. To make up the shortage, a subaltern tore strips of paper and rubbed Maltese crosses on them with bootblack.
Beauregard rubbed his tired eyes. Battle smoke from a hundred cigarettes swirled over the map. The air in the command room tasted foul.
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was on the telephone to Lord Ruthven, holding the receiver to his chest while he relayed orders to messengers, who passed them on to telephonists, who delivered them to officers in the field, who presumably told their men what to do. There was some sort of a plan. Haig was not at all discouraged by the attack. His red eyes glowed like electric lights. The pin-sharp points of his jagged teeth shredded his lower lip, spotting his chin with his own blood. As he commanded, he almost foamed.