Anno Dracula

A CARPATHIAN QUARTET

Before returning to the Hall, Genevieve slipped into the pub opposite Spitalfields Market. She was well-known there, and in every other rowdy house within the so-called Terrible Quarter-Mile. As Angela Burdett-Coutts had shown, it was not sufficient to sit surrounded by improving tracts and soap in a comfortable church hall, waiting for the fallen to come and be improved. A reformer had to be familiar with the vilest sink-holes of drink and depravity. Of course, the Ten Bells on a week-night in 1888 was like one of the Aerated Bread Company's tea-rooms set beside a Marseilles brothel in 1786, a St Petersburg palace in the days of Great Catherine, or the chateau of Gilles de Rais in 1437. If her unfortunates could have seen their Miss Dee in earlier years, when the vicissitudes of a long life brought her to low circumstances, they might have been shocked. At times, she would have looked up to Polly Nichols or Lulu Sch?n as a scullery maid looks up to a Duchess.

The atmosphere of the Ten Bells was steam-hot; thick with tobacco, beer and spilled blood. As she stepped through the doorway, her eye-teeth slid from their gumsheaths. She pinched shut her mouth, breathing through her nostrils. Animals trussed behind the bar squealed and fought their leather straps. Woodbridge, the barrel-bellied potman, took a sow by the ear and yanked her head around: the spigot-mouth of the tap driven into her neck was clotted. He gouged out the coagulated gore and turned the handle, disgorging a gushing dribble into a glass tankard. Pulling the pint, he joked in a rich Devon dialect with a new-born market porter. Genevieve knew too well the gamey taste of pig's blood. It could keep the red thirst at bay, but never slake it. She swallowed her spittle. These nights, she did not have the opportunity to form attachments. Her work occupied so much time that she fed only rarely and then not well. Although strong with the strength of centuries, she could not push herself beyond certain limits. She needed a willing partner and the tang of blood in her mouth.

She knew most of the regulars, at least by sight. Rose Mylett, a warm prostitute Genevieve thought was Lily's mother, was cutting her finger with a penknife and bleeding into tiny glasses of gin which she sold for a penny. Woodbridge's slightly hare-lipped son, Georgie, a soft-faced youth in an apron, darted between the tables, collecting the empties and wiping away glass-rings. Johnny Thain, a constable who had been putting in a deal of extra hours since he got a look at what Silver Knife left of Polly Nichols, was at a corner table with a couple of detectives, a tweed coat over his uniform. The casual trade fell into obvious groups: itinerant workmen hoping for a shift at the market, soldiers and sailors looking for a girl or two, new-borns thirsty for more than liquid pork.

By the bar, Cathy Eddowes was simpering up at a big man, stroking the tangle of his hair, pressing her cheek to a blocky shoulder. She turned from her potential client and waved at Genevieve. Her hand was wrapped in cloth, fingers sticking stiffly out of the bundle. If there were more time, she'd have been concerned. Mick Ripper, a knife-sharpener reputed to be the best three-fingered pickpocket in London, closed on Cathy's beau. He got near enough to see the man's face and backed off, plunging his hands deep into his pockets.

'Evenin', Miss Dee,' said Georgie. 'Rushed off 'em tonight, we are.'

'So I see,' she said. 'I hope we shall see you at the Hall for the new course of lectures.'

Georgie looked doubtful but smiled. 'If 'n Dad lets me off of an evenin'. An' if 'n it's safe to go out by night.'

'Mr Druitt will be taking a class in the mornings in the new year, Georgie,' she said. 'Mathematics. You're one of our promising young men. Never forget your potential.'

The lad had a gift for figures; he could keep in his head at once the details and totals of three separate rounds of varied drinks. That talent, nurtured in Druitt's classes, might lead him to a position. Georgie might exceed the high-water-mark of his father, and become a landlord rather than a potman.

She took a small table to herself and did not order a drink. She was stopping here just to put off her return to the Hall. She'd have to give a report on the inquest to Jack Seward, and did not just now want to think too much about the last moments of Lulu Sch?n's life. As an accordionist murdered 'The Little Yellow Bird', a few maudlin drunks tried, with only marginal success, to remember all the words in the right order.

'Goodbye little yellow bird,' Genevieve hummed to herself,

'I'd rather brave the cold, on a leafless tree,

Than a prisoner be, in a cage of gold.'

A group of noisy newcomers barged through the doors, bringing a gust of night's chill with them. The noise of the pub momentarily abated, and was then redoubled.

Cathy's prospective beau turned away from the bar, roughly pushing the new-born away. She rearranged a shawl around scab-dotted shoulders, and walked off with broken-heeled dignity. The man was Kostaki, the Carpathian who had been at the inquest. The three who had come in were his fellows, grim examples of the barbarian type Vlad Tepes had imported from his mountain homeland and set loose in London. She recognised Ezzelin von Klatka, a grey-faced Austrian with a close-cropped scalp and a moss-thick black beard. He had a reputation as an animal tamer.

Kostaki and von Klatka embraced, breastplates grinding as they grunted greetings in German, the language of preference for the mongrel Mittel Europ?er who constituted the Carpathian Guard. Kostaki made introductions, and Genevieve gathered the others were Martin Cuda, a relative new-born who had not yet seen out his first century, and Count Vardalek, an effeminate and snake-like Hungarian who had the rank in the group.

Woodbridge offered the Guardsmen a pull of the pig, and von Klatka stared him into silence. The Prince Consort's Own did not favour animal blood. The group had the collective saunter Genevieve associated with Prussians or Mongols, the universal attitude of officers in an army of occupation. Carpathians marched around in a cloud of their own arrogance, condescending as much to the newborn as the warm.

Von Klatka picked a table in the centre of the room and stared down a couple of sailors until they chose to remove themselves to the bar, leaving their whores behind. The knight dismissed two of the girls, a new-born and a warm tart with no teeth, but let stay the last, a self-possessed gypsy who bore with pride the scars on her neck.

The Carpathians took chairs and leaned back in them, evidently at ease. They were illegitimate children of Bismarck and Geronimo: all wore highly polished boots and carried heavy swords, but their uniforms were augmented with oddments scavenged through the years. Von Klatka had around his neck a golden lanyard upon which were strung withered lumps of flesh she understood to be human ears. Cuda's helmet was adorned with a wolf's skin: head surmounting the crown and ringing the visor with teeth, eye-sockets sewn shut with red thread; thick-furred hide hanging down to the centre of his back, tail dangling almost to the floor.

Vardalek was the most extraordinary figure, his jacket a puffy affair of pleats and flounces, covered with kaleidoscope designs of spangle and sparkle. His face was powdered to conceal suppurating skin. Pantomime circles of rouge covered his cheeks and a scarlet cupid's-bow was painted over lips constantly distended by the two-inch fangs. His hair was stiff and golden, elaborately done up in bows and curls, twin braids dangling from the nape of his neck like rat's tails. This was the Count's party, and he was being escorted by the others on his tour of the fleshpots. Vardalek was one of those vampires who fussed about how close he was to the Prince Consort, claiming a dynastic connection as well as the obvious tie of bloodline. In a minute's chatter and on the flimsiest of pretexts, he mentioned the Royal Person no fewer than three times, always with mock-casual prefixes like 'as I was saying to Dracula...' or 'as our dear Prince mentioned the other night...'

The Hungarian surveyed the room and burst into high-pitched giggles, hiding his mouth behind a thin, green-nailed hand that protruded from an explosion of lace at his cuffs. He whispered to von Klatka, who grinned ferally and signalled to Woodbridge.

'That boy,' von Klatka said in approximate English, pointing a talon at Georgie. 'How much for that boy?'

The potman mumbled that Georgie was not for sale.

'Silly man, you understand not,' insisted von Klatka. 'How much?'

'He's my son,' Woodbridge protested.

'Then you should be honoured indeed,' shrilled Vardalek. 'That your plumptious whelp should excite the interest of fine gentlemen.'

'This is the Count Vardalek,' explained Cuda, whom Genevieve had marked as the snivelling toady of the group. 'He is very close to the Prince Consort.'

Kostaki alone sat quietly, eyes forever watchful.

By now, everyone had shut up and was watching. Genevieve was sorry that Thain and the detectives had left, but these bullies were hardly likely to feel outranked by mere policemen.

'Such a pretty lad,' said Vardalek, trying to wrestle the youth into his lap. Georgie was stiff with terror, and the elder was strong in the wrist. A long red tongue darted out of his cupid's bow and scraped Georgie's cheek.

Von Klatka had out a wallet as fat as a meat pie. He threw a cloud of bank-notes in Woodbridge's face. The ruddy-cheeked potman went grey, eyes heavy with tears.

'You don't want to be botherin' with the boy,' said Cathy Eddowes, squeezing between von Klatka and Cuda, slipping her arms around their waists. 'You gents wants yourselves a real woman, a woman as 'as the equipment.'

Von Klatka pushed Cathy away, shoving her on to the flagstone floor. Cuda clapped his comrade on the shoulder. Von Klatka looked with anger at Cuda and the junior vampire backed away, face a stricken white triangle.

Vardalek still cossetted Georgie, purring Magyar endearments which the Devonshire boy could hardly be expected to appreciate. Cathy crawled to the bar and pulled herself up. Pustules on her face had burst and clear gum was oozing into one eye.

'Excellencies,' Woodbridge began, 'please...'

Cuda stood up and laid hands on the potman. The Carpathian was a foot shorter than the beefy warm man, but the red fire in his eyes made it plain he could rend Woodbridge apart and lap up the leavings.

'What is your name, darling one?' Vardalek asked.

'G-G-Georgie...'

'Ah-hah, how is your rhyme? "Georgie-Porgie, pudding and pie"?'

She had to intervene. Sighing, Genevieve stood up.

'Pudding and pie you shall be,' purred Vardalek, his teeth scraping Georgie's plump neck.

'Gentlemen,' she began, 'please allow these people to continue unmolested with their business.'

The Carpathians were shocked silent. Vardalek's mouth gaped open, and she saw that all but his fang-teeth were green ruins.

'Back off, new-born,' Cuda sneered. 'If you know what's best for you.'

'She's no new-born,' muttered Kostaki.

'Who is this impertinent little person?' asked Vardalek. He was licking tears from Georgie's cheeks. 'And why is she still un-dead seconds after insulting me?'

Cuda left Woodbridge and flew at Genevieve. Swift as an overcranked zoetrope, she leaned sharply to one side and jabbed an elbow into his ribs as he passed, shooting him across the room. His wolf-helmet came off as he fell, and someone semi-accidentally dumped a pot of slops into it.

'I am Genevieve Sandrine de l'Isle Dieudonne,' she declared, 'of the pure bloodline of Chandagnac.'

Kostaki, at least, was impressed. He sat up straight, as if to attention, bloody eyes wide. Von Klatka noted his comrade's changed attitude and, without moving from his spot, also withdrew from the confrontation. She had seen a similar attitude a few years ago in an Arizona poker parlour, when a dentist accused of cheating happened to mention to the three hefty cattlemen fumbling with their holster straps that his name was Holiday. Two of the drovers had then shown exactly the expressions worn now by von Klatka and Kostaki. She had not been in Tombstone for the funeral of the third.

Only Count Vardalek was left in the fight.

'Let the boy go,' she said, 'new-born!'

Fury sparked in the Hungarian's eyes as he pushed Georgie away and stood up. He was taller than her, and almost as old. There was a terrible strength in his arms. His swelling nails turned to dagger-points, the lacquer on them shrivelling like butter on a griddle. He covered the distance between them in a snake's eye-blink. He was fast but he was of the diseased bloodline of Vlad Tepes. Her hands sprang out and she took a grip on his wrists, halting his finger-knives an inch from her eyes.

Vardalek snarled, foam blotting the powder on his chin, dripping on to the bulbous frills around his neck. His breath was proverbially foul, heavy with the grave. His stone-hard muscles writhed like pythons in her grasp, but she maintained her hold. Slowly, she forced his hands away from her face, raising his arms as if she were setting the hands of a huge clock at ten minutes to two.

In gutter Magyar, Vardalek alleged that Genevieve had regular carnal knowledge of sheep. That the milk from her breasts would poison the she-cats that were accustomed to suckle there. That seven generations of dung-beetles congregated in the hair of her worthless maidenhood. She kissed the air and squeezed, hearing his bones grind together, allowing the sharp points of her thumbs to cut into the thin veins of his wrists. Panic grew in his watery eyes.

Softly, so he alone could hear, she spoke in his own tongue, informing him that she was of the opinion that his ancestors knew only the love of mountain goats and asserted strongly the probability that his organ of generation was as flaccid as a newly-lanced plague bubo. She asked what the Devil was employing for an arse while Vardalak was using that tender part of the diabolic anatomy for a face.

'Let go him,' von Klatka said, without authority.

'Rip out 'is rotten 'eart,' said someone suffering from an attack of courage now someone else was standing up to the Hungarian.

Vardalek's knees gave way as she pushed him back and down. He crumpled and sagged, but she still held him up. She made him kneel and he whimpered, looking up almost pitifully at her face. She felt dry air on her canine teeth and knew the muscles of her face were stretched into a beast-like mask.

Vardalek's head bent back, and his eyes rimmed with blood. His golden helmet of hair slipped, disclosing the angry red scalp his wig concealed. Genevieve let the elder go and he collapsed. Kostaki and von Klatka helped him up, Kostaki almost tenderly setting straight the Count's wig. Cuda was standing too, and had his sword drawn. Its blade caught the light, silver mixed in with the iron. Disgusted, Kostaki bade him put his weapon away.

Woodbridge had the door open, ready to usher them out. Georgie scurried off to wash Vardalek's spit off his face. Genevieve felt her face resuming its normal placid-pretty aspect, and stood by mildly. The background chatter resumed and the accordion player, proficient only within a narrow thematic range, started up 'She Was Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage'.

Von Klatka got Vardalek out into the street and Cuda followed them, filthy tail dragging. Kostaki remained, surveying the wreckage. He looked to where von Klatka had thrown his banknotes and gave a half-grin and a snort. The money had been whisked away as a sponge soaks up spilt beer. The gypsy girl was ostentatiously not where the notes had been. The Guardsman's white face cracked along lines when he changed expression, but the splits healed over instantly.

'Lady Elder,' said Kostaki, saluting her before turning to leave, 'my respects.'