Dracula Cha Cha Cha

Even on a Sunday afternoon, the high-ceilinged waiting room of Thomas Nolan's studio was crowded with aspirant models of all sexes. Kate had never seen so many long legs, knobbly vertebrae and knife-blade cheekbones. Pulses throbbed in throats, wrists and ankles. She wouldn't know where to bite, for fear of scraping bone. Pretty creatures perched on low, backless couches like uncomfortable grasshoppers. They wore in fancy dress: astronaut, flamingo, cowgirl, Boy Scout. Glass-top tables had still-life arrangements of foreign-language magazines the waifs couldn't read and exotic fruits they wouldn't eat.

Big black-and-white movie star posters hung on whitewashed walls. Bogart in a white tux, Rita Hayworth as Gilda, Jack Andrus as Ulysses, Bardot on a motorbike, Byron Orlok as Clayface, Theda Bara as Countess Addhema, Toby Dammit gaunt and drugged. Someone had reddened their eyes with magic marker and added fangs to black-lipped mouths. She didn't get the point. A chrome-and-crystal American jukebox played Procul Harem. She glanced at the selection panel: 'A Whiter Shade of Pale', over and over.

...her face, at first just ghostleeeee, turned...

Nolan's Chinese personal assistant was present, issuing orders to minions. Kate was surprised  -  the PA was the woman she knew as the Daughter of the Dragon. She'd used more elaborate names, but now called herself Lin Tang. Kate hadn't kept track of the woman, but heard the Lord of Strange Deaths, her father, had joined his ancestors. Before the ceiling fell in on his Limehouse lair, he had issued his customary statement, 'the world shall hear from me again'. So far, it hadn't.

'Kate,' Lin Tang acknowledged, stone-faced. 'And some official gentlemen.'

Shorter and slighter even than her, Lin Tang wore a black miniskirt, vinyl kinky boots and a sleeveless top consisting of gold rings sewn together. Her hair once fell unbound to her knees. Now, she had sharp-cut fringes and showed the nape of her neck. Kate remembered the Daughter as a hapkido whirlwind in 1896, dicing Carpathian Guardsmen with twin scimitars in the Battle of Lamb's Conduit Street. Did anyone else here realise the tiny woman was more dangerous than the bald, pockmarked wrestler who barred the inner doors? He was for show: arms crossed like the genie in Aladdin, single earring, flower painted on his forehead. Lin Tang might have inherited him from her father.

In the '90s, a time of odd alliances, Kate and the Daughter had served in different branches of the Underground dedicated to the overthrow of Prince Dracula. Then, Lin Tang dutifully carried out her dreadful father's bidding. Later, she turned against him  -  for love, Kate understood  -  and made her own way in the world. Good for her. Not a vampire, she seemed about the same age as she had eighty years ago. Her family had access to potions and elixirs. Like vampirism, they carried a high, invisible price. The Lord came to resemble a Chinese mummy. Lin Tang's painted face might crack yet.

Bellaver searched through his pockets for his warrant card, and found it only after Griffin had flashed police I.D. at Lin Tang.

'We'd like a word with Mr Nolan, miss... ?'

Lin Tang gave nothing away.

'It is a serious matter,' Bellaver insisted.

The wrestler shifted a little.

In this bubbleworld, B Division's authority was scarcely recognised. No wonder the Super was wary of the case. When Kate started as a crime reporter, policemen found it almost impossible to interview anyone of superior social standing. Well-born ruffians of the 1880s, like Caleb Croft and his chums generations earlier, could more or less get away with anything. In this egalitarian age, being famous  -  no matter what for  -  earned the privileges which once came with title and estates.

'Thomas is not to be disturbed,' said Lin Tang.

The doors opened behind the wrestler, bumping him out of the way. Thomas Nolan, more wasted than Toby Dammit in the poster, stalked out, blond hair wild, brick-dust streaks on his blinding white jeans. Not a tall man, he displaced a lot of air. Behind him somewhere, a woman sobbed.

Lin Tang noticed the Presence.

'Thomas looks disturbed to me,' said Bellaver.

The photographer began inspecting the crop of models, pinching chins and staring into eyes. None spoke.

'Hopeless, useless, spotty, malnourished, too tall... t'chah! The lot of you, out out out!'

The astronaut misted up the inside of her plastic bubble helmet and passed out. Her spacesuit had a vent which exposed her miraculously flat midriff in a manner not advised for extra-vehicular activity.

Lin Tang clapped her hands, like her father signalling that more Western barbarians be tossed into the river. The models were banished, though Kate guessed they'd be replaced by interchangeables within the half-hour. The cowgirl took the spacegirl with her.

'You must be joking,' he said to Bellaver.

Then he came to Kate...

'...but you... interest me.'

He made a square with thumbs and forefingers and looked through it at her.

'Snappy snappy,' he said. 'Teeth please.'

'He means smile,' said Lin Tang.

'I means teeth,' said Thomas.

Kate opened her mouth, as if for the dentist. Her fangs slid out of gumsheaths.

Often, her teeth noticed she fancied someone before her brain did. Thomas Nolan. She felt a sting of interest. Meanwhile, he saw her as an object. Damn. She'd been here before.

'Lovely gnashers,' he said. 'Come in and we'll expose some film.'

'But I'm... I don't... no reflection. No pictures.'

He smiled, tightly. 'Let's see if we can do something about that, luv. You're definitely what I want.'

If this was the only way in, then.

Thomas led her into the inner studio. The wrestler thought better of stopping Bellaver from following.

The building was a former carriage-works. The studio still smelled of wood and horses. Large sheets of white or pastel paper were tacked to the walls. Cameras and lamps perched on stands.

The sobbing woman was a vampire, another tall blonde bone-bag in a silvery evening dress. Barefoot, her soles were grubby from the uncarpeted floor. Kate recognised Barbara von Weidenborn, a professional artists' model under the name Barbarushka. A twig of the Dracula family tree, she was now in abject distress, like a harem bed-warmer who has failed to please the sultan and is doomed to the oubliette.

Lin Tang snapped long-nailed fingers. The wrestler escorted the Dracutwig off the premises. Kate trusted there were no trapdoors hereabouts for such poor things. The Daughter must have moderated her methods of disposing of people, though brief acquaintance suggested Thomas Nolan could be as cold-blooded as the Lord of Strange Deaths.

Kate saw what Barbarushka's problem was.

Scattered on the floor were developing Polaroid photographs, all of strange shadows on white paper.

'I won't photograph either,' she insisted.

Nolan summoned an attractive, auburn-haired woman. She wore a black sweater and britches and had a cinema usherette's tray slung around her neck, full of cosmetics rather than ice cream tubs.

'Edwina,' he ordered, 'do your magic.'

The woman started puffing powder at Kate's face.

It tingled, oddly. Her eyes watered.

'That's got silver in it,' she said, gripping Edwina's wrists.

'It's so you'll show up,' Nolan said.

'I don't necessarily want to,' said Kate.

Edwina was strong, Kate realised. She might well be up to a tussle.

Bellaver stood back, amused. Kate had not signed up for whatever this was, especially if it involved disfigurement.

'Mr Nolan is working on processes to photograph vampires,' Lin Tang explained.

'You have such a look,' the photographer said. 'But if it's not on film, it's wasted.'

'That argument only works on girls who get older,' she said.

'Wouldn't you like to see your own face?'

'Not really. People weren't kind about it.'

Nolan was puzzled.

'She means she has red hair,' Lin Tang said. 'When she was warm, Western women with red hair were considered hideous...'

Kate must remember to thank the Daughter of the Dragon for her concision.

And glasses,' Kate said. And freckles.'

Nolan peered at her and didn't see a problem. Which ought to be cheering. The snapper spent his days peering through viewfinders at Jean Shrimpton and Penelope Tree. If he saw nothing wrong with specs, frecks and ginger, it was one in the eye for all those lads in cricket caps who made droll remarks about pillar-boxes and owls when not asking her to dance in 1886. They were mostly dead, of course.

He picked up a camera and started snapping at her.

'Lovely,' he said. 'More fang, please. And the eyes. Flash 'em, luv. Teeth and smiles. That's the business, darling. Oh yes.'

Flashbulbs popped.

She was backed against a sheet of butchers' paper, which fell down. The photographer advanced on her. Click click click.

Edwina also had a camera  -  the Polaroid, which spat out instant images.

She showed one to Nolan, who took a photograph of her holding it out to him.

Kate saw Edwina's photograph. There she was, in it. A pale, round face. The blank circles of her specs. Prominent eyeteeth, a defensive snarl. Even her hair. The magic had worked.

Despite herself, she was interested.

Annoyingly, she looked startled in the picture. Like every long exposure taken when she was alive and had to sit in a chair with head-pincers to be photographed.

Bellaver failed to stifle laughter. Griffin was smirking too.

She'd make them pay later.

'Now, stop all this,' she said. 'We're here about something serious.'

To Thomas Nolan, this was serious. He shot more pictures, with various cameras, fixed on tripods and hand-held.

She tried to exert her will on his. It wasn't one of her talents, but she'd been a vampire long enough to pick up some of the tricks.

Nothing.

Each snap was something taken from her. A layer of skin? It was like being bitten, being drained  -  which she'd only gone through once, albeit profoundly  -  being turned. She was worried she would fade.

Like ice in the sun, I melt away...

Edwina and Lin Tang stood to one side, attendant harpies. Why didn't he photograph them instead? They were pretty.

A big lens was close to her face, like the probe of the Martian War Machine in the film of War of the Worlds. She had no reflection in it. The shutter irised inside the camera.

Click click click.

She shrank, cringing, almost in terror. Nolan went down on his knees, over her, aiming down, still shooting. She put a hand behind her, and felt the floor.

She was strong. She could throw him off.

She was thirsty. She could bite him.

Click click damnable click.

She didn't resist. The clicks were kisses now. Her teeth cut her own lips. Her mouth would be reddened.

'Stop,' she said, firmly.

Nolan gripped her thighs with his knees. He bore down on her, a cyclops. The upper half of his face, above his cherub lips, was all camera, a big eye on an extending stalk.

There was an automatic quality to his clicking. He took a shot and rolled the film on, again and again.

She was wrung out, limp.

She saw what was wrong.

'Bellaver,' she said. 'Get him off me. It's about the case.'

As the Super stepped forward, Kate reached up and took away Nolan's camera. He still made click-and-roll motions. He cooed at her, trying to capture the look.

He was in a daze, imagining himself taking photographs.

'Luv,' he said, 'come on, luv...'

Griffin and Bellaver helped him stand up. His hands still made motions. He wasn't seeing anything.

His studio girls showed little concern. They were used to not questioning bizarre behaviour.

'Lin Tang,' she said. 'He's been fascinated. Barbarushka?'

The Daughter snorted contempt. 'Not that one.'

'Another vampire, then. Recently. How long has he been like this? Manic, not all here...'

The question didn't mean anything to Lin Tang.

'Good news and bad news, Super,' she told Bellaver. 'Nolan must know  -  must have known  -  something. But a vampire has got into his head and locked it up.'

The photographer was quieter now, suggestible. Edwina sat him in an egg-shaped chair that hung from the ceiling on a chain. His feet dangled, scraping the floor. He muttered, and his hands worked an invisible camera.

'Were either of you with Nolan last night?' Bellaver asked. 'On a boat, and then somewhere else?'

Lin Tang nodded. Edwina shrugged.

'Did he take any photographs last night?' Kate asked.

'Of course,' said Lin Tang. 'He always takes photographs.'

'Have they been developed?'

'No. He does that himself.'

'We'll need the film,' said Bellaver.

'That won't be possible,' said Lin Tang.

'Make it possible, Lotus Blossom. Or we'll find something to charge you with. Obstruction, most likely. If Insidious Fiendishness isn't an actual offence, we'll make it up specially.'

'My name isn't Lotus Blossom, Inspector Plodder. Or Suzie Wong.'

'I did make it clear this is a murder enquiry.'

Lin Tang was unimpressed. Given who the woman was, Kate understood why. A murder? Only one?

'Nolan will need help,' Kate said. 'To fix his head. You'd best cooperate.'

'Very well,' said Lin Tang. 'But I will develop the film myself. One of you may join me in the darkroom.'

'An offer you don't hear every day,' said Bellaver. 'Katie, I'm assuming you can see in the dark.'

'Like a cat,' she said.

'Miaow away, then. I'll find someone to unscramble Tommy Sunshine's brains.'