Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [106]
Ruthven turned his attention to the Home Secretary and gave him another document. ‘Matthews, this is a draft of the Emergency Powers Act which will pass in the house tomorrow evening. I consider it vital that we order the affairs of the daytime world rather more than under the haphazard system we have tolerated until the present. There will be restrictions on travel, assembly and commerce. Public houses will only open during the hours of darkness. It is time we rearranged the clock and calendar for our convenience, rather than bowed in everything to the wishes of the warm.’
Matthews swallowed the medicine. Sir Danvers Carew growled with something approaching pleasure. He was in line to replace Matthews when Ruthven made him resign.
‘We are being forced to act swiftly,’ Ruthven declared to the room in general. ‘But this is no bad thing. We must keep to our decided course, whatever resistance we might meet. These are exciting nights, and we have a chance to lead the world. We are the wind from the East. We are the fury of the storm. In our wake, we will leave this country changed and tempered. Those who hesitate or stay their hands will be whisked away in the torrent. Like the Prince Consort, I intend to stand fast. Many will be destroyed utterly as the moon rises on our Empire. Mr Darwin was quite correct: only the fit shall survive. We must ensure that we are among the fittest of the fit.’
38
NEW-BORN
Art had left Penelope to see herself out. She was in a species of a swoon as he told her why he was dashing off. Something to do with the Prime Minister. Affairs of great import and urgency. Masculine matters, she assumed, and none of her concern. It seemed as if Art talked to her from the end of a long tunnel, a great wind blowing against him and carrying off his voice. Then he was gone and she was alone with herself...
... she was turning. It was not what she expected. She had been told it was quick: a brief pain like a tooth being pulled, then a period of dozing, comparable to the pupal stage of an insect, followed by a reawakening into the vampire state.
The pain, raging red throughout her body, was terrible. Suddenly, in a hot gush, her monthly was upon her. Her underthings were clogged. Kate had warned her, but she had forgotten. At the moment, there was little consolation in the prospect that this was the last time such feminine inconvenience would bother her. Vampire females, she understood, do not menstruate. That curse was lifted forever. As a woman, she was dead...
* * *
... on the divan where Art had taken her, where she had bled him, she gripped a bolster to her stomach. She had expelled every scrap of food on to Art’s Persian carpet. Then, in a more convenient moment, she had voided her bowels and bladder. She understood why, even as he was making a hasty escape, Art took the trouble to tell her where his privy was. During the turn, her body expelled all its wastes.
She felt feverish and empty, as if her insides had been scooped out. Her jaws ached as the buds of her teeth opened, sharp enamels scraping together. She had the enlarged, pointed teeth of the typical vampire. This was not a permanent condition, she knew. Her teeth would change in the moment of passion or anger. Or, as now, pain. Adapting to her new mode of feeding, her incisors became fangs.
Why had she chosen this? She could hardly remember.
Her hand was close to her face. She saw veins and tendons under the skin, undulating like worms. Her trimmed nails were daggerish diamond-shapes. There were even a few coarse black hairs. Her fingers had thickened and her engagement ring cut into her skin.
She tried to concentrate.
Her hand stopped writhing and dwindled into its familiar shape. With her tongue, she tested her teeth. They were small again, and she no longer felt that her mouth was full of pointed palings.
She was on her back, head lolling off the edge of the divan. She saw the room upside-down. Art’s father stood on his head in a full-length portrait. A blue standing vase hung from the carpeted ceiling, dangling