Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [167]
Merrick announced them, his palate suffering as he got their names out. Someone made a crude remark, and gales of laughter cut through the din, then were cut off at a wave of the Prince Consort’s ham-sized hand.
Vlad Tepes sat upon the throne, massive as a commemorative statue, his face enormously bloated, rich red under withered grey. Stinking moustaches hung to his chest, stiff with recent blood, and his black-stubbled chin was dotted with the gravy-stains of his last feeding. An ermine-collared cloak clung to his shoulders like the wings of a giant bat; otherwise, he was naked, his body thickly-coated with matted hair, blood and filth clotting on his chest and limbs. His white manhood, tipped scarlet as an adder’s tongue, lay coiled like a snake in his lap. His body was swollen like a leech’s, his rope-thick veins visibly pulsing.
Beauregard shook in the presence, the smell smiting him like blows. Genevieve held him up, and looked around the room.
‘I never dreamed...’ he muttered, ‘never...’
A warm girl ran across the room, pursued by one of the Carpathians, his uniform in tatters. He brought her down with a swipe of a bear-paw, and began to tear at her back and sides with triple-jointed jaws, taking meat as well as drink.
The Prince Consort smiled.
The Queen was kneeling by the throne, a silver spiked collar around her neck, a massive chain leading from it to a loose bracelet upon Dracula’s wrist. She was in her shift and stockings, brown hair loose, blood on her face. It was impossible to see the round old woman she had been in this abused girl. Genevieve hoped she was mad, but feared she was only too well aware of what was going on about her. She turned away, not looking at the Carpathian’s meal.
‘Majesties,’ Beauregard said, bowing his head.
Vlad Tepes laughed, an enormous farting sound exploding from his jaggedly-fanged maw. The stench of his breath filled the room. It was everything dead and rotten.
A fastidiously-dressed vampire youth, an explosion of lace escaping at his collar from the tight black shine of his velvet suit, explained to the Prince Consort who these guests were. Genevieve recognised the Prime Minister, Lord Ruthven.
‘These are the heroes of Whitechapel,’ the English vampire said, a fluttering handkerchief before his mouth and nose.
The Prince Consort grinned ferociously, eyes burning like crimson furnaces, moustaches creaking like leather straps.
‘The lady and I are acquainted,’ he said, in surprisingly perfect and courteous English. ‘We met at the home of the Countess Dolingen of Graz, some hundred years ago.’*
Genevieve remembered well. The Countess, a snob beyond the grave, had summoned what she referred to as the un-dead aristocracy. The Karnsteins of Styria had been there, pale and uninteresting, and several of Vlad Tepes’s Transylvanian associates, Princess Vajda, Countess Bathory, Count Iorga, Count Von Krolock. Also Saint-Germain from France, Villanueva from Spain, Duval from Mexico. At that gathering, Vlad Tepes had seemed an ill-mannered upstart, and his proposition of a vampire crusade, to subjugate petty humanity under his standard, had been ignored. Since then, Genevieve had done her best to avoid other vampires.
‘You have served us well, Englishman,’ the Prince Consort said, praise sounding like a threat.
Beauregard stepped forward.
‘I have a gift, majesties,’ he said, ‘a souvenir of our exploit in the East End.’
Vlad Tepes’s eyes gleamed with lust. At heart, he had the philistine avarice of a true barbarian. Despite his lofty titles, he was barely a generation away from the mountain bully-boys his ancestors had been. He liked nothing more than pretty things. Bright, shining toys.
Beauregard took something from his inside pocket, and unwrapped a cloth from it.
Silver shone.
Everyone in the throne room was quieted. Vampires had been feeding in the shadows, noisily suckling the flesh of youths and girls. Carpathians had been grunting