Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [45]
Penelope tried to look patient. ‘We must not be seen to be with the wrong people, Charles. If we are to have a future. I am only a woman, but even I can understand that.’
‘Penelope, what has brought all this on?’
‘You think me incapable of serious thought?’
‘No...’
‘You never considered Pamela to be such an empty-head.’
‘Ah...’
She held his hand, and squeezed. ‘I’m sorry. I did not mean to say that. Pam is out of this.’
He looked at his fiancée and wondered if he truly knew her. She was a long way from the pinafore and the sailor’s cap.
‘Charles, there is another prospect we must consider. After our marriage, we must turn.’
‘Turn?’
‘Art will do it, if we ask. Bloodline is important, and his is of the best. He’s Ruthven’s get, not the Prince Consort’s. That could be to our advantage. Art says the Prince Consort’s bloodline is dreadfully polluted, while Ruthven’s is simon-pure.’
In her face, Beauregard could see the vampire Penelope might become. Her features seemed to push forwards as she leaned to him. She kissed him on the lips, warmly.
‘You are no longer entirely young. And I shall be twenty soon. We have the chance to stop the clock.’
‘Penelope, this is not a decision to be taken lightly.’
‘Only vampires get anywhere, Charles. And among vampires, new-borns are less favoured. If we do not turn now, there will be a glut ahead of us, experienced un-dead looking down on us as those Carpathians look down on them, as the new-borns look down upon the warm.’
‘It is not so simple.’
‘Nonsense. Art has told me how it is accomplished. It seems a remarkably straightforward process. An exchange of fluids. There need be no actual contact. Blood can be decanted into tumblers. Think of it as a wedding toast.’
‘No, there are other considerations.’
‘Such as...?’
‘Nobody knows enough about turning, Penelope. Have you not noticed how many new-borns are twisted out of true? Something beastly takes over, and shapes them.’
Penelope laughed scornfully. ‘Those are very common vampires. We shan’t be common.’
‘Penelope, we may not have the choice.’
She withdrew and stood up. Incipient tears rimmed her eyes. ‘Charles, this means a lot to me.’
He had nothing to say. She smiled, and looked at him at an angle, pouting slightly. ‘Charles?’
‘Yes.’
She hugged him, pressing his head to her chest.
‘Charles, please. Please, please, please...’
15
THE HOUSE IN CLEVELAND STREET
It is like the warm days, is it not?’ von Klatka said, his wolves straining their leashes. ‘When we fought the Turk?’
Kostaki remembered his wars. When Prince Dracula, genius of strategy, withdrew across the Danube to redouble an assault, he left a good many – Kostaki included – to be cut to tatters by the Sultan’s curved scimitars. During that last melée, something un-dead tore out his throat and drank his blood, bleeding from its own wounds into his mouth. He awoke new-born under a pile of Wallachian dead. Having learned little in several lifetimes, Kostaki again followed the standard of the Impaler.
‘That was good fighting, my friend,’ von Klatka continued, eyes alive.
They had come to Osnaburgh Street with a wagonload of ten-foot stakes. There was enough lumber to build an ark. Mackenzie of the Yard awaited them with his uniformed constables. The warm policeman stamped his feet against a cold Kostaki hadn’t felt in centuries. Impatient steam leaked from his nose and mouth.
‘Englishman, hail,’ Kostaki said, clapping a salute against his fez.
‘Scotsman, if you please,’ said the Inspector.
‘I seek your pardon.’ A Moldavian survivor of the Imperial Ottoman chaos that was now Austria-Hungary, Kostaki understood the importance of distinctions between tiny countries.
A Captain in the Carpathian Guard, Kostaki was something between liaison officer and overseer. When directed so to do by the Palace, he took an interest in police matters.