The Dracula Caper (TimeWars 8)

"What do you mean?" said Drakov, frowning.

"It is a question I never dared to ask before," said Vlad "hut I feel that I must ask it now. Janos and I have talked of this and it is a matter of great concern to us. All our lives, we have been prepared for this one moment and now it is at hand. What shall become of us when it is finished? What are we to do? You now have Hesketh, Ransome and this man, Rizzo. Soon you will have others. You will have no further need of us."

Drakov put his hand on the vampire's shoulder. "You and Janos are like my children," he said. "You are my firstborn, Volodya. Did you think I would abandon you?"

"I did not know what to think," the vampire said. "I have always known that you gave me life for a purpose and I have always wondered what would become of my life once that purpose was fulfilled."

"It will become your own," said Drakov. "You will be able to go anywhere you please, choose any time you wish, pick any identity you like. I will see to it that both you and Janos are well provided for."

"And we shall be able to live as normal people do?" said Dracula.

"As normal people? What do you mean?" said Drakov. "The craving for blood," said Dracula. "The change Janos experiences every month. You will remove these?"

"Remove them?" said Drakov. "Don't be absurd! How can I remove them?"

"But… you have made us as we are," the vampire said.

"And you think I have the power to turn you hack into ordinary men?" said Drakov. He chuckled, then shook his head. "Volodya, you disappoint me. Have you learned nothing in all these years? You can never be ordinary. I have made you extraordinary! You are a predator! A superior being! The first of a new race! You are stronger than they arc, mom intelligent, quicker and with a far greater life-span. You are a wolf among! sheep. How can you even entertain the thought of being like other men? Whatever gave you this ridiculous idea?"

"Wherever we may go and whatever we may do, we shall always be hunted," said the vampire. "We shall be hated and misunderstood… indeed, how can we even hope for their understanding when our very nature compels us to prey upon them? You taught us to kill them, so that we could avoid creating others like ourselves before the time was ripe, but now that the time has come, where will it end? Now that you want us to create others like ourselves, will there come a time when there are no more humans, only hominoids like us? Where shall we turn for sustenance then? We shall have to kill each other, feed on our own kind. What will happen then? What will become of us'?"

"You have intelligence," said Drakov impatiently. "Use it. It will be up to you to control your population. I have shown you how. Besides, even if you were to fail in that, it would take many generations before you would have totally exhausted your food supply. Humans breed quickly and they will always be a dangerous prey. I have not made you invulnerable. Unlike the Dracula of legend, you are not immortal. Although your life-span is far greater than that of any ordinary human, you can be killed far more easily than the vampire of folklore. In order to survive, you and your kind will have to become canny hunters, keen competitors. Your greatest weapon will be that humans shall find it impossible to believe in your existence."

Drakov snorted with derision. "The fools have always lacked imagination. A few short centuries from now, they will have killed off all their predators and eliminated all the diseases which controlled their population, allowing themselves to spread unchecked until their cities are all choked with life and their wilderness despoiled, their water not fit to drink and their air no longer fit to breathe. They will crowd together in increasingly dense concrete warrens, too many people in too small a space, and the stress of such proximity will affect their emotional stability and they will all start going mad. They will become base unstable creatures who will understand only the artificiality of their own urban existence. They will have lost touch with nature, having brought her to her knees, and they will forget how to survive. And then they will begin to die."

He glanced at the vampire. "In creating you and Janos, I have introduced a predator into their midst that is at least their equal in intelligence, if not their superior. One that will not be easily destroyed. I have done them all a favor."

He looked back through the iron bars at Rizzo. The transformation was complete. The werewolf crouched on the floor of the cell, exhausted from its efforts, its chest rising and falling heavily, saliva dribbling onto the floor as it panted like a dog, staring at him balefully.

"What a look!" said Drakov.

"He hates you," said the vampire. "He would kill you if he could."

"I do believe he would," said Drakov, "and do you know why. Volodya? Not because I have transformed him, but because I have revealed him to himself as he really is. A loathsome animal. A predatory beast."

As I am a loathsome animal and a predatory beast, the vampire thought, but he said nothing. He merely stared at the pathetic creature huddled in the cell and felt unutterable sadness.

"Arthur, it's good to see you," said Bram Stoker, rising to his feet. It was early evening and the pub was crowded. Conan Doyle had worked his way through the crowd unrecognized. He approached the table Stoker was holding for them and took Stoker's hand.

"How are you, Stoker?"

"Reasonably well, Don't know that I can say the same for you, however. You look a bit the worse for wear. Sit down. Are you all right?"

Conan Doyle sat down heavily and leaned hack wearily in his chair. Stoker waved for another pint of bitters. "I have not been sleeping well," said Doyle. "These killings have all of my attention at the moment. I can think of nothing else. The matter is driving me to complete distraction. I sit up half the night, smoking pipeful after pipeful, filling the room with a latakia fog, racking my brain, attempting to arrive at some sort of rational explanation for the whole affair, but every line of reasoning I try to follow leads me nowhere. Nowhere, that is to say, near an explanation that is rational. I have just come from Scotland Yard. There has been yet another murder."

"Another one!" said Stoker. "When?"

"Apparently sometime last night," said Doyle, pausing a moment while the drink was set before him and then lifting the glass and drinking deeply. "A young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old, found in the most appallingly disgusting condition. Decency forbids me to describe it. Yet the cause of death itself was almost identical to that of Angeline Crewe. Insult to the system brought about by a profound loss of blood."

"Human teethmarks on the throat?" said Stoker.

Doyle sighed. "Yes, I am afraid so. It seems certain that we are faced with two separate fiendish killers, and yet I cannot help feeling that these killings are connected somehow, despite the fact that we are looking at two different methods of murder. I have no sound basis for drawing this conclusion, but I feel it as an exceedingly strong intuition. You said in your message that you had some information connected with this case."

"Well, I knew, of course, that you were involved in the investigation," said Stoker. "Inspector Grayson took me into his confidence. Has he discussed our last meeting with you?"

Doyle shook his head "Not beyond telling me that the two of you spoke about that young man, Tony Hesketh, whom Grayson has been anxious to question in this case "

Stoker pursed his lips thoughtfully. "He didn't mention the name Dracula to you?"