The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(103)
“Holmes’s special!” I said, speaking low. Then I saw what had tipped her off, in addition to the small number of railway cars. A pale man in an ill-fitting railway uniform. He had his cap pulled down, but he was almost certainly a vampire.
“May Mr Holmes’s guesses always be right,” Mina breathed and we started in that direction.
We’d gotten within a dozen strides when the man stepped off the back end of the rear carriage, heading in our direction.
“’Ere now,” he said. “This is a private coach and not for the likes of…”
He bore down on us so quickly that it was child’s play to raise the silver tip of my cane and jab it into the man’s throat, so swiftly that I hoped no one would notice. To my absolute relief, the move worked astonishingly well and the man dropped at our feet, the silver reaction making a bubbling wreck of his throat. He shuddered once on the platform and went still.
As to my attempt to avoid any kind of outcry, laughable as that was, that portion of my intentions became an appalling failure when Mina hailed a passing constable.
“Oh!” she cried out fretfully. “He just fell over! Please, sir, come help!”
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
She ignored me and waved the constable over. He came, along with a certain number of bystanders, drawn by the sudden curiosity. Mina, meanwhile, drew out of the now-forming crowd and led me up the stairs that our conductor friend had just quitted. I let myself be led and closed the train door behind me. We found ourselves without ceremony and fuss in a well-appointed train car with rich upholstery, heavy curtains, and a small bar set off to one side.
No sooner had we stepped into the compartment than four persons stepped into the same compartment through a door located on the other end. There was no doubt that we had the right train now, for these creatures were even more clearly vampires than the conductor had been, all of them bearing the train guard uniforms and caps with which any purveyor of the railways is familiar.
In that instant during which we all eyed each other, a slightly distant steam cry wailed out from the front of the train. Then came the rumbling of wheels underneath us as our train lurched into motion. Our train was underway. Whatever gambit Holmes had imagined employing, he and Dracula had missed their opportunity. I could see the glimmering lights from the platform fall away as we moved, leaving the station and entering the London night. Mina and I were on our own now.
Mina leapt at the attendants, a snarl issuing from her throat. She moved so fast she was almost a blur. If I had thought that the monsters under the warehouse or Miss Kitty Winter had fought with an alarming ferocity and speed, they were all of them nothing compared to Mina Dracula. She leapt the distance and used a clawed hand to rip out the nearest vampire’s throat before I had raised my pistol. The other attendants gathered around Mina immediately so that I was afraid to fire for fear of hitting Mina. I had a moment’s half-blurred remembrance of the implacable fury that Dracula would hold for anyone that caused her harm and did not want to generate a new enemy for England in this fashion, but I was also cognizant of a newly born respect and admiration for this strong-willed woman.
I moved in and used my cane on the nearest vampire grappling with Mina. The heavy silver end landed with a satisfying thump and my opponent fell. Mina had already dispatched a second vampire. The last spun and attempted to disembowel me with heavy claws, but I was able to bat his arms out of the way and then cudgel him down to the floor. I realized at that moment that the vampire I’d just knocked into unconsciousness was actually a woman, and felt an entirely inappropriate regret for having treated any woman so, regardless of the disease and her savage attack on my person. The man in the conductor’s uniform outside on the platform had spoken, however briefly, and had clearly passed through the animal stage of the vampire transformation. He might be a criminal in Moriarty’s employ, but he was not a monster. I had to assume that these four might be the same. Three of them, including the man I had just felled, were unconscious, but alive. The fourth person was alive too, but just barely, bleeding even as I watched from the terrible wound to the throat that Mina had inflicted.
“Doctor,” Mina said. “Time is pressing.”
“This will take but a moment,” I said, tearing the man’s shirt to make a quick bandage. If it were bound, with the vampire’s ability to heal, it was very likely the man would recover.
“They would not perform the same service for you,” Mina said.
“All the more reason for me to do so,” I said. “Or else what kind of world are we fighting for?”
“It is not a fight, Dr Watson,” Mina said. “This is a war.”
“If it is war and we wish to fight for the angels,” I said, “it would be well for us to act as if we deserve victory. There, it is done.”
“If they are to remain alive, we should at least ensure they are bound,” Mina said, bending over and suiting action to word. I agreed to this clear necessity and performed the same on our next incapacitated prisoner.
Mina stood up when we had finished with a curious look on her face as she regarded me with her marvellous dark gaze. “Stout British morality. I had almost forgotten it and there are things you miss out in the wilderness of Transylvania. I see now why Holmes has kept your company all these years. Your value as a moral compass far surpasses your value as a chronographer.” I looked to see if she spoke in mockery, but her tone was clearly wistful and her expression serious. She put a hand on my shoulder and opened the car door so that we might penetrate further into the train.