The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(21)
“By the end of the year,” Dracula repeated. “This is the other reason I came to you. This proliferation is, perhaps, an even greater threat to my person than it is to London. You see, my kind, normally, has always been very careful about creating more vampires. My situation is unique in Transylvania and even that cannot last indefinitely. In the modern world, with your telegraphs and telephones, the need for secrecy is even greater. Unlike normal predators, our potential reign is centuries.”
“Unless,” Holmes said, “your modern vampire makes the capital mistake of advertising their own existence?”
“Precisely,” Dracula said.
“The evidence,” Holmes said, “supports the theory that this instinct is ingrained in all vampires, else we would shortly be overrun with teeming droves of them. Hardly likely to avoid notice.”
“Now there could be hundreds!” I said. “All on account of this Mariner Priest that does not adhere to this conditioning? But you said that vampires would never work together!”
“They don’t, normally,” the Count said. “The occasional exception is the fledgling vampire kept in tow of its master, but rarely have I seen more than two vampires cohabitate this way.”
“Like your sisters?” I asked.
“Indeed,” Dracula said, “though I have never heard tell of any other vampire maintaining so many as three and they are a unique situation. It is always just the fledgling and the master and even that never lasts for long.” There was a touch of smug pride in Dracula’s voice at his accomplishment.
“And see how that turned out,” Holmes said. Dracula frowned, but kept his silence.
I fell back into my chair. “A hundred…” Visions of a veritable horde tormented my brain, images of red eyes and snarling mouths filled with fangs. My Mary could be among them, too, and the idea haunted me worse than her death would have. It also meant that I might see her again, as she was now, and the idea made me shiver with horror and revulsion. But a small seed of hope grew within me at the thought of seeing her, mired as it was in Dracula’s black predictions.
“Holmes,” I said. “We can’t let this Mariner Priest do this to more people. We can’t. We must do everything in our power!”
“Just so,” Holmes said. “Necessity makes for strange bed-fellows, to misquote the Bard. In this, Count Dracula is our greatest ally. His information on the woefully misunderstood subject of vampires has been paramount and his abilities are not inconsiderable.”
“You have, Mr Holmes,” Count Dracula said, “an almost insolent talent for understatement.”
“Forgive me,” Holmes said, not sounding very contrite at all. “In short, this Mariner Priest represents a new, more dangerous breed of vampire that has somehow transcended the bonds that hold all other vampires, even one as ancient as you. It is a peril unlike any London has ever faced, Watson. Can you see now why we must take our present course?”
“Good Lord, Holmes,” I cried, “we cannot let this happen!”
“I thought you might see it our way,” Holmes said. His tone was mild, but I could see that a certain tension in him lifted. “Now then, Count, I have some investigations to perform on my own and then, I think, we shall be very grateful for your assistance. Can you come back just after nightfall tomorrow evening?”
“Of course,” Count Dracula said.
After the Count had silently departed, I asked, “What is our next move, Holmes?”
“I must beg your indulgence, Doctor,” Holmes said, “but you have given me just the barest sketch of the events surrounding your abduction and forced transformation. I know that the events are painful to you, but I must hear the complete story.”
I did so, giving him as much detail as I possibly could, though there were so many parts where my information was woefully inadequate. Even so, Holmes nodded thoughtfully during my description of the opium parlour.
“I believe I can find the place,” Holmes said. “Or at least narrow it down to a few choices based on your description, and I should like to know more about our adversary in this case. But for obvious reasons, I should like to make my first investigations during the daytime. While you may not be a complete slave to the vampire’s daylight torpor that Dracula speaks of, Watson, I do feel that you should test the limits before engaging in espionage in enemy territory.” He spoke easily and naturally and his logic made sense, but we were both aware that such an expedition might very well involve another encounter with the vampire Mary. I was both strangely maddened and relieved that I should miss such an opportunity, but I could not muster up any coherent or lucid arguments to the contrary, so I deferred to his assessment of the situation. I thought I saw, too, a glimmer of relief in Holmes’s demeanour that I had not voiced any objection.
“In the meantime,” Holmes said, “this affair and our next actions require a great deal of thought.” So saying, he abandoned his briar pipe and took up the clay one, filled it, and began to puff blue smoke into the room with such industry that the room was shortly intolerable to my sensitive nose.
It being late, habit carried me to the shelter of my room, but habit or no, I found that ‘late’ seemed to have a different meaning to my vampire flesh and blood. Did I even have blood, that is, a circulatory system, of my own anymore, or had I lost that, too, with Mary and my humanity? Feeling my own wrist, I could detect the faintest of pulses. Was that because I had just fed, thanks to Holmes’s care and love of the grotesque? So many questions.