The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(65)

“Maybe,” Thorne said. His hand was still on the revolver, the barrel still pointing at my abdomen. “If you get in my way, Dr John Hamish Watson, I’ll burn you, I’ll expose you, I’ll gun you down. I’ll do anything in my power to hurt you and your toff detective friend. Besides, you know you can’t send our girl to the gallows and still keep the secret about vampires. And I don’t think you really want to put a stake to your own Mary, do you?”

“How many more murders will happen in this day or so that you mention?”

He shrugged. “Probably not more than one or two. London lowlifes. Nobody who’ll be missed.”

“Maybe it’s as you say, and she’s not my Mary anymore. Certainly, she didn’t choose to be infected. But she has chosen what to do with her newfound strength, and what she’s chosen is murder. Here in London, we don’t allow murderers to wander the streets at liberty, whether it’s with pistol or fang. I cannot let her continue just for purely selfish reasons, when we might be the only ones that can stop it. How could I allow it, knowing how many lives it will cost?”

Thorne let out a deep breath. “Well,” he said. “I guess I should have expected that.” His gaze flicked to something over my shoulder and he nodded.

I was half out of my chair, suddenly realizing that the American gunslinger in front of me wasn’t my only threat. Another, more serious threat had stalked in behind me so quietly that even with my augmented hearing, I’d had no idea.

Now, enormous hands from behind me locked around my throat with a grip like a machine press. I had a brief glimpse of the rugged face of the man in the beaver cap before he lifted me bodily into the air and slammed me onto the table top with a crash that must have carried into the next building.

I was a man of twice the strength that I had once had, more fit now than I had been even in my youth during the action in Afghanistan, before I’d been wounded, but I was as helpless as a newborn kitten in the clutches of this towering vampiric savage. Furthermore, I knew that, as a vampire, my system was greatly less susceptible to the minor injuries that could bedevil other men. But major damage to the skull, neck, heart or spine could still end a vampire’s life just as irrevocably as with other men, and the man clearly meant to break mine into splinters. His arms were like bands of iron as I flailed at them uselessly. His hands clamped down harder and I could feel a terrible, terrible pressure in my neck.

He lifted and smashed me back down on the table again, determined to smash the very life out of me, and the table collapsed like so much kindling underneath the onslaught. We crashed to the floor, with the man on top of me, his hands still attempting to break my neck. My hands groped blindly amidst the wreckage of the table and I clasped something heavy. The table leg, now free of the table entirely.

I swung it with all my determination, connecting with the man’s temple. It seemed a feeble blow compared to the tornado of rage that throttled me, but the force of that throttling eased slightly, giving me a spark of hope. I swung again, and dealt a terrific blow across the side of his head. It didn’t leave a mark on that oversized skull, indeed only seemed to make the man even angrier, but it did loosen his hold, as did the next one. When I finally managed to get my feet underneath me and shake off his grip, it also allowed me to finally get a full swing with all my weight behind it, and clout him across the face with such a magnificent blow as to send him sprawling among the chairs behind him.

“Good Lord almighty,” Thorne said, with an air of wonder. “I’ve never seen any man, vampire or not, break Boucher’s grip once he latched it on.”

I finally got a good, close look at my assailant as he scrambled to his feet. He was tall, supremely so, as I’d seen this morning, with a huge axe blade of a face that glared out at me with dark, glittering eyes. All the time we’d struggled, he’d made no sound, a monstrous ghost. The beaver cap, still mashed onto his skull despite my pummelling, kept in place as if by supernatural forces.

“Boucher here,” Thorne said, “hails from the rugged northern wildernesses of Canada, and has lived in country as hard as any I’ve ever seen. You’re not likely to meet a stronger man, normal or otherwise. Best give in.”

Whether he’d been a noble man in his previous life and vampirism had made him a bloodthirsty demon of a man, I did not know. But there was no mistaking his nature now, nor the malignant intent. He was magnificent in his own uncompromising way, but clearly, the life of any man, woman, or child would all come to evil ends in those oversized hands. Even now, as he climbed nimbly to his feet, those hands flexed and spasmed, as if eager to get themselves back around my throat of their own accord. I shot a brief glance at the wreckage of the table, looking for my silver-topped walking stick, but saw no sign of it. I would have to make do with the sturdy table leg in my hand, which had a decent heft to it.

Voices came from just outside the front door next to Thorne. He had thrown the bolt, locking it, but from the determined sounds and whistles, those measures wouldn’t hold them forever.

“Seems I’ll have to do it myself, then,” Thorne said, raising the Colt.

I raised the table leg, the only shield I had. The Colt cracked and splinters flew off the end of the table leg and a hot needle flared in my shoulder. I dove behind another of the tables as a second shot rang out, and a second brand laid itself across my back.