The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(95)

“The lantern is running low,” Holmes said. “We’ll have to rely on your eyes in the darkness.” He was loading my revolver with silver cartridges. By the time I had emptied his weapon, shooting carefully to make each bullet count and dropping the nearest six vampires, Holmes had loaded my own revolver and we switched again.

Miss Winter and Somersby were too far away, sixty feet, at least, when a bald-headed vampire stepped in between them, separating them. Miss Winter had her hands full with a pair of monsters of her own and they were all too jumbled together for me to get a clear shot, especially at this distance. Somersby pointed his revolver and fired, blowing the vampire’s hand off at the wrist, but the vampire simply used his other hand to slap the gun contemptuously away. I could hear it thump in the dirt some yards distant. The vampire used its good hand to grab Somersby by the throat. Somersby gurgled as he was lifted in the air, scrabbling desperately at the clawed hand on his throat.

“Somersby!” I shouted, lifting my revolver. Holmes had his own weapon ready and aimed, but I could see by the way he squinted and looked uncertain that the darkness was too absolute for Holmes to have any chance of seeing and hitting his target.

Never in my life did I feel the weight of someone else’s life in my own hands the way I did then, cocking the pistol, taking careful aim, just as the vampire bent to tear into Somersby’s throat.

The pocket lantern hanging on the nail at the bottom of the staircase chose that moment to flicker and die, leaving us in complete and total darkness.

I took the shot anyway, knowing that it was Somersby’s only chance. The muzzle flare was bright in the darkness and I heard something hit and a grunt, but then the chaos descended again as vampires rose up all around me. I could not see them, for even vampire eyes are no good in the absence of all light, and my usually keen scent was of little use with the muted scent of other vampires. There was little use for the pistol in such conditions so I dropped it into my jacket pocket and shifted the walking stick into my right hand.

There was nothing wrong with my hearing. I had only to focus it to hear Holmes’s breathing behind me. I put a hand on his shoulder.

“Back, quickly, to the staircase,” I said, nudging him in the right direction. Holmes complied and we shuffled our way backward, slowly, carefully, listening, listening…

The first shuffling step came from my left and I lashed out with the stick. A snarl and a body fell to the floor. I could smell a fresh burst of a silver burn on vampire skin. The relief was short-lived, as Somersby and Miss Winter both screamed at the same moment. Somersby’s scream was one of pain and horror. Miss Winter’s one of rage. Both cut out suddenly.

Holmes squeezed my shoulder. “I can make my way back to the lantern from memory,” he breathed. “Do what you can for them!” He nudged me briefly in that direction and stumbled off. There were vampires in all directions now, including between us and the staircase, but Holmes was right. Miss Winter and Somersby needed my help the most. I heard Holmes’s revolver go off twice as I stumbled further into the cellar.

The rest is a jumble of darkness, sounds, fury and pain and battle in that lightless cellar. I heard Miss Winter snarl and made my way to her, calling out when I got close so that we should not strike each other. I lost count of how many opponents I grappled with in the darkness. A dozen? More? Less? I cannot, to this day, say how many. I know Holmes’s revolver went off five more times and then went silent. Empty.

I felled another opponent with the stick and called out. “Miss Winter?” She was close. I’d heard her grunt only moments ago.

“Here,” she said. “Help me up.” I found her hand in the blackness and pulled her to her feet. We instinctively turned, back to back, to ready ourselves for assault from all directions.

A sudden light flared in front of me. Holmes had gotten to the lantern and I could see his haggard face as he held it up. Vampire corpses lay at his feet.

I looked at the ground around Miss Winter and I. More corpses. Nothing moved except for us. We seemed to have survived the onslaught. How many vampires lay dead around us, I still could not say for certain, but it seemed a veritable army of them, at least fifty by my rough count.

“Somersby,” Miss Winter breathed. She took two steps and pushed aside two vampire bodies to reveal Somersby’s pale face.

“Oh,” Somersby said weakly. “Hello. Are you a sight for sore eyes.” He looked sad and lonely without his pince-nez.

“Oh, Somersby,” Miss Winter breathed as she pushed the rest of the bodies away. There was an enormous amount of blood covering the young man’s waistcoat and shirt. His clothes were torn away and the neck and the upper part of his chest, and I could see the great lacerations and blood all over him. His neck was one large wound and bubbled every time he breathed.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he said.

I knelt down next to him. I had to move another corpse out of the way to do so and saw it was the bald-headed vampire with a terrible bullet wound in his head.

“You hit your target admirably, Doctor,” Holmes said softly just behind me. So I’d hit my target after all, only it hadn’t saved Somersby. At least, not for very long.

“Here now,” I said, using some of his shirt to sponge away the wound. There was so much blood. The wound looked worse and worse the more I could see of it.

“Oh, Nigel!” Miss Winter gasped. She looked at me. I opened my mouth to try and say something encouraging, but she must have read the despair in my face, for she looked away and bowed her head. A sob caught in her throat. “Oh, Nigel.”