The Classified Dossier: Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula(98)
I had just put my foot on the step leading to our front door when a hand like iron gripped my wrist and hauled me off balance. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another figure accosting Holmes. The horrific night and underground battle that we’d just endured had frayed any last shred of my nerves down to their last threadbare existence and I turned and faced the shadowy apparition that had my wrist. I heard a bestial snarl tear from my own lips. The apparition had me in its grip, else I would have drawn my revolver, not caring that we were in full view of the street. As it was, I raised my left fist and unleashed the most terrible blow I could muster.
The figure surprised me by letting go and stepping back, so my swing encountered only empty air. It was another few precious seconds before I could regain my balance and claw the revolver out of my jacket pocket. There could be no doubt. Whoever this was, with that awful strength, it had to be a vampire.
But when I raised the pistol, it was Holmes’s hand that caught my wrist.
“Watson!” he hissed.
“Your forbearance, Doctor,” the apparition said in a familiar voice.
“Count Dracula?” I was astonished.
And so it was. Count Dracula himself stood before me. Mina, too, I saw. She had been the figure ‘accosting’ Holmes, who had clearly identified the two of them much quicker than I had.
“But your steamer sank!” I said.
“Yes,” Dracula said. “Very inconvenient, all things considered.” He had bent to a slight crouch during our physical altercation, but now stood to his full height. “But come, let us step away from prying eyes, shall we?” He had dragged me into the middle space between the two street lights and most of the way toward an alley, but this was hardly a full measure and we were still all exposed to any prying eyes. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Count, whose very existence seemed a virtual impossibility in the face of the news we had gotten about their ship.
“Why not retire up into Baker Street?” I said. “Surely that is the safest place.”
“Because, Doctor,” Mina said, not without a touch of impatience but speaking low, “that is where your Professor Moriarty, is waiting, almost certainly to murder the both of you the moment of your arrival. Can you please draw further away from the building where we can confer without concern for unwelcome ears?”
I belatedly dropped my pistol into my coat pocket. We were very fortunate that few people had remarked our little display, but that fortune would not last if I kept waving firearms about. Holmes, who seemed very much recovered from his dark mood on the sight of the Draculas, seemed not at all distressed about the news of Moriarty hiding away in our rooms, and had a reinvigorated twinkle to his eye now. It disturbed me somewhat, the favour that Holmes shone on the considerably dubious person of Count Dracula, but even I had to admit that if we had to enter into a confrontation with Moriarty, I much preferred the Count’s additional forces on our side, rather than against.
“Mrs Hudson?” I asked quickly. “If Moriarty has breached our rooms…”
“She is quite unharmed, I assure you, and completely unaware of Moriarty’s presence,” Mina said. She drew the rest of us further into the alley and then around the bend of another building before we gauged the distance to be a safe one.
“How did you escape a sinking ship?” Holmes asked.
“I took a great many precautions to preserve our secrecy,” Dracula said. “I sent several caskets and even a few imposters on other ships to throw him off the scent. These, however, clearly did not serve their function and Moriarty was able to penetrate my ruses. Mina, however…” Here he shot a glance of pride and something that, on another man, might have been contrition, toward his raven-haired wife, “took the additional measure of acquiring an influence over the ship’s captain.”
“You fed on him?” I said, astonished. Yet again, I could not countenance the Faustian bargain we’d made combining our efforts with these two dangerous persons, but Holmes said nothing.
“I did not injure him,” Mina said, somewhat dismissively. “But Moriarty’s pirates cannot say the same. I offered our good captain a chance to escape with us, but he refused. We used a small boat in the darkness, you see, while the ship, and the captain, kept the pirates busy. Your merchant navy lost a good man that night, which is deeply regrettable.”
“Moriarty claims to have left the country,” Holmes said, patting the waistcoat pocket where he had stored Moriarty’s letter, though he did not proffer an explanation to either of the Draculas. “While I do not necessarily believe this, it is uncharacteristically blunt and forward of Moriarty to attempt an ambush with his own hands.”
“It took us some time to get to the English coast,” Dracula said. “We then made our way here, though not in time to catch you leaving today…”
“More’s the pity!” I said with feeling. “For we could have sorely used your assistance.”
A flicker of surprise crossed his face at my words, possibly unprepared for my desire to have him accompany us. “So I gather,” Dracula said, his gaze flickering to the many cuts and abrasions visible on our faces, and I could see him visibly acknowledge the level of danger that we must have gone through.
“We thought it best to watch your home,” Mina said, “and await your return.”