Dracula Lives Read online

  It was a stunning, floor-length white dress fit for a ball. Or a wedding. A royal burgundy sash circled the waist, and a matching velvet choker with a cameo brooch hung on a peg. At the bottom of the dress, a pair of embroidered and bejeweled slippers poked out.

  Did she dress up in this outfit—Cinderella waiting for her Prince to save her?

  A Prince that would never come.

  Quinn closed the door with a gentle, regretful respect, as though closing the lid of a coffin and not wanting to disturb the final rest of what lay within. He turned away in disgust at a stolen life and moved to leave the room.

  He stopped at a large screen television positioned at the foot of the bed. In the compartments built into its base were several state-of-the-art, audiovisual components for downloading movies and listening to them in surround sound. In this windowless room, the television was her window to the world, a world she had hardly experienced.

  Quinn felt a dull ache settling in his chest, a mixture of sadness and anger at a life spent in this gilded prison, a life un-lived in Markov’s world of the un-dead. Feeling like a looter of treasures of the heart, Quinn turned to leave.

  A soft grating noise stopped him. He snapped his head to find the source.

  It was coming from the fireplace. As he stared into the dark shadow, a familiar figure emerged and began walking toward him.

  CHAPTER 35

  Rather than approaching in her usual hunched subservient posture, Johnny walked toward Quinn as fully erect as her damaged leg would allow, carrying two large canvas bags. As she reached him, Quinn looked around her toward the fireplace. “Another secret passage?”

  “My direct access to the Garden below. I keep a close eye on it.” She set the bags down. “We need to talk.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  They moved the two high-backed chairs around and sat facing one another. She began with uncharacteristic directness.

  “I have been wanting to speak with you alone since you got here, but the opportunity never presented itself. I was hoping you’d pick up on my veiled invitation to come in here.”

  “Can Markov see us in here?”

  “No. If there is anything sacred in this unholy place, it’s our agreement never to violate the privacy of each other’s apartment. This is the one place where the all-seeing eye of Milord is blind.”

  “Then we may speak freely.”

  “Yes.”

  Quinn took a few seconds to decide where to begin. “Markov has been telling me the story of your lives, which included showing me his film. The Blood of Dracula.”

  “I know. I was watching from the projection booth. It was the first time I had ever seen it.”

  “That must have been painful.”

  “Very. But it was exactly what I needed to compel me do whatever must be done to end this obscene travesty of life. This shameful denial of my very own soul so I could be his … Renfield, his Igor—whatever embarrassing horror movie cliché I have let myself become.”

  As uncomfortable as it was to watch her lifetime of anguish spilling out, Quinn was glad to see that she was finally casting off the yoke of Markov’s oppression. “You are his—George Tilton’s—daughter. He told me the whole story. About you and your brother Max, the accident that maimed your leg, what happened to your mother, his re-marriage to Lady Elinore.”

  “Has he told you of his belief in destiny?”

  “At great length.”

  “He and I disagree on a great many things, but his belief in destiny is one I happen to share. I believe you have been sent to us for a reason, though not the same reason he believes—as someone to help him with the climax of his accursed film.” Accursed. That word again. “I believe you are a lifeline we have been thrown. The voice of sanity from the real world. Our last chance before we sink to the bottom of the abyss.”

  “I’m not a savior, Johnny. Far from it. I came here to escape my own abyss. I’ve been looking forward to losing myself in a weekend that lovers of Universal horror can only fantasize about: the chance to hear the stories of someone who worked on one of the all-time classics. But it has taken a drastic turn. Now that we’re speaking honestly, let me give you my impressions of your very bizarre lives.”

  Johnny nodded, never taking her eyes from his.

  “Until now the dialogue from both of you has sounded like lines from movies. Which is not surprising, since for fifty years, neither of you has had much practice in conversing with real live human beings. It’s like you’re both playing parts in an old black-and-white haunted castle movie, where you think you have to keep the audience—me—in suspense until the final twist is revealed. Don’t get me wrong. I love haunted castle movies—where the threats are make-believe. But you and your father have both been telling me that some of the threats in here might be real.”

  “Has he explained to you about how some of his creations seem to be developing lives of their own?”

  “Yes. But both of you have also said there’s madness here. His arguments are very persuasive, but they could also be the ravings of a madman. I’m not sure what is fact and what is fiction.”

  “I wish it were only fiction,” Johnny said. “But there are evils in this castle that must be stopped.”

  “Listen. I work with law enforcement on some of the sickest murder cases. The atrocities I’ve seen have made me vow never to turn a blind eye to evil. So if there is genuine evil here, I’ll do what I can to stop it. But I didn’t come here for some madman to make me part of his snuff film. If it comes down to kill or be killed, I’ll do whatever it takes to survive.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” she said.

  He tried to read the face of someone who had been scarred not only physically, but deep down in her soul—by her father. Quinn saw defiance rising up from pride too long swallowed. “Can I trust you, Johnny? Are you on my side now?”

  She answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

  He wanted to believe her, but couldn’t help wondering if a lifetime of brainwashing could be undone so quickly—if at all. For now he had no choice but to take her at her word.

  “Then let’s dispense with all the play-acting and bring me up to speed on what’s really going on here. It’s bad enough that your father keeps talking of monsters—real and virtual—stalking the castle, but much worse is him saying the Universal monsters have gotten inside him, that his blood is mixed with Vlad the Impaler’s, that it makes him feed on humans in the woods.”

  Quinn’s gaze was a probing searchlight from which there was no escape. “Have innocent people died? Have we got a serial killer on our hands?”

  Johnny winced. “His feedings left them not quite dead, but.… Yes. Some eventually died.”

  “What about you? He said you drank the elixir for years but stopped. I can see that it slowed the aging process, as it did in him. He said you’re in your seventies. You look fifty, at most. Have there been any lingering effects? Any ‘vampiric’ urges?”

  “No. There were when I was drinking it, and for a while after I stopped, but something in my nature never let me succumb. Finally I found the courage to stand up to him and said no more. Over time my system has purged the poison from my bloodstream.”

  Her cell phone beeped. She held up a finger for Quinn to wait and pressed a button. “Yes?” She hesitated before saying, “Out by the barn. Finishing my patrol of the perimeter. Then I was going to check on the Garden.” Johnny listened a moment and then said, “I understand. Yes. I will tell him.”

  She clicked off and turned back to Quinn. “Markov’s growing paranoid.”

  “Why did you lie?”

  “I was buying time for us to finish our talk. His rewrite is giving him problems and taking longer than expected. He wants you to use the time to familiarize yourself with ‘the set,’ to save time later when he’s setting up the scenes.”

  “This gives me time to explore the areas I haven’t gotten to. Particularly the Garden. He’s forbidden m
e to go down there, but, frankly, at this point, I don’t give a shit. Whatever his Flowers of Evil are, they need to be weed-whacked. His reign of terror is over.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Johnny said. “With his deadline fast approaching, I know he’s going to be calling me constantly for one thing or another. We have to seize our opportunity now to come up with a plan to stop him.”

  “And for you to show me the Garden.”

  “Absolutely.” She spread her arms to indicate the entire castle. “He has turned this infernal pile—and himself—into an incubator for vampires and monsters. This place and everything in it must be destroyed.”

  CHAPTER 36

  As Johnny’s darkest secrets gushed forth from their imprisonment in the nethermost dungeon of her soul, they washed away the last of Quinn’s reluctance to accept a world that defied all reason. She couldn’t be just making all this up to further her own agenda. The horrors Markov had created here were not just the special effects of a deranged imagination. They were real.

  “He has long been determined to end his movie on the night of the Blood Moon,” Johnny said. “He’ll almost certainly use the horror movie cliché of having midnight as his deadline. By the time he finishes his rewrite and blocks out all the action, we might only have a few hours to stop him before all hell breaks loose.”

  “I don’t see any possible way he can do everything he needs to do by midnight. Do you?”

  “No. But he can certainly wreak havoc trying. He probably thinks he can just put you in peril and record whatever happens, then figure out a way to edit it all into the final cut. It’s insane. It always has been.” She waved the thought aside. “Regardless, whatever ending he comes up with will undoubtedly make him the hero. I cannot let that happen. I will not let him emerge triumphant after all the lives he has destroyed. Like Renfield, I cannot live with all those innocent souls on my conscience.”

  Johnny looked around as though scanning for signs of surveillance, despite Markov’s promise that the privacy of her quarters was sacrosanct. She pulled her chair closer, until their knees were almost touching, and lowered her voice to barely above a whisper.

  “My father is the carrier of what I’ve come to think of as the Dracula Virus, and he—it—cannot be allowed to escape into the world. Ebola would pale by comparison. As bad as it is, at least Ebola has no human awareness. No evil design. The Dracula Virus does. It has all but obliterated its host—George Tilton—my father—and is taking him to the end stage, beyond Markov. To becoming a monster who would knowingly create a race of vampires, with him as its lord and master, to ensure that Dracula lives forever. He must be stopped, but I cannot do it alone. I know this is too much to ask, but … will you help me?”

  Quinn had been anticipating this moment. “Yes. I’m not leaving until this is over.”

  Hints of the gentle soul long buried inside her rose up to shimmer in her eyes. Her small nod was one of deep gratitude for someone willing to put his life on the line to save hers. He returned it, and she blinked away the emotion before going on.

  “Then we must come up with our version of the ending now. He thinks fate sent you to be the lead in his big monster rally sequence. That’s how he justifies maybe getting you killed. After all he’s put me through, he couldn’t let me be the one getting chased by his monsters. He needed someone else. Someone who wouldn’t bother whatever is left of his conscience.” She hesitated but never broke eye contact. “Someone expendable.”

  “Finally,” Quinn said. “The truth comes out.”

  “In this infernal pile, truth is buried under a mansion of lies. Now it must be exhumed.” She slid the canvas bags around by her feet. “I have weapons in here that will help protect us, but I can give no guarantees. He has many at his disposal as well. The digital special effects and robots are dangerous enough, because he is losing control of them.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  “Then he may also have told you about the monsters that live within him.”

  “He has.”

  “They are much worse. Predators without a conscience. And they are getting stronger. I believe he is actually encouraging the evil part of their natures, so they will be more convincing in the climax.”

  “But if they come from inside him, he can’t use them all simultaneously. Can he?”

  “No, but he could combine whatever monster escapes from him with digital or robotic versions of the others to confuse us.”

  Quinn shook his head. “Whatever ending he has in mind, you’ve both been telling me it will be dangerous. We can’t let it get that far.”

  “Agreed,” Johnny said. “So let’s come up with a plan to stop him.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “Where is Markov doing his rewrite?” Quinn asked.

  “In the Chamber of Horrors. He always goes there to write his darkest scenes. It inspires him.”

  “When we finish in the Garden we could go in together and overpower him.”

  “Do not underestimate him. He is still quite strong—and resourceful. We would need the element of surprise.”

  Quinn thought of the bruisers he’d knocked down playing rugby, and couldn’t imagine not being able to handle a hundred-year-old man, no matter how strong. “We could discreetly get into position on both sides of him, give each other a nod, and take him down. Then restrain him with whatever we can bring that will do the job: rope, chains, handcuffs.”

  In the curt shake of her head, Johnny’s fierce determination made her almost unrecognizable as the formerly cringing servant. “When he becomes enraged, the creatures that live inside him try to break out. So far they haven’t, but if any of them do they could overpower us.”

  “So what can we do to keep that from happening?”

  She gestured toward her control panel. “Before we get into all that: I left a cell phone and a master skeleton key over there for you. You need to take them with you in case we get separated.”

  Quinn smiled. “Thought so. They’re in my pocket.”

  “Good. If you need me for any reason, just press 1 and the call button. That will get only me. I’ll leave it on vibrate, so he won’t hear your call if he’s with me. If he is, just leave a message and I’ll call you as soon as I can get away.”

  “It sounds like you inherited your father’s knowledge of technology.”

  “He has taught me since I was at his knee. From the day we moved here he has shown me how to do everything he does, so I can serve as his backup for all the systems of the castle. Everything he can do, I can do.” A hint of melancholy flickered across her features. “I am very much Daddy’s little girl.”

  In a blink, her grim determination to bring this all to an end was back. Staring into the defiant face that might once have been beautiful, Quinn saw the indomitability of the human spirit. “Consider us the antibodies that will stop the Dracula Virus,” he said.

  “Yes!”

  She yanked the canvas bags around and with a few fierce swipes unzipped their compartments so Quinn could see their contents. “I knew this day would come so I have gathered up some weapons. There are essentially two types of threats he has at his command: digital and real. Against the digital, we have magnets. These are the most powerful on the market.”

  She slid up her sleeves. There were magnetic bands around each of her wrists, fastened by Velcro. “I always wear two on each wrist and ankle. In effect, they create a force field around you that will keep any of his digital creations at bay. Wearing these is your first line of defense.”

  “Meaning you need a second line of defense?”

  “Usually they disintegrate right away, but they are clearly getting stronger. Coming closer. They always stop several feet away, but lately a few have started to advance again.” She nodded at the open canvas bag. “There are four dozen more in there. Wherever you go, carry extras. If the ones you’re wearing haven’t stopped them, start throwing them. I’m not sure exactly what happens, but since the digital monsters are com
puter-generated, and magnetism can fry computers, so far that has shut them down.”

  “So far,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t sound like they’ll definitely do the job.”

  “They might not. Especially if these things keep getting stronger.” She unzipped the large side compartment. It was full of canisters about an inch thick and five inches long. “Bear spray.”

  “I saw some of that in the barn.”

  “I order it in bulk and always keep plenty on hand. Hunters use it to stop bears. Take the bag with you. And carry extras—of the bands and the spray. As many as you can fit into your pockets without arousing Markov’s suspicion.”

  Quinn looked at the sweatpants he was wearing. They only had two small pockets. “I’ll have to swing by my room. I’ll change into cargo pants and grab a couple things that could come in handy.”

  Johnny made a curt nod.

  “What about the real threats?” Quinn said. “Physical realities?”

  “This is where the line between the real and the unreal gets blurred,” Johnny said. “Part of Markov’s humanity is seeping into his special effects. I’ve started preparing myself to fight the digital and the real. And the real—as impossible as it sounds—could include the monsters he might become.”

  She opened the main compartment of the other bag and pulled out something that looked like it might be for killing weeds in a garden: essentially a short pipe with a nozzle at the end and a pistol grip with a squeeze trigger. A handle was attached to the top; underneath was a small fuel tank.

  “What’s that?” Quinn said.

  “Another of Markov’s paranoid inventions. A propane-powered flamethrower. Nothing on the market pleased him, so he made his own.”

  “To use against what? I can only remember fire being used against the Frankenstein Monster.”

  “Exactly.”

  Quinn shook his head at the insanity of it all. “So, if it came time to use it, that would mean you torching your own father.”