Dracula Lives Read online

  Markov had called his movie set/castle a shrine to madness. If what waited below was the inner sanctum of that shrine, the disorienting staircase perfectly conveyed the feeling of entering an underworld where sanity no longer prevailed. Like the bizarre shadows painted on the wall beneath the gargoyle sconces, the staircase clearly had been influenced by the expressionistic design of Son of Frankenstein. That thought made Quinn wonder if another of Son of Frankenstein’s design elements might await in the forbidden chamber below: the sulfuric lava pit.

  Only a few steps were visible before the light from the library died, and jagged, lurking shadows merged into one and swallowed the staircase. Quinn stared into the black void below. Concern over what might hide in that darkness wrestled with his lifelong impulse to explore the hidden realms where monsters supposedly lurked. He remained frozen on the top step, debating whether he should head down the stairs.

  Markov kept warning me about monsters. I need to know just how vulnerable I am from this direction.

  But he’s beginning to trust me, and I don’t want to violate that trust.

  But he made a point of quoting Dracula’s line about “enter freely and go safely.”

  That’s not the same as saying “Go freely.” I can probably find out whatever I need to know when we talk later….

  But he keeps warning about serious danger. If serious danger lurks in the castle, surely it will lurk in a hidden subterranean chamber.

  That thought ended his mental tug-of-war.

  I’ve got to know what I’m getting involved in.

  He retrieved his small powerful flashlight from the nightstand. Following its bright beam, treading carefully on the uneven stairs, he began his descent into the black maw that led to whatever waited below.

  After the curve, the disorienting staircase went straight down. Other than unlit gas torches in wall brackets at regular intervals, nothing adorned the bare stone. Quinn constantly scanned the space ahead, uncertain of what might lay beyond the ten-foot range of his light. His descent took him deep into the bowels of the castle.

  Finally he reached bottom. He took a few tentative steps into the chamber beyond, then stood still while his senses adjusted to the oppressive underground environment. Casting his light about, he saw nothing but hard-packed barren earth. A heavy musty smell hung in the damp stale air. He detected some other pungent odor he couldn’t identify mixed in with the smell of mold. Decaying plant matter, perhaps.

  A faint sound disturbed the tomblike silence. He cocked his head.

  A distant, barely audible moaning. The low keening had a sad, human quality, but it could be the wind. It had been blowing hard upstairs, and a chamber like this, with all its unsealed nooks and crannies, might make the ideal amplifier.

  After decades of methodically seeking the reality behind superstitions and myths, and debunking most of them, Quinn had learned to consider only concrete, provable facts. Which, so far, amounted to nothing. If the noise came from something other than the wind, the only way to find out was to follow it to its source.

  Advancing warily, he followed his shaft of light deeper into the Stygian gloom. He counted his paces, wanting to establish the dimensions of a space whose boundaries were invisible in the darkness. The moaning got slightly louder, but still seemed to be coming from a considerable distance ahead. Judging from the brown barren earth, strewn here and there with bits of rubble, nothing had been done to make this part of the castle liveable.

  Forty-one steps later, his light fell on a large wrought iron gate. A heavy padlock held it closed.

  He shone his light through the gate’s bars. At the far edge of a shallow antechamber where his light barely reached, the shadowy outline of a gaping entrance to yet another chamber loomed. Faint light glowed from somewhere beyond.

  Quinn shifted his attention back to the gate and noticed lettering affixed to the top:

  Les Fleurs du Mal

  The Flowers of Evil. Why had Markov chosen the title of Baudelaire’s infamous book of poetry for the entrance to this particular chamber? The book George Sanders was reading in the very first shot of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The question was quickly swept aside by a wave of sensory impressions. The moaning had gotten louder and the smell stronger. The earthy smell was almost certainly some kind of weed or plant matter.

  He pricked his ears to concentrate on the sound.

  Definitely not the wind. It sounded like the sibilant babble of many voices whispering, as of a crowd reacting to the approach of a stranger.

  A figure emerged from the darkness.

  “You should not have come down here.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Johnny had a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. Both were aimed at Quinn. The voices had abruptly stopped, as though the whisperers from beyond the gloom were listening.

  Markov’s vigilant steward shambled toward him until they were staring at each other from a few feet apart.

  “You weren’t planning on shooting me, were you?” Quinn said.

  Johnny lowered the flashlight and gun. “Merely a precaution.”

  “Against what?”

  “Creatures of the night.”

  Quinn noticed the pectoral cross around the steward’s neck. It instantly made him think of the pectoral star Bela Lugosi wore on his very first appearance in the movie. Quinn pointed to it, then gestured at the inscription above the gate. “Is that for protection against the Flowers of Evil?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Johnny, I need some straight answers. Markov has been talking in riddles all night. He says I’m in a horror movie that’s been his lifelong dream, at the same time telling me the castle is haunted and warning me about how dangerous it might be. I need to know what I’m getting into.”

  “The secrets of the castle can only come from the lord of the manor.”

  “Not good enough.”

  Johnny paused as though searching for the right thing to say. The neutral mask quickly returned. “I am sure your questions will be answered when you meet with Markov.”

  “How did you know I was down here?” Quinn pressed, hoping to pry something from the servant.

  “Among my many duties, I am head of security. We have cameras throughout the castle.”

  Quinn pointed to a device clipped to the steward’s waist, about the size of a paperback book but very thin. “What’s that?”

  “My portable master control. It allows me to check all the monitors and other systems of the castle, and to communicate with Markov. I keep it on me at all times.”

  “Is home invasion a problem in such a remote place?”

  “Trespassers of one sort or another. Hikers, skiers who get lost. Curiosity seekers who have somehow found out about Markov’s Dracula connection. I have intercepted many over the years when I am patrolling the woods. Sometimes I have actually come upon them wandering around inside, claiming they thought the castle was abandoned.”

  “Do you have them arrested?”

  “We tend to them.” Johnny’s evasive gaze suddenly focused on him with uncharacteristic intensity. “If Markov wasn’t watching you, and doesn’t already know, I shall let your trespass go this time. There must be no others.”

  Annoyed at being ordered what to do, Quinn bit back a snappy retort. It wouldn’t be right to kill the messenger. “I’ll take it up with Markov.”

  “Good. Come. I will escort you back to your room.”

  When they reached the top of the stairs and stepped back into the bedchamber, Johnny pressed a button disguised as a knot in the wood paneling. The bookcase slid back into place.

  Quinn followed Johnny to the door. “Lock this,” the head of security said, then quickly rounded the corner where the Grim Reaper maintained its eternal eyeless vigil.

  Eager for sleep, Quinn locked the door and returned to bed. He was halfway under the sheets when he stopped with a groan. The candles in the wall sconces still needed to be extinguished.

  He grabbed his flashl
ight and pulled the snuffer from the receptacle that held the fireplace implements. As each candle winked out, there was an eerie moment when its gargoyle holder was swallowed by the darkness.

  Quinn was glad to see them go. He went back to bed, slipped under the covers, and clicked off his flashlight.

  From behind the wall, eyes stared at him through the eye slits of one of the gargoyles.

  Eyes accustomed to the darkness.

  Johnny’s eyes.

  CHAPTER 16

  Quinn barely managed to get a couple hours of fitful sleep. Now he lay on his back, eyes open as they adjusted to the darkness. They probed for a glimmer of light. Moonglow coming through the large bay window dimly lit the oriel, but his bedchamber remained in total darkness. The unrelieved gloom seemed to muffle sound, for the silence was absolute. In what almost amounted to a sensory deprivation chamber, he closed his eyes.

  The utter stillness gradually seeped into him until it blotted out the disturbing moments that kept echoing in his brain:

  “You have walked into the ultimate reality show, Mr. Quinn….”

  “I have many secrets … some are quite dark….”

  “… descent into the maelstrom….”

  Finally the echoes died out. Somewhere in the uncharted region between wakefulness and sleep, Quinn saw himself fleeing for his life.

  Something was chasing him through deep woods. Hopelessly lost, he kept changing direction but could find no way out. No footpath, no light hinting at a clearing or civilization in the vast impenetrable forest.

  Where was he?

  Behind him heavy footsteps crashed through the thick underbrush. Faster. Closer.

  His eyes sprang open wide.

  Quinn stared into the darkness for a long time, seeing nothing. Then a flash of light appeared beyond the foot of the bed, in the direction of the fireplace. The burst came and went so quickly he thought he’d imagined it. His eyes stayed fixed on the spot to see if there would be another.

  Yes. Bright white. This time it didn’t go away. The light hung suspended in the middle of the fireplace. Not quite round. More elliptical. Indistinct shadows inside it.

  Again the light vanished, plunging the room into darkness.

  It flashed again. Bigger. Closer.

  Again.

  Closer.

  Now the shape stayed visible. Hovering in midair, flickering like the hand-cranked image from a silent film, a head floated slowly toward the bed. No body, just a disembodied head.

  It was the hideous vampire from the short they had just watched. Lon Chaney’s Un-Dead. The perfect teeth were bared in a malevolent grin. Suddenly, as they had done in the film, fangs popped down. The head floated toward him until it got almost close enough to touch.

  Quinn leapt from the bed, shooting both palms at the face like a pile driver. His hands went through it and the face blinked out. Unexpectedly meeting no resistance, Quinn stumbled forward. When he turned around, the face was back again, only a few steps away, eyes boring into him, lustful predatory grin sending icy splinters up his neck and across his scalp.

  The lips began to move. The mouth opened. It spoke a single word.

  “Beware.”

  The eyes stayed locked onto his for a long, unsettling moment before the face began disintegrating into tiny squares like tiles from a mosaic, as a satellite television image does during a thunderstorm. The face expanded and distorted as the space between the bits increased. Eyes that had been as big as quarters stretched into insanely misshapen saucers. The hellish grin broadened from a few inches to a foot wide. As the disintegration continued, the fangs elongated and the mouth opened into a gaping maw. The head kept swelling like something out of a funhouse nightmare until it silently exploded and thousands of bits were flung into the darkness.

  Quinn kept turning in circles, expecting some new horror to come from any direction. None came, and the heavy mantle of dark silence settled back over him. He groped blindly through the room until he reached the bed. From there he used the glow from his digital traveling clock to find the nightstand where he’d left his flashlight. He grabbed it and noted the time before clicking it on.

  Almost one-thirty. Time was running out for him to get some sleep before meeting Markov.

  Simmering anger at apparently being used for Markov’s amusement smothered a spark of reluctant admiration for his special effects wizardry. The anger drained away as Quinn remembered that Markov had warned him about potential danger in the castle.

  He began walking around the chamber, probing the darkness with his flashlight, trying to convince himself that the leers of the gargoyles hadn’t become more sinister, that the disembodied vampire head had been part of his dream. Wanting to clear his head for whatever chance he had at sleep, he went to the window in the oriel.

  The light of the waxing Blood Moon was strong. The way it fell on the gnarled leafless branches of the trees created an eerie tapestry of shadows on the ground below. Occasional flickers of moonlight reflected on the surface of the otherwise black lagoon. Shadowy movement at its far end caught his eye.

  For one fleeting moment, a single wave rose above the surface like a mound. Quinn thought it might be the tide, pulling the water across a large rock or boulder, but that theory quickly faded as the swell rose higher and assumed a more definite shape. It was too far and too dark to make out clearly, but for an instant the watery silhouette vaguely resembled the head and shoulders of something almost human but not quite.

  Humanoid.

  He rubbed his eyes. When he looked again the shape was gone.

  Is Markov playing tricks again? How could he know that I’d be standing here looking at the lagoon?

  Quinn glanced around, looking for a camera but finding none. That didn’t mean one couldn’t be hidden somewhere.

  He remembered coming home from horror movies when he was little and seeing monsters in the wallpaper when he went to bed. Here he was, fifty years later, a grown man, professional folklorist, debunker of legends, still turning shadows into monsters.

  Unless there actually was a Creature in Markov’s Black Lagoon.

  Quinn focused on the spot where he’d seen the shape. The water’s surface was smooth.

  Move along, Adam. Would you even be thinking this if Markov called his body of water a tarn instead of a lagoon? Go to bed.

  He set his alarm for 3:35 and lay in darkness for what seemed like a long time before finally sinking into sleep. In his dream world, another scene unfolded in the projection booth inside his head:

  A handheld shot from Quinn’s point of view edged up to the yawning mouth of the secret passage, stopping to peer into darkness that would be the perfect shroud for the creeping undead.

  A slow iris fade-out began. Before closing all the way it froze, taking one long last look to be sure nothing lurked in the ominous gloom.

  Two disembodied eyes began to glow in the blackness below. Dimly at first, but getting brighter and larger as they came steadily closer, their sinister gaze exerting a magnetic pull.

  Quinn’s closed eyelids clenched tighter, and the fade-out went to black.

  CHAPTER 17

  Quinn’s attempt at sleep didn’t last long.

  With his eyes still closed, he sensed movement in the darkness. His eyes popped open and probed for the source.

  To his left, on the far side of the chamber, an indistinct shadow shifted on the oriel wall.

  He shot a glance at the clock.

  3:12.

  Could the shadow be from one of the tree branches blowing in the wind?

  The shadow moved a little farther along the wall and became utterly still.

  It can’t be from a tree. A tree blowing in the wind would flutter, not stay perfectly still like that.

  He went to the oriel.

  Nothing was amiss. All was still, including the shadow.

  Quinn had almost convinced himself the movement must have been a trick of the moonlight as it filtered through the fluttering bran
ches—until it began moving again. He snapped his head around to find the source.

  Outside the right edge of the bay window, along the ledge that jutted out from the castle wall, a hulking figure emerged from the darkness. Moving slowly toward him. Its shadow preceded it, creeping across the floor with jerky, ungainly movements. Quinn strained to make out what was coming toward him, but in the murky light could see only the silhouette of something very large.

  Something not human.

  When it got within a few feet of the window, he stumbled back. Heart pounding, he stared in awe.

  A large, black, unblinking, predatory eye stared back at him. The eye was imbedded in the face of a creature that didn’t exist. Clinging to crevices in the stonework, the nightmare held perfectly still, its evil eye riveted on him.

  The beast was huge—at least ten feet from top to bottom. Its pointed beak was several feet long, and a swordlike crest of equal length protruded from the back of its head. The beak was open enough to reveal rows of savage teeth like conical needles. Its wings were bent in half and held tight against the sides. At the midpoint where each wing folded, talons atop the wing opened and closed, as if questing for prey.

  The thing began to move.

  It shifted itself around so the talons on top of the wings could find purchase on the stonework. Clinging to the castle wall, the huge creature contorted its body until the lower talons came to within a foot of Quinn on the other side of the window, snapping open and closed, as if eager to snatch him up.

  Suddenly the nightmare beast released its hold on the wall and spread its enormous wings. Quinn watched in disbelief as it glided across the face of the Blood Moon, a creature of the night returning to its lair.

  Even as the chills ran down his neck and spread across his back, he knew the vision couldn’t have been real. It had to be one of Markov’s special effects.