all due respect, sir, it didn’t work tonight,” Frankenstein replied, evenly.
He was looking directly at the Director, refusing to defer to him by looking away, and as he watched he saw the anger in Seward’s eyes fade; he suddenly looked very tired. “Marie is really gone?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Alexandru has her?”
“It’s safe to assume so at this point, sir. Although I would still recommend we attempt to get confirmation.”
And find out if she’s still alive.
Seward nodded. “It may be difficult,” he said, slowly. “There will be a great reluctance to assist Julian’s family, in any way. It won’t matter that Marie and Jamie played no part in what happened.”
Anger flashed through Frankenstein. “It should matter, sir,” he said. “You know it should.”
“Perhaps it should. But it won’t.”
The two men sat in silence for several minutes, the Admiral smoking his cigar, the monster wrestling with his anger, a task to which he devoted many of his waking hours. Eventually, Seward spoke again.
“What have you told him?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Frankenstein replied. “Yet.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m going to tell him what I think he needs to know. Hopefully that will be enough.”
“And if it isn’t? If he asks to be told everything? If he asks about his father? What will you do then?”
Frankenstein looked at the Admiral. “You know where my loyalties lie,” he replied. “If he asks me, I will tell him whatever he wants to know. Including about his father.”
Seward stared at the huge man for a long moment, then abruptly stubbed out his half-smoked cigar and stood up.
“I have a report to write for the Prime Minister,” he said, his voice clipped and angry. “If you’ll excuse me?”
Frankenstein levered himself out of the armchair, which groaned with relief. He walked towards the door and was about to hit the button that released it when Seward called to him from next to his desk. He turned back.
“How did you know where they were, Victor?” Seward asked. He was obviously still angry, but there was the ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “It will go no further than this room. I just need you to tell me.”
Frankenstein smiled. He had a huge amount of respect for Henry Seward, had fought back to back with him in any number of dark corners of the globe. And though he would not compromise the oath he had sworn, as snow fell from the New York sky and 1928 turned into 1929, he could allow the Director this one mystery solved.
“Julian chipped the boy when he was five, sir,” he said. “No one knew he’d done it, and I was the only person he gave the frequency to. I’ve known where he was every day for the last two years.”
Seward grinned, a wide smile full of nostalgia, which abruptly turned into a look of immense sorrow. “I suppose I should have expected nothing less,” the Admiral replied. “From you, or from him. Goodnight, Victor.”
Chapter 10
THE LYCEUM INCIDENT, PART III
EATON SQUARE, LONDON 4TH JUNE 1892
Jonathan Harker, Dr John Seward and Professor Abraham Van Helsing sat with their host in the drawing room of Arthur Holmwood’s townhouse on Eaton Square, waiting for Arthur’s serving girl to dispense coffee from a silver tray. She was dressed all in black; Arthur’s father, Lord Godalming, had passed away several months earlier, and the house was still in mourning.
In the middle of the table lay the letter that had been delivered to Van Helsing early that morning, summoning him to an emergency meeting with the Prime Minister at Horse Guards.
“Thank you, Sally,” said Holmwood, when the coffee was served. The girl curtsied quickly, then backed out of the drawing room, closing the doors behind her.
The men poured cream into their cups, took biscuits from the plate, sipped their coffees, and sat back in their chairs. For a contented moment no one spoke, then Jonathan Harker asked Van Helsing about the previous night’s business.
The old professor set his cup back on the table, and looked round at his three friends. They had been through so much together, these four men, had stared into the face of pure evil and refused to yield, chasing Count Dracula across the wilds of eastern Europe to the mountains of Transylvania, where they had made their stand at the foot of the ancient castle that bore their quarry’s name.
One of their number had not made it home, murdered on the Borgo Pass by the gypsies who had served the Count.
Ah, Quincey, thought Van Helsing. You were the bravest of us all.
“Professor?” It was Harker who spoke, and Van Helsing realised that he had been asked a question.
“Yes, Jonathan,” he replied. “I’m sorry, last night’s exertions have left me tired. Forgive me.”
Harker gave him a gentle look that told him clearly that forgiveness was unnecessary, and Van Helsing continued.
He told them of his adventure beneath the Lyceum, the orator in him taking satisfaction as their eyes widened at his telling of the tale. When he was finished, silence descended on the drawing room as the men digested the Professor’s story. Eventually, Harker spoke.
“So it’s as we feared,” he said, his face displaying a calm that his voice was not quite capable of matching. “The evil did not die with the Count.”
“It would appear not,” replied Van Helsing. “As to how, I confess the answer escapes me. I can only presume that poor Lucy was not the first to have been transformed by the Count’s vile fluids.”
Seward and Holmwood flinched. The mere mention of Lucy Westenra’s name was still a source of great pain to both men.
“Why now, though?” asked Harker. “Why is the evil spreading only now, after the creature itself is dead?”
“I don’t know, Jonathan,” replied Van Helsing, truthfully. “Perhaps the Count guarded his dark power, hoarded it, if you will. Perhaps such restrictions have been lifted with his death. But I merely speculate.”
He looked at his friends.
“And I must ask the same of you all,” he continued. “I ask each of you to tell me whether you think the poor business of Harold Norris was an aberration, or a harbinger of things to come. I shall depart for Whitehall shortly, a summons I am compelled to obey, and I will be expected to provide the Prime Minister with answers.”
Silence settled uncomfortably over the drawing room.
Tell me it was an isolated incident, thought Van Helsing. One of you tell me that. The alternative
