Anno Dracula 1999 by Kim Newman

Author:Kim Newman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Titan

RICHARD JEPERSON

‘I… am… Dracula.’

That hung there.

The speaker paused, disappointed not to get an argument.

‘Usually, people jump on that,’ he said, ‘tell me to my face that I’m pulling their piddler.’

Richard knew exactly who this was.

Not Dracula. But arguably entitled to the name.

‘No harm in trying it on,’ the fellow continued. ‘It’s more a title than a name, you know. Dracula.’

The vampire who’d brought killers to the party got to do the talking.

He could call himself what he liked.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If Dracula doesn’t fly, there are alternatives. I am Ejderhaoğlu Bey. In your English, that might be Lord FitzDragon.’

‘The brother,’ said Richard. ‘Radu.’

The Bey smiled like a little boy. Not sweet, but sly. He liked to be known. Recognised.

Richard understood. An age of resentfulness as ‘the other one’, overshadowed and overlooked. A pinprick of pique, repeated endlessly. Canker festering in his heart till that was all there was to him.

A dangerous man.

‘Radu the Handsome,’ said Richard.

‘If you say so, duckie. For the benefit of the slowcoaches at the back, “Radu the Handsome” is what people called me when I was warm. Radu cel Frumos. I’m not vain, just reporting the opinion of others. I am beautiful. I was a lovely baby, a pretty boy, a gorgeous man, and a divine vampire. It’s what I am known for. I didn’t choose the honorific. It was given me.’

‘By the Turks.’

‘By everybody, Mr Jeperson. It wasn’t meant to flatter. In my day, a Prince would rather be known as “the Terrible” than “the Good”. They smiled – all their teeth were rotten, from Turkish candies, you know – and called me “the Handsome”. What they meant was “the Soft”. It was “Radu the Handsome” to my face and “Radu the Pouffe” to my behind. I took a name spat as mockery and embraced it. I have transcended the slur.’

‘You know, I believe that,’ said Richard. ‘I can tell you’re over it by the way you never mention it any more.’

The Bey laughed. Now Richard knew from the way he wasn’t hurled off the balcony that Radu still needed hostages. Doubtless, he’d relish killing him – but would defer the pleasure.

‘In my English we have an expression,’ Richard said. ‘Perhaps you know it. “Handsome is…”’

‘“… as Handsome does”. Yes, very tiresome. Very British. And not meant at all. At bottom, you British are Turks with dreadful cuisine. Maltesers, rissoles, bread and dripping. And no Empire left, boo-hoo. No wonder he doesn’t bother ruling you any more and has pitched his tents in California.’

‘The real Dracula,’ said Richard, prompting, needling.

He felt Syrie Van Epp thinking ‘Are you trying to get him to kill you?’

In the circumstances, it was almost kind of her.

‘Yes, him,’ said the Bey, fangs gnashing. ‘My brother. Know what the Turks called him?’

‘Vlad the Impaler.’

‘Precisely. Vlad Tepes. Vee the Eye. They meant that with respect. If you had a meeting with someone called “the Impaler”, you trembled for days. He nailed turbans to heads. Stuck pointed poles up jacksies. Drank goblets of blood.

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