Anno Dracula Dracula Cha Cha Cha by Kim Newman

Author:Kim Newman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780857685353
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2012-09-25T16:45:00+00:00

29

WHAT’S NEW, PUSSYCAT?

It was all over. Dracula was dead, properly. He wouldn’t marry Asa Vajda, therefore wouldn’t become a force again in the politics of the Balkans. Bond felt the knot he’d almost unpicked had been severed by an Alexandrine blow.

‘Princess Asa is not very good with visitors yet, I’m afraid,’ Miss Churchward told him. ‘She’s had a shock, as I’m sure you appreciate.’

He looked around the empty ballroom. Hangings were still left over from the party, banners with coats of arms. The buffet mice — largely untouched by vampire guests who preferred human blood — had escaped from their cages, swarming over the abandoned salads, thriving on canapés. Generations would probably breed in Palazzo Otranto.

A few liveried minions made a futile effort to tidy up.

‘We have been given notice to quit, Commander Bond,’ said Miss Churchward. ‘I expect you knew that, being a spy and so forth.’

He didn’t deny it. Everybody in Rome knew what he was. He was a bit on the high-profile side. The Diogenes Club was cultivating his colourless replacements, Grammar School civil servants with National Health glasses and Marks & Spencer’s raincoats.

Miss Churchward’s severe suit and diamanté sunglasses didn’t entirely disguise her fine figure. At the ball, her hair had been more attractively arranged than it was now. She might be a tigress.

That American chap he had run into outside the Kit Kat Klub, the one who’d been drained white and tossed aside, was part of the household. He thought more about Miss Churchward, imagined her lips red and her teeth sinking into skin.

He gave her his card.

‘When you return to London, perhaps we could meet?’

Miss Churchward looked at it, and over her glasses at him.

He allowed her a smile. She accepted it. There was a promise and a challenge in this vampire vixen. Under her tight Victorian skin was a lush, passionate, hungry heart.

Then she gave back his card.

‘I think not,’ she said.

He couldn’t have been more surprised if she had slapped him.

‘Commander Bond, you’re undoubtedly a very attractive fellow and I would assume something of a success with the ladies. But you are a new-born. You don’t yet have powers of fascination.’

He showed nothing in his face.

‘You don’t understand, do you?’ she said. ‘Here.’

She took off her glasses, and fixed him with a red look like a vice. He couldn’t move. His knees were locked. Miss Churchward owned him. He would die for a word from her. He would throw himself into flames.

Miss Churchward touched her lips with a forefinger, and brushed his mouth with it. An electricity coursed through him, making every nerve burn. The moment lasted an eternity. He staggered.

And that’s just a touch,’ she said, with a tiny smile.

Bond composed himself. The sunbursts in his head fizzled. He looked across the hall and saw how carefully Tom was moving, like an old man. He was white as a ghost and thin to the point of insubstantiality. Miss Churchward had nearly used him up.

‘If you would show yourself out,’ she said. ‘I’ve a lot to see to.

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