Dracula Lives (33 page)

Max shook himself out of his daze enough to lift his head and assess his situation.

He was inside one of the dungeon’s cells. The Wolf Man’s back was to him. He was unlocking the fetters.

He’s going to leave me here to die.

Max looked around frantically. The sword was just outside the open cell door. He got up and moved as quietly as he could toward it.

The werewolf snapped its head around. Two bounding strides later the beast slammed Max to the stone floor and held him pinned by the throat.

Max saw no trace of his father in the yellow eyes, only savage bloodlust. Knowing he was about to die, he unleashed a stream of venom from the poisoned tarn at the bottom of his soul.

“You vile excuse for a father. You doomed us all from the start. I hope you burn forever in Hell!”

“If I do,” came the guttural rumble, “you’ll be there with me.” The Wolf Man pulled his son up by the hair and picked up the sword. A moment later he loped into the darkness, blood dripping from the blade.

When Quinn and Johnny reached the cavernous dungeon chamber, they saw the open door of the cell Johnny had been in and stopped.

“Markov’s been here,” Quinn said. “I closed that door when we left.”

“He may still be close. Watching us.”

“There’s something inside the cell. On the floor.” In their quickly exchanged glance, Quinn knew they were both thinking the same thing.

They advanced warily, Quinn gripping the pistol and halberd, Johnny the flamethrower and bag of weapons. With each step into the cell the horror deepened, until they stood at the rear wall looking at what was left of Max Tilton.

Fetters attached to the wall by three-foot lengths of chain had been clipped to the corners of his mouth to keep his severed head suspended. The stretched rictus made it look like Max was laughing at his own death. In a brain permeated with movie images, Quinn envisioned Conrad Veidt’s frozen grin in
The Man Who Laughs
and wondered if Markov had been going for that effect.

Max’s dead eyes staring at them cut the thought short.

A moan came from some long-abandoned region in Johnny’s soul. She dropped the canvas bag and covered her mouth to keep a sob from escaping at the sight of her dead brother. Ruthlessly murdered by their own father.

Keeping an eye on the darkness beyond the open cell door, Quinn laid the halberd down and placed a hand on her shoulder. He thought of all the pain that was in the droplets trickling down her cheeks.

“Somewhere in my father was a conscience,” she said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Even as Markov, there was always a spark of decency.” As she continued to stare at the severed head, the sob she had been trying to hold back finally came out. “That is the son he once read bedtime stories. My brother.”

There was a lifetime of sorrow and regret in the small shake of her head. Her gaze went to the headless corpse on the floor, then back to the grinning atrocity on the back wall. Quinn watched her expression harden until all sentiment was gone. When she turned back to him, he saw only a burning desire for revenge.

“Our father is dead. He is not ‘the son of the Devil.’ He is the Devil himself.”

The sound of the door clanging shut made them snap their heads around.

Markov stood inside the door, holding an impalement stake upright by his side, as though striking a warrior pose. The blood-stained sword rested against his hip, secured by a cord tied around the waist.

His voice was Markov’s, but his dialogue was Dracula’s.

“If I am the Devil, then I bid you welcome.”

“The pit of this hellish pile is very fitting for the Devil’s final resting place,” Johnny said.

Markov seemed amused. “My, aren’t you the liberated female. It seems your new friend has been putting ideas in your head.”

“The ideas are all mine.”

“My poor deluded Johnny. Knowing how thoroughly I have prepared my monsters for this night, you still think you can defeat me.”

She motioned toward Quinn. “Together we can.”

“Together we will,” Quinn said.

“No, you won’t. There are two of you. I have an army of monsters. I am them and they are me. And our survival instincts are very strong. When one of us is threatened, any one of the others might take over to eliminate the threat.” He sighed for comic effect. “I try to be a good host, but … being a Monster Maker is risky business.”

“Listen to yourself,” Quinn said. “You call your daughter deluded, while you turn a blind eye to the evil monster you have turned yourself into. Look.” He pointed to the butchered corpse on the floor. “Look what you’ve done to your own son.”

“The die was cast for Max and I long ago. For all of us. This moment had to come. Now, it’s time for his sister to join him.” Markov took a step toward her.

“Stop right there.” Quinn picked up the halberd. “Or your head is going to be in the Chamber of Horrors beside your idol’s. Dracula and Son of Dracula.”

“Your bravado is very unwise, Mr. Quinn. You cannot defeat us all. Aside from all my weapons, reinforcements are coming. Look.”

He gestured at the area beyond the open cell door. Several of the undead from the Garden were shuffling toward them. Markov saw Quinn’s look of surprise when he realized that Lady Elinore was leading them.

Johnny gasped. A chill skittered down Quinn’s back.

Markov grinned. “Surely you didn’t think I would release my beloved from her tomb and then not check on her progress. She was too weak to resist when you tied her up, but she is getting stronger every minute. Strong enough that I have appointed her my new assistant director.” He shot a look of scorn at Johnny. “Now that my blood can no longer be trusted.”

Elinore and her vampiric followers had gotten within ten yards of the cell when Markov shouted to her: “Take the extras to the studio and get everything ready.”

She veered off in the direction of the staircase. The undead followed close behind. Quinn counted them. “I don’t think six ‘extras’ will be enough.”

“There will be others,” Markov said.

Quinn let the halberd drop to the floor and pulled the pistol from his waistband. “I think I can save us all a lot of aggravation.” He gave Johnny a nod and she ignited the flamethrower, spitting an orange-blue flame in her father’s direction.

Still holding the impalement stake, Markov growled and moved backwards to get out of her range. A barely perceptible ripple fluttered across his forehead. A vein swelled near his temple.

Something erupted from the top of his head and landed on the ground near his feet. Quinn and Johnny looked in disbelief as it streaked toward them. Quinn aimed the pistol at it, but the severed hand of the Creature from the Black Lagoon was too fast. It launched itself and clamped onto his wrist, squeezing until the pistol fell to the floor. While he struggled to pull the hand off, Markov dropped the impalement stake and reached for the gun. Quinn kicked it across the floor. Johnny backed Markov into a corner with the flamethrower.

The assault was bringing out the Wolf Man.

Quinn managed to get a canister of spray from his pocket. He shot a burst onto the hand. It fell to the floor, scrabbling about wildly until it reached the stone wall and began rubbing its back side against it, trying to scrape off the stinging spray.

Quinn rushed to grab the impalement stake. As he picked it up he heard soft popping noises.

The flamethrower started to sputter. It was running out of fuel.

Markov’s transformation into the Wolf Man was complete.

Quinn held the stake in front of him like a lance and charged. The werewolf swatted it aside. Quinn’s momentum kept him going forward. A vicious backhand from the huge paw sent him sprawling across the stone floor. The stake clattered to a stop several yards away. Dazed, Quinn struggled to get up.

The werewolf shifted his attention back to Johnny. She had abandoned the spent flamethrower and retrieved the pistol. She aimed directly at Markov’s heart. He snarled and fixed her in his bestial stare, watching her struggle to find the strength to kill her father. That part of his brain raced to think of something that might stop his daughter from shooting him. He latched onto one of the strongest bonds they shared: a love of Poe. All the Halloweens, when they’d recited “The Raven” in the oriel….

He delivered the line from the poem with all the intensity his altered vocal cords would allow. It came out as a guttural plea, whispered from the deepest recess of an abandoned lair.

“Is there …
is there
… balm in Gilead?”

Her expression softened. Somewhere there
was
balm in Gilead. There had to be.

Johnny looked into the jaundiced eyes of the Wolf Man, searching for the man who had held her on his knee and read Poe to her. Her eyes filled with tears just before she pulled the trigger.

A red hole opened in his chest. As she watched the Wolf Man stagger and fall, a single word echoed in her head, each reverberation a wave washing more of the stain from her soul:

FREE! Free! Free … free….

Quinn came up beside her, impalement stake in hand. As Johnny stared down at her slain father, the Wolf Man melted away until the body of Markov lay there. The bullet hole in his chest slowly closed.

“Did you see that?” Quinn said.

Johnny nodded and went down on one knee, probing for the hole. It was gone. She lifted one of Markov’s eyelids. The glazed yellow eye stared lifelessly at nothing.

Suddenly the eye became human and riveted onto her.

Markov’s hand shot up and snatched the gun.

Quinn made a rush but Markov swung the gun around. Quinn halted, staring down the barrel.

“Drop your weapon and back away,” Markov said, getting to his feet.

Quinn dropped the stake and took one grudging step, then another.

Markov looked down at Johnny with a mixture of sadness and anger. “You killed the Wolf Man, but I am Dracula. I cannot die.”

His long sigh sounded like the final exhalation of whatever love he’d still had for his daughter. The sound burrowed into the gaping wound in her heart where her love for her father had once been. His next words were salt in that wound. “Now that you have revealed your true feelings,” he said, “you must be confined.”

“You have your destiny,” she said defiantly. “I have mine.”

“You are the
supporting
actor in our movie, dearest daughter, not the lead. There can be only one outcome now. The one I have been preparing for since we got here. This is not the way I had it scripted, but a good director is always ready to improvise. First I must go to the studio and do a hasty edit of the monster rally footage. Everything else is done. Then I will invite you to the premiere.”

He took a step back and addressed them both. “Sadly, until then, I can no longer trust either of you. You shall both remain here in your new guest quarters until I am ready.”

A noise made them turn their heads.

It was coming from behind the open gate of the Garden of Evil. From this distance the noise was faint, but growing louder. Quinn recognized the dragging sound at once.

Shhhht.

Clank.

Shhhhht.

Clank.

The familiar figure came through the gate. It paused, as though getting its bearings, then began shambling toward the dungeon chamber.

“Your Creature from the Black Lagoon,” Johnny said. “The magnetism seeping into the water has brought it to life.”

Markov’s attention was on the relentless approach. The chain it had broken trailed from its ankle.

Shhhhht.

Clank.

Johnny scrambled to her feet and stood next to Quinn.

The amphibious Creature had gotten close enough for them to hear its labored breathing as it struggled for air in its new environment. It paused at the entrance to the cell. In a face of some impossible humanoid demon from beyond any ocean depths, blazing red eyes searched the faces staring back at it and quickly locked onto one:

Markov.

The Creature let out a breathy howl and moved toward him, much faster than it had been moving before. Markov pointed the gun at it. Never slowing, his misbegotten creation reached out to choke the one who had left it in a watery dungeon to die.

Markov fired.

The shot knocked the Creature back but it quickly recovered. A hollow groan escaped as it gasped for air. It fully extended its arms and charged.

Markov fired again but missed. The Creature clamped its long webbed hands onto his throat. Johnny seized the moment to get the spare tank of fuel from the bag and onto the flamethrower.

The claws digging into Markov’s flesh triggered a defense reaction. Metal bolts shot out from the sides of his neck, startling the Creature into removing its hands. The red eyes of the amphibious beast watched in stunned amazement as the rest of the transformation took place.

Markov’s brow thickened as his eyes receded in their sockets. A large scar formed over the right eye. His slicked-back Dracula hair rearranged itself into a style with bangs that resembled a skullcap. A slight movement of his head revealed another long scar along his left jaw line. His hands grew larger and his arms lengthened, extending several inches beyond his shirtsleeves until they exposed stitching around the wrists. Hints of Boris Karloff were mixed in with Markov’s facial features when the transformation was complete.

Johnny and Quinn backed away.

The Frankenstein Monster and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, both well over seven feet tall, stared each other down, waiting to see who would make the first move.

The Monster spoke to the Creature in the perfect English of Mary Shelley’s novel, rather than the broken English of the movie. “Aside from the fact that you have turned against your maker, you would be a jarring anachronism in my monster rally. I must leave you on the cutting-room floor.”

Whatever life force might have seeped into his Creature, Markov had seen that bullets wouldn’t kill it. Which meant it was still more robotic than real. He would have to try magnets, if he could get to them. He shoved the pistol into a pocket.