Countess Dracula (20 page)

He pulled himself up the first stage, clambering onto one of the thick lower branches and dragging himself higher with much grunting, grazing his palms in the process. He inched his way along towards the wall but the branch began to sag as his weight pulled it down. Leaning against the wall for support he reached up and managed to get a grip on the upper bricks. Feeling a little more secure he tried to use the spring of the branch to give him a bit of momentum. He bounced up and down on it, keeping a firm grip on the wall and then jumped when the branch was at its full height, using it as a springboard to give him the extra few inches he needed to propel himself onto the top of the wall. He crouched as low as he could, only too aware that anyone in that part of the garden would see him were they to look in his direction. He glanced down. The ground was clear on the other side, with a slight bank leading upwards. He should be able to lower himself down without breaking his neck.

Harrison swung his legs over, gripping the top of the wall as tightly as he could with his already sore hands. He lowered himself down and then let go. His feet hit the ground and twisted, sending him rolling with no dignity whatsoever down the slight incline and into a lantana bush. Pulling himself free of the branches, his skin itching from the leaves, he stood up and winced as his wrenched ankle complained. It could have been worse, he decided, testing it and deciding that it was painful but not sufficiently so to stop him walking on it. God help him if he had to clamber his way back out. Knowing his luck, he would be escorted directly out of the front door in a few minutes.

Keeping to the cover of the bushes, Harrison made his careful way towards the house, not noticing that his revolver had fallen from its holster and was now lying in the dirt beneath the lantana.

Fabio was drunk. This was far from a new sensation, of course, but as he checked his watch and realised the time he cursed the fact that his limbs wouldn’t move with the speed he wished them to.

He still hadn’t decided what he should do about Frank and Elizabeth but one thing he had settled on was that he couldn’t let Henry get mixed up with them any further. This wasn’t an entirely altruistic decision, naturally: he would have enough trouble on his hands with two clients caught up in a murder case and a third would be intolerable. Still, for all his pragmatism he did have some concern for the young lad. Henry could surely have no idea of the type of woman he was getting involved with and if Fabio didn’t try and extricate him from her influence who the hell would?

At least at the party there should be enough people around to avoid a scene. He could get in there, pull Henry away and then decide from a safe distance what to do about the other two. What he had seen had been terrifying enough for him to be sure that his life would mean little if it proved to be in the way of Elizabeth’s plans. He would be in danger the moment they knew he had discovered their little slaughterhouse.

Fabio changed into evening dress as quickly as his clumsy fingers would allow. Henry would arrive before him, certainly. As much as he might hope that the young man would just wait for him to turn up he was sure that Henry’s enthusiasm would override his patience.

Descending in a slightly dishevelled tuxedo with a skew-whiff bow tie, Fabio rallied his driver into action.

‘I’m late!’ he shouted as if it were entirely the other man’s fault. ‘You’ll have to make up the time somehow.’

Eventually he was ensconced in the back of his car and heading towards the party at speed.

‘You’ve arrived, my darling!’ announced Elizabeth on seeing Henry confused by the food.

He turned away from the plates of bright colours and shapes that wouldn’t fit a human mouth and put his arms around her.

‘You’re looking wonderful,’ he said, ‘as you always so effortlessly do.’

‘Oh, there’s effort to it,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Effort like you wouldn’t believe.’

Further along the terrace a jazz quartet began to play. People applauded and a small crowd made its way towards them, starting to dance beneath the candle-glow of hanging Japanese lanterns.

‘Would you like to dance?’ he asked.

‘Oh, certainly,’ she replied. ‘But not here. This is not the real party.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ Henry laughed and gestured towards the food table and its dripping HOLLYWOODLAND sign. ‘You lay this on normally?’

‘We’re on the periphery, darling,’ Elizabeth said, taking his hand. ‘This is where we come to freshen up, fill our glasses and bellies. I like to cater for other appetites, as you well know.’

She led him towards the garden.

Its walls were thick with plant life, an impenetrable jungle at the centre of this beautiful house. She steered him towards a narrow stone archway that acted as its entrance. Slipping through it, Henry found himself in a loose maze. Beyond the leaves he could hear sounds of human occupancy: laughter, cries of passion and pain. In the near distance there was the sound of splashing as someone dived into the pool.

‘If I’d known I’d have brought a costume,’ he said.

‘We provide all you need,’ Elizabeth responded, leading him to the right where, around a tight corner, he was presented with an anachronism: a set of dressing rails, hatstands and an attendant who had no need of any of them, since she was naked.

‘Good evening,’ she said, bowing slightly. ‘Welcome to Eden. Would you like to choose your face?’

Who wouldn’t?
thought Henry, tearing his stare away from her body and looking instead at a short set of shelves where half-masks were arranged like plates on a dresser.

‘We can’t have you completely naked, after all,’ said Elizabeth, starting to loosen his tie. ‘We must leave you some modesty.’

He stayed her hand for a moment, struck by a sudden sense of embarrassment. ‘I didn’t realise …’

‘Oh hush,’ she replied, knocking his hand away and taking his tie. ‘In Eden we have no need for wool and cotton. Here we wear our skins.’

She pushed the tie into his jacket pocket and then removed the coat itself.

‘Perhaps you would find it easier,’ Elizabeth suggested, ‘if I went first.’ She turned her back to him. ‘If you would be so kind?’

Henry reached out to unfasten the catch at the back of her dress, his gaze moving to the attendant again, conscious that she was their audience. Her head was still slightly bowed but the soft contented smile on her face gave him some confidence. She was certainly not here to judge.

Elizabeth shed her dress, stepping out of it, a transformed creature emerging from its cocoon.

The attendant immediately moved forward, lifted the dress from the grass and proceeded to hang it up on one of the rails.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ said Elizabeth, stroking her on the side of her face and kissing her on the lips. She pulled her closer, turning her head so that they were both facing Henry. ‘Now it’s his turn. Shall we both help him?’

She led the girl over and they set to work, alternating fingers popping shirt studs and cufflinks, rubbing across Henry’s back to unfasten his cummerbund. He couldn’t tell whose hand it was that manipulated the buttons on the front of his trousers but they had to work at it, his seeming shyness contradicted by the swelling they found there.

That was the point at which he let go, his erect penis helped out into the evening air. There seemed little point in remaining bashful.

The attendant dropped to her knees and began unlacing his shoes, the crown of her head bobbing against his groin as she did so.

‘She’s such a helpful little thing, isn’t she?’ said Elizabeth as Henry lifted his feet so the girl could remove his shoes. ‘There’s nothing she won’t do to help, is there?’

The girl looked up, a serene smile on her face. ‘Nothing, ma’am.’

‘Who could doubt it?’ Elizabeth replied, stepping behind Henry, reaching around and taking his penis in her hand. She pointed it towards the girl who took it contentedly in her mouth as if it was the most natural action in the world.

I suppose it is
, thought Henry, letting go of what little inhibition he had left and pushing forward slightly.

‘But we must pace ourselves,’ said Elizabeth, yanking him back. ‘The party hasn’t even started yet.’

The attendant helped Henry shed his trousers and underwear and set about storing them on the rack as Elizabeth began to peruse the masks.

‘What suits you, do you think?’ she asked Henry, running her finger along their shiny enamel surfaces. They were animals for the most part, full-cheeked foxes and snarling wolves ready to growl, tear, devour.

‘You choose,’ he told her.

She picked up the visage of a hawk, its curled beak glinting yellow in the soft light. ‘A bird of prey, I think,’ she said, pushing up against him as she reached around his head to fasten it into place. ‘Ready to swoop down and eat.’

‘And you?’

She turned away from him and bent forward to look at the remaining masks. ‘What do you think?’

Henry thought he’d missed the feel of her, stepping in behind and entering her as she gripped the side of the shelves. He looked over towards the attendant, suddenly relishing the lack of privacy.
Let her see
, he thought.
Why not?

Elizabeth thrust backwards on to him as she lifted a mask from the shelf: a black bat, pointed ears and fangs.

‘Fix me,’ she said, holding it to her face so that he could tie the strings behind her head.

As soon as he had done so she pushed him back and moved away from him. Henry felt a little foolish for a moment, standing there alone. Elizabeth laughed and took his hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ve plenty more to show you.’

Nayland felt lost within his own home. Wandering the peripheries of the garden, trying to avoid bumping into guests to whom he had no wish to speak, he looked on all around him and felt it was a place that he no longer knew. It wasn’t that the trees and plants had changed, of course: it was him. The familiar surroundings now seemed to belong to another man, one who hadn’t seen the things he had, done the things he had. A man of better principles and a stronger will. More than that, he felt so dislocated, so utterly broken, that he suspected there was nowhere he would now feel at home. The downward spiral was too well travelled for him to imagine ever being able to climb back up.

He sat down on the grass, listening to the sound of nearby laughter, and imagined what it might be like to kill them all. To take that final step. To finally own the blood. He pictured himself gripping Elizabeth’s slaughtering knife and working his way through the cackling, hateful lot of them. He was quite sure that the world would be a better place for it. A cull of the brittle and beautiful would leave it a cleaner place. He could never do it, of course: his protagonist days were over. He was a supporting artist in this world.

A bubble of laughter erupted from the central garden and Nayland tried his hardest not to imagine what was going on in there. In the early days he had played the sex games earnestly enough but once his feelings for Elizabeth had developed he couldn’t divorce his pleasure from jealousy. There was no relaxation to be found for him within the high conifer walls, just anger and resentment. There was a short-lived scream, an enthused wail of willingly endured pain and another round of laughter. He shook his head and leaned back on the grass, stretching out his limbs in an attempt to relieve them of the stressed knots they were working themselves into. The booze in him helped his head slip gently sideways as he looked up at the stars. He needed more of it – that was the only way of surviving the night.

He stood up too quickly, his drunken head spinning as blood rushed to it. Stumbling, he lost his footing on the edge of one of the planted beds and fell forward. Cursing as thorns pierced his skin and tugged at his suit, he scrabbled for purchase, hoping desperately that this latest ignoble pratfall had been private. He could imagine the gossip otherwise: ‘That old drunk Frank Nayland? He’s only rolling around in the flower beds like a dog …’ He pulled himself free, planting a hand on the earth to steady himself. His hand found some thing unexpected, something cool and metallic. He pulled himself upright and then squatted down to investigate. It was a handgun. What the hell was a handgun doing abandoned in the bushes? Had someone hidden it there? Why? He held it up to the light, noting how much heavier it felt than the prop shooters he had carried in a number of his movies. He tried to remember the limited training he had received for his appearance in
White Light
, the gangster drama for which he had received almost universal bad notices. (‘Frank Nayland should stick to dapper gents,’
Variety
had suggested, ‘as he is no more convincing as a hard-nose criminal than my elderly grandmother.’) He found the catch for the cylinder, swinging it open and noting that it was fully loaded with what he assumed were real bullets. The gun felt even heavier with that knowl edge. Here was potential in his hand. Six lives, copper-jacketed, waiting to end. It was the closest Nayland had come to feeling power in many long years.

*

Fabio arrived at the house feeling worse and worse by the moment. The alcohol and panic had combined in him to the point where it was difficult for him not to shake as he stepped out of his car and made his way up the front steps.

‘Just wait for me,’ he told Teodor. ‘I don’t intend to be long and we’ll want to get out of here quickly.’

His chauffeur nodded, closed the door behind his employer and leaned back against the wing of the car.

Fabio slowed himself down as he mounted the steps to the front door, only too aware that he might fall unless he got his balance back. He just needed to get in there, find Henry, then drag the kid out – kicking and screaming if need be. He’d worry about everything else come the morning, when his brain was his own and he could think clearly.

‘Good evening, sir,’ said Patience as he entered the house. ‘I hope you’re well.’

‘I’m not,’ he admitted. ‘Where’s Henry?’

She gave him a brief disapproving look, no doubt sensing his drunkenness and anticipating trouble. ‘Henry, sir?’