Night Plague Chapter 5

Written by Omnitrix12

They rode in the carriage to a restaurant, went inside, and left again as soon as the cabby was gone. Van Savage glanced around cautiously and then led the party several blocks through winding alleyways to the churchyard where Lucy had been buried. At his bidding, they broke up their group and pretended to be strolling idly every time an officer passed on his beat.

"Why are we hiding from the police?" asked Judy in a whisper. "If someone's robbing Lucy's grave, shouldn't we-?"

Van Savage raised a paw to stop her. "You will understand all when we get there."

Judy was getting less and less sure of the professor's sanity, and glanced over at Doctor Seward. The doctor seemed to sense her worries, and by his wide eyes she could tell that he was not only doubtful, but afraid. He nodded, though, in answer to her unspoken question.

"This is not a matter for the police," he said quietly. "Come on."

Reaching the churchyard Doctor Seward looked around and drew a key from his pocket.

"Where did you get that?" asked Nick as the wolf unlocked the gate.

"We are in desperate circumstances," said Van Savage resolutely. "I had to borrow the grounds keeper's key and make a copy in order to do what must be done."

"I still don't get why we're not going through the police about this," admitted Judy, entering with the rest.

Nick nodded. "That would make it easier."

Arthur took a different view. "I say all the better. Whoever did this, prison is too good for them."

Doctor Seward patted his fellow ungulate on the shoulder. "Friend, you don't know what you're saying." His eyes darted around as though the tombstones hid watching sentries. "The evil in-"

"John," warned Van Savage, stopping him. "Please, let all see for themselves."

The oryx fell silent, and his mentor led them all into the graveyard. It was a solemn procession as, subdued by a feeling like nothing any of them had every imagined. A cold, vacuous feeling surrounded them; a cold that was more than want of warmth, and a darkness greater than the absence of light. Nor did the cold or dark seem to dissipate even when Van Savage paused, striking a lucifer and lighting two shaded lanterns. He, taking one, led Arthur and Doctor Seward while Quincy held the other and led Nick and Judy. The old army scout did not seem as much troubled by the strange venture, but none felt at liberty to talk. Even Van Savage did not speak when the time came to halt, but merely signaled them to stop and hide behind the grave markers.

"Now what?" asked Quincy.

"We wait," came the wolf's simple answer as he drew his cloak tight around him.

So they huddled in their overcoats – and Judy in her shawl – and watched the Westenrut mausoleum not far off in the moonlight. Time crept. Owls hooted. Now and then one or another of them dozed, though Quincy had brought some small flasks of coffee by which they might refresh themselves. Now and then they would glance at the surrounding tombs, half-fancying that some ghost might come out in anger at their presence in this hallowed ground. Most of the time, though, their eyes were fixed on the tomb of the Westenruts, where so recently they had placed the bodies of their dear friend and her mother.

As hours passed on Van Savage's pocket watch – checked now and then by lamplight – everyone present tried to make some inquiry to the professor. His answer, without fail, was a shake of his head and a cryptic "Wait and see."

At last, only a couple of hours before dawn, something happened.

"Hey, what's that over there?" asked Quincy, pointing across the church yard.

All eyes turned to follow his pointing finger, but almost as quickly as his arm went up Van Savage pushed it down.

"Careful!" he hissed. "Don't move. Keep perfectly still!" His eyes locked on the direction in which Quincy pointed, and his nose seemed to tremble.

Everyone else wondered at his actions, but no one felt like speaking anyway. On the other side of the cemetery, a strange white figure slipped to and fro in the moonlight. As the watchers looked more closely, they made out that the figure – whatever it was – had a long snout and something dark clutched to its bosom.

Suddenly, Arthur let out a gasp. Quick as lightning, Van Savage sprang upon the noblemammal. With one arm he caught him round the neck, and with the other he grabbed his muzzle and yanked down, dragging him to the sod.

"Silence!" he ordered. "Don't move until I say!"

"What's going on?" asked Judy. Her night vision wasn't as good as that of her predatory companions.

Nick was shaking like a leaf. "Judy…" he whispered, "that figure… it's Lucy!"

Van Savage's answer was grave. "No, Nicholas. It was Lucy."

This news seemed to be too much for Arthur, and he threw off the wolf. "Lucy!" he cried, running toward the white-clad, spectral thing before them.

Van Savage cried out as he hit the ground. "Stop, you fool!" Then, to the others, "Grab him before it's too late! Go!"

None questioned the command, but all rushed upon Arthur and jumped onto him, their combined weight bearing him to the earth. He struggled and kicked, but they hung onto him. Even Nick, Judy, and Quincy, small as they were, held dogged grips on his flailing legs. The figure, meanwhile, stopped stock-still and stared at them, and they could see quite clearly now that the face was indeed that of Lucy. Yet how strangely and terribly changed she was! Her pure beauty had been turned to voluptuousness, and her kind eyes now gleamed a cold and hungry red. Her lips parted, showing two tiny pointed teeth like daggers as a thin rivulet of some dark liquid trickled out.

"Arthur," she crooned, tucking the strange load under one arm. It made a curious sound, as a child bothered in sleep.

Arthur stared like one enchanted, his struggles briefly halting.

"Arthur, my dear. My husband. Come embrace me." Her voice was as smooth as oil, but there was something in it that was definitely not of Lucy.

The red deer's struggles began anew. Van Savage looked up, and his eyes flashed as if he would throw himself on the creature and tear it like his ancestors of old. "Stay back, you monster," he snarled, fighting to subdue the struggling buck. "He is not yours, and you have no right to him!"

"What do you mean?!" cried Arthur, fighting to rise. "It's Lucy! It's Lucy!"

"It's not Lucy!" cried Van Savage.

The thing – whatever it was – caught sight of Judy, who was under no restraint. "Judy, my dear sister," it called. "Sweet Judy, pledged to be my friend forever."

Judy's eyes seemed to glaze over like Arthur's, and she dropped off of Arthur's leg. Getting up, she began to walk toward the doe. Quincy lunged to stop her, but the thing that was not Lucy suddenly lifted its burden and flung it at him like a throwing quoit. The impact toppled him over, and the bundle let out a wail. Landing and tumbling, the buck sprawled, tried to rise, and then stared at the burden on him as if it were a basilisk and had just turned him to stone.

"Nicholas!" Van Savage cried painfully, raising his voice all he could through clenched teeth. Arthur, in his struggles, had hit him sorely in his old ribs. "Your wife! Claim her as your wife! Renounce her promise! Tell it it has no right!"

Nick didn't know what was going on, but he knew in the bottom of his soul that this creature could not – must not – take Judy. "Get back!" he shouted, his usual eloquence drowned in panic. "She's my wife now! I, uh, I renounce her promise to… you can't have her!"

Quincy gathered his strength and flung himself forward, blocking Judy's path. Judy seemed to start as if she had woken from sleepwalking. The buck and the wolf glared into those burning red eyes as the creature, thwarted in its robbery, hissed like an angry cat.

"Leave these alone," Van Savage ordered. "In God's name, keep away and go back to your place!"

The creature recoiled as if sprayed with boiling water, and cut a berth around them to go back to its tomb. Yet at the opening it stopped and recoiled, as one magnet repelled by another when the poles are the same.

Van Savage allowed himself a grim smile. "Then the books spoke true," he said. Seeing that Arthur had stopped struggling, he rose and drew a clove of garlic from his pocket. Facing the thing, he spoke in a voice shaking with hatred and fear.

"I let you back to your place. Leave… leave these be and go." He went over to the tomb and scraped away the putty, holding the garlic up with one paw all the while, and then stood back. To the onlookers' amazement, the thing – while looking three dimensional – slipped to the crack and slid through as a piece of paper would do. The action was done so quickly they could not see how it was done. One moment she was without, and then she was gone.

At this, Van Savage dropped to his knees and began to breathe raggedly.

"Professor!" cried Judy, rushing up next to the wolf.

Van Savage waved them off. "It's nothing. I'll be fine," he promised. "I'm just a little… a little winded. Go help the child she flung down. You others, seal up the entrance." He produced a small vial from his coat. "Use this. It held her out and should hold her in."

Quincy at once went and found that, sure enough, the odd bundle which the thing that was not Lucy had been holding was a dark-furred jaguar cub. It slept fitfully and would not wake, and when he touched its neck his fingers came away stained with blood.

"What in tarnation…?" asked the Texan.

"A victim of the bloofer lady," answered Van Savage loathingly. "By God, he'll be her last."

The others all put their paws to work blocking the tomb with the strange putty, which smelled strongly of garlic and roses. They had, by some unspoken agreement, defaulted to doing what Van Savage instructed, as he was the only one who seemed to understand any of this.

"Professor," pressed Arthur, "what was that thing?"

Van Savage hesitated to answer. "Once the tomb is sealed and the child is seen to, we shall go back to John's residence. There I shall explain all."

At Van Savage's orders, the child was placed by a pathway along an officer's beat, where he could not fail to notice the youngster. True to the professor's decision, no more explanation was given of the matter until they had gone back to Doctor Seward's house and had some glasses of wine to steady all their nerves. Then he began his account.

"You all have some knowledge, I think, of the principle of demonic possession. If accounts are to be believed, the forces of Hell have it in their power to, at times, enter into mortal bodies and manipulate them as a hand may control a glove or a puppet. The demon thus gains power to work in the physical realm, and with it all the advantages of flesh, as the ability to eat and drink. Also, the body thus captured is endowed with strange powers. Supernatural strength, resistance to harm, and other besides. But these powers are not enjoyed by those so held, as they are more often than not helpless slaves until they are exorcised. We have nothing less than the holy scriptures as proof.

"It is so with living bodies which are possessed, but it has been said that if a dead body is so indwelt, the powers become stranger and more terrible still." He looked around the room with great severity. "I believe we have encountered just such a body this night."

A terrible chill went through the room as all of them realized some piece or other of preceding events which had foreshadowed this revelation. Moreover, they all remembered Van Savage's remarks some hours before about Lucy being desecrated. It was indeed worse than any of them could have dreamed.

"How did this happen?" demanded Arthur. "You seem to know much more than you tell, professor!"

Van Savage sighed. "I read much of such things when I was young – as I intimated once to friend Nicholas – but it has been many years. At first I thought, like John, that this was some disease of the flesh. When I sat up, though, I awoke to see a mist coming into the room; coalescing into a thing. It moved to attack me as well, but fled when I called for salvation. I knew then it was of Hell. I thought to tell all, but who would heed me? So I used such defenses as I might, hidden under a mummery of medical remedies. May God judge me if I have erred."

This seemed to placate Arthur, and he settled by a little.

"Well now we're all crazy together," Nick summed up, "so what do you know about these things?"

Van Savage took a sip of his wine to steady himself. "These creatures – the undead, if you will – are known by many names, but vampire will suffice as well as any. Because their bodies are dead they cannot consume food and make life from it. Instead, they must steal the life from the living by means of the blood."

"The child," whispered Judy, horrified.

"Yes, the child. That child and the others like her are now safe, but I must go on. I do not think that Miss Lucy was possessed of her own doing, as a witch might be. Rather, she had this forced on her by necromancy which, to my knowledge, is new or at least newly discovered. This is the worst of it, for there is another in Zootopia at this very hour, with powers far worse than the one we dispatched."

Judy and Nick both sat bolt upright. "The Count!" cried Nick. "Count Dracula!"

"The one that was stealing Lucy's blood!" exclaimed Judy at the exact same instant.

Van Savage blinked at the twin outbursts, then nodded calmly. "We have two detectives among us, I see. You are both right. Nicholas Wilde, your former client Count Dracula is the villain, and if I am right there are not less than three others at his home in Transylvania, as I gather from your experience there. They are all of them nosferatu, as we call them in my country, and this Dracula is author of Lucy's death and desecration."

Arthur jumped to his feet. "How can we stop him?!" he demanded. "What can we do to save Lucy?!"

"Sit down," said the professor with an air of quiet command. "Yes, the monster is still at large, and doubtless works more evil still. I must go home for a day or two and research this matter thoroughly, but first we must dispatch the fiend that has taken Lucy's body. Before I tell you what must be done, I must warn you that it will be terrible – worst of all for you, I think, Lord Goredalming. I will bear the worst of it if I must, but any who undertake this will tread a dark and bloody path."

No one moved to leave, and it was Judy who spoke next. "You talked about exorcism," she reasoned. "How do we exorcise her?"

Van Savage sighed heavily. "If the old tales speak truly, a stake must be driven through the heart to paralyze the undead while it lies in its coffin by day. Once this is done, the true exorcism can be done. We must… we must cut off the head and fill the mouth with garlic."

Arthur turned pale at the thought of doing this to his beloved fiance, and Van Savage nodded sympathetically.

"I know it is a dreadful thing to ask, but can anything be worse than what that fiend is doing with her body? I think truly that her soul is with the angels now, and naught we can do will harm her. Yet with or without harm to herself, would she not have us do this to rid the world of evil done from behind her so sweet face?"

The bereaved husband nodded. "She would," he said shakily. "She would, but…" Then he steeled himself and turned his back. "Do whatever you have to, please, but I ask one thing in return."

"Say on."

He turned back to face them all, and his eyes burned with sorrow and anger. "Let me do the same to this Dracula," he ordered. "If we can catch Lucy, then we can catch him. Let me do to him as you must do to her, and all other vengeance that can be had."

Van Savage looked serious. "Seeking revenge is the devil's foothold," he warned, lifting an index finger. "Let us do all with integrity." Then, seeing the stricken look on the stag's face, he added, "Just the same, I think that you have the best claim as she was your wife. I cannot promise that any one of us will not end up as she, and the others be compelled to exorcise that one too… but if ever I have the chance, I shall not contest your right of retribution. You, however, must promise to follow my instructions in every particular, however small. We are in the realm of spirits and devils here, and I make no pretense to be wiser than they. Still, I am wiser than you in these matters. Heed me and we may all live. We are all doomed otherwise."

"I swear it," said Arthur at once.

"I'll throw in my hat," added Quincy.

"We're in too," Judy agreed, drawing a startled look from Nick.

Van Savage also looked surprised. "Madam Judy," he objected, "I know you and Lucy were close, but-"

"It's not about that," she argued, her eyes glinting with determination. "I'm not sitting by while something like that runs loose. Besides, you know better than any of us what Dracula did to Nick."

Van Savage pushed his glasses up on his snout. "I think friend Nicholas should seek to settle his own grievances."

"And I," added Nick, "don't think this is a good idea, Carrots. If Dracula can do this much damage, I'd like to keep you as far away from him as possible. Maybe a nice trip to New Yak about now?"

She turned her eyes on him. "If you're in, I'm in."

He swallowed reluctantly and nodded. "I guess we're in," he assented.

All eyes turned to Doctor Seward, who simply nodded. "I'm not going to back out of this either," he agreed. "I was the first you trusted, Professor, and I'll be the last one to leave."

Van Savage nodded his satisfaction. "Very well. Then we are all of us pledged to this quest, as it were; to hunt down and destroy this monster and his devilish kinfolk from off the face of the earth. Tomorrow afternoon, such of us as have courage for it shall meet in the cemetery at noon and hide until all have left. We shall exorcise Lucy with none to hear, and meet again in no more than three days' time."

"What should we do in those three days?" asked Quincy.

The wolf's answer was gravity itself. "Set our affairs in order. This is a dark business from which some of us – perhaps all – may not come back living."

Neither Nick nor Judy said much about their little adventure until they were in the car on their way home. It was Judy who finally broke the silence.

"Okay, I'm just going to out and say it: that's going to put me off horror movies for at least three months."

"Six for me," chimed Nick, raising the corresponding number of claws. "I still feel like I've got PTSD from staying in Castle Dracula."

Judy resisted the urge to point out that it would be Dracul, not Dracula. "Fitwick really needs to make the fake memories less enduring. I still feel like I saw my sister as a vampire."

"Yeah," Nick agreed. Then, feeling the need to make a wisecrack – any wisecrack – he added, "And like your main goal in life was being a housewife."

As if my stomach wasn't twisted enough, thought Judy, grimacing. For that matter, the whole thing brought something else to mind. "And we never settled that bet either."

AN: The reference to Mr. Westenrut "returning to the clay" is an old euphemism for death, born from the account of God making Adam, the first man, from the ground in the book of Genesis. While most translations have God using dust – hence the saying "dust thou art, and to dust thou return" sometimes quoted at funerals – some present Him using river clay instead (perhaps because elsewhere God is compared to a potter). I have pretty much no idea how the first few chapters of Genesis would play out in a human-free world like Zootopia, but I'm assuming there would be some version of it there and that the image of God fashioning His final works out of the ground would be therein.

The attitudes present – such as Judy in particular being reluctant to travel together unmarried or to get married away from home – are fairly approximate to those of the late 1800s as reflected in Stoker's novel. While Mina (in whose place I have put Judy) ends up traveling with Van Helsing towards the end out of necessity, it would have been highly unorthodox to say the least for a couple to travel far from home until they were married. Eloping, meanwhile, not only carried a risk of scandal but was also rather rude as it deprived close friends and family the privilege of being present on that special day (which, if you think about it, hasn't changed much). Never the less, there were occasionally secret weddings and the like; the matter comes up, for example, in some of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

I have taken some liberties with Van Savage's personality, since in the novel I noted that he seemed to know too much with too little experience. He came across as a professional vampire hunter, as he has apparently been depicted in some movies since then, and yet other than his vast and certain knowledge of vampires gives no allusion to any prior experience with them whatsoever. Moreover, in my version Dracula is something of a new phenomenon, in as much as he has learned to transmit his vampirism to others with or without their acceptance. It happens that I believe in the supernatural up to a point (though not vampires or other walking dead), so I gave him more or less the mindset I would count most prudent if I were in his position. Unless stated otherwise, his attitudes and background on the subject will be more or less what I would employ if I were in his position myself, beginning with looking first to the evidence and only taking something for supernatural when the evidence pointed in that direction. It may bear mentioning at this juncture that I am by no means a ghost-chaser, but I have on two occasions encountered a sensation like the presence of pure evil. I'm in no hurry for a third, let me tell you.

Private home weddings were done in the Victorian era, but custom forbade marriages after three o'clock (this comes up in the Sherlock Holmes mystery, Scandal in Bohemia). Law forbade afternoon weddings completely until the 1880s, so it's arguable that the timing of this one would have been relatively new On the other hand, the original Dracula contains a fair number of details which fit that type, and a wedding as late in the day as possible would suit the heroes' ulterior motive. They would be able to get Lucy's mother suitably tired and discourage her coming in later at an inopportune moment.

A few popular superstitions are included here as well. The priest being a gray horse, for example, is a nod to the idea that such a horse pulling the wedding carriage was good luck. The bird on his shoulder is a nod to Saint Francis of Assisi, which has nothing to do with the story but seemed a convenient way for a horse to turn pages (birds can be trained to do a good many things). Dropping the ring was considered to bode well, as it ensured any evil spirits lurking in the band were shaken out. This seems laughable to us now, of course, but it is safe to suppose that in light of what they were up against Van Savage would want to leave no defense untried. The presence of rice is also period-accurate; showering the new couple with seeds of some kind as a symbol of fertility dates back all the way to ancient Rome, when nuts were used (and probably rather painful). In this case, the rice would serve a double purpose. It has long been held that vampires could not pass scattered seed without stopping to count it, or a broom without counting the bristles, so a room strewn with them would present a formidable barrier to Dracula indeed. This superstition has even been brought up in an episode of X-Files, and may well explain the Sesame Street Count's fixation with numbers.

The reference to Doctor Seward breaching custom by paying the priest for his services is true to history. In that time period, it was customary for the bride's parents to leave a wedding first (or the other way around, in this case) and the best man last after he paid the clergyman. As stated in the chapter, Doctor Seward takes this duty since he is not to leave at all.

Romfield is a play on the lunatic from the original Dracula, Renfield, and Romulus, the fabled founder of Rome who was suckled by a wolf as a baby. This version of Renfield is a wolf, of course, blending him with Berseker, a wolf Dracula "borrowed" from a zoo to break into Lucy's garlic-guarded room. Berseker, of course, is a corruption of Berserker.

Readers will notice I include some explanation of how vampirism works in this story, and that I break from tradition in having the generation of other vampires be a learned skill on Dracula's part. The former is largely that, next to vampires being some non-human species akin to Morlocks (a notion I first saw hinted at in Lost Tapes), a possessed corpse seems to be the explanation of vampirism which best meshes with the laws of life, death, and the supernatural as I know them. As for Dracula's generation of other vampires, that was actually an invention of Stoker's own – and not a very well-considered one, since he had it that Dracula had been stalking Transylvania for centuries at a rate of at least one child a night, and yet the country was somehow not overrun. I got around this by making the transmission of vampirism a kind of black magic, and obviously a very difficult one since it took even Dracula so long to sort it out.