Free Anno Dracula 1918 - The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman Page A

newborns, often self-styled 'modems' and 'decadents', but vampires were still not entirely welcome in the best circles. Alfred Dreyfus had been a scapegoat because he was at once a Jew and a vampire.
    She bade Lantier goodbye and left the parade ground. Her trusty Hoopdriver bicycle was against an old cavalry hitching post by the main entrance. The staff car was still in the road outside.
    Kate knew there was danger. During the Terror, she had developed the sense. Her nails slid out like cat's claws.
    She stepped past the hedge into the road and looked at the car. There was a chauffeur in the front seat and the rear door was slightly open. Someone looked out at her with piggy eyes.
    'Ego te exorcisat,' a voice shrieked. 'Suffer, foul harlot, suffer the torments of the damned!'
    A black-robed man vaulted a low fence and rushed at her. A wild-eyed, white-haired priest had been crouching out of sight. She recognised him but had no time to summon a name from memory. Berating her in bad Latin and gutter French, the priest sloshed liquid in her face. Her glasses spattered with blurry blobs.
    Her thought was that the lunatic had thrown oil of vitriol. Acid ate vampire flesh to the bone. She would recover, but look like Lantier for the next fifty years. There was no burning, no hissing.
    The priest waved with his flask. Another splash struck her forehead and dribbled down. She tasted plain water. No, not plain water, she realised. Holy water.
    She laughed in surprise. Some Catholic vampires were sensitive to such things, but she was an Anglican of long standing. Her family were Prod to the marrow; when told Kate had turned, her father commented, 'At least the fool girl hasn't embraced the foul Antichrist of Rome.'
    The priest stood back smugly, prepared to enjoy the dissolution of a corrupt creature of hell. He pressed a large, crudely detailed crucifix to his breast and held up a fistful of Communion wafers.
    Her cap had come off and her hair flew loose. She picked her headgear up and patted her face with it.
    'I'm all wet, you idjit,' she said.
    The priest tossed the Communion wafer at her. He seemed to expect it to bite into her skull like a Japanese shuriken. The biscuit stuck to her damp forehead.
    Annoyed, she crunched the wafer in her mouth and spat out the fragments.
    'Where's the wine? I've the red thirst on me, now. Transubstantiate a bottle and I'll have blood to drink.'
    This attack had spurred her bloodlust. She must feed soon.
    The priest shook his cross and poured the curses of heaven on her. She saw a face dart back into the interior of the car. It had worn a French officer's kepi with a great deal of scrambled egg.
    'You are Father Pitaval. You were at the trial of Mata Hari.'
    Pitaval, some kind of renegade Jesuit, was Mireau's confessor. Also, it seemed, his tame vampire-killer.
    'You'll have to do better than this poor showing, Father.'
    He shoved his crucifix at her face and she pushed it away.
    'Look to your own conscience,' she shouted, at Mireau as much as the priest.
    He raised his crucifix like a dagger and stabbed at her chest. The end was jagged enough to serve as the proverbial stake, but she deflected the blow. Her tinted glasses fell off and she was in a world of blur. She saw a black shape coming for her and stepped aside. She pushed hard, catching the priest and tossing him towards the car.
    Scrambling in the grit, she found her glasses and replaced them. Pitaval crawled for the car. The door slammed shut before he could get there. The dark window rolled up, fast. Moving with vampire swiftness, she overleaped the priest and exerted an iron grip on the car door-handle. She wrenched the lock open, enjoying the popping of the mechanism.
    In the dark inside. General Mireau sat stiffly, staring hatred. He had a companion, a little new-born in a froth of white shroud. The minx had rouged her wrists where Mireau bound her with a rosary, misleading him about the effect of religious artefacts on vampire flesh.