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

The general's taste for undead girls was predictable. Kate hoped this one was cunning enough to rob him blind and drain him dry.
    She shook her head. Mireau shoved behind his companion.
    'Sister,' Kate said, 'you have very poor taste in blood.'
    The new-born wriggled. She was probably a dancer or an actress. Even more probably another spy.
    Kate bent to get her head into the car. Mireau's cold eyes held flames of fear. He pushed the new-born forward, encouraging a reluctant dog to fight. The vampire poodle opened her mouth to show tentative fangs. She attempted a hiss.
    Kate considered hauling the foolish girl out and giving her posterior a sound spanking. It would be cruel: she might rot to nothing in the sun.
    Father Pitaval was on his feet again, somewhat sheepish. The general was not getting value for his patronage.
    'Mireau, have you no shame?' she asked.
    Turning, she walked away from the lot of them. She heard shouting as the general abused his subordinates. A little spark of satisfaction warmed her heart. She had accomplished little, but at least Mireau was hurt enough to want to strike back. If she kept at it, she could have him.
    Perhaps there were more worthwhile bones to worry. Especially the bone marked Château du Malinbois.
    She got on her bicycle, and pushed off. On the road to the railway station, she whistled the 'Barcarolle' from Tales of Hoffmann, thinking of dancers and fliers.

8
     
Castle Keep
     
    Inside the Château du Malinbois, night was eternal. By day, the mediaeval slit windows were shuttered, the stone hallways lit only by infrequent candles. Deep in the damp guts of the castle, even a vampire felt the cold. Tiny drips of water were as constant as the granite-muffled pounding of the guns. Only the scientists' work quarters made use of electricity. In the examination room, dark corners were banished. Light shone without mercy. Merely to lie on the table was to expose one's interior workings.
    Leutnant Erich von Stalhein wondered if General Karnstein had chosen Malinbois to give the fliers a feeling of being buried alive, to increase their desire to get into the air. Aloft, with the freedom of the currents and the strength of the moon, they were loosed from the shackles of earth.
    Stalhein lay prone as Professor Ten Brincken checked another series of measurements. A brooding bear with shocks of grey hair on his beetle brows, the director was more dockyard bruiser than scientist. Perhaps his craze for the physical improvement of mankind sprang from awareness of his own ursine appearance.
    An arrangement of directed lamps was fixed above the table. Stalhein's bloodline throve on moonbeams but glowing wires in glass bulbs were no use to him. Cold, artificial light was unsatisfying.
    Dr Caligari, Jagdgeschwader 1's alienist, was in the room. Stalhein heard his clumsy waddling, smelled his reeking clothes. He privately thought Caligari a quack. Like Ten Brincken, he was fascinated by the vampire condition. In interviews, he always tried to draw Stalhein out, asking question after question about feeding.
    'The muscles of the neck and chest are more developed,' Ten Brincken told Caligari. 'It is pronounced enough to be calibrated. There would seem to be overall change. An evolution.'
    The scientists discussed him as if he were a truly dead corpse, dissected for their edification. Stalhein was accustomed to this treatment. It was his duty to the Kaiser to endure such examinations. No flier of JG1 was exempt, not even the Baron.
    Ten Brincken signalled the end of the examination by turning off the overhead lamps. With vampire quickness, Stalhein slid off the table and stood. Caligari, stared, cringed inside an ancient tailcoat. Stalhein dressed, pulling on breeches and boots, slipping into a good shirt. Ten Brincken, suddenly unctuous as a valet, held up his tunic. He backed into the sleeves, then fastened buttons from belly to collar.
    'Fine, fine, Leutnant,' Ten Brincken cooed. 'Most excellent.'
    Naked,