Free Gideon Smith and the Mechanical Girl by David Barnett

said tightly.
    Stoker felt suddenly fearful. “Your husband? Is he here?” Bathory looked down at her glass of wine. “No, Mr. Stoker.
    My husband is not here. That is the reason I am.” She looked up at him. “Dracula is dead, Mr. Stoker. Properly, finally dead.
    And I am on the trail of his murderers.”
    Stoker was burning with questions. Bathory smiled and said, “But enough for now. Have you tried this Wensleydale?
    There are cranberries in it. Most diverting.”
    Stoker munched thoughtfully and asked, “How did you . . .
    become as you are?”
    “A vampire?” asked Bathory. “Dracula. He found me when I was near death and saved me.”
    “This was your death in the castle? Where you had been imprisoned?”
    Bathory nodded. “I was not a good person, Mr. Stoker. I was a vain, arrogant woman who felt all the good things in life belonged to the young, and endeavored to extend my youth with the blood of virgins.”
    “And you bathed in it? And it restored your youth?”
    “I did bathe in the blood of murdered women, yes. And no, it did not work. I was tried and jailed in my own castle to starve.
    And as I hovered between this life and the punishments of eternity, I was offered an opportunity to redeem myself.”
    “By Dracula?”
    She nodded. “He had lived many lifetimes by then, and he had heard about me and my crimes. Where others could not venture, he breached the walls of my prison. At first I thought he was the angel of death, come to take me to my final judgment.
    Then he bestowed upon me his kiss, and drew his thumbnail across his forearm, and bade me drink of his own blood. Thus, I was transformed.”
    “Count Dracula and Elizabeth Bathory together,” said Stoker wonderingly. “Your reign of terror must have been absolute.”
    A distant look entered her eye. “Men create their own monsters, Mr. Stoker. If you are not understood, you are to be feared and ultimately destroyed. Unless you strike first.”
    “But the stories . . . ,” pressed Stoker. “Preying on innocent victims, drinking their blood . . . Like that holidaymaker in Whitby.” He paused. “And my dream the night before . . .
    the face at the window . . .”
    She smiled. “I was curious, Mr. Stoker, about this man whom the newspapers said was investigating .” Her face darkened. “As for that brute forcing himself upon the girl? He got everything he deserved.”
    Stoker frowned. “You were protecting her?”
    Bathory looked Stoker in the eye. “My husband was demonized by those who said he took young girls and transformed them into monsters.” She sat back and regarded him. “What do you know of women, Mr. Stoker?”
    He frowned. “I am married, Countess.”
    She nodded. “Then you know when a girl’s blood comes, it unlocks a new life for her. It is the transition between being a child and becoming an adult. You know what I mean by blood?” Stoker reddened. He of course knew all about Florence’s monthlies, but it was not a topic for polite conversation. As he had already established, however, this was a most unusual dinner. “Of course,” he mumbled.
    “The blood sets her free. It enables her to embrace the world of love and passion, and to create life herself. What Dracula understood, and I later came to understand, is that there can come a time when bloodletting can unlock yet another life, a third life beyond childhood and adulthood. Vampirism is yet another transition, Mr. Stoker. The giving and receiving of blood takes the woman on to the next level of existence. It is the ultimate emancipation for women who live their lives under the yoke of man’s slavery.”
    “A rather . . . forward-thinking attitude,” he murmured.
    “And you have . . . set many women free into this new and secret phase of life?”
    “Dozens,” said Bathory, her teeth gleaming in the moon light. “At Castle Dracula, I have an army of them.” An army of vampiric women, all as passionate and abandoned and emancipated as Elizabeth