CEMETERY GIRLS

Someone small brushed by Genevieve.

'Past that child's bedtime, I should have thought,' said Bond.

She looked around but saw no child.

'Naughty little devil,' the spy mused.

'In this company, you shouldn't judge age by looks, Commander Bond. Melissa, my grandmother-in-darkness, is one of those forever children, turned as a six-year-old. She's been "fwightfully cwoss" for the best part of a thousand years.'

She wondered if Melissa d'Acques were here. Genevieve hadn't heard of the old girl in over a hundred years. Once, that would have meant that the elder had been destroyed. Now, it suggested she was one of that circle who disapproved of Dracula's showboating. Some were so used to living in shadow that they would never forgive il principe for taking the public stage, shattering forever the exclusivity of vampirism.

The word went round that Dracula was expected soon.

Penelope was receiving orders from Princess Asa, who had changed her outfit twice already during the party. Two hundred years hadn't altered her imperious looks. The odd creation she now wore was as apt for Mongo as Moldavia.

Asa had a savage, almost Mongol face. Currently, it was framed by a demon ruff of lizard-like material, which served as collar for a turquoise satin train supported by a pair of dwarves made up as turbaned blackamoors. Under the cape, she wore an abbreviated brass Valkyrie breastplate and a short skirt of chain mail and leather. The spike heels of her thigh-length jackboots added as much to her height as her topiary tower of hair. The Princess carried a coil of bullwhip, the like of which she must have used to knout her peasants back in the good old days.

Bond was taken with the Royal Fiancee. Genevieve thought the Princess looked ridiculous, but in this company it took a lot to stand out. And Asa Vajda certainly stood out.

Penelope nodded curtly as she accepted each royal decree. There would be trumpets, torches and a cannonade from the battlements. Penny argued that it might be more politic for the cannons to be pointed out to sea rather than over the town.

'A fall of chain-shot is a poor substitute for confetti, Princess,' she said.

'Pah!' declared Asa. 'What care we for mortals! They should be grateful to bleed and die in commemoration of my happiness. If we fire out to sea, what will happen? Only fish will die. I like not fish.'

Penelope looked at the end of her rope. Genevieve had an impulse to help the Englishwoman.

'It's traditional for Dracula's guns to fire at the sea,' she put in. 'To avenge the flood of 1469, which cut off the retreating Turks and prevented Vlad's armies from hacking the foemen to pieces.'

Foemen, that was good. Very fifteenth century. Asa swivelled her enormous eyes.

'The Dieudonne girl,' she said. 'Carmilla Karnstein's little friend.'

'So pleased to see you again, Asa.'

Three hundred years ago, Melissa d'Acques had called a gathering of female elders in the Black Forest. They were supposed to debate some point of nosferatu protocol none could understand, but Genevieve alone realised it was because her grandmother-in-darkness was lonely for new playmates. They'd spent the month dressing up and chasing huntsmen in the woods. Princess Asa hadn't liked Genevieve then, and wasn't about to change her opinion now.

'Chut,' Asa said, which might be either a Moldavian greeting or a deadly insult.

'Chut to you too, cherie.'

'This flood of 1469...?'

She had made it up, of course.

'A rebuke to Poseidon. Il principe will be honoured.'

'Very well,' decided the Princess. 'Englishwoman, you may bombard the waves.'

Penelope was relieved. Like Caligula, she could now claim victory over the sea.

A red ball bounced off the dance floor. Asa looked at it as if it were an interloper.

'And have this ball burst,' she ordered.

The point of tyranny was to be arbitrary. Asa had probably read her Machiavelli and was trying to surpass his model. Sometimes, it did to issue meaningless commands to see how swiftly one's retainers snapped to.

Kate Reed stumbled out of the crowd, apparently following the ball. She was in a state. Her eyes were enlarged and red. There was blood on her mouth and down the front of her dress. She was so fixated on the ball that she tripped.

Genevieve caught the woman. Kate struggled a bit, then slowly recognised her.

'If it isn't Mademoiselle Perfect,' she said.

Genevieve knew better than to be hurt. Kate was well gone into the red madness.

'Do you know how you make the rest of us feel?' Kate continued. 'You, the lady elder, the vampire saint, the marble adventuress? Sixteen and milky-white on the outside, with all that genius and generosity of spirit caged up inside you?'

Genevieve looked at Penelope and Asa. Neither commented.

'I'm like you, Kate,' she said. 'I'm not special.'

Kate laughed bitterly, to the point of tears.

'It's no wonder you won him,' Kate said. 'None of us had a chance. You're like a statue. Beside you, we're all ratty little kids. We change and shrivel and die, and you go on and on and on, always perfect, always modestly triumphant. The rest of us are the wreckage left behind.'

'I think you've had enough to drink, Katie,' said Penelope.

'Yes, I know. I'm sorry, Genevieve. You're right. I'm not being me.'

Despite everything, a sliver of ice got through. Kate was drunk, but could still think. Perhaps drink only freed her to say what she'd always thought. Perhaps Genevieve was an impossible presence. In the end, everyone she knew suffered.

She tried to find the love in her heart, the thing that made her different from Asa Vajda or Prince Dracula, the constant throb she'd felt for Charles, and through him for his warm world. Momentarily, she thought it was there no longer.

'I've hurt you,' Kate said, reaching out for her cheek, fingertip touching a tear. 'I'm sorry. I'm wrong. You're still alive.'

Kate was crying too. Penelope held her tight.

Again, the three were joined by tears.

'No one must weep at my party,' Asa said. 'This I decree. All must smile, all must be happy. On pain of impalement.'

'I apologise, Princess,' began Penelope. 'My friend meant no...'

Asa flicked out the tip of her whip and slapped Penelope across the face as if with her open hand.

The whipcrack was like a gunshot.

Bond flinched, hand slipping into his jacket. Then he relaxed. This was women's business. He could enjoy the show.

Kate was suddenly calm. She set the shocked Penelope, whose face bore a broad red mark specked with blood, down in a chair, and faced up to Asa Vajda, who was at least eighteen inches the taller.

'You old cow,' she said, and punched the Princess in the throat.

Asa staggered under the blow, unsteady on her heels. Her imps tripped under the train and tugged it off her shoulders. A clasp at the neck snapped. The Princess emerged from her satin shroud and lashed again with the whip.

Kate caught the leather snake with her forearm and wrapped it several times around her wrist, tugging on it like a lasso, further unbalancing Asa. Both women wore heels, but Kate could kick off her Perugia shoes and fight in her stocking feet. She did so, and lost another three inches.

Princess Asa's face swelled at the sides, as if teeth were sprouting around her eyes and along the insides of her jaws.

'It's not a good idea to bash the bride,' Bond said. 'Why don't you girls kiss and make up.'

Kate yanked hard on the whip, pulling Asa toward her, within range of her clawed hand. She got her fingers in the Princess's hair and dismantled the beehive, flopping black strands over her face. Red wheals were scratched across Asa's cheek, but healed at once.

With terrier-like ferocity, Kate lifted Asa off the floor and slammed her several times against a column. The Princess's head slapped back and forth and she screeched with fury. Kate dropped her and stood back, letting her recover a little.

Asa kicked out with a booted leg and caught Kate behind the knees, sweeping her off the floor. She fell badly, whip still around her wrist, and the Princess placed a boot-toe on her forehead.

'Yield,' she said, an Amazon addressing an ant.

Of course, everyone in the room gathered around, watching. Flashbulbs popped. Kate lay like a beached fish, the fight gone out of her.

Genevieve felt more tears on her cheek.

'That's enough, Asa,' she said.

'She must yield,' the Princess said. 'For that, I will reward her with a swift, merciful death.'

'You can't do that any more, Asa. You haven't been able to do that for years. You don't own serfs any more. You don't have a right to take their lives.'

Asa looked down at Kate, then at Genevieve. She was not a stupid barbarian. That was what frightened Genevieve. Nothing was worse than a clever barbarian.

'You are right, Genevieve of the line of d'Acques. In this century, we have let things slip. Peasants dare to strike their betters...'

'I'm not a peasant,' gurgled Kate. 'I'm a journalist. Haut bourgeois, I admit. Remember the bourgeoisie, Princess. We superseded feudal chieftains in the eighteenth century.'

Asa slipped her heel into Kate's mouth, shutting off her talk.

'This is where everything changes back,' decreed the Princess. 'This is where things become as they ought to be.'

Genevieve knew she would kill Asa before the Princess could further hurt Kate. And then she would be torn apart herself. Dracula would arrive at his party just in time to dip his fingers in her cooling blood.

It had been the same at Melissa's gathering. Put female vampire elders in a room and they take to fighting like cats.

Princess Asa reached out a hand.

'You there, fat man with a beard,' she said, to Orson Welles.

The genius was surprised to be singled out, but not displeased.

'I have need of your sword,' Asa said.

Welles held what looked like a silver-plated cavalry sabre, already stained red.

'Let it be known,' shouted the Princess as she took Welles's sword, 'that, as in Moldavia, I am prepared to act as my own headsman.'

She took her foot off Kate's face and raised the sword.

'So perish all who defy the Princess Asa Dracula!'

The sword flashed as it came down on Kate's neck.