Francis grabbed Marty's hand tight, and prayed.

'Don't die, man.'

Martin Sheen's heart wasn't listening. The beat stopped. Seconds pa.s.sed.

Another beat. Nothing.

Ion was at Francis's side. His fang-teeth were fully extended and his eyes were red. It was the closeness of death, triggering his instincts.

Kate, hating herself, felt it too.

The blood of the dead was spoiled, undrinkable. But the blood of the dying was sweet, as if invested with the life that was being spilled.

She felt her own teeth sharp against her lower lip.

Drops of her blood fell from her eyes and mouth, spattering Marty's chin.

She pounded his chest again. Another beat. Nothing.

Ion crawled on the bed, reaching for Marty.

'I can make him live,' he whispered, mouth agape, nearing a pulseless neck.

'My G.o.d,' said Francis, madness in his eyes. 'You can bring him back. Even if he dies, he can finish the picture.'

'Yesssss,' hissed the old child.

Marty's eyes sprang open. He was still conscious in his stalling body.

There was a flood of fear and panic. Kate felt his death grasp her own heart.

Ion's teeth touched the actor's throat.

A cold clarity struck her. This undead youth of unknown bloodline must not pa.s.s on the Dark Kiss. He was not yet ready to be a father-in-darkness.

She took him by the scruff of his neck and tore him away. He fought her, but she was older, stronger.

With love, she punctured Marty's throat, feeling the death ecstasy convulse through her. She swooned as the blood, laced heavily with brandy, welled into her mouth, but fought to stay in control. The lizard part of her brain would have sucked him dry.

But Katharine Reed was not a monster.

She broke the contact, smearing blood across her chin and his chest hair.

She ripped open her blouse, scattering tiny b.u.t.tons, and sliced herself with a sharpening thumbnail, drawing an incision across her ribs.

She raised Marty's head and pressed his mouth to the wound.

As the dying man suckled, she looked through fogged gla.s.ses at Francis, at Ion, at the camera operator, at twenty studio staff. A doctor was arriving, too late.

She looked at the blank round eye of the camera.

'Turn that b.l.o.o.d.y thing off,' she said.

The principles were a.s.sembled in an office at the studio. Kate, still drained, had to be there. Marty was in a clinic with a drip-feed, awaiting more transfusions. His entire bloodstream would have to be flushed out several times over. With luck, he wouldn't even turn. He would just have some of her life in him, some of her in him, forever. This had happened before and Kate wasn't exactly happy about it. But she had no other choice. Ion would have killed the actor and brought him back to life as a new-born vampire.

'There have been stories in the trades,' Francis said, holding up a copy of Daily Variety. It was the only newspaper that regularly got through to the company. 'About Marty. We have to sit tight on this, to keep a lid on panic. I can't afford even the rumour that we're in trouble. Don't you understand, we're in the twilight zone here. Anything approaching a shooting schedule or a budget was left behind a long time ago. We can film round Marty until he's ready to do close-ups. His brother is coming over from the States to double him from the back. We can weather this on the ground, but maybe not in the press. The vultures from the trades want us dead. Ever since Finian's Rainbow, they've hated me. I'm a smart kid and n.o.body likes smart kids. From now on, if anybody dies they aren't dead until I say so. n.o.body is to tell anyone anything until it's gone through me. People, we're in trouble here and we may have to lie our way out of it. I know you think the Ceausescu regime is fascist but it's nothing compared to the Coppola regime. You don't know anything until I confirm it. You don't do anything until I say so. This is a war, people, and we're losing.'

Marty's family was with him. His wife didn't quite know whether to be grateful to Kate or despise her.

He would live. Really live.

She was getting s.n.a.t.c.hes of his past life, mostly from films he had been in. He would be having the same thing, coping with scrambled impressions of her. That must be a nightmare all of its own.

They let her into the room. It was sunny, filled with flowers.

The actor was sitting up, neatly groomed, eyes bright.

'Now I know,' he told her. 'Now I really know. I can use that in the part.

Thank you.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, not knowing what for.

At a way-station, Swales is picking up fresh horses. The old ones, lathered with foamy sweat, are watered and rested.

Westenra barters with a peasant for a basket of apples. Murray smiles and looks up at the tops of the trees. The moon shines down on his face, making him look like a child.

Harker quietly smokes a pipe.

Harker's Voice: This was where we were to join forces with Van Helsing.

This stone-crazy double Dutchman had spent his whole life fighting evil.

Van Helsing strides out of the mountain mists. He wears a scarlet army tunic and a curly-brimmed top hat, and carries a cavalry sabre. His face is covered with old scars. Crosses of all kinds are pinned to his clothes.

Harker's Voice: Van Helsing put the fear of G.o.d into the Devil. And he terrified me.

Van Helsing is accompanied by a band of rough-riders. Of all races and in wildly different uniforms, they are his personal army of the righteous. In addition to mounted troops, Van Helsing has command of a couple of man-lifting kites and a supply wagon.

Van Helsing: You are Harker?

Harker: Dr Van Helsing of Amsterdam?

Van Helsing: The same. You wish to go to Borgo Pa.s.s, Young Jonathan?

Harker: That's the plan.

Van Helsing: Better you should wish to go to Hades itself, foolish Englishman.

Van Helsing's Aide: I say, Prof, did you know Murray was in Harker's crew.

The stroke of '84.

Van Helsing: Hah! Beat Cambridge by three lengths. Masterful.

Van Helsing's Aide: They say the river's at its most level around Borgo Pa.s.s. You know these mountain streams, Prof. Tricky for the oarsman.

Van Helsing: Why didn't you say that before, damfool? Harker, we go at once, to take Borgo Pa.s.s. Such a stretch of river should be held for the Lord. The Un-Dead, they appreciate it not. Nosferatu don't scull.

Van Helsing rallies his men into mounting up. Harker dashes back to the coach and climbs in. Westenra looks appalled as Van Helsing waves his sabre, coming close to fetching off his own Aide's head.

Westenra: That man's completely mad.

Harker: In Wallachia, that just makes him normal. To fight what we have to face, one has to be a little mad.

Van Helsing's sabre shines with moonfire.

Van Helsing: To Borgo Pa.s.s, my angels ... charge!

Van Helsing leads his troop at a fast gallop. The coach is swept along in the wake of the uphill cavalry advance. Man-lifting box-kites carry observers into the night air.

Wolves howl in the distance.

Between the kites is slung a phonograph horn.

Music pours forth. The overture to Swan Lake.

Van Helsing: Music. Tchaikowsky. It upsets the devils. Stirs in them memories of things that they have lost. Makes them feel dead. Then we kill them good. Kill them forever.

As he charges, Van Helsing waves his sword from side to side. Dark, low shapes dash out of the trees and slip among the horses' ankles. Van Helsing slashes downwards, decapitating a wolf. The head bounces against a tree, becoming that of a gypsy boy, and rolls down the mountainside.

Van Helsing's cavalry weave expertly through the pines. They carry flaming torches. The music soars. Fire and smoke whip between the trees.

In the coach, Westenra puts his fingers in his ears. Murray smiles as if on a pleasure ride across Brighton Beach. Harker sorts through crucifixes.

At Borgo Pa.s.s, a small gypsy encampment is quiet. Elders gather around the fire. A girl hears the Tchaikowsky whining among the winds and alerts the tribe.

The gypsies bustle. Some begin to transform into wolves.

The man-lifting kites hang against the moon, casting vast bat-shadows on the mountainside.

The pounding of hooves, amplified a thousandfold by the trees, thunders.

The ground shakes. The forests tremble.

Van Helsing's cavalry explode out of the woods and fall upon the camp, riding around and through the place, knocking over wagons, dragging through fires. A dozen flaming torches are thrown. Shrieking werewolves, pelts aflame, leap up at the riders.

Silver swords flash, red with blood.

Van Helsing dismounts and strides through the carnage, making head shots with his pistol. Silver b.a.l.l.s explode in wolf-skulls.

A young girl approaches Van Helsing's aide, smiling in welcome. She opens her mouth, hissing, and sinks fangs into the man's throat.

Three cavalrymen pull the girl off and stretch her out face-down on the ground, rending her bodice to bare her back. Van Helsing drives a five-foot lance through her ribs from behind, skewering her to the bloodied earth.

Van Helsing: Vampire b.i.t.c.h!

The cavalrymen congratulate each other and cringe as a barrel of gunpowder explodes nearby. Van Helsing does not flinch.

Harker's Voice: Van Helsing was protected by G.o.d. Whatever he did, he would survive. He was blessed.

Van Helsing kneels by his wounded Aide and pours holy water onto the man's ravaged neck. The wound hisses and steams, and the Aide shrieks.

Van Helsing: Too late, we are too late. I'm sorry, my son.

With a kukri knife, Van Helsing slices off his aide's head. Blood gushes over his trousers.

The overture concludes and the battle is over.

The gypsy encampment is a ruin. Fires still burn. Everyone is dead or dying, impaled or decapitated or silver-shot. Van Helsing distributes consecrated wafers, dropping crumbs on all the corpses, muttering prayers for saved souls.

Harker sits, exhausted, b.l.o.o.d.y earth on his boots.

Harker's Voice: If this was how Van Helsing served G.o.d, I was beginning to wonder what the firm had against Dracula.

The sun pinks the skies over the mountains. Pale light falls on the encampment.

Van Helsing stands tall in the early morning mists.

Several badly-wounded vampires begin to shrivel and scream as the sunlight burns them to man-shaped cinders.

Van Helsing: I love that smell ... spontaneous combustion at daybreak. It smells like ... salvation.

Like a small boy whose toys have been taken away, Francis stood on the rock, orange cagoul vivid against the mist-shrouded pines, and watched the cavalry ride away in the wrong direction. Gypsy extras, puzzled at this reversal, milled around their camp set. Storaro found something technical to check and absorbed himself in lenses.

No one wanted to tell Francis what was going on.

They had spent two hours setting up the attack, laying camera track, planting charges, rigging decapitation effects, mixing kensington gore in plastic buckets. Van Helsing's troop of ferocious cavalry were uniformed and readied.