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ordered all those items from the hardware store, doubtless being delivered at that moment to Royal Crescent? Why else, after allowing Gideon to peruse Le Fanu’s notebook, did he now find himself murmuring, surprising even himself, the words “Mr. Smith, it is my profound belief that Count Vlad Dracula still thrives in a most unholy state, four hundred years after his death. It is not inconceivable he could be responsible for your father’s disappearance. Tell me, what do you know of vampires?” The sky was already black on the horizon, and to the west the sun had dipped behind the hills and moors, painting the underside of the straggling clouds bloodred. The imagery was not lost on Gideon, who quickened his pace on the coast road. He didn’t know what to make of Stoker’s theory. If Peek thought Gideon’s fears about the Cold Drake outlandish, what would the fishermen make of the tall Irish writer? They’d think him mad, and Gideon wasn’t wholly sure he didn’t agree. But Captain Trigger himself had faced the undead. Gideon searched his memory and recalled The Endless Night of the North, in which Trigger and the Yankee adventurer Louis Cockayne had battled an undead creature that preyed on young girls in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. He hurried to his cottage and let himself in, checking that all the doors were locked before taking an oil lamp upstairs where he sought out the issue of World Marvels & Wonders . He read the story until drowsiness overtook him. Gideon made to blow out the lamp, then paused as the shadows danced. Just this once, he would leave the light on while he slept.
    The beaching of the Dmitri had brought excitement to Whitby, but in summer excitement was by no means rationed in the port town. It had been the destination of holidaymakers for half a century, and one such tourist was Robert, a good-looking, tall young man from mill-owning stock in Bradford, who had paid Ella Rainford good deal of compliments as he bought cod and chips from the shop where she worked. She had seen his like often enough, but she had allowed herself to be flattered by his attentions and had primly agreed to meet him after her shift. They had looked at the wreck of the Dmitri, then taken a small beer from the street vendors. Ella informed Robert that she must be home by ten, and he was welcome to walk her. The alley they now found themselves in was just two narrow streets away from Ella’s family cottage. She had found him agreeable enough company, and she was ready to consent to meeting him the next evening if he suggested it. Robert, however, was not planning to wait.
    “Robert?” she queried, as he shoved her hard against a shadowy alcove. “Robert! What is the meaning—”
    “You know full well,” he said, then planted hot, wet kisses on Ella’s bare neck, and took a rough, stolen handful of her skirts. “I’ve heard you Whitby girls like to entertain the tourists.”
    Robert placed his body scandalously close to Ella’s. “Like that, do you?” he breathed heavily, just before realizing Ella had not gone slack in submission, but in reaction to a presence he now felt at his back, making the hairs on his neck stand on end and his skin crawl. “Who’s there?” he asked, turning and peering into the darkness. The shadows in the alley deepened and fell upon him before he even had time to scream.
    Stoker gasped, convulsed, and shocked himself awake with a throbbing head. He reached from the tangled bedsheets for his pocket watch on the bedside table and peered at its face in the moonlight shafting through the open windows. A little after three. Burning shame colored his cheeks as he realized he had ejaculated. How odd. He hadn’t done that since he was little more than a boy. Half- glimpsed dreams clouded his mind and disappeared like dandelion clocks as he tried to grasp them. One thing was certain: His dreams had not been of Florence. He considered changing his sheets, but he felt tiredness weigh down