Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard

by Kim Newman

Like the black men outside the Chelsea, the taxi driver was a danger. Johnny had marked him. It was good to know who would come for you, to be prepared. The white man’s name was written on his licence just as his purpose was stamped on his face. It was Travis.

‘Someday a red rain’s gonna come,’ said the taxi driver. ‘And wash the scum off the streets.’

The cab driver stood over him. There were others, in a circle. A crowd of Fearless Vampire Killers. The silent nun. The black man with wooden knives. The black man with the crossbow. The cop who’d sworn to break the Transylvania Connection. An architect, on his own crusade to avenge a family bled dead by dhamps. The ageing beatnik from the psychedelic van, with his smelly tracking dog. A red-skinned turncoat devil boy with the tail and sawn-off horns. The exterminator with the skull on his chest and a flame-thrower in his hands. This company of stone loners was brought together by a single mission, to put an end to Johnny Pop. He had known about them all, but never guessed they might connect with each other. This city was so complicated.

Andy Warhol was a vampire for only fifteen minutes.

Five minutes ago - last year, last decade - she’d started to explain proper dating to a greying California boy, an ex-activist they called ‘the Dude’. His eyes, already glazed from the weed he’d been toking throughout the party, grew heavy-lidded. She doubted he’d drawn a straight breath since Jefferson Airplane changed their name. She quite liked the Dude’s eyes, in any condition.

As the camera makes its way through it, towards the lighted window of the castle, there are revealed rare and exotic blooms of all kinds: Mariphasa lupino lumino, strange orchid, Audriensis junior, Triffidus celestus.

‘Who are you?’ ‘The Slayer,’ said the girl, gesturing with her stake. ‘Barbie, the Vampire Slayer.’

The detective touched his eyebrow as if to tuck his smelly cigar behind his ear like a pen, and made great play of thinking hard, trying to work through the story he had been told. He was obviously used to people lying to him, and equally obviously unused to dealing with vampires.

‘Who lives there?’ Geneviève asked. ‘In-bred backwoods brood,’ said Nico. ‘Orson says they struck it rich down in Texas and moved to Beverly Hills. You know, swimming pools, movie stars...’ ‘Oil?’ ‘Chilli sauce recipe.

Tonight Frost had to take care of Spinal Tap, an English metal band from the ‘Where Are They Now?’ file who didn’t yet know they’d be the opening act of A Concert for Transylvania.

Thanks to do-gooders like Geneviève’s cop pal Knight and the romantic novelist Fitzroy, Toronto was known as a hole for Granpa Munsters.

Once, a contract had been put on Geneviève’s head with Mr Yee, greatest of all Chinese vampire assassins. She’d wormed her way out of that. The woman had survived notorious Slayers like the Crook, the Crimson Executioner, Anita Blake and Captain Kronos.