The front door would not open, and knocking seemed a pointless exercise, so Eddy fired a shot into the lock. Additional encouragement from the shoulders of both men brought about the door's reluctant surrender. It flew open, revealing an entirely unexpected scene.
A great hall lay before them that appeared free of any wrongdoing.
'Is this the right house?' Jane asked.
'Even brothels have clean kitchens,' Porter said grimly. 'Keep your wits about you.'
They searched the vast ground floor first and found a library, living rooms, a kitchen, and a pantry. These were all empty and appeared in good order. Jane thought that whatever could be said of Dracula and his followers, at least they were tidy. There was a door that led to another part of the building, but it was locked.
'We can come back to that,' Porter said. Another door led down to a basement, but the doctor suggested they try upstairs first. 'There are more rooms up there. Time is against us, and we must cover as much territory as possible.'
They started up the stairs.
Cassandra, Jane thought. I'm coming for you.
They were halfway up the staircase when Jane inhaled a strange metallic smell in the air. She turned to the others with fear in her eyes.
'That's blood,' Max confirmed. 'I'd know that stench anywhere.'
They continued to the next floor. There were bedrooms and dressing rooms and parlours, but these were all empty. The rancid smell was still in the air as they went from room to room.
A final set of stairs led upwards. Stopping at the bottom, they peered up into the clinging gloom.
'That leaves only the attic,' Doctor Porter said. 'And that's where the smell's emanating from.' She turned to Jane. 'You may wish to stay here.'
'I must see—'
'If your sister lies here,' the doctor interrupted, 'you may wish to remember her as she was. Not as she now is.'
'If Dracula has killed her,' Jane said, 'then I want to see her body. That memory will drive me on to exact my revenge upon him.'
Reluctantly, the doctor nodded.
They climbed the stairs. Reaching the top, it was impossible to see what lay ahead. The windows were shrouded with thick curtains. The smell, however, was overpowering, as was the throbbing chorus of buzzing flies.
'There is death here,' Porter said.
'And much of it,' Eddy added.
'I'll find a lantern,' Max offered.
He headed back down the stairs, leaving Jane and the others in the darkened attic. Against the sound of the flies was something else. Jane strained her ears: it was the monotonous sound of chewing. The sound would pause, then resume.
'Do you hear that?' Jane asked.
'I do,' Porter said.
'Vampires sleep during the day,' Eddy said. 'Don't they?'
'They do,' Porter said. 'Their body clocks seem strangely attuned to the turn of the Earth. Several animals are the same. They only wake when the time is right.'
Max climbed back up the stairs, a lantern in his hand.
'Take heart, dear Jane,' Porter said, taking her hand. 'Abominations await us.'
The discordant glare from the lantern revealed the full extent of the attic—and the horror it contained. Jane bit back a cry, Eddy crossed himself, and Max muttered dear God. Bodies of men, women, and children were strewn about as if tossed by a freakish storm. There were at least a dozen of them. They lay among pieces of stored furniture, covered in sheets. Blood was everywhere. It dripped over fabric and gathered in drying puddles on the floor.
Necks had been torn open, and veins and muscles exposed. Jane's first thought was of a print she had seen in one of her father's many books. It was a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, depicting a hallucinatory view of Hell. This was the closest Jane had ever come to Satan's realm, and she prayed she would never come so close again.
The bodies were pale, but the glare of the oil lantern cast them in a stagnant mustard light. Their deaths were terrible enough, but it was the expressions on their faces that Jane knew would live with her forever. For most, it was as if their last moment had remained frozen on their faces. One woman's face was filled with terror. Another woman wore an expression of sad resignation. A man who lay draped across a chest of drawers appeared confused, as if unable to comprehend the horror being wrought upon him. A few, mostly the children, looked asleep. It was a blessing of a kind. Death had lent their visages the faces of seraphic angels.
Jane forced herself to gaze upon every face until she was sure that none was Cassandra.
Thank God, she thought. Thank you, dear Lord.
She and the others stared at the carnage. The people in the room were all dead. There could be no question of that, and yet still, the sound of chewing continued. Stepping carefully around the deceased, Doctor Porter let out a cry of disgust as she glanced behind a dresser. She kicked.
'Rats!' she snarled.
A pile of frenzied rodents scampered away into the darkness beyond the lamp's glare.
'Miss Austen,' Max said. 'None of these are your sister?'
'None,' Jane said.
'Then we must make haste,' Doctor Porter said. 'Only one room remains.'
They hurried down the stairs. Jane was relieved to leave the terrible, cloying smell of blood behind, but she doubted she would ever forget it. They returned to the locked door on the ground floor.
Eddy eyed the nearby window. 'The sun's on the horizon.'
'Then we must be quick,' Porter said. 'Men, put your shoulders to that door.'
Both Max and Eddy threw themselves against it, driven both by necessity and time. Jane eyed the nearby window. Sunset was so close.
We must hurry!
It wasn't the door that finally surrendered to the shoulders of the men. It was the doorframe. With an enormous crack, it broke and splintered, and the door half fell open to reveal what lay beyond. Max delivered a final kick to the shattered timber, and it flew open.
Like the attic, the interior wallowed in impenetrable darkness; the curtains had been drawn shut. The smell, however, was the same: the nauseating stench of blood. Jane and the others readied themselves as Max lifted the lantern. As the darkness surrendered to light, they stared at what lay within.
'Dear God,' Doctor Porter breathed.