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  DRACULA OF THE APES

  Book One: The Urn

  G. Wells Taylor

  Copyright 2014 by G. Wells Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover Design by G. Wells Taylor

  Edited by Katherine Tomlinson

  More titles at GWellsTaylor.com.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Preface to the Journal of the Gypsy Horvat

  FROM THE GYPSY HORVAT’S JOURNAL

  CHAPTER 1 6th November, 1893. The Castle

  CHAPTER 2 6th November, 1893. A Master’s Wisdom

  CHAPTER 3 7th November, 1893. Transylvania at Night

  CHAPTER 4 7th November, 1893. Race to Varna

  CHAPTER 5 12th November, 1893. Bound for Africa

  CHAPTER 6 25th November, 1893. The Westerner Goes South

  CHAPTER 7 3rd December, 1893. Shipwreck

  CHAPTER 8 3rd January, 1894. Orphan

  CHAPTER 9 10th October, 1894. Survivors

  Sample The Ape Book 2 in the Dracula of the Apes trilogy by G. Wells Taylor

  Other titles by G. Wells Taylor

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Connect with the Author

  Acknowledgments:

  A special thanks to the irreplaceable Katherine Tomlinson who edited these books.

  Many thanks also to Robert A. Cotton author of Sailing the Great Lakes: A Photographic History of Schooners, Steamers & Lake Boats, 1880 – 1960.

  This trilogy is dedicated to the authors of the classic novels that inspired its creation.

  Bram Stoker

  Dracula

  &

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Tarzan of the Apes

  Preface to the Journal of the Gypsy Horvat:

  I am growing accustomed to the nauseating pitch of this ship upon the sea, and while it can distract me still, focusing on this journal gives me some respite.

  I have finally found a place where I might take a moment to record the events that brought me to these bitter straits, and do so hoping that my master’s soul might forgive me this betrayal of confidence. If there were any chance that I might find my way back to civilization I would not speak, but I have lost all hope for any safe return.

  My journey began on that horrible night.

  The horsemen had chased my master’s leiter-wagon close to the road near the very castle walls, and there set upon him and his guard. The swords and knives of my comrades were no match for the repeating rifles that flashed in the hands of their foes.

  It was over so quickly, and yet the final moments were drawn out. As the only living witness and that one commanded to silence, I felt like I was bleeding to death, and then...

  Overcome with fear of the descending night, perhaps with the realization of what they had done; the westerners rushed through their infernal business, throwing holy wafers upon my dear master’s remains to defile them.

  They packed up their dead comrade, alighted upon nervous mounts and raced for the Borgo Pass with plans, no doubt, to pursue the sun into the west.

  The foreign invaders had failed to see me in my hiding place above the road as they battled my Gypsy brothers. I had climbed the cliffs that girded the castle and watched from a rocky shelf as was my duty—as I had been commanded.

  I cursed these interlopers for their treachery, and prayed that the time might come when my master could face them on his own terms.

  In the meantime, I hoped they would enjoy the honor guard of wolves that howled in the woods to every side; the beasts eager to escort these bloody villains from this scene of slaughter. Should any of the English devils survive their retreat, they would rue the day they’d ever set foot in Transylvania.

  And yet that hope was like the curved blade of a Cossack’s saber and bore two sharp edges for only when the murderers had fled could I set my master’s plans into action, and then such dangerous travel would I also have to endure for a time.

  I would steal away to allies in the south, bearing what was left of the master as was written in his book. A long and dangerous journey awaited me, but I thrilled to contemplate its great design for in what better place to bring about his resurrection than on the Dark Continent?

  CHAPTER 1

  FROM THE GYPSY HORVAT’S JOURNAL

  6th November, 1893. The Castle

  The devils! They have done it. I was breathless for a fleeting moment, unable to comprehend the act, able only to watch. Aghast—I was pushed beyond feeling.

  It was unthinkable, truly; it had seemed impossible until the sharp knives struck home and slashed his noble flesh.

  Shock had stayed my hand in part.

  But there it was. Done.

  My master was dead. Dark blood described his final moments of agony in the snow, but nowhere did the scarlet scrawl my name.

  A name. The name of one who had loved him so. One who would have given his life for the slightest acknowledgment.

  That name did not appear there in the crimson carnage upon the snowy road.

  And little wonder.

  For I had watched. That was what had stricken me then, and struck me now—paralyzed. But as I had watched, I was torn, destroyed by my need to act but constrained to inaction. There had only been suffering for I had been commanded to wait. That was my duty! But duty had never been so strained.

  I would have gladly given up all of my life in action, but my orders had been clear. I was to be the one step past the last line of defense. And so, here I stood, heartbroken, and despairing—waiting.

  In me, in me alone, Master—hope!

  At first, I had feared the worst as the murderous foreigners had spoken of fire and total cleansing. Part of my training involved education in several languages with English but one among them, so I was able to understand their terrible intent. However, the westerners were eager to avoid the reprisals that would surely come after my brethren had regrouped, and so after some discussion about my master’s dear remains, I breathed a sigh of relief when the oldest of their number spoke in halting English.

  On he went about the most fine, loving, men of God who had brought true and pure revenge on him that was son of the devil. Slayers of he who would not rise again, being lowly dust and ash now, and so the souls of Lucy, and good strong Quincy could rest in peace, now that they had been avenged.

  The old braggart’s companions knew that Gypsy soldiers still lurked nearby in the dark forest and all could hear the ravening wolves gathering in the shadows and whining for blood.

  So, as I watched these foreigners take to the western road, I ran over my master’s instructions in my mind. Outlined years before and kept secret ever since, they were detailed and of such importance that I had written some of them on the sheet of vellum that I kept always, rolled and pressed tight over my heart.

  The scroll held only a small fraction of the master’s instructions, but was all that I was commanded to act upon at the outset. The rest had been put down in their entirety, inked in a book that the master kept hidden in a place I had been told, and had directions to, again, in the event the worst had happened.

  Never had I wished to see that book again for only the direst circumstances would allow me near it. Circumstances like that which I had just witnessed. A slaughter of the one I loved, the lord of all these lands.

  The thought brought fresh tears to my eyes, and I gazed up at the broken buttresses and crumbled walls overhead. Like bones of a dead god, the stony ruins of his castle soared high above me, black against the purple sky.

&nbs
p; A gasp escaped me as the tears soaked into my beard, and I scowled after the murderers who raced for safety upon the western road. I cast the evil eye upon them, and cursed their families and their friends and their homes.

  “Master!” I groaned, climbing from my hiding place, and making my way across the tumbled ruins of the outer wall.

  I had been given a task of vast importance, and yet it was a task that I could never foresee, so powerful had been my master, and so indomitable his history. But, I was to set his plans into action now by first collecting his remains. Afterwards I would climb the stair and retrieve his book, but there was no time to waste, and so as I crossed the road I carried the unworthy receptacle that happenstance had forced into my hands.

  I’d heard the approaching confrontation while I was upon the castle wall awaiting my master’s return. He had been calling out to me for days. In dreams and from shadows did his voice come, but it had arrived as a whisper, no more, a quiet utterance that he was on his way.

  Almost had it sounded muffled, like some force had interfered with its sending.

  So, I was startled to see the master approach at speed under a setting sun. In the distance his wagon had come hurtling toward the castle pulled by terrified horses and harried by enemies close behind. The scene unfolded so quickly I’d barely had time to find a place of concealment from which to watch.

  After the deed was done, I had only an instant to retrieve a large metal bucket from an abandoned guard chamber at the main gate. It would have to do. I had no assurances that the westerners would not return and add my blood to that which covered the road, so time was of the essence.

  There were other dangers too.

  In what manner I collected the remains depended entirely upon the condition of my master’s body after death. Being a creature of extreme power, there were few things that could bring him so low, yet some devilish methods remained and for each of those the master had wisely provided instructions.

  Nausea gripped me as I replayed the thought of his voyage to the west. His plan had seemed reckless and extravagant to me, and I could not understand its purpose or justify the risks—though I would never have given voice to my apprehensions.

  Had the master desired to extend his reach? Was his power here in the wooded lands not enough? Or had he grown bored with ruling ignorant peasants and now required some new challenge for his superior mind?

  He had grown quiet in the decades before this journey, aging it seemed almost—impossibly, but his hair had gone white and thin without luster, while his back had bent and shoulders became stooped like an old man’s. And his moods had trended ever more toward the black.

  But as dangerous as his intentions had sounded to me, the master had not lived for centuries without having other plans in mind. Such was the intellect and ambition of so great a lord that it was not for a lowly Gypsy like me to judge or question.

  Regardless, I still wished I had implored him to adopt some other plan.

  In my mind the conversation I had never dared to provoke sounded like this: “Stay here, dear master, where you are feared, for that dread protects you like an obscuring fog, disguising your movements and intent. London is not Transylvania. Their ways are not our ways, and as I have read, science has come to replace religion and God, and dispels what remains of their fear of the night. If they do not fear you, then you are in danger when you are at your most vulnerable. Please reconsider...”

  Of course, I did not say these things. I could not without risking his wrath, for he did not suffer fools or the words of lesser men, and to him I was both.

  But I could not resist the notion of the fantastic conversation and in it, he honored me with a reply—something I could fashion from fragments of things he had said in the past.

  “I have gold aplenty, and gold still glows even to the scientific mind, and also such minds are less inclined to think in terms of the super nature that abounds, and that itself will hide me from their eyes. Instead of fear, I can protect myself with facts and pragmatism that already blinds them to the truths of the natural world. And I will not be alone; there is one like yourself in place there that will guard me in the daylight hours. Nor have I set a simple plan in motion.”

  And there at my feet was the result of his plan.

  I used a large leather pack to carry the things I needed if I were sent on errands, so that would have done for simple decapitation or dismemberment or other death that could reduce the master’s body to pieces.

  But the westerners had been efficient in their bloody way; the result had been grim, and destruction almost total.

  A knife to the heart and decapitation had turned my dear master to dust.

  But few who knew his power would lose all hope, for he had been lord of the mountainous lands that lay in each direction from his castle for almost five centuries now, and of life and death he had been the judge and jury.

  I stood by the scene of slaughter with the old bucket tucked under my arm, and on a whim looked up to scan the sky for signs. The old traditions said that each man’s death was heralded by a falling star, so I could not resist a little smile when I found that the only things that fell to earth were snowflakes.

  I crouched in the bloody snow and scooped his remains from the box in which he had traveled, heedless of the fine black earth that had been intermixed by the violence of his end, pausing only to remove the crumbled pieces of holy wafer that his murderers had thrown upon the precious ash and dust.

  As I worked, I contemplated my brother Gypsies.

  Those who had survived the battle had done so by fleeing into the woods on their horses or surrendering to the barking Winchester rifles, but half of those had quickly rallied their spirits, and in their shame gone with the leiter-wagon to fetch other men and fresh horses from the garrison stable to give chase.

  Any who had shown frailty or fear might never return to the castle grounds, and those of our brothers who had only yielded to impossible odds could exorcise their own cowardice by slaying their master’s killers.

  Still others who had been overwhelmed by the sight of their master in full fury, and defeat, would doubtless slay themselves in grief and shame for having failed at their sworn duty.

  Unlike me, the Gypsy Horvat, they did not know that their failure might have only been a temporary end; that if things worked as the master had said his preparations might allow, then happiness could come again to this place.

  I breathed deeply then to steady my heartbeat, and sought a more practical thought, for even the master could not be certain, with such powerful forces arrayed against him, and even now with him in the dark embrace of death.

  Who could know with certainty what the future held?

  I knelt by one of my dead brothers and positioned him so that he balanced upon his knees with his face slumped forward. I hoisted him again and drew the bucket with my master’s remains under his chin so I could set the dead man’s shoulder upon it.

  Then with a quick slash of my knife I opened his throat, and massaged it vigorously until some thick spurts and dribbles of blood poured over the ashy remains. With my bare hands I kneaded this sticky fluid into the dry remnants until they had thickened and become a dark and ashy paste with the consistency of bread dough.

  I pushed my dead brother aside, lifted the precious bucket and clutched it to my chest.

  Another glance to the west and I saw a small group of Gypsy riders take to the road and gallop in pursuit of the master’s killers.

  I turned aside as they departed, and hurried to the castle.

  Echoes upon the road and in the wood that grew to either side had frightened me during my recovery effort, and I’d started several times thinking the westerners had returned, or that the news of my master’s demise had carried so quickly.

  He had ruled his lands with the ferocity of a dragon, and once the villagers around became emboldened, they would travel to the castle to plunder his treasure and exact their vengeance.

  CHAPTER 2<
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  FROM THE GYPSY HORVAT’S JOURNAL

  6th November, 1893. A Master’s Wisdom

  I passed the ruined chapel, my eyes locked upon the circle of amber light at my feet, spilled there by the lantern I’d lit while entering the enclosed grounds.

  Around me, the darkness echoed, my lantern a mere mote of light in the utter blackness.

  I followed the dim light for even the meager illumination was better than stumbling through the gloom. On every side there were pits dug in the floor, and heaps of earth had been piled where gravestones tilted out of the mounds.

  This area had held secrets of my master’s past and had promised eternal rest to those who had come before him. But now, in the dark, with only my lantern to guide me, the shadows that pressed in were total, and offered only the stench of the grave to show their presence.

  Somewhere close at hand I heard stones clatter, as though someone had stumbled on the uneven earth. Then came a nearby sound like breath whooshing from a man’s chest, and I halted in my passage to swing the lantern behind me.

  The dim light colored distant heaps of sand and stone a dull rose color, and if I moved the lantern at all, shadows leapt and drifted over the tortured landscape like so many lost souls.

  But there was no one following.

  I hunched my shoulders as I turned the lantern and offered my back to the closing darkness, then followed the light to the tower wall and through a wide doorway that led to a circular stair. I quickly started climbing the turning steps, flinging myself upward, thumping against the rounded outer wall as I went.

  And as I went, my senses were ever drawn to the darkness on the steps below for I had heard noises again: furtive footfalls on stone, the clatter of pebbles and the rustle of cloth against flesh.

  But I would not look back again. Instead I fixed my thoughts on my mission and focused upon the stairs that turned so slowly underfoot.

  I was ascending to the secret chamber where the master kept his treasure, a place in the castle where certain death once awaited anyone of flesh and blood who dared trespass, but where now resided the only hope for a new life for him that I yet served. If only I was not too late, and I prayed again that the master’s book truly contained the magic of which he had spoken, for there was nothing else a simple Gypsy could do.