Dracula Dossier Epilogue: Perveniet Calix

“No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and dear to his heart and eye the morning can be.” ― Bram Stoker, Dracula

Vauxhall Cross, London, April 2014: Cartwright

“Ah, Mr Cartwright. Do come in. Thank you for meeting us so late in the evening. I believe you know my assistant, Miss Westenra?” D is old school, military moustache and tweed suit. Cartwright reminds himself that D may be a good deal older than he looks.

“Yes – we met last year, in Vezelay.” Miss Westenra has perfect posture and is dressed in an elegant but understated fashion. She smiles and focuses her attention on Cartwright in that… special… way he has become all too familiar with this last couple of years.

“Excellent. That will be all, thank you, Mr Biggs… Now, Mr Cartwright, you must know there are only a few ways out of this room for you, so I am puzzled as to why you asked for the meeting? What is it, in short, that you want?” Cartwright decides there’s no point lying with a mind reader in the room.

“D, I’m an espionage junkie. I just want to stay in the game, and I was trained by SIS, so I see the game as a big team effort that needs state backing. What I’d like is a job with EDOM; field agent, analyst, or Q department, I don’t mind which. I already know what’s going on and I’m more of a subject matter expert now than most of the people you already employ. Also, I would prefer to work for my own country. However, if you aren’t buying, I’ll make a pitch to the CIA.”

“Ha! You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. You think you could get out of here alive?”

“My team killed St Armand. We killed Thonradel. We killed Dracula. Do you think I’d just walk in here without a plan? Do you want to bet against me?”

“Suppose we agree. What happens when you get too old for the game?”

“Ultimately, I retire to the Isles of Scilly, where strangers are easily identified and asking questions gets you talked about. But that’s a long way off.”

“Well, Mr Cartwright, you do have one additional qualification which would be very useful to me, and that is your connection to Sayaret Aluka and its – shall we say – ultimate controllers. What do you say, Miss Westenra?” The lady says nothing but simply nods her head gracefully in assent.

“Very well, Mr Cartwright, welcome to the team.” Cartwright relaxes just a little. Good, he thinks. Maybe I can find out what the deal is with vampires and earthquakes. We never did get to the bottom of that.

“I trust Grade 6 and its emoluments will be adequate to begin with? No need to sign anything; if you betray us, we will simply kill you.”

D smiles unpleasantly.

“And then you’ll carry on working for us anyway.”

Exeter, Devon, April 2014: Blythe

“Mrs Blythe? There’s a postcard for you, from Santiago. I didn’t realise you knew anyone in South America. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“Would you be a dear and read it to me? I think I need new glasses; everything is so blurry.”

“Of course. It says: ‘Thank you for the lovely letters, we all read them with great interest. We found your old friend in the end, and we gave him your regards – and Gerald’s. Get some rest now, you’ve earned it.’ Huh. Strange message. Oh, and it’s signed ‘Cartwright and Friends’. Do you know them?”

“Yes dear, I do. They visited me here once. Charming young men, especially the German one.”

And the birdsong outside in the twilight is sweeter than it has been for forty years.

Neve Tzedek, Tel Aviv, May 2014: Lonely

Skyscrapers loom over the apartment blocks just a short walk from the city centre; a tranquil suburb. Lonely ambles through the sunshine with the confident walk of a man who has killed vampires and fears no lesser beings. He’s a different person from the man who used to sit in his aunt’s café trying to make one cheap cup of tea last all morning.

He’s dressed like a man who somehow neglected to declare the full extent of the haul from the safety deposit boxes in Vienna, and the tailor has managed to cut his suit so the knives aren’t obvious. Lonely doesn’t trust guns. A knife only has one thing to break, never runs out of ammo.

It’s a warm sunny day, he has a hot foreign girlfriend, and more money than he can spend in a lifetime. Things could be worse, he thinks, as he rings the doorbell of Lilith’s current apartment.

Inside are Weinberg, Sternberg, and a few other women who gaze at Lilith as if they were her worshippers, which they might well be. Wait – isn’t that Gertrude Bell? Lilith smiles at him.

“Welcome!” she says. “Now, business first. We’re all friends here. The government of Romania has developed something of a power vacuum, and I think we should place it under new management…”

GIGN HQ, Satory, France, June 2014: Vincent

With what he knows now, even after only a few months as a fearless vampire hunter, there is no way back to freelance security for Vincent. Bodyguarding rich Arabs seems hollow and pointless.

He has spent a couple of months nosing around Paris and Madrid looking for signs of a monster hunting squad to join; he has just left one, so he has some idea how to find them, and certain elements of Mossad would put in a good word; but there is no luck, even with help from Hopkins, and he can only press things so far without seeing the inside of an insane asylum.

So now he is back in Satory, in his best suit, with a CV in his hand. If anyone in France comes up against vampires or werewolves, it will be GIGN. Or so he hopes.

“M’sieur? This way please, they will see you now.”

Vincent grinds out his Gauloise in the ashtray and follows the young woman’s tapping heels to the interview office.

Vienna, Austria, August 2014: Ritter and von Dolingen

“Herr Ritter! So nice of you to come. I know you’ve been trying to find me, and there was really no point in delaying the inevitable. Do try some of the Sachertorte, it’s quite exceptional; they say it was invented here.”

“Several places make that claim. I hope that Vienna’s reputation as neutral ground still holds?”

“It does. If I’d intended to harm you, Herr Ritter, lunchtime at a fashionable café during high tourist season is not what I would have chosen.”

“Then what do you intend, Countess?”

“Herr Ritter, I’ll come straight to the point, as that family in the… bold shirts are already eyeing up our table. I like the good things in life. Continued access to them depends on a steady flow of cash. I still have contacts in the financial world, but I plan to take a back seat for some years until the excitement dies down. I need a front man to represent me, and I think you’d do very well at that. My perception is that unlike some of your friends, your attitude to people like me is one of live and let live. I propose that we work together, and we both become very rich. Name your terms.”

“Your former employer took some extreme measures to ensure loyalty, Countess.”

“And what good did it do him, in the end? No, Herr Ritter, I shall bind you to me by simple greed. So long as the partnership is in both our best interests, it will endure; what do you say?”

Tel Aviv, March 2020: Smyth and the Ladies

“So that’s the whole story,” Smyth says to Rudek as he turns the steaks on the barbecue; rare for Emilia and himself, well done for everyone else. Night is falling, but neither of them worries much about that anymore.

“Where does that leave you, then?” Rudek asks. “Another beer?” Smyth accepts. Over by the pool, the ladies are sunning themselves and talking animatedly about something neither man can hear. Judging by the laughter and cries of “Noooooo! Really?” it’s some sort of amusing gossip.

“Thanks. Christina and Natalya are free to live their own lives; they didn’t have much chance to do that before. As children we were all forced into athletic training, then they were kidnapped at 16 or 17 and converted into Renfields. Then more training and a mandatory career as bodyguards and fixers for vampires. I’m not sure how slowly Renfields age, but I think the girls look to be in their early twenties!” Rudek nods in agreement.

“It’s a similar story for me and Emilia. Neither had a ‘normal’ life. I quickly realised the girls are different people from the ones I knew at the Institute, whereas Emilia and I have gone through traumatic times together (more or less). So, we became a couple as did Cristina and Natalya. In hindsight, I think my ex was never really interested in me, she just wanted to be close to my sister; that wasn’t legal in Romania until 2001. All four of us are still in the bodyguard – fixer – assassin line of work as we don’t really have the knowledge, experience, or contacts for a major career change.”

“Sometimes,” Rudek says, gesturing at the sunny garden, “I think about leaving all this and going back to work. If I did, would you be interested?” Smyth shakes his head.

“We’re affiliated with Lilith, but not fully part of her organisation – I don’t think Lilith would trust Natalya and Christina enough, she can’t Renfield Emilia, and I don’t think she would have Renfielded me even if I agreed. However, we’ve all proven ourselves and we’re very useful as deniable assets. In return I have access to Hopkins for the occasional ‘assist’. Our assignments are strongly tilted towards helping the underdog as my views have been redirected. Pretty much the same deal she has with Firîste, come to think of it.”

Rudek’s shrug somehow conveys “Well, okay, but if you ever change your mind…” The two sit in companionable silence for a moment before Smyth continues.

“Happily, I died after a few years, but I got better with help from Emilia and Lilith. It was bound to happen I suppose – Emilia tends to get over-excited and some of those love bites never really healed! It also solved any issues about us all aging at different rates. At least now we can age together. As a hobby, I’m still hunting down those responsible for the kidnappings from the Institute and those involved in kidnapping Emilia. And speaking of Emilia, here she comes…”

Londres, Northwest Argentina, April 2024

“Hello, my name is… well, call me Ahmad, it’ll do. May I buy you a drink?”

“Pleased to meet you, and yes you may. This one is empty. I’m Ida.”

“So, I see you here every day. For years now. What’s your story?”

“A man told me to meet him here. I can’t explain, I just feel compelled to wait in case he turns up.”

“Hah! Funny, the exact same thing happened to me! His name wasn’t John, was it? It was? What a coincidence. What do you do for a living?”

“I suppose you could call me a travel agent. What about you?”

“Microbiologist. So, this John of ours… Do you think he’s coming?”

“Probably not.”

“But you wait, just in case. Me too… If you like, we could wait together?”

“Why not? But I should warn you, it’s impossible to get me drunk. I have a tolerance for alcohol you wouldn’t believe.”

Fin

GM Notes

I like to round out each campaign with the surviving characters looking back on their adventures some time later, and this is what came out of the email exchanges about that.

I delight in the irony that having spent the best years of their lives fighting vampires, all the PCs wound up working for other vampires. That wasn’t planned, but it is perfection in terms of the genre tropes.

This has been the best campaign I’ve ever run, despite some hiccups early on. As usual, I’ll do a retrospective of lessons learned, for my own benefit in future campaigns and the benefit of others considering running The Dracula Dossier; that will be the final post for the campaign, and then I’ll take a break to recover while I decide what to do next.