Dracula Ascending (Gothic Horror Mash-up) Read online

  Dracula Ascending

  By Cindy Winget

  Gothic Horror Mash-up: Book One

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  without express written permission from the author.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2020 Cindy Winget

  Cover Design by Maialen Alonso

  Other books by Cindy Winget

  The Calvacade Chronicles:

  Book #1 – Calvacade: The Unlikely Heroes

  Book #2 – Calvacade: The Double Identity

  To my husband Devan

  and my two beautiful girls

  Table of Contents:

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  United Kingdom, 1845

  “I would like to call to the stand a Mister Victor Frankenstein,” said the dark-haired defense attorney, dressed immaculately in morning coat, waistcoat, and formal trousers. He clasped his hands together behind his back as he waited for Victor to make his way to the witness stand.

  Victor removed his top hat and placed it upon his lap. After being formally sworn in, he sat patiently awaiting questioning.

  “Mister Frankenstein, are you fully aware of why you are on trial today?”

  Victor nodded.

  “Let the record show that the witness has nodded in the affirmative.” Turning back toward Victor, the lawyer requested, “Could you please speak verbally from this point forward for the benefit of our stenographer.”

  Victor glanced apologetically at the young man sitting at a small wooden table in the corner transcribing the trial, his fountain pen making small scratching noises as it traveled across the paper.

  “Would you remind the jury of the reason for your presence on the stand?” the lawyer continued.

  Victor’s shoulders slumped in weary acceptance of today’s proceedings. He glanced at his friends sitting in the wooden benches of the courtroom as he blinked away the tears in his eyes. He swiped his hand across his clammy forehead, wiping the perspiration away and mussing his dark hair in the process. “I am charged with several counts of grave-robbing, disturbing the peace, and possible manslaughter.”

  “Thank you. If you were a member of the jury at this trial rather than the accused, and had heard what has already been disclosed to this court, how would you vote?”

  “Objection!” shouted the prosecutor, leaping to his feet, fair hair flopping about on his high forehead. “That is pure conjecture. It is irrelevant what the accused feels regarding his presumed innocence or guilt!”

  The judge, shrouded in long black robes and with a powdered wig atop his head, deliberated for a second before stating, “Denied. I will allow the continuation of this line of questioning.”

  “Thank you,” said the defense attorney. “What say you, Victor?”

  “I fully admit that I am guilty of graverobbing. I have not concealed that fact.”

  “Can anybody verify this?”

  Victor nodded before responding vocally, “Yes. There was a man from King’s College and his assistant who barged into my laboratory one day and saw what I had hidden there. A few of my friends also found out.”

  “What could possibly have possessed you to commit such a crime?”

  “I needed body parts and various viscera for my work.”

  “And to what work are you referring?”

  Victor hesitated, feeling uncomfortable, before responding. “A project in which I had an ardent interest. While attending King’s College, I had struck upon an idea that overtook my entire life. This pursuit was all I thought about. My intense passion for my venture overshadowed everything else. I was a very ambitious young man and wanted to be the next person to make a grand discovery. I discounted the dire warnings of my friends, thinking that I knew best.”

  “Objection, Your Honor, what does any of this have to do with the accused’s crimes?”

  “Alleged crimes,” interjected the defense attorney. “If Your Honor would be so kind as to let me continue, the answer will become abundantly clear.”

  The judge nodded. “You may proceed.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Please continue, Victor.”

  “You see, I had succeeded in creating life. Through a process known as Galvanism, I was able to animate lifeless matter.”

  There were several gasps from the jury box. As well as from an inhabitant of the long, rough-hewn benches situated along the back of the courthouse, where sat Victor’s younger brother Ernest and his father Alphonse, looking worried and ringing his hands in his lap.

  “It wasn’t until I had completed my project that I realized what my hubris had brought me—and humanity at large. He had maliciously killed my little brother William as well as—”

  “Objection! The witness is attempting to use this little soliloquy to sway the jury’s opinion.”

  “Sustained. Stick to the facts, Mister Frankenstein.”

  “Forgive me, Your Honor,” Victor said contritely.

  “Now, Victor, you say you brought a man back to life?” asked the defense attorney.

  “Yes. And yet, no, at the same time.”

  “Please, explain further.”

  “You could say that I brought a man back to life. By using the bones of Vlad Tepes as the canvas of my creation, I, in a sense, brought that same Vlad back to life. He did, in fact, retain some memories of his former life in the fifteenth century. However, I came to call him by a different name. Dracula. It seemed more fitting because he was wholly different from his former self.”

  “In what way?”

  Victor again hesitated. He knew that people would likely view him as crazy if he revealed the next part of his sordid tale. Perhaps, he would be forced to spend the rest of his days in an asylum for the criminally insane. However, his unwillingness to speak up in the past for the same cowardly reasons had led to a lifetime of guilt. But perhaps he need not reveal everything. After all, Dracula’s peculiar attributes, obtained after his risen state, had no official bearing on these proceedings that he could see.

  “Victor?”

  Victor cleared his throat and responded, “Please disregard my last statement as it adds no real value to this trial. I only meant that, yes, I brought Vlad the Impaler back from the grave, but he wasn’t completely himself, and in being built of so many composite parts, who knows who or what I had truly raised from the dead? At the time, I was under the impression that I had created life from nothing, and thereby, had brought nobody’s ‘soul’ back to the body I had built. I was unsure if I even believed a human soul to exist. Believing instead that we as a species were alive only because of bioelectricity’s effect upon the body. To this day I am still unsure if Dracula himself had a soul.”


  “I see,” the defense attorney said, though he sounded anything but sure. “Back to the matter at hand. The victims you have been accused of murdering were actually killed by this man you have created, is that not true?”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” shouted the prosecutor. “He is leading the witness. This is pure speculation.”

  “Sustained.”

  Despite the sustaining of the prosecutor’s objection, Victor answered the question. “Yes. In all technical sense of the word, I have not laid a finger on any of the victims I am accused of harming.”

  “Mister Frankenstein. If you speak out of turn again, I will be forced to hold you in contempt,” the judge warned.

  “Sorry,” Victor stammered.

  “Thank you. That is all the questions I have for you, Mister Frankenstein. You may stand down now, unless my colleague wishes to cross-examine?” The defense attorney looked towards the prosecutor.

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do,” the man said, swapping places with the defense attorney.

  “Mister Frankenstein, you openly admit that you have robbed graves?”

  “Yes,” Victor said simply.

  “Isn’t it true that you were caught in possession of these items, and this is what led to the accusation of disturbing the peace?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Isn’t it true that you incited a riot?”

  “Well—”

  “Objection! The prosecutor is leading the witness!”

  “Denied,” intoned the judge.

  “I did not actually cause the riot,” Victor said.

  “No? Enlighten me.”

  “When I returned to my laboratory, there was a large gathering of people there who were angry about what I was doing, and it was they who had started the riot.”

  “Was it not because of your work that the riot was instigated? Does that not put the blame on you? When several of the men who were angry about your project set hands upon you, did you not punch a man in the face?”

  “Well, yes, I did, but—”

  “Is that not the very definition of disturbing the peace?”

  “I was only defending myself,” Victor stated angrily.

  “Should not assault charges also be filed against you?”

  “Objection!” cried the defense attorney.

  “Sustained.”

  “Very well, I retract that last statement. Now Victor, you claim that you brought life to a lifeless man whom you had created in your laboratory, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you have any proof that you indeed created life? Was anyone else there that can attest to that fact?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Can anyone else verify that if you have, in fact, brought a man back to life, it was he who has committed these crimes, not you?”

  Victor thought for a moment. “No, not really. But my friends witnessed him—”

  “A simple yes or no will suffice. And if, in fact, you had brought this criminal to life who has perpetrated these crimes, should it not thereby be answered upon your head as his creator?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I let the prosecution rest. No further questions, Your Honor.”

  “This court is adjourned for lunch until one o’clock,” said the judge as he brought his gavel down upon the bench.

  Victor squinted into the bright sun as he stepped outside to procure nourishment from a food vendor, though he had little appetite. The very thought of food made his stomach churn nauseously.

  “Victor! Wait up!” Ernest pushed past the guard sent with Victor to make sure he didn’t try to escape. “How are you feeling?” he asked anxiously.

  “I am afraid I botched it in there,” confessed Victor. “But all I could do is tell the truth to the best of my ability and hope for the best.”

  “I am sure you shall be acquitted of all charges,” said Ernest confidently.

  Victor shook his head in disagreement. “Perhaps. Be assured that whatever the outcome, justice has been served.”

  “Don’t say that!” Ernest chided.

  Just then, Victor’s friends from school, Jack Seward and Jonathan Harker—along with Jonathan’s wife Mina—came walking up. His old professor, Van Helsing, was close behind.

  “Can you believe this farce of a trial?” barked Jack, shaking his head in disgust.

  “I don’t think it went so terribly,” said Jonathan. “As a solicitor, I can tell you—”

  “Oh pish-posh on your knowing anything,” interrupted Jack. “You aren’t a barrister, you notarize…”

  Victor zoned out the squabbling of his friends, dwelling on the question put to him by the defense attorney. Had he been on the jury today, how would he feel about these crimes? Although all the death and mayhem caused by Dracula could in no way have been foreseen, were those events truly his fault? He would leave it up to fate and the jury to decide. All he knew was that he would spend the rest of his life trying to repent of his ambitious arrogance and rectifying his mistakes. With any hope, a kind and loving God would have mercy upon his soul. As the discourse of his friends continued on, unaware or unmindful of Victor’s lack of participation, Victor ruminated on the events which had led him to this place.

  Chapter One

  TWELVE YEARS EARLIER

  It was drizzling rain. A heavy fog had rolled into the little village in Geneva where Victor Frankenstein lived, making visibility poor as the early morning light struggled to filter in through the dense cloud cover. The sound of cows mooing in the dewy meadows and the noise of peasants going about their chores could be heard over the pitter-patter of the steady raindrops. Victor, however, had ears only for the sound of horse hooves making clopping, squelching noises as they came down the muddy lane.

  He pulled the collar of his long coat up in order to keep the rain from dribbling down the back of his neck and wetting his shirt. Yanking down the brim of his top hat, he turned towards the small group of people who stood beside the road with him, waiting for the conveyance to arrive.

  “Well, this is it. Try not to be too sorrowful in my absence. I shall write to you so often that it will be as though I never left.”

  Victor noticed with consternation that, despite his reassurances, tears filled the lovely hazel eyes of his cousin.

  “Do not weep for me, Elizabeth.”

  She smiled tremulously while reaching up and sweeping a long lock of auburn hair back behind her ear which had stubbornly escaped her flowered bonnet. She hugged her dark cloak close to her body—covering most of her maroon dress in the process—as though it had the power to both keep her warm and safe from difficult feelings she would sooner dispel from her.

  “I fear that despite your earnest intentions you shall not write as often as you mean to,” she explained. She took a fortifying breath. “I, however, shall write twice as much in order to make up for your neglect.”

  Victor couldn’t help but let out a deep chuckle. “You know me so well, dear Elizabeth. Just know that despite my penchant for procrastination, you shall always be in my thoughts.”

  “You would do well not to neglect or procrastinate your studies in the same manner,” growled Victor’s father. “I’m not allowing you to run off to this university in order for you to squander your talent and become a degenerate rascal.” Despite his gruff tone, the twinkle in Alphonse’s eyes bespoke his teasing nature.

  “I promise, Father.”

  “Well, Elizabeth may accept you not writing to her, but I certainly will not,” Henry spoke up. He held a large black umbrella, sheltering both himself and the elderly Alphonse.

  “You have my permission to come with me and see that I do,” Victor mocked teasingly. He knew that this was an impossibility and that Henry was green with envy.

  Henry’s father, a merchant by trade, thought little of formal education. Unlike his counterparts in status and industry, he believed a man ought to start a career as soon as he was able and make a name for himself in thi
s world through hard work. Academia held little real-world application, in his opinion.

  Victor was both nervous and exhilarated. He was leaving home. For the first time he was going to be on his own. Making his own decisions. Discovering new ideas and having new experiences. He would of course miss his family, but the chance for adventure and travel would help him overcome his homesickness. The thought made him giddy with anticipation.

  The only damper on the occasion was the fact that his mother was not in attendance, having died of scarlet fever only the year before. He had actually been accepted to the university at that time but had postponed his departure upon his mother’s illness.

  Victor put away such sad thoughts and focused instead on his journey, for the carriage that would take him to Germany had just arrived. He hefted his trunk onto the back and lashed it down with a length of cord, then turned back toward his family.

  Victor’s younger brothers were also there to see him off; Ernest, who was six years Victor’s junior and had always been a sickly child, and sweet little William at the tender age of two. They had both inherited the blonde tresses and blue eyes of their father. Victor on the other hand, had inherited the dark hair and features of his mother, who was originally from Romania. The fair-skinned people of Geneva were still baffled at the notion that such a scholarly and quiet man as Alphonse Frankenstein would marry such a free-spirited dark foreigner such as Elena.

  Ernest stared down into the mud, refusing to lift his head and acknowledge that his elder brother was really leaving, caring little that his hair was getting drenched, dripping rivulets of water onto the already wet lane.

  While William, on the other hand, squirmed and wiggled in the arms of his nurse, Justine Mortitz, arms outstretched as he desperately tried to reach out toward Victor. With a smile, Victor leaned down and gave the toddler one last hug and kiss, which seemed to pacify the little fellow, at least for the moment. Justine flashed him a grateful smile as William calmed down and lay his downy head down upon her shoulder. She was now able to grip her umbrella steadier.