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Much at Stake by Kevin J. Anderson
Bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson has written nearly 100 novels, many of them co-written with Doug Beason, with his wife Rebecca Moesta, or with Brian Herbert, with whom he continues Frank Herbert's Dune saga. His most recent original projects are the Saga of Seven Suns series, which concluded with last year's The Ashes of Worlds, and his nautical fantasy epic Terra Incognita, the first of which, The Edge of the World, came out in June. A Batman/Superman tie-in novel was also released earlier this year, and a new Dune novel, The Winds of Dune, is due in August.
Anderson says that one of the appeals of vampire fiction is that the mythos has grown so rich and varied over the past century or so, it gives writers plenty of room to operate with their imaginations. "My story takes place on the periphery of actual vampire fiction…more a story about vampires than a story with vampires," he said.
"Much at Stake" is a different sort of Dracula story; its protagonist is famed actor Bela Lugosi, the star of the original 1931 Dracula film, and explores some of his personal background as well as the history behind vampire legends.
Bela Lugosi stepped off the movie set, listening to his shoes thump on the papier-mâché flagstones of Castle Dracula. He swept his cape behind him, practicing the liquid, spectral movement that always evoked shrieks from his live audiences.
The film's director, Tod Browning, had called an end to shooting for the day after yet another bitter argument with Karl Freund, the cinematographer. The egos of both director and cameraman made for frequent clashes during the intense seven weeks that Universal had allotted for the filming of
Dracula. They seemed to forget that Lugosi was the star, and he could bring fear to the screen no matter what camera angles Karl Freund used.
With all the klieg lights shut down, the enormous set for Castle Dracula loomed dark and imposing. Universal Studios had never been known for its lavish productions, but they had outdone themselves here. Propmen had found exotic old furniture around Hollywood, and masons built a spooky fireplace big enough for a man to stand in. One of the most creative technicians had spun an eighteen-foot rubber-cement spiderweb from a rotary gun. It now dangled like a net in the dim light of the closed-down set.
On aching legs, Lugosi walked toward his private dressing room. He never spoke much to the others, not his costars, not the director, not the technicians. He had too much difficulty with his English to enjoy chitchat, and he had too many troubling thoughts on his mind to seek out company.
Even during his years of portraying Dracula in the stage play, he had never socialized with the others. Perhaps they were afraid of him, seeing what a frightening monster he could become in his role. After 261 sell-out performances on Broadway, then years on the road with the show, he had sequestered himself each time, maintaining the intensity he had built up as Dracula, the Prince of Evil, drawing on the pain in his own life, the fear he had seen with his own eyes. He projected that fear to the audiences. The men would shiver; the women would cry out and faint, and then write him thrilling and suggestive letters. Lugosi embodied fear and danger for them, and he reveled in it. Now he would do the same on the big screen.
He closed the door of the dressing room. All of the others would be going home, or to the studio cafeteria, or to a bar. Only Dwight Frye remained late some nights, practicing his Renfield insanity. Lugosi thought about going home himself, where his third wife would be waiting for him, but the pain in his legs felt like rusty nails, twisting beneath his kneecaps, reminding him of the old injury. The one that had taught him fear.
He sat down on the folding wooden chair-Universal provided nothing better for the actors, not even for the film's star-but Lugosi turned from the mirror and the lights. Somehow, he couldn't bear to look at himself every time he did this.
He reached to the back of his personal makeup drawer, fumbling with clumsy fingers until he found the secret hypodermic needle and his vial of morphine taped out of sight.
The filming of
Dracula had been long and hard, and he had needed the drug nearly every night. He would have to acquire more soon.
Outside on the set, echoing through the thin walls of his dressing room, Lugosi could hear Dwight Frye practicing his Renfield cackle. Frye thought his portrayal of the madman would make him a star in front of the American audiences.
But though they screamed and shivered, none of them understood anything about fear. Lugosi had found that he could mumble his lines, wiggle his fingers, and leer once or twice, and the audiences still trembled. They enjoyed it. It was so easy to frighten them.
Before Universal decided to film
Dracula, the script readers had been very negative, crying that the censors would never pass the movie, that it was too frightening, too horrifying. "This story certainly passes beyond the point of what the average person can stand or cares to stand," one had written.
As if they knew anything about fear! He stared at the needle, sharp and silver, with a flare of yellow reflected from the makeup lights-and Van Helsing thought a wooden stake would be Lugosi's bane! He filled the syringe with morphine. His legs tingled, trembled, aching for the relief the drug would give him. It always did, like Count Dracula consuming fresh blood.
Lugosi pushed the needle into his skin, finding the artery, homing in on the silver point of pain… and release. He closed his eyes….
In the darkness behind his thoughts, he saw himself as a young lieutenant in the 43rd Royal Hungarian Infantry, fighting in the trenches in the Carpathian Mountains during the Great War. Lugosi had been a young man, frightened, hiding from the bullets but risking his life for his homeland-he had called himself Bela Blasko then, from the Hungarian town of Lugos.
The bullets sang around him in the air, mixed with the explosions, the screams. The air smelled thick with blood and sweat and terror. The mountain peaks, backlit at night by orange explosions, looked like the castle spires of some ancient Hungarian fortress, more frightening by far than the crumbling stones and cobwebs the set builders had erected on the studio lot.
Then the enemy bullets had crashed into his thigh, his knee, shattering bone, sending blood spraying into the darkness. He had screamed and fallen, thinking himself dead. The enemy soldiers approached, ready to kill him… but one of his comrades had dragged him away during the retreat.
Young Lugosi had awakened from his long, warm slumber in the army hospital. The nurses there gave him morphine, day after day, long after the doctors required it-one of the nurses had recognized him from the Hungarian stage, his portrayal of Jesus Christ in the "Passion Play." She had given Lugosi all the morphine he wanted. And outside, in a haze of sparkling painlessness, the Great War had continued….
Now he winced in the dressing room, snapping his eyes open and waiting for the effects of the drug to slide into his mind. Through the thin walls of the dressing room, he could hear Dwight Frye doing Renfield again, "Heh hee hee hee HEEEEE!" Lugosi's mind grew muddy; flares of color appeared at the edges.
When the rush from the morphine kicked in, the pleasure detached his mind from the chains of his body. A liquid chill ran down his spine, and he felt suddenly cold.
The makeup lights in his dressing room winked out, plunging him into claustrophobic darkness. He drew a sharp breath that echoed in his head.
Outside, Dwight Frye's laugh changed into the sound of distant, agonized screams.