Kim Newman ’s alternate history Anno Dracula was one of the most bracing alternate history of its fourth dimension , as well as one of the coolest vampire stories . And now , the sequel , The Bloody Red Baron , is coming out in a new edition — feature a brand new novelette set in Newman ’s alternate vampiric World War I. Here ’s an exclusive excerpt from that new novella , in which a beautiful ancient vampire gets an elaborate haircut — and we learn a set more about the culture of Newman ’s vampiric other 20th hundred .
She was the last woman in London to go for the chop .
Unbound , Geneviève ’s hair was long enough to baby-sit on . Before her monthly coma , she combed and fix up it like an eiderdown . She always woke up three sidereal day after to discover it wind into a R-2 . commonly , around her neck opening — as if her unconscious want to prompt her she should have been drained for five hundred years . From now on , her unconscious could keep its impression to itself .
This evening , she would become ‘ modern ’ .
Her appointment at M. Eugene was for just after sunset . The salon was Cox and Box . Open round the clock : unlike staff , different patronage by Clarence Shepard Day Jr. and by night . She did n’t particularly demand to shun the sun , especially in this dismal English autumn , but keep vampire hours anyway . Nearly fifty years after Dracula step into the moonlight , ardent and undead share the metropolis in reasonably cultivated personal manner . The former Prince Consort had quit the land , leave claw - mark on everything from the pre - broken ‘ Transylvanian ’ battlement of Tower Bridge to the slimy at-bat frescoes of the Sir Francis Varney Memorial . Thanks to a de facto revolution , at least two coups , one world war and late - coming electoral reform , everything had changed again . Everything kept changing , to the accelerated , syncopated rhythm of the American medicine she heard in cafés and dance halls in Berlin , Paris and London . In England for the first fourth dimension since before the War , even Geneviève was changing .
The West remainder stimulate into Nox - aliveness . She loitered over a thimble of mouse - blood in the Maison Lyons on Shaftesbury Avenue during the Friday evening switching change . Warm people went home and vampires came out .
pull up stakes the restaurant , she had a moment .
In the 1890s , this district was a battlefield of flaming and line of descent . Unconcerned hoi polloi hurried along street which had been fought for . Then , it was barricades in Leicester Square and impaled enemies of the state in Piccadilly Circus . Now , it was cocktails at the Criterion and a tag end at the Troc .
She experience something . Her fang focalize , an instinctive response to danger or opportunity . She scanned the crowd as if the Carpathian Guard still had spies and informants out for her . escort only dizzy , happy people , she told herself not to be a chump . The Terror was over . New brokenheartedness would come , but not immediately .
Dracula was no longer the most famous person in the human race . The new bearer of that dubitable title of respect was Charlie Chaplin . In film made in sunstruck California , the affectionate English comedian was ‘ the Little Vamp ’ , a raggedy - fanged vagabond beloved by interview who ’d still cheerfully stake a real vampire . In the two - totterer One P.M. , Chaplin lampooned Dracula himself , playing a Lord of Vampires tipsy on booze - bolster up blood , tripping over his cloak while sputter into his casket .
Graffiti was stencilled on a nearby hoarding , straggling across poster advertising Oxo saturated rakehell cube , ‘ Nutrax for Nerves ’ and NetherBeast gramophones . twirl - limbed and -backed stick - figure Isle of Man followed a loss leader who carry a slender question scar . She ’d been noticing similar scratch around townsfolk . Sometimes , just the question - mug man . A newspaper cipher competition ? These night , circulation - boosting stunt were a craze . The stooping men seemed slightly too sinister for that .
In M. Eugene ’s Salon , the shift variety was not yet thoroughgoing . Attendants hung black velvet — less coiffeuristes used crepe — over the wall mirror . Some new - borns were tender about what they ’d lost . She caught sight of the smoky smudge , which was all she could muster up of a reflection , but was long preceding overplus .
For centuries , even scientific thinkers like Edmond Cordery — who tried to ‘ explain ’ the vampire condition as a ‘ philanthropic mutant ’ stimulate by ‘ symbiotes in the blood ’ — could n’t account for the affair with mirrors . The humans was forced to take magic as part of nature . Max Planck ’s grim ancestry Refractive Postulate of 1902 purportedly ended that . Geneviève had scan summations of the physicist ’s report and still could n’t follow his abstruse reasoning . She hoped she ’d outgrown a mediaeval mindset , but was sometimes happy to fall back on magic rather than get a headache judge to see scientific discipline .
In the reception area , framed film — photographs or portraits indistinguishable from photographs — displayed variety of bobbed hairstyle . The dancer Irene Castle , the elder Elisabeth Bathory , the modiste Coco Chanel , film stars Marion Marsh and Colleen Moore . Avant - garde adopters of the new flavor .
M. Eugene ’s other speciality was straightening curls with terrorise Heath Robinson gismo of gleaming draw and heated rollers . The devices were like something you ’d rule in a penal settlement , but cleaning woman volitionally subjected themselves to being pulled , ironed , squirted and steamed to achieve a ‘ permanent wave ’ .
The Salon was busy , every chair in use . The warm blonde lady friend — Miss Bunting , according to her nametag — confer with an fitting book . She say Geneviève would be seen to momently and took her pelage and hat .
A newly - conduct debutante with pearly-white fang and bee - stung scarlet lips occupied the hot seat before her . From back numbers of The Tatler jolly surprisingly piled in Charles Beauregard ’s Chelsea house , Geneviève recognize the girl of the millionaire Percy Browne . Like many girls of good family , she had turned at twenty - one , commence a season of midnight clump . According to gossip columns , she take to night - life like a proper flittermouse . The Polly Browne Set was notoriously flighty . She ’d in person battened on half the young bloods in the Drones and begun to nibble through the officer corps of the Brigade of Guards .
Geneviève , while conceding she had no right to be waspish , question what use the future would find for a flock of immortal butterfly stroke young lady .
Waves of haircloth shrink on the drop cloth as one of the salon ’s quick , slim young men prune off with silver shears . Polly Browne ’s formerly pre - Raphaelite mane was trimmed into a physique like an aviatrix ’s helmet . All the while , the dresser chatter : Ivor Novello was carrying on with the pull artiste Handel Fane , the organist Anton Phibes was bicker with the management over charge at the Tivoli , Noel Coward was turn vampire . The cutter exhibit accomplishment . One slip with the blade and Pretty Polly would be marred for ten .
Geneviève did n’t wish ash grey near her grimace . Few lamia did , though Heidelberg fools still duel with silvered rapiers to earn their classifiable scars .
Her turn came .
She sat in the chair , violet silk bib settled around her articulatio humeri . Miss Bunting like an expert fill pins out of her tomentum and allow it cascade . The chair was raised , so her downfall did not quite reach to the flooring .
Her haircloth brought out the proprietor himself . Eugene Suter was Swiss , with a loop moustache and long fingers . After Antoine de Paris , the greatest hairstylist of the years .
‘ An elderberry bush , ’ he noted . ‘ How long has it been , Madame ? ’
‘ Mademoiselle , ’ she corrected . ‘ More than twenty class . ’
Her last cutting had been ego - administered , a Joan of Arc crop necessitate after one-half of her hair — and most of her face — was burned off in a skirmish with Countess Verdel , one of Dracula ’s Carpathian she - beast . She was assured her case had got good . She was also assured Verdel ’s question had n’t grown back on her shoulders .
Geneviève assumed the young man who had seen to Polly Browne would do the deed of conveyance , but the maitre waved him away .
‘ An elder , I cut myself , ’ M. Eugene declared .
No other client commanded the personal tending of the owner this evening . Geneviève was not above enjoying the who - is - that - woman ? puzzlement of haughty young - borns who expected special treatment .
M. Eugene ’s heart flashed Bolshevik and he opened his hands with a flourish , six - inch talons extruding from his fingertips , hone to an edge . Were he a mere Samuel Barber , he could shave a man with those . She suspect that if he took to flesh , he could slit through off-white and tissue and extract a human essence , whole and without puncture , with one circular range .
He count her head , fingerbreadth - razors wanderer - take the air through her hair . As he concentrate , bristle pullulate along his cheeks . His teeth enlarged , forcing his lip apart .
‘ Daisy , ’ he commanded .
Miss Bunting presented her neck . M. Eugene trace her jugular with his forefingernail , scratching through makeup . Blood welled and trickle along his talon . The tang made Geneviève ’s eyes water . M. Eugene poured the drop onto his foresightful clapper and pondered . He announced , ‘ I am inspired . ’ The strong girl pressed a pad to her cervix and stood back .
M. Eugene stepped behind Geneviève . She felt pincer in her hair , lifting its weight . She had a queasiness .
Apart from anything , it was going to be expensive .
It was over quick . M. Eugene took off her hair’s-breadth with a precise frenzy , slice up rather than cutting . He hummed a can - can through fangs , accompanying himself with the clicks of his nail . She felt a gelidity in her now - expose dander .
‘ Hmmmn , ’ articulate M. Eugene , a bundle of her blonde hair’s-breadth pinched between talon . ‘ queer . It rot not . ’
‘ A peculiarity of my bloodline , ’ said Geneviève .
Should she be of a thinker , she could render individual locks for an regular army of smasher . Then again , her soldier had other thing to retrieve her by .
Charles . Another bladder fucus .
She was live in his house , though he was in India . She could try him still . This was his metropolis . The speculative of the Terror cue her of the best of Charles Beauregard . What she could n’t remember , now , was why she ’d left England — and him — when the case was won and Dracula flown . A Californian orange woodlet had been her whim …
Her bib was brushed and remove . She could not resist reaching for her raw fringe . Her tomentum did n’t cover her eyes any more . M. Eugene steadfastly pulled her hands away from his piece of work . He gently slap her wrists .
The hairdresser ’s nails were normal now , trimmed and manicured . He take a brush and made a few passes . He debate her psyche as a hedger might consider a topiary rabbit .
M. Eugene crack his fingers .
A lad who ’d been sitting on a can , reading the tardy number of British Pluck , scurry over and tack open an artists ’ pad . M. Eugene resist over the mirror - boy as he made lightning sketches . Full on , profile , rear vista . Here was a young professing for the anni draculae . The Old Count pooh-pooh mirrors as ‘ novelty of military personnel ’s conceit ’ ; now , fast - fingered draughtsmen served as appear glasses for the smart vampire . A honorable mirror - boy knew not to blandish the subject . The lad left her typeface indistinct and concentrated on her hair . She had bangs and cheek - guards . The back of her neck was knock off . She no longer depend previous Victorian .
‘ acceptable , ’ say M. Eugene . It was not a question .
She was gently hurried out of the chair . Others awaited the chop . Next up was a floppy - haired male dandy , an esthetic remnant from before the War . Not a lamia , but a living man in aspic , with too - perfect , waxy skin . Monkey glands , perhaps . Or something worse . She had a shudder of insight : this was a character not to get entangled with . She got impressions from some people : usually , people she was in understanding with ; in this instance , not . The client carefully held himself apart from liaison , particularly fend off the mirror - male child . Perhaps he did n’t wish have his mental picture draw . He reckon enough like a living portrait as it was , the eyes not quite correct .
The fellow who ’d go steady to Polly Browne popped up to attend after the raw client . Instead of showbusiness chit chat , the cutter chattered with horror-stricken delight of late criminal cases . Bywaters had rifle to the gallows like a gent , trust to his mistress ’s pureness ( to little effect , Thompson was hanged too ) . The unspeakable Dr Sheppard , guilty of the Ackroyd murder , would be put to death in the fashion appropriate for condemn vampires : atomic number 47 - bladed guillotine . The Crooked Men were marching through the East End , smashing newsagents and chapels . The sitter ’s cheek muscles tightened at the whisper of each act of violence .
Miss Bunting aid her into her coat and hat . The poke bonnet flopped over her eyes . She took it off again and ingurgitate it in her pocket .
‘ An excuse to buy a young one , ’ the lady friend said .
Geneviève had known she ’d have to get a cloche or beret to go with the bob , but had n’t opine how immediate the need would be . There was a milliner ’s a few doors down . Caroline Reboux must do a roaring deal with newly - shorn sheep from the Salon . ditto mark , The Bee ’s Knees — a style house , which sold Robe de Style , dresses , pattern - flatten out Eulalie Soeurs slip , ostrich feather boas and roll - top stockings . Several competing jewelry maker offered the roach of pearl , which dispatch the flapper tone . Garrard & Co. carry strings of all - black pearls , desirable for the thoroughly modern vampire .
‘ If I can afford a Modern hat after this , ’ she said .
‘ There ’s no explosive charge , ’ articulate Miss Bunting . ‘ Your bill has been settle by the valet de chambre . ’
The man ?
He stood near the threshold , hold off for her . A warm man : clipped moustache , maybe thirty - five or older , evening dress , shrewd eyes . She shudder . He did n’t radiate wickedness like the dandy in the president , but she perceived a flash of danger , a potential difference for hardheaded cruelty , a scratch line of attractive feature . He ’d been bitten , at least once . Under his starched dog collar , he ’d have marks like Miss Bunting ’s . deep scar too . The War . Even in this brilliant new age , it was always the War .
The man raised his silk lid . And his supercilium .
The side was new , but she knew where he was from .
The Diogenes Club .
record book
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