Chapter 8

Construction, throughout human history, was always dominated by certain restrictions. You could construct something swiftly, if you had enough people to work it, they had the skills required, and the resources needed were present. Over time, natural laws were learned and made to work for man rather than against him – and those altered the equation. Not by rendering the need for people, knowledge, and resources irrelevant, but multiplying those various factors. A mine with a steam drill and a steam powered pump could easily produce far more copper or coal or gold or whatever it was they were trying to pull from the ground than a mine built in prior generations, for instance. Writing allowed skills to be more easily translated to other human beings without the need of direct contact between one person and another.

But through it all, those three restrictions remained.

Tonight, under the gathering twilight of late autumn, in the final year of the 19th century, Europe was to see the first time where those restrictions were bent, then broken by the concentrated efforts of supernatural law.

Mina wished she could have watched it from a distance – rather than being in the choked, confusing mess that was the heart of the city of Timisora during that evening. Later, she was able to reconstruct what she, Lucy, and the rest of the vampires that Dracula had spawned had done – but at the time, it had been nothing but a series of checklists, broken down into simple tasks. Turn into a wolf here, drag this there, increase your strength and dig, dig, dig. She spent chunks of the evening carrying pieces of concrete, pausing only to get a quick bite to drink from the humans, who were also at work, following Dracula’s instructions to the T. There was no time for conversation, just lots of quick smiles and waves and calls for action.

In the end, though, with dawn breaking and all the vampires returning to their human forms at last after taking the shapes of massive moles and huge octopus and even stranger creatures that befitted their role and task for the night’s work, Mina and Lucy were able to sit back with everyone else and admire what it was that they had built.

It began in the middle of the city and rose upwards about two stories in height while sprawling quite a distance, the structure had a hunched, low appearance despite being nearly twenty feet tall at its heights. There were several vents that could be shuttered and unshuttered at the drop of a hat – those vents fed into the collection of tunnels and chambers beneath that were currently filled with every piece of technological equipment that had been left in the city when the Martians had been cleared away. Steam turbines and factory equipment: Equipment for the pressing and folding of metals, equipment for the stamping of molds, and equipment for the sanding and shaping of wood. Those were then connected to barracks rooms, with kitchen areas and common areas, which themselves were located in the center of the underground, tapping into the city’s extant sewer system.

Dracula called it his fortress factory.

“Shouldn’t we have tried to hide it?” Lucy asked.

“No,” George Wells, who was wiping his mouth clean after having taken a swig of water from a canteen, said. “He says that it’s entirely against the point to make it hard for the squiddies to see.” He sighed.

Lucy and Mina both looked at him quizzically.

George looked at him, then looked down at his canteen, then looked back at the human woman who had handed it to him without thinking.

“Oh ... bloody hell, I’m sorry,” he said, and the woman blushed and slapped her palm over her face.

“We’re all still getting used to this,” Mina said, chuckling.

“Who is this we you’re talking about?” Lucy said, grinning as she stood and stretched. “The factory will start making weapons – and the Martians will come and try to smash it. Then we smash them from a secure position. I like it.”

“What if they attack during the day?” Mina asked.

“That’s why it’s built so tough. They can’t heat ray through stone like that, not easily,” George said. “I saw it’s effects in London – well, so did you...”

Mina nodded. “And they’ll need to fight through all the ruined buildings. And the Black Smoke can’t get through the shutters.”

“I have another means by which we can deal with the Black Smoke – the shutters need to be able to let in some air, after all,” Dracula said from behind Mina. She spun to face him, flushing as she did so. He looked tired but proud of himself, smiling slightly as he examined his construction. “One does not become a head of the Solomonari without learning a few tricks. They called me the Weathermaker at that school for a reason...”

“You can make it rain?” Mina asked.

Dracula inclined his head.

“Now ... all of us must get inside. Those flying machines will be coming back soon.”

“And what about the humans we captured? The...” Mina paused, while Lucy nodded.

“Those ... I have yet to fully determine what has happened to them,” Dracula said, frowning. “They’re being held in cells that I have had constructed.”

The vampires and the humans headed into the fortress. The doors were closed and the electrical lights – salvaged from the city – came to life with guttering and winking sounds, the steam engine grumbling noisily from where it had been placed. Mina wasn’t precisely sure what the engine was burning ... coal, she supposed. She was just happy to be somewhere that felt modern, even if it wasn’t precisely comfortable or beautiful. Lucy and her found their rooms first, and once they were sure they knew where they would be sleeping, they experimented with passing through walls. The concrete, alas, was not of the native soil of their homeland and, thus, didn’t allow their easy passage. They could sink into the floor, though, which several other vampires used as a means by which to get quickly around the fortress.

Lucy and Mina, though, were both interested in the humans that they had captured from the recycling machines.

Well.

Mina was.

“I think it’s terribly obvious what happened to them,” Lucy said, sighing as she walked along the corridor with her. “They were held by the Martians, then the Martians made them into little pet Martians, like in the Modern Traveler.” She nodded. “Whatever happens, they have the heat rays, and we have not.”

Mina gave her friend a sharp look. “You have been talking to Vlade a lot, I have realized...”

Lucy huffed. “I have always been this conscientious,” she muttered, but Mina could tell her friend, after speaking with Dracula, Lucy had clearly considered certain facts she had taken for granted. Mina couldn’t blame her. After all ... so had she.

“Do you think it’s really that simple?” Mina asked as they came to the cell that they had carved into the stone and the earth of the city, where Dracula stood, waiting, watching. There, through the slitted metal bars of the door, they could see the human servants of the Martians. They were just as hideous as they had seemed when they had been captured: Shapeless gray jumpsuits, bald headed, and midnight black eyes, reflecting the world around them like dark mirrors. They sat mutely in their cell, their knees drawn up to their chests. Dracula turned from the door to Mina and Lucy.

“I mislike this,” he murmurs. “I’ve attempted to probe their minds – but they feel as if they have been ... shrouded. Surrounded, even. Their inner selves have been quieted and replaced with whatever Mars has done to them.”

Mina didn’t like being reminded that they didn’t actually fight a people, but rather, a singular individual. She shivered and rubbed her shoulders, while Lucy frowned. “I have an idea, Vlade,” she said.

“What?” Dracula asked.

Lucy nodded. “They’re being controlled by Mars. And you say that Mars’ bodies, they have no ... well, nothing fun at all, right? No stomach, no taste buds, no ... ah...” She grinned. “No cunt. No cock.”

Mina’s cheeks burned. “Lucy!”

“Dracula has fucked both of us,” Lucy said, cheerfully. “I think we’re beyond the of getting flustered with some descriptive language.” She paused. “Cock!” She flashed her hands at Mina, who shoved her shoulder.

“Lucy, this is serious!” she said.

“To be fair, I am quite serious,” Lucy said, laughing. “These Martians are our opposites! We should play to our strengths, not theirs. They think. We feel.” She nodded sagely. “We simply have to get these poor devils to feel more than this Mars fellow can suppress them.”

Mina looked from her friend to Dracula, frowning.

“ ... it’s not a bad idea,” Dracula said, chuckling.

“Oh good heavens,” Mina said – then yelped as Lucy started to wriggle out of her dress, lifting her arms so that her dress puddled around her ankles. She stood, completely naked, her breasts high and her nipples perky and eager. She smiled at Dracula, then twirled on one foot, spreading her arms wide.

“How do I look, master,” she crooned.

Mina, who couldn’t take any more of this preening, reached down and smacked Lucy’s rump. “If you wanted to get them riled up, maybe you should have gone in dressed, then stripped sensually for them, like the burlesque you so clearly want to be,” she said, whispering in Lucy’s sharply pointed ear. Lucy chuckled, then leaned back against Mina, crooning.

“For a woman who is so flustered by this, you did think of that terribly fast...” She smiled, then stepped away and Mina, her cheeks burning, walked up to the door, to watch as Lucy slipped inside by transforming into fog and flowing through the bars. Mina watched as Lucy’s fog-form crept along the floor, the people within lifting their heads, watching her mutely. Their genders were hard to precisely tell, but Mina knew that no matter what it was that they had beneath their clothing, Lucy would contrive some solution that would leave her and them satisfied. She stepped in closer and pressed her cheek against one cool bar.

Lucy chose the tallest of the three first. Her mist flowed along them, and Mina saw tendrils of it caressing along the extremely modern looking zipper that kept the gray clothing fixed to their body. The zipper twitched, and the person looked left and right, as if trying to figure out what it was that was touching them. The mist solidifed and Lucy’s form was sculpted from cloud and fog, transforming into a curvaceous, alabaster woman. Her breasts pressed to their chest, and her hands rested upon their shoulders and her eyes locked onto their eyes – red to black.

“Hello there...” she crooned, huskily. Her palm cupped their cheek and her voice was soft, soft, soft. “You look so lonely in here. So cold.” She licked her lips. “You need someone to keep you company, don’t you?”

The human blinked, slowly. Their mouth opened, then closed. They looked as if they were in a dream, lost, uncertain. Lucy took a hold of their wrist with her hand, guiding it, placing it upon her breast. Those fingers, of their own accord, tightened on Lucy’s chest and Mina crossed her arms over her chest, trying to not feel jealous of the other ... she wasn’t sure if it was jealousy of Lucy, for getting to do this, or jealousy of the prisoner for getting to close her palm around Lucy’s tit.

We can fuck later, darling, Lucy crooned. Maybe while Jonathan watches?

Focus, dear Lucy, Mina sent back – then blinked as Lucy gasped, moaning. “Yes...” She whispered – and Mina saw why: The prisoner had begun to gently, gently roll Lucy’s nipple in their finger. Then they leaned close, kissing her pale breast. Sucking on her nipple. Moaning. Their free hand reached around, grabbing onto Lucy’s ass. Watching her pale flesh dimple under their grip was the final straw. Mina grinned, then pushed forward, flowing through the doorway just as her friend had, moving like fog into the room and finding the other prisoner. They weren’t even looking at Lucy, simply looking off into the middle distance. But as she flowed forward, Mina felt another presence inside of her – Dracula’s form, intermixing and intermingling with hers. It was an intensely erotic sensation, and it was why when she formed upon the prisoner’s lap, she had achingly hard nipples and a soaked cunt.

... or at least ... part of the reason...

Mina tried to sound seductive as she looked into the prisoner’s eyes. “Good ... evening...”

She felt no bulge as she ground against their lap – a woman?

Her fingers pressed to her chest, pushing the zipper down, tugging the clothing off the prisoner, who did not move to touch her, did not move to react. Her breasts were wrapped under a tight binding, to ensure that she remained shapeless, and Mina immediately took hold of the binding, then tugged forward, revealing her breasts. The woman made a soft, confused noise – and then Mina leaned forward, kissing her on the mouth as Dracula murmured to the third prisoner. Lucy groaned, her hips rising and falling – a cock was already impaling her and her fangs glittered with ruby red blood.

Mina broke the kiss, whispering. “D-Do you feel something for me? Anything?”

“I ... w-where ... am I?” the human woman whispered – in English! “Is this Belfast?”

Mina kissed her, thrusting her tongue down her throat, and the woman froze, then kissed her back, her hands gripping onto Mina’s arms, clearly washing away the confusion with lust. Mina felt her eagerness grow and when she broke the kiss, she crooned. “Do you want ... me?” She whispered, and the girl nodded, murmuring.

“T-This is a nice dream. I ... y-you’re a woman?” She blinked as Mina slid her fingers down, into her leggings. She pressed two cool fingers to the other woman’s cunt, sliding them in and crooking upwards. She began to finger her eagerly, panting softly as the woman moaned, rolling her head back, her eyes closing as she spread her thighs wantonly. When she opened her eyes, one was human, the other was still midnight black. That midnight black eye focused and Mina felt a voice, echoing in her head.

Enjoy your victory ... while you...

The voice faded as the woman cried out lustily, her back arching, her juices soaking Mina’s palm. She panted, then lifted her hand up, licking her fingers clean, languidly, her eyes growing hooded and happy. “Mmm, delicious,” she whispered.

“So wanton,” Lucy cried out – but not to her lover. She was calling it to Mina – and Mina gave her a sheepish little grin, before looking back at the woman, who was looking dazed and panting, her eyes purely human now.

“What are you?” she whispered.

“A vampire,” Mina murmured.

“Ah. After the Martians ... what’s one more?” The girl asked, gulping. “A- ... Are you going to kill me?”

“Only a little...” Mina crooned, thinking of the french phrase as she leaned forward. Her movement was languidly slow, and the woman froze in place rather than draw back. She simply surrendered to what it was that was coming. She actually lifted her chin, fractionally, as Mina felt the roaring instincts of her new position in unlife burning through her. The moment dragged outwards as Mina loomed above the bald woman ... lowered her head ... grazed her fangs along her throat. The woman tensed.

Mina’s fangs plunged in and the woman trembled, her hips backing. She let out a choked mewling noise, then went limp as Mina drank – drank – drank, and then jerked her fangs free and lapped her neck shut, kissing up to her ear and crooning.

“Thank you for the treat.”

The woman let out a ragged little laugh.

“We’re from a camp in England – some prisoners escaped, then they got caught and dragged back by the Tripods, just in time for the ... the ... what happened.” The male that Lucy had liberated, a hard working coal miner named Marcus Toole, said. His hands clasped together as he spoke, looking around the quiet conference room that Dracula had helped to carve into their fortress. The table itself was dominated by maps of Europe, marked by every spot that Martians were known to be active, as well as various resource sites that they might even now be raiding. “There was this big ... cup ... thing ... in London.”

“Like this?” Jonathan asked, holding up a paper that held his sketch of what he had seen. Marcus seemed to be perpetually disconcerted by the vampires about him, and every time one of them spoke, he started as if struck, settled, then nodded.

“Aye, that’s the thing ... though, they’ve added an additional portion here,” Marcus said. “Do you have a drafting pencil, I could throw in a sketch.” When he was given the pencil in question, he sketched in the final result, which looked rather like a large bowl that had a cup situated in the center of it, aimed towards the heaven. That cup then narrowed to a point, and several spars ran from it, with fins thrusting from those spars. Marcus then sketched those fins in isolation – making rectangles with thin midsections, which he pointed at. “I wager they’re nearly a hundred, two hundred feet wide, about two feet thick. They shouldn’t be able to stay up like that, supported on cables like that. They’d tear, being made of metal and all. And yet, instead, they stay up!”

“Interesting...” Dracula said, taking the document. “What does the device do?”

“That’s what we saw before we were...” Marcus paused.

“Changed,” the woman that Mina had liberated, Tiffany, said.

“That’s one word for it, yes...” Marcus Toole sighed. “We were being brought into London in those horrid nets that the Tripods carry on their backs, and we were taken down before the dish. Those panes swung ... thus!” He interlocked his hands. “So, rather than being fins, they were now more like a collection of flower petals, extending around the dish. And this is the queerest thing, but the whole structure began to groan and creak and there was this horrible wind – like, the whole world was being sucked up, and blown above us. Dust and grit flew everywhere, bits of glass, debris, it all started to get sucked upwards.”

“Like a tornado!” Tiffany said, the third prisoner nodding along with her.

“Then from the sky it came: One of those cylinders. But ... bigger,” Marcus said. “I saw the seventh and eight land, before everything went straight to hell, Mr. Dracula, and those were like needles next to this one. It came straight from the sky and it dropped towards the dish ... then it slowed to a crawl, stopped, and then the dish’s flower petals moved back to their fin mode, like thus. And ... I noticed, the wind did not stop. It simply died down to a light rushing around the fins – as if they kept sucking air upwards.”

“What the bloody hell could that be?” Jonathan asked.

“It sounds like magic,” Verona said.

Aleera shook his head. “No, if they were using magic, they wouldn’t be so shocked by us, would they?”

“It’s the stuff in the flying machine.”

Everyone turned to Sharon. The Jewish farmer had only recently returned from her grave, awakening to her new situation as a vampire. She had foregone any blood drinking for the time – focusing on helping where she could with merely the basic vampire powers that took no active use of vitae. Mina frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve been helping to move the flying machine parts,” Sharon said. “And that silver plate that Dracula had to tied down into the wagon, to keep them from flying off?”

“I only wish we had known they’d do that before the first one shot off into eternity,” Dracula said, bitterly.

“Well, I was the one that got tasked with moving it underground. It slipped in my grip – and I found, when it was mostly angled down to the ground, it flew up a lot slower,” Sharon said, nodding. “I don’t know how, but the more of it is faced to the ground, the harder up it-”

“Insulation!” Dracula exclaimed, springing to his feet. “That’s it!”

“Like ... what we use to keep our homes warm?” Lucy asked.

Dracula began to pace back and forth, nodding to himself. “Precisely, Lucy, precisely! We have insulation for all forms of energy waves – heat, light, electricity – save for one. Gravitation! You put glass up and it allows light through, but not heat. You place down copper, and it will stop light and heat, but not electricity. Concrete does fairly well at all three.” He patted the concrete above him, smiling. “But nothing, nothing on this Earth stops the rays that carry gravitational forces. This ... this ... Martian metal, it cuts off gravitational forces. Ergo, if you angle it towards the Earth, then the gravity that the Earth exerts will not be pushing down upon the material above it - instead, every other gravitational force that bombards our planet will act on us. The sun! The moon! Mars herself!” He laughed. “It’d be like attaching one of Congreve’s rocket to your legs.”