A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)

A Bloody (And Public) Domaine was the sixth story in The Book of the Enemy.

Heavily featuring Count Dracula, it notably established him to exist in a state of "quantum possibility", constantly shifting between different backstories and personas, thereby reconciling the myriad of conflicting accounts given of the public domain ghoul in previous stories.

Pre-Narrative Briefing
Briefing G

Story
Godfather Gideon and Godfather Auteur are at the stop of the Shadow Spire, with Loa circling it, listening to a recording of Godfather Morlock's personal testimony on a phonograph.

Morlock admits to being fascinated in the brief role Vlad Tepes played in the war, deciding to examine his body to analyze a specimen that experiences multiple branches of history. The normal history of his life has only a tangential impact on the war, the massacre at Targoviste caused the Celestis to take note of him. But his future life has multiple strands, being resurrected by Mal'akh worshipers, or people believing in Stoker's novel and so him becoming Dracula, and one thread, more interesting than the others, a woman in a black dress, the mother of monsters, Lilith. Dracula survives, builds an empire, and vampirism even becomes fashionable. Indeed, in this timeline there was a fleet of organic timeships, blocking the timeline of a Dracula who didn't ever die.

Auteur is writing a story, an epistolary novel, which he claims is all true. Though, only true once he has written it. Gideon reflects that he risks the wrath of other faction members by associating with his old friend, a prisoner here in the Shadow Spire. But Gideon humours Auteur, even if he can't believe that the Enemy is Dracula.

A letter, from Mina Harker to Abraham Van Helsing
 * Two weeks ago they found Jonathan Harker naked, skinned, and tied to the door of a church. She wrote to him then, but hasn't heard back. She writes to him now as well, but expects no response.

Gideon objects. Van Helsing, not back for the sequel? Auteur explains that he had other business in Transylvania. The plot of the movie Brides of Dracula.

Mina Harker's Journal
 * The Count told Mina that others would die if she did not go to him that night. So she headed to a Bedfordshire mine, even as she hungered, even as the wounds on her neck and her symptoms worsened. A mine built by invaders who found something, a new kind of History, that annihilated them. Dracula has been told by Lilith that this History is his to take, to found an Empire where the sun would never rise.

Gideon objects, a timeline where Dracula was resurrected by a higher power and rewrites history to become the Enemy? Why would Auteur write about this one, especially since they know for certain the Enemy isn't related to the Yssgaroth. Auteur hands him a section from the cultists' bible.

The Dragon Scriptures, The Master’s Gospel, Chapter Four, verses One to Twenty-Three
 * On the trip towards England Dracula spoke with Lilith and she showed him the Spiral and History and the Forefathers behind the Very Fabric, craving her touch. She says to Dracula that he is not Yssgaroth, but more, refined, no longer taint, he is...

Gideon asks what he is, but Auteur hasn't written it yet. He admits there's some degree of creative license involved, he isn't saying word for word what the loa are telling him. Gideon is frustrated with the man who considers himself the author of the Spiral Politic, but sighs and continues.

Mina Harker's Journal
 * Mina is captured by cultists and made to kneel before Dracula. As he demeans her, the mine begins to break down, and "the blood of the earth" begins to flow in. Harker lunges at Dracula and stabs him in the heart as he drinks in a goblet of the fluid.

Gideon still refuses to believe that Dracula could be the enemy and leaves the Shadow Spire. On his way out, the Loa swoop down and consume him, with the last one, a straggler, nibbling at the flesh, taking the form of a bat.

Characters

 * Gideon
 * Auteur
 * Morlock
 * Count Dracula
 * Mina Harker
 * Lilith

Continuity

 * The Eleven-Day Empire has a red sky. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire, et al.)
 * Morlock mentions the massacre at Tirgoviste which the Celestis were involved in. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
 * In one quantum possibility, Vlad's history "tangled" with the Incremental Effect and his "vampiric persona" was "made real because so many people took Stoker's novel for gospel". (PROSE: The Found World)
 * Morlock mentions the Ghost Point. (PROSE: The Book of the War, This Town Will Never Let Us Go)
 * Auteur says Morlock can "baise lui-même." (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * Homeworlders have a special power over the universe caused by the Observer Effect. (PROSE: The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic)
 * Dracula uses a Bedfordshire mine built in the future by "invaders of metal and spite" who tried to get to Earth's core. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
 * "A History" is hidden in Earth's core. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two, Head of State)
 * The caldera was described as an "absence" in PROSE: The Book of the War.
 * Lilith refers to the Very Fabric. (PROSE: Mad Dogs and Englishmen, et al)
 * Lilith is also known by the names "Lady Waki" (PROSE: The Book of the War) and "Queen Charlotte". (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat)
 * Earth's core bleeds green pus. (TV: Inferno)
 * "Lilith" also shows an interest in the Earth's core in PROSE: Head of State.
 * Auteur and Gideon reappeared in PROSE: White Canvas, which alluded to their debut via the presence of a copy of Dracula on Auteur's bookshelf.