are you yourself the monster?”
Shortly after moving here, he’d installed the mirror as a lark, thinking he would channel Lugosi by mimicking his practice of standing in front of his dressing-room mirror saying, “I am … Dracula.”
But when Markov had started remastering the old films, hints of other monsters began to appear, gradually becoming more than hints, as though they were somehow seeping in to him. Except for Dracula. Since a vampire casts no reflection in a mirror, as the spirit of Lugosi’s performance had gotten stronger within him, the Dracula reflection had gotten weaker.
As he continued to stare at the mirror, he watched a series of dissolves in which, for one fleeting moment, his reflection became one movie horror after another.
First a faint image of Lon Chaney’s Dracula from The Un-Dead .
Then an even fainter image of Lugosi’s Dracula.
Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster.
Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man.
As Markov watched the werewolf revert to its human self, he saw hints of his own face mixed in with Lon Chaney Jr.’s. But it was conscience-tormented Lawrence Talbot’s voice pleading inside his head: Save me. Please! The full moon is coming. The worst one of all. The Blood Moon.
Markov struggled for dominance until the tortured Lawrence Talbot persona dissolved, and he was himself again.
Himself.
Who was he?
He probed his eyes in the mirror, searching for the lost soul of George Tilton, seeing instead only fading split-second flashes of the monsters that triggered a surge of self-loathing.
Unlike Lawrence Talbot, the hapless victim of a werewolf, Markov had knowingly sold his soul to chase the dream of screen immortality. But like Lawrence Talbot, he despised the beasts within that would devour human life to perpetuate their unnatural existence.
The faint image of another face slowly became visible in the mirror until Bram Stoker’s original inspiration for Dracula was staring back at him. Vlad the Impaler, eyes red with bloodlust. Against his will, Markov followed the eyes as they shifted their focus from him to the ten-foot-long wooden stake propped upright in the corner—as though willing him to use it.
No . That was only a prop for set decoration.
Markov tore his gaze away from the stake and looked back at the mirror.
Now the eyes were those of George Tilton. There was pleading in them.
Could a soul be reclaimed from the Devil?
CHAPTER 14
Quinn walked into the small antechamber that had been hollowed out of the solid rock upon which the castle had been built. At the far edge of the cavity, a large opening loomed. The light from the bookshelves barely reached it, but there was enough to see the top of a staircase leading down into a black void. Unlit torches stood in brackets on either side of the entrance.
He took a tentative step onto one of the large stone tiles covering the floor, then another, half-expecting a trapdoor or some other movie trickery. A few steps later, a spiral staircase cut into the stone disappeared around a bend. He went down far enough to look at the section beyond the curve. Slanting, uneven stairs continued through a crudely hand-hewn tunnel. A craggy, unfinished ceiling hung down into the opening, and chiseled ridges on the stone walls created sharp, sinister shadows.
Markov had called his movie set/castle a shrine to madness. If what waited below was the inner sanctum of that shrine, the disorienting staircase perfectly conveyed the feeling of entering an underworld where sanity no longer prevailed. Like the bizarre shadows painted on the wall beneath the gargoyle sconces, the staircase clearly had been influenced by the expressionistic design of Son of Frankenstein . That thought made Quinn wonder if another of Son of Frankenstein ’s design elements might await in the forbidden chamber below: the sulfuric lava pit.
Only a few steps were visible before the light from the library died, and jagged, lurking shadows merged into one and swallowed
Shortly after moving here, he’d installed the mirror as a lark, thinking he would channel Lugosi by mimicking his practice of standing in front of his dressing-room mirror saying, “I am … Dracula.”
But when Markov had started remastering the old films, hints of other monsters began to appear, gradually becoming more than hints, as though they were somehow seeping in to him. Except for Dracula. Since a vampire casts no reflection in a mirror, as the spirit of Lugosi’s performance had gotten stronger within him, the Dracula reflection had gotten weaker.
As he continued to stare at the mirror, he watched a series of dissolves in which, for one fleeting moment, his reflection became one movie horror after another.
First a faint image of Lon Chaney’s Dracula from The Un-Dead .
Then an even fainter image of Lugosi’s Dracula.
Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster.
Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man.
As Markov watched the werewolf revert to its human self, he saw hints of his own face mixed in with Lon Chaney Jr.’s. But it was conscience-tormented Lawrence Talbot’s voice pleading inside his head: Save me. Please! The full moon is coming. The worst one of all. The Blood Moon.
Markov struggled for dominance until the tortured Lawrence Talbot persona dissolved, and he was himself again.
Himself.
Who was he?
He probed his eyes in the mirror, searching for the lost soul of George Tilton, seeing instead only fading split-second flashes of the monsters that triggered a surge of self-loathing.
Unlike Lawrence Talbot, the hapless victim of a werewolf, Markov had knowingly sold his soul to chase the dream of screen immortality. But like Lawrence Talbot, he despised the beasts within that would devour human life to perpetuate their unnatural existence.
The faint image of another face slowly became visible in the mirror until Bram Stoker’s original inspiration for Dracula was staring back at him. Vlad the Impaler, eyes red with bloodlust. Against his will, Markov followed the eyes as they shifted their focus from him to the ten-foot-long wooden stake propped upright in the corner—as though willing him to use it.
No . That was only a prop for set decoration.
Markov tore his gaze away from the stake and looked back at the mirror.
Now the eyes were those of George Tilton. There was pleading in them.
Could a soul be reclaimed from the Devil?
CHAPTER 14
Quinn walked into the small antechamber that had been hollowed out of the solid rock upon which the castle had been built. At the far edge of the cavity, a large opening loomed. The light from the bookshelves barely reached it, but there was enough to see the top of a staircase leading down into a black void. Unlit torches stood in brackets on either side of the entrance.
He took a tentative step onto one of the large stone tiles covering the floor, then another, half-expecting a trapdoor or some other movie trickery. A few steps later, a spiral staircase cut into the stone disappeared around a bend. He went down far enough to look at the section beyond the curve. Slanting, uneven stairs continued through a crudely hand-hewn tunnel. A craggy, unfinished ceiling hung down into the opening, and chiseled ridges on the stone walls created sharp, sinister shadows.
Markov had called his movie set/castle a shrine to madness. If what waited below was the inner sanctum of that shrine, the disorienting staircase perfectly conveyed the feeling of entering an underworld where sanity no longer prevailed. Like the bizarre shadows painted on the wall beneath the gargoyle sconces, the staircase clearly had been influenced by the expressionistic design of Son of Frankenstein . That thought made Quinn wonder if another of Son of Frankenstein ’s design elements might await in the forbidden chamber below: the sulfuric lava pit.
Only a few steps were visible before the light from the library died, and jagged, lurking shadows merged into one and swallowed
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