But I will write no more of it now. It may be over already, for all we know, a brief aberration of the spirit world. How pleasant it will be to spend the afternoon alone with Quincey and Elena. My task in reassuring them that all is normal will surely refresh my own spirit.
We are quite a houseful of invalids now! Elena is the only fit one among us!
Quincey is still the same, out of bed but listless and easily tired. Every time he succumbs to an illness, I fear it may be his last. Thank goodness Elena is so calm and happy! She steadies us all. Her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow – almost as if she had a secret suitor, though I am certain she has not. I think it is simply her naturally sweet disposition shining through.
Later
We have given in to Van Helsing’s wishes, and summoned Dr Seward and Lord Godalming. Our little army will be together again (with, of course, the sad exception of Mr Morris). I feel saddened, yet somewhat reassured by this. We are no longer facing this alone, but with people who understand.
I have such a strange feeling today. It is as if the menace that plagued our dreams and minds is quite gone, yet... Oh, enough of trying to comprehend these moods!
7 November
They are here – without their wives, since we do not know what danger is to be faced. (For myself, I do not wish to be protected but to stand alongside them. It is no more than I have done in the past). We sat around the dining room table as a sort of committee, as we have done before. Dr Seward looked grim as we explained what has befallen, almost as if he had expected this to happen. Lord Godalming seemed anxious and troubled, even despairing; he cannot bear to be away from his dear wife and child, I know. I wondered if they would feel the same urgency of commitment as they felt before, without Lucy to unite us. But as soon as Van Helsing finished, as one, without hesitation, we all began to remake our pledges. To stand by one another, and never to rest until the evil is prised out and destroyed! I must confess that tears were shed, and not just by myself.
As we all clasped hands, vowing loyalty, Jonathan looked up as if startled. There was nothing to see; he looked into space, as it were, and said something strange. “He is gone. But he is coming!”
* * *
ELENA KOVACS’S JOURNAL
7 November
Madam Mina remarks how serene and well-tempered I am. If only she knew the truth! I am such a mixture of passions. Fear, triumph, excitement, and again, terror. Even now, alone in my room with a single candle burning, my heart races and my hands shake. No matter if my writing is unreadable, it is only for my eyes – and perhaps for those of my beloved Dark Companion, who may then be doubly sure of my loyalty.
To take the blood from Madam Mina – that was a great obstacle. I could hardly lunge at her with a knife, and even if I had made to cut her accidentally with a paper knife, or prick her with a needle, I might have drawn only a drop of blood and failed to catch it. And such an “accident” could never be repeated. Unless she was to think me dangerously clumsy!
I miss my love’s spirit being folded up inside mine, like a child within me. When we arrived in England I felt him leave the sanctuary of my soul – although he returns often, of course. He has been among the family, and they know; I see the haunted light in their faces, the shadows in their eyes. I hear them cry out in the night. But they never speak of it. These are the English! In Hungary they would have hedged themselves about with herbs and garlic and every sign and incantation against the Devil! They are all fools.
I am jealous of Mina. Why must he need her so much? But I try to understand. I asked him how I was to take her blood but there came from him only a cold urge, Do so, as if he were testing my ingenuity. I was in despair until I thought of the rose.
When I had the idea, I felt him respond, warming to me, urging me on. (My mother cut her lip once and I remember how it bled... how strange I have that memory of her. Yet what a blessing!) So, the lip... but how to pierce it, how to catch the blood? Finally he gave me an answer. We would work together. He would control the child for a few minutes, and the child would do the deed.
Then, if it went wrong and I failed, it would be blamed on the boy anyway, so I would still have a chance to try another way. But all went well.
How Mina bled! The blood streamed from her mouth, bright and gleaming. I caught it in the base of the urn, where it ran down into the precious dust. How considerate of her to faint! Thus giving me the chance to conceal the bowl before I called for help.
I left the house that night with all black and silent. A chill mist floated about my feet and hung like rags in the bare trees. I carried the urn two miles to the churchyard and entered the sepulchre. Inside it was ice-cold and damp, the air dense with a miasma of stone and mould. The odours of wet earth and vegetation crept into our hiding place. The scent of new life. I turned aside the slab on top of the marble tomb. Over it lay a long black cassock that I stole from the church to clothe him. I tipped the ash and blood onto the sacred soil, hoping with all my heart that I have done everything correctly. Then I lit a candle, and sat down at the foot of the tomb to wait.
That night, and the following three, I kept a vigil in the darkest hours before dawn. Nothing stirred. I knew, from disturbances at the house, that my Dark Companion’s spirit had not yet fused with his flesh; I began to fear that it never would, that I had done something terribly wrong.
But last night...
I watch the night sky through the bars of the mausoleum gate. The leaves of the yew tree are motionless. All is motionless... and I wait and wait, not daring to look into the tomb. I dread to find nothing more than a mess of clotted ash and soil, but dread even more to see some spectral shape forming, or to hear a movement inside the coffin’s stone walls... But mine is not to witness such mystery, only to keep the vigil.
I grow very cold, huddling there in the dark. A deep pall of despair falls on me, a misery so heavy and grey I wish to die. I can bear no more. I must look into the tomb, I must know... but I am falling into a deep sleep.
When I wake, a tall thin figure stands over me.
It is dark; the candle has gone out, but there is a chill clear glow to the sky, as of dawn’s imminence. Against this glow, the figure is a silhouette, gaunt and dusty black. He is so still he might be carved of dark stone, one of the graveyard statues. I hold my breath, for I do not know if I dream.
He lifts a hand, and the gathering glow shines through the tips of his fingernails, making of them glistening, sharp crescents.
He reaches his hand to me and speaks in a voice of rusted iron, one word, “Elena.”
Chapter Nine
ELENA KOVACS’S JOURNAL (Continued)
He is standing between me and the light. His eyes glare scarlet into mine.
I touch his hand. For the first time in reality, I touch him. He grasps my hand in his; the palm is cold and rough with hair, the fingers powerful. They hold me like ropes as he pulls me to my feet. His nails almost pierce my skin.
I cannot see him clearly. My head comes barely to his shoulder; his form gives the impression of skeletal thinness and great age, yet of strength – a wiry, silvery strength. The shape of his skull in silhouette is magnificent, dawn making a nimbus of his white hair. He smells of earth – but so do I. It is a wild scent, wet and fungal, and at the same time as wholesome as new growth.
Dear God, what have I done?
In my awe, I have no strength. His face is obscure but the twin fires of his eyes sear me. I would fall, but he holds me up with his sinewy hands.
He has put on the cassock I brought for him. It looks as natural upon him as feathers on an eagle; he could be an abbot, a man of untouchable spiritual authority. One of us must speak; I find my voice. “Dearest companion of my soul, if there is any need of yours to which I have not attended, only tell me and it shall be done.”
His eyes become more tender. Long deep eyelids come down, the redness turns dark. “Elena,” he says again. He speaks to me in Hungarian. “You have given me back my existe
nce. There is only one other need. Life.”
The whole world stops breathing; all is as poised and fragile as ice. The darkness closes around me, the growing light blinds me.
He puts his arms about me and his chest presses hard against mine. So long I have dreamed of this embrace, yet now it comes I am so afraid I wish to escape. He holds me fast, so cold, so hard.
In spite of his strength there is something frail and papery about him, like a moth new-emerged from the cocoon. He puts his lips to my neck and I feel pressure at my throat. I am held to him by a circle of pain. I feel his tongue, his mouth sucking at me. My first instinct is to fight – then a dizzy sweetness pours through me, and I hang limp in his grasp, wanting to laugh through my agony. I come out of my body and see our two heads from above, his silver, mine dark. The fragile night throbs and explodes in thunder; I see trees thrashing, great mountains convulsing and falling. Then, with a racking spasm that seems the end of everything, I am in my body again.
And he is gone.
I see a thin layer of mist flowing through the gap under the lid of the tomb. Dawn pushes grey fingers through the bars. I am dizzy and gasping for breath; but as it passes, I dare to look into the tomb.
He lies inside. I see his face clearly! An eagle’s visage, a nobleman. White hair flowing back from high temples, thickly curling eyebrows. I see the pink flush of my blood under his pale skin, my blood lying red on his lips under the great white eye-teeth. I am terrified yet I feel the surge of deep, unholy love; I am repelled and yet I want him to take me again and again until I expire in his arms.
He looks at me. I gasp, for it is as if a corpse looks up and speaks, with stiff lips, from a deep catalepsy.
“Faithful child,” he says. “You serve me well, when all others conspire against me. I must rest now. Come to me again tonight, and we will talk of many matters. My beloved. Go home now and keep your silence.”
“Beloved”, he calls me!
I watch him for a while, but he does not speak again. I drag the heavy lid into place, so that he might rest in darkness. Then I go into the damp, foggy graveyard and hurry home, breathless and dizzy every step of the way.
O night, come quickly! How am I to get through this day?
8 November
The day passed easily enough. Mina remarked that I looked pale; I assured her that I am well, but once she was gone I pinched my cheeks and bit my lips to make myself rosy again. I must not arouse their suspicions!
Van Helsing and the other men, Dr Seward and Lord Godalming, are still here. I wish they would go; I know they are my Dark Companion’s enemies, and are conspiring against him. I grow angry with them, but then I laugh secretly, for I know they cannot win. There is much secretive talk behind closed doors, and at meal times the tension between them is so thick I might slice it with a cheesewire. Mr Harker looks haggard. I catch him gazing at me as if he guesses, though I know he cannot guess. I am tense, also, but for reasons they do not imagine.
I thought night would never come, but at last Quincey was put to bed, and I made an excuse to retire early. Then I had to wait for the household all to go to bed, lest someone should see me leaving!
By the time I reached the graveyard, I was excited no longer, but trembling with terror. Why am I doing this, walking again and again into such danger for his sake? I pass between the avenue of gravestones and dark yews, but before I reach his tomb a dark figure appears before me.
It is him. My heart fails. I almost cry out, but he catches my arms and my breath stops in my throat. His form is stark black in the cassock. How fierce is his face, made more fearsome by the curling bushiness of his eyebrows, the long white moustache and the profusion of his long pale hair. I close my eyes, cannot look at him. I am faint with the conflict of desire – to escape him yet to be held captive.
“Look at me, Elena,” he says. His voice is stronger than before, rich and harsh and commanding. “What do you see?”
“A handsome nobleman. One who was a great hero.”
“Do not flatter me. The truth!”
“You know I speak the truth!” My own spirit surprises me.
His lips lift beneath the moustache; it seems a smile, though a bitter one. “I have not seen my own face for more than four hundred years. No mirror can capture my image.” He draws me to an overgrown tomb and sits me beside him on the mottled stone. His frailty of the first night has gone, but I perceive a weakness in him, as if he were held by invisible chains to the graveyard. “You will talk to me and tell me all you know of the world,” he says gently. “I have walked upon it for four hundred years or more. Yet the globe has turned for seven years, that passed for me like eternity compressed into a single moment. Now all is strange again.”
“Beloved companion, I thought you knew all there is to know. You have taught me so much!”
“And I have lost much. It could be, Elena, that you saw visions of matters that I have forgotten. Not all knowledge survives the grave. I have lain for so very long in one grave or another.”
We talk for hours. How bitter-sweet, to lie in the arms of death and talk like lovers. I tell him how the wolf came to me and led me to the castle, the visions I saw. At everything I say, he nods, as if reassured. “Yes... yes, I do remember.” And he tells me some of his own story; wild, rambling and so strange I cannot follow it all, but the core of it I understand. “They destroyed me – the Harkers and the accursed Van Helsing, who has made himself doctor of every discipline as though he would heal the very world of its sickness. Fool. Elena, my own land was frozen in the Middle Ages, drained of vitality by war, a ghost of itself. I sought a new kingdom, to move among the whirl and rush of humanity in these great cities of the West... but they foiled me. And they did worse. They destroyed some I loved, who cannot return as I have. For that, they must be punished.”
He speaks simply, not vengefully. But such is his passion that I would give my life to help him. “Van Helsing is a friend of my uncle. He is staying with the Harkers.”
“I know, Elena,” he answers. “I have watched them through your eyes, through each other’s eyes. I have entered their dreams and defiled them.” He smiles; it is almost a sneer, a hellish look of pleasure. “Do they ever speak of me?”
“Not to me. They believe me to be innocent, and they intend the child and myself to remain so. But now I know why they made the journey to Transylvania; to see again the place where they destroyed you! But among themselves, I am certain they speak of nothing else. They have sent for the others, too, Seward and Godalming. They are very afraid.”
“Good. How sweet to see madness eating at them. They know I am among them. Jonathan yielded easily to me; Van Helsing drove me out; Mina I could not enter, but she is falling in another way. She is strong. I need her blood.”
“Is mine not enough?” I ask, jealous.
“It is the finest wine, beloved.” He touches my cheek; my skin tingles deliciously where his fingers pass. “But my blood runs in Mina’s veins. Until I taste it I cannot reclaim my full powers.” I fall quiet. I can’t argue, yet still I hate this knowledge. I fear my jealousy will make him angry. Instead he stretches out his left hand above my lap.
“Yet how good it is to live again!” he says, flexing the fingers with their long, pointed nails. I take his hand between my own. “You gave me this gift, beloved. To taste, to see through my own eyes, not those of others. To hear the music of the owl and the wolf, to touch skin. Your skin.” He leans closer to me, his mouth near my neck. I shiver. “No earthly taste, no meat, no wine, no sweetmeat can ever compare to the taste of blood. No potion can mimic its vitality. Why do you tremble?”
“I am afraid of you,” I said.
“Then you are wise,” he replies, drawing away. “But they are the ones who should fear me. You have nothing to fear – as long as you are loyal. Will your courage fail? You are a danger. You might give away my hiding place to them.”
“No!”
“You chose to help me of your own free wil
l, beloved child. You might as easily change your mind.”
“My choice is made!” I say fiercely. “How dare you doubt me? I will never betray you!”
“Then you have only yourself to blame,” he murmured, “for whatever befalls. Do all my bidding without question now, and later you will be richly rewarded.”
I bow my head, promising all. I am leaning against him; one of his arms is around me, the other moving to brush aside my hair and loosen the collar of my dress. My body turns limp with languor, my head falls back, and his teeth pierce my exposed throat. I come floating up out of my body, while the world spirals upon itself, full of stars and angelic voices singing in painful discord. The spiral tightens into a violent convulsion and I am flung back into my mortal body.
“Now leave me,” he says.
“Must I go?” I cling to him, but he holds me away.
“Yes, beloved. I have much to do; money, clothes, horses to acquire... There is no need for you to come here again. I will come to you. I am strong enough now.”
“To leave this place?”
“And to complete my revenge.”
I barely remember going home. At eight, Mary woke me only with difficulty. I must rest as much as possible, for the slightest exertion makes me breathless – but none of this matters. I am in a state of bliss.
I am not entranced or bewitched by him. When I began to help him, I chose that path – or the path chose me. I know what he is, yet I knowingly brought him back. I am only the instrument of his rebirth, I know, but without me he could not have returned – any more than a child can be born without a mother. I serve him by choice, as he said.
Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula Page 13
