Elena confronted Alice, her face writhing. The power of the cross was too much and she began slowly to retreat, sliding off the far edge of the bed and backing up to the wall – the gap in between being no more than four feet wide. Now I saw that Alice had in her left hand the wooden stake that earlier she’d prevented me from using.
Elena was uttering terrible snarls that would have given the bravest man pause, yet Alice seemed aflame with wrath and courage. Although the bed stood between them, she would not be hindered. Indeed, I would not have believed a woman of her size and years could move with such agility – for Alice simply ran and leapt straight across the bed, near crushing my legs as she passed.
As she alighted on the other side, Alice dropped the cross, took the stake in both hands, and plunged it through Elena’s breast. Blood surged out, staining both their nightdresses. I was too late to look away; would that I had, for now that horrible sight is with me for ever! The vampire uttered a hideous scream, not loud, more a sort of anguished expiry of breath; then she simply froze where she stood, hands gripping the shaft that protruded from her body. All malevolence passed from her face, which became smooth and peaceful. Her eyes fell shut. She was dead; upright, pinned, but dead.
Alice stepped back and sat heavily on the bed, stunned by what she had done. I began to tremble in shock and a tumult of feelings. Elena, poor Elena!
I don’t recall what Alice and I said to each other; I think we were both too shocked to speak. In the silence I heard, from the part of the house that forms the asylum, Dr Seward’s patients shouting and howling as eerily as wolves – as if they understood more than the sane ever could.
Then Alice roused herself and turned at once to practical matters, as is her sensible nature. Now there could be no summoning of doctor or undertaker. We couldn’t leave the body of Elena in the house, especially since Dr Seward was not present to write a certificate of death. So Alice and I had no choice but to carry the body back to Carfax. Indeed, Alice did the greater part of this grisly work, for I was faint and barely in my right mind. Her courage, I must note not least for her husband’s appreciation, was astonishing! She seemed a veritable Amazon, quailing not once as she hefted the corpse and bore it across the asylum grounds and into those of Carfax. The Count left the gates unfastened when he fled. How gloomy and ill-favoured the night seemed, the Abbey deathly quiet among the gnarled trees and deep dark ponds. The dogs, at least, did not trouble us. They have deserted the place, now their master is not there to feed them.
We brought poor Elena to the crypt, laid her in a coffin, and pushed garlic into her mouth. I could not bear to do more; I mean that I could not bring myself to behead her, nor to suggest that Alice did so. We said a prayer. Looking down upon Elena’s form now rent by the stake, the hideous blood stain beneath the sweet repose of her face, mad grief overcame me at last. I collapsed, weeping; I remember little more, but I know that Alice – good, brave soul! – somehow got me home and helped me to bed. There she gave me a draught that restored me somewhat.
She said, “Forgive me, Jonathan, for keeping you from an action that might have prevented this! I was too much a sceptic. I believed all my husband’s and Van Helsing’s stories as gospel, yet when it came to the reality, I could not accept it. It seemed wrong to violate a corpse. When I woke tonight, the inmates were restless and there were strange sounds, strange cold breezes sighing round me, and such an odd glow, as if spirits haunted the room. And you know I am not of a fanciful disposition! So I got up and looked in Elena’s room. I had to unlock it – but her body was gone! Then I heard you give an anguished cry. I acted by instinct on what Van Helsing told me, that the Undead abhor the sign of the cross, and I armed myself with the stake. When I saw that creature upon you, I did what I knew must be done to save you and put that poor creature from its evil misery. Oh, forgive me for ever doubting you!”
26th November
So, Elena is at rest. Alice Seward, like a fiery angel at the gates of Eden, has delivered us. I should be grateful, yet I cannot stop thinking of her dark hair brushing me and her sweet voice whispering... the honeyed delusions that so nearly destroyed me.
Each day, Quincey asks, “Papa, where is Elena?” Not, “Where is Mama?” Once he said an even stranger thing. “The tall man was not cruel to me, but he used to give me a bitter medicine to drink. I did not like it.”
Dear God, was Dracula trying to poison Quincey? I can’t see how, for the boy is the healthiest I have ever seen him. He appears to have suffered no ill-effects from his imprisonment, and there are no signs of the vampire upon him. Yet whenever he is not engaged in some boyish activity, he sits gazing out of a window, as if willing Elena to come back.
Now when I think of Mina, I know that I have forgiven her at last. How arrogant I was to consider my dear wife in any way stained or unacceptable to me! More than forgiven, for I am in no position to withhold or dispense absolution. If she has fallen then so have I, and in just the same way. Although convention teaches that it is worse for her than for me, I cannot in my soul believe that. In God’s eyes our sins are identical. I understand her. So as we are both sinners, we can surely live together in tenderness, where before there was festering condemnation and distrust?
I have given up trying to write with my leaden right hand and am learning to use my left – the feminine, intuitive side, as Van Helsing would have it. Dear Mina, shall I ever see you again – or has understanding come too late? I shall tell her all of this, if God will only grant me the chance! So far from deigning to bestow my compassion upon her, I shall only offer myself up, in abject contrition, to receive hers.
So here I sit alone in the drawing room, thinking constantly of Mina and praying for her safe deliverance. Yet when my thoughts stray, as often they do, Elena’s image haunts me, the demure companion, the wild, blood-dappled temptress; and her image becomes mixed up with Mina’s, so that I cannot tell them apart; and often I start up from writing or reflection, feeling as vividly as life Elena’s soft voice in my ear and her cool gentle hand upon my arm.
* * *
LETTER, ABRAHAM VAN HELSING TO JONATHAN HARKER.
28 November, Vienna
My dear Jonathan,
News at last. We discovered, through much painstaking investigation, that Dracula has this time chanced the train across Europe – so much more swiftly to reach his destination! Loaded onto the Vienna-to-Buda-Pesth train has been one large box, accompanied by an English woman of Madam Mina’s description. No mention of Elena and child, however. We are now, we estimate, approximately half a day behind them.
Kovacs travels parallel to us, as it were, rather than with us. My supposition is that he travels as wolf, and finds the unhallowed graves he need for rest along the way. Rivers may only be crossed at the slack of tide, you understand. But the restrictions that delay us, delay Dracula also!
He seeks the Scholomance, I hardly need add, precisely for the purpose of finding a way to rid himself of these limitations.
I hope you are on the way to recovery in Alice Seward’s tender care. Keep up your courage, my friend!
Yours,
Abraham Van Helsing
Chapter Sixteen
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
30 November
It is a long time since I have felt able to bring this journal up to date. We are in Sighisoara for one night; tomorrow we go on to Hermannstadt. I am in a little hotel room with crooked walls and ivy hanging over the windows, the foliage crusted with light snow; the Count... but let me record all as I remember it.
I was in a state of bewilderment when we left Carfax. I could not believe that Elena had fled with my son, could not comprehend her reasoning. Something seemed wrong, but Dracula assured me it was so, and I had no choice but to put my faith in him. He said, “She believes that I have broken faith with her, therefore she is fleeing to another who, she thinks, will confer immortality upon her. Her uncle has given her this idea. She is on her way to the Scholomance.”
&
nbsp; “How can you be certain of it?” I asked.
“When my blood was in you, and yours in me,” he said, looking intently at me – even, I might say, with a kind of brooding affection – “were we not linked? When I returned to Castle Dracula, you knew, at every stage of my journey, where I was. Is it not so? That was how your menfolk followed and destroyed me. Well, it is the same. I know where Elena is bound.”
“Then why can you not call her back?” I exclaimed. “Surely your will is stronger than hers?”
He paused, then gave a strange reply. “Sometimes the Devil’s call is stronger.”
I am so afraid for Quincey. It is almost winter, and the Transylvanian climate is bitter. His delicate constitution will never bear it! Still, I must focus all my will on finding him alive, or else I shall go mad.
We went in the caleche to Dover, and thence by boat and train towards Transylvania. Since Dracula cannot travel without his native earth, a great box must be conveyed with us. I acted as solitary guard to the box in which he lies, on the long train journey across the continent, supervising the transfer of the box from one train to the next at every stage of the journey. I was surprised at my own resourcefulness in this, using all my wiles and authority as an English “lady” to sweeten recalcitrant foreign guards along the way.
Sometimes the Count would be at rest in the box. Then I would wonder how easy it might be to prise open the lid, to gaze upon his waxen, aquiline face, and then to plunge some sharp implement through his heart. I thought of it constantly. But I could not do it. Alone, I would have no hope of finding Elena. More than that; I have grown used to him, seen every shade of his temperament; his tenderness and nobility, as well as his brutality. I feel, however wrongly, that the world would be a lesser place without him.
And then I remember the evil he has wreaked upon us, and I despair.
As the train rattled through the darkness, and I sat in the guard’s van watching over this strange cargo, a white mist would spill from under the lid, and the Count would stand before me; a pillar of obsidian, his white face as fierce as an eagle’s, his eyes agleam like rubies. And each time I would experience the same frisson of fear and longing.
Often he would be gone from the train for hours. I imagined him racing as a wolf through the night; perhaps waiting by a bridge for the slack tide than would allow him to cross the river, then gliding as a bat through the darkness to rejoin the train.
I have grown used to the odour of Castle Dracula’s earth upon him; there is comforting quality to it, a dry spiciness and something of autumn and woodsmoke. He has not taken my blood a third time. There are silver streaks in the darkness of his hair once more. It seems to me that he does not absolutely need blood, for he is immortal anyway; rather, he takes it for vigour and power. And even, or above all – God have mercy on me! – for the carnal pleasure of it.
*
I had a great shock on the stretch from Buda-Pesth to Klausenburgh. I was sitting as usual in the dinginess of the guard’s van, comfortable upon some sacks of fleece. It was morning, but the motion of the train lulled me towards sleep, for I was by now worn down from the constant travelling and the ever-deepening cold. Of a sudden I woke from my doze, roused violently by a fierce sense of alarm. Two men were coming along the swaying, creaking carriage, making their way between the stacked boxes and chests. Their faces were haggard with strain, horrible to behold.
I almost did not recognise them as Van Helsing and Dr Seward! I started up, amazed; mirroring my shock, they rushed to my side. “Come away, Madam Mina,” Van Helsing said urgently. “You are safe now.”
“But how have you found me?” I cried, dumbfounded.
Van Helsing responded with a grim smile; grim, I knew with great regret, at least in part because my demeanour on greeting them had been one of dismay, not joy. That must have convinced them that Dracula was turning me against my own... but I found myself unable to dispel this impression. He said, “Have you forgotten what keen detectives Dracula forced us to become? An Englishwoman travelling alone with a great chest does not pass unnoticed. Our greatest struggle has been to close the gap of time between us; it has taken us all the miles between Dover and the plains of Transylvania to do so.”
“Oh, Professor,” I said, ashamed. I could imagine their desperate journey! “Where is Jonathan?”
“His health would not let him travel, but he is in Mrs Seward’s care. Is the Count...?” Van Helsing looked at the box; I nodded. “Then we shall dispose of him at once.”
He was already reaching into his case for the wooden stake and other paraphernalia; I felt quite sick to see the instruments.
“No,” I said quickly. Panic stricken, I spoke with a good deal of force. I had to make them understand! “No, I cannot come with you, nor can I let you harm him.”
“In heaven’s name, why not?” Dr Seward cried.
Van Helsing said, low but firm, “This time we make no mistake. We dispatch him with wood, not metal; we force garlic into the mouth.” Then with his black humour, “Think, even should he come back again in seven years - we need only a few days, a few moments to free you and Elena and Quincey from him!”
He held my hands, but I pulled away. “No. Elena and Quincey are not with us! Don’t you understand? Surely you know!”
They shook their heads, frowning. “Kovacs told us that Dracula took you all.”
“Then he was wrong. Elena quarrelled with Dracula and she ran away. She took my son with her. We are following them! Only Dracula can find her, so if you destroy him, we may never see Quincey alive!”
Van Helsing turned away, pressing his fists to his temples in silent despair. Seward said furiously, “So he frustrates us again!”
“Please go,” I said. “I am in no danger. But I don’t know what Dracula may do if he knows you have caught up with us. For my sake, please go!”
“Leave you with this monster? Impossible!” said Van Helsing.
“But you must,” I persisted, growing desperate. “If we are to have any hope of seeing Quincey again, you must!”
At last they saw that I was right, that they had no choice. Their faces working with frustration and grief, they began to withdraw. Before he went, Van Helsing clasped my hands and said warmly, “Little girl, we will not desert you. We shall follow at a distance; and although you may never see us, be assured that we are not far away. You have endured much, but the end cannot be long in coming.”
He gave me a gold cross to wear around my neck. I did not tell him that I could not bear the sight of it; the metal felt scorching hot upon my flesh, which confirmed all that I feared. As soon as they were gone, I threw it away.
*
So, Jonathan is safe in the care of Alice Seward. That is one less matter to worry about, at least.
Today we came to Sigishoara. It is a citadel on a hill, with high, tightly clustered roofs reminiscent of a Durer engraving. The walls have a red-roofed turret at every turn. I feel, as I always do in Transylvania, that I have stepped back into the Middle Ages. The air is biting, but everywhere is the frost-coated evidence of summer’s abundance; tangles of leafless creeper and vine, bare linden trees.
I climbed alone up the rocky massif on which the town is built, past a jumble of ancient houses towards the squat-towered Bergkirche, until I found the tiny hotel to which Dracula had directed me. I am to have a night of rest - with, I hope, good hot peasant food to drive the chill from my bones. The Count has engaged some Szgany gypsies to take us on to Hermannstadt. His native earth is now in their care, but I am glad I did not have to stay with those villainous-looking brigands.
At the hotel I was received with great warmth and intense curiosity. I had to reserve a room for “Mr and Mrs Harker” and invent some story about my husband being “delayed’. The Count will never show his face. The superstitions of these people seem primitive, yet serve them well; I believe that they would recognise him for what he is at once. (The Szgany recognise him also, but are too ungodly to care. They ha
ve their own morals, I suppose; to them he is boyar and protector.)
I don’t know how far or near Van Helsing and Dr Seward are from us now. I have not seen them since the incident on the train. I cannot believe they are far away; I know that they would never give up, whatever I might say to put them off. In one way it is comforting to think that they are close by, alarming to think that I might be altogether alone; yet in another, I fear desperately for them.
I have no fear for myself any more. Only for my dear friends, and Quincey.
Later
Dracula has been to me.
I saw his face through the frosted panes of my little window, framed by ivy and a cold, bluish mist. Then he was inside the room; a forbidding, powerful figure who yet held me to him as a wolf might hold a tiny cub. His sharp fingernails pricked my neck and my waist.
“Don’t be troubled, Mina,” he said. “Soon there will be nothing in the world to trouble you.”
If he meant I would soon be Undead – I did not ask. Then all the shame of my collusion with evil descended on my soul, and I spoke sudden misery.
“Jonathan will never take me back now. I will lose my son and be an outcast!”
“For what reason?”
“All I’ve done, and allowed – don’t imagine that my husband does not know! He knows everything. Any Christian husband would shun his wife for what I have done.”
Dracula sneered. “And you wish to return to these bourgeois rules of your so-compassionate society? I care nothing for their petty values! You think me a monster? Yet I am the one who will never condemn or desert you. I will welcome you always, though you go from me and suck the blood of all your beloved men, of thousands of men throughout the rest of time. You may be more easily rid of your husband, Mina, than you ever will of me. Don’t mourn the loss of him. Jonathan will be yours in the end, as will Quincey.”
Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula Page 24
