Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula

by Freda Warrington

  “Why did you wish me to see it?”

  “I am showing you my domain, like a good host. But we were speaking of Dracula...” I said nothing. Beherit took my hand and kissed it, an intimacy I did not want. Looking into my eyes he said, in a soft malicious tone like the very Devil, “Your child, Madam Mina. If you wish to see him again you will answer me. Does Dracula love you?”

  “I won’t answer!” I cried, pulling free. “Your question is obscene. You are a liar. This is a place of lies, and a cap over the very mouth of Hell! Sir, if my Quincey is here, take me to him at once!”

  I cursed my outburst, for I hated to show any weakness to this creature. I felt suddenly desperate to flee from him, from this madness; I took a few steps away, but Beherit did not move or speak. I stopped where I was, leaning on the railing. I had an overwhelming sense that I stood on the threshold of a vast graveyard, where ghosts and vampires moaned, and the black-clad figure of the Grim Reaper walked slowly towards me...

  There came voices, at first afar off, then close at hand; a lamp shone in my eyes so brightly that I could not see. Then Van Helsing’s face appeared through the glare! “Madam Mina! Kovacs brought us to you – thank God!”

  I saw Dr Seward just behind him. Both men were panting for breath, as if their search for me had been long and arduous. Seward was brandishing a cross at Beherit, who withdrew slowly with an expression of contempt, until I could no longer perceive him in the shadows. I saw Kovacs in the temple doorway, as pale as a walking corpse.

  They clutched my hands, Seward and Van Helsing, but I could not respond to their expressions of concern. “I am well,” I said. “No, I have not seen Quincey or Elena – or Dracula.”

  “Nor have we,” said Seward.

  We talked rapidly, I relating my experience, then Seward giving his own account. “We blundered about in the dark for a long time – I could not relight my lamp – until we found ourselves in the ten-sided chamber of which Kocavs wrote. It was only then that I got the lamp lit, by which time you and Kovacs had long vanished. We were trapped there for many hours. The experience came close to unmanning me, I must confess. The body of poor Miklos was still there. The severed head... I’m a doctor, I have cut up my fair share of cadavers – but still the sight of the head made me almost sick! Van Helsing saved us; after much exertion he found a secret mechanism that caused a door, quite invisible, to open. As we explored, Kovacs found us, and we made him bring us to you. Kovacs has betrayed us; he was only ever acting for Beherit! I don’t know what loyalty we expected of a vampire.”

  I hardly knew what to say to them. These men who are so dear to me seemed strangers! “You must be exhausted,” I said. “I have had rest and food, at least.”

  Van Helsing waved his hand impatiently, as if bodily needs could not matter less. His face was wrought with strain, yet his eyes still gleamed with the look of wonder I knew so well. “But what a place is this! The Devil’s or not – the Scholomance is a structure of the most extraordinary engineering. Weighted doors, magnets, subtle mechanisms; heat from some underground fire, technology the Romans possessed but that we have lost; science in advance of our own! What tragedy that we come here in such circumstances, and not as discoverers!”

  Beherit said contemptuously from the shadows, “To seek knowledge of the Devil, whom you profess to despise?”

  Kovacs added, “You accuse me of betrayal, yet it is in my nature to betray the living. But look at the library, my friends, before you condemn me. Millions of books believed lost, burned, destroyed. Treasures we can’t guess at.” I saw a glint of temptation in Van Helsing’s eye. “Why is your scholarship godly and ours evil?”

  “I am tempted to ask the same question,” said Beherit, “but I will not.” He came into the lamplight; Seward lifted the cross again. Revulsion flickered on Beherit’s face but he said, “Please, put down your holy weapon. I am not your enemy. We all wish Dracula destroyed, do we not? Therefore let us call a truce and help each other.”

  I saw my two companions exchanging cautious looks. I was horrified. I said, “No! Professor, don’t listen to him! You cannot take his side against Dracula. Can’t you see that Beherit is even worse?”

  “But Madam Mina, our priority, our only hope of saving Quincey, is to destroy that monster, the Count!”

  Van Helsing looked keenly at me; I could see he was already lost! Corrupted, like Kovacs! Some strand within me, stretched beyond tolerance, now broke and I turned away and went running along the rock, holding up my skirts around my ankles, the cliff-edge and the tall railings to my right, the cave wall on my left.

  This wall curved in front of me, but there was a fissure within it, a short tunnel into which I ran, thinking to hide but finding only a dead end. I know not what I meant to achieve with this flight. I acted in desperation, that is all I know.

  I heard the others coming after me. Then a light flooded from the blank end of the tunnel and a voice said, “Mina!”

  A hand seized mine, pulling me through a doorway into a small well-lit room. A door slid shut behind me; glancing around, I saw there was only a bookshelf where I had entered. And before me stood Dracula!

  His hair had gone almost white again, but with stark black streaks; the effect against his austere black clothes was startling and handsome. His face was ageless, with its bushy brows and strong nose and the deep-coloured lips lifting over the great white teeth... he looked serious, tender, yet monstrous, like some infinitely wise yet depraved necromancer... and yet I forgave him this. He held my hands; he embraced me. I think I wept.

  “Can Beherit come in here?” I asked.

  “No, the doors are locked. Has he harmed you? I never meant to place you in danger! If you only had travelled with me, or stayed in the church...”

  “He hasn’t harmed me,” I said. “He only asked questions about you, that I refused to answer. I am so tired. I want my son and I want to go home.”

  “Come, sit with me,” said Dracula. “You are safe here. I have so missed your company, Mina.”

  This was part of the library that I had blundered into; a small, octagonal reading room, with a pattern resembling the points of a compass on the floor and a cupola above, painted blue-black with silver stars. The walls were lined with shelves, but all the books were shut behind heavy leaded glass. The whole floor was tiled in white and black marble, and windowless; the light came from an antique lamp.

  We sat at a round marble table in the centre. One large volume lay open upon the table; I glimpsed rows of arcane symbols and etchings of demons before Dracula closed it and pushed it aside. Sorcery.

  We began to speak of all that had befallen us since we parted. Dracula sat very still and upright as he spoke, one hand resting on the table. “When I arrived, Beherit attacked me, which was no more than I had expected; I shut myself in here, not because I fear him, which I do not, but so that he would leave me in peace with the books.”

  “Are the books all that concern you?” I said, sharp with fear. “What about Quincey and Elena? You have said not one word about them. Are they here? If not, I can only think that they have died in the snow! But you must know!”

  “Ah, Mina.” He was shaking his head, pressing my hands between his own. “I have led you amiss, I fear. Higher considerations have required me to be less than truthful; for that, I beg your pardon. They are not here, but I assure you they are not dead.”

  A mingled wave of anger and confusion swept through me. “Then where?”

  “Quincey and Elena never left England. They are quite safe at Carfax. You will be reunited with your son as soon as you go home; in that, I did not lie.”

  My emotions at this news – I cannot begin to express their intensity! I trembled, I nearly swooned. At first I was so relieved I could have fallen on him in gratitude; the next moment I was ablaze with fury. “You lied to me! You lied, to bring me here! Why?”

  He appeared unmoved by my passion. “Because I wanted you to share in this, Mina. Forget Beherit; he is a
mere caretaker. I speak of this glorious knowledge.”

  “No. More likely I was a mere shield, to keep your enemies at a distance! I stopped them destroying you, because I thought Quincey–!”

  Dracula nodded; shamelessly, I thought, although there was no mockery in his demeanour. He seemed weary and thoughtful, as if he carried the weight of history on his shoulders. “Your presence has been strategic, Mina; I would not deny that. But I have made you my helper now solely in order to make you my companion in the future.”

  “And what of Elena? You seem to think nothing of discarding those who have been useful!”

  A red gleam came into his eyes. “You are unjust. Elena will be with us too. She has served me and loved me well. We are not bound by the narrow laws of your petty society, that I may take only one bride or you one husband. And I have been without a family for too long. Your Van Helsing destroyed the last of those dear to me.”

  He sounded so sorrowful that I could only with immense difficulty feel anything but compassion for him. And this is how he wears me down, exciting not evil in me but my tenderest passions! Even knowing consciously, with wide-open eyes, that this is the Devil’s work – I still cannot turn aside!

  I asked, “Have you found what you hoped to find here?”

  “Such a process cannot be realized in a day. It may take years, but time is on my side. If Beherit tries to hinder me, he will suffer. He tricked me, of course – or so he thinks.”

  “In what way did he trick you?”

  The Count gave a cruel smile that showed his teeth in all their sensual sharpness. “He knew that if poor Kovacs said to me, ‘Do not under any circumstances go to the Scholomance,’ I would immediately wish to come here. Although I saw the deceit for what it was, it made me stop and reflect. Beherit is and ever was, you see, an unholy fool. There is knowledge here.”

  “Which no Christian should possess!”

  “And since I am no Christian: I believe there could be, in all truth, a remedy in the Scholomance for all the restrictions that have plagued my immortal existence.”

  “So you came here with no thought at all of redemption, only of increasing your evil powers.”

  “Don’t think you can redeem me,” he said fiercely. “Accept what I am, for I will never change. Yet believe this; I spurn the Devil! Kovacs sold his soul for access to undreamed-of wisdom – as did I. But I refused to pay. Therein lay my crime. I was the tenth scholar, chosen by the Devil to be taken in payment for the rest – but I have been warrior, warlord and boyar, and I bow down to no-one, not even to Satan himself. I refused to give myself up; I killed those who tried to force me. Beherit was the only one left alive – Undead, rather – and he has spent hundreds of years in my place, waiting for me to return. Now he learns that it has done him no good.”

  All of this he said quite calmly. I asked, “Then you don’t serve the Devil?”

  “I care nothing for him or for God!”

  “But if you don’t serve God you must aid the Devil. And you still fear God, or you would not flinch from holy symbols!”

  “Do leave aside your theology, Mina. Your reasoning may be correct. But Beherit is right, I left here too soon, before I armed myself with the arcane secrets that would free me from all such constraints.”

  Now I sensed a trace of desperation in Dracula that I had never marked before. “Beherit means to harm you. I think he is afraid of you, and jealous.”

  “He can neither harm nor command me, and he knows it. I ask only that he let me alone to conduct certain studies and experiments. You should stay, Mina; you would be more than comfortable here, and I will protect you from his foolishness. Is there not the slightest curiosity in you about this forbidden knowledge? No taint of Eve? Women were taken as students here. Lucifer, they say, has an especial fondness for women...”

  “Were you really tutored by the Devil himself?” I whispered. “What did he... look like?”

  “Like Beherit. Like each student’s reflection; he stole our reflections, indeed. Like an exquisite black-haired woman. A horned snail. A little golden child...” I could not tell if he were serious or mocking. He went on, “We can send for Quincey and Elena as soon as the weather is more clement.”

  I turned quite hollow inside, and could not speak. Beherit seemed nothing now; Count Dracula was the only lord of this domain. He gripped my hand more tightly, saying, “Well? Quincey will join us, will he not? You must have made your decision.”

  And I had, although I did not realize it until that moment. The Count might kill me where I stood for making my answer, but that was better than being toyed with and tormented over my poor son’s soul.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “I have made my decision. If Quincey’s days are meant to be short, God’s will be done. I would rather nurse a broken heart the rest of my days than think that I had condemned a child’s soul – and who knows how many others through him – to eternal damnation!”

  Dracula flung my hand from him, and rose so abruptly his chair flew back and hit the floor with a bang. His eyes blazed. The white brows knotted above the hard lines of his face, and his wolf-teeth showed in all their terrible bestiality. He seized me by the shoulder, lifting me so that I hung from his broad hand, gasping with the pain. And the pale infernal light that glared from his face! I feared for my life – and yet it was that very hellish light that told me I had made the right decision. I could never be any part of this. Even if the choice cost me my life!

  He shook me. “How dare you defy me!” He gathered me to him and I felt his lips and teeth on my throat; I thought that was the end. Yet I felt his mouth relax, and move over my jaw and cheek to rest in my hair. Dracula wept.

  I believe I ceased to resist him then. I allowed his embrace, even returned it, my shoulders softening and my head falling back. Holding me, he spoke softly and desperately. “Mina, I love you. I have a powerful will to live, yes, but that will is all for you. If you reject me – what then is left?”

  I could not answer. There was nothing at all I could say. I had no words of comfort; how can such a splendid, terrible being be comforted? Tears fell from my eyes. I can’t express the pain I felt – feel. For I so wanted to tell him... but I could not. Because of Quincey, and because I cannot give us both up to damnation.

  Presently he put me away from him and spoke, very grave and sad. “Ah Mina, I cannot complain at your determination. It was your very strength that drew me to you.”

  He kissed my hand and bowed his head to me, as if acknowledging the end of a contest. “Quincey will live,” he said, his tone soul-weary. “He will grow out of his childhood weakness and thrive.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “We studied all arts here; medicine as well as alchemy, necromancy, weaponry and the command of nature. I gave him, while he was in my care, certain mixtures to strengthen his constitution. But you will see for yourself.” He turned away.

  I knew then that everything had changed. That when he gave his word to accept my refusal, he meant it! But to realize this was more than astonishing. To think that Count Dracula would, at my bidding, cease to haunt me, cease to persuade or seduce all my good intentions to bad – I felt as if some great prop had been jerked away from under my very being, leaving me in a heap upon the earth.

  I had won my liberty, and now was not at all sure I wanted it. Do not judge, you who read this, that women are weak unless you, also, have had to make the decision that I made!

  For the blood and fire of our endless conflict have made me a warrior, like him. Could I endure the pale, insipid nothingness of a life without that fire?

  The Count looked up into the starred cupola. “The sun rises outside. I would rest awhile. If you wish to leave me, as no doubt you will...” He showed me levers, in two of the eight walls, that would open concealed doors. “But keep vigil over me, Mina, for old times’ sake.” He lay down at one side of the room, hands folded over his chest, as if the room itself were his sepulchre; and while he lies as if d
ead, I sit at the table and write.

  I have sat alone here now for hours. What will befall when the sun sets again in the outside world? I dread to think. I can imagine no future. I cannot imagine myself ever holding Quincey in my arms again.

  What will become of me now? There is nothing left. Never in my life have I felt so cold and desolate as I do now; the candles burn low, the lamp begins to fail. Now this journal is more to me than the friend and the discipline it has been; it is my only lifeline, the veritable thread of my sanity! And even this is fading. There is no more paper. If I am still here when Dracula rises I know I will become Undead... I must leave but I dare not; I dread what lies outside, while here at least is a devil I know – all too well. Shadows walk around me, and I hear voices whispering, and Beherit’s footsteps coming closer, and the protective walls rent like veils. Oh, heaven help me! Farewell, Quincey. Farewell, all.

  * * *

  JOHN SEWARD’S MEMORANDUM.

  I must finish this account, as much as it pains me, for Mrs Harker cannot.

  We were distraught when she vanished; the more so when Beherit told us that the secret door through which she had passed led to the library room in which Dracula had ensconced himself! Beherit tried to calm us. “Dracula will not harm her, of that I am sure. Have you not seen evidence of it? He has been long enough in her company to take her life a dozen times over yet she is still human, still alive. Think, we have them trapped. We will use this time to plan our campaign. Our greatest problem is to unlock the doors; I do not know how it is to be done.”

  Van Helsing said, “But might you not enter the room in a changed form, as mist?”

  “You fail to understand, some laws of our existence are suspended within the Scholomance. We can rest without our native earth, but we cannot change our forms. Such tricks, you see, impress humans but would be an insult to our Master. The doors are not flimsy barriers of wood; they are thick, impenetrable, held shut by subtle mechanisms that cannot be forced...”