I said, “And if we do gain access and surprise them?”
“We would only put Madam Mina’s life, once more, in danger,” Van Helsing murmured.
“Do all that I say, but do not question me,” said Beherit. I was more doubtful than Van Helsing, but made no protest – would that I had! “Yes, I am of the Devil’s party and you of God’s, but this I swear; my only desire is to make Dracula pay his debt. I wish no harm to the rest of you. Aid me now and you will be allowed to leave safely, you will never hear a word of me again. God strike me down if I lie!”
And we were so desperate to destroy Dracula and free Mina from his foul influence, and to find the poor little boy, if he lived still, that we agreed. I still do not know, for all my agonising, what else we could have done!
Beherit had Kovacs take us to a chamber, and left us there to eat and rest. Presently Beherit returned. He made no explanation of his business, but his face was agleam with a malevolent joy that made my soul revolt. I surmised that he had found some way, distasteful as it is, of spying upon Dracula and Mrs Harker! Some spyhole, known only to him? He gave no explanation. He said only, “Now I know all that I need to know. Dracula sleeps.”
“Then we must rescue Mrs Harker without delay!” I said.
“The doors will take time...”
“We do not need to force them,” Van Helsing broke in. “Madam Mina, forgive my indelicacy, will be prompted by her human needs to leave the room eventually. We have only to wait.”
“You are a clever man, Professor,” Beherit replied with a languid air. “You would have made such a scholar... But we must plan carefully, for the moment we take Mina, Dracula will wake, be it day or night. Now no harm will befall your Mina, I promise. We require her only to lure Dracula out...”
So we made our plans. I lost all sense of time and felt buried alive, trapped in eternal night, wretched and anxious. But Van Helsing, poring over plans of the library with Beherit, unravelling the secrets of the Scholomance’s bizarre structure, was in his very element. Ah, he was not to know that Beherit’s promise was worthless!
*
There were two doors into the reading room where Dracula had so arrogantly ensconced himself. One led out upon the cliff above the underground lake; the other led into the main body of the library. This was where Kovacs and I waited, I with an implement somewhat resembling a crow bar in hand, sharp at one end and hooked at the other. The door itself had panelling of polished white marble, engraved with a pattern that disturbed the eye, compelling it endlessly along sinister mazes to nowhere. How I grew to loathe that pattern! The mysterious library behind us lay in gloom, and I felt imprisoned in an underground purgatory, the victim of some hellish joke.
The waiting was long and arduous, but at length I heard a soft noise. The door drew back, and a sliver of candlelight appeared. For a moment I saw Mrs Harker’s face in the gap, as white and thin as a ghost’s! At once I forced my crowbar across the jamb, and hooked the door’s edge, so that she could neither open nor close it. Mrs Harker struggled briefly with the door; then she paused, staring straight at us through the gap. The look of terror that suffused her face! It must have been the sight of Kovacs that so alarmed her. She withdrew; I could not see what she was doing. I allowed her a few seconds – as we’d agreed – before I pushed open the heavy door.
As we entered, we were just in time to see a section of the wall to our left swinging inwards, and the hem of Mrs Harker’s skirts flaring around her booted ankle as she fled. I knew Van Helsing and Beherit were waiting for her, out upon the rock-ledge. All had gone to plan. I saw Dracula lying in his death-sleep on the marble floor... Then his eyes opened and he rose; going from death to violent animation in an instant! I caught one glimpse of his furious, pallid face, before he strode out after Mina.
The moment he’d gone I hurried after him across the room, through the second door and down the short tunnel that led into the cavern. Kovacs followed me, bringing the hooked pole; a useful weapon, I thought.
As we reached the ledge I heard Mrs Harker scream! There was no sign of the Count; the next I knew, a roar of rage sounded behind me, and Dracula seized me and flung me up against the high railings that guarded the cliff edge.
The pain and shock were so great, I was all but blinded by stars bursting in my vision. The Count’s face almost touched mine, distorted and horrific with fury. I thought my end had come. But then there came a shout from further along the ledge.
“Dracula!”
The Count looked around. With a snarl, he lifted me off the rails and flung me down hard upon the rock.
I was stunned for a few seconds, and could see no more than colours upon the darkness. I came back to myself to find Van Helsing leaning over me. “My friend, can you get up?” he said, grave and urgent. “Beherit promised safety for Madam Mina once we had lured Dracula from his hiding place – not this! I caught her, but she was taken from my arms. Ah, mijn God. Let me help you, Jack...”
Through this I could hear the Count speaking furiously in the deep, commanding voice that few can resist. I could not tell what he was saying, only that his fury was directed at Beherit.
As I got to my feet, I saw the cause of Dracula’s rage and Van Helsing’s distress. A short distance from us, no more than thirty feet, I saw Beherit with Mrs Harker in his arms. She seemed paralysed, as if he held her with hypnosis or with pure terror. She was bent back across his arm, her neck exposed and gleaming in the faint luminosity; I could see the movement of her throat as she panted for breath.
Beherit was holding out his palm against Dracula, who stood facing him just beyond arm’s reach, a towering figure in black. “I will not loose her,” said Beherit. “And if you come one step closer I will tear out her throat! Now move back. Back!”
Dracula complied – one could not say “obeyed” of such a man – retreating a little way towards Van Helsing and myself, where we stood supporting each other. I could not see what had become of Kovacs. Then Beherit began a chant – an incantation – I know not how to describe the hideous syllables that came surging from his mouth!
The Count shouted, “No!” followed by furious words in Hungarian – yet even his powerful voice was drowned by Beherit’s.
Louder and louder Beherit roared, until I was forced to put my hands over my ears. Even that would not block out the chanting. The horror was not in the physical volume, but in the unutterable sense of evil stirred by the words, their dreadful echo – a sense of gathering doom beyond human comprehension. In desperation I drew out my wooden cross, only for it to slip from my fingers and go tumbling through the railings and down towards the lake far below.
Staring at the water, I shook Van Helsing’s arm in astonishment. All over the surface, little flames were dancing! As we watched, we saw an orange globe, deep in an underwater fissure, glowing brighter and brighter. The surface began to churn. Light ran across it in veils and skeins of palest yellow. Although this seemed uncommonly beautiful at first, as the patterns became wilder and the glow redder, the beauty sickened into something unspeakably grotesque. Gusts of heat and choking sulphur came sweeping up to us, and the cavern walls flushed red. Beherit’s fair hair streamed back in the foul updraught.
The lake was turning to fire!
Beherit was doing this, waking the dragon that guarded the very gates of Hell. The air shook with the force of the incantation; the mountain itself began to tremble under our feet. Dracula went on commanding him to stop, but he could do nothing, for Beherit held Mina... and I realized then that Dracula, even Dracula was not wholly evil, for Beherit was the one who cared nothing for her life. Mina – she would excuse this familiarity, I know, being no less than a sister to me – Mina had been right when she warned us against Beherit. Every time we disregard her judgement, it leads to disaster!
“Behold!” Beherit shouted suddenly.
The whole lake was burning. It was not a fire upon the surface of the water; rather the water itself had turned to flame, while g
reat columns of light and of molten droplets came roaring up from the chasm. I glimpsed a boiling pit of lava, redness seething through a black crust. The noise was of a great furnace roaring. My face was scorched.
A screeching noise behind us made us look round. I saw, in the baleful reflected glow, Kovacs in a recess of rock, grappling with a great black wheel – a mechanism set vertically like a ship’s wheel wrought of iron and adorned with suns, moons and planets in shining metals. As he turned this wheel, a terrible sound roared out; the scream of metal against rock, of chains rattling and huge cogs grinding. The railings that guarded the edge of the cliff were rising into the air as a portcullis might rise, catching flashes of light as they slid above our heads into the darkness.
I seized Van Helsing and we drew each other away from the lip. We had been leaning on those rails! Now there was nothing to keep us from the drop. We withdrew, but Beherit remained on the very edge, with Mina in his arms.
“Look,” said Beherit, his voice suddenly quiet and clear. “Be still a moment and look on this wonder. Few can say they have looked into the very mouth of Hell. This is the Gate, as Dracula knows full well. This is where our Master dwells. Once opened, the Gate cannot be closed again without sacrifice. This is the Cauldron of the Dragon for whom your family the Draculas were named – and named well! Yadu Drakuluj – the Devil’s Abyss!”
The Count’s face was livid, its hard lines painted with red fire from below. “Let Mina go. Let all of them go. This quarrel is between you and I alone, Beherit.”
“True,” said the demon. “But I won’t release them until your debt is paid, for you are treacherous, Dracula. My whole existence has been mortgaged to your folly. Pay the Devil his due. You know what is required!”
Their forms were outlined by wildly leaping fire, Beherit red and gold, Dracula stark black, his white hands and face stained with scarlet. He said, “I am not at your command. The Devil himself does not command me, and you are only his lapdog. I say again, let her go.”
“But I know that you love her as a wife,” said Beherit, sneering.
“She is nothing to me,” Dracula answered. “Mere refreshment.”
“Liar.”
So saying, Beherit gripped Mina in both hands and held her out over the drop. She came to life, struggling and gasping in breathless horror; becoming abruptly motionless when she realized that her struggles made it more likely she would fall. She was coughing, her eyes streaming from the stench. Van Helsing’s face worked with impotent fear and he cried out in protest, to no effect. I grew afraid for him, his face was so ill-coloured.
Dracula roared, “Beherit!” He made an abortive lunge, stopping dead when the demon gave Mina a threatening shake. She made not a sound, but her face was ashen.
Beherit said, “Either you throw yourself into the Abyss, Count Dracula, and give yourself up to our sovereign – or I cast your beloved into the fire!”
I had never seen Dracula so racked with despair. He took a step towards Beherit, who stepped neatly away. “Thrust me in and she goes with me,” Beherit said. “What choice have you? I heard the words you spoke to her in your grief. Ah, your great heart is all hers. But she rejected you, and without her love, you have no reason to continue. From this death there is no return. You know I would throw her into Hell without a second thought. I have no mercy.”
Dracula’s face was hideous with anguish. He seemed to age as I watched him. In the pause that followed, I felt a growling undernote, as if the roots of the mountain were trembling. I felt faint with dread. How could we be sure that Dracula would not let Beherit destroy Mina in order to save himself? For Beherit to gamble with her life in this way was an atrocity, never part of our plan!
When Dracula spoke, his voice was hoarse and hollow as death, “And what guarantee will you give me that if I do throw myself through the Gate, she will live?”
“My promise, that is all. Here stand her dear friends, her champions. Once you are gone from between us, I will hand her back to them. I have no interest in causing her death for its own sake. You must believe me. For if you do not, she will die.”
Dracula stared at Mina. She raised her head and stared back at him, her face pallid with terror and appeal. “No,” she said, to my shock. “Don’t do it, not for my sake.”
“Count Dracula, you must!” Van Helsing broke in harshly. “For her, and for all the sorrow you have caused!”
Dracula pointed a shaking finger at Van Helsing. “I curse you!” he said. “May you know how it feels to die as my beloved womenfolk died, pierced to the very heart! I curse you!”
“Your life,” said Beherit, dangling Mina over the boiling chasm, “or hers.”
Dracula became very still and dignified. He gave Van Helsing and me a hard, cold glare. “I charge you to hold Beherit to his word. May you save Mina or share my fate! My will to live has been taken from me – but remember this, that I put her life, her priceless blood, above my own!”
Then he looked at Mina, and his eyes became tender, his demeanour gentle. So noble and dignified he seemed in that moment, the knowledge that such a man had devoted his life to evil seemed an insupportable tragedy. Mina gazed back at him, her mouth open and tears flowing down her face. In the reflected light the moisture shone like fire. Ah, I would have done anything to shield her from such suffering!
“Mina,” said Dracula, “All my desire for life was contained in you, in your blood and flesh and soul. And you have rejected me. You are a crueller lover than ever I was! Since one of us must die, let the remaining life be yours. Much as I have loved my existence, I love yours more. Remember: I do this so that your son may not be deprived of his mother’s tender love. Farewell, Mina. Take care of the child.”
And with those words, he stepped to the very edge and leapt.
An ear-splitting cry of anguish rang off the walls. “No!”
It was Mina who cried out. The agony of grief and loss in her voice rent me to the core. It will haunt me for ever. I might have expected to hear no more and no less for the death of her very son! “No, no!”
Dracula’s form plummeted towards the flames, black against red, his clothes fluttering in the fierce updraught. He broke the surface and was gone. Then the Abyss began to roil and heave, and the heat came boiling upwards so strongly that I feared we would all perish.
Beherit was laughing. He set Mina down rather carelessly, as if she were some trivial object to be thrown aside, having served her purpose. Van Helsing and I started towards Mina. At first she appeared dazed, tear-streaked. She turned a little, saw us coming, yet did not fly to our arms. Then, a change! I had never seen her face so resolute, so absolutely pure in its intent – as if Dracula’s death had redeemed her, his sacrifice transforming her from fallen soul to fierce saint.
Above us the fence was descending as Kovacs turned the wheel.
As it came down, Mina turned again to Beherit. With his arms raised in exultation, he paid her no heed. She ran at him, and with her little hands gave him a quick, strong push. Beherit slipped. His face dropped in horror. He fell.
And in the moments just before he fell, I saw – and remain certain that my eyes did not deceive me – a shape emerging from the edge of the lake and crawling up the sheer side of the chasm. Black and blade-thin, its arms were curved above its head to resemble exactly the wings of a climbing bat; its claws seeking purchase, one wing-tip after another, as it heaved itself laboriously upwards…
This dark climbing shape was Dracula.
No one else saw – only I stood there, with time at a standstill, watching in dismay the long bat-like form of the Count emerging from the lake and crawling upwards towards us. Just as, so many years ago, Jonathan had described him mounting the walls of his own castle…
So Dracula has broken his word, I thought. Of course he would not make such a great sacrifice – not for any human, not even for Mina. He did as he always does: makes his dramatic escape and finds another way, another dark plan…
And
what did he plan, when he reached the ledge? What was in that great and terrible mind of his? To kill us all and take Mina after all? I cannot imagine what else – unless, unless he was coming back with the sole intent of destroying Beherit, his mortal enemy.
But Beherit fell.
He went curving, tumbling down the drop, and as he fell he collided with the midnight shape that was Count Dracula. The two of them clashed and rolled together, one demon of flame and one of shadow, locked in a ferocious struggle. They fought as they fell, silhouetted by the fire roiling beneath them. Their descent seemed to last for an eternity – tangled in their death-lock, perhaps time stopped for them, perhaps even the Dragon Lake held less horror for Beherit and Dracula than their hatred for each other – but in truth, it was over in a second.
Fighting, they fell together and the fire swallowed them both.
Briefly they reappeared, rising in a bubble of lava, still locked and grappling in that fatal embrace. Then the lava burst in a great gout of molten gold drops, and they sank, and were seen no more.
Then I cried out – screamed – for while this was happening I saw that Mina, too, had lost her footing and was slipping towards the edge! Then the railings came down with a great clang, the Gates of Hell indeed, and she slid hard against them and came to rest on the very lip.
I reached her first, leaving Van Helsing behind. Mina clung to me, shuddering with spent emotion. At once I knew – this was not the time to speak of it, but I knew that she must have seen or sensed Dracula clawing his way out of the Abyss. But his hold upon her was already broken. And she had pushed Beherit after him. She.
As I helped Mina up, she gasped and said, “Oh, Dr Van Helsing is ill!”
I saw the Professor, my dear friend, leaning against the railings a few feet from us. He was clutching his chest, his face grey with pain; yet he was waving his free hand at the shadows, trying to tell us something – to warn us, as I realized too late! “Seward – ah, the pain, my heart–” and all this time the fires went on churning, the mountain rumbling ever more violently.
Dracula the Undead: A Chilling Sequel to Dracula Page 28
