by Cindy Winget
“I used to impale my victims alive, wriggling like a worm on a hook, and dip my bread in their blood, and with the Devil as my witness, I shall do so again. I had forgotten what that felt like. Such exhilaration! With complete impunity, I shall wreak havoc upon this world, the likes of which mankind has never seen. Soon, people shall beg for the plagues of the old testament; for the disease and pestilence of the dark ages. I shall build up a Master race of beings and together we shall rule this world.” As he said this, he leaned down and stroked Mina’s face, smearing crimson blood upon her cheek as she sat there, crying and quivering. “I shall take for myself a bride and together we shall create multitudes, as the new Adam and Eve, and let the weak masses of humanity fall by the wayside. They have no part in my new regime, except to give sustenance unto my children.”
“But as soon as you have slaked your thirst with the blood of all mankind, there will be nothing left. No more blood to subsist on.”
“You misunderstand. I am a sensible man. I understand that the world is full of only a finite amount of people. I will only permit myself and my children to feed when necessary and mankind will continue to breed like the animals they are. But know this: if any were to rise up against us, I would not stay my hand. I would allow my children to vent their blood lust upon that nation until there was not a soul left, and we would move on to more plentiful lands and start anew.”
Victor shuddered. He could not allow that. He would have to destroy this undead creature so that no other may come to harm.
“You devil! Get out of here!” Jack shouted as he rushed toward Dracula, a crucifix held high.
With one last scream of fury, Dracula transformed into a large bat and flew out the open window.
With a sigh of relief, Jack lowered his arm and walked over to Mina, who was sobbing inconsolably upon the bed next to her unconscious husband, her pallor made that much more prominent by the blood smeared across her face. Her small white wrists still bore the livid red marks of the fiend’s fingers. A trickle of blood dribbled down her neck where she had been bitten by the Count.
Van Helsing left the room temporarily, returning with two wet towels. One he handed to Mina so that she may clean herself up. She held it, but did not seem to have the fortitude to do much else, so Jack took it from her and began to gently wipe the blood from her neck and cheeks. The other wet towel was used to revive Jonathan from his stupor.
“What has happened?” he asked groggily as he came to. “My dear Mina, whatever is wrong?” He went to wrap his arms around his precious wife, but she shied away.
“Don’t touch me!” she said shrilly.
“Why not?” asked a bewildered Jonathan.
“I am unclean!” With that statement a torrent of sobs once more wracked her slight frame.
Jonathan looked toward Jack. “What is she talking about?”
“She has been attacked by Dracula.”
“What!?” Jonathan was instantly on his feet. “I’ll kill him! Where is my pistol? I will go out and hunt him down myself this very night until he is no more!”
“Calm yourself,” implored Van Helsing. “You know no mortal weapon can harm him.”
“Then I shall bring a stake! Plunge it deep into his unfeeling heart until all of his blood spills out and he crumbles back into dust!”
Mina was quite beside herself at this point. She was tugging on Jonathan’s arm. “Please, don’t! Haven’t I suffered enough this night without fearing for your life?” She clung to her husband and seemed bound and determined never to let go. Very suddenly, she did just that and backed away from him as she had done before.
“Why do you cringe away from me?” Jonathan asked. She made no response.
“We will explain all, but not here,” Jack glanced pointedly in Mina’s direction.
Taking the hint, Jonathan followed Jack and Victor out into the hallway, leaving Van Helsing to deal with the hysterical Mina. After a full disclosure of the night’s events, Jonathan’s face turned white and he looked about to either faint or vomit.
“I was right there! I thought for sure she would be kept safe with me sleeping right next to her!”
“Clearly, we have underestimated our opponent,” Jack declared.
“So, what do we do now?”
“We have located his lair,” Victor told him.
“Truly?”
“Yes. We shall prepare ourselves tomorrow, and then we shall attack him. Hopefully he will not expect us to go on the offensive, especially so soon.”
Jonathan nodded, all the fight having seemingly left him. They returned to the room and Jonathan walked over to Mina, gently taking her into his arms.
She tried to resist. “I shall not kiss or hug you anymore, for I may now be your enemy,” she pleaded for understanding.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Jonathan insisted. “Nothing can keep us apart. No demon of hell or undead monster will ever make you my enemy.” He gathered her up once more in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her passionately with all the ardor of a newlywed.
Victor turned his face away, thinking sorrowfully of Elizabeth and how much he missed her. He longed to feel her soft lips pressed against his own. To feel her soft skin and run his fingers through her silky hair. When this was all over, he would return to her and never leave her side again.
“It was all so terrible,” Mina told them. “I took the sleeping draught that Van Helsing was kind enough to make up for me and fell to sleep surprisingly quickly, but it wasn’t long before I was once again awake. I couldn’t account for what had awoken me. I only felt that there was some presence in the room. I tried to rouse Jonathan, but he wouldn’t wake up. This caused me to become even more alarmed as the room began to fill with a mysterious mist. A mist I had seen before in my nightmares. Dracula loomed there in the shadows. I could sense him, but I couldn’t see him. I thought about making a run for the door to seek help, but then he appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. He vowed to kill Jonathan if I resisted.” Her voice hitched and her chin began to quiver with emotion. “He pressed his monstrous lips to my neck and sucked my blood. Then he reached up and undid his vest and shirt, running a filthy, long fingernail across his chest. As his skin was laid open and the blood poured out, he grabbed me and…and…”
“We know the rest. No need to go on,” Van Helsing said gently.
“He wanted me to drink his blood!” she wailed. “I tried not to swallow any. Even now I am unsure if I have or not.”
“We shall keep an eye on you,” Van Helsing promised.
“I don’t want to become like Lucy. The things she did to those poor children! What she tried to do to Jack!” She shuddered. “If I become cognizant of an evil brewing within me, I shall take my own life!”
“NO!” Jonathan pleaded. “We shall defeat Dracula once and for all and you shall be saved!”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I were to bring harm to any of you. I fear I may be a coward, however, and if you truly loved me, you would kill me instead.”
“Jonathan is right,” Van Helsing said. “Promise me you won’t go down that road.”
“But if it will save the people I love—”
“It won’t,” Van Helsing interrupted sternly. “I fear that such a decision would only lead you down the path you abhor that much quicker.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is imperative that you remain alive. If you commit self-murder you will only become undead sooner.”
“But I thought you said that only if someone dies while asleep will they become undead.”
“That is only a theory. Besides, we have no way of definitively knowing if Lucy was asleep or awake. Why take the risk?”
“Fine. I promise,” said Mina.
“Thank you. Now I suggest you gain a few more hours of sleep. I know you feel as though you will never be capable of sleeping again after the horrors you have witnessed, but I also know how tired you must be. I am going to give you
a blood transfusion, the same as I did for Lucy, and I shall garnish your room in garlic in like manner. You shall be safe. At least for the time being.”
Mina nodded.
“May I be the one to give her my blood?” Jonathan inquired.
Van Helsing smiled with fatherly affection. “Of course you may. Come here and sit by your sweet wife and calm her while I go get my instruments.” He strolled purposefully from the room and Jack and Victor followed suit, also understanding their need for some privacy.
“Do you truly think Mina will be safe?” Victor asked Van Helsing when they were out of earshot.
“I don’t know. All we can do is our best, but I worry. We weren’t able to keep Lucy safe, so there is no way in knowing yet if we will be able to do any differently for Mina.”
“I think our only real chance is to destroy the creature before he can do irreparable damage to her. Especially now that we know where he holes up when he’s not feasting,” added Jack.
“I believe you are right.”
Jonathan stayed with Mina throughout the rest of the night and late into the next morning. Victor tried to get some sleep himself, but found that he was unable to do so, only managing to doze off for a few minutes at a time. He gave up and went downstairs, where he was not surprised to find Jack in the parlor, staring into the flames of a crackling fire. He did this often since Lucy’s death.
“Is something troubling you, Jack?”
Jack looked up as though pulled from a deep stupor. To Victor’s astonishment, he grinned. For so long, that question had been met with only blank stares, mute nods, or haunted eyes filled with grief. This change, although welcome, was a bit alarming. Was his friend becoming unraveled and this was the beginning of insanity taking root?
“Not at all. We shall destroy Dracula this night and rid ourselves of his evil intentions. I couldn’t feel better.”
The fire burning in Jack’s eyes told Victor that he thought of the destruction of Dracula more as revenge for Lucy than to protect Mina. He hoped that that fire of determination would serve him well.
Jonathan and Mina walked into the room, saving Victor from having to respond. “How did you sleep?” he asked Mina.
She smiled. “Very well, thank you.”
Although Victor was glad to see her looking so well, he was alarmed at her pallor. She was as pale as Lucy had ever been and there was a hardness to her eyes and the planes of her face that had not formerly been there. When she smiled her eye-teeth appeared longer and sharper. But perhaps he was letting his imagination run rampant, showing him what he expected to see rather than what was actually there.
“Ah! You’re awake!” Van Helsing spoke as he entered the room.
Mina turned her brilliant smile upon him. “Yes, I am happy to report that I was able to sleep with no nightmares.”
“Wonderful!”
Jonathan, also looking happy, stuck out his hand impulsively to take hers, but she pulled away, her smile faltering ever so slightly.
“Well, we have many plans to go over if we are truly to hunt down Dracula in his lair and destroy him this evening,” Van Helsing said. He turned a pained gaze upon Mina. “I am afraid that I must insist that you not be a part of these plans.”
Anger showed on her fair face.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I mean no disrespect. I know you are a woman of strong character; however, Dracula has admitted to Victor that he is capable of compelling those persons whose blood he has drunk and they, his. Therefore, we don’t know what he may or may not learn through you should he compel you to him.”
The anger softened on Mina’s face, and she nodded with sad understanding. “I will go see about breakfast. Or lunch as it were, since it is now quite late in the day.” She turned and left the room, her eyes glassy.
Jonathan looked tempted to follow her, but he remained. Van Helsing waited until all the men were seated before starting the council. “We all heard what Dracula has planned. So, for Mina’s sake, as well as all mankind, we must destroy Dracula. Now he won’t be as easily defeated as Lucy. She was a new vampyr, not familiar enough with her new-found powers to know how to use them. She was more animal than person, all instinct to survive. Dracula isn’t like that. He is highly intelligent and aware of how to employ his powers. We must strike fast, and we must strike hard.
“Now, we know that Dracula is a bit different from other vampyrs in that he was created by the hand of Victor and was made undead by a ritual rather than changed by the hand of another vampyr. I don’t know if this will have any bearing on what it will take to kill him, so we should go in prepared. I have researched vampyr lore for many years and as far as I can tell, there is only one way to truly kill a vampyr, and that is how we have dispatched Lucy; by staking them in the heart, cutting off the head, and filling the mouth with garlic. Now I don’t know if you must stake them in their eternal resting place or not, which will be somewhat problematic with Dracula. I have also heard lore stating that you must bury the head separately from the body or that a silver knife is just as effective as a wooden stake. Now we know in Lucy’s case that burying the head with her had no bearing on her reanimating, but for Dracula I think it wise to take every precaution. We will bring along some silver knives as well, just in case. Any questions so far?”
“Can Dracula be killed in any of his other forms?” Jack was quick to ask.
“Ah. Good question,” said Van Helsing. “Unfortunately, the simple answer is, I don’t know. My worry is that when he is in the form of a rat, wolf, or bat, there may be more of the creatures there as well and we will be unable to distinguish him from the others. I think our best shot is to attack only when he is in his human form. Obviously, it would be quite impossible to do any damage to him when he is only a mist.”
“When will we leave?” asked Victor.
“Normally I would say that our best chance to attack would be during the day when he would hopefully be asleep, but Dracula doesn’t adhere to these rules either. Correct me if I am wrong, but Jonathan stated in his letter that the Count would often be awake during the day so as to converse with him and play-act meals together, but then would leave Castle Dracula in the middle of the night in order to feast on people of the nearby village.”
“But I had also been left for many hours of the day to entertain myself in his library or write letters in my room,” stated Jonathan. “Plus, I had found him sleeping at night in my search for the key to freedom.”
“Yes, I was getting to that. All the times he has conversed with Victor have also been during the day or else not too long after dark. My point being that he doesn’t act like traditional vampyrs, so it will be very difficult to predict when he will be awake and when he will be asleep, or how often this is even required.”
“So we try them both,” said Victor. “We travel there during the day, since he is known to hunt at night, and if we find that he is not there, then we stay until nightfall and wait for his return.”
Jonathan and Jack nodded.
“I fear that today would be a lost cause if this is how we wish to proceed. It is already late in the morning and it will take most of the day to reach his residence, which would lead to us getting there at night. Or we could simply do the opposite and try at night first and wait for daylight if he is not there,” said Van Helsing.
“Mina is still upset about what happened last night. It may seem selfish, but I would elect to wait a day so that I may stay by her side and see that she is well before we proceed with our plans,” implored Jonathan.
“Yes, of course. No one would wish to deprive you of that. It will take a bit of time to gather supplies and take precautions if Dracula attacks here in our absence. I think it wise to wait until tomorrow,” said Van Helsing.
A soft knock on the doorway alerted the men to Mina’s presence. “Lunch is served.”
“Let us reconvene here in one hour and write out a list of the supplies we will need and address any other questions or concerns we may ha
ve,” Van Helsing said as he pulled himself from his chair. Victor followed the others into the dining room.
“I overheard the last part of your meeting,” Mina confessed. “I think you should proceed tonight. None of us will sleep anyway, knowing that he is still out there. You should just get it over with. I am not as delicate as my husband seems to think.” She glared in Jonathan’s direction.
“If you are sure?” Van Helsing said doubtfully.
“I am,” Mina stated firmly.
As Victor ate and listened to Jack ask after the maids who had been drugged, he couldn’t help but notice that Mina did not eat anything.
*****
They took every precaution when it came to Mina’s protection. They placed fresh garlic about her room and rubbed it along the front door and all the windows. Van Helsing also placed a wreath of it about Mina’s neck. She grimaced, but seemed otherwise unharmed by it, which Victor took as a good sign. They even went so far as to nail shut all the windows and hung a silver cross on the front door for extra measure.
“There, you should be safe now,” Jonathan told her.
“I will pray over you before we leave,” said Van Helsing. He grabbed his ever-present envelope of holy wafers and prayed, reaching in to grab one as he did so and placed it upon Mina’s alabaster brow.
As soon as the wafer touched her skin, Mina screamed in terror and pain and shied away from Van Helsing. There was a livid red mark where the Host had burned her. Mina broke down in sobs. “I told you I was unclean! What is to become of me!?” she wailed in despair.
Jonathan walked briskly up to her and held her in his arms.
