Lord of the Vampires

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  Mina’s letters, some of which were sadly never opened, reflected a lady of great kindness and intelligence. Upon reading them, I felt at once as if I had already met and befriended her; so I was even more fearful to learn of her time at Whitby with Lucy. For if Lucy had been bitten, why not her friend?

  Two days after the Westenra funeral, I wrote Miss Mina Murray (now Mrs. Mina Harker) asking if I might interview her, as I had been Lucy Westenra’s physician and was investigating the cause of her death. She responded promptly and most warmly, inviting me to her home in Exeter the very next day.

  With some trepidation, I went. My heart was still sore after the terrible defeat with Lucy, and I dreaded finding yet another kind gentlewoman stricken with the vampire’s curse.

  Fortunately, when I arrived in Exeter and stepped into Mrs. Harker’s drawing-room, I saw a young lady blooming with health: the rosy cheeks and lips were a welcome and beautiful sight after poor Lucy’s pallor. Even lovelier was the sight of her long neck rising pure and unmarked from a collarless gown. Yet Madam Mina (I could not resist calling her so at once, for it was clear that Lucy’s death had already united us in friendship) looked nothing like what I had expected. Her letters indicated a woman of such great maturity and wisdom that I had imagined her as older than Lucy, taller, and more solidly built.

  But she was a good head shorter than her late friend, a tiny, fragile-looking creature hardly larger than the schoolchildren she had taught before her recent marriage to Mr. Harker. Her face, too, was that of a child—heart-shaped beneath a dark brown pompadour, with great hazel eyes, small nose, and rosebud mouth—so innocent and ingenuous that she would go through life always looking far younger than her years. Ah, but those eyes … They reminded me of John’s, for they were sensitive, intelligent, quick to absorb every detail—and blessedly free from any trace of treacherous glittering indigo. Indeed, even in the bright daylight streaming through the open shutters, a definite violet glow could be detected surrounding her: a strong aura for a strong woman.

  She had apparently been hard at work when I arrived, for I heard clacking out in the hallway, which ceased the instant the maid knocked to announce my arrival. When the door swung open wide, I saw that one corner of the drawing-room had been converted into a study. Behind her stood a desk upon which rested stacked newspapers, a small black diary, white paper stacked in a wire basket, and a large typewriter with a sheet of paper inserted.

  And in that second’s pause when we two faced each other and I verified that she was indeed Mrs. Harker, née Mina Murray, those intelligent eyes scrutinised me most intently, yet swiftly enough that courtesy was not breached. Apparently I impressed her as favourably as she had me, for a look of subtle warmth came over her cherubic features.

  She approached with a gracious smile, and held out a delicate, pale hand one third the size of my large, callused brown one. I took it, grateful to sense by touch that my visual appraisal of her had been accurate: she was uncursed, unmarked. Thus the smile I returned to her was the first genuine one in many days.

  “Madam Mina,” I said, instinctively using the less formal form of address, which seemed to please her. “It is on account of the dead that I come.”

  Her gaze was refreshingly intense and direct (as we Dutch prefer), without the averted glances and eyelash-fluttering so favoured by Englishwomen. And I saw in it love for her dead friend and honest gratitude towards me; and when she spoke, I knew she did so directly from the heart. “Sir,” replied she, in a strong, mature voice that belied her juvenile appearance, “you have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra.”

  The moment of introduction over, she asked as to precisely what information I desired from her, and I explained my need for certain information about Whitby—as much as she could remember.

  “Why, I can tell you everything about it,” she said, gesturing for me to sit upon a nearby sofa. “I have written it all down. Would you like to see it?”

  Of course. So she retrieved the black diary from the desk, and handed it to me with a sudden impish glint in her eye; Madam Mina, it seems, has a wry sense of humour.

  I opened the diary, intending to begin reading at once—but upon the page were neat but totally incomprehensible squiggles and curls and lines. “Mr. Jonathan Harker is a lucky man,” I said, handing it back to her, “to have such a talented wife. But alas; I do not know shorthand. Would you be so kind as to read it for me?”

  The child blushed as she took the diary, and at once retrieved a stack of papers from the wire basket. “Forgive me. Here: when you told me you wished to inquire about Lucy, I went ahead and wrote all the Whitby entries out on the typewriter for you.”

  I thanked her most sincerely for her labour, and asked whether I might read it then; she agreed and excused herself, saying that she would check on lunch.

  Enclosed in the privacy of the drawing-room, I read swiftly through the entries. They spoke of Whitby and Lucy and several sleepwalking incidents; in one place, it was clear that she had rescued Miss Lucy from the vampire’s very grasp without knowing it. The diary had obviously been intended to be private, for it mentioned her extreme anxiety over her then-fiancé, Jonathan, who was apparently abroad and had not written in some time. I thought nothing of this at all, focusing all my attention on the events where Vlad was most clearly involved. Until, that is, I read the entry of 26 July, when Madam Mina had just received the long-awaited letter from Jonathan, forwarded by his employer. One sentence seemed to leap from the very page:

  “It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home.”

  I was glad then that she had left me alone, for I swore aloud and struck the sofa with my fist at the sight of the name. Jonathan at Castle Dracula! And here this sweet lady, by whom I was immediately smitten, was not safe at all—she was in the very heart of danger! The vampire’s evil had touched her not just once, through the death of her dearest friend, but through her poor husband as well.

  I read further, and learned that Jonathan had suffered from “brain fever,” for he had raved wildly at the station-master in Klausenburgh for a “ticket home.” Though he was penniless, his violent demeanour terrified the locals so that they gave him a ticket for the train’s westernmost destination, Buda-Pesth. There he was of such a mental state that he was promptly taken to a sanitorium, and the good nuns there notified Madam Mina, who came and brought him home to England. (It was at the Buda-Pesth sanitorium that they were married.)

  After I had read it all, I set the papers aside and began to think. The decision had already been made to bring Quincey and Arthur into our (that is, John’s and my) confidence concerning the vampire, as it only seemed right that they take part in avenging the death of the woman they loved.

  Did not Madam Mina, too, have the same right? Even were Jonathan not bitten, he had already suffered great mental torment. I remembered John’s bitter statement: Lucy had been ignorant about the vampire, yet that had not protected her in the least. I suppose it is true, then—knowledge is power, even if, in this case, it is only the power to surrender … or flee.

  In any event, it was too late; I had already opened my heart to this young woman, and cared about her welfare the same as I had cared about Lucy’s. I could not simply go and leave her here to make the dreadful discovery about her husband alone, or become the victim of his or Dracula’s attack.

  Therefore, when Madam Mina returned, I thanked her roundly for her illuminating manuscript—though she would have been horrified to know what I had discovered in its light. As casually as I could, I remarked upon her husband’s brain fever and asked whether he had recovered completely.

  At once a shadow came over her expression, and a deep crease appeared between her dark, delicate brows; she paused, and said carefully, “He was almost recovered … but he has been greatly upset by his employer’s death. Mr. Hawkins took Jonathan under his wing and has been like a father to him for many years.”
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  I nodded and, with a few sympathetic comments, urged her to speak a bit more of it.

  This increased her discomfort until the crease was joined by others on her brow, and the full rosebud lips thinned to a flat line. “He had a—a bit of a shock last Thursday, when we were in town, strolling in Piccadilly.”

  Again I coaxed her to reveal more and more, until I learned that the sight of a man (ha! No mortal man, I suspect!) had upset him, a man who clearly had had something to do with his brain disease.

  Of a sudden, she was on her knees. Not in tears or hysteria, but so overwhelmed by fear and concern for her husband that she lifted her arms to me and beseeched me to help him, to make him well again. Though she did not say it, I knew she feared her Jonathan was going mad.

  I gently took Madam Mina’s imploring hands in mine and helped her to her feet. As I led her to the sofa and sat down beside her, I said—with the utmost sincerity:

  “My dear Madam Mina, since I have come to London in answer to my friend John Seward’s call, I have found a number of people—including Arthur (that is, Lord Godalming) and our Miss Lucy—whose strength in the face of despair and whose compassion have touched me deeply. I am honoured to call them friend, and to know that they would think of me as one. From your writings and your mere presence, I know that you are as good and deserving as they. Please think of me as your friend, Madam Mina, and know that I will help you and your husband in any way.

  “But first—you must calm yourself, and when lunch is ready, you must eat. Afterwards, you can tell me the details about his troubles.”

  As I spoke, she had already grown calm, and the shadow had lifted from her face, leaving her subdued but hopeful. We went down to lunch, and afterwards, we retired to the drawing-room, and I urged her to speak of Jonathan.

  She lowered her gaze—in fact, seemed to look within herself for the solution to some dilemma. “Dr. Van Helsing”—and here she looked up at me again with that frank, honest gaze—“what I have to tell you is so queer that even I am not sure whether I believe it. It all sounds like madness; so you must promise that you will not laugh at what I confide in you.”

  My pulse quickened; I knew we were about to speak of Dracula and his doings. Mrs. Harker was no madwoman, of that I was certain. And so I smiled ruefully as I confessed, “My dear, if you only knew how strange is the reason for which I am here—it would be you who would laugh. I have learned over time never to dismiss anyone’s belief without investigation, regardless of how bizarre or impossible it may seem.”

  She watched me intently as she spoke, and I think it was the understanding in my gaze more than the meaning of my words that convinced her. She relaxed and nodded, reassured. “Thank you, Dr. Van Helsing.” She rose, went to the desk, and took again from the basket another stack of paper, which she presented to me.

  “This is the diary which my husband kept whilst in Transylvania. It is long, but I have typewritten it out; it will explain better than I can in a few words the extent of his trouble. To tell the truth, when I read it—only recently, and for the first time—the details were so intricate and consistent that I half-believed it. Even now, I am in a fever of doubt. I can say no more: Will you take it, read it, and judge? I will wait to hear from you.”

  “I shall read it to-night,” I promised, for I was just as eager to read it as she was to hear my opinion concerning it. “I will stay in Exeter to-night so that I can let you know my thoughts at once. May I come again in the morning to see both you and your husband?”

  The great relief upon her face was wonderful to behold; so our meeting was arranged. She of course assumed I desired it so as to make a subtle examination of Jonathan’s mind, but in truth, I wanted to see for myself whether the vampire’s mark was on him.

  Thus I spent that night in a quiet hotel room, reading the private journal of a man who had lived through hell and emerged somewhat intact. He had been entrapped in the castle by Dracula for two months, poor devil. And if his impressions can be trusted, he was never bitten by Vlad, but was intended as food to be left behind for three vampiresses he christens the “three brides.” I might have thought that, in his fear, he miscalculated the number—for Zsuszanna clearly features in that entry, as does Dunya, and when last I had been to the castle, those were the only two “women” there. But to hear one distinctly described as “golden-haired” and “sapphire-eyed”—this could be neither of them. My hypothesis: that this was Zsuzsanna’s “Elisabeth”; if so, she must be here in London too.

  Another disturbing thought came to me as I read the manuscript—might Jonathan have been bitten without his knowledge by Vlad or one of the women? At any rate, I was determined to find out during my next visit to the Harker home.

  But along with my fear for both Madam Mina and her new husband came a growing sense of admiration for him. Here was a young and far-from-worldly young solicitor who found himself abruptly in the most harrowing of circumstances—in Dracula’s castle, confronted by disappearing vampiresses and Vlad’s sadistic hints at his eventual demise, the realisation that the prince (that is, the “count,” for so it amused Dracula to present himself to his Exeter-based solicitors) cast no reflection in mirrors, commanded wolves, captured small children and gave them to the evil women for sustenance; and worst of all, the fact that he, Harker, was locked inside the castle with no means of escape.

  Did he surrender? Did he yield to his immortal seductresses? No. Instead, knowing himself dead if he took no action, Jonathan crawled from his window some several hundred feet above the rocky ground, and through sheer will clung with feet and fingers to the stones and crevices on the castle wall. Thus he made his way down and escaped on foot—an almost impossible task.

  And before he fled, he encountered Vlad asleep in his coffin—not once, but twice. Most men would have run in terror at the first sight; but Harker sensed that the “count” was a monster to be destroyed at all costs. Thus he returned willingly to Vlad’s resting place, and attempted to murder the vampire with nothing more than a common shovel. A solicitor he might be, but a brave and true one, and if he had passed from the vampires’ lair unbitten (though surely not unscathed), he deserved more than any to join in the battle that now faced our little group.

  Upon finishing his amazing tale, I wrote to Madam Mina that her husband’s diary was entirely true, as was his brain and heart, and that her concern about his sanity was warrantless. I sent a courier from the hotel, that she might receive this news (can we really call it good or bad? Nay, it was both) at once.

  Within an hour I received a letter from the same messenger; Madam Mina had penned an immediate reply, asking me to come not for lunch the following day, but for breakfast.

  At precisely twenty minutes to eight this morning, I answered the knock at my hotel-room door and found myself face-to-face with the courageous Mr. Jonathan Harker, who had come to pick me up. He was, like his wife, far younger-looking than his years, with light brown curling hair and a business-like demeanour; one would never have thought him capable of the amazing physical feats and courage professed in his journal. I at once invited him inside, under the pretext that it would take me a moment to fetch my coat; but my real motive was to have him to myself a few moments unobserved.

  When he entered, closing the door after him, I at once approached and held his gaze. He was an easy subject and fell into trance almost instantly.

  There was no immediate sign of the indigo aura, but I wasted not a moment; I unfastened his collar and pulled it away, then unbuttoned the top of his shirt in order to thoroughly examine the neck and collarbone.

  No mark. I released a sigh so deep I scarce could stand, and with silent apology righted Jonathan’s clothing as best I could. Then I went to waken him—but something subtle in his gaze and aura (scholarly orange, like Arthur’s) troubled me. It was bright, vibrant, gleaming wherever I looked; yet in the periphery of my vision, I sensed a hint of encroaching indigo.

  I did not know what it portended. In all my
hunting years, I had seen traces of the dark aura only in those the vampire had bitten. And in such cases, it always showed up obviously, directly—first in the victim’s gaze, then swirling throughout his own, brighter aura.

  Never had I sensed it like this: hovering nearby, just out of sight. Perhaps, I thought, it was only the lingering psychological effects of his imprisonment in the tower; but I could not be sure. Therefore, I deemed it wisest not to reveal all that I knew to Mr. and Mrs. Harker, lest the Impaler be privy to our plans.

  The decision made, I gently released Jonathan from his trance. He came to consciousness easily, without any notice of a change. Waking, he seemed entirely free of any trace of the vampire’s hold. I at once took his shoulder and turned his face towards the light coming through the window, studying it carefully as I said, “But Madam Mina said you were ill, that you had had a shock.”

  To which he smiled, and replied that he had been ill and had had a shock, but that I had cured him of it by my letter. He was an honest, pleasant fellow—he must be, to have won a wife so good as Madam Mina—and we had a pleasant ride over to his home. On the way, he told me that he wanted to provide whatever help he could against the “count.” In his eyes shone a burning desire (perhaps, even, as great as mine) to see the monster destroyed.

  Masking my disquiet, I told him that I indeed needed his help, and immediately: my work would be greatly eased if he could provide information concerning all business transacted with “Count Dracula” before his, Jonathan’s, trip to Transylvania.

  This he promised to provide before I left Exeter later that morning—and in fact, after we two had returned to his house and breakfasted with Miss Mina, he handed me a bundle of papers so that I might read them on the train back to London.