“I was in that cellar room for three days. By the end, I was delirious with hunger and loss of blood. If Mina had not shown up . . .”
“You would not have seen your four hundred and sixty-third birthday,” said Mina grimly.
“She gave me her own blood,” said the Count. “Without her, I would not be alive.” He reached out his hand, as though to take hers again. “You see, I knew from the moment I saw you that we were destined for each other.”
“I won’t allow you to tell this as a love story,” said Mina. She did not take his hand in response. “It’s a tragedy. What they did—what you all did—was indefensible. And yes, I know you tried to stop them, but I lost a friend and pupil. My poor, dear Lucy . . .”
“What happened to Lucy? I mean, after she escaped,” said Mary. But she almost did not want to know. Whatever had happened to Lucy was also happening to Lucinda. Would events repeat themselves?
Mina put her coffee cup on the table. Mary could see that the coffee was still only half drunk—and probably cold. “They chopped her head off. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to say that any more gently. Somehow, she had made her way to Hampstead. I suppose some sort of instinct drew her back to London. . . . The police began finding children on the heath with puncture marks on their throats. They talked about the beautiful lady in white who would ask them to come for a walk. One little girl said she was so pretty, she must be a princess from a fairy tale. I know because it was reported in the Westminster Gazette, but I did not see that article until later—all I knew was that Lucy had escaped, and they had gone after her. I told Vlad to leave England as quickly as possible—before Van Helsing and the others returned. I was sure they would return—after all, they would need his blood for their infernal experiments. Then, I went to the asylum and asked when Seward was expected back. Tomorrow, Dr. Hennessey told me, so I took a room in the Royal Hotel for the night. The next morning, I returned to the asylum and waited. Lunch came and went—the attendants gave me soup and bread, which I ate with some of the patients—a Lady Hollingston who had murdered her husband, and several other examples of femina deliquente. It was early afternoon before Seward returned with Holmwood, Morris, and Van Helsing. I remember sitting in his office at the asylum while he asked me, suspiciously, where I had been, what I had seen. I told him I had been so worried by Lucy’s letters that I had come up by the first train, and not finding them at the asylum, had gone to Carfax. There, I had seen the laboratory they had set up. I had found the Count, but he had attacked me—I could show the mark on my wrist where I had given him my blood as evidence of an attack. And then, he had escaped. Where was Lucy, I asked Seward. Why had her letters been so strange, so disjointed? I looked around at those men, standing there so sure of themselves—Holmwood staring out the window, Morris leaning against a filing cabinet—with concern and dismay. I did not want to betray that I knew what they were, what sorts of experiments they were engaged in.
“Seward seemed relieved that I did not know more, and explained it all to me in the most reasonable terms. They had been conducting an important experiment in blood transfusion, attempting to cure the Count of a dread disease—the blood disease of vampirism, which turned its victims mad. Lucy and Lady Westenra had been most interested, and had come to see their procedures. But the Count, whose disease had progressed more than they anticipated, had attacked and infected Lucy—her mother had died of the shock. Now Lucy was out there somewhere, with vampiric blood in her veins. They must stop her before she too became that dreaded thing—a vampire!
“I pretended to accept their story. But inside, I was seething with anger. If I could have summoned lightning to strike them down at that moment, I would have. It would have given me pleasure to see their smoldering ashes. Instead, I told them I would go to London and wait at the house on Curzon Street, in case Lucy should return there. Seward seemed relieved. If I had only known that they were planning on hunting her that night! I took the train to London—it was late afternoon by the time I arrived at Fenchurch Street Station, but I went directly to Dr. Faraday’s house in Bloomsbury. It was he who showed me the article in the Westminster Gazette. After I had tendered my resignation from the Subcommittee on Bibliographic Citation Format, there had been no one to keep an eye on Lucy directly, but a member of the subcommittee who lived near Hampstead Heath had brought the article to his attention. He had already summoned the members, who were meeting the next day. I told him I would come to Burlington House at the appointed time, and took a cab to Curzon Street. There was still a chance that Lucy might decide to come back home, and I did not know what else to do—wandering around Hampstead Heath by myself at night was unlikely to be useful! But that was the night they killed her.”
“Chopped her head off!” said Diana. She was standing at the door, with her hand on the collar of a beautiful white dog, one of the Count’s wolfdogs no doubt. “What did they chop it off with, and did it roll on the ground afterward?”
“How long have you been standing there?” asked Mary.
“You didn’t even notice me!” said Diana, scornfully. “None of you, except the Count—he’s known the whole time. That’s why you winked at me, didn’t you?” She walked into the room and stood in front of Count Dracula. “You knew as soon as I opened the door. And I thought I was so quiet!”
The Count smiled. “You smell of wolfdog and breakfast, mixed. It is a good smell, but a distinctive one. I think Hóvirág here likes you. That is a kind of flower, the hóvirág. It is as white as snow.”
“Well, as long as I smell distinctive. Now, why did they chop off her head? I want to hear this part.” She sat down on the carpet in front of the fireplace. Hóvirág lay down beside her and put her head in Diana’s lap. She seemed to have accepted Diana as her mistress.
“How much have you heard, Diana?” asked Mina. “I don’t want to repeat myself.”
“From the chopping her head off part. So she was a vampire, was she?”
“It is more accurate to say that she had contracted the disease of vampirism,” said Mina.
“You are splitting threads, kedvesem,” said the Count. “Whether or not you call us vampires makes little difference.”
“Splitting hairs,” said Mina. “It’s hairs. I’m not going to argue with you about semantics, not now.” She sounded impatient and a little angry. “The point is . . .”
“Why did they chop her head off?” asked Diana again. She was seated right by Mary’s feet. Should Mary kick her? The thought was tempting.
DIANA: I wish you’d tried it! Hoho would have bitten your foot off.
“They chopped her head off because vampires are difficult to kill,” said the Count. “Vampirism destroys the mind, but it makes the body stronger. It is able to heal from wounds that would kill a man. If you wish to kill a vampire, you cannot simply stab him through the heart, or shoot him in the head, or even break his neck by hanging. You must wound him in a way that makes it impossible for healing to occur. Decapitation is one such way. Or the vampire can be burned. In my native Transylvania, burning was one of the traditional ways to kill both vampires and witches.”
“There are witches?” said Diana.
“No, of course not,” said Mina. “Only poor old women accused of making a pact with the devil because the other villagers fear or dislike them. Diana, I appreciate your curiosity, but if you want to find out what happened to Lucy—”
“All right, I’ll be quiet,” said Diana, frowning. Then, she added with more interest, “Did they burn her up too?”
“She lies in the Westenra vault,” said Mina. “Van Helsing himself signed her death certificate, as well as her mother’s. I stayed in London for the funeral, then went back to Exeter, back to Jonathan. Dr. Faraday had told me to look through his papers, even though I assured him that Jonathan knew nothing, that he had no knowledge of the experiments. I was wrong— Holmwood had described what they intended to do in the letters instructing Jonathan to go to Transylvania and assist Count Drac
ula with the purchase of Carfax. Jonathan had not known everything, but he had known enough. I did not confront him with the letters—that would have alerted him to my involvement with the subcommittee. I merely told him that our marriage was a mistake and that I was leaving him. And then . . . well, I left. I returned to London, to Dr. Faraday and the Subcommittee on Bibliographic Citation Format, determined to stop Van Helsing. I swore that I would watch and wait, and that someday, somehow, I would avenge Lucy’s death.”
“But Mrs. Van Helsing wasn’t decapitated, or any of those other things,” said Mary. “She was bitten through the throat, and then she died. If she was a vampire—”
“Creating a vampire through blood transfusion introduces additional uncertainties,” said the Count. “Renfield went mad without becoming a vampire. Lucy transformed, but the procedure accelerated the effects of vampiric madness. We do not know exactly what Van Helsing did to his wife and daughter, or how it affected the transformation process. Whose blood was he using? And how did he process it before transfusion? Theoretically, all blood infected with vampirism should work in the same way. However, it seems clear that Mrs. Van Helsing’s transformation was incomplete. In the last few days, Lucinda has drunk my blood as well as Carmilla’s. We can only pray—those of us who pray—that when she wakes, she will have both the strength of vampirism and her sanity intact.”
“I would knock, but the door’s open. Judging from that last sentence, I seem to have come at exactly the right time.”
Who had said that? Mary turned her head, trying to find the source of the statement. It was Laura, standing at the door.
She stepped into the room, looked around at all of them, and said, “Lucinda’s awake.”
CHAPTER XXII
The Egyptian Queen
Lucinda was sitting up in bed, leaning on Carmilla. The Countess had one arm around the girl, who was indeed awake. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders, and she looked at them with frightened eyes.
The bedroom resembled the one Mary had slept in—an ancient four-poster bed with faded hangings, frescoes that must have been painted in the last century, a chair drawn up by the bed that could accommodate a crinoline, or even panniers. On one wall hung a tapestry with frayed edges. Woven men in feathered hats hunted a unicorn—they had speared its withers, and blood flowed from the white hide. Their dogs bayed at its heels. Mary guessed all of the Count’s rooms were similarly decorated, except of course the servants’ quarters. This was probably how counts decorated in general, at least Hungarian ones! In that enormous bed, Lucinda looked small and fragile.
The Count walked to the side of the bed, lifted Lucinda’s hand from the counterpane, then bowed and kissed it. And that was probably how counts greeted young ladies, at least in Hungary!
“You are very welcome to my home, Miss Van Helsing,” said the Count. “If I can do anything to make you more comfortable, please inform me.”
Lucinda looked up at him. Her eyes were large in her thin face, and there were shadows under them. “Hail, Prince of Darkness,” she said. “Have you come to save me from hell? I have been among devils, and you are the chief of devils, but an angel also. I think you are the angel Gabriel, who told our Lady that she was with child. You are the messenger of God, but what message do you have for me? My mother is dead, and she will not rise again, no, never.” She said it in the same calm tone in which she might have said, “Good morning. What’s for breakfast?”
“I told you she was awake,” said Laura. “Not lucid.”
“She’s been speaking like this since she woke up,” said Carmilla. “But at least she is conscious. She hasn’t fed yet. I offered, but she refused.”
“You will not refuse me, child, will you?” asked the Count. He sat on the side of the bed, then put a hand on Lucinda’s cheek and stroked it, tenderly. “You must feed. You will not get better without feeding.”
“Will I be damned to eternal hellfire?” asked Lucinda, as though inquiring about a thoroughly practical matter—the grocery bill, for instance.
“No, child. The god you believe in forgives all, and redeems all. You know this because you learned it at your mother’s knee, did you not? Others may be punished, but you are innocent. I promise you—that is my message to you, from God if you will. Now come, drink.” He put his hand behind her head and pulled her closer to him. She leaned forward, placed her mouth on his neck, and then . . .
Ugh, not this again! The terrible sound of Lucinda sucking and lapping blood. Mary put her hand over her mouth.
“That is so gross,” said Diana, who had her hand on the collar of the white wolfdog. She pulled at the wolfdog’s ears. Hóvirág did not seem to mind.
“You get used to it after a while,” said Mina, matter-of-factly. Mary did not think she would ever get used to it! How in the world did Mina . . . Well, that was yet another issue, wasn’t it? Mina and the Count. But Mina was married to another man, who was back in England. She could not quite wrap her head around it.
“Mary, you’ll be all right here, won’t you?” asked Mina. “I need to send two telegrams—one to Irene Norton and one to Mrs. Poole, letting them know you’ve arrived safely. The telegraph office was already closed by the time you arrived, or I would have sent them yesterday. It should be open by now. Mrs. Poole would never forgive me if I kept her in suspense, and I’m sure Mrs. Norton is starting to worry—it’s been a week since you left Vienna. When I come back, we’ll do some shopping. We may have a lot to think about, but all of you need new clothes, so I think a trip to Váci utca is in order.”
“Would you ask Mrs. Poole to let Mr. Holmes know we’ve arrived? I was supposed to send him regular updates, but Irene warned us not to telegraph from Vienna once we realized that we’d been followed by the Alchemical Society, and there was no way to contact him after we’d been kidnapped.” Should Mary send him a telegram herself? No, there was too much to tell him. Later that day, she would sit down and write him a long letter. Mrs. Poole would let him know they had arrived in Budapest, and then she could fill in all the details. She felt a little guilty that she had not written to him yet—but there had been so much else to consider, and so little time!
When Mina had left, with a wave to the Count, who was still, ugh, functioning as Lucinda’s breakfast, Mary looked at Justine. How had she taken the revelations of that morning? After all, she had been—well, under observation as well by the Royal Society. She herself was not sure what to think. This Mina was not quite her Miss Murray anymore. Had that Miss Murray even existed?
“I feel the same way,” said Justine, shaking her head. “As though it is all too much.”
“How did you know what I was feeling?” asked Mary.
“Because you have not said anything for some time. You said almost nothing while Mina was speaking.”
“Neither did you.”
“What is there to say? On this journey, which of our assumptions have turned out to be correct? I thought Adam was dead, and he is not dead. You thought Mina was simply your teacher, and she is more than your teacher. I do not know what to think of this subcommittee—what has it done to combat the activities of the Société des Alchimistes? In the case Miss Murray described, it seems to have been singularly ineffective. It could not save Miss Westenra or even stop Professor Van Helsing.” Justine shook her head. “I simply do not know. . . .”
Yes, that was exactly the way Mary felt! She simply did not know . . . about so many things. Her father, for instance. How had his experiments affected her? Had they made her what she was? Had they given her the temperament that even Mrs. Poole had noticed when Mary was a child?”
MRS. POOLE: You were a perfect child, my dear.
MARY: That’s the whole problem, isn’t it? Children aren’t supposed to be perfect.
“There, that is better, is it not?” asked the Count. Gently, he laid Lucinda’s head back on her pillows. She still had blood on her mouth.
Carmilla wiped it off with a handkerchief. “She looks better, a
t any rate. Thank you, keresztapa. Now we shall see if your theory works. . . .”
There was so much for Mary to think about, but this was not the time. Although it never seemed to be the time. They were always rushing from one thing to another, frying pans to fires to more frying pans! Once again, she longed for her quiet room in the house at 11 Park Terrace, and Mrs. Poole talking about bills. Adventures were all very well, but after a while one began to long for regular meals, for time to read a good book or take a walk in the park.
Laura sat down at the foot of the bed. “Vlad, will you stay with Lucinda, or shall I? Carmilla’s been with her all night and needs a break. And there’s no need for Mary, Justine, and Diana to be here. Mina is planning on taking them shopping as soon as she gets back. In the meantime—”
“If you could stay with her while I arrange my affairs for the day, I shall return and spend the afternoon here,” said the Count, rising again.
“Right. I’ll take over, then.” Laura walked to the other side of the bed. When Carmilla stood up, she kissed her on the lips, the affectionate but perfunctory kiss of a couple that has been together for a long time, and said, “Get some sleep, sweetheart! I’m serious—I know you’re incredibly powerful and all that, but even you’re not invulnerable. Besides, when you don’t get enough sleep, you’re also irritable and grumpy.” Then, she took her place by Lucinda’s side.
“Yes, ma gouvernante,” said Carmilla, with a mocking smile. She did not look particularly grumpy, but she did stifle a yawn.
“Don’t even start,” said Laura, shaking her head. “Go sleep!” She put her arms around Lucinda, so that Lucinda’s head lay on her shoulder, and stroked Lucinda’s tangled curls. “Shall I tell you a story? Or sing to you? Tell me what you would like.”
If Lucinda responded, it was so low that Mary could not hear.
When they had followed the Count and Carmilla into the hallway, Carmilla turned to them and said, “I’m under orders. I shall see you all in about seven hours, yes?”
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