by Dacre Stoker
“I see you have not changed, either, Lord Godalming,” Mina replied in kind.
“Believe me, it is with little joy that I return here.”
“If you’ve come out of obligation of duty to express your condolences, consider it done and you are free to take your leave.” Mina turned to walk right back out the door.
“Wait.”
She hesitated.
Knowing that challenging Mina head-on was a sure way of alienating such a stubborn woman, he moderated his tone. “I have come here to warn you. As unbelievable as it may sound, I have reason to believe that that which we once thought dead and buried may yet be un dead.”
Mina merely cocked her head to one side, without a trace of the shock he expected.
“Dear Arthur, always struggling to do what’s right, even though your stomach may turn at the action.”
What game was she playing? “Do not treat me like Jack Seward. You know I’m not given to wild theories,” he said.
“I know you still hate me. I hear it in your voice. That is your right. But do not distrust me. Remember, it was I who led you to Dracula. I upheld my oath.”
“That is the only reason I am here. I am guilty of many things, Mina. But the guilt of dismissing Jack ’s warnings as the ravings of a madman is what I am most ashamed of now.” He produced a clipping he had taken from the collection of letters and thrust it toward Mina, only now noticing the bandage on her hand as she took the piece of paper. “What happened?”
“I broke a glass,” she said quickly, turning her attention to the newspaper clipping. After a moment she looked up, puzzled. “This is about Jack the Ripper.”
“Look at the details of the murders. The first in London took place on August thirty-first, 1888. Only a week after the Demeter foundered upon the shores of Whitby. The last recorded murder took place on November ninth, 1888, the day before Dracula eluded our capture by retreating back to Transylvania.”
Mina listened, unmoving.
Holmwood brought out Seward’s letters. “Jack believed the Ripper was a vampire,” he said. “He was willing to risk his life to prove it to us, and the Ripper killed him for it. That is the mystery of his death. Forget what your eyes told you. Leave out emotion. Cold logic tells us the evidence clearly points to Dracula and Jack the Ripper being one and the same.”
Mina laughed. “Oh, Arthur, you were always the bravest of us all. But you were wise to leave the thinking to Van Helsing.”
His fists clenched, crushing the letters. “I come here to warn you that your life may be in danger, and you mock me?” Even as he said it, it occurred to him that this might be her ploy to throw him off the scent and protect Dracula. For all he knew, she might have been preparing to join her lover at this very moment.
As if Mina could read his thoughts, her mirth vanished, and she became deadly serious. “There is a vampire here in London. But it is not Dracula.”
Holmwood rocked back on his heels. Another vampire? “There is no time for games. Lives are in danger.”
“I was attacked in my house. I could have been killed.”
“I see that you survived and the house seems to be in perfect order. What did this vicious vampire do? Throw a glass at you and leave?”
Mina’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve listened to your theories. Now listen to mine. Have you ever heard of the Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory?”
“No, should I have?”
“Three hundred years ago, Elizabeth Bathory raped and butchered six hundred and fifty peasant girls and bathed in their blood. She believed it preserved her youth. Does that not describe a vampire in a cold historical analysis? And if Jack’s assumptions were correct, does this not describe the crimes of Jack the Ripper as well?”
“Preposterous. Everyone knows that Jack the Ripper must have been a man. You cannot convince me that a member of the fairer sex is capable of such horrific crimes.”
“Your prejudices blind you. The Ripper was never caught. Why should it not be a woman?”
“A black widow. How interesting,” Holmwood mused aloud. Still, he wondered if Mina was hiding something. “Jonathan was impaled. Unless this countess was also called Impaler, I don’t see the connection.”
“It could be a clever ruse by Bathory to deceive us into thinking that Dracula is still alive.”
He was not convinced. “Let us assume, for argument’s sake, that you are correct and that there was a Countess Bathory, and she was indeed Jack the Ripper. Again, what is her connection to us? Why would she want us dead? It makes no sense.”
Mina opened a leather-bound book to the illustrated family tree and handed it to him. She traced her finger from Elizabeth Bathory’s name to Vlad Dracula III.
She saw no point in telling him the whole truth, wagering that this one point would be sufficient. “Dracula and Bathory were related by familial blood. They were cousins.”
Arthur Holmwood felt the lightning strike of understanding hit him between the eyes. “She has come to avenge his death.”
It was as if the universe had fallen into perfect order. Everything made sense. It didn’t matter what Mina thought of Dracula, or what her desires were toward him. Bathory would blame them all equally for her cousin’s death. This fact, in conjunction with what he had learned from Seward’s letters to Basarab, convinced him that he and Mina were sinking in the same boat. He no longer had any choice but to trust her, with great caution, of course. “We must contact Van Helsing at once,” he said.
“I have already tried. He hasn’t responded to any of my telegrams.”
Holmwood was about to tell Mina that Van Helsing had confronted Quincey, when a new, sickening revelation sprang into his mind. “Basarab!”
Mina’s face went ashen. “What did you say?”
He thrust the letters into her hand, pointing out the signatures. “Jack Seward was working with Basarab to find the Ripper.”
“If Bathory knew about Seward and killed him,” Mina exclaimed as she read the signature on the letter, “then she would know about Basarab as well!”
The look of panic on her face almost made him feel sympathy for her. Once again, his sense of honor pushed him into action. “Quincey is planning to confront Basarab during his rehearsal at half past six tonight, at the Lyceum.”
Mina gasped audibly as she turned to look at the clock on the mantel. “There is a train leaving Exeter in twenty minutes. It would get us to Waterloo station at ten past six. We have no time to waste: Quincey is in great danger.”
She ran up the stairs as Holmwood walked into the hall to retrieve his hat, coat, and walking stick.
Mina returned carrying her handbag while wrapping something in her shawl that looked like a sheathed sword. “What are you gawking at? As you well know, I can fight my own battles.”
Arthur Holmwood found this last remark to be most unbecoming. Mina had never quite conformed to the proper womanly role: She was in no way what he would describe as “delicately feminine.” Never was there a woman more damned confounding. Who knew what was going on inside her head? He believed Mina up to a point. She sounded convincing; yet, other than her bandaged hand, there was not a mark on her. If this Countess Bathory had attacked her, how much of a fight could there have truly been? The alternative was too terrible to believe, that this might all be an elaborate plan: Dracula and Mina conspiring together in order to lure him into a trap.
He would ensure he never turned his back on Mina Harker. In any case, he wanted to talk to this Basarab fellow himself.
As they opened the front door, Manning tried to intercept Mina. “Madam, I’m glad I caught you. This telegram just arrived. More condolences . . .”
“Thank you, Manning,” Mina said, taking the telegram in mid-stride. Shoving it into her handbag, she sailed out the door.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A gaseous wave formed in the pit of Hamilton Deane’s stomach, exploding out of his mouth as an echoing belch. A nearby crew member arched an eyebrow.
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sp; Deane had been experiencing abdominal distress since Stoker’s stroke, and his attempts to deal with the ongoing issues with the production left him precious little time to seek out something to quell his stress-induced discomfort. The more precarious the situation, the more his gut churned.
Deane knew entirely too well that he stood upon shaky ground. He did not actually have the rights to produce Dracula. Should Stoker succumb to his illness, Deane would have to negotiate the rights from the sour Mrs. Stoker. He shuddered at the very thought. Deane had investors to please, and there were already plenty of other problems, too.
Basarab had made further demands to demolish the traditional drawing room set in favor of a movable, multilevel structure that could be transformed from the castle in Transylvania to the Whitby Asylum and then to Carfax Abbey. Because of this, the master carpenter had resigned in disgust. Deane had been left to oversee the workers himself. With Stoker bedridden, the play had no director, and Deane assumed that he would have to act in Stoker’s stead. Basarab had other plans, however, taking over the directing without even consulting him. Deane was furious, but he dared not confront the eccentric Romanian. He did not care to end up like Stoker.
Disheveled, tired, and hungry, Deane’s head and stomach swirled from the stress. He was less than an hour from the first rehearsal and there was still so much yet to do. With every turn, someone wanted his attention. The wardrobe mistress emerged from Basarab’s dressing room in tears, investors clamored for hourly updates, journalists were looking for interviews, and there was an infestation of fans sneaking past the guard in the hope of glimpsing Basarab. Working in the theatre was not as glamorous as Deane had thought it would be when he’d made his ill-fated investment with Stoker.
By six o’clock, most of the cast were already at the theatre, half an hour before their required call time. This was not unusual for the first rehearsal, as the novelty of a fresh production was very exciting. The actors fell into noisy groups, chatting and gossiping while they waited to take their places on the stage.
Meanwhile, Deane was trying to carry on a conversation with the lighting designer. Deane could barely hear himself speak, let alone understand a word from the Scottish designer up in the booth at the back of the theatre, playing with his new electric toys. The Scot was trying to use his new Kliegl No. 5 to simulate moonlight in Transylvania, a scene from Act One. Deane felt that there was entirely too much illumination for a gothic nighttime scene and was trying to persuade the designer to dim the lights. The designer nodded; but as Deane watched from center stage, the light grew in intensity. So did the smoldering in his gut.
“Not brighter, you half-wit!” he bellowed over the actors’ conversation. All eyes turned to him. He felt the rumblings in the pit of his stomach again as he realized he had just cast himself as the production’s villain. His brain scrambled for a way to turn his outburst into a light-hearted joke, but he thought better of it. He had learned from the incident with Quincey Harker that fear was better than respect. The designer hurried to carry out Deane’s orders, but in his haste, he mistakenly turned the set blue.
“Blue?! No, no, no! More red! How many times do I have to tell you? This is where Prince Dracula tells of his heroic days of war!”
A collective gasp went up from the actors behind him.
A voice asked: “And what do you know of the war, Mr. Deane?”
Deane was startled. He realized the gasp was not a result of the actors’ fear of his wrath, but of Basarab’s appearance.
All voices were silenced; all eyes and ears focused on Basarab. The entire cast and crew was rapt, waiting for his next word, like disciples listening to Christ’s sermon on the mount. Basarab indeed cut an impressive figure. He was dressed in a black-and-gold satin robe with a flowing train, and he brandished a broadsword, holding the heavy steel weapon easily, as if it were an extension of his arm. The blade glinted in the spotlights.
Deane was the acting manager, producer, and—for the time being—director of the production, Basarab was an unwelcome guest on the stage at this point and time. He answered with new hatred, “What do I know of war? Obviously, not as much as you.”
The tip of Basarab’s sword was suddenly at his throat, silencing him. For safety, actors traditionally carried dull wooden swords on stage. But this blade was real: Its sharpened steel pressed against Deane’s neck.
“Battle, Mr. Deane, cannot be re-created on a stage by changing the color of the lights,” Basarab said. His cool words belied an undercurrent of fury. “A naked blade clenched in your fist, the bloodlust welling up within you as you take your enemy’s life. That is combat. Battle is an art form unto itself. One that is sorely missed in these modern days.”
His anger subsided, to be replaced with a look of melancholy, and it occurred to Deane that Basarab truly believed the rubbish he was spewing.
Basarab let the sword drop to his side. Deane’s hands came up instinctively to his throat, checking for blood, finding none. Had Deane been lucky, or was Basarab really so skillful with a blade? Either way, the actor was clearly insane.
The doors to the theatre’s Grand Circle exploded open, their boom echoing up to the cathedral-like ceiling. Everyone in the auditorium turned to see who had entered with such force. Deane shielded his eyes from the harsh stage lights to get a better look at the intruder. How dare this man so brazenly interrupt my rehearsal! he thought furiously.
But as the intruder emerged into the glow of the houselights, Deane realized it wasn’t a man, but a woman. She was striking. Her coal black hair contrasted with her lily-white complexion. Her svelte body was clad in a perfectly tailored suit. Deane was flabbergasted by the vulgarity of a woman wearing trousers.
The woman clapped as she strolled down the aisle, mocking them. “Bravo! Oh, bravo! The power of your performances has grown Shakespearean in its mightiness.”
The intruder tipped her top hat to a group of young actresses, smiling with a suggestive wink. “Good evening, ladies.”
Deane had reached his limits. He may have been too weak to subdue Basarab, but he would be damned if he was going to let this woman’s insolence go unchecked. He stalked toward the intruder. “Excuse me, I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but this is a private re h earsal—”
Lightning fast, Basarab thrust his sword to block Deane from advancing farther. He whispered, “For your own safety, Mr. Deane, I caution you not to speak another word.”
Deane met the woman’s eyes. She leered at him, turning his blood to ice. He turned back to Basarab. There was a sincerity in Basarab’s countenance that Deane had never seen before, confusing him even more.
Basarab faced the woman, his face like stone. She gave him a vicious sneer.
Deane sensed these two had a history, and a very unpleasant one at that.
“Countess, I have been expecting you,” Basarab said.
“The old adage seems to be true,” she said coyly, advancing toward the stage, her walking stick striking the floor like a dagger. She shook her head at Basarab as if she could not believe what she was seeing. “Time truly does seem to heal all wounds.”
“Some wounds are much too deep to heal.” Deane heard a deep anger in Basarab’s voice.
The woman broke into a fit of laughter. No mockery, this, but true amusement. “Do you never grow weary of your simplistic little wordplay?”
Basarab brandished his sword. “Perhaps you would prefer something more sportive?”
The woman went rigid, like a viper ready to strike. “Why not?” she purred. Her eyes widened, gleaming in anticipation of the contest that was about to begin. “Swordplay is so much more . . . interesting.”
At a brief stop in Salisbury, Arthur Holmwood dashed off the train onto the platform to one of the new telephone kiosks and paid the attendant to dial his home number in London. The first train whistle blew. Once connected, the attendant handed the receiver to him, allowing him to seek his privacy in the wooden telephone cabinet.
&nbs
p; “All aboard!” the conductor cried.
Holmwood quickly told his butler, Wentworth, to make sure that his coach be waiting for him at Waterloo station at ten past six, the scheduled arrival time. “Do not be late!”
The final train whistle sounded. Not bothering to tip the attendant or replace the receiver in its cradle, Holmwood raced to the train as it lurched forward, bound for London. He got aboard just as it pulled away.
Unfortunately, due to a slow herd of sheep outside Basingstoke, the locomotive pulled into Waterloo station at a quarter past six. To add further frustration, over the last twelve years, the station had been in a never-ending state of remodeling, and the grand entrance on the northeast corner was barricaded. Arthur and Mina were forced to detour to the south, backtracking to where the Holmwood coach stood waiting. Time was not on their side. Quincey would be arriving at the Lyceum Theatre in five minutes for his rehearsal, and they were still at least ten minutes away.
Despite the urgency, Holmwood’s manners were impeccable. He held the door to the coach open for Mina, offering her his hand. She refused his assistance and attempted to climb into the carriage on her own. He should have remembered that she perceived chivalry as an insult to her independence. Stepping on the hem of her skirt, Mina stumbled and the shawl-wrapped item and her handbag slipped off her shoulder and dropped to the ground with a clatter. Her purse, keys, and the unopened telegram she had taken from her servant spilled out of the bag. Holmwood allowed himself a tiny smile. Serves her right. Mina turned back to retrieve her things, but Holmwood, annoyed, took her by the waist and shoved her into the coach. Time was passing. He retrieved the handbag and fallen items, puzzling over the thing wrapped in the shawl, and hurried into the coach.
“Driver! At a gallop, if you please,” Arthur bellowed.
To his dismay, he found Mina sitting in the rear seat of the carriage, forcing him to take the front. Damn this woman! It was common knowledge in polite society that a woman should never take the rear seat. Furthermore, he loathed sitting backward while the carriage was in motion.
