I walked forward unsteadily and embraced my child, weeping freely as his little arms wound around my neck and he said, "Mother!"
Enough. Enough. I must rest, I must sleep.
25 December. - How joyous a Christmas, how good a Yule! My little child is himself again, my Jonathan seems almost stronger for the struggle of these past few weeks, Jack and the Professor are sharing our holidays, and all seems right with the world!
I know that I shall never forget the dire warning that Professor Van Helsing gave me two days ago. The blood of the Count still flows in my veins, and in my Quincey's veins, and shall flow in the veins of my grandchildren and their own children down through the centuries; but we are a religious family, and I have every trust that my descendants shall follow in our footsteps in this regard.
Is it an accident, a coincidence, that Jonathan's illness caused me to neglect the first communion of little Quincey, which should have come at his sixth birthday, and that as he approached his seventh year the power of the Count's blood began to assert itself? That was my error, my fault, my sin, and I shall never allow myself to forget it. I shall see to it that Quincey takes the sacrament weekly, and when he comes of age, when he is old enough to understand, I shall explain to him this entire horrible situation, and I know that he will understand and will guard against the unholy blood for the rest of his life, and he will raise his own children to do the same. And for all that, this burden is not so great, for should not all Christians partake of the sacrament?
And so my universe is brighter this morn. If only my dear Jonathan would heal, would grow stronger, then I would be content. I would be content.
18 February, 1897. - The romance has been published, and Mr. Stoker is quite excited about the sales thus far. We expect our first share of the royalties within the fortnight, and it will be greatly welcome, for our funds are almost depleted. Jonathan is frantic with worry as the debts pile up and the bank statement shrinks.
30 May. How can such sweetness mingle with such bitterness? How can relief and grief stand so close and embrace each other so? My beloved child faces life without a father. My dear Jonathan has succumbed to the disease. I know that we shall meet again when I too have shuffled off this mortal coil, but now, alone in this room, I am tormented by all my memories and by the absence of that kindest and most faithful of husbands.
I cannot remain here. I must leave, lest my sorrow drives me to madness. I shall leave England and go to America. Angelica, the sister of our late Texan friend Quincey Morris, has invited us to join her in the City of New York, where her husband owns a brokerage firm. She is eager to meet her brother’s namesake.
Adieu, land of my birth, land of my ancestors. Adieu, my dearest love. Adieu.
II
CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
Graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers,
Op'd, and let 'em forth,
By my so potent art.
—The Tempest,
Act V, scene i
Chapter Six
Holly Larsen and Jerry Herman were sitting at a table in the Strand with Malcolm, staring at him with blank, expressionless looks. Neither of them knew quite what to say in response to his unexpected and thoroughly bizarre discourse. He had spread numerous sheets of old, yellowed paper out on the table, and he was pointing excitedly from one to the other and to the book he held in his hand, a new paperback copy of Dracula by Bram Stoker.
"And it just explains so much!" he was saying. "I mean, take Van Helsing, for example. Lots of Germans are named van instead of von … look at Beethoven, Ludwig van Beethoven … so nobody ever thought that he was German, not Dutch. Think about it, think about it! If anybody ever tried to check this book out, look into its historicity, they'd have been thrown completely off the track by all the changed names and places."
"Mal …" Jerry tried to interrupt.
"So Stoker got the credit and my great-grandparents got fifty percent of the royalties. No wonder my family is well-off! Can you imagine what fifty percent of the royalties from Dracula must have amounted to over the life of the copyright? My God, it must have been millions over the years!"
"Malcolm …" Holly began.
"The only names he didn't change … other than Mina's and Jonathan's, that was part of the deal … were the names of people who died. And who would have known or cared about a lunatic like Renfield? When word reached Texas that Quincey Morris had been shot to death, who would have given it a second thought? Can you imagine how many Texans died of gunshot wounds in the 1880s?"
"Malcolm, hold on a minute," Jerry said.
"Lucy Westenra had no family, neither did John Hawkins, Jonathan Harker's employer, so using their names wouldn't have caused any stir." Malcolm paused and took a sip from his glass of burgundy. "But I'm getting off the subject. You see, the whole point here is that … well, as everybody knows, when you get bitten by a vampire you get infected somehow, and eventually, when you die, you become a vampire yourself."
"Yeah, everybody knows that," Jerry agreed, his sarcasm going unnoticed by Malcolm. Not so Holly, who poked him in the ribs with her elbow.
"But sometimes a vampire also makes his victim drink his blood, and that has a different kind of effect. That's what happened to my great-grandmother. She was forced to drink the vampire's blood, and that's a different kind of infection. She began to take on Dracula's characteristics for as long as he was still alive … well, not alive, but you know what I mean. As soon as he was done away with by Quincey Morris and my great-grandfather, the curse seemed to vanish from her. The burn scar on her forehead, made when Van Helsing touched her with the consecrated host, disappeared." Malcolm paused for dramatic effect. "But the point is that the polluted blood was still in her system, and it was passed on to my grandfather, my father, and Rachel and me. Van Helsing told my great-grandparents that it was a permanent element of evil in our systems and could only be counteracted by a constant infusion of sanctity, by a regular taking of the sacrament in church."
"Malcolm …" Holly began to say gently.
"That's why Grandfather was so worried about my not going to church anymore. He was afraid that the polluted blood would gain dominance. According to him and the diary, that's why I can't sleep at night, that's why sunlight hurts my eyes and I never have any appetite." He looked at Holly. "That's why you and I haven't been good together these last few times. Vampires' desires are not sexual."
"Honey," she said, "you don't take any of this stuff seriously, do you? I mean, really!"
He rubbed his eyes. "I don't know, I don't know. It all seemed so stupid when Gramps and Rachel were talking about it, but after I read the papers, it all seemed to make sense."
"Mal," Jerry said, laughing, "I wish you could listen to yourself. I mean, you're talking about being cursed with the blood of Dracula, for crying out loud!"
"I know, I know, it sounds absurd," he agreed. "I hope that it is all nonsense. But God, Jerry, can you think of any other explanation for what's been happening to me?"
"So what's been happening to you?" his friend asked. "You have insomnia, you're off your feed, and you couldn't get it up a couple of times. So what?" He shook his head, laughing again. "I really don't think that if you went to a doctor and described those symptoms, he would shake his head and say"—and Jerry's voice shifted into a very bad imitation of Bela Lugosi's—" 'We are dealing here with the curse of the Undead!"
Malcolm did not laugh. "So explain what happened in that place you took me to."
This sobered Jerry up and he became a bit defensive. "Hey, I don't know what happened in there. You and that Swedish gorilla got into a fight, that's all."
"Jerry, you told me that the girl was bleeding from the neck and that I was trying to get at her, and I don't remember anything about it."
"Okay, okay," Jerry said hotly, "so you're a fucking nut case, okay? You belong in a rubber room or something, but don't give me any of this vampire shit!"
"Jerry!" Ho
lly said sharply. "Don't say things like that! Can't you see how upset he is?"
"He may be right, Holly," Malcolm said. "I hope he's right. I'd almost be relieved if I were just having a breakdown or something like that."
"Well, you're not having a breakdown and you're not turning into a vampire!" Holly said emphatically. "Mal, honey, I'm not even going to bother trying to make you see how silly this whole thing is. If you ask me, your grandfather … and I like him, don't get me wrong … is a senile old man who doesn't know what he's talking about. And this sounds to me like your sister is going along with it just as a way of breaking us up. She doesn't like me, you know!"
"I know," he agreed, "and she's a jerk, I know that, too. But …"
"No buts about it, man," Jerry said. "Listen to her, will you? This is crazy, Malcolm! Absolutely nuts!"
"You can't believe any of it, Mal," Holly added. "It isn't even worth talking about."
"Look, I didn't call you two up and ask you to meet me here just to argue about it," he said firmly but without rancor.
"I know it sounds ridiculous, and I know there are probably a hundred other explanations for what's been happening to me … though I can't think of one that would explain what happened when I took communion last Sunday."
"You have an ulcer," Jerry muttered.
"Maybe so," Malcolm said, nodding. "And maybe not. In any event, I have a plan. I have to prove to myself either that it's true or that it isn't. I have to know, one way or another."
"It isn't true," Holly and Jerry said in unison, after which they exchanged amused glances.
"Well, there's one way to find out," Malcolm went on. "It's the original text of Stoker's book Dracula. He names people and places and all that in the book. I'm going to England as soon as I can arrange it, and I'm going to see if the places he mentions exist. I'm going to see if there really is a town called Whitby and a house called Carfax Abbey. I'm going to check records and archives and see if there ever was an asylum run by a doctor named John Stewart, see if there ever was a mental patient named Renfield. I'm going to see if a German professor named Van Helsing ever visited England …" He paused and looked off into space. "Abraham Van Helsing," he muttered. "My father's name was Abraham. I'd always assumed he was named after Lincoln or something like that, but maybe …"
"Malcolm, listen to me for a minute—" Jerry began, but Malcolm cut him off as he returned to the description of his plan.
"I'm going to check to see if there ever was a Duke of Wellington whose fiancée, Lucy Westenra, died of acute anemia, if there ever was a man named John Hawkins, Esq., who arranged a real estate purchase for a Rumanian nobleman—"
"Damn it, Malcolm, will you listen to me?" Jerry said forcefully. "You're talking about spending an awful lot of money just to prove the falsehood of something that a ten-year-old kid would know isn't true!"
And besides," Holly added, "there's a better, cheaper way to go about it, if you're determined to do it."
"What do you mean?" Malcolm asked.
"What do you know about research procedures and sources in England? Nothing, not one thing. You—"
"I've done extensive historical research, you know," he said a bit defensively. "I mean, I did get a degree in classics, after all!"
"Sure, fine, so you know your way around the New York Public Library," Holly responded. "Malcolm, if you want to do research about all of this nonsense, then you should hire people in England to do it for you, not go there and try to do it yourself!"
"Of course, man!" Jerry agreed. "With the amount of money you'd be spending on airfare and hotels and all that, you could hire a whole team of researchers." He paused. "And besides, you could probably look up most of that stuff right here. I mean, the New York libraries have books and maps!"
Malcolm shook his head adamantly. "No, Jerry, no to both objections. I have to do this myself. I can't hire anyone else to do it, and I can't rely on local information."
"Oh, Malcolm, why not?" Holly asked with exasperation.
Malcolm seemed to lapse into pensiveness as he said, "I can't really explain it. Last night, as I was reading my great-grandmother's diary, the idea just sort of came to me, and it just seemed to make perfect sense."
"How can such a half-assed idea make perfect sense?" Jerry asked.
"It just does," Malcolm insisted, and then smiled. "I even dreamed about it, dreamed about searching for the truth, dreamed about being in England …"
"Well, I've dreamed about that myself often enough," Holly muttered. "I think everybody dreams about going to Europe."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," Malcolm said, looking from Holly to Jerry. "I want the two of you to come with me."
"Are you nuts!" Jerry exclaimed. "I can't afford to go to Europe!"
"Don't worry about money," Malcolm reassured him. "I've discussed this idea with Gramps, told him what I want to do and why, and he thought it was a great idea. He's agreed to pay for all three of us. He'll foot the whole bill." He turned to Holly. "Can you come?"
"I think so," she said, suddenly very pleased with the idea. "I haven't taken a vacation in two years, so I'm sure there won't be any problem at work." Visions of Harrods department store and the boutiques and shops along Carnaby Street and King's Road began to drift through her mind. A European vacation with Malcolm! London, Stratford-upon-Avon, Windsor Castle! The pubs, the antique shops, the theaters! What a delightful idea!
And, she noted as an afterthought, absolutely free. My favorite price!
"I don't have to ask you if you can make it, Jerry," Malcolm said to his friend. "You and I were planning to go to the Bahamas together this month anyway. I know you can take off, and it won't cost you a cent."
As visions of English shops were drifting through Holly's mind, visions of brown, nubile women in string bikinis were vanishing from Jerry's. "Oh, well," he sighed. "Sure. What the hell, why not."
"There's one more thing I want to do … I have to do," Malcolm said seriously. "And if the idea doesn't sit well with either of you, I'll understand. I don't want to force anybody to do anything they don't want to do."
"What is it?" Holly asked.
Malcolm, with a melodramatic flourish, held up the paperback copy of Dracula. "I picked this up today at Waldenbooks on Continental Avenue. I wanted to have a copy for reference, one I could write in and stuff like that."
"Of course," Jerry said, sounding a bit tried and bored.
"Listen to this," Malcolm said, flipping through the book, searching for a specific part. He found it and began to read aloud to his friends:
Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action, his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as best we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked, I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might.
The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, bloodcurdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together until the lips were cut and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. And then the writhing and the quivering of the body became less. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over.
"Yeah, creepy," Jerry said. "What about it?"
Malcolm paused before speaking. "That's how the book describes the death of a woman named Lucy Westenra. According to the book, she was my great-grandmother's best friend. She was killed by Dracula, turned into a vampire after death, and had a stake driven through her heart by the guy she was going to marry, a nobleman named the Duke of Wellington, though Stoker calls him Lord Godalmung."
"That's what the novel says," Holly said pointedly.
"That's what the book says," Malcolm corrected her. "I can't call it a novel until I know for sure that it's all fiction."
"Okay, okay," Jerry said impatiently. "So you're gonna look for her grave, right? See if she really existed?"
> "I'm going to open her grave," Malcolm said. "I'm going to look at her remains. According to the book, after they drove the stake through her heart, they cut off her head and stuffed her mouth with garlic, then placed a piece of consecrated host on her stomach. If we open her grave and find a stake or a severed skull … well, then, I'll know for sure."
"Mal," Jerry said, laughing, "you know you can't go around digging people up! It's against the law!"
"No digging involved," he said. "The book says she was put in a mausoleum."
"Well, whatever," Jerry said. "You still can't go around messing with dead bodies, even real old ones. You'll get arrested."
"I know, I know," Malcolm said, nodding. "That's why we'll leave it for last. If there's no Whitby, no Carfax Abbey, no Dr. Stewart's asylum, no Renfield, no Van Helsing, we'll just forget about her. But let me be clear on this point: If the other stuff checks out, then we go to Hempstead and look for her grave. And if we find it, we open it. Agreed?"
Holly leaned forward on her forearms and looked him straight in the eye. "Malcolm, I'm going to agree to all of this, for one simple reason. Do you know what the reason is?"
He smiled a bit sheepishly. "Because you love me?"
"Not at all," she replied, not smiling. "I do love you, you know that. But there are limits to anything, and this nonsense of yours is pushing it. No, Mal, I'll agree to this for the simple reason that I'm certain that we'll go to England, investigate this, and not find a damned thing. This whole idea is just so stupid!"
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 220
