by Dacre Stoker
The word hate does not begin to describe my feelings for this man, this awful creature, this beast. I loathed him so, but there was nothing I could do. I was his prisoner, both in body and in mind. Yet he spoke not once of his atrociousness, of the dreadful things he had done to my beloved. After this day, he acted as if the brutal events had never taken place. He expected me to love him! He wished to make a wife out of me! Of course, I could not love him, could not consent to be his wife, not ever, but my protests did not dissuade him. At every opportunity, he professed his love for me. He lavished gifts upon me—priceless jewels and properties and every luxury he could imagine. I had escaped from one prison only to be imprisoned once again. I graciously accepted these offerings, but offered no love in return. Instead, his gifts were strategically hidden around the castle.
Hundreds of years would pass like this. Fluid and fast, seeming like months. The two of us existed in the castle, with no one else in attendance other than a constant flux of revolving servants. They came and went, as they aged over time—daughters would become mothers, who would then become grandmothers, and their ways would pass to the next generation, but the dark man and I did not age. I refused to learn the servants’ names or anything about them. I also refused to reveal to the dark man a single thing about which I cared that could be held as ransom over my head. I spoke to him only when spoken to, and only because I knew others would suffer if I did not. He had no qualms about killing these servants and he did so at every opportunity.
I knew he read my thoughts, and in time I learned to read his, too, and soon words became of little use to either of us. I found I was able to shield my thoughts from him by concentrating, and although he did the same, he slipped occasionally. I utilized these lapses to venture into his mind, to search. I found that when he rested, I could venture even further, so I began to awake earlier than he and go to his coffin and sift through his sleeping brain. I eventually learned the whereabouts of my beloved, where the decapitated head and each ripped-away appendage had been buried. The man had had him scattered all over the continent, but I was able to determine the locations and made notes on the maps I scavenged from the dark man’s library.
I was patient.
The years taught me patience.
I waited for—
* * *
• • •
“BRAM!” Matilda screamed. “Let go of him!”
My eyes fluttered open, and I was once again standing in the small chamber atop the central tower of Whitby Abbey. In reality, only seconds had passed. Matilda and Thornley were trying to push past Patrick O’Cuiv, but he kept them from entering the room. Vambéry still crouched at the large oak door. Ellen was still inches from me, her fingers resting against my temple. There were tears in her eyes and a sadness so deep I began to weep as well.
“You escaped?” I managed to say.
Ellen nodded. “In 1847, after hundreds of years as his prisoner.”
“So when you came to us, to our family—”
“I hid in your house; he wouldn’t think to search for me amongst humans. I didn’t believe so anyway.”
Our minds were still strangely linked, and words passed seamlessly between us, entire conversations, years of memories, in what seemed only a matter of seconds. “You’ve been searching for the remains of your beloved?” I inquired softly. “You came to Clontarf to find his arm, buried amongst the suicide graves at Saint John the Baptist, the place so marked on your map. You didn’t mean to stay with us for so long; you put us in danger, which you didn’t want to do, but you did nonetheless. What you did to me—”
Ellen placed her finger on my lips and hushed me. “I never meant to hurt your family; I never would. You were such a sickly boy, only days from death; I could not watch that happen. I couldn’t watch them treat you with such primitive methods, knowing it did no good, knowing I could help. I had to help. So I gave you my blood.” Her eyes fell to the floor. “Penance, I suppose, for all the lives I took years past, when I first turned, before I realized the true value of life and love.”
“And you’ve visited me again and again since that night,” I said.
“I have watched over you, yes. You must know, Bram, there is no permanent cure. Without my blood, your illness will return to claim you. I’ve never let that happen. I will never let it.”
My eyes widened as another thought entered my mind. “Your beloved’s name, it was Deaglan O’Cuiv! The great, distant ancestor of Patrick O’Cuiv, their family and blood.” More thoughts rushed in, and I had to close my eyes to concentrate, to sort them all out and make sense of them. “Patrick O’Cuiv did not kill his family; this dark man, this Dracul, did—when he came to Ireland in search of you!”
Ellen sighed and closed her eyes, as if just hearing this explanation brought her pain. “That poor woman and the children, he killed them all. I had no choice but to turn Patrick and Maggie; he would have returned for them, too. I turned Patrick while he was in his cell; that is how he survived a mortal’s death. I turned Maggie shortly thereafter, knowing it was the only way to protect her. Can you not see? I had to leave your home after that; I had to draw him away from there before he came for your family. He was so close.”
I said, “It took him fourteen years, but he did come for us. And he took Emily.”
Ellen’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Time is of little consideration for him. He wants you now, too. He wants you more than anything. Because my blood flows within you, you escaped death; because of my actions, you walk the earth today. He will not rest until he takes all that is dear to me. He knew taking Emily would draw me out, and you as well. He simply took her to bring both of us to him.”
“And what of your beloved, Deaglan O’Cuiv?”
At this, her gaze went to the thick oak door at the back of the room.
NOW
Bram stares at what remains of the last white rose, now shriveled and dead at the foot of the door, its once-beautiful bloom now nothing more than dust covered by muck and filth. Snakes slithered through these dregs, leaving their trails behind them, their fangs gleaming in the pale light as they circle, then prepare to—
Bells!
Bram hears church bells.
The bells of St. Mary’s Church, adjacent to the abbey.
Loud bells, above all else.
With the bells come the dawn, a thin strip of sunlight cutting through from the east and burning away the shadows of night.
The banging on the door ceases.
The hissing of the snakes dies.
All goes quiet.
His back against the wall, Bram’s arm continues to slice through the air even after the snakes disappear, wielding the bowie knife at nothing more than phantoms in the gray light.
Gone.
All of them gone.
Bram finally falls still and slides down the wall to the floor in utter exhaustion.
He wants to stand up and look out the window, but he does not have the strength. No matter, he knows the man is gone. He knows Emily is gone, too. They both vanished with the first light of dawn.
* * *
• • •
NO SLEEP.
Not yet.
He pulls the journal from his pocket and turns to a blank page.
It will only be a matter of time before the others return. He has to finish writing.
THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER
17 August 1868, 8:22 p.m.—“Bram? What is happening?” It was Matilda. She was still trying to push past Patrick and Maggie O’Cuiv. She gasped at the sight of Ellen.
“It’s okay, Matilda. I’m okay.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Vambéry glance at his sword, and I gently shook my head.
“Ellen is not the enemy,” I said. “And they are not the enemy,” I added, gesturing towards Patrick and Maggie O’Cuiv. “We’ve got this all wrong.”
<
br /> “They are undead!” Vambéry growled. “Of course they are the enemy!”
I picked up Vambéry’s sword and inserted the blade back in the cane, holding it out of reach. “Let them in,” I told Patrick O’Cuiv.
He looked to Ellen for approval, then stepped aside.
Matilda ran to where I stood and wrapped her arms around me, her eyes locked on Ellen. Thornley stepped in behind her, lugging what appeared to be a very heavy box. He set it down just inside the door, watching me with a wary eye.
“Please tell them what you showed me,” I instructed Ellen. “Tell them all of it.”
For the next hour, she did just that.
* * *
• • •
I LISTENED IN SILENCE as she revealed the entire story, trying to hold back the emotion as she did so, but it was painfully obvious that she loved Deaglan O’Cuiv with all her heart, as she did his relatives, his blood. I watched Maggie and Patrick O’Cuiv as Ellen spoke, I watched the emotions flood their pale faces, I watched Maggie cry tears of red as Ellen explained how the dark man had punished him, punished her. Then Ellen told us how she spent the last seventeen years seeking out each part of Deaglan O’Cuiv’s body—buried in suicide graves around the continent, with the exception of his heart. After recovering them, she had hidden his body in numerous places over the years, from the tower at Artane Castle to the waters of Ireland’s bogs, ultimately bringing them here and locking them behind the door in this very room.
“The hand we found in Artane Castle belonged to Deaglan O’Cuiv,” Matilda said softly to no one in particular.
“It was alive,” I told her. “We both saw it move.”
“I thought we imagined it, all these years . . .”
“He cannot die, nor can his body,” Ellen went on. “Not like this. Perhaps if he were burned or his heart pierced with a wooden stake, but as long as his soul is trapped within that cursed body, he lives. In this weakened state, his mind is not his own; he belongs to Dracul, to the man whose spoiled blood circulates in his forlorn flesh.”
Ellen’s gaze fell to the floor. “I’ve tried to speak to him, but he is in such agony. His every thought is manipulated by Dracul. Anytime I sense my beloved, Dracul snatches him away.”
Vambéry snickered, his eyes longing for his sword. “You’ve been trying to speak to a box of body parts? This is preposterous!”
Ellen turned towards him, the anger and frustration burning in her glare. “It’s Dracul’s blood that makes him so! If his entire body can be brought back together, it will heal, of this I’m certain. Deaglan will come back to me.”
“Where is his heart?” I asked, ignoring Vambéry’s outburst.
Ellen sighed. “I only recently learned its true location. Dracul hid the heart well in a small village outside of Munich. He guarded this position most of all, but he let it slip two nights ago; I found the location in his thoughts.” She paused for a second. “His guard fell when he took Emily, and I plucked it from his mind.”
“What does he mean to do with Emily?” Thornley asked, his voice thin.
“She’s bait,” I replied before Ellen could answer. “He wants to draw us all out. Everyone who knows of him. I don’t believe for a second he let this location near Munich be known by accident. He wants us to go there.”
“How do we know Deaglan’s heart is even there? Maybe this is all a lie,” Matilda said.
“It’s there,” Ellen assured her. “Of that I’m certain.”
“Why are we even discussing this?” Vambéry blurted out. “Whatever is behind this door should be burned to ash. We need to release the souls of these undead; that is God’s way, and it is the only way! Their plight is meaningless!”
Maggie O’Cuiv crossed the room with ungodly speed, her feet almost leaving the floor, seeming to float within inches of Vambéry and looking him square in the eye. “We are all that stand between you and him. He will hunt each of you down one by one, and when he is done with you, he will go after your families. He has nothing but time.”
“If we are so frail, then why do you need us?” Vambéry replied. “Surely you do need us or you wouldn’t be informing us of these details. You would have killed us already.”
Ellen placed a calming hand on Maggie’s arm and turned to Vambéry. “You are right, we cannot do this alone.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This place where he has hidden Deaglan’s heart, the locals call it the Village of the Dead. Legend has it that hundreds of years ago nearly everyone in the village died by some unseen cause and after being buried, sounds were heard coming from their graves. A few of the graves were opened in the light of day and the bodies therein were found to be rosy with life and their mouths fresh with red blood.”
“More strigoi,” Vambéry muttered.
“Strigoi?”
“Vampire, the undead,” Vambéry said.
“Dracul did this when he hid the remains of my beloved Deaglan.”
Matilda looked to me and I knew she had this realization at the same moment I had, but I was first to speak. “When he brought Deaglan’s heart to this place, he killed everyone in the village, turning them into undead to protect this hideous place.”
Ellen nodded. “An army of undead, all at his command. We cannot enter that place, we are too far outnumbered.”
“But we can if we go during daylight hours,” Vambéry said softly.
“I don’t understand,” Thornley said.
Vambéry nodded towards both O’Cuivs, then towards Ellen. “Their abilities and strengths are great, but only under the cloak of night. During daylight hours, they are no stronger than us—weaker, even. Most of the undead rest when the sun comes out; they hide, they are too vulnerable during that time. You saw this with Emily. If we come upon this place during the day, we can enter and retrieve O’Cuiv’s heart with little to no risk of intervention.”
“Dracul will surely be there; you can strike him down while he rests and rid yourself of his threat,” Ellen added.
I saw Vambéry’s eyes brighten at this, at the thought of destroying this source of evil.
“What about Emily?” Thornley asked. “What would that mean for her?”
“She could be saved. If Dracul dies, the hold he carries over Emily dies with him,” Vambéry explained. “She will be of his blood no longer.”
“What of Deaglan O’Cuiv,” I said. “Would this not kill him?”
“Not if his body has been made whole again. I can sustain him,” Ellen replied with certainty. “I will give Deaglan my blood before you kill Dracul. This is the only way to ensure he is released from Dracul’s grip.”
Matilda went to Ellen and took her hand in her own. “If no one else will say it, I will,” she announced boldly but softly, drawing in a deep breath. “We will help you; we will help one another.” Her gaze fell on me, then on Thornley and Vambéry in turn, lingering perhaps a moment longer on the latter. “We will help you find the heart of your beloved. We will reunite you with the man who brought you the only happiness you have ever known, and you will help us to free Emily, to bring her back to Thornley, so we may end this nightmare. Then together we shall all rid the earth of Dracul. We will triumph or we will fail together.”
Ellen squeezed Matilda’s hand, her eyes glistening. “The happiness brought to me by Deaglan can only be eclipsed by the joy I experienced with your family. I have, and will, do everything I can to keep you safe.” Ellen looked to me as she offered this last promise. I could not help but wonder if there was a deeper meaning underlying her words.
* * *
• • •
“WE SHOULD NOT STAY HERE, not all of us in one place.” This came from Patrick O’Cuiv and took us all by surprise; I realized I hadn’t heard his thick Irish brogue since I was a child. He crossed to the window and looked out over the abbey grounds,
past the cemetery, and to the forest beyond. “Some should remain to guard Deaglan while the rest make preparations.”
Something crashed against the inside of the large oak door. Matilda let out a cry, and we all turned towards it. Another loud bang followed the first.
“He’s awake,” Maggie said.
Vambéry stepped back from the door. “Who is awake? You said he was nothing but body parts in a box.”
Ellen raised a finger to her lips. With her free hand, she reached out and grasped my forearm. I heard her voice in my head:
* * *
• • •
DRACUL CAN SEE AND HEAR by utilizing Deaglan as a conduit; they are of the same blood. As long as my beloved remains locked in that room, isolated, Dracul cannot tell where he is. He is blind, and the location unknown to him. If he knew, he would surely come for Deaglan, for us. We must not speak of the locale or our plans, not aloud, not here. Dracul is near, though, so very near. Deaglan cannot be left unguarded, not now.
* * *
• • •
HAD I UNDERSTOOD what was to come, what sacrifices would need to be made, what cost would be incurred by us all, I might not have volunteered to stay overnight in the Whitby Abbey tower keep and watch over Deaglan O’Cuiv’s remains while the others prepared for our journey—not with Vambéry, maybe not at all.
* * *
• • •
17 AUGUST 1868, 9:30 p.m.—It is important to note that it had to be me who stayed behind. I did not trust Vambéry alone, none of us did after his outburst, and he insisted on staying. If given the opportunity, Vambéry would probably open the door and set Deaglan’s remains afire. He would rain down destruction upon us no matter the penalty. Patrick O’Cuiv must have harbored similar feelings because he insisted on remaining in the tower as well. Thornley and the others left to book passage and settle our bill at the inn. They would then wait there until morning. We all agreed that it would be best to leave at first light, when Dracul and the undead were at their weakest and most vulnerable.
