Dracul

by Dacre Stoker

  “She won’t hurt us. She would never hurt us.”

  “No? Not even to rescue the man she loves? Someone she has loved for hundreds of years? She has known you and your family for, what, twenty years?” He fiddles with his cane. He twists the top and pulls out the silver blade. “We should kill all of them and leave here, come back for Dracul another day.” He taps the top of the blade against the crate containing Maggie O’Cuiv.

  “Put that thing away,” Matilda says.

  He ignores her. “For all you know, she has marched us all to our deaths to save the only thing she really cares about.”

  Thunder cracks outside, and Matilda startles.

  Vambéry looks up through the hole in the roof. “If we leave now, we could probably beat the storm back to Munich. We could come back in the morning when we have the entire day to search. If you still wish to help her, that is.”

  “It took us the better part of a day to get here. We leave now, and Dracul will take the heart, and Emily, and hide them both somewhere else. Someplace far away. He will never allow us this close again. It must end tonight.”

  He taps his blade against Maggie’s crate for a second time. “In a little more than an hour’s time, these two will awaken, and we will stand no chance against the three of them—four, if you count Deaglan O’Cuiv. If we end this now, while they sleep, we can put their souls to rest. We can end this curse upon them.”

  Matilda tightens her grip on the revolver.

  Vambéry’s eyes widen. “You would shoot me? I am only trying to be the voice of reason. These decisions must be based on fact, not emotion.”

  Matilda pushes past him and goes to the window. “Shut up,” she says. “I heard something.”

  BRAM

  ONE HOUR AND TEN MINUTES UNTIL NIGHTFALL

  The marble of the mausoleum is as white as the fog that shrouds Clontarf Bay, and the entire structure seems decidedly out of place here. There are only half a dozen or so tombs aboveground; all the others are traditional in-ground graves, their stone markers leaning this way and that at irregular angles and eroded with time.

  Ellen goes down the hill and enters the cemetery without hindrance. If the ground here had once been sanctified, it is no longer. She goes to the mausoleum and stares at the epitaph above the door:

  COUNTESS DOLINGEN VON GRATZ

  IN STYRIA

  SOUGHT AND FOUND DEATH

  1801

  The words are freshly engraved. Bram knows Dracul refers to Ellen as Countess Dolingen, but the meaning of the rest is unclear to him.

  “Gratz is the capital of Lower Styria,” Ellen says softly, knowing Bram’s thoughts. “The man I was forced to marry, the one who left me for dead in that tower, he was from Gratz. It was customary for a wife to not only take a man’s name at marriage, but the place he called home as well.”

  “And the year?” Thornley asks.

  “That is the year I began planning my escape from Dracul’s castle.” She pauses for a moment, her words heavy. “He knew all along.”

  Beneath the inscription stands a large bronze door. There are no hinges or locks to speak of, and when Bram pushes on it, it does not give.

  Thornley walks around the tomb to the other side and calls out to them. When Bram and Ellen round the corner, they find him pointing at some Russian lettering high atop the back wall:

  Мертвые путешествия быстро

  “What does that say?”

  Although Bram cannot read these words, he knows Ellen can. She says nothing at first, but then when she does speak it is with restraint. “‘The dead travel fast.’”

  Bram looks at her, puzzled. “What is this place?”

  “This is where the dead go to be forgotten, my dear Bram, where the dead truly die.”

  It is then the sky finally opens up, the thunderous clouds release a fury of rain.

  And it is then that Bram hears Emily’s faint cries coming from somewhere else in the cemetery.

  MATILDA

  ONE HOUR UNTIL NIGHTFALL

  He doesn’t so much step out of the forest as the forest seems to release him. Matilda is staring into the trees, the perfectly still trees, when the branches part and reveal a man standing within. Matilda knows at first sight this is the same man they spotted back on the road. Not because of the strange garb he wears, that is not unique—the bodies around Dracul’s coach wore the same thick belts with dirty white shirts and trousers. Instead, it is his eyes, an unsettling expression Matilda recognizes from earlier.

  He steps from the trees and stands in the clearing not ten feet from the window.

  Matilda raises the revolver and sights on him, but she does not squeeze the trigger. She cannot kill a man outright, not when he has done nothing wrong. Yet she knows this man is here to inflict harm on her and those she loves.

  “He must have followed us,” Vambéry says in her ear.

  “He knew where we were going,” she replies, her eyes fixed on the man. “And he came here, too.”

  A large knife hangs from the stranger’s belt, but he makes no effort to retrieve it. Instead, he only watches her with those unwavering eyes.

  A second man steps out from the trees behind him, stands about five feet to his right. Three more follow. Within ten minutes, Matilda and Vambéry are surrounded, silent sentries encircling the house.

  A thick rain begins to pour down, yet the men hold their stations, oblivious to the storm as the wind picks up around them, as lightning rages in the sky above, as thunder crashes all around.

  “What do you want?” Vambéry shouts out at the first man, but the man says nothing in response. Water cascades from the brims of their hats, trickles down to the blades at their sides, puddles at their feet in muddy pools that submerge the crosses and set the dead leaves afloat.

  “They allowed us into this village, but they have no intention of letting us leave,” Matilda tells him. “That is why they are here.”

  Vambéry crosses the room and retrieves his rifle, then finds a box of cartridges in their supplies. He returns to the window and loads the Snider–Enfield.

  “I count ten of them out there but there may be more. That rifle is a single-shot, but we have my revolver, which chambers six rounds. If they storm the house and we start shooting, we will cut down half of them, provided every shot finds its target, before they are on us with those blades. Those are not very good odds,” Matilda says without looking up, her gaze still locked on the first man.

  “What do you suggest?”

  She nods towards the two crates. “We wait until dark, then let Patrick and Maggie take them.”

  Vambéry glances at his sword.

  “Forget it,” Matilda tells him. “You might be able to strike down one or two with that thing, but not enough to matter. We need to sit tight.”

  Suddenly, the men outside, as one, all take a step closer to the house.

  BRAM

  ONE HOUR UNTIL NIGHTFALL

  “Did you hear that, too?”

  Thornley and Ellen both nod.

  “It came from over there,” she says, pointing deeper into the cemetery, towards the far corner.

  The three of them push through the weeds, careful not to step on the stones and crosses, making their way towards the sound as heavy raindrops slap the ground around them.

  A muted scream, this one much closer.

  “That was Emily. I am sure of it!” Thornley cries out, his eyes frantically searching, his hands pushing through the overgrowth.

  Bram is first to notice the headstone.

  The surface is smooth, its once-sharp edges now rounded and dull. It is about three feet in height and leaning hard to the left, and whatever memorial had been inscribed in the stone has long since been worn away by the elements, leaving behind nothing but faint lines and curves. It is not the original inscrip
tion that the three of them stare at now; it is the fresh writing, the block letters scrawled across the stone’s face in what could only be blood, beginning to run with the rain:

  STOKER

  The grave itself is a stone vault, partially aboveground, partially buried, nearly invisible under the dozens of large rocks stacked on top. This activity is recent, Bram is sure of that, for the stones don’t have the dull pallor of the other rocks lying along the ground—some of them still have a layer of dirt on one side where they were removed from the earth and stacked here, stacked atop this grave.

  At the very crown of the heap sits a single white rose.

  Again, they hear Emily’s muffled cries.

  “The sound is coming from beneath the rocks! From within the grave!” Thornley drops to his knees and begins pulling the stones away, lifting the heavy rocks one by one and moving them aside.

  Bram reaches for the white rose and holds it up, carefully avoiding the thorns along the stem. Beneath the cover of her cloak’s hood, Ellen shies away with a soft hiss. As he holds the flower still, the white petals grow gray, then black around the edges. The petals shrivel, then twist upon one another, then crinkle to dust. Even in the falling rain, they become dry and flake away, detaching from the stem and riding away on the strengthening wind.

  “Help me!” Thornley says breathlessly.

  Bram releases the stem, and it, too, disappears, picked up and carried away by the growing storm. Then he drops to the ground and begins pulling rocks away from the grave at his brother’s side

  Ellen watches the stem vanish, then she joins them, too. Though the sun cannot be seen, she remains void of strength. Still she lifts rock after rock and rolls them to the side, the cries of Emily Stoker growing louder with each passing second.

  Nearly thirty minutes pass before all the stones are cleared away. The final three are so heavy Bram and Thornley have to move them together. With grunts and groans, they push the last of them aside, the surface of the tomb finally exposed.

  The lid is five inches thick and solid granite. Bram expected it to look like all the other graves they have violated of late, as it appears to be sealed and presumably untouched for years. But there is a fissure evident along the seam and deep scratch marks on the lip of the lid. Evidence that it has been recently breached.

  “He put her in here during daylight hours,” Bram says.

  “Maybe with the help of those men back at the coach, but not alone.” Ellen runs her fingers over the heavy stone.

  “I do not care how or when he entombed her here,” Thornley says. “We need to get her out!” He calls out to his wife, but she does not reply; instead, more screams, raw and full of fear, pour forth.

  Bram presses his palms against the lip of the granite lid and pushes. Thornley and Ellen push, too, but the stone holds fast. It is not until Bram sits on the ground and pushes with his legs, his back braced against a tree, that it finally gives and slides open.

  Emily’s screams become piercing, eclipsed only by the rumble of thunder.

  MATILDA

  THIRTY MINUTES UNTIL NIGHTFALL

  “There’s more of them back at the coach—they found the bodies,” Vambéry says. He has the door cracked and is looking out at the village green.

  Matilda takes her gaze off the man at the window for a second and turns towards the front of the small residence. Vambéry opens the door just enough for her to see.

  Two of the men are dragging the bodies around the coach and lining them up in a straight row in front of the house. They pick up the severed heads and place them atop the matching bodies. They leave the wooden spikes impaled in their violated chests. Matilda would have expected a lot of blood, but there is surprisingly little, nothing but the stains upon their shirts, and the rain is making quick work of that. What had been a deep crimson before was now diluted to pink. It drips to the ground where the thirsty soil soaks it up.

  Four other men emerge from the woods and join these first two, the six now surrounding the black coach and its team of horses. Another man nonchalantly walks over to their wagon and unhitches all six of their steeds, leading them towards the trees.

  Seventeen men now in total.

  Matilda turns back to the first one. He continues to watch her with a blank stare, icy rain dripping down his face.

  BRAM

  THIRTY MINUTES UNTIL NIGHTFALL

  The heavy lid of the tomb slides away and falls to the side, Emily’s cries now pouring out—penetrating, haunting. She is buried beneath a thin layer of soil, and Thornley works to brush it away from her face.

  “Cuts like blades and needles all over my body!” she wails. “Needles and blades and pins slicing into me, peeling away my skin!”

  “I see nothing!” Thornley says frantically. “What is it?”

  He has her face uncovered—Bram has never seen her with so little color to her complexion. Her eyes snap open, and Bram expects them to be red, but instead they are muted green. They flit back and forth, taking in the three of them hovering over her. A large roach scurries across her face and disappears inside her filthy blue gown; she pays it no mind.

  “Emily, tell me, what did he do?” Thornley says. “What has he done to you?”

  Dirt has gotten into her mouth, its grime now running down her lips and chin, mixed with red saliva, dripping down her—

  “My God, there is a body under her,” Bram breathes.

  “It feels like he is sticking pins and needles into my skin, under my nails, in my eyes—pins and needles everywhere!”

  Bram looks past his sister-in-law to the bones beneath her, ancient bones, the original occupant of this tomb. But there is something else beneath the sorrowful remains, glistening.

  Thornley reaches inside the coffin and cradles Emily in his arms, lifting her out as she shrieks, “Pins and needles everywhere!” her arms are limp at her sides, covered with burns and welts.

  “What has he done to you, my love?” Thornley pulls her close, embraces her, muffling her cries in his chest.

  “There is more in there besides bones,” Ellen says, “beneath the dirt.” She has noticed it, too, the shimmering.

  Bram leans in closer. The skeleton is wrapped in tattered cloth, no doubt the remains of clothing long since rotted away. He reaches in and carefully moves the bones aside, his eyes locking on the shiny metal. His fingers brush over it, wiping away the black soil—a cross, a small silver cross of the type typically worn around the neck.

  Ellen draws in a deep breath and turns away.

  Bram digs deeper into the dirt and finds more crosses. His fingers come up with a dozen chains. “The coffin is filled with them.”

  Emily screams, her cries so loud they echo off the trees, throughout the valley. They are answered by the howl of a wolf from somewhere distant in the forest. The burns on her arms—they are from the crosses, where they had come in contact with her flesh.

  “Pins and needles! Pins and needles!” Emily shouts.

  Thornley runs his hand through her hair, trying to soothe her, trying to hush her.

  “Pins and needles, under my skin!”

  “Emily, please stop—”

  “Needles and pins! Needles and pins! When a man marries, his troubles begin!” she taunts, this time accompanied by a cackling laugh. She lifts her face to her husband’s, then leans in as if to nuzzle him.

  Thornley gasps and pushes her aside. His hand immediately goes to his neck, comes away bloody. “She bit me!”

  Emily is smiling now, a thin trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth. Her tongue flicks out and laps it up. “It is almost time to play,” she teases. “Won’t you stay and play with me?”

  She leaps from Thornley to the muddy ground beside him, again laughing. A thin, girlish, chilling laugh, as if she harbors a great secret and is bursting to tell.

  Thornley stares at h
er in horror, his hand pressing the wound on his neck. He reaches over and snatches a handful of crosses from Bram’s fingertips and holds them towards his wife.

  Emily shies away, scuttling back across the muddy ground. The rain washes the remainder of the blood and dirt from her face, and Bram can see her teeth now, long and white, the cuspids ending in sharp points.

  “She’s gone completely raving mad!” Thornley says.

  “She belongs to him now,” Ellen tells him. “Once she has fed the hunger with human blood, there is no turning back . . . I am so truly sorry, Thornley.”

  “No, this cannot be.” Thornley stares at his wife, now curled up on the ground like a baby asleep, her face shielded by her outstretched hand.

  “No more needles and pins. None. No more.” She says this over and over again. Her fingernails have grown sharp, and she lashes out at Thornley’s hand, attempting to knock the crosses away. But for now he is still too fast for her to make purchase.

  Bram notices the waning light, dusk is nearly upon them. He plunges his hands back into the casket and begins shuffling through its rank soil. In addition to the silver crucifixes, he uncovers small wooden ones, many now decayed and frail, splintering at his touch. He digs deeper and feels movement—a dozen roaches erupt through the soil and scale his arm. Bram brushes them away and keeps digging.

  “What are you doing?” Ellen asks, her eyes carefully avoiding the crosses all around.

  “No burial rite would include all of these crucifixes as part of the ceremony; they had to have been placed here for good reason. And they were put here a long time ago—not with Emily but hundreds of years earlier.”