“No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!”
I turned to her, and looking in her eyes said, “But you? It is for you that I fear!”
Whereat she laughed, a laugh low and unreal, and said, “Fear for me! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them than I am,” and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy circle. Then they began to materialize till, if God have not taken away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes. There were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina. And as their laugh came through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable sweetness of the water glasses, “Come, sister. Come to us. Come!”
I moved in front of Mina, but a fair-haired maiden smiled, her lips drawing back from sharp, white teeth. I should have been horrified; instead I stared at her, imagining how it would feel to kiss that ruby-red mouth. It has been so many years since I touched a woman’s lips, or drew my hands across her body, exploring her soft, warm flesh.
She stepped closer and from her gloating grin, I know she understood my thoughts; thankfully, the wonderful Madam Mina gave a sharp intake of breath.
“Leave us!” I commanded. “Go back to your castle of the Undead.”
The women laughed as they hovered with their arms around each other — their basilisk-like gaze landed alternately on Mina and myself, while red, pointed tongues emerged from their mouths, flicking against their lips. Certainly I would need no further incentive to follow Mina’s heartbreaking command if it proved necessary. I would drive a stake through her heart myself before I saw her standing like these wanton monsters.
The blond girl leaned towards me, her robe falling forwards to show large, full breasts, with blood-red nipples that glowed under the light of the fire. I inhaled deeply, my eyes transfixed and my mind filled with thoughts of pressing my lips against those ruby areoles.
“It is you three who tried to attack my husband!” Mina said.
Her voice broke the entrancement and I jerked, heat flooding to my face. What must she think of me? Van Helsing; driven out of his mind by the glimpse of a nipple. In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame. For oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. She is stronger than I am and emboldened by her courage I seized some of the firewood, which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and kept my head turned, not daring to look at them. For I knew that we were safe within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground. The snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of terror.
And so we remained till the red of the dawn began to fall through the snow gloom. Mina and I huddled together as the women flitted around us in the shadows. At intervals they would come towards us, holding out their hands to entice us from our protected spot. Mina could not cross the line I had made, even had she wanted too, and the thought of leaving her alone, surrounded by the dead bodies of the horses, the dying fire and the ghostly wraiths, gave me the courage to withstand their onslaught. What terror would I have become if those women sunk their fangs into my neck?
The Count’s powers were enhanced by his warrior mind and body; with my modern medical and legal knowledge, I could have been a force as terrible as he, if I chose to step beyond the circle. However the circle of friends I have gathered on this journey are powerful against these horrors and I have Madam Mina’s steadfast form behind me.
My limbs ached and the sensation vanished from my fingertips. I lowered myself to the ground, careful to remain in the marked lines, and my sweet companion seated herself beside me, hand on my arm. Did she suspect how close I was to weakening? I hope not, I need her trust. The air was chilled around us, the feeble heat from the fire soaring up into the endless night sky, while from the distance came the howling of wolves.
She shivered and I reached out for her hand, clutching it tight. Jonathan never need fear impropriety though — Mina is the daughter I never had, the sister I longed for and here alone, surrounded by the vampires and the wolves, we needed to draw on every strength we had. Our friendship and regard for each other will protect us during the long days ahead.
During that night, we were both desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror. But when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling mist and snow. The wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost.
Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending to hypnotize her. But she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotize through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all, and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have made my fire and have seen the horses; as I feared, they are all dead. Today I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high. For there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety.
I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will do my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps, and God be thanked! She is calm in her sleep …
• • •
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
4 November, evening. — The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago, and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean to fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more Goodby Mina! God bless and keep you.
• • •
DR. SEWARD’S DIARY
5 November. — With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiter wagon. They surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves. The snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be …
• • •
DR. VAN HELSING’S MEMORANDUM
5 November, afternoon. — I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. Its black turrets stood against the horizon, the road leading up lying empty and desolate. Occasionally, there were footprints — the circle of a hoof or pad of a wolf. The lack of human print does not cheer me, for I know our enemy leaves little trace of his presence.
When, panting for breath, I reached the immense building, with its weeds sticking through the paving stones and a single crow screeching from the gatehouse, I was struck by its tragic air. Once it would have been filled with men on business and women with shopping baskets, but now it belonged to the creatures of the night.
The huge entrance gates stretching up above me were not locked and a hard push sent them screeching backwards, the sound causing me to shudder. The bl
acksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful, though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill intent or ill chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan’s bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive. It seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns. To leave her to their fangs would be to condemn her to endless life, for if she died before the Count is destroyed, she would become as him.
I had not dared to take her into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle. And yet even there would be the wolf, yet if I fail in this task, she and other innocents are doomed; she would want me to complete the task, no matter the cost to her.
I resolved that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God’s will. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work, although the visions of her with those creatures’ great jaws around her throat do haunt me still.
I knew that there were at least three graves to find, graves that are inhabited. So I search, and search this terrible chapel, whose walls run with water. Opening a coffin, I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in the old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Undead have hypnotize him. And he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss, and the man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold. One more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Undead! …
There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved. I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate. I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyze my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me.
It would be so much easier if these monsters’ faces born the cruelty of their minds! To destroy that which looks so pure and beautiful is almost beyond even my capabilities, I who saw the horror that Lucy became and held the sobbing and tragic Mina in my arms.
The woman lies so peacefully before me in her coffin, skin glowing and perfect under the light of my lamp, and her lips turned at the corners as if she is about to smile. Beneath, I know, are hidden the deadly daggered teeth. I raise my hand, but not in anger; I need to stroke that skin, to feel the warm beneath my hand. How can I destroy something so incredible?
The top of her thin bodice is cut low and I can see the dark circles of her nipples pressing against the fabric; those swelling breasts she taunted me with last night. If I stay here, she will wake, and I will see her again in all her glory. There is an empty coffin behind me that I can lean against whilst I wait for the coming night for those closed eyes to open and lips smile at me, as they did last night.
Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard.
I jumped up! I am dreaming like a schoolboy whilst my wonderful companion, so brave and true, is torn apart by wolves. Whatever is happening to me? Madam Mina needs me — her soul needs me. This creature before me, with her entrancing beauty and pointed, murderous fangs is not an object of pity, but horror.
Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and quickly turned away from her, least she capture me again in her power. By wrenching away tomb tops, I found one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall. But I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. Her hair reflects darts of gold from my lamp like a torch flashed into a long forgotten tomb of riches. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears. Had I found this sister first, the most dangerous, I would have faltered in my task. However, I know now their strengths; the way to combat their beauty is to not look upon it. And, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell. And as there had been only three of these Undead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active Undead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest. Huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word.
DRACULA
This then was the Undead home of the King Vampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula’s tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Undead, for ever.
Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror. For it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years. Who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives …
Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work. Had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. When I put that stake through the heart of the first woman, had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over her face just ere the final dissolution came, as realization that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home, the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries ago had at last assert himself and say at once and loud, “I am here!”
Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there Undead and hurried across to where I had left my companion, dreading what I might see there.
But she was well, and when I stepped into the circle where she slept, Mina woke from her sleep and, seeing me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much.
“Come!” she said, “come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us.” She was looking thin and pale and weak. But her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep.
And so wit
h trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friends, and him, whom Madam Mina tell me that she know are coming to meet us.
• • •
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
6 November. — It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us. We dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our provisions too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula’s castle cut the sky. For we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards. We could trace it through the drifted snow.
Dracula: The Wild and Wanton Edition Page 25
