by Syrie James
He hesitated. “I was looking for the Master.”
“Who is the Master?”
Fear crept into his voice. “I do not know his name. I have never seen him. I only feel his presence. He comes and goes.”
“How do you feel his presence? How do you know when he comes and goes?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Mr. Renfield was suddenly anxious and upset. “Stop talking about it. I think now it was a mistake to let the Master know I am here. I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“Why do you call him the Master?”
Mr. Renfield stared up at me in agitation. “Why are you asking me all these questions? You of all people! You know the Master better than I do!”
“Me?” I replied in surprise. “I do not know him at all.”
“But you do! You know him, Mrs. Harker. You do! You do!”
“All right, that’s enough! This interview is over,” Dr. Seward interjected, taking me by the arm and leading me to the door.
“Good-bye, Mr. Renfield,” I said.
“Good-bye.” As the door shut behind me, I heard him cry inexplicably: “I pray God I may never see your face again! May He bless and keep you.”
MY MEETING WITH MR. RENFIELD LEFT ME BOTH CONFUSED AND disturbed. It seemed that the patient did indeed have some kind of strange connection with this being he called “the Master,” even if he did not understand that connection—and “the Master” could be none other than Count Dracula. I was very puzzled, however, by his assertion that I knew “the Master.” Did he mean that I knew Count Dracula because I had learned so much about him over the past few days? Or was he referring to the single time that I had observed the Count on the street in Piccadilly? When I shared my thoughts with Dr. Seward, he assured me that the statement meant nothing other than the fact that Mr. Renfield was a certified lunatic.
JONATHAN SOON RETURNED FROM HIS SCOUTING MISSION, WHICH had so far proven unsuccessful. Dr. Seward picked up Dr. Van Helsing at the train station. The professor was delighted to learn about the work Jonathan and I had done. He asked me please to continue gathering and typing up information as it came in, so as to keep all our information in exact order and up to the moment. After a quick, early dinner, he skimmed through what I had written the night before.
At eight o’clock, the six of us gathered in Dr. Seward’s study, all seated around his table like a sort of committee. Dr. Van Helsing took the head of the table and asked me to act as secretary. Holding up a copy of the manuscript, he asked if we were all acquainted with the facts that were in the papers. When we all expressed assent, Dr. Van Helsing said grimly:
“My friends, we are face to face with a momentous duty, and there is great danger in it. We all know now that there are such beings as vampires. We must destroy this mighty foe before us. In this battle, some may lose their lives. But to fail here is not mere life or death—no! Others of us—God forbid!—may fall further victim and become as him, as foul things of the night, without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of others, to go on abhorred for all time. This risk we must accept, for it is real.”
I felt my heart grow icy cold, and shuddered. What a dreadful fate it would be, to become a member of the Un-Dead!
“I am old; but you are all young and have fair days yet in store,” Dr. Van Helsing went on. “If any wish to leave, speak up now, and we will think not the less of you.” The room fell silent. “What say you? Who shall join me to the bitter end?”
Jonathan stretched out his hand towards mine beneath the table. At first, I feared that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him, and he was appealing to me for silent strength; but the reverse proved true. As his fingers closed around mine—so firm, so self-reliant, so comforting—I knew that he was reaching out to offer me his strength. He looked in my eyes, and I in his; without a word, I knew he read my assent.
“I can answer for Mina and myself,” Jonathan said calmly.
“Count me in, Professor,” put in Mr. Morris.
“I am with you,” said Lord Godalming, “for Lucy’s sake, if for no other reason.”
Dr. Seward simply nodded. We then all joined hands around the table, and our solemn pact was made.
The professor took a deep breath. “Well then, I think it good to tell you more about the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. The nosferatu or wampyr is found in teachings and legends everywhere that men have been from times of old, from ancient Greece, Rome, and China to India and Iceland, to name a few. And yet this creature is new to us, and so is still a mystery, an unknown. All we have to rely upon are traditions and superstitions of the past, and that which we have seen with our own eyes. It is said that the nosferatu is immortal; he cannot die unless by extraordinary means. He eats not as others but survives by consuming the blood of the living. With this steady diet of blood, it seems he can even grow younger! As Jonathan also observe, it seems he make in the mirror no reflection. We are told he has the strength of twenty men; and he can, within limitations, appear at will in any of the forms that are available to him.”
“What do you mean, Professor?” interjected Lord Godalming. “What kind of forms can he take?”
“Of two, we can be fairly certain: he can transform himself into a large dog or perhaps a wolf, for such is the only creature seen to depart the ship at Whitby. And he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw on the window at Whitby, and friend Quincey saw at the window of Miss Lucy in London, and friend Jack saw fly from the house next door.”
“That was Count Dracula I saw flapping away into the night?” Dr. Seward said, in wonder.
“It was, my friend; I am sure of it. As to his other powers: on my last trip to Amsterdam, I met with my friend Arminius from Buda-Pesth University, who specialize in this study. He said there is rumoured to be one old and very great vampire who live in Transylvania, who is mightier than all the rest. We believe this is the same Count Dracula whom we seek. This mighty vampire, he can, within his range, direct the elements—the storm, the wind, the fog, the thunder—a gift which maybe help him control the arrival of the ship that carried him to this country. He can, we think, command all the meaner creatures: the rat, the owl, the bat, the moth, the fox, and the wolf—as you, friend Jonathan, saw him do.”
“Yes,” Jonathan replied. “He seemed to have power over all the wolves in Transylvania—and I saw him talk to horses, as well.”
“There is more,” the professor said. “He is clever and cunning and has a mighty brain, which he has educated for centuries. He can see in the dark; no small power, in a world which is one-half shut from the light. He can—like the young vampire—vanish at will and become invisible, or slip through a hairbreadth space, as we saw Lucy do at the tomb door. He can come in mist which he creates, or on moonlight rays as elemental dust—as was recorded in the writings of Miss Lucy, and as Jonathan saw those weird sisters do in the castle of Dracula.”
“If this monster can do all that,” Mr. Morris said, shaking his head, “how on God’s green earth do you expect us to catch him and kill him?”
“Ah, but hear me out. He can do all these things, yes; but he is not free. Nay; the vampire is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, or the madman in his cell. As we know, he must carry the earth of his homeland with him to rest upon if he is to retain his powers. According to legend and superstition, he cannot go anywhere he wishes at any time. To the point, he may not enter a house at the first, unless there be someone of the household who bid him to come.”
“Are you saying someone has to invite him in?” I asked.
“The first time, yes. After, he can come as he please.”
“How strange,” Lord Godalming said.
“All this is strange, is it not? And yet it is so. As to his powers: it is said that they cease at the coming of the sunrise. He can walk by day, although he avoids the sun’s brightest rays; but during this interval he is as powerless as any human, and must keep until sunset the form he had chosen b
efore the sun came up.”
Dr. Van Helsing shared other theories, such as a claim that the vampire must be carried over running water, and that garlic and the wild rose could secure him in his coffin. He then laid a lovely golden crucifix on the table. “All things sacred, such as this symbol, Host, and holy water, we believe he greatly dreads, and can only view from far off and with respect. We proved this with the holy wafer, which had so great effect when we applied it around the door to Miss Lucy’s tomb.”
“But all these things just scare him off,” Jonathan observed with an impatient wave of his hand. “What’s important is that we know how to kill him! A stake through the heart, and we cut off his head!”
“Yes, my friend. But to kill him we must first be able to find him, with full knowledge of every single one of his abilities, for he has much power to outwit us—and to harm us.”
We all fell silent for a moment, and I believe we were all thinking of poor Lucy; for every face at the table mirrored the sadness I felt for my friend as well as contempt for her murderer.
“Who is Count Dracula?” I asked. “I understand that he is from Transylvania, but how old is he? Who was he before he became a vampire?”
“Of this monster’s background, we know but little,” Dr. Van Helsing admitted. “My friend Arminius claim the Draculas were once a great and noble race. From dates on the gold coins friend Jonathan find at Dracula’s castle, I conjecture that he is at least three hundred years old, and probably more.” To Jonathan, he added: “You say in your journal that he spoke about his country’s history, and his ancestors’ fight in the wars against the Turks. Did he tell anything about himself, his own personal story?”
“Not a word,” Jonathan replied.
“He maintains that he is a count,” Dr. Van Helsing said, “but of course he must invent a new identity for each new generation.”
“Who were those three horrid women at the castle?” Jonathan asked. “His vampire brides?”
“I suspect so,” the professor replied.
“You said Count Dracula is more powerful than other vampires,” Lord Godalming said. “How did he get that way?”
“We do not know. Perhaps the longer a vampire exists, the greater his powers become.”
During this last conversation, I observed that Mr. Morris was looking out the window. He suddenly got up and, without a word, hastened out of the room. The professor glanced after him curiously, and went on: “I have said enough for now. You know what we have to contend against. Our foe is formidable; but we, too, are not without strength. We are six minds to his one. We have sources of science at our disposal. Most important perhaps, we have self-devotion in a good cause, an end to achieve which is not an evil and selfish one. For this alone, I believe we can succeed, for we have God on our side. Now we must lay out our campaign to find and destroy this monster. I propose we begin with the Count’s boxes of earth. Once we ascertain how many boxes still remain in that house beyond the wall—”
There came the sudden, startling sound of a pistol-shot from outside, and the shattering of glass, as one of the study windows burst into fragments. I shrieked. The men jumped to their feet. Lord Godalming raced to the broken window and threw up the sash.
“Sorry!” came Mr. Morris’s voice from outside. “Is everyone all right?” When Lord Godalming assured him that we were, Mr. Morris called out: “I’ll come in and explain.” A minute later, he returned and said: “I fear I must have greatly alarmed you—but I saw a bat land on the window-sill while you were talking, Professor.”
“A bat!” cried Dr. Van Helsing.
“A great big one. I hate the damned things, and thought it might be Dracula himself, so I went out to have a shot.”
“It must have been the Count!” Dr. Van Helsing replied. “No doubt he was spying on us. Did you hit it?”
“I don’t know. I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood.”
“Here is the bullet, embedded in the wall,” observed Jonathan.
“I ask your pardon,” Mr. Morris said, shamefaced. “It was an idiotic thing to do. I could have killed somebody.”
“But you would have not killed the bat,” explained the professor solemnly. “A bullet might make that creature bleed, but it would not die; for the being that animates it is already Un-Dead.”
When we had all calmed down from this incident and resumed our seats, Dr. Van Helsing returned to the subject at hand. He suggested that our best course of action would be to try to capture or kill Count Dracula during the day when he was in the form of a man, and at his weakest. “If we are lucky, we will find him to-morrow in his own lair next door.”
“I vote we have a look at his house right now,” Mr. Morris said.
“No,” insisted the professor. “It is too dangerous. His powers are too great at night. And if that bat was truly him, he knows we plot against him.”
“But time is everything with him,” Dr. Seward interjected. “Swift action on our part may save another victim.”
“Professor,” Jonathan added, “you said if we sterilise that earth of his—with some kind of sacred object, I assume—it will be useless to him. Isn’t that right?”
“That is correct, friend Jonathan.”
“Then I say we go over there this very night and sterilise all the boxes we can find. If we run into the monster, so be it; we will take him on.”
“Hear, hear,” responded all the men, save for the professor.
After a pause, Dr. Van Helsing said with a frown, “I must yield to the majority, but on one condition: that we leave Madam Mina behind. She is too precious to put at risk, and this is a grave danger that we face.”
I protested this chivalrous stance, insisting that I should go, as there was strength in numbers; but the professor’s mind was made up, and all the men agreed and seemed relieved.
“You must stay home to-night, Mina,” Jonathan insisted, squeezing my hand. “We shall act all the more freely, knowing that you are safe.”
The group spent several hours discussing the method of their attack and gathering the required objects for their foray, which included tools, weapons, skeleton keys, crucifixes, small vials of holy water, and sacred wafers. The process greatly unnerved me, but I did not want to appear as a hindrance to their work, for fear that they might leave me out of their future counsels altogether; so I maintained an appearance of calm and made as many helpful suggestions as I could.
At three o’clock in the morning, just as the men were about to leave the house, an urgent message was brought to Dr. Seward from Mr. Renfield, who wanted to be seen at once.
“Tell Mr. Renfield I will see him in the morning,” Dr. Seward told the attendant.
The attendant insisted that he had never seen Mr. Renfield so eager. “I don’t know but what, if you don’t talk to him soon, sir, he will have one of his violent fits.”
Dr. Seward reluctantly agreed to go; all the men, intrigued, accompanied him, but I was told to stay behind.
I waited in Dr. Seward’s study, too anxious to do anything but pace and worry. From down the hall, I heard the sounds of their conversation, and what appeared to be a long, impassioned speech from Mr. Renfield. Then I heard him shriek, followed by a torrent of emotion. The doctor must have opened the patient’s door then, for I heard Mr. Renfield cry:
“Oh, hear me! Hear me! Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”
A few minutes later, the party reappeared. “What is the matter with him?” I asked.
“He wants us to set him free,” Dr. Seward replied with a bemused shake of his head. “To let him walk away, here and now.”
“At three o’clock in the morning?” I said, startled. “But why?”
“He would not say,” Lord Godalming replied. “He just kept insisting that he must leave or perish. He seemed to be terrified of something.”
“Except for that last hysterical outburst, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw,” said Mr. Morris. “I’m not sure, but I believe that he had som
e serious purpose.”
“I could almost agree with you,” Dr. Seward said, “if I did not recall how he prayed with equal fervour for a cat, which he no doubt would have eaten on the spot. This change in intellectual method is but another form or phase of his madness; I could not in good conscience set him loose in the country-side at this or any other hour.”
“Besides, he called the Count ‘Lord and Master,’” Jonathan pointed out. “He may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way.”
“If that horrid thing has the wolves and rats to help him, I suppose he isn’t above trying to use a near-by lunatic,” Dr. Seward agreed with a deep sigh. “Let us go now. We have work to do.”
AFTER THE MEN LEFT, I PUT ON MY NIGHTDRESS, BRUSHED MY LONG blonde hair, and went to bed, leaving the gas-light lit but turned down low for Jonathan’s return.
I could not sleep. What woman could rest, knowing that her husband and so many brave souls were going into danger? I lay in bed, thinking over all that had happened thus far, and poor Lucy’s fate. Oh! If only I had not gone to Whitby and taken to visiting in that churchyard, perhaps Lucy would never have taken to sleep-walking, and that monster could not have destroyed her. I shed tears for my dear, departed friend, and then rebuked myself for crying. If Jonathan should know I had been weeping, he would fret his heart out.
Suddenly, I heard the barking of dogs, followed by a lot of queer sounds—like praying on a very tumultuous scale—coming from the floor below mine, in the direction of Mr. Renfield’s room. An eerie silence followed. I got up and went to the tall casement windows, looking out beyond the narrow balcony to the grounds below. All was dark without. Not a thing seemed to be stirring.
Then, in the black shadows thrown by the moonlight, I became aware of a thin streak of white mist creeping with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house. The mist seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own. It kept spreading and moving forward, until it lay thick and white against the wall of the house, and settled against the window which I believed led to Mr. Renfield’s room. The mist then slowly evaporated, dissipating into the night air.
