Bram Stoker's Dracula

by Fred Saberhagen

  "Jack was to give his blood"—this was news to Seward, who looked up sharply; the younger doctor had not yet begun to consider by what process a donor might be chosen—"as he is more young and strong than me. But now you are here, you are better than us, who toil in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours!"

  Obviously, Seward observed admiringly, the professor had been profoundly energized, elated by this post-midnight challenge, coming after what must have been a tiring trip across the Channel. He was proceeding with his preparations, now holding up the two large, sharp, hollow needles, one in each hand, connected by an apparatus of rubber tubing and the bulb pump.

  His chuckle had something sadistic in it.

  Seward, meanwhile, had stripped the bewildered Holmwood of his inner coat, ripped up his shirt sleeve, sat him down in the chair at bedside, tied off his arm, and thumped up a vein.

  Now, swiftly but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation.

  As he inserted the large needle into Lucy's arm, she quivered with brief pain, but remained unconscious. Holmwood winced perceptibly at that, and again when his own arm was stabbed. Then he sat back quietly in his chair, holding the needle and tube in place with his free hand as the professor directed him. Arthur's anxious gaze seldom strayed from Lucy's face.

  As minutes passed, and the rubber tubes carried their warm liquid burden, with the physicians now and then exchanging terse syllables of jargon regarding the transfusion's progress, something like life began to come back to Lucy's cheeks. The improvement was tentative and delicate at first, then more robust.

  When he had observed this result until the reality of it could not be doubted, Van Helsing seemed to relax a little.

  Presently, leaving the immediate supervision of the operation to Seward, the old man rummaged in his medical bag again, this time bringing out something Seward would have thought much less likely even than transfusion equipment: Van Helsing's hand emerged from the bag with a great handful of white flowers.

  These, to the wonder of Seward and Holmwood, he arranged in a vase at Lucy's bedside, casually discarding the ordinary garden blooms already there. When that was done, more white flowers of the same type, already woven into a kind of loop, came out of the bag to be placed as a necklace over the patient's head. For these floral arrangements Van Helsing offered no explanation.

  Seward avoided Holmwood's questioning eyes. He sniffed at the spreading odor of the white blooms, and tried to keep his own bewilderment from showing in his face.

  Garlic?

  Had he not known the old man so well for such a long time, young Dr. Seward would probably have judged him mad.

  Evidently now satisfied with the decoration of the room, Van Helsing looked at his watch and replaced it in his pocket, then checked the condition of both recipient and donor and looked at his watch again. All three men could hear its ticking in the otherwise silent room.

  At last the professor removed the tubes from the arms of both Arthur and Lucy and lightly dressed their wounded arms.

  A few minutes later, Holmwood, though still looking a trifle pale, was on his feet again and putting on his coat when, without warning, Lucy's thin body was racked by a loud and raucous scream. It was a terrifying sound that for a moment made all three men recoil involuntarily from the bed.

  Lucy shrieked again. "Is this why I cannot breathe?" With a surge of unnatural-seeming energy, she sat up in bed and hurled the vase of white flowers from the nearby table to shatter on a distant patch of floor.

  Van Helsing, for some reason, did not seem terribly surprised at this reaction. He said to the patient almost calmly "The flowers are medicinal—so that you may sleep well—and dream pleasant—"

  Laughing derisively, the girl in the bed violently tore off her necklace of blooms. "These flowers are common garlic!" Then she slumped back, her burst of energy exhausted.

  After escorting Holmwood out of the room, Van Helsing and Seward returned to examine Lucy, who was now sleeping. At least, thought Seward, she appeared to be in substantially better condition than when Van Helsing had arrived.

  The older man took care to point out to his younger colleague the pair of small, white-rimmed red punctures on the patient's throat.

  Picture from the book with Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker

  "What do you make of these?" he asked his former student, squinting at him shrewdly.

  Seward gave a weary shrug. "Mina—that's Miss Murray, Lucy's friend—has told me those wounds are the result of an unfortunate accident, with a safety pin, when Lucy was sleepwalking. It is true, they are very slow to heal."

  From the way the professor was looking at him, Seward knew that he had given the wrong answer.

  Drs. Seward and Van Helsing rejoined Holmwood in the hall. One of Lucy's maids, worried about her mistress, had gone in to sit with her for a while.

  Following his ordeal, Holmwood naturally looked somewhat pale and dazed from loss of blood; and Van Helsing, speaking as if his mind were really elsewhere, advised the donor to eat heartily and get plenty of rest.

  Then, halfway down the hallway, the old professor muttered, more to himself than to his companions: "The first gain is ours—but I fear for her still." And he threw a frowning glance over his shoulder in the direction of Lucy's room.

  Arthur followed the pair of physicians. "My blood—did not cure her?"

  Van Helsing, just reaching the head of the stairs and starting down, did not even turn his head but only laughed, somewhat bitterly, as if to himself.

  Holmwood appealed silently to Seward for some explanation, but the look he received in return indicated a helplessness almost as profound as his own.

  The three men continued out of the house into the formal garden, where on a happier day, about four months ago, Jonathan Harker had once waited to see his beloved Mina.

  Now it was a warmly pleasant September night, for once not raining, inviting deep breathing and the contemplation of the stars. A gaslight, burning above the terrace, attracted moths and threw warm illumination on hedges and brickwork, on late-summer flowers and a small burbling fountain.

  Holmwood, who before coming outdoors had detoured past the sideboard in the dining room, was now carrying a substantial amount of brandy in a snifter and fortifying himself with an occasional sip.

  Van Helsing had said nothing for a little while. Now he finished lighting a cigar, threw away the match, then turned to challenge his younger colleague. "So? Can you tell me now why is this young lady bloodless?"

  Seward could come up with no ready answer.

  "Use your logic," Van Helsing urged him. "Think, man!"

  Seward gazed up the broad flight of stairs leading to the terrace just outside Lucy's room, in which a dim light still burned. He mused: "There are those marks on her throat. Perhaps they were caused by something more than an accident with a pin, as Mina thought—possibly her major blood loss occurred there?"

  Van Helsing made little meditative, grunting noises, seeming to express a qualified approval. His attitude seemed to indicate that his student was on the right track, but had not gone nearly far enough.

  He said: "You were a careful student, Jack. Now you are master—or should be. Where did the blood go, Jack, eh? Come come—"

  The younger doctor let out breath with a sigh. He shook his head at his own slow-wittedness. "How foolish of me! Not from those or any other external wounds. The bedclothes would be covered in blood." He paused.

  "Yes? So?"

  "Unless…" Seward hesitated again. A horrible explanation had seemed to shimmer in the air before him like a will-o'-the-wisp, only to be gone again before his mind could grasp it solidly.

  The professor, now hovering close to Seward like the figure of some tempter in a play, was almost murmuring into his ear.

  "Unless? Unless? So—so?"

  Holmwood, meanwhile, could do no more than look on and listen in pitiable confusion.

  Sewar
d extended his hands, as if he might physically grope his way toward the truth, a truth still tantalizingly out of reach.

  Van Helsing, chewing his cigar, relentlessly stalked him. "Hah—imagine, Jack, that you have a brain. Open it up. Show me what you are thinking now!"

  Seward, in his frustration and anger, at last turned on the older physician, gesturing wildly. "Then all I can think of is that something has drained her life! I suppose something just went up there, sucked out her blood, and flew away?"

  "Ja." The answer was a flat, uncompromising challenge. "Ja, why not?"

  "That's quite enough," said Holmwood firmly, and hiccuped. He had swallowed the last drops of brandy from his snifter, and in his debilitated state after the transfusion, the result was intoxication. He sat down shakily on a stone bench, letting the glass fall to the ground beside him.

  The other two ignored him for the time being. Van Helsing still pursued his former student.

  "Hear me out! Jack, you are a scientist. Do you not think there are things in this universe which you cannot understand—and yet which are true?" He gestured to the starry night above.

  "You know I do not," Seward responded grimly.

  His mentor was relentless. "Oh? Mesmerism? Hypnotism? Electromagnetic fields?"

  The young man wearily conceded one point. "You and Charcot have proved hypnotism."

  "Astral bodies? Materialization?"

  "I don't know—"

  "Aha! Just so… now you have admit that there is much you do not know, I tell you this—" And Van Helsing paused; making sure he had the total attention of both men. "Listen to me! There is a thing that drains her blood, as you have said. And dear Lucy, God help us, suckles from this thing its own diseased blood, with the result that she transform, to become what it is… a monster… a beast."

  His listeners were speechless with horror; worse, with a lack of comprehension.

  Morning had come again to England, and Mina was disturbed by hints she had heard from the servants of turmoil and illness in the house during the night. Following her late return from her strange encounter with the prince, she herself had retired to her room next to Lucy's, where she had fallen quickly into a deathlike oblivion of sleep and heard nothing.

  To Mina's relief, she found Lucy this morning sleeping peacefully in her bedroom. The visitor, seeking anxiously for signs of improvement in her friend, had to admit that the pale face on the pillows looked only marginally better than it had yesterday.

  Yesterday… how very long ago that seemed.

  She, Mina, though technically her virginity was still preserved, was the one who now had an illicit lover. How strange, how incomprehensible!

  And she knew, with a helpless, wonderful certainty, that she was going to see her prince again, as soon as possible.

  11

  Today Mina, seeking anonymity, had taken the train into town. She had gone to meet her prince, at his request, at Rule's Cafe, a popular West End place, where, a few years earlier, the notorious poet Oscar Wilde might have been observed charming ladies and cultivating handsome young men.

  Though lords and princes were common enough at Rule's, the imperious manner of Mina's escort, and a well-calculated donation of his money, promptly obtained for them a private dining room.

  Food and wine were now on the table, and a violin was playing somewhere in the background—music lighthearted and sad by turns, that to Mina suggested Gypsies. The silhouettes of dancing couples were visible through the small room's walls of frosted glass.

  The prince was saying to her: "The land of my forefathers is every bit as rich as is your England, in culture and fable and lore."

  "Yes…"A fanciful scene of unaccustomed vividness was drifting through Mina's imagination. "I am willing to believe that it must be."

  Her companion's eyes, startlingly blue with the dark glasses gone, twinkled as he smiled. "In my opinion, my homeland is the most beautiful place in all creation."

  "Transylvania." Mina's voice, her mood, were absent, dreamy, almost giddy. She was sipping from a glass of milky-green absinthe, the drug of the moment for London café society, ordered in a moment's inexplicable impulse that was at least in keeping with the rest of her mad behavior this afternoon—or was it her companion who had suggested absinthe? At the moment she could not recall. But in her more lucid moments of this hour she thought the drink must be at least partially responsible for her condition.

  Transylvania… dimly she could remember, months ago, Jonathan's voice speaking that same name… some nobleman, in the exotic wilds of Transylvania … yes, that was it. The same place, or near the place, where Jonathan was going, had gone, on business. His last letter, written so long ago, had come from somewhere in the region of Transylvania, from Castle Dracula…

  But the image of her fiancé faded swiftly.

  She mused: "I see the meaning of the name… a land beyond a great, vast forest. Surrounded by mountains that are so majestic. And lush vineyards. And flowers, I can almost see them, inhale their fragrance; flowers of such frailty and beauty as can be found nowhere else on God's green earth."

  The prince leaned forward. How young he is, she thought, watching the candlelight on his smooth face. How beautiful. Quite unlike all other men. Definitely superior to any of them.

  He said quietly: "You describe my home as if you might already have seen it at first hand."

  Mina allowed her eyes to close—for just a moment. The closing was so restful. From the darkness behind her lids she said: "It is your voice, perhaps. So… familiar . . . like a voice in a dream that you cannot place. It comforts me… when I am alone."

  Her eyes came open again; so easily, yet sleepily. She met the gaze of her companion, and Mina was distantly aware that the contact was far too prolonged. Then suddenly, just how she was not sure, he had come to be seated close beside her. His right hand was at her throat, fingers gently but firmly tracing, caressing. Quite possessively, as if this were the most natural thing in all the world…

  Suddenly a giddy laugh burst from her lips. Something made her get to her feet, breaking the physical contact, as if she knew this was the last chance she would ever have to do so… then out of nowhere a question came to her lips.

  "And what of the princess?"

  That made his blue eyes blink. "Princess?"

  Mina looked out into the main room of the cafe. "It seems to me there must be always a princess. With flowing hair the color of… of… and the haunting eyes of a lustful cat. Long gowns, in a style that is—very old. Her face a…"

  Something like an hallucination was stealing over Mina. This was more than merely vivid imagination. She knew that she was still here, in London, in Rule's Cafe, and yet… another reality was also present.

  "… a river," Mina said clearly. "The princess is in a river—no, she is a river, all filled with tears of sadness, heartbreak…"

  And then the spell, or whatever it had been, was gone. Not gone, but weakened sufficiently for Mina to see what a powerful effect her words had had upon the prince.

  Raising her hands to her face, she said: "I must sound terribly foolish. The absinthe… I shouldn't drink it. You think me ridiculous."

  "Never that, Elisabeth. Never that. You see, there was a princess."

  "You must tell me about her."

  "I shall."

  And he was standing, holding out his hand in an invitation to the dance. The violin was singing somewhere, and the absinthe sang in Mina's brain as she arose, only to be swirled away into a graceful waltz, among what seemed a thousand candles…

  The mood of dreamlike exaltation lasted until early the next morning, when Mina, seated alone upon her favorite garden bench at Hillingham, counting the minutes till she might see her prince again, looked up to see an eager Hobbs approaching. In the butler's hand a silver salver bore what could only be a letter. All the servants knew how desperately their young guest had been waiting for a certain message.

  Trembling, Mina inspected the envelope; cert
ainly not Jonathan's writing, but coming from Budapest, it must bear news of him. With shaking fingers Mina ripped the message open. It was from Sister Agatha, of the Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary.

  Dear Madam—

  I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love…

  Jonathan was alive. He was alive! Leaping to her feet, ignoring Hobbs's murmured congratulations on the good news, Mina began to run through the garden, beside herself with joy, eager to share her happiness… but before she had run more than a few steps, her steps abruptly slowed.

  How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, the one who in the past few days had come to be the center of her life?

  "My sweet prince," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "Jonathan must never know of us."

  In a moment her purposeful movement toward the house had resumed, though at a slower pace. There was no question but that she must go to Jonathan at once.

  Climbing the steps briskly, approaching Lucy's room, Mina encountered Dr. Seward on the terrace. He was deep in conversation with an older, distinguished-looking man she had never met.

  The latter turned, regarded her with a pair of penetrating blue eyes, and with a small and almost military bow, succinctly introduced himself.

  "Abraham Van Helsing."

  Mina was already thinking that this could hardly be anyone but Lucy's latest doctor, of whom she had often heard Jack Seward speak.

  The professor continued: "And you are Miss Mina Murray, dear friend to our Lucy."

  "How is she, Doctor?"

  "Still very weak. She tells of your beloved Jonathan Harker and your worry for him… but today you have perhaps good news?"