by P. N. Elrod
For a seducing adulterer he sounded quite smooth.
"I have since tendered my admittedly inadequate apologies to her, mind-to-mind, and severed all links between us. I would have also apologized to her husband, but given the circumstances it struck me as being inappropriate. Besides, he thinks he has killed me. That should be sufficient recompense for his wounded honor."
"What about the blood exchange you made with her?"
"That cannot be reversed."
"Then when she dies, she'll become like you."
"And to you that is yet a bad thing. Worry not. When her time comes she will have a . . . decision before her."
"Decision?"
"It—it is not an easy thing to make into words. My own memory of it is clear, but to describe in a way that you may understand is difficult. Let it suffice that she will have the choice to live as I live or to go to God. At death, each similarly touched soul has a moment of decision. I have told her as much, so did I tell Lucy, whose choice was to tarry on the earth."
"But I had no choice. I went to sleep and awoke to—" I spread my hands to indicate my situation.
"Another point of difference between us, between our kinds. And another question I have no adequate answer for. Why some of you rise and others do not is a mystery to me."
"Van Helsing said nothing of this choice of yours. Neither did Mrs. Harker."
"He may not know of it, and you can hardly blame the lady for such an omission. It is a most personal thing. But she has a noble heart, a great spirit, and her faith is so strong as to have done such to her—" again he lightly touched the scar on his forehead. "I have no doubt when her time comes she will fly to the angels to seek her rest."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Wait twenty or thirty years and see for yourself. For now, the subject of Mrs. Harker and myself is closed." By the finality of his tone I knew that to pursue the matter would result in unhappy consequences to myself. And he was right. It was none of my business. Besides, to be sincerely selfish about it, I had problems of my own to face. To judge by the miraculous healing of the burn she'd taken from the touch of the Host, Mina Harker was well recovered from her ordeal, and Dracula planned to leave her alone; I felt I could move forward with a fairly clear conscience.
Now that my eyes were opened a little wider than before, I looked out into the night. Though all would have been murky blacks and grays to my friends, it was as day to me. The faint moonlight put a silver gleam upon everything it touched, beautiful, but marred in my perception by my many troubling questions.
"Must I do as you—as Nora—to . . . to . . ." The words refused to emerge.
"Sustain yourself? Hardly. To drink from a lover is one matter, but you'll find that the blood of animals is your real food. One may live upon love alone for awhile, but sooner or later one must come down from the clouds and take more practical nourishment. This is as true for vampires as it is for humans."
That was a great relief. If it was true.
"Do you hunger yet?"
I continued to stare out at nothing in particular, giving no reply.
He shrugged. "When you're ready, then tell me. Your first feeding should be a pleasing experience."
He'd have a hard task of proving that to me. Separated so far from memories of Nora by time and new knowledge, the idea of my drinking blood of any kind like downing a cup of coffee sickened me to the core. I tried to hide my grimace as my belly turned over. "What about my friends? When they wake—"
"They will be shocked, of course. They will eventually conclude you have been dragged off in the night by a pack of ravenous wolves and will never recover your body. So very tidy, is it not?"
"It's monstrous!"
"Far better that than to see your footprints in the snow trailing away from the torn blanket that was your shroud. Then you would never be safe from them. I suspected you might revive and rise tonight, so I made sure my children and I were there to disguise your escape."
"But they're my friends. I cannot put them through such grief!"
His face went hard again, the change swift as lightning. "You will and must. It is part of my pledge of their safety to you. Leave them alone and they live."
"But—"
"You will leave them. Better that they suffer a little distress than for you to undo all I have done. I will not be moved on this. Accept it, or they will pay."
There would be no return to my comrades, not for the present, anyway, certainly not while his wolves were within call. "Very well," I murmured. Perhaps later I might be able to talk to Art or Jack and persuade them to reason as I had been persuaded, but in the meantime I was feeling very lost and miserable without them. And cold. The icy November air, something I'd been able to ignore because of my changed condition, had seeped well into my bones. It would take more than the long coat I wore to dispel it. I shook out the torn blanket I still had wrapped around my arm and threw it over my shoulders.
Dracula nodded. "Yes, it is time to go inside. My castle is not far from this place. Your friends thought to seal me from it, but there are entrances that they found not."
"What about your friends?"
"Mine?"
"Harker wrote of your three . . . companions." I nearly said "mistresses" and diplomatically changed the word at the last moment. I wondered how they would receive me. "The ladies."
His eyes flashed green, and his lips drew into a knife-cut of a line. He released a long hiss of breath. There was a strange blaze of madness in his stare that made me instinctively reach for my missing Colt revolver, for all the good it would have done.
Dracula rose tall and quickly turned away; one hand shot out against the stone side of the mountain as though to steady himself. I'd stabbed right into a nerve it seemed, and couldn't guess what it might be.
With a terrible strength, his bare fingers curled right into the rock, ripping off a piece. I stood, readying myself in case he decided to make a problem, but he took no notice.
"Sir," I ventured after some moments. "What is it?"
His shoulders sagged. He slowly turned back to me. Now his eyes had gone dark, hooded over by those heavy brows. "They are no more," he said, his gaze dropping. "Van Helsing murdered them."
"Murdered?" Here was a shock. I'd long known that the professor had the idea of visiting the castle during the day, but it was news to me to learn he'd actually done so. But murder—?
"He served them as he served poor Lucy," Dracula said.
That told me all. Unbidden, the sight of her hideous second dying passed across my mind's eye as it had every day since. I'd been told—and had been thoroughly convinced—that what we'd done had freed her sweet soul from enslavement to pure evil. Now I was not so certain. God in heaven, had I helped to murder her?
Dracula flexed his fingers enough to let the stone fall, his voice a bleak drone. "Their deaths happened because Van Helsing was more careful and they too careless. In their minds, in their dreams, I gave them warning of what I knew must be his intent, but they would not heed. They thought him to be yet only a simple peasant, easily cowed by fear or seduced by lust for their beauty. I . . . felt each of them go and could do nothing." His face darkened, then cleared, like the shadow of a cloud running over the flanks of a mountain. He struck me as a man who felt things deep and felt things hard, but could hold control if he chose.
"What will you do to Van Helsing?"
"Nothing."
"How can you—I mean, if you cared for them—"
"I am pledged."
That simple statement took me aback.
He saw my disbelief. "My word, Mr. Morris, may be trusted."
"Sir, I—"
"There is more as well. You are not so old as I or you would understand the futility of certain kinds of retribution. To avenge my dear ones would put Van Helsing where he belongs—in hell!—but bring me no gain, and only reveal my deception to the others." He gave another shrug, this time with his hands. "What's done is done. I have pledged
the lives of your friends to you on your sensible behavior. I will not recant."
I kept quiet, relieved, but still dealing with inner doubt. I had the suspicion that should my friends make themselves a nuisance to him again he might find a way of getting around his pledge.
He straightened, standing tall. "Come then, Quincey Morris. I will show you any number of dark places for you to shelter from the day, places much safer than that which my dear ones had."
"Won't I need my home earth as you do?" I suddenly felt frail and weary and very, very alone.
He turned slightly and motioned toward where the wolves had vanished, taking in the vast forest. "This land has become your home, Mr. Morris. When a brave man's blood strikes the ground where he fights he has purchased it for his own forever. You will find rest here and may carry away as much earth as you want when you are ready to depart."
Another surprise. Me being free to leave? I'd no notion he'd even suggest the idea that I could ever depart this oppressive place. It wouldn't be tonight. The hour was too late, to judge by the position of the stars. Dawn was coming, but on top of all that, I needed help, which Dracula seemed willing to give. I'd be a fool not to accept, since I was still trying to get my brain to take in what had happened to me and how to deal with it. Back in Texas when a tenderfoot turned up on the ranch we'd guide him through things until he learned how to survive on his own. Now I was the tenderfoot.
"I'd appreciate that," I said.
Dracula grunted once and continued to stare away into the distance. His gaze and his mind must have been very much elsewhere, for he remained silent and unnaturally still for quite a long time.
I tried not to shiver, waiting, reluctant to intrude on whatever dark thoughts possessed him.
"But perhaps," he finally whispered, his voice so soft I barely heard, "perhaps you will tarry awhile? The wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements of my castle, but you will find more comfort there than in these wastes. We two have many griefs to settle in our hearts, and though I would be alone with my thoughts, in such a time of mourning it is better to have company."
My answer was to follow him. As we picked our way over the rocks and up the narrow path, his children began to sing again.
Chapter Two
Dracula stood behind and to the side of me, craning so he could see as I crouched in the stable straw. He pointed to a spot on the leg of one of his horses where the surface vein was quite visible.
"There," he said, touching it delicately, then withdrawing his hand.
I was supposed to bite deep into the flesh and drink, just like that, and I absolutely could not bring myself to do so.
"There," he firmly repeated.
Terrible hunger possessed me, hunger such as I'd never known could exist. My limbs trembled from it. Weakness fluttered throughout my whole body. I had to hold hard to the animal's leg to keep from falling over.
Hovering inches from this new source of life, aching for want of it, sickened by the thought of it, I stifled my overwhelming urge to vomit.
"Drink, Mr. Morris," he told me. "Drink . . . or die."
* * *
My appetite had come very much awake on my second night's stay in the castle, but I said nothing about it to Dracula. I had the faint hope that if I could avoid blood, then I wouldn't be a vampire after all. My plan was to put things off long enough so my craving might transmute itself to the point where I'd become so famished as to eat regular food instead.
If Dracula suspected what was on my mind, he never let on, and only politely inquired if I desired refreshment, abandoning the subject when I just as politely replied I did not. We passed the evening in conversation, he plying me with many eager questions about my life and adventures. I did my best to answer, all the while hiding the constant pain within.
On the third night he cocked one eyebrow at my disallowance and pursed his lips for some time before giving a mild challenge.
"My Szgany cook informs me that you sampled some of her soup earlier," he said.
Which was true. And yes, Dracula had servants about the place, just as he had when Jonathan Harker stayed with him, but now as then they kept themselves well out of sight. Harker had been unaware of them, thinking them completely absent, though he could have inferred their presence by his countless meals and clean bed linens. I'd known of their being about from the first moment I'd entered the castle. With my sharp new senses I could hear their subdued movements and voices echoing up along the stone corridors. I could hear the rats scuttling in the pantry, for God's sake. Little wonder Dracula sought solitude in the remote upper floors of his home if they offered isolation from such annoying distractions.
This third night, waking with the hunger burning with such intense pain that I could think of nothing else, I'd followed the sounds and soon the smells to a wide, low-raftered kitchen, startling the inhabitants there to silence by walking in. They were watchful, and certainly fearful. The men stood, their hands resting on the hilts of the great knives thrust in their wide belts; the women backed away a step or two from their washing and cookery to stare. There was no doubting that they were well aware I was like their master. Perhaps they saw my raw need stamped plain upon my face and thought I'd come to feed from them.
The place reeked of food smells. Boiling vegetables, roasting fowls, baking bread, and a vast cauldron of soup accounted for the moist stench. I wanted to run gagging from it, but made myself hold my ground and slowly come forward. Identifying an older and very solidly built woman as the most likely head of the pecking order I addressed her.
"I've a powerful appetite, ma'am. Would you oblige me with some of your fine soup?"
It was obvious that she didn't understand a word of it, but since I put a questioning tone to my voice and gestured at a stack of bowls and toward the cauldron, she eventually caught my meaning. She spoke rapidly at the others, probably making a translation to judge by their reaction. They eased up a bit, looking puzzled, and one of the men emitted a brief grunt that could have been a laugh. He said something back to her that I took to mean she should go ahead with my request.
A minute later and I was seated at a large and very old oaken table with a filled and steaming bowl before me and all their eyes fixed on my every move. I was skittish and didn't welcome an audience, but there was no helping it; I didn't have enough of the language yet to tell them to mind their own business. It would have been better for my peace of mind if they'd left. I could hear their very hearts drumming away, could scent the blood rushing beneath their flesh.
Ignoring its distraction, I picked up a spoon with shaking fingers and dipped a small swallow of liquid. I blew, then slowly forced it to my mouth. The smell of the stuff should have been toothsome and probably was, but to me it was like trying to sup off kerosene. I made myself take it in, though. It ran down my gullet like hot slime and hit my belly like a gunshot. I had to hold tight to the table to keep from doubling over from cramp. The others watched me close. From their murmurs I got the idea they thought my eating to be a most remarkable thing, indeed.
I tried a second spoonful, again taking in only the liquid. I couldn't bring myself to try chewing on any of the pieces floating in it. One thing at a time. It was still bad, but I got it down and kept it there. The same again for the next and the next. My poor belly roiled and twisted. Half a cup was about all it could manage. I put aside the spoon and stood, still holding to the table to keep upright. I bowed and thanked the cook in her own language, which pleased her mightily, gave a genial nod to the others, and made my way out, walking about as steady as a drunkard trying to hide his condition.
Mixed in with my nausea was grim triumph, the kind that goes with the accomplishment of a difficult and noxious task. I'd managed to consume normal food and get away with it. I'd been told otherwise. Dracula had been pretty resolute on that point; he'd said there was no way around it, but I wasn't ready to believe him. My nature is such that I generally like to see things for myself first if
it seems a reasonable way to go.
It all seemed very reasonable indeed as I made my way along the empty passages, climbing toward my host's living area. Seemed, until I came to a window and the clean scent of fresh snow hit me. I'd found I had no need to breathe regularly, but wanted to clear my lungs of what they'd picked up in the kitchen. I opened the ancient shutters and leaned over the wide, bare stone sill. That was all it took. The soup I'd struggled so hard to consume now violently left me, those few feeble mouthfuls splattering on the cracked flags of the courtyard some twenty feet below.
How I hated it. Hated my body's betrayal of me, its rejection of such basic, normal nourishment. Most of all I hated the fact, that as I sat collapsed against the wall beneath the window and sweated out my recovery, I still desperately hungered.
It wasn't going to go away.
Groaning at the unfairness of it I gave in to true despair for a full five minutes, letting my tears flow, cursing the world, and feeling as sorry for myself as anyone has a right to be. None of which did me a damned bit of good at changing things. I finally woke out of it, not feeling better, but certain I could feel no worse.
I was half-blind from the craving. My legs trembled, and my head ached from having been sick, but I forced myself to totter up to the library and take a chair by the fire. It was well fueled and bright, filling the room with a warmth that had no effect at all on my shivering.
The only thing I'd gnawed on in all this time was my pride, my wish not to give in to what had happened to me. It kept me going, but did not satisfy or ease the pain. I determined that I would rest a few moments and warm up, then make myself try yet again. Next time I would take in simple water. Having had nothing in three nights I knew I'd need at least that to stay alive. I would not let this change take me over.
