Dracula The Undead Part 20

As she entered me I felt that we entered each other. I was being drawn down into a whirlpool, red and crimson and black all swirling together, faster and faster, until at last I dissolved into her, and she into me, and there was red fire, and then blissful peace.

All the time I knew that this sin would condemn me to h.e.l.l - and it will, for I cannot repent of it. If she came again to me now I would still. . .

When it was over, she lay with her arms about me for the longest time, and I did not want her to leave.

She whispered that she loved me. 'This is love, Jonathan, not the pale shadow of it that you share with Mina. Do you wonder that she and I fell so easily to Dracula? Do you still think her an angel, and me a devil? Well, we are the same. She fell to him with a thousand protestations of virtue and reluctance and shame; I did so with honesty. That is the only difference between us.'

I wanted to protest that she was wrong, there is such a quality as virtue, but I could find no words or strength to say so. She went on whispering against my cheek, 'What misery it is, that one man and one woman may know only each other. I may love Dracula, and many other men and women, and lie with them like this and drink their heart's blood, but I will never love you any the less for it. Bury me close to your dwelling, that I may come to you again.'

The stirring of protest grew stronger. I took a deep, quick breath. I was enmeshed. What use to get Mina and Quincey home, unhurt, and to continue our lives, when this fiend would only come again and again to draw us into the dark? For I could not destroy her. I was hers. As fallen as Lucifer.

'Let me tell you what it is like,' said Elena. 'Where did I write to, in my little journal? To the place where Dracula kisses me upon the stairs under the lattice window, the third and last time? And then he is kind again, and tells me his plan, and I agree to it all - for he promised me eternal life. Behold, he has kept the promise! But at the time, I think I have been cheated.

'When Dracula has gone I go to the chapel. I feel my heart labouring from the loss of blood, the breath swift and shallow in my lungs .. . and I cannot understand why I am still alive. My limbs tingle and pain shoots through me. How much more, then, must it hurt actually to die? I recall a great groan of despair issuing from my throat, my whole body shaking with the force of it. Tears blind me and I curse silently at fate, or G.o.d, or the vigour of my own body - whatever has cheated me of immortality!

'The thin light of dawn reaches into the chapel, and in it I see my Uncle Andre lying in an open tomb. His hands are folded on his breast, his eyes open but sightless, his lips ruddy with my blood. But he does not look content in his catalepsy. His face is strained into an expression of distress so ghastly that I recoil from it. I tell him the lie, that Dracula is taking us away. His eyes come open and he grips me with stone-cold hands. "Don't go, Elena, don't go," he says.

' "You must leave too, in secret," I tell him. But he says, no, he must wait for Abraham to come again. I answer, "Abraham Van Helsing will kill you!" But my uncle will not listen and so I leave. I weep. I fear I will never see him again. So unfair that Uncle Andre has the gift of immortality and hates it - while I long for it yet am still trapped in mat weak, living form!

'Alone in a little, secret chamber with Quincey, in the top of the keep, I feel death coming upon me at last. Ah, so painful, Jonathan, like suffocation. There is no air, and your limbs burn with needles, and your heart flutters like dial of a mouse. My sight darkens. I panic; I imagine myself dead, and not rising again, and poor Quincey crying over my body. Too piteous. I never wished him harm; I love him like my own.

'I hardly recall coming here. I have some vague image of Alice Seward sitting by me, and her blood pa.s.sing into me, and I thinking, this is a great irony; she who would look on me with loathing if I took her blood in the manner of a vampire, gives it this way quite willingly! At first I am dismayed, to be drawn back from death's brink. Later I feel my veins on fire, as if her blood were warring against mine, and killing me. And I am glad!

'The pain is not in death, dear Jonathan; it is all in life. The blackness that claims me is sweet. When I open my eyes I feel that several centuries have pa.s.sed. But my pain is gone, and the darkness has opened up its sweet secrets to me, as I knew it would. I don't even mind mat Dracula is gone now. I don't need him any more. I have what I want. Freedom. The warm blood of the living.'

She rose over me again. It was too easy to melt into her carnal warmth again, too hard to resist.

I don't know what alerted Alice. I must have cried out in my unspeakable joy. Of a sudden the door opened, there was a flood of lamplight into the room - and in came Alice in her nightclothes, with the large wooden crucifix that Van Helsing had left us held boldly at arm's length. She resembled a Valkyrie!

'Leave him, foul demon!' Alice shouted. 'Begone, in the name of G.o.d! Begone!'

Elena rose on her knees, facing Alice, her hair tangled and blood smeared around her mouth. Seeing the cross, she uttered a horrible shriek; a mix of frustration and pure terror. The transformation of her face was ghastly. The sweet softness of her expression contorted to demonic white fury, reminding me starkly, horrifically of what I had done, the nature of the thing I had allowed into my bed - into my wife's place! I groaned, but could not move. Elena confronted Alice, her face writhing. But the power of the cross was too much and she began slowly to retreat from it, sliding off the far edge of the bed and backing up to the wall - the gap in between being no more than four feet wide. Now I saw that Alice had in her left hand the wooden stake that earlier she'd prevented me from using!

Elena was uttering terrible snarls that would have given the bravest man pause, yet Alice seemed aflame with wrath and courage.

Although the bed stood between them, she would not be hindered. Indeed, I would not have believed a woman of her size and years could move with such agility -for Alice simply went leaping and running straight across the bed, near crus.h.i.+ng my legs as she pa.s.sed.

As she alighted on the other side, Alice dropped the cross, took the stake in both hands, and ran it through Elena's breast.

Blood surged out, staining both their nightdresses. I was too late to look away; would dial I had, for now that horrible sight is with me for ever! The vampire uttered a hideous scream, not loud, more a sort of anguished expiry of breath; then she simply froze where she stood, hands gripping the shaft that protruded from her body. All malevolence pa.s.sed from her face, which became smooth and peaceful. Her eyes fell shut. She was dead; upright, pinned, but dead.

Alice stepped back and sat heavily on the bed, as if shaken by what she had done. I began to tremble violently in shock and a tumult of feelings I could not comprehend. Elena, poor Elena!

I don't recall what Alice and I said to each other; I think we were both too shocked to speak. In the silence I heard, from the part of the house that forms the asylum, Dr Seward's patients shouting and howling as eerily as wolves - as if they understood more than the sane ever could.

Then Alice roused herself and turned at once to practical matters, as is her sensible nature. Now there could be no summoning of doctor or undertaker. We couldn't leave the body of Elena in the house, especially since Dr Seward was not present to write a certificate of death. So Alice and I had no choice but to carry the body back to Carfax. Indeed, Alice did the greater part of this grisly work, for I was faint, ennervated, and barely in my right mind. Her courage, I must note not least for her husband's appreciation, was astonis.h.i.+ng! She seemed a veritable Amazon, quailing not once as she hefted the corpse and bore it across the asylum grounds and into those of Carfax. The Count left the gates unfastened when he fled. How gloomy and ill-favoured the night seemed, the abbey so deathly quiet among the gnarled trees and deep dark ponds. But the dogs, at least, did not trouble us. They have deserted, now their master is not there to feed them.

We brought poor Elena to the crypt, laid her in a coffin, and pushed garlic into her mouth. I could not bear to do more; I mean, to behead her, nor to suggest that Alice did so. We said a prayer. Looking down upon Elena's form now rent by the stake, the hideous blood stain beneath the sweet repose of her face, mad grief overcame me at last. I collapsed, weeping; I remember little more, but I know that Alice -good, brave soul! - somehow got me home and helped me to bed. There she gave me a draught which restored me somewhat.

She said, 'Forgive me, Jonathan, for keeping you from an action that might have prevented this! I was too much a sceptic. I believed all my husband and Van Helsing's stories as gospel, yet when it came to the reality, I could not accept it. It seemed wrong to violate a corpse. I don't know why I woke tonight; the inmates were restless and there were strange sounds, strange cold breezes sighing round me, and such an odd glow, as if there were spirits in the room. And you know I am not a fanciful woman! So I got up and looked in Elena's room. I had to unlock it - but the body was gone! Then I heard you give such an anguished cry. I acted by instinct on what Van Helsing told me, that the Undead abhor the sign of the cross, and I armed myself with the stake.

When I saw that creature upon you, I did what I knew must be done to save you and put that poor creature from its evil misery.

Oh, forgive me for ever doubting you!'

26 November So, Elena is at rest. Alice Seward, like a fiery angel at the gates of Eden, has delivered us. I should be grateful for it, yet I cannot stop thinking of Elena's dark hair brus.h.i.+ng me and her sweet voice whispering . . .

Each day, Quincey asks, 'Papa, where is Elena?' Not, 'Where is Mama?' Once he said another strange thing. The tall man was not cruel to me. But he used to give me a bitter medicine to drink. I did not like it.'

Dear G.o.d, was Dracula trying to poison Quincey? I can't see how, for the boy is the healthiest I have ever seen him. He appears to have suffered no ill-effects from his imprisonment, and there are no signs of the vampire upon him. Yet whenever he is not engaged in some boyish activity, he will always sit looking fixedly out of a window, as if willing Elena to come back.

Now when I think of Mina, I know that I have forgiven her at last. How arrogant I was to consider my dear wife in any way stained or unacceptable to me! More than forgiven, for I am in no position to withhold or dispense absolution. If she has fallen then so have I, and in just the same way, and although convention teaches that it is worse for her than for me, I cannot in my soul believe that. In G.o.d's eyes our sins are identical. I understand her. So as we are both sinners, we can surely live together in tenderness, where before there was only condemnation and distrust?

I have given up trying to write with my leaden right hand and am learning to use my left - the feminine, intuitive side, as Van Helsing would have it. Dear Mina, shall I ever see you again - or has understanding come too late? I shall tell her all of this, if G.o.d will only grant me the chance! So far from deigning to bestow my compa.s.sion upon her, I shall only offer myself up contritely to receive hers.

So here I sit alone in the drawing room, thinking constantly of Mina and praying for her safe deliverance. Yet when my thoughts stray, as often they do, Elena's image haunts me, the demure companion, the wild, blood-dappled temptress; and her image becomes mixed up with Mina's, so that I cannot tell them apart; and often I start up from writing or reflection, feeling as vividly as life Elena's soft voice in my ear and her cool gentle hand upon my arm.

LETTER, ABRAHAM VAN HELSING TO JONATHAN HARKER.

28 November; Vienna My dear Jonathan, News at last. We discovered, through much painstaking investigation, that Dracula has this time chanced the train across Europe - so much more swiftly to reach his destination! Loaded on to the Vienna-Buda-Pesth train has been one large box, accompanied by an Englishwoman of Madam Mina's description. No mention of Elena and child, however.

We are now, we estimate, approximately half a day behind them.

Kovacs travels parallel to us, as it were, rather than with us. My supposition is that he travels as wolf, and finds the unhallowed graves he needs for rest along the way. Rivers may only be crossed at the slack of tide, you understand. But the restrictions that delay us delay Dracula also!

He seeks the Scholomance, I hardly need add, precisely for the purpose of finding a way to rid himself of these limitations.

I hope you are on the way to recovery in Alice Seward's tender care. Keep up your courage, my friend!

Yours, Abraham Van Helsing

Chapter Sixteen.

MINA MARKER'S JOURNAL.

10 November It is a long time since I have felt able to bring this journal up to date. We are in Sighisoara for one night; tomorrow we go on to Hermannstadt. I am in a little hotel room with crooked walls and ivy hanging over the windows, the foliage crusted with light snow; the Count ... but let me record all as I remember it.

I was in a state of bewilderment when we left Carfax. I could not believe that Elena had fled with my son, could not comprehend her reasoning. Something seemed wrong, but Dracula a.s.sured me it was so, and I had no choice but to put my faith in him. He said, 'She believes that I have broken faith with her, therefore she is fleeing to another, who, she thinks, will confer immortality upon her. Her uncle has given her this idea. She is on her way to the Scholomance.'

'How can you be certain of it?' I asked.

'When my blood was in you, and yours in me,' he said, looking intently at me - even, I might say, with a kind of brooding affection - 'were we not linked? When I returned to Castle Dracula, you knew, at every stage of my journey, where I was. Is it not so? That was how your menfolk followed and destroyed me. Well, it is the same. I know where Elena is bound.'

'Then why can you not call her back?' I exclaimed. 'Surely your will is stronger than hers?'

He paused, then gave a strange reply. 'Sometimes the Devil's call is stronger.'

I am so afraid for Quincey. It is almost winter, and the Transylvanian climate is bitter. His delicate const.i.tution will never bear it!

Still, I must focus all my will on finding him alive, or else I shall go mad.

We went in the caleche to Dover, and thence by boat and train towards Transylvania. Since Dracula cannot travel without his native earth, a great box must be conveyed with us. I acted as solitary guard to the box in which he lies, on the long train journey across the continent, supervising the transfer of the box from one train to the next at every stage of the journey. I was surprised at my own resourcefulness in this, using all my wiles and authority as an English 'lady' to sweeten recalcitrant foreign guards along the way.

Sometimes the Count would be at rest in the box. Then I would wonder how easy it might be to prise open the lid, to gaze upon his waxen, aquiline face, and then to plunge some sharp implement through his heart. I thought of it constantly. But I could not do it.

Alone, I would have no hope of finding Elena. More than that; I have grown used to him, seen every shade of his temperament; his tenderness and n.o.bility, as well as his brutality. I feel, however wrongly, that the world would be a lesser place without him.

And then I remember the evil he has wreaked upon us, and I despair.

As the train raided through the darkness, and I sat in the guard's van watching over this strange cargo, a white mist would spill from under the lid, and the Count would stand before me; a pillar of obsidian, his white face fierce as an eagle's, his eyes agleam like rubies. And each time I would experience the same frisson of fear and longing.Often he would be gone from the train for hours. I imagined him racing as a wolf through the night; perhaps waiting by a bridge for the slack tide that would allow him to cross the river, then gliding as a bat through the chittering darkness to rejoin the train.

I have grown used to the odour of Castle Dracula's earth upon him; there is a comforting quality to it, a dry spiciness and something of autumn and woodsmoke. He has not taken my blood a third time. There are silver streaks in the darkness of his hair once more. It seems to me that he does not absolutely need blood, for he is immortal anyway; rather, he takes it for vigour and power. And even, or -G.o.d have mercy on me! - above all, for the carnal pleasure of it.

___.

I had a great shock on the stretch from Buda-Pesth to Klausen-burgh. I was sitting as usual in the dinginess of the guard's van, quite comfortable upon some sacks of fleece. It was morning, but the motion of the train lulled me towards sleep, for I was by now worn down from the constant travelling and the ever-deepening cold. Of a sudden I woke from my doze, roused violently by a fierce sense of alarm. Two men were coming along the swaying, creaking carriage, making their way between the stacked boxes and chests. Their faces were haggard with strain, horrible to behold.

I almost did not recognize diem as Van Helsing and Dr Seward! I started up, amazed; mirroring my shock, they rushed to my side. 'Come away, Madam Mina,' Van Helsing said urgently. 'You are safe now.'

'But how have you found me?' I cried, utterly dumbfounded.

Van Helsing responded with a grim smile; grim, I knew with great regret, at least in part because my demeanour on greeting them had been one of dismay, not joy. That must have convinced them that Dracula was turning me against my own. . . but I found myself unable to dispel this impression. He said, 'Have you forgotten what detectives Dracula forced us to become? An Englishwoman travelling alone with a great chest does not pa.s.s unnoticed. Our greatest struggle has been to close the gap of time between us; it has taken us all the miles between Dover and the plains of Transylvania to do so.'

'Oh, Professor,' I said, ashamed. I could imagine their desperate journey! 'Where is Jonathan?'

'His health would not let him travel, but he is in Mrs Seward's care. Is the Count.. . ?' Van Helsing looked at the box; I nodded.

'Then we will dispose of him at once.'

He was already reaching into his case for the wooden stake and other paraphernalia; I felt quite sick to see it.

'No,' I said quickly. Panic-stricken, I spoke with a good deal of force. I had to make them understand! 'No, I cannot come with you, nor can I let you harm him.'

'In heaven's name, why not?' Dr Seward cried.

Van Helsing said, low but firm, 'This time we make no mistake. We dispatch him with wood, not metal; we force garlic into the mouth.' Then with his black humour, 'Think, even should he come back again in seven years - we need only a few days, a few moments to free you and Elena and Quincey from him!'

He held my hands, but I pulled away. 'No. Elena and Quincey are not with us! Don't you understand? Surely you know!'

They shook their heads, frowning. 'Kovacs told us that Dracula took you all.'

'Then he was wrong. Elena quarrelled with Dracula and she ran away. She took my son with her. We are following them! Only Dracula can find her, so if you destroy him, we may never see Quincey alive!'

Van Helsing turned away, pressing his fists to his temples in silent despair. Seward said furiously, 'So he frustrates us again!'

'Please go,' I said. 'I am in no danger. But I don't know what Dracula may do if he knows you have caught up with us. For my sake, please go!'

'Leave you with this monster? Impossible!' said Van Helsing.

'But you must,' I persisted, growing desperate. 'If we are to have any hope of seeing Quincey again, you must!'

At last they saw that I was right, that they had no choice. Their faces working with frustration and grief, they began to withdraw.

But before he went, Van Helsing clasped my hands and said warmly, 'Little girl, we will not desert you. We shall follow at a distance; and although you may never see us, be a.s.sured that we are not far away. You have endured much, but the end cannot be long in coming.'

He gave me a gold cross to wear around my neck. I did not tell him that I could not bear the sight of it; the metal felt scorching hot upon my flesh, which confirmed all that I feared. As soon as they were gone, I threw it away.

___.

So, Jonathan is safe in the care of Alice Seward. That is one less matter to worry about, at least.

Today we came to Sighisoara. It is a citadel on a hill, with high, tightly cl.u.s.tered roofs reminiscent of a Durer engraving. The walls have a red-roofed turret at every turn. I feel, as I always do in Transylvania, that I have stepped back into the Middle Ages.

The air is biting, but everywhere is the frost-coated evidence of summer's abundance; tangles of leafless creeper and vine, bare linden trees.

I climbed alone up the rocky ma.s.sif on which the town is built, past a jumble of ancient houses towards the squat-towered Bergkirche, until I found the tiny hotel to which Dracula had directed me. I am to have a night of rest - with, I hope, good hot peasant food to drive the chill from my bones. The Count has engaged some Szgany gypsies to take us on to Hermannstadt. His native earth is now in their care, but I am glad I did not have to stay with those villainous-looking brigands.

At the hotel I was received with great warmth and intense curiosity. I had to reserve a room for 'Mr and Mrs Harker' and invent some story about my husband being 'delayed'. The Count will never show his face. The superst.i.tions of these people seem primitive, yet serve them well; I believe that they would recognize him for what he is at once. (The Szgany recognize him also, but are too unG.o.dly to care. They have their own morals, I suppose; to them he is boyar and protector.) I don't know how far or near Van Helsing and Dr Seward are from us now. I have not seen them since the incident on the train.

I cannot believe they are far away; I know that they would never give up, whatever I might say to put them off. In one way it is comforting to think that they are close by, alarming to think that I might be altogether alone; yet in another, I fear desperately for them.

I have no fear for myself any more. Only for my dear friends, and Quincey.

Later Dracula has been to me.

I saw his face through the frosted panes of my little window, framed by ivy and a cold, bluish mist. Then he was inside the room; a forbidding, powerful figure who yet held me to him as a wolf might hold a tiny cub. His sharp fingernails p.r.i.c.ked my neck and my waist.

'Don't be troubled, Mina,' he said. 'Soon there will be nothing in the world to trouble you.'

If he meant I would soon be Undead -1 did not ask. Then all the shame of my collusion with evil descended on my soul, and I spoke with sudden misery.