Mina Part 26

I don't know how long we stood there, me fighting impotently, her feasting on me, but she did not take much blood.

Then she raised her head and released me so abruptly that I fell backward against the bed.

"Come, Joanna," Illona called sweetly and stretched out beside me. Her face was flushed from even that small amount of blood, her breath warm against my neck. "Come. Drink. When it is time, I will give you the privilege of her death. "

I know I begged for my life then, but Illona did not notice me. Her attention was fixed on Joanna, her intensity drawing the smaller woman forward. As she moved toward the bed, Illona raised my hands above my head. Only when the second woman's teeth had opened a different wound did I hear Illona say, "A taste only, sister. It will be days before he returns."

Whatever relief I might have taken from that last comment vanished as she added, "Then we will feast."

She smiled, her incisors long and white against the red of her lips. "Oh, yes. You welcomed his touch, did you not?" She ran her hands over my cheek, slapping me when I tried to look away. "Do you think we are so different from him?"

Of course they were! I stared at the creature, convinced that she was insane.

"Once we were male and female. Now we are only takers, and you only exist to give. We cannot love. We only devour."

I looked from Illona to Joanna, standing so silently beside her. "Is this really true?" I asked, begging her for the answer I wanted to hear. In our nights together, it had seemed that the creature they called Dracula, the man I called Tepes, had truly loved me.

Joanna did not answer, but when she looked at me, I thought I saw some softening in her expression, a look almost of sympathy in her eyes.

I will not speak of the nights that followed, only say that they were careful with me. Joanna especially saw to my comfort, making sure my room-my cell-was warm and my food adequate.

The fall from my window was long and steep. I had always feared heights. The door was barred. In time, I learned to live on their cycle, sleeping by day, wary at night. I learned too to accept their silent comings and goings, as they drifted in and out of my locked roam on tendrils of fog and dust.

Some nights they came to me, their hands caressing me, their lips against the wounds, drinking until I nearly swooned, then forcing me to drink from them. In the beginning, I gagged. Later their blood tasted sweet, the nourishment it gave relished by my soul. On other nights, I stayed alone, pacing my chamber, inventing hopeless, useless plans for escape.

Once, Joanna came and, after building up the fire, sat with me, taking my hand so timidly that I did not pull away. "Tell me about your world," she whispered, her voice trembling, her dark eyes glancing toward the door as if she were frightened that Illona would hear and come.

I did, in the same low tone. She asked about the clothing, more about the music, the books and plays. I did the best I could, telling her the stories I had read, singing the songs I knew. Though t did not dare say it, I knew the truth about her.

She was a prisoner here. Now I understand why. Then, I only pitied her. It was preferable to pitying myself.

Dracula returned by night, sitting beside the gypsies on the cart. I recall that as they rode up to the walls, they were all singing. It seemed so strange to hear his voice mingling with theirs. I have never thought of the women as human, but I thought of him then (and still!) that way. It is his will, his human will. It is too strong to be overpowered, even in death.

The gypsies unloaded the box of earth that made it possible for him to travel, and left. I have often wondered how he can be so trusting of those men or they so honorable when he is at his most helpless, yet the bond has existed for centuries. He gives them gold, that is true. But even if he did not, they would die .

for him.

As I leaned out the window, it never occurred to me to cry out for help. I don't understand my silence to this day.

Perhaps I knew it was useless to place my hope in his servants, perhaps I already knew that the life I had lived bef ore coming here had ended with his kiss.

The women entered my chamber as silently as always. I felt their presence behind me and turned from the window.

Joanna, as ever, hung back in a subservient position. Illona moved closer. "Do I die now?" I asked."You do," Illona responded. I have never seen such an evil expression, such a sardonic smile. "Help me," Illona called to Joanna, as she began to remove my clothes.

Joanna hung back. "Let him have her," she said.

"Him!" Illona laughed derisively and went on, ripping the last of my clothes from me. When I was naked, she lifted a gown from the bed.

Once it must have been beautiful, for the lace was still delicate. But age had destroyed some of the most intricate designs. Once it must have been white, but now it was yellow and there were brown spots of mildew on the lining of the bodice. The laces in the back were rotted, so the top could only stay up if I stood very straight. When she'd finished Illona put the veil on me, more a web of dust and tiny seed pearls than the lace that it had once been.

"My wedding dress," she said. "Ideal, don't you think, for this profane marriage."

"Marriage?" I asked dully.

"To Joanna."

Joanna shook her head. I began to understand what made her so reluctant. She feared Illona, but she feared Dracula as well. Sometimes it seems that only fear gives her life.

"Then she is mine, as you were, Joanna, remember?" With a cry that might have been despair, or rage, Joanna vanished from the room, though I sensed her presence, safely watching, unable to act.

Illona tore at her neck; she gripped my head; forcing me to drink as she had before. As I struggled, he came, his bellow of rage filling the room, the strength of his presence more potent than both of the women's had been. Illona gripped my hair and turned me toward the door, forcing me to look at him.

Her hand curved around my throat; her nails just touched my flesh.

"Let her go!" Dracula ordered.

"So you can take a bride after me? No, husband. Never."

Later, he told me that his death in her arms was the most exquisite act of ecstasy he had ever experienced, the little death, as the French call it, extended into a momentary blackness of real death, then the sudden wrenching instant of rebirth. I felt none of the glory, all of the fear. Indeed, the last moments of my struggle raised so much dust from the crumbling veil that my last human act was to sneeze.

Then her nails dug into my flesh, ripping at my throat like some animal's claws, and the darkness fell over me, profound and silent as a winter night.

I dreamed of life as life left me.

How I would sit and watch my hair glowing like gold threads in the sun.

How I rode with my brothers through the hills, my stallion white and powerful between my legs.

How I danced at court, laughing too frantically at the jests, crying in my mother's arms at night because no one loved me.

How I dreamed of another world, cities, countries, oceans. How I lay in Tepes's arms, my body trembling at his touch, thrilling to the taste of his blood.

Illona denied it all to me. Her nature is utterly dark, with not a ray of her past life able to pierce its blackness. How I loathe her. How I envy her freedom.

And then there was nothing but darkness and, for a moment only, the promise of life everlasting. I sensed it, desired it-- peace, incredible and eternal peace!

It abandoned me as it had the vampire women. I returned to life as suddenly as I had died. My eyes opened. Though the room was undoubtedly dim, lit as it was by just a single candle, the brightness of it hurt my eyes. I lay across the knees of a young man who was was.h.i.+ng the blood from my neck and chest. The warm water reeked of its scent as the room reeked of his fear. It reeked of his pa.s.sion as well, for sometime during my death, the tattered gown had been removed and I lay naked before him.

Had he touched me while I was helpless? I was certain of it from the blush on his cheeks, the way he looked only at my face. I knew he could not help himself. I held up my hand and saw its incredible pallor: my legs felt thinner, longer, my hair when I touched it finer than before. In life, I had been beautiful. Death had made me exquisite.

I pushed away from him and stood, but there was no reflection in the mirror beside the bed. With a moan of anguish, I turned toward him and saw him looking from the mirror to me and back.

Though the others do not speak of it, I know there is a moment of choice for our kind, the moment when we decide how terrible a creature we have become. Do we kill? Do we use? Do we feast on ecstasy? I know this now, but Illona made certain I would be a killer like her.

If there had been no mirror, if the boy had not known what I was, if he had not shook with terror as he backed away from me, if he had not turned and bolted for the door, pounding when he discovered it locked, my pity might have conquered my hunger. I might have even loved him.

Instead, the need for blood hit, a terrible searing agony in the center of my body, and I moved toward him. Unable to stop myself, I gripped his hands, pressed his body close to mine, feeling his pitiful struggles to escape as I drank. And drank. And felt him die.

Ah, the magnificence of that moment when you realize that you have consumed death! The potency of it! The fulfillment!

Afterward, mere tastes of blood are nothing, no more than kisses are after s.e.x, no more than water is after fine red wine.

Words fail me here.

Days pa.s.sed. Weeks. Dracula did not come.

Sustained by the life I had taken, saddened by my lack of remorse, I fell into a sort of languor in which time had no meaning. Often, during my waking hours, I would think of the life I had left behind. Though I could not shed tears, I could cry-dry, terrible sobs. Joanna would come and sit by me, stroking my hair, telling me to hush, that despair was as useless as hope in this place.

I tried to leave, to go home and find the comfort of my family. But as each night drew to a close, I was forced back to the castle, until I understood that the legends were wrong.

Your native earth is not the earth where you were born but the earth in which you died, and your master is always the one who killed you.

I have no will to fight her hold on me, but he does. When he returned, when he finally had the strength to face me, I stood separated forever from him by my death, and listened to his promise.

He will leave this place, he said. And when he has prepared a way for me, he will send for me and leave the others to the ruins and their own despair.

I trust him. I have no choice in that, either. And sometimes, the memory of his love returns to me and gives me comfort.

Perhaps someday Tepes and I will be free of this place, free to roam the world, to see its wonders, to live as best we can in this eternal life-in-death.

The gypsies come more often now, they and no one else. Illona dares not touch them. Yet we go on. We have no choice.

Today Illona returned from one of her hunts across the countryside. She brought with her another fair-haired girl like myself. She promised this one to me. I will have no choice but to obey and turn her.

What I have become cannot be altered by age or infirmity. I loathe myself, but I cannot control what I will do.

But if you live, and come here by day to read this account, take pity on me. Look below the room where you found it and where our servants rest in their own earth-lined coffins. Raise the lids of the boxes holding our mortal remains in their daytime sleep. Drive a wooden stake through the heart of the dark-haired woman with the ruby ring on her finger. Then, if you still have the courage, drive a stake through mine and through Joanna's.

Joanna and I agree on this. Death is change. We welcome it.

Dear Lord, Winnie thought, then read the translation again. There were answers in it, terrible answers to all the questions Mina's strange actions had raised. Winnie sent a note to the Harker house asking Jonathan to visit her as soon as possible. A day pa.s.sed and he did not respond.

Had it only been months since Mina and he had wed? Could this man have actually risked everything, even his soul, for her? And now, when there was just as strong a possibility that she could not help her compulsion, he turned his back on her!

The betrayal infuriated Winnie. The next morning she collected every bit of proof she had concerning Mina's actions and appeared at Harker's firm. The clerk told her that Harker had not come in that day. "Then I'm sure he would want me to leave him a message," she said and walked past the astonished young man and into Harker's office.

The desk was clean. The lights were cool. Jonathan Harker had not been there.

She walked to the Harker home. At the corner of his street, she flagged down one of the local bicycle messengers. "I'd like you to deliver a package to Mr. Jonathan Harker," she said.

"But his house is right there, ma'am. You could go yourself," the boy responded, pointing toward the bend in the street.

"I want you to deliver it directly into the hands of Mr. Harker. You are to say it is from his firm."

"Ma'am?"

"I'll wait outside. If you are able to deliver it, I'll know that he is home."

The boy opened his mouth, no doubt to protest again. Winnie pulled five pence from her purse and handed it to him. "Not a bad amount for five minutes' work, is it?"

She waited at the corner of the front yard, hidden by the old lilac bushes that separated the lot from the neighbor's. The front door opened, Millicent, sounding annoyed, asking what the messenger wanted.

"I'll give it to him," she said.

"I must deliver it myself, Ma'am. It's necessary."

She heard nothing else for a while, then the boy came past her on his bicycle. "He took it as you asked," he said and went on his way.

Winnie waited a half hour then went and knocked on the Harkers' door. Millicent answered. "Oh, it's you," she said.

"I must speak to Mr. Harker."

"I heard you'd spoken enough," Millicent replied coldly and shut the door.

Winnie pounded on it, refusing to stop even when no one came. "Please," she shouted. "I must- "

The door swung open. Jonathan turned and walked back to his study. Winnie caught only a glimpse of his face but saw clearly that there had been tears in his eyes.

Millicent placed herself in front of the study door, her face red with anger. "How dare you come here," she said. "Can't you leave him in peace?"

"Aunt Millicent, please," Jonathan said wearily. "Mrs. Beason won't listen to reason, so you might as well let her in."

Winnie swept by the older woman. Millicent began to follow, but Winnie closed the door too quickly. To lock it would have been an insult. She decided that she could rely on the latch to keep the woman out.

She fixed her attention on Jonathan Harker. His prematurely gray hair had never made him seem old before, but now, with the grief and worry etched in deep lines across his eyes and forehead, he could have easily pa.s.sed for fifty. "Did you read the note I sent with that package?" she asked.

"I did. And I also read the beginning of Mina's journal and I stopped reading exactly as she asked. Should I follow her instructions or yours?"

"She asked me to implore you to read it. She said there should be no secrets between you."

"Would that there were," he responded woodenly. "Mrs. Beason, do you believe my wife is sane?"

"I do." Winnie saw the grief grow in his expression and added, "But her problem is not a matter of sanity, at least not exactly."

She reached across his desk and picked up the translation. "Read this before any of the other things. Mina read this part." She handed him the first half of the translation, then the last pages. "These came after she had gone. When you finish, it will be time to talk."

Winnie moved from the desk chair to the little sofa in the opposite corner and occupied herself with the latest copy of the Strand while Jonathan read. She did not look at him.

To do so would have been an invasion of his privacy, and a distraction as well.

"Mrs. Beason," he called when he had finished, in a tone that, for the first time, expressed real concern. "What do you think this means?"

"That she has never been freed of the vampires' control-not just his, but the others' control as well. You can guess what they plan."

"I don't understand. The vampires were destroyed."

Winnie pointed to the little journal. "Mina told me that she wishes you to read this. When you're through with it, come and talk with me."