by J. S. Barnes
After Jonathan stormed out, I looked in upon Quincey. He was sleeping, quite soundly it seemed. That sketchbook he still clasped tightly in one arm.
I left my son and went to the study. Here I took a very modest drink and then applied myself for an hour or more to prayer. I prayed for wisdom and for guidance, as well as for that strength which will soon be necessary. I prayed for the souls of Caroline and Van Helsing and I prayed for the safe return of Jack Seward and Lord Godalming. Above all, I prayed that we shall prevail. I prayed for victory.
Whenever Jonathan returns and whatever he believes, we must make all preparations: the garlic and the holy water, the knives and the crosses. If I have to do this alone then I shall.
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
22 January. * Later. At last. At long last I see it. Though I must be swift, I have now to set down the moment of revelation.
I have resisted the truth for too long – to spare my sanity, yes, but I fear that the delay has placed us all in the gravest danger.
My long walk from home took me to the site where the people of Shore Green celebrated Bonfire Night, a little more than two months ago, for all that it seems that a lifetime has flowed by since then.
The marks of the conflagration upon which I assume they burned the guy were still faintly visible on the ground, a rough ring of scorched grass. Seeking sanctuary, I took myself to the midst of it and sank upon the earth. Here I endeavoured to put together in my mind all those events which have assailed us in recent months – the slow death of Van Helsing; the madness of Lady Caroline Godalming; the attacks upon the city; the resurgence of the Council of Athelstan; the disappearance of Miss Dowell.
All of these seemed at first to be altogether fragmentary and without connection. Yet as I thought harder, as I brought to bear that same logic which Mina had demonstrated, something like a pattern began to emerge.
Still I writhed away from it. Still I would not accept the truth.
I rose to my feet, meaning to go home and beg Mina to reconsider. Yet as I rose up I bore witness to a hideous phenomenon. The scorched earth around, the circuit of charred grass, seemed to burst into flame.
Nor was it any ordinary blaze but rather a weird, capering blue fire.
I stumbled backwards and cried out.
In the distance, it seemed to me that I heard the sound of laughter, far away now but coming ever closer, and sounding to my ears unbearably familiar.
In a fury, I smote the side of my own head. ‘Face yourself,’ I muttered. ‘Face yourself!’
And then I saw it – that which my own memory had treacherously kept from me. The truth of what I had witnessed in that alleyway ten nights ago – a most vivid and horrific vision.
The beauteous Sarah-Ann had been upon her knees, transformed and despoiled. Her eyes were dancing with crimson malice. Her teeth were sharpened to points. Her every movement had been made redolent of the forests of Transylvania. And above her, with its great wings outstretched, there had stood some terrible raven-haired fiend. Such a terrible tableau: two vampiresses locked in unholy embrace!
No wonder I fled the scene. No wonder I forced the horror from my mind, like some demented hotelier rejecting an unwelcome guest. No wonder I sought solace in forgetting.
I screamed aloud my rage and horror.
Still the laughter echoed in my ears and still the blue flames capered before me.
I ran through it to safety. The heat was pure and terrible. Whatever demoniac fire it was did not scorch me but rather filled me up with energy and purpose.
I hurry home now, back to Mina and my son.
Dear God, I would do anything not to be too late!
MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL
22 January. * Later. I was still praying when I heard Jonathan return.
The door was flung open and I heard him dash into the hallway.
‘Mina!’ he called. ‘Mina, my love!’
I heard such hope and wonder in his voice that I hurried to my feet and ran out to meet him. He stood before me with his arms opened wide, his face set in an expression of manly determination such as I have not seen upon it for more than a decade.
‘I have been such a fool,’ he said as soon as he saw me. ‘I have been wilfully blind!’
‘But now you see?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe you. You have made all the right connections! Indeed, I have witnessed some proof of my own.’
We were close now to one another, almost touching.
‘Then what do we do, my love?’ I asked.
‘We fight him,’ my husband said, and I thrilled at the sound of his resolve. ‘We do what we did before. A new crew of light! We fight him, we track him down and we kill him all over again.’
‘Yes! But we must hurry. He seems still stronger this time than ever before. His ambition grows daily. And he wants – oh, Jonathan – I do believe that he has designs upon our son.’
‘All these things are true,’ Jonathan said. ‘You are, as ever, quite right. And, my dear Mina, we will sever again that monster’s head from his body. But before then – before so much as a single moment more should pass…’
‘Yes?’ I asked. ‘What is it, my love?’
‘I have to give to you, my dear, a thorough, a comprehensive and a most unstinting apology.’
‘You… need not apologise to me.’
‘Mina, I must! Love of my life, I must!’
He seemed in his words almost to be delirious.
‘Not only for my recent recalcitrance but for all that came before. For my taking strong drink. For my neglect of you and Quincey. For my foolish gaze and my wandering affections. For not worshipping you every day that I am given with you.’
He was trembling now, poor fellow, and there were tears in his foolish eyes.
‘Enough,’ I said. ‘Enough now. Let it all be done with. Let us say no more.’
Instead of speaking, I stopped his mouth with a kiss – our first in many months – and, just for an instant, I do believe that we were happy.
* * *
Our embrace was interrupted by a loud, insistent knocking upon our front door – the kind of knock of which it is said that it might wake the dead.
My husband and I stepped hurriedly apart.
‘Jonathan?’
Before he could reply, the knocking came again, fierce and inexorable.
‘Jonathan, who is it?’
‘I…’ My husband looked down at me then, and there came into his eyes a horrible species of panic. ‘I…’
Without saying more, he swayed, tottered and then crumpled, insensible, to the ground. I crouched down and saw that he was breathing but that he seemed lost to some unnatural swoon. I shook him but he did not respond.
When the knocking came again, I rose and took from about my neck the pretty silver crucifix which hangs there. Clasping this in one hand, I stepped with trepidation towards the door, my head full of fear and foreboding.
When I reached the door, determined to avoid any suggestion of timidity or appearance of weakness, I opened up with a flourish, positioning myself firmly on the threshold so that, were the visitor to be an unwelcome one, he might feel discouraged. I hope – although the truth of it scarcely matters now – that the boldness of my posture disguised the fear which crept and clawed inside me. The figure whom I then confronted was, though covered largely by the dark, a most familiar one – the stout form of Mr Amory.
His face lay in shadow but I sensed that he was smiling.
‘Mrs Harker,’ he said. ‘I hope most sincerely that you will forgive my calling upon you at so late an hour, and for being so very noisy about it.’
‘Did you find him?’ I asked softly. ‘Dr Jack Seward?’
‘Oh, I found him, ma’am, yes. Him and all his new friends.’
‘Then where is he?’ I asked. ‘How is he?’
‘It’s a long, strange story, ma’am. Won’t you let me in so I can tell you everything?’
A pause fell,
one in which the hideous truth of the situation became to me undeniable.
‘Mr Amory,’ I said.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘I do not mean to invite you in.’
‘Why ever not, ma’am?’ His tone was flat and flecked with menace.
‘Because I am very much afraid that I know what you have become.’
He did not reply but only stepped forward, out of the darkness.
Poor Mr Amory. I saw at once what had been done to him, for he was now deathly pale and his eyes were violently bloodshot. He peeled back his lips, hissed and grinned, displaying the proof that he was no longer a man at all but had rather become a creature. He moved forward, far faster and with a greater degree of agility than ought to have been possible in a man of his size and age.
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, ‘but I cannot allow you to come any further.’
At this, I held out the crucifix, at the sight of which the vampire shrieked and shrank back. I clutched the cross and held my ground. A few moments later, having grown accustomed to the nature of our confrontation, the thing which now went about the earth in the form of poor Amory stepped forward once more, as close to me as he dared, somewhat in the manner of a dog approaching a blazing fire.
‘The master is returning,’ he said, his tone now almost wheedling. ‘He is coming to the White Tower. And once he is there he means to take his revenge.’
‘I do not doubt you,’ I said, with the greatest degree of nonchalance I could summon. ‘Yet you may tell him this: that we all of us will fight him with all that we have for every inch of ground, and that in the end we shall surely triumph.’
A look of savagery crept onto Amory’s face. ‘Oh, but your precious crew is broken. The Dutchman is dead. The lord is in exile. The alienist is mad and your own husband is lost.’
‘We will reform,’ I said. ‘We will be stronger than before.’
‘Ha! On our side is all the machinery of the state. On yours… merely broken threads.’
‘We have enough,’ I said, as stoutly as I could.
‘Oh, Madam Mina,’ said the blood-drinker then, his eyes glittering with malice, ‘but you have far, far less than you believe.’
Only an instant or two was to pass before I was made to realise with sickening force the truth of his words.
‘Mother?’ I heard a voice from behind me, oddly calm in its timbre.
‘Go back to bed, Quincey,’ I said, not turning but keeping my eyes trained upon the nosferatu. ‘Go inside and lock your door.’
I heard my son move closer.
‘No, Mother. I cannot do as you ask. Besides, it really is awfully rude to keep a guest waiting upon our threshold like this.’ Quincey raised his voice. ‘Mr Amory? Do come in.’
The butler scuttled forward.
‘Quincey, no!’ I whirled to confront him. Still I held that crucifix outstretched, but my own son with dreadful strength knocked it from my hand. It clattered to the ground. Quincey’s eyes were blazing red – crimson, the colour of hot coals, of scarlet berries in the snow.
When he spoke again his voice sounded older and deeper than before; it seemed to possess some horrible sense of resonance. ‘My father is coming,’ he said, and I heard from behind me the ugly giggle of the Amory creature. ‘My father is coming for us all.’
I began to scream then, but it was already too late, for I felt the hands of Mr Amory at my arms and shoulders as something damp was thrust upon my mouth. A swoon came upon me, and as the dark rose up to claim me I heard the sounds of weeping – from whom, even now, I cannot be certain.
JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL
23 January. I can recall nothing at all after that knock came at the door, mere moments after my reconciliation with Mina. For those missing hours I have only darkness and imagination.
Instead, I woke in my own bed again this morning to an atmosphere of profound and unusual stillness. From the quality of the light that streamed through the window I understood at once that I had slept for far too long. From the complete silence of the building I realised that something was very wrong. I rose hastily to my feet, my motions groggy and uncertain as though the floor had become a sea. I had to clasp the back of the chair for support so that I did not tumble to the ground. I had to take several deep, steadying breaths to right myself and ensure my balance.
This achieved, I called out: ‘Mina! Quincey!’
I heard in response only the dull echo of my own voice. I moved out of the study and into the body of the house. I called the names of my wife and child once more but the sound discomfited me, so I did not do so again.
As I entered the hallway I felt a chill breeze and saw that the door stood wide open. This was ominous enough, but there were clear signs that a struggle had taken place. There was a dappling of blood upon the carpet and a spray upon the wall.
There was to the scene a horrible quality of theatre – as though the tableau had been arranged for my edification. I noticed a book open upon the ground. I cannot say why it should have arrested my attention then, amongst the more obvious relics of violence, but as I peered more closely I saw that it was the volume in which Quincey had of late spent so much of his time sketching.
A gust of wind drifted through the door and, as though with invisible fingers, riffled through the cream-coloured pages. I caught glimpses of numerous illustrations – all odd and troubling to me, evidently the product of a warring mind.
The book stopped turning then and I was confronted by an illustration of almost uncanny detail, drawn in dark ink, the exact replica of a face I have long striven to forget, that of a very tall old man, dressed all in black, with a long white moustache. It was a precise replica of the Count himself as I had first seen him standing upon the threshold of his castle, long ago in the country of Transylvania. Another page revealed him in the process of transformation, from something like a man into a column of mist. The evidence by which I was surrounded became to me overwhelming, so much so that it took all my resolve not simply to sink to my knees and howl.
Instead, I turned and went back upstairs to my son’s bedroom.
‘Quincey!’ I called out. ‘Quincey!’
I opened the door to his room without knocking and saw that, curtains drawn, the place yet lay in darkness.
There was in the bed, discernible amid the gloom, the outline of a figure.
‘Quincey!’ I shouted, now at least as angry as I was afraid, suddenly filled with righteous but impotent fury. ‘Quincey!’
The answer that I received from that figure beneath the sheets was an unexpected one – at once horrifying and thrilling.
It was the sound of female laughter. It was a tinkling, giggling glissando.
‘Who’s that?’ I said. ‘In God’s name, who’s there?’
The figure moved – or, rather, writhed – beneath the covers, then cast them aside.
She unfurled herself and sat up against the headboard, her every movement both languorous and suggestive of energy suppressed.
‘Sarah-Ann? Is that you?’
Her blonde hair fell about her shoulders. Her skin was milky white. She arched her back and rose with liquid motion to her feet. As her eyes flashed red, she hissed and bared her teeth, and I understood what she had become.
Oddly – or, perhaps, not so very oddly as all that – I felt at this realisation not the slightest trace of surprise but only a form of acceptance.
‘This is what you have dreaded,’ said Sarah-Ann Dowell as she glided towards me. ‘But it’s also what you have longed for.’
I could not move so much as a muscle, so absolutely was I transfixed.
‘All my days I was wanted… by men like you. I was pawed at and leered at and touched. But now – at last – the power is moving away from your sort and towards… folk like me.’
I wanted to cry out, to apologise and to make a full confession. I am sorry, I wanted to say. I am so very sorry.
But my lips would form no words, nor was I able to ma
ke a single sound.
And then? Why, then she was upon me, that new vampiress, tearing and rending and drinking her fill.
FROM THE PALL MALL GAZETTE
27 January
SALTER SAYS: A NECESSARY JUDGEMENT
For some time now has this newspaper been critical of the actions of His Majesty’s Government.
Too often in recent weeks have our elected leaders appeared to be merely indecisive in the face of concerns of the most pressing sort. Rising discontent in the capital and a tide of motiveless violence was met with little more than platitudes. Warfare of a sprawling, vicious type amongst the various criminal gangs of London received a response from the constabulary which appeared to move from the slipshod to the simply impotent.
Although it behoves no one to speak ill of the dead, it must be stated here that the late Commissioner, Mr Ambrose Quire, was feckless and derelict in his duty. Finally, in that dreadful sequence of costly and deliberate conflagrations which has beset the capital, we have witnessed from our representatives the behaviour of a toothless dog which, under the whip of an unstinting master, whimpers, quails and lies still. All these lapses on the part of the authorities have been regrettable. They have proved costly to a horrible degree and they will not lightly be forgotten.
Yet now is not the time to dwell upon the errors of the past. Rather it is to the predicament of the present and the challenge of the future that this newspaper looks. It is with considerable pleasure and not a little pride that we are able to salute the decision that has been taken today to cede direct control of London to the Council of Athelstan. The emergency bill has served its purpose at last.
This step is born of necessity, and we are certain that while it surely was not taken lightly it represents the only appropriate reaction to the current emergency. It is our fervent belief that, with the application of those special, particular and unique powers which lie within its purview, the Council will be able to restore order far more swiftly than might otherwise be practicable. If the campaigning of this column has in any way provided some degree of expedition of this temporary transfer of power, then we humbly take our bow.