The Mina Murray Series Bundle, A Dracula Retelling: Books 1-3

by L. D. Goffigan

  I recognized the moan. It had reverberated throughout my nightmares for years.

  I stumbled towards the clearing, my hands flying to my mouth at the sight that greeted me.

  My father’s dying body lay in a pool of his own blood, his brown eyes weakly meeting mine. Grief seized me as I rushed forward, sinking to my knees at his side. Every feature of his face was as I’d remembered; from his brown eyes to the lines around his mouth. He looked so real. How was this happening?

  “Mina…” he rasped. “Why did you not save me?”

  It was the same words I’d uttered to myself over the years, whenever my guilt outweighed my grief. Heartbroken, I began to weep.

  “I should have stopped you…I think of you every day. I’m sorry, Father…”

  I closed my eyes as I reached for his limp hand, sobs wracking my body. My father’s hand slipped from mine.

  When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the forest clearing. I was now in a small cottage.

  Directly in front of me, lying in the center of the floor, was my mother.

  She was naked, bleeding and bruised, curled up in a protective ball. Several vampires, including Matyas, stood around her, their fangs dripping with what I suspected was her blood.

  “Please…” my mother wept, looking up at them, her face beaten beyond recognition. “No more. Kill me. Please…”

  Rage paired with grief flooded every part of me at the sight. She begged for her life, Matyas had once told me. I was witnessing the last moments of my mother’s life. Was this a nightmare? A memory?

  I was now unable to move, and no one seemed to be aware of my presence. I could only watch with dread as Matyas sank down onto his haunches, baring his fangs.

  “As you wish, Ghyslaine,” he hissed.

  I tried to cry out, but unable to move, I could only watch as Matyas sank his fangs into my mother’s throat, draining the remaining life from her body.

  The cottage faded away, and I was in the cellar where Skala had tortured me, chained to the wall.

  I looked up, terrified. Skala stood opposite me, a twisted smile on his face as he lunged at me, wrapping his hands around my throat, squeezing the air from my lungs. I fought him, struggling to breathe, but I soon ran out of air, the cellar growing dim around me.

  And then I was standing in the drawing room of my home back in London. I reached for my throat, but no traces of bruises from Skala’s hands marred my skin.

  I stilled when I heard a scream from upstairs. It was Clara.

  I raced out of the drawing room and up the stairs, halting in my tracks. Clara lay dead on the hallway floor, a feral vampire hungrily feasting from her throat.

  “Clara!” I wept, darting towards them, but I found myself in the study of Abe’s home in Amsterdam.

  I pressed my hands to my temples, disoriented. None of this is real, I told myself. You are in a thrall. Bathory has done something to your mind.

  The thought did not quell my lingering despair over all I’d just witnessed. I turned towards the doorway, dreading what I would find here, when I saw Bathory and Abe.

  She stood in the doorway behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist as if they were lovers, her eyes focused on mine with a feral intensity. Abe looked dazed, blinking at me in confusion.

  “No—“ I began, but in a flash Bathory reached up, placing her hands on both sides of his head, and jerked it to the left with a thunderous crack.

  Abe sank to the floor, dead.

  I screamed. The grief that coursed through me was so wrenching that I sank to my knees, unable to tear my eyes from the body of the man I loved.

  “No,” I sobbed, ignoring Bathory completely as I crawled forward, resting my head on his still body. “Abe—“

  “He is gone,” Bathory said, her voice light as air as she looked down at me. “You have no one. No one but me.”

  “This is not real,” I gasped, lifting my head from Abe’s chest. “None of this is truly happening.”

  “Your lover is dead. Like your parents. Like everyone you love,” Bathory continued, as if I had not spoken at all. “You have no one.”

  “Stop,” I pleaded, shutting my eyes against the sight of her, the horrifying sight of Abe’s dead body. “Please—enough! Enough!”

  But it did not stop.

  Like clockwork, I was once again in the forest over Father’s dead body. The cottage with my dying mother. The cellar with Skala. London with Clara. Amsterdam with Abe. Over and over again; a nightmarish litany of my worst fears. I don’t know how often I lived through each torturous scene; I couldn’t close my eyes to block out the images, and nothing I did changed the outcome. It was far worse than any physical torture Bathory could have inflicted. After sobbing over Abe’s dead body for what seemed like the hundredth time, I longed for death.

  When I again found myself in the forest where Father died, I forced myself to calm down and think.

  Every monster has a weakness.

  But so did every human. Bathory was using mine against me. While we were unconscious, she must have probed our minds, unearthing our greatest fears.

  Mine was loss, had always been loss. Loss had been a part of my life since Mother died when I was a child. If Abe and my friends were undergoing the same torture, they were also living through their greatest fears.

  This had to be the reason why Bathory had so many loyal followers. She broke them down until she made them her own.

  Not me, I thought, feeling a sudden surge of determination as I once again watched Abe die. I would not allow her to succeed with me. In order to fight back against this mental torture, I would have to overcome my greatest fear. I would have to face my loss rather than try to fight against it.

  When I again found myself in the forest, I moved towards my groaning Father. I sank to my knees, taking his hand in mine.

  “I miss you every day, and I love you so,” I whispered. “Your death has haunted me. But I must let it go, Father. It’s the only way I can defeat the monsters who took you and Mother away from me.”

  As I watched my father’s eyes flutter shut, a deep sense of acceptance settled over me. I braced myself for the next scene, for the cottage where Mother was tortured…but instead I found myself in the windowless room I’d first woken up in.

  Astonished, I looked around. Had I somehow broken the thrall?

  I took a breath, remaining focused. I needed to stay alert. I needed to stay in the present before Bathory’s thrall pulled me back into my mind.

  Yanking back my sleeve, I raked my fingernails over my skin so roughly that they drew blood. I cried out at the pain, but hoped it would be enough stimulus to keep me in the present.

  I moved over to the left wall, praying that the others were in adjacent rooms. I knocked on the wall.

  “Abe? Gabriel?” I shouted. “Seward? Anara? Emma? It’s Mina!”

  There was no response. I closed my eyes, resting my forehead against the wall, fighting back a wave of frustrated tears.

  “Mina?”

  It was Abe’s voice. My heart leapt with joy at the sound. The image of his death had been so potent, there was some part of me that feared it was real.

  “Yes, Abe. It’s Mina,” I shakily replied. “I know what she’s doing. She’s using our fears against us. To keep your bearings, you must keep talking to me…or inflict pain on yourself. And you must face whatever horrible thing you are seeing...you must not fear it. It is the only way.”

  “You—you are not real,” Abe said, his voice strangled and broken. “I—I saw her kill you. She ripped your heart from your chest. I could not stop it.”

  “No,” I said, my heart breaking at the desolation in his tone. “It is me. I am real. You need to—“

  “Please—leave me be. Mina is gone,” Abe said, his voice catching on a sob.

  “Abraham Van Helsing,” I said sharply. “I am real and alive, and I fully intend to stay that way. We have a marriage and a lifetime to look forward to. It does not end here. Do yo
u understand? It will not end here!”

  There was a silence that stretched for so long I began to worry.

  “Mina? My heart,” Abe breathed. “It is you…”

  “Yes. She is trying to break us—to turn our minds against us. You have to stay alert and present. Whatever you are seeing—face it. Do not let fear consume you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Abe replied, his tone steady now.

  “Can you knock on your opposite wall? I believe we are being held in adjacent rooms. Tell whoever is in the next room to do the same.”

  “I will,” he promised. “Mina?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  I took a moment to savor the warmth that spread through me at his words. My fear of loss was intimately tied to love; I’d already lost my parents, the two people I loved most in the world. But my fear had been a weakness; I needed it to be a strength. I needed to use it as a tool to survive. Now, I allowed the love for Abe, my brother, and my friends to flow through me, increasing my determination.

  “And I you,” I whispered.

  I moved over to the opposite wall. I still didn’t know how we were going to get out of our predicament, but having our wits about us was a start.

  When I knocked on the opposite wall, Gabriel’s tormented voice responded. Like Abe, he didn’t believe I was real, and it took some time to convince him.

  “Did you see her?” Gabriel whispered, when I finally got through to him. “Did you see our mother? What they did to her—“

  “Yes. I—I saw everything. I know it is difficult—but do not give in to your pain and grief. Accept what is happening…has happened. If you succumb to your fears, she has won, and she can keep you trapped in your mind.”

  After I urged him to knock on the adjacent wall, the room around me began to fade. Panicked, I again raked my fingernails over the flesh of my arm, drawing more blood. It worked, the pain seemed to keep me in the present, and the room became solid.

  I walked back over to the opposite wall.

  “Abe!” I cried. “Abe—we need to talk to each other. It can help keep us present. Abe!”

  “I am here,” he said weakly.

  “I knew I loved you when I first saw you in Father’s study,” I said, seizing upon any happy memory that I could. “I was only fifteen then…but somehow I knew. Do you remember? I could barely meet your eyes.”

  “I thought you were shy,” Abe replied, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “How wrong I was.”

  “I was terrified you would meet a suitable woman and get married. I even asked Father if you were courting anyone,” I continued, resting my head against the wall. “I remember how happy I was when you first told me you loved me. I was afraid my love would be unrequited.”

  “Never,” Abe swiftly replied. “You are the only woman I have ever loved.”

  We continued to talk—about the very first trip we had taken with Father, the first time I had shown him around London, the first time he had shown me around Amsterdam, and other joyful times from our shared past.

  We must have spoken for hours, because fatigue soon settled over me. It became increasingly difficult to fight off, no matter how much I raked my fingernails over my skin to draw blood. Sleep would be dangerous; it would return us to the dark recesses of our minds.

  “Abe,” I said faintly, as my eyes began to droop. The lulls in our conversation had grown longer with time. “We must stay awake. Abe?”

  He didn’t respond. Despite my rising panic, my desire to call out his name and wake him, my fatigue was even stronger…I could no longer fight it.

  “You are quite impressive, Ghyslaine.”

  Bathory’s voice pulled me from my slumber. My eyes flew open, and I recoiled. Bathory was in the room with me, cradling me in her lap as if I were a child. I wanted to scramble away from her, to cry out in terror, but she had me paralyzed in her arms.

  “No human has ever been able to remove themselves from my thrall,” she continued, appraising me with intrigue. “I adore a challenge. I shall break you, Wilhelmina.”

  She glanced at the door, and it opened. Hatred twisted through me when I saw Matyas enter with another large vampire. I’d instinctively known that he would ally himself with Bathory. If only we had the opportunity to kill him at the ball.

  But I didn’t have time to focus on my hatred; he and the other vampire dragged Abe, Seward, Emma, and a bound Gabriel and Anara inside, tossing them to the floor. Bathory dismissed Matyas and the other vampire with a flick of her hand, and they left the room.

  Despite her bound wrists and legs, Anara started to charge forward with a fierce snarl, but Bathory stilled her with a look, and Anara flew back against the wall. The others were paralyzed as well when Bathory’s eyes flitted over them.

  She returned her attention to me, smiling as she eased me off her lap and propped my frozen body up against the wall, as if I were a doll.

  Tears blurred my vision as I met each of their eyes, settling on Abe’s. I am sorry. This is my fault.

  “I shall take your fears from your mind…and make them real,” Bathory said, standing to approach my friends.

  25

  The Choice

  “The art of killing lies in anticipation,” Bathory murmured, walking past each of my paralyzed friends. “Humans make the most delightful prey. Their fear…it tastes like the sweetest wine. Who shall I dispatch first? One of the hybrids tainted with human blood? The traitor to her own kind? The weak human man? Wilhelmina’s handsome lover?”

  Fear gripped my heart, and tendrils of dread coiled around every part of my body at her words. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe; the air had been sucked out of the room. No, I thought desperately. Dear God, no.

  Bathory whirled back towards me, her black eyes shining with excitement.

  “I shall start with the weakest.”

  In a flash, she grabbed Seward and yanked him towards her, sinking her fangs into his throat. Though he was unable to move, I saw the terror in his eyes as she drained him of his blood. An internal scream reverberated within me as I watched the life drain from my friend’s body.

  Anara’s eyes were consumed with grief and torment; blood tears spilling down her cheeks as she watched Seward die. Anguish filled Abe’s expression; Gabriel and Emma looked stricken with horror.

  Bathory released Seward from her grasp with a contented sigh, his blood staining the sides of her mouth. Seward’s lifeless body slid to the ground.

  Death was a cruel thing; instantaneous, impersonal, and permanent. Snatching life from the here and now, releasing it into oblivion. No matter how many times I watched someone die, the effect was still the same; despair settled over my body, its weight siphoning the air from my lungs, rendering me hollow.

  This is not happening. This one of my dreams, I told myself. I did not break the thrall. This cannot be real.

  “This is very real, Wilhelmina,” Bathory said, gleaning my thoughts. She crossed the room to kneel before me, reaching out to stroke my face with her frosty hands. I wanted to look away from her deceptively beautiful face, to recoil from her touch, but I was held firm in her thrall. She gazed into my eyes, pleasure filling her own at the agony she saw there. “I could have gone straight for your lover…but I will leave him for last. I want the tainted hybrid next. The beautiful one with silver eyes.”

  Panic like I had never known rippled through me, replacing my despair. I had to stop her. I couldn’t bear to watch Gabriel die. While she was looking at me, I had to seize upon an opportunity I didn’t have before. I needed to get inside her mind.

  I held her gaze, forcing myself to a place of calm as I searched her soulless black eyes. Every monster has a weakness. Every—

  The room faded away before I could finish the thought.

  I was a young girl, standing in the dungeon of a castle. My mother stood at my side, my hand in hers. My father stood across the room, in front of a servant girl chained to the wall. The servant girl w
as nude and sobbing, begging for mercy.

  My father turned towards me, his fangs stained with her blood. He approached, kneeling down in front of me.

  “You must learn, my Elizabeth,” he said. “Humans are not like us. We are above them. They are prey, we the hunter.”

  He stood and moved back over to the servant. She screamed as he yanked her head back by her hair, revealing her throat. He smiled, gesturing me to come forward. I looked up at my mother, who gave me an encouraging smile.

  “Listen to your father, child.”

  Trembling, I obeyed them, approaching my father and the servant girl.

  “No, little Elizabeth,” the servant girl pleaded. “Please!”

  I shut my eyes to block out her terrified face. My father reached out to grip my arm and shook me. I opened my eyes.

  “You must always look,” he ordered. “Their fear is the best part of killing. Now drink.”

  I forced myself to look into her pleading eyes. I moved forward, and sunk my fangs into her neck.

  It was years later; I entered the same dungeon. I was a young woman now, approaching a man my age, who was chained to the wall, begging for his life. I halted, a stirring of hesitation filling my gut. I had not felt such hesitation in years. I moved forward and found myself unlocking his chains.

  “I knew you were not a monster,” he said, when I freed him. “You have a heart, Elizabeth.”

  The young man and I were fervently kissing in a forest clearing. He pulled back, resting his forehead against mine.

  “Come away with me,” he whispered. “We can go anywhere.”

  “They are my family. I cannot abandon them.”

  “They are monsters. You are not one of them. Come with me, my love. Please.”

  I was suddenly back in the room with Bathory. I had been released from the thrall.

  Bathory now stood, her hands on her head, looking down at me in shock and disbelief.

  “How—how did you —“

  My friends had been released from the thrall as well; Anara immediately lunged at Bathory with a snarl. But Bathory whirled towards her, and Anara was slammed back against the wall, along with Abe, Emma, and Gabriel. She turned and advanced towards me, lifting me up by my throat. I sputtered and gasped, fighting to breathe.