Karen Essex

by Karen Essex

  “Too much could poison you. We must be careful.”

  “I have been careful all my life,” I said, hearing a new strength in my voice. His blood was animating my body, heating me up from the inside and infusing me with an unfamiliar vigor.

  At those times, he held me close, not to demonstrate his love but to contain me. “We must proceed slowly, Mina. Let us see how your body responds.”

  “How is it supposed to respond?” I asked.

  “Responses vary. Some humans become very ill; some die. You were born with the Gift, so we know that you will survive, though you may experience some very unpleasant symptoms. On the other hand, you may not. We will observe you to gauge whether your powers are intensifying. If you take sick, then it means that we have moved too quickly.”

  “How long before I become immortal?” I asked.

  “You are getting ahead of yourself. It will take a long time to tell whether or not you are aging. You must be patient.”

  “I do not want to be patient. Now that we are together, I want to gobble up life with you. I want to go everywhere and experience everything, all that life holds for us.”

  He laughed at my enthusiasm. “My love, I am confident that we will have forever. Believe me, there is no rush anymore. One needn’t ‘gobble’ life if one has an eternity to explore its mysteries and to experience its pleasures.”

  We set sail for Southampton on a glum Saturday afternoon, standing in the steamer’s glass promenade silently bidding good-bye to the land where we had first met. Black smoke sat like a wide-brimmed hat atop the great mountain that presided over the green-blanketed county. We glided out of the harbor and into the sea, where from our vantage point, barren stone slabs stood like sentinels guarding the coastline from the wind-whipped breakers. As the Irish coast receded, we looked ahead to the silver-gray ocean that had begun to shimmer with rain.

  We intended to close the mansion in London and travel the world. The Count wanted to show me the lands where we had spent lifetimes together. He said that we had lived and loved in many countries—England, Ireland, Italy, France, but he would only tantalize me with snippets of information. “You said that the past was dead to you and that you only cared for the present and the future,” he reminded me.

  “But now I want to remember,” I had replied. “I want to recapture the time we have lost.”

  “There is no such thing as recapturing lost time. But much of it will come back to you when we return to these places, as you saw happen in Ireland. I hope that it will be a joyous discovery for you, Mina.” He added with a rueful smile, “I will try to avoid the locations of our past discontent.”

  “At some point, I will remember all of it,” I said. “But past hardships are inconsequential now that we are together again.”

  As Ireland receded into the mist, the rain, and the waves, he wrapped me in a blanket, and we lay on lounge chairs inside the promenade. “I have been thinking, Mina. There is so much of the world that I want to show you, so many places that I traveled in the years that I was alone—India, China, Arabia, Egypt, Russia. It would take lifetimes for me to tell you about my adventures. Let us go there, and let it all unfold before you. Only then will you truly know me as I am today.”

  “I want to know everything,” I said. “Though now that I have you inside me, I feel that I know you like I know myself.”

  “I have been a merchant, a soldier, a diplomat, a physician, a scholar, and many other things. I have served princes, kings, warlords, and usurpers; and I have also, at times, served no one but myself,” he said. “I have known thousands of people, and have had numerous alliances and intimacies, but my heart was a place of desolation until now.”

  “But we have been together before,” I said. “We have spent decades together.”

  “Yes, but it was never for forever, and I was always painfully aware of that fact. I always knew that sooner or later, I would lose you to one of the causes of mortal extinction. At least now, you have made the choice to try to be with me forever.”

  “You will never have to be alone again, my love,” I said, wondering what would have made me choose life without him. But we had agreed not to discuss it, at least not yet. “I am strong and determined. We must never be apart again.”

  In the first few days of the voyage, I noticed that my senses were gradually heightening. My night vision became sharper and my hearing more acute. The sensation was strange and not always pleasant. The pots and utensils used by the kitchen staff clanged loudly in my ears even when I was on the other side of the vessel. One of the servants stirred sugar into a cup of tea, and the sound of the spoon against the fine bone china irritated me and gave me a headache.

  My olfactory sense too was dramatically affected. The smells of the ship were often intolerable to me. From the timber scent of the hull’s planks, to the polish on the finely wrought woodwork in the interior, to the ropes on deck and the oil used to maintain the machinery—scents I had once found fresh and exotic—were now abhorrent to me. Even the musky sweet tar that filled the plank’s seams was sickening to me. The cozy parlor and library now carried a fusty air, and I smelled evidence of mold everywhere, which turned my stomach.

  By the third day at sea, I began to turn my face away from the look and the aroma of food. Though the table was set three times daily with many varieties of dishes, I had lost my appetite and only wanted tea and toast. The Count did not say that he was worried, but reading his thoughts, I learned that I should not be losing my taste for food, at least not yet. In the evenings, my senses calmed and my nausea subsided, and I lay on the big bed in his cabin, listening as he regaled me with stories of his life. Though he fascinated me more than ever, and I could no longer imagine life without him, the passion I had for him, the physical craving for his touch, was nowhere present. While he did not sleep at all, I often dozed off in the middle of a story, and he would carry me to my own bed, where I slept long hours.

  After days of this, I awoke to fierce nausea. I rushed to the basin to vomit, but it did not calm my stomach. I had not been seasick on the last trip, though the waters on the return trip were rougher. But today the weather was clear and the sea rocked us gently. I sat on the bed, wondering if I did not have this ability to assimilate his blood after all and if I was being poisoned by it, just as the blood of their donors had poisoned Lucy and Vivienne. I was pondering the irony of this when the Count, hearing my thoughts, came to my quarters to allay my fears.

  “It does so happen that some have a toxic reaction to the blood of my kind. I did not anticipate that it would happen to you,” he said.

  It will not be fatal.

  I heard his words in my mind, but they sounded less like a statement and more like a command to the gods, more a wish than a certainty. His uncertainty frightened me. Was I, in fact, going to die?

  He must have felt my moment of terror. “I will not leave you again,” he said. “I wanted to let you sleep uninterrupted, but from now on, I will stay by your side through the nights.”

  I was grateful for this; I was afraid and did not want to be left alone. But I also wondered if he would always be able to read each and every one of my thoughts. Would I never have the privacy of my own mind again?

  This too he heard, and smiled. “As I have previously explained, as you develop your powers, you will be able to shield your thoughts from me,” he said. “After all, it is a woman’s prerogative to dissemble with her lover.”

  “I have nothing to hide from you,” I said. It was true. I had spent my life dissembling before others, hiding my secrets, denying my abilities, and feigning demureness. Why would I hide from the one who had shown me my true nature?

  “Good. Then allow me to examine you thoroughly,” he said. I lay on the bed and he took my pulse, scrutinized my tongue, felt me for fever, and listened to my heartbeat. He put his hands on my diaphragm and asked me to breathe deeply and to exhale. Then he lowered his hands, cupped my pelvis, and closed his eyes. I watched his face
as he concentrated. I imagined that he had been a superb physician and I wanted to know more about the time he spent studying and practicing the medical arts. I was about to ask him to tell me about those days when I saw his face begin to change. The serene and objective air of the physician gave way to a shadowy expression. His hands began to quake beyond the normal hum and vibration, and he pressed me harder. A strained look came over his face as if he had to work to control himself. I felt the atmosphere in the room change. The little path of light streaming in from the porthole dimmed, and I could no longer see the details in his face but felt a roar building inside him.

  “Damn the gods,” he said, hissing the words.

  “What is it?” My voice sounded timid and weak. Had he detected a violent illness inside me? He did not answer me but kept his hands firmly on my body. Dark thoughts skirmished in my mind, making it impossible for me to have any clarity about what he was thinking or seeing. Perhaps the fluid that ran through his veins was slowly poisoning me. No matter that in other lifetimes, the blood of the immortals had coursed though my body; in this life, I was a mere mortal, and I could die from the exposure. And by his quivering hands and the palpable ire rising up in him, I knew that he felt responsible.

  How could it be that after the wild invigoration I had felt upon taking his blood that I was now weakening so rapidly? I had once wondered if the Count was my savior or my destroyer. Now I feared that I had the answer.

  He opened his eyes and looked at me, but instead of sadness or self-recrimination, his expression was full of scorn. “Damn the gods and damn you,” he said. He stood over me for a brief moment, looking as if he had to restrain himself from committing violence, and then he walked briskly out the door.

  I rolled myself off the bed and stood up. Though I was dizzy, I waited until it passed, and I slipped into a dress and shoes, and left the cabin to look for him. Was he angry with me or with himself? I had taken his blood of my own volition, even after he exposed the truth of having killed my father to protect me. I was his willing accomplice every step of the way. I was responsible for my own fate, and I wanted to assure him that I was aware of it.

  The unpredictable weather at sea had shifted and the water had become turbulent again, throwing me from one side to the other of the hall as I searched for him. I grabbed onto a rail, remembering that I did not have to look with my eyes so much as with my mind. I closed my eyes and brought his face into my mind’s eye to locate him. At once, I felt commotion and turmoil more vivid than the sea’s turbulence, and I knew that it was emanating from him. Slowly, I let the feeling direct my footsteps, guiding me toward him, bracing myself along the hallway as I walked. I went up the stairs to the glass promenade, where I saw him through the window, standing on the deck in the rain and looking out to sea. The steamer rolled in the violent green waves, but he stood as still as stone.

  With no care for my condition or for the pouring rain, I ran outside onto the deck. He sensed me coming and turned to look at me. Anguish and ferocity glared from his rain-streaked face. The vessel’s bow plunged deep into a wave, throwing me into his arms. I wrapped myself around him, desperate at the thought of losing his love. I yelled over the roar of the sea and the pounding of the rain. “We knew that there were no guarantees, my love. I do not care if I die tonight. This short time with you is worth my life and more.”

  He grabbed my arms and held me away from him. Even though the boat rocked madly, his grip was steady. He looked so angry that I thought he would throw me overboard and be done with me. How had I disappointed him so with something that was out of my control?

  “Get inside before you hurt yourself,” he said. He was so full of rage that I could feel it in every cell of my body.

  “Not without you,” I said. “Never again will I be without you.”

  “Mina, don’t play the fool. You are not being poisoned and you are not going to die. You are pregnant.”

  The words came from his lips with such force and precision that though I was shocked to hear them, there was no mistaking what he had said. Before I could respond, he said, “It’s a boy. A very human boy. It is strong and healthy, and it is Jonathan Harker’s son.”

  The rain beat down on our faces, and the sea tossed the vessel about at its will, but the Count’s stance was firm, and he held my arms so tightly that we did not sway with the ship. I had no words to speak so I just stood there in his grip, letting the rain pound the words into my head. An enormous wave splashed over the deck, spraying spume over us. For one brief instant, I caught a look on his face that made me wonder if he was going to let it wash the two of us overboard and into the sea, where life would have ended for me and the child. Instead, with his preternatural speed, he moved us in a split second back inside the promenade.

  “Why did you not just let the sea take us?” I asked, trembling in his arms.

  “I considered it.” He let go of me and stepped back. “I will leave you now. The staff is at your service.”

  “Please do not leave me like this,” I said. “I do not think I can live without you.”

  “Damn you, Mina. Damn you and damn your womb.” He said this with a frostiness that chilled my already shivering body. I felt him put a shield around himself, cutting me off from his thoughts and his feelings. And then he literally disappeared from my sight, and I was overtaken with a profound loneliness.

  I ran to my quarters, throwing the wet clothes off me as quickly as I could. Even with the shocking news and the Count’s bitter response, I was frantic to get warm so that no harm came to my baby. I got into the bed under two blankets and wrapped my arms around my abdomen to protect the small, vulnerable thing growing inside me, and trying to absorb the new development and its ramifications. Though he was angry, I knew that the Count would not harm either the baby or me. Perhaps after he pondered the matter, he would want to resume our love affair. That was all that I wanted, but on the other hand, even if he wanted me to stay with him, would it be morally right—or lawful, for that matter—to deprive Jonathan of his child? I belonged to my lover, body and soul. Surely it was our destiny to remain together forever. But could I reconcile that destiny with the condition of being pregnant with another man’s baby?

  Fear gripped me and sadness weighed on my heart. Some part of me wanted to rejoice at the miraculous gift of being pregnant, yet this miracle was rapidly reshaping my world in ways that I could not control. Questions rose up to confront me, and I could answer none of them. What if I had harmed the child by taking my lover’s blood so early in my pregnancy? The Count had said that the baby was human, but did that mean that the child would be mortal? The fetus had had exposure to the Count; was it the breed of mortal who could survive the intensity?

  What if Jonathan found out about the child and tried to take him away from me? With the cooperation of the doctors, he could easily portray me to the authorities as an escapee from an asylum for the insane, unfit for the duties of motherhood. But with the Count’s protection—if I still had that—and my newfound powers—if they were indeed intensifying—was I above all that?

  I had no answers. The new life I thought I had forged was shattering into tiny crystal shards and disappearing into the atmosphere. Thoughts of my son’s welfare quickly subsumed yesterday’s fantasies of endless travel and adventure and eternal love. I did not know if the Count would leave me, and I was completely unprepared to be left on my own with a child. What would I do? Kate thought that I had the potential to work as a journalist, but no newspaper—no employer, for that matter—would hire a pregnant woman. Perhaps I could see Headmistress about returning to my teaching position. But how would I explain being an abandoned expectant mother? As much as I had been Headmistress’s pet, realistically, she would not consider a pregnant woman in need of work to be a suitable example to her students, whose parents were paying to train their daughters to attract financially advantageous marriage partners. As far as I could see, I was soon to be alone and penniless. My only source of income was t
he stipend that I had been receiving since the age of seven. And why would the Count continue that? None of the skills I had so scrupulously absorbed in Miss Hadley’s School for Young Ladies of Accomplishment was going to help me now.

  I let the day and evening pass, fitfully ruminating on these irreconcilable thoughts. After a night of little sleep, I decided to try to talk to the Count. He had completely shut me out of his consciousness so that I could not read his thoughts or emotions, or feel him anywhere around me. Though I had no idea what to expect from him, I sent him a note by the steward, explaining that I wanted to seek his advice. I thought this was the best approach. No matter how much wisdom and supernatural ability he had acquired over the centuries, he was still a man and susceptible to a woman’s helplessness.

  In the same precise script that I recognized from the note he had written to me in Whitby, he sent a reply for me to meet him in the library. Though I felt dreadful, I dressed with care. My hands shook as I rolled my stockings up my legs. My skin was cold and clammy, yet perspiration covered my armpits and burst out on my temples. I did not want to let him see me feeling or looking so pathetic, even though he had access to my thoughts and undoubtedly knew the state I was in.

  I sat in a chair to compose myself and to remind myself that no matter what my circumstances, I was not powerless. Months ago, before he had announced himself to me, the Count had asked me to remember who I was, and he had been successful in helping me to do that. Somewhere in my essential being, I was still the woman who had given him the gift of immortality, the mystical priestess who had enchanted him and for whom he had waited long centuries. I closed my eyes, and in my mind’s eye, I wrapped myself in a celestial cloak of gold, letting it tingle as it caressed the length of my body, calming me and constructing a shield of protection around me and my unborn child. I could not recall where I had first learned to do this, but I knew that I had done it many times in the past to shroud my intentions, to arm myself with additional power, and to guard myself from harmful things. As the shimmering light surrounded me, I remembered a truism that I had always known: no woman need let a man know the contents of her mind. I certainly learned that from Headmistress, but I was positive that I had also known it from somewhere deep in my past. Our mystery was our power. It was an elemental certainty unchanged through the ages. Though my stomach was still slightly unsettled, I felt alive and rejuvenated. I checked my appearance in the mirror, threw a paisley shawl with incarnadine silk lining around my shoulders, and went to face him.