by Syrie James
“Are you saying,” I whispered slowly, “that by drinking Dracula’s blood, I am doomed upon my death to become a vampire?”
“Alas, it is true!” Dr. Van Helsing cried in fury, slamming his fist on a table.
I sank down upon the bed, as a scream issued from the very core of my being. Oh! Horror of horrors! What had I done? What had I done? All that had happened over the past three nights—the passionate embraces Dracula and I had shared, all that I had learned, every good feeling he had inspired it me—it all shattered into a thousand pieces in the face of this horrendous new reality.
I had trusted Dracula. I loved him! But what manner of being was it that I loved? Was he nothing but a murderer and a liar, hiding his true aims behind a handsome face? No; no! I could not believe that. And yet…he had deliberately, knowingly, without my consent, persuaded me to commit an act which would turn me into an Un-Dead being like himself. How could he do such a thing?
Had I been consorting with the Devil?
In a terrible rush, I suddenly understood, for the first time, what Jonathan must have felt back in Exeter when he said, “You cannot know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself!”
Could it be that everything Dracula had said and done since the first day we met was nothing more than a sadistic kind of courtship, with one selfish, foul aim in mind: to bring me under his control and to make me his minion or companion when I died? Was I the prize in a diabolical revenge upon Jonathan because he had tried to kill Dracula and had escaped from his castle? Did Dracula have some other, fiendish reason for choosing me? Or did he truly believe he loved me, and that I would welcome eternal existence at his side? Either way, I saw it now: I had fallen right into his hands. I had been duped! Befouled! Like the mythological Leda, I had allowed Zeus to seduce me as a swan. And I was now damned to Hell for ever more!
“Oh! I am unclean! Unclean!” I cried.
Jonathan took me in his arms, his voice breaking as he said: “Nonsense, Mina. I will not hear such words from you.”
For a while I sobbed against his chest as the other men hovered in sympathy and anguish. When I had regained a measure of control over myself, Dr. Van Helsing knelt beside me and clasped my hand very tenderly. “Madam Mina: have no fear. There is a way that you can escape this terrible fate.”
“What way is that, Professor?” I asked tearfully.
“If that other being who has so fouled your sweet life is true dead first, then you will not become as him.”
“Is that so?” Jonathan asked, with hope in his eyes.
“It is,” Dr. Van Helsing asserted. “And this I vow, Madam Mina: we will slay this foul monster while you still live, and this will set you free.”
Jonathan pressed me to him with a cry of relief.
Good, I thought, as I dried my tears. Let them find and kill Dracula if they can and free me of this terrible curse! Silently, I prayed: Dear God: grant me a second chance. I shall be true to my husband. I shall never stray again.
Dr. Van Helsing went on: “God knows that you have been through enough, Madam Mina, and I do not want you to be further pained; but it is need that we know all. Will you tell us, please, exactly what happened to-night?”
And so I told them.
I dared not reveal what had really happened, of course. No; I could never breathe a word of that! In my rage and horror, I spun a terrible story, painting myself as the most innocent and persecuted of victims, and depicting Count Dracula as the monster they all expected, and which I finally knew him to be.
I described his arrival in my room as it had been on that first night, when he had stepped out of a cloud of mist.
I told them that I had been paralysed with terror; that Dracula had threatened, if I made a sound, to take Jonathan and dash his brains out before my eyes.
I told them that he had sucked my blood and then had spoken to me in an evil tone, deriding the men’s efforts to thwart him and threatening to punish me for aiding them. Then, I claimed, he had forced me to drink his blood or suffocate.
The men listened to my tale in wide-eyed silence and growing anger. By the time I had finished, the first red streaks of dawn had stolen over the eastern sky.
“My God!” I cried, desolate and forlorn. “What have I done to deserve such a fate?” But I knew in my heart exactly what I had done: I had, against any semblance of morality, given myself willingly to the enemy.
“I will wipe this brute from the face of creation and send him straight to Hell!” Jonathan said between clenched teeth.
“To-day, the deed shall be done,” Dr. Van Helsing promised solemnly.
Jonathan embraced me again, and in an anguished voice he said, “Do not despair, my dearest. We must keep on trusting that God will aid us up until the end.”
“What end will that be?” I whispered.
“I do not know. But whatever happens, I am your husband. I am here for you.”
NO ONE RETURNED TO BED. THE MEN AGREED THAT FROM THAT point on, I should be kept in full confidence; that nothing of any sort, no matter how painful, should be kept from me. We gathered in the study, where they explained to me everything that they had discovered in their investigations over the past few days.
“Count Dracula now has three other houses that we know of besides Carfax, in different parts of the city,” Dr. Van Helsing announced, to my surprise. “He purchased these places under assumed names, one of which is ‘the Count de Ville’—a sly wink at the Devil.”
“One house is at Bermondsey, another at Mile End, and one very centrally situated in Piccadilly,” Jonathan continued. “He may have others. We only counted twenty-nine boxes out of the original fifty in the old chapel next door, before we were obliged to leave, because of an infestation of rats. We have evidence that the rest of the boxes were moved to his other lairs.”
“The boxes you found in the chapel next door—were they all filled with earth?” I asked, remembering that Dracula had used many of them to transport his books and other things.
“Every one of them,” Dr. Seward said. “The native soil of Transylvania.”
I knew that to be untrue. Dracula must have filled the empty ones with local dirt to deceive them; but it hardly mattered now. “What do you think he intends to do with these other residences?” I asked.
“They safeguard his life,” Dr. Van Helsing replied. “If one resting-place should be discovered and destroyed, he will always have another.”
“And they give him quick access to victims in every part of London,” Dr. Seward said with a disgusted noise.
“Professor: you said this monster was once Vlad something-or-other, who tortured and murdered people?” Jonathan said.
“Yes.”
“What else do you know about him?” Jonathan asked. “Anything you can tell us might be useful when we confront him.”
“We think his father was Vlad II, who in the early fifteenth century was ruler of Wallachia, an area of the Balkans in present-day Romania, adjacent to Transylvania. His name, Dracula, it come from the Order of the Dragon, a secret fraternal order of knights to which Vlad II belonged. It was founded to defend Christianity against the Ottoman Turks.”
Dr. Van Helsing withdrew an old book from his bag and flipped through it. He showed us a page with a magnificent illustration of an armored knight, whose shield and tabard bore the emblem of a dragon with wings extended, hanging on a cross.
“The word for dragon in Romanian is ‘drac’ and ‘ul’ is the article. Thus Vlad II came to be known as ‘Vlad Dracul,’ or ‘Vlad the dragon.’ Even his coinage bore the dragon symbol. The ending ‘ulea’ means ‘the son of’—and so his sons came to be known as Dracula, or ‘the son of the dragon.’ But ‘Dracul’ also means ‘the Devil’ in Romanian—a double meaning which take on great significance in the eyes of Dracula’s enemies.”
“So this Dracula we now face—he was the son of Vlad II?” Lord Godalming asked.
“It would seem so. He had many names: Vlad III, Vlad Tepe
s, Vlad Dracula, and Vlad the Impaler. When he came to power, he was a cruel and vicious ruler, who for years tortured and murdered tens of thousands of people by the most cruel and inhuman means imaginable. It is said that he died on the battlefield, but we think now he did not. By some means, it seems he find a way to cheat death and became a vampire.”
Mr. Morris whistled and shook his head, an uneasy look on his countenance. “So that’s the Devil we’re up against. I admit, it strikes more than a little fear into my heart.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” said Dr. Van Helsing confidently, “and to-day is ours. Until the sun sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them with Sacred Host—and should we find him sleeping within one of them, we will slay him.”
A brief discussion followed as the group made their plans, deciding which tools and equipment would be needed to open all the heavy wooden boxes and to sterilise them, as well as which weapons were required to slay the vampire. Dr. Van Helsing suggested that they begin their quest with the house closest to hand, and then move on to Piccadilly, where they might be fortunate enough to find records regarding the purchase of other residences.
I sighed, staring out the window. It had begun to rain, and the dismal, grey outpouring which pattered against the eaves and window-panes only served to reinforce my deepening melancholia. I was overwhelmed with guilt regarding my actions over the past few nights. It mortified me to be keeping such a secret; yet at the same time, I was filled with despair; for I had truly thought myself to be in love with an extraordinary man. It was, I told myself, not a dream I had been living but a nightmare. I must put it all behind me and dedicate myself to the task at hand.
“You will have to go without me,” I heard Jonathan saying anxiously. “I want to trap this demon; but I cannot leave Mina. I must stay and protect her.”
“No, Jonathan,” I replied. “You must go. There is strength in numbers. The Count has extraordinary powers, and you will need every hand to defeat him.”
The men agreed. “Besides, if there are legal papers to be found, your expertise may prove invaluable,” said Lord Godalming.
“But can we truly leave her?” Jonathan said, appealing now to Dr. Van Helsing. “Will she be safe?”
“The worst already has happen, my friend,” the professor replied with a frown.
“It is true,” I said. “Things are as bad as they can be. But please: do not worry about me. The important thing is that you find this Devil and finish this thing to-day.”
“Then let us go at once, for we have no time to lose!” Jonathan cried.
“Not so,” said Dr. Van Helsing. “Do you forget? Last night our foe banqueted heavily and will sleep late.”
I paled at this, and the men let out a collective gasp at hearing such a thoughtless remark at my expense. Dr. Van Helsing’s face fell as he became aware of what he had said, and taking my hands in his, he cried: “Oh, dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! That I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so stupid and forgetful. You do not deserve so. You will forget I said it, please?”
“I will,” I answered quietly.
A little silence fell; then the professor pursed his lips and said: “There is one thing more I am concerned about. Madam Mina: have you received any thoughts yet from this creature?”
“Thoughts?” I repeated.
“As I said, by this blood exchange you are, I believe, connected now. He may send thoughts to your mind in an attempt to influence your actions.”
“Oh!” I shivered at this frightening concept. “No; there has been nothing yet.”
“Then I was right,” Dr. Van Helsing replied, nodding. “With the sun’s rays, he loses all his power. You will be safe from him till dark—and we will return by then.”
As they finalised their campaign, I wracked my brain trying to recall anything I had learned which might prove useful in their pursuit; but Dracula had divulged nothing of his own intent to me. The only real secret in my possession was the knowledge that Dracula had a secret, top-floor lair at Carfax, full of books and art supplies; but there had been no earth-box there. I could, in any case, think of no way to suggest the fact without incriminating myself—and I was loath to do that.
Dr. Van Helsing insisted that we all required nourishment if we were to perform at our best. Breakfast was an awkward affair. We tried to be cheerful and encouraging to each other, but it felt false and strange. When it was over, Dr. Van Helsing stood up and said:
“Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?” The men assured him that they were.
The professor then turned to me and said, “Madam Mina, you are quite safe here until the sunset. I have myself prepared your chamber by the placing of protective things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself.” From an envelope, he removed a small wafer. “On your forehead, I touch this piece of sacred wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and—”
As the holy wafer touched my forehead, I felt a searing pain, as if my flesh had been burned by a piece of red-hot metal. I screamed in agony. The professor dropped the Host and recoiled in shock. The men froze, with horrified looks on their faces. As the scorching pain continued, I reached up and touched the spot, where I felt a welt rising beneath my fingertips.
“God help me!” I cried, sinking to my knees on the floor, and pulling my hair over my face to shroud it.
“This is truly the work of the Devil,” Dr. Van Helsing whispered in horror.
Had I needed further proof that I had aligned myself with Satan, this surely confirmed it. “Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh,” I cried, sobbing. “Must I bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day?”
Jonathan threw himself down beside me in an agony of helpless grief. For a few sorrowful minutes, we held each other, while our friends turned away to hide their own silent tears. At length, Dr. Van Helsing said gravely:
“Dear Madam Mina, so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Let us pray that we can raise that veil of sorrow from your head to-day.” There was hope and comfort in his words. We all stood and joined hands, praying for help and guidance, as we swore allegiance to each other.
Soon after, we gathered in the foyer, where the men brought their bags of tools and equipment as they prepared to leave. Without, the grey heavens continued their deluge, pelting the landscape with a driving downpour against a backdrop of lightning and thunder.
“Do you think the Count called up this storm to try to thwart us?” Dr. Seward asked anxiously, as he stared outside.
“He have not the power to control the weather by day,” Dr. Van Helsing replied. “Only in darkness can he thus torment us.”
“A little rain is not going to stand in our way,” Jonathan insisted, kissing me good-bye at the door. “We shall prevail.” At the sight of my angry red scar, he quickly averted his eyes.
“Be careful, will you?” I said.
He assured me that he would. Then the men all opened their umbrellas and hastened out into the elements. I returned to my bedroom, where I paced anxiously for some time, continually glancing out the window for their return. Each sonorous boom of thunder made me jump in alarm, as if a portent of impending doom.
When nearly an hour had passed without a sign of them, I began to grow worried. Perhaps I should have told them about the secret room upstairs, I thought—no matter how sorely it tarnished my image and reputation! What if Dracula was hiding there? What if he had made his way down to the chapel and attacked them? For all I knew, all five men could be lying dead at that very moment!
At last, from my window, I
glimpsed a parade of five black umbrellas crossing the lawn below. I breathed a sigh of relief. One umbrella tipped back, and from beneath it, Jonathan waved to me, signalling with a nod that their work next door had been successfully accomplished. I waved in reply, watching the five departing forms as they turned down the byroad and disappeared from view, on their way to the village to catch a train into town.
THAT IS WHEN THE MESSAGES BEGAN.
MINA! DRACULA’S VOICE INTONED WITHIN MY MIND. I MUST SEE YOU.
The voice so startled me that I leapt to my feet. Dr. Van Helsing had said with certainty that the vampire was powerless to contact me during the day. How wrong he was!
Van Helsing is wrong about many things.
Oh! The fiend was reading my thoughts! Go away, you monster! I thought with all my might. Leave me alone. I never want to see you again.
You must hear me. You must let me explain.
No! I am through with your excuses and explanations! You are the Devil incarnate! Be gone! Be gone!
I am no Devil. I love you.
You cannot love me! You never did! You are a murderer and a liar! I hate you! I hate you!
His entreaties continued. I tried to render them unintelligible by frantically reciting a poem aloud. Then I began to sing. Still, his thoughts continued hammering away like a great, ceaseless noise inside my brain.
Unable to bear it any longer, I raced out of the room and down the stairs. Throwing open the front door to a blast of cold, wet air, I darted hatless out of the house into the pouring rain. I dashed down the drive and the densely tree-lined lane, mindless of the freezing elements which drenched me, or the mud which clung to my shoes and splattered against my skirts. My only thought was to put as much distance as possible between myself and Carfax, as if it might somehow stop the endless verbal barrage which threatened my very sanity.