The Beast of London: Book 1 of the Mina Murray series

by Goffigan, L. D.

  Abe had informed me that we were going to the home of Arthur Holmwood, the friend who summoned him to London. Inspector Seward was already there. We had not spoken as the cab rattled through the streets, and that was when the long-buried memory of Father’s death sprang to life.

  I looked past Abe out the window. The cab had arrived at a large Mayfair town home. I gave Abe a brief nod to indicate that I was all right, and we stepped out. Abe didn’t inquire about my thoughts as we approached the front door of Arthur’s home, though I could feel his fretful scrutiny of my expression.

  Moments later, I stood in Arthur’s spacious drawing room, opposite Inspector Jack Seward. Seward had hair the color of burnished copper and brown eyes that were shadowed with fatigue. Even though he wore no uniform, he had the look of a policeman—an inherent inquisitiveness paired with wary suspicion seemed to be his default expression. His hair was haphazardly spiked, as if he had repeatedly raked his hand through it, and he was pacing the room when we entered. He looked startled to see me, taking in my ball gown, and gave me a nod when Abe introduced us.

  “Miss Murray,” he said politely, before his questioning gaze slid to Abe. “You convinced her?”

  Abe quickly filled him in on the events of the evening. When he was finished, Seward sank down into an armchair, burying his face in his hands. When he finally looked up, his face was ashen.

  “Bloody hell,” he whispered. He flushed, looking at me and muttering a hasty apology before returning his attention to Abe. “On the night that I’m not on duty. How many were taken?”

  “It is my hope that you can find that out from your colleagues. If we know exactly who else besides Jonathan was taken, then we could perhaps deduce why they were taken—process of elimination, anything they had in common—perhaps even some sort of connection. But for the present, I am going to speak with Lucy.”

  “Lucy?” Seward breathed. “She can’t—”

  “Mina, please follow me,” Abe interrupted, ignoring Seward.

  Seward’s mouth tightened, but he fell silent. Abe left the drawing room, gesturing for me to follow.

  He led me and an uncertain Seward down the long hallway outside the drawing room to a door, which I assumed led to the cellar. Abe swung open the door, reaching for a lantern that rested by the entrance before descending down the stairs. The lantern only provided slight illumination for the pitch-black cellar, and a shiver of unease went through me as we entered. As my eyes struggled to adjust to the dark, I heard a soft voice.

  “Abraham?”

  A man stepped out from the shadows, holding up a lantern of his own. He had blonde hair and pale blue eyes that blinked at Abe from behind a pair of spectacles. He barely seemed to notice mine and Seward’s presence, his attention focused entirely on Abe.

  “Has there been any change, Arthur?” Abe queried, stepping forward.

  “It has gotten worse, if possible,” Arthur replied, his voice quavering. Abe stepped forward to rest his hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

  “I am sorry, you know I am. But something has happened at the Langham. The creatures that did this to her have abducted several people, including my friend’s fiancé,” he said, gesturing to me. Arthur’s eyes found mine in the soft light of the lantern, and I saw a faint glimmer of sympathy in his eyes. “I need to speak to Lucy—to try to communicate with the one who did this to her.”

  I looked back and forth between them, my confusion growing. Abe wanted to communicate through Lucy?

  Arthur gave his consent with a mere jerk of his head. Abe turned to me, as if sensing my unasked question, and gestured for me to follow him further into the cellar. Arthur hung behind as Seward and I continued forward, trailing Abe towards a human-sized cage in the far rear of the cellar.

  I halted at the sight of it, panic skittering through me as inhuman growls erupted from the cage. Abe lifted his lantern, illuminating what was inside, and my heart nearly stopped at the sight.

  An eerily pale woman was crouched inside, her talon-like fingers wrapped around the cage bars. Her thin, papery skin was pulled taut over her bones, and the eyes that peered at us beneath a curtain of long stringy brown hair seemed to shift from a deep brown to an unnatural black. She emitted another growl, and I saw that her two front incisors were elongated into . . . fangs.

  My hand flew to my mouth to stifle a cry.

  “She is still human, but in the midst of a transformative process. A fortnight ago, she and Arthur got into a terrible row. She left and went missing for two days. Arthur searched for her to no avail. When she returned home, she was different.”

  “Different how?” I whispered.

  “At first . . . she did not speak,” Arthur’s strained voice replied, from behind me. I turned to face him as he approached. His eyes were haunted, trained on Lucy as he spoke.

  “She was dangerously pale. Her eyes were no longer her own. They would shift in color from brown to black. She did not speak for hours, and when she did, it was in growls. She did not remember where she had been, or what had happened to her. She would only speak to tell me how thirsty she was. I took her to the doctor, but she . . . she attacked him. She almost gauged out his throat. I had to beg the doctor to keep his silence. I knew the police would take her to an institution if he reported her. I brought her back home and hid her away. I did not know what was happening to her—only that it was unnatural.”

  A chill swept over me as Arthur spoke, and I briefly met Abe’s eyes. We had heard similar stories in the Transylvanian countryside.

  “It is my belief that a vampire did this to her,” Abe said, turning to face me. “I am still uncertain as to how the transformation process works. From lore it begins with a bite, and Lucy has two puncture wounds on the side of her neck—similar to wounds on the bodies drained of blood that Jack has found during his murder investigations. I do not know how many vampires are in London, but something tells me that they are working together—I will explain why later. If that is so, the vampire who bit Lucy may have some connection to the abductions at the Langham. I want to attempt to communicate with it.”

  Now I understood Seward’s incredulity. I stared at him with disbelief of my own.

  “How?” I breathed.

  “Just keep your eyes on me. I need everyone to stay back.”

  After a moment of hesitation, I took a step back, along with Seward. Arthur remained where he was, his sad eyes trained on the creature that had been his wife. Abe gave him a long look, and Arthur responded with a nod.

  Abe stepped towards the cage, kneeling down opposite her. I felt a strong urgency to warn him as her black eyes settled on him. Abe took out a silver locket from his pocket; it glinted in the dimness of the cellar as he held it up before her. Her gaze slid from his face to the locket, suddenly transfixed. She went very still, her ragged breathing slowing to a calm and steady rhythm. He was hypnotizing her.

  “Who are you?” Abe asked her, his voice very gentle now, as if he were speaking to a small child.

  “No one,” Lucy replied, her voice throatily seductive for such a frail and wild looking woman, her eyes still trained on the locket. “Every one.”

  “Your kind came to the ballroom at the Langham Hotel tonight,” Abe continued, undeterred by her cryptic response. “There were four of you. You took people, including a man named Jonathan Harker. Why? Where are you taking him?”

  I stiffened, a sliver of hope emerging from beneath my shock. Could it be possible? Could he somehow communicate with the vampire who took Jonathan . . . through Lucy?

  Lucy expelled a long sigh, her eyes distant as she continued to focus on the locket. She didn’t respond, and Abe spoke again, his tone sharper this time.

  “Where are you taking him?”

  Lucy’s eyes left the locket, rising to meet his, and I let out a soft gasp as the whites of her eyes went completely black. But Abe did not flinch.

  “We need them,” she said softly in reply.

  I pressed my hands to my mouth to pr
event myself from crying out. I wanted to lurch forward and shake her, to get more answers, but I forced myself to remain still.

  “Why?” Abe demanded. “Where are you taking them?”

  “One of the old safe places,” she murmured, and a fond smile touched her lips. “Our old home in the Carpathians. A fortress impossible to enter.”

  “The Carpathians?” Abe echoed. “Transylvania? Is that where you are taking him? Why him?”

  But Lucy fell silent once more, her eyes glazing over as she stared past Abe’s shoulder at nothing.

  I was no longer able to hold myself back. If she somehow knew where Jonathan was, I had to find out. I stumbled forward, kneeling down in front of the cage so that I was at her level, wrapping my hands around the bars. I could feel Abe go rigid at my side, but I no longer felt fear as she turned her focus towards me—only desperation.

  “Where is Jonathan?” I demanded, desperate. “Tell me where—”

  With a ferocious hiss, Lucy lunged at the bars, her fangs bared. Abe yanked me back just as the tips of her fangs pierced the delicate skin of my left forefinger. I stumbled back, clutching my bleeding finger, watching in disgust as she eagerly licked up the remnants of my blood from her lips.

  As her black eyes met mine, I saw a brief flicker of recognition, similar to the one I had seen from the male vampire at the ball. But her eyes suddenly went hazy and unfocused. She curled up on the floor of the cage, wrapping her arms around herself, trembling violently, as if she were having a seizure.

  Arthur, who had completely frozen during her outburst, came to life and raced towards the cage. He kneeled down, looking both panicked and hopeful.

  “Lucy!” he shouted. “Lucy, my angel, are you back? Is that you?”

  She slowly looked up, her eyes wide and frightened, their color now a natural brown. She looked scared, vulnerable, and . . . human.

  “Arthur?” she whispered.

  8

  Transylvania

  “How did you do that?” I asked Abe, thoroughly shaken.

  We were now gathered in Arthur’s large but cramped study. Abe had administered the confused and increasingly frantic Lucy a sedative, while Arthur wrapped her in blankets before reluctantly locking the cage door and leading us out of the cellar.

  I stood opposite Abe, rattled by what I had seen him do. Arthur had just left the room to bring us tea, while Seward quietly stood in front of the fireplace, his eyes troubled as he gazed into its leaping flames.

  “After your father’s death, I started researching vampires when I returned to Amsterdam—as mad as it seemed—but I could not forget what we had seen. I needed to make sense of it. I began to analyze all of the notes we had taken from our travels in the region, including Robert’s. It was his theory that if vampires did indeed exist, they exhibited traits that were similar to wolves. As Darwin theorized that man is related to ape, Robert theorized that vampires may be related to wolves. I certainly could not experiment on an actual vampire, so I experimented on their potential relatives—wolves. In my experiments, I observed that silver has a calming effect on wolves, and it has a medicinal effect on humans. For vampires, I deduced that it would have a combined effect and potentially work as a hypnotic. When Arthur first had me examine Lucy, my silver locket instantly calmed her, and I was able to put her under hypnosis.”

  I studied him, guilt battling with my awe at his experimentation. I had always admired Abe’s quiet brilliance, his ability to think in ways that most people did not.

  But my guilt outweighed my awe. While Abe had spent the past three years trying to reconcile what we had seen in Transylvania, I had been in abject denial; trying to push it all away as if it had never happened.

  “You were able to speak with one of those bloody vamp . . . those things through Lucy,” Seward said, aghast, as he turned to face Abe. “How’s that possible?“

  “Wolves are pack animals. Pack animals have sophisticated methods of non-verbal communication—I just took it further. As vampires are outside of nature, I theorized that they must also have preternatural ways of communication, and the conclusion that I came to—”

  “Telepathic communication,” I whispered, as I recalled the voice that seemed to wrap around me on Westminster Bridge.

  “Yes,” Abe said, looking surprised at my completion of his thought. “It explains how they are able to coordinate such quick and strategic attacks, often in groups, like we just saw in the Langham—and as witnesses described in Transylvania. I did not know if communication through hypnosis would work on Lucy, until I tried it just now.”

  Abe’s face was mildly unsettled as he took a seat in one of the chairs; his calm during his interaction with Lucy had been a facade. He was just as astonished as we were that he could communicate through her.

  Arthur entered with a tray of tea, apologetically explaining that he had dismissed the servants to dissuade gossip when Lucy first began acting strangely. I accepted a cup with a polite nod, deciding that there would be no better time than now to tell them what had happened on Westminster Bridge.

  “When I was chasing after the carriage on Westminster Bridge, I heard a voice. I believe it was the voice of the vampire who took Jonathan,” I said, after a brief moment of hesitation. “At first I thought I was going mad. But if you’re right, Abe, and they’re able to communicate through telepathy—”

  “What did he say?” Abe interrupted, his voice strained with tension. Seward and Arthur were also regarding me with anxious eyes.

  I took a breath before repeating the chilling words that were now burned into my memory.

  “Ghyslaine . . . what you have tried to destroy will be made whole once more.”

  Stunned silence met my words. Arthur and Seward exchanged baffled looks, while Abe’s brow furrowed with worry.

  “Ghyslaine. What’s that?” Seward finally asked.

  “I don’t know, but right before he took Jonathan, he looked at me with . . . recognition. As if he knew who I was. I don’t know how that’s possible.”

  Abe rubbed at his temples, a gesture I recognized. He did this whenever he was deep in thought, attempting to come up with a solution to a complex problem.

  “If what Lucy told us is correct, we know where they’re taking Jonathan,” I said. I needed to return the focus to Jonathan. “The Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. That is where we must go.”

  “Wait,” Seward protested, turning to Abe. “How do you know you were talking with the same creature who took Jonathan? Or that she was even talking about Transylvania? Aren’t the Carpathians massive? Lucy could’ve just been—”

  “We don’t. But Transylvania is the most likely explanation,” I interrupted, before Abe could respond. “My father was killed in a Transylvanian village not far from the Carpathians, and Transylvania is where we recorded multiple witness accounts of vampires.”

  “You’re suggesting that we just go to some fortress in Transylvania—of which there are many—to face creatures we know nothing about?” Seward demanded in disbelief.

  While Seward was right to be hesitant and cautious, I knew we had no choice. I was determined to rescue Jonathan regardless of the danger and the odds against us, and I felt an unnerving certainty that if I didn’t go after him he would be lost forever.

  “We can gather reinforcements,” I said desperately, thinking aloud. “When we last traveled through the region, we came across villagers who lost many of their own to vampire attacks. At the time, we thought they were just being superstitious, and the deaths were caused by illness or some other rational cause. But now we know better. Surely they’ll be willing to help us.”

  “You still don’t know what we’re up against. An army of angry villagers against those things is not—” Seward began, frustrated. He turned to Abe, as if appealing to him for reason. “Abe, I know I’ve been hesitant in involving my colleagues at Scotland Yard, but maybe now we should—”

  “You know better than anyone that we can’t go to the poli
ce,” I protested, my desperation rising. “The inspector I spoke to tonight thought I was mad—and I didn’t even tell him what I actually saw! How do you think your colleagues will react when we inform them that mythical creatures abducted my fiancé from the Langham?”

  “Mina is right,” Abe said. “Your memory seems to fail you, Jack. They nearly sacked you when you first broached the possibility of the Ripper not being human—that is why you sent for me.”

  “When I proposed to the doctor that what happened to Lucy is wholly unnatural,” Arthur spoke up, his voice tinged with anger. “He nearly contacted the authorities to report me. I had to assure him my grief made me unable to think rationally.”

  “Then we are in agreement about the authorities,” I said, turning back towards Seward, who still looked uncertain. “Inspector Seward, you are under no obligation to come with us, but I am going to rescue my fiancé and bring him home. Mister Holmwood, do you have maps of the region?”

  “Yes. Please, call me Arthur. I believe that referring to each other by our Christian names is appropriate, given the circumstances,” Arthur replied, brushing past Seward to open one of the cabinets that lined the study. Seward remained rigid, but offered no further protest as Arthur flipped through several rolled up maps before withdrawing one and bringing it to his desk, where he spread it out.

  Abe and I stepped forward to examine it. The map showed Transylvania and the neighboring region of Wallachia to the south.

  “This is from a surveyor friend of mine. He has been to Eastern Europe many times. Do you see there?” he asked, pointing to various triangle shaped marks on the map. “He highlighted old castles and fortresses in the region.” He tapped one particular marked spot located at the base of the Carpathian Mountain range. “This is the only fortress in this region of the mountains. It could very well be the fortress Lucy referred to.”

  Dread mingled with hope as I centered my gaze on the base of the mountains in the northern part of Transylvania. The area was indeed mere kilometers from the village where Father had been killed.