By the time the train had stopped, Mina and I had spoken for several hours, neither of us able to sleep. I felt weary as I took my bags and stepped off into the cool air. The train station was little more than a booth and a platform, and Van Helsing spoke with the man in the booth for several minutes before coming back and informing us that the van would be there shortly.
As we waited, he pulled me aside.
“There will be two vans, Jack. I must go with Mina alone in one of them. I need you to convince Jonathan to allow this.”
“Why do you have to do that?”
“I have to watch her and I need to do it objectively. If I must … do something, to prevent her from harming anyone, Jonathan would stop me.”
“I can’t let you hurt her, Professor.”
“Not hurt, stop. I could bind her but her husband would never allow it. You must do this for me, Jack.”
I looked back to Mina and Jonathan taking a stroll around the platform. “If you promise you won’t hurt her.”
“I promise.”
The vans came quickly. Van Helsing haggled over the price and I realized he spoke fluent Romanian. We finally agreed on the terms and loaded up the vans.
“Jonathan,” I said as we loaded the bags, “I would like us to travel together and have Mina go with Dr. Van Helsing.”
“Why?”
“I think he’d like to examine her behavior undisturbed by our presence.” He looked to her and then Van Helsing. “Jonathan, she’s ill. That man might be the only one that can help her.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
The vans were from the 80s and rumbled to life and began trudging down the road. Eventually, we turned off the main road onto a dirt path and began heading for the nearest mountain range.
The Carpathians are some of the most beautiful and treacherous mountains I’ve ever seen. Surrounded by forests and rivers, the rocks range from dark gray to black. No sign of civilization was around anywhere that I could see, and a light rain began to fall as we neared the mountains.
I looked back to the van behind us. Mina sat in the passenger seat and Van Helsing behind her. I noticed Jonathan looking too.
The path up the mountains was so narrow I thought we could fly off the edge at any moment. It seemed the driver didn’t even notice and had his foot down on the accelerator the entire time. We zipped around one corner so quickly I got a glimpse of the valley floor a couple hundred feet below, and at the rusted remains of a few cars that hadn’t made the turn in the bottom. I looked back and Arthur and Quincy were sound asleep.
Cut out of the mountain like a cavern was a small motel. Motel isn’t the right word; more like a medieval tavern. We stopped in front of it.
Van Helsing walked to our van. “We’re staying here tonight. A storm will be here soon and the drivers won’t be willing to go much farther.”
October 6
Last night was one of the oddest experiences of my life.
When we got into the tavern, we saw two people sitting at the tables, drinking. A clerk sat behind a counter and barely looked up when he saw us. Van Helsing spoke to them and arranged our rooms. Nothing sounded more appealing to me than just going upstairs and sleeping for twelve hours, but my stomach was growling from not having eaten since breakfast.
“Go and wash up and I’ll have a meal prepared,” Van Helsing said.
We did as he asked. My room was shared with Quincy and Arthur and consisted of two queen-sized beds. Quincy easily outweighed both Arthur and I by at least fifty pounds and so it was decided he would have his own bed.
There was no sink in the room. Instead, it had a washbasin and a pitcher. I poured some water and washed my hands and face. I couldn’t find a bathroom until Quincy pointed out the window to an outhouse.
It was cold and I tried to urinate quickly. Outside, in the distance, I could hear the howling of wolves. You hear it in movies all the time and think nothing of it. But when you hear it in person for the first time, it’s an experience you don’t forget. It sends an icy chill down your back and your reptilian brain responds with fear and panic whether you wish to or not.
I went back inside and everyone was already at a table. I sat in between Mina and Jonathan. Van Helsing was telling us a story about his time in Africa when I felt something underneath the table. I glanced down and saw Mina’s hand on my thigh. She began caressing it softly. I thought that perhaps she was mistaken and thought I was Jonathan so I casually moved it.
A great roast with potatoes and bread and wine was brought out. We ate and talked and drank. The others intended to stay up late and smoke cigars in the tavern’s bar but I was far too exhausted. I said good night and went to my room.
I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. It was … odd. I dreamt of women in my room, three of them, each more beautiful than the next. I dreamt I floated off the bed and that their lust filled me and I wanted nothing more than to join them.
I was woken from my sleep by the sound of the door opening. I thought it Arthur or Quincy so I paid no attention until I felt hands on my legs, running up my thighs softly. I looked down and saw Mina’s face.
“Mina, what’re you doing?”
“You’ve been so kind to me, Jack. So patient.” She climbed atop me and wrapped her legs around me, her face not three inches from mine. I could smell her sweet breath and her hair tumbled down and tickled my cheeks. “I’m just so lonely and you’ve been so kind. I see the way you look at me. I feel it.” She began grinding her hips into mine. “Do you want me, Jack? Do you want to fuck me? Fuck me right here. With my husband downstairs.”
“Mina, stop, please.”
“You don’t want me to stop,” she said with a groan. “Mm, doesn’t that feel good, Jack? Can you feel how wet I am?”
I was about to lift her off me when I saw something behind her: the outline of figures. I looked at them more closely in the dim moonlight and saw, clear as day, the figures of three women.
I spun Mina off of me and covered her with my body. The women came into focus. They stood around the bed. Mina was writhing and groaning as if in pleasure. Her skin was abnormally hot to the touch, scalding almost. Her eyes were rolling into the back of her head.
“Get away from her!”
One of the women touched me and it sent shocks up my body. “I can feel your lust, Jack. Take her now while we watch. And then you can have us.” I felt hands all over my body. “We will bring you pleasure like you’ve never felt. Do you know what it’s like to fuck a vampire, Jack?”
“No, get away!” I felt my will weakening. Not that I couldn’t control my lust. This was different. My very strength was leaving me.
One of the women bent down and licked my face. Teeth protruded from her mouth like a dog’s canines and she hissed like a snake. By now I was too weak to fight. I lay back, my mind clouded … as the women screamed in panic.
“Away from him, whores of the devil!” Van Helsing shouted. He was holding something, a small circle, and he pressed it to the forehead of one of the women. Smoke poured out of her and the flesh of her forehead melted as she was flung back against the wall, her head on fire, filling the room with smoke.
As quickly as they had appeared, the women were gone. My head felt so light that I fainted.
When morning came, no one said anything about the previous night. When I tried to bring it up, Van Helsing gave me a look that said I shouldn’t mention it. So I bit my tongue. But I was shaken. Those women had been inside my mind. I’d heard their voices in me, telling me to relax and let them take over, that nothing they were about to do was wrong. If Dracula had even a fraction of that power, what chance did we have against him?
We loaded up the vans as the weather was as clear as it was going to get. The drivers were arguing with Van Helsing and I later learned that they wanted more money since the terrain was growing more difficult. Van Helsing told me in private they were terrified and didn’t want to go any further, and so more money had to be offered.
As we drove the narrow paths again, something came into view that couldn’t be seen even five minutes behind us: a castle unlike any I have ever seen. It was something out of fairy tales, but a dark fairy tale, with spires and gated windows and heavy archways. The drivers would not actually go onto the property and Van Helsing told them to remain where they were.
“Mina should stay here with the drivers,” I said to Van Helsing.
“I no more trust them with her than the creature we’re after. She must come with us.”
The six of us walked onto the property toward the castle gate. There were no locks and I got the impression that the owner of this castle was not afraid of intruders.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arthur said.
“Nor will you,” was Van Helsing’s reply. “I came here once, long ago. Not a speck has changed in over two decades.”
We approached the large wooden doors and Van Helsing pushed them open: they weren’t locked. And we entered a place from my nightmares.
EXCERPT FROM “LOVE IN THE AGES”
An account of the mysterious rise and demise of Blood Burn as described to the author by the parties involved.
By Belamy Woodwards
First Draft
CHAPTER 51
If you were to ask people in the nearby village of Desprech about the castle on the mountain, you would get looks of confusion and an explanation that they had no idea what you were talking about. It’s an odd little quirk that no one talks about the castle. The castle itself covers nearly four acres and by all accounts has over a hundred and thirty separate rooms. It was built in the fifteenth century by Vlad the Second and was meant to be an impenetrable fortress against Moslem invaders that had been threatening the region at the time.
As Mina and the men she was surrounded with entered the castle, unknown to them at the time, the drivers of the vans that had brought them assumed none of the party would survive long enough to complain, and they did not wish to be at that castle after dark. They drove away, leaving the party alone and cut off from the rest of the world.
Mina stood close to Harker who had his arm around her. She could feel Vlad’s presence there stronger than anywhere else on earth. It weakened her and she felt, in some respects, as if she were in a dream.
“The castle is too large to explore on our own,” Van Helsing said. “Come nightfall, he will have his full power. We must find him now, during the day, when his powers are weakest. Mina and Jonathan, you come with me. We’ll begin on the top floor. Jack, take the others and begin here, working your way up. His room will be locked and he may be sleeping in a box of earth or a coffin.”
Van Helsing divvied out weapons of various sorts he had brought with him. Blades and wood were the only things, he insisted, that would hurt the Count, along with small circular tablets soaked in holy water and blessed. The men looked to each other one last time, an understanding among them that they may not see each other again.
Van Helsing led Harker and Mina to the top floor of the castle. With no elevators in such an old structure, they had to climb twenty-some-odd flights of stairs until they were overlooking the mountain range beneath them from windows that had no glass. The wind was icy and Harker stood looking out over the great colorless expanse.
“What are you thinking?” Mina said.
“I just can’t believe we’re here … because of my greed.”
“You’re the least greedy person I know, Jonathan.”
“That’s not true. I was warned about Blood Burn. I was told not to interview them. Someone from MTV tried to spend a week with them and overdosed. Or at least they thought it was an overdose. I knew how dangerous they were and I did it anyway because I thought it would get me attention.”
“There’s nothing wrong with caring about your career. And you haven’t done anything to bring us here.”
Harker nodded and they began going from room to room.
Many of the rooms were abandoned and empty, spiders their only inhabitants. But some of them had exquisite furniture of the type one would find in a museum or perhaps an upscale antique store. A Louis the IX sofa caught Van Helsing’s eye and he had to sit for a moment and just experience it. When he rose, he was about to say something when he heard shouting from the floors beneath.
Running out into the hallway, he heard Jack far down below yell, “We’ve got something.”
They hurried down to the main floor and saw Quincy, Jack, and Arthur waiting by the entrance. It was an odd thing, Mina thought, that they should not dare enter without Van Helsing present. Each was younger and stronger but Van Helsing clearly dominated their minds and they had accepted him as their leader.
“What is it?” Van Helsing said, coming up to the door. His expression changed to surprise as Mina came up behind him to see what was inside the room.
The room was large, the main floor being at the bottom of a flight of six or seven stone steps. It was a crypt. The walls were stone and it was cold, windowless, and had the stink of staleness and mold. Pushed up against the walls were three coffins.
Van Helsing removed a machete from his bag, and stepped inside. Quincy went after him and with a quick glance to each other, Jack and Arthur did the same. Only Harker remained with Mina outside.
“I know who they are,” Harker said in a whisper.
Van Helsing lifted one of the coffin lids. Inside was a young girl of twenty or twenty-one, white, with tattoos on her arms. Van Helsing walked out of the room and got a small two-foot rod of metal with a sharp end of wood attached. He held the rod high above the girl’s body.
“Doc,” Quincy said, “shouldn’t we at least check if she’s actually a … you know?”
“She is,” Jack said. They looked at him a moment and then back to the girl. Van Helsing took a deep breath, and then swung downward with a grunt.
The wood tip pierced the woman’s chest and embedded itself into the coffin’s interior. The woman’s eyes flew open and she screamed and attempted to sit up but the rod held her in place. She pulled at it like an animal impaled, as blood shot out of her mouth and eyes and ears and nose. Van Helsing stepped away, covering his face to avoid the waterfall of tainted blood, when behind him a coffin burst open and another woman leapt out at him and landed on his back, knocking him to the ground.
Quincy fired one round directly into the woman’s head and it did absolutely nothing. The woman tore into Van Helsing’s flesh, attempting to shred the arteries and veins out of him, and Arthur and Jack jumped upon her.
The third coffin opened and another woman leapt out … just as one of Van Helsing’s short spears hurtled through the air and went through her neck. She hissed and broke off the spear, but didn’t die.
Harker stood before them as Jack and Arthur tried to pull the creature off of Van Helsing. Harker took another spear and with a scream akin to a war cry, rushed at the third. She leapt toward him like a jaguar and he fell to his back at the last moment, narrowly missing her fangs, and thrust up with his spear. It pierced her flesh and went into the heart, spewing blood over him as the woman gurgled and screamed.
Harker stood and ran over to where she was writhing on the ground. He had a machete in his hand, the same one Van Helsing had intended to kill the girl with but had lost during the struggle. Harker held it over his head, hesitating only a moment before swinging down with all his strength, severing head from neck.
The other two women screamed so loudly Harker had to cover his ears. As they did this, distracted, Van Helsing pulled away and ran out of the room, collapsing onto the floor. Harker saw this just as one of the women leapt onto him.
Quincy had pulled out his knife and stabbed the woman in the back, the tip nearly piercing all the way through her. She fell off of Harker and spun around on the floor, trying to reach the knife handle that was sticking out of her back.
Harker swung down with the machete and caught her in the face, imbedding the blade deep within her skull. He pulled it out, bits of
gore flying over him, and swung again, nearly severing the head in a single blow. It was then he heard a whimper.
The woman in the coffin, pinned like a bug to an examiner’s board, was weeping.
“Jonathan, please,” she said. “I want to live. Please.”
Harker walked to her. “Hello, Charlene.”
Blood was still flowing out of her, causing her to cough. “I want to live, baby. I will be your slave. I will take you places, show you things you didn’t think you would ever see. Is it so wrong what I’ve done? It wasn’t my choice. He made me this way. He stole me in the night from my parents and made me this way. But I want to live. Please.”
Harker lifted the machete but his hand wouldn’t move. He held it there a long time and then lowered the weapon, and walked out of the room. He turned just as he heard a scream and saw Jack cut the woman’s head off. He was weeping as well and whispered something that Harker thought sounded like, “For Lucy.”
Mina stood by Harker’s side as they searched the castle. Van Helsing was badly wounded but insisted he would not leave until he personally saw Dracula dead. Jack wrapped his wounds as best he could with what he had.
“I can only slow the bleeding, Professor. We need to stitch this wound.”
“Do it as we walk.”
Slowly, to allow Jack some stability with the needle and wire that Van Helsing had in his bag, they went room to room. As morning turned to afternoon, they realized the endeavor was simply too large a task to complete before nightfall.
“When does it get dark?” Harker asked.
Van Helsing replied, “Soon, perhaps another hour. We cannot be here in the dark, Jonathan. We will not last against him then.”
Harker stopped and looked around. “In the mansion in LA, he slept in a crypt underneath the house. Like a room underneath the basement.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
Harker helped Van Helsing across the castle to a set of stairs leading below. He saw Quincy and the other two men above them and called up to them. When they had rejoined them, they began making their way to the underbelly of the castle.
Dracula (A Modern Telling) Page 18