by Joseph Rubas
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was past 10:00 P.M. by Seward’s golden pocket watch when the men shuffled into the ambient-lit first-class smoking room, which at this hour was occupied by a number of men at several tables, playing cards more enthusiastically than before. Instead of three, at one table there was nearly a dozen, including Archibald Butt, whom Van Helsing remembered from the stop at Queenstown; he, like all of his tablemates, was dead to the world, engrossed in his hand, his cigar, and his brandy. A blue haze, a mingling of many different brands and flavors of tobacco, hung over the entire smoking room, tickling Seward’s nose. Looking down at the accumulated mist, he imagined that his view was that of a giant walking high among the clouds, peering down at distant earth.
The men took up their usual positions by the fire, which blazed warmly, and said nothing to each other. Van Helsing sat in his armchair, looking deep into the fire, thoughts reeling behind his faded eyes. Art was hunched over on his sofa, looking down at his intertwined hands, perhaps comforting them over the fact that they had not had the chance to wrap themselves around the neck of Dracula or his cohort.
They had come close, though. If it weren’t for Dracula’s damned shapeshifting, they would have had him.
It happened in third-class, just as the men reached the bottom of a Spartan metal staircase. Seward was asking about dinner, suggesting that they stop off in the steerage dining room for a bite, when Van Helsing noticed, at the end of a long, bleak corridor, a fleeting form hurriedly rounding a bend.
Art noticed it too, for he pushed (yes, pushed) through Seward and Van Helsing, nearly knocking the former to his knees, and gave chase. By the time the others were able to catch up to him, Dracula was gone, and in his place was a white mist hovering in the middle of the hall. Art stood before it a shade dumbstruck, and Seward’s grip on Van Helsing’s arm tightened. Van Helsing, for his part, was certain that he saw a pair of blank eyes peering out at them, ragged phantom holes, but he wasn’t sure. Elation ran through him. The beast was within range. They could beat him!
“Art!” Van Helsing cried, “shoot him! The gun! Use the gun!”
Seeming to remember it all at once, Art ripped it from his pants and aimed it at the vapor. Before he could squeeze a shot off, however, it was, by all appearances, sucked into a vent along the baseboard.
“Damn!” Seward yelled.
All hope was not lost even then, for as the tail of the mist entered the grate, Dracula changed back to man form, his foot and foreleg left jutting from the shaft.
“He cannot hold form for long,” Van Helsing said, but wasn’t sure if he whispered or screamed. Art, noticing the wiggling appendage after a moment taken aback, threw aside the gun and pounced upon it, snatching the ankle in a two-hand death grip.
“Help me!” he cried, “help me with the motherfucker!”
Seward rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Art, who then heaved a great pull. In the shaft, Dracula screeched.
“Ze cross! It vill veaken him!”
Even as Van Helsing spoke, Dracula wrenched free, and Seward and Art tumbled back in a heap. The foot disappeared.
Screaming with rage, Art jumped to his feet and ripped something from his inner coat pocket. At first, Van Helsing had no idea what it was. But Art twisted the top off with one trembling hand, he saw (no, understood) that it was one of the vials of holy water.
With a snarling cry, Art splashed the contents into the gaping hole. It seemed a futile task to Van Helsing, but moments later a roaring cry of pain issued from the walls around them, almost as if Titanic herself were wounded.
“Die, you bastard!” Art screamed, and threw the vial into the vent after Dracula. He punched the wall, kicked it, and punched it again.
From the chasm, Dracula’s cries trailed off into whimpers.
“I almost had him,” Art presently said, breaking the lethargic spell that had fallen over them. “Almost had him.”
“It’s alright, Art,” Seward said, patting Art upon the back. “The important thing is that we found him.”
“Only to have him dance away again.”
“All this time we have not seen him,” Van Helsing said, “and tonight we do, and we even wound him. We know he’s in the steerage now, for sure, and that he is weak. He would not have changed so suddenly if he weren’t.”
Art sighed. “We’ve proven that we can do it, yes, and it was a productive day, but...I let him slip through my fingers, Doctor.”
Van Helsing waved one hand. “Nonsense. You did what you could. Dracula, even weakened, is the un-dead...”
Art nodded, remembering the speech from that morning. “I know, but...”
“But nothing. We are tired and need to sleep. We turn in now, and wake early. Until then, business is done for today.”
***
Count Dracula limped onto the boat deck and nearly collapsed. A thin man in fine clothes who happened to be passing at that moment stopped and regarded him with a concerned expression. “Are you alright, sir?”
Dracula, bent now at the waist, shivers of pain wracking his body, replied with a panted, “Fuck you.” The man, making a humph sound, went on his way, leaving Dracula alone.
After a moment, he managed to make his way to the rail, hissing with each step. There, he rested his back against one of the boats, pangs of hot agony rippling up his left leg. He tried to bend it, but screamed at the pain.
He couldn’t do this. He would have to leave the ship and sleep in one of his boxes. He checked his watch. 10:16. He sent his eye out over the sea. There, still over an hour out, dark and low, sat the iceberg.
The closest ship carrying one of his boxes was The Merryland, an illegal seal-hunting rig twenty miles off. It was just close enough that he could return with a fair amount of strength.
Looking out at the indiscernible horizon, Dracula morphed into a bat and soared high into the sky. In his berth, the man-in-black, asleep, awoke with a start, his naked torso bathed in cold sweat.
“Just a nightmare,” he told himself as he lay uneasily down. For the moment, he was free.