Mina (2 page)

"You
shall be my vengeance," he whispered, moving closer but not yet close
enough to be a threat.

Such a
strange choice of words. "Vengeance?" I asked. "Vengeance for
what?"

He did not
answer, but for an instant only, I saw pain in his eyes.

I lifted the crucifix I wore around my neck, keeping the small bit
of silver between us. "Not that," I said softly. His presence gave me
a strange, desperate courage. When he had lived, he had been a barbarian
prince, taking life as casually as he did in his eternal altered state. He
could kill me if he wished, but I would not be his pawn.

"No?"
He cocked his head and smiled. His teeth were white and moist, the canines as
Jonathan described them-long and pointed.

My hand
shook. Then he did something I had never expected. His fingers wrapped around
the silver cross, pushing it down and away with such ease that all my strength
seemed no more than a child's against his. "Do you think such symbols
really repel me, especially when wielded by one with so little faith?"

My voice no
longer worked, yet my will if anything seemed stronger. I stared at him,
determined that I would not cower even if I

could not run. He untied the lacing of my nightdress, pulling back
a flap to expose one shoulder. I trembled, but I was frozen, unable to do
anything but stand helpless as he pressed his open lips against my skin,
sucking in a bit of flesh, biting down.

He tasted me
then drew back, his expression mocking. I fought down my fear and looked
defiantly at his dark eyes. "I will not

cower," I whispered,
"not even at the moment of my death."

"No?" he asked. I felt his
mind release me, but I did not move; I did not flinch even when his pale hand
brushed my cheek, wiping away a tear. Only then did I realize that I was
weeping silently. Later I repeated to my husband and the others the words he
had spoken. "Flesh of my flesh. Blood of my blood. Kin of my kin. My
bountiful winepress for a while." I knew that he meant my blood, my life,
when he said those last words, but I felt little fear. As I watched silently,
he exposed his own chest and, using one sharp nail, opened a wound above his
heart. I recoiled at the sight of the blood welling across it, dark beads on
the skin that seemed so white in the cold moonlight. Then he drew my head
forward with such force that I had no choice but to press my lips against the
wound, to drink.

His blood tasted familiar. I
wondered if he had done this to me before. He had called me his vengeance, yet
as I drank, I knew that I could be more than that. I sucked greedily. I tilted
back my head so he could drink. I undid the rest of the lacings of my gown and
pressed my bare breasts against his waiting hands. For the time that he held
me, all the restraint I practiced in my nights with my husband vanished. For
the time he held me, I was as wanton as the vampire women Jonathan had met in
Dracula's castle. The women - my blood-kin.

This could
not be damnation. But if it were, the fire was far too sweet to resist.

"Jonathan,"
I whispered, looking back at my husband sleeping so innocently beside the place
where I had lain. "He will not

wake," Dracula whispered
and kissed me.

I tasted my
own blood. I tasted his. I reveled in both. I would have died and gladly that
night, prepared to awaken into another

life, had there not been the
pounding of feet on the stairs, the trying of the locked door.

Dracula gripped my wrists to push me
away, but I would not be denied one more taste of his dark eternity. As my lips
pressed against the wound, he held me close for one final moment. I heard him
draw in breath, then let it out in a human sigh of fulfillment.

Then the door slammed inward,
and Quincey, Dr. Seward and Arthur rushed into the room.

With deliberate scorn, the count
pushed me back against my sleeping husband. As the men advanced with crucifixes
held out like swords against a mortal enemy, I watched Dracula slowly retreat.
Was their faith so much stronger than mine, or did he only toy with them,
making them think such trinkets could repel him?

The moon
which had given the only light to the room vanished behind a cloud. When
Quincey lit a match, Dracula was gone. The

faint tendrils of mist curling across the red carpet on the floor
gave the only sign that he had been anything more than a terrible dream among
so many others.

I covered my face with my hands,
trying to hide my shame. I recall nothing else, though Dr. Seward wrote that my
expression was dazed and filled with terror, my moans pathetic to hear. Ah, if
he had only known the guilt that was the cause of them. When at last Van
Helsing and Dr. Seward managed to wake Jonathan, he comforted me without the
slightest thought that I might have deserved some blame for my fate. It was in
that moment, with his arms circling me with such fierce affection, that I
decided to keep the terrible knowledge of my passion a secret forever.

Nonetheless, we were allies against
the monster. In the morning, I told them what I could recall of the night and
the nights before it. The half-truths added to my guilt. In the hour that
followed, as Jonathan held and comforted me, I found myself thinking of the future
and the hopelessness of the men's task. I thought of the risks they would take
for me, and death seemed suddenly the

sweetest, easiest means to
end my curse.

It was not
like me to be so despondent. Nonetheless, the rightness of my decision seemed
more clear the more I considered it.

Later that morning, when I hinted to the others that I would kill
myself rather than harm any of them, Van Helsing said aloud what I had already
suspected. "It is his blood already tainting you. In death, you would
become as he is, condemned as he was. No, Madam Mina. You must not die.
Especially not by your own hand."

Could they stop me? I suppose Seward
could have put me in one of his padded cells, but otherwise the decision was
mine. A single stroke of a knife would end my life. Or I could go to the river
and throw myself from a high point on the bank. The water is brackish. My body
would not be easily found. I would have time to wake, to walk the night as he
does, perhaps even to search out my new kin.

Yes, though
it was hard to accept, Van Helsing must have been right. The thought of suicide
seemed so sweet because the

vampire was already calling
to me!

Yet the terrible, alluring thoughts that were not entirely my
thoughts tumbled round in my mind. I managed to hide them well until the
moment when Van Helsing had finished leading us in prayer then lifted the host
above my head and called upon God to protect me. As the wafer touched my
forehead, I thought of my passion, of the vampire's blood flowing so willingly
in my veins, and I felt the searing pain the host gave to my flesh.

I screamed. I cried. I was damned
and would not be comforted, not even by Jonathan, who left a message in his
journal that should I become vampiric, he would join me in my terrible
eternity. He knew I would transcribe it with the others. Perhaps his decision
was genuine, motivated by the love we have for one another. Perhaps he thought
to give me one more reason to live. I cannot condemn him for that, but I have
grown cynical in the days since I drank Dracula’s blood. I see things more
clearly, and I am not so trusting as I once was, not even with my husband.
They all manipulate me.

When they saw the mark the host had
made, the men became desperate. Though it pained Jonathan to leave me, they
departed for London to search out more of Dracula's earth boxes and, perhaps,
find the monster himself and destroy him when his powers were weakest. Van
Helsing says they must do this. If Dracula escapes, I will never be free of
him, and when I die, I will rise into his world of eternal night.

I remained at the asylum listening to the constant cries, the
swearing of the guards, the smell of urine and feces that permeated even these
private rooms. By afternoon, unable to bear the confinement any longer, I
slipped outside. I was certain to let no one see me leave, for I did not know
what orders Seward had given his staff concerning me.

The sky seemed unusually bright, the
grass and trees of the sloping asylum grounds iridescent green. The brilliance
of it hurt my eyes, and I hurried forward to the shade of a thick stand of
trees that grew along the wall separating the asylum from the grounds of Carfax.

It was
daylight. Mortal time, not his, and I felt the need to see what the men had
done to his home, to see if he could indeed walk

the exorcized grounds or
sleep in the boxes defiled by hosts and holy water.

I searched
the wall until I found a low wooden door hanging partway open, enough that I
could squeeze my body through.

On the
opposite side, the once beautiful gardens were overgrown with weeds and scrubby
bushes. The abbey church that had

undoubtedly once been
beautiful was covered with dead ivy that surrounded the vaulted stone frames
empty of their holy glass.

What had
happened to the order that had once lived here? Did their ghosts still walk
these quiet grounds, desolate souls among

broken dreams?

Did the
vampire's soul walk with theirs?

"Dracula,"
I called.

A sigh on
the wind answered me, coming it seemed from the church.

I went into
the building, through the dark, empty hole that had once held its doors. He
might be waiting for me in its darkness, but

he could not harm me any
further. I was mated to him now. The worst had already been done.

Inside, I
smelled the ancient earth scattered all around me. As my eyes grew accustomed
to the darkness of the space, I saw the

broken boards, the scattered
earth still damp with holy water, the crumbled hosts strewn above it.
"Dracula," I called again.

No response,
yet I knew I was not alone.

I walked
toward the great stone of the altar and saw that it was slightly skewed from
its base.

I did not
see him, but I knew he rested in the hollow beneath it like some ancient saint.
All I had to do was find a stake and a

stone to drive it, and all
our trials would be over.

"Revenge,"
I whispered, not as a warning for what I would do but as a justification.

The reply,
too soft to be a whisper, formed in my mind. "For Lucy."

It was not
my voice but his that spoke in my mind. I fled.

That night,
as the men discussed the work they had done in London, I sat with them, picked
at my food and said nothing about

what I had seen or felt or
heard.

And now it seems that Dracula is
always with me. I see him on the edge of my sight, especially at night, when
his dark eyes burn red in the center like a smoldering fire ready to flair and
devour. His expression is filled with hunger and with lust. Even now, when I am
an accomplice of those committed to destroy him, I long for him as I longed for
him the moment I first saw him, before his blood made me a part of him
forever.

When Dracula
left England, I made the men take me with them when they pursued him. I need to
see the outcome of this chase

with my own eyes. If Dracula escapes them or, worse, destroys
them, I may as well face my doom at his side. If Dracula is destroyed, then
his death is on my conscience for if I had not weakened and let him close to
ire, only Van Helsing would have pursued him with such diligence.

Van Helsing is driven by a desire to
destroy Dracula. If I dared, I would ask him what makes him such an expert cm
vampirism and such an enemy to the creatures, but I am afraid to do so. The
closer we get to Dracula's native land, the more often Dracula seems to be in
my mind, and I would not wish to give the vampire some information that would
put Jonathan and the others in danger. I would also not want Van Helsing to
assume I am in an alliance with the vampire. He is so obsessed with this chase
that I think he might kill me if he believed that. I am likewise certain that
he would kill me if I became undead.

I have begun writing this account
after telling the men that the smell of their cigar smoke nauseates me and
their talking keeps me from sleep. They comment often on my lethargy but go to
the smoking car to sit. I hope that they will do so often on this journey for I
wish to be alone with my thoughts. I need this time to sort truth from lies and
half-lies, my real feelings from those his blood has aroused in me as well as
those the men believe I have. Through it all, I must practice deceit though it
galls me to do so.

My world has
suddenly become so filled with tragedy. I don't ... Wait, I hear Van Helsing
and Dr. Seward speaking together in

the hall outside our
compartment. Later ...