Mina (33 page)

When she was
sedated, pliant, lost in her own terrible thoughts, they bathed her and dressed
her in a clean gown. She did not ask

about Gance, lying
unconscious in his bedroom. Indeed, she made no requests at all.

She ate when
they fed her, did not protest when they left her with the suggestion that she
try to sleep. She did exactly as they

asked until the sedative wore
off.

When she understood that she was a
prisoner here, she began to pound on the door and demand to be released. In her
state, the staff dared not let her go, and the doctor refused to drug her
further. With his master near death, the head butler did the only thing that
seemed right under the circumstances. He sent for Jonathan Harker.

TWENTY-ONE

As soon as Mina had left for the
station, Millicent walked across town to Jonathan's office. As she described
the nervous state Mina had been in when she left the house, it occurred to
Jonathan that if Millicent had taken a cab here, he might have reached Mina
before the train left. Most likely the thought of him and his wife having a
scene at the station had been more of a scandal than Millicent could bear.

When Millicent
had finished her story, she handed Jonathan the note Mina had written him. Her
expression indicated that she'd

expected this betrayal from
Mina all along.

Duty done, Millicent sat silently
while Jonathan opened the envelope and read the note.
I have urgent business
in London concerning our trip to the Continent. When I come home, I will have
the means to explain everything. I love you.
It all seemed so damning
but for those last three words. She did love him, he had no doubt of it, just
as he had no doubt that he loved her. Yet their ideas of love could well be
worlds apart. It occurred to him that he had never really inquired what it was
she expected from him. He had only assumed.

"I'll
go now, Jonathan," Millicent said.

"I'll
be home early." For the first time in a week, he thought as he said it,
and winced.

Jonathan and his aunt did not speak
about Mina that night. They hardly spoke at all. The few times he looked at her
across the wide dining table, Jonathan saw a frigid determination in
Millicent's expression and tried to mirror it in his own. Mina had no right to
leave him with such a cryptic explanation, nor any right to keep secrets from
him. He tried to be angry, and failed. He did not sleep at all that night, and
in the morning he had no desire for food. Even if he'd wished to go to work,
work would have been impossible.

No, he could
not idly go about his business and wait for her to return. He said as much to
his aunt as he packed a traveling bag.

She stood in his bedroom doorway, her arms crossed, her eyes
filled with fury. "After what she did, you would abandon you clients to
go after her?"

"Aunt Millicent, Mina hinted at things you cannot
understand." "I know enough, Jonathan. This isn't the first time
Mina has gone to London on the sly." "What do you mean?" "The
portraits above the fireplace were not painted in London but here in Exeter. If
you like, I can show you the man's card."

"It
won't be necessary," Jonathan replied. "I will not judge her until I
speak to her. Wire me at Seward's if you hear anything from

her."

"Jonathan,
you can't go after her."

He looked at
her, thinking of all the kindness she had shown him over the years, and all the
bitterness in her heart. "Wire me or

you will no longer be welcome
in this house," he said, buckled his suitcase straps and left.

He stopped at work only long enough to assign others to his own
projects, then caught the midmorning train to London. He got off at Purfleet
station and walked to Jack Seward's. He hadn't wired Seward. Someone was always
at the asylum, and Jonathan was known to the staff. The walk led him past the
ancient ruins of Carfax, and he shuddered, as if the horrors now vanquished
still

possessed the power to kill.

Seward was present when Jonathan arrived, along with a full staff
and a few additional aids. "Early spring always brings out the lunacy in
people," Seward said by way of apology, as he showed Jonathan into his
cluttered and dusty quarters. "What brings you to London so suddenly?"

"I seem
to have misplaced my wife," Jonathan replied, tried to smile and failed.
He piled the magazines cluttering a parlor chair

onto a second stack of them
on the floor and sat, breathing deeply, trying to maintain his composure.

It took
little prodding for Seward to discover what Jonathan knew, only a bit more to
learn everything his friend believed,

including his guilt for pushing Mina away. When Jonathan had
finished, Seward poured them each a brandy before returning to his work, leaving
Jonathan alone with the books and magazines and his own despair. As Seward went
through his work, he found himself thinking far too often about Mrs. Harker,
about what she had been through and about-dare he admit it!-what a fool her husband
had become.

The message
Gance's butler sent traveled by wire from London to Exeter to Purfleet by early
evening. It said little, only that there

had been an accident, that
Mrs. Harker was in need of attention and that Jonathan should come to London
immediately.

"To
Lord Gance's," Jonathan added bitterly when he'd finished reading it.

"They
also write that Mina is ill," Seward noted.

It would be
like Jack not to intrude unless invited. Jonathan longed to go alone, yet fear
of what might have happened unnerved

him. "Yes, I'm certain
that's it," Jonathan said. "Please come with me. She may need your
help."

Seward said little on the journey.
Jonathan thought it just as well. He did not want to be pulled from his memory
of the past, when he and Mina were just young, just poor, just foolishly in
love. By the time he reached Gance's estate, he was ready to forgive her everything,
and try to reclaim that innocent past.

Then he saw
Gance's house-the high iron walls, the huge pillared portico, the entrance with
its inlaid tiles of rosewood and

mother-of-pearl and the electric sconces blazing in the hallway.
He only glimpsed the fantasy parlor, the dining room easily capable of seating
twenty or more. The wealth did not make him feel insignificant, for Gance had
not earned it. Instead it diminished Mina in his eyes, as if she had succumbed
to the trappings of the man rather than his worth. That made the most sense. In
the years Jonathan had known Gance, he had never seen any hint of real
substance. Midway up the stairs, he heard the pounding coming from somewhere
above them, Mina's demands to be released. Jonathan turned toward Seward, but
his friend had already been alerted. "How long has she been like
this?" Seward asked the butler.

"Since
this afternoon. A man attacked Mrs. Harker and Lord Gance in the garden. She
isn't wounded, but she's been

overwrought ever since. She
demands to go home, but we cannot just let her leave in her state."

At the top
of the stairs, the butler led them away from the sounds. "I want to see my
wife," Jonathan demanded.

"Lord Gance has asked to speak to you first." Jonathan
halted. "Do I see my wife or I do I go for the police?"

"Lord Gance is very anxious to tell you what happened. He has
refused sedation while waiting for you." "Sedation?" Seward
asked.

"Lord Gance was nearly killed by the intruder. He's in a
great deal of pain." "I'll see him," Jonathan said. "After
I have a moment with my wife." "As you wish." As the butler
walked down the hallway, he pulled out a ring of keys.

Mina's pounding had stopped for the moment, but it started up
again as soon as the key clicked against the lock. As the door swung inward,
she rushed for it, apparently intending escape. Jonathan caught her, gripping
her wrists as she fought him. "It's all right, darling," he said
calmly.

She looked
at him, her eyes savage for a moment. Recognition came slowly. It brought an
end to her struggles but no real peace,

no relief.

"Jonathan?
Jonathan, why are you here? Did Gance really send for you?"

She sounded
anxious. Guilty. All his worst suspicions were true. How many times had she
come here to be with him? More than

Millicent knew, he guessed.
Far more.

"They
died because of me!" she cried, shaking in his arms. "All the blood,
Jonathan. I didn't know there would be so much blood.

All I wanted was to know the
truth, and they died."

"Hush,
Mina dear. It will be all right. We'll go home."

"They'll
find us there. There's more of them, the hunters. Van Helsing is not the worst
of them. I thought he was, but not

anymore."

"She's hysterical," Seward whispered. "I'll give
her a sedative." "No! No more!" Mina cried. "I cannot bear
the dreams!" "Jack is here to help you, darling," Jonathan
said, nodding to Seward as he spoke. "Let him."

"No!" She tried to push them both away, her nails
ripping at Jonathan's hands, drawing blood. When she saw it, she stopped her struggles
and stared at it, trembling with a new, more terrible fear. She did not protest
when Seward gave her the injection, or when Jonathan laid her back on the bed.
He held her hand as the trembling diminished; letting her go only when she went
to sleep.

Some time
later, the butler returned. "Lord Gance must see you now, Mr.
Harker," he said to Jonathan.

Resigned to
the confrontation, Jonathan followed him down the hall, leaving Seward alone
with Mina.

While Gance had been lying
motionless in the garden following the shooting, he'd heard quite distinctly
the physician telling his butler that he was not expected to live. It seemed
odd to Gance that a doctor could make such a pronouncement when he was still alive,
and equally certain that he would remain that way. Gance clenched his fist and
tried to mumble a denial. Words would not come.

Nonetheless,
his motion must have alerted someone that he was close to consciousness. He
felt the cold pressure of the

stethoscope against his chest once, then twice more. "The
bullet passed right through. That's encouraging," the doctor said in a
tone clearly meant to placate his patient should he hear the words. "And
the wounded lung does not seem to be hemorrhaging. If the chest cavity doesn't
become septic, well, your master may have a chance."

A chance for what? That one day,
hopefully far in the future, when he was too old for anything but memories, the
sentence of death would be spoken and meant? Death comes to us all. How many
times in how many churches had he heard those words?

Now he understood. And as he
lay there, more helpless than he had been even as a small child, he despised
that end.

And he
despised the pain as well, a terrible stab of it each time he tried to take a
deep breath, to speak, or to moan. Now, when

life was so tenuous, he found the thought of Mina's vampires both
beautiful and comforting. He clung to it as he was lifted and carried inside,
as the doctor cut off his shirt and began to cleanse the wound. Then the pain
grew, enfolding him, pressing out what remained of consciousness.

Later, Gance
forced his eyes open. The doctor sat alone at his bedside, a book in his lap,
the dog stretched on the carpet at his

feet.

"How is
Mina?" Gance asked.

"The woman was hysterical. She's sleeping now. Her family has
been contacted." Gance nodded. He would have done the same, he supposed.

"I'll
give you another shot for the pain," the doctor said. "No." Not
yet. He had to stay awake, to think. "I want to be alert when

the family arrives. They'll
have questions," he said.

Mina, my
dear Mina, was the secret in your blood? he thought. Was it carried to me by
your bite like rabies even before I tasted

your blood? Was I already
diseased by it, doomed to eternity?

Doomed! If
his side had not felt as if it were on fire, he would have laughed. He lay
silent, contemplating the future until he fell into

a fitful sleep in which he
dreamed, as he often did in times of pain, of his father.

The previous
Lord Gance had lain in bed for months before he finally succumbed to what his
family privately termed debauchery.

Though the man had been no more than fifty, his mind had failed
him. Too young to understand what was happening, Gance watched in terror as
his father's temper grew less predictable each day. The man demanded drink,
foods he should not eat. The