Dracula The Undead Part 9

Or is it mat our own minds turn against us - deceiving us that our memories are at peaceful rest, only to rear out of sleep like a fiery dragon when least we expect it?'

Later Sleep will not come. My lip is swollen and pains me, my head aches from turning our conversation over and over in my mind.

Now dial I am watching for something to happen, nothing does!

A while ago, I went to Jonathan's room. All I wanted was to slip my arms around him that we might comfort each other and thus find easeful rest. I went to his bedside and put my hand upon him, whispering, 'Jonathan?' But he started away from me. When he turned up the lamp, his eyes were fierce with dread. 'Keep away from me, Mina!' he said.'Until I am free of him, you must not come near me!'

'But Jonathan,' I said, 'I am not afraid of you. I refuse to be afraid! I can't sleep. Let me comfort you.'

Then a look of such cold suspicion crossed his face dial it makes me weep to recollect it. 'Did you come in here thinking to find him?'

The inference so horrified me that I gasped, and backed away. 'If you think that, I - I cannot stay until I am free of this stain of suspicion!'

As if stricken by what he'd said, he reached out to me. 'Mina - I am sorry - I -' But I fled the room, I could not bear any more. I feel so alone, I will see if Elena is awake.

Strange, Elena is not in her room! Nor was she in the kitchen, where I might have expected to meet a fellow non-sleeper. She may have been with Quincey - but as there was no light under his door, I did not wish to disturb him. Now I feel sleep coming at last, thank G.o.d. I will not fight it.

JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL.

4 November Relations remain difficult between Mina and myself. After all these years without a cross word, never a moment of disharmony!

I cannot believe it is happening - but I cannot forgive her, can barely bring myself to look at her.

It was not me to whom she submitted when those black fits came upon me, but to Dracula. She cannot, or will not, admit it, but I know the truth. We both know, and therefore we cannot speak openly, cannot even look each other in the eye. Of course we maintain the veneer of civility for the benefit of our guests - Elena suspects nothing - but Van Helsing is too shrewd to be fooled.

After breakfast he took me into the study and spoke fervently. 'My friend, I beg your forgiveness for bringing this trouble to you!'

'What do you mean?'! said, puzzled. 'The trouble is all ours; you are helping to alleviate it.'

'I mean that by hypnotizing you, I brought to the surface matters between yourself and Mina that were better left unsaid. But now they are said, they poison the love between you. Ah, this is all my fault! I would do anything to undo it!'

To this I could say nothing, for he was right. Not that I blame him in any way!

For who is to blame? Myself, for being so weak as to let Dracula's vile phantom inside me, or Mina, who resisted his attack on her mind yet welcomed his vicarious embrace? Oh G.o.d, dear G.o.d. Or is Dracula alone to blame? But how can we deny all responsibility? For every time we fail to resist evil, we collude with it.

Is it possible that Mina loved - loves - Dracula? How else could she welcome him so fervently into her arms? Or is it simply that I have gone mad?

How I despise myself for casting such vile stains upon my wife's character - she who has always been a perfect angel, to me and to everyone about us! But each time I look at her I remember her gleaming eyes, her parted lips, as if she had turned into one of those fiends from Castle Dracula.

I am sitting on the terrace as I write, trying to make sense of all this. Elena has come to sit beside me. She seems so serene. She says nothing yet her presence soothes me; as if, standing outside our trouble, she has the power to cleanse the taint from my soul...

for a little while, at least.

MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL.

4 November Again I feel refreshed for a morning with Elena and Quincey, two innocents untouched by all this!

Van Helsing is talking of bringing Dr Seward and Lord G.o.dalming here, but we have said no, not yet. We cannot ask them to fight an invisible enemy! Van Helsing is taking this so seriously, it alarms us more. It is a strain to carry on as normal, yet we must; it is our only hope, and of course our duty is to protect Quincey and others.

I am doing all in my power to ensure a happy day and a peaceful night; that is, keeping everyone busy, and praying at every spare moment!

5 November All is quiet at last. I am exhausted but I must record what has happened, painful as it is.

Last night, an hour after I had gone to bed and still lay awake, I thought I heard sounds of disturbance from another room - Van Helsing's or Jonathan's, for it was a man's voice I could hear. It was hard to discern. It sounded as if he were arguing with himself, a sort of low growling punctuated by the occasional shout, and thumps, as if the furniture were being violently moved about. It was unspeakably chilling to hear these sounds, so faint I was not sure if I imagined them. I got up, put on a dressing-gown and went along the corridor.

The sound was coming from Van Helsing's room; I met Jonathan, approaching from the other direction. 'Perhaps he is ill,' I said. I was glad to see my husband, despite the barrier that has fallen between us.

Jonathan knocked but there was no answer. The sounds from inside the room were now distinct. Van Helsing was groaning, uttering staccato barks of pain, and there were m.u.f.fled thumps as if he were throwing himself around the room. Urgently Jonathan tried the door, but found it locked. He knocked briskly, calling out, 'Professor, what's wrong? Let us in!'

At once the door shook, as if Van Helsing had thrown himself against it. He shouted gruffly, 'No! You cannot come in! Leave me, for your own safety!'

My sense of foreboding transfixed me. I took a step back, but Jonathan didn't hesitate. He flung his shoulder to the door and the lock gave. The door burst inwards. Van Helsing, in his white night-robe, was standing a few feet away; his bed was in disarray, his reading table overturned and books scattered everywhere. The wall mirror lay broken on the carpet. But this was nothing to the chaos of his expression. His pale hair was on end, his face savage and wild, and his eyes so bloodshot the whites were near scarlet.

'Professor, what has happened?' said Jonathan.

He started forward, but Van Helsing put out his hands saying in a tortured, cracked tone, 'No, no, Jonathan, keep away! Take your wife away, don't come near, I beg you!'

I saw that he had a big knife in his right hand; the very bowie knife, I believe, that Quincey Morris used to slay Dracula. We both stood still a moment; I could find no power to speak or move. As we watched, Van Helsing, breathing fast and hard, turned the knife and began to force it towards his own left wrist. Sweat streamed down his high forehead.

Ignoring his warnings, Jonathan rushed to him. He tried to seize the arm mat wielded the knife, crying, 'No! What the devil are you -'

Van Helsing's eyes blazed red and his lips drew back. Never did I dream that good wise face should show such savagery - but I never dreamed it of Jonathan, either. I cried out but neither man heeded me. Then Van Helsing turned the knife from himself and began to lash out at Jonathan instead. My husband put his arms up to defend himself. The blade came stabbing viciously at him and I held my breath as Van Helsing drove him around the room, slashing at him, his expression hideous.

'Fools!' he cried. 'Now you see that I have power over each one of you, and I have all eternity to torment you to your graves and beyond!'

He slashed the arms of Jonathan's nightshirt to rags. Red blood oozed through. Jonathan fell back on the bed, his arms across his face. He was crying out in agony. A great crimson weight of blood was gathering in his sleeve, dripping through the material on to the bedlinen. With a sob I rushed to him. Van Helsing, meanwhile, stumbled against the side of the bed and stopped, appearing to struggle violently within himself.

He gasped. He spoke strangled words of Dutch, which I could not discern. His face flickered - almost physically changed - between his own physiognomy and another that was evil but horribly familiar to me. He lifted the knife, turned it towards himself and to my astonishment began to force the point two-handed towards his own diaphragm. His struggle was terrible to witness. I wanted to stop him but could not move. His mouth was wide open and his red eyes held mine all the time, making me feel somehow embarra.s.sed - exposed - almost violated, as if an appalling intimacy were pa.s.sing between us.

The blade indented the folds of his nightshirt. A spreading stain of blood appeared. I shrank back, cradling Jonathan against me, because I was sure Van Helsing meant to kill himself- but as soon as he drew blood, he uttered a terrible cry and fell heavily on to the bed beside us. The knife clattered away. Van Helsing lay gasping and shuddering.

I cannot say how long we remained there; a few minutes only, though it seemed a frozen, ghastly tableau at the time. Then Van Helsing sat up and put his head in his large hands. He was weeping. 'My friends, it is worse, far worse than I could imagine. Your minds did not deceive you. Even dead, the vampire has a spirit that reaches through time to wreak vengeance. What are we to do?'

Some time later, after I had bound up both men's wounds and we had taken some wine to fortify ourselves, Van Helsing told us what had happened.

'I undressed for bed, then sat at the table to study my books. I was not sleepy so I intended to work into the early hours. But as I read I begin to feel strange; the lamp seems dim and I cannot focus on the words. I have a hallucination that the inside of my skull is a great, dark room, and that a voice is whispering in the darkness. I feel a fluttering like bats' wings, soft and intrusive, most unpleasant, but I cannot shake it off And then I feel ... I cannot describe it. I feel him come into this room, which is also my mind.'

'Dracula?' I asked. He nodded. 'Are you sure?' 'I know that malevolent will all too well!' Van Helsing said hoa.r.s.ely. 'It could be no other. There is only one like him, with such an evil, primitive, arrogant spirit. He possessed me. I was still myself and yet I knew I was him -' 'Yes,' Jonathan put in. 'That's how it was with me!' 'Our two spirits immediately begin to war against each other. I fight to drive him out. He laughs at me. "Now you know the extent of my power," he says. "It is limitless. I can do worse than haunt you; I can control you. If I can order your actions, strongest of my enemies, how easily then can I possess those around you! Your good comrades, your sweet womenfolk I can make do anything. And you will never know where I am or who to trust!"' Van Helsing slumped. 'Well, I fight him with all my might. I must have seemed a madman, reeling around the room, shouting to myself- for the damage I cause, please forgive me - but I could not make him leave. Then it seemed to me that the only way to force him out was to harm my own body. I got the knife from among my belongings and that was when Jonathan entered. I begged you to stay away, knowing Dracula would try to harm you. He wanted to kill you, my friend!'

Shuddering, I leaned my head against my husband's. Van Helsing went on, 'I cannot begin to express my horror at what I was forced to do. I cannot ask you to forgive me. At last I knew that the only way to make him stop was to kill myself, to stake my own heart. That is what I tried to do. But the moment I pierced the skin, Dracula fled my body.' He was quiet for a moment, then groaned. 'Mijn G.o.d, how are we to fight this? To banish him physically from the house was one thing - but to keep him from our very minds -! Must we destroy ourselves to destroy him?'

To see Van Helsing brought so low distressed me unutterably. I did my best to comfort and cheer the men, and they rallied, but my heart was not in it.

Jonathan's right arm is very badly injured. The knife has severed some nerves and tendons in his forearm, and he can barely move the hand. Van Helsing said it is possible the damage may never heal. He wept with remorse for having inflicted the injury, but Jonathan spoke stoically though he was white with shock. 'It was not you who did this, Professor. It was he, our enemy, Dracula.'

How extraordinary that Elena and Quincey should have slept through it! But what a mercy that they did!

6 November Jonathan and Van Helsing are resting. We have had to tell Mary and the others that Jonathan slipped and cut his arm; I wish they would not fuss so! An atmosphere of oppression seems to lie on the whole house and nothing will dispel it. We look upon each other with suspicion, watching for the slightest sign of - what can I call it? Possession, infection. What a terrible feeling it is to trust no one, and not to be fully trusted! Surely, the last time, even in our deepest horror, we never lost faith in one another - even when I came so nearly into Dracula's power.

But I will write no more of it now. It may be over already, for all we know, a brief aberration of the spirit world. How pleasant it will be to spend the afternoon alone with Quincey and Elena. My task in rea.s.suring them that all is normal will surely refresh my own spirit.

We are quite a houseful of invalids now! Elena is the only fit one among us!

Quincey is still the same, out of bed but listless and easily tired. Every time he succ.u.mbs to an illness, I fear it may be his last.

Thank goodness Elena is so calm and happy! It steadies us all. Her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow - almost as if she had a secret suitor, though I am certain she has not! I think it is simply her naturally sweet disposition shining through.

Later We have given in to Van Helsing's wishes, and summoned Dr Seward and Lord G.o.dalming. Our little army will be together again (with, of course, the sad exception of Mr Morris). I feel saddened, yet somewhat rea.s.sured by this. We are no longer facing this alone, but with people who understand.

I have such a strange feeling today. It is as if the menace that plagued our dreams and minds is quite gone, yet . . . Oh, enough of trying to comprehend these moods!

7 November They are here - without their wives, since we do not know what danger is to be faced. (For myself, I do not wish to be protected but to stand alongside them. It is no more than I have done in the past.) We sat around the dining room table as a sort of committee, as we have done before. Dr Seward looked very grim as we explained what had befallen us, almost as if he had expected this to happen. Lord G.o.dalming seemed anxious and troubled, almost despairing; he cannot bear to be away from his dear wife and child, I know. I wondered if they would feel the same urgency of commitment as they felt before, without Lucy to unite us. But as soon as Van Helsing had finished, as one, without hesitation, we all began to remake our pledges. To stand by one another, and never to rest until the evil is prised out and destroyed! I must confess that tears were shed, and not just by myself.

As we all clasped hands, vowing loyalty Jonathan suddenly looked up as if startled. There was nothing to see; he looked into s.p.a.ce, as it were, and said something strange. 'He is gone. But he is coming!'

ELENA KOVACS'S JOURNAL.

7 November Madam Mina remarks how serene and well-tempered I am. If only she knew the truth! I am such a mixture of pa.s.sions. Fear, triumph, excitement, and again, terror. Even now, alone in my room with a single candle burning, my heart races and my hands shake. No matter if my writing is unreadable, it is only for my eyes - and perhaps those of my beloved Dark Companion, who may then be doubly sure of my loyalty.

To take the blood from Madam Mina - that was a great obstacle. I could hardly lunge at her with a knife, and even if I had made to cut her accidentally with a paper knife, or p.r.i.c.k her with a needle, I might have drawn only a drop of blood and failed to catch it. And such an 'accident' could never be repeated. Unless she was to think me dangerously clumsy!

I miss my love's spirit being folded up inside mine, like a child within me. When we arrived in England I felt him leave the sanctuary of my soul - although he returns often, of course. He has been among the family, and they know; I see the haunted light in their faces, the shadows in their eyes. I hear them cry out in the night. But they never speak of it. These are the English! In Hungary they would have hedged themselves about with herbs and garlic and every sign and incantation against the Devil! They are all fools.

I am jealous of Mina. Why must he need her so much? But I try to understand. I asked him how I was to take her blood but there came from him only a cold urge, do it, do it, as if he were testing my ingenuity. I was in despair until I thought of the rose.

When I thought of it I felt him respond, warming to me, urging me on. (My mother cut her lip once and I remember how it bled .

.. how strange I have that memory of her. But what a blessing!) So, the lip ... but how to pierce it, how to catch the blood? Finally he gave me an answer. We would work together. He would control the child for a few minutes, and the child would do the deed.

Then, if it went wrong and I failed, it would be blamed on the boy anyway, so I would still have a chance to try another way.

But all went well.

How Mina bled! The blood streamed from her mouth, bright and gleaming. I caught it in the base of the urn, where it ran down into the precious dust. How considerate of her to faint! Thus giving me the chance to conceal the bowl before I called for help.

I left the house dial night with all black and silent. A chill mist floated about my feet and hung like rags in the bare trees. I carried the urn two miles to the churchyard and entered the sepulchre. Inside it was ice-cold and damp, the air dense with a miasma of stone and mould. The odours of wet earth and vegetation crept into our hiding place. The scent of new life. I turned aside the slab on top of the marble tomb. Over it lay a long black ca.s.sock dial I stole from the church to clothe him. I tipped the ash and blood on to the sacred soil, hoping with all my heart mat I have done everything correctly. Then I lit a candle, and sat down at the foot of the tomb to wait.

That night, and the following three, I kept a vigil in the darkest hours before dawn. Nothing stirred. I knew, from disturbances at the house, that my Dark Companion's spirit had not yet fused with his flesh; I began to fear that it never would, that I had done something terribly wrong.

But last night.. .

I watch the night sky through the bars of the mausoleum gate. The leaves of the yew tree are motionless. All is motionless ... and I wait and wait, not daring to look into the tomb.

I dread to find nothing more than a mess of clotted ash and soil, but dread even more to see some spectral shape forming, or to hear a movement inside the coffin's stone walls . .. But mine is not to witness such mystery, only to keep the vigil.

I grow very cold, huddling there in the dark. A deep pall of despair falls on me, a misery so heavy and grey I wish to die. I can bear no more. I must look into the tomb, I must know .. . but I am falling into a deep sleep.

When I wake, a tall thin figure stands over me.

It is dark; the candle has gone out, but there is a chill clear glow to the sky, as of dawn's imminence. Against this glow, the figure is a silhouette, gaunt and dusty black. He is so still he might be carved of dark stone, one of the graveyard statues. I hold my breath, for I do not know if I dream.

He lifts a hand, and the gathering glow shines through the tips of his fingernails, making of diem glistening, sharp crescents.

He reaches his hand to me and speaks in a voice of rusted iron, one word, 'Elena'.

Chapter Nine.

ELENA KOVACS'S JOURNAL (Continued)

He is standing between me and the light. His eyes glare scarlet into mine.

I touch his hand. For the first time in reality, I touch him. He grasps my hand in his; the palm is cold and rough with hair, the fingers powerful. They hold me like ropes as he pulls me to my feet. His nails almost pierce my skin.

I cannot see him clearly. My head comes barely to his shoulder; his form gives the impression of skeletal thinness and great age, yet of strength - a wiry, silvery strength. The shape of his skull in silhouette is magnificent, dawn making a nimbus of his white hair.

He smells of earth - but so do I. It is a wild scent, wet and fungal, but at the same time wholesome as new growth.

Dear G.o.d, what have I done?