Mina (39 page)

"Illona,” she replied. Her eyes glowed in
the light of the single candle burning beside my bed. Her hands were long and delicate
like my mother's, her face smooth and pale, and her voice as she spoke her name
had an incredible timbre that reminded me less of song than of dance. She
resembled the aristocratic Hungarian women at court with their powdered faces
and painted lips, but her hair was dark rather than pale and fell like raven's
feathers across her shoulders and the white cotton blouse she wore.

Her very beauty calmed
me. I sat up in bed, tossing my hair over my back, trying to make myself look
passable in her

magnificent presence.
"Why are you here?" I asked.

"To take you to
him-to Dracula.” I frowned. I did not understand.

She smiled, a slash of
red lips against the pale face, the white teeth. "So he was not foolish
enough to call himself that,”

she whispered and
laughed. "To your lover then. To Vlad? To Tepes?"

I recognized the last name.
"He sent you? Yes, take me to him!" I exclaimed so loudly that Illona
looked over her

shoulder at the door.

Anyone who came would have died before they
could make a sound. I know that now. Then, I only assumed she feared discovery,
and I felt so foolish for speaking so thoughtlessly. I pulled on my clothes as
quickly as I was able. With her moving before me through the darkness, one of
her hands holding mine to lead the way, we stole silently through the dark house
and into the night.

Clear, moonless. The stars shed some light,
enough to show us the road as we ran to the edge of the estate. A horse was waiting
beyond the wall, a coal-black stallion that answered to Illona's call yet
shivered with fear as we mounted. She pressed her knees into its side, and
with me sitting in front of her, we rode away.

I spoke to her, asking
where we were going, how long it would take. She did not answer, but her hands
dug into my

wrists painfully. I
cried out, I trembled. I heard her laughter again. This time it did not sound
so beautiful.

The
walls of this ancient castle were not so weathered when I first saw them. The
upstairs halls were not so damp, and the furnishings were still rich and
colorful. Illona lit a torch and showed me to an upper-floor chamber. There was
wood for a fire, water to drink, even some bread and dried meat and wine.

"Where is he?"
I asked as she showed me into the room. "Is he here?"

"He comes in his
own good time. Sleep well,” she said and pulled the door shut behind her. When
I tried to open it, I

found it locked.

Even if I had been able
to explore, I was far too tired to do so. The bed was soft, the blankets warm.
I slept until night,

when Illona called my
name.

She had brought another
woman with her--a woman with hair even darker than hers and eyes that same
shade of

smoldering green as my
lover's.

"This is Joanna,”
Illona said. "Dracula's sister."

"You resemble each
other,” I said, uneasily now, for though they had been polite, their presence
in my room was too

abrupt, had been too soundlessly accomplished. They seemed to be
specters rather than women, their bodies long dead and buried in the caverns
below us.

"Yes, we do
resemble one another,” Joanna said in that same strange accent as my lover
had. Illona laughed, the

brightness of it so at
odds with Joanna's tone.

"We must prepare
you,” Illona declared and moved closer to me, her delicate fingers unhooking
the front of my gown,

her hands sliding it off my shoulders, my breasts, while Joanna
was content to stand by the door and watch, an indecipherable upward turn to
her lips that seemed less a smile than a sign of distaste.

The places where Tepes had drunk from me were
scarred and bruised. Illona's fingertips brushed each one of them. My nipples
hardened from the memory of what he had done. I am certain I blushed. A woman
had never touched me there before.

"He fed on you
often,” Illona said.

Joanna laughed, too hard
it seemed, though I understood her contempt easily enough later.

"Do you please
him?" Illona asked, her dark dry eyes, so like his, fixed on mine.

To say yes would have
made me feel too wanton, too full of conceit. To say no would have been a lie.
I kept silent. "Of

course you do, and will continue to do, unless we turn you
first.” Her face moved close to mine. Her breath was cold and cloyingly sweet
like a garden in midsummer
^-
. For the first time, I noticed that her
teeth were long and sharp like his. I expected her to kiss me. Instead she
rested one hand against the back of my neck and lowered her head, pressing her
parted lips against a wound he had made, biting down.

I wanted to scream, to
beg the other woman for help, but for a moment I was unable to move. Then the
spell broke, and

my hands pushed against
her, but I might have been a kitten or a little bird for all the effect my
struggles had.

I don't know how long we
stood there, me fighting impotently, her feasting on me, but she did not take
much blood.

Then she raised her head
and released me so abruptly that I fell backward against the bed.

"Come, Joanna,”
Illona called sweetly and stretched out beside me. Her face was flushed from
even that small amount

of blood, her breath
warm against my neck. "Come. Drink. When it is time, I will give you the
privilege of her death. "

I know
I begged for my life then, but Illona did not notice me. Her attention was
fixed on Joanna, her intensity drawing the smaller woman forward. As she moved
toward the bed, Illona raised my hands above my head. Only when the second woman's
teeth had opened a different wound did I hear Illona say, "A taste only,
sister. It will be days before he returns.” Whatever relief I might have
taken from that last comment vanished as she added, "Then we will feast."

She smiled, her incisors
long and white against the red of her lips. "Oh, yes. You welcomed his
touch, did you not?" She

ran her hands over my
cheek, slapping me when I tried to look away. "Do you think we are so
different from him?"

Of course they were! I
stared at the creature, convinced that she was insane.

"Once we were male
and female. Now we are only takers, and you only exist to give. We cannot love.
We only devour."

I looked from Illona to Joanna, standing so
silently beside her. "Is this really true?" I asked, begging her for
the answer I wanted to hear. In our nights together, it had seemed that the
creature they called Dracula, the man I called Tepes, had truly loved me.

Joanna did not answer,
but when she looked at me, I thought I saw some softening in her expression, a
look almost of

sympathy in her eyes.

I will not speak of the
nights that followed, only say that they were careful with me. Joanna
especially saw to my

comfort, making sure my
room-my cell-was warm and my food adequate.

The
fall from my window was long and steep. I had always feared heights. The door
was barred. In time, I learned to live on their cycle, sleeping by day, wary
at night. I learned too to accept their silent comings and goings, as they drifted
in and out of my locked roam on tendrils of fog and dust.

Some
nights they came to me, their hands caressing me, their lips against the
wounds, drinking until I nearly swooned, then forcing me to drink from them.
In the beginning, I gagged. Later their blood tasted sweet, the nourishment it
gave relished by my soul. On other nights, I stayed alone, pacing my chamber,
inventing hopeless, useless plans for escape.

Once, Joanna came and, after building up the fire, sat with me,
taking my hand so timidly that I did not pull away. "Tell me about your
world,” she whispered, her voice trembling, her dark eyes glancing toward the
door as if she were frightened that Illona would hear and come.

I did, in the same low tone. She asked about the
clothing, more about the music, the books and plays. I did the best I could,
telling her the stories I had read, singing the songs I knew. Though t did not
dare say it, I knew the truth about her.

She was a prisoner here.
Now I understand why. Then, I only pitied her. It was preferable to pitying
myself.

Dracula
returned by night, sitting beside the gypsies on the cart. I recall that as
they rode up to the walls, they were all singing. It seemed so strange to hear
his voice mingling with theirs. I have never thought of the women as human, but
I thought of him then (and still!) that way. It is his will, his human will.
It is too strong to be overpowered, even in death.

The gypsies unloaded the
box of earth that made it possible for him to travel, and left. I have often
wondered how he can be so trusting of those men or they so honorable when he
is at his most helpless, yet the bond has existed for centuries. He gives them
gold, that is true. But even if he did not, they would die
_.
for him.

As I leaned out the
window, it never occurred to me to cry out for help. I don't understand my
silence to this day.

Perhaps I knew it was
useless to place my hope in his servants, perhaps I already knew that the life
I had lived be
_f
ore

coming here had ended with
his kiss.

The women entered my
chamber as silently as always. I felt their presence behind me and turned from
the window.

Joanna, as ever, hung
back in a subservient position. Illona moved closer. "Do I die now?"
I asked.

"You do,"
Illona responded. I have never seen such an evil expression, such a sardonic
smile. "Help me," Illona called to

Joanna, as she began to
remove my clothes.

Joanna hung back.
"Let him have her,” she said.

"Him!" Illona
laughed derisively and went on, ripping the last of my clothes from me. When I
was naked, she lifted a

gown from the bed.

Once it must have been
beautiful, for the lace was still delicate. But age had destroyed some of the
most intricate

designs. Once it must have been white, but now it was yellow and
there were brown spots of mildew on the lining of the bodice. The laces in the
back were rotted, so the top could only stay up if I stood very straight. When
she'd finished Illona put the veil on me, more a web of dust and tiny seed
pearls than the lace that it had once been.

"My wedding dress,” she said. "Ideal, don't you think,
for this profane marriage."
"Marriage?" I asked dully.

"To Joanna."

Joanna shook her head. I
began to understand what made her so reluctant. She feared Illona, but she
feared Dracula as

well. Sometimes it seems
that only fear gives her life.

"Then she is mine,
as you were, Joanna, remember?" With a cry that might have been despair,
or rage, Joanna vanished

from the room, though I
sensed her presence, safely watching, unable to act.

Illona tore at her neck; she gripped my head;
forcing me to drink as she had before. As I struggled, he came, his bellow of
rage filling the room, the strength of his presence more potent than both of
the women's had been. Illona gripped my hair and turned me toward the door,
forcing me to look at him.

Her hand curved around
my throat; her nails just touched my flesh.

"Let her go!"
Dracula ordered.

"So you can take a
bride after me? No, husband. Never."

Later,
he told me that his death in her arms was the most exquisite act of ecstasy he
had ever experienced, the little death, as the French call it, extended into a
momentary blackness of real death, then the sudden wrenching instant of rebirth.
I felt none of the glory, all of the fear. Indeed, the last moments of my
struggle raised so much dust from the crumbling veil that my last human act
was to sneeze.

Then her nails dug into
my flesh, ripping at my throat like some animal's claws, and the darkness fell over
me, profound

and silent as a winter
night.

I dreamed of life as
life left me.

How I would sit and
watch my hair glowing like gold threads in the sun.

How I rode with my
brothers through the hills, my stallion white and powerful between my legs.

How I danced at court,
laughing too frantically at the jests, crying in my mother's arms at night
because no one loved

me.

How I dreamed of another
world, cities, countries, oceans. How I lay in Tepes's arms, my body trembling
at his touch,

thrilling to the taste
of his blood.

Illona denied it all to
me. Her nature is utterly dark, with not a ray of her past life able to pierce
its blackness. How I

loathe her. How I envy
her freedom.

And then there was
nothing but darkness and, for a moment only, the promise of life everlasting. I
sensed it, desired it--

peace, incredible and
eternal peace!

It abandoned me as it had the vampire women. I
returned to life as suddenly as I had died. My eyes opened. Though the room
was undoubtedly dim, lit as it was by just a single candle, the brightness of
it hurt my eyes. I lay across the knees of a young man who was washing the
blood from my neck and chest. The warm water reeked of its scent as the room
reeked of his fear. It reeked of his passion as well, for sometime during my
death, the tattered gown had been removed and I lay naked before him.

Had he touched me while
I was helpless? I was certain of it from the blush on his cheeks, the way he
looked only at my

face. I knew he could
not help himself. I held up my hand and saw its incredible pallor: my legs felt
thinner, longer, my hair