Mina (4 page)

harm."

"And
me?" I asked. "What price do I pay for your mercy.”

He paused
before answering. I heard the hiss of his indrawn breath as he prepared to
speak. "Only this-you must pledge to

follow your desire and do as
you will rather than as your husband and the others direct. If you agree, I
will release your soul."

"Did
you ever have it?" I asked.

"I will
release it," he repeated with more force.

"As you
released Lucy!"

I had issued
a challenge, nonetheless he took little offense at the intent. "Get up
from your bed, Mina Harker. Take out your little

journal and write down the
words I speak. Later, when you are awake, read them and think carefully on
their meaning."

I did as he asked. Later, when I
woke and found them written in the back of the journal, I pulled them out of the
book. Now I record them as they were written, along with my thoughts of
everything else that happened during that dream. If it was indeed a dream. To
leave them as they were, divorced from the rest of my account, would seem
unnatural, as if dream and reality had twisted and broken apart into two
unmatched halves. I cannot allow that. To lose my hold on my thoughts would
likely destroy my mind.

I recall rising from my bed as he demanded, locking the door and
sitting at the little table. I recall writing furiously, often thinking not of
anything but the act of writing itself. He stood beside me, pausing often to
let me catch up and to force a deep breath of air into his lungs.

"I had wanted to take the three
women with me to England; but their needs were too great," he said.
"We never would have survived the journey. We three together would have
soon devoured the crew of a ship twice the size of the
Demeter
.
I had promised
them that I would make a place for them in your new, crowded land and that later
they could come and be with me as they had been for years upon years in the
past. The arrangements would take some time, but as you know, my blood-kin and
I have time to spare."

Another pause before he went on. "I had not counted on my
loneliness, especially for the fair one, my last mortal lover. And the loneliness
was all the greater for the life surrounding me in England. I sensed it, even
as I slept, and it made my need for someone, anyone with whom to share my
existence, that much stronger.

"Ah, I
see the pity in your eyes, Mina Harker. I suppose it is inevitable when I bare
my soul like this.

"Oh
yes, I have a soul, and it is much as it was when I lived. When I first saw
Lucy on a crowded Whitby street, her brown hair

shining with its golden highlights even in the foggy afternoon
light, I felt loneliness. Such a wonderful land, your gray-shrouded England,
where I can walk even at noonday without fear of the sun. I joyfully followed
her. My intent then was not to use her, for I am of noble lineage and know the
danger of preying on the wealthy and powerful. No, my intent was simply to
observe her, to hear her laughter, to see her smile.

"You and she were together, but in truth, I noticed only
Lucy. I watched her climb the hill to a great house and despaired. I had hoped
she was staying at some public house where I could go inside and order some
food that I could not touch and sit and listen to her voice, perhaps even
share a brief conversation with her.

"Such
loneliness is dangerous, no? I knew that even as I went on, staying well behind
so she would not see me following her.

Afternoon turned to twilight
while I stood in the protective shadows of the trees and watched the house. I
don't know why I stayed.

Perhaps
because the spot is so beautiful, the view of the harbor so magnificent. I
watched the ships swaying on the tranquil evening sea and thought how free
mortal men are. They can travel anywhere while I, trapped by needs, had been
forced to plan my journey so carefully, going even so far as to be certain
that the ship's crew would be large enough to sustain me.

"Am I
speaking too fast for you, dear Mina? No? Good." I stayed until night,
thinking of this. Then I heard men's voices

whispering in the trees. I
knew they were thieves, for their dress and actions were the same as thieves
throughout the world.

"I
could feast on one and kill the other. Their bodies could be pitched into the
rocky strand. The tide would account for the loss

of blood, the marks.

"I had
moved closer to them when a figure coming from the quiet house startled us all.
The men retreated, but I, for whom

darkness conceals nothing,
knew it was Lucy coming to me. She had sensed me, and I had not even called
except through desire."

"She walked
in her sleep," I told him. "She did so before you arrived in England.
We always feared what might happen to her."

"Silence!"
His voice seemed to thunder in the little room. "She came to me, else why
would she have chosen the exact spot at

which I waited?"

"We
often picnicked there. The place has the most ideal view of the harbor."

This time he
let my comment pass and went on. "Her gown was thin. I could see the
outline of her breasts, the cleft of her sex,

and I sorrowed for I could not
love her as a man loves a woman. That was gone with so many other possibilities
centuries before.

"Even so, I gave her pleasure,
and when I tasted her, she felt no pain. The sigh, that tiny perfect sigh she
made as my teeth pierced her, I noted it, recalled it in the nights that
followed. When she was strong enough, I came back and used her again and later
again."

"You
killed her," I replied savagely.

"They
killed her!
Yes, she had my blood in her, as you do. She would have survived and lived her
natural years. Later, I would

have claimed her, restored to
her youth after a long and hopefully fruitful life, as my bride.

"Instead Van Helsing came and knew what she would become. My
only hope for her future was to claim her and take her away. Do you think she
died in Van Helsing's absence by accident? No, I chose the night of her death
carefully, so that I would have time to find a new and safer resting place for
her body before Van Helsing persuaded the others to help him destroy her."

"But the
men found her in her own coffin," I said.

"I
would not have a slave for a bride! Lucy did not lose her will
when she
died. She was confused, yes, but stubborn, and she

would not go with me. Had there been no Van Helsing, she
would have
learned to understand
the need to exist under my protection, and to choose my life over true
death."

"To
harden her heart to killing," I responded.

"You
are so perceptive. Had there been no Van Helsing, she could have risen, could
have stumbled from that cold tomb into the

beautiful night and slowly
learned what was necessary to survive. Instead, instead . . ."

His pale hands were clenched with
rage, the nails digging into his palms. I saw him as he would have been when he
was alive, the savior of his people, slaughtering the enemy, rejoicing in
battle. Seeing him like this made him more human, and somehow more powerful.
"Instead they killed her," he said bitterly. "They destroyed one
who had done nothing to deserve that end."

I lowered my
head to the table and cried.

He looked closely at me as if he had never seen such sorrow
before. "You grieve for her?" "I grieve for her, and for the men
who did that to her," I replied.

He shook his
head, and again he seemed so wise, so good. His words did not surprise me.
"No, Mina, you must not. In time she

would have had no choice but
to be as I am. No will is stronger than our power and our need."

"And yet you say that you can release my soul." "If
you follow your desire."

I had always
prided myself on being independent. What he asked was no more than what I would
have done. "I agree," I

whispered.

I waited to
hear him acknowledge what I had said, but he had already begun to fade into the
misty shadows of my mind ...

Now that I
have put the words I wrote of my dream in their proper place, I begin to
understand Dracula the man and I pity him.

Of course, he may be lying
about freeing me. He may mean to kill the men and take me, willing or no, to be
his eternal companion.

And yet I feel a strange sense of peace and acceptance of an end
that can only be inevitable. If Dracula passes us by, what recourse will we
have but to pursue him? I can only trust him as I trust Van Helsing. Neither of
them will destroy me until this struggle between them is over.

And if the
choice becomes Van Helsing's stake or an eternity of blood, I honestly do not
know which fate I would desire.

It
is
his blood
tainting me. Can I ever be truly free of it?

October 28.
The telegram
I had expected came. During last night's fog, the
Czarina Catherine
bypassed
Varna and went

directly on to Galati.

"Galati!" Quincey Morris spoke the city's name as if it
were a curse. "How could he have known we were here?" Of all of the men,
he seemed the most surprised by the news, the least willing to give up the
chase. The others were merely disheartened that Dracula's ship had been swept
on to the Romanian port some hundred miles north of Varna.

My face grew
white with the realization of the vampire's power. I said a prayer of hope that
what Dracula asked of me was for

the best, then looked at Van
Helsing as I spoke. "It was a chance we had to take," I said.

"We
know much, thanks to Madame Mina," Van Helsing responded. He would have
taken my hand and patted it, as is his way,

but I had my fingers clasped
together. I did not want to touch him, or any of them, now. I am dying and
their life calls out to me.

"The train," I whispered
to him and told him that one would be leaving for Galati in the morning, for I
had recently looked up the time. They asked me to bring the schedule to them.
Though I closed the doors behind me, their wood was thin enough that I could overhear
Van Helsing. As I suspected, he knew that Dracula had read my mind. He told the
others to keep the knowledge from me, as if knowing it would somehow undo me.
I'm stronger than that, stronger than any of them suspect. Haven't I proven
that so many times in the last few weeks?

Some time later, with the train
schedule in my hand, I returned to them. Then, quite directly, I told them that
I believed Dracula had read my mind and that they must not put me in contact
with him again. My honesty had the effect I hoped it would. I am now in their
confidence once more, and we shall continue our pursuit. I am certain that it
will end as Dracula wishes it to end, at his terrible mountain aerie.

On his own land, they will be no match for him. I tried to warn
Jonathan in private, but he will not be turned from the chase and the others
are equally committed. I find myself contemplating the outcome as if life and
death no longer hold any meaning for me, save the thrill of using my power.
While I listened to the men planning the final strategy of the chase, I fed on
their affection for me the way the vampire feeds on blood.

Is that so
loathsome? More and more I wonder if Dracula has freed me rather than made me
his slave.

And when the
chase is over, however it ends, can I go back to being Mina Murray Harker, the
same prim Englishwoman I was

only months ago?

That future
holds more terror for me than eternity at Dracula's side. And yet the words I
write in my more public journal are true.

I love my husband. I only hope that when this is over and we go
home to our civilized world, our social confinement, he can still love me.

November 4.
It has been
days since I have been able to write. I do not know where to begin save at the
moment that we arrived

by rail in Galati only to discover that Dracula had eluded us once
more. Through inquiries, we learned that he had departed by riverboat toward
the center of his domain before we were able to search the ship that brought
him back to his homeland.

As the fox
retreats to his den, so the hunters quicken their pace. The men have their
reason, and they make certain that I know it.

Jonathan and
the others often comment on my strange emotionalism, the dull lack of energy
with which I move through the

daylight hours, as well as my difficulty sleeping at night. Van
Helsing notes that my pulse is weaker and slower. Their observations are
likely true, but the changes do not trouble me. I remind them often that the
journey has been a hard and tiring one, and the tears and laughter I often
display natural in a woman on the edge of exhaustion. Perhaps that is all it
is, but they will not allow our quest to go unfinished. I suppose I should be
grateful. If we broke off now, I would be under a cloud of suspicion for the
rest of my days.

And when I
die, they would treat my body as they did Lucy's. I tell myself that I would be
past caring and that my fear for the

shell that once held my soul
is illogical. Still, the thought terrifies me.

Though I have no reason to trust
Dracula, I take comfort in his promise to spare those I love. I reminded myself
of it often while I wrote down my thoughts on what the men should do in order
to continue the chase. After I showed them the map of the area and explained
that the count had most likely arranged to be taken by boat as close to the
Borgo Pass as possible, I saw them take heart once more. "All is not yet
lost!" Quincey exclaimed. Van Helsing embraced me as if I were a daughter.
Even Jonathan, who had been the most despondent of any of them at this new
setback, seemed infused with new energy for the chase. I was prepared to insist
that I be allowed to accompany them, but before I could, Van Helsing made a
suggestion that I accompany him by coach while the men follow Dracula upriver
on a launch.