Lord of the Vampires (28 page)

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In the early morning, Seward camein quite a rush, as if he sensed that disaster had befallen us. By then, I was the only conscious soul at Hillingham; I had wakened moments before from a deep vampire-induced sleep to find Lucy near death, almost as cold and gaunt as her mothers corpse. I attempted an emergency transfer of psychic energy from myself to her, but the previous nights events had left me curiously drained; not only was I unable to complete the exercise, I became faint and nearly fell upon the poor child.

Soon I heard knocking upon the door, and Johns voice calling out. I staggered downstairs and let him in; from my dishevelled appearance, he knew that the worst had indeed happened, and took immediate action. He found the four maids asleep in the dining-room; to my great relief, they had not been bitten or killed, but were merely drugged with laudanum. He managed to rouse three, and they in turn set to work, preparing a warm bath and fetching brandy to revive Miss Lucy.

Of course, such measures were of little use; we needed a transfusion of energy, but I could see that John was still weak from Renfields attack, and so refused to let him risk himself. But one was sent to us, as if from the gods: a good friend of both Johns and Arthur Holmwoods, Mr. Quincey Morris from America.

I had thought that Arthur was Johns best friend, but clearly Mr. Morris is just as close to the two of them. When he arrived, I saw a flicker of honest joy for the first time in weeks upon Johns haggard face, and the two men grabbed each others arms, then happily thumped each others shoulders almost to the point of injury. This Quincey is a very tall, thin fellow, mostly gangly arms and legs, with thinning red hair and ubiquitous freckles. And a beak for a nose! When he stands sideways, the effect is comical (I can write so cruelly here because he is jovial and would be first to laugh at himself): first there is the great white boat of a hat called the Stetson, then the great beak of a nose, then a huge lump of an Adams apple, all set atop a body slumped in an effort to reduce the great height.

It is a sad story I must tell, and Quincey Morris was the only bright spot in it.

Once the violent thumping of the shoulders and greetings were done, John explained the need for a.transfusion. Mr. Morris agreed, with the same unhesitating vehemence John had, which made me think that he, too, shares an unrequited love for Lucy.

So it was done-in Mrs. Westenras bedroom, as the dead woman still lay in Lucys bed.

John and Mr. Morris now sit talking at the breakfast table, whilst I remain upstairs to watch Miss Lucy, and write this record. As robust a man as the American is, the transfusion of his energy to her has had little effect. Her breathing is a bit less rapid, and her pulse a bit stronger, but it is not enough.

I have not spoken aloud to John of our hopeless situation in terms of Miss Lucy or ourselves, nor explained in detail last nights events. But when he saw Lucys room with the corpse and the shattered window, some of the grim helpless fury I had felt only hours before came over his face. He knows; he knows.

It will not be long now.

Chapter 12

The Diary of Abraham Van Helsing

20 SEPTEMBER.

A day of the blackest sorrow and despair; yet in the midst of gloom shines a ray of love and valour. My heart vacillates so between the two extremes that I grow wearied and confusedbut I must make sense of it all, as there are decisions to be made and lives in the balance. So I write, for writing ofttimes brings illumination.

For two days and two nights John and I sat with Miss Lucy, never leaving her an instant without one of us at her sidethough I knew there was no hope of protecting her from her murderer, or from an unthinkable fate. The most we could provide her was the comfort of our presence. It was the hardest of tasks; but my own grief at failing this sweet child, who had so trusted me, was nothing compared to Johns. Many times I went in to relieve him to find him with silent tears streaming down his cheeks as, tenderly, he clasped her hand whilst she lay sleeping. It is a bitter thing for him; he is still deeply in love with her, but cannot mourn her openlycannot even profess his love a final time before she dies. That right is Arthurs, whom I have come to learn is one of his dearest and oldest friends.

And she was dying indeed. That final transfusion never restored to her any vigour, only prolonged the inevitable, which was clearly devastating to her donor, Quincey. (I cannot refer to him as Mr. Morris, for he is, like most Americans, charmingly casual, and refreshingly forthright in stating his thoughts and feelings in his musical Texan accent.) But there is one feeling that he does try to hide his own unrequited love for Miss Lucy. I have seen the flicker of pain in his dark eyes when he looks down at her; he cannot bear to linger in the sickroom lest his love should show, and cause John or Arthur any unhappiness. Thus he busies himself with various ways of helping: he has been our errand-boy, and when I said that Arthur should be notified at once, it was he who went to send the telegram. John tells me that Quincey would not sleep last night, but instead patrolled the grounds with pistol in hand. (John also ruefully confessed that Quincey has convinced himself the culprit is a large vampire bat, of the sort found in South America. Apparently he once lost a beloved horse to such cause, and says he has seen a big grey bat flapping around the house. He is closer to the truth than I thought!)

As for Arthur: His father, Lord Godalming, had taken a turn for the worse on Sundaythe day after Lucys final encounter with the vampire.
So
the poor boy had remained the whole day and night at the elder mans deathbed. His father died shortly before dawn Monday, leaving Arthuror, I should say, the new Lord Godalmingwith little time to grieve that loss before he received our telegram saying that Lucy was failing and had asked for him. Quincey picked him up at the station, and he arrived here so red-eyed, grim, and exhausted that it pained me to lead him into Lucys sickroom and see his sorrow multiplied. (Quincey himself disappeared, I think because he feared breaking down in the sickroom and further upsetting Arthur.) As it happened, the new Lord Godalming arrived at precisely six oclock, when I was coming to relieve John from his vigil; so Arthur sat with me the whole of my watch, until midnight.

As overwhelmed as the poor man must have been, he was cheerful with Lucy in a way that rallied her a bitand she, too, affected such cheerfulness that I could not bear to watch them both be so brave for the others sake. But weakness overcame her soon, and she went back to her pattern of lapsing into frequent periods of unconsciousness; other times, she gave up struggling to speak and just lay in silence. Through it all, Arthur sat beside her, holding her hand and gazing down at her with the same expression of despairing adoration I had seen John wear. Despite his privileged upbringing, Lord Godalming is a strong, strong man.

In thirty years of medical practice, I have visited many families who cared for a mortally ill member. All are different, of coursesome loving, some not; but all share one constant, especially when death draws nigh. The experience causes formality and pretense to fall away, not only for the dying member, but for those who tend him, so that only the truest essence of all persons remains. In some cases, this is a sad thing, for anger, regret, or sorrow might be revealed, or inner weakness wherein the individual lapses into morbid despair from which he cannot recover.

In other cases, the experience melts away the more superficial aspects of the personality, revealing a golden core of strength and compassion. This is what I saw in him and his friends Quincey and Arthur, and in Miss Lucy herself; and despite great sadness, I felt warmed and privileged to be among them.

At last the hour struck twelve, and John appeared in the doorway. I rose, patted Arthurs shoulder, and bade him come to rest, as he had not done so in almost two days. He resisted heartily until John vowed that, should Lucys condition take a change for the worse, however slight, he would wake his friend immediately. At last he came, and we went into the drawing-room, where two comfortable sofas faced a blazing hearth.

There I rested, but did not sleep, as my thoughts were anxious and many; blessedly, Arthur fell almost at once into a doze. I listened to the clock chime hour after hour, until at last it was sunrise againsix oclock. Arthur was still sleeping soundly, so I stole away, back into Lucys sickroom, where John sat writing in the dimmed gaslight.

The blind was pulled, and the room shadowed. I could not see the patients face, but above her heart and head hovered a fatal telltale sign: the glittering indigo aura that marked a vampire. At once, I ordered John to raise the blind. The pale dawn sunlight streamed in, illuminating Miss Lucys facewhich caused me to gasp, for at first I thought I was looking upon a corpse. But she still breathed, and so I hurriedly untied the black silk scarf I had fastened about the puncture wounds.

It was as I had feared; the vampires mark had vanished, leaving the milky skin there smooth and flawless.

John saw, too, and, even before I told him, seemed to know that she was dying. He went and woke Arthurfor in truth, I could not bear to break the news to the lad myself. Instead, I busied myself with straightening Lucys pillows, and quickly removing all signs of sickness from the night-standthe laudanum bottle, the morphia, the chamber-pot. Then I brushed out her hair so that it lay in becoming waves upon the pillows, for I knew that Lucy should have liked to look her best for this last moment shared with her fiance.

So the stricken lover cameor should I say, her
two
stricken lovers, for John, his expression and posture one of the utmost resolve, came in with his arm firmly wound about Arthurs shoulders in a gesture of unreserved support. Yet his eyes, as much as Arthurs, shone with unspilled tears; he felt the coming loss just as keenly, but Fate had not dealt him the right to show it.

As the two approached the deathbed, John let go his grip, and let his friend rush at once to Lucys side. I do not mention my pity for my son in order to make light of Arthurs sufferingfar from it, I think it shows how good a man Holmwood (that is, Lord Godalming) must be, to inspire such deep loyalty in a friend. And John, too, for many lesser men have broken off long friendships over their shared love for one woman.

As for Arthur, having come from the deathbed of his father to that of the woman he loved, he entered the room pale and trembling, with fresh tears upon his cheeks. But the closer he drew to Lucy, the more firmly he put aside his double grief, wiping his eyes and running his fingers through his dishevelled curls that he might present to her his best. He is a strong man, that one. I remembered how stricken I had been when my little son Jan died, and Gerda went mad; certainly I could never have put up as stolid a front as Arthur did.

It was then that he ran to her side, and bent low to kiss herbut I had seen the growing indigo aura surrounding her; were he to consummate his intent, she might well mesmerise him to the degree that after death, she could influence him for ill. Thus I moved between them, and gently warned, Not yet. Take her hand; it will comfort her more.

He was perplexed, but sorrow had stripped him of any defiance, so he did as told. It was a difficult thing, to tell a man that he could not kiss his dying lover, but I knew no other way to protect him.

Miss Lucy took great comfort in his presence and his touch, and sank back into sleep with a sigh. But after a time, honest sleep turned to trance, and a veil of illusory beauty such as the vampire can produce enveloped her. John saw it, I know, for he gave me a sharp, knowing glance. Lucy then opened her eyesor rather, a demoness eyesand begged him to kiss her, in a seductive, wicked parody of her own sweet voice.

So swiftly did Arthur bend down to oblige her that, abandoning all civility, I caught hold of his neck and flung him away, shouting, Not for your life!

Remembering it now causes fresh pain, for I know how unspeakably cruelindeed, madmy act must have seemed to him. In fact, a gleam of violence came into his eye. But almost immediately it passed, and he merely stood, awaiting explanation.

I did not give it, for very shortly thereafter, Lucy came to herself, and took my great coarse hand in her fine small one and kissed it. This in itself was sufficient to summon my tears; but then she gazed up at me with beseeching, loving eyes, and said in a breathless whisper: My true friend, and his! Guard him, and give me peace!

Atremble with emotion, I sank to my knees beside the bed. These were difficult, perhaps impossible, things she had asked of meif Vlad was now so powerful, so impervious, how could I know that she, his offspring, would not also become so?

Yet for loves sake, I answered solemnly, I swear!

I
do
swear, Lucy. I swear it with every fibre of my being, with all my strength and soul. Impossible it may be, but I shall accomplish it, or die in the effort

Her breathing became more of a struggle, until I heard the faint rattle in her throat. I rose and turned to Arthur, who no longer fought to hold back the tears that streamed down his wan cheeks. The end had come, and so I bade him take her hand and kiss her only once, upon the forehead.

This he did, and then she slowly closed her eyes. The death-rattle grew louder then, and so I took Arthurs arm and drew him away. Yet before we reached the door, the sound stopped abruptly; our sweet Miss Lucy had died.

I returned to her side, and let John take his sobbing friend away. There I sat some time, gazing in grief and horror as Lucys worn, wasted face began at once to bloom with lifeor rather, undeath.

For more than twenty years, I have hunted vampires all over the European continent, and in every case, I prevailed: the vampire was destroyed, and his progenitor, Vlad, weakened. Again and again was the same scenario repeatedthe hunt, the capture, the destruction, always according to the same rules. The vampires abilities and limitations never varied, the cross and the garlic never failed. In time I grew more powerful, and my task easier; so strong was my aura that I could move in complete confidence of invisibility around the undead. They could neither mesmerise nor overpower me. But now