Mina (30 page)

coming down for the second
time.

Winnie attacked. One hand, unusually
strong after so much hard work in the hospital, grabbed the gun's handle. Had
the man not been dazed, he might have beaten her easily. Instead, she managed
to wrench the gun from his hand, point it toward him and fire.

She'd wanted only to wound him, nothing more. Instead, the bullet
went high, hitting him in the chest. He exhaled blood that seeped from his
mouth and across the dark parquet floor. Winnie had seen death enough to know
he was beyond any help.

She ran into the street and, raising
the gun in the air, fired two shots. The recoil made her lose her footing, but
the shots alerted her neighbors. Men rushed from their houses, one carrying a
gun of his own. "Send for the police!" Winnie cried. "And for a
doctor.

There's been a robbery and
shooting." With that, she ran back inside to do what she could to stop
Margaret's bleeding.

Mina arrived at the same time as the
doctor. When she saw Winnie's hands covered with blood, the body and Margaret
on the floor, she fought down the rush of emotions and took a step toward
Winnie, intending to pull her away. The doctor was here.

Winnie's skills were no longer needed. As Mina stepped forward,
Margaret turned her face toward her. The wound on the girl's shoulder opened,
and the blood began to flow once more. Mina backed away and leaned against the
hall table for support.

"Margaret will be
fine," Winnie said, then put an arm around her so they could help each
other up the stairs.

"I'm so sorry," Mina told her when they were alone.
"If Margaret dies, I'll be to blame." "The man I shot is to
blame for everything, Mina dear. Now, are you all right?"

"Yes.
Here, let me help you." Mina unbuttoned the back of Winnie's soiled blouse
so that Winnie could slip out of it. She

watched silently while Winnie washed and changed, then she
followed her to the top of the stairs and remained there while Winnie went
down to explain what she could to the police.

She had surprised a robber, she
said. In the struggle that followed, Margaret had been wounded and she had
wrestled the gun from the robber and killed him. She spoke calmly, almost
coldly. She had always sensed that she possessed such firm control, but she had
never expected to have to reveal it to so many strangers. The men who listened
to her seemed to be waiting for some terrible breakdown as she described the
killing, and to be disappointed when she did not oblige them.

"What
do you make of this?" the officer asked, holding up a pair of short wooden
stakes and a mallet.

She
understood exactly why the man had come for her, the death and mutilation she
had so narrowly avoided. "I haven't the

slightest idea," she
replied evenly, aware as she spoke of Mina standing at the top of the stairs,
her face white with shock.

As soon as
the police had gone, taking the body of the intruder with them, Winnie told
Mina exactly what had happened. "They

say that the man had no
identification on him. Though I can't be certain, I think the intruder was
James Sebescue."

"I
assumed it might be after I read the letter I'd received." She handed
Winnie the note Gance had sent.

Dear Mrs. Harker,
Winnie read.
I had a
chance meeting with William Graves yesterday. He asked how your translation was
progressing, then told me that one James Sebescue had come inquiring about the
journal. His manner and questions disturbed Mr. Graves enough that he has
taken to carrying a revolver. Pass this message on to Mrs. Beason, then come
to London. Contact me and I will assist you. Gance.

"Perhaps
you should write a note to Mr. Ujvari and warn him. There might be others ...
Oh, dear!" Winnie's hand covered her

mouth. For the first time
since Mina's arrival, she appeared shocked. "Sebescue said that the
translator did not have the book."

"He
could have been lying."

Winnie shook
her head. "He was certain. But I don't think the book was his real reason
for coming here. I think he just wanted to

find and destroy me."

"What
did he say to you, Winnie?"

"He
said I would change into a vampire. No, he did not say it so directly, but he
implied it. I think he believed that no one could

enter Dracula's castle and leave without sharing his curse. He
would have killed me, Mina, but only after making certain I understood why it
must be done."

"And I
thought Van Helsing obsessed," Mina commented with incredible calm.
"I should have listened to his warning. Now there

may be more like Sebescue
looking for us."

"I
understood why you did not want to worry your husband, but, Mina, I think you
must speak to him."

"And
tell him what? That everything we did in the east might have been in vain. That
I may rise after death? That it may happen to

him as well simply because
those women touched him? Then I can add that I am not certain. I know exactly
what he'd do."

Winnie
waited, saying nothing.

"He'd tell me I was wrong. That the shock of all those weeks
of fear has made me delusional and that it makes no difference if others are
delusional as well. Jonathan is a logical man, and I have no proof, Winnie,
save the book from the castle and the few pages of its translation. I must go
to London immediately."

"Telegrams travel faster, Mina dear." "I'll send
one before I get on the train." "Where will you stay?" Mina
took a deep breath and answered honestly, "With Gance. Give me the
translation, Winnie. I want to share it with him."

Winnie was about to give her friend
a warning, but then she considered the flush on Mina's face and the casual way
she'd used Gance's name, as if she spoke it often. Winnie wasn't angry, but
she didn't try to hide her disappointment either. Instead she shrugged and
said nothing. The day had been terrible enough already.

As soon as
they were calm enough to travel, the two went to Mina's. Winnie stayed with her
friend while Mina packed a bag and

wrote a brief note for
Jonathan, which she left in a sealed envelope on his desk.

They were
just slipping out the front door when Millicent came up from the kitchen.
"You are going somewhere?" she asked,

eyeing Mina's bag.

"I am
going to London. I've left a note for Jonathan telling him that I'll be home
tomorrow," Mina said. "I wouldn't leave so

suddenly if it weren't an
emergency."

"What
sort of emergency? You must wait for Jonathan and talk to him," she
demanded.

Mina would
not link this affair to the hospital again. Winnie, however, cut in, "A
legal emergency concerning the hospital, Miss

Harker. With Mina's training,
it's imperative that she handle it. I'll see her to the station."

Millicent
saw through the lie. Her face reddened with rage and her shoulders stiffened.
Mina suspected that only Winnie's

presence stopped the woman
from slapping her.

She and
Winnie said nothing on the drive. But as Mina prepared to leave the cab, Winnie
gripped her hand and squeezed it.

"Take care, dear," she said. "Wire me tomorrow,
please! And if ... well, if things don't go as you hope, there will be a place
for you in our house for as long as you need it."

As Mina
stood on the platform waiting for the last train, the chilly evening air
pressed down on her. Though she was warm

enough in her fur-trimmed
coat, she shivered.

She had packed her little journal
along with more clothes than were necessary for one night in London. It seemed
at that time as if she would never return to her house, or to Jonathan.
Perhaps that was a twisted sort of wishful thinking for, when she did return, she
would bring back the book and whatever else was finished. She would lay it all
in front of her husband and tell him everything.

Gance was waiting for Mina at the
London Station when the train pulled in a little after midnight. Though he was
prepared to confess his interest in the translation, and hope that the
confession would make him a confidant, she did not question him. Instead, as
they walked to his carriage, she told him what he already knew about Ujvari's
work on the old journal, then handed him Ujvari's address. "We must go
and warn him," she said.

"We'll go in the morning. Tonight we have to talk," he
said. "We go there first, or we do not talk at all," she retorted.

"Very
well." He sighed, handed the address to his driver and opened the door.

The wolfhound lay sprawled across
the front seat. He raised his head and eyed his master. "Hello,
Byron," Mina said and let him lick her hand. Then, unconcerned about the
worries of the humans around it, it rested its head on the open window and
watched the world move slowly by.

In the hours
that Gance had waited for Mina to come, he had decided that he could explain
his interest in her journal easily

enough. The bite on his neck was only one part of it, her drinking
of his blood far more crucial. And since she was obviously as infatuated with
him as he was with her, his charm would make his curiosity all the more
natural. He rested a hand on her knee and squeezed lightly, feeling the
taffeta of her underskirt rub sensuously against her silk stockings. She
covered his hand with her own. He raised it to his lips and kissed it, then
moved away from her, watching her, the play of gaslight and shadows over her
face as they drove on. The deep sorrow he often glimpsed in her was more
obvious tonight, adding to her loveliness, her incredible attraction.

Though most
of his thoughts were on the night's more serious work, he could not help but
think of the bordello chair that he had

recently purchased, after hearing it was a duplicate of one
designed by the Prince of Wales himself. Once it had exhausted its conversation
value in his London bedroom, he would have it moved to the little house in
Exeter. Tonight, if all went well, it would see its first use.

Mina had expected Ujvari to live in
a flat or apartment. Instead the address he'd given her was for one of a
handful of river cottages on a dirt road paralleling a low embankment along
the Thames. The night chill was greater here, the river fog thick in the bushes
along the road, so that many of the houses were known to passing riders only by
the crude numbered posts beside their walks. When they reached Ujvari's
cottage, the driver pulled the horse and buggy to the side. Gance lit the
carriage lamp and lifted it high, but it only seemed to illuminate the fog. He
whistled for the dog to join them. Then, holding the light close to the ground
and with a firm grip on her arm, he led Mina toward the house.

The path was lined with overgrown
bushes and weeds, its stones loose and often missing, leaving muddy holes. The
cottage itself was so small that it could not have had more than two rooms.
Though the night was chilly, there was no scent of smoke in the air, nor any
indication that someone inside had seen their light.

Mina moved in front of Gance and
knocked on Ujvari's door. No one replied. She knocked harder, and the door,
shook from its latch, swung slowly inward. The dog growled and hung back while
Mina stepped inside the dark room, alternately calling Ujvari's name and
identifying herself. Gance stopped to examine the lock. The door had been
broken in, the latch hurriedly remounted to hold the door shut.

He pulled a
pistol from his belt and followed Mina across the threshold. In the dim
lamplight, he saw her hands, white and

trembling beneath the deep
blue wool of her coat. "Can you smell it?" she whispered.
"Blood. Death."

He inhaled,
but the damp air was all around him, flowing into the room. He stepped farther
inside, but whatever troubled her still

eluded him. "Hand me the
lamp," Mina whispered.

Instead, he
held it high and followed as she moved from the main room, with its bare wood
table and two chairs, to a smaller

bedroom. He smelled something then, a scent that brought back
memories of his year in India, the sickness and the carnage. Mina's face was
blank, her lips pressed together as she swallowed convulsively, trying to keep
from being ill. Gance followed her gaze from the bed, smeared with blood and
vomit, to the floor, where the hound was sniffing at a dark stain. Someone had
been killed here, that much seemed certain, but the body was gone.

"My
God, who did this!" Mina finally exclaimed and covered her face with her
hands.

Gance moved in front of her and
pulled open the door of the large armoire. There were clothes inside, nothing
more. He took Mina into the outer room. There, he noticed something he had
missed on the first pass through the room. The window at the back of the house
was open, and there were bits of fabric stuck in the loose splinters of the
rotted sill. "I'm taking you back to the carriage," he said.
"Byron and I will look for the body."

"No!
I'm going with you," she replied. Her courage astonished him. From the way
she trembled, he wondered where she found

the strength to stand.

The air steadied them, and after a short walk, they scrambled up
the muddy embankment. Here, the fog was even thicker, the riverbank invisible
below them. Gance rested the lamp on a rock and helped Mina down to where the
water swirled, dark and muddy, close to their feet.

The dog
padded down the bank, sniffing and rooting in the mud, stopping at a pile of
driftwood tangled in the willow roots just

downriver.

"Stay
here," Gance whispered to Mina, and was not surprised when she didn't
listen.

As Gance
expected, the body was wedged there, the pale and bloated flesh almost
indistinguishable from the white tangle of

rotting branches. Mina forced
herself to look at the face, to be certain that it was indeed Ujvari.

She had
steeled herself for the sight of a body but not the rest-the bruises and cuts
on his face, the rough wooden stake through

his chest. She backed away
slowly, unaware that she moved toward the river until Gance reached for her. As
he touched her, she