Mina (5 page)

"I
cannot allow it," Jonathan said. It was the first time he had countered
any of Van Helsing's instructions. I felt a rush of love for

him, for I understood that,
like me, he feared Van Helsing's obsessive concern with my change.

"Cannot?"
Van Helsing bristled, contained his temper then went on soothingly. "I am
an old man. I am not able to travel as you

do. Though there is danger in
taking Mina to the heart of his so-dark land, I will do it to save her."

I thought of
the pistol in my traveling bag and how a vampire's strength was incredible. I
could defend myself against Van Helsing.

If it came to a struggle
between us, it would be better if Jonathan did not witness the outcome.

"The
professor is right," I said sweetly, taking Jonathan's hand. "He
knows so much about the monster we face, I will be safer

with him than with any of
you."

Was it only weeks ago that my aunt
sat with me in her parlor and warned me that in our marriage I would always be
the stronger, the more intelligent? With my mind blinded by love and concern
for Jonathan, I had politely ignored her. Now I understood the truth of her
words. I wish Jonathan had disagreed with me for a while longer. If he had, I
would respect him more. Instead he nodded and, with his hand holding mine,
listened as Arthur and Quincey discussed the arrangements for our pursuit.

Within hours, I was at the riverbank
saying good-bye to Jonathan. He and Quincey will travel on the water, hoping to
overtake the barge that is carrying Dracula home. Jack and Arthur will travel
by horseback along the river. Van Helsing and I will take a carriage to the
Borgo Pass. Hopefully one party or the other will do "what must be
done," as Jack Seward is so fond of saying.

Throughout the first day of the
journey, Van Helsing acted the parts of father and physician, watching me
constantly for any sign of fatigue so he could order me to sleep as if I were
a stubborn child. I understood that the difference in our ages was partially responsible
for his behavior and hid my resentment. As it was, I needed the sleep and lay
in the back of the carriage, wrapped tightly in the fur coat and throws Van
Helsing had purchased for our journey. Each time I woke, it was with greater
difficulty. I would sit silently beside Van Helsing as we traveled through
country increasingly more rugged and remote.

We stopped in mid-afternoon at a
farmer's cottage to exchange horses. I smelled stew cooking and suggested to
Van Helsing that we purchase a meal. The farmer's wife, a portly woman with
flashing black eyes, smiled happily at the amount we offered and invited us
inside to warm ourselves at the hearth, where a half dozen children waited for
dinner. They stared at me with dark, slightly slanted eyes that made me
understand just how far east we have traveled.

I unwrapped
the scarf from around my face, exposing the scar the host had made on my
forehead. The woman's eyes grew wide.

She held out her index and smallest finger toward me and glanced
at the door, as if assuring herself that the sun was still high in the sky before
dishing out the stew. I smelled the garlic in it, and though it was spicy, I
ate it anyway. Everyone looked at me so intently that I knew the food was a
test of my nature and I dared not refuse it. Once I had taken a few bites and
commented on the flavor of the bread, the family seemed to relax and fear
turned to curiosity.

During the meal, I tried to speak to
the woman, using a few of the words I had learned when I had come east to find
Jonathan, but the dialect in this region was too different. However, as I was
finishing the meal, the woman suddenly pressed a plain brass crucifix into my
palm. I thought she was giving it to me, but she pulled it back then gestured
that I hold out my hand. I did as she asked, angling my palm toward the
firelight so she could see that the cross had left no mark. Relieved, she
gripped my hand, made the sign of the cross over me and recited what I thought
was a quick prayer. "She recites a charm to protect you from the
vampire," Van Helsing told me and translated. "May this sign protect
you from the soulless ones who hunt the night."

I held out
my hand as she had done. "This sign?" I asked in her language.

The woman
nodded solemnly and, for a moment, the barrier between her world and mine
crumbled. She placed two fingers on

the scar on my forehead. She
pressed her lips to my cheeks and mumbled something else,
"Binecuvintat."

"She
blesses you," Van Helsing said.

Tears came
to my eyes. This time I could not hold them back. The woman hugged me as I
sobbed, understanding without words

the pain I was in. "Tell
her thank you," I said, then repeated Van Helsing's words to her,
"Multumesc."

As soon as Van Helsing was outside
to help hitch up the fresh horses, I pointed to the cross and pulled a pair of
gold pieces from my bag. Though the woman eyed my fortune with a blend of awe
and greed, she would not make the exchange. As the professor and I drove on in
the deepening gloom, I looked back at their little house with its thatch roof,
at the woman standing outside it with her sheepskin boots and long brown
woolen shawl. How vulnerable they were. In their isolation they would be such
perfect prey. Yet it seemed to me that their very simplicity gave these people
added protection from the vampire. They believe in this evil while civilized
London would have been at Dracula's mercy. "I think they would have killed
us had the cross burned my hand," I commented to Van Helsing.

"Be
thankful it was unblessed," he replied.

I thought of the couple's poverty. The
money I had offered had been the equivalent of months of work for the pair, yet
the woman had refused. The cross had been blessed. I was certain of it. No, it
was not damnation that left this scar on my face but rather a reflection of my
own guilt and passion for the creature. Even if t had wished to argue with Van
Helsing-hardly a good idea under the circumstances-I was far too tired, and a
little ill from the food as well. I recalled crawling into the back of our
cart, wrapping myself in the soft furs then nothing for hours.

When I woke,
it was after dark. I felt as if I had slept for days-refreshed, incredibly
alive. Van Helsing noticed the change in me.

It seemed to make him angry, perhaps because I could have guided
the wagon as well as him. On the other hand, he was so exhausted from the
journey that I took pity on him. He seemed terribly anxious and refused to give
me the reins. Often he looked at the drop-offs on either side of the road as
if fearful that were I in control, I would tip our tiny carriage over the side.
I tried to make him relax, but he only did so after he had found a stand of
rocks to shelter us and our horses for the night. "Have you ever seen such
incredible mountains?" I asked him, for the jagged peaks around us were
dark and beautiful against the evening sky.

"A
place of evil," he commented. "We are near the Borgo Pass and the
road to his castle. Be wary."

I built up the fire and tried to
sleep, but after a day of rest I hardly needed it. I tried, however, until I
saw Van Helsing nod off. I placed a second fur rug over him and walked a bit
away from our campsite. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the light grew
around me, and for the first time in my life, I saw the incredible beauty of a
wilderness sky. I inhaled and smelled pine and the musky scent of rotting
leaves and earth just beginning its spring thaw.

City-bred, city-raised, I thought of
how I had been blinded by the gaslights of Whitby and London, how the scents of
burning coal and wood masked all others. I thought of how my emotions had been
bound by convention and expectations. I found myself fumbling excitedly with
my clothing, intending to rip off everything and run carelessly through the
forest. I had begun to undo the first buttons of my jacket when I stopped and
forced myself to think.

There is a
blood tie between me and this land. The emotions I feel are too new, too alien
and far too strong to have come from

within me. I am being called
to my death, or worse.

"How
dare you!" I whispered to the darkness around me. You swore to give me my
freedom. Keep your pledge and I keep

mine."

I turned back to Van Helsing, sleeping so soundly by the fire. I
moved close to him and sat, thinking of little save that I remain there, until
morning. For the first time in days, I was able to pull out my little journal
and write this account. Unlike the journey on the train, the writing gives me
no comfort, for I have suddenly noticed how easy it is to read my own words in
the flickering fire.

My senses
are becoming like his. No wonder I think of this land as beautiful.

November 5, dawn.
I am alone,
utterly alone in this snow-covered wilderness, and I am thankful for my
solitude. The last day and night have been the most fascinating, and the most
terrible, of my life, and I need time to think-to sort reality from delusion,
to plan.

Yesterday
began with frustration. Once we left the main road at the pass, Van Helsing and
I traveled down roads that seemed no

better kept than footpaths, backtracking often when we were
certain we had gone the wrong way. We might have asked directions, but no one
seems to live in this land of jagged peaks and towering mountain pines. I find
myself realizing that it is not only Dracula that we must fear. The land
itself, desolate and gripped by the savage winter, holds its own dangers.
Without our team of horses and our well-laden wagon, we would be utterly lost.

By
midmorning, the terrible lethargy gripped me again so that I was forced to
sleep and let poor Van Helsing do all of the work.

Concerned about my condition-, he spoke to me often, calling to me
loudly when I dozed off and did not reply. I was furious at being disturbed,
and yet, after the temptation of the night before, I understood what troubled
him. Dracula's hold on me is growing stronger. Soon all I will need to do is
agree to the change and I will be as he is. The very fact that this nocturnal
pattern seems so natural horrifies me most of all.

When I woke, it was late afternoon.
Van Helsing was dozing with the reins held loosely in his hands. The horses had
somehow found their own way to our destination, for the rotting walls of
Dracula's castle, exactly as Jonathan had described it, loomed on the hill
above us.

I reached
for Van Helsing, intending to wake him, but my hand never touched him. Instead
I fell asleep until dark. Then I

apparently woke with great difficulty for Van Helsing was shaking
me roughly and calling my name with some alarm until I opened my eyes.

As happened last night, I became
agitated and excited immediately after sunset. Van Helsing took my pulse and
felt my teeth. He did not have to say a word. My tongue had already confirmed
what he feared. They were longer, sharper, ready for use. I trembled while Van
Helsing wrapped me in the fur rugs we carried then marked a wide circle around
me in the snow. As I watched, curious for my body's reaction, he crumbled two
of the sacred hosts he had brought into the circle until I was surrounded with
a blessed barrier. I sat, horrified by the understanding of what he was doing.
Bloodless, cold as death itself, I watched him work.

"Come
over to the fire," he called to me when he had finished.

I understood
the test he was making. His eyes gleamed in the light; his hands tightened
around the stick he was using to tend the

fire. I wanted to go to him,
to prove once and for all that I was not damned. I stood and took a step toward
him.

As I did, the wind shifted, carrying
his scent to me-stale sweat, garlic from last night's meal and, over all, the
smell of blood. The attraction of the last overpowered the others. A hunger
coursed through my body as the blood coursed through his. I could fight the desire
to feed on him, indeed my dislike of him somehow made the act of feeding more
despicable, but the feeling was too new, too strong. I dared not trust my
will.

My expression must have given my thoughts away, for Van Helsing
stared at me a moment, his eyes so clear in the firelight, so filled with
relentless understanding. "You will destroy me if I become undead," I
whispered. He might have seen thisasself-pity, or a need to be certain that he
will end my life if necessary. Perhaps he even understood that I meant this as
no more than honesty, an acknowledgment that this truth should be stated. I
would never know. Without a word, he returned to tending the fire.

Through the evening, the horses had complained often, protesting
the cold, the absence of any real shelter, the distant howling of a pack of wolves.
Later they began to whinny with fear. Van Helsing went to them, stroking them
and talking softly to calm them. As he did, I detected the sound of seductive
laughter carried on the winds of the night from the castle to my mind. The moon
that had first given some light was soon covered by clouds, and a heavy wet
snow began to fall.

I knew what
this meant all too well. My sisters were coming. I sat hugging my knees,
rocking my body, waiting happily for them—

my new kin!

When the snow was at its heaviest, a
glowing white mist rolled down the path from the castle, bringing with it what
seemed at first a rush of lighter snowflakes. The flakes whirled in a vortex
that could be seen but not felt. Indeed, the air was strangely still. The laughter
I had heard only in my mind became audible, and following it, their bodies took
form. As they did, I saw Van Helsing make a slow circle, reciting a prayer as
he held out his last host. I dared not ask him to come and seek protection with
me, and he knew enough to not do so.

Dracula's brides may have been
ordinary in life, but in death their power made them beautiful. As Jonathan had
described, two were dark and resembled Dracula. The third was very fair, in
the manner of Irish women, with honey-colored hair and eyes blue as an autumn
sky. Her smile was so coquettish that I could not help but see the resemblance
to poor Lucy.

Their voices
tinkled like strings of tiny brass bells in a spring breeze. Their lips were
red against their teeth like some bold harlot's,

their voices sweet as they
called to me, "Sister. Sister, come and join us."

I wanted to.
But in spite of their allure-perhaps because of the crumbled host circling me,
or Dracula's promise, or only my own

stubborn will-I knew I had a
choice. Yet there was one temptation that could not be resisted. I held my hand
beyond the circle.

"Stop!" Van Helsing cried,
but even as he rushed forward, he dropped his last remaining host. It fell into
the shadows of the snow-covered ground. I heard his cry of frustration as he
knelt and groped for it. As he did, the darkest of the three vampire women stepped
forward and eyed my outstretched arm. Though I recognized the hunger in her
gaze and knew she could easily pull me from the circle and end my human life,
my arm was steady. I had to touch her!

She clasped
my hand in both of hers. I felt the hardness of her flesh, sensed the
incredible strength of her delicate hands as they

pulled me to the edge of the
sacred circle.

That touch,
light as the brush of a wind-tossed feather, changed my life forever.

I whispered
her name-Illona-then leaned forward, willingly letting her hands explore my
face, her lips brush the scar on my

forehead.

I had already decided that God would not damn me without my full
consent. Consent requires knowledge. In Dracula's absence, this woman shared
hers with me. Good and evil, ecstasy and terror flowed into me with a swiftness
that made me weak. Her hands an either side of my head were all that kept me
from collapsing as I sank slowly to my knees before her.

I had guessed the age of these
creatures by Dracula's history, but the years had meant nothing without some
understanding of their passing. She gave me that. She and I watched the last
battlements of the crumbling castle erected in the months after she came here
as his child bride.