Slave Of Dracula (29 page)

Quincey’s silence was something different.

“Do you ever wonder,” Seward asked him now, as they walked to the corner where the saddles and
bedrolls were heaped, “if it could have been different? If Lucy had accepted my offer, or yours, instead
of Art’s? If she’d stayed in London last summer. ..”

“Or gone to America with me?” Quincey’s gray eyes seemed dark in the torchlight, shadowed under
the long sun-bleached brows, empty and infinitely tired. “Jack, there is not a day that it doesn’t occupy
the whole of my thought, from my waking un-til the moment sleep takes me. Had I known what was
coming for her, I think I’d have carried her off like the villain in a play, and risked her mother shooting me
dead. But I didn’t. And you didn’t. And maybe if she’d married you or married me or stayed in London
or gone to the Moon, it would have been the same anyhow, like the philosophers say. And if it wasn’t
you and me standing here on the back-doorstep of the civilized world, it’d be two other guys avenging
the death of some other gal, with just as much pain involved all around. And in any case it makes no
difference.”

He spit another line of tobacco, and picked up a saddle-a horrible Russian cavalry cast-off, stiff as a
plank and entangled in a granny-knot of snarled straps. “From the time Miss West-enra said she would
not have me, there was nothing for me, ex-cept her friendship, and yours, and Art’s. It was that friendship
that kept me in England, and that friendship that’s drawn me here. Live or die, it does not matter to me
anymore, for those two states are now to me exactly the same. Now let’s get these fucken’ crow-baits
saddled, and get on the road while there’s still a Moon in the sky.”

***

R.M.R.’s notes

31 October

2 chickens, 3 rats, Romanian pimp, 17 spiders

Still no contact of the Count’s mind upon my own. Nor can I sense him reaching out to Nomie. At
sunset last night I was aware of Van Helsing speaking to Mrs. Harker in hypnotic trance, but with the
Count’s self-imposed isolation these impres-sions have become so attenuated that it is only by deep
medita-tion that I can detect them at all, and at sunrise I was able to sense nothing. I do not know
whether this is because of Drac-ula’s defense against this probing, or because Van Helsing and his friends
have guessed the direction of his flight and have set off in pursuit, leaving Mrs. Harker guarded in Galatz.

***

Letter , R. M. Renfield to his wife

Galatz, Romania

At the mouths of the Danube

31 October

My beloved Catherine,

Please forgive my negligence in writing lately; I blame the dif-ficult conditions under which I have
traveled. Nor do they ap-pear likely to become easier, but I shall write when I can. I count, as ever, on
your always-warm understanding.

The train from Veresti reached Galatz shortly after noon, af-ter the usual maddening delays typical of
this part of the world. I waked after an admittedly uneasy sleep in the hushed stillness of the goods shed,
just at sunset. I went at once to the offices of Hapgood’s and found the agents there still talking about the
bru-tal murder of one of the contractors who hire crews of Slovak boatmen, an event which has thrown
the whole riverfront com-munity into superstitious panic, though the man himself was ap-parently no
social loss.

With only minimal inquiries I was able to ascertain that the Count had come ashore on the 28th, hired a
large, open barge with a double crew through this contractor, Skinsky, and de parted before dawn
yesterday. That same day Van Helsing and his friends arrived, and by sunset had hired a steam-launch,
pur-chased six horses and appropriate gear (for the roads become extremely problematical as little as
thirty miles upriver), and hired two grooms, evidently meaning to travel fast.

This brought me, unfortunately, face-to-face with some of the more practical drawbacks of the vampire
state. Now in my heart I can see you and Vixie smile, for you have surely been waiting for me to realize
that this very complication would arise.

I understand from Nomie that the Count, with his vast abil-ities to dominate the minds of beasts as well
as of madmen like myself, is able to exert mastery over horses to the extent that he is able-for short
distances, and during the hours of darkness when his powers are acute-to actually ride them. He long ago
fell out of the habit of doing so, however, for the poor beasts did not bear him willingly, and would
tremble and sweat so terribly as to cause comment among every man who saw them, and him. For
myself, however, it is as much as I can do to harness them, and their fear at the scent of a predator is
such that they are dif-ficult to manage, and, I fear, are like to exhaust themselves in a very few miles.

I purchased a small calèche and team of those scrubby little horses one finds in this part of the world,
barely larger than ponies, and a spare team in case I should not find a posting- house farther up the river.
At the recommendation of the Hap-good shipping agents, I hired a French-speaking Negro named
Salaman as a driver, and frequenting the riverfront taverns dur-ing the early portion of the evening, I
found a Suitably brutish and violent Romanian whose murder would cause me no qualms and whose
disappearance would not result in questions or pur-suit. I sensed then-and feel still more strongly
now–that I will need all the strength and power that I can achieve.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I reasoned as a child, says the Apostle, but
when I became a man I put away childish things. In my madness I consumed all life in the
illusory pursuit of exactly those things that, in the vampire state, the blood and the life give unto me; but
now I am not mad. I would like to say that I derive no pleasure from the drinking of human life, but oh,
Catherine, oh my beloved, that would be a lie. It is a plea-sure I will be glad to put by in the eternal sleep
of death, but it is one that I can no more deny than I could deny the rages of my madness.

I am writing this in the back room of a little tavern near the waterfront, where Salaman is to meet me as
soon as there is enough dawnlight to drive. I have my roll of earth-imbued bed ding, and hope that I will
be able to get at least a little rest dur-ing the daylight hours. Yet sleep is not for me, for I must watch the

river, and the road, for my master’s enemies-and my own deliverers. Moreover, I must watch for the
robbers who hear everything that goes on in the rough world of the river-traffic with the hinterlands, who
will know that an Englishman is trav-eling with money and horses and only a single servant. In the hours
of daylight I will be only as a man, and less strong than a living man in my own defense.

No wonder the Countess Elizabeth wanted a better servant than that incompetent poet Gelhorn, to
defend her and her sister-wives in their journey to London! I can only assume that he lasted no longer
than their arrival at Castle Dracula; I cannot imagine she would have found in him the material to create
an-other vampire servant.

And there, but for my little Nomie’s friendship, go I.

Here is Salaman, framed in the doorway in a halo of chill river-fog.

My beloved, I remain,

Ever and forever, Your husband,

R. M. Renfield

***

Letter , R. M. Renfield to his wife

The banks of the River Sereth, below Fundu

1 November

My beloved,

We have journeyed through the day and through the night, and still I have no sight of Van Helsing and
his company. I have, however, found signs of their horses, and the occasional marks of a camp. They
seem to be taking a more inland route where possible, following narrower trails that climb the rolling
shoul-ders of the hills through which the river winds its way down from the mountains, the better to see
ahead along the river itself.

In the calèche it is not possible to do this, owing to the steep-ness and broken nature of the ground.
Thus we can only press on night and day. Only once did robbers-Szgany gypsies-attempt to molest us.
Fortunately the time was dusk, and I was able to slip from the coach as a mist, and fall upon them from
behind in the form of a wolf. They fled almost before the confrontation had begun. I reassured Salaman,
who had thought me asleep in the calèche the whole of the time, and took the opportunity to hunt in the
woods in the form of a bat, and to take advantage of the presence of bona fide evildoers to refresh my
strength.

Would that I could so refresh the strength of the horses, and of my servant. He is a small man of
Sudanese extraction, a slave for many years first in Arabia and then in Constantinople. He did not
mention the wolf and may not have seen me in that form, but he has become silent since then, and
watches me from the corner of his eye. He has taken to wearing about his neck a taviz, the silver

tube-shaped amulet in which a verse of the Holy Koran is sealed. I find the painful radience that
emanates from it to be the same as that which imbues the crucifixes of the Chris-tians. I long to know
whether such an amulet would protect an Unbeliever, or a crucifix to guard a good Mohammedan or
Hin-doo, but know not who I could ask.

The Count himself, perhaps?

As we approach the mountains, the cold deepens, and at night the air smells of snow. Tonight when
darkness falls, I shall ascend as high as possible in the form of a bat, and see if I can at least glimpse the
red glimmer of the steam-launch’s smoke-stack ahead of me on the river in the blackness.

If the saved can pray for the damned, pray for me, my beloved.

Forever, your husband,

R. M. Renfield

***

Jonathan Harker’s Journal*

1 November–evening

No news all day; we have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza …
We have overhauled every boat, big and little … Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them,
going at more than the usual speed as she had a double crew on board …

***

Dr. Seward’s Diary*

2 November

Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been …

***

Letter, R M. Renfield to his wife

2 November

My beloved Catherine, My adored Vixie,

This is good-by. In the form of a bat I have seen Lord Go-dalming’s steam-launch upon the river, going
much more slowly now owing to the narrowness of the Bistritza where it flows down out of the
Carpathians, and the many rapids that result from the river’s greater fall. Likewise as the mountains close
in around the river and the valley sides steepen and draw near, it is no longer possible for Quincey Morris
and his party to range over so much countryside. They must be on the river road some ten miles ahead of
me. I will overtake both boat and riders to-morrow.

The night is very cold, the mountains that rise up on all sides of us thickly wreathed in snow-clouds.
The road is in such ill re-pair, washed-out and undermined by repeated winter rains and floods, that a
carriage cannot proceed farther in any case. I have paid Salaman off, and sent him away with the caleche
and horses. He did not ask what I intend to do alone in this wilder-ness in the darkness before morning,
but looked at me strangely when I said, “Go with Allah, my friend.”

I am alone, as I have not been since I lay dead in Highgate Cemetery; since I knelt in such peace at
your side.

Tomorrow night, in the form of a bat, I will overtake Lord Godalming’s steam-launch, and will follow it
until the hour when the tide turns, when it will be possible for me to go aboard. I know not how much
crew they have, if any, nor ex-actly how long I will have before the tide’s ebb in the distant ocean traps
me aboard.

If the crew is small, it will be the work of moments to disable the pump that supplies water to the
boilers and, if possible, to open the drains on the boilers themselves. I doubt, with Go-dalming’s careful
operation of the launch, that the boilers will remain untended so long as to explode, but they will certainly
be damaged by being run dry for even a short length of time.

Then even the Count cannot punish Nomie, for deserting her task.

And that done, I shall be free. In what remains of the night I will seek out the shore-party of riders,
show myself to them, and ask them what I asked Dr. Seward as we rode the Orient Ex-press: for the
quietus of death.

When the Count reaches his Castle, he will send out his call to me again, and if I still exist, I will have
no choice but to go. To live as his servant always-to endure the company of the frightful Countess, the
savage Sarike-surely even Hell cannot be more terrible.

And so my beloved ones, good-by. I shall, I hope, see you soon, if only briefly, but it will he a great
comfort to me to know that you and I are at least on the same side of the great Veil that separates the
living from the dead, and from the Un-Dead. I will miss my dear friend Nomie, and pray-if the damned
can pray in Hell-for her eventual release.

Whatever happens tomorrow night, please know that through-out, my thoughts are only of you. When
I die, it will be with your names on my lips.

With all my love, forever,

R. M. Renfield

Renfield wondered, at various times during the following day, if the curious inability to enter any
dwelling uninvited extended to boats, and if so, what he was to do about that. As he trotted along
through the woods with the steady lope of a wolf-for it was in the form of a wolf that he ran-he glimpsed,
down on the road, the tight band of a half-dozen horses, and what he thought were two men. But he
could not see clearly in the brightness of the daylight, and dared not stop.

There would be time, he thought, to return to them, in the dark of the night.

When they’d skirted the town of Fundu, where the Bistritza River ran into the Sereth, it had looked to
him sufficiently large and modern to support a coal-yard. Godalming would have stocked up there.
Perhaps, Renfield reflected, he could have hired river-pirates there to attack the launch, but he doubted
it. He didn’t speak Slovak, for one thing, and for another, the rough back-country men who comprised
the population of both boatmen and river-pirates seemed to have a wary instinct for the supernatural.