Karen Essex - Dracula in Love

“If you can remove the bullet, I will close the wound,” I said.

The men looked at me, wondering what I meant, but Jonathan said, “She is capable of it. I have seen it.”

Seward put his hand to Morris’s neck, but then his back slumped in defeat. “Can she raise the dead too?” he asked.

I knew that it was too late. Morris’s life was over the moment the bullet penetrated the heart. Arthur had shot to kill.

“You will never get away with this,” I said to Arthur, ignoring the gun in his hand. I knew he would not turn it on me.

His face was swollen beyond recognition. His eyes looked like little red pinpricks inside the puffy sockets. He had lost his front teeth to Morris’s punches. Bruises were beginning to form below his eyes. In a few hours, his countenance would be as hideous as his character. I suspected that his cheekbone was broken, and his grimace twisted to one side.

“Everyone present saw that I was attacked by a man who was obsessed with my late wife,” he said calmly. “And if you choose to disagree, let me remind you that you are an escapee from a mental asylum and hardly a credible witness.” He gestured to the men. “And the rest of you are accomplices, are you not?” Neither Von Helsinger nor Seward responded, but Jonathan said, “I am taking Mina out of here.”

Jonathan took my arm, but I shook him off. I began to feel my fury rise, the same savage vehemence that had set me on Ursulina. Jonathan must have been aware of what was happening because he stepped back, giving me room. I felt the surge inside me gathering strength, filling me with the excitement of taking revenge. I envisioned myself flying through the air and landing on the murderer, attaching my teeth to his neck and sucking the essence from him until he was dead. I saw it all happen in my mind’s eye. I would not make the incision neatly as I had done with the lamia. No, this time, I would do it savagely with my teeth, tearing into him like an animal, causing him the most severe pain possible. Revenge for Lucy. Revenge for Morris.

Without any effort, my body propelled itself toward him. I did not feel myself moving, but found myself with my legs wrapped around him, suctioned to his body, his hair in my fist, and my hand jerking his head back, exposing his long white neck. His hair felt oily and thin, and he smelled like sweat and gunpowder, nauseating to my stomach, but I would not let that stop me. I heard the gun drop from his hand and onto the floor.

“Help me,” Arthur cried out, his voice strained because I had jerked his neck back so far.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Von Helsinger stoop to pick up the gun, when Jonathan’s boot stepped on his big, meaty hand, and the doctor cried out in pain. “Do what you must, Mina,” Jonathan said.

In as savage a moment as I have ever experienced, I sank my teeth deep into Arthur’s neck. I am certain that all the men were yelling, but I was too focused on my task to give them my attention. Hissing and growling like a wild beast, I did not merely take his blood from one wound, but made a network of incisions on his neck, tearing the flesh each time, causing him fresh agony. I would have drained him to death, but I could not bear the taste or scent of him-acrid, like vinegar left too long on a poultice.

I backed off him and left him slumped and bleeding on the floor. I coughed, spitting the taste of him out of my mouth. I wiped my lips clean and I turned to Seward, who was pale and in shock, clutching a table as if that inert piece of wood could save him. “Your turn, John. You wanted me, and now you are going to have me.”

Before he could move, I sped across the room and had my hand around his neck and his body pinned against the wall. Looking into his gray eyes and remembering what he had done to me, I was overtaken with an urge to kill. My teeth were touching his skin when the door flew open, and a strong, cold wind blew through the room. I felt it swirl around me, caressing my face and body, and chilling me to the bone. With it came a haunting sound, a woman’s voice keening a funereal lament. Lonesome and sorrowful, the cry filled the room, and I knew either intuitively or from a long-distant memory that it was the song of the banshee.

I released Seward from my grip, but he remained backed up against the wall, whether more afraid of me or of whatever had entered the room, I did not know. I looked about for the source of the screeching wind, but saw nothing. The song grew louder and louder to the point of intolerable, and I wondered if the Count had unleashed some malevolent force upon us. The men were trying to dodge the presence as it circled and encircled them, toying with them. The volume continued to grow, coming from no one and no direction, escalating until its weeping and wailing was unendurable. The very room was shaking with it, and I put my hands over my ears and noticed that everyone else had done the same.

All of us were hugging ourselves now, shivering. Arthur was still slumped on the floor, bleeding and in a daze. The air around him began to shimmer, forming the familiar shape of a young woman. I watched Arthur’s face contort with horror as he realized who was standing before him. Her long blond hair was loose and hanging almost to her knees, and layers of white and gold energy draped about her like a diaphanous gown.

Arthur screamed, cowering against the wall, sliding to his knees, his bruised eyes staring up at her in terror. I could not see her face, but from the horror in Arthur’s eyes and the revulsion of the other two men, and from the hideous wailing that seemed to originate in her ghostly being but penetrated into every crevice of the room, I am sure that she appeared as her husband had once described-vengeful and angry, eyes dripping with blood like one of the Furies. She did not attack Arthur but dropped to the floor, draping herself over Morris’s corpse, her gossamer gown spreading like wings until he was entirely covered. She continued to howl with such intensity that I thought the sound would permanently deafen us.

Jonathan grabbed me by the hand and pulled me toward the door, but I resisted him.

“The baby, Mina. You must think of the baby,” he said, yelling over Lucy’s preternatural cries, which were reverberating so furiously in the very core of my body that I had to wonder if indeed the child might be harmed by it. He put his hand on my stomach as if to emphasize his point, and I let him pull me away from the horrific scene, my eyes riveted to it until he slammed the door behind us.

“Our business here is done,” he said with finality. We looked each other in the eye, and there was a silent understanding between us. Hand in hand, we walked away from the mansion and into the muted twilit evening.

London, 31 December 1897

D ear reader, my tale is not yet done. I fear that more blood is on my hands. Early in the year 1891, Kate Reed and I wrote a story exposing the doctors at Lindenwood for administering blood transfusions that killed at least two patients. Authorities began an investigation after the story was published, but before evidence could be gathered, John Seward committed suicide, and Dr. Von Helsinger disappeared, possibly going back to Germany. Kate and I visited the asylum with a lunacy commissioner, and Mrs. Snead told us that the night before, a red-haired man with a bump on his forehead came for the doctor and drove him away. I suppose that together they concocted the far-fetched tale with which some of you are already familiar.

Soon after our story was published, Kate got pregnant by Jacob, who married her, left the newspaper business, and became a partner in her father’s textile company. Kate’s editor fired her, claiming that no respectable man would employ a pregnant woman. I see Kate often; our sons are the same age, though her daughter is five years old and mine is still an infant. Kate continues to attend meetings of organizations that are fighting for women’s equality. For myself, I am still relieved to not have the responsibility of voting, but I suspect that my daughter and her generation will feel different. It was Kate who showed me the newspaper announcement that Lord Godalming was engaged to another heiress, though I have heard that he is thin and pale, that his health is not good, and that he has a recurring problem with insomnia.