I was surprised that he knew us, but, of course, he had information from many: Harker, Renfield, Lucy, Mina. I had expected his voice to be the thick-accented croak of an Attila unschooled in English. But he spoke in a cultivated, almost proper manner. Indeed, his command of our language was certainly far in excess of that of Abraham Van Helsing or Quincey P. Morris, to name but two.
‘You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher’s. You shall be sorry, each one of you. Your girls that you love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine. My creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed.’
Van Helsing, with a roar of rage, shoved his wafer at the Count, but Dracula moved with incredible speed, stepping aside to let the Professor fall again. He laughed again, a cruel chuckle from the throat. I stood paralysed, my hand throbbing as if covered with scorpions. Art, too, made no move. That shared lack of action accounts, for our both being, in a manner of speaking, alive three years later.
Quincey, ever putting deed before thought, rushed at Dracula, and stuck him through the heart. I heard the bowie sink in as if penetrating cork. As the Count staggered back against the wall, Quincey yee-hahed a victory yell. But the blade was plain steel, not the wood that would have transfixed his heart nor the silver that would have poisoned him. The vampire took the knife out of his breast as if drawing it from a scabbard. The gash remained in his shirt, but closed in his flesh. Quincey said, ‘Well, kiss my sister’s black cat’s ass,’ as Dracula closed on him. The Count gave Quincey back his knife, plunging it into the hollow of his throat, sucking briefly at the wound that erupted.
Our gallant friend was dead.
Next the Count picked up the unconscious Harker as easily as he would a baby. Mina was by his side, eyes glazed as if drugged, blood on her chin and bosom. Dracula kissed the solicitor’s forehead, leaving a bloody mark.
‘He was my guest,’ he explained, ‘but he abused hospitality.’
He looked at Mina, as if communicating with her mind. She hissed at him, startlingly like the new-born Lucy, setting her unholy blessing upon his intent. She was turning fast. With a quick snap, he broke Harker’s neck in his great hands. He jabbed his thumb-nail into the pulsing vein of Harker’s neck, and offered him to his wife. Mina, her hair swept aside with both hands, leaned over, and began to lap up the blood.
I helped the Professor to his feet. He shook with rage, his face purple with blood, foam about his mouth. He looked like one of the madmen in the other wing of the house.
‘Now,’ the Count said, ‘leave me and mine be.’
Art had already backed out of the door. I followed, hauling Van Helsing with me. He was grumbling under his breath. Mrs Harker dropped her husband’s lifeless body on the carpet and he rolled against the bed, open eyes staring. From the corridor, we saw Dracula pull Mina to him and press his face to her throat, his thick-nailed hands tearing at her chemise and the long tangle of her hair.
‘No,’ said Van Helsing, ‘no.’
It took all my strength, and Art’s too, to hold the savant back. We looked away from Dracula’s feeding, but Van Helsing was transfixed. What he saw in the Harkers’ bedroom was a personal affront.
A man in muddy striped pyjamas burst into the corridor from a stairwell, dragging a thin woman by her hair, waving an open razor. It was Louis Bauer, the Pimlico Square Strangler. A crowd of others, shambling in the darkness, followed. Someone sang a hymn with a ragged but pure voice, joined by animal-like whining. A hunched figure pushed to the front of the crowd. It was Renfield, twisted over where he was broken, his face and front a mess of blood.
‘Master,’ he shrieked, ‘I atone...’
The swell of bodies pushed him forward. He should have been dead, but insanity can keep people with the most terrible injuries on their feet, if only for the length of a fit. He had let out the inmates. Renfield fell to his knees and was trampled under by his mad fellows. Bauer kicked his already snapped spine, finishing him at last. There was a fire in the building somewhere. And dreadful screams, either from rampaging paients or the staff who bore the brunt of their fury.
I turned to look for Art but he was gone. I’ve not seen him since. With my good arm around Van Helsing, I backed away from the mob. The Count, his business with Mina finished, emerged from the Harkers’ room, and quieted the inmates with a glance, just as he was supposed to be able to quell wolves and other wild things.
I tugged on Van Helsing, leading him towards the back staircase Art must have taken. He resisted, still mumbling of holy hosts and un-dead leeches. Another man might have left him, but I was driven by a strength come too late. Because of me, Lucy was twice destroyed, Quincey and Harker were dead, Mina was the Count’s slave. Even Renfield was on my conscience: he had been entrusted to my care, and I had used him for an experiment as he had used his spiders and bugs. I fixed upon Van Helsing as if he could be my salvation, as if rescuing him would make amends for the others.
Mina was by the Count now, already in the full throes of her turning. The process, I understand, is variable in its length of incubation. With Mrs Harker, it was rapid. It was hard to recognise in this newborn wanton, her night-clothes shredded away from the voluptuous white of her body, the prim and practical school-mistress of the lower middle classes whom I had met only a day or so before.
With a sudden shock of strength, I subdued the Professor. He went slack and I got him on to the stairs. I hurried as if we were pursued but no one followed us. Art must have taken one of the horses from the stable and proverbially failed to bolt the door after him, for there were several animals wandering loose on the lawns. Fire already burst from the lower windows of Purfleet Asylum. I could taste the smoke in the air. Like escaping madmen, we ran for the woods, avoiding the battered black bulk of Carfax Abbey. We were defeated utterly. The whole country lay before Count Dracula, ripe for the bleeding.
We stayed in the woods for days and nights. Van Helsing’s mind and heart were gone, and my hand was a swollen mace of pain. We found a hollow protected somewhat from the elements and stayed there, starting at every sound. Even by day, we were too afraid to stir. Hunger became a problem. At one point, Van Helsing tried to eat earth. If I slept, I was persecuted by dreams of Lucy.
They found us before the week was out. Mina Harker led them, wearing trousers and an old tweed jacket of mine, hair done up under a cap. The small band of new-borns were turned patients and one orderly. They had organised into a search party, discharging the Count’s orders while he was removing his headquarters from Purfleet to Piccadilly. They seized upon Van Helsing and trussed him, slinging him over a horse’s back for transport back to the Abbey. What became of him is too well known to recount, and too painful to think of.
I was left with Mina. The turn had affected her differently from her friend. While Lucy had become more sensual, more wilful, Mina was more severe, more purposeful. She accepted her place as one of Dracula’s cast-offs and found her new state a liberation. In life, she had been stronger than her husband, stronger than most men. As an un-dead, she was stronger still.
‘Lord Godalming is with us,’ she told me.
I thought she intended to kill me on the spot, as she had done her foolish husband. Or else make me as she was. I stood up, my swollen and dirty hand in my pocket, hoping to meet whatever came with dignity. I cast about my mind for some suitable last words. She came close to me, a smile cutting into her cheeks, sharp teeth white and hard in the moonlight. Almost lulled, I tugged at my collar, letting the night air against my throat.
‘No, doctor,’ she said, and walked away into the dark, leaving me alone in the woods. I tore at my clothes and wept.