It was Harker himself who had boarded the wagon, and at once "with a strength which seemed incredible raised the great box and flung it over the wheel to the ground." Quincey Morris, though sustaining in the process a knife wound that was shortly to prove fatal, bulldozed his way through the Szgany and joined Harker in prying off my lid. Seward and Lord Godalming were now at hand, sitting their weary horses with leveled Winchesters, against which my knife-carrying gypsies were powerless to interfere. As the lid fell free I looked toward the western sky, from which the sun had just that moment gone, and felt my powers come. My timing had been fine; nay, I boast quite truthfully that it was perfect.
Mina shrieked as she saw her husband's knife cut through my throat.
… whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and vanished from our sight.
I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution there was in the face a look of peace such as I never could have imagined might have rested there.
And so shall I, my dear; for that look meant that my body, lanced with metallic pain at heart and throat, found anesthesia in the balm of victory as I changed form to mist, which, flowing away unnoticed amid the flurrying snow, was soon invisible to all who might have watched it…
I had thought that Van Helsing or Seward or even one of the others might be bothered by the metallic means-involving no wood, nor garlic-with which I had been, to all appearances, so easily dispatched. There was also a lack of "screeching," "plunging," and "lips of bloody foam," all of which phenomena had accompanied each of their previous lynchings of my race. But I need not have worried. My hunters were emotionally and physically worn out, one and all, and more than ready to find the play utterly satisfying as it stood. Even Mina's subconscious mind had been satisfied-for, even as she screamed to see my death-not knowing at the moment whether or not it might be real-the mark of the vampire vanished from her forehead, never to return. She was able to run out of Van Helsing's Holy Circle at last, to comfort Morris in his dying moments and throw her arms about her husband. The gypsies had scattered and fled, and I, in mist-form amid the blowing snow, took my own leave…
For a few hours…
The snow ceased shortly after sunset, and the ensuing night was bitter cold. My enemies made camp in the open-their own fears and perhaps the consciences of some of them would hardly have let them rest inside the walls of Castle Dracula that night. They built up a fire against wolves-my disturbed children were still howling in the distance-and planned to take turns standing watch. But one by one they all sank into fitful sleep around the ebbing flames, till one person only remained awake, she who had begun to learn to make the night her day.
I deepened the slumber of the others and then I came and stood in the far firelight, where her restlessly watching eyes could not fail to see me.
Automatically at her first sight of me her hand went up to her forehead once again, to reassure itself of unmarked smoothness there. She looked around at all the men, then got to her feet and came toward me, placing her sturdy boots carefully upon the frozen ground. I could tell even at a distance that something had changed. What, precisely, I could not say. But suddenly I was wary.
"Vlad," Mina said, briskly and without preamble, as she came up, "you have given me your assurance that I have nothing to fear in the way of-of permanent physical consequences, as a result of our relationship to date. Is that not so?"
"It is." I bowed, without taking my careful eyes from hers.
"It is a matter of some importance that this should be so, now," she went on, and paused to emit a faint belch. "Excuse me."
"You have been reluctant to eat? That should vanish soon, as your stigma has already done. I told you these manifestations in you were merely the result of Van Helsing's hypnotic-"
"This has nothing to do with Van Helsing, or with hypnotism," she interrupted brusquely. "The fact is that I am pregnant."
My mouth opened but I could find no words.
"I am pregnant, and I intend to take no chances with the welfare of my child-to-be. I am saying goodbye to you now, Vlad. Do you understand?"
I could but nod.
It was the summer of 1897, I believe, when Mina and her good Jonathan, along with Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward-who were by then encumbered with their own wives and infants-and of course with you-know-who acting as mentor and guide, journeyed once more to my fair land. I suppose that, as before, the peasants waggled fingers and blessed themselves with prayers and incantations upon learning the pilgrims' destination as they passed; that sort of thing does not change much in six or seven years.
Although by now, of course, Castle Dracula is almost obliterated, from truthful memories as well as from the landscape, the tourists in 1897 found it but little changed. I am sure that Mina had to put forth some effort to persuade them-to persuade her husband, at any rate-to make the journey; if I were he I would not have chosen Transylvania for my holiday.
I knew that she was on her way, across the miles… I knew. And of course I knew it also when she walked into the ruined courtyard of the castle on a day of birdsongs and summer light and here and there a climbing flower.
After chatting with the others of her party for a while over this and that item of the architecture she descended alone toward what I might call my public tomb-which is the one Van Helsing had already found. There was and is another, much more private, and not far away.
With all the sunlight up above, even the dim underground chamber was almost bright as day. Before the impressive monument that bears my name, Mina stood for a long moment with her head bowed. Then turned-and I was waiting for her, sitting casually upon a lesser slab nearby.
"You startled me," she said, raising one hand toward her breast in a Victorian maiden's gesture that she gave up on halfway through, beneath my gaze. Then she asked: "How is it with you, Vlad?"
"Well enough. I continue to-pursue my destiny." I made a vague gesture, not knowing, myself, quite what I meant. "And you?"
The voices of the rest of her party were audible somewhere above, a childish treble among them. A slight shadow crossed Mina's face and I divined its meaning, and went on: "The child is innocent of me and mine. The bloodstreams do not mingle in the womb." So I thought then; latterly, men of science are no longer quite so sure.
"Two children, Vlad. I have borne twins."
"Then both are innocent. But what if they were not? There are worse fates in this world than to be a vampire." On Lucy, Mina's daughter, I will have no comment now, for she was still alive the last I heard. But certainly Quincey, her son, kept to breathing all his short life; he needed bayonets and hand grenades to drain the blood of others, and it was German iron that drank his, in 1916 at the Somme.
Mina's face cleared and we stood looking at each other, and she seemed to be wondering what to say next. But gradually she began to smile and shook her head at me. "Vlad, Vlad. There have been times in England, in the bright sunshine, when-forgive me, but when I have doubted your very existence."
"Oh? But that is all right. Every year there are fewer and fewer people who believe in me. But if they all forget me I will be here anyway, like an artifact of some lost civilization."
"Oh, Vlad! Your life is such a lonely one. And for six years you have been here waiting." I had not been waiting entirely unaccompanied, but saw no reason to correct her estimate.
Above, sharp careless footsteps of a small throng resounded on stone vaulting, drawing closer now, and a high voice was raised: "Mummy! Mummy, are you down there?"