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cannot win. There is much secretive talk behind closed doors, and at mealtimes the
tension between them is so thick I might cut it to pieces with a cheesewire. Mr Harker
looks haggard. I catch him gazing at me as if he guesses, though I know he cannot guess.
I am tense, also, but for reasons they do not imagine.
1 thought night would never come, but at last Quincey was put to bed, and I made an
excuse to retire early. Then I had to wait for the household all to go to bed, lest someone
should see me leaving!
By the time I reached the graveyard, I was no longer excited but trembling with terror.
Why am I doing this, walking again and again into such danger for his sake? I pass
between the avenue of gravestones and dark yews towards his tomb, but before I reach it
a dark figure appears before me.
It is him. My heart fails. I almost cry out, but he catches my arms and my breath stops
in my throat. His form is so starkly black in the cassock. How fierce his face is, made
more fearsome by the curling bushiness of his eyebrows, the long white moustache and
the profusion of his long pale hair. I close my eyes, cannot look at him. I am faint with
the conflict of desire - to escape him yet to be held captive.
'Look at me, Elena,' he says. His voice is stronger than before, rich and harsh and
commanding. 'What do you see?'
'A handsome nobleman. One who was a great hero.'
'Do not flatter me. The truth!'
'You know I speak the truth!' My own spirit surprises me.
His lips lift beneath the moustache; it seems a smile, though a very bitter one. 'I have
not seen my own face for more than four hundred years. No mirror can capture my
image.' He draws me to an overgrown tomb and sits me beside him on the molded stone.
His frailty of the first night has gone, but I perceive a weakness in him, as if he were held
by invisible chains to the graveyard. 'You will talk to me and tell me all you know of the
world,' he says gently. 'I have walked upon it for four hundred years and more. Yet it has
turned for seven years which passed as eternity compressed into a single moment for me.
Now all is strange again.'
'Beloved companion, I thought you knew all there is to know. You have taught me so
much!'
'And I have lost much. It could be, Elena, that you saw visions of matters that I have
forgotten. Not all knowledge survives the grave. I have lain for so very long in one grave
or another.'
We talk for hours. It is so bitter-sweet to lie in the arms of death and talk like lovers. I
tell him how the wolf came to me and led me to the castle, the visions I saw. At
everything I say, he nods, as if reassured. 'Yes . . . yes, I do remember.' And he tells me
some of his own story; wild, rambling and so strange I cannot follow it all, but the core of
it I understand. 'They destroyed me - the Harkers and the accursed Van Helsing, who has
made himself doctor of every discipline as though he would heal the very world of its
sickness. Fool. Elena, my own land was frozen in the Middle Ages, drained of its vitality
by war, a ghost of itself. I sought a new kingdom, to move among the whirl and rush of
humanity in these great cities of the West. . . but they foiled me. And they did worse.
They destroyed some I loved, who cannot return as I have. For that, they must be
punished.'
He speaks simply, not vengefully. But such is his passion that I would give my life to
help him. 'Van Helsing is a friend of my uncle. He is staying with the Harkers.'
'I know, Elena,' he answers. 'I have watched them through your eyes, through each
other's eyes. I have entered their dreams and defiled them.' He smiles; it is almost a sneer,
a hellish look of pleasure. 'Do they ever speak of me?'
'Not to me. They believe me to be utterly innocent, and they intend the child and
myself to remain so. But now I know why they made the journey to Transylvania; to see
again the place where they destroyed you! But among themselves, I am certain they
speak of nothing else. They sent for the others, too, Seward and Godalming. They are
very afraid.' 'Good. How sweet to see madness eating at them. They know I am among
them. Jonathan yielded easily to me; Van Helsing drove me out; Mina I could not enter,
but she is falling in another way. She is strong. I need her blood.' 'Is mine not enough?' I
ask, jealous. 'It is the finest wine, beloved.' He touches my cheek; my skin tingles
deliciously where his fingers pass. 'But my blood runs in Mina's veins. Until I taste it I
cannot reclaim my full powers.' I fall quiet. I can't argue, yet still I hate it. I fear my
jealousy will make him angry. Instead he stretches out his left hand above my lap.
'But how good it is to live again!' he says, flexing the fingers with their long, pointed
nails. I take his hand between my own. 'You gave me this gift, beloved. To taste, to see
through my own eyes, not those of others. To hear the music of the owl and the wolf, to
touch skin. Your skin.' He leans closer to me, his mouth near my neck. I shiver. 'No
earthly taste, no meat, no wine, no sweetmeat can ever compare to the taste of blood. No
potion can mimic its vitality. Why do you tremble?'
'I am afraid of you,' I said.
'Then you are wise,' he replies, drawing away. 'But they are the ones who should fear
me. You have nothing to fear - as long as you are loyal. Will your courage fail? You are a
danger; you might give away my hiding-place to them.'
'No!'
'You chose to help me of your own free will, beloved child. You might as easily
change your mind.'
'My choice is made!' I say fiercely. 'How dare you doubt me? I will never betray you!'
'Then you have only yourself to blame,' he murmurs, for whatever befalls. Do my
bidding without question now, and later you will be rewarded richly.'
I bow my head, promising all. I am leaning against him; one of his arms is around me,
the other moving to brush aside my hair and loosen the collar of my dress. My body turns
limp with languor, my head falls back, and his teeth pierce my exposed throat. I come
floating up out of my body, while the world spirals upon itself, full of stars and angelic
voices singing in painful discord. The spiral tightens into a violent convulsion and I am
flung back into my mortal body.
'Now leave me,' he says.
'Must I go?' I cling to him, but he holds me away.
'Yes, beloved. I have much to do; money, clothes, horses to acquire . . . There is no
need for you to come here again. I will come to you. I am strong enough now.'
'To leave this place?'
'And to complete my revenge.'
I barely remember going home. At eight, Mary woke me only with difficulty. I must
rest as much as possible, for the slightest exertion makes me breathless - but none of this
matters. I am in a state of bliss.
I am not entranced or bewitched by him. When I began to help him, I chose that path -
or it chose me. I know what he is, yet I knowingly brought him back. I am only the
instrument of his rebirth, I know, but without me he could not have returned - any more
than a child can be born without its mother. I serve him by choice, as he said.
He means to destroy the Harkers, I know that. They have been kind to me; I am fond
of them in turn. I wish them no harm, I have no grudge against them as he has. Why then
do I wish to aid him in their downfall?
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