No single sense returned first. They mobbed me.
The numbing cold, the soft whine of dogs, the rough jostling, all tumbled together in my dulled brain like seeds in a rattle. I slipped to and fro between awareness and nothing until a sharp lurch and bump caught my attention, holding me awake for longer than a few seconds. It was enough that I dimly comprehended something was very wrong. The next moment of consciousness I managed to keep hold of; the moments to follow had me wishing I'd done otherwise.
Things were strongly tugging at my feet and legs, which seemed to be bound up. So was the rest of my body. I was wrapped snug and tight in a blanket from head to toe, unable to move or see. It was right over my face, which I never could abide. I groaned, trying to get free of the annoyance.
At this feeble sound and movement the tugging abruptly stopped, and the things—which I dazedly grasped to be several dogs—snuffled at me. I couldn't tell how many, but to judge by their sounds several at the least seemed to hold me as the focus of their attention. It made no sense until with a raw shock tearing through my nerves I realized they weren't dogs, but wolves.
In that instant full alertness returned, mind and body hurtling awake. I froze utterly, in the full expectation that the wolves would start ripping into me as I lay helpless before them. After a few truly terrible moments when nothing happened I tried to swallow my heart back into place, but there wasn't spit enough in my mouth for the job.
With whines and growls, their strong jaws clamped firmly on my wrappings again, and they resumed dragging me along. I could only think that made bold by hunger they'd entered our camp and picked me to pull away to a safe distance where they could feed.
Panic would kill me. I dared not shout an alarm to my friends. The noise might spark the wolves to attack their prize. They'd held off—for the time being—so I gritted my teeth and waited and listened in the frail hope I might somehow find a way out of this alive.
There must have been dozens of them. I could hear their eager panting and the click of their claws against bare stone or crunching into the thick snow. Wolves usually shy away from men—such had been my experience when Art and I had been trailed by that pack in Siberia. Had they been more desperate they'd have made a real feast for themselves on us. Being normal wolves, they'd held off and we'd escaped. But this pack seemed anything but normal. We were in the wild deeps of Transylvania, a far different place, and I'd already seen grim proof that a tall tale in one part of the world was God's own awful truth in another.
The wolves pulled me along another few yards. My weight, and I was aware of every solid pound of it going over those rocks, was nothing to them. Once they felt secure, they'd go through my all too thin blanket and clothes like taking the hide off a deer. I'd seen that happen once. The deer had been alive when they'd started in, and though quick enough, it hadn't been an easy death.
But all men have a limit to their self-control and that dark thought was enough to finally break mine; fear surged in my throat like vomit. It choked off any cry for help I might have made. I thrashed around like one of the madmen in Seward's asylum, fighting against my bindings. The wolves at my feet let go. One of them snarled, stirring up the others. They moved all around me, excited, nipping at the blanket as though in play, their efforts ironically helping my struggles as they shredded the cloth. Fresh air suddenly slapped my face as the damned thing finally came loose.
Bright-eyes catching the moonlight in green flashes, with lolling tongues and rows of white teeth, they scampered about like puppies. Some darted close to snap at me, wagging their tails at the sport of it. I wrested my hands free, but had no weapon to use. Some blurred memory told me I carried no knife or gun. I scrabbled in the inches-deep snow and found a piece of fist-sized rock. Better than nothing.
Then a big black fellow, one that was obviously the pack leader, lifted his head to the wild gray sky and howled. Ever an eerie sound, but to be so alone in the forest, to hear it so close and loud, to watch the very breath of it streaming from the animal's muzzle—had the hair on my neck not already been raised to its limit, it would have gone that much higher. The other wolves instantly abandoned their game and crowded around him, tails tucked like fawning supplicants seeking a favor. One after another joined him, blending and weaving their many voices into a triumphant song only they could fully understand.
The leader broke off and focused his huge green eyes upon me as the others continued their hell's chorus. It's a mistake to ascribe human attributes to an animal, but I couldn't help myself. The thing looked not just interested in what he saw, but curious, in the way that a human is curious.
He snarled and snapped at those nearest him. The pack stopped howling and obediently scattered. After a sharp, low bark from him they formed themselves into a wide circle like trained circus dogs. I was at its exact center. Some stood, others sat, but all watched me attentively. Though I'd had more contact with wolves than most men, I'd never seen or heard anything like this before.
A few of them growled, no doubt scenting my fear.
Clutching the nearly useless rock with one hand, I frantically tore at the bindings around my ankles with the other. It was desperate work, made slow by my reluctance to take my eyes from the pack. Despite the distraction of their presence, I saw that for some reason I'd been wrapped like a bundle for the mail, first in the blanket, then by ropes to hold it in place. Why? Who had tied me up so? I cursed whoever had done me such an ill turn, the burst of anger giving me the strength to get free.
I got clear of the blanket and staggered upright, half-expecting the wolves to close in. But they remained in their great circle, watching. There were no trees within it to climb to safety, and if I tried to break through the line at any point they'd be on me, so I kept still and stared back. One of the wolves sneezed; another shook himself. They knew they had me.
A gust of winter wind sent the dry ground snow flying. Flakes skittered and drifted over the discarded blanket. I slowly picked it up and looped it around my left arm. The leader stepped forward, growling. I angled to face him, my powerless fear turning to fury that I should be brought to such a base fate.
"Come on, you big bastard. I'll take you first," I whispered, growling right back. I would sell myself dearly to them.
The wolf lowered his head and rocked back on his haunches, like a dog about to do a begging trick. A roiling darkness that seemed to come from within the thing's body blurred the details as bones and joints soundlessly shifted, muzzle and fur retreated, skin swelled. It rose on its hind legs and kept rising until it was a match for me in height. The crooked legs straightened, thickened, and became the legs of a man, a tall, lean man clothed all in black. Only his bright green eyes remained the same, and when his red lips thinned into a smile I clearly saw the hungry wolf lurking beneath the surface.
I knew his face. One can never forget such stern features. They were the stuff of nightmares, all the more so for my knowing, of my being absolutely certain, that he was dead—for I'd killed him myself.
Yet there he stood before me, stubbornly oblivious to the fact.
I was as afraid as I'd ever been in my life and could have expressed it, loudly, but there didn't seem much point. In a few minutes I'd either be dead or worse than dead, and making a lot of noise about it wouldn't help me one way or another.
"I can respect a brave man, Mr. Morris," said Vlad Dracula, pitching his deep voice to be heard above the wind. In it was the harsh tone I'd heard when he'd taunted us from the stable yard of his Piccadilly house. Now he clasped his hands behind him and continued to regard me with the same mixture of interest and curiosity that had manifested itself in his wolf form.
The wind buffeted against his body with little effect other than to whip at his dark clothes and gray-streaked hair. Black on white was the mark Harker had left on the pallid flesh of Dracula's brow; he bore the scar with little sign of healing, yet nearly a month had passed from the last time I'd seen that face. But since then, I'd . . . I'd . . .
Something very like the wind whirled sickeningly inside my skull. The creature before me, the circle of wolves, the snow, the cold, all faded for an instant of nothingness before asserting themselves again. It was like the focus of a poorly made telescope shifting in and out.
"I killed you," I said faintly. I recalled the impact of the strike going right up my arm when my Bowie knife slammed firmly into his chest.
"So you did," he admitted. "With some help from Jonathan Harker do not forget."
"Yes. . . ."
Harker had buried his Kukri knife in the monster's throat. We'd fought our way through the Szgany to get to the leiter-wagon and the great box on top of it. The Szgany had drawn their knives to defend it, and one of them had . . .
I looked down, my hand going to my side. The clothes there were thick and stiff with dried and frozen blood. I could smell it, sharp and compelling.
My blood. It had fairly poured from me as our enemies fled into the growing dusk. Harker caught me as I fell and sank back in his arms, my strength abruptly spent. Jack Seward and Van Helsing had tried their best to stop the flow, but the wound was too deep, the damage beyond any skill to heal. Thank God it hadn't been very painful. The last memory I had was of poor Mina Harker, her face twisted by bitter grief, but I'd been so happy, so at peace. The awful red mark on her own brow had vanished, and from that I knew I'd spared her soul from damnation. With such joy in my fast-beating heart did I slip contentedly away into what seemed like sleep.
Not sleep. Nothing so ordinary as that had taken me, changed me, turned me into . . .
"No need for such alarm, Mr. Morris," Dracula said, reading my face. "What you have become is not so dreadful as you've been led to believe."
Not knowing my own voice, a cry escaped me. Heedless of the wolves, I burst through their circle, running back down their trail. I crashed through snowdrifts, blundered against trees, and tripped on invisible snares, but kept going. Not far ahead would be the warm yellow light of our campfire. If I could just get there, if Van Helsing still had some of his Holy Wafer left, there might yet be some protection for us.
For them. At least for them.
I was close enough to make out their huddled forms far down in the clearing where they'd made camp: the Harkers lying together, Van Helsing and Seward each rolled up in their blankets, Art a little off from them by the horses, presumably taking his turn at watch. All were fast asleep, though, worn out by the hard travel and the chase, but just one shout from me would bring Art instantly awake—
A hand, colder and heavier than the ice, clapped over my mouth just as I drew breath. As though I were a child and not a grown man topping six feet, Dracula lifted me right from my tracks, hauling me swiftly back into the cover of the forest. I lashed out with the rock still in my hand, but couldn't connect solidly enough to slow him. He was quite indifferent to my struggles, though I managed a few solid kicks that made him grunt. Then he spun me suddenly, and cracked my head against one of the trees.
Lights brighter than the sun blinded me. Ungodly pain robbed me of speech. I collapsed. Quite helpless to stop him, he easily hoisted me over one shoulder like an old sack and hurried back up the way I'd run. The wolves had tagged along for the brief hunt and now bounded playfully all around us. I couldn't tell how far he went, only that it was beyond where I'd originally revived, and well out of the camp's earshot.
He eventually dropped me flat on my face into the snow, and all I could do was lie there for a time nearly paralyzed and miserably ill from the shock. It passed too slowly to suit, but did pass. When I felt ready for it I pushed the ground away and propped myself against a tree. Dracula loomed over me, his white face twisted with fury.
"Fool," he snarled. "Do you think they'll show you mercy once they know about you?"
"I'm counting on it," I snapped back. "I know what to expect and shall welcome it."
"Well, I do not. Give yourself away to them if you must, but not me. I've been to enough trouble over this matter and want no more."
"Go to hell."
I didn't think his eyes could hold more rage. I was wrong. He raised a hand as though to smash me like a fly. His anger beat against me, a physical thing like heat from a forge, but after a long and dreadful moment he lowered his arm, and visibly shook himself out of his threatening posture with a sneer.
"You're but an infant," he muttered with no little disgust. "You don't understand anything yet."
"I know enough."
"I think not. Come with me and I shall be of some help to that end."
"No."
"Stay behind and your friends will be food for my children." He gestured meaningfully at the forest around us. No need for him to explain who his "children" were; I could still hear and occasionally see them well enough as they ghosted in and out of the surrounding trees. "Come and your friends will be safe."
"For how long?"
"As long as you remain sensible. And that is entirely up to you."
He stepped back and waited, watching as his wolves had watched. He offered no help as I found my feet, leaning hard on the tree. Though dizzy, I was able to think straight, but no idea running through my mind could be remotely mistaken for a way out of this spot. I did not trust him, was utterly repulsed by him and all that he represented, but he was well in control of things and we both knew it.
"Where?" I asked grimly.
He pointed behind me. We were to go even deeper into the timber, climbing away from the camp. I didn't like that, but followed as he led the way along what looked like a deer trail. The wolves kept pace, panting and wagging their tails like dogs out for a walk. Glancing back, I saw more than a dozen of them padding almost at my heels and realized they were obliterating my tracks in the snow. Was it accidental or intentional? I made a step off to one side as a test and went on. The wolves sniffed the spot and blotted out my boot print as they swarmed over it, tongues hanging as if from laughter.
We began climbing in earnest. Rocks rose high on our left, forming a natural wall that cut the freezing wind. The snow underfoot thinned and vanished. Dracula waited until I was well upon this trackless surface and a little ahead. He turned toward the wolves, stretching his arms before him, then spreading them wide in a dismissive gesture. As though the pack were one animal and not many, his children silently retreated down the path into the trees below, and were lost to sight.
"Where are they going?" I demanded.
The question surprised him. "To hunt, to play, to run with the moon, whatever they desire. Your friends are quite safe from them, as are you. I have pledged my word."
"What do you want of me?"
"Nothing more than the answers to a few questions."
"What questions?"
He pointed to a knee-high boulder. "Please seat yourself, Mr. Morris."
He had a presence about him that could not be ignored. I sat. There was a similar rock not four feet away and he took it, facing me, and spent several minutes studying me intently.
"With your permission," he said, and held his hand out, palm upward, looking for all the world like some Gypsy ready to read my fortune if I but mirrored him. I hesitated only a little, for my own curiosity was awake and on the move by now. He minutely inspected my hands, finally comparing them to his own, which were broad and blunt. "Your fingers are of different lengths," he pronounced.
"What of it?"
"They are also quite bare, not at all like mine, as you see."
From Harker's journal I already knew about the sharp nails and the thin hair on his palms, so there was little need to gape in wonder.
"And when you speak, your teeth appear to be perfectly normal. The same may not be said for my own." He let them show in an almost wry smile. Not a pleasant sight.
"Have you a purpose to this?"
"To confirm to myself and prove to you that we are similar, but not too very alike."
"We are most certainly not alike!" I couldn't control my rising voice.
"I am so glad that we are in agreement," he said with a calm sarcasm that took all the wind out of me. "Such differences should reassure, rather than alarm you."
"What do you mean?"
"You know the truth of that well enough for yourself."
Indeed, but the agonizing terror inside made me consciously obtuse. To finally face the truth, to actually speak about what I'd hidden for so long. . . .
"As I told you," he said with a glimmer of sympathy I would have never otherwise ascribed to that hard, cruel face, "what we are is not as bad as you have been led to believe."
A short laugh burst from me, a laugh that might have turned to a sob had I not forcibly swallowed it back.
"You are Nosferatu, Mr. Morris, nothing more. I am Nosferatu, but much more, hence the visible differences." He opened his palms again, as though that explained everything. "I know how I became as I am, but I want to know your story. Who took your blood and gave it back? Who initiated the change in you? And when?"
I was speechless for many long moments as he waited expectantly for an answer. "Why do you want to know?"
"Those of your kind are rare. I would know more about you. You are the first I have ever met both before and after dying. Our encounters in London and in Seward's house were brief, but I sensed changes in you no one else could discern—not even yourself. For that I decided to spare you and consequently your friends. For that I planned a way to rid myself of their nuisance without killing them."
"You spared us?"
"Look not so surprised, Mr. Morris. At any time of my choosing I could have destroyed the lot of you. Knowing what you do about me, could you doubt my ability?"
Van Helsing had been thorough in his lectures to us about the near-boundless powers of the Un-Dead, and of Dracula's genius in particular. I'd held serious reservations about just how even the six of us together—three being experienced hunters—could defeat such a formidable creature. Van Helsing had assured us again and again that God was on our side, which is always a help. My faith on that never shook for a moment, for it struck me we'd need an Old Testament kind of miracle to succeed.
"Why forbear then?" I asked.
"Your deaths were unnecessary. I could likely disassociate myself from the demise of five respectable people in the heart of England and be safe enough, but Harker is quite the diarist. So are the others, I discovered. Despite my efforts on the one occasion in that asylum study I knew I could never be certain of destroying all evidence linking them to me. And then there was Van Helsing. His knowledge of the Nosferatu is thorough, if short on wisdom, and he is highly respected within his academic circles. His sudden and mysterious passing along with the others would not go unnoticed. I also considered your reaction. If I killed all your friends you'd not be of a mind to freely speak with me, quite the contrary. It was far better to have my hunters believe in my own destruction than for me to deal with the inconvenient consequences of theirs."
"But I saw you die. We all did."
"You saw me vanish into dust," he corrected, "that was eventually whirled away by the wind into the darkness. A very excellent escape for me, was it not? It was a risk—things might not have gone so well had you used wood instead of metal weapons, but I am content with the results. Now you see why I had to stop you from waking your friends: to do so would have eventually meant their deaths and yours as well. You'd not let my actions pass, and I would defend myself from you. Larger parties have disappeared before in these mountains. Accidents are easily managed, and here I would not shirk the risk—but I chose to avoid such an extreme action lest you . . . take offense."
"You set all this to going just for a talk with me?"
"Had I a choice and an opportunity, I'd have found some way to speak with you in England and then quietly departed. No such opportunity presented itself, so I left, thinking to return some years hence. What I did not expect was for any of you to follow me to the very threshold of my own castle. You and your friends were possessed with such a grim determination to kill me that it needed to be dealt with first before I could indulge my curiosity. You may believe or not, as you will."
And I did believe him. He was the unopposed master of the night with the strength of ten, able to change shape or turn into mist at will, able to beguile anyone to do his bidding. Whatever gave us the idea we could fight anything like that? Van Helsing had been so confident, though, and had a way of instilling confidence in others. But seeing things from this direction put a whole new understanding in me. We'd been like children shaking our fists at a cyclone.
"You did all that, spared them, and yet caused my death?"
Now he had a turn at looking surprised, and a remarkable expression it was to be sure. "On the honor of all my sires, I swear that your being killed was not part of my plan of escape. I told the Szgany to resist but a little and then depart—to make it look well. Is that the phrase?"
I hung my head, staring at my snow-crusted boots. "Close enough."
"As with the others, your death was unnecessary, and not what I desired at all. Should you die, how would I then be able to speak with you?"
"Because I'd be a vampire." There. I managed to get the word out without choking on it.
He was silent long enough to make me look up. He shook his head. "Your ignorance again. You don't know?"
"Know what?" I couldn't keep the irritation from my voice.
"Though you carried the blood of change within you not all who have such rise from death."
"Draw that out a little more slowly," I said, giving him a narrow stare.
He understood my meaning if not the slang itself. "Those of your kind do not always transform after dying. They remain dead. To make the change is a rare thing. That is why I did not want you killed. What happened with the Szgany was . . . an unhappy accident."
"Is that what you call it? My life cut off? Me turned into a devil on earth . . ."
He assumed a look a vast patience and crossed his arms, apparently prepared to wait through a long tirade from me. I shut things down fast, scowling at him.
"You are not a devil, Mr. Morris," he murmured. "You will eventually come to learn that—if not from me, then from your own experiences and actions."
Which I did not care to consider just then. I was still mad as hell for what had happened to me, but there wasn't much I could do with my anger except push it aside for the moment. If I'd judged things right, then we still had a mighty big piece of talking to get through. I needed his knowledge.
"Now, as for your change . . ." Dracula prompted when he saw I'd mastered myself.
I gave a mental shrug, deciding no harm could come from telling him. "It was a few years back, in South America," I said. "Arthur Holmwood—Lord Godalming now—and I were at an embassy ball. I met her there. I've traveled a fair part of this world and seen a thing or two, but hands down she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever clapped eyes on. She and I—"
"Her name?"
"Nora Jones. By her accent she was English, I think, though she had dark hair and eyes and that wonderful olive skin. . . ."
Which I'd been on fire to touch the moment I saw her. I hadn't been the only man trying to claim her attention at that gathering, but I was the one she picked as an escort for a walk in the embassy garden. I reveled in my good fortune and hoped to give her a favorable impression of myself in the short time we had, but it was she who took the lead in things. She'd made up her mind about me fast enough, though I wouldn't call her fast, just almighty charming and irresistible. That night, holding to a promise and plan made in the garden, she found her way to my room, and we fulfilled one another's expectations—exceeded them, I should say.
I'd been exhausted the next morning, of course, not from blood loss so much as the excess champagne and sheer physical activity. Her passionate biting into my throat had startled me only a little. It was different, but didn't trouble me much. Young as I was, I'd known more than one woman in my travels and came to know that each had her own path to pleasure, and it was my privilege to assist her there. It was always to my own advantage to be ready to learn something new, and Nora was a enchanting teacher. My body's explosive reaction to her lesson was like nothing I'd ever felt before.
I rested throughout the day, and the next night we resumed exploring mutual pleasures with one another. It was then, caught up in the lust of the moment, that she feverishly opened a vein in her own throat and invited me to drink in turn. Brain clouded and body trembling for release, I gladly did so, taking us to a climax that left us both unconscious. I woke a little before dawn in time to see her throw on a dressing gown and leave, then dropped back into my sweet oblivion.
The word vampire was not unfamiliar, but its context for me then had to do with a species of blood-drinking bat that plagued the livestock of the land. In our drowsy love talk during later encounters, the subject came up, but Nora told me not to worry about it, and, lost in the warmth of her dark eyes, I forgot any and all misgivings . . . until that day years later in the Westenra dining room when I volunteered my blood to save poor dear Lucy.
I had no mind for Nora then—she was long behind me, an exquisite and happy memory—and put myself forward without another thought. It was afterward, when I began to hear more from Jack and Van Helsing about Lucy's alarming condition that the doubts crept in. The fact that her illness was so unique with her constant blood loss happening each night that gave me my first qualm. I feared Lucy had fallen victim to someone like Nora, but a ravisher rather than a lover. From that point everything Van Helsing told us confirmed my growing fears. It was only after Lucy's death and the hideous proof of her return that I realized what horror was in store for me when I died.
Dracula took that moment to interject. "If by that you mean being staked through the heart by your well-meaning friends, then you have every right to be horrified."
"If it will free me to go to God, then so be it."
"I doubt that He would welcome such an enthusiastic suicide," he said dryly. "Do not look so amazed. You are still one of His children—yet another difference you may rejoice in."
"How is that possible? I am . . . Nosferatu, one of the Un-Dead."
"Exactly. Un-Dead and nothing more. Do you not see?" I didn't, and he raised his hands in exasperation. "Your so-sweet Nora Jones has much to answer for. She should have told you all this and saved me the trouble and you your anguish. You do understand that she was, and probably still is, Nosferatu?"
"Yes."
"And you must know by now that she was not as I am. Her offspring, which includes you, will be like her. I have already had much proof that my offspring, no matter how lovingly taken, will never be so tame. Mine to hers are as the wolf to the hunting hound. Now do you see?"
"We're two different kinds of vampire," I whispered. "How is that possible?"
He gave an expressive shrug. "I know not, only that it is—for here you are and here I am, both hunters in the wide world. We have similar freedoms and strengths, but there are differences. Perhaps those will come to assure you that this life—or this Un-Death, if you will—is not so terrible as you've been told."
"Such as?"
"You will learn without doubt that your soul is still your own . . . and His," he added, with a quirk of his heavy brows toward the sky. "You will find the truth of it when next you walk into a church, which is something you are still very much able to do."
Well, time alone would tell on that one, if Dracula allowed me the freedom to test it.
"With some small changes you are free to live as before, but as you choose, for good or ill, as all things will be judged in the end. For me, it is not so simple."
"What do you mean?"
"I can do that which you cannot. The wolf, the bat, the curling mist are natural forms to me, but not for you. I prefer the shadows, but may walk in the sun if necessary; you would die from it and must sleep in darkness while it rules the sky. You can influence people and to some extent certain animals to your will, which makes the hunting easier, but can no more command the weather now than you could as a human, but that is of no matter. I've read in your heart and by your manner that you are a man who would refuse to pay the price for such powers. Long ago I paid and still do. My body bears the signs of that payment, marking me as different from other men. And as for my soul . . . I think you would be more comfortable to remain ignorant of such fearful things."
From the look that crossed his face I silently agreed with him. "And what of Lucy? Am I supposed to approve of what you did to her?"
"The matter of your approval is of no import to me. I did nothing with her that was not a part of my nature, a part of any man's nature. She was beautiful and willing—no, do not gainsay me for you were not there and never knew her true heart. I loved her in the only way left to me."
"Until she died."
"We all die, but I will allow that her time had not yet come."
"You kept taking her blood. I watched her weaken horribly with each passing day. You were killing her!"
"Her body was merely adjusting to what we shared. Another few nights and she would have gradually regained her strength with no harm done."
"I find that hard to believe."
He made a curt waving gesture, indication that my believing him on this was also of no import. "If you wish to fix a blame for her death, then you need look no farther than her attending physicians. Had they left her alone she would still be walking in the sun. 'Twas their ignorance that finished her, not my love. Doctors, bah!" His ruddy lips curled with contempt.
"And what about my own tainted blood going into her—?"
"I do not know. The seeds of becoming Un-Dead were within you, but you were not Un-Dead then. It may have helped or made no difference to her health or worsened things. That is beyond my knowledge. I have heard of such transfusion operations, though, and they fail more often than succeed. Some patients are not able to tolerate anything put into their veins and die from it. No one knows why as yet. In my own heart I believe that is what really happened to her."
And were that to be true, then by trying to help her Jack Seward and Van Helsing had . . .
"The poor, sweet child never had a chance," Dracula said heavily.
A painful thing it was to hear him refer to her in that manner, for I had loved her myself as truly as a man could. I could not imagine a dark creature such as he being able to love anyone. It angered and sickened me to think of her giving herself to the likes of him, of his even touching her. He must have hypnotized or forced her, though it may have been as it had with me and Nora, with her surrendering from honest innocence, unaware of the consequences. Were that the case, then I certainly had not known Lucy's true heart. With difficulty, I pushed all my emotions to one side for later reflection. Right now I needed still more information.
"So my blood might not have changed her?"
"It is barely possible, of course. I rather think it more likely that to create your own offspring you must first take blood from your lover, then return it, just as Nora did with you."
"As you've done to Mrs. Harker."
His face went hard.
"What is to happen to her?" I demanded.
"Nothing. The miracle she prayed for" —he touched the mark on his forehead, for it nearly mirrored the one she'd carried— "came to pass. Seward and Van Helsing will not bother her now. That alone should suffice to guarantee her a long and fruitful life."
"But what you did to her—"
"As with Lucy, that which has passed between Mrs. Harker and myself is none of your business, Mr. Morris," he rumbled, his brows lowering.
"But that poor woman—"
"Is quite capable of making her own decisions. If you live long enough, you may come to see that women are far more formidable than you think. Like the rest of you gentlemen, I found myself quite enchanted by Madam Harker's grace, charm, heart, and mind. Unlike you, I decided to act upon my desires. I've lived long enough to have certain . . . perspectives on a few things, and so took the chance, knowing I'd regret passing it by. However, I came to see that which was once acceptable—or at least ignorable—behavior in my youth, was not so for an English lady in these times. All was sealed when the lot of you burst in on us, and I knew then it must end."
For a seducing adulterer he sounded quite smooth.
"I have since tendered my admittedly inadequate apologies to her, mind-to-mind, and severed all links between us. I would have also apologized to her husband, but given the circumstances it struck me as being inappropriate. Besides, he thinks he has killed me. That should be sufficient recompense for his wounded honor."
"What about the blood exchange you made with her?"
"That cannot be reversed."
"Then when she dies, she'll become like you."
"And to you that is yet a bad thing. Worry not. When her time comes she will have a . . . decision before her."
"Decision?"
"It—it is not an easy thing to make into words. My own memory of it is clear, but to describe in a way that you may understand is difficult. Let it suffice that she will have the choice to live as I live or to go to God. At death, each similarly touched soul has a moment of decision. I have told her as much, so did I tell Lucy, whose choice was to tarry on the earth."
"But I had no choice. I went to sleep and awoke to—" I spread my hands to indicate my situation.
"Another point of difference between us, between our kinds. And another question I have no adequate answer for. Why some of you rise and others do not is a mystery to me."
"Van Helsing said nothing of this choice of yours. Neither did Mrs. Harker."
"He may not know of it, and you can hardly blame the lady for such an omission. It is a most personal thing. But she has a noble heart, a great spirit, and her faith is so strong as to have done such to her—" again he lightly touched the scar on his forehead. "I have no doubt when her time comes she will fly to the angels to seek her rest."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Wait twenty or thirty years and see for yourself. For now, the subject of Mrs. Harker and myself is closed." By the finality of his tone I knew that to pursue the matter would result in unhappy consequences to myself. And he was right. It was none of my business. Besides, to be sincerely selfish about it, I had problems of my own to face. To judge by the miraculous healing of the burn she'd taken from the touch of the Host, Mina Harker was well recovered from her ordeal, and Dracula planned to leave her alone; I felt I could move forward with a fairly clear conscience.
Now that my eyes were opened a little wider than before, I looked out into the night. Though all would have been murky blacks and grays to my friends, it was as day to me. The faint moonlight put a silver gleam upon everything it touched, beautiful, but marred in my perception by my many troubling questions.
"Must I do as you—as Nora—to . . . to . . ." The words refused to emerge.
"Sustain yourself? Hardly. To drink from a lover is one matter, but you'll find that the blood of animals is your real food. One may live upon love alone for awhile, but sooner or later one must come down from the clouds and take more practical nourishment. This is as true for vampires as it is for humans."
That was a great relief. If it was true.
"Do you hunger yet?"
I continued to stare out at nothing in particular, giving no reply.
He shrugged. "When you're ready, then tell me. Your first feeding should be a pleasing experience."
He'd have a hard task of proving that to me. Separated so far from memories of Nora by time and new knowledge, the idea of my drinking blood of any kind like downing a cup of coffee sickened me to the core. I tried to hide my grimace as my belly turned over. "What about my friends? When they wake—"
"They will be shocked, of course. They will eventually conclude you have been dragged off in the night by a pack of ravenous wolves and will never recover your body. So very tidy, is it not?"
"It's monstrous!"
"Far better that than to see your footprints in the snow trailing away from the torn blanket that was your shroud. Then you would never be safe from them. I suspected you might revive and rise tonight, so I made sure my children and I were there to disguise your escape."
"But they're my friends. I cannot put them through such grief!"
His face went hard again, the change swift as lightning. "You will and must. It is part of my pledge of their safety to you. Leave them alone and they live."
"But—"
"You will leave them. Better that they suffer a little distress than for you to undo all I have done. I will not be moved on this. Accept it, or they will pay."
There would be no return to my comrades, not for the present, anyway, certainly not while his wolves were within call. "Very well," I murmured. Perhaps later I might be able to talk to Art or Jack and persuade them to reason as I had been persuaded, but in the meantime I was feeling very lost and miserable without them. And cold. The icy November air, something I'd been able to ignore because of my changed condition, had seeped well into my bones. It would take more than the long coat I wore to dispel it. I shook out the torn blanket I still had wrapped around my arm and threw it around my shoulders.
Dracula nodded. "Yes, it is time to go inside. My castle is not far from this place. Your friends thought to seal me from it, but there are entrances that they found not."
"What about your friends?"
"Mine?"
"Harker wrote of your three . . . companions." I nearly said "mistresses" and diplomatically changed the word at the last moment. I wondered how they would receive me. "The ladies."
His eyes flashed green, and his lips drew into a knife-cut of a line. He released a long hiss of breath. There was a strange blaze of madness in his stare that made me instinctively reach for my missing Colt revolver, for all the good it would have done.
Dracula rose tall and quickly turned away; one hand shot out against the stone side of the mountain as though to steady himself. I'd stabbed right into a nerve it seemed, and couldn't guess what it might be.
With a terrible strength, his bare fingers curled right into the rock, ripping off a piece. I stood, readying myself in case he decided to make a problem, but he took no notice.
"Sir," I ventured after some moments. "What is it?"
His shoulders sagged. He slowly turned back to me. Now his eyes had gone dark, hooded over by those heavy brows. "They are no more," he said, his gaze dropping. "Van Helsing murdered them."
"Murdered?" Here was a shock. I'd long known that the professor had the idea of visiting the castle during the day, but it was news to me to learn he'd actually done so. But murder—?
"He served them as he served poor Lucy," Dracula said.
That told me all. Unbidden, the sight of her hideous second dying passed across my mind's eye as it had every day since. I'd been told—and had been thoroughly convinced—that what we'd done had freed her sweet soul from enslavement to pure evil. Now I was not so certain. God in heaven, had I helped to murder her?
Dracula flexed his fingers enough to let the stone fall, his voice a bleak drone. "Their deaths happened because Van Helsing was more careful and they too careless. In their minds, in their dreams, I gave them warning of what I knew must be his intent, but they would not heed. They thought him to be yet only a simple peasant, easily cowed by fear or seduced by lust for their beauty. I . . . felt each of them go and could do nothing." His face darkened, then cleared, like the shadow of a cloud running over the flanks of a mountain. He struck me as a man who felt things deep and felt things hard, but could hold control if he chose.
"What will you do to Van Helsing?"
"Nothing."
"How can you—I mean, if you cared for them—"
"I am pledged."
That simple statement took me aback.
He saw my disbelief. "My word, Mr. Morris, may be trusted."
"Sir, I—"
"There is more as well. You are not so old as I or you would understand the futility of certain kinds of retribution. To avenge my dear ones would put Van Helsing where he belongs—in hell!—but bring me no gain, and only reveal my deception to the others." He gave another shrug, this time with his hands. "What's done is done. I have pledged the lives of your friends to you on your sensible behavior. I will not recant."
I kept quiet, relieved, but still dealing with inner doubt. I had the suspicion that should my friends make themselves a nuisance to him again he might find a way of getting around his pledge.
He straightened, standing tall. "Come then, Quincey Morris. I will show you any number of dark places for you to shelter from the day, places much safer than that which my dear ones had."
"Won't I need my home earth as you do?" I suddenly felt frail and weary and very, very alone.
He turned slightly and motioned toward where the wolves had vanished, taking in the vast forest. "This land has become your home, Mr. Morris. When a brave man's blood strikes the ground where he fights he has purchased it for his own forever. You will find rest here and may carry away as much earth as you want when you are ready to depart."
Another surprise. Me being free to leave? I'd no notion he'd even suggest the idea that I could ever depart this oppressive place. It wouldn't be tonight. The hour was too late, to judge by the position of the stars. Dawn was coming, but on top of all that, I needed help, which Dracula seemed willing to give. I'd be a fool not to accept, since I was still trying to get my brain to take in what had happened to me and how to deal with it. Back in Texas when a tenderfoot turned up on the ranch we'd guide him through things until he learned how to survive on his own. Now I was the tenderfoot.
"I'd appreciate that," I said.
Dracula grunted once and continued to stare away into the distance. His gaze and his mind must have been very much elsewhere, for he remained silent and unnaturally still for quite a long time.
I tried not to shiver, waiting, reluctant to intrude on whatever dark thoughts possessed him.
"But perhaps," he finally whispered, his voice so soft I barely heard, "perhaps you will tarry awhile? The wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements of my castle, but you will find more comfort there than in these wastes. We two have many griefs to settle in our hearts, and though I would be alone with my thoughts, in such a time of mourning it is better to have company."
My answer was to follow him. As we picked our way over the rocks and up the narrow path, his children began to sing again.