Dracula (A Modern Telling) (23 page)

I had the most unusual conversation with Mina today. She called me out of the blue and said she needed to talk. I was close to her and Lucy all through college and have known Mina almost twenty years so I didn’t think too much of it. I figured she just wanted to reminisce about the mutual friend we had both lost. But instead she asked me what I thought of her.

“What are you talking about?” I asked her.

“I mean, what kind of person am I?
Am I a consistent woman? Do you think I’m a good person?”

“You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known, Mina.
Kind and with a generosity that this new generation just doesn’t have. Where’s all this coming from?”

“I don’t know
… I’ve … I don’t know if I can tell you. I know you’re friends with Jonathan too.”

“I was friends with Jonathan because of you. You’re the oldest frie
nd I have. You can tell me anything.”

“I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Someone, like a male someone?”

“Yes.”

“Mina! You just barely got married.”

“I know. I haven’t done anything
… physical. I’ve literally just been seeing him. Going places.”

“Who is he?”

“You wouldn’t know him.”

“Have you told Jonathan?”

“Of course not. It would break his heart. And he’s different now, Jack. You haven’t spent enough time with him to know. But ever since he came back from LA he’s been different. He’s paranoid and frightened … not at all the Jonathan I knew before he left. He snaps at the simplest things and goes into a rage and then he’ll just start crying. I don’t know what’s going on with him. He won’t talk about it with me.”

“Mina, listen to me very careful
ly: if you respect me at all, you will stop seeing this man and devote yourself to your husband. I don’t know what it is that Jonathan went through but I heard it was terrifying. So just be there for him. That’s all he wants. He doesn’t need anything else. Just when he needs you, be there.”

She sighed
, “I miss her, Jack. I miss her so much sometimes I don’t know what I’m going to do. This morning I dialed her number to speak to her.”

“I know. I miss her too. But what’s done is done.”

We spoke a few more minutes and then she promised that she and I and Jonathan would have dinner tomorrow night. I felt more joy at that than I thought I possibly could, but depriving myself of people’s company, at least the company of those that are not mentally ill, for as long as I did has had it’s effects.

Almost before I placed the phone down, it rang again. It was Van Helsing.
He was coming back into town and wanted to have dinner tomorrow. I told him I would be with Jonathan and Mina and he said, “Even better!” and invited himself.

September 22

I met Jonathan and Mina first for drinks at a small bar called the Purple Door. I still couldn’t get over how much older Jonathan looked. He could’ve been my father. The conversation was mostly driven by me and I saw immediately what Mina had been talking about: Jonathan was distant. He would answer questions but never ask any himself. I was about to ask him what happened in LA when Van Helsing burst into the bar.

“Jack! I starve
. Feed me!”

The
professor forced me to shoot whiskey like an old man and then we took a cab over to Simone’s Grotto and were sat at a table overlooking the pier. I could see a storm out over the ocean. It was night now and brilliant flashes of lightning would break the darkness every so often.

“You never told me how Lucy died,” Mina said to me.

Before I could answer, Van Helsing said, with a mouthful of calamari, “We stabbed her through the heart with a spear and then cut off her head and burned it.”

“Doctor!” Jonathan shouted.

Mina looked like she was about to pass out. I fumbled with a few words and was saved by Van Helsing.

“There are things that walk the night, gentlemen and ladies, that science hasn’t categorized. Hasn’t even identified.
We live in a demon-haunted world but because we have candles we pretend they’re not there.” He looked to Jonathan. “You yourself, Mr. Harker, have seen some of these dark corners if I’m not mistaken.”

Jonathan looked away.

“Lucy was Lucy no longer. She was dead. The man who made her did that to her as a curse. But I don’t know why.”

“You sound like you know this man,” Jonathan said.

“Oh I do. I’ve been chasing him my entire life. He’s the reason I went into the field I’m in.”

“Why? What do you care about him so much for?”

“My mother, Mr. Harker, experienced him.” Van Helsing, for the first time that I could remember, completely drifted away on a thought and was no longer with us. “She was a sweet woman, completely innocent, and beautiful. The most beautiful in our little village of Augsburg, which is a modern city now. But fifty years ago it was not much more than a village one might see in the dark ages.”

“Fifty years?” Jonathan asked. “How old are you?”

Van Helsing grinned. “Your Lucy suffered the same fate. We gave her a blessing by putting her out of her misery. She was cursed to walk the earth, starving for living blood. From what I can tell, it is not hunger. Hunger is controllable. These creatures are in a constant state of starving, no matter how much they drink.”

Jonathan scoffed. “You’re talking about vampires.”

“Nosferatu, yes. Call them what you want. I’ve seen them break open the bones of men to suck at their marrow. They’re monsters, plain and simple. Now, Mr. Harker, I would be very interested to know exactly what you went through.”

Jonathan glanced to Mina. “
I don’t know if it was real. I doubted my own mind. I still feel … insane. Like I don’t know what is real and what isn’t.”

Van Helsing leaned forward. “Well know this: vampires are real. And this one we fight
, Dracula, is the most dangerous I have ever seen.”

EXCERPT FROM “LOVE IN THE AGES”

An account of the mysterious rise and demise of Blood Burn as described to the author by the parties involved.

By Belamy Woodwards

First Draft

CHAPTER 32

The corner of Baker and Harvard Lane appeared like any other street in Boston. It was a residential neighborhood, filled with upper-middle class working families that had worked all their lives to get their families out of the rougher south side
boroughs. Mina, a dark-haired beauty with a curvy figure and the jet black eyes that were her Eastern European heritage, a gift from her half-gypsy mother, looked out of place. Something about her always struck people as elegant, though unconsciously so. Affectatious was never a word used to describe her by anyone.

The limousine pulled to a stop in front of her and she stepped inside. The Count sat with a cane between his legs, the handle made of solid gold with sapphire trim. He wore circular sunglasses and his hair appeared shining though not wet. Mina sat next to him but stared out the window as they were driven through the streets of Boston to the rooftop restaurant where they would be dining tonight.

“You seem troubled,” the Count said.

“This isn’t the way to the restaurant.”

“We’re going somewhere else tonight. Somewhere special.”

The
limousine drove them to the pier. During the entire ride, not twenty words were exchanged between them.

When they arrived, a yacht was waiting. Unlike anything Mina had ever seen, it was easily seventy to eighty feet with a full crew. A table was set out on the deck and several of the crew went about the task of
decorating it while several others began to set the silverware and china.

Mina climbed up the ramp, the Count gently holding her hand. They were sat at the table as the yacht pulled anchor and drifted out into the darkening sea.

Once the yacht stopped and they were alone, Mina glanced to the moon which was full tonight. It appeared cold and her skin felt icy at its glow.

“You have something to ask me,” the Count said. “You may ask me anything. I told you before, I am your slave.”

“Who are you? I mean really. Not the rock star. Who are you?”

“I am he that man hunts. I am nothing.”

Mina was quiet a moment. “Take me back to shore.”

“But the meal is—”

“Take me back to shore now.”

“As you wish.”

Once ashore, Mina hailed a cab and was whisked back to her apartment. She climbed the stairs, put in the key and opened the door. As soon as she was inside, she burst into tears. She placed her hand over her eyes and wept for a long while before showering and getting into bed.

It was past midnight when she began drifting off to sleep after several hours of staring at the ceiling. At that moment she noticed the mist in
the room. It moved like fog and made the room cold. Mina kept her eyes closed as she felt the mist underneath the bed covers, slowly sliding its way up her legs, lifting her nightgown.

The Count appeared there with her. She wasn’t surprised or shocked. Instead she placed her arms
around his neck and kissed him.

“You found me,” she said.

“I would traverse hell to find you.”

“I’ve wanted this to happen. I’ve fought it so much but
I can’t fight anymore. I’m not strong enough.”

“Tell me to leave and you will never see me again. Tell me to die, and I will.”

She kissed him again and said, “I want this. I want to be like you.”

“No, no. You do not know what you are saying.”

“Yes I do. I want to be with you. I want to be like you.”

“I am nothing. There is no life in this body.”

“But you’re alive! I can feel you. I can feel life in you.”

“No, I’m the vermin that men h
unt. I’m soulless, lifeless. I am Dracula.”

Mina was still and time itself seemed to slow. Suddenly, she burst out and violent
ly pounded on his chest. “You killed Lucy! No! No,” she cried. “No, you killed Lucy!” She collapsed back, out of breath and emotionally frayed. Dracula simply held her.

“To become like me, you would have to die. You would have
to lose that wondrous breath that lights your body.”

“I want to be with you. Always.”

He brushed aside a strand of her hair. “Then I give you eternal life.”

Dracula bit softly into her neck so as not to cause any pain. Mina groaned and her eyes rolled back as she whispered to herself. Her heart began to beat in rhythm
with his own and she felt it on her breast. Pleasure and pain ravaged her body and her mind was unable to focus on anything but the sensation. The pounding of her heart grew louder and louder, like approaching drums, and just when she thought she couldn’t take anymore, Dracula pulled away.

He opened his shirt and ran his nail along his breast. “No
w drink.”

Mina opened her lips, her hands running over his body. Her tongue came out to lick the small thread of blood on his flesh
…

And she screamed.

DR. SEWARD’S EVERNOTE JOURNAL

October 3

I sat in my car with Van Helsing as another car pulled up in front of us. We were in an alley between a bank and a restaurant and I wondered what the hell exactly I was doing there. I looked to Van Helsing who was smoking a cigar.

“This is insanity,” I said. “
There’s no such things as vampires.”

“Really? And how would you explain poor Lucy? A fluke? Sh
e just happened to come back from the dead and wanted to kill babies?”

“That was
… I don’t know what that was.”

The other car pulled up in front of us and I could see Arthur, Quincy
, and Jonathan Harker. They stepped out and Van Helsing did the same, and I followed. Van Helsing sat on the hood of the car, his hand casually resting in his pocket as the other one twirled the cigar.

“I’m afraid those guns won’t help you, Quincy,” he said. “That knife I saw on your belt is a much better weapon.”

“I wasn’t planning on getting that close, Doc.”

Jonathan said, “I know this neighborhood. Mina lives just down the street.”

Van Helsing blew out a puff of smoke without responding. “I’m afraid your bride has come under his spell, Mr. Harker. I could see it in her eyes the other night at dinner. There’s only one way to save her soul now, and that is to kill Dracula.”

“You speak
again as if you know him,” Jonathan said. “I’ve seen his power. What he can do. We’re no match for him.”

“Then shall we just offer your dear Mina to him on a silver platter? Or do you at least want to try. Arthur has already lost a bride to him. Ask him how it feels.”