Reckoning (4 page)

Her trust in me, while foolish, is strangely moving. She is currently unaware of the fate that awaits her, but I have become determined to see that she is treated well at the castle and with the respect and deference my bride deserves.

We travelled here, to the northern port of Whitby, by train and tomorrow shall set sail for Varna. Once we arrive in Bulgaria, the rest of our journey, overland to Transylvania, should prove straightforward enough.

C
ASTLE
D
RACULA
24TH
N
OVEMBER 1916

Lily seemed so pleased when Mother pronounced her “magnificent.” I was glad Lily did not understand all that lay behind the compliment. . . .

27TH
N
OVEMBER 1916

Our plan is falling into place. John has arrived at the castle.

There is only one fly in the ointment—he has brought with him that wretched Seward girl. I must decide what to do with her. . . .

29TH
N
OVEMBER 1916

It is nearly done. Mother has seduced John and made him fully vampire. He is one of us now. After my marriage to Lily tonight, the future of the Tepes bloodline will be assured.

30TH
N
OVEMBER 1916

This final entry is a farewell to the existence I have known.

Lily is dead. All is lost.

Without her by my side, I cannot lead the house of Tepes as Father intended.

I am done with this place. John may inherit it all.

I still reel from his callous acceptance of Lily’s death. “She has proved herself weak. We are stronger without her.” His own sister! Has he no vestige of his mortal self left?

I pity those he will rule. Though my heart may be shadowed, his has fast become blacker than the night. I am awed by the speed of the change in him.

I introduced John to his true bloodline. And in so doing, I have unleashed a monster on the world. We have all paid a dear price in Father’s attempt to regain power.

Except, that is, for the one person who somehow slipped away unscathed—Mary Seward.

She thinks she has escaped and left the darkness behind.

But I will be seeing her sooner than she knows.

Journal of
John Shaw

C
ASTLE
D
RACULA
1ST
D
ECEMBER 1916

So . . .

Quincey was foolish not to have burned his journals before he left. My discovery of them has pleased me greatly. What I have read so far has been highly enlightening. I shall read them in their entirety, learn more of his weakness, while I bide my time and plan my revenge.

Long-lost brother.

Newfound enemy.

How dare he dismiss his own destiny—and in doing so dismiss me?

He condemns me as a monster? It is he who led me to this! He, who was given so much! He was coddled and supported, loved and indulged, celebrated for the vampire blood
he was born with—while I was separated from my family, left blind to my true heritage. He basked in both his own and my mother’s affection—while I wept alone, believing her dead. He anticipated his first vampire bite as a rite of passage and savoured its sweetness when it came. My initiation was thrust upon me without warning. I was seduced by the lies and depravity of his mother.

And then, after luring me to Castle Dracula so that I would discover the devastating truth of my own true nature—he destroyed Tepes before I could even acknowledge him as my father.

Thanks to Quincey, my first sight of Tepes was to be my last. Our father was writhing in agony upon the stone floor of his quarters, blood frothing at his lips as he clawed at the wooden stake Quincey had thrust through his heart!

I watched Quincey turn away and walk toward the door.

Gathering myself, I protested. “You brought me here. You helped unleash my true nature. And now you are abandoning me?”

He did not deny it. “I gave you what was rightfully yours,” he called back. “It is up to you what you do with it.”

I followed him down the staircase and watched him stride across the entrance hall toward his own wing of the castle, his footfalls ringing out on the marble floor.

“You can have it all, John!” he shouted. With a great sweep of his arms, he gestured to the paintings and weaponry
displayed on the soaring stone walls around us. “I want none of it anymore.”

I wish I’d had to strength to kill him there and then.

But I know where he is going. And in time, I shall have the strength I need.

I have discovered the family archive here in the castle library. It will teach me all I need to know of what a real Tepes should be. I shall tutor myself in all the ways of darkness and become strong—as strong as Quincey.

I shall have my vengeance on him—and all who try to interfere.

Yes. I shall make Quincey pay for betraying his blood-line—for walking away from his duty, killing our father, abandoning me. . . .

I will be his judge, his jury, and his executioner.

Journal of
Mary Seward

P
URFLEET
25TH
S
EPTEMBER 1918

I visited Grace today. Her parents were holding a small party to celebrate her second birthday. Today is the date we chose for her, knowing she was around three months old when I rescued her and brought her to England a year and nine months ago.

The maid showed me into the Edwardses’ parlour, bright with the morning sun. I smiled at the balloons and streamers put up for Grace, who was running happily around the room, her face lit up with excitement while her adoptive mother and father looked on fondly.

Seeing me enter, Andrew and Jane immediately came over.

“Look who it is, Gracie! Aunt Mary has come to see you!” Andrew called.

Grace came running and flung her arms around my legs. I swept her up and kissed her, then swung her around. She laughed gleefully, and the sound filled me with joy.

To me, it still seems like a gift from God that I found a local Purfleet couple to adopt Grace and so soon after I escaped from Transylvania with her. There had been times in Castle Dracula when I believed I would never see home again. The horrors of that place will haunt me forever, but Grace, being just a baby when she was imprisoned there, will have escaped unscathed in mind as well as body, God willing.

How wonderful it was to see Purfleet unchanged when I arrived back here with Grace on Christmas Eve, 1916. And how much more so to discover that my darling father still lived! The illness that had threatened to take him while I was away had not yet conquered him. Tears of relief ran down my cheeks as I stood at his bedside.

He looked at me in wonder—and then at Grace in my arms.

“I saved her from them,” I told him. “She was stolen from the village below the castle for Tepes. He was to drink her blood so that he would have the strength to attend Quincey and Lily’s wedding ceremony.”

Father’s eyes darkened with grim understanding. Many years before I was born, he, too, had faced the evil in the castle. He, too, had survived to tell the tale.

“Baby’s blood is the most powerful vampiric rejuvenator,” he said sombrely, holding out a finger for Grace to grasp. “Her parents are dead?”

I nodded.

“If she was born in that village, she would have been baptised the moment she was born,” Father went on. “But now, having been so close to evil, she should be blessed again—and soon.”

“I shall ask Reverend Halifax in the morning,” I assured him.

Christmas morning arrived crisp and sunny—and blanketed in pure white. It had snowed heavily during the night. I wrapped Grace up well, kissed Father goodbye, and then trudged through the village with Grace in my arms toward the parish church. The gleaming whiteness all around seemed to bring with it a sense of peace. Purfleet felt like a place of purity and light—a world away from the dark, hellish place from which we had escaped. In the distance, the church bells began to peal out their Christmas salutation.

My muffled footsteps crunched up the churchyard path. The way was crowded with cheery parishioners arriving for the morning service. Such a scene seemed unreal after the horrors I had witnessed. I felt suddenly disoriented and out of place—light-headed and overwhelmed by so many faces. The blissful peace that had enfolded me grew brittle and
seemed to crack like ice struck with a hammer. My heart began to pound and my palms to sweat.

Some called, “Merry Christmas!” as I passed, but I found myself unable to meet a gaze or return a greeting. Others stared curiously and nudged each other. I was uncomfortably aware of the gossip and speculation I, a young lady returning from Europe with a baby in my arms, might provoke. Before my ordeal, I would have raised my head boldly, but now my nerve failed me. I stared straight ahead, trying to quell my rising panic, overwhelmed by the press of people.

“Mary!” Reverend Halifax’s familiar voice broke through the maelstrom. I looked over to see him standing at the church door, welcoming the arrivals, and hurried toward him.

“You’re back among us at last,” he said with a smile. “And you bring a new lamb into our fold.” He beamed down at Grace, lying peacefully in my arms.

I told him only that Grace was an orphan from war-ravaged Europe. Without hesitation he promised to bless her during the service and, gratefully, I carried Grace into the church.

Sunlight shone through the stained-glass windows, spreading a kaleidoscope of glorious colour across the aisle and altar. The pews were already half filled. Bright bonnets and scarves had been brought out for the occasion. I smelled the fresh garden scent of the scarlet poinsettias arranged around the stone pillars.

“Look,” I whispered to Grace as I carried her to the front pew to await the moment Reverend Halifax would call us to the altar. “This is how joyful and good life can be.”

I spoke to reassure myself as much as her, but as I settled upon the smooth wood of the pew, a passing cloud snuffed out the streams of coloured light. A shiver of remembrance cut cruelly through my hard-won optimism. I was cast back to the gloomy church in Transylvania where I’d sought holy water to protect John and me in our rescue mission to Castle Dracula. How grateful I had been for the small comfort of that dismal place, for the glass vials of holy water the priest had given me. I’d prayed they would be enough to help us save Lily.

But they had not been.

We had not saved her.

Indeed, I had lost John too, my sweet, loving fiancé.

I tried not to imagine him as he was now, lost to the darkness. But it was impossible to forget the demonic, heartless creature he’d become. Tears welled in my eyes, grief mingling with fear. I clutched Grace closer to me and prayed that I’d never see John or his black-hearted half brother, Quincey Harker, ever again. Nor any of their kind.

“At least I was able to save you, Grace,” I murmured. “God willing, we’ll be safe here.”

The moment came for the reverend to call me to the altar with Grace. I felt a sense of calm descend once more as he intoned the words of blessing over her.

As I turned to return to my pew, I noticed a young woman staring at the bundle in my arms. The sunlight lit her curly golden hair like a halo as she leaned forward in her seat to get a better view of Grace.

After the service she approached me, accompanied by an anxious-looking man. I met the woman’s gaze and smiled an invitation.

She leaned forward and gently drew back the knitted blanket that screened Grace’s face. “What a dear little mite . . .” she breathed, a note of such wistfulness in her voice. “I’m afraid we haven’t been blessed with one of our own,” she added quietly.

She looked up at me and smiled, but her eyes glistened with tears. I saw the man, whom I now took to be her husband, squeeze her arm supportively.

Jane and Andrew Edwards, I learned, were a loving couple stricken with sorrow that they could have no children of their own. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to give them Grace. I was far too young and inexperienced to care for her myself. And more, it soothed my heart when Father mentioned approvingly that their family name of Edwards meant “blessed guardian.” It seemed an omen—though no one, least of all the Edwardses, would ever guess the terrible truth of how Grace came to be orphaned and brought to England.

The legalities of Grace’s adoption were simply solved, for
Andrew is a solicitor. And on the twelfth day of Christmas, it was they who carried Grace to the altar for her to be baptised as their own dear child.

I stood as godmother. And as I renounced all evil and promised to protect Grace and help her to take her place within the life and worship of God’s church, I felt my insides tremble. Would I be strong enough to keep such a promise? I alone, among those gathered there, had encountered some of the true evils of which the reverend spoke.

I protected her once, I thought. If need be, I shall do so again. But I prayed that neither Grace, nor her new family, would ever need to know of the horrors from which I’d rescued her. . . .

Seeing Grace today, now two years old, beloved and safe, brought me such joy. Jane asked me to stay for dinner, and part of me longed to linger within the warmth and cheeriness of the Edwardses’ home. But I had to refuse, of course, in order to get home before dark. Since my return from Transylvania, the darkness frightens me more than it did when I was a child. Back then, I only suspected monsters lurked there. Now I know they truly do.

As it was, the sun was already a low fiery ball in the sky as I set off along the empty lane. My pulse began to quicken. I despise the restless anxiety I feel as twilight approaches.

As sun sank lower on the horizon, I clasped both my crucifix and a small vial of holy water, each worn on a chain
around my neck—clinging to the symbols of religion like a drowning man clings to driftwood.

Only the horizon retained its pale light as the sun swiftly began to set. Dead leaves swirled about my feet as I hurried along the trail. In my mind, their noise turned into the swish of vampire wings. The howling wind echoed the sound of the wolves surrounding Castle Dracula.

My heart hammered in my chest, and I picked up my pace, my eyes darting left and right, searching the night for the slightest hint of movement. I glanced behind. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a shadow, hulking and broad.

“Who is there?” I shouted. The figure remained impassive.

I gasped, convinced it was the outline of a vampire, lurking there. Lying in wait for me!

Fresh terror coursed through me like electricity. My alarm spiraled into panic as I broke into a run, my coat fluttering behind me. I had only to turn the corner and I would be in view of home—but my breathing was so fast I felt light-headed. Sparks of light began to flash before me. I feared I would faint there on the lane.

Sucking in great gulps of air, I battled to outrun my panic and reach the gate. I pelted through, leaving it swinging on its hinges. My feet sent the gravel flying as I raced along the path to the door, fumbling in my bag for my key.

What was that noise behind me? I could not look. My heart felt it would burst as my shaking fingers desperately
tried to fit the key into the lock. At last they found purchase. I flung open the door and fell inside, slamming it behind me.

Leaning against it, I drew the bolt, then glanced gratefully at the small crucifix facing the door.

Relief made me weak. As I slid into the chair beside the coat stand, my chest heaved with sobbing and I fought to stifle it lest Father hear me.

Eventually, somewhat calmer, I forced myself to look out of the hallway window. The garden stood quiet and empty.

There was neither a vampire nor anything there in the darkness that so terrified me. Once more, fear and anxiety had misled my senses.

I have seen or heard nothing of John or Quincey Harker since returning to England. And yet even now, as I write in the safety of my room, I am governed by my fear of them.

I pray that I shall one day be free from the tyranny of it.

Journal of
Mary Seward

P
URFLEET
26TH
S
EPTEMBER 1918

I have just awoken from dreaming of John again. . . .

He lay in his hospital bed as first I’d seen him, pale and vulnerable, needy of my care and affection. I held his hand and cooled his brow with kisses, and he opened clear blue
eyes to gaze at me—as though at an angel.

“John . . .” I breathed. “You’ve come back to me.”

“My darling Mary,” he replied, “how could you think I would abandon you?”

And then, gently, he pulled me to him and kissed me, so tenderly it filled my heart anew with love for him.

Gradually his hold on me tightened, its strength taking me by surprise. I tried to draw away to see if anything was wrong, but John would not let me. He began to laugh—and the inhuman sound of it chilled me to the core.

At last, he loosened his grip enough for me to pull back and see his face . . . to take in the reddened, staring eyes, the leering, fanged mouth. I began to scream—but silently, the noise never leaving my mouth. All the while, I watched that monstrous orifice coming toward my throat, its upper lip curling back to expose the full savagery of its two needle-sharp fangs. . . .

I awoke, as I always do, drenched in sweat and panic—and with a feeling of such sorrow.

To recall so vividly the John that was—to remember such love and then realise anew that it is lost to me forever . . . it seems so cruel. I am forced to mourn afresh as he transforms in my dreams to the fiend he is now—tainted by evil, beyond love, faithful only to his own bloodlust.

Though strongest at night, my fear of the darkness never really leaves me. It prickled in my fingers as I fastened the
present I had bought for Grace’s birthday around her chubby wrist—a silver bangle, marked with the sign of the cross.

Will I ever again feel truly safe?

I pray to God that I will. But so far, that prayer has gone unanswered.