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So it was I who pushed my restless flesh into Dracula's hands, I who drew him down
towards me. I write this as a confession, yet even as I write it, hating myself, hating my
uncleanness, I still remember with tingling, unholy joy the breathless delight of it. I put
my arms around his back. He embraced me, lying along me and over me, holding my face
and looking into my eyes. He whispered, 'Mina . . .'
I remembered those eyes shining from Jonathan's face. I remembered a time, seven
years ago . .. We were not, after all, strangers to each other. There was something
wondrous in that, a bond of flesh and spirit between us, of blood and this fierce fire
which now drove my heartbeat, my breathing, the rushing of my veins. When he entered
me, I welcomed the firmness of his lips upon my throat, the piercing hardness of his
teeth.
The night and all the stars seemed to be whirling inside me. I felt my life going out of
me from the wound and into him and I was glad, glad to nurture the devil who drank
from my veins, who stroked my hair and held me in a spasm of passion as he drank. Oh,
horrible. All came at once, the swoon and the knowledge of sin and the unholy
consummation of it.
God help me, why did I fall? Not to save my son. Let me not deceive myself. I fell
because the sweetly painful horror of it was nothing to the extremity, the agony of the
pleasure.
Chapter Thirteen
JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL
14 November, morning
A breakthrough! Investigations fruitful at last. We found a carrier along the road to
London who changed horses for a man answering to Dracula's description - then Seward
telephoned his wife Alice and asked her to discover if there had been any activity at
Carfax Abbey (which lies adjacent to Seward's house and asylum). Within two hours she
had news. A carriage was seen going through the gates of Carfax, very early on the
morning of the twelfth. The gates are now locked up, but smoke can be seen coming from
the chimney!
We leave at any moment. Please God, let Mina and Quincey be still alive! But what
does Dracula mean by making his lair in so obvious a place? Can he be that stupid, or is
it, more likely, that he means to lure us there? Lacking any other clue, we have no choice
but to chance the trap.
Kovacs is travelling with us. Dressed in a dark suit that I have lent him, with his hair
combed, he looks human - as human as the Count once did to me, before I discovered
what he is. His presence makes us deeply uneasy but he offers no threat, and may be
our only hope of infiltrating Carfax.
ELENA KOVACS'S JOURNAL
13 November, night
I sit at the window with the child upon my knee. The room flickers with fire and
lamplight; outside it is dark, a wet-black darkness. Dogs are howling, with the thin eerie
sound of wolves, their voices rising one after another, twisting and falling in mournful
dissonance. All over London, it seems, they howl. Quincey rests quietly against my
breast; he knows that something strange is happening, yet he knows nothing at all.
Guileless boy! How I love him - not for being a child, but for what he may become.
The singing of the dogs is sweet, but it cannot block my ears to older sounds. He is
with her. I am jealous, I am jealous. I should not be. There is a place for us all in his
family. But still.
A while ago Quincey said, 'Elena? What is it like to die?'
'I don't know, my lamb. Why do you ask?'
'Because I am so often ill, I am afraid I may die. That is, I don't mind for myself, I
only mind for Mama, because it would make her sad. Am I going to die?'
'Everyone dies one day, Quincey,' I said soothingly. 'I expect it is just like falling
asleep. But don't be afraid. The Count is a good man and he can work magic; he knows
how to wake people up again, so they never die.'
'He wakes up dead people? I don't think I should like that. The bitter drink makes me
sleepy. Does the Count mean to kill me? I don't mind. I am so very tired.'
Oh, Quincey.
Is it only in my own mind that I hear Mina and my Dark Companion sighing and
murmuring together? It should be me in her place. My heart and mourn and loins yearn
towards him . .. but I can do nothing, and so I sit here, and rock the boy, and dream.
I wonder if Dr Van Helsing, with his great brain, has yet worked out where we are? It
cannot be so difficult. Let them come, it will make no difference!
And it should be me in his place, my lips upon Mina's throat.
He must take me to him soon. I have been patient, but I can wait no longer. Sometimes
my eyes blur, and I cannot find my breath, and when I look in my mirror my reflection
seems insubstantial, as if I am on the borderline between the light and the shadows. The
light seems so dazzling, hostile and painful, but the shadows are soft and fluttery as
wings and warm as a raven's breast.. . but still I live.
14 November
When I took Mina her breakfast tray, I was surprised to find her up and dressed. She
was at the desk, writing, but she propped herself there with her left arm as if to sit up
were a great effort. She was pale and bloodless as wax, even her lips nearly white, with
half-circles as blue as grapes impressed beneath her eyes. As she looked up at me with
glassy eyes, she took a laboured breath, let it out, and took another as if she could not get
enough air. Ah, I know these signs well enough.
I put down the tray and said, 'Here is your breakfast, my dear. You need your
strength.'
Still she said nothing, but looked at me in voiceless appeal - a muted terror, mixed
with an elation I understand only too well. I could not help but go to her. From behind I
slipped my arms around her, and leaned down so that my head rested on her shoulder. I
kissed her cheek; she shut her eyes, and her right hand came up to clasp my wrist. I tried
to read what she was writing over her shoulder, but she cheated me; they were
meaningless squiggles, her precious shorthand. But the wildness of the strokes - some so
heavy the ink had run, others long, weak and tenuous - told me all.
I love her and I hate her.
'Soon we will all be together,' I whispered. 'A family.'
She shook her head weakly. 'Elena, I would like to see Quincey, if you please,' she
said.
'Then eat your breakfast,' I said, withdrawing from her, 'and I will bring him to you.'
MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL
14 November, later
I feel myself slipping, descending from grace into a dark place where I do not even
recognize myself. I have looked back on my record of last night and think I should
destroy it - yet my pangs of shame are dull, remote, and the revulsion I should feel is
barely there at all. Instead the memories are dream-like; a kind of excitement, like the
recollection, not of horror, but of a heart-warming delight. And that I feel so should appal
me, yet it does not. I am too tired. Tired, and there is never enough air! I am so languid, I
could have lain in bed all day, dreaming sweetly. (Would I have looked as sweet and rosy
upon my pillow as Lucy once did, I wonder?) Instead I have forced myself to dress and
write my journal, as a form of self-discipline, though it taxes me sorely to do so.
My memories are hazy now ... but it seems to me that after he drank from my veins, he
held me tenderly for a time. I did not resist this, for my mind was awhirl and I had no will
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