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I cannot stop thinking of Mina, sealed in that tomb, wondering if she is there still. I am
almost glad of the physical pain, to drive out that of my thoughts.
Van Helsing insists that this is not the end. We must go back, armed with guns against
the dogs, and with a firmer strategy. We will get more men and storm the house, if
necessary. But what is the use of it if, when we break in, we find Mina and Quincey
dead? Why can we not admit that this is hopeless, that Dracula has won?
(Only the battle, not the war. Courage! - Van H.)
ELENA KOVACS'S JOURNAL
15 November
I could not rest, knowing that Dracula was going to Mina again. I do not mind if he
loves us equally; but I could not bear it if he loves her more!
While Quincey slept, I sat by the window and looked out at the grounds. I love this
place. I suppose we cannot stay here for ever, but I wish we could. I love the dark trees;
the gnarled oaks which are like old men, the yews with their thick, creased trunks. I love
the winding stream and the mysterious pools that I stumble across when I walk through
the undergrowth. Most of the trees and bushes are bare, and their grey twigs drip with
rain. They look as if they have died or been poisoned, but I like that, for I have been
poisoned too, and yet I live.
I love the high walls. They prevent the world coming near me, to make its demands
upon me. Within them, I am free.
I was looking out in this reverie when I heard the dogs barking, saw the shapes of men
running. This was no surprise; my Dark Companion and I knew Jonathan Harker would
try a rescue. Presently my love came and told me to bring Mina down to the chapel. This
to make diem understand that Mina and I are with Dracula now.
But in the chapel a spectre appeared - even now I cannot believe what I saw!
He is tall, though not as tall as my beloved, and has a shock of silver hair. His hands
are large and powerful. He looks idiotic at first, possessed. As he leaps towards us, his
eyes become wild, ringed with white and netted with blood, long white eyeteeth gleaming
in the open oblong of his mouth - but I know him.
Yet he is not as I remembered. He is mad. He is a vampire.
The horror of this realization makes all chaos. I scream, 'Uncle!'
The dogs drive out the intruders; Mina is safely sealed in a marble tomb. My uncle
struggles against my Dark Companion, whose face is livid with fury, like a wolf snarling.
I cry out to him to stop, but he ignores my entreaties.
'Who are you?' says Dracula.
'No one,' my uncle gasps. 'My name is Andre Kovacs. I found you, I came to you, only
to put myself at your service, Count Dracula.'
His words sound unconvincing, even to me. My beloved shakes him, beginning to
squeeze his throat. 'Why?'
'You are Dracula, Lord of the Undead. Whom else should I serve? Teach me; in return
I give my loyalty -'
'You are lying,' Dracula says quietly. 'You attacked me, as if you would help Van
Helsing and those others.'
'Please - in life he was a friend of mine - but -'
I see - having moved as close as I dare - Dracula's mouth open wide, the long teeth
shining. My uncle's face changes, becoming aggressive, feral. He seems to transmute,
shrinking, slipping out of Dracula's grasp. I cannot believe what I am seeing. Before my
eyes, Uncle Andre changes into a wolf.
Dark-grey like a shadow, he slips under Dracula's arms and runs out into the grounds,
away down a path through the thickly woven trees. A moment later, my Dark
Companion, too, has changed. His wolf-form is bigger than my uncle's, and a brighter,
silvery grey. I run after them, fighting between twigs and thorns and brambles, but cannot
keep up. I lose them and, turning, see them passing me again on the far side of the
thicket; a dim shadow and a bright one.
I want no harm to come to my uncle. But I cannot protect him against Dracula. I can
only watch as they run, snapping and snarling, along the tortuous overgrown paths, the
thick briars and brambles.
I lose sight of them. I run, trying to find them, until I have a stitch in my side, and my
dress is wet from the dripping trees. When I come upon them again, on the bank of the
deep, still lake, I see the lighter wolf bowl the darker one over, and pin it down, and close
its jaw on its hairy throat. The darker one howls, surrendering.
They become human again. It is a kind of unfolding, the way a new-born animal
unfolds itself; and it is a strange blurring from one state to the other, so that the eyes
cannot quite capture it in the twilight.
I come closer, trembling, as Dracula lifts my uncle up by the throat and shakes him.
Poor Uncle, he looks wild with fear. My love drags him, a prisoner, back into the dank
black crypt. I follow. As we enter the chapel, Dracula says, 'Elena, bolt the door.'
I do so, and remain. It is so dark I can barely see, even though my eyes are attuned to
darkness now. But I sense and hear the two vampires in the darkness, one tormenting the
other, and I feel myself to be utterly alone with them, and with rats and blind insects and
the bones of the dead.
'Now,' says Dracula, 'the truth.'
He has my uncle against a wall, his wrists pinned to the damp stonework with one
hand, the other hand pressed to his throat. 'Who made you Undead, who sent you?'
My uncle breaks very quickly. Who can blame him, when my beloved's will is so hard
to resist? Uncle was a good man, but I think he never had much strength. He was never
good at keeping secrets, either. Too honest.
'I found the Scholomance. A vampire there, Beherit, he fed upon me, killed my
companion, made me like this. And then he sent me to you.' Uncle says more, but this is
the essence. It makes more sense to Dracula than to me; I think only of poor Miklos,
dead. Poor Miklos. I did not love him, but still I feel sad.
'Beherit?' Dracula's voice is a dry whisper of disbelief. 'Why?'
'To serve you. To learn from you.'
'I think not.' He makes a movement; my uncle gives a gruff, soul-racked scream.
'He told me to keep you away from the Scholomance at all costs. There is something
there that, should you find it, will make you too powerful.'
'What thing is this?'
'He said . . . the powers of Hell. He said, your soul.'
There is a brief, heavy silence. My uncle continues, 'He wishes you no harm, only that
you keep away from him!'
'And he sent you,' Dracula says mockingly, 'you, a dry scholar, initiated two months
into Undeath, fragile as a mayfly, to ensure that I never go back to the Scholomance?
Four hundred years have made Beherit no less of a fool.'
Dracula thrusts my uncle away, so hard that he flies across the chapel, hits the wall
and slides down. Then my Dark Companion goes to help Mina from the tomb where he
trapped her for safe keeping; I hear her gasps of relief, of shuddering misery. He takes
her away into the house. Damn them.
I run to where my uncle lies, groaning like a dying man; all hope, all spirit gone from
him. I see that a piece of ornate metal with a cross at one end, part of some old chapel
decoration, long since toppled from its place, has fallen against his hand; and the cross
has burned its black image on to my uncle's pale flesh.
Chapter Fourteen
ELENA KOVACS'S JOURNAL (Continued)
I remain a long time with my uncle.
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