Part 10 (1/2)

In my awe, I have no strength. His face is obscure but the twin fires of his eyes sear me. I would fall, but he holds me up with his sinewy hands.

He has put on the ca.s.sock I brought -for him. It looks as natural upon him as feathers on an eagle; he could be an abbot, a man of untouchable spiritual authority. One of us must speak; I find my voice. 'Dearest companion of my soul, if there is any need of yours to which I have not attended, only tell me and it shall be done.'

His eyes become more tender. Long deep eyelids come down, the redness turns dark. 'Elena,' he says again. He speaks to me in Hungarian. 'You have given me back my existence. There is only one other need. Life.'

It is as if the whole world stops breathing; all is poised and fragile as ice. The darkness closes around me, the growing light blinds me.

He puts his arms about me and his chest presses hard against mine. So long I have dreamed of this embrace, yet now it comes I am so afraid I wish to escape. He holds me fast, so cold, so hard.In spite of his strength there is something frail and papery about him, like a moth new-emerged from the coc.o.o.n. He puts his lips to my neck and I feel pressure at my throat. I am held to him by a circle of pain. I feel his tongue, his mouth sucking at me. My first instinct is to fight - then a dizzy sweetness pours through me, and I hang limp in his grasp, wanting to laugh through my agony. I come out of my body and see our two heads from above, his silver, mine dark. The fragile night throbs and explodes in thunder; I see trees thras.h.i.+ng, great mountains convulsing and falling. Then, with a racking spasm that seems the end of everything, I am in my body again.

And he is gone.

I see a thin layer of mist flowing through the gap under the lid of the tomb. Dawn pushes grey fingers through the bars. I am dizzy and gasping for breath; but as it pa.s.ses, I dare to look into the tomb.

He lies inside. I see his face clearly! An eagle's visage, a n.o.bleman. White hair flowing back from high temples, thickly curling eyebrows. I see the pink flush of my blood under his pale skin, my blood lying red on his lips under the great white eye-teeth. I am terrified yet I feel the surge of deep, unholy love; I am repelled and yet I want him to take me again and again until I expire in his arms.

He looks at me. I gasp, for it is as if a corpse looks up and speaks, with stiff lips, from a deep catalepsy.

'Faithful child,' he says. 'You serve me well, when all others conspire against me. I must rest now. Come to me again tonight, and we will talk of many matters. My beloved. Go home now and keep your silence.'

'Beloved,' he calls me!

I watch him for a while, but he does not speak again. I drag the heavy lid into place, so that he might rest in darkness. Then I go into the damp, foggy graveyard and hurry home, breathless and dizzy every step of the way.

O night, come quickly! How am I to get through this day?

8 November The day pa.s.sed easily enough. Mina remarked that I looked pale; I a.s.sured her that I am well, but once she was gone I pinched my cheeks and bit my lips to make myself rosy again. I must not arouse their suspicions! .

Van Helsing and the other men, Dr Seward and Lord G.o.dalming, are still here. I wish they would go; I know they are my Dark Companion's enemies, and are conspiring against him again! I grow angry with them, but then I laugh secretly; for I know they cannot win. There is much secretive talk behind closed doors, and at mealtimes the tension between them is so thick I might cut it to pieces with a cheesewire. Mr Harker looks haggard. I catch him gazing at me as if he guesses, though I know he cannot guess. I am tense, also, but for reasons they do not imagine.

1 thought night would never come, but at last Quincey was put to bed, and I made an excuse to retire early. Then I had to wait for the household all to go to bed, lest someone should see me leaving!

By the time I reached the graveyard, I was no longer excited but trembling with terror. Why am I doing this, walking again and again into such danger for his sake? I pa.s.s between the avenue of gravestones and dark yews towards his tomb, but before I reach it a dark figure appears before me.

It is him. My heart fails. I almost cry out, but he catches my arms and my breath stops in my throat. His form is so starkly black in the ca.s.sock. How fierce his face is, made more fearsome by the curling bus.h.i.+ness of his eyebrows, the long white moustache and the profusion of his long pale hair. I close my eyes, cannot look at him. I am faint with the conflict of desire - to escape him yet to be held captive.

'Look at me, Elena,' he says. His voice is stronger than before, rich and harsh and commanding. 'What do you see?'

'A handsome n.o.bleman. One who was a great hero.'

'Do not flatter me. The truth!'

'You know I speak the truth!' My own spirit surprises me.

His lips lift beneath the moustache; it seems a smile, though a very bitter one. 'I have not seen my own face for more than four hundred years. No mirror can capture my image.' He draws me to an overgrown tomb and sits me beside him on the molded stone. His frailty of the first night has gone, but I perceive a weakness in him, as if he were held by invisible chains to the graveyard.

'You will talk to me and tell me all you know of the world,' he says gently. 'I have walked upon it for four hundred years and more.

Yet it has turned for seven years which pa.s.sed as eternity compressed into a single moment for me. Now all is strange again.'

'Beloved companion, I thought you knew all there is to know. You have taught me so much!'

'And I have lost much. It could be, Elena, that you saw visions of matters that I have forgotten. Not all knowledge survives the grave. I have lain for so very long in one grave or another.'

We talk for hours. It is so bitter-sweet to lie in the arms of death and talk like lovers. I tell him how the wolf came to me and led me to the castle, the visions I saw. At everything I say, he nods, as if rea.s.sured. 'Yes . . . yes, I do remember.' And he tells me some of his own story; wild, rambling and so strange I cannot follow it all, but the core of it I understand. 'They destroyed me - the Harkers and the accursed Van Helsing, who has made himself doctor of every discipline as though he would heal the very world of its sickness. Fool. Elena, my own land was frozen in the Middle Ages, drained of its vitality by war, a ghost of itself. I sought a new kingdom, to move among the whirl and rush of humanity in these great cities of the West. . . but they foiled me. And they did worse. They destroyed some I loved, who cannot return as I have. For that, they must be punished.'

He speaks simply, not vengefully. But such is his pa.s.sion that I would give my life to help him. 'Van Helsing is a friend of my uncle. He is staying with the Harkers.'

'I know, Elena,' he answers. 'I have watched them through your eyes, through each other's eyes. I have entered their dreams and defiled them.' He smiles; it is almost a sneer, a h.e.l.lish look of pleasure. 'Do they ever speak of me?'

'Not to me. They believe me to be utterly innocent, and they intend the child and myself to remain so. But now I know why they made the journey to Transylvania; to see again the place where they destroyed you! But among themselves, I am certain they speak of nothing else. They sent for the others, too, Seward and G.o.dalming. They are very afraid.' 'Good. How sweet to see madness eating at them. They know I am among them. Jonathan yielded easily to me; Van Helsing drove me out; Mina I could not enter, but she is falling in another way. She is strong. I need her blood.' 'Is mine not enough?' I ask, jealous. 'It is the finest wine, beloved.' He touches my cheek; my skin tingles deliciously where his fingers pa.s.s. 'But my blood runs in Mina's veins. Until I taste it I cannot reclaim my full powers.' I fall quiet. I can't argue, yet still I hate it. I fear my jealousy will make him angry. Instead he stretches out his left hand above my lap.

'But how good it is to live again!' he says, flexing the fingers with their long, pointed nails. I take his hand between my own. 'You gave me this gift, beloved. To taste, to see through my own eyes, not those of others. To hear the music of the owl and the wolf, to touch skin. Your skin.' He leans closer to me, his mouth near my neck. I s.h.i.+ver. 'No earthly taste, no meat, no wine, no sweetmeat can ever compare to the taste of blood. No potion can mimic its vitality. Why do you tremble?'

'I am afraid of you,' I said.

'Then you are wise,' he replies, drawing away. 'But they are the ones who should fear me. You have nothing to fear - as long as you are loyal. Will your courage fail? You are a danger; you might give away my hiding-place to them.'

'No!'

'You chose to help me of your own free will, beloved child. You might as easily change your mind.'

'My choice is made!' I say fiercely. 'How dare you doubt me? I will never betray you!'

'Then you have only yourself to blame,' he murmurs, for whatever befalls. Do my bidding without question now, and later you will be rewarded richly.'

I bow my head, promising all. I am leaning against him; one of his arms is around me, the other moving to brush aside my hair and loosen the collar of my dress. My body turns limp with languor, my head falls back, and his teeth pierce my exposed throat. I come floating up out of my body, while the world spirals upon itself, full of stars and angelic voices singing in painful discord. The spiral tightens into a violent convulsion and I am flung back into my mortal body.

'Now leave me,' he says.

'Must I go?' I cling to him, but he holds me away.

'Yes, beloved. I have much to do; money, clothes, horses to acquire . . . There is no need for you to come here again. I will come to you. I am strong enough now.'

'To leave this place?'

'And to complete my revenge.'

I barely remember going home. At eight, Mary woke me only with difficulty. I must rest as much as possible, for the slightest exertion makes me breathless - but none of this matters. I am in a state of bliss.

I am not entranced or bewitched by him. When I began to help him, I chose that path - or it chose me. I know what he is, yet I knowingly brought him back. I am only the instrument of his rebirth, I know, but without me he could not have returned - any more than a child can be born without its mother. I serve him by choice, as he said.

He means to destroy the Harkers, I know that. They have been kind to me; I am fond of them in turn. I wish them no harm, I have no grudge against them as he has. Why then do I wish to aid him in their downfall?