He shook his head, and again he seemed so wise, so good. His words did not surprise me. "No, Mina, you must not. In time she would have had no choice but to be as I am. No will is stronger than our power and our need."

"And yet you say that you can release my soul."

"If you follow your desire."

I had always prided myself on being independent. What he asked was no more than what I would have done. "I agree," I whispered.

I waited to hear him acknowledge what I had said, but he had already begun to fade into the misty shadows of my mind ...

Now that I have put the words I wrote of my dream in their proper place, I begin to understand Dracula the man and I pity him.

Of course, he may be lying about freeing me. He may mean to kill the men and take me, willing or no, to be his eternal companion.

And yet I feel a strange sense of peace and acceptance of an end that can only be inevitable. If Dracula pa.s.ses us by, what recourse will we have but to pursue him? I can only trust him as I trust Van Helsing. Neither of them will destroy me until this struggle between them is over.

And if the choice becomes Van Helsing's stake or an eternity of blood, I honestly do not know which fate I would desire.

It is his blood tainting me. Can I ever be truly free of it?

October 28. The telegram I had expected came. During last night's fog, the Czarina Catherine bypa.s.sed Varna and went directly on to Galati.

"Galati!" Quincey Morris spoke the city's name as if it were a curse. "How could he have known we were here?" Of all of the men, he seemed the most surprised by the news, the least willing to give up the chase. The others were merely disheartened that Dracula's ship had been swept on to the Romanian port some hundred miles north of Varna.My face grew white with the realization of the vampire's power. I said a prayer of hope that what Dracula asked of me was for the best, then looked at Van Helsing as I spoke. "It was a chance we had to take," I said.

"We know much, thanks to Madame Mina," Van Helsing responded. He would have taken my hand and patted it, as is his way, but I had my fingers clasped together. I did not want to touch him, or any of them, now. I am dying and their life calls out to me.

"The train," I whispered to him and told him that one would be leaving for Galati in the morning, for I had recently looked up the time. They asked me to bring the schedule to them. Though I closed the doors behind me, their wood was thin enough that I could overhear Van Helsing. As I suspected, he knew that Dracula had read my mind. He told the others to keep the knowledge from me, as if knowing it would somehow undo me. I'm stronger than that, stronger than any of them suspect. Haven't I proven that so many times in the last few weeks?

Some time later, with the train schedule in my hand, I returned to them. Then, quite directly, I told them that I believed Dracula had read my mind and that they must not put me in contact with him again. My honesty had the effect I hoped it would. I am now in their confidence once more, and we shall continue our pursuit. I am certain that it will end as Dracula wishes it to end, at his terrible mountain aerie.

On his own land, they will be no match for him. I tried to warn Jonathan in private, but he will not be turned from the chase and the others are equally committed. I find myself contemplating the outcome as if life and death no longer hold any meaning for me, save the thrill of using my power. While I listened to the men planning the final strategy of the chase, I fed on their affection for me the way the vampire feeds on blood.

Is that so loathsome? More and more I wonder if Dracula has freed me rather than made me his slave.

And when the chase is over, however it ends, can I go back to being Mina Murray Harker, the same prim Englishwoman I was only months ago?

That future holds more terror for me than eternity at Dracula's side. And yet the words I write in my more public journal are true.

I love my husband. I only hope that when this is over and we go home to our civilized world, our social confinement, he can still love me.

THREE

November 4. It has been days since I have been able to write. I do not know where to begin save at the moment that we arrived by rail in Galati only to discover that Dracula had eluded us once more. Through inquiries, we learned that he had departed by riverboat toward the center of his domain before we were able to search the ship that brought him back to his homeland.

As the fox retreats to his den, so the hunters quicken their pace. The men have their reason, and they make certain that I know it.

Jonathan and the others often comment on my strange emotionalism, the dull lack of energy with which I move through the daylight hours, as well as my difficulty sleeping at night. Van Helsing notes that my pulse is weaker and slower. Their observations are likely true, but the changes do not trouble me. I remind them often that the journey has been a hard and tiring one, and the tears and laughter I often display natural in a woman on the edge of exhaustion. Perhaps that is all it is, but they will not allow our quest to go unfinished. I suppose I should be grateful. If we broke off now, I would be under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of my days.

And when I die, they would treat my body as they did Lucy's. I tell myself that I would be past caring and that my fear for the sh.e.l.l that once held my soul is illogical. Still, the thought terrifies me.

Though I have no reason to trust Dracula, I take comfort in his promise to spare those I love. I reminded myself of it often while I wrote down my thoughts on what the men should do in order to continue the chase. After I showed them the map of the area and explained that the count had most likely arranged to be taken by boat as close to the Borgo Pa.s.s as possible, I saw them take heart once more. "All is not yet lost!" Quincey exclaimed. Van Helsing embraced me as if I were a daughter. Even Jonathan, who had been the most despondent of any of them at this new setback, seemed infused with new energy for the chase. I was prepared to insist that I be allowed to accompany them, but before I could, Van Helsing made a suggestion that I accompany him by coach while the men follow Dracula upriver on a launch."I cannot allow it," Jonathan said. It was the first time he had countered any of Van Helsing's instructions. I felt a rush of love for him, for I understood that, like me, he feared Van Helsing's obsessive concern with my change.

"Cannot?" Van Helsing bristled, contained his temper then went on soothingly. "I am an old man. I am not able to travel as you do. Though there is danger in taking Mina to the heart of his so-dark land, I will do it to save her."

I thought of the pistol in my traveling bag and how a vampire's strength was incredible. I could defend myself against Van Helsing.

If it came to a struggle between us, it would be better if Jonathan did not witness the outcome.

"The professor is right," I said sweetly, taking Jonathan's hand. "He knows so much about the monster we face, I will be safer with him than with any of you."

Was it only weeks ago that my aunt sat with me in her parlor and warned me that in our marriage I would always be the stronger, the more intelligent? With my mind blinded by love and concern for Jonathan, I had politely ignored her. Now I understood the truth of her words. I wish Jonathan had disagreed with me for a while longer. If he had, I would respect him more. Instead he nodded and, with his hand holding mine, listened as Arthur and Quincey discussed the arrangements for our pursuit.

Within hours, I was at the riverbank saying good-bye to Jonathan. He and Quincey will travel on the water, hoping to overtake the barge that is carrying Dracula home. Jack and Arthur will travel by horseback along the river. Van Helsing and I will take a carriage to the Borgo Pa.s.s. Hopefully one party or the other will do "what must be done," as Jack Seward is so fond of saying.

Throughout the first day of the journey, Van Helsing acted the parts of father and physician, watching me constantly for any sign of fatigue so he could order me to sleep as if I were a stubborn child. I understood that the difference in our ages was partially responsible for his behavior and hid my resentment. As it was, I needed the sleep and lay in the back of the carriage, wrapped tightly in the fur coat and throws Van Helsing had purchased for our journey. Each time I woke, it was with greater difficulty. I would sit silently beside Van Helsing as we traveled through country increasingly more rugged and remote.

We stopped in mid-afternoon at a farmer's cottage to exchange horses. I smelled stew cooking and suggested to Van Helsing that we purchase a meal. The farmer's wife, a portly woman with flashing black eyes, smiled happily at the amount we offered and invited us inside to warm ourselves at the hearth, where a half dozen children waited for dinner. They stared at me with dark, slightly slanted eyes that made me understand just how far east we have traveled.

I unwrapped the scarf from around my face, exposing the scar the host had made on my forehead. The woman's eyes grew wide.

She held out her index and smallest finger toward me and glanced at the door, as if a.s.suring herself that the sun was still high in the sky before dishing out the stew. I smelled the garlic in it, and though it was spicy, I ate it anyway. Everyone looked at me so intently that I knew the food was a test of my nature and I dared not refuse it. Once I had taken a few bites and commented on the flavor of the bread, the family seemed to relax and fear turned to curiosity.

During the meal, I tried to speak to the woman, using a few of the words I had learned when I had come east to find Jonathan, but the dialect in this region was too different. However, as I was finishing the meal, the woman suddenly pressed a plain bra.s.s crucifix into my palm. I thought she was giving it to me, but she pulled it back then gestured that I hold out my hand. I did as she asked, angling my palm toward the firelight so she could see that the cross had left no mark. Relieved, she gripped my hand, made the sign of the cross over me and recited what I thought was a quick prayer. "She recites a charm to protect you from the vampire,"

Van Helsing told me and translated. "May this sign protect you from the soulless ones who hunt the night."

I held out my hand as she had done. "This sign?" I asked in her language.

The woman nodded solemnly and, for a moment, the barrier between her world and mine crumbled. She placed two fingers on the scar on my forehead. She pressed her lips to my cheeks and mumbled something else, "Binecuvintat."

"She blesses you," Van Helsing said.

Tears came to my eyes. This time I could not hold them back. The woman hugged me as I sobbed, understanding without words the pain I was in. "Tell her thank you," I said, then repeated Van Helsing's words to her, "Multumesc."

As soon as Van Helsing was outside to help hitch up the fresh horses, I pointed to the cross and pulled a pair of gold pieces from my bag. Though the woman eyed my fortune with a blend of awe and greed, she would not make the exchange. As the professor and I drove on in the deepening gloom, I looked back at their little house with its thatch roof, at the woman standing outside it with her sheepskin boots and long brown woolen shawl. How vulnerable they were. In their isolation they would be such perfect prey.

Yet it seemed to me that their very simplicity gave these people added protection from the vampire. They believe in this evil while civilized London would have been at Dracula's mercy. "I think they would have killed us had the cross burned my hand," I commented to Van Helsing.

"Be thankful it was unblessed," he replied.I thought of the couple's poverty. The money I had offered had been the equivalent of months of work for the pair, yet the woman had refused. The cross had been blessed. I was certain of it. No, it was not d.a.m.nation that left this scar on my face but rather a reflection of my own guilt and pa.s.sion for the creature. Even if t had wished to argue with Van Helsing-hardly a good idea under the circ.u.mstances-I was far too tired, and a little ill from the food as well. I recalled crawling into the back of our cart, wrapping myself in the soft furs then nothing for hours.

When I woke, it was after dark. I felt as if I had slept for days-refreshed, incredibly alive. Van Helsing noticed the change in me.

It seemed to make him angry, perhaps because I could have guided the wagon as well as him. On the other hand, he was so exhausted from the journey that I took pity on him. He seemed terribly anxious and refused to give me the reins. Often he looked at the drop-offs on either side of the road as if fearful that were I in control, I would tip our tiny carriage over the side. I tried to make him relax, but he only did so after he had found a stand of rocks to shelter us and our horses for the night. "Have you ever seen such incredible mountains?" I asked him, for the jagged peaks around us were dark and beautiful against the evening sky.

"A place of evil," he commented. "We are near the Borgo Pa.s.s and the road to his castle. Be wary."

I built up the fire and tried to sleep, but after a day of rest I hardly needed it. I tried, however, until I saw Van Helsing nod off. I placed a second fur rug over him and walked a bit away from our campsite. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the light grew around me, and for the first time in my life, I saw the incredible beauty of a wilderness sky. I inhaled and smelled pine and the musky scent of rotting leaves and earth just beginning its spring thaw.

City-bred, city-raised, I thought of how I had been blinded by the gaslights of Whitby and London, how the scents of burning coal and wood masked all others. I thought of how my emotions had been bound by convention and expectations. I found myself fumbling excitedly with my clothing, intending to rip off everything and run carelessly through the forest. I had begun to undo the first b.u.t.tons of my jacket when I stopped and forced myself to think.

There is a blood tie between me and this land. The emotions I feel are too new, too alien and far too strong to have come from within me. I am being called to my death, or worse.

"How dare you!" I whispered to the darkness around me. You swore to give me my freedom. Keep your pledge and I keep mine."

I turned back to Van Helsing, sleeping so soundly by the fire. I moved close to him and sat, thinking of little save that I remain there, until morning. For the first time in days, I was able to pull out my little journal and write this account. Unlike the journey on the train, the writing gives me no comfort, for I have suddenly noticed how easy it is to read my own words in the flickering fire.

My senses are becoming like his. No wonder I think of this land as beautiful.

November 5, dawn. I am alone, utterly alone in this snow-covered wilderness, and I am thankful for my solitude. The last day and night have been the most fascinating, and the most terrible, of my life, and I need time to think-to sort reality from delusion, to plan.

Yesterday began with frustration. Once we left the main road at the pa.s.s, Van Helsing and I traveled down roads that seemed no better kept than footpaths, backtracking often when we were certain we had gone the wrong way. We might have asked directions, but no one seems to live in this land of jagged peaks and towering mountain pines. I find myself realizing that it is not only Dracula that we must fear. The land itself, desolate and gripped by the savage winter, holds its own dangers. Without our team of horses and our well-laden wagon, we would be utterly lost.

By midmorning, the terrible lethargy gripped me again so that I was forced to sleep and let poor Van Helsing do all of the work.

Concerned about my condition-, he spoke to me often, calling to me loudly when I dozed off and did not reply. I was furious at being disturbed, and yet, after the temptation of the night before, I understood what troubled him. Dracula's hold on me is growing stronger. Soon all I will need to do is agree to the change and I will be as he is. The very fact that this nocturnal pattern seems so natural horrifies me most of all.

When I woke, it was late afternoon. Van Helsing was dozing with the reins held loosely in his hands. The horses had somehow found their own way to our destination, for the rotting walls of Dracula's castle, exactly as Jonathan had described it, loomed on the hill above us.

I reached for Van Helsing, intending to wake him, but my hand never touched him. Instead I fell asleep until dark. Then I apparently woke with great difficulty for Van Helsing was shaking me roughly and calling my name with some alarm until I opened my eyes.As happened last night, I became agitated and excited immediately after sunset. Van Helsing took my pulse and felt my teeth. He did not have to say a word. My tongue had already confirmed what he feared. They were longer, sharper, ready for use. I trembled while Van Helsing wrapped me in the fur rugs we carried then marked a wide circle around me in the snow. As I watched, curious for my body's reaction, he crumbled two of the sacred hosts he had brought into the circle until I was surrounded with a blessed barrier. I sat, horrified by the understanding of what he was doing. Bloodless, cold as death itself, I watched him work.

"Come over to the fire," he called to me when he had finished.

I understood the test he was making. His eyes gleamed in the light; his hands tightened around the stick he was using to tend the fire. I wanted to go to him, to prove once and for all that I was not d.a.m.ned. I stood and took a step toward him.

As I did, the wind shifted, carrying his scent to me-stale sweat, garlic from last night's meal and, over all, the smell of blood. The attraction of the last overpowered the others. A hunger coursed through my body as the blood coursed through his. I could fight the desire to feed on him, indeed my dislike of him somehow made the act of feeding more despicable, but the feeling was too new, too strong. I dared not trust my will.

My expression must have given my thoughts away, for Van Helsing stared at me a moment, his eyes so clear in the firelight, so filled with relentless understanding. "You will destroy me if I become undead," I whispered. He might have seen this as self-pity, or a need to be certain that he will end my life if necessary. Perhaps he even understood that I meant this as no more than honesty, an acknowledgment that this truth should be stated. I would never know. Without a word, he returned to tending the fire.

Through the evening, the horses had complained often, protesting the cold, the absence of any real shelter, the distant howling of a pack of wolves. Later they began to whinny with fear. Van Helsing went to them, stroking them and talking softly to calm them.

As he did, I detected the sound of seductive laughter carried on the winds of the night from the castle to my mind. The moon that had first given some light was soon covered by clouds, and a heavy wet snow began to fall.

I knew what this meant all too well. My sisters were coming. I sat hugging my knees, rocking my body, waiting happily for them- my new kin!

When the snow was at its heaviest, a glowing white mist rolled down the path from the castle, bringing with it what seemed at first a rush of lighter snowflakes. The flakes whirled in a vortex that could be seen but not felt. Indeed, the air was strangely still. The laughter I had heard only in my mind became audible, and following it, their bodies took form. As they did, I saw Van Helsing make a slow circle, reciting a prayer as he held out his last host. I dared not ask him to come and seek protection with me, and he knew enough to not do so.

Dracula's brides may have been ordinary in life, but in death their power made them beautiful. As Jonathan had described, two were dark and resembled Dracula. The third was very fair, in the manner of Irish women, with honey-colored hair and eyes blue as an autumn sky. Her smile was so coquettish that I could not help but see the resemblance to poor Lucy.

Their voices tinkled like strings of tiny bra.s.s bells in a spring breeze. Their lips were red against their teeth like some bold harlot's, their voices sweet as they called to me, "Sister. Sister, come and join us."

I wanted to. But in spite of their allure-perhaps because of the crumbled host circling me, or Dracula's promise, or only my own stubborn will-I knew I had a choice. Yet there was one temptation that could not be resisted. I held my hand beyond the circle.

"Stop!" Van Helsing cried, but even as he rushed forward, he dropped his last remaining host. It fell into the shadows of the snow- covered ground. I heard his cry of frustration as he knelt and groped for it. As he did, the darkest of the three vampire women stepped forward and eyed my outstretched arm. Though I recognized the hunger in her gaze and knew she could easily pull me from the circle and end my human life, my arm was steady. I had to touch her!

She clasped my hand in both of hers. I felt the hardness of her flesh, sensed the incredible strength of her delicate hands as they pulled me to the edge of the sacred circle.

That touch, light as the brush of a wind-tossed feather, changed my life forever.

I whispered her name-Illona-then leaned forward, willingly letting her hands explore my face, her lips brush the scar on my forehead.

I had already decided that G.o.d would not d.a.m.n me without my full consent. Consent requires knowledge. In Dracula's absence, this woman shared hers with me. Good and evil, ecstasy and terror flowed into me with a swiftness that made me weak. Her hands an either side of my head were all that kept me from collapsing as I sank slowly to my knees before her.

I had guessed the age of these creatures by Dracula's history, but the years had meant nothing without some understanding of their pa.s.sing. She gave me that. She and I watched the last battlements of the crumbling castle erected in the months after she came here as his child bride.Yes, she had loved him, admired him, shared his cause as a true wife must. She even d.a.m.ned herself for him.

As their enemies grew, she made a pact with the Lord of Darkness. I saw her standing alone in one of the castle rooms, her body bathed by firelight and incense. The room was cold, so cold that in spite of the blue woolen cloak she had tightly wrapped around her, she kept close to the fire. I shared her resolve, her incredible courage as she watched the grotesque form of the master she had chosen lumbering from the shadows of the room toward the place where she stood so still, as if death had already claimed her. "I believe," she whispered and knelt to kiss the ruby ring on his finger, to grasp his dark and taloned hand.

She had hoped to drink from him-only to drink--but he wanted more. With growing horror, she watched his yellow reptilian eyes study her lithe body, watched his hands move toward her cloak and pull it from her. "My slave," he said, his voice soft and sweet, so at odds with his ugliness. I thought of Eve in the garden. The snake would have spoken in a voice such as this.

Then he kissed her, sinking his long fangs into his own lips as he did so. She shuddered as she kissed him, but with the first taste of his blood, her loathing turned swiftly to desire.

I understood too well the horror she felt, for I had glimpsed some measure of her pa.s.sion when I drank from Dracula. But he had once been a man, still had the semblance of a man. This creature had never been human, had never known love or tenderness, only the dark beauty of suffering, the fulfillment of pain.

As his blood moved swiftly through her, turning her instantly into the creature she had longed to become, his savagery increased.

He could do as he wished to her for she could no longer die.

When he was sated, when her body lay ripped and bleeding on the cold stone floor of the room, when her tortured, hysterical sobs no longer amused him, he left her to pull the tattered remnants of her soul back together and live forever in eternal life-in- death.

He gave her his dark gift. When the change was complete, she could not die and those who tasted her blood would share her immortality.

How she begged her husband to accept her gift! How she swore that nothing within her had changed, that they could love one another forever. Her lips were warm as they kissed him, her touch more wanton than ever before. In the end, out of love and need to protect his people lie weakened and took the blood she offered then left to command what could well be his legions' final battle.

The Turks were breaking through Dracula's last defenses, when Illona threw herself from the castle walls in full view of them. I sensed her terror as she fell, then nothing until the night she wandered the carnage of Dracula's final battlefield, searching for his body among the rotting piles of the dead. There were so many that had fallen on both sides, yet only one was truly of her blood. As she pulled the reeking corpses from the mound where Dracula lay dressed in the coat of a common soldier, she saw that his wounds had already begun to heal. In the bowels of the castle, she laid him in the tomb she had prepared for him. She nursed him with her own blood. That and his native soil slowly restored him. It took months for the wounds to heal completely. When they did, he rose into her life.

I saw his face when he first woke. How radiant it had seemed, how filled with wonder. How quickly that wonder died.

The pair had done this for the sake of their people, but after the change, the needs of mortals meant nothing to them. They lost all concern about the people inhabiting their lands. Blood, after all, is the same. They were mad for a while, reveling in the carnage their powers allowed them.

The memories took hours to sort and place in order, the words themselves so many minutes to write, yet all this was thrust into my mind in only a moment. In the next, Van Helsing, armed with the crumbling host, moved between me and the woman.

She retreated. Van Helsing pursued her until she joined her pale sisters, then he ran to the protection of his sacred circle. As for me, I lay facedown in the snow. What happened between them seemed unimportant to me in the face of one terrible final revelation.

The bargain the woman had struck could have been made by others. There could be dozens of these creatures scattered throughout the world.

"Come to us," the three called to me, holding out their delicate hands. "Be with us, a sister forever."