Lord of the Vampires

  It is hard to see her thus—she who had been my one comfort and strength during all these difficult years. Since little Jan died so many years ago (can it truly be twenty-two now? The pain is so fresh), leaving my poor dear Gerda quite mad, Mama and I have depended so upon each other. We were all that remained of our little family. She was uncomplaining and brave, even all those many nights when I would travel and be gone for days—or rather, nights—at a time, ridding the world of Vlad’s evil spawn. At times, I feel guilt at leaving her to accomplish my grisly work, but I know she would have it no other way. How else shall I avenge the death of her little grandson and of her first and truest love, my father, Arkady? How else shall I give them and all my victims peace?

  What a blessing it would be to have my father here now, to have his knowledgeable help (yet how strange to write this of one who was a vampire). Remembering back to the first days after I had met him, and my unkindness to him, my repulsion and mistrust, I am ashamed. For—from what Mama has told me and what I learned from her diary and from my interaction with the man himself—he was clearly the noblest of souls, and died in an heroic effort to save us all from evil. Even the curse of vampirism could not sully his good heart.

  Mama’s cheeks and eyes seem more sunken to-night as well, no doubt because of dehydration; Katya said she vomited her supper and would take no more, not even water. She had also been moaning in agony—damnable tumours!—so I administered an injection of morphia and now she sleeps peacefully. (I would take the drug myself if I did not fear its addictive properties, or the fuzzy-headedness it causes; I must always remain as alert as possible. As for Mama, I cannot deny her. What does it matter if she dies addicted, so long as she is not in pain?)

  I yearn for peaceful sleep myself; mine has been uneasy of late, and filled with dreams which disturb me. I am convinced they contain some cryptic message I might decipher, and so I have brought my journal into Mama’s room to write as I sit in the old rocking-chair where she had so often comforted me in my childhood.

  So here is the dream: I am running with boyish glee through a great evergreen forest. The air is fresh and cool, scented with pine and recent rain; the tall trees’ limbs and needles sparkle with droplets of moisture. I run and run, gasping and laughing, keeping my arm up so that the lower boughs do not slap my face.

  But soon my glee turns to panic, for I hear footsteps behind me. Someone pursues me; I glance over my shoulder and catch a glimpse through the glistening boughs of Gerda, my wife. But it is Gerda monstrously Changed: her dark, dark eyes slant like the vampiress Zsuzsanna’s, and her teeth are just as long and sharp. Like a wolf she growls low in her throat as she gives chase, her long brown hair streaming.

  I cry out and run faster, faster, for I know she means to destroy me.

  Of a sudden, I stumble over a fallen tree trunk—slowly, ever so slowly, with the great detail one experiences only in dreams. My forward foot becomes trapped between the damp earth and the heavy limb; my arms go flying forward as they scribe an arc in the air on their descent. My other leg goes up in the air also, following its own arc as I go down, down, my palms finally sinking into a thick carpet of wet twigs and pine needles.

  My face strikes the fragrant earth. When I lift it at last, pushing up with my arms against the yielding ground, I see …

  (Why is this image so disturbing? Why does my pulse accelerate even now as I write?)

  I see a great dark creature—dark in the sense of pitch blackness, of an absence of light so intense it seemed someone had taken scissors and cut away that small portion of the world. A wolf, I think in fear; but no, it is no wolf. A bear? No.

  And, at a distance, my angelic mentor, Arminius, looks on dispassionately—as shining and white as the hideous creature is black. His face is pink and unlined as a child’s beneath his snowy beard, and his pure unsullied raiment gleams blinding in the sun. Like Moses, he holds a tall wooden staff, and beside him stands his familiar, Archangel, the tame white wolf.

  “Arminius, help me!” I scream, and continue screaming until I am hoarse. But he gives no sign of recognition or acknowledgment, nor does Archangel; and he and the wolf remain detached onlookers.

  Hopeless, horrified, I watch as the black silhouette metamorphoses from animal predator into human, shrinking first to a child, then ballooning swiftly to the shape of a man.

  “Who are you?” I demand, trembling; despite my bravado, my cheeks are wet with tears.

  No answer. An interminable length of time follows, during which the creature’s outline gradually enlarges. I know it means to surround and absorb me—to devour me utterly—and I am afraid.

  “Who are you?” I demand again, and after a heart-stopping pause, I hear the answer whispered in my own mind, in my Gerda’s voice:

  The Dark Lord.…

  I am engulfed, and swoon from pure nocturnal terror. Abruptly I wake, heart pounding against my ribs like a captive demanding freedom.

  My occult research has proven to me beyond doubt that such dreams are omens. Yet, try as I might, I cannot ascertain its meaning. Does the Devil Himself approach me? I do not even believe strictly in the concept, though I know there are a plentitude of entities in this world and elsewhere which are not human, yet are possessed of equal or greater intelligence.

  I yearn for the comfort and help of Arkady’s presence, though I know he is dead and cannot help me. But there is one who can.

  Arminius! Arminius, my friend and teacher, you who guided me in the most difficult times during my past, you who trained me as the slayer of the undead. So many years ago you abandoned me, and I do not even know how to summon you. You who are immortal are surely still alive.

  Arminius, help me.…

  Zsuzsanna Dracul’s Diary

  2 MAY 1893. For an interminable succession of years I have been trapped inside this castle watching the disintegration of my benefactor, Vlad, from strong, handsome immortal to the most piteously gruesome husk of a selfish monster. Worse, I know the same horrible change has overtaken me; when I braid my hair, I am forced to acknowledge a preponderance of silver where once there was only jet. And my hands! I see them now as I dip my pen. They are such poor, frail, withered things, pale parchment over bone. If they are this hideous, what has become of my once-beautiful face?

  It has been more than I can bear, in part because of my helplessness, and Vlad’s. We have both come to hate each other because of our misery—and it is all the fault of that bastard Stefan! (Bastard I shall call him, though he is the legitimate heir of my dead brother, Arkady. He deserves to be called by fouler terms than that!) Or shall I call him by his alias, Van Helsing? He has discovered somehow that the covenant works both ways: that each time he destroys Vlad’s spawn—those few we failed to properly dispose of ourselves (we dislike creating competitors) and all their many offspring—we are weakened. Our doom seemed inevitable, for we had no choice over these two long decades but to languish here, especially now that we are too weak even to hunt nourishment.

  Last evening Vlad came to me—his skin grey as a corpse’s, his eyes sunken and red, his hair and eyebrows stark, brittle white. And yet his pale lips were curved in a smile, and his voice oddly animated with excitement as he said: “Zsuzsanna. If we take no action, we shall soon be so weak that Van Helsing will come and easily destroy us. But no—do not weep on our account, for I have good news!”

  For I had broken into sobs, so perfect was my misery; and now to think that I who had been filled with such power, such happiness, such hope, could only wait helplessly for final, eternal oblivion.…

  But he waved me silent, and said vehemently, “Do not cry because of him. He thinks he is powerful enough to defeat us, but he will soon see his error. He will not escape me; I shall soon see him delivered into my hands. But here is the news: A mortal visitor will soon arrive at the castle, a healthy young man.… Do not sigh, for that is not the extent of it. I have received a letter, child, from my cousin Elisabeth.”

  “Elisabeth?”
I had never before heard him utter the name, and in any case did not understand why this should be such a glorious thing, for his voice rose exultantly, as if he had announced our deliverance.

  “An immortal like us. She is powerful and canny, shrewd enough to defeat your brother’s son. And she will do so. But first, she will come to us from Vienna, and restore us to strength.”

  “How is this possible?” I asked, and at once realised my question was a foolish one. Of course this Elisabeth would be able to bring us an even larger amount of fresh, vital blood than one lone man could supply. That would at least ease the weakness that came from hunger, but certainly we could not recapture our full vigour until Van Helsing’s rampage was ended.

  The instant my question was stated, Vlad drew back, and his eyes grew wider, redder, with a rage I did not understand. “That is not your concern!” he snapped, and in an instant was gone again from my room.

  Clearly this Elisabeth is a most powerful woman—more powerful than Vlad himself, else I would not have detected the clear note of jealousy in his voice. Yes, he brought me into this existence, and for that I must be always grateful. At the same time, I have come to despise him—despise him for his cruelty, his arrogance, his lies. To him, I am nothing more than chattel, at best an occasional companion, to be treated however he desires and dismissed without concern for my feelings when he tires of me. He gave me the dark kiss all those fifty years ago because in life I was timid, grateful, grovelling, smitten with love for him. And now that I am transformed into the strong, confident creature I was meant to be, he grows bored, even annoyed. When last he went out of the castle to hunt many months ago (for all of us are too weak for the long ride through the pass to Bistritsa, to post mail and thus invite guests to our castle, as we did in the old days—or so I had thought), I voiced a protest: Why was I required to remain behind like a prisoner of this castle, waiting for whatever small gift he chose to bring back, after he had supped to his content? For his custom was to bring me only an infant or a pale, anaemic child—to keep me weaker than he, I realise now, so that he should always be the one in control.

  Had I possessed any physical strength, I should have defied him; but the first time he offered to hunt for us all, I honestly thought it was out of kindness, and so I accepted gratefully. And when he returned with only a tiny newborn for me to share with Dunya, he was full of profuse apologies and excuses. So it was that the second time he went out, I foolishly believed he would bring us something grand: a strapping youth or strong peasant woman.

  But no; he returned with a single sickly infant. And I drank from it out of pure necessity, as I was faint with hunger, and shared what I could bear with Dunya. Afterwards, I was as he had hoped—far too weak even to protest when he went to hunt again.

  Just as I am weak to-night; after Vlad left, I lay down. Night used to bring such sweet exhilaration; now it only brings consciousness and misery. There have been times (like to-night) when exhaustion has made me refuse to rise from my coffin—which used to lie beside his, but now is confined to Dunya’s servant’s quarters because he grew annoyed at my proximity. I lie here and weep and consider that I should close my eyes and greet true death here, that this might indeed become my final resting place.

  Poor Dunya! I look over at her, lying motionless in her coffin. I fear she will greet the Absolute before me, for she is the weakest of us all; she rarely emerges from her slumber, but lies with pale, pale lids drawn down over dark eyes. Years ago, when I was strong and beautiful, I took pity upon her, thinking, Why must she remain an anguished mortal, under our control, neither alive nor dead? And so I led her gently through death into the dark life. Vlad was furious, of course—“How shall we accomplish those things which can only be done during the light of day if we have no mortal servant?” he roared, and for weeks would speak to neither of us.

  I did not care; Dunya has been as sweet and constant a companion as she ever was. Her suffering was replaced by a marvellous delight, and we two have shared all joys as sisters might. It was Dunya who suggested I commission a portrait of myself, which I could use in place of the looking-glass, that I might not have to rely on her descriptions. So it was done—by a mortal artist whose trembling hands happily did not impede his skill—and out of gratitude, I commissioned a separate, smaller portrait of Dunya.

  Now my dear companion is only a pitiful, aged shadow of the beauty that hangs upon the wall (as I must be also). In her coffin she lies with arms crossed over her breast like a corpse, and looks for all the world like a dead crone, her face worn and withered and waxen, her thin lips drawn back tightly over sharp yellowed teeth. How I miss all those nights when we would hold hands and whisper our dreams into each other’s ear! I cannot bear to see her so.…

  But the promise of Elisabeth has brought hope, and thus for the first time in many years I have risen and written in my journal. Can I truly reclaim my beauty and exuberance?

  The Diary of

  Abraham Van Helsing

  3 MAY 1893. How strange life is. We make our plans and expect everything to go according to them—and then, in a single instant, everything is changed.

  It had been a long, tiring night. News had come from The Hague of strange nocturnal attacks on the citizens by a sharp-toothed predator, possibly a wolf. And so after investigating, I travelled there and spent the darkness waiting outside a grand mausoleum for the return of a wealthy, well-respected businessman who had died of apoplexy after a Hungarian holiday. More grisly work, but I am happy to state that he is now at peace.

  I returned home as quickly as possible from the task, as Gerda had begun to worsen terribly over the past two days. Early this morning I went to see her, as is my custom before retiring. Usually I make a vain attempt to hypnotise her, to see what news I can learn of Zsuzsanna and thus Vlad. But this morning when I went in, she was not staring at the ceiling as she always does. No, her eyes were closed, and her breathing laboured. I sat with her a long time, checking her breath and pulse and aura and trying to ascertain the cause of her decline.

  There is no physical reason for it, other than her psychic connexion with Zsuzsanna. Of that I am certain. If she was weakening and near death, it meant Zsuzsanna was the same.

  The day I had so diligently been working towards for a quarter-century was now here. As Arminius had said so long ago, the covenant works both ways: by destroying Vlad’s evil children, I weaken him—and strengthen myself. And at last the moment had come when I was the stronger, and could deliver Vlad his long-overdue fate.

  So after I left her I did not go to bed; instead, I began to pack my trunk and checked the timetables to see which trains were headed east, and when. My hope was that, if I could arrive in Transylvania and dispatch both Vlad and Zsuzsanna in time, Gerda might be spared both death and a dark resurrection.

  But I also knew that if I failed, it would not be safe for her to remain in this house with Mama and Katya, nor for the mortician who kept her body for burial. She could not stay here without the keen scrutiny of one who can perceive the symptoms of encroaching vampirism, and knows how to keep the undead at bay. As I packed, I puzzled upon this for some time, since there is no one in Amsterdam I can trust with such a task.

  But there is such an one in London: my friend John, with his lunatic asylum. He does not know about the details of my wife’s illness, but he is much interested in occultism and possesses an open mind. If I instruct him as to Gerda’s confinement and care, he will follow my orders to the letter.

  I was composing a telegram to him in my own mind when the bell rang. I answered it to find a stout German lady somewhat past middle age, with iron-streaked brown hair, broad jaw, and a ruddy complexion laced with spidery broken veins. (And, I admit, a vast, intimidating bosom; when she leaned from the waist to bow, I quite expected her to topple forward.)

  “Herr Van Helsing?” She smiled most pleasantly, and I knew at once that she would make a suitable day nurse for Mama, for she projected both dependability and kindn
ess. I had no need for psychic protection around her—she even wore a crucifix, hidden beneath her black widow’s weeds—and so I relaxed and smiled as I motioned her inside.

  “And you must be Frau Koehler,” I answered in German, and at the sound of her native tongue, she positively beamed.

  As I led her upstairs to Mama’s room, we made pleasant small talk about the ease with which she had located my house, and about how I had been referred to her by a colleague.

  Once we’d entered Mama’s bedroom, she fell silent and gazed with reverence upon her prospective patient, then crossed herself at the sight of the crucifix hanging over the bed.

  “Ah,” she said with forthright sympathy. “She is dying, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “How sad for you!” Her tone was that of one who had been through the same terrible experience closehand. “And are you alone? I see no wife, no children.…”

  I sensed a glimmer of marital hope in the widow Koehler’s eyes and aspect. “I have a wife,” I said at once, suddenly overwhelmed by bitterness at the recollection of how she had been taken from me in spirit; and by the recollection of my little Jan, taken in body by the vampires—by Zsuzsanna, the vile demoness for whom I can find no forgiveness in my heart. “But Gerda, too, is ill—”

  “How doubly sad! God has given you a heavy burden.” She tilted her wide, strong-jawed face towards me and studied me with at least as much pity as she had directed towards Mama. “Then there shall be two patients?”

  “No. I am taking my wife with me to London, to consult a specialist. My mother has an excellent nurse who relieves me during the night; but now that I must be gone, I need someone to care for her by day.”

  “Ah. And what is your wife’s difficulty?”

  “Shock,” said I. At the horror of being bitten, and finding that the attacker had stolen her firstborn son.

  “And our patient?” she asked gently, turning her kind gaze once again upon Mama.