Karen Essex

  I thought I would run away in horror, but I forced myself to watch. I saw the Count watching me through his mask with great interest. The foursome on the bed did not seem to notice me, and I wondered if this vision was real. As I watched the blond succubus writhe on top of the father of my child, rage suddenly rose inside me, taking me over and igniting some primitive sense of rivalry. I was possessed by fury and I wanted to punish her for all that she was doing and all that she had done.

  I focused my intent on that pristine white neck of hers until I felt I could puncture the skin. Making a crescent in the air with my finger, I slowly and carefully made a big slash at the base of her throat. Her head popped up straight, and our eyes met, hers wide with surprise, and then seething with anger. With no time passing, I flew through the air, and my lips were on her with such force that I threw her off Jonathan, pinning her arms to the bed while I sucked in her strange-tasting blood. It was tart, like a bitter fruit that one cannot stop eating despite the astringent taste and the way it makes the mouth pucker. I heard myself grunt with pleasure while the others tried to pry me from her. The Count yelled at them in a language I did not understand, and they backed off. I was electrified with the thrill of vanquishing her in this way, eager to drain her until she was inert.

  But soon I felt her gather her strength. Stronger than me, she flipped us over, dislodging me from her neck, which was bleeding a rivulet of shimmering rubies down her chest. I could feel her try to close the wound with her mind, but with each mental stitch she made, I reopened it. The tug-of-war went on, with me reopening the wound each time she closed it, my excitement growing as I watched it bleed its unnaturally red stream. Our fingers were linked, and she pushed my hands toward the bed, while I pushed against her. In my mind’s eye, I saw her flying backward away from me, hitting the heavy wrought-iron headboard, and falling into her sisters’ arms. With that image strong inside me, I pushed with all my might and powered her off me. The Count grabbed me, and, before I could attack her again, he had me by the waist and was taking me away. Ursulina, still pressed against the headboard, was hissing at me like a serpent woman. Jonathan and the other two female creatures cowered together, looking like some profane triptych. His face was full of terror.

  Tell him, the Count’s voice demanded. Tell him, or I will tell him.

  “You are going to be a father, Jonathan,” I said. “It’s a boy.” I freed myself from the Count’s grasp, and together we walked out of the room.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in a full-length gilded mirror as we walked through the ballroom. I looked taller, stronger, my already correct posture now exhibiting a strength that gave me a statuesque potency. I felt as if people were moving aside to make way for me, admiring me and fearing me as I glided through the crowd. As we left the mansion, a force gathering inside me erased every thought and consequence of what I had done.

  This is who you are, Mina. It is undeniable now.

  The Count knew that I was elated and could not be confined in a carriage, so he sent the coach away and walked with me down London’s smoky gaslit streets. Soon enough, though, the rapture began to wear off, and I started to think again, wondering if I might have hurt my baby by what I had done. The Count put one arm around my shoulder and rested his other hand on my abdomen. “I do not think that you have harmed it or altered it,” he said. “Despite your formidable display this evening, the child still carries the frequency and vibration of the father. It is unchanged.”

  “Jonathan is too weak to be a father,” I said.

  Indeed. He is too weak to be the father of your child.

  “Too weak because you left him to be the victim of those creatures,” I said.

  “You are not so different from those creatures,” he said. He had removed his mask, and I saw the little ironic smile that crept over his face.

  We walked through Shepherd Market, where a few dim lights shone weakly through the windows above the closed shops. It was a cold evening, but I did not feel the temperature. The Count kept his arm around me as we walked up Half Moon Street and on to Piccadilly, where we crossed the street and walked into the park.

  “Those women—what are they? Did they begin as mortals?” I asked. His comment that I was not unlike them disturbed me. If I developed my powers, would I start preying upon the innocent?

  “No, they did not. But in your original lifetime, neither did you. You would know them as the daughters of Lilith. They are enchantresses who live separate from men until they wish to seduce them. Some call them lamia. They are unruly and wanton beings, and they are able to take many different forms—swans, seals, snakes, and sometimes women with serpents’ tales.”

  I had a vague notion of Lilith from artists’ paintings and biblical tales. “I remember the name Lilith from Von Helsinger’s notes. He had speculated about whether she might still exist.”

  “The doctor was correct in a way,” the Count said. “Everything that once was still exists in one form or another. Lilith was one of the angels who, with Lucifer, called themselves into physical existence through their desire for life on earth. She first appeared in the midst of a wild tempest, and the humans who witnessed it called her the Lady of the Storm. Her beauty struck the mortal men who saw her. They fought savagely for her attention, shedding blood and betraying one another. Eventually, they turned the blame on Lilith herself for enticing them, and they began to demonize her, which made her turn angry and vengeful.

  “By this time, she had given birth to many daughters; and together, they began to haunt those who feared and hated them, coming to them at night and sucking away their energy and their blood. They began to take revenge wherever they could, seducing the strongest of men to get their stock and then discarding them. If one of their lovers took a mortal wife, they invaded his home at night and drank the blood of his children.”

  His words stopped me cold. They will try to do that to my child. I cringed at the vengeful acts I had invited by attacking that creature. How would I protect my child if he were fully human with none of my powers? They would easily do to him what they had done to his father. Or worse.

  “The lamia live by their own code,” the Count said. “Men have called the fate on themselves by their own desires.”

  “It seems to me that you arranged Jonathan’s fate. He is only human. You left him to be ruined by your women.”

  “That is correct: he is only human. You are so much more.”

  “And my child?” I asked.

  “As you fear, the child will be in danger, but I will protect him. After all, he is yours too.”

  The next day, plagued by curiosity, I went to look for the mansion where the masked ball had taken place, but I could not find it. I retraced the carriage ride onto the narrow street where the coachman had let us out, and then found the alley that led to the square, but neither the house nor the square was there. In fact, the alley dead-ended into the back of an ugly brown brick hospital.

  After that, I gave up trying to solve any of the mysteries in my life. The Count and I loved each other, and if he accepted my child and could protect it against the creatures that might do it harm, then I would stay with him. I did not want to remain in London where I would daily see shadows of my former life. I could never face the people I had known without explaining something of what had happened. Kate Reed was probably still waiting for my information to write an article about the scandalous treatment of women in the asylum. Headmistress was undoubtedly contacting people who knew me to find out how I was adjusting to married life. Somehow, I thought that word would get out that I had fallen in love with a mysterious foreigner and left my husband soon after the wedding, and that would be the end of my existence in this city.

  I did not want to go to the Count’s estate in Styria, the site of Jonathan’s fall. We decided that we would live quietly in the London mansion until the Count’s staff could ready one of his country estates in France. Then we would move our household there well in advance of the birth. He assure
d me that the French midwives were superb, and that the estate would be a wonderful place for my son to spend his early years. “You have lived there before, Mina, and when you see it, you will know that you are once again home,” he said.

  “Was it a good life?” I asked.

  “One of the very best,” he said.

  After the blood-drinking incident with Ursulina, we watched my body for signs of change. Though my senses were keener than ever before, the only other changes we observed were the effects of pregnancy. I was happy to simply be that—a woman expecting a baby—and I was not anxious to use my power or my magic for fear that it might harm the fetus, though I knew that the resurrection of those gifts had permanently emboldened me. The Count acted as my physician and metaphysician, checking my human vital signs twice a day, and also reading my frequency for evidence of the transformation. He believed that the pregnancy had interrupted the process, or slowed the pace of it, in order to accommodate the creation of another being. As he had warned, this was a highly unpredictable game with no rules. “The body knows what it is doing, Mina,” he said. “The fetus is strong. Let us be satisfied with that for the present.”

  In early December, snow cast an austere white hand over the city. I spent my days taking advantage of the Count’s magnificent library, which contained leather-bound volumes collected over the centuries. Sometimes at night, we took walks in the parks, where, between the snow and my new superior night vision, I saw as well as if it were daytime. Birds, animals, branches, all were clearly revealed to me by moonlight, and it was thrilling to watch night’s performances, largely invisible to the naked human eye, in all its vivid wonder. Some evenings, we read together by lamplight, or talked of plans for the immediate future. We did not speculate on eternity. I did know that I had at least this lifetime ahead of me, and I started to teach myself to play the piano. One day, a beautiful baroque harp appeared in the parlor, and, strumming the strings, I fell in love with its resonant sound, and melodies that I must have played in some long-lost lifetime came back to me with ease. I also imagined that it soothed my little one when I played a simple lullaby on either instrument.

  One cold winter afternoon, two weeks into Advent, on the sort of gray London day when the sky begins to darken before daylight had taken hold, we were sitting in the library, when the Count looked up from his newspaper. “Someone is coming,” he said. He stood up, letting the newspaper flutter to the floor. Nothing had disturbed our serenity in weeks, and I did not like the alarmed look on his face. He walked toward the door and then stopped. I noticed that he had made a fist, which rested by his side. He turned and looked at me. “It’s Harker. And another man.”

  As soon as he said it, I could feel the essence of Jonathan coming toward me. I felt him so vividly that I could hear the creak of the gate as he gingerly opened it and the snow crunching beneath his feet as he walked to our door. I could also feel that he was not alone. His companion felt familiar, but I could not put an identity to him. This was a new sensation for me; thus far I had been able to feel only the vibration of the Count. But now I could feel Jonathan’s essence—his being, his core, that hum that identified him as who he was—as if he were standing next to me. As soon as I was fully aware of him, something deep inside me—perhaps it was my baby talking to me—knew that I had to hear what he had come to tell me.

  “Let me speak with him in the parlor,” I said.

  “I do not like it,” the Count replied. He closed his eyes for a moment and stuck his nose into the air. “They carry the scent of danger, and the one who is with Harker is very strong.” He did not have to tell me that he was surprised by Jonathan’s courage in coming here.

  “I can protect myself,” I said, knowing intuitively that the danger was not directed at me. “Perhaps it is Jonathan who is in danger. He might be coming here for help.”

  He is not your responsibility, Mina.

  “That is where we disagree. If not for me, and hence, if not for you, Jonathan would be living a perfectly normal and happy life.”

  We stood, staring at each other for a while, until he knew that I was not going to change my mind.

  I will be watching. And then he left the room.

  I opened the door myself before Jonathan had a chance to use the knocker. Standing at the portal with him was Morris Quince. Both men wore heavy, dark coats against the December chill, and their shoulders were hunched, either from the cold or from the anxiety of the visit. Quince looked larger and more chiseled than I had remembered. His strong jawline was set with a new ferocity. Jonathan had lost the haunted and defensive look he had worn on his face since his days in Styria. His eyes were clear and his face determined.

  I invited them to come into the parlor, but they hesitated. “We would like you to come with us,” Jonathan said. “Mr. Quince would like to talk to you.”

  “Please come in,” I said, knowing what the Count’s reaction would be if I left with them.

  “Is he here?” Jonathan asked, trying to peer inside. Before I could answer, he said, “I have no care for my own safety, Mina. I will face him if necessary. But I do not want to put you in danger. Or the baby,” he added. “Things are happening that you should know about.”

  “We will all be safe, I assure you,” I said, though seeing Morris Quince brought back the memories of his abandonment of Lucy and her subsequent death, and I could not be sure that I would not try to kill him.

  The men exchanged looks to reassure each other and then followed me inside to the parlor. No one sat down. Morris Quince began to speak immediately. “I can only imagine your opinion of me, Miss Mina. I know that you think I callously left Lucy last summer, but I assure you that I did not.”

  I did not respond, but sat down, waiting for him to explain himself. Jonathan hesitantly sat in a chair opposite me, but Quince continued to pace while he talked. He poured out his story, explaining that he had left Lucy in Whitby only so that he could hurry home to reconcile with his family and tell them that he intended to come into the family business and to marry. “I had begun to realize that I was not much of a painter after all,” he said, shaking his head with what looked like regret. “When I read that nonsense in the paper about Lucy being attacked, I saw the terrible stress our relationship was putting on her. I rushed to see her, but her mother told me that she was ill and could not see anyone. I thought that I was making her sick—sick with passion and longing, which made me aware that it was time for drastic action. I wanted to move the mother aside and go to Lucy, but Mrs. Westenra already despised me enough, so I left a letter with her that she promised to give to Lucy. I also sent a letter to Arthur, informing him that Lucy and I loved each other and intended to marry, and that as a gentleman, he must not press the issue of their marriage.

  “When I arrived in America, I sent Lucy a telegram telling her to wait for me. I wrote her a letter every day, and, after weeks of not hearing back, I returned to London to find out that she had married Arthur and had died.”

  His face was full of self-recrimination. “I am a wretched man. I never should have left her, but I did not want her to be treated as a runaway bride. My family would have thought less of her. She was too good for that. Instead, I killed her.”

  As he spoke, I listened with the sorry knowledge that everything he said was true. Guilt flooded me, competing with sadness for mastery of me. “I had a hand in it too, Mr. Quince,” I said. Would I ever be able to forgive myself for encouraging Lucy into the arms of Holmwood? “I was convinced that you were a scoundrel and tried my best to convince Lucy of the same. If it is any consolation, she never doubted your love.”

  The clock chimed four o’clock, and Jonathan stood up and looked out the parlor window. “I am sorry to interrupt, but there is a matter of some urgency that we must discuss,” he said. “There is not much time.”

  “I have spoken my piece, and you have my gratitude for listening to me,” Quince said. “If you don’t mind, I will go outside to smoke.” He turned to Jonatha
n and added that he would keep watch.

  I was about to ask Jonathan what he might have meant, but he spoke first. “Mina, you must leave this house immediately.” His voice was grave.

  “What are you trying to tell me, Jonathan?” I asked. He was terribly nervous, and I realized the risk he was taking in coming here to talk to me.

  “Just listen to me, Mina. Listen, and judge me later. We’ve no time for that now. We must get away from here.”

  “I will decide what I must and must not do,” I said. How dare he come here, trying to command me like a husband? “Are you trying to recapture me for another of Von Helsinger’s experiments? Do you have any idea what I endured, with your consent, in that asylum? They would have killed me if they had gone through with their plans.”

  “I will spend the rest of my life atoning, if you will just hear me out. I was in shock after what happened—seeing you in the photograph with the man who had orchestrated my ruin and believing that you were in league with him. The doctors assured me that they would help you. I did not know what else to do. My mind was muddled from all that I had experienced. This world, Mina”—he gestured around the room—“this world—the Count’s world, Ursulina’s world—that you now inhabit is not my world! And now you tell me that I am going to have a son and he is going to be raised in this world?”

  I saw the frustration and helplessness in his eyes. “After I left you to have the transfusion, I sat in the parlor, worried about what was going to happen to you and wondering if you were to meet Lucy’s fate. I was about to return to the room to stop them, or at least question them further, when Seward and Von Helsinger came running into the parlor. They were bleeding and screaming that a wild beast had attacked them. We gathered weapons and we went back into the room, where the window had been ripped from its frame, the thick iron bars that no man could have possibly removed had been torn asunder, and your bed was empty.