Blood to Blood (33 page)

"I understood little of it then. Later, long after she died, I understood more. With every man who had paid her, she had passed on that curse, not just to him but also to the man's wife, perhaps even his children."

He took another swallow of the brandy before continuing. "Her last days were filled with horror. Her mind had gone almost completely over to hallucinations. She would scream that there were demons in the walls and they were reaching through the paper, trying to grab at her soul.

"We were alone the day she died. She was coherent enough then to ask for the bottle of morphine we kept to help her sleep. She sent me from the room without even a good-bye."

"If she had, you might have guessed and taken the bottle away," Van Helsing said gently.

"She might have said something to me. Later, I heard her crying out to God and Jesus to save her from her sins and to take away her pain. I knocked on her closed door, asked what she needed. She told me to go away and leave her alone. By the time my aunt returned, she was dead."

"You told me she'd been raving," Van Helsing said gently as he finished bandaging Essie's hand. He began cleaning the wound on the arm, but it began to bleed so heavily that he had to apply pressure and call to Rhys. "Come, Felix. You have to help me now. If she loses any more blood she will certainly die. She needs more in her before I begin to deal with the larger wounds."

"A transfusion? From one of us?"

"From me, I think. I have done but few of them, but it seems I have the greatest success when the blood in closely matched. Being pure Caucasian, I will present a lesser risk. But I cannot do it alone. Now come."

Afraid to leave Rhys in direct care of Essie for even a moment, Van Helsing had him assemble the pump and sterilize the needles. He connected Essie's line, then rolled up his sleeve so Rhys could do the same for him.

As he held out his arm so Rhys could insert the needle, he was conscious of how vulnerable he was at that moment. But Rhys did the work with almost painless precision—amazing, given his mental state. It occurred to Van Helsing that that was likely how the man functioned from day to day.

It took nearly an hour to draw what was needed, leaving Van Helsing flushed and light-headed. While the blood wound slowly down the tube and into the girl. Van Helsing fixed a bit of lunch. Rhys declined any food, pouring another brandy instead. As he watched Rhys sip the alcohol. Van Helsing considered that when the woman came tonight, the murderer would likely be his only ally—a most unsettling thought.

Even before the last of the blood had flowed into her, some of Essie's color returned, and her pulse had steadied. Heartened, Van Helsing began to clean the wound on her arm. With effort, he managed to connect the damaged tissue and bandage it. She lost some blood as he worked, but not as much as he had given her.

But when he examined the wound on her neck, he could only shake his head sadly. Closing this wound was beyond his abilities, beyond anyone's except perhaps for a battle-trained surgeon.

Through it all, Rhys had stood watching the work from a distance, unable to assist or to look away. "I never meant to hurt her," he said as he watched Van Helsing examining the neck wound. "The anger seemed to take control of my hand. It always does."

"Were you the one in London those years back?"

"The Ripper? No. I came before him, though. It is the night I remember best. September thirtieth in '86. I'd lost three women to venereal disease just that week, one leaving three orphaned children. I'd never felt so useless before. I wasn't a drinker, but I went to a pub far away from my clinic and got sickeningly drunk. I was reeling home when the whore noticed me. I'm a doctor. Even in the gaslight, I could see the signs of disease on her face, could even smell it on her breath, but she thought me shy rather than wary and would not leave me alone.

"I carried a knife for protection. I'm not even sure how it got into my hand, only that, when she pressed me against a stone wall and tried to kiss me, I sliced her and fled. My heart pounded with fear for days, but the papers never even reported finding the body.

"Once I knew I would not be caught, a strange peace came over me. It lasted nearly a year, then I found myself in another pub finishing drink after drink to give me the courage to roam the streets looking for another whore just like her."

He went on, explaining how the calm diminished with every kill, how work at his London clinic surrounded by so much misery became impossible.

"Finally, unable to go on and terrified that I would be caught, I admitted myself to a sanitarium for a few months. When I felt calmer, I asked to be released.

"Nervous exhaustion, the doctor there called it. He suggested I give up my practice but I could not. I had made a vow, you see. I vowed to my mother that no person decent save for poverty would suffer the way she did and there were so many with no one else to turn to.

"I went back to that quiet institution three more times, the last for nearly a year. When I was released, I thought a new start in a smaller, kinder city would end my rages. It did, but not for long."

"How many women did you kill?" Van Helsing asked.

"I don't recall. Twenty. Thirty. But they were always of a certain type until the last. All that poor creature had wanted to do was help me. Then I found myself killing her because I had to kill someone that night, had to smell the blood and the fear. So now, my pretense is ended. The demon's arrival merely reinforces what I already know. There is no longer any justification for what I had become."

He began weeping again, muffling his sobs in one of the towels Van Helsing hadn't needed to use.

"We could go to the police together," Van Helsing suggested. "The work you have done here and in London might lead them to show mercy."

"In a prison or a state asylum? Abraham, it would be better to feel the end of a rope."

Van Helsing thought quickly. "I have a friend who runs an asylum. Perhaps—"

"Stop it! There are no options anymore! I've already made up my mind. When the demon comes, Abraham, I will hold out my arms and embrace her. Whatever she takes, I deserve to lose."

Van Helsing looked down at his open medical bag, the mallet, the stakes, the holy water. He fingered the cross he wore through the fabric of his shirt and pulled it out so it could be seen. The sun was close to setting. So much would happen tonight, and he was an old man and exhausted.

The sky grew darker. Mina stirred. Instinctively, she tried to stretch, cried out in pain and opened her eyes. Van Helsing rushed to her side and helped her stand and walk to the straight-back chairs beside her husband. Jonathan remained motionless with his head on the table, still asleep.

"Take care. You've cracked a rib," Van Helsing told her. "But you will be all right, as will he."

"And Essie?" she asked, looking toward her servant.

"I don't know how she still lives. Truly, her fate is in the hands of God."

Mina brushed the back of Jonathan's head, the touch waking him. He sat up and after a moment took her hand, following her gaze as she looked toward the window, not at Rhys but beyond it, the pair of them waiting for their guests to arrive.

Outside, something moved in the shadows along the side walls. Fog, Rhys thought, until its tendrils met near the river and coalesced into forms more substantial… things that looked so deceptively human, so feminine with their flowing summer frocks and unpinned hair.

But they weren't human. He knew they weren't as they glided across the lawn, eyes glowing, thin white arms reaching. As he took his eyes off them for a moment to look for the cord to shut the draperies, they moved with a speed only the supernatural could achieve, standing just outside the doors.

She had said they could not come in unless…

Behind him, he heard Mina speak, her voice loud and strong, "Enter freely and be welcome."

"No!" Rhys bellowed and whirled to face her, his word echoed in Van Helsing's voice, his shock reflected in Van Helsing's expression.

Rhys heard the click of the bolt and looked back at the doors. Their handles turned, they swung inward, though to his eyes it seemed that neither woman had ever touched them.

He had vowed to let the creatures take him, but the sight of them, so pale and beautiful and openly erotic, seemed more terrible than any monster would have been. With his resolve in full retreat, he rushed around the table and placed his knife against the side of Mina's head.

He looked from one creature to the other, recognizing the vampire and his last victim as well. "Stay away," he warned, as if this threat to Mina would somehow protect him.

The green-eyed one drew in a breath, laughed and asked, "Why should we value her life, murderer? She is nothing to us. It is you we have come for."

"But she means something to you, Felix. It would be another death on your conscience," Van Helsing added quickly.

Rhys glanced over his shoulder at the front door, saw the slide bolt still in place. Even if the door were open, he would not make it through, not the way these creatures could move. The women separated, coming slowly around the table from different directions. As they distracted him for a moment, Jonathan used what little strength he had to slam an arm against Rhys's wrist, shoving the blade away from Mina's neck hard enough that Rhys lost his grip on the knife. It slid across the table and over the edge. With a cry of rage, Rhys bolted over the table, heading for the open French doors.

His foot caught the edge of the carpet and he went down hard beside Essie. The gun in his belt went sliding over the tile floor. One of his hands was buried in the bloody rags Van Helsing had used to slow Essie's bleeding; his face hit inches from her seeping neck. Screaming, he scrambled forward, through the doors, only finding his balance when his feet hit the stone path leading to the river.

He could not hear the creature coming up behind him, but he didn't need to. Of course the victim would be the one to come; he would expect no less. And she would claim his soul, hers to do with as she pleased for all eternity.

The river would be a better death, he thought, wondering why he had not considered it earlier, when the sun still touched the murky water and made it seem beautiful. He had almost reached it when he felt her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to turn and face her.

He'd barely noticed her before, when she'd been alive, so he had no way of knowing if she had been so comely then or if death and rebirth had made her so. A deceitful beauty, he reminded himself as, oblivious to his struggles, she pulled him close to her as if he were her child, weak and helpless, in need of comfort.

The moment Rhys fled Colleen followed, every newborn power awake and alive. With effort, Mina had pushed herself to her feet and was starting her slow walk to the door when Joanna rushed to it and screamed after her servant, "
Draga
, no! Leave him to me!"

The words came too late. Side by side they watched as Colleen reached Rhys, spun him around, lifted him and pulled him close in a final embrace.

Joanna called out again, but stayed where she was, while Mina viewed what was happening outside with growing horror.

Colleen's back was to them. Shorter than the doctor, thinner, in her human life far weaker, she held him helpless now. Only the top of his head pressed tightly against her shoulder was visible in the dim light. She seemed to struggle with him at first, then stood motionless as, all fight gone, he lay silent in her arms.

"You cannot stop this?" Mina asked Joanna.

Joanna shuddered, such a human reaction. "I dare not try, for I want to kill him myself, and in a way that would make my brother pity him," she said. "And I should not take this vengeance from her but…"

She did not have to finish. Mina understood. To kill so young, even a creature such as Rhys, would likely doom Colleen to an eternity of killing.

Mina found one of the revolvers and stepped outside. "She has turned completely?" she asked Joanna.

"Yes. Completely, thanks to him."

Raising the gun, Mina fired two quick shots at Colleen's back, crying out as the recoil grated her fractured rib. As she expected, the bullets passed through Colleen and into Rhys. She had aimed for his chest and did not have to see the doctor to know she had killed him. Colleen's reaction told it all.

The human had killed the monster! Killed him and deprived her of her rightful prey. Furious, Colleen dropped the body, turned and moved toward the house, so quickly that she was on the terrace by the time Mina had stepped back to the door. Colleen's face was stained with the doctor's blood, her clothing drenched in it. She wiped her lips on the back of her sleeve as she advanced on Mina. "You took him from me? Did you think you would… spare him suffering? Was that why?"

Joanna answered for her. "
Draga
, you know why."

"Did she?" She walked toward Mina, who stood motionless, watching her, unafraid and confident. "Does she think I… won't kill a woman? Does she really think I… will let her live?"

When only inches separated them, Mina looked her in the eyes and whispered. "I would not let him claim you as his last victim."

Colleen listened, barely hearing, her body taut, ready to strike. She took the last step forward, her hands on Mina's shoulders, when she heard a low, terrible moan, a beating on the floor.

She looked behind her at Essie, lying on the pillows and folded blankets—the wounds, the blood, the bandaged arm shaking as damaged nerves convulsed.

Dropping her hands to her side. Colleen crouched beside the girl, staring not at her face or the blood, but at the cuts. For the first time she remembered those last moments of her life—how the knife had sliced her neck and belly, how she had lain, face scraping on the gritty road as her life flowed from her veins and into her lungs, filling them until she drowned.

"He did this?" Colleen asked.

"Essie was going for help," Mina said. "He hunted her down, then left her to die."

Colleen stared at the girl again, thinking how she would have died had Joanna not given her a different kind of life. She shivered, drew in a breath so she could exhale a dry, silent sob.

Joanna came up behind her, rested a hand on her back. Colleen stood and pressed close, her head against her mistress's shoulder.

Jonathan's attention had alternated between the confrontation he expected his wife to win, and Van Helsing. The old doctor had said nothing since the vampires' arrival, but knowing him, Jonathan was sure he was weighing the consequences of an attack.

It would be carnage, and like Mina, the thought would not sit well on his conscience. So he moved closer to Mina, careful to place himself between the doctor and the women, ready to use what strength he had to stop any attack.

But Van Helsing only watched, silent and pensive while Mina faced the creature and looked as relieved as the others at the outcome.

When Jonathan was sure he would not be compelled to stop the doctor's attack, Jonathan moved stiffly to where Mina stood, started to embrace her and realized his wound would not allow it. So instead he stayed beside her, considering all the words he would say later, when they were alone. How brave she was. How kind.

The moment's silence shattered with a pounding at the front door. Before any of them could reach it, it burst open, part of the frame attached to the bolt, and Arthur rushed in, gripping a pistol. "I heard shots. What's happening in here?" he asked, then noticed Essie and also fell silent.

"Justice," Joanna said, and stepped up to Mina.

To Jonathan she seemed so much smaller than she'd been in the castle, thinner, less vampire than woman. He had feared her then, but only because he'd feared them all. Now, inexplicably, he wanted to touch her, to see if she had shaken off the curse completely and there was warmth to her flesh. In the castle he had not heard her speak a word of English, but tonight she spoke as if she had lived among them for years.

Drawing in a breath, she shuddered a little, an anxiety Jonathan well remembered, forced a calm and began, "For weeks, I prayed for the strength to face you and make you feel the pain I thought you had given me. My brother is dead, his wife, my reluctant friend Karina. My entire world ended because of you."

She drew Mina close, embraced her. "A thousand thanks. Would that Karina had chosen this journey."

Through the exchange Van Helsing had his hand in his pocket, holding a loosely capped bottle of holy water. At first he dared not use it. The only ally he'd had here was dead, and rightfully so. The Harkers could not be trusted. And Arthur, for all his care in keeping the gun pointed toward the ground, had the long edge of the barrel facing him. No, this was not a battle Van Helsing could win, so instead he wisely listened.

It astonished him that, after decades of viewing these creatures as only beings to be hunted and destroyed, he found himself actually waiting to see what these would do before passing judgment on them.

And truly, Joanna Tepes astonished him.

She was not at all like the creature she had been—that wild-eyed being that had taunted him in the Borgo Pass. Not at all like the others he had seen in Romania, and certainly not at all like her brother. But then Dracula had been a barbarian in life, so why not in death? While she… ?

So many questions. Would she answer if he asked them?

Not tonight, he thought. There were still things that needed to be done. "Come, Arthur," he said. "We have a wounded woman and a body in the yard. Best we summon the police and a surgeon soon, or questions will be difficult. You have a coach here, do you not?"

"More like a cart, but it should suffice." He looked to Joanna, who motioned for him to go.

Van Helsing said little on the drive, what energy he still possessed spent in contemplating the fantastic night and day before. But later, as he sat on the cart waiting for Arthur to wake the surgeon, he considered what purpose the box in back must serve. If he lifted the lid, dumped the holy water onto the earth, what effect would it have on them?

No matter. He would never do it. Besides, the box was certainly locked.

He considered what Karina's journal had revealed about the vampire origins—that the creature that created them had been in league with the Devil.

Perhaps even that didn't matter. Men, after all, were children of God, and look at the monsters born among them.

No. For now, he would leave them in peace.