Page 112 of Lucy Undying

“It doesn’t work if you don’t believe in it,” he says.

95

Salt Lake City, January 25, 2025

Dracula

Now you have the sense to be afraid. He’s in control, and always has been, and always will be.

It’s not the symbols themselves that hold power. It’s that sacred space inside someone, that core of absolute faith no one can touch. That’s what keeps him out. That’s what refuses to invite him in. God or Jesus or even love. Hope. Whatever you hold sacred, whatever you know he can never take from you.

But you. You’re nothing but a gaping wound of need and loneliness and pain. Life has taught you that faith in anything is weakness, that love is a step into the grave. That nothing and no one can be trusted, not even yourself. You’ve always been waiting to welcome him. Your very existence is an invitation.

Why are you crying?

He catches the tear on one long fingernail, lifts it to his lips and baptizes himself in your pain. He’ll take it from you. All of it. The striving and the fighting and the fear. You’re his. You were always meant to be his. He knows it, and now, so do you.

“Iris!” someone screams from the doorway. “Iris, invite me in!”

They’re too late. He bites open his finger, pressing it to your lips. Then he grabs your curls and drags your head to the side, opening the white expanse of your throat.

His.

96

Salt Lake City, January 25, 2025

Lucy

I wander the same direction Iris left in. Not with any goal in mind, but in hopes of getting a few last stolen glimpses. I’m distracted, lost in my grief. My steps pick up, then get faster. I’m sprinting. I don’t know why, only that something is wrong. Something is—

Dracula is nearby.

Iris. I have to get to her first.

I follow his rusted-blood scent, that horrible metallic clanging that fills my head, grinding like a tank crash, metal on metal, burning blood. Does he smell like burning blood, or do I, pushing the limits of the form holding me?

I skid to a stop outside a door. Iris is inside. He’s inside. I don’t know who’s on the doorstep screaming Iris’s name, begging to be invited in. She doesn’t matter. Only Iris does. But I’m stopped at the threshold, the same as the mystery vampire.

I can’t force my body past that line. I’ve never been to her house before, because I was hiding in the hills, lying to myself that it was the best way to keep her safe.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the other vampire demands. She has a phone out, mid-conversation. “No, I don’t know who she is. Another vampire! Blond, small. I’ve never seen her before. How far is the team? I don’t know, Susan! If I knew, I would tell you! No, she’s stuck out here, too. She’s never been invited in.”

But that’s not true, is it? Iris invited me into her memories. She invited me into her scars and her mind and her soul. She invited me into her dreams. Iris is a home, whole and complete, wherever she goes. She’s always had to be that for herself. She offered me a space in that home. She opened the door to me, without reservation or question.

I put one foot over the threshold. The other vampire stares in shock as I walk past her and inside. The interior is an assault of horrid scents. A flare of pride in my girl cuts through my mindless terror and rage.

And then I’m in the kitchen. With her. With him. He holds her, mouth against her neck. Her heart is still beating, but it’s too slow.

He hasn’t even noticed I’m here yet. I step behind him, yank his head back, and bite his neck. He drops Iris. Hissing, he launches himself backward. He slams me into the wall so hard the plaster cracks beneath me, but I don’t stop. I drink and drink. He can’t have her. He can’t have any of her.

He grabs one of my arms and throws me across the kitchen. I land on all fours and skitter in front of Iris’s prone body, putting myself between him and her.

And then I understand.

Time is a circle. I’m still spinning on my axis, with Dracula on one side and Mina on the other. Doing the same things all over again. Here I am, putting my own body between Iris and Dracula. Just like I did with Mina. I sacrificed myself for Mina, but I never told her what I was doing. I never gave her the chance to help me. To fight alongside me. To make a choice for herself.

Just like those four men did to me, taking it on themselves to prolong my life until they had what they needed. Never telling me what was happening or giving me the tools I needed to protect myself.

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