Page 24 of Lucy Undying

She held out a hand. One of the girls appeared, rushing forward to place a jade goblet there. With her free hand, the Queen stroked the girl’s cheek, a caress light enough to avoid cutting her. The girl closed her eyes, in fear or ecstasy or both. She murmured gratitude, and then left us.

The goblet was filled with blood. Fresh blood, that much I could smell. But there was an oddness to it. It was a blend, a little taken from each of the girls and women who lived in the compound. The Queen never drank directly from any of them, and they all contributed daily to keep her fed. As a rule, the Queen never killed, which meant she never created a body that could be buried.

“I have never let him or any other vampire into China,” she said without preamble. “I guard every port. My girls are rescued from violence and predators, brought safely here. They’re given tools and training, then sent out as spies and assassins to destroy vampires and their servants. Every few years Dracula tries again to make a safe place for himself here so he can infect my land. He never will.”

“What about you?” I asked. “How did he attack you?”

“I was murdered and buried in Europe, far from my home.” Her eyes went soft and distant. “I can feel it out there, still. My grave. Unmarked. Anonymous. I defy it, as I defied him. He was too wedded to comfort and strength; he could never come to my land without a guarantee of both. I am the first and last defense, an immovable wall barring him from all of China. Blood alone gives me strength, and it is enough.” She tilted her chin up, and she was glorious. I admired her for her power and resolve.

I still do, despite everything.

Awed, I sat at her feet and gazed up at her in a stupor of exhaustion and adoration.

“Look what you made here,” I said. Or something equally inane. I was mixing Mandarin and English, my thoughts bubbling and flowing as quickly as the spring outside, impossible to grasp. All I could feel was how much I wanted what they had.

Not what she had. What the girls and women who lived there had. A safe home. Beautiful things. But also someone in charge. Someone to protect them, someone to tell them what to do, someone to make sense of the world for them. I missed Mina so much; it was the same as thirst, clawing agonizingly through my veins, itching in every part ofme.

“So you came here looking for Dracula, and now you are lost,” the Queen said.

“Do you know where to find him?” If her questions always sounded like commands, my questions sounded like pleas. I was ashamed of my weakness in front of her.

“Tell me why you wish to find him.”

It took me a long time to answer, to form into words what I hadn’t fully understood until then. I could have explained that I was worried about Mina. That I wanted to make sure Dracula was far away from her. That I needed proof that my sacrifice had been worth it.

But that wasn’t it. Not entirely. I tried to articulate what my questions were, for both our sakes. “Dracula took me with such focus and determination and care. So much struggle to make certain I’d become like him rather than simply dying. I want to know why. But he’s never appeared to me again. And I’m afraid for the safety of someone I love. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know where she is, either.”

Because that was another upsetting truth: All those days and nights Raven spent watching for Dracula, I had kept watch, too. Mina never visited my resting place. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe Dracula was stalking her, and she was in danger. Or maybe the men who hadn’t saved me had figured out the simplest thing to do was take Mina far away from Dracula’s thirst.

Either way, finding him would give me answers to more than just Mina’s fate.

The Queen gazed down at me. She was an altar I could have worshipped at. Her blades tapped against the arm of her chair. But there was a crack in the perfectly sculpted expanse of her face. A hint of the same pain I felt, the same loss. The same abandonment. “You will never have your answer. Dracula is dead.”

“What? When? How?” I couldn’t imagine anything killing Dracula. He seemed as inevitable as nightfall, as inescapable as winter.

“I have spies in Europe, too, watching his castle. They brought news a week ago. He was killed by men who chased him from London to Transylvania. He finally tried to take a woman whom men actually cared about.”

“Who?” I asked, my throat tight, my fingers clenched into clawed fists. But I already knew the answer. Why had Raven been distracting me? Why had she scared me away from trying to go home and find Mina? Why had she sent me here?

Because Raven was always a bride. She always served Dracula. And she was doing whatever she could to keep me from protecting his next chosen victim.

When I was still alive, I’d put myself between Dracula and Mina to protect her. And he’d still tried to take her. My sacrifice had been worth nothing.

But that wasn’t quite true. The men who failed to save me had managed to save her. Maybe because of what they’d learned from their failures. And if Dracula was dead, that meant Mina was safe, and I was…

What was I?

I should have been happy. Mina’s safety was what I had given myself up for. It was what I wanted.

Almost what I wanted. Because in that desperate, aching, eternal hunger that plagued me even before I awoke in my casket, I had always imagined my future with Mina. Now I couldn’t return home. Not ever. Because if I went back to Mina, I’d be the threat.

I didn’t know if I could resist drawing her to me, pressing my lips to her white neck, devouring her in death like I had never been able to in life.

The Queen had no idea what was happening inside my head. She sipped from her goblet, watching me. “I was going to kill you to send a message, but there is no one left worth sending a message to. Dracula is dead. His brides will wither and waste without him. And no one cares about you.”

The Queen was right about that. I would drift into the darkness, become one with it, cease being Lucy and exist as the night itself. Eternal and alone.

Or maybe…maybe I could stay here. Exchange a governess for a queen. Pour my desperate need to love and be loved into her. She seemed worthy of it.

---