Page 60 of Lucy Undying

They hadn’t actually told me what they needed him for. Only that they needed him, and they’d buy me a pretty dress and pay me for my troubles. Ingrid had figured out all the rest.

I met one of the Nazis behind the hotel. He was a short man with a pleasant face and the clearest, most beautiful whistle. He gave me the key to the room I was going to use. “Once you get him alone, we’ll follow,” he said. “Leave the door unlocked. When we’re inside, you can go and enjoy the rest of the gala.”

I beamed like I had no thoughts in my head other than a good party. And then, on my way to the front stairs, I whispered the room number to Ingrid, waiting in the shadows just outside.

My entrance into the grand hotel ballroom was like an air raid siren: Everyone froze and looked. Including the British ambassador’s secretary, who should have known better than to believe he was important enough to merit an invitation to this gala. And who definitely should have known he wasn’t important or handsome enough to merit my attention.

The band was excellent. If you’ve never been to a wartime party, I recommend them. Bacchanals, always. The room glittered. Gilt walls, crystal chandeliers, tile like only the old Ottomans could do. Everyone was sumptuously dressed, reeking of secrets and violence and lust. I was drunk on them.

I knew my target on sight, but I couldn’t be too obvious. I danced first with one of the Italians. Eyes like the sea, skin like honey. It was wasteful that I had to break his face later that night.

The secretary bumped into me near a champagne pyramid. I let him think it was his fault and laughed prettily at his attempts to apologize. He was as plain and unremarkable as mushy peas. Jonathan Harker. That was who he reminded me of. I’d forgotten Jonathan existed until then.

I fought the urge to kill the secretary.

“Make it up to me with a dance?” I asked instead of ripping out his heart for taking Mina from me. Not Jonathan, I reminded myself. I knew he wasn’t Jonathan, obviously. But I was thrown off, unbalanced. Distracted. He sounded like home, and home was so far away. So long ago. Every time I looked at him, I imagined Mina living out her life with just such a dull, obliviously entitled man, claiming what he never could have deserved.

I didn’t have to use any of my dazzling powers to get the secretary to follow me up to the room. He didn’t even notice that I failed to lock the door behind us. He began pawing at me immediately, clumsy and eager.

His lust turned to fear as my seven co-conspirators slipped inside. “You can go now, Wilhelmina,” said the beautiful Italian.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop looking at the secretary, couldn’t stop seeing Jonathan in his place. I didn’t even remember what Jonathan looked like. Maybe it was him. Maybe I’d found him. The age was wrong, the eyes were wrong, everything was wrong, but he felt like Jonathan.

I pushed him to the floor and knelt over him, searching his face. Trying to find the memory of someone I had hated, someone who had taken something precious and perfect from me. But she had never been mine to take, had she?

“Where is she?” I demanded, crying. “Where’s Mina? What happened to her?”

He blubbered desperately. The men shouted at me to leave. And I forgot what the next part of the plan was. Not even the sound of the closet door bursting open and the gun going off could distract me. I shook and shook Jonathan, demanding he tell me where Mina was, what her life had been like, whether he’d ever made her happy.

Ingrid’s scream at last brought me to my senses. I turned to see her favorite knife sticking out of her chest. She looked over at me, devastated. The beautiful Italian turned, satisfied he had taken care of the threat. I smashed his face in, and then grabbed the next nearest man and broke him, too.

But Ingrid, beautiful Ingrid, Ingrid who had never really known me, wasn’t aware I could do the rest all on my own. She had come prepared to finish it.

She reached into her coat, and then the whole room exploded.

51

August 14, 1890

Journal of Lucy Westenra

I’m feeling more at ease now. Though I’m up all hours of the night pacing, checking that the door is locked and the window latched—often until Mina awakes and guides me back to bed—I have seen no sign of the monster in the days since we met.

I don’t know what he did to me or why. My throat still hurts, and sometimes where my pulse should be is an icy emptiness for a beat, two beats, long enough that I fear I’m dying until my heart once again stumbles into action. But I saved Mina from him.

She has had no word from Jonathan, and I’m sorry I ever wished our time in Whitby over. I was being a bad, selfish friend, too lost in my own misery. Now that I know what true misery and horror is, Mina’s marrying someone else feels far less like life and death.

I can’t write more now. She’s returning from her visit to the church and we’re going for a walk. But I’m nearly myself once more. My brush with death makes me all the hungrier for life now, I think! I will survive all of this. Mina, marriage, and monster.

—

I wrote too soon. Walking toward the abbey and churchyard, I saw him. On my bench, on our bench. His eyes flashed red. I couldn’t tell whether he was looking at me or Mina. I don’t remember what I babbled or how I swooned with fear, but Mina had to guide me home again. She fussed over me all afternoon and evening, worried about my nerves, reminding me that I had to stay calm so as not to upset Mother. I fell asleep and woke in terror that Mina would be gone. That I had failed her. But she’s asleep in the bed next to mine. I sit now writing at the window, on guard for those endless red eyes.

He wanted me to see him today at the abbey. To know he’s still here, still watching, still—

52

London, October 7, 2024

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