Page 76 of Now Comes the Mist

“I do not yet know the details of your condition,” he says calmly. “But I rule nothing out. It is my life’s work to study rare infectious diseases, and I have seen many strange things in my time. I ask you to trust me and forgive me for anything you deem unnecessary or intrusive.”

Jack purses his lips in sympathy. “We could leave her door open and go into a different room. At least then the poor girl would have some measure of privacy. It must be hard on her to always have people prowling about,” he adds, and I give him a grateful look.

Dr. Van Helsing frowns. “I’m not certain that—”

“We will be right across the hall, where we can hear everything. Look around, Van Helsing.” Jack points to the garlic bulbs and flowers covering almost every inch of my room. “You’ve created a veritable minefield for this beast, in whose intelligence I strongly doubt.”

“Very well,” the older physician says, his brow still furrowed. “But Lucy, I want you to call out if there is even the slightest disturbance or sound. Will you promise me this?”

“I promise,” I say at once, and they leave.

Across the hall, my newly sharp ears hear Dr. Van Helsing whisper, “Whatever you do or do not believe, I advise you not to underestimate the intelligence of this creature, Jack. For anything that understands how to travel from Whitby to London, perhaps even by train, and how to follow and target that poor girl, is no simple wild beast but a being of preternatural cleverness and sophistication.” He pauses. “A predator, obsessed with its prey.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Idrift to the surface of sleep. A chilly wind ruffles my hair, and I try to pull my blankets up to my neck but cannot. Someone is sitting on the edge of my bed, pinning the covers in place. The room is full of thick grey mist creeping in from the wide-open windows.

“Wake up,” Vlad says.

At the sound of his voice, I gasp and reel back against my headboard, shivering in the cold. Outside my bedroom, the house is silent. “How did you get in here?” I ask, looking around in a panic. “Where has all the garlic gone?”

He crosses one leg over the other. “It was none of my doing, I assure you. Well, notdirectly. I persuaded your simple-minded housekeeper to invite me in and get rid of the disgusting bulbs and flowers, and she was very obliging. Was that truly the best your doctor could do to keep me out? Such folly for a supposedly intelligent man.”

“Where is he? What have you done to all of them?” I demand, my heart in my mouth.

Vlad raises a dark brow. “Calm yourself. I have not harmed anyone, especially not your mother. She seemed quite touched by my concern upon hearing how you had been attacked by the same creature for asecondtime. If only she knew you had asked for it.”

I grit my teeth. “Where is she?”

“Drugged into slumber, like all the rest.” With a movement of his fingers, the mist rises and bleeds even more thickly through my window and into the hall. “I think you’ll find that none of them are a match for me. Or you, for that matter. We are creatures that hell spat out, as the doctor so aptly put. He actually believes himself to be a worthy opponent for me! Ihave to say, I admire his arrogance. I came in here to kill him, but I think I will keep him around a bit longer.” He smiles at me. “You know how I love to be entertained.”

“I asked you to help me cheat death,” I say, struggling to remain calm. “I gave myself to you instead of to Arthur. Did you ever truly intend to grant me my request?”

Vlad’s dark blue-green eyes are maddeningly serene. “No.”

“That’s all you have to say to me?” I ask, and he shrugs, enjoying my anger. “After biting me to trick me into thinking that you had accepted my bargain?”

“There was no bargain. I agreed to nothing, and I made you no promises. I asked if you wanted me to bite you, and you said yes, and I obliged. Quite generous of me, I must say.”

“But youknewwhat I wanted!” I shout, and he turns away in distaste. Fear and anxiety rise in my throat like bile. I force myself to speak in a more even, measured tone. “Both of the times you bit me, you took enough blood from me to sicken me for days. How could you be certain that Dr. Van Helsing would know how to save my life?”

“I wasn’t.”

I stare at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“I wasn’t certain he would know how to save your life.” He places a hand over his chest, feigning apology. “Do not take this the wrong way. I am glad hedidsave you. You have been a most welcome diversion for me, but no, I have never seriously contemplated making you my companion. You have not the qualities I seek, as beautiful and charming as you are.”

“You were just going to let me die,” I say in disbelief. “After all I have been to you?”

Vlad looks around my room with casual detachment. “I told you, I talk nonsense when I am infatuated with a woman. But my infatuations always run their course, Lucy, as this one has.”

“That is a lie,” I say, my jaw clenched. “Youdocare for me. Why else spend so many evenings listening to my troubles? Why share so much with me about your life and what you are? Why release Jonathan Harker at my request?”

“To keep your trust in this game I am playing with you,” he says patiently. “But just as I was unsure whether you would survive my bites, so, too, did I let Mr. Harker go without any hope of his survival. My mountain home is rather treacherous to humans, you see. I assumed he would die in a snowbank or a ravine or be eaten alive by wild animals. I plannedto have a telegram sent to Miss Murray, telling her of his untimely death whilst traveling home. And I would be there to comfort her when she received it.” He gives me a conspiratorial wink.

“You know nothing about love,” I seethe. “It was because of love that Jonathan survived. Knowing that Mina was waiting for him helped him fight his way through those dangers.”

“How touching,” Vlad says, bored. “He is a minor problem, easily eliminated. I think Iwillwait, however, with regard to the doctor. He knows too much, but he interests me quite a bit. Yes, I’m curious to see what else he can do, this irritating little man from the Orient.”

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