Page 77 of Now Comes the Mist

“His name is Dr. Van Helsing,” I bite out.

“Yes, him.”

I take him in, this man who is a stranger and yet not a stranger. Tonight, there is no affection or kindness in his manner. His eyes are the North Sea, cold and unyielding, and he will destroy anyone he considers to be “a minor problem” without mercy or a second thought. Jonathan Harker, who knows who and what he is and where he lives. Dr. Van Helsing, who is unearthing the truth about him bit by bit. And me. What of me? “You will not hurt them, Vlad. Any of them,” I say. He ignores me, so I lean forward and touch his cold hand. He looks at me, his face impassive. “You are lying to yourself. You talk of people like pawns in your game, and perhaps they are, butIam not. What I have been to you and what you have been to me … on the cliffs, in the mist … all of it is much more than you will admit to yourself.”

“You think you know my own mind better than I do?” His quiet tone is laced with an undercurrent of malice. “You think after five hundred years that I don’t know myself?”

“I think that in five hundred years of loneliness, you have never met anyone like me. You became angry when I said we were equals. I struck a nerve because you are afraid of me and what I have come to mean to you.” I tighten my fingers on his hand. “I don’t believe for one moment that you left me to die. You knew I would have help, but you also knew that I am like you. A fighter. A survivor. Someone who surrenders easily to no opponent, least of all death.”

Vlad turns to face me more fully, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. I have surprised him. Or impressed him. Or angered him. Likely all three.

“We are kindred souls, you and I, and it frightens you,” I say quietly. “That is why you will not make me a vampire, though you took my blood and my virtue.”

His voice is low and soft, coiled like an adder. “I took nothing from you. What you gave me, you gave of your own free will. Do not blame me. You alone are responsible, you who are so fond of making your own choices. I told you that my existence is a curse, yet you refused to listen. I bit you with violence that first time as a kindness—”

My laugh is full of derision and disbelief. “You call what you did to me akindness?”

Vlad’s face changes, like a mask slipping, and I press back against the headboard. It is like looking into an abyss, cold, dark, and utterly without pity. Sharp pinpricks of pain blossom at my temples. I gasp at the invasion of my thoughts and clutch my head, berating myself for not being on my guard. “You blame me for distressing your friends and sickening your mother with the prospect of your death. I can see it in here,” he says, tapping an icy fingertip against my forehead. “But the fault is yours alone. Twice have you manipulated me into biting you, wanton and disgraceful as you are. You forced my hand and now you play the innocent victim?”

“I forced nothing!”

“You are no lady, Lucy Westenra. You disgust me. No upstanding, well-bred young woman of good society would eventhinkof doing what you have done. You have overstepped, my dear. You have reached too high.” He regards me, his expression cool and smug like that of a judge delivering a well-deserved punishment. “But perhaps Arthur will still have you. He seems noble enough to accept damaged goods. He may not reject a glass of champagne that bears the marks of another man’s lips. I will leave you all to him now.”

I hate myself for crying at his cruel words, but I cannot stop my quiet, hopeless sobs as Vlad gets up and walks over to the door. “Where are you going?” I demand. “You have made me yours. You cannot leave me like this. You have soiled and dirtied me!”

“Goodbye, Lucy,” he says pleasantly. “Enjoy your married life. I am sorry I cannot attend the wedding. Perhaps we will see each other again … or perhaps not.”

I get up and follow him with rising desperation, still weak and unsteady on my feet. He cannot be let loose in this house, not with Mamma and the others sleeping and helpless. And he cannot leave me, not when I have been thoroughly poisoned with his venom twice, brought to the brink of dying twice, felt my fingertips brush immortality twice. I have given up everything I have to evade death, driven my own mother to illness,betrayed my beloved Arthur, and lied to my friends. I have come this far, and I must not,willnot let my chance slip away.

In the doorway, I seize Vlad’s arm. “Do not leave me. You cannot show me a way out and then take it away from me. I will reveal everything you are.”

He laughs. “And reveal yourself at the same time? The doctor has seen your reflection. He will put two and two together, and they will all know what you have done to yourself. What will Arthur or Mina think then?” He smiles at me. “I did enjoy you, my naïve little Lucy. Thank you. But our affair has run its course, and you have bled me of quite enough of my time.”

You have bled me.

The words are a wind stirring the embers of my mind. That is the answer.Thatwas the memory I had been trying to find in the depths of my illness. “I bite my victim multiple times,” he had told me when we danced at the ball. “And when they are sufficiently infected with my venom, they must drinkmyblood and make their first kill before the next sunrise.”

I must drink Vlad’s blood.

I must complete what I have begun, but I must be cautious or I will lose my chance forever. I must tread into the lair of the great grey wolf one silent step at a time—prey hunting the predator with a rope behind my back, ready to slip over his neck when he least suspects it.

Mina once said that we have to live according to the rules of men, because men own this world. Well, then. If this is a game, then I will play by Vlad’s rules. And I will win.

I tighten my grip on his arm, envisioning once more the shield of silver protecting my mind. I hold it there with sheer force of will and fix my eyes upon his face. “You are right,” I say, humble and appealing. “I am to blame, and not you. You warned me, and I refused to listen.”

Vlad’s brows come together as he studies me.

“You were kind to me. You made me feel understood. I think perhaps you are the only person to have ever seen me.” My voice quivers with genuine emotion and I am glad of it, for the most convincing lies are the ones threaded with truth. I put my arms around him and look up into his face. “You once called me your friend. And so I ask you, Ientreatyou, as a mark of that favor of which you once thought me worthy, to please release me. End my misery and suffering. I do not want to live on, unwanted by you and too stained for Arthur. Free me from the guilt ofwhat I have done and let me die without further blemishing my soul. It is my final request, Vlad.”

A thousand needles dig into my scalp, probing at the tender skin, coaxing it to yield my innermost thoughts. But I am too angry, too determined. Papa used to say that I am as stubborn as a storm—that once begun, I am all thunder and lightning, wind and rain, and the sun will not show its face until I am done. Vlad does not know he is standing in the arms of a hurricane.

“How are you doing that?” he demands, the line between his brows deepening. He takes my chin roughly in his hand as though he can rip my thoughts from me by brute force.

The pinpricks in my head strengthen, but so, too, do my efforts to keep him out. “You are right to doubt me,” I say, my voice strained. I can feel my energy sapping, still low from my illness. “But I am ready to accept the consequences of my choice. I wish to die.” The words burn my throat like acid, but I remind myself that this is only a game. A part I have to play.

Vlad’s gaze sharpens. “Then you admit that you deserve to be punished?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I tricked you into biting me. I forced you to take what rightfully belongs to Arthur. He thinks I am an angel. If you give me a merciful, dignified death, then perhaps I can leave him still thinking well of me.” I let go of him and slowly back up until I reach my bed. “Bite me one last time. Drain me completely of this poison. Take it all. Take me.”

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