Page 86 of Now Comes the Mist

A thin stream slips into the mausoleum at once, wrapping itself around my waist like rope. I begin to float and then, impossibly, I am driftingthroughthe crack between the doors as though my body has transformedinto vapor. In seconds, I am standing before the bench where I willingly gave Vlad my innocence.

An involuntary smile of glee creeps onto my face. This existence may be a curse, but it has also given me indescribable and untold power. No granite tomb or locked door can keep me out now. The world is open to me, laid bare for the taking, and I will hold it cupped in the palm of my hand like a firefly, to nurture or destroy at my will.

But just as quickly, my glee fades. I am ravenous again, and there is only one answer to the question of my unholy hunger.I will not harm anyone, I think, clenching my jaw. Somehow, I will resist temptation tonight. I will make do with animal blood, as thin and unsatisfying as it may be. Blood is blood, and I refuse to commit another murder. Arthur still loves and wants me, and I will not do anything that is unworthy of him. It strikes me then that perhaps I do not need to take a life. Perhaps I can drink only a little, just enough to satiate me without snuffing out another existence. After all, Vlad had bittenmetwice and had sickened, not killed me, and he had told me about biting Jonathan Harker multiple times. I press my clasped hands to my stomach, against the tiny kernel of hope nestling in the maw of the starving monster there.

“Lucy, come here.”

I tense at the sound of Vlad’s voice. But the churchyard is empty.

“I said, come here.”

My legs begin to move of their own accord. My feet in their white slippers take steps I do not tell them to take. The mist slips from my waist and curls ahead of me like a finger beckoning, leading me out of the churchyard. Something is compelling me onward when I do not even know my destination. I grab hold of a lamppost on the dark and empty street, trying to stop my legs. But my body is no longer my own, and my hands loosen and let go as I continue to walk.

“You cannot fight me,” Vlad says calmly. “My word is your command.”

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, frustrated and afraid, as my body moves like a marionette controlled by his invisible hands. “Tell me and I will come of my own free will.”

“Ah, but I know you too well,” he says with a smile in his voice. “And I will not take any chances. Do hurry, won’t you? We don’t have all night.”

The mist lifts me off the ground. My long shredded bridal skirt flutters as I fly through the fog, past closed businesses and silent houses full of sleeping people. In the shadows of the night, I pass half a dozen tiny figures, shoulder to shoulder in the fog, their arms outstretchedto me. “Not again,” I gasp. “Not more children. Vlad, get me away from them.”

“We cannot help who we attract. I, beautiful young women, and you, motherless urchins,” Vlad says, laughing, but the mist begins to pull me faster, dragging me out of sight.

I end up in front of an ornate black iron gate. The red brick home it surrounds is elegant and luxurious, with large windows and a pair of white marble lions on the doorstep. Through the open door, I hear the sounds of a party: people laughing and chattering, glasses clinking, and a piano playing a joyful melody. The mist pushes me inside. I follow the noise and the warm glow of light to an enormous ballroom filled with candles and walls covered in oil paintings.

There are people everywhere, all in various states of undress.

A fat man wearing only a linen shirt chases after three naked, dark-skinned women, his buttocks quivering with mirth and exertion. A brocade divan groans under the weight of revelers experimenting with an array of substances. One man sniffs a handful of sparkling grey powder into his nostril, while the woman at his feet drains a glass of poisonous green liquid before going limp, her long black curls fanning out over his lap. Across the room, a rowdy game of blind man’s bluff is taking place: a blindfolded woman stumbles about, her breasts bouncing as she attempts to catch one of the giggling, caramel-skinned girls circling her. Everywhere are sofas, chairs, and even beds occupied by people drinking and carousing, mouths bobbing between legs, hands stroking unclothed limbs, skin and hair of ebony or mahogany or copper gleaming.

But I find none of it appealing. All the people have unfocused eyes, vacant smiles, and a looseness to the sway of their heads. I shiver, watching a girl with deep-olive skin being tugged between two grinning men, their arousal evident as she staggers back and forth, eyes half-closed.

In the center of the room is a long dining table packed with food and wine, the china and crystal glittering in the candlelight. The people seated there seem even more somnolent; several of them have fallen forward onto their plates, their eyes closed, and one man with thick jet-black hair is drooling onto his own shoulder, his lids flickering open every now and then.

At the head of this table is Vlad in crimson velvet, his skin so white that it almost glows in comparison to that of the two beautiful, full-figured girls enthroned upon his lap. His long pale hands are like spiders creeping over the earth of their umber skin, seeking a place to burrowand invade. One girl kisses his neck while the other nestles against him, pressing her head of long, tight black curls into his chest, but he pays them no mind. It is clear he has been watching me since the moment I stepped into the room.

“Hello, Lucy,” he says, his low, rich voice cutting through the noise of the party. His eyes are black pools and his fangs glisten in the light. He has been feeding, and feeding well, for every neck at the dining table is wet with blood. “How kind of you to come.”

“Did I have a choice?” I ask sourly.

“Well, no. But only because this party is for you and I wanted to make certain you would attend.” Vlad gestures to an enormous, multitiered confection of a white cake, dripping with pale sugar icing like lace. “I knew you would be dressed for this special occasion.”

I glance down at my high-necked, long-sleeved gown, pristine but for the shredded skirts, rows of seed pearls still hanging on for dear life. “What do you mean, this party is for me?”

“It’s our wedding, of course. Yours and mine.”

“I amnotmarrying you,” I say flatly.

“You already have. You became my newest bride the moment you stole my blood, and now you must honor and obey me as your husband.” Vlad bares his fangs in a garish smile. He shoves the girls onto the floor, where they lie still, and pats his vacant lap. “Come here, wife.”

“I amnotyour—” I begin, but I feel my body jerk into motion again as though his deep, magnetic voice is a rope tied to each of my limbs. I grab on to anything I can—the back of a sofa, the edge of a table, even a dazed partygoer’s arm—and almost fall in my effort to fight him. But it is like trying to stand in the ocean as the waves pull and the sand shifts beneath me.

Vlad sighs. His eyes are lightening to their customary blue-green. “Why do you have to make everything so difficult? You should know by now that it is easier not to struggle.”

“Andyoushould know by now that I always will.” I gasp as my body flies toward him and lands sideways in his lap. My arms lock around his neck as he kisses my cheek and hugs me close, burying his face in my hair. “Let go of me, Vlad.”

He ignores me, touching my crown of white gardenias. “You smell lovely for someone who just came out of a tomb. I like these. Pale flowers become you … and so does death. How was your first feeding? Have you had a chance to weep and wail over it yet?” He laughs.

I grit my teeth. Sitting this close to him reminds me of the night we played our harp duet, when I had been entranced by him, when I had foolishly thought he was everything I wanted. If my arms were not fastened around his neck against my will, I believe I would hit him. “You made it clear you had no interest in me any longer. Why have you called to me?”

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