Page 91 of Now Comes the Mist

Quincey turns off the safety on his guns with a deafening click. His hands tremble only slightly. “Let her go or so help me God, I will put ten bullets straight into your head.” Days ago, he had given me a bullet for protection. Now, he will give me another … for the opposite reason.

I release the child, who runs to Mina. Mina wraps her cloak around her as Arthur,myArthur, steps in front of them protectively, his gaze on me horror-struck. I try to move toward them, my heart aching, but Quincey speaks again.

“Stay where you are or I will blow your head clean off, as sure as I live,” he says.

I choke back a sob and go still, frozen on my knees before them like a penitent.

“So you see, Jack,” Dr. Van Helsing says calmly, as though continuing a conversation, “I was right. The creature in Lucy’s room infected her with a dreadful malady that can only be sated by the drinking of blood. We have now seen her crimes firsthand and—”

“Respectfully, now isn’t a good time for a lecture.” Quincey advances with his guns drawn. I see a tremor in his jaw, but there is also an utterly detached coolness in his posture, that of the seasoned hunter. And for the first time, I know what it is to be his enemy … or his prey.

Silence follows his words. And then Quincey shoots.

“No!” Arthur and Mina scream as two bullets blast through the air, directed at my heart.

But I am too quick for him. I heard his heart pick up, smelled his blood accelerate, and felt the air move before his fingers even squeezed the triggers. In an instant, I am floating high above them in the mist, missing the bullets by mere fractions of a second.

Mina screams at the sight of me hanging aloft in the air, my wedding dress shredded and my black hair billowing, as Quincey shoots me again. One of the bullets catches my gown just inches to the right of my leg as I command the mist to carry me to safety.

“Quincey, stop!” Arthur shouts.

“Please,” I beg, now floating behind them. They whirl in shock and terror. “Please, Quincey, for the love you once bore me, do not shoot anymore. Let me speak.”

“Love!” Quincey bellows, veins bulging in his neck. “You dare to think that I ever lovedyou! That love was for an innocent young woman with a pure and spotless soul. You arenothinglike her!” His words strike at the very core of my being, and my grief must show upon my face, for Jack lowers his wooden cross slightly, looking uncertain.

“Lower your guns, Mr. Morris,” Dr. Van Helsing says. “You are wasting your bullets.”

Arthur moves to stand between Quincey and me. His fists are clenched at his sides. “Stop shooting at her,” he chokes out. “Let us hear what she has to say.”

“Don’t let her trick you, Arthur,” the cowboy warns him. “That is not your Lucy, but a demon fooling you into trusting her with that voice. She would have killed that little girl if we hadn’t been here. Oh, God, God, that face,” he adds with a frightened gasp as I slowly lower myself to stand before them. “She is more beautiful than ever. The devilry.”

“I am not trying to trick anyone,” I plead, holding my hands before me.

Mina buries her face in the child’s hair, weeping, and Arthur’s body convulses with silent sobs at the sight of me. I smell his desire and longing, tinged with his familiar scent of pine, and it is almost my undoing. I want to be in his arms as much as he yearns to be in mine.

But I remain motionless because Quincey’s pistols are still pointed at me and I do not wish to discover whether or not a bullet can destroy me. For a long moment, no one speaks, and so I say into the silence, “Please. What is today’s date?”

Dr. Van Helsing and Jack exchange glances.

“What could a creature like you want to know of days and months?” Quincey asks, trying hard to keep the steel and the anger in his voice. But the guns quiver in his hands, and his dark brown eyes on me are wet. “What can they matter to you?”

“Don’t speak to her like that!” Arthur snaps. He turns to look at me, his face pale in the dim light. “It is the twenty-seventh of September, the eve of your birthday. And … and our …”

I feel a pang in my cold, unbeating heart. “Our wedding day.”

“You told me you would come back,” he whispers, shaking his head. “But I didn’t believe you. I thought you were just trying to comfort me, and I woke to find you not breathing. I watched them nail your coffin shut. How … how can you still be alive, Lucy?”

“I am not alive,” I say, and Mina utters a muffled half gasp, half sob. “Not anymore. Dr. Van Helsing is right. I was infected, and my blood has been poisoned by a—” A sudden excruciating pain racks my entire body. I close my eyes, dizzy and weak, but I recover in an instant to see them all watching me apprehensively. I try again. “When I was in Whitby, I met—”

“What is happening to her?” Mina demands, her voice shrill as I am cut off by another terrible wave of burning pain that sears through my muscles. I lean against a gravestone, shaking. This is how I had imagined the sun would feel on my skin now, hot and fierce and sharp.

“You willneverexpose me. You willneverspeak of me to anyone,” Vlad had said, like an incantation sinking into my bones. Like a spell.

Again, the sensation passes quickly, as though rewarding my silence. I swallow hard and look at Dr. Van Helsing. “You came to see me because of this,” I say, choosing my words with the utmost care as I touch my throat, now perfect and unblemished beneath the high neck of my gown. “It happened to me multiple times.”

“You were bitten,” Dr. Van Helsing says. “Attacked. It happened first in Whitby.”

I nod. “Not by a dog, but by …” I trail off, already frightened of the pain that will come should I attempt to tell the truth again. “After the third time, I began to die. And I would have truly died had I not arisen before sunrise to drink blood myself. I found a man nearby, and I wasso hungry, I couldn’t stop myself. I—” My voice breaks, and I am unable to continue.

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