Page 95 of Now Comes the Mist

Perhaps this existence will not be as I had hoped. Perhaps it will come with a whole host of considerations that I, in my human selfishness, had not understood. But there may be flashes of joy like this, small and simple. I may learn, in that castle far away, to live with intention, to only satisfy myself with human food and animal blood, and to avoid doing more harm. And I may still be a daughter worthy of my parents’ love and pride.

But no sooner have these hopes entered my mind than I smell it.

The fragrance stokes my hunger a thousand times more than the garlic did.

My eyes fly open, and I see a man. He is short and round, nondescript, perhaps Southeast Asian as I myself am. He has a scar on his chin and weary eyes, but when he smiles at the elderly couple as he purchases three dumplings, his face is kind. And his blood, hisblood, with notes of smoky garlic, sun-ripened fruit, and clean cinnamon—an odd but utterly enchanting blend. I hold my breath, trying not to breathe in any more of the scent, but doing so only intensifies it.

I have not fed on human blood indays, and standing this close to the most indescribably perfect blood I have ever scented, I find it difficult to resist. No, not difficult.Impossible.

Papa’s laugh. Mamma’s smile. My conviction to lead a life of which I can be proud.

All of it vanishes in an instant, dissolving under the furious hunger that shoots sparks of need through my body.I will not kill, I tell myself, cajoling and persuasive.I will taste him and then leave him be. I will try harder to stop drinking this time.I have successfully abstained from human blood for days, after all. Do I not deserve a reward?

The man’s eyes widen as I approach, and I see my reflection clearly in the dark pools of his pupils. In these few days of wandering, I had appeared to humans only as a foreign young man, threadbare and bedraggled. But now, my growing hunger transforms my skin and eyes, making them glow, and enhances my beauty in sharp contrast to my simple attire. My demonic infection has recognized its next victim, and it is doing everything it can to lure him in.

He asks a question in a language I do not know, hushed and awed. But when I move into the shadow of a building, he follows without hesitation, leaving the light and noise of the food stand and the small crowd that has begun to gather to buy dumplings.

I will take just a little blood, I think as my appetite roars.And then I will stop myself.

Tongues of mist materialize and wrap themselves around us, and people pass by us without a second glance. The man’s eyes are now half-closed and the plate teeters in his hand. His breathing does not change as I take the food from him and set it on a doorstep.

What happens next is a blur.

One moment, I am looking at this man whose blood smells like a heavenly elixir. And the next, his body is crumpled at my feet with two little red holes in his neck, utterly empty of breath, of blood, of life. His blank eyes stare up at me sightlessly. The dead weight of his arm slides off his chest, and on his limp hand I see a wedding band of cheap metal. I collapse onto the doorstep, shaking. How can this have happened so quickly? I told myself I would stop. I barely remember my fangs snapping down … and now I have killed again. I have murdered someone’s husband. Someone’s son, or friend, or brother, or even father. I have robbed another person of blood they never owed me, and I have deprived another family of their loved one.

“I meant to stop,” I whisper. “I meant to—”

“Lucy.” Vlad’s voice is so clear that I startle and look around, expecting to see his menacing shape, but he is not there. He is only in my mind. “Remember what you promised me.”

Something in my body takes over. I lift the mist and wrap it around the dead man, as Vlad had done to the woman I killed. As soon as the man is on his feet, with his blank and unseeing eyes still open, he begins to stumble mindlessly through the thickening fog, swept away into the world of the mist, never to be found again. I watch him stagger toward the docks of dirty, ramshackle boats, my gut clenched with self-loathing. And then I am moving away, flying.

In the mist, I hurry through the dark streets of London, unseen by anyone I pass. Only animals lift their heads, tense and sniffing. I drift along lanes and alleys until I am in the churchyard again. In the Westenra mausoleum, I stand staring at the tomb that bears my name. And I know, IknowI deserve Arthur’s and Mina’s rejection and Quincey’s hatred and Dr. Van Helsing’s determination to kill me. If a looking glass were here, I would see my true self: a demon, a beast of the shadows, my skin swirling with the evidence of what I have stolen.

I gave up my soul to embrace this curse with hungry arms, and all that awaits me now is an eternity of damnation and disgust, overwhelming hunger and deep-rooted loneliness. Vlad does not care what becomes of me, Mina and Arthur believe that I am better off dead, and I have lost Mamma and Papa forever. There is no one to love or help me, not anymore.

I descend into the candlelit crypt and my eyes fall upon a wooden hairbrush among my new belongings. I contemplate breaking it andburying the sharp point into my heart, freeing the world of the mistake of me. Buttruedeath would not erase what I have done. The stain of my deeds is already spreading like poisonous ink. What have I committed to? What have I chosen?

If I go on this way, I will destroy everything I touch and harm everyone I love. There is nothing for me now but to hide myself away from the world, for I do not deserve anything or anyone in it. And one day, when I have retired long enough for penance, I will find the strength to stake my own heart. I will find the courage to die.

Fury and grief and self-hatred war within me. I smash boxes of jewels and shoes, shatter bottles of scent, kick holes into the chest of money, tear up gowns and hats and veils and fling them into the far corners of the crypt. None of it matters anymore. None of it means anything. It is all nothing, just like me. My heel connects with a trunk, and I kick it viciously, sending it flying into the pile of travel documents. An envelope slips out from between the papers, and I seize it in a blind rage, preparing to rip it into a million pieces. I cannot take another cold and commanding letter from the man who had fooled me into thinking he cared, who tricked me and withheld information from me, and who had the gall to shame me for trusting him.

But I freeze when I see the handwriting, small and neat and perfect, on the thick cream-colored envelope. A governess’s elegant and practiced hand.

For Lucy, Mina has written. And on the back, in tiny letters beneath the unbroken seal, she has added, as though not for my eyes:Will you please see that she gets it?

Who was she addressing? Vlad? Only he could have placed it here for me.

I stare down at the envelope for a long and breathless moment as that feeling of surreality returns. Surely, I am sleepwalking. I am lost in the mist and wandering in my dreams again, for Mina would never write to me now, not when she fears and hates me.

Mystified, scarcely daring to hope, I sink to my knees and tear the envelope open to find a thick sheaf of paper, all the pages filled on both sides in Mina’s impeccable hand.

My cherished Lucy,

I write this on the 30th of September, two days after Arthur, Mr. Morris, the doctors, and I saw you. My heart had shattered upon receiving news ofyour death, and never did I imagine that I would see you again. No matter how my soul rails against it, I cannot stifle the joy that came from hearing your voice once more. It soothes my fear and horror at the choice you have made.

I wish I had been the friend you deserved, for then you might have felt that you could talk to me before making this decision all alone. You looked so sad that night, Lucy. Mr. Morris may have seen you as evil and seductive—at first, at least—but I saw your loneliness and despair. I want you to know that you will always have my love and friendship. That would not have changed with your natural death, and it has not changed now, with your … I hardly know what word to use. Your new state of being, I suppose.

That night, we saw you retreat into the mausoleum, and Dr. Van Helsing was ready to follow. He told us that piercing you through the heart with a stake of wood and cutting off your head would save your soul and send you to Heaven, where you truly belong. At this, your poor Arthur, always so quiet and mild, actually tried to attack him and had to be held back by the other men. He loves you still, Lucy, so much that I weep to think of it. Dr. Van Helsing and the others relented and agreed to go home after they had taken the little girl back to her family.