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Authors: Barbara Hambly

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Watch yourself, traitor, if you betray me now, Wotan had said to Loki, in the shivering music of
Das Rheingold. I, of all the gods your only friend …

Wotan, too, dreamed. In his dreams the Traveler God could hear and see, through those others whom
his mind had touched. His thoughts spread like poisoned mist through the air, making nothing of distance.
Wotan would know what Renfield said, if he shrieked to the guards what he knew, what he saw during
his daytime visions. Wotan would hear, and would not forgive.

I do not want to see the kill!

***

That first day in the straps he saw the girls in the train-station. Pretty Lucy looked much better, with a
trace of rosiness return-ing to her delicate cheeks, and she hugged her dark-haired friend like a sister.
“You have your tickets?”

“Exactly where they were when you asked five minutes ago.” Mina patted her handbag, and Lucy

laughed. “You’re in danger of forgetting that I’m the schoolmistress, you’re the giddy young who goes
to parties and is going to be the daughter-in-law of Lord Godalming by the time I get back.”

“Darling!” Lucy giggled, her rosiness deepening, and the older woman who accompanied the girls-she
had Lucy’s blue eyes, Renfield thought, and Lucy’s flawless complexion-folded her gloved hands and
smiled.

But her smile was wan. There was a haunted shadow in the back of those blue eyes, transforming what
had been the cold face of a lady of Society-a lady who reminded Renfield alarmingly of his sister-in-law
Georgina, Lady Clayburne-into a mask of exhaustion and deepest tragedy. She watched the girls w if it
were she, not the dark-haired Mina, who was about to depart, with a hungry longing and a terrible
regret. Her face was both puffy and sunken, with a waxy cast to it that Renfield knew well from long
acquaintance with his countrymen in In-dia’s unhealthy clime.

She has had her death-warrant, he thought, his heart aching suddenly for her as he never thought it
could have, not for that species of woman. She knows it, and her daughter does not.

“And this Sister Agatha didn’t say what had happened to Jonathan?” Lucy was asking. “Other than that
he had brain-fever?”

“It was all she said.” Mina reached into the pocket of her jacket-sensible brown linen and, like all her
other clothing, a little worn, a few years out of fashion-and drew out a much–folded square of yellow
paper. “Only that he rushed into the train-station at Klausenberg shouting for a ticket for home.
Klausenberg seems to be the central market-town of the Car-pathian plateau, if the atlas is correct and if
Klausenberg is the same as Cluj. There seems to be only one train per day there from Vienna, at
nine-fifteen in the morning. Since the night-train from Munich arrives at just before seven, that should give
me plenty of time-“

“You and your railway timetables!” laughed Lucy’s mother, her weariness dissolving into genuine
pleasure at the dark girl’s company, and Lucy hugged her friend again impulsively.

“Oh, darling, you’re so brave! Going out like this to the ends of the world! Not even knowing the
language!”

He is watching her, thought Renfield, aware of Wotan’s mind, Wotan’s shadow-aware of those red
eyes gleaming, like a rat’s eyes, in the shadows of that cheerful provincial train-station. Watching her
and waiting for her … and smiling. Smiling like a damned leering devil in the dark of his coffin.

NO!!!

Renfield tried to twist his mind away as he became aware of that grinning, ironic, ancient thought
watching him, too. Enjoy-ing his pity for the sad-faced mother in her stylish walking-dress, deriving
wicked amusement from his fears for that too-fragile, too-pale fair-haired girl. Renfield tried to dream
something else, tried to think of something else: great pools and smears of trea-cle, spread aII over the
floor of his cell, and huge black horseflies roaring through the window to become mired in them, waiting
smilingly for his hand.

Not the sparse and aenemic insects of England at all, but the meaty gargantuan fauna of India. White
ants swarming forth from wood like trails of animate milk, rice-beetles that would blunder and blunder at
the same wall without the wits to go around. Those were insects indeed!

He tried to force himself to see them, to force himself to see the yellow buildings of Calcutta, the

market-places aswarm with brown half-naked farmers, with Brahmins in their golden robes und shy-eyed
farm-girls and great white cows making their way through the dung and the dirt and the crowds. Tried to
will himself back to that place, where life dripped with the scents of clar-ified butter and spices and the
painted idols stared out from every street-corner and door.

But it was as if he moved his eyes and the vision dissolved And he was back in that cool neat
train-platform in England, with the smell of the green fields in his nostrils and the taste of the salt sea
near-by, and Mina clasping the older woman’s hands saying, “There’s no way I can ever repay your
kindness in buy-ing me my tickets, Mrs. Westenra, and giving me money for the journey. But believe me,
I shall pay you back.”

A smile twitched the wrinkled gray lips and Mrs. Westenra laid a loving hand on Mina’s cheek. “My
dear child, do you imagine it’s money out of my pocket? By the time you come back, Lucy will be the
daughter-in-law of Lord Godalming, and I shall have gotten the money out of her lord.”

They all laughed merrily at that, as the conductor began to drone his call for travelers to board; in the
shadows at the back of the platform, Renfield could see the cloaked shadow of the Traveler, red eyes
glinting, white teeth glinting as he smiled.

No!

“We’ll take your trunk down to London the day after to-morrow. You must bring Jonathan to
Hillingham the very mo-ment he’s well enough to travel. Darling . . .”

“Darling!”

The girls embraced on the steps of the train, the bright silks and laces of the one like the most fragile of
flowers against the earthy brown linen of the other. Somewhere in his mind Renfield felt the gloating
greed, the amused pleasure, of the watching Traveler and he began to thrash in his dreaming, to scream,
Let her alone! Let her alone, you devil!

He knew the girls would never meet again.

The roaring of flies filled his mind, the taste of them in his mouth. A thousand flies, a million, all mired in
those sweet pools of treacle and all smiling up at him with Lucy Westenra’s face.

***

He is hunting her. He is waiting for her to come.

In those cool hours of release while the moon flooded Rush-brook’s lawns with wan silver, Renfield
tried to tell himself that he knew nothing of the girl Lucy. She might be stuck-up and cruel, as calculating
as her mother. She was, after all, about to marry a lord, and that sort of thing surely didn’t happen by
ac-cident. But this he could not believe. During the course of his second day of laudanum-induced
visions, of the gloating, grin-ning presence of the Traveler in his mind, he glimpsed Lucy and her mother in
the rock-walled garden of what seemed to be a small summer cottage, having tea with a golden young
Apollo in Bond Street tailoring. Saw with what exquisite care and tact the girl dealt with her mother,
fetching and carrying for her and laughingly denying that she did so out of worry.

“Nonsense, darling. Arthur told me he liked helpful women and I’m trying very hard to impress him!”
When she passed his chair, young Arthur’s gray-gloved hand sought hers. The look that passed between
his blue eyes and hers tore Renfield’s heart.

***

Such prey is the source of his strength, he thought, lying the next night on the thick canvas
flooring of his cell, the reek of ancient filth and decades of carbolic rising dimly through it from the matted
coir beneath. Without her death, there would be no life in his hands, to give out to
those who serve him.

Renfield pressed his face to the padded floor and wept. He wanted Catherine desperately, wanted only
to see her smile again, to hear her voice. Where Life flows, Loki had sung-Wagner’s music had
sung-in Water, Earth, and Air … What could a man find, mightier than the wonder o f
a woman’s worth? … In Water, Earth, and Air; the only Will is for love.

How long had it been since her laughter had bubbled in his cars, sweet as spring rainfall? He could not
even recall. Now it was only with terror that he thought of her at all, fearing that even in these dark hours,
while Wotan’s mind was elsewhere, Wotan would somehow learn of her, somehow know where she and
Vixie were hidden.

Fearing that he would find them, as he would find Lucy no matter where she went.

Renfield hugged himself, as if he could crush his bulky sixteen-stone-plus into a ball the size of an apple,
the size of an apple-seed … too small to be found by those all-seeing crimson eyes. Hurting for comfort,
he called to mind-just once, like a quick glance at a photograph hastily stowed in hiding again,-
Catherine’s face as last he had seen it, asleep and so peaceful, with her long dark lashes veiling those
pansy-blue eyes and her wd hair unraveled over the pillow.

Beautiful Catherine. Beautiful Vixie, as delicate as Lucy but ~,vith Miss Mina’s exquisite darkness,
laughing over some passage in her Latin lesson or holding out her finger in breathless wonder as a yellow
butterfly floated in from the garden, landed on it with tiny pricking feet.

Just let me be with them again, Renfield whispered to the God whom he knew Wotan would
never allow him to peti-tion. I know my sins are many ,, my offenses rank in your sight, but please,
please, let me finish my task here, and return to their side.

Day was coming. They would strap him up again, pour lau-danum down his throat. He felt the
Traveler’s mind, as the thing he knew as Wotan drew near to his lair in the rotting chapel at Carfax again,
seeking the bed of earth upon which he must sleep. Why earth? he wondered. Why that particular
earth, which he’d brought in such quantity upon the haunted ship? He wanted to ask, but dared not.
He was there only to serve, only to do the bidding of the Master who, for all his terror, was his best and
only hope.

***

Seward had left the door of the padded room unlocked through most of the night-Renfield heard them
whisper about it in the corridor. But beyond a flicker of contempt for such an obvious attempt at trapping
him, he felt no interest in the matter. The Traveler was abroad in the night; of what use was it to knock
upon the door of his empty house? And Renfield was weary, weary unto death, and hungry with a hunger
that he knew could never be filled. No fly, no spider, not the smallest ant crept into the dreary canvas
confines of the padded cell. Only, if he lis-tened, deep beneath the matting he could hear the rustle of tiny
creeping beetles, of crawling fleas.

And they did him no good at all.

Catherine, my darling, he thought as he felt the Traveler’s mind begin sinking into its day-sleep, begin
to burn like creeping fire at the edges of his own, dream of me now, between your sleep and your
waking. Remember that I love you.

He heard the key turn in the lock.

Not many minutes after that he began to scream.

***

Letter, Dr. Patrick Hennessey, M.D., M.R.C.S., L.K.Q.C., P.I., etc., Rushbrook House,
to Georgina, Lady Clayburne

22 August

Received your check. Many thanks.

I searched through Seward’s correspondence again this week and found no attempt on the part of
Catherine Renfield to get in much with either her husband or Seward. Nor was there any letter in a hand
that matched the sample you sent to me. I will con-tinue to observe.

R.M.R. has been under heavy restraint for two days, after an escape attempt on the 19th, and violent
much of that time. So far as any of the attendants has heard, he has not uttered your sister’s name, nor
given any clue as to her whereabouts or those of your niece.

I will require another 10 s. per week, if I am to continue to collect information from the attendants.

I remain, dear Madame,

Your humble etc.

CHAPTER NINE

Letter, the Honorable Arthur Holmwood to Lord Godalming

22 August

Dearest Father,

Please forgive my delay in coming up to Ring. I promised to escort Miss Westenra and her mother
down to London, and if you could see the uncertain state of Mrs. Westenra’s health, I am sure you would
agree with my course-nay, command me to it. I hope your own health is improved?

I cannot wait for you to make Miss Westenra’s acquaintance. You will pronounce her-in Uncle Harry’s
words-“sound as a roast.” (One inevitably wonders what sort of roast he has in mind?) The two days I
have spent in Whitby with her, walking up to the Abbey on its overhanging cliffs, or rowing on the Esk,
have been among the happiest of my life, for she seems to carry sunlight about with her. Her mother is a
bit of a Tartar-I kept expecting her to tell me, a la Aunt Maude, that gentlemen do not

wear double-breasted waistcoats-but good-hearted underneath. f think she fears to let Lucy go, for
with her own failing health ,he has come to rely on her in a thousand ways.

By the by, the Westenras are not, as Aunt Maude would have at, “nobodies.” Sir Clive Westenra left
Lucy £1100 a year upon her marriage, a quite respectable sum-to anyone but Aunt Maude! Their
villa-Hillingham-lies near Primrose Hill, a very quiet, countrified place, surrounded by the sort of
old-fashioned garden that makes one think one is deep in the country indeed. I installed the two ladies
there this afternoon, and spent a peace-ful hour listening to Lucy play the piano. I kept thinking how her
fingers would sound on the keys of your harpsicord at Ring, and hoping some day soon to hear the two
of you talk about Music together. (Her favorite is Brahms.)

Tomorrow I have promised to take both ladies out on the Thames in the Guenivere, for it’s been far
too long since I’ve had a tiller in my hands. I only wish you could be along as well, to wave at the little
sailing-craft as we steam grandly past!

BOOK: Slave Of Dracula
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