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“Look after Mina,” Sister Agatha had said.
But how could he? She’s bleeding.
Jonathan had been at the convent for nearly a month, completely ignorant to the fact he was dead. He hadn’t been breathing and he hadn’t even noticed. But now he was awake, and he knew Count Dracula was outside. Sister Agatha had said he wasn’t a vampire yet, but he was aware now. And with that awareness sprung up a dormant hunger. It was there and it wanted attention and it wanted it now.
Mina had plastered herself against the wall at the first sign that he was losing control, stake held in a trembling hand, finally realising the danger she was in.
There was something separate, something other lingering in the back of Jonathan’s mind, like another presence. Though Jonathan had never been a particularly strong man, he could easily overpower Mina, he knew that instinctively. He knew with all the certainty of an animal where he would strike her first. An even more devious part of him knew what to say, how to plead with her… to make her cry a little more, tremble a little more…
But he can’t kill Mina, he just can’t.
He doesn’t want to kill anyone, but especially not her. Having only just got her face back, he couldn’t be the one to destroy it.
But his control was weak, holding a monster back by the thinnest of threads. As Sister Agatha had found her faith in the presence of the Devil, Dracula’s return had snuffed out Jonathan’s lingering hope.
Mina’s heartbeat was rattling in his ears, like a maddening drum to accompany the shrieking of the bats and their flapping leathery wings. He didn’t know if her heartbeat was his imagination, but he needed it to stop.
He needed to get away from her. She was poised, threatening to strike at him with no strength - but it was defensive, it would only be reactionary. She wasn’t going to stop him even if he attacked her, either through lack of will or lack of strength. There was certainty in that predatory mindset that he could drink his fill.
However, she was not blocking the door.
Mina had always been the one with the convictions and the strength to stand her ground, but in this situation she didn’t understand. Not what he was feeling, didn’t realise he was at the limit of his control, wrestling with a foreign hunger that he’d never felt before. He needed to be the one who know his limits in this instance.
Neither of them had ever been rich, but they had never wanted for food or water. Jonathan hadn’t known true thirst, not until he had met the Count who had drained him of everything until he was the shrunken and withered thing he was now.
Jonathan glanced at the door Sister Agatha had recently used. It had to be now, or he would attack Mina….
Darting forward, he ran past his fiancée who shrieked, flinching away and inadvertently exposing her neck to him. He slammed the door shut behind him, gasping for air he didn’t need and despairing that despite what the nuns had been housing, they hadn’t put a lock on the door.
“Jonathan!” Mina cried out, looking at him through the open grate in sweaty terror. He could see she was torn between following him and staying where she was. He prayed she stayed well away from him.
Their eyes locked, though for Jonathan it was like he was looking into a butcher’s window. What strip of meat would he have first? Swallowing back the nauseated hunger at the thought, he wondered whether Mina was seeing the man or the monster at that moment.
“Stay there, Mina. Just stay. Please,” he begged, “I can’t be here. I will hurt you.” Every breath of air he didn’t need pushed him closer to the edge. He backed away from the door, glancing around to make sure there was no one around.
He didn’t know where he was going to go, he couldn’t leave the convent because he was out there, but he needed to get away from Mina. And any of the nuns. Anyone with a heartbeat.
Like when he stood on the parapet at Castle Dracula, he knew he needed to get away, to collect his thoughts. Jonathan wasn’t fast; he was thorough. He wasn’t going to run head first into trouble when he could manage it from a distance. He was a solicitor. A solicitor from England at that. He would figure out a plan, but he needed a clear head.
Mina nodded at him, breathing heavily and with trembling hands clutched the stake tighter. She had gathered her resolve. She would let him leave and wouldn’t follow.
Jonathan didn’t look back, couldn’t even bring himself to thank her. The smell of her was lingering in his nose more keenly than it ever had when he was alive, the last traces of her blood still clinging to his dry tongue. He was so hungry, he could strip the flesh of his fingers to get any lingering traces of it.
He curled his fingers into fists to stem the temptation.
There was a commotion in the courtyard, he could hear the low babble, along with the rabbiting heartbeats drumming out the exact words being said. None-the-less, there was no doubt Dracula was here - Jonathan could sense it, recognised the cadence of his voice even if he couldn’t make out the words.
There was something unnatural in that knowledge, a higher level of awareness that shouldn’t exist.
Ducking his head, he tried to remember the way around the convent, but he had never actually walked around it. When he had arrived, he was barely conscious - an incoherent mess.
A drowned man.
So deep in his thoughts, trying so hard to think through the hunger, he didn’t sense the nuns until it was too late.
They rounded the corner at the same time he did.
They jumped backwards in shock (not fear, just surprise – they know about the ‘harmless and polite’ dead man), a small shriek escaping one of them. Jonathan himself let out a startled gasp.
But there were stairs.
The younger nun - a novitiate if Jonathan knew anything about the Catholic church - fell backwards, attempting to catch herself by snatching a handful of her sister’s robe as she went. The material was of poor quality though, and there was a ripping sound as the tore under the rough treatment. Jonathan’s grasp was too slow when he reached out to steady her himself.
The second sister, elderly with a cane, in reaching for her fellow lost her balance. She managed to control her fall, careening into the wall instead of down the stairs, slamming against the plaster and cracking her head against it. She slumped there, stunned with a blank gaze.
Neither the sister’s or Jonathan’s hands managed to grip the young novitiate in time, and she fell down the concrete steps. Jonathan heard every thump and collision as she rolled down. On the last step, her face took the worst of it, a tooth cracking against the corner and shattering, followed by the loud crunch as her nose broke.
Then there was the blood.
Mina had only had a small cut, but this was a fountain. Running down her lips and cheeks as she lay on her back in a daze —
That was it for a moment.
Jonathan’s vision whitened out, as though he had been blinded by the sun. As if his eardrums had ruptured. As if the dead in Dracula’s castle were chasing him again and he was trapped between them and the Count, or if the river was rushing towards him as he fell..
--and suddenly he’s choking on blood.
Jonathan would have loved to pretend for a moment that he was the one who had fallen. His nose was broken and bleeding, and he was trying to clear his throat. But he wasn’t, because he could smell her hair, feel the heat of the underside of her jaw against his temple. The wetness leaking from her broken nose running across his deadened skin where they were in contact.
And he couldn’t stop. How could he stop when he hadn’t had water in so long? He was dying, and the water was flowing into his mouth. It wasn’t stopping, and who was he to waste it? He couldn’t waste it, even if he wanted to.
But it did stop, all too quickly.
The warmth remained, but the consistency thickened, and he was chewing the tough, bloody meat that the Count always served but Jonathan was too polite to say he wanted something else.
He pulled away with a gasp, a vicious lash of conscience that made him wrench his head away even as his jaw locked, tearing away a chunk of meat with him.
His mouth unhinged at the horror of his actions. The flesh fell with a wet warmth into his lap.
He looked down at himself, dazed and not yet alarmed at his hospital gown stained red.
Jonathan couldn’t look to his right, the heat had not left the nun’s body and he could feel her pressed against his thigh where he knelt in a mockery of prayer next to her.
He had … killed a woman. Not only a woman, but a woman of God. Adela. Her name was Adela. The memories were the worst aspect. Thoughts, feelings came rushing at him. Private memories that were hers… and Jonathan now knew them like some cruel, lecherous spectator. She wanted to be a nun all her life. She was named after a saint and she wanted to be a nun. Jonathan may have been Protestant, having little understanding for the need of idolatries and figures that the Catholics had, but they had protected him in a way a Protestant church could not. And through Adela’s memories he could feel God’s love. Or what Adela felt was his love. The convent had a warmth to it, a presence like nothing this earth could have without divine intervention.
This was wrong. Jonathan shook his head blindly, eyes burning. This was so wrong.
He glanced down at the crucifix about her neck, gleaming brightly at him in the candle light. It didn’t burn him. It should. It should burn the eyes out of him for stealing that girl’s life.
They were going to kill him after this, he knew. As they should. They needed to stop him, because he evidently couldn’t stop himself. He was an animal. Worse than an animal. An animal didn’t know what they were doing.
The sister at the top of the stairs let out a low groan. The beast in Jonathan’s stomach lurched again.
He was already standing, he realised dimly…could he stop himself?
Sister Margaret. Sixty-seven, tough as old boots.
Her beady eyes struggled to focus on his approaching form and to his horror, she didn’t scream – didn’t call for help. Margaret wouldn’t. Even Sister Agatha could be somewhat cowed by her when she was in a temper. She had been in favour of finishing Jonathan off. Thought his presence was a sign of the Devil. Wasn’t that fitting? How he wished she would scream, because Jonathan knew he was beyond stopping now. He was in the carriage, but there was someone else driving.
“Stop, Mr Harker!” Sister Margaret barked at him, scowling.
Jonathan already had a foot on the first step, and he recalled the poor woman in the box at Castle Dracula once you’re the count’s friend, all languages are the same. Was this nun speaking English? He knew she wasn’t.
Margaret was terrified. He could smell it. But he still found himself approaching her.
Jonathan knew in that moment, with the heady rush of stolen blood in his veins, in the air, between his teeth that he wasn’t going to be able to not kill her.
But he could make it quick… he thought, in quick compromise. If there is one thing he can do before someone ends this existence of his, it is to not cause additional suffering.
Then he heard him, “One should never rush a nun.” It felt like a reprimand and a threat all in one, and a part of Jonathan felt scolded…shamed. That comment hadn’t been meant for him, but he felt the sting of it all the same.
Jonathan paused on the stairs, wavering. He wanted to tell Sister Margaret to run, but he could see she’d done something to her ankle. Not just now in the fall, but sometime when she was younger.
The knowledge came unbidden, Adela’s memory flooding his senses as she peeled potatoes. Margret telling her the story. She fell in her thirties, broke her ankle badly. They did what they could to set it, but she lived out in the countryside and they hadn’t been able to do it well. She’s walked with a cane ever since.
Good Lord…
This one can’t run, and he can’t stop.
Jonathan defied Dracula once, he will do it again. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t rush the feeding no matter how quickly she bled out… but he cracked her head against the wall first. She didn’t die, but she didn’t feel what was to happen next.
And once they were both finished and all that lingered in the air was the smell of death and congealing blood, Jonathan’s head felt clearer.
Dirty, and defiled. But clear. He could focus outside of the life around him, could hear the nuns heading to the chapel.
He’s missed something during his loss of control. He could hear an animal snarling angrily.
He deserved to die… or do whatever the un-dead need to do to be at peace, but he didn’t know how to do it. Was suicide an option? Not that he could do anything in this moment, the stake was left with Mina.
Jonathan needed to leave. If another sister was to stumble across the scene, he may well kill her too. If Mina came looking for him…
He could feel his nailbeds itch, and he flexed his hands. The sores were gone, even the worst of them had healed into little pink scars that were fading before his eyes.
His scalp was itching terribly, and Jonathan imagined he could feel bristles emerging from his head when he ran a blood-soaked hand over it.
It was Margaret’s memories that told him to take the next door on the left. My sisters won’t come that way. She often walked that path if she needed the quiet. He shouldn’t know that.
It was when he began to walk again, homing in on a certainty that this was the way out that he realised he was not well. He staggered wildly scraping his shoulder against the wall, the bright sparks of candle lights dancing merrily as he looked at them.
He was drunk.
Or maybe he was in shock.
There was a boundless, jittery energy in his limbs that made him dizzy.
The blast of cool air as he left the warmth of the building made him come-to for a moment, sharpening his wits. He was in the courtyard. It was completely empty, eerily silent. He had brief recollection of being carried through here when he first arrived.
The gates were wide open. He could just walk out, never to be seen again. He wouldn’t be able to harm Mina or anyone else here. Once he was outside and away, he could -no, he would - figure out what to do. He hurried to leave.
“Hello, dear one,” a voice interrupted his escape, causing Jonathan to lurch to a stop with one foot outside the gates. If he still had a pulse, it would have been galloping in his chest at that hated voice. How had he forgotten that Dracula was out here?
Jonathan turned slowly, pivoting on his heel with more grace than he thought he could hold, to see the Count at the threshold, the shadows peeling away from him like a curtain. Jonathan’s grace staggered to a halt when he saw that the Count was completely naked and covered in a shining layer of some…substance. He averted his eyes in mortification.
The monster laughed at him. “Honestly, you’re more prudish than the nuns, Johnny.”
Jonathan grit his teeth, grinding elongated teeth against one another to stop an animalistic snarl tearing out of him. That kind of behaviour wasn’t him. He focused on the carcass of a wolf that looked like it had been ripped in two instead. He tried to swallow the fear. He was dead now, what else could happen to him?
He heard the Count’s bare feet slap wetly on the ground as the creature crossed the space between them. Jonathan tried to scatter backwards, but he was not fast enough to avoid the hard hand that snatched his jaw tightly.
“I see you’ve been feeding.” The Count turned Jonathan’s head this way and that to inspect the blood across his face, “Good boy.” He sounded approving – baiting - but Jonathan didn’t want to rise to that goad. Jonathan swallowed wetly, saliva trickling little remnants of blood down the sides of his throat. There was a low sound of amusement, deep in the Count’s throat before he provoked again, “You’re all in white too, a bloody wedding night for the brides of Christ. How fitting.”
Jonathan flinched from that reality and glowered up at the Count, intending to show his disgust. But the man wasn’t looking at Jonathan’s face anymore. He was trailing his eyes over Jonathan’s gown, with its blood-soaked hem, dripping ties, the imprints of Jonathan’s bony knees from when he bent to drink at Adela’s neck… Despite the fact it would leave him naked as a babe without it, Jonathan wanted to shed it and hide the shame of what he had done.
The count’s black eyes looked at him with the curiosity of bird of prey, “You’ve spilt more than you’ve drunk, Johnny.” He tutted, shaking his head at Jonathan. “Oh, to be young and so careless again,” he murmured fondly.
A scream rung out from inside the convent. Evidently the bodies had been found.
“Time’s up, Johnny. You’re…leftovers have been found. One can only imagine the state they’re in—” the Count’s hand suddenly moved, as though to caress Jonathan’s face, but instead he caught a small strip of skin from Jonathan’s chin, corded with a few strands of long brown hair. He smiled at it, before flicking it onto the ground, “—you’re between a rock and a hard place now,” Dracula said, licking his bloody thumb and leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Not a care in the world. “They know what you’ve done. And after they were so kind to you too.” Now he sounded reproving, depravedly amused.
Jonathan could hear the screaming, the yelling. They were searching for him. He should either surrender to them or leave. The Count watched him with alarming intensity, seemingly knowing Jonathan’s plans, “No, no. Johnny. I need you to stay on the inside for me, just a little longer.” He nodded when he saw Johnathan’s feet settle more firmly on the concrete. “There’s a good lad. Once you’re out, they won’t let you back in.” He looked reproachful, like he was the offended party. “They don’t understand. What it’s like to be us.” He leant forward a little, “To be thirsty.”
“There is no us. I am not like you!” Jonathan hissed, but found himself edging to the left, where the Count wasn’t blocking the gates, in a sudden panic. He was still so thirsty and the terror on the inside was making it flare up again.
“But you are, Johnny. Look at yourself,” The Count cajoled, stepping to the side to block Jonathan’s view of freedom. “You’re trembling with it! We were all like this once, but you’re holding it all back so well.” And Jonathan was trembling, he could feel it in his limbs. His loose teeth were chattering in his receded gums. The Count seemed to sense his vulnerability, his face a faux sympathetic mien as he reached out and grabbed Jonathan, cupping his bloody cheeks with equally bloody hands. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know?” He crooned, his black eyes glittering. “I can teach you control. You don’t have to kill, if you don’t want to.”
Jonathan froze, the poisonous little words catching his ear. He knew it was a lie…but it must be possible, the Count hadn’t killed Jonathan in one go. He would bet he hadn’t killed his Brides in one go either. The Count had slowly drained Jonathan, taking every little thing the man had to offer, but he hadn’t killed him outright through feeding on him.
No, he’d just broken his neck.
“That’s a lie,” he whispered, turning his face into the hand, inhaling deeply. Animal blood. He’d still take it, he coiled his tongue behind his teeth. He wouldn’t lick the Count’s hand like a pet.
“Well, what do you want then?” Dracula asked, thumb smoothing under his eye, “Tell me, Johnny, and I will give it to you.”
Jonathan couldn’t trust this creature. This was the one who had stood in front of him, squalling babe in a bag and insisted there was no baby. The Count didn’t know how not to lie. But he enjoyed playing games and since…this had happed to Jonathan, the Count seemed to be more inclined to indulge someone like him.
The Count’s fingers trailed down to his neck, feeling along Jonathan’s spine. His legs nearly gave out when the Count gently touched the broken bone, applying a cruel pressure to the knot of crumbling cartilage and marrow, sparking a shooting pain down all of Jonathan’s nerve endings. He leant his weight onto the Count until his feet could bear him again.
The Count cradled him closer, as though Jonathan was pressing closer voluntarily, “What can I give you, Johnny?” he asked again, ensuring Jonathan’s feet stayed within the boundary of the convent.
What did Jonathan want?
On a baser level, he wanted his life back, his fingernails back. He wanted his hair back. He wanted to feel well again. Wanted the Count to stop calling him Johnny.
On a deeper level, he wanted to go back in time and never leave England.
He wanted Mina. He wanted her safe.
He wanted the blood of every living thing in this convent. And then more.
But he couldn’t have any of those things. Anymore.
Ever.
He wanted to go home. He wanted that more than he could articulate. Even this new devilish ache in his teeth and throat wanted England. He could rest there and regain his strength. His own will. There was some truth in that, he knew. Like the Count took his strength from his own earth, Jonathan needed the earth of England.
And he could get the Count away from the convent. Jonathan had caused enough death by himself. If Jonathan could spare the rest. Spare Mina, he would leave with Dracula.
“I want to go home,” he whispered, unable to stop himself under the deceptively-gentle touch. The audacious hunger for blood seemed to settle under the bigger beast’s ministrations.
“Johnny, my Johnny,” the tone is fond, beckoning and Jonathan found himself stepping closer despite himself, so they were almost chest-to-chest, “that’s why I’m here. To take you home. You can’t stay here. Look how ill you are.”
Such a parody, Jonathan thought, of the first time Dracula killed him.
“No. I want to go to my home,” He breathed out instead, “England.”
The Count looked at him contemplatively for a long moment, calculating. After a long, cautious pause, Dracula finally responded, “I can do that too. If that’s what you want.”
Jonathan knew the Count didn’t see him in that moment, not really. He looked at Jonathan and saw potential. He saw England. He wanted to know how much he can bend England before she breaks, how much he can take out of her before she capitulates to his will.
To Dracula, England is like the Count himself, grandiose and eloquent but with a bloody history. Empire and strength built on the broken backs of others. The Count doesn’t want to be English, doesn’t just want the people who are learned, atheist and intelligent. He wants to be England.
If Jonathan is to represent England to this creature, then he will represent her strength. He will not break. Much like England has over the years, he will adapt and shape his own future. If he is in England, he will do as he promised at the mountain top, drawing in that last ghastly breath – everything in his power to stop Count Dracula.
“If you promise to take me to England with you, I will leave with you right now,” Jonathan stated. He would cross the threshold, and he would leave. He won’t look back.
The nuns were scrambling in the background. They still hadn’t thought to check the courtyard, Sister Agatha and Mina sure that Jonathan wouldn’t run towards Dracula. Jonathan and the Count both knew however, that illusion won’t last for long. Jonathan readied himself to step outside of the convent’s protection. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to enter another holy place again. In the Count’s presence, the inherent holiness of the place was burning, repulsed by what they were. It wanted them both gone.
“Ah-ah!” The Count stopped him, hands smoothing down Jonathan’s neck, stroking down until he grasped his shoulders. “Before you leave, you can do one last thing for me, Johnny-”
But Jonathan is already shaking his head, “No. You’ve got what you came for. No more!”
The Count let go of him and even though he was disgusted at the feeling, Jonathan felt colder for the loss, “Invite me in.”
Jonathan could hear the howling of wolves, and they came scampering up the pathway to gates summoned by Dracula’s bidding. They settled docilely at the Count’s bare feet, ignoring the fallen wolf who had surely been of the same pack. One wolf actually leant into the Dracula’s leg, the Count’s hand settling into its fur. “There is a nun in there that I really must get my teeth into, she has been a very clever girl. I would like to pay my respects.” He tugged almost gently on the wolf’s ear, grinning sharply down at it.
“That is another negotiation. One we are not having,” Jonathan gasped. The hunger was returning now the Count had diverted his attention, and that need could hear the nun’s panicking, circling closer. Sister Agatha was trying to get them to form battle lines, to strengthen their spines. He is just one man, alone. A man of good conscience who wouldn’t have done this if he could help himself.
“I will get in, Johnny. I will. I only need one nun and—” Dracula paused, tilting his head as if to catch the aria of a beautiful opera “—they are coming here. Right now. Can’t you smell their fear? One of them will crack so easily. Can you hear they’re hurried footsteps? Scurrying around like little mice. But there is one person you care about in there, isn’t there Johnny? What about poor Mina? I won’t spare her.”
Jonathan was stricken, he couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to Mina. Or to any of the sisters…
“N-No. I will not leave with you. I will not invite you in, if these are your terms.” His nerve was failing. He was hungry and tired, and wouldn’t it be easier to just give in?
“Johnny, your will is almost spent. The only thing in your power now, is whether you can spare Mina or not. I will get in - through you - whether it be your will or mine that speak the words.”
“I will not.”
“You will. Sister Agatha set us up, Johnny. You were kept here, to bring me to the door. You don’t owe them any loyalty. They will kill you, they may even kill Mina if they think she’s been…contaminated….”
Jonathan felt his eyes burning, his teeth sharpening at the though. “They would not.” He knew that with utter certainty. The nuns wouldn’t hurt her….but the Count would.
But if he didn’t let him in, if one of the panicked sisters did…Jonathan was already so hungry, had already killed two nuns. And he wanted more.
He had very little advantage in this situation.
Jonathan wasn’t sure of anything, the thoughts that had felt so clear before felt like sand now. There was a ravaging wildness in the back of his head, burning his eyes, an insidious will that wasn’t his own. If they were all going to die regardless, surely Jonathan should do anything to spare at least one of them? If there was an option to save any soul surely, he was obliged to take it?
“If I do this, I want you to leave Mina alone. I don’t want anything to harm her, kill her or even look at her under your command.” It came from a distance and Jonathan was shocked to realise it was himself saying it.
The Count grinned with a mouth full of broken shards, “Johnny, I won’t even look at her if she is bleeding like a stuck pig.” The wolves whined at Dracula’s feet, heads bobbing as though they were in agreement.
Jonathan believed him, in that moment, he truly did. “And you’ll make sure I won’t either?” he begged.
“Of course. No more undue stress for my bride. There are so many sisters in there, you won’t even want to go after Mina.” The Count was close to him again, not enough air between them to not taste the blood coating both of their skins.
Jonathan remembered the young woman from the box, dying with a stake in her heart, big hollow eyes staring into his. The Count had enjoyed pulling her apart. Jonathan wondered if the Count sometimes found a pleasure in his toys breaking themselves…
Dracula was smiling, his eyes crinkling in a damnably affable way. “But I can only offer you that, if you invite me in.”