I was sitting upstairs in my room, beside the bed that Jan and I had shared, indulging in sleeplessness and private grief after a long day of funereal ceremony and public condolences. The rest of the family was downstairs asleep, while I sat staring into the fire, recalling the first time Jan and I had met. A prisoner in Vlad's terrible castle, I was labouring to give birth to Arkady's child when Jan appeared, calling himself by a fict.i.tious name. He delivered my son and rescued him from Vlad's clutches; and later, when I escaped and found them both, he comforted me in my boundless sorrow over Arkady's death. For he was himself an unhappy widower; and we two provided each other with a measure of solace.

Now the impossible has happened: My late first husband has appeared to comfort me over the death of my second.

As I sat in total darkness save for the glowing embers in the fireplace, my gaze falling upon the window and the clouded starless night beyond, yet seeing nothing but the memories contained in my mind's eye, something thrummed gently against the pane. The sound continued for some time, I think, before at last I became aware of it; I thought at first it was a misguided bird. Indeed, a large black shape-the size of a great raven-hovered there.

Mild curiosity threaded its way through my grief. As I continued to peer at the dark form, I perceived a flash of white-quite radiant, as though lit from within like a glowing gas lamp.

And then the whiteness slowly coalesced into a face: the face of my dear Arkady.

I rose, stricken, a hand to my heart, though I felt quite certain that this apparition was the product of sleeplessness and sorrow. Even so, I could not resist it; I stepped over to the window, thinking that this would surely reveal the vision as a trompe l'oeil, a play of light and shadow, no more.

But no: The closer I drew, the clearer his features became. And how handsome! I had fled Transylvania for my life, without time even to carry with me a portrait of my beloved to keep his face fresh in my memory, but time has blurred not a single detail-the thick fierce brows above a hawkish nose, the large, slightly upward-slanting eyes with long, almost feminine lashes, the high forehead culminating in a widow's peak. Yet his features seemed more even, more perfect and beautiful than ever I remembered: his coal-black hair long, curling, aglitter with sparks of indigo, his pale skin glowing so that it lit up the darkness around him.

And his eyes . . . they were the loving eyes of the husband I had lost so long ago, and at the sight of me they filled with the same pain and longing that tugged at my own heart.

Impulsively, I pulled up the sash, letting in the cold and damp. . . .

Letting in my past. He entered with a gust of wind, slamming the window shut behind him, and in an impossible instant there before me stood my darling, cloaked in black, strong and handsome and young, untouched by the pa.s.sage of twenty-six years. No, more than handsome: beautiful. Gloriously beautiful.

And there stood I, an old woman, my hair streaked with silver, my face and body, once as smooth and firm as his, now sagging, wrinkled.

"Arkady?" I whispered, thinking that the strain of recent events had somehow driven me mad. "Is it ... possible?"

He let out a long sigh-or perhaps it was merely the soft, distant howling of the wind-and on it was carried a single word: "Mary."

I began again to weep, this time with tears of gladness, and reached a hand to his cheek. He smiled palely as I did so; my fingertips brushed not warm, living skin, but the cold flesh of the dead.

I let go a low, horrified wail. For at that moment I understood that this was no phantom evoked by madness, no dream, and I understood what had transpired those twenty-six years ago. My husband had indeed died at my own hand. But instead of going to his rest as I had intended, he had been transformed by Vlad into the lovely, soulless monster that now stood before me.I pressed my trembling fingers to my lips. My face must have revealed my horror, for the sight of it caused pain to flicker across his.

"Mary . . ." It was the most piteous of groans, uttered in a voice inhumanly melodic and compelling; at the same time, it was unmistakably the voice of my Arkady, tormented by love and regret. He spoke in English, the language we had shared, the language I had abandoned over a quarter-century before, when I abandoned my other life. "Oh, my dear, perhaps I should not have come. . . . Perhaps now was too cruel."

I could not fear him. I was too drained by grief and shock to have concern for my own safety. And whatever he had become, whatever monstrosities he had committed, he still bore the face of my beloved. If he had reached out to kill me then, I should not have resisted.

But the realisation of what had become of my first husband caused me to stagger backwards and collapse into the chair behind me. Arkady followed with movements so utterly silent that his steps made no sound against the wooden floor, and descended to one knee at my side.

"Forgive me," he said, looking sombrely into my eyes; the fire behind him painted one side of his gleaming face with its brilliant orange glow. "Perhaps I should not have come to-night, of all nights, when your sorrow is so fresh. But I did not wish to trouble you while your husband"-he faltered at the word and lowered his eyes, lest I see the pain and jealousy in them- "while Jan lived. But recent events have convinced me of the urgent need to speak with you. And to-day came a development I could not ignore."

"Then Vlad still lives," I realised aloud. All these years I had lived in uncertainty, hoping that Arkady's death had purchased Vlad's destruction, that my child was safe from his family's curse-but never knowing if past horrors would return to haunt us. The night beyond my small window suddenly seemed unspeakably darker, more evil; in that terrible instant I knew my worst fears were indeed true.

"Vlad still lives," Arkady repeated. "At the instant I died, he trapped my soul between heaven and earth. He made me as he is, knowing that I would have to become corrupt-"

I turned my face from the thought that the one I so loved had become a murderer.

He finished, his tone and expression grown hard. "I have no choice, Mary. My destruction would purchase Vlad's continuance. My survival allows protection for you and my son."

"And all those lives you have taken over the past twenty-six years?"

My words evoked fresh pain in his voice, face, eyes. "Each of them will buy a hundred, a thousand, an infinite number more lives. For I swear on each of them that I will see them avenged and Vlad destroyed."

"And the day he dies, so I will choose to die, too. Will you see our children, and our children's children, d.a.m.ned throughout eternity? Let the curse end with me, Mary. Let it end with me."

"Dear G.o.d," I whispered. "I would rather have died than see you as this. It is I who have done this to you." And I began to weep.

The sight plainly unsettled him. I am not easily given to tears or fainting; indeed, I killed my husband with my own hand to spare him from service to Vlad, and I somehow managed to survive the following years of the greatest pain any woman, any man could ever know.

Suffice it say that had there been but one bullet more left in the revolver that evil morn, I should not be writing these words to-day.

My hand clutched the armrest. Gently, he laid his own atop mine. I tensed at its coldness but did not pull away.

"You were always stronger than I," he said. "Darling Mary, I had feared you dead. How did you ever survive?"

I told him then of my escape twenty-six years before. I had been weak after childbirth, indeed near death; but the moment I fired the fatal shot at my husband, the horses had bolted. I took advantage of their excitement and drove them hard to the north, to Moldovitsa, where I knew the doctor who called himself Kohl would have taken my child. I wanted then only to keep driving until I myself died, but the thought of my baby kept me alive. My memory of what followed is unclear. I know I collapsed then with fever and a kind innkeeper took care of me. My ravings had alerted him to my search for a doctor and infant.

Such a pair had stopped by that very inn, though the man had called himself Van Helsing, not Kohl, in search of milk for the baby. They were next headed to the town of Putna.

I knew in my heart this was the same man. When I came to myself, I sent a telegramme to Doctor Van Helsing at Putna, informing him that I had escaped, but my poor husband, who had been fatally wounded, had not.

Within days, I was reunited with my little son. I knew not where to go; I had no cause to return to England and was too dazed by grief to care where I went. Jan Van Helsing convinced me to return with him to his native Amsterdam. So there I raised my child and, after a year and a half of rejecting Jan's proposals of marriage, finally accepted them, so that my boy might have a father. Soon we adopted another child, a little boy. We lived far from the taint of the name Dracul and took the name Van Helsing as our own.

I have two sons now; both believe themselves brothers, though one is adopted. Neither knows anything of the dark past. There seemed no cause to dim their happiness with such tales.

Arkady listened to all this in intent silence; and then he said, "For more than two decades, I have struggled to keep Vlad from finding you. At every turn I thwarted his efforts. ... At every opportunity, I sent mortals to end his existence. But all of them failed; some fled as cowards and disappeared, some went mad, and others destroyed themselves or were themselves destroyed. I found no heart steady enough, true enough, to complete the task.

And try as I might, I could not eternally prevent him from following the path you trod so long ago, for he sent one agent after another-each one shrewder and more determined than the last."

I collapsed into my chair, struck down by the weight of his words, and raised my hand to my heart. "He is here? In Amsterdam?"

Pity crossed his face. "No; he is trapped in Transylvania-recompense for violating the covenant and making one of his own blood a vampire. You need not fear encountering him here, for he has never travelled easily, as he must sleep surrounded by his native soil. I am spared this, perhaps because my blood is not so pure. But he has sent his agent. Here is the proof." He slipped a hand into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew something gold, shining, bright.

A small coin. He proffered, and I rose to take it, holding it at arm's length to better see the imprint in the dim firelight.

I recognised it at once and gave a low cry.

It was the image of a winged dragon, with forked tongue and tail, and a double cross emerging from its back. I did not need to inspect the underside to know the words stamped there: JUSTUS ET PIUS.

I handed it back at once, for the very feel of it against my fingertips was cold, evil, odious. I wanted nothing better than to hurry to the basin to wash my hands, but I knew that not even an ocean could ever wash the taint away. My love for the man who stood before me- nay, the man this creature had once been -had stained me forever.

"Used to purchase lodging," Arkady said softly as he replaced the coin after a second grim glance. "I have been watching you and your family some time, as protection; but daylight limits my abilities, and I cannot go without a period of rest. Like him, I must at times rely on human a.s.sistance. But I have never left you unguarded. Even so-"

"What must we do?" I interrupted, struggling to keep my voice a whisper, lest I wake the others.

"You must warn them. Warn our son-"

"He will not believe," I protested.

"He must. Vlad will stop at nothing to find him, to force him to undergo the blood ritual- and then his mind will be Vlad's to control. We must prevent that at all costs."

My pulse quickened with dread. "But how?"

"You have always been the stronger," he repeated. "Dear Mary, can you be strong again?"

I replied nothing, only fixed my gaze upon him and thought of my two innocent sons.

When I came to this quaint country more than a quarter century ago, I considered myself reborn. It is far different from Transylvania or my native England: the temperate winters, the flat, marshy sweeps of land, the creak of windmills, the wide sky with its gilt-edged, swift clouds so favoured by artists, the clean bustling cities filled with smiling industrious people who care not a whit for cla.s.s-all were entirely alien to me. There is a sense of goodness here, a sweet freshness in the air that blows in from the ever-present sea. Beside it, Transylvania seems anciently evil, decadent, corrupt as a mouldering corpse.

Grateful for the change, I put the terror of the past behind me. I embraced the Dutch people to the extent that I spoke nothing but their language, forgetting my native tongue.

For more than twenty-five years, I had been so far removed from danger that I began to believe I and my children were safe.

Now, to find this long-dead fear resurrected . . .

"I cannot," I said, withdrawing my hand from beneath his. "Please ... do not ask for my help.

I cannot bear even to think of putting my children at risk-"

"They are already at risk." He rose abruptly and, with a move swifter than my eyes could perceive, turned from me to face the fire. "I have had twenty-six years to deliberate on what I would do when I decided to approach you and Stefan. I could continue to keep a protective eye on you and remain silent-as I have been doing for the past several months since I found you. But I am barely a match for Vlad. I am almost as wily as he now-but he has had centuries of experience beyond mine. I have attempted several times to destroy him; several times he has learnt of my plan in time and escaped. Many times he has come close to destroying me." He whirled abruptly and faced me. "I could have kept you unawares of the threat and spared you this pain-but your ignorance would only increase the danger." He paused, holding my gaze with soft, desperate eyes, brown eyes flecked with green, eyes I thought I should never look into again, so beautiful and tortured that I fought not to weep. "And you are the only one I can entrust with the most solemn of tasks. I need your promise."

I hesitated.

"Mary," he murmured, "you killed me once before, my darling; when the time comes and Vlad is destroyed-if I do not die, can you be strong enough, can I trust you, to do it again?"

I covered my face with my hands, overwhelmed, and felt cold lips brush the top of my head.

I remained thus for some time, unable to speak, unable to think, able only to sit shivering at the sense of encroaching evil, at the realisation that my agonising act of mercy had purchased for my beloved not relief but the most hideous of purgatories.

When at last I looked up, an expression of such pure sincerity and anguish pa.s.sed over his features that I rose, pierced through the soul at the sight of his pain. I had buried one husband that morning, only to find now another, long thought dead; my heart welled with such love and sadness at the cruelty of his predicament that I reached to console him.

"Oh, Arkady . . ."

Sobbing, we embraced at last. For a blessed moment, I did not notice the coldness of the arms that enfolded me, of the lips that brushed my forehead, of the tears that rained upon my hair; nor did I perceive the odd stillness in the chest where once had beaten a warm living heart. I held him fast, thinking only that I was reunited with him I loved most.

And he held me, with all the sweet fierce tenderness of the husband I had known. Oh, how he held me. . . .

How long we remained in that blissful pose I cannot say. But the time came when I, swept up in an outpouring of affection, pressed my lips to his silent breast, the shoulder of his cloak, his neck-and then his mouth.

He drew away, but not before I caught the unmistakable scent and taste of death and iron. I pulled back -and saw on his parted lips, upon his collar, dark stains.

Dark in the fireglow, because of the night; but I had no doubt that were I to light the lamp, those stains would be bright, fresh, crimson.

I recoiled with a sharp cry.

He released me at once. I brushed fingertips against my own lips and drew them away, bloodied. He saw the object of my dismay, and his expression transformed itself into one of fathomless shame.

"Go!" I demanded as I lowered my gaze, unable to look further at him, to see anything but my own spread fingers, covered with an unknown victim's blood. "Go, please! I cannot-I cannot bear even to think-"

His voice was calm and soft but carried an undercurrent of steel resolve. "You must. Just as I had to return. It was too much for me to have come tonight, too soon after your loss.

Forgive me. But consider all I have said."

I turned, mouth open to reply-and saw that I stood alone. Or did I? For it seemed that, from the corner of my eye, I espied a dark moving shadow scrabbling towards the window.

A sudden gust of cold wind made me shiver; I hurried to the window, now open, and pulled down the sash. Beyond, in the moonless dark, I could see nothing -nothing but the silent black shapes of houses across the street, aglitter from a light rain.I started at a sharp rapping at my bedroom door; the sound seemed startling normal, incongruous with the dreamlike unreality of what I had just experienced. Had it not come, I would perchance have convinced myself that Arkady's appearance had been naught but a dream. But I was full awake as I turned from the window and hurried towards the knocking.

"Moeder?" Bram's voice, hoa.r.s.e and tired, but tense with concern.

I opened the door to find my son, still dressed in the shirt sleeves he had worn to his father's funeral; behind thick spectacles, his bright blue eyes were swollen and edged with red. His waving gold hair, kissed with copper, was tousled, as though he had been lying down, but the exhaustion in his tone told me that he, like his mother, had not slept.

For a moment, I did not speak but permitted myself to gaze at him, to remember those dark fearful days when he was still a baby, to admire the brilliant young man that child had become. He is so driven, my Abraham, so upright and curious and intelligent that he had taken a law degree while exceptionally young, then followed in Jan's footsteps and became a physician when the law failed to offer enough opportunities to help the helpless. It became a great source of pride to Jan that his adoptive son should be so much like him; indeed, so like him in interests and appearance that we all came to speak and think of Bram as Jan's own son and saw no reason to disabuse Bram of the notion. Like his adoptive father, he thrives on overwork; yet I could see for the first time the toll it had taken on him, could see the weariness hidden in the shadows beneath his eyes.

He frowned with worry as he scrutinised me and reached for my hand with both of his; after the coldness of Arkady's grip, the warmth of my son's was rea.s.suring. "I heard a scream-"

He spoke in Dutch, as I had intentionally never conversed with my sons in English but let them learn the language at school; and I answered him thus, conscious for the first time in many years that I was speaking a foreign tongue. "It was nothing." I tried to smile, tried to affect a light tone, and failed. "A mouse. I startled the poor thing more than it did me, I think."

"Ah," he said. "I must leave for the hospital early in the morning, but I will remind Stefan to set a trap." He paused, his penetrating gaze never wavering from my face-he is so serious, that one, so unlike his brother-and for a flickering instant my resolve melted. I drew a breath and opened my mouth to speak, to tell him the truth of it all, to warn him, to beg him to flee.

Ignorance has brought my children a happy life thus far; will it now bring their destruction?

My words died unborn. Abraham is a dedicated sceptic, the last person living who would accept my wild tale. How shall I tell him? Tell Stefan? I reached out and laid my other hand atop his, tightening my grip, afraid ever to release it.

It served to increase Bram's concern. "Are you quite certain you're all right, Mama?"

I could not release the contents of my heart. No; such a revelation required careful forethought. Instead I nodded, at last managing a weary smile.

"You would not like a draught to help you sleep?"

"No. Go to sleep, Bram."

He patted my hand and withdrew. I shut the door, washed my hands and face in the basin, taking special care to clean my lips-and sat down to pen this entry. From time to time I wipe my mouth with my handkerchief, but the taste of blood lingers.Dawn is almost here, and still I cannot decide how or what to tell my sons.

What remains of my little family is no longer safe. Evil surrounds us. May G.o.d help us all.

Chapter 4.

The Journal of Stefan Van Helsing 19 NOVEMBER 1871.

I am the happiest and most miserable of men.

I am compelled to write it all down; as penance, perhaps, knowing that someday someone might stumble upon these words. It would be no less than I deserve.

Here, then, a tale of the Fall: and the truth is that, recounting it, I feel as much illicit joy as shame.

We buried poor Papa to-day. I was, of course, overwhelmed by grief (shall I use it to pardon the inexcusable?), of no use to anyone. But Bram was there; always there, and took good care of Mama. He is much like her: solid, never-changing, always dependable, so strong that he never once wept in public. Mama, too, never cried, though her eyes were rimmed with red.