Characters: Count Dracula, Agatha Van Helsing
Relationship: Count Dracula/Agatha Van Helsing
The forest was dense. The scent of pine and juniper was sharp. Fog clung to the damp lowlands. Agatha stumbled forward, trying to keep her eyes focused straight ahead.
Behind her was a knife, someone else's heavy breathing, and a hand nudging her elbow.
Stefan walked quickly, pushing through bushes and deadwood, stopping and glancing back sideways, as if trying to figure out which way to turn, but in reality, Agatha guessed, he was simply trying to cover his tracks.
The forest was dark and thorny, and with every step it increasingly resembled a blanket, falling over her and hiding the world around her. Thick and enormous, it descended, pressing, and overpowering her with the scent of blood, a sickening scent that seemed to have come from nowhere.
They walked, stopped, Stefan listened, then suddenly quickened his pace, slowed, then rushed forward again, almost breaking into a run. Soon, Agatha stopped following his mood swings. She sank into a strange state, akin to either a fainting or a dream.
In this dream, Agatha circled, wandering through the impenetrable forest, pushing through brittle undergrowth, feeling the thorns tearing at her skin. She was hot, she was cold. She was thirsty, but where they passed, there was no moisture – no river, no lake. Only blood.
Agatha forced herself not to cry. At least, that's what she remembered, before she lost track of minutes or hours. Maybe days. She walked silently, without looking back, without thinking. Without trying to escape. There was nowhere to run – the thicket was too dense, too many trees, and there was only the smell of rotted pine needles, and it was cold and lonely.
At some point, she suddenly felt relieved. Stopping, Agatha lifted her head and looked at the sky. Bright and endless, it shone with sparks of stars. Smiling, Agatha extended a weakened hand, as if trying to touch it. The stars shone, and each one was like the tip of a silver blade. Agatha closed her eyes. The cold grew again.
She was in the castle library, and Dracula was sitting in a chair across the table. He was bent over a book, as if trying to decipher some particularly difficult passage. Medieval texts were so strange, Agatha said. Couldn't they have expressed themselves more simply? Dracula laughed. Amber light poured through the narrow windows above.
Agatha heard the rustle of pine needles beneath her feet, felt her soles pressing the dry needles into the soil, leaving a pattern like the lines on the hands. Pain shot through her back. Agatha froze. Opening her eyes, she found herself kneeling. Someone was standing over her. A stranger. She waved it off.
Agatha stood in the castle courtyard, watching a green caterpillar scurry from the sun into the shadows of the grass growing between the stones. The castle loomed over the bright summer landscape, dominating and subduing it. The sun tinted the tree leaves aquamarine, and dark lace fluttered beneath Agatha's feet. She turned, looking toward the half-open door and waving her hand in invitation, but was met with a mocking snort. Daylight isn't his strong point.
Agatha's eyes widened, and she froze as if struck. Coughing violently, she lowered her gaze. Small, sharp stones dug into her knees, and the stifling, hot forest surrounded her for miles. Wrapping her arms around her shoulders, she tried to shield herself, trying in vain to hide. She must be screaming.
She sits on the edge of a cliff, wearing a monastic robe with a torn hem. Far below, the river rushes. Agatha wants to get up, but she's in pain and cold, her body feels frozen. It's the fever, she tells herself, it will pass, but how did she get here, why is she so cold, what is this, why is it so cold? And where is the blood coming from?
Agatha lies on a bed in a room in the castle. The fireplace casts cozy shadows on the walls. Agatha recognizes the outlines of people and animals in them. She smiles, drowsy. A familiar profile suddenly appears on the wall, chasing away the figure of a griffin, and Agatha, laughing, says he's ruined everything. Reaching out, he pulls Agatha close. Agatha buries her face in his chest, listening to the pounding of his heart.
The pine needles smell painfully, unbearably; the dry needles rub against her skin, pierce her clothes, prick everywhere, where possible and where not. Agatha feels them clogging her throat, pooling there, preventing her from screaming. She spreads her arms wide, feeling for the solid ground. Turning away from the pine needles and the forest, Agatha presses her cheek against it. Suddenly, she realizes it's not the ground beneath her, it's Dracula, his arms wrapped around her, his body reliable, solid. His body holds her in this world, preventing her from slipping away. She wants to sleep. Now she can. Now she'll be able to fall asleep.
The scent of pine invades her sleep and recedes. Agatha clings to Dracula.
His heart pounds, pounds, pounds.
Opening her eyes, Agatha stared ahead for several long seconds, trying to understand why it was so warm and why the forest overhanging her had turned red. The bright sun shone through the dense canopy, tangling it with a rare golden glow. A figure was visible in the corner of the canopy against the dark red background – a dragon, coiled around the sun and moon.
Exhaling, Agatha sat up in bed.
She was in a room. The same room in the castle that Dracula had given her five weeks ago. The same carpet on the floor, the table, the window, the four-poster bed. Agatha remembered wondering how many people had slept here before her. How many victims had spent sleepless – or carefree – nights. She touched the blanket with her hand, running her palm over the thick fabric. It was warm and... welcoming. Agatha closed her eyes.
This is a dream, she thought to herself. It must be a dream. Surely it can't be...
‘This is not a dream,’ a voice said from somewhere to the right. ‘Don't worry,’ the voice added. ‘Don't be afraid. You are safe.’
‘It's over.’ The man stood by the chair, facing the fireplace – the high chair back must have hidden him before. He took a step forward. ‘At least for you.’
I know him, Agatha suddenly realized. Squinting, she took in his thin shoulders, nervous hands, and sharp nose. He was much less pale now, but both his figure and face remained vaguely anxious. However, his clothes were clean, and overall he looked much better than last time.
‘What are you doing here?’ Agatha asked.
‘Of course I do.’ She tried to stand and immediately winced in pain.
‘Don't move, you're still unwell,’ the werewolf advised her.
Her body felt alien. Her legs and arms ached, and any attempt to move caused an unpleasant tremor. Her forearms stung – looking down, Agatha saw numerous small scratches on them. Raising her hand, she ran her fingers over her face. A painful scar crossed her right cheek. Her left one had only minor abrasions. Pulling the blanket higher, she sank back down.
‘What happened... to me?’
Footsteps sounded, and out of the corner of her eye, Agatha saw the werewolf sit down on a chair by her bed.
‘That man took you. You spent four hours with him in the forest.’
Four hours. Frowning, Agatha tried to reconcile that with how she felt. She had no sense of time – only a strange feeling, as if it had stretched out, curdled, like blood on pine needles.
He seemed surprised by this change of subject. But he answered,
‘Vincent. Vincent von Strais.’
‘Are you a nobleman?’ Agatha asked.
‘One of the impoverished.’
Agatha nodded. She straightened the blanket over her chest and turned to face him.
Much later, recalling their conversation, Agatha thought Vincent resembled a student who had failed his exams and now didn't know how to talk about it with his stern father. He was indeed a student – he studied law and philosophy in Hamburg until, after his third year, he met a beautiful woman during a vacation in Transylvania, with whom he spent over two weeks. At the end of the third week, he began to feel strange – he was plagued by hunger pangs and insomnia, prone to outbursts of intense anger, but recovered quickly and became tired just as quickly. He never learned who she was – by the time Vincent realized she had turned him, the woman had left the house where they lived together, and he hadn't heard from her since.
Vincent spent the next two years on the run – hiding on the outskirts, in workhouses and brothels, in futile attempts to cope with his hunger and figure out how to live. When he finally realized that a werewolf needs to eat no more than two or three times a month to survive, everything became easier.
‘I learned to hunt – gradually, and soon I was even able to somehow... learn to limit myself,’ he told Agatha with a weak smile. ‘Life was bearable, if you can say that. But there were still full moons.’
Agatha had never been particularly interested in werewolves, but in books about creatures of the night, she sometimes came across entire passages about them – about their characteristics and habits, eyewitness accounts, and warnings on how to avoid them. From these books, Agatha knew that the full moon transformation is the most difficult time for a werewolf. It's a time when they are completely helpless, especially aggressive, and out of control.
The only way to curb the ‘full moon rage,’ as Vincent called it, was to let the wolf taste human flesh. He said it like that – to taste. ‘I've never needed to eat people or even animals – I mean, to kill and eat them,’ he said. ‘A bite or two was enough. I was satiated and could live a perfectly human life for the next two weeks. But during the full moon, I needed more. I couldn't just grab a person, bite them, and leave them. I didn't kill anyone,’ he said, looking at Agatha with a tormented gaze, ‘but that came with a price.’
Through trial and error, Vincent discovered that if he ate well on the night of the full moon before moonrise, he remained calm during the transformation and experienced it almost painlessly. Human blood didn't fuel his thirst, as he initially feared, but rather calmed it. Virgin blood was especially effective. Soon, Vincent realized its effect lasted a long time – significantly longer than any other – sometimes until the next full moon.
He thought he'd found a cure.
But he'd found Stefan Lucianu.
‘It's so strange now that I could believe him,’ Vincent said thoughtfully. ‘It was the third year of my new life, and I'd almost adjusted to it.’ He smiled. ‘I calmed down, found a job in Bistritz, and even began to think about settling there. But to do that, I had to overcome my thirst.’
Stefan Lucianu met Vincent himself – during one of his visits to the city, he stayed at the tavern where Vincent worked as a waiter.
‘Innkeepers are usually picky. They need someone hardy, hardworking, and courageous, willing to sometimes stay on their feet for days without succumbing to the temptation to join in on some wild drinking spree. The innkeeper couldn't be happier with me,’ Vincent said sadly. ‘I could work for at least twelve hours straight without touching a drop of alcohol.’
When Stefan first appeared at the inn, he didn't attract Vincent's attention. A short, quiet man, an elderly peasant, he settled into a corner of the dimly lit room and simply ordered beer after beer. They struck up a conversation and... became friends much later.
‘Rich lords underestimate peasants,’ Vincent said, smiling, closing his eyes. ‘Especially city dwellers. They think peasants are uneducated, animal-like, greedy, and stupid. But aristocrats, landlords, and owners of large estates, are wary of thinking that way. They're intimately acquainted with those who live in the villages, familiar with their way of life and customs, and they realize that sometimes the peasants are the only thing standing between them and the forest.’
He fell silent. Agatha remembered Dracula's frown when he first heard about Stefan. How he hadn't been at all surprised that the headman had been involved in some kind of dealing with mysterious forces. How he hadn't batted an eyelid when he learned about the werewolf. Now it was clear to her that Dracula hadn't believed the headman's story from the start.
For several weeks in a row, Stefan would come to the tavern, sit there until the morning, often getting drunk, sometimes even drinking on credit. One evening, staying until almost closing time, he suddenly confessed to Vincent that he was in trouble – the shop Stefan ran in the village had gone bankrupt, the honey business he'd pinned his hopes on had failed (the shopkeeper in town sold all his merchandise but didn't pay Stefan his share), and his wife had left him.
I felt sorry for him, Vincent told her. He smiled.
‘I know what you're thinking. But I was different in those days. I was calm, confident. My hunger had subsided, and I felt like I was about to find... I don't know, something that would allow me to simply live. Without thinking about who I was. Without feeling guilty. Without feeling ashamed.’
A little time passed, and soon they became such close friends that one day Vincent felt ready not only to spend lonely days with Stefan and listen to his stories of how cruel and unfair fate had been to him, but also to trust him.
‘He was sure I would eat him. He was so convinced of this that he disappeared for several weeks – at least a month – and didn't show up at the tavern or at my house. As if my confession had confirmed some of his doubts. As if by my very... trust, I had encroached on him.’
Early last winter, when Vincent was no longer expecting him, Stefan showed up. He came with a bottle of cherry wine and a pork loin – and offered Vincent a deal.
‘I told him about virgins,’ Vincent paused thoughtfully, ‘I definitely did. I don't know if it was that evening or earlier. Before I confessed to him that I was a werewolf, I'd mentioned certain quirks, preferences – they were just hints. I thought he ignored them or assumed I was referring to an attraction to men. But he remembered everything. He listened attentively. And he offered me a ‘solution to my problem.’’
Stefan promised to bring girls from their village to Vincent– a new one every full moon. He reacted enthusiastically to Vincent's remark that so often wasn't necessary – Vincent thought at the time, because, like him, Stefan wasn't thrilled about biting virgin girls. They agreed that Stefan would bring them to Vincent's home and pick them up when, as he put it, ‘the wolf is completely sated.’
‘It never even occurred to me,’ Vincent said wearily, ‘how that sounded. I had no idea he was sure… and only when he came on the morning of the full moon three weeks later and saw Lisbeth alive, did his surprise tell me what he was thinking. I still can't forgive myself for letting her go. For letting others go. But I really had no idea…’ He fell silent. ‘He was my friend,’ Vincent continued. ‘My best friend. My only one. I turned a blind eye to everything. And only when, months later, on a full moon, I stumbled upon five fresh graves in the forest, did I realize what I had done.’
Vincent lived in the city and therefore didn't know what was happening in the village. He didn't go there, and Stefan had asked him not to, saying there was no point in frightening the people, who were already frightened and superstitious. The forest was itself a source of danger, along with the gypsies, and that strange count from the castle beyond the mountains. A werewolf could have been the last straw.
‘Obviously. Now. Then I thought he wanted to shield me and them from unnecessary rumors. I was only glad about it.’ He fell silent. ‘They didn't believe me,’ he said suddenly. ‘Girls. It must be fair – what woman of seventeen, eighteen, twenty would believe that a strange man – a werewolf, half-beast – wouldn't harm her? That what I just need is…’
That's why I make them sleep, Agatha remembered.
Werewolves don't possess the gift of hypnosis or the ability to make their victims forget what happened to them. But they have better self-control than vampires.
‘That's why, after Lisbeth, locked in her room, threatened to commit suicide an hour before midnight so I wouldn't touch her, I asked Stefan to bring the girls early. At least a day or two before the full moon.’
Werewolves don't possess vampire charm either, but Vincent didn't need it. He managed to make do with his own and negotiate with the girls.
‘I promised them nothing bad would happen to them, that I wouldn't kill or maim them. I need to survive one night of the month, I told them. I need help.’
Most of the girls turned out to be merciful. They gave Vincent what he needed and left him almost at peace. But even before he saw the cemetery in the forest, and before rumors of the wolves prowling there, killer wolves, man-eaters, reached the city, Mimi almost killed him.
‘I still didn't know what was going on,’ Vincent said, looking at Agatha, ‘so I couldn't understand why all the girls were so nervous – No, that's not true,’ he interrupted himself. ‘It's not true. I must have been sure that Lisbeth would tell them when she returned... or that her very appearance would calm them down. But it was the opposite – each time the girls became more and more frightened, more and more angry, more and more aggressive. Soon I realized that they were also getting younger. When Mimi arrived, I almost asked Stefan to take her back immediately. She was... she was practically a child. But Stefan brought her, said goodbye right away, and left. We ended up alone in the house. Me and the girl who knew perfectly well that her friends had been killed, must have been dishonored, that their bodies had disappeared without a trace, and she was sure that I had done it.’
In the ringing silence that followed his words, Agatha pulled the blanket up higher. She felt cold again, and the room suddenly smelled of rotting pine needles.
Vincent continued. Mimi was wary, but at first quiet and almost calm. Declining his offer of dinner, she went up to the second-floor room and sat there all evening. Vincent didn't dare disturb her. The next day she didn't come out, and the next. And the day after that.
‘There was a full moon on the fourth day,’ Vincent said. ‘I knew I had to talk to her – make her listen to me.’
He knocked on her door at nine o'clock that night. She opened it. She let him in and, sitting on a chair by the bed, listened silently as he, awkwardly and stumbling over his words, tried to explain to her that she had nothing to fear.
‘I still don't understand how she did it. I just remember one moment she was sitting in front of me, and the next I was lying on the floor, and she was aiming a silver knife at my eye.’
They struggled for a long time, and Vincent was saved only by his remaining strength, which the full moon would sap completely in just a few hours. He managed to take the knife from Mimi, escaping with a scratch – the blade, passing literally an inch from his face, grazed his hand. Realizing she was left unarmed, Mimi suddenly lost all her zeal. After Vincent had the knife, she stopped resisting and, breaking free from his embrace, crawled away, and suddenly curled up into a ball on the floor.
‘I let her go. I stood over her while she lay there,’ Vincent's quiet voice seemed hoarse, ‘and listened to her breathing – ragged, as if she were crying. But she wasn't crying. She just lay there, shaking. I told her everything – and finally added that I would never touch her, on pain of death. Never. And then I left.’
It was the most terrifying full moon of his life. He spent the entire night in his room, locked from the inside and barricaded with chairs and an old chest. Through the haze and delirium, he thought he could hear footsteps on the ground floor, but he couldn't tell whether they were real or moonlit. He heard Stefan arrive in the morning, heard him take Mimi away. And only when the door closed behind them did he fall asleep, peacefully and soundly. He dreamed of Mimi. She said ‘thank you.’
After that night, Vincent felt so ill that he didn't leave the house for a week, and when he began to slowly come to his senses, he hated himself so much that he didn't eat for two months.
‘That's when I saw those graves,’ he said. ‘After the incident with Mimi, I decided to leave, at least for a while, and I haven't been back in Bistritz since. And when I returned and went to the inn, I discovered Stefan hadn't visited them in a while. I was worried, but I thought he'd come to me sooner or later and we'd talk.’
Then, even more worried, Vincent decided to go to the village. Since he was in a hurry, afraid and yet hoping that nothing bad had happened, he didn't take the wide country road, but went straight through the forest.
‘Many years ago,’ he said quietly, looking straight ahead, ‘my mother read me some stories from books about heroes and saints. These stories always repeated how difficult it is to embark on the path of righteousness and how one must constantly remember original sin and try to atone for it. But all I could remember was how one could consider oneself guilty of something one didn't do and of which one didn't even know until someone told you. And I only realized this when, among the trees in the forest, I suddenly caught Elsa's scent. She was the last one, before... before Mimi.’
Vincent left the graves undisturbed, but he assumed Stefan had tried to burn the remains before burying them, as all Vincent could smell besides Elsa were ash, smoke, and bones. Stefan must have hidden Elsa's body in a hurry, which is why he didn't destroy it. After searching the clearing and counting the graves, Vincent sat there for a while, trying to figure out what to do, then rose and continued on his way.
Vincent sat hunched over in his chair, as if weighed down by a heavy burden. That must be it, Agatha thought. She imagined his meeting with Stefan, but couldn't imagine what they might have talked about.
‘I know what you're thinking,’ Vincent said again. ‘That I was an idiot. I really was. I should have come to him and torn him apart, exposed him to his fellow villagers, brought him to trial, after all. But I was stunned, weakened by four weeks of hunger, and desperately wanted to believe him.’
Coming to Stefan in the middle of the night, Vincent furiously told him everything he'd seen. He expected denial, anger – fear and hatred, perhaps. But instead, Stefan fell to his knees before him.
‘He said he didn't know what had come over him, that it had been tormenting him for a long time. That when he first realized he wanted to rape and kill Lisbeth, he prayed and fasted for fourteen days. When that didn't work, he went to her mother and asked her to send the girl to the city. But Lisbeth had a fiancé in a village across the river. Realizing Lisbeth would never leave, Stefan retreated from there and locked himself in his house. He claimed the rage and desire that had consumed him had subsided, and he was living almost like his old life. And then I came along.’
Stefan said he didn't immediately come up with this plan. When he learned his new town friend was a werewolf, he stopped talking to him, thinking he'd gotten off easy. Werewolves are cruel, savage, and unruly creatures, after all. He was lucky. But when they renewed their friendship, Stefan realized he could gain something for himself.
‘He said that at first, the very thought of bringing Lisbeth to me excited him. Of what I would do to her, of destroying her.’
Lisbeth was beautiful and proud, Agatha recalled. All the boys in the village knew she wasn't easy to approach. And yet, everyone loved her.
‘Stefan said he shuddered as he imagined me... taming her. Taking her, making her beg. He said he despised himself, and yet he enjoyed it, knowing he was leading her to her death.’
When it turned out Lisbeth was alive, Stefan realized two things. First: Vincent knows how to restrain himself. And second: that means Stefan doesn't need to.
‘He said he couldn't handle it. That it's like a ham in a shop window when you're hungry – you don't think about whether it's right to eat it, you don't think about whether it's good or bad, you only see it and nothing else.’ Vincent fell silent. ‘I listened to him with disgust, with horror – because I knew he was right.’
Agatha's expression must have been no less horrified, because Vincent continued,
‘At that moment, I forgot. I forgot how much time and effort I'd spent trying to overcome my hunger, how I'd hunted, trying not to get too close to people, how I'd learned to eat – not binge, but eat. I forgot how I'd nearly died after Mimi left. I just sat and listened, and those first days after Isabella left flashed before my mind's eye.’
When Agatha lived in the monastery, in the hospital it ran, she saw people suffering from a strange illness—for some unknown reason, they couldn't eat enough. Agatha remembered how the unfortunates gorged themselves, hating themselves and the food they devoured, and how they died in agony. But at least they were granted freedom.
Dracula told Agatha that the most terrible thing in a vampire's life isn't solitude, the need to hide, or even an unbearably long and lonely life. The most terrible thing is thirst. It's deaf to pleas and promises, blind and cruel, and it's always with you. That's why he so wanted to find Barthélemy's recipe.
‘I let him go,’ Vincent said. ‘I made him promise not to harm anyone, and I promised to make sure he kept it. I ordered him to bring the girls to me as before, but I declared that from now on I would come to his house to pick them up myself. I hoped that if Stefan returned to his old ways, it would be impossible to hide,’ he explained sadly to Agatha. ‘Something in his house or in the village itself would give me a clue. I promised to bring the girls back and hand them over.’
The next time, however, when Vincent came before the full moon, Stefan told him the village had run out of virgins. Vincent didn't believe it at first. Then he suspected the worst.
‘I left that evening,’ Vincent continued. ‘And went straight into the forest.’
But there were no more graves in the forest, and that reassured him.
‘I didn't trust him, so I didn't limit myself to the clearing; I combed the entire forest,’ he said, ‘but everything was the same. I came to Stefan a week later. He said he understood everything, that he had wronged me, and that he wanted to make up for what he had done. To become a better person. I was ill; by then I hadn't eaten for ten days. The full moon was three and a half weeks away. I was afraid it would simply kill me. Then Stefan told me there was one virgin left in the village. Only exhaustion and hunger prevented me from realizing he was planning to kill me.’
Agatha frowned. How... Suddenly, she understood.
‘Yes,’ Vincent nodded sadly. ‘He was planning to hand me over. Give you over, let you go with me, and when you returned, bring the villagers and say I was responsible for the deaths of their daughters and sisters. What he didn't count on was the Count's appearance and what kind of person you would turn out to be.’
But Dracula had certainly been counting on that, Agatha realized. He hadn't simply come to rescue her or show off. Since he'd introduced himself as a landlord with rights to the lands, and therefore to her, he could have simply taken her by the hand and led her away. But he was chatting with Stefan and displaying his best mocking manner. He was stalling. Waiting for Vincent to show up. He wanted to see them – all three of them. He suspected Stefan, and he was right.
‘What happened when he took me away?’ Agatha asked hoarsely.
‘For the past three weeks,’ Vincent replied, ‘I've barely eaten. I've been plagued by terrible dreams, barely slept, and by the end of the lunar month I was so weak I could barely understand what I was doing or what was happening around me. When I came and saw you, when you told me I was your fiancé, at first I thought I was seeing things. I vaguely remember what happened next. I saw Stefan grab you, saw him push you out, heard the door slam.’
‘It's harder to think in wolf form,’ Vincent continued. ‘That's why I didn't immediately realize the Count was speaking to me. He came up to me and said, slowly and deliberately, that he was leaving for you. He said he forbade me from touching the women in the basement and that if I harmed them, he would tear me to pieces, and he swore it wouldn't be quick. And then he left.’
Vincent didn't remember how long he spent in wolf form. But he did remember that when Mimi emerged from the basement, he was already human.
‘The potion Stefan gave them must have been timed. When Mimi woke up and went upstairs, she found me lying on the floor. I was feverish and seemed to be delirious. She gave me some water and a cold sponge bath. Then she offered me something to eat.’
Agatha stared at him, shocked.
‘She almost forced me,’ Vincent smiled. ‘She reminded me of what I told her when she was with me. I didn't even know she remembered. She said I should gather my strength, that I'd need it.’
Dracula returned in the early morning. Alone.
‘He walked into the house and literally collapsed at the door. He was covered in blood and shaking. Mimi and I dragged him inside and laid him on the bed. He kept repeating, ‘She's everywhere. I can't find her.’’
‘Blood,’ Agatha said quietly. She finally understood. ‘He's smeared the entire forest with my blood.’
‘Before I met the Count, I knew almost nothing about vampires. Certainly nothing about how they sense blood. I thought they, like us, navigated only by scent. When I realized the Count was powerless to do anything, I knew what I had to do.’
Standing and crossing the room, Vincent threw a few logs into the fireplace and returned to his seat.
‘I told him it was my fault and my war. That I would find you, no matter the cost. And I asked Mimi to keep an eye on him.’
Finding himself in the forest, Vincent immediately caught Agatha's scent. Concentrating, he isolated first fresh blood, then some that had cooled and caked, then stray splashes, and so on until the pure, pungent scent remained in his head. And Vincent moved toward it.
He walked at least halfway through the forest. There were bloodstains everywhere, and here and there, scraps of fabric from the dress. There were no screams. He tried to tell himself that this was good – it meant Stefan wasn't torturing her. Trying not to think about whether he wasn't torturing her yet or already.
‘I guess I needed to see,’ Vincent said. ‘Everything I've seen so far... and the graves... It was all like some kind of dream. Stefan was alive and warm. He was familiar – and what I knew about him was just a ridiculous nightmare.’
Vincent found her in a clearing. She lay with her arms and legs spread out, covered in blood. Her clothes were torn. Rushing to her, Vincent at first thought he was too late. But although badly beaten, covered in bruises and abrasions, Agatha was still alive.
She smelled of pain and fear, and all the way, as Vincent carried her back to the village, he forced himself to inhale that scent deeply. To imprint it on himself. He reached Stefan's house at dawn. There he found Dracula, who had regained consciousness, and Mimi, completely exhausted with worry.
‘The Count explained to me that he couldn't go out in the sun,’ Vincent said, ‘and so he sent me with you to the castle, saying he'd left a nurse and a doctor there just in case. He promised to return when it got dark. I took Stefan's cart, and we left.’
‘Stefan,’ said Agatha. ‘You said you found me in the clearing. But Stefan wasn't there. Did he escape?!’
‘No,’ came a voice from the door. Agatha and Vincent turned around. ‘After Vincent took you, the neighbors knocked on the headman's door,’ Dracula said, entering the room. ‘They found three frightened women in the basement and the landlord. A very disgruntled landlord. When I told them the story – a bit... abridged – the men grabbed their guns and brought him in that evening. I don't know how they didn't kill him on the spot,’ Dracula added, ‘but when they dragged him in and threw him at my feet, I convinced them that awaiting death would be a better punishment for him than anything they could devise. He's sitting in that very basement and will remain there until his trial.’
For some reason, Agatha had no doubt that it would be the landlord who would judge him.
Leaning back tiredly against the pillows, she pulled the blanket over herself.
‘Please leave me,’ she asked. ‘I want to rest.’
Curled up under the blanket, she didn't hear them both leave. She prayed she wouldn't dream of the forest.
