#a dark stranger

[majestativa]

Her perfume smelt exquisite – the kind I prefer on her: violent.

— JULIEN GRACQ ⚜️ A Dark Stranger, transl. by Christopher Moncrieff, (2009)

[salembride]

A Dark Stranger pt.4

Summary: Dracula is alive, awake, and knows more than anybody wants him too. There is mention of self-harm. I know that this can be a touchy subject for some people. I myself struggled with it for years, and I want to say right now that if it is something you are going through, you are loved, you matter, and it’s going to be okay. That being said, please don’t read this if mentions of self-harm upset you!! (Also, look at that smile!)

Warnings: language, mention of self-harm, little angst, Dracula is kind of gentle

“You could always ask nicely.” The deep voice pulled all attention toward Dracula who now lay there with his eyes closed and a teasing smile on his lips. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Dr. Carol. “Maybe say, ‘please.’” He sat up and sung his feet over the side of the cot, but he did not stand. His normally clear eyes were slightly foggy, and if he had a pulse, he was sure he would be able to hear his heartbeat in his ears. He had to focus and re-hone his senses. He took a sharp, unneeded breath then let it out slowly, “Ahhhh, there it is.” He could once again hear the blood pumping through the veins of his three spectators. Looking around at the glass walls that encased him once again, he smiled and stood. “Well, Dr. Carol, as much as I love listening to your theories about my recovery, I’ll be happy to inform you that I am recovering much quicker than you had expec- ackk!!” Dracula, fell to his knees and clinched his stomach from the sharp pain centered there, then began laughing. “Zoe’s blood certainly did have quite an effect on me. There is still a bitter taste in my mouth from it.” Using the table in the center of his cage to push himself back to his feet left him meeting the intense stare of the younger man, “Hmmm. Hello, Jack. Did you miss me? I never got to say goodbye after our last visit. You ran away so quickly after you killed my beautiful Lucy and left Zoe to die. Tell me, how do you live with yourself?” 

“Don’t listen to him, Dr. Seward. It wasn’t your fault.” Kelly didn’t give Jack a chance to answer. 

“Ohh, hello there. I haven’t seen you before. What’s your name?” The vampire tilted his head, his eyes softened and a charming smile replaced his devious one. “It’s alright. You can tell me. Or not. I’ll find out sometime.” He sink her a sly wink.

“Kelly. My name is Kelly.”

“Kelly. Lovely.” He nodded his head then turned back to Dr. Carol who was now standing beside Jack. “As for what you are going to do with the sunroof, you could open it up. I have truly missed the sunlight you know. And for the experiments, I’m assuming you want more of my blood since Dr. Helsing drank the first bit she took from me. Don’t expect me to continue to offer it though. Giving blood I not something I have any desire to become a costume too. In fact,” his eyes found Kelly’s, “I could use a drink. Just a taste, really.”

“Not Kelly.” Dr. Carol stated firmly, but was quickly covered by Kelly.

“Fine.” She looked at Dr. Carol and Jack, “I’ll do it.” 

“No, Kelly. We still have others that signed up for this and are getting paid for this. We will bring in one of them.” 

“She’s right, Kelly.” Jack stepped toward her.

“I thought I made it quite clear during my last visit here that I do not like cattle. I’m picky, and I pick, Kelly.” He motioned toward the receptionist. 

“It’s fine. Maybe it will appease him for a bit.” Kelly whispered to both of the doctors to keep Dracula from hearing, but the tall man in the glass merely rolled his eyes at the failed attempt. ‘When will these humans learn?’ he thought to himself. Then Kelly turned to him, and Dr. Carol unlocked the door.

“Hurt her or take too much blood, and I’ll-”

“You’ll what, Doctor? Open the roof to give me a long overdue tan? You don’t know how to kill me now anymore than I do. I guess this means you’ll just have to trust me.” He smiled at the glaring redhead as she unlocked the door to let the other young woman inside. Kelly cautiously entered the glass confinement and jumped when Dracula suddenly appeared in front of her. He took her face gently in his large hand, then ran his finger down her neck to where her pulse was raging. Brushing her hair away from her neck, he bent in close. As we was about to bite, she stopped him.

“Wait,” She whimpered. “Not, not the neck. Please.” Dracula stood up, eyes red with hunger, and she offered him her left arm. He grabbed her wrist and looked at it intently. He would not be the first to harm her here. Leeding her back to the cot and sitting her down, he ran his finger over the scars that decorated her arm and looked at her. 

“Do not tell me you have done this to yourself, little one. Blood is far too valuable to be lost for such a fleeting, selfish reason.” He brought her wrist to his mouth and placed a gentle kiss on one of her many scars. His next words muffled by her skin so only she could hear. “There are better ways to be free.” His fangs pierced her skin.

“Oh fuck!” She screamed through gritted teeth. The next thing she knew, she was standing on a cliff. The waves crashed below her as the orange glow of the setting sun reflected off the waves. It was calm. Peaceful. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sea air.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Dracula said from behind her. She turned to see him staring at the sun as a man returning to his lover after many years of war. “Why do you do this to yourself?” He asked, never looking at her.

“Why do you care? You kill people, remember?” She said harshly. 

“Yes. But I was human once, a long time ago, and I do remember what heartache felt like. A broken heart is not something that easily heals, even after centuries of your heart ceasing to beat. There comes a time when you must move past it. Find your life outside of the pain.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“You’re right. It’s not that easy. It’s not easy at all.” Dracula finally faced her. “I have lived a long time, Kelly. I’ve had 500 years to learn how to overcome pain. But you don’t have that long. Go, find a reason to overcome it. Find a reason to move on. The pain, in the end, is not worth the trouble. And this...” He held her wrists up for her to see. “This is not the way.” She closed her eyes and a tear fell. Dracula’s cool hand returned to her cheek and wiped away the hot tear, bringing her back to reality. When she opened her eyes, she was back in the glass room sitting on the cot. Dracula was holding her wrist tenderly and closing the wound. Just another scar in a map of many. 

She stood and without looking at him said, “Dr. Carol, Dr. Seward, would you please excuse me? There is something I need to do.”

“Um, of course, Kelly. Do whatever you need to.” Dr. Carol said opening the door and closing it again behind her. Kelly nodded then moved to face Jack.

“I wont tell her anything. I’ll just say that I came home because I wasn’t feeling well. Then you two can discuss how much information you want her to know. She may take it better from you anyways.” Jack shook his head in agreement and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you, Kelly. I’ll call her as soon as I can.” Jack and Kelly shared a little smile, but neither fully reached the eyes before Kelly made her exit. Once the heavy steel door closed behind her, Dracula shifted regaining the attention of the doctors. Any gentleness about him was gone and the look of a scheming predator returned.

“She? Her? I can only assume you are referring to the lovely little blonde girl I viewed in Kelly’s memory. The one who has just moved to London. Dr. Seward’s cousin. Umm, Rose, isn’t it, Jackie?” He smiled wildly when Jack started toward the glass; Dr. Carol grabbed his arm.

“Calm down, Jack.” Dr. Carol said.

“If you lay a finger on her, I swear to God-”

“Swear to someone else, Doctor. Zoe helped me realize many things about myself, and I can promise you that little cross she wears around her neck no longer has an effect on me.”

“I’ll see you burn in Hell, demon!” Jack spat.

“OHH! Feisty thing, aren’t you!” Dracula laughed. He and Jack where only inches away from each other now, separated only by the glass between them. “I do hope she is as lively as you are.” Dracula may be secretly working to reform himself based on recent revelations caused by drinking Zoe’s blood, but they didn’t need to know that. Besides, taunting them was so much fun.  “Enough!” Dr. Carol nearly shouted, pulling Jack away toward the door. “Jack, come with me. We need to get you out of her before you do something foolish. Rather than arguing with him over Rose, we need to decide what we are going to do about her since she is clearly in the middle of things now.” She opened the door and pushed Jack out into the hallway. 

Just before the door shut, Jack heard Dracula say, “Tell that sweet flower, ‘Hello!’”

“Jack, breathe. You need to calm down.”

“I’m not going to let him hurt her. He cannot have her!”

“And he won’t! He is locked up in there, and she is out here. She is going back to the States very soon, you said so yourself.” 

“What am I going to tell her?” Jack was still struggling to calm his breathing, and he was pacing in small circles.

“As I said before, this information was on a need-to-know basis. Now that he is aware of her existence and relation to you,” she sighed, “I think, she needs to know.”

“What?” Jack said shocked, “You can’t be serious.”

“You need to tell her the truth, Jack. All of it. Hiding this information from her is no longer an option.”

“She is going to think I am crazy!” He was growing hysterical. Rose would never look at him the same way again. She would tell the rest of the family that he had gone mad.  

“Jack,” Dr. Carol placed her hand on his shoulder, very similar to how he had with Kelly. “Honestly is the only way to keep her safe now. Who knows what she may have told Kelly while they were together, especially if they were intoxicated. And if Dracula can see some of Kelly’s memories about Rose, then there is no way for us to sure of what he does or does not know about her. That means that she is not even safe back in the U.S. She needs to know what she is potentially up against.”

Jack ran his fingers through his straight brown hair and groaned in defeat. “Alright. I’ll see if Kelly will help me. She might find it easier to believe if we both tell her.”

“Good idea.” Together the doctors returned to the lobby, “Try to be sensitive. Convincing someone that fairytales are actually real is not easy.” 

“I’ll do my best.” They shook hands, and Jack got into the cab thinking of all the ways the conversation with Rose could go wrong. Then it struck him; Dracula had referred to Rose as ‘The one who had just moved to London,’ but she was only visiting. “Please, God, let her only be visiting.”

_________________

Back in the glass cell, Dracula sat at the table drumming his overly shape nails against the table. He knew he wasn’t at his full strength yet, perhaps these doctors and their tests could prove useful to him after all; although, he doubted any of them were nearly as brilliant as the Van Helsing women. Such a pity really, to have lost them both. He looked around his little glass room and laughed when he saw that they had left that ridiculous toilet in the corner. His cot was too short, and this time they didn’t give him a tablet to read books on. He fake pouted. “Hey!” He shouted. “You could at least have the decency to bring me a Bible! I haven’t read one of those in several centuries. I’d like to see how bad you selfish morons have messed it up since the 15th century!”  

Oh well, he had more important things to worry anyways. Now that Zoe had helped him learn his greatest fear, he had to figure out the right steps to overcome it. Perhaps the was a reason to live, or be undead, rather. He was determined to figure that out. It was hard, however, when with each thought came the distracting image of this beauty, this Rose. Her porcelain skin, piercing blue eyes, and blonde hair with curls that framed her face perfectly. was more than a desire to taste her blood; this was a burning he had not felt since warm blood flowed through his now icy veins. He raised his index finger and drew lines in the glass. He needed to be near her, but he couldn’t do that from inside here. With one swift motion, the glass was shattered on the ground around him and the steel door thrown from its hinges. The alarms sounded, and panic arose once again at the Jonathan Harker Foundation. Dr. Carol didn’t have to look to know what had happened. She simply pulled out her phone and sent a text to Jack.

*He’s loose.*

[theshatterednotes]

Julien Gracq, French author

[majestativa]

She’s a princess, […] a Sphinx.

— JULIEN GRACQ ⚜️ A Dark Stranger, transl. by Christopher Moncrieff, (2009)

[majestativa]

His highly elegant exterior, that lunar element he has about him.

— JULIEN GRACQ ⚜️ A Dark Stranger, transl. by Christopher Moncrieff, (2009)

[majestativa]

And even the Bible claims that archangels still keep their inviolable crown when they fall.

— JULIEN GRACQ ⚜️ A Dark Stranger, transl. by Christopher Moncrieff, (2009)

[majestativa]

The nocturnal, moon-like atmosphere in which my memory constantly bathes her.

— JULIEN GRACQ ⚜️ A Dark Stranger, transl. by Christopher Moncrieff, (2009)

[majestativa]

Who can tell what conjuring power is concealed in the watermark of the text, that magnetic, invisible text which guides the poet unconsciously through the chiaroscuro of the written word, already so full of dangers.

— JULIEN GRACQ ⚜️ A Dark Stranger, transl. by Christopher Moncrieff, (2009)