LITMIR.BIZ

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enough to open her legs, but his attention was on the flesh of her throat. She felt the lechery of it, breathed deeper, swooned, fidgeted with desire to experience again the bite of those fangs, that sweet evacuation of life.

      He in his black garb was something different. The insanity of his fantasy spilled over through their linked alleyways of blood. She saw, felt, lived the secret world of the Undead to which she would soon belong.

      It was being transferred, his bridal gift to her —

      The great sweltering herbivorous beast dashed from the river bank, sounding alarm to other hadrosaurs grazing nearby. It was a mottled green in coloration, yellow and white on the tender belly, with an elaborate headcomb. It balanced its ponderous body on graceful legs, and gave its melancholy call as it ran. Mina heard herself scream, saw her companions scatter, and white birds sail up in alarm from the Cretaceous marshes.

      She took evasive action, running from side to side, yet still hearing the hot breath of pursuit.

      ‘What’s your name, and where’s Joe gone?’

      ‘You must forget Joe. You now have an immortal lover.’

      Indeed, she heard his footsteps close. Thud thud thud. Screaming, she ran into a gingko grove, thinking to evade the heavier predator that way. Behind her, too near her tail, the wretched sound of branches being snapped like teeth breaking from a bottom jaw.

      ‘Where did you come from? Tell me who you are, so I can know you.’

      ‘Beyond your imagining lies the ancient burial site in a once-green land. It was destroyed. Remote ancestors there have been disturbed in their rest.’

      ‘What’s this to me? Why can I not breathe?’

      ‘The Living have desecrated those graves, causing a crisis among us, the Undead. You might say a religious crisis.’

      She heard the ghost of something too desiccated to call a laugh. It came again, from the sky. It brought a new alarm. For she had left the carnivore behind. She had been driven from the family. Now there was a new threat. As a shadow fell over her, she looked up, craning her neck, her throat. A pteranodon was swooping down upon her, wings closed to speed its dive.

      ‘Why don’t you take me? Why delay so long? Will I be immortal in your embrace?’

      ‘You will be immortal in my embrace.’

      ‘It’s all I ever dream of …’

      And as she looked up at those fangs, she fell and sprawled among ferns and it unfolded its spectacular wings —

      And with the last of her strength she threw back the bedclothes to expose herself utterly —

      And it closed its jaws about her neck —

      And as his mouth tasted her flesh and the current flowed —

      And as she fought with death —

      And Mina began to writhe and moan and come at last —

      Through —

      ‘Yes, Mr Bodenland, that was when we were staying with the duke. And later we were so proud, because the Prince of Wales came backstage and shook Bram’s hand.’

      ‘It was during the run of The Corsican Brothers.’

      ‘Edward. HRH. He’s such a dear – and rather a one for the ladies, I’m given to understand.’ Florence Stoker fanned her cheeks with her hand at the thought of it.

      ‘HRH works hard, and so I suppose he feels entitled to play hard. Do you work hard when you’re – at home?’

      ‘Some would say, too hard. But a man’s work is one way in which he establishes his identity.’

      She sighed. ‘Perhaps that is why we poor ladies have no identity to speak of.’ And she shot a glance at her husband.

      Bodenland would have preferred to be alone to think over the implications of the day’s events. He listened with only half an ear to Mrs Stoker’s chatter. They were at the port and cigars stage, sitting about the log fire, under the Bronzino painting, with van Helsing saying little.

      Stoker jumped up suddenly, to give his impression of Henry Irving as Mephistopheles.

      ‘Oh, this is so wicked! Bram, desist!’ cried his wife.

      ‘Please, sir – your heart,’ said van Helsing. ‘Resume your seat.’

      But Stoker would have his way, limping about the hearthrug, at once sinister and comical, reciting in a high chant unlike his own voice:

      His faith is great – I cannot touch his soul –

      But what I may afflict his body with

      That will I do, and stew him in disease …

      He interrupted himself with a fit of coughing.

      ‘What would Henry say? – And him about to be made a knight!’ exclaimed Mrs Stoker.

      ‘I beg you, to bed at once, sir,’ said van Helsing. ‘It grows late.’

      ‘No, no, I must continue work on my novel. Must, must. More chapters. Lucy Westenra is in mortal peril –’ And he dashed from the room.

      A gloomy silence followed. Van Helsing sat at an escritoire, rather ostentatiously writing something, muttering to himself as he did so. Florence Stoker sat tight-lipped, stabbing at her embroidery until, with a sigh, she abandoned it and rose, to stand by the fire staring at the mantelpiece abstractedly.

      ‘It’s a fine painting, Mrs Stoker,’ Bodenland said, referring to the Bronzino, to break the silence.

      ‘It was originally called “An Allegory”,’ she said. ‘Though an allegory of what I fail to see. Something unpleasant to do with … disease, we may suppose.’

      The flatness of her tone did not invite response, leaving Bodenland leisure to ponder on the delights and difficulties of family life before, restlessly, she returned to her chair.

      Something sought release. She looked at the ceiling to announce, ‘Sometimes he’s shut in his study for hours.’

      ‘That must make you feel very lonely, Mrs Stoker,’ said Bodenland.

      She rose, preparing to retreat for the night, and said, grandly, ‘I can survive anything, Mr Bodenland, except bad taste.’

      A few minutes later, van Helsing put away his writing materials. He picked up a candle in a silver candlestick and offered to show Bodenland up to his room.

      ‘You seem to be rather a romancer, sir,’ he remarked, as he led the way upstairs. ‘Your presence clearly disturbs Mr Stoker.’

      ‘What if the man’s soul is being destroyed?’

      ‘Ha ha, I think I may claim to be a man of science. This is 1896, after all, and the “soul” has been pretty well disproved. Men get on famously without souls. We turn left at the top of the stairs.’

      ‘Well, suppose it was possible to travel through time, to the years ahead, to obtain medicine for Stoker’s condition?’

      Another dry laugh. ‘You are a romancer, indeed. Just along here. Most facts of science are known by this date. Winged flight may become possible in a couple of centuries, but travel through space or time – quite impossible. Quite impossible. I’ll stake my reputation on it. Here we are. I’ll leave you the candle. Let’s just see all’s well, and the windows properly fastened.’

      Bodenland entered the dark bedroom first, conscious of the fatigue brought on by the events of the last many hours.

      The bedroom was warm. A small gas fire burned in the grate. He lit the gas mantle over the mantelpiece from his candle, thinking incredulously as he did so, I’m lighting a real gas mantle …

      A woman’s taste was in evidence. There were frills round the curtains and round the wash-stand.

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