The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen (best black authors TXT) 📗

my boxes from Carfax. Engaged in this task, Jonathan was out again, this time in Walworth, toward the south of London, when I arrived.

      On this visit I found an attendant posted, evidently as a guard or lookout, in the corridor outside Renfield’s room. The madman had suddenly become so cheerful, “singing gaily” and snapping up houseflies as of old, that Seward was made suspicious. It was Renfield himself, with many winks and grimaces and pointings of his thumb, who notified me of the presence of this lookout as soon as I came in through his window. Of course I was not required to pass through Renfield’s room at all after once gaining admission to the house, but I had already begun to feel somewhat uneasy about Mina, lodged as she was in rooms directly above that of this inhumanly powerful man who yearned to rape and torture her. I thought I would try to soothe the lunatic with a few soft, calming words, as from his lord and master.

      But first of all there was the attendant in the hallway to be dealt with. It was no great trick to send this sentry, who already nodded on its brink, toppling safely into the abyss of sleep. I did it by creating a certain electrical resonance between my brain and that of the subject, a means that your science is now beginning to discover.

      Then I put my hands on Renfield’s shoulders and gave him a few soft words. He took them rather sulkily, I thought. It was not peace and calm he wanted. But I tried …

      I left him quiet, if not pacified. Then, wraith-like, I went out of his room and past the guard who nodded in his chair, and up the stairs again. Listening outside the door of the Harkers’ apartment, I could hear only one set of lungs at work within — Mina’s, that I had already come to be able to recognize. And there came also to my sensitive ears the soft, thick murmur of her heart, so tender a pump that pushed such pure elixir through her veins. The fang roots in my upper jaw were aching as I tapped lightly at her door. And at my tapping her breath inside, that had already been quick with anticipation, quickened more …

      If chastity can be defined as that which is protected by a chastity belt, then Mina, like Lucy before her, was always chaste with me. But as I am concerned to speak the truth I must relate that Mina gave herself to me as fully as she could, as early as that night, our second meeting. Very little in the way of making plans did we accomplish then, for ourselves even, let alone for her husband’s future welfare … ah, Mina! My true, enduring love! Dear one, heart of my heart …

      Harker on his tardy return home — to the asylum, that is — on that night of first October found Mina fast asleep, and thought her

a little too pale; her eyes look as though she has been crying. Poor dear, I’ve no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But … it is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business … indeed, it may not be a hard task after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the count and his doings ever since we told her of our decision.

      The next day, October second, I rested, glassy-eyed, in trance. That day saw Arthur and Quincey out looking at horses, with a view to purchasing some in case any sort of cavalry action should be required; they were basically men of action, chafed by Van Helsing’s deviousness and delays. Harker continued his interviews with teamsters, by which he was methodically tracking down my boxes — though of course he had not discovered that several of them no longer contained their original soil. Seward had enough work of his own about the asylum to keep him out of mischief; and one of the most advanced scientists of his day was reportedly at the British Museum’s reading room, “searching for witch and demon cures” that he had told Seward “might be useful later.” Mina got some rest during the day, but the mental strain of her ambiguous new position was affecting her, and Harker on rejoining her in the afternoon thought she still looked wan.

      She made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful … it took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seemed somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders …

      He had just found my house in Piccadilly, ripe for plundering; but had to record regretfully that he could not tell the other men of the day’s great discovery whilst his wife was hanging about.

      So after dinner — followed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselves — I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us.

      So many a cuckolded husband has comforted himself, I should imagine, as his last chance to retain first place in his girl’s heart slips through his hands, unnoticed by himself.

      Now come we to a night that formed another major turning point for all of us. When after dark I slipped into Renfield’s room I found him