I had to do something, or I would lose my mind, so I began writing this diary.
It was six o’clock in the morning. In half an hour, we were supposed to meet in the study and have something to eat. Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward both insisted that we needed food if we were going to do our work properly.
God knows how much we would need our strength today.
I must keep writing whenever I have the chance. I cannot afford to stop and think. Everything must be recorded, no matter how small. Perhaps the smallest details will prove to be the most important in the end.
Nothing we have learned so far could have left Mina and me in a worse position than we are in now. Still, we must trust God and keep hoping.
A short while ago, poor Mina spoke to me with tears running down her cheeks.
“It is when we are suffering that our faith is truly tested,” she said. “We must keep trusting. God will help us all the way to the end.”
The end.
My God, what kind of end will it be?
I cannot think about that now.
I must work.
When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward returned from seeing poor Renfield, we sat down together to decide what we should do next.
Dr. Seward first told us what had happened.
“When Dr. Van Helsing and I went downstairs, we found Renfield lying on the floor,” he said. “He was badly injured. His face had been crushed against the floor, and the bones in his neck were broken.”
We asked the attendant who had been on duty outside Renfield’s room whether he had heard anything.
He admitted that he had been sitting there and had almost fallen asleep when he heard loud voices coming from inside.
Then Renfield suddenly shouted several times.
“God! God! God!”
A moment later, there was a terrible sound, as though someone had fallen heavily.
The attendant rushed into the room and found Renfield lying face down on the floor.
Van Helsing asked him carefully, “Did you hear voices, or just one voice?”
“I can’t really say,” the man replied. “At first, it sounded as though there were two people speaking. But there was nobody else in the room, so I suppose it must have been only one voice.”
“Are you certain the word ‘God’ was spoken by Renfield?”
“Yes, sir. I would swear to it.”
Later, when we were alone, Dr. Seward told us that he did not want to discuss the matter any further.
“There will probably have to be an inquest,” he said. “We cannot tell the truth. No one would believe us.”
He believed the attendant’s testimony would be enough for him to certify that Renfield had died accidentally after falling from his bed.
If the coroner demanded an inquest, the official conclusion would probably be the same.
Then we turned to the question that mattered most: what should we do next?
The first thing we agreed on was that Mina must know everything.
There could be no more secrets between us, no matter how painful the truth might be.
Mina agreed.
“There must be no more hiding things from one another,” she said. “We have already suffered far too much because of that. And there is nothing anyone could tell me that would hurt more than what I have already endured. Whatever happens now, knowing the truth can only give me either new hope or new courage.”
Van Helsing stared at her for a moment.
Then he asked quietly, “But, dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid? Not for yourself, but for the people you love—afraid of what you might do to them after what has happened?”
Mina’s face became very serious, but there was a strange strength in her eyes.
“No,” she said. “I have already made up my mind.”
“About what?” Van Helsing asked gently.
Everyone became silent.
Mina answered very simply.
“If I ever discover that I am becoming dangerous to someone I love—and I will watch myself carefully—I will die.”
Van Helsing’s voice became rough.
“You mean you would kill yourself?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Unless someone who loves me is willing to save me from that suffering.”
Van Helsing stood and walked over to her. He placed a hand gently on her head.
“My child, if it were truly necessary, there is someone here who would help you escape such suffering. I would even consider it my duty before God to spare you that pain, if there were no other choice.”
His voice caught for a moment.
“But there are people here who will stand between you and death. You must not die. And above all, you must never take your own life.”
He looked deeply into her eyes.
“Until the creature who has poisoned your life is truly dead, you must live. If he is still among the Un-Dead, your death could make you like him.”
Mina grew pale.
“No,” Van Helsing continued firmly. “You must live. You must fight to stay alive, even if death sometimes seems like a blessing. You must fight Death itself, whether it comes through pain or happiness, by day or by night, in safety or in danger.”
He took her hand.
“I command you, as someone who loves you, not to die and not even to think about death until this evil is finally defeated.”
Mina trembled violently.
For several moments none of us knew what to say.
At last she became calmer.
She reached out her hand to Van Helsing.
“I promise you, my dear friend,” she said softly, “that if God allows me to live, I will do everything I can to stay alive until this horror has finally passed.”
Her courage strengthened all of us.
I told Mina that she would have access to all the papers in the safe, as well as any diaries and phonograph records we might create from now on.
She was to continue keeping the record of everything that happened, just as she had done before.
She seemed almost glad to have something useful to do, though it felt strange to call her interest in such a terrible task happiness.
As usual, Van Helsing had already thought several steps ahead of the rest of us.
“It is fortunate,” he said, “that when we returned from Carfax we decided not to destroy the earth-boxes immediately.”
He explained that if we had destroyed them then, the Count might have realized what we were doing and taken precautions to protect the remaining boxes.
“Now he does not know what we intend. More importantly, he may not even realize that we have discovered a way to make his hiding places useless to him.”
He spread the plan before us.
“We know much more now. Once we examine the house in Piccadilly, we may be able to discover where the final boxes are hidden.”
He looked at us seriously.
“Today belongs to us. Our hope depends on this day.”
He pointed toward the rising sun.
“The sun that rose this morning over our sorrow is also our protection. Until it sets tonight, the Count must remain in whatever physical form he now has. He cannot dissolve into mist or pass through cracks and tiny openings. If he wants to leave through a door, he must open that door like an ordinary man.”
Van Helsing’s eyes hardened.
“That gives us this entire day to find all his hiding places and destroy their power. If we cannot capture and kill him today, then we can force him into a position from which we can eventually destroy him.”
I jumped to my feet.
“But every minute we spend talking is a minute that Mina is in danger!”
Van Helsing raised a warning hand.
“No, my friend Jonathan. Sometimes the quickest way home is the longest road.”
He spoke calmly.
“We will act quickly when the right moment comes. But I believe the key to everything may be in that house in Piccadilly.”
“The Count may own several houses,” he continued. “There will be property deeds, keys, letters, accounts, and other documents. He must keep such things somewhere. Why not in that quiet house in such a central location, where he can come and go without anyone noticing?”
He smiled slightly.
“We will search that house. Once we know what is inside, we can destroy the remaining earth-boxes. Then we can drive our old enemy into the open.”
“Then let’s go at once!” I cried. “Every second is precious!”
Van Helsing did not move.
“And how do you propose we enter the house?”
“Any way we can. We can break in if necessary.”
“And what will the police say?”
That stopped me.
I knew he had a reason for wanting to wait, so I forced myself to remain calm.
“Please don’t delay longer than necessary,” I said. “You know what I am suffering.”
“I know, my child,” he replied. “And I have no desire to increase your pain.”
He thought for a moment.
“Suppose you were the legal owner of that house. Suppose you had lost your key. What would you do?”
“I would hire a respectable locksmith to open the lock.”
“And would the police interfere?”
“No. Not if they knew the locksmith had been properly hired.”
Van Helsing smiled.
“Then the only question is whether the employer has a good reason for doing it. If everything appears proper, the police will not interfere.”
He explained that there were many cases in London where houses were opened, emptied, sold, or demolished while the authorities simply assumed everything was legitimate.
“So we shall do exactly the same,” he said. “We will not go too early, when there are few people around and our actions might look suspicious. We will go after ten o’clock, when there are plenty of people in the streets.”
His plan made perfect sense.
For the first time that morning, I saw some hope return to Mina’s face.
“When we enter the house,” Van Helsing continued, “we may discover more clues. Some of us can remain there while the others search for the remaining earth-boxes in Bermondsey and Mile End.”
Lord Godalming stood.
“I can help with that. I’ll send word to my people to prepare horses and carriages.”
Quincey Morris shook his head.
“That is a good idea in principle, but wouldn’t one of your fancy carriages, with all those family decorations, attract attention in places like Walworth or Mile End?”
He shrugged.
“I think we should take ordinary cabs when we go south or east. We can leave them somewhere near the neighborhoods we are searching.”
“Quincey is right,” Van Helsing agreed. “We do not want people watching us.”
Mina had become deeply interested in our plans.
I was glad to see that the urgent work ahead was giving her something else to think about, even if only for a little while.
She was terribly pale and thin. Her lips seemed drawn back, making her teeth more noticeable.
I did not mention it because I did not want to frighten her.
But it reminded me horribly of what had happened to poor Lucy after the Count had taken her blood.
So far there was no sign that Mina’s teeth were changing.
But the time was still short.
There was still time to hope.
We next discussed how we should divide our forces.
Finally, we agreed that before going to Piccadilly, we should destroy the Count’s hiding place nearby at Carfax.
If he discovered our plans, at least we would already have destroyed one of his lairs.
And if we encountered him there during the day, when he was trapped in physical form and at his weakest, we might learn something useful.
Van Helsing proposed that after Carfax, Dr. Seward, Van Helsing, and I should go to the Piccadilly house and remain there.
Lord Godalming and Quincey would search the houses in Walworth and Mile End.
The Professor believed there was a chance the Count might return to Piccadilly during the day.
“If he appears there,” he said, “we may be able to confront him directly. And even if he escapes, we may be able to follow him.”
I immediately objected to going.
“I intend to stay here with Mina and protect her.”
But Mina refused to let me do that.
“There may be legal matters where you can help,” she said. “There may also be papers in the Count’s house that you can understand because of what you learned in Transylvania.”
She looked at me steadily.
“And we need every person we can get. The Count is too powerful for us to divide ourselves unnecessarily.”
I tried to argue, but Mina would not change her mind.
“This is our last hope,” she said. “We must all work together.”
Then she smiled sadly.
“As for me, I am not afraid. Things could hardly be worse than they already are. Whatever happens now must contain at least some possibility of hope.”
She took my hand.
“Go, my husband. If God wishes to protect me, He can do so even when I am alone.”
I stood up.
“Then, in God’s name, let us go now! We are wasting time. The Count could reach Piccadilly sooner than we expect.”
“Not so fast,” Van Helsing said.
“Why?”
He smiled.
“Have you forgotten that he feasted heavily last night? He will sleep late.”
Could I ever forget?
Could any of us ever forget what happened?
Mina tried desperately to remain brave, but the memory overwhelmed her. She covered her face with her hands and began to tremble.
Van Helsing immediately realized what he had done.
He had been thinking only about the facts and had forgotten, for a moment, what those words meant to Mina.
“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said sadly. “My dear, dear Madam Mina. Of all people, I should never have said such a thing without thinking.”
He bent toward her.
“My foolish old head and these foolish old lips of mine have caused you pain. You will forgive me, won’t you?”
Mina took his hand.
“No,” she said through her tears. “I will not forget it. It is better that I remember. But I also have so many kind memories of you that I can take them all together.”
She wiped her eyes.
“Now you must all leave soon. Breakfast is ready. We need to eat so that we will have strength.”
Breakfast was a strange and unhappy meal.
We tried to joke and encourage one another.
Mina, surprisingly, was the one who tried hardest to keep everyone cheerful.
When we finished, Van Helsing stood.
“My dear friends, it is time to begin our terrible work.”
He looked at each of us.
“Are you all armed as you were when we first entered our enemy’s lair? Armed against both physical and supernatural attacks?”
We assured him that we were.
“Good. Madam Mina, you are completely safe here until sunset. We will return before then—if we return.”
He paused.
“But before we leave, I want to make certain that you are protected from personal attack.”
He explained that he had already prepared her room with the sacred objects that could keep the Count away.
Then he took out a piece of the Sacred Wafer.
“Now let me protect you. In the name of the Father, the Son, and—”
Mina suddenly screamed.
The sound nearly froze my blood.
The moment Van Helsing touched the Sacred Wafer to her forehead, it burned her flesh as though it were white-hot metal.
Mina understood instantly what that meant.
The pain and the meaning behind it were too much for her.
She collapsed onto her knees.
Pulling her hair over her face, she cried out:
“Unclean! Unclean! Even God rejects me because I am polluted! I will have to carry this mark of shame on my forehead until the Day of Judgment!”
I threw myself beside her and held her tightly.
For several minutes, we could do nothing but grieve.
The others turned away, silently wiping tears from their eyes.
Then Van Helsing spoke.
His voice was solemn and strangely powerful.
“It may be that you will have to carry that mark until God Himself decides that the time has come to remove it.”
He gently touched her shoulder.
“On the final day, God will correct every wrong and lift every burden. And, dear Madam Mina, I pray that all of us who love you will still be alive to see that scar disappear.”
His voice remained steady.
“When God decides that the burden is finished, that mark will vanish, and your forehead will once again be as pure as the heart we know you possess.”
He looked at all of us.
“Until then, we must carry our suffering as Christ carried His cross. Perhaps we have been chosen to do this work for a reason. We may have to pass through shame, tears, blood, doubt, and fear before this terrible difference between the living and the Un-Dead can finally be ended.”
His words gave us hope.
They also gave Mina peace.
Mina and I each took one of his hands and kissed it.
Then, without another word, we all knelt together.
Holding hands, we promised that we would remain loyal to one another.
We vowed to do everything we could to remove the darkness hanging over the woman we loved.
Then we prayed for strength and guidance before beginning the terrible work ahead.
It was time to leave.
I said goodbye to Mina.
It was a farewell neither of us would ever forget.
Then we set out.
I have made one decision in my heart.
If we discover that Mina must eventually become a vampire, I will not allow her to enter that terrible world alone.
Perhaps that is how the vampires have always multiplied.
Perhaps the greatest love can become the very thing that draws another person into their ranks.
We reached Carfax without difficulty.
Everything looked exactly as it had before.
It was difficult to believe that such an ordinary place, filled with dust, decay, and neglect, could hide anything connected to the horrors we had witnessed.
Without the terrible memories driving us forward, we might never have been able to continue.
We found no papers and no sign that anyone had recently used the house.
In the old chapel, the great earth-boxes were exactly where we had left them.
Van Helsing stood before them.
“Now, my friends, we have something important to do.”
He opened his bag.
“We must destroy the power of this earth. The Count brought it from a distant land and used it for an evil purpose.”
He looked at the boxes.
“He chose this earth because it had once been holy. So we will defeat him with the very thing he depended upon. We will make it holy again.”
He took out a screwdriver and a wrench.
Soon we had opened the first box.
A musty smell rose from the earth.
None of us paid much attention to it. We were watching Van Helsing.
He removed a piece of the Sacred Wafer from his bag and carefully placed it on the earth.
Then he closed the box and began securing the lid again.
We helped him.
One by one, we opened each of the great boxes and treated them in the same way.
When we finished, everything looked almost exactly as it had before.
But inside every box was a piece of the Sacred Wafer.
As we closed the chapel door behind us, Van Helsing said:
“That is one part of our work finished. If we can do the same with all the others, then perhaps tonight’s sunset will shine on Madam Mina’s forehead and reveal no mark at all.”
We crossed the lawn toward the station.
From there we could see the front of the asylum.
I looked toward Mina’s window.
She was standing there.
I waved and nodded, trying to tell her that we had succeeded.
She nodded back.
The last thing I saw was her waving goodbye.
With heavy hearts, we hurried to the station and just managed to catch our train as it pulled in.
I am writing these words on the train.
By the time we were almost at Fenchurch Street, Lord Godalming turned to me.
“Quincey and I will find a locksmith,” he said. “You had better stay out of it. If there is trouble, it will be easier for us to explain why we were breaking into an empty house.”
He smiled.
“But you are a solicitor. Your professional organization might not be so understanding.”
I protested that I was willing to share the risk.
He shook his head.
“Too many of us would attract attention. My title should be enough to satisfy the locksmith and any policeman who happens to come along.”
He pointed ahead.
“You go with Jack and the Professor and wait in Green Park where you can see the house. When you see the door open and the locksmith leave, come across. We’ll let you in.”
Van Helsing agreed.
“That is good advice.”
So Godalming and Morris took one cab, while Van Helsing and I followed in another.
We got out near Arlington Street and walked into Green Park.
My heart began beating faster when I saw the Piccadilly house.
It stood dark and silent among its brighter, more respectable neighbors.
So much depended on what we would find inside.
We sat on a bench where we could watch the house without being noticed.
We lit cigars to make ourselves look like ordinary men simply resting in the park.
The minutes seemed painfully slow.
At last, a four-wheeled cab arrived.
Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris climbed out.
A sturdy working man followed, carrying a large woven basket filled with tools.
Morris paid the driver, who tipped his hat and left.
The three men walked up the steps.
Godalming pointed toward the lock and explained what he wanted.
The locksmith calmly removed his coat and hung it on the fence.
A policeman happened to walk past.
The locksmith said something to him.
The policeman nodded and continued on his way.
The locksmith placed his bag on the ground and opened it.
He carefully arranged several tools beside him.
Then he stood and examined the keyhole.
He blew into the lock and said something to Godalming.
Godalming smiled.
The locksmith pulled out a large ring of keys.
He tried one.
Then another.
Then a third.
Suddenly, the door opened with the slightest push.
The locksmith and the two men disappeared inside.
We remained where we were.
My cigar was burning far too quickly.
Van Helsing’s had gone completely cold.
After some time, the locksmith returned.
He carried his bag and held the door partly open with his knee while he worked on the lock.
Finally, he handed a key to Lord Godalming.
Godalming took out his purse and paid him.
The man tipped his hat, put on his coat, picked up his tools, and walked away.
Not a single person seemed to find the whole thing unusual.
Once the locksmith had disappeared, the three of us crossed the street and knocked.
The door opened immediately.
Quincey Morris stood there, with Lord Godalming beside him lighting a cigar.
“The place smells terrible,” Godalming said.
He was right.
The smell was exactly like the old chapel at Carfax.
From our previous experience, we knew at once that the Count had been using this house.
We entered carefully.
We stayed together because we knew our enemy was powerful and clever, and we still did not know whether he might be hiding somewhere inside.
In the dining room at the back of the house, we found eight earth-boxes.
Eight.
But we had been looking for nine.
One was missing.
Our work was not finished.
We opened the shutters of the dining-room window.
Outside was a narrow stone courtyard facing the blank wall of a stable.
There were no windows overlooking us, so we had little reason to worry about being seen.
We immediately began examining the boxes.
Using the tools we had brought, we opened them one by one.
Each was treated exactly as the boxes at Carfax had been.
It quickly became clear that the Count was not in the house.
So we began searching for his belongings.
We made a quick inspection of the rest of the house, from the basement to the attic.
Nothing seemed important.
We returned to the dining room and examined everything there more carefully.
The large table was covered with papers and objects arranged in what looked like an organized mess.
There was a large bundle of documents proving ownership of the Piccadilly house.
There were also the deeds for the houses in Mile End and Bermondsey.
Notepaper, envelopes, pens, and bottles of ink were neatly wrapped to protect them from dust.
There was a clothes brush, another brush and comb, and a jug and basin.
The water in the basin was dirty and strangely red, almost as though it contained blood.
Finally, we found a small pile of keys of different shapes and sizes.
They were probably the keys to the Count’s other houses.
Lord Godalming and Quincey carefully wrote down the addresses connected with the deeds.
Then they gathered the keys into one large ring.
They were ready to leave and begin destroying the remaining earth-boxes in the houses to the east and south.
The rest of us stayed behind.
Now we could only wait patiently for their return.
Or for the return of the Count himself.