When I reached Renfield’s room, I found him lying on his left side in a pool of blood. The sight was horrifying.
I knelt beside him and tried to move him. It was immediately clear that he had suffered terrible injuries. His face was badly bruised, as though he had repeatedly smashed it against the floor. Most of the blood had come from the wounds on his face.
The attendant was kneeling beside him. As we carefully turned Renfield over, he said:
“I think his back is broken, sir. His right arm and leg are both paralyzed, and the whole right side of his face is affected.”
He looked completely confused.
“I can’t understand how both things happened. He could have injured his face by banging his head against the floor. I’ve seen a young woman do that at the Eversfield Asylum. And perhaps he broke his back by falling out of bed.”
He shook his head.
“But if his back was broken first, he couldn’t have smashed his own face against the floor. And if his face was already injured before he fell, there should be some evidence of that. I just can’t make sense of it.”
“Go and get Dr. Van Helsing,” I told him. “Ask him to come immediately. I need him here without delay.”
The man hurried away.
A few minutes later, Van Helsing appeared in his dressing gown and slippers. He took one quick look at Renfield, then looked at me.
I believe he understood what I was thinking.
“Terrible accident,” he said quietly, clearly speaking so the attendant could hear. “He will need careful attention and constant observation. I will stay with you, but I must dress properly first. Wait here. I will return in a few minutes.”
Renfield was breathing heavily and irregularly.
Van Helsing returned remarkably quickly, carrying his surgical instruments.
He had clearly already made up his mind.
“Send the attendant away,” he whispered. “When Renfield wakes after the operation, we must be alone with him.”
I turned to the attendant.
“That will be all for now, Simmons. We’ve done everything we can at this moment. Go back to your rounds, and tell me immediately if you notice anything unusual.”
He left.
Van Helsing and I examined Renfield carefully.
The wounds on his face were serious but superficial. The real danger was a depressed fracture of the skull. The damage extended into the part of the brain that controlled movement.
Van Helsing studied the injury for a moment.
“We must relieve the pressure immediately. The bleeding is continuing, and the swelling will increase quickly. If we don’t operate now, it may be too late.”
Just then, someone quietly knocked on the door.
I opened it and found Arthur Godalming and Quincey Morris standing in the corridor in their pajamas and slippers.
“I heard the attendant call for Van Helsing,” Art explained. “So I woke Quincey—or rather, I called him because he wasn’t really asleep. None of us has been sleeping properly lately.”
He looked toward Renfield.
“Things are moving too quickly and in too strange a way for any of us to sleep peacefully. I have a feeling tomorrow night will be very different from tonight. We may need to start thinking about what lies ahead.”
“May we come in?”
I nodded and opened the door wider.
Quincey entered and immediately saw Renfield lying on the floor.
“My God! What happened to him?”
“Poor devil.”
I briefly explained the situation and told them that we hoped Renfield might regain consciousness after the operation, at least for a short time.
Quincey sat on the edge of the bed, with Art beside him.
Van Helsing examined Renfield again.
“We will wait only long enough to choose the safest place to operate,” he said. “We need to remove the blood clot as quickly and completely as possible. The bleeding is clearly getting worse.”
Those few minutes seemed to last forever.
A terrible feeling of dread settled over me.
I could see the same fear in Van Helsing’s face.
I was afraid of what Renfield might say if he regained consciousness.
His breathing came in weak, uneven gasps. Every few moments it seemed that he was about to open his eyes and speak, but then he would take another long, rattling breath and sink back into unconsciousness.
Even though I had spent years around illness and death, the waiting became almost unbearable.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
The blood seemed to pound against my temples.
The others were suffering just as badly. Their faces were flushed, and sweat covered their foreheads.
We all sat in tense silence, as though we were waiting for some terrible alarm to sound.
At last, Renfield’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly.
He might die at any moment.
I looked at Van Helsing.
His expression was grim.
“There is no more time to waste,” he said. “Whatever he has to tell us could save many lives. I have been thinking about that while we waited.”
He paused.
“There may be a soul at stake.”
He pointed to the side of Renfield’s head.
“We operate here.”
Without another word, he began the operation.
For several moments, Renfield continued to breathe heavily.
Then he took one long, terrible breath, as though his chest could barely contain it.
Suddenly his eyes opened.
They stared wildly at us.
For several seconds, there was only confusion and fear in them.
Then his expression changed.
He looked almost relieved.
“I’ll be quiet, Doctor,” he whispered. “Tell them they can take off the straitjacket. I’ve had a terrible dream. It has left me so weak I can hardly move.”
He touched his face.
“What happened to me? My face feels swollen, and it hurts terribly.”
He tried to turn his head, but his eyes began to lose focus again.
I gently held his head still.
Van Helsing leaned closer.
“Tell us about your dream, Mr. Renfield.”
Renfield’s face brightened when he recognized the Professor.
“Dr. Van Helsing. I’m glad you’re here. Please give me some water. My lips are so dry. Then I’ll try to tell you.”
“I dreamed—”
He suddenly weakened.
I called to Quincey.
“The brandy! It’s in my study. Quickly!”
Quincey ran out and returned with brandy and water.
We moistened Renfield’s lips, and he quickly became more alert.
But when he looked at me again, there was terrible confusion in his eyes.
“I must not lie to myself,” he said. “It wasn’t a dream.”
He looked around the room.
“It was real.”
His eyes moved toward Art and Quincey, sitting beside the bed.
“If I hadn’t already known, I would know from looking at them.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, deliberately gathering what little strength remained to him.
When he opened them again, he spoke with sudden urgency.
“Quick, Doctor. I am dying. I know I have only a few minutes left. Then I must return to death—or something worse.”
“Give me some more brandy.”
I held the glass to his lips.
“Thank you.”
His breathing was weak, but he forced himself to continue.
“I have something I must tell you before I die—or before my damaged brain stops working completely.”
He paused.
“It happened the night after you left me. I begged you to let me go, but I couldn’t explain why. It felt as though my tongue had been tied. But I was sane then, just as I am now.”
He swallowed.
“After you left, I suffered terribly. It seemed to last for hours. Then, suddenly, I became calm.”
“My mind cleared. I knew where I was.”
“I heard the dogs barking behind the house.”
He looked frightened.
“But not where He was.”
Van Helsing’s eyes never left Renfield.
His hand reached for mine and gripped it tightly.
He gave a tiny nod.
“Go on,” he whispered.
Renfield continued.
“He came to the window through the mist, just as I had seen him before.”
“But this time he was solid. He wasn’t a ghost.”
“His eyes were fierce, like a man’s eyes when he is furious.”
“He smiled with that red mouth of his. His sharp white teeth shone in the moonlight.”
“He looked back toward the trees where the dogs were barking.”
“At first, I wouldn’t ask him to come inside, even though I knew he wanted to.”
“He had wanted to come all along.”
“Then he began promising me things.”
Van Helsing interrupted.
“How?”
“Not with words,” Renfield replied. “He showed me what he could do.”
“He sent the creatures again, just as he had before.”
“Big, fat flies, with wings that looked like metal and jewels.”
“And huge moths at night, with skulls and crossbones on their backs.”
Van Helsing whispered to me:
“Death’s-head moths.”
Renfield continued without stopping.
“Then he began whispering about rats.”
“Rats. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions.”
“Every one of them carried life.”
“He promised me dogs to kill them, and cats too.”
“All that life. All that warm blood. Years and years of life.”
“Not just a few worthless flies.”
I laughed at him because I wanted to see what he would do.
Then the dogs began howling somewhere beyond the dark trees.
He beckoned me toward the window.
I stood up and looked outside.
He raised his hands.
He seemed to call out, but I heard no words.
Then a dark mass spread across the grass.
It moved like a huge wave of fire.
The mist rolled away to both sides.
And I saw them.
Thousands upon thousands of rats.
Their eyes glowed red.
Just like his eyes, only smaller.
He raised one hand.
Every rat stopped.
Then I felt as though he was saying to me:
‘All these lives can be yours. And I can give you many more—greater lives that will last for ages—if you kneel before me and worship me.’
Then everything turned red.
A cloud like blood seemed to cover my eyes.
Before I knew what I was doing, I opened the window and said:
‘Come in, Lord and Master.’
The rats disappeared.
He slipped through the window.
It was barely open an inch, yet he came through as easily as mist.
Renfield paused.
His voice was getting weaker.
I gave him more brandy.
Van Helsing whispered to me:
“Let him continue. Do not interrupt him. If he loses the thread of his thoughts, he may not be able to continue.”
Renfield went on.
“I waited all day for him to send me something.”
“But he sent nothing.”
“Not even a single fly.”
“When the moon rose, I became angry.”
“Then he came through the window again.”
“The window was closed, but he entered without knocking.”
“I was furious.”
“He sneered at me.”
“His pale face appeared through the mist, and his red eyes burned.”
“He acted as though the whole place belonged to him and I was nothing.”
“But something was different.”
“He no longer smelled the same.”
“I couldn’t hold him.”
Renfield’s eyes became troubled.
“I thought somehow that Mrs. Harker had entered the room.”
Art and Quincey silently stood up and moved behind Renfield so that he could not see them.
Van Helsing trembled slightly.
His face became even more serious.
Renfield continued without noticing them.
“When Mrs. Harker came to see me this afternoon, she wasn’t the same person.”
“She looked like tea that had been watered down too much.”
“We all moved at those words, but nobody interrupted him.
“I didn’t know she was here until she spoke.”
“She looked different.”
“I don’t like pale people. I like people with plenty of blood in them.”
“But it looked as though all the blood had been drained from her.”
“I didn’t understand it at first.”
“Then she left, and I started thinking about it.”
“The thought made me furious.”
“He had been taking her life away.”
Nobody moved.
I could feel the others trembling.
Renfield continued.
“So when He came tonight, I was ready.”
“I saw the mist coming through the room.”
“I grabbed it.”
“I had heard that madmen sometimes possess unnatural strength.”
“And I knew that I was a madman, at least sometimes.”
“So I decided to use that strength.”
“He felt it too.”
“He had to come out of the mist and fight me.”
“I held onto him.”
“I thought I might win.”
“I wouldn’t let him take any more of her life.”
“Then I saw his eyes.”
“They burned into me.”
“My strength disappeared like water.”
“He slipped away.”
“When I tried to grab him again, he lifted me and threw me to the floor.”
“There was a red cloud in front of my eyes.”
“I heard a sound like thunder.”
“And then the mist slipped underneath the door.”
Renfield’s voice faded.
His breathing became rough and shallow.
Van Helsing suddenly stood.
“We know enough now,” he said. “He is here. And now we know what he intends to do.”
He looked at us.
“It may not be too late.”
“Get your weapons. The same things we carried when we entered the Count’s house.”
“We have no time to waste.”
Nobody needed to say what we were thinking.
We all knew.
We hurried to our rooms and collected the same protective objects we had used before.
Van Helsing already had his ready.
As we met again in the corridor, he pointed to them.
“These never leave me,” he said. “Not until this terrible business is finished.”
“Be careful, my friends. We are not dealing with an ordinary enemy.”
His voice broke.
“Poor Mrs. Mina.”
I could not tell whether anger or terror was stronger inside me.
We stopped outside the Harkers’ bedroom.
Art and Quincey hesitated.
“Should we wake her?” Quincey asked.
“We must,” Van Helsing replied.
“If the door is locked, I will break it open.”
“But won’t that frighten her?” Quincey asked. “It seems wrong to break into a woman’s bedroom.”
Van Helsing’s voice was calm and solemn.
“You are right. But tonight this is a matter of life and death.”
“To a doctor, every room is the same when a life is in danger.”
He turned to me.
“John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, use your shoulder.”
Then he looked at the others.
“You help him.”
“Now.”
He turned the handle.
The door did not move.
We threw ourselves against it.
With a tremendous crash, the door burst open.
We nearly fell into the room.
Van Helsing actually went down on his hands and knees.
As he pushed himself up, I looked past him.
What I saw filled me with horror.
My hair seemed to stand on end.
My heart nearly stopped.
The moon was so bright that even through the thick yellow curtains, the room was clearly visible.
Jonathan Harker lay on the bed beside the window.
His face was flushed, and he was breathing heavily, as though he were drugged or unconscious.
Mina was kneeling on the edge of the bed.
She was dressed in white.
Beside her stood a tall, thin man dressed entirely in black.
His back was partly turned toward us.
But there was no doubt who he was.
The Count.
His pale face.
His sharp, high nose.
The scar on his forehead.
Everything was unmistakable.
With one hand, he held both of Mina’s hands, forcing her arms away from him.
With the other, he gripped the back of her neck and forced her face against his chest.
Her white nightdress was covered with blood.
A thin line of blood ran down his bare chest where his shirt had been torn open.
The sight was horrifying.
It looked like someone forcing a helpless animal to drink against its will.
The moment we entered, Dracula turned toward us.
His face became monstrous.
His eyes burned red with fury.
His nostrils flared.
His sharp white teeth showed between his blood-covered lips.
He looked like a wild beast ready to attack.
With one violent movement, he threw Mina back onto the bed.
Then he turned and sprang toward us.
But Van Helsing was already on his feet.
He held up the envelope containing the Sacred Wafer.
Dracula stopped instantly.
Just as Lucy had once recoiled from the sacred object, he drew back.
We raised our crucifixes and moved toward him.
He retreated farther and farther.
Then a huge black cloud crossed the moon.
The room suddenly became dark.
Quincey struck a match and lit the gas.
But Dracula was gone.
All we could see was a thin mist.
It drifted toward the door and slipped underneath it.
Van Helsing, Art, and I rushed toward Mina.
She had finally begun breathing again.
Then she screamed.
It was the most terrible scream I had ever heard.
It was so sharp and desperate that I believe I will hear it in my nightmares for the rest of my life.
She lay helplessly on the bed.
Her face was deathly pale.
Blood covered her lips, cheeks, and chin.
A thin stream of blood ran from her throat.
Her eyes were wide with terror.
She lifted her injured hands to cover her face.
Red marks from Dracula’s grip stood out against her white skin.
Then she began to make a low, broken sound of grief.
Van Helsing gently pulled the blanket over her.
Art looked at her for one moment, his face filled with despair, and then ran from the room.
Van Helsing whispered to me:
“Jonathan is under the vampire’s spell. We know he can put his victims into this kind of stupor.”
“We must first help Madam Mina recover.”
“I must wake him.”
He dipped a towel into cold water and began gently flicking it across Jonathan’s face.
Mina covered her face with both hands and sobbed uncontrollably.
I raised the blind and looked outside.
The moon was still shining.
Then I saw Quincey running across the lawn.
He disappeared into the shadow of a large yew tree.
I wondered why he was doing that.
At that moment, Jonathan suddenly gasped.
I turned back.
His eyes opened.
He looked completely bewildered.
For several seconds he seemed unable to understand where he was.
Then everything came back to him at once.
He sat upright.
Mina reacted to his movement.
She reached toward him as though she wanted to throw her arms around him.
But then she suddenly pulled her hands back.
She covered her face and began trembling so violently that the bed shook beneath her.
Jonathan stared at us.
“In God’s name, what happened?”
“Dr. Seward! Dr. Van Helsing! What is this?”
“What happened?”
“What is wrong?”
“Mina, my love, what happened?”
His eyes fell on the blood.
“What does all this blood mean?”
He stared in horror.
“My God. Has it really come to this?”
He dropped to his knees and struck his hands together.
“God help us!”
“Please help her!”
“Help her!”
Then he jumped from the bed and began pulling on his clothes.
Every part of him was suddenly awake and ready to act.
“What happened?”
“Tell me everything!”
He turned to Van Helsing.
“You love Mina. I know you do.”
“Please do something to save her.”
“It can’t be too late.”
“Protect her while I find him!”
Mina suddenly seized his arm.
“No! Jonathan, don’t leave me!”
She was terrified.
“I have suffered enough tonight. I can’t bear the thought of him hurting you too.”
“You must stay with me.”
“Stay with our friends. They will protect you.”
Jonathan tried to resist, but she pulled him back onto the bed.
She wrapped both arms around him and refused to let go.
Van Helsing and I tried to calm them.
The Professor held up his small golden crucifix.
“Do not be afraid, my dear.”
“We are here.”
“As long as this is near you, no evil thing can come close.”
“You are safe tonight.”
“We must remain calm and think carefully about what we do next.”
Mina lowered her head against Jonathan’s chest.
She was silent.
After a while, she lifted her head.
Jonathan’s white nightshirt was stained with blood where her lips had touched it.
There were also drops of blood from the wound in her neck.
The moment Mina saw the stains, she pulled away.
A broken cry escaped her.
“I’m unclean.”
“I must never touch him again.”
“I must never kiss him again.”
She began sobbing.
“Oh God, why am I the one who has become his greatest danger?”
“Why should Jonathan have to fear me?”
Jonathan answered firmly.
“Don’t ever say that, Mina.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I will not listen to you speak about yourself that way.”
“May God judge me for everything I have ever done.”
“And if anything I have done or wanted has ever come between us, may I suffer even more than I am suffering tonight.”
He pulled her into his arms.
She cried against his chest.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Jonathan looked over her head at us.
His eyes were wet, but his face was hard with determination.
Finally, he spoke to me in a voice that was deliberately calm.
“Dr. Seward, tell me everything.”
“I already understand the main fact.”
“Now tell me exactly what happened.”
I told him everything.
He listened without interrupting.
But as I described how Dracula had held Mina and forced her mouth against the wound in his own chest, Jonathan’s expression changed.
His nostrils trembled.
His eyes burned with anger.
Yet even while his face showed barely controlled fury, his hands continued gently stroking Mina’s hair.
When I finished, Quincey and Art knocked on the door.
We called them inside.
Van Helsing looked at me.
I understood what he was asking.
Should we use their arrival to distract Jonathan and Mina from their terrible grief?
I nodded.
He turned to them.
“What did you see?”
Art answered first.
“I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
“Not in the corridor, and not in any of our rooms.”
“I checked the study.”
“He had been there.”
“But he was gone.”
Art stopped and looked toward Mina.
Van Helsing spoke quietly.
“Continue, Arthur.”
“We can hide nothing anymore.”
“Our only hope is to know everything.”
Art took a breath.
“He had been in the study, and although he could only have stayed for a few seconds, he destroyed the place.”
“All the manuscripts had been burned.”
“There were still blue flames flickering among the ashes.”
“He also threw your phonograph cylinders onto the fire.”
“The wax made the flames burn even higher.”
I interrupted him.
“Thank God we have another copy locked in the safe.”
For a moment, Art’s face showed relief.
Then it darkened again.
“I ran downstairs, but there was no sign of him.”
“I checked Renfield’s room.”
“There was nothing there except—”
He stopped.
Jonathan’s voice was rough.
“Except what?”
Art lowered his head.
“Except that the poor man is dead.”
Mina slowly raised her head.
She looked from one of us to another.
Then she said quietly:
“God’s will be done.”
I felt that Art was still hiding something.
But I believed he had a reason, so I said nothing.
Van Helsing turned to Quincey.
“And you, Quincey? What did you discover?”
“A little,” Quincey replied.
“It may become important later, but I can’t say yet.”
“I wanted to know where the Count went after he left this house.”
“I never saw him.”
“But I saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window.”
“It flew west.”
“I expected him to return to Carfax in some form.”
“But he clearly chose another hiding place.”
“He won’t return tonight.”
He looked toward the eastern sky.
“The sky is already becoming red.”
“Dawn is close.”
His jaw tightened.
“We must work tomorrow.”
For a few minutes, nobody spoke.
The room was so quiet that I thought I could hear all our hearts beating.
Then Van Helsing placed his hand gently on Mina’s head.
“And now, dear Madam Mina, you must tell us exactly what happened.”
“I know this will cause you pain.”
“I would never ask you to suffer unnecessarily.”
“But now more than ever, we must know everything.”
“We must act quickly.”
“The final day may be closer than we think.”
“This may be our chance to survive—and to understand what we are fighting.”
Mina shuddered.
She held Jonathan tighter and lowered her head against his chest.
For a moment, I thought she might refuse.
Then she raised her head with quiet courage.
She reached one hand toward Van Helsing.
He took it gently, bowed, and kissed it with deep respect.
Her other hand remained tightly clasped in Jonathan’s.
Jonathan put his arm around her protectively.
After a long pause, Mina began to speak.
“I took the sleeping medicine you gave me.”
“But it didn’t work for a long time.”
“Instead, I became more awake.”
“Terrible thoughts began filling my mind.”
“They were all about death, vampires, blood, pain, and suffering.”
Jonathan gave a quiet groan.
Mina turned toward him.
“Please don’t upset yourself, dear.”
“You must be strong.”
“I need you to help me through this.”
“If you knew how difficult it is for me to tell you about what happened, you would understand why I need your strength.”
She took a breath.
“I realized that I had to force myself to sleep if the medicine was going to help me.”
“So I deliberately relaxed and tried to surrender to sleep.”
“Eventually, it must have worked, because I remember nothing after that.”
“Jonathan coming into the room didn’t wake me.”
“The next thing I remember, he was lying beside me.”
“The same thin white mist was in the room.”
“I don’t know if you already know about it.”
“I wrote about it in my diary.”
“You can read it later.”
“I felt the same strange fear I had felt before.”
“It felt as though someone—or something—was near me.”
“I turned toward Jonathan to wake him.”
“But he was sleeping so deeply that it seemed as though he had taken the sleeping medicine instead of me.”
“I tried to wake him.”
“I couldn’t.”
“That frightened me terribly.”
“I looked around the room.”
“Then I saw him.”
Mina’s voice trembled.
“He seemed to step out of the mist.”
“Or perhaps the mist itself had become his body.”
“The mist disappeared completely.”
“And there he stood.”
“A tall, thin man dressed in black.”
“I knew him immediately from everything the others had told me.”
“His pale face.”
“His high, sharp nose.”
“His red lips.”
“His white teeth.”
“His red eyes.”
“The same red eyes I thought I had seen in the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Whitby.”
“And the scar on his forehead.”
“The scar Jonathan had given him.”
“For a moment, my heart stopped.”
“I wanted to scream.”
“But I couldn’t move.”
“Then he spoke.”
His voice became colder as she repeated his words.
“‘Be silent. If you make a sound, I will take him and smash his head against the floor while you watch.’”
“I was terrified.”
“I couldn’t think.”
“He smiled at me.”
“One hand rested on my shoulder and held me still.”
“With the other, he exposed my throat.”
“He said:
‘First, I need a little refreshment after all my work. Be quiet. This isn’t the first time—and it won’t be the second—that your blood has satisfied my thirst.’”
Mina shuddered.
“I was confused.”
“Somehow, I didn’t even want to resist him.”
“I think that is part of the terrible curse.”
“When he touches his victim, something happens to the mind.”
She began to cry.
“Oh God. Please have mercy on me.”
“He pressed his mouth against my throat.”
Jonathan groaned.
Mina squeezed his hand.
“I could feel my strength disappearing.”
“I almost lost consciousness.”
“I don’t know how long it lasted.”
“It felt like a very long time.”
“Then he finally pulled away.”
“I saw fresh blood on his mouth.”
Mina’s voice failed for a moment.
She leaned against Jonathan, almost collapsing.
He held her tightly.
After a great effort, she continued.
“Then he mocked me.”
“He said:
‘So you have tried to use your mind against mine, just like the others. You have helped them hunt me and interfere with my plans.’”
“‘Now you know what happens to those who stand in my way.’”
“‘These men have been wasting their strength fighting me when they should have been protecting themselves.’”
“‘I have ruled and influenced nations. I have fought their wars and manipulated their affairs for centuries, long before any of you were born.’”
“‘While you thought you were hunting me, I was already preparing my answer.’”
“‘And you, the woman they love most, now belong to me.’”
“‘You are my flesh, my blood, my family.’”
“‘For now, you are my source of life.’”
“‘Later, you will become my companion and my servant.’”
“‘Your friends will eventually serve you because they will have no choice.’”
“‘But first, you must be punished.’”
“‘You helped them stop me.’”
“‘Now you will answer when I call.’”
“‘When I command you to come, you will cross land or sea to obey me.’”
Mina stopped.
Her face was filled with horror.
“He tore open his shirt.”
“With one of his long, sharp nails, he opened a wound in his chest.”
“Blood began to flow.”
“He grabbed both my hands with one of his.”
“Then he seized my neck with the other.”
“He forced my mouth against the wound.”
“I had no choice.”
“I could either suffocate or swallow his blood.”
Mina began rubbing her lips desperately, as though she could somehow remove the memory from them.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
“What have I done?”
“Why should this happen to me?”
“I have tried to live a good and honest life.”
“Please have mercy on me.”
“And please protect the people I love.”
While she spoke, the eastern sky grew brighter.
The darkness slowly disappeared.
Jonathan sat completely still.
As Mina’s story continued, his face became paler and paler.
By the time the first red light of dawn appeared, his hair looked almost white against the grey, exhausted skin of his face.
We decided that one of us would remain nearby, within calling distance of Jonathan and Mina, until we could all meet again and decide exactly how to act.
One thing was certain.
No house in all of London could have been more miserable that morning than the Harkers’ home.