Page 18 of Lucy Undying (Dracula #1)

18

Boston, September 25, 2024

Client Transcript

The night after I told Raven I had to see Dracula to make certain Mina was safe, she left me with a promise to come back with information. And come back she did, beaming and flush.

“Wonderful news! Dracula is waiting for you in Liaoning,” she said. “That’s in China. I assume you can find your way there. I’ve never been one much for travel planning. I’d go with you, but it’s so much water.” She shuddered, a ripple of genuine loathing contorting her face.

I was na?ve, but not a total fool. “I thought he was in London still.”

“I thought so, too! But tonight I found one of his familiars, a horrid little thing named Renfield. He told me that Dracula hasn’t come for us because he found passage to Liaoning, where he’s been meaning to take care of important business. I’ve no idea how long he’ll be. And you seem desperate to speak to him as soon as possible. When you find him, tell him I’m returning to our castle. I’ll be waiting for you both there, preparing everything to welcome you.” She kissed me. Her first kiss had thrilled me, but this one felt like a period at the end of our sentence. I was fine with that.

I didn’t ask any more questions, because I didn’t want Raven guessing I had no intention of living in Dracula’s castle with her. I held no love for her, but I still felt sorry for betraying her like that when she’d done so much to settle me into this dark new world. She’d saved me, after all, giving the men Dove in my place.

I knew Mina was safe, if Dracula was in China. But I still wanted to go to him. I was lost. It’s hard to explain how new I was then. I was desperate for anyone to tell me what to do, how to exist. I held no love for Dracula—what little I remembered of my long, tortured death made me glad I didn’t recall more—but he had taken great pains to usher me into this strange afterlife. I wanted to know why. There had to be a plan, some reason for what he’d done.

I was looking for a higher purpose, and in my world, Dracula was both devil and god. Destroyer and creator. And I had to get answers. I think part of me hoped he…

Well, part of me hoped he wanted me still. His wanting me was the reason for all this. Maybe, now that I was on the other side of life, I’d discover kindness, affection, even love. Maybe everything he’d put me through had been so he could grant me immortality, because he couldn’t bear to see me grow old, wither, and die like my mother.

I can see your expression, Vanessa. You’re not as good at a neutral face as you think you are. I didn’t want Dracula’s love. I wanted love, period. Any love. And he seemed most likely to offer it to me, after what he’d done to keep me.

But in order to confront Dracula, I had to get to China. I’d never been farther than Paris, and that was during my life when other people took care of everything. How was I supposed to make my way across the world alone? I wished desperately that I could ask Mina for help. She had a mind for logistics, and always told me how good she was at managing train schedules.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t strategic about my travel plans. Time was slippery, then and now. Sometimes a moment feels like an eternity, and sometimes taking a boat to France and then walking across all of Europe feels as rote and simple as…hmm. I forget what things were rote and simple when I was alive. Oh! Calling on my mother’s acquaintances. Something to be endured and accomplished, requiring very little thought.

At night I could cover a tremendous amount of distance, provided I’d had a good rest and enough blood. It was surprisingly nice, walking across the world and being unafraid. Now I was the threat in the darkness. I was the thing with freedom and teeth.

My favorite ploy was pretending to be in distress. Someone always stopped for me. If they were sincere about helping me, I rode with them for a while and left them in peace. And if they hoped to prey on me, well. It didn’t work out for them, and I had a meal.

Eventually I found a port with a boat heading to Liaoning. I tucked myself into the darkness between beams in the hold. Like a spider’s egg sac, hidden and waiting to burst free.

There was nothing else to do for the journey but learn Mandarin as I listened to the sailors. They were great storytellers. I still think about them. We spent so much time together. They taught me a language, and also the delicate art of the dirty joke. Best tutors I ever had. I didn’t feed on any of them, both because it felt too risky and because it felt cruel when they had no chance at escape.

When at last we arrived in Liaoning, I was as thin as late morning fog and burning away just as quickly. Aside from starving myself, I’d had no real sleep. It was my first experience with prolonged deprivation.

It would have been hard to focus even if I’d been at my best. There were so many new scents, a riot of signals crashing through my head like a train derailment. Ports are murder on heightened senses. Wood and water and fish and rust and rot, but also so many people living and sweating and coming and going. The night pulsed with unfamiliar blood, and my whole body growled in ravenous response.

I don’t hunt when I’m like that. It makes me sloppy and careless, and therefore dangerous. I got sloppy and careless tonight. That’s how I ended up in your parking lot, fighting for both our lives. Though this time I wasn’t ravenous for blood, merely…tenderness? Release? Relief?

Obviously, I found none of those. But that’s the danger of giving in to strong desires as a vampire. The part of me that’s me goes away.

Anyhow, in Liaoning, having reached my goal but with no idea what to do next, I stood in the middle of the pier, bedraggled and half mad, staring with wild eyes at nothing. A man took my arm. He moved with furtive urgency, dragging me along in his wake.

“I have a place where you can rest,” he whispered. There was something strange about him. He was human, but there was blood in him that wasn’t his own. I let myself be tugged away from the pier and into the darkness.