Chapter 3

Mina Murray regarded the crucifix with the same approbation that she might have, in a previous life, given to a canister full of arsenic or molten lead. It sat on the edge of her nightstand in the small room that had been her home for the past two weeks – one of the few knickknacks that hadn’t in fact been a part of her luggage. She had never carried one personally and she was entirely unsure how it had come to be in this room, in this castle. It seemed rather like a rat keeping a rat-trap in their own home. And yet, the crucifix was there and she had been watching it for some time, waiting for a response to the query she had put to Vladimir Tepes Dracula.

We need an Impaler, she had said – in the moonlit graveyard that had been the site of her second birth into this world.

And he ... had retired – fled, more like – and she hadn’t seen him for some time. Instead, she and Lucy had been left to find their way back to the castle that had loomed above the graveyard, come to their chambers, and determine what to do with themselves there.

It was not an auspicious start to Mina’s half formed plans at striking back against the Martians.

Lucy entered, then, wearing a vivid blood red dress that was cut as daringly as one could imagine – her palms brushing through her hair. The remarkable transformation that she – that they had both, really – undergone was made all the more striking in the light of a fire, rather than the eerie, alien silver light of the moon. Lucy Westenra had been made voluptuous – not curvier, per-say, but rather, more aware of her figure. She strutted now, bubbling with a confidence Mina found honestly rather jealousy inducing. That was almost more arresting than the pointed ears, the fangs, the chalk white skin, and the blood red eyes.

Lucy, seeing her, smirked. “Honestly, Mina, I always expected you to be the first dressed.”

Mina realized, with a start, that she was still naked. Part of it was distraction – the crucifix, Dracula’s hurried vanishing, the Martians – but a part of it also was ... a sense of ... liberation. Her skin felt the warmth of the fire, but the cold of the breeze from the window that would have sent her shivering and seeking a warmer garment than her own bare flesh had been transmuted by her new condition. Rather than shivering and goose-flesh, the cold caress was almost decadently luxuriant. It was as if the part of her brain that could feel the dull pain of chilliness had been inverted, so that the same sensation now provoked an opposite but equally delicious sensation as the firelight, which itself was also enhanced.

Her skin felt more alive and sensitive now than when she had had a heart beat – and Mina found that realization to be both distressing and wondrous. She took the blankets up and wrapped them about herself and bit her lip hard to not let out a most unladly like moan of pleasure as silk caressed silk. “H-How do you bear wearing anything at all?” she muttered.

“I know, it feels like my entire life, I’ve been feeling through smoked glass!” Lucy said, laughing gaily. “I swear, everyone should become a vampire!”

“Then where might we-” Mina started, but the door to the room burst open and the wives of Dracula entered, Verona leading their chevron, with Aleera and Marishka to her left and right flanks. Each of them was glaring, but it was Verona who spoke up, grabbing onto Mina’s ear and tugging her head upwards, as if she was an unruly child.

“What did you say to Vlade!?” she snapped.

“Let her go!” Lucy exclaimed.

“After everything he’s given you!” Verona snapped.

“Ah!” Mina gasped – finding that not every new enhanced sensation was as pleasant as cool breezes or silken dresses. Pain throbbed through her head and she snarled out. “Unhand me!” Her fingers clenched and she lifted one hand – and swore, were her fingernails longer? But Verona didn’t release her. Instead, she locked her eyes to Mina’s and glared at her. Mina half expected to feel the crushing weight of a vampire’s compulsion, as Dracula had used (admittedly, with her consent) upon her. Instead, Verona merely used the perfectly human intimidation that any strong willed woman might unleash ... and Mina found that more than enough. “I-I asked him to help us with the Martians!”

“You asked him to go to war?” Verona released her, sounding disgusted. “Ugh! Humans! We should toss you out on your ears and let Hunters deal with you-”

“No, Verona!” Marishka exclaimed, grabbing their wife’s shoulder. They had once again become that strange middle-ground betwixt male and female, human and bat, and their ears were quite expressive – flattened back and quivering. “No, they’re babies!”

Verona huffed, while Aleera spoke next, his voice quiet and moderating. “She doesn’t know what it cost our dearest husband,” he said, caressing Verona. “If they apologize-”

Mina, her hand going to her ear, feeling the still unfamiliar point of it, blinked, then glared. “Apologize!?” she exclaimed. “While your husband sits about playing at being some gentleman of leisure while sitting on the power of a god, Martians are crushing Britons and Frenchmen and Germans beneath their tripods. They’re ... t ... they’re burning people!” She felt her heart hammering, her hands clenching, and felt suddenly as if she had been reduced to a blubbering girl. She tried to speak, but her eyes were brimming with tears – and she couldn’t stop smelling that ... that horrible, burned pork scent, and hear the screaming. Lucy swept to her side, and even Verona looked taken aback through the glittering haze that swept over Mina’s eyes.

Marishka hissed. “Look what you’ve done, Verona...” they said, then pressed up against Mina’s chest, using their furred form rather like how a big dog might try and help with their master’s distress, by crawling up onto Mina’s lap and mashing against them with as much bodily contact as could be desired. Their fingers caressed through Mina’s hair, and she found it quite easy to lean into Dracula’s odd wife and sniffle against her.

“Well ... it was still ... it’s ... just...” Verona clicked her tongue. “Just ... don’t ask him about fighting again!”

And she swept from the room.

Soon after Mina had calmed and dressed – finding that she was unable to be quite as daring as Lucy, instead slipping into her own old clothes, finding while the coarseness of the fabric was bearable to her newly enhanced senses, it was far from enjoyable. If asked, and free of shame, she’d have preferred to go naked again, or to wear something silken and sleek like Lucy ... and only slowly did she realize that the vampiric taste in finery might have more reasons behind it than pure vanity. Thus attired, she and Lucy were led out by Aleera, who left behind the candelabra, clearly expecting them to follow him through the midnight blackness of the castle ... and that expectation was born out, as both Lucy and Mina followed without stumbling or fear.

Mina lifted her hand before her face, waving it back and forth in the darkness, marveling at the queer kind of vision she had, even while in near pitch blackness.

“I was meaning to ask,” Lucy said. “Why do you have a crucifix? D-Don’t those ... don’t ... vampires ... well ... isn’t that one of our curses?”

Aleera chuckled, softly. “Is being shot by a gun a curse laid upon humanity by God?”

“Yes,” Mina said. “By tasting the tree of knowledge, Eve gave unto man knowledge of good and evil – and thus, knowledge of death. The evils of mankind – including firearms and war – came from that curse.”

Aleera turned back to face her, frowning. “Well ... I...” he paused. “I suppose so. But a crucifix by itself is nothing more than a pair of twigs – large enough, it becomes an ancient means of torture and death.” He shook his head, brushing his hands along his skirts to get them to lay flat. “It, like a gun, must be wielded with intent and ... well ... loaded, I suppose you can say. A human with enough faith and focus can burn us with them – but they could with the Crescent, or the Star of David, or any number of other symbols.”

He turned back, beginning to walk again. “The other weaknesses you may have heard of ... garlic will keep us at bay. Sunlight saps us to merely human capacities – though, we are still indestructible to mortal weapons. Next-”

“Does that include heat rays?” Mina asked, her voice firm.

“I ... I don’t know!” Aleera exclaimed, glancing back. “We’ve never met Martians, nor have any of us been struck by a heat ray. What kind of ray is it, how does it work?”

“It ... I don’t know...” Mina said.

“Then I cannot tell you,” Aleera said. “But I know guns, fire, arrows, swords, blades, maces, lances, even explosives do nothing to our kind. We can only be slain while we are sleeping or if we go without rest inside of the home soil of our undead bodies – for you two, that would be either the soil of your British Isles or Transylvania, the sites of your twin births.”

“Does that include Ireland?” Mina asked.

“Or Scotland?” Lucy asked.

“What about Wales? Does it have to be England, or can it be Wales?” Mina rubbed her chin. “I mean, I suppose, if they’re in the empire...”

“But if they’re just in the Empire, we could rest in India or Canada,” Lucy said. Then her eyes widened. “Can we rest in India? I’ve always wanted to visit!”

“I ... I don’t know!” Aleera exclaimed. “Good god, is there a part of the world you British haven’t decided to steal?”

“We didn’t steal India!” Lucy said, sounding affronted.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Aleera frowned. “You will have to discover that through experimentation – but I highly doubt that you can rest in the soil of India. Now ... as I was saying...” He sighed. “If you are sleeping and someone uses a weapon that can serve as a foci for their faith and desire for your destruction upon your body, you will be reduced to a corpse. This corpse can then be dismembered, burned ... purified...” His voice held the deepest sarcasm. “Whatever is required to ensure your total destruction in their eyes. This is why we vampires gather like minded humans about us – not merely for the sharing of blood, but for our protection.”

He, at last, came to the set of doors that he had been leading them towards. Flinging them open, they were struck by the bright light within – and Mina marveled at yet another example of the vampiric condition. A human, if thrown from darkness to light, would have been blinded almost immediately. Instead, she was able to smoothly transition from her queer ‘dark vision’ to the utterly mundane ‘light vision’ she normally used. The room within was a large ball room that had been made into a kind of fencing hall – there were mats that one could land on without harming oneself, racks of swords, foils, knives, and other instruments of close combat lined along the walls, and the portraits that were hung on the walls above the racks were all rather detailed illustrations of sword fighting in various methods.

Aleera nodded to himself, then turned. “This is a good enough place to begin your educations.”

Lucy clapped her hands together. “Oh! Oh! Oh! What are we to learn? Becoming a bat?” Mina smiled despite herself at her friend’s dearest desire so plainly being displayed for the whole world.

“No, we prefer to ensure that you know some facets about your new conditions before that. Mina, do you wish to go first?” Aleera asked. Mina blinked, then nodded, standing attentively as Aleera stepped over to the rack of knives, drew one and threw it at her chest with a lightning quick flick of his wrist. Mina watched the silvery blade rushing towards her chest and time seemed to draw itself into long, thin strand of taffy – stretching a single moment on and on and on until the thought of ‘good heavens, he threw a knife at me!’ processed...

Instinct.

Mina jerked her shoulder left, snapped her arm up, and closed her fingertips down, and the knife pivoted as she tightened her grip, swinging so the hilt was now poised above her fingers and she gripped it by the very end, her arm already cocked back, and following on that, the same defensive instinct she had followed reversed itself – to one of aggression.

She threw without thinking and the blade plunged through Aleera’s chest, vanishing out his back and thudding up to the hilt into the wall behind him. He clapped. “Marvelous! Marvelous!” while Mina gaped at her own traitor hand.

“I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed.

“Mina that was ... that was amazing!” Lucy squealed.

“I...” Mina looked at her hand, then at Aleera. “Y-Your skin isn’t torn, it’s ... your dress is...”

Aleera chuckled. “No mortal weapons can harm us. See?” He picked up a blade, then tossed it to Lucy, who caught it from the air. “Strike me dead, Westenra!”

Lucy gulped, then made a passable attempt at a swing. Without even knowing how to use a sword, Mina could tell that her friend was woefully unskilled – for one thing, she was fair positive that most master swordmen (or swordwomen, she supposed) wouldn’t trip on their own skirts, almost drop the blade, and say ‘oh, sorry!’ when the blade did strike. Save that it did not: Mina did not blink nor look away as the blade smoothly swept through Aleera’s shoulder, across his chest, and out by his hip, without ruffling skin or cloth.

“So ... I didn’t even need to dodge?” Mina asked, wondering.

“No, but it is generally a good idea to acquire a weapon when in a fight. Good instincts on you, Mina,” Aleera said. “Now, for the next proof. Would you two be so kind as to open that cabinet door over there?” He pointed at a set of folding doors, placed into the eastern half of the training room. They did so – and within they found what appeared to be a most curious caisson of shot. They weren’t modern shells – rather, they were a range of iron cannon balls that looked as if they had been made during the Napoleonic Wars, or even earlier. And rather than all being the same size, they ranged from a three pounder to an immense sphere that looked like it might have been shot at the gates of Constantinople itself.

“Lift it,” Aleera said as he stepped up behind Mina.

“ ... that?” Mina asked, looking at the immense, rust encrusted shell.

“It’s only two tons!” Aleera said, cheerily. “You could manage that one handed.”

Lucy rolled her shoulders, then stepped over – but not to the massive two ton shell. Instead she gripped one of the three pound canon balls that was on the floor with both of her hands and hefted it up. The ball lifted – and shot straight up into the ceiling, smashing into a large metal plate that had been, unknown to both women, placed in the roof. It struck with a CLANG, landed directly onto Lucy’s head, phased through her body, and crashed into the equally reinforced floor with a crash like the end of the world. Lucy stood, frozen, her eyes wide.

“Good heavens,” Mina whispered.

“Are you going to try Mina?” Aleera said.

She saw the reasoning. It was one thing to know she had become stronger, intellectually. It was another to demonstrate it – and so, Mina stepped up to the two ton shell, looking at its bulk. She wondered where, exactly, Dracula had gotten it ... but ... considering he had fought the Ottomans before, it was not entirely implausible that he had acquired it from them. She placed her palms onto either side of the shell, then gently began to lift. It did not move, and so, she used more and more of her effort, her arms trembling. It was rather like lifting a large bucket of water when she had been human – meaning that it took some gritted teeth and straining, but once it was in motion, it did not arrest until it was settled on her shoulder. Mina stood, her hand on the side to keep it rooted upon herself. She stepped out of the artillery closet. She smiled, slowly, looking up at the weight, then put her palm under it. Knowing now how much of her strength she would need, she felt no trepidation as she shoved upwards.

The end result?

She balanced the entire artillery shell above her head with a single palm, laughing excitedly as she did so.

Lucy clapped and bounced, beaming.

“Does this kind of ... does this ... take energy?” Mina babbled excitedly, the questions overflowing. “There must be some kind of energetic exchange – a workman needs a hearty breakfast to sustain him through a day, and, if I went without a meal, I’d never manage to get anything done ... am I ... but I haven’t fed upon any blood-”

“Precisely,” Aleera said, nodding. “This is you at your weakest. Well. Not quite. If you were under the light of the sun, or the focus of a nasty fellow with a crucifix, or being doused with garlic, you’d be as strong as you were before your Baptism in Blood.”

Mina nodded, then gingerly, she started to bring the shell down, placing it upon the floor, which creaked, but did not give way. Lucy grinned a bit, then said: “I want to try something!” And then she gave a queer little skip, as if she was trying to clear a small puddle in the road. Instead, she sailed upwards, then landed upon the top of the shell, where she balanced and laughed, giggled really. “Mina! Mina! Mina! You have to try jumping!”

“Jumping? If you want to try jumping, follow me!” Aleera said, and then swept forward, his skirts swishing – and Mina and Lucy followed, the Martians entirely forgotten.

“Is ... is this safe?” Mina asked, her eyes widening as she stood at the edge of the balcony, looking down at the chasm and canyon that seemed to stretch miles below her and Lucy – Lucy herself was seeming no more brave, standing closely beside her, while Aleera perched on the crenelations like a gargoyle, his fingers gripping the stone, his wind blowing in the cool wind of the evening.

“Of course,” he said, cheerfully. “Mortal weapons include gravity.”

Lucy gulped. “But there’s jagged rocks down there!” She put her hand to her dress. “And water. What about my dress?”

“If you wish to preserve the dress, you could always go nude,” Aleera said, sounding amused. “It is not as if each of us haven’t ... enjoyed one another’s company.” His eyes glittered and Mina flushed – feeling a guilty flop in her belly as she recalled that her husband was, as of yet, still alive and, for all she knew, returning to this castle in the company of Dracula’s trusted servant. And yet, she could also remember the utterly wanton way she had gone after Lucy’s body – the two of them sinning and sinning happily.

And that had been before the intensity of being a vampire had been thrust upon them.

Thrust upon you? A snide part of her mind muttered. As if you were not panting and whimpering and begging Dracula to do far more than feed you his blood? You are a harlot, Mina Murray, and Jonathan would be wise to have a disgust of you if he ever figures out what you have done ... on top of becoming this...

That voice warred in Mina’s breast, warred between the raw, primal delight she felt at her new condition. It was impossible to ignore the exquisite pleasure of the wind at her back, through her hair. The delicious coldness. The closeness of Lucy’s body, her scent in her nose despite the wind. Mina squared her shoulder ... and saw, in that yawning gap, in the trepidation inside of her, the same fear that gripped her at the thought of the Martians and their terrible fighting machines.

“Not again,” she whispered, and when Lucy let out an uncertain, confused sound, looking at her, Mina stepped forward, up onto the crenelations. She stood there, her hands clenched, and she stood taller still, her fingers going to her dress, casually untying, then discarding it, tossing to Aleera. She stood nude upon the parapet, looking down at the rocks, and said: “I will not be afraid again.”

And she leaped.

Her parabolic arc took her higher than even the tallest of Dracula’s towers. For a moment, with her arms spread, with the wind pausing about her, she felt cradled in moonlight ... and then she fell, feeling the exhilaration of speed roaring through her, mingling with fear, with the monotonous screaming of her internal monologue: Nonononononono! As she watched the sharpened rocks reaching towards her like rushing hands. She struck them – and then was through, plunging into cool darkness that was as welcoming as the embrace of a lover. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was closed and she knew, suddenly ... she was entombed again in the welcoming Earth of her homeland. Her new homeland. She kicked one leg reflexively, and swam through the dirt. Her head breached into flowing cold water and she barely had time to appreciate the new oddity of feeling pleasant cold before she emerged from the water, shooting up like a cork, sailing forward, then landing upon the far bank of the river. She panted, heavily, her naked body dripping with wetness. She had expected to be caked in dirt – but instead, her skin looked as if she had been scrubbed clean.

Mina looked at her hands, then slowly, she began to smile. She laughed – and then a moment later, Lucy’s scream reached her, doppler shifting as if she was a locomotion.

“eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEAH-” And it was cut short as Lucy’s feet struck the sand to Mina’s right. There was not even a ripple. Mina grinned, then knelt down – and just as she predicted, Lucy’s head popped free, the sand pushed aside from her own bright blond hair. She shoo her head, panting despite her undead body. “That was ... that was ... I want ... I want to do that again, I. Oh, Mina! Dearest! That was ... ahahaha!” She laughed, then reached up, grabbing Mina’s hair, tugging her down and kissing her fiercely.

It was not shame that caused Mina to push Lucy back and away, rather than drag her down and entwine her limbs with hers – for the latter was more of what Mina wished. It was something even deeper, even more base. Something that growled in her breast like the beating of a new, dark heart.

Instinct.

Mina’s nose flared and she scent...

Warm.

Blood.

And she didn’t feel what she expected. Yes, there was the urge to find that blood, to taste it ... but in her breast, she also felt a fierce kind of intense need to find the source of the blood, to ... to ... protect them. It was like seeing a bird with a broken wing – effrontery that someone had harmed something so weak and precious. Which ... she closed her eyes, trying to resist the urge to immediately rush off. How absurd – whatever she smelled, it ... might ... must be human. She couldn’t see man as something weak and precious, as if she was a paternalistic gardener, tending to his flowers.

Lucy, of course, was already off – she had jumped with her dress, and looked ghostly and unreal in the moonlight, a red bolt heading around the bend. Mina followed after, and though she tried to restrain herself somewhat, she found it was nearly impossible to not move beyond human speeds. It was effortless to bound from rock to rock, to let the countryside flow past her as Dracula’s castle grew more and more distant, the canyon walls growing lower and lower as the river drained away from the hilly forests and into a flatter, more clear part of the countryside. And it was here, where the canyon was least lethal, that it had slain a victim.

The brute was a brown horse, one that was easily large enough to be put to draft work. It had worn a saddle, but even before it had snapped its neck and died, the beast had clearly been driven to the edge of ruin – bloody sores along the sides, froth that still glittered in the moonlight ... Mina knew little of being an equestrian beyond the basics that she had picked up through osmosis, but even she could tell that the horse had been near death before this nighttime spill.

His rider was only little better. He was some poor youth in tattered blue uniform that made her think of the German Imperial Army – but his features were not quite Germanic in his seeming. He was speaking quietly in a tongue she did not recognize: “Boże, pomóż mi ... Umieram ... matko!” And she saw why he was so distressed. His arm had been snapped, and his uniform was soaked through with blood – even with the best doctors, it would likely need to be amputated, assuming he would not die from a sickness contracted by exposure to the wilds.

Lucy, having come to him first, knelt beside his head. She drew his head onto her lap, gently caressing his head. “Shh, shh, it’s quite all right...” She murmured, softly, her fingers brushing through his short brown hair. Looking up to Mina, she said: “We must get him to Dracula’s ... castle...” Her tongue darted out, flicking along her fangs and then she looked down at the poor wounded boy. Her lips skinned backwards and Mina knelt down, whispering softly.

“We ... should...” she murmured.

Lucy shook her head. “I ... have the queerest urge to...” She paused. “Oh good heavens, no...”

“Wait ... no...” Mina said, blinking as she swept her gaze along the poor boy – and saw that, as he looked up, confused by this strange, red dressed woman who caressed his hair, that he had been wounded elsewhere. His entire left arm was one hideous burn – and she saw, from the way it was turning green under her gaze ... from the way it smelled ... that the rot had gotten further than merely his arm. His face was a waxy pale and his breath was husky and she wondered for how long he had been upon that horse, driving it harder and harder, desperate ... just ... for some kind of escape from the agony and the suffering. How aware had he been of the world around him? He was clearly delirious – and fading.

“What should we do, Mina?” Lucy asked, panting softly. “I want to ... just ... drink, but-”

“We must drink!” Mina said, immediately.

Lucy blinked at her. “B-But Vlade said to be responsible and-”

Mina moved forward, so that she was leaning down over the young boy. He couldn’t be more than twenty, maybe even nineteen. Lucy’s voice stilled as Mina opened her mouth and ... again ... instinct roared through her. She could see precisely where to bite, and she barely needed to think of how to do it. Merely one moment, her mouth loomed above this stranger’s throat, her tongue buzzing with the radiative heat of his fever riddled body, the next ... she was sinking her fangs into him. His flesh parted before her teeth and she felt the first hot rush of blood, pouring along her mouth. He tasted sour, sick, and she drank anyway, her eyes closing. It was not how she wanted her first feeding to be – but she pushed herself to swallow once, twice, three times, before drawing her mouth back. She coughed, weakly, her tongue sweeping along his throat as the poor wounded soldier started to breathe even more shallowly.

His sick blood sat in her belly like a stone and Mina closed her eyes. She didn’t know how or what she was doing – beyond what little descriptions she had been given by Dracula, during her own transformation into a vampire. From what he had described, it had been a natural part of how vampires acted...

She tightened her eyes, focusing more upon that little warmth. And she felt the sickness inside of it ... and she ... thought of straining and tugging, pulling and twisting. It was like teasing a single thread form a ball of yarn, using something that was not quite a finger – but rather, a tongue. Probing and prodding, pushing and ... yes! She felt the sickness that weaved through the blood beginning to separate, so that there were two weights inside of her belly, one lower, one higher. The higher was even sourer, like she had eaten something that did not agree with her ... and before she knew it, it was coming up her throat.

Mina turned, coughed once, retched, then spat out a yellowy glop of something foul. It tingled along her tongue and she made an unladylike sound of pure disgust, while Lucy cried out. “Mina! Mina, he’s dying!” And she ignored the taste, instead, she focused upon the only warmth within her – the blood that she had drank, streamed clean of sickness.

The album vitae, as Dracula had called it.

It filled her mouth and, for lack of a better means, Mina leaned forward and kissed the young soldier, her tongue pushing the warm, flowing liquid into his mouth. He drank instinctively, groaning as red bubbled around his lips, down his chin, dripping onto her own bared breasts. Mina drew her mouth back, coughing and gasping – while the soldier panted and groaned, his head tossing from side to side – while a loud crack came from his arm as his bone seemed to force itself back into shape. The burn along his arm started to fade before their very eyes. Lucy gaped – and Mina explained, hurriedly: “A vampire ... Dracula said that when a vampire drinks blood, they can take the blood and alter it, change it like a chemist, transforming it into the album vitae ... it ... restores health and youth to the human that drinks it.” She smiled. “He said that it was symbiotic...”

Lucy nodded. “His arm is still not well...” She gently pushed the soldier upwards. Her fingers flew along his top, and soon, the blue jacket had slipped down, revealing his white undershirt, stained with blood and ash and sweat. She tugged that aside, revealing his shoulder, and bit down. Fangs sank in and her eyes rolled back into her head – moaning wantonly as her hand dropped between his thighs, her eyes closing and Mina felt unreasonably jealous. From the expression upon her friend’s face, she was tasting blood that was not so profusely tainted by the sickness that had suffused him.