#quick friends or not; the Harkers feel they have to bite their tongues now (and in ensuing scenes) when the social more wedge gets driven

[see-arcane]

Van Helsing: “Mina you should not be involved any further for safety’s sake—“

Jonathan, thinking: Yes, she shouldn’t be put in Dracula’s reach, good good good—

Van Helsing: “—helpful as you’ve been every step of the way, you do still have a chronic case of Being a Girl and so cannot be trusted to keep up with us men and our man-work.”

Jonathan, personal heroes including Mina, Scheherazade, and Mina again, grinding his teeth into dust: …That Is. :) A Way to Frame It. :)

[see-arcane]

The Man I Love is Dead

Summary: Jonathan Harker died in Transylvania.

This hardly means the wedding is off.

The man I love is dead.

I only suspected when the letters stopped. I dreaded when the doctor revealed the monster in our midst, that ancient name that had called the man I love away to such benign work across the water and into frigid mountains. I knew when the monster announced it outright. He knew my name from the letters sent, the letters forged. What happy coincidence, he said. He had read my fiancé’s words with a secondhand admiration. Now here she was, I was, proving myself so worthy of the young man left caged in his stone walls and high peaks.

“Do not doubt that he tried, Madam,” he hummed, blood on his tongue and forced onto mine. “Do not doubt that he died doing anything less than trying to return to you. A fine young man, such good company. I arranged a handsome coffin for him before I left. Only the best for my dear friend.”

The others arrived in a tide of panic and hate, bursting onto the tete-a-tete with the monster’s breast still bleeding, his great hand still caging my head. He left the room as a laughing shadow. I screamed after him, at the men, demanding action. Give me a pistol, someone, anyone! Let me end him!

They did not, I could not. Too quick and too strong. Yet he ran, the monster. Cowardice? Or a lure? It did not matter. Our mission was set. Missions. Theirs to avenge the other love lost in my life and save the future from the horror’s appetite. Mine for the only man I love, the only life I wanted to live. He had poisoned me with his blood, the doctor claimed. There is more than one way to join his ranks and his hold. We race against the clock as my will comes nearer to vanishing, my soul to the brink of damnation, my teeth to the throats of those nearest.

Even so.

The man I love is dead.

For that, be I woman or devil by the time we reached his native soil, the monster would still have to answer for that. If I am to be another pet, I will bite.

I can sense what he does now. The monster. Where he goes, what he hears, even secure in his damned box once more. It is enough to sketch a plan. The doctor assures us that he will not be the lone threat once we reach the haunted homeland. He will have aides, living and undead. He is a would-be tyrant, coveting subjects, and so he will have a colony already waiting for us.

My friends will pursue the coffin and its guards. The doctor and I, shielded in his arcane protections, will cut ahead toward the castle. We shall ambush the ambush.

The castle is a titanic structure, ruined enough at its edges to be a mountain unto itself. In it, I feel an answering gleeful wretchedness that mirrors the shift in myself. Like sensing like. We cannot reach it before sundown, and so the doctor shields us in his holy circle of crumbs, arms laden with the flotsam of God. It seems to do its job when the Thing’s brides come. My sisters. Beautiful and cold, moonbeams and teeth.

The doctor is so busy with his Wafers and crosses inside our circle that he does not notice the bridegroom. My revolver becomes pointless lead in my hand.

He does not glide on the air as the brides do, only strolls, delicate and effortless as a spider, never denting the snow, up to us. His hair has gone white since dying, his eyes the luster of old wounds. The smile is as I remember it. Tender despite the new edges inside. He frowns suddenly at my forehead. It is still scarred from the Wafer.

“Who hurt you so? Who would burn your sweet brow?” The eyes, hungry garnets, roll to the doctor who has finally turned to look. “Was it him? The one who wishes us all destroyed?”

The doctor makes noise. Wafers and crosses. The bridegroom curls his lip, but steps closer. My handful is lighter.

“That is the purpose here, yes? To unmake us when the sun is up and we are prone in our beds. Your sisters. Myself. We are afterthoughts to him. Even if he and the others do not end us tonight, ending our maker will do for us all.”

He stands at the lip of the circle now. They cannot cross in any more than I can cross out. So he kneels, as the doctor makes more noise and waves his rubbish. He’s spared a hand to pull at me. When did I kneel?

“We rest in a chapel. If you wish me to die again, then I would ask you to recite the vows for me there, once all is over. As much as God will allow us to recite, lest His name scorch our tongues too deeply.”

More noise from the doctor. Why does he bellow so? Ah, I think he is speaking of my friend. The one they unmade in her tomb. For her own good. It is for his own good, the doctor says now, as all this Hell has been for our good, for my good, for everyone’s good. Look away, Madam, look away!

The bridegroom lifts his left hand and the gold band shines. He has kept it on since I first slipped on my engagement ring.

“If you cannot remove my body on the morning, please,” he slips the ring free, “keep this with you once you are cured.” Without breaking our gaze, he tosses the ring into our circle. The hand not cradling the revolver catches it. Squeezing until the gold cuts my palm. “It must be enough.”

The doctor pulls me away, stands me up. Look away! Madam, look away—

I am looking away. I cannot bring myself to look twice at the doctor, a bridge of flesh leading out of the ring while a trickle of blood steams from the new hole between his eyes.

In the chapel, we wait and dream. All our senses are the monster’s, and we know the hunter and the hunted are close. It will be a surprise to all when they discover who is who as the castle pours us loose. Meanwhile, the coffins have been arranged aside, the pulpit dusted of its rot and webs. The brides are eager to be bridesmaids. More eager still for the reception and its delicacies. The bridegroom is content to be with me, and I with him.

The man I love is dead.

We will die and love together.

Ao3 link