#the van helsing journals (reference)

[see-arcane]

I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. [...] I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened.

Jonathan, no, don't give into the guys' peer pressure noooo

It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I know it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men.

[...] Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read.

Mina, no, you have to communicate now, in the present, you're you, you can un-acquiesce, you can break the curse, just talk to Jonathan now, noooooo

GOD this is masterfully infuriating work, Bramward Stokerbroker. Here we have on paper just how much this new status quo--the 'proper' status quo--grates against both of them. You can almost hear them grinding their teeth with the effort to keep smiling and nodding through this unanimous* decision. They know it is For Mina's Sake that they are doing this. Sure, they both hate every second of it and it breaks a loving rhythm they've shared for years together, BUT THEY KNOW BETTER NOW :)))

(Lucy is screaming in the afterlife. Renfield has his head in his hands.)

But all that aside, a thing I'm hooked on this read-around is the fact that, hey. We are reading this. Spoiler, but the entirety of Dracula is actually compiled together by Mina after the story closes. These are all written documents we're reading that the entire group has laid eyes on already. With everyone (bar Art and Quincey for some reason, thanks Mr. 3 Lines Allowed and Mr. Laconic :/, Jack is just talking and waiting for Mina to transcribe now, augh) on duty in some way to record the progress of things so that they can be read later as reference...I have to wonder now.

How honest are these pages the Harkers are putting down now versus what they wrote before joining Van Helsing's Scooby gang? Neither one is writing in shorthand. It's all plain English.

I had a class once where one of the assignments was to keep a daily journal. One page filled out every single day, about anything. Anyone want to guess how many personal secrets or honest feelings I put in those pages for the guy grading my class to read? If you said anything higher than 0 you're wrong.

The Harkers have an audience to worry about right now. An audience of Prof. Et Cetera, Dr. Asylum Director (whose asylum they're currently living in! the kind of place where Jonathan could've ended up and innumerable women have been imprisoned for being women the Wrong Way! whee!), Incredibly Wealthy and Empowered Lord, and Mr. Likewise Rich 'We Should Do Guns About It' American. Who all seem to like them, fresh-from-the-lower class, industrious and Dracula-confronting sorts that they are. Fast friends, all of them.

(Jonathan is still only Harker to them. Simultaneously the Man Who Survived Castle Dracula and the gofer guy doing the footwork and the paperwork/property hunt while Van Helsing hits the library and the others...well, I'm sure they're doing something. Other than re-reading the first half of Dracula.)

(...Which was compiled and transcribed by Mina. Who faced down Dracula in her jammies. Unarmed. At night. For Lucy. But she can't handle your scary stories about the houses full of dirt boxes, let alone join you on the hunt she was explicitly prepared and eager to help with. Can't risk it, little lady, off to bed now.)

This is where they are now that they've ~joined forces~ with Van Helsing and the Suitor Squad. After all they've done, all they're still relied on to do, the Harkers are with allies who have had their acquaintance for less than three days. And now, to appease those allies and their opinions and to keep everything placid with these nice, outnumbering, socially and monetarily endowed parties, they do what they've always done when faced with the fact of their being perpetually on the low rung of the ladder.

The Harkers accommodate. Including in their own diaries, as these too are now deemed forfeit important to the Cause, should the gang need to comb back through it all for clues.

That's why the Harkers are the only ones writing it down--because they already were. They're the kids in the group project who can be trusted to do the work. So just let them keep doing it. Keep an accurate record now, kids! You do such a good job of it, we'd only be getting in the way, ha ha. Remember that we can and will read everything you put down in the future.

Hence: All of what we read today. And will read in the dates to come.

The Harkers are writing under a (friendly) gun right now. They can purge some feelings, but not all of them. And not completely. And not in any way that certain doctors and upper class people of power they barely know might misconstrue as ungrateful or mad in any sense. The Harkers are good people. The Harkers are helpful. The Harkers are team players even if that means no longer being a team themselves. They chafe a little at this, but it's all so new to them! It's alright. God's will and Van Helsing's be done. They know better now.

With all this in mind, it makes much more sense why Jonathan chooses to use shorthand for a Very Particular Entry we see coming up. An entry that Mina alone could read and decide to enter in the distant future, after the storm had passed.

And why, in light of all that happens, he cannot trust himself to put more than a vignette's worth of lines down as time goes on. Not if he wants to keep himself from laying out some actual honesty for everyone to read. Mina's entries will be weightier things, while she still has the capacity to write--carefully. Always carefully.

[vickyvicarious]

Who's Read What in Dracula? Masterpost

This is a little self-assigned project to try and keep track of who has read (as well as written) what documents, and, importantly, when they do so. Last year I spent some time thinking about this and it informed some of my thoughts about specific characters' perspectives and actions in interesting ways. So I thought it could be a neat resource to have for others!

I'm going to update this in time with the novel, so there won't be any spoilers. This post is going to be a master reference, with links to each individual character's posts. I originally wanted to do this as a series of graphs for each character, with color-coded bars for each document they've read, but I'm not savvy enough to figure out a non-confusing way to do so, especially given the number of different authors/documents. Instead, I'm going to have a separate post for each character, and just have the info in written form there. Here are the links to each of those, in order of introduction:

Jonathan Harker

Mina Murray

Lucy Westenra

Jack Seward

Quincey Morris

Arthur Holmwood

Abraham Van Helsing

Some housekeeping notes: Obviously, each character will have read their own writing. I'm not going to update day-by-day for any such things. Instead, I'll only update whenever they access new information by someone else, or begin what I'm counting as a new document.

Most of the time, we know for a fact when characters get access to a new document. However, there are a few exceptions. I have my theories, but I will mark them as speculative whenever that label applies.

I break up documents based on chunks of information and have assigned titles to them as such. The labels may change as time goes by as needed to avoid spoilers. I also try to add in dates, but for any longer accounts it will just be a range of dates rather than every entry.

Below the cut is a list of all the documents, in order of appearance, with dates. I'm using color-coding for all the main authors, which will match the colors used in individual character posts. This too will be updated over time, so no worries about spoilers here either. Unless, of course, you don't want to know if someone who has only written once before will go on to write often... in that case, don't look below.

Castle Dracula Diary (3 May-30 June) - Jonathan Harker

Invitation to Castle Dracula (3 May) - Count Dracula

Letter to Innkeeper (4 May) - Count Dracula *

Letter to Dracula (5 May) - Mr. Hawkins *

Letters to Lucy (9 May, 17 May?*) - Mina Murray

Letter to Mina (2/3 May?) - Jonathan Harker *

Letters to Mina (11 May?, 24 May) - Lucy Westenra

Dictated Letters Home (11 May, 18 May) - Jonathan Harker *

Letters to Various Solicitors (11 May) - Count Dracula *

Phonograph Diary (25 May-?) - Jack Seward

Letter to Art (25 May) - Quincey Morris

Telegram Reply to Quincey (26 May) - Arthur Holmwood

Intercepted Letters Home (28 May) - Jonathan Harker *

Renfield's Notebook (5 June?-?) - R. M. Renfield *

Log of the Demeter (18 July-4 August) - Captain of the Demeter

Whitby Journal (24 July-19 August) - Mina Murray

Message to Lucy (27 July) - Arthur Holmwood *

Demeter Articles (8-9 August) - Daily Graph Correspondent

Letter from Budapest (12 August) - Sister Agatha

Letter to Carter, Paterson, & Co. (17 August) - Billington & Son

Letter to Mina (17/18 August?) - Mr. Hawkins *

Letter to Billington & Son (21 August) - Carter, Patterson, & Co.

Post-Whitby Letter to Lucy (24 August) - Mina Murray

London Diary (24 August-17 September) - Lucy Westenra

Whitby Letter (30 August) - Lucy Westenra

Letter to Jack (31 August) - Arthur Holmwood

Telegram to Jack (1 September) - Arthur Holmwood

Letter to Van Helsing (1 September?) - Jack Seward *

Letters to Arthur (2, 3, 6, 15?* September) - Jack Seward

Letter to Dr. Seward (2 September) - Van Helsing

Telegrams to Van Helsing (4-8 September) - Jack Seward

Telegram to Arthur (8 September) - Jack Seward

Telegram to John (8 September) - Van Helsing *

Telegram(s?) to Vanderpool (10, 13? September) - Van Helsing *

Delayed Telegram to Seward (17 September) - Van Helsing

Lucy's Memorandum (17 September) - Lucy Westenra

Unread Letters to Lucy (17, 18 September) - Mina Murray

Escaped Wolf Article (18 September) - Pall Mall Gazette

Telegram to Quincey (18 September) - Arthur Holmwood

Mrs. Westenra's Death Certificate (18 September) - Jack Seward/Van Helsing *

Telegram to Arthur (18 September) - Quincey Morris *

Telegram to Summon Arthur (19 September) - Jack Seward *

Hennessey's Report (20 September) - Patrick Hennessey

Letter to Mrs. Westenra's Lawyer (21 September) - Jack Seward *

Post-Whitby Journal (22 September-?) - Mina Murray

Telegram to Mrs. Harker (22 September) - Van Helsing

Letters to Mrs. Harker (24-25 September) - Van Helsing

Bloofer Lady Articles (25 September) - Westminster Gazette

Telegrams to Van Helsing (25, 29 September) - Mina Murray

Telegram to Mina (25 September) - Jonathan Harker *

Letter to Van Helsing (25 September) - Mina Murray

Post-Castle Diary (26 September-?) - Jonathan Harker

Carfax Letters (pre-3 May?) - Jonathan Harker *

Letter from Ring (24/25 September?) - Arthur Holmwood *

Note to Jack (24/25 September?) - Quincey Morris *

Undelivered Note to John (26 September) - Van Helsing

Note to Arthur and Quincey (27 September) - Van Helsing *

Message to Billington & Sons (27/28 September) - Jonathan Harker *

Reply from Billington (27/28 September) - Mr. Billington *

Telegram to Jonathan (29 September) - Mina Murray *

Carter Paterson Documents - Carter, Paterson, & Co *

* We know these documents exist, but never get to read them (or in one case, only get a brief excerpt) as they aren't added to the record. Sometimes some of the main characters do get to read them, but not always.

Question marks after a date denote uncertainty, though they're all likely written within a few days of the tentative one listed. When after a dash (-?) they mark an as-yet incomplete document.

Some documents contain others within them. When this becomes relevant for characters reading them, I will list the main document read, then all others included in it with brackets, like this:

Main document [included document one, two]

[missmarthanightingale]

i find myself wondering again about bits of correspondence whose inclusion makes sense as an external narrative choice - quincey's letter & arthur's telegram both demonstrate the absolute lack of any jealousy, bitterness, or anything resembling hard feelings between lucy's suitors, & also highlight the fact that these three aren't casual acquaintances, they're close friends, with quincey's letter particularly emphasizing that they're old friends with a long history together.

but the in-universe collection of documents? their friendship is relevant, perhaps, but is adequately illustrated elsewhere, as is their shared no-hard-feelings policy with regards to lucy's engagement. i believe there is only one other occasion in the entire book that we get a telegram or anything else from arthur, that one being far more relevant to the vampire experience, & this is, if i'm not mistaken, the only piece of writing we have by quincey. there are no others.

it's safe to assume that, like van helsing, neither of them keep journals. do we also assume that all correspondence between the characters from the time period are included in the compilation but that quincey & arthur just weren't writing to other cast members? is it likelier that they were in more regular contact but the other stuff was even less relevant, & these two pieces only made the cut because a decision was made to chronicle lucy's last months as completely as possible? did arthur & jack want to include that specific note from quincey because of the references to their shared history, because it's such a nice little snapshot of their friendship? is its presence here their little tribute to him, & arthur's telegram a representation of how well they loved him back?

[paragonrobits]

Dr Van Helsing, probably: Mister Harker, I have a question Jonathon Harker: Yes? Helsing: I was going over your journal to reference your experiences and you seem to have constantly doodled 'MR MINA HARKER' everywhere in the spaces Helsing: You have also appeared to doodled little hearts around them too. Harker: ... Helsing: ... Harker: Doctor, you knew full well what I was all about when you brought me in. I am MISTER MINA HARKER and if I am to declare it with all the ardent passion of a smitten teenage girl, than so be it. Helsing: Point taken, good sir!

[spider-xan]

All I know about titles is that last year it was pointed out that the London crew call Jonathan just "Harker", while he calls them Dr, Mr and Lord, and that it's a class thing. Except from van Helsing who calls him Friend Jonathan because he's Like That.

It's definitely a class thing, though I think for Seward, I've noticed he also refers to Renfield and Van Helsing just by their last names as well, and he's arguably the same class as Van Helsing and Renfield is at least equal if not higher bc he's definitely upper-class while Seward seems to straddle the line between upper-middle and the lowest of the upper class, though the latter is obviously complicated by the doctor-patient relationship that Seward is not very good at either; so with Seward, I think there might also be an element of clinical detachment in a scientist trope sort of way, especially with the nature of his journal entries as notes and observations, and with Van Helsing, they're also friends.

Regarding Jonathan, the use of titles with him is interesting bc not only does it denote class relationships, but also the shift in his familiarity with the other men; just to be on the safe side, while there are implied spoilers above, I'm going to hide my elaboration under a cut for ENDING SPOILERS, so continue at your own risk!

I remember last year, people were disappointed that seven years later in the epilogue, Jonathan refers to Arthur and Jack as Godalming and Seward respectively bc it was interpreted as Jonathan still not being close to them and there was discussion on when he might finally do that - but taking Victorian British social conventions into account, the fact that Jonathan is referring to Arthur by his title without the Lord part and Jack as Seward IS a mark of close friendship and familiarity! Victorian men of a certain social class did not address each other by their first names or nicknames unless they had known each other as children, and since Jonathan didn't grow up with them, it's extremely unlikely he would ever do that.

[zooophagous]

The last in a series of vignettes in Wayward Souls that describe the history of Luther Strauss and how he managed to survive his first years as a fledgling vampire. We will return to the continuing plot after this. Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy these asides as much as I had fun writing them.

Account of an examination of a newly fledged vampire in Trier, Germany, May 17th 1790. By a Doctor Oskar Schiller. Translated from its original German by Sylvain Pietra with additional corrections via The Van Helsing Institute of St. Joseph vocational department:

 

17, May, 1798

This journal is late. It is eight years late, to the day. I should have done better to record my observations earlier when they were fresh, but the distance between now and then has given me the ability to examine the findings more objectively, now that the emotional component has had time to subside. I believe that this journal would be worth more, now, when my mind is clear than it would have been then, when I would be writing from a state of panic.

The following account details an office visit with my most peculiar patient. I have not met another like him before, and I have not met another like him since. I am of the belief that patients of his nature prefer to avoid treatment; or are otherwise very rare; and perhaps the truth is a combination of both.

I will not reveal the name of the patient here, for his safety. Should my journal fall into less kind hands the details of his identity would place him in mortal peril; it sounds strange to say as much, for by all accounts he is already dead. I will refer to him by the initials L.S.

I will start my observations from as early as possible, before he became a patient, L.S. was a peer. We both maintained similar practices in medicine, and we have called one another friends, though never close. L.S. was difficult to be close to even before his unfortunate regressions; but he was educated and polite and lived a normal life with a decent practice. Of course, I must insist my own practice was superior, but L.S. was a good doctor and by all accounts a good man. I know of no complaint against his character and I have none of my own to add.

He suffered, however, from a terrible and incurable sickness known as grief. It began with a terrible fever- not in L.S. but in his young daughter, a fever that would regrettably prove fatal to her.

Many ailments of the mind are born of grief. Some medicate their ailment with drink or absynthe or laudanum. L.S. was not given to the use of heavy substance. He was of a very clinical mind, being a physician, like myself; and was driven absolutely to solve his problems at their core.

Therein was the problem. At the core of the issue was death, and there was no cure for death. The study of human health improves with every year, but the realm of life and death is solely up to God.

I told him as much, when he found himself in my office. He did not want to hear it. I perscribed aids for the pain, aids for sleep, perscribed travel and exercise to ease the pain of loss. I even once perscribed a trip to the brothel, for all the good it would do him.

The only temporary stop-gap for pain was the delusion that he could repair his problems, and the bastard hurt so deeply, I indulged him. When he asked for books on medicine, I gave to him every book in my library. When I ran out of these, I helped him find more. His tastes began to stray into the unscientific and the esoteric, into desperate searches of half-true tales of men who made pacts with devils to get what they wanted.

God had seemingly ignored the prayers of L.S. and so he began to pray to something else.

I could no longer help him, by this point. As a man of God myself I am quite unable to bring myself to that peculiar realm of study, and his appetite for these materials made him a better hunter for it than I was anyway. It was all I could do to deal with his physical ailments.

He was not addicted to substance, despite his mania. The problem actually seemed to be not imbibing enough, of anything. He ate very litte, he slept even less, and his work became nonexistent except in pursuit of his goal.

His unattainable goal. I regret deeply that I was unable to help him. It should have been that he moved on with his life, and perhaps raising up a new family would have prevented him succumbing to the loss of the old. I resigned to keeping my old friend on palliative care, doing what I could to keep him comfortable until the end came for him and he rejoined his lost child. He grew more and more gaunt and haggard every day, and it seemed the end would come sooner rather than later.

It was with no small degree of consternation, then, that I received a letter one evening from L.S. that read only "I've found it."

I tried to respond quickly, but he was already unreachable. His windows were darkened and no one could say where the mad doctor had gone. I feared the worst, and unfortunately I am seldom wrong.

I was called in for an examination the following night, for a man discovered dead in the streets. He was apparently the victim of some violence and had been robbed of any valuables and stabbed repeatedly.

What an awful surprise, to lift back the sheet that covered the poor wretch and see that familiar face. I wish I could say he looked to be at peace. It was clear he had died fighting, his arms were covered in wounds- no doubt L.S. had tried to raise his hands to block an attack, or perhaps to plea for mercy, while the blows rained down on him. The killing blow was made to his neck.

His throat had been cut badly. No skilled butchery went into this- it was flayed open and the flaps of skin lay like the petals of a grotesque rose. His entire body was both stiff and pale. He had lost so much blood, in fact, that livor mortis was unable to set in where the body had touched the ground. There was not enough in him to color him.

A sad life, with a sad end. All the pity in the world could not help him now. I saw to it he was buried with his name and his title, near the little daughter he had missed so terribly. No doubt someone had promised him some great rare relic to lure him and dispose of him. But, his apartment was so terribly full of hideous arcane accoutrements that finding out who had promised him what and when was nigh impossible.

I had to bury him and wash my hands of it. I had done my Christian duty to him for long enough, I should have been allowed to be done with it then, at its logical end point. But God works in mysterious ways, and he was not done testing my faith.

Some two or three days had gone by since the burial of L.S. It was late spring, blooming into summer. I remember that it was a beautiful sunlit day. I remember that, because it is not the sort of day or hour one expects a specter.

A stranger wandered into my practice. It is not uncommon for a drunkard or a day laborer to come in off the street complaining of hangover pains or work related aches. This one staggered as he walked, no doubt another drunkard. He looked disheveled and his clothing was wet and dirty.

I did not recognize him at first. Not until he looked at me with his too familiar eyes and finally spoke my name.

"Doctor Schiller. What happened to me?"

My legs nearly fell out from under me. The breath stuck in my chest like a dart and I gripped the wall to stabilize myself. There before me stood L.S. in his grave clothes. Dirty, tattered, but awake.

I say awake, and not alive. For he was NOT alive. There was a moment of panic, of course. That perhaps a mistake had been made, perhaps I had allowed despair to cloud my judgement and allowed a man to be buried alive. But last I had seen him, his trachea and jugular had been ripped in half. Now he was speaking, not but two days after the fact. It was impossible he had been alive and I was only more sure of it now. He was dead when he had been buried. He was still dead in my office.

He was so drained of blood he appeared grey, even now, standing in front of me. He had been mortally wounded several times, though now the wounds appeared absent. His neck was repaired as if by a tailor. Pink scars crossed like a spiderweb over the skin where it had knit itself together. His skin clung to his empty skeleton like a wet cloth, and the stink of the grave still covered him, as did the dirt, and this reanimate demon that defied all reason now stood before a reasonable man, and asked what had happened?

"What happened?" I repeated, finding my breath and strength. "You found it. That is what happened."

"I did?" He asked stupidly. I was incredulous. L.S. had discovered his secret, his cure for death, and it had worked, though he did not seem to understand the miracle he had become a part of.

I stood backed against the wall, trying to remember where I had left my pistol. L.S. stepped towards me with his confused, pleading eyes. He spoke again, with a grating voice like a coffin lid.

"Can you help me?"

"Help you!" I laughed, despite it all, I laughed. "You have cured death! You are the superior physician. Heal thyself!"

He spread his arms out wide. "Please. It hurts."

He was closer now, and I finally brought myself to look at him. What I thought was the dirty remains of a shredded graveshirt I saw now was actually skin. Dead strips of skin hung from his arms in tatters, and boils and blisters ran up and down the length of his hands and exposed forearms. Horrid yellow fluid moved beneath the transluscent skin, and what color there was in his cheeks was from injury.

This instilled a sense of pity- I have been a physician for many years, and I know well the terrible pain inflicted from such severe burns. I dropped my guard.

"How did this happen?"

"I don't know." He replied weakly, still holding his limbs out as if it pained him to move them. "I believe it is sun-burn."

Sun burn like that, I have only seen once before, on a sailor on the open ocean lost for many days on a raft with no relief from the tropical sun. And even then, it wasn't half so severe.

I sat L.S. down and began to remove the dead skin judiciously. He was silent. He offered no explanation for his death and sudden reappearance but watched me work like a cat watches a lark. He had changed drastically, and had he not walked or talked, one might easily assume he were dead. He was cool to the touch and firm, and though I tried several times to find one I could decipher no pulse.

I offered him something for pain, and some water, which he drank greedily. He paused and turned his head and spit out a tooth. I bent to pick it up, and he only shrugged.

"That is the last of my teeth." He said flatly. "The others have been pushed out, by new ones."

New ones. As if deciduous teeth are expected in a man almost sixty years old. He drew back his lips in a tight grimace and I saw that he was right, however. Few teeth remained, save for a jagged set of sharp white teeth that were newly sprouting from the gum.

I asked if he was hungry, and he did not reply. I insisted he eat something. He asked for bread and broth. It was provided, and I watched him try to eat. He did drink the broth, as he had the water. The bread however, caught in his throat. He choked, he gagged, and I feared he might vomit- the fear was hot and bright in my heart, at the thought of what might appear from a dead man's gullet. He spat the bread out in despair.

He groaned deeply and complained bitterly that he was so, so hungry. So awfully hungry, but could not eat.

I had once helped this poor soul amass a library of the occult. God forgive me, I had read some of the books in his collection. He was avoiding the obvious yet unasked questions that hung above our heads like an executioner's axe. It was up to me to try something, and so I did.

He had been emptied of his life's blood. I fetched my blood letting tools, and drew some of my own. I do not know what I meant to do with it. Many of the books in his... academic pursuits placed great importance on life's blood. I had a sense, an intuition that perhaps he knew what to do with it.

I offered it to him in a cup. He did not question my methods or even pause before putting it to his lips and consuming the entire contents. It was now my turn to stave off vomiting. He dropped the cup and took one or two fast steps towards me, but stopped short of touching me. He blinked down at the cup as if incredulous at his own hunger.

He finally looked at me.

"Doctor Schiller. I am afraid that I am dead."

"Yes." It was all I could think to say to him. "Yes, I believe you are."

"What do I do?"

How does one answer such a question?

"I believe the dead should stay in their graves." I told him. "I believe the dead should go to God."

"I do not believe God will have me."

It was now I began to grow angry. "You have ignored my advice for decades, and now you ask me what to do now that you have ruined yourself? You expect me to fix what you have done? I do not know what to say to you. You are dead, you should return to your grave, the best I can do is to put you there myself!"

I raised my voice and my pistol at him. I am not pleased with it, I do not make it a habit to act so unkindly to my friends or to my patients. But I was afraid of him. Afraid of whatever it was he had done to himself. I felt in that moment, that we had ceased to be peers. He had become something else, and whatever it was, I was now prey. I hated him.

He did not retaliate, but he shrunk. He was often too quiet in life, and was now too meek in death. Too meek to do anything but raise his hands to placate me.

"Doctor Schiller, please, do not harm me!"

I did not know if my pistol could have harmed him. How does one kill a dead man? His corpse however was not incorruptible, and the burns along his arms had told me he could still feel pain. It was that fear of pain that would keep him in check.

But, the Devil knows a man's heart well, and will exploit it, even the kind parts of it. Especially the kind parts. When he raised his hands to me, to beg for his own unholy existence, the pink scars of his death throws were revealed in the palms of his hands.

He had perished struggling and pleading once already; and even now, in this state, he did not seem capable of violence on his own behalf. Perhaps his many years of self denial- verging on self punishment, had atrophied his ability to fight for himself. I admit, I faltered. I could not do it. I could not put him through it twice.

I did, however, insist he must return to his grave. I gave him a new shirt and we waited till nightfall and I returned him to his rightful resting place. I tucked him into his vault like I was sending a child to bed. I warned him that he was not to return. He was dead, and he would keep to the realms of the dead, and if I saw him outside of his place, I would remove him with extreme prejudice.

I did not sleep that evening or the next or the next. When I finally gave in to exhaustion, after rising again I wondered if it wasn't a terrible nightmare. Maybe my own mind had invented some form of madness in the fallout of the heartache of burying a colleague and a friend. I began to think perhaps, that this was the more likely truth. I had experienced a delusion. Maybe the brain sickness of L.S. was contagious.

Such an elaborate and detailed delusion is cause for its own concern. Before long, I began to panic. I had to know the truth, so I developed a contrivance, a lie to get into the vault of L.S. to prove to myself that he was rotting in his crypt and that reality was still as it should be.

It was under the excuse that I was looking for signs of plague. It was a stupid excuse, as it was well known at the time that L.S. had died of an obvious murder, and not from illness. But I insisted, and I am respected enough that I was eventually able to get my way.

It was weeks post mortem and the workers cursed me for my idiocy. We braced for a rush of rot, an eruption of putrefaction from the breaking of the seal- but none came. There in the bottom of the vault lay L.S.

He looked exactly as I had left him. Even the globes of his eyes were still round and intact beneath the lids. He was still wearing my shirt.

We put him back quietly and exited the yard. I still send a stipend to the grounds keeper of the yard, for the care of L.S. If a patient needs bloodletting, not a drop of it is spilled. Even now I send this token, eight years later, and never has the groundskeeper asked me to stop. If anything, he will ask me to send more.

I will retire this year and will no longer be able to provide for L.S. I hope charity finds him, I fear what will happen if he is forced to fend for himself.  I do not know if I have done the right thing, by feeding his madness for years or for feeding his hunger now. Perhaps I have done the world a great disservice, and if that is the case I hope the Lord can forgive me. I hope the Lord can forgive L.S. and take him to his daughter. Perhaps the separation from her is the punishment he has earned for overstepping the natural boundaries of life and death over us all.

[treespen]

When Westenra questions why she can’t marry more than one man in a letter to Mina Murray near the start of the novel, it makes her fit into being seen as a Pandora figure. In Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman to be created by the gods, and was a part of the punishment of humanity.

I fail to see the connection.

In context, which actually is important, Lucy says that in order to show how much she hates making people disappointed and sad. The narrative does not show this as being lustful.

If there is a Pandora figure at all that would be Mina Harker, the character who chooses to break Jonathan Harker journal's forbidden seal and to read it.

And it's shown to be a GOOD thing.

This can fit into the character of Lucy Westenra because at first she is in a state of plenty and ease only to later become into a state of suffering and death, by her own doing.

"By her own doing?" How is Dracula drinking her blood by force "her own doing"? Why is there victim blaming that is nowhere to be found in the text?

Westenra going against patriarchal norms is an immediate need for correction, it is something that the readers have to expect to happen throughout the novel.

How, exactly, in the text, does Lucy Westenra "go against patriarchal norms"?

The exact opposite is true: Lucy conforms REALLY well. By staying silent about her illness not to bother mother and fiance, by her own admittance.

And silence and isolation are constantly what aid Dracula throughout the novel. Until they all decide to never keep anyone (especially women) in the dark again. The characters get punished when they are being too conforming to patriarchal norms.

This scene as a whole is a gothic version of a biblical reference, Westenra violates sexual and social ideas and therefore has to be saved.

Which Biblical reference? Because Mary Magdalene never seduced anyone. Vampire Lucy was attacking children and drinking their blood, the favorite of vampires. Those children were going to turn into vampires if they didn't kill her, just like why they had to kill Dracula after he bit Mina later.

When Westenra is impaled she is ultimately saved and Dracula becomes more of a heroic novel than a horror, she is saved in the sense that she had been resorted to her original beauty and had become silenced, which is more emphasised by the fact that her mouth has been stuffed with garlic, it is to make sure she can never speak again.

Staking a vampire, cutting the head off, and stuffing it with garlic is the only way to destroy a vampire in eastern european folklore, which is what Van Helsing follows. Garlic stuffing is what they would have done for Dracula too if he hadn't dissolved into dust due to being centuries old. The garlic is to never rise again, not to never speak again.

Lucy didn't even speak unless spoken to in life, most of the time. Because she was a proper Victorian girl.

If there is a woman who speaks a lot and is consistently opinionated till the end, that is, again, Mina.

Vampire Lucy's staking and beheading is seen as a tragedy, not a heroic triumph. The reactions of the characters who did it to save her soul and the children she bit is mourning and pain.

A Critical Appreciation of Lucy Westenra

The character of Lucy Westenra as a whole can be regarded first as a part of the ‘femme fatale’, in the view that she falls away from patriarchal norms, and is first seen when she states in a letter ‘why can’t they let a girl marry three men’ this shows that her character must be punished later on in the novel. According to Hollinger, when Westenra gets impaled with the stake by her fiance, her ‘reactions are described as in terms reminiscent of sexual intercourse and orgasm’ further showing how far she is from the ideal victorian woman and how corrupt she had become, it becomes clear to the reader at this point that Westenra must be killed off in order for her to cause no more disruption and to stay silent.

When Westenra questions why she can’t marry more than one man in a letter to Mina Murray near the start of the novel, it makes her fit into being seen as a Pandora figure. In Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman to be created by the gods, and was a part of the punishment of humanity. The myth has it that she was not allowed to accept any gifts given to her, but had one day given in and opened a jar, releasing all ills and evils into the world, leaving only hope inside. This can fit into the character of Lucy Westenra because at first she is in a state of plenty and ease only to later become into a state of suffering and death, by her own doing. Westenra going against patriarchal norms is an immediate need for correction, it is something that the readers have to expect to happen throughout the novel.

Stoker also creates Westenra as an Ophila figure, which is only seen through her death. To be seen as an Ophila figure, the character must have a tragic but beautiful death. Ophila’s death from Hamlet, though having a harsh truth, is described as being beautiful and lady-like, the tragedy of it being that she died of a seemingly innocent accident. Westenra’s death the first time round, doesn't count as being overly tragic because it is stretched out, she doesn’t die straight away, or out of nowhere, and whilst it is sad that she got sick and blood transfusions and treatment don’t help her, many wouldn’t class that as being tragic. Those who do class it as being tragic are counteing in the fact that she feasts upon children at night, and the destruction she befalls upon society with the threat of a ruined generation, however, that isn’t seen as a tragic death, because Westenra isn’t silent nor beautiful in death. Her death the second time round, does fit the profile of an Ophila figure, because not only is she dead for good and can cause no more destruction, it fits with being tragic through the fact that her fiance was the one who had to kill her with a stake through her heart. And through this second death, Stoker intends for us to see her as an Ophelia figure and therefore tells us that she is now beautiful again, which we further see when it is quoted ‘death has given back part of her beauty’ also telling us that she is now silent and malleable. 

Just before Westenra’s death it is signalled to the readers that she is also to be seen as a Mary Magdalene figure. This is more prominent when Westenra is trying to seduce her finance by calling him her husband, which makes her be seen as a temptress. It is widely believed that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute before Jesus saved her and she became one of his most devoted disciples. And so in the terms of Lucy Westenra as a character she is also meant to be seen this way, she is tainted and then is saved, but the way she is saved is by death. This scene as a whole is a gothic version of a biblical reference, Westenra violates sexual and social ideas and therefore has to be saved. It is widely known that vampires are repelled against religious relics, memorabilia and beliefs, and so by adding this biblical reference onto a vampire makes it more known to the readers that she is going to be corrected and saved from her ways. When Westenra is impaled she is ultimately saved and Dracula becomes more of a heroic novel than a horror, she is saved in the sense that she had been resorted to her original beauty and had become silenced, which is more emphasised by the fact that her mouth has been stuffed with garlic, it is to make sure she can never speak again, and is a sign that she is absolutely human.

(I don't expect people to take this seriously or give it any thought, this is just my English homework that I had to do, and I thought I might as well post it onto here.)

[atundratoadstool]

What type of disagreements are there among Dracula scholars?

[Spoilers: Mention of not-yet-encountered character, vague allusions to general themes]

I mean, much like scholars in any field studying any author or any text, it's hard to enumerate all the ways that scholars disagree. Being a scholar is always going to being--in some way--about disagreeing with everybody. In the case of Dracula, I also feel scholarship can mean a lot of things. Dracula, like the Sherlock Holmes stories and the works of of Jane Austen, has a rich history as a literary text that just comes with a lot of commentary from fanclubs, independent scholars, collectors, and other people who aren't Ph.Ds publishing in prestigious academic journals. While I'm sure that there are some people who would like to draw some lines and keep some gates as regards who gets to be called a Dracula scholar, I'm not one of them, so some of the disagreements listed below aren't going to apply to every circle of people having Dracula conversations.

One of the bigger things that I think has stirred up disagreement among Dracula scholars/enthusiasts/commentators/adapters is whether or not Count Dracula is meant to be the historical figure Vlad III of Wallachia (often referred to as Vlad the Impaler). While it was insanely popular for a long while to think they were one and the same, people examining Stoker's original papers and sources for the novel noticed at some point that there is virtually no information about Vlad III in Stoker's notes and we don't know how much he read about Vlad III in the sources that mentioned him. The language of the lineage speech also has led many to think that Dracula is better identified with the "Dracula of a later age" than with the Dracula who is clearly alluding to Vlad III.

In a similar vein (pun semi-intended), people love to make bold proclamations saying that Stoker was definitely inspired by X thing and that X character was really based on X real world personage. When he’s not being cast as Vlad III, Dracula is said to have been based on Henry Irving, Franz Liszt, Walt Whitman, Jack the Ripper, and Oscar Wilde. Van Helsing (we’ll meet him later) is definitely Max Mueller or Moriz Benedikt or Gerard van Sweiten or Albert W. Van Renterghem or Edward Dowden or John Freeman Knott. People love to put forth their pet theories about Stoker’s specific inspirations even though there is very little evidence one can use to prove anything.

In terms of analysis, there’s a banquet of interesting scholarship discussing the role of science, religion, technology, nationality, colonialism, racism, disease, and medicine in Dracula, but the interpretive threads for which I think I see the most spirited conversations are those dealing with gender and sexuality. Dracula is a novel that does things that can be read as both tremendously transgressive and tremendously regressive as regards the roles of men and women in society and the bounds of sexual propriety, and there is a lot of discussion as to what to make of that. Stoker is certainly not a feminist (he is explicitly anti-feminist in some of his other writing) but the way he treats men and women in his texts can still be interpreted as bizarrely progressive at points. People in general have a lot of strong reactions to how his characters present in terms of gendered expectations, and--as tumblr has rapidly discovered--the novel is overflowing with language that lends itself to queer readings.

Beyond that, there are a lot of little discussions about where Castle Dracula was physically located, where various literary allusions and one-liners come from, and the other little textual details that nerds love to nerd about. In general though, I think what I’ve written above gives a broad overview of some of the stuff that gets people ready to have some manner of interpretive throw down.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Aside from one reference at the very begining of the story where Jonathan says that Transylvanian villagers have a superstition about a monster called a "vampire" (which he says in big airquotes because he isn't sure what they are and wants to ask Count Dracula if he's ever heard of them), I don't think the v-word had been mentioned throughout the rest of the story.

Dracula can climb walls like a lizard, and control packs of wolves, and turn into one himself, and also a bat, and he drinks blood, but has any character come right out and said "Dracula is a vampire" yet? We the readers know he is because the character has existed in pop culture for 125 years, and we know that Van Helsing knows, but does anyone else? Does Jonathan know he's specifically a vampire, or does he just think he's a generic monster of some as yet unknown kind? What am I saying? He doesn't even remember! It's been months since he escaped and weeks since he was reunited with Mina, but she refused to read his journal even though he has amnesia, so they're both completely in the dark.

Did I forget something that already happened, or have we yet to recieve textual confirmation that Count Dracula is, in fact, a vampire?

The story so far feels like the blind leading the blind, and we're all waiting for the one-eyed man to declare himself king so he can take charge and get on with it!

[thebibi]

ok ik you like it so it's not a question but im sucker for symbolism etc jon/mina/vh

Ok so like. I had a half baked idea about VH/Mina/Jonathan sometime in November that I didn't really know how to articulate. I was thinking, "it's like Lady Gaga's song 'Judas' but theres no love triangle.

And then I was thinking, its kind of like the inverse of Original Sin. If Dracula is Evil God, the anti-Jesus figure, then Van Helsing is the benevolent Serpent/Satan, telling Adam and Eve (the Harkers) to leave their ignorance and become aware of all things good and bad. Does this make sense? (disclaimer I am not an expert in Christian theology, other people can chime in).

The Harkers are like, Adam and Eve.  They are very new to the world as a married couple.  I think its interesting how they are presented to us already as a couple. Jonathan is inherently transformed by being under Dracula's control, he is born anew. He is like the first point of contact with him, just like how Adam has a special relationship with God. Jonathan and Mina get married while he is recovering in bed. Its like how Adam is always depicted lying down or asleep when Eve is created, and she is already waiting for him. Their marriage vows are marked by Jonathan asking for Mina's ignorance about his journal. The journal is like the forbidden fruit of the garden. But it takes Van Helsing meeting the Harkers for them to truly understand what the journal represents.

When Mina and Van Helsing meet, there is a literal reference to Original Sin, which we all thought was a bit odd, but in hindsight it makes perfect sense. Before giving the professor her diary, Mina thinks: “I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit—I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths”  But nonetheless, it alludes to how important this meeting is. Van Helsing and Mina's relationship directly impact how successful the group is at defeating Dracula.

How is Van Helsing like Satan, persuading Eve to disobey the world order and gain new found knowledge?  Well, maybe someone better researched in Christian theology could find comparisons between classical Satan and Van Helsing (besides them both having red hair apparently). But what I mean is that, both the professor and Dracula are opposing powers fighting for the souls of mankind, like God and Satan. And just like how Satan befriends Eve in order for her betray God, there is a conspiratory nature of Van Helsing and Mina's relationship. The professor insists to meet with Mina alone, and together they learn that Lucy's death and Jonathan's brain fever are connected. They quickly become friends before Jonathan even hears about it.

Jonathan, just like Adam, follows his wife. In Adam's case he eats the fruit knowing Eve has sinned, and in Jonathan's case he follows Mina twice: first he believes Mina did the right thing reading the diary and introducing Van Helsing to him, and the second he swears to become a vampire for Mina's sake. In Paradise Lost, Adam frets at the idea that Eve is replacable, because she is now with sin, because he still loves her. Its interesting that both men decide to follow their wives into the unknown, now tainted and no longer pure, rather let them be separated.

The relationship of the three of them is ultimately a positive spin on the Original Sin. Satan corrupts Eve and Adam follows, but in Dracula, Van Helsing mentors Mina and uplifts her faith while Jonathan skirts eternal damnation just to follow her. It reminds me of this quote: "If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty." I think its quite interesting.

[thegoatsongs]

Yep, Van Helsing has namedropped one of his sources: "Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been." and "As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, [Dracula] was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist"

He recognised something vampiric on Lucy due to the fact that he is an old man from Old Europe in Industrial England. He has belief in things that these English youngsters don't. But he knows nothing about how to treat her condition and that's why he immediately returns to Amsterdam for books and research and then he orders garlic flowers.

His main source on vampire behavior, powers, and weakness, ends up being Jonathan Harker's Journal. And he cites it very often as a reference.

I’m a little behind on Re: Dracula so maybe there’s an answer to this that people already know but is there a reason why Van Helsing knows so much about vampires? Like yes he probably got the knowledge from folklore and stories but there’s definitely a history behind this right?

You don’t diagnose someone with being a vampire sippy cup unless you have encountered vampires before

This man has seen things

[jeskaim]

Crimson Vow Spoilers -Part 2

I have to say this was an interesting thing for Wizards to do for this set just like they did with Godzilla in Ikoria. I read Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” in college because the theme of my third English class was 19th-century horror so I recognize all of the characters. Of course Dracula himself is represented by one of the most famous vampires in the multiverse: Sorin Markhov so that’s no surprise.

It’s also cool to see other characters like Abraham Van Helsing and Mina Harker with Mina as Thalia. For those who haven’t read the book Mina is the person who compiled the story of Dracula in her journal (as seen in Mina’s Journal/Investigator’s Journal) which is basically the book itself.

I also like seeing Lucy Westenra as a card. For those unfamiliar with the story of Dracula she’s his first English victim to turn into a vampire and after she gets bitten by Dracula she chases children around who refer to her as “bloofer lady” which is told in a newspaper article. I like how the card depicts her transformation from a human to a vampire by her still wearing the same clothes and just having blood on her hand and lips. That card was perfect to represent her.

With more than half of the set spoiled my next post will likely be on the vampires of the set, mainly those surrounding the wedding of Olivia and Edgar.

[vickyvicarious]

So, I noticed something kind of interesting today. Seward's diary never mentions Renfield by name. And that's not totally out of the ordinary for him - I went back and looked, and there are several other times so far that he doesn't name him (18 June, and 1, 8, and 19 July). But in each of those entries, Seward is entirely focused on figuring out Renfield; nothing else is discussed at all. Not naming him is simply because each entry is continuing the same thought/preoccupation. And in fact, on both the 8th and 19th, he calls Renfield "my friend" - the lack of name is not due to emotional distance.

But today it felt more like that. We haven't heard from Jack's diary since the 24th of August, when Renfield escaped on his own terms briefly rather than taking the intentional opportunity given to him. That whole "plan" was a huge unprofessional mess on Seward's part, and I wonder if he realized that at least a little. He went quiet for a good few days, until he heard from Arthur, and then in his treatment of Lucy we see him being a much better doctor and friend than he's ever been to Renfield. Where he's drugging Renfield to sleep so he can go through his journal, with Lucy he is very respectful and makes sure he has consent to share medical information. And so on. Obviously he thinks of Lucy and Renfield in very different ways and has different standards for what is acceptable to do - or even considered as an option.

But I still find it interesting that when we see him writing about Renfield again, this first entry feels a lot more removed than before. It feels like Seward is trying to be more professional and less emotionally involved. He names Renfield at the start by his supposed disorder ("Zoöphagous patient") and at other points refers to him again by role ("my patient") or what he represents ("a wonderfully interesting study"). But he never calls him by name or by any more affectionate nickname such as 'my friend'. He also notes his madness multiple times, musing about madmen and lunatics and wishing he could understand his mind.

A part of me wonders if there is a slight element of Seward recognizing just how out of control his own behavior was getting, and trying to rein it in. It would make sense for him to be doing so either after the escape plan went wrong (and Renfield was furious with him in particular, and he ended his entry saying he'd never forget that night) or after the company of people like Lucy and Van Helsing helps to sort of forcibly reconnect to friends who keep him more humane/sane himself. As well a patient he deeply cares for and wants to treat respectfully (Lucy) potentially making him feel a bit off-balance in how he is treating his 'other' favorite patient (Renfield).

I do have to point out how all of this more distant wording is just dehumanizing Renfield in another way, of course. And it doesn't seem like much about Seward's actual behavior has changed - he still folds pretty easily in the face of Renfield's "cringing" supplication/flattery, and thinks he is indulging him in order to better understand. He still is obviously fascinated by him and takes a strong personal interest in his care. But it feels a little bit like the way he talks about it is at least trying to be more distant.

...Though maybe that's partially just his melancholy. Seward talks multiple times today about not understanding/wishing he could understand Renfield. And for the most part, it reads as more frustrated/downtrodden than previous times. He doesn't have much speculation to offer until the very end of his entry. Is it possible that he is feeling a bit upset about not being able to figure out Lucy's illness, and it's spilling over?

And there's of course the really eloquent line in the middle of this entry describing how he feels returning to "all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all." That makes it sound a lot like his time with Lucy and Van Helsing (and talking to Arthur) was really good for him. He needed this friendly socializing, and even if the circumstances weren't ideal, he got to spend time with people who genuinely care for him. Who aren't just using him when they ask for things, who are just as eager to help him, who like him for who he is and have fun being with him. And then he goes back to the asylum.

He doesn't truly like it here. It's not good for him, he's at his worst when he's isolated here. And yet I wonder if, upon his return today, knowing Van Helsing has left and that he's returning (at least mostly) to his customary isolation, he feels much more aware of that than ever. In the past, he's thrown himself willingly if not eagerly into his work, but even the fascination he still feels doesn't seem to boost his mood today. I think he's feeling lonely.

I also think he's feeling a little bit of resigned "this is where I belong" and his more distant language reflects that. It's not just Renfield, after all. It's Lucy, too - he's been calling her by first name in his letters to Arthur, but today in his private diary he calls her "Miss Westenra". And it's not just because he's talking out loud, because he's called her "Lucy" in his diary before. So the more formal address today seems to fall in with the pattern happening with Renfield too. He feels alone, he feels lonely, and so his wording displays less connection to others.

[atlasifyllm]

feelin like shit just want vampyre: the terrifying lost journal of dr. cornelius van helsing as a reference book for seth the vampire witch's vampire tendencies

[spider-xan]

he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder

He can come in mist which he create—that noble ship's captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself.

Both of these are direct quotes from Van Helsing's speech about Dracula's powers when the team had their first group meeting on September 30, so everyone is fully aware that Dracula can not only create fog as part of his weather control magic, but that he has shrouded a ship he was travelling on in fog once before.

So while it's possible that Jack forgot, or this is another one of his moments where he's great at pattern recognition and noticing details, but not at making connections, it's also possible that he is aware of the implications regarding the fog and the ship not arriving yet, but either isn't spelling it out for himself in his private journal (especially if he doesn't want to write more than he has to), or he's in denial and doesn't want to directly confront what it might mean, in which spelling it out on paper makes it more real.

On a meta level, presumably Stoker intended to raise the tension and sense of dread in the reader that something has gone wrong, but trusted we would pick up on the fog detail and make the connection ourselves without his having to explicitly write out that Dracula may be interfering with the ship's travel path.

EDIT: I should have added this clarification earlier, but the mist mentioned in the second excerpt is a reference to Dracula's personal mist form (ie. what Renfield pulled him out of), which is different from the fog he can control within a limited range as part of his weather magic powers, and the fog is what's most relevant to the fog discussion.

[mybookplacenet]

Featured Post: Blood Loss: A Vampire Story by Andy Maslen

About Blood Loss: A Vampire Story: Vampires are real. Deadly. And very, very hungry. Caroline Murray thinks vampires are the stuff of fantasy. A successful lawyer, engaged to a brilliant, if erratic, scientist, she has no idea of the horror about to engulf her. Ariane Van Helsing knows all about vampires. Her family have been fighting the lamia, as they call them, for centuries. She tries to convince Caroline of the danger facing her and her fiancé. She fails. At first. In a series of journal entries, texts, emails, blog posts and "Hunt Books", we learn how Caroline discovers the truth about vampires. Their leader in the UK, Peta Velds. And what she has to sacrifice to defeat them. READER WARNING This is not a teen romance, or a swoony fantasy about pale-skinned hunks who just can’t help lusting after a drop of the red stuff. BLOOD LOSS is a brutal, unsparing, bloody book about the creatures who feed on us in the dead of night. Targeted Age Group: 18+ Written by: Andy Maslen Buy the ebook: Buy the Book On Amazon Buy the Print Book: Buy the Book On Amazon Author Bio: SHORTLISTED AUTHOR FOR 2018 KINDLE STORYTELLER AWARD FOR "HIT AND DONE" Hi. Thanks for stopping by my Amazon author page. I’m Andy Maslen, creator of Gabriel Wolfe and Stella Cole. I’ve always loved reading thrillers, so when I took the plunge and began work on my first novel – Trigger Point – it seemed natural to me to follow my heroes. A lot of my readers ask me if I have ever served in the military. I haven’t, but I have some close friends who have. They’ve been incredibly generous with their time (and patience!), explaining how things work, from weaponry and materiel, to the everyday language and behaviour of soldiers. There are tons of people out there doing varied and interesting (and sometimes dangerous) jobs. As an author it’s fantastic to be able to contact them and find they’re only too happy to discuss their work. I’ve interviewed murder detectives, pharmacology professors, military planners, movie fight arrangers, Special Branch officers … and they’ve all shared invaluable details to bring my stories to life. I hope their contributions increase your enjoyment of my books. In my time, I’ve worked in a record shop, as a barman, as a door-to-door DIY products salesman and a cook in an Italian restaurant. I eventually landed a job in marketing. I always try to take away something positive from any experience, and often find a memory will surface of a situation I’ve been in, or a person I’ve met. Tyton Press I created the Tyton Press imprint to publish my fiction. My non-fiction works are published by Marshall Cavendish and Kogan Page. The logo, drawn by Darren Bennett, is a barn owl, the scientific name for which is Tyto alba. --This text refers to the paperback edition. Follow the author on social media: Learn more about the writer. Visit the Author's Website Facebook Fan Page Twitter Read the full article