Chapter 29 Death
Death
I hurried down to him, then slipped and landed hard on my backside at the bottom of the steps. Pain shot up my tailbone as I crawled to his side.
“Harker,” I said, breathless and shaking. The circle of dark blood widened. I pressed a hand to his cold face. His eyes were softly closed, raindrops glistening in his fine, dark lashes. I bent my cheek to his lips. Was there a whisper of breath?
“Mina!” called Jack. I shut out his voice, unbuttoning first the waistcoat, then the shirt. As if I had any idea what must be done! I knew Harker had wound potions in his laboratory, but there was no time for me to search for them. And could they be of any use against a bullet through his chest?
Oh God. His thick blood welled from the hole in time with the slow—and slowing—throb of his heart. It seeped over the smooth flesh of his chest and abdomen. Stifling a sob, I pushed the heel of my hand against the wound, trying to stop the blood.
“Mina!” Jack shouted again. This time he sounded panicked.
“Go for the surgeon!” I shouted back, voice ragged. “If he dies, it will be you that’s murdered him!”
Raising my eyes, I saw that Jack had crossed half the distance between us and stopped, his pistol—who was fool enough to give him that?—aimed away from the chapel.
Following the line of the barrel, I saw Goosevar—crawling slowly from a cluster of jutting rocks. Fangs bared, fog seeped from his peeled-back lips as he straightened to his full height, watching my twin with glittering eyes.
“Jack!” I cried. “Run!”
I jumped as another gunshot shattered the stillness, gray smoke rising from the burnt powder. Again Jack’s aim was true; Goosevar let out a snarl and faltered backward. The same thick blood trickled down like sap from the wound in his trunk.
Lowering again to all fours, the monster lunged and then loped, hare-like, over the uneven ground. I shouted another warning as Jack dropped the spent pistol and scrambled away. Goosevar was on him in seconds, catching Jack’s ankle in his jaws and dragging him back.
The sound Jack made! Pain and terror.
“Please!” I choked out, powerless to do anything else.
Jack squirmed and writhed, and finally he managed to free himself. But as soon as he made it to his feet, the creature swung a branch-like arm, its long-fingered hand knocking Jack to the ground—hard enough that he stayed.
Knotting my skirts in one hand, I dragged myself toward them, but Goosevar bent and hauled Jack up like he was a child. After slinging him over one shoulder, the creature trudged around the southern tip of Roche Rock, mist trailing after him.
Cold rain and hot tears mingled on my cheeks. In my mind, I saw Jack stretched on the heath, drained of blood. The next victim to be found. Our last words to each other had been so angry.
Jack was beyond my help now.
Dress soaked through and heavy, I crawled back to Harker. So much blood! I bent over his mouth and nose again—if there was breath before, there was none now.
“Harker,” I sobbed, squeezing his shoulder.
Must I lose everyone?
A host of small moments flitted through my thoughts. Soft glances over cups of smoky tea. The sound of his laughter by the pool on the heath. The first time he’d called me Mina.
The close press of bodies that had nearly ended me.
Something Harker had said now drifted into my mind. My wounds healed very quickly before I began denying myself blood.
Then came a desperate, mad idea.
I had watched the bloodlust take him. I knew how powerful it was.
Fresh tears streamed down my face. In saving him, if it could be done, there was a very real danger I would lose myself.
But in that instant, I found that I had no very strong will to preserve my own life.
Not in a world where monsters were real, and my twin brother was one of them.
Where he had most likely died because of his decision to murder a man who had struggled his whole life not to be a monster.
Fingers trembling, I reached up and fumbled with the rain-soaked bandage around my neck, then unwrapped it and tugged it free. I untied the ribbon that held Mum’s cross, closing the small piece of silver in a fist. Finally, I bent over him and pressed my barely closed wounds to his cold lips.
“Harker,” I murmured, fingers slipping over his chest until I found the bullet wound. It still seeped, and again I pressed my palm there.
My heart bounced at a small movement against my throat. I felt the quick prick of his teeth and let out a sob of relief. His hand came to the back of my head, and his lips slipped like silk over my skin.
With a sudden gasp, he sat up and dragged me onto his lap.
One hand held my throat to his mouth while the other locked around my waist. My warm life flowed into his cold body.
I let my arms coil around him like a lover’s.
If this was my death, l wanted to feel every moment of it.
Let that delicious current wash over and through me, carrying me down, down, down into the quiet darkness, until I ebbed and ended.
Then light bloomed behind my closed eyelids.
Autumn leaves. The waning moon. Light and shadow beneath the trees.
Our hands are fasted with bindweed. He bends and presses his lips to mine, and the kiss goes round me, warm as a blanket. Someone calls my name, and I look up. In the distant shadows, I see the silhouette of Goosevar, Jack in his arms. The creature sets Jack on his feet.
Jack steps into the moonlight and smiles at me.