The Unholy Night

Chapter XVII

"I've fallen deep into a pit of vipers, sliding over me, over me, and I can't break free"

- Pit of Vipers by Simon Curtis

Seward arrived around five o'clock, at which point Mina gathered us all together, needing backup for the plea she was about to make. 

She wished to visit a patient called Renfield, a name she remembered and Addy probably remembered too, but I certainly didn't, and neither did Bess. Later she would remind us that it was how Lucy had heard about us. 

Mina, naturally, ambushed him right as he came through the door. "Dr. Seward," she began, her face oddly close to his, due to the fact that he hadn't been expecting such an attack, "may I ask a favor?" 

She didn't even give him a chance to reply before barreling on. 

"I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him, please! Everything you've said of him in your diary is incredibly interesting to me."

Seward never stood a chance. 

Not long after, we were standing outside the door of Renfield's - cell would probably be the most appropriate word here, and trying to listen to the muffled conversation going on inside. 

"A lady would like to see you," Seward said. 

"Why?" asked a coarse voice, higher and whinier than expected. 

"She's going through the house, and wants to see everyone in it." This was a blatant lie, but Renfield didn't know that. 

"Oh, very well," he snapped. "Just let me tidy up the place first."

It was a few minutes before we were admitted. 

"Good evening, Mr. Renfield," Mina said in a clipped, formal tone. "Dr. Seward has told me of you." 

"None of you could be the girl the doctor wanted to marry, could you?" he asked. "Certainly not. She's dead. Or is she?"

"No. I have a different husband, to whom I was married before I met Dr. Seward. I am called Mrs. Harker."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"My husband, my friends, and I are staying here to visit the doctor."

"You ought not stay."

Mina turned to Seward. "If you might give us a moment with him?"

Almost immediately, Seward exited the room. He might've thought himself incredibly intelligent, but he was never meant to be in charge. He lacked a certain assertiveness that was required to be a leader. 

And almost anyone would've faltered when up against Mina. 

"Why shouldn't we stay here?" Mina snapped, as soon as Seward was gone. 

"I have no issue with any of you staying here," Renfield said, his voice less of a whine and much more proper. "But if you stay, they can't." He gestured toward us, and then turned his head away from Mina. "Although I wouldn't mind some like-minded company. I do wonder if your friend Mrs. Harker knows your secret?"

"Yes, she does," I replied. 

"And none of that Mrs. Harker nonsense, my name is Mina and you might as well call me by it."

"You smell very alive," Renfield said. He waved his hands in the direction of Bess and I once again. "They, however, do not."

"You can smell us?" I asked. "You wouldn't happen to be one of us, would you?"