The Story of Ms. Renfield (On Hold)

Chapter Thirteen: Lucy's Tale

September 28, 1899, outside of the Vault of the Westenra Family...

"You are getting a name for yourself, Lucy." Dracula scolded his recent charge as he stepped from the shadows of the path. "The Bloofer Lady is what the children call you. Saying that you are calling them to play."

"It is all your fault." Lucy in her customed, ornate wedding gown hisses, baring her blood-stained fangs at her sire. "You left me bloodless and with such a hunger. I did what I must." Lucy whined, clutching her stomach. "It hurts so." Her eyes flooded with tears.

"Yes, the pain of your human death is a burden to bear." Dracula pulled up his sleeve of his coat. A quick swipe of his sharp nail and a line of dark blood seeps from the flesh. "Drink, my child. My blood will cease your misery." He offered his wrist to her. Lucy lapped up the spilling up, purring at the taste. With her lips around the wound, she drawn more in.

"Sir, is this necessary?" William worried as he listened for anyone approaching the vault. He had overheard Van Helsing's plan to visit Lucy's coffin to kill the monster that she had become. The fool spoke about it in a local pub of all places. It was easy to listen to his drunk rant. "You will have no control over her."

"I do not want Ms. Lucy as a bride." Dracula casted a calculating look over at his new solicitor. "That would not serve the purpose I need. I need her eyes and ears in a way that only a woman can. Observant and misjudged."

Pulling away, she licked her lips cleaned of his unnatural blood. "Yes, men say many things and think women are too stupid to understand their words." Lucy huffed, savoring the taste of Dracula's blood in her mouth. "Even learning that her own mother was going to leave her penniless if she married her sweetheart soldier." Her eyes were sad for Lucy had a love that was wholesome and genuine. An up and coming private at the Queen's army that she had known since her youth. Her Gilly boy.

"I also looked over Mrs. Westenra's will after hers and your passing. Leaving everything to Holmwood before there was an actual marriage was absurd." William commented, peering into the darkness. "I see torch lights." He whispered as he moved close to the two vampires.

"What are we going to do?" Lucy spoked in a hush tone. "Kill them?" She looked up to Dracula. There was a gleam of vengeance in her eyes. Once upon a time, she, in her own way, loved all three of those men. Now, they were ready to slaughter her like a sacrificial calf at the altar.

"No, that will leave too many bodies to explain away. Now, quiet my dears and watch." Dracula formed the shadows to surround the three of them. With bated breath, they watched as Van Helsing, Holmwood, Quiney, and Dr. Steward entered the vault. Never even glancing their way.

With the sounds of the tomb sliding open, the startled, collective gasp of Lucy not being in her glass coffin shock the four men. Shouts and threats were made at Van Helsing by Holmwood. The cocking of a gun.

Dracula had moved to one of metal barred window, along with Lucy and William. They witnessed the odd pantomime of the four men facing a vampiric Lucy walking in from the stairs. Holmwood was falling under the thralling spell before Van Helsing stepped in the way. Threating her with the cross to force her back into her crypt, his words mixed with Latin and English. Van. Helsing, his face and clothes streaked with blood, instructing the young lord what to do to release her immortal soul. Holmwood driving the stake into her unbeating heart. Van Helsing triumphantly cutting off her head. All under the power of Dracula to see what he wanted them to see.

Lucy watched from the window, at Dracula's side as the men prayed over her empty coffin, satisfied that she was in eternal rest. "So odd how the human mind perceives what it believes is there or not." She turned her face to him. "Will I learn how to do that?" She asked.