Jonathan Harker took a moment to consider the series of decisions that had led to this moment -- and wondered if there were any that he might have made that could have led to something less terrible than the deluge that, even now, soaked him to the bone as he waited for the cheerful humming that Dr. Van Helsing made as he worked to cease. The rain felt as if it was reaching deep into his bones -- and it carried with it a gritty, foul taste that reminded him when the wind blew from the wrong direction and London tasted more than her normal fair share of the factories.
"There we are a going, Mr. Harker," Dr. Van Helsing said, quietly, tucking his clippers into the vest pocket of his thoroughly ruined shirt. The fence of queer alien metal that the Martians had used to enclose the prison camp had a small hole cut into it now, and with the rain and the darkness both concealing them, it seemed time to effect an escape. But Jonathan did pause to glance back at the other human prisoners, who were mostly lurking in the small, low shelters that the Martians had made for them.
"Shouldn't we..."
"Your goodness does you a credit, Mr. Harker," Dr. Van Helsing said, leaning in close to put his hand upon his shoulder. "But now is a time for stealth -- and two may hide where many might draw the ire of our Martian benefactors, yes?" He nods. "You are understanding?"
"Yes...quite," Jonathan said.
How did I come here?
He thought.
Was there something I could have realized was coming?
Maybe if he had listened to the villagers, before going to that foul beast's castle. Maybe if he had listened to the beast -- to Mr. Dracula -- before he had discovered the man's terrible secret. Maybe if he had listened to his better sense and fled, rather than dallying with the strange creature that had claimed that it had been a wife of Mr. Dracula. Maybe if he had stayed in the hospital in Bucharest? Maybe if he had listened to his first impulse upon meeting Dr. Van Helsing in Budapest and instead stayed right there, rather than fleeing with him towards Prague.
Maybe...
Maybe...
Maybe...
Jonathan was once more forced to focus entirely on the physical, all other thoughts vanishing in the terrible and present danger of crawling through the opening in the fence in the rain. He followed after the older man, as the two of them came to the open clearing around the prison fencing -- and then the two of them were running, low and hunched to the ground as the beam of the search light swept behind them...and then shone upon them, the Martian guard tower having spotted their movement.
"Be running, Mr. Harker!" Dr. Van Helsing shouted over the driving rain and Jonathan sprinted as hard as ever he could -- his feet skidding and slapping. There was a horrid, hissing, rushing sound behind him and then an explosion of pain, dazzling and brilliant. He fell forward with a cry, then landed into a ditch that had been nearly invisible. He almost snapped his neck against the side, but through only the softness of the mud and sheerest luck did he avoid such a sudden and ignominious death. Behind him the sizzling sound was growing brighter and louder -- then faded. The search light shone across him and Dr. Van Helsing, but he remained perfectly still, even as Dr. Van Helsing...was he dead? Had the doctor died in that terrible blast of heat and pain? Was he all alone now, in this alien country, this alien world, with monsters before and behind him?
The search light slide away.
Dr. Van Helsing groaned, softly, and then lifted his head. "Remain...quite still, Mr. Harker..." He whispered. "The pain is merely temporary. It is merely a part of the human being that we must manage, from time to time. It will pass." He sighed, then chuckled. "And you can see, yes, that my science theory is a science fact: The ray of invisible death, it is stymied by something as simple as water! Water in the air!"
Jonathan slowly reached backwards, rubbing his shoulder, and found that his clothing came away as crumbled ash and his back was aching. "...stymied?" he whispered, then saw, in the near blackness of the night, that Dr. Van Helsing's clothing was just as tattered as his, and he was sure, his skin was just as reddened and burned.
"Yes! We could be, even now, in the grips of heaven hereafter!" Dr. Van Helsing whispered.
Jonathan blinked water from his eyes.
"Come!" Dr. Van Helsing started to stand, hissing. "Ah...we must find shelter."
"Find shelter? I don't even know what country we're in," Jonathan whispered -- and the two of them entered into a copse of trees.
"Yes, you do..." The Dutchman's voice was quiet and grave -- and the pair of them emerged from the copse and into a town-like area. The shops and the houses looked terribly familiar, and as Jonathan crept along, like a fox during a hunt, he began to realize...that Dr. Van Helsing was right. He did know this country...for this country was England. He realized, now, that the fact everyone else in the prison had spoken English and seemed to be from England should have been the first clue...but he had preferred to think that maybe they had been plucked from ships, or captured from England during raids, not that the rumors were true, that the Martians had come to his homeland first, and that they had wrecked such total havoc and terror.
Then...he heard it.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.
"That is being a signal...but for who?" Dr. Van Helsing whispered, standing straight, and in the pale moonlight that shone down in the street despite the rain, Jonathan saw that his companion's skin was indeed lightly burned from the shoulders to right above his buttocks, his clothing have turned into a smeared mess of ash and rags. He looked near savage, even as he took off his glasses to look up into the rain. He plucked at the hem of a shirt that wasn't there, as if he planned to rub his glasses clean of the rain. A green
flash
of light shot upwards, like a massive gout of smoke wreathing a pillar of flame. It cast its light against the clouds and, for a dizzying moment, the entire horizon was illuminated. Jonathan could see, in that single
terrible
instant, the familiar skyline of London sprouting nearly twenty hundred foot tall tripod walkers, with their tentacles at work, picking things up, setting things down, holding tools. And at their center was a structure, rising from London like a vast bowl, reaching towards the heaven.
But then the green light faded and the sound came again.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.
The sound, he realized, was booming from every tripod at once.
"You two!" A voice hissed out, pitched urgently low and ferocious. "You two fools! Get off the street! Get off!"
Jonathan jerked his eyes from the sight and saw that a ragged, bearded man in a tattered army uniform was standing before the entrance to a cellar, jerking his hand towards him and Dr. Van Helsing. "Come on!" the man hissed. "Come here! Now! Before you get us all killed!"
Jonathan hesitated -- but Van Helsing did not. He started forward, and Jonathan had to follow. Out of the corner of his eyes, another green flash illuminated the sight of the Tripods. They worked, without noticing the humans that struggled to survive beneath them, and the last sight he saw before the cellar door closed was the inverted bowl they were building growing, moment by moment larger and larger as their terrible construction continued, at a pace that beggared the imagination.
Then, he was once more, lost in darkness.
* * * * *
When Dracula returned to his castle, it was in the late of the evening -- and it was while carrying several large caskets, each of them born upon the wings of his many selves. The bats merged in the shadows, and he stepped forward into the light, and into the emptiness of his home. His eyes closed and he felt the warm tingle of his wives -- Aleera slept in the ground, tired after a long evening of training the newest members of their community. Verona and Marishka were both returning as quickly as they could from their long ranging. He could feel them only faintly.
Dracula badly wanted to waken Aleera, to hold his wife in his arms...but instead, he careful kept his thoughts from his sleeping wife, not wishing to waken him.
Dracula was tired. Weary. Not simply in his body, which had carried the caskets of their newest recruits across the breadth of Europe in a single evening...but in his soul. He had seen terrible things. He had done terrible things. But the scale of the devastation unfolding across Europe was shocking...
"Even to me," he murmured, quietly.
"I see you've collected some new...companions, master?"
Dracula lifted his eyes and saw Lambert, standing attentively. Dracula smiled, wryly. "Yes. They can stay here for a time -- I've given them a slower version of the noctis vitae -- to give me more time to prepare for their training and their integration into our...army." He frowned. "Tell me, how is the bloodbinding with the artillerist?"
"Should be broken in a day or so," Lambert said. "Assuming the lad doesn't fall head over heels for Miss Westenra in the natural means."
"Oh?" Dracula asked, striding away from the coffins, scratching idly at his jaw as he walked.
"Well, I may not have been eighteen for some time," Lambert said, dryly. "But I am fairly sure I recollect what I'd have done if a beautiful woman regularly made love to me day in day out while showering me with compliments and affections."
Dracula let out a soft 'heh.' "Well...he may end up being her first..."
"I take it the population of your associates is about to increase?" Lambert asked.
"Yes," Dracula said, pausing at the door out of the balcony. "Lambert, might you...wish..."
"Ah. No." Lambert smiled. "I've seen what it is to be in your association, Lord. It is not for someone like myself. You will always need us humans here and there. If only to provide something to fight for..." He inclined his head. "Rest well, my Lord."
Dracula nodded and started towards his bedroom.
He paused at the doorway, frowning. His senses told him that there was something beyond the door. He frowned, then placed his palm upon the door, gently opening it a tiniest of a crack, breaking the small spell-seal he had placed upon it. From there, he turned into mist, then flowed through into the room like a shadow. There, in the darkness, he paused...and felt himself growing confused. He had expected...
Well.
He had expected Lucy to be here.
But instead, Mina Murry was laying on the bed, her eyes closed, her dress slightly rumpled, her hands clasped on her belly. She had the posture of someone who had simply laid down to wait, sure that her energy would keep her up until the person she waited for had arrived...only to slowly be stolen away by her fatigue. She must have been working quite hard on practicing her training. Dracula felt a stirring of pride in his breast, but he knew that she wouldn't rest well in this bed. He could carry her to his coffin, situated behind the secret door in the northern wall, but that might rouse her...but even disturbing her that much felt too much like asking a kitten to move after it had perched in the most comfortable spot.
