Lucy West

The undead stay damned. I want to make that clear before continuing.

The undead stay damned.

There is no redemption for us. I could live the life of a saint, but I still drink blood. There are no two ways about it. I am damned, and with that comes an eternally damned life.

I’m unsure why I started a journal after one hundred and thirty years. I’ve never liked writing much, though Mina could scribble into the early morning hours. I prefer movement. I enjoy being busy.

I noticed stories about me written by various authors, stories claiming to be from my diary, and short horror stories, so I thought I’d share an excerpt from my actual diary—a tiny piece of my eternity if you will.

The other day, I bought a beautiful journal at the bookstore with a ruby clasp and black leather binding covered in velvety fleur-de-lis. I read Bram Stoker’s version of what happened and want to set the record straight. However, his tale is mostly accurate. How he knew what happened is beyond me. It’s as though he was there, but he missed what happened after my death. I hate being considered a headless monster or known as the “Bloofer lady,” so I need to share my side of the story.

Dr. Helsing and his companions failed to realize that our souls, though released from our bodies, are trapped in limbo. We are higher-level supernatural beings because we once had bodies and walked with mortal feet—creatures created to balance good and evil. Right or wrong, we are beings of nature, and our mother is the Earth.

Once dead and buried in the native soil of our homeland, the Earth contains our corrupted blood, disallowing it to seep into her crust, or else she would be damned, and keeping it forever in our souls to carry with us to whatever body we inhabit. It’s not just a virus in our blood, though the presence of our spirit in a new body does change the blood therein. It’s something more, a change of our material makeup, our heritage, no longer children of a God, nor demons of the devil, but something else.

Yes, the Earth has a soul. I’ve seen it. A vibrant purple and blue light glow trailed along the Earth’s surface. I can see it best far away from civilization. I can see and hear things that mortals would marvel over. It took me a bit to control my senses, block out unnecessary noises, and focus my sight. My new life wasn’t so bad once I learned to control it.

The Earth hates evil. Innocent blood spilled on her makes her angry and sad. I couldn’t feel it when I was Prince Dracul’s puppet, but when I was reborn in a new body and was myself again. That’s when I could feel it.

The Earth’s heart is beating. It’s not like a human heart. It’s a low steady vibration emitting from the core of the Earth. It’s magnetic and just as alive as anything. I can feel human emotions, especially men, and I can feel the Earth. She’s pleased when I kill the wicked: rapists, murderers, and child abusers. I haven’t killed another innocent mortal since that dreadful night.

I will never die because death doesn’t want me. We deliver souls to death. The difference between us and a mortal who chooses evil is a choice. I wasn’t given a choice. The Dragon took that choice from me. Prince Dracul of the House of the Dragon raped me of my mortality and innocence. Though I was a vivacious flirt in my mortality, I was virtuous. At least Mina believed in me. Rest her soul. She was the last and only person who ever believed in me.

Those days and nights haunt me. It’s like watching someone else controlling my body and doing frightful things. I was trapped in my mind, buried beneath all conscious thought and control. Prince Dracul’s voice controlled me like a puppet until Dr. Helsing released me.

My soul was in limbo. I remember darkness, peaceful, enveloping darkness. All worries, fears, sadness, and Prince Dracul’s voice, his final scream as our connection broke, drifted away. I was myself again but bodiless. Looking down at my hands, I saw a dim red glow silhouetting a seemingly human form. Where flesh used to be, only the spirit remained.

While I waited, a world transpired around me, much like the one I had just come from. I could see the tomb beyond the veil that separates mortals from the dead. My friends, while good-intentioned, dispatched my body. They did not know what would become of me. I had control at that moment. I saw the child I hungered for and felt awful that I had become the cause of its nightmares that would no doubt plague them for the rest of their lives.

It’s like I was still there, but I wasn’t. The dim blue glow of the Earth’s aura shone around everything. I couldn’t interact. I couldn’t touch anything. Or be heard. My darling beaus couldn’t hear or feel me try to embrace them, and everything changed. The pulling sensation ensued, much like it felt while under Prince Dracul’s control but gentler. I wasn’t afraid of the pull. It felt natural so I let go.

I found myself miles away in a hospital. A woman lay on a bed. She’d been sick with consumption. I saw her spirit standing by her bed. She glanced at me confused, then a light beamed from above, and she ascended to what must have been Heaven. My spirit moved quickly to the woman’s body, and I opened my eyes.

My spirit adapted to the new body quickly. I was healing it and molding it to look like myself again. When I sat up, I was wearing the tattered, stained night dress of the woman who had died, but her body was gone, and only mine remained. This time I was myself. I had my mind back, but the thirst for blood was still as powerful as ever. It took a few moments to realize where I was. I was in a hospital in London. I had to sneak carefully through the halls and found a bin in the laundry basement with old clothes, likely from people who had died. The clothes were going to be incinerated. I found a dress that wasn’t too bad and changed quickly before hurrying out into what remained of the night.

I wanted to get back to Mina, my best friend. By the time I made it back into the country. She was married to Johnathan Harker. She seemed happy and alive. Mrs. Mina Harker. I knew Prince Dracul wanted her. I heard his thoughts when he seduced me. I was just a distraction. All the women he had sired to this eternal damnation were nothing more than distractions from his heartbreak, anger, and pain. He’d used me like all men had. When I saw Mina with Johnathan, I knew I wanted what she had. I was happy for her but jealous.

I watched them through the window of their humble home and could hear their blood rushing through their bodies like a fountain needing to be tapped and set free. I knew I couldn’t be in their lives anymore. My thirst was still ravenous. They would just try to kill me again, so I left. I couldn’t stay in London or any city I knew they would visit.

I moved to Paris. It’s the best thing that could have happened to me. I searched for others like me, but the night was quiet. I don’t know what happened to the other women Prince Dracul had sired. I sighed and hoped they would find peace once released from Prince Dracul’s power. I had to assume they, like me, had taken possession of another recently deceased body. Had Prince Dracul done the same?

These years have been grueling. I was living and traveling from town to town. I thought I’d never find a home, and I returned each time I was discovered and killed. There’s always a faction of vampire hunters somewhere. I imagine they must get bored, seeing as there aren’t many of us from what I can tell, if any, others besides myself. I’ve inhabited five bodies now. I’m still on my fifth body.

I’ve fallen in love more times than I can count, but it was difficult to conceal what I am with each relationship. The thirst for blood is so great.

I don’t know if I can turn anyone like Prince Dracul turned me. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be responsible for another vampire. I didn’t know what I was until I heard Dr. Helsing explaining it to his comrades. I felt like a villain in a children’s scary story. I tried to find others like me, but I was alone as far as I could tell.

If I did sire a companion, they might be like I was, a puppet until released from their body. I would have had to free their soul so that they could inhabit another body, but then I wouldn’t know where they’d gone. They would find themselves lost in the world somewhere. So, I have remained alone except for my adoring fans.

I started modeling in the seventies and went to college.

The camera loves me.

I’m not sure where people got the idea that if you became a vampire, your reflection would disappear. Everything is material, and therefore, reflections exist. I didn’t cease to have a material form or a soul. I just changed biologically, becoming a new species. I didn’t completely fritter away all my time, either. The seventies were a perfect time for me. I traveled around with the hippies when I wasn’t taking classes at a university. They were blissfully unaware of what I was when I chose to feed, or they just thought it was “groovy.”

I’m not as silly as I used to be. Well, as silly as I like. I’ve had plenty of time to burn, so I’ve gone to the theater and read many books. My favorite books are dramas and romances. Everything else puts me to sleep.

I seduce lonely rich men and live with them until they pass away.

Isn’t that shocking?

I can imagine Mina laughing and chastising me for being naughty. I miss her terribly. I sometimes selfishly wish she had finished the transition and stayed a vampire. However, we might have lost each other for a time. I’m sure we would have eventually found one another again.

I take good care of the men I stay with for a time. They’ve rarely suspected anything unusual and don’t seem to mind. I know I’m arm candy. That’s how I accumulated a small fortune. That’s how I survive. I’m not as dumb as I behave sometimes. Arthur, Quincy, and Dr. Seward wouldn’t have liked me as much if they knew how smart I am. They all proposed to me, but I chose Arthur Holmwood. I would have been Mrs. Holmwood.

I liked him the most. He made me feel free to be more like myself and chastised me if I went too far. It’s funny that I still think about them after all these years, like it was only yesterday when I was picking out my wedding dress and making plans as a wife and, who knows, possibly a mother. It saddens me from time to time.

I also must move to another city or country before anyone becomes suspicious, but I’ve moved on and embraced my truth.

~

I stopped writing again and, this time, closed the book, marking the page haphazardly with the pen. I felt bored.

“That’s enough for today,” I said out loud to nobody. I stood up and hurried over to my closet, but not before glancing at the clock. “Ten p.m.,” I hummed happily. I shuffled giddily through my closet and chose a tight pair of black leggings before slipping on a shimmering purple Zadig and Voltaire silk blouse.

“Mm, I look good enough to eat, like a grape,” I cooed seductively, remembering when I paraded my new French gowns in front of my suitors before that fateful night.

I hadn’t fed in over a month, and tonight was club night. I could eat and drink regular food and beverages but couldn’t taste it. It tasted like dirt and was hard to swallow. I would nibble on pretzels and sip wine just for appearances,

Tonight, I would feed, and I was feeling frisky.

I left my apartment, not far from the Champs-Élysées. Tourists are abundant there. The lights and the smell of cigarettes, coffee, and champagne mingled with sweat and blood. It would be a delicious night.

I went to Le Madam, where I knew I could find some young, tasty tourists. I wouldn’t kill him, unlike the monsters I hunted most of the time. No, tonight I wanted to feel alive. Le Madam was mostly for dancing and drinking. Its dim purple neon lights and dark shadowed booths and corners were perfect.

Taking in the damp night air, I decided to walk—the smell of wet leaves and decay is one of my many favorite smells. The night is rich with its pungent odor. Once I made my way to the Seine via Pont Alexandre III. I slowed my pace and breathed in the moist air. The glittering streetlights danced over the top of the Seine.

A couple stood overlooking the luxurious, ancient architecture. Her head lay gently on his shoulder. I stopped and admired them from afar for a moment. I wanted that—over a hundred years of loneliness, and all I had was the temporary company of strangers, moments of curiosity, and mystery but not love.

I could hear their hearts beating peacefully. Their veins thudded duly beneath their thin, salty, and sweet flesh. A cool breeze and a growing hunger broke me out of my reverie, so I moved more quickly toward Le Madam.

The Champs-Élysées has a beat and a rhythm all its own. It’s special, especially at night.

The bars, restaurants, and clubs buzz with anticipation. The well-dressed and dressed down parade through the streets and pour into the clubs like champagne that never ends.

I slip by the lines and move freely past the concierges with a glance, a smile, and a nod. Music fills me and enlivens me. I stop at the bar and get a glass of champagne before heading to my favorite booth. I paid extra to reserve it tonight, and then I saw him leaning against the bar with a glistening beer in one hand and his other arm leaning against the bar rail. Twenty-eight years old, golden-brown eyes, sandy blonde hair. A local man of Paris. I could smell it in his blood.

I licked my lips expectantly and took a sip of my champagne, hungering for something more palpable. I sat my glass down on the table, then stood up and made my way onto the dance floor.

I moved slowly towards him and began to dance where he could see me. I looked into his mind. He liked brunettes, so that’s what he would see. I disillusioned his mind and swayed my body in rhythm with the music, letting it take me. I connected with his thoughts, and he looked my way.

He sipped his drink while watching me, looking at me up and down. I could feel his eyes on me, and his desire was writhing up inside. His heart quickened, body temperature rising. He licked the beer foam off his lips.

He was mine.

A woman walked up beside him just before he stepped towards me. I kept dancing and focused on what she whispered in his ear. She was speaking Romanian. She said, “urmează-mă,” which means follow me, before walking the other way.

I froze, remembering Prince Dracul’s slithering voice in my head, speaking his native tongue to do his bidding. It couldn’t be, I whispered.

I quickly pursued and caught his scent to avoid losing him in the crowd.

They left the club and headed quickly down the street before turning into a back alleyway. It wasn’t dark and dank like you might imagine. A canopy hung over a door, billowing in the evening breeze. Lights on the side of the buildings illuminated ornate windows. A cat rummaged around a bistro table and chairs, clearly sniffing for crumbs.

The two figures disappeared through a door at the end of the alleyway, scavenging for crumbs. I hurried and snuck in as quietly as possible. I could have chosen another prey, but I wanted him, and some two-bit Trollip wouldn’t show me up. I wasn’t planning on killing tonight. I wanted to feel alive and enjoy some companionship.

A long dark hallway greeted me through the door. My eyes focused, and details became almost as clear as day. A series of old doors line the hallway on either side. I wasn’t sure if they were apartments or if I’d just stumbled into a back alleyway hotel.

A shadow cast across the wall at the end of the hall and disappeared to the right. I quickened my pace and checked for his scent, sniffing the stale air. He was still here. I heard a door open just as I rounded the corner. They’d gone into a room at the far end to the left. I quickly grabbed the door just before it could close. Wood splinters jabbed my fingertips, causing them to bleed. It stung and burned.

I stopped and peered into the pitch. The dark, musty room blinded me. I’m as blind as a bat without even a shred of moonlight or lamplight to gather a particle to enhance my night senses. This room had neither.

Suddenly something grabbed me. I snarled and twisted quickly in its grasp, elongating razor-sharp claws, and lashed out at it. I struck something that felt like flesh, and it let go, but instead of a yelp, or a yell, it laughed and whispered in unison with two other voices of that same familiar Romanian.

“Bine ai venit soră,” Three distinct female voices giggled and repeatedly cooed. “Welcome, sister,” in their native tongue.

A fireplace roared to life, and candles flared up all around the room, revealing a modestly furnished and dated space. Cobwebs hung off vintage candelabras and candle sticks. Victorian-era French furnishings adorned a small living room, and an arch and an ornate French door led into a bedroom with a bed adorned with a white ruffled duvet.

The young man I’d hunted lay on the bed, seemingly unconscious, with two other women on either side.

The woman I’d been following stood before me with a long three-pronged scratch, quickly healing on her cheek. All three were dressed in modern, haute fashion for the time, and for a moment, I thought they might be models from the same company I worked for, but I knew better. I’d seen them before when I was sired to Prince Dracul. He’d never spoken their names, and I’d never met them as I hadn’t been to his castle. They had whispered their names to me in my sleep and my dreams. I could see their faces as if they were standing before me.

“Elisabeta, Silviea, and Taydem,” I whispered in disbelief.

Elisabeta laughed a deep-throated laugh, and the other two giggled like children while caressing the young man’s hair and face, longingly waiting to take a sip.

“Yes, my dear Lucy,” Elisabeta cooed, “we’ve altered our names a bit since then. I go by Liz, She’s Silvy, and that’s Tay,” she pointed to the girl on the man’s left. She was licking his neck, her fangs elongated, anxious to take a bite as though waiting on orders before she could do so. “Our names were so old-fashioned. We changed them a little to fit in.” Her accent was as strong as ever though she spoke English remarkably well.

“You didn’t have to change much, did you, Lucy,” she teased.

“We’ve been looking for you for a long time,” she said casually. When we awoke in different bodies scattered around the country, it took us a few years to track each other down, but we did, and now, here we are,” she smiled and motioned grandiosely with her arms. “We recently acquired this place when we tracked you here to this city, we’ve been watching you for a few months now, and we’ve been trying to find out if there are others like us or if you’ve been siring any to do your bidding,” once we were sure you were alone, we decided to make ourselves known.”

“What do you want?” I asked carefully, eyeing them cautiously. They would taunt me and hiss at me, jealous that Prince Dracul had taken another bride. They hated me, but they hated Mina most of all.

“We want to find Prince Dracula,” she said sincerely.

I looked between them and at the young man, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in.

“I haven’t seen him since that night,” I answered truthfully, though I’d often wondered if he had been reborn like us. I wondered if he’d known what would happen when we died. I questioned if he knew he was truly damning us to eternity on this Earth when he sired us never to find peace.

“We thought as much,” he wouldn’t have shared you. The way you’ve been philandering around town, there’s no way he would have let you be so free.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After all these years, they’d spent their entire time free from their sire bond to Prince Dracul and had just been looking for him.

“Hm,” I chuckled. “Why would I care what he wants from me? I’m glad he’s gone. I’ve enjoyed over a hundred and thirty years free from hell he put me through. Why would you want him back?”

Elisabeta paced across the room, glancing at her sisters and then back at me before stopping just short of the fireplace.

“We may be the only ones of our kind. We’ve tried siring others and creating eternal families of our own, but they’ve all died. We may not have the power to do it. Prince Dracula never taught us,” she walked into the bedroom and stood by the bed.

What did she mean by families? I worried, remembering the visions of the three of them draining the life out of children. I’d almost done the same until Dr. Helsing stopped me. I was grateful to him for that. Knowing what I know now, spending an eternity with that stain on my soul would have been unbearable.

“That’s why we’ve been looking for you. We’ve been hoping you might know how to make a human into one of us so that we can have a community of vampires and place Dracula back on his throne, back home in Transylvania.”

I just stood there, amazed, and looked hungrily at the young man lying there so helplessly. I remember what Prince Dracul had done to me in detail. I remembered everything I’d heard Dr. Helsing talking about vampires, how the combination of their venom and blood infects the human blood and changes the host genetically. I didn’t understand much of the terminology then, but I do now after going to college and personal study, however brief.

I understand enough to know that Prince Dracula’s method was cruel, sadistic, and unnecessary. He was selfish and sadistic. His heartache and feelings of betrayal didn’t equate to the level of violence and darkness he desired to spread. He was just evil. I didn’t find that romantic at all. But here stood three women who still had an attachment. Perhaps the sire bond hadn’t completely gone out of them. Maybe they still felt connected to him and desired him and his power because they had been sired to him longer. Perhaps after a time, the bond becomes permanent. I guess I’m lucky that way.

“How do you know he’s not there already, lurking in the shadows of his precious and decrepit castle?” I said this disdainfully and could tell they’d picked up on it. The three of them arose and approached me in perfect unison. I stepped back, unsure if I could fend them all off.

“Because we’ve been there,” Silvy hissed.

Tay’s claws had elongated from her nails, and her eyes blazed. Clearly, she was the most passionate of the three. “He would have sent for us,” she seethed through bared fangs.

I armed myself and rose into the air just inches off the ground. They needed a full display of the gifts Prince Dracul endowed me with. I didn’t know their full capacity. From what I’d seen, it wasn’t much. Perhaps he’d favored me because I was Mina’s friend, or maybe the powers were identical for all vampires. I didn’t know until now. My hair flowed and blazed with the magical energy I’d contained for so long, desperate to release it. I could feel my eyes change and my fangs elongate. I glanced at the young man on the bed. Ravenous with thirst, they followed my gaze and hissed indignantly but did not rise into the air. They stepped back and crouched low in submission, kneeling on the ground and bowing their heads in defeat.

I drifted back to the floor and walked past them to the young man slowly waking up and looking around the room, confused. I sat on the edge of the bed and caressed his face. I connected with his mind and found a kind young man who had friends but no family. His name was Theo Fontaine. He was alone in the city and the world. His parents had died in a terrorist attack, an explosion in the subway. I felt his sadness, confusion, and desire, and then I looked into his eyes.

The three sisters stood up and watched the scene with intense interest.

“Let us taste him before you turn him, sister,” they hissed in unison.

“No,” I said. “If he doesn’t survive, then you may have him before his blood turns, but I will not do to him what Prince Dracul did to us.”

I embraced him and calmed his mind. If this worked, he would be my first. I knew the sisters would just kill him if I didn’t try.

I ran my fingers through his hair and tilted his head. Then grazed his pulsating throat with my tongue and kissed it. I felt him sink into my arms. His body embraced me, pulling me closer to him. He was mine, and now he would be mine for all eternity. I bit deep, the blood pouring into my expectant mouth. He jerked in surprise and tried to push me away until he couldn’t. Then, just before his heart slowed, I released him and bit my wrist, forcing my blood to his lips. He grabbed my arm and tried to push it away in disgust, then grasped my forearm and pressed my wrist closer to his mouth. I remember how sweet and satisfying Prince Dracul’s blood had tasted, better than chocolate. Sensations of pulsating warmth had spread through my body, sending my mind into a dizzying haze until my mind, perhaps even my very soul, connected with his, and I was no longer my own.

His arms fell to the bed, and he released me. His head turned to the side as though asleep. He had no pulse; his heart had stopped. I sat there, watching him in a daze, his blood still on my lips. I kissed his forehead, touched his hand, and looked into his mind again. The transition had been slow and maddening for me, but that was because Prince Dracul took just enough and gave just enough to keep me alive until he finally killed me, brutally and painfully.

Theo wouldn’t suffer the same fate. I didn’t know if I’d have control of him. Only time will tell. I hoped he wouldn’t hate me.

I felt connected to him, and though I didn’t know him, I felt less alone for a moment.

“Mrs. Lucy Fontaine,” I whispered and giggled amusedly, remembering how Mina and I would talk about getting married someday as though that was the great prize to win. I watched him fall into death’s endless sleep and lovingly brushed his hair off his forehead with my fingers.

It had been hours before I’d awoken in that tomb. It didn’t take long, though, for Theo. Within moments his eyes opened, and an unnatural blue hue encircled his black pupils like a half-crescent moon on a starless night. He looked up into my eyes with wonder and just smiled.

The three sisters cackled and shrieked wickedly.

“He’s mine,” I yelled and shot a warning look at them. They backed away.

“Do as you will and leave us alone. We will not be staying.”

“Thank you, sister, for showing us how,” they whispered ghoulishly.

I was sure they didn’t possess the power in their blood to do it, but I said nothing and took Theo by the hand. We left that place and went back to my home.

This is only the beginning. I thought, realizing that Prince Dracula, the son of the devil, was still out there somewhere. Had he sired any more children to him? I wondered and looked at Theo. Was he sired to me as I had been to Prince Dracul?

Only time will tell.

The End