Mad Bride of the Ripper Read online

  “And what of me, Lucy?” Tight voice.

  “You?” Incredulous, Lucy pushed herself from the bed and dashed to the door. Gripped the bars in pale white fists. Threw head back and shrieked with laughter. “You? Fool, John Seward. You’re a fool. I was a girl. A child. Surrounded by old men who looked at me the way vultures look at carrion. You think you weren’t exactly like them? What more could you possibly offer me?”

  “Love, Lucy. My unconditional love.”

  “Love?” She mocked him with a wry look. Looked around at the cold stone walls. “That explains why you’ve locked me in a cage.”

  “For your own safety.” His eyes glistened. “Believe me, Lucy. It pains me to see you here like this. I want to cure you.”

  “Cure me? Why? What’s wrong with me? Anaemia, is it? That doesn’t require a cage, John Seward. That requires a hospital, not an asylum. One with proper medicine. And you’re just not that kind of doctor, are you?”

  “You’re-” He caught himself. Pulled himself to his feet. Stopped short of reaching for her. “Sick. Your mind is as broken as your body. The anaemic response was triggered by your psychological episodes. Your hysteria. If we can cure that, I have no doubt the anaemia will be much more manageable for us. I’ve known you for years, Lucy. My dearest Lucy. And you love me. I know in your heart, you truly do. You would have married me if it weren’t for your father wanting the Holmwood title.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, John,” she said. “It’s not me who belongs in here. It’s you. Listen to yourself. You’re a lovesick child accusing me of insanity because I don’t return your revolting thoughts. I found my love. I found him. And you took him from me. You and that monstrous Van Helsing. You took Dracula from me. And now you refuse to tell me what terrible thing you’ve done to him. Has your jealousy led you to commit murder? And what is it you really want here? You want to stand outside that door every day and look at me? Is that it? I am a bird, captured for your amusement? You want me to take my dress off for you? Is that it? You want to see me naked? Will that satisfy you? No? What then? Rape? Will you rape me, John? Is that what all this is about?”

  “Lucy!” He closed his eyes with a moan. “Please. Stop talking like that. Stop it.”

  “Why? It’s what you want. I know it is. I can smell it on you. It’s not love you feel. It’s lust. Your eyes roam too much to be something so pure as love.” She pressed her face through the bars. Eyes staring deep into his. “You disgust me completely.”

  “Enough!” His roar drowned the sound of thunder. “That’s enough, Lucy. More than enough. You need rest. Yes. That’s it. Rest. We can talk again tomorrow evening.”

  “Let me out, John. You can’t keep me in here forever.”

  “You are in my care now,” he said, regaining his calm. “And I’ll care for you no matter how deep your madness takes you. Whatever is left of your mind, I want you to know that, for the love I have for you, I will protect you from yourself. Even if it takes the rest of my life. I won’t give up on you. Take heart, my dearest. Together, we shall rescue you from the dark.”

  “Oh, fuck your ridiculousness.” She wrenched on the bars. Flinging herself at them. Screaming into the corridor; “Let me out!”

  “You can’t leave. Not until I’ve cured the madness which infects you.”

  Lucy laughed. Peals of laughter which challenged the storm and devoured his bravery to leave a shell quivering in terror. She spread her arms and lifted herself.

  Not to her feet, but into the air.

  Hovered weightless in front of the bars, eyes wide as she pinned him with evil glee. “Is this my madness, John? Tell me, am I hallucinating this?” Fangs gleamed. Hate made each word sting until he covered his ears and wept. “You can’t hold me forever in this mortal cell of yours. You can’t. I shall be free of you. Soon, I swear. And then I’ll meet my Queen and all of London shall be ours to feast upon. I will bathe in a river of blood deeper than the Thames.”

  “You shouldn’t say such things,” he croaked. Desperation making each word thick. “It only reinforces your delusions and makes it harder to cure you. You must listen to me. You simply must. Only when you work with me can you be made free. Then we can talk to your father. About your marriage, I mean…”

  “Old men,” she spat, dropping to the ground. “Foul and wretched to the core. I am not a thing for you to own. Nor a puppet to dance on your strings. I’ve chosen this, John. Chosen it because this is what I always wanted to be. I am free in ways you can’t even imagine with your pathetic little mind. I am powerful. And I will feed on you and everything you hold dear.”

  “No.” He shot a look of desperation. Slid to his knees. “You must concentrate. Remember who you were. What you are. Don’t let these delusions take control of you. Your dreams-”

  “If they’re just dreams, John, then why are you afraid? I can smell your fear when you get close to me. I can hear blood rushing through your veins. I can hear your heart beat and beat and it’s louder than the storm above this stinking little town of yours! And don’t think I can’t hear you, too, you old bastard. Van Helsing! Your stink is all over the place. Show yourself, you coward. Show yourself if you dare.”

  “Lucy,” John moaned. Almost beat the ground with his fists. “Please. It’s madness. There’s only me here. Please stop.”

  “Van Helsing!”

  “Lucy…”

  “That’s enough, John,” the German voice said from further down the corridor. Sharp click of heels as the vampire hunter approached. “I did tell you this was a waste of time. I told you there was no other way, and I am right. She condemns herself with her own words. But I gave you your chance. Didn’t I? You can’t say I didn’t. And you will find there’s very little left of the woman you knew. Lucifer’s touch has blighted her. Possessed her with evil. There is no mortal path for her to return upon.”

  John kicked away from the bars and held himself up against the opposite wall. Wept openly, glasses sliding down his nose. “Oh, Lucy.” He shook his head. Red cheeks and shaking hands. “Lucy, I do love you. Forgive me, please.”

  Van Helsing was short. Almost bone-thin beneath finely-cut suit.

  Neat.

  Spine rigid with certainty of purpose.

  “Another old man,” she sneered. “So many of you hungering after me like dogs. And what will you do? You won’t be boring me to death with a talk of love. No. Your words will be cruel. Actions no doubt crueller. What is it this time, old man? Come to stake me again?”

  “Arthur missed your heart, you know. Lucky for you, really. If he’d been less distracted, you’d be ash right now.” He took off his own glasses and began cleaning them with a cloth. Looked up once. The humourless smile flickering briefly across his lips. “I won’t make that same mistake, I assure you.”

  Her voice was soft. “Now what? You’ll tell me this is a dream, too?”

  “No.” He reached to pull a small trolley close to his hip. “This is no dream, young lady.”

  Trolley covered in instruments.

  Saws.

  Needles.

  Syringes.

  Clamps.

  Knives and worse.

  Lucy tensed. “You wouldn’t dare. John? You’d let him do this to me?”

  “I’m sorry, Lucy,” John said. Slumped and broken. “It’s the only way to find a cure. Don’t you understand? You have a disease. A sickness. And if it’s not of the mind, then it must be the body. We need to be sure. We don’t want to hurt you. We only want to cure you.”

  “I don’t want a cure,” she growled. “And if you touch me, I’ll kill you. Kill you both.”

  “No, Miss Westenra,” Van Helsing said. Shoved the key into the door. Crucifix in his other fist. “You won’t.”

  And Lucy screamed.

  She didn’t stop screaming for a long time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lucy didn’t bother to hold the front of her dress shut.

  Torn down the middle. Drenched in blood.r />
  Her blood.

  The wounds had healed without physical scar, but her mind remembered every cut. Every slice.

  Each chew of the saw’s teeth through bone.

  Every determined grimace on Van Helsing’s face.

  Footsteps in the corridor. Not near her cell. Further down.

  Other patients.

  Someone screaming, a rabid howl which split the dark. Wordless, but thrilled. Thrilled by chaos.

  She could feel them.

  Every insane wretch cowering in the Sanitorium.

  All of them.

  Feel madness pushing at their doors. Sweeping their cages.

  A virulent plague of buzzing voices.

  She put her hands to her ears and tried to block out their whispers. Their bubbling rants. Their drooling moans. There were so many of them. Each more pathetic than the last.

  Except for one.

  One led the chorus. A defiant voice screaming past the effects of every dosed pellet the nurses shoved down his throat. His cackles mocked their brutal attentions.

  Nothing contained him. His spirit undiminished by each tug on his straightjacket. Still his desperation never waned for even a moment.

  He threw himself at the wall, chanting; “Master! Master, I am here. I am here, Master! Master! Oh, Master, where are you? Why have you forgotten me? I never failed you, did I? Not I, Master. Master? I am here! Oh, please don’t leave me here…”

  Thud of his body as he threw himself against his wall.

  Beating a steady tune of frenzy. A tune which vibrated on an invisible thread growing more solid the more she concentrated on it.

  She could almost see his face. A murky impression of him in the dark which began to shine. The longer she concentrated, the brighter the glow became.

  “Renfield,” she murmured.

  His name. How did she know his name?

  Stomach curdling as she realised she knew it because he was whispering it to her. Not in his own words. Nor with his mouth.

  It was leaking from his mind like the yolk from a broken egg. Coming to her in brilliant glittering waves.

  She took a hesitant step and pressed against the wall of her cell. Lifted fingertips to the chilled surface and felt awareness wash from her consciousness as her mind seemed to strip itself from her body and fall into an ocean of ink.

  Losing all sense of her flesh, she sank into the darkness coiling around her.

  Hung breathless for a moment, shocked by the sensation of being utterly still.

  Lifted an arm. Couldn’t see her limb in front of her.

  Couldn’t see anything.

  But she could feel.

  She slid through the void as though on a river of countless writhing snakes. Eyes wide. Searching. Soft flutter as if a breeze of whispers was twittering past her ears. Reached again and felt the echo of his name.

  Renfield.

  A twinkle in the distance. She moved toward it. Faster and faster as her heart raced.

  And saw, writ in the echo of his name, the blinding light of his mind as it bubbled and burned within its cracked shell.

  She reached again through the bleeding dark and brushed against the light. It was like a solid thing. An orb of pure energy.

  A star incandescent in the void which pushed at the light trying to contain it.

  Her fingers sank into the brilliant surface.

  Drilling into the light. Probing, though she wasn’t yet sure of what she was searching for. Knew only that it was there. Waiting to be found.

  She heard him gasp and saw something of the flavour of his memory. Taste of blood in his mouth.

  Crunch of insect. Squish of innards.

  He hunted the corners of his cell. Set food for traps.

  Pounced as they moved.

  Roaches.

  Rats.

  Anything he could bite into.

  A mad cackle preluded violence. The nurse brought men with her. Men who beat him down. Hammered him to the ground. Held him there. But he struggled.

  Every time, he fought against them.

  And they shoved the pills into his mouth.

  Tried to drown him in liquid. Force him to swallow.

  Threatened him.

  Beat him again and again. They were the void. The bleeding darkness. Driving him down and down.

  Yet still he swore to tear them all to pieces if they relaxed their grip.

  They worked to break him.

  Strapped him down in leather cuffs. Bound his arms across his chest.

  Still didn’t stop him.

  He shrieked his curses, so they gagged him. He chewed through the gag. Spat it out. Cursed them again.

  Lucy moved away from the wall. Hovered in the centre of her cell as her mind slowly relaxed to the sensation of being close to him. Her tongue slid between her teeth and wet her lower lip.

  Thoughtful.

  “I see it,” she said, mind transfixed by the glowing ball of energy which was Renfield’s mind. “I see it.”

  Then dropped, weak, to the floor. Collapsed like a rag, unable to hold her head from the ground.

  Body too heavy to move.

  Crumpled, she curled inward on the cold hard stone.

  Closed eyes.

  And waited for something.

  Anything.

  When the sun rose, she slid into the timeless grip of torpor. Felt consciousness fold her into its cold embrace like the frigid waters of a pond. She took a breath before sliding to the bottom. Suspended in unearthly cold.

  In a tide of utter silence.

  She didn’t breathe. Didn’t move as dream reduced her to a passenger inside her mind.

  Three women in white stood before her. One with demonic horns curving from her forehead.

  The women reached for Lucy’s hand.

  Spoke, but no sound emerged from their mouths.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I can’t hear you.”

  A place flashed into her mind. Fog-shrouded streets. Clatter of feet. A shriek from far away. Whistle in the wind. A woman dropped, belly sliced open.

  A triangle of light.

  Beacon roaring through the silence.

  London.

  She had to go to London.

  The Brides smiled at her.

  She smiled back.

  When she woke, it was night. The evening’s muted glow already lost to the shadows. John slumped in a chair against the wall opposite her door.

  Wiping his face with a handkerchief. Same clothes as the night before. Stink of his sweat. Eyes smudged by lack of sleep. She turned her face from him and spat at the wall.

  “I’m sorry.” Exhausted voice. “I really am, Lucy. I didn’t want him to do that. It wasn’t my idea, you see. It was his. I couldn’t say no. I was desperate, you see. And I’ll do anything to get you back. I can think of nothing else. I want my Lucy to return to me.”

  “Go away, John. I don’t want to see you.” She flashed her fangs at him. “Unless you’ve brought me something to eat. Did you bring me something? Something brimming with life? Something small and innocent?”

  “Why did you do it, Lucy?” His arms hung slack at his sides. “The children, I mean. You always loved children.”

  “I do love them,” Lucy purred. “I love them now more than ever. Their blood is rich. Richer than yours. The taste of life is strong. Powerful. Its sweetness is like nothing I can begin to describe. It’s even more delicious than cold pears on a hot day. And they wriggle so delightfully when I bite.”

  “That’s not you, Lucy. Not you at all. You were never so hateful. I wish you could see this. It would be a step to your healing. The longer you let the demon rule your passions, the harder it will be for you when we find a cure.”

  “But this is me, John. Look at me.” She stood, letting the remnants of her dress fall to the ground. “Look. You know you want to.”

  “Put your clothes on.”

  “Why? Does it bother you to see me naked? I thought that’s what y
ou wanted. You love me, remember?”

  “I do. But that’s not you. That’s a thing.”

  “When Van Helsing was cutting into my stomach, he put his hand on my breast. He squeezed, too. I’m fairly sure he was enjoying himself.”

  “Lies!”

  “No. Not lies. You saw him, John. You watched him. You let him tear me open. You listened to my screams. Tell me, John. When you heard me scream in agony the first time, did that excite you? It excited him.”

  “You’re twisting everything! I told you. It had to be done. We took no pleasure in it.”

  “Now who’s lying? His heart was racing so hard when he was holding me and cutting me, that I thought he was going to die of a heart attack. He didn’t, though. And when he was cutting into my chest, he had his hand on my thigh. You saw him. Right here. And his thumb touched me, John. It was deliberate. What might he have done if you weren’t there? I have no doubt what he would have tried. None at all.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Go away, John. Leave. Never come back. I don’t wish to see you again until the day I tear your throat with my teeth. But, I want you to remember something for me. One thing. Remember that Van Helsing had his hands all over me. And you did nothing. You watched as he slit me open. You watched as he touched me. As he put his hands inside me. And you shivered in the corner like a pathetic worm. That’s what you are to me. Now and always, a pathetic worm.”

  Then she turned from him and moved to the window.

  Hardly any light made it inside. It had been mostly blocked to prevent direct sunlight.

  Still, she stood there, staring out as though she could see the town beyond. While John struggled to find something to say.