Dracula's Daughter

"And you?"

The little man stood up straighter. "I cannot leave until I do what must be done. This ship must not reach port."

He took something from off one of the shelves and handed it to her. It was square, metal container marked GAS. It was heavy. She nodded.

Van Helsing took two canisters with him, and two flares. He gave one to Gwen as well. Her stomach lurched, both from the heaving of the ship and the knowledge of what was coming next. She wrapped herself in her heaviest coat, but she knew it would provide very little protection. It seemed the coast was clear outside, but she knew the crew must be skulking around somewhere. Van Helsing pressed his hand into hers.

"I'm going further into the hold, to find the Countess, and John if I can."

"You'll need me."

"Miss Hartley, I simply cannot allow that."

Gwen touched his shoulder the same way he had done for her. He kissed her hand, and it seemed to Gwen quite gallant. Then he turned and ran off into the dark interior of the ship, without pause or hesitation.

Gwen watched him go but then chided herself. She had no time to waste. She unscrewed the cap of the gas canister and the fumes hit her full in the face. Overturning it, she sloshed a trail along the corridor and up the stairs, to the deck door. The wind screamed outside, and rain seeped in. Bracing herself, she threw the door open and ran out to embrace the storm.

They were waiting for her. The crew was 14 men in all, minus the captain, who was nowhere to be seen. But even as they reached for her their eyes fell on the cross around her neck and they fell back, as if an invisible hand pushed them.

Icy rain pelted them all and the boat swooned and shook and everyone, Gwen and the crew slid from one side to the other. She lost her grip on the canister and it bounced across the deck. Gwen stumbled, slid, and nearly pitched right over the railing to a watery grave below. Many of the crewmen fell right past her and vanished into the churning black sea, but she caught herself at the last moment.

With one hand she held the railing and with the other she held the flare. She'd come close to dropping it.

Wiping rain from her eyes, she spotted the lifeboat rocking wildly against the side of the ship. How could she loose it? Then, heart sinking, she saw that it didn't matter: A hole was punched clean through the bottom. Holding to the rail for dear life she dragged herself along, salt spray stinging her eyes, until she found the next one, but it too was destroyed.

Professor Van Helsing was right: The Countess had been ready for them.

Dark shapes loomed on the deck still, but most seemed too unsure of their footing to approach. One man, pale and haggard, stood near the railing but held onto nothing, seemingly asking for the storm to wash him away.

He looked not at all like the John she knew anymore, but his eyes still gave him away. He had a knife. Slowly, deliberately, he took one lurching step toward her, then another. Gwen pressed herself to the railing, but there was nowhere to run. She tried to talk but the wind and the waves were too much, so instead she screamed:

"We're going to die here, John. And that's all right. I only have one regret: I should have told you all along it's you I love. It was wrong, but I should have told you anyway. I'm sorry for David and Helen.

"Maybe if I'd told everyone the truth none of this would have happened, and they'd still be with us. But if I have to die now, I'm glad it's with you. I'm not afraid."

She took a wobbling step forward. John took a step back. Water surged around their feet. She came toward him again and he held up the knife. Gwen shook her head.

"I know you have to. I just have one thing to ask. I'd like to put my arms around you one last time."

He looked away. The knife trembled, but didn't drop. Gwen nodded again.

"Don't worry. I'll make it easy."

And, closing her eyes and opening her arms, she ran toward him. Forgetting the sea and the storm and the nightmare and everything, she flung her arms around him and leaned into the embrace with everything she had. She held her breath and waited for the pain as the knife slid into her breast...

But it didn't come. Instead she felt John's arms around her, and then his lips on hers, and then they were a strange jumble of words and kisses and embraces. The knife fell to the deck and was lost to the sea.

John look of pained confusion slowly dissolved. "Good heavens," he said. "Gwen."

She kissed his hand. "Yes, it's me. And it's you."

The ship heaved again and they both fell, holding onto each other. The Belgrade was adrift, spinning out of control. The crew, braver now, were closing on them. Gwen had lost the crucifix in the storm. John was unarmed. They had nowhere to go. G

Gwen heard the clatter of the empty gas can rolling around their feet and realized that she was still holding the last flare. John looked at it, then at her.

"We go over the side," he said.

"The lifeboats are all ruined."

"They might still work as driftwood. It's a better bet than here."

"Can we really make it?"

"It's the smallest chance. But we're doomed to something worse if we stay here. Are you ready?"

The flare hissed to life in his hand. The sharp, hungry faces of the vampires glowed red in the harsh chemical light, and then Gwen threw the flare into the stairwell and a gruesome orange blaze sparked to life down below, turning the portal into a smoking hell.

Gwen and John, embracing, caught between the flames and the ocean, chose the waters, and jumped, and vanished.

Down below, in the guts of the ship, Van Helsing emptied the fuel cans, splashing everything in the hold, eyes burning with the fumes. Above him, the ship's metal hull groaned and contorted. Wooden crates were piled on all sides. Which one was the right one? It didn't matter. Between the storm and the fire, there would be no way off this ship.

No sooner had he finished his grim task than he saw her, blocking the entry and watching, as if she'd always been there. Dressed only in her shroud, she looked small and young and vulnerable, though he knew she was nothing of the sort. Her dark eyes gleamed.

There was, he admitted, more than a little resemblance between her and her father. Van Helsing brandished a flare in his hand.

"It's over, Countess. This ship of death will be lost forever, and you with it."

"You think to drown me?"

"Your kind cannot cross running water under your own power. Even if you sink deep enough to escape the rays of the sun, there you'll lie for eternity. Better you let me give you a clean death now."

The Countess bristled. "You'll die too."

"I don't doubt it. I don't fear it. What does your kind think about death? I imagine you think you know it. You may find you are wrong."

For a second it seemed as if the Countess doubted herself. Then her face hardened. But by then Van Helsing lit the flare, and the room went red. The hold exploded in heat and glare. Overhead, the deck buckled.

Van Helsing thought at first he was carried off his feet by the explosion but he realized it was the Countess. She cleared the distance between them in a single leap, catching him and holding him tight even as the flames fell onto her and over her.

She bared her teeth at his throat, but somehow he held her back. They remained locked like that for one second, then two, then a third...

And then the blazing hulk of the cargo collapsed, burying them both in the flaming wreckage. And when the ocean finally poured, in the waves dragged the remains of the Belgrade and every soul still aboard down into their unforgiving depths.

Where, on the dark, silty seafloor that no living man would ever set eyes on, the ocean made a final grave for the House of Dracula.

***

Note: The 1936 film "Dracula's Daughter" (a sequel to 1931's "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi) was delayed for years because studio censors would not approve the script.

In the end the released film bore almost no resemblance to the proposed one. This story adapts several rejected scripts. It's the author's sincere hope that the censors rolls over their graves at it.