Fanfiction- Destroyer of Men
Title: Destroyer of Men
Fandom: Dracula
Prompt: Written for the 6impearfics prompt Bluebeard. "A scent swirling with dark rage, unbridled jealousy, and murderous intent. Violet, lavender, white musk and vetiver."
Rating: T
Summary: Arthur Holmwood died before his wedding, his blood drained in a strange illness. And when it came time to destroy the thing that rose from his grave, Van Helsing could not conscience leaving Lucy behind.
“And which would be crueller now? To let her suffer lies, or suffer truth? To think her friends murderers or to think her love a monster? There can be no sparing Miss Lucy, whatever we should tell her.”
Van Helsing paced back and forth across the floor, far more agitated than he’d been in the days leading up to Arthur’s death. Jack let him ramble, assuming as usual that he would come to his point after wading through a sea of explanations. It was better than Jack having to say anything himself. If he spoke, it would have to be about the loss of his friend and rival, and the terrible sorrow of the woman he loved. Better to let Van Helsing postulate theories than to decide what to do with himself.
“No!” the old man cried decisively. “We must tell her. If she thinks us mad, so it shall be. Let her think us mad, but let us not chance losing another life due to hesitation. He shall come to her in the end, and if we do nothing we leave her vulnerable; if we act but tell her nothing, she must always lie in wonder if her love was murdered by the jealous suitors”
Jack looked up at him.
“Tell Lucy your theories, you mean? I’m still not sure I understand them, and I’m a man of science. What can you hope to get from telling them to poor Lucy?”
Van Helsing stopped in his pacing and looked directly at his former student.
“You know poor Miss Lucy. Is she a woman of strength?”
He considered the question.
“She gave her fiance blood from her own arm to try and save him. I don’t know what you’d call that if not strength.”
“Then we tell her. There is no other way.”
---
Lucy was not a woman meant to be a widow. She should have lived her life in bright colors, to complement her shining eyes and soft complexion. Black made her look ten years older than her young age, and with it her entire pallet seemed muted. Her sad greeting when Jack and Van Helsing came to call upon her was heartbreaking, a reminder of how lonely her life had turned. Jack wished he could have taken her in his arms, but instead averted his eyes.
“Are you well?” he asked, knowing how foolish the question was.
“Not at all. I cannot sleep without frightful dreams, I cannot hear the tree branches scrape my window at night without imagining it to be Arthur pressed against the door, begging to be let inside.”
Van Helsing gave Jack a significant look. Neither of them wanted to broach the subject they had come to discuss.
“Why, Jack?” asked Lucy, oblivious to their exchange. “How could Arthur die? He was a man in the best of health before that strange ailment. He was recovering, you’d said! How could this happen?”
“There is not always a reason why tragedy strikes” began Jack, his familiar speech to grieving relatives. It didn’t take long for him to realise that he and Van Helsing would be talking at cross-purposes if he continued on in that vein, though, and he attempted to start again.
“Sometimes, though, there is a reason. I don’t fully understand it myself, but Van Helsing had a...a theory. We thought it important that you be told.”
She looked from one face to another, as both men sought a way to get out of their intended task. Finally, Van Helsing broke the silence.
“Miss Lucy, do you know the meaning of the word vampire?”
---
The days and nights of Arthur’s illness were ones of horror and despair, and did not even end with his death. Perhaps his remaining group of friends were overdue a miracle, for that is what they received.
Lucy believed Van Helsing.
She believed him when he spoke fairy tales about men rising from the grave, and she believed him when he spoke near-slander about her former love being the one attacking London maidens. She gave Van Helsing and Jack her trust that they were doing the right thing, only insisting on two favors in return: that they tell Quincey Morris (it would be wrong, she said to include those who’d loved Arthur while leaving out such a good friend), and that she be allowed to see the thing in the graveyard that took Arthur’s form with her own eyes.
“We cannot allow her,” Jack protested weakly, but Van Helsing shook his head.
“Had it been Miss Lucy who had perished and returned thus, would you have been content to hear and not see? We shall make all necessary preparations to keep her safe, but once told, she cannot be kept away. I fear that to do so would be to place her in more danger than I could conscience.”
---
By the time Arthur’s friends reached his tomb, the coffin was already empty.
“It could have been body-snatchers” whispered Quincey, “or- Lucy? Are you alright?”
Lucy looked as if she were the one drained of blood, her face white as the bodies in Jack’s lab. Quincey reached out to put his arm about her, but she stepped away from him.
“I’m as well as I can be, given the circumstances.” Her wavering voice didn’t seem to align with her words, but she stood resolutely by the empty coffin, needing no support. Jack cursed himself for letting her come along, no matter what Van Helsing had said. Even this little sight was too much for her, he was sure, no matter what came after.
“The undead has left his resting place,” said Van Helsing, “and we cannot allow him to seek shelter here again. You will find the wafers in my bag, dear boys; we must crush them into a paste and cover all the crevices. Miss Lucy, you said you had brought the garlic flowers?”
“Yes, doctor.” This alliance between the professor and the maiden was starting to unsettle Jack, and as a man of science every bone in his body wanted to refuse any participation in the macabre scene of superstitions. He looked to Quincey, but the Texan was already crushing wafers at Van Helsing’s request. Faced with such activity by people whom he knew to be no less rational than himself (even Lucy, he remembered, was capable of following his scientific arguments without frequent need for clarification), it must have been simple pride that froze his own hands in place.
It was because he was staying still that he was the first to hear movement from behind them.
The man standing in the graveyard could be described as the late Arthur Holmwood only in the loosest sense. By the pressure on his arm where she had placed his hand, Jack knew that Lucy too had turned and now stared at her former love. The despair on her face upon seeing the empty coffin had fled, and what remained was something far worse: betrayal, and even anger.
How, Lucy thought, could the man she saw in the mists be Arthur? The man she loved had been gentle and retiring, always with a look of adoration upon his face that reassured her she had made the right choice. How could the thing before her be him? There was no gentleness or sweetness in his face, only cruelty and debauchery. It was as if a satirist had drawn a cruel caricature of him, absurd enough to be humorous if it weren’t for those terrible, terrible eyes.
“My love”, he called to her- or something called that sounded like his voice, save for its arrogance. “Though I have tasted the blood of other women, it is you I have hungered for since my death. Come join me, and be my wife into eternity.”
Jack reached to stop Lucy, but she was too fast for him. She shot towards Arthur, but the vampire’s smile turned to a hiss when he saw she bore a crucifix aloft.
“How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you call yourself my love? Give me back my husband, fiend!”
By the time Quincey caught up to her and attempted to shield her body from that of the undead, Arthur had vanished into the darkness. Lucy collapsed into Quincey’s arms, sobbing hysterically, while Van Helsing stood at a distance.
“Enough”, he said. “We must bring Miss Lucy home. Tonight has been trial enough for her.”
---
The next evening, all of the friends convened at Lucy’s home once again by unspoken agreement. It was not difficult to hide such activity from Mrs. Westenra, who had been taking to bed early with ill health for some time. Lucy’s eyes were rimmed with red, and it was hard to say whether she wept for her mother, her lost love or herself- all that could be seen was that her day had been miserable.
“We failed to sanctify Lord Arthur’s coffin” said Van Helsing, “but perhaps this will give us a place to start from. Before the sun has entirely left the sky, we must find him asleep; it will give us the chance to destroy him.”
He turned to Lucy.
“As you have seen him as he is now, you need not come again tonight.”
“I shall go, doctor, and you shall not stop me.”
Before Van Helsing could argue, Quincey spoke up for her.
“No point in fighting amongst ourselves. Not with what we’ve got to do ahead of us.”
For his part, Jack could think of nothing to say. What could you say when you planned to murder a thing which had once been your friend? Once you admitted to yourself that was what you intended, what difference did it make whether his fiancee was present at the murder? It could not be made more or less horrible, only over with.
After tonight, he never wanted to see a graveyard again.
---
“Arthur, Jack- you hold down his limbs. Should the vampire awake, we cannot likely overpower him, but we can impede his progress. I shall hammer in the stake, and Lucy-”
Van Helsing looked over at her, clearly repulsed by what he was about to ask, but she nodded her head.
“I shall hold the stake in place. Open the coffin and let us begin.”
Though she stared directly at Arthur’s form when the lid was removed, Lucy could not let her mind focus. Rather than think directly of the task at hand, she thought of what she would do when she returned home. A bath to remove any blood, and if the salty smell remained, she would cover it with perfume like Lady Macbeth. Perhaps the smell of lavender could make her forget what she had done, and save her from that villainess’ sad fate.
Her mind came into sharper focus, though, with the first spurt of blood.
Arthur (not Arthur, the demon in his body, never Arthur himself) opened his eyes and shrieked as the mallet came down, but as horrible as his death wail was, Lucy’s hands did not falter. The thought of murdering her husband was gone from her head, leaving only revenge behind. This thing had been the one to murder him, to replace his kind soul with one that would prey upon unguarded women. For the crime of slander upon Arthur’s memory, it had to be destroyed.
Her rage did not subside until a final look came upon the vampire’s face- one of peace and relief. In that instant he looked like the man she loved, and when he finally fell still, Lucy fell to the ground in a swoon.
Her suitors attended to her while Van Helsing completed the morbid task with a knife and a fistful of garlic. As they revived her, Jack and Quincey spoke not a word to each other directly. It was only an exchange of glances that confirmed what they both thought- that seeing her stained in blood from Arthur’s destruction had not decreased their love for her in the slightest.
When Lucy arose, it was as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. For the first time since Arthur’s death, she even smiled.