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the
professor's and leaning against Jonathan.
    "Perhaps
Dr. Seward should see you back to your room?" Van Helsing suggested.
    My hand
squeezed Jonathan's more tightly. "I will," he said.
    "I'll
come as well," Jack suggested, resting a hand on Van Helsing's shoulder as
he stood.
    I knew what
they were doing. They meant to keep us apart because they do not trust me. This
makes me furious, yet they are
    right to do so.
    Blood ...
and blood ... and blood.
     
    October 25, Varna. This afternoon,
Dracula came to me, his presence so real that for a moment I was certain that
his body
    actually stood before me.
    We have been
staying for the last ten days at a hotel in one of the finest sections of
Varna. The rooms are spacious and clean and
    always warm. The food served here, the men tell me, is exquisite,
though I can scarcely taste it anymore and eat only to please them. The leaded
glass windows that cover the entire east wall of the dining room overlook the
harbor. Jonathan and the others often stand by them watching boats sailing in
and out. The Czarina Catherine is expected soon, and they all hope
the struggle will then be over. After his visit, I knew otherwise.
    By noon, the strange lethargy
smothered me completely, reminding me most unpleasantly how often I had claimed
exhaustion to the men throughout the journey. I retired to my room and did not
even try to write in my journal. In truth, little had happened and so I did
not feel uneasy when I slipped into bed and, I think, immediately fell into a
deep sleep.
    I dreamed of the water, the reeking
hold of the ship that carries him here. Then he was with me, rising from the
mist in the center of my mind. A moment later, I joined him and willingly
clasped his outstretched hands. I sensed no uneasiness in my actions, as if this
dream foreshadowed that change in me that he expects will soon come. I spoke.
Though I could not hear my words, I know I told him every part of the men's
plans. I sensed his thanks, and recall the words of his reply as clearly as if
I had written them down.
    "I will
travel on alone for a while longer," he said. "When the men face me,
it must be on my own land, where I am most powerful.
    I promise on the honor I once
possessed as a prince and general that I will do my best to end this chase
without them coming to

harm."
    "And
me?" I asked. "What price do I pay for your mercy.”
    He paused
before answering. I heard the hiss of his indrawn breath as he prepared to
speak. "Only this-you must pledge to
    follow your desire and do as
you will rather than as your husband and the others direct. If you agree, I
will release your soul."
    "Did
you ever have it?" I asked.
    "I will
release it," he repeated with more force.
    "As you
released Lucy!"
    I had issued
a challenge, nonetheless he took little offense at the intent. "Get up
from your bed, Mina Harker. Take out your little
    journal and write down the
words I speak. Later, when you are awake, read them and think carefully on
their meaning."
    I did as he asked. Later, when I
woke and found them written in the back of the journal, I pulled them out of the
book. Now I record them as they were written, along with my thoughts of
everything else that happened during that dream. If it was indeed a dream. To
leave them as they were, divorced from the rest of my account, would seem
unnatural, as if dream and reality had twisted and broken apart into two
unmatched halves. I cannot allow that. To lose my hold on my thoughts would
likely destroy my mind.
    I recall rising from my bed as he demanded, locking the door and
sitting at the little table. I recall writing furiously, often thinking not of
anything but the act of writing itself. He stood beside me, pausing often to
let me catch up and to force a deep breath of air into his lungs.
    "I had wanted to take the three
women with me to England; but their needs were too great," he said.
"We never would have survived the journey. We three together would have
soon devoured the