"And the kids cried out, 'please stop, you're scaring me,' I can't help this awful energy, goddamn right, you should be scared of me, who is in control?"
- Control by Halsey
The funeral was to be the next day.
"She makes a beautiful corpse, sir!" said the woman who we would now call a mortician. "It's a privilege to attend her."
This was an incredibly odd thing to say, but I suppose there are always going to be morbid corpse freaks and things like that. The goths of late 19th century England, if you will.
I was trying to keep an eye on Lucy's "corpse," but Van Helsing always seemed to be right around the corner.
We were vaguely aware of his suspicion of vampires. We just had to make sure he didn't catch on too much. It was one thing to have a vampire hunter helping hunt the bane of your existence, even if he was irritating and rude, but it was another to have a vampire hunter hunting you.
Addy was to keep an eye on Seward. She had picked him over Van Helsing because she thought he would be easier to irritate, which, in all fairness, was an admirable goal. I picked Van Helsing because I was interested in a challenge. This left Bess with Quincy and Arthur, who were the least difficult to deal with, and so they were combined into one person's job.
We would later regret some of these decisions, but that didn't happen just yet.
The room where Lucy's corpse lay had become beautiful. It was covered in lily flowers, and decorated with some of the tallest candles I've seen outside of a witch shop or the sewers of the Paris Opera House.
They say some weird shit about Lucy's corpse. Yeah, sure, it didn't decay. It looked like her, and Lucy was pretty, so I guess her dead body was pretty, too.
The description of her in the book of lies verges on necrophilia.
I was watching Van Helsing. Addy sat on the other side of the threshold to the entrance to the room, watching Seward. We saw Van Helsing cover Lucy's face in garlic, and put a crucifix over her mouth.
Later, we overheard something very different.
"Tomorrow I want you to bring me, before nightfall, a set of post-mortem knives."
I jumped. Damn, an autopsy, we hadn't even considered that. An autopsy would make sure Lucy was dead for good.
"Must we make an autopsy?" Seward asked, and for once I was on his side.
"Yes," Van Helsing said dryly, "but no. I want to operate, but I want to cut off her head and take out her heart."
Now that was dead. That was very dead.
"Oh, a surgeon so shocked," Van Helsing mocked Seward, probably because of his expression, which, I would assume, was horrified. "Because you loved her, I suppose? I shall operate, and you shall help. I would like to do it tonight, but I think it best to wait until Arthur leaves for his father's funeral tomorrow. Once she's in her coffin, we shall unscrew the coffinlid and then perform our operation, so none shall know."
"She's dead, isn't she?" Seward's voice swelled with emotion and anger. "Why mutilate her body? We stand to gain nothing from an autopsy. Nothing for her, nothing for us, nothing for science, or even human knowledge - so why do it? You would make us monsters."
I recalled a book that I'd read some years before. Of course, it's all over the world now and widely considered a classic, so you'd know about it, but I had a vision of the two doctors hunched over an operating table, attempting to resurrect Lucy by unnatural means.
Yeah, I'm talking about Frankenstein. I love that book.
Lucy would, if all went according to plan, be resurrected by unnatural means anyway, but at least they wouldn't be scientific means.
Van Helsing sighed and his voice took on a slightly kinder tone. "If I could, I'd take your burden. But there are many things you don't know, but will know in time. They aren't pleasant things. Have you ever known me to do anything without good cause? And I still have a good reason now. You have to trust me completely."
I'd use the expression that I didn't trust him as far as I could throw him, but being a vampire and having some degree of superstrength, I probably could throw him further than I trusted him.
The whole point is that I didn't trust him at all, and I would have to hope that for Lucy's well-being, Seward didn't either.
"There are strange and terrible things coming," Van Helsing warned. "We need to join as one to lead to a good end, and you must have faith in me."
I chose now to peek in the door, and observed the two men standing there, facing away from me. They were looking at a maid paying her last respects to Lucy.
Or that's what it appeared to be. My eyes are better than a human's, and I saw her lift the little gold crucifix off of Lucy's mouth. It was a magnificent sleight of hand, and I had little doubt in my mind that this maid was experienced in lifting little things off of those of higher station. Lucy wouldn't miss it, and she would probably appreciate the fact that such an efficient thief was the one to steal the crucifix.
Addy decided to keep an eye on Seward as he fell asleep in the room next to Lucy's body, and I tracked Van Helsing in any way he could.
I am blessed with the fact that my footfalls are pretty light and I have quick reflexes, and those two things alone make you good at sneaking about, no extra vampire abilities necessary.
I watched as he tracked his way back to the room of the maid. Clearly, I underestimated how observant Van Helsing was.
Ten minutes later, he exited the room, crucifix in hand. The hunter had found his prize.
I will never understand why he didn't return the crucifix to the place it had been sitting on Lucy's lips. It's not as if I can ask him. Perhaps he didn't want to destroy her body. Perhaps he thought she was too far gone already. Or perhaps he got what he wanted.
Perhaps he was after glory, a legacy, a place in the human subconscious for years to come.
If it was that, a vampire hunt is one hell of a way to get it.
I don't have quite that place that he does, being nameless, presumed evil, and the fact that I'm female probably has something to do with it, too, but unlike him (for he would definitely appreciate his legacy), I don't actually want it.
My story will appear (incorrectly) in media throughout my entire existence, and possibly after that, and I find that extremely limiting. The immortalization of an immortal is oddly irritating.
But I digress.
Anyway, the crucifix was not returned to Lucy. Van Helsing went to bed soon after, so I went with Addy to hold what was in some ways a vigil over Lucy's body.
"Do you think this is our fault?" I asked.
"In a sense," Addy answered airily. "But logic dictates that it isn't, so use your brain, Mary. It'll make you feel better."
The next morning, Van Helsing strode into the chamber. Addy and I had fallen asleep, and it's amazing what self-absorption and single-mindedness will do to a man. You think he would've noticed the two girls sleeping in the corners. He walked right past us.
