Dracula: The Last Kiss

Early the next morning, Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward knocked and rang at Lucy’s house, but no one came to the door.They broke in through a kitchen window and found the four maids asleep on the floor, still heavy from the drugged wine.Upstairs, Lucy lay white and still beside her dead mother, and the marks on her throat were torn open again.

The doctors worked for hours to warm her with hot baths and brandy, but she needed new blood at once.Just then Quincey Morris, the brave American who also loved Lucy, arrived at the door and offered his own arm without a moment’s pause.Later they found the paper Lucy had hidden against her chest, and Van Helsing read her account of the wolf in silence.

Over the next days Lucy grew weaker, and while she slept her gums seemed to pull back, so that her teeth looked longer and sharper.When she was awake, she held the garlic flowers close, but when she slept, she pushed them away.Arthur arrived at last, and it was clear to everyone that Lucy was dying.

Near the end she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard, and said in a soft, strange voice, “Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!”Arthur bent eagerly to kiss her, but Van Helsing seized him by the neck and threw him back across the room.“Not for your life!” he cried. “Not for your living soul and hers!”

For a moment a look of rage passed over Lucy’s face, and her sharp teeth snapped together.Then her eyes became soft again, and she took Van Helsing’s hand and whispered, “My true friend, guard him, and give me peace.”A few minutes later she was gone, and Seward said sadly, “It is all over,” but Van Helsing shook his head: “Not so; it is only the beginning!”