at what was inside.
The box was chockful of gold and silver coins, paper currency, faded documents . . . Matilda reached past all of it and plucked a stack of letters from the far corner, her face growing pale.
“What is it?”
“I wrote these letters to Ellen and left them in Patrick O’Cuiv’s grave in Clontarf. We buried them there.”
“How is that possible?” The earth around this grave had not been turned in years.
Rain pelted the paper in her hands, and the ink began to run. “Let’s get this inside the abbey,” I said, attempting to reaffix the lid.
Matilda stopped me and reached back inside. She pulled out what looked like a property deed. “This is for land in Austria; it’s in the name of Countess Dolingen.”
“Best to put it back inside,” I said. “It will be ruined out here.”
She finally nodded and returned the items, and I closed the lid. The two of us quickly carried the box towards the abbey.
With the rain the sky grew dark, churning black and thick with storm clouds blotting out the sun. Had I turned, I would have seen Ellen Crone rise up out of the pond behind us, with Maggie and Patrick O’Cuiv close behind. I would have seen them drift over the surface of the water towards us, towards the abbey, with sharp teeth gleaming white and eyes of red fire.
NOW
The snakes climb with unnatural speed, not as individual animals but working in unison, forming layers and weaving together in patterns that allowed the next group to climb just a little higher than the last. The hissing grows incessantly louder, topped only by the banging from behind the door, each hit sending more foul-scented muck through the air. Bram looks to the roses on the windowsill and watches in horror as they wilt and turn to black before his eyes.
The first two snakes appear directly in the room, and Bram hopes that is only because the creature behind the door somehow summoned them; he had hoped the roses would prevent the evil from entering from outside, a thin hope, but it was all he had. As the roses wilt and die, so do those hopes. He scoops up his journal and shoves it deep into his pocket, maybe it will be found on his body.
Back at the windows, Bram uses his bowie knife to cut back the vines, all he can reach. They are thick and coarse, but he saws through them one after the other. This slows the snakes, but only for an instant. They twist in and out of one another, forming their own path.
The first snake comes over the sill on the opposite end of the room, and Bram runs to it, stomping on its head with his thick boot the moment it strikes the ground. Another comes over the sill a moment later and springs out at him, appearing to fly through the air. Bram ducks aside and slices at it with the knife, watching as both halves hit the stone floor and somehow slither across to the other side. Two more come through the other window—Bram tries to get to them, but the moment they are on the floor they disappear into the shadows, one towards his bag, the other into the far corner. Three more come through the window behind him, and Bram moves just fast enough to dodge their bites, back to the other side of the room. He chances a glance out the window and spots more serpents than he can count, all on the verge of entering the room.
From the corner of his eye, he also spots Dracul. This dark man, this thing of evil, continuing to stare up at him from the ground, his black cloak fluttering around him as if it is alive, the air otherwise still. Standing beside him is his brother’s wife, Emily.
Half a dozen adders pour in from the window and land at his feet, their loud hiss drowning out all else.
THE JOURNAL of BRAM STOKER
17 August 1868, 6:19 p.m.—Vambéry was first into the room, but only after freeing his silver sword from his cane. He pushed through the door with speed I wouldn’t have thought possible, prepared to strike