Free Slave Of Dracula by Barbara Hambly

from his bonds, listening only to the dim howling of the other patients, to the murmur of

Langmore and Simmons as they played their unceasing games of cribbage in the hall, to the steady soft

ticking of the hallway clock. Yet he was at all times aware of the Traveler, aware of his nearness. Aware

of his power.
    Wotan was there, Wotan who held the gift of life in his hand. Wotan whose anger infected his brain and

drove him to screaming rages in the daytime, so that he was chained again on the wall.
    Watch yourself, traitor, if you betray me now, Wotan had said to Loki, in the shivering music of

Das Rheingold. I, of all the gods your only friend …
    Wotan, too, dreamed. In his dreams the Traveler God could hear and see, through those others whom

his mind had touched. His thoughts spread like poisoned mist through the air, making nothing of distance.

Wotan would know what Renfield said, if he shrieked to the guards what he knew, what he saw during

his daytime visions. Wotan would hear, and would not forgive.
    I do not want to see the kill!
    ***
    That first day in the straps he saw the girls in the train-station. Pretty Lucy looked much better, with a

trace of rosiness return-ing to her delicate cheeks, and she hugged her dark-haired friend like a sister.

“You have your tickets?”
    “Exactly where they were when you asked five minutes ago.” Mina patted her handbag, and Lucy
    laughed. “You’re in danger of forgetting that I’m the schoolmistress, you’re the giddy young who goes

to parties and is going to be the daughter-in-law of Lord Godalming by the time I get back.”
    “Darling!” Lucy giggled, her rosiness deepening, and the older woman who accompanied the girls-she

had Lucy’s blue eyes, Renfield thought, and Lucy’s flawless complexion-folded her gloved hands and

smiled.
    But her smile was wan. There was a haunted shadow in the back of those blue eyes, transforming what

had been the cold face of a lady of Society-a lady who reminded Renfield alarmingly of his sister-in-law

Georgina, Lady Clayburne-into a mask of exhaustion and deepest tragedy. She watched the girls w if it

were she, not the dark-haired Mina, who was about to depart, with a hungry longing and a terrible

regret. Her face was both puffy and sunken, with a waxy cast to it that Renfield knew well from long

acquaintance with his countrymen in In-dia’s unhealthy clime.
    She has had her death-warrant, he thought, his heart aching suddenly for her as he never thought it

could have, not for that species of woman. She knows it, and her daughter does not.
    “And this Sister Agatha didn’t say what had happened to Jonathan?” Lucy was asking. “Other than that

he had brain-fever?”
    “It was all she said.” Mina reached into the pocket of her jacket-sensible brown linen and, like all her

other clothing, a little worn, a few years out of fashion-and drew out a much–folded square of yellow

paper. “Only that he rushed into the train-station at Klausenberg shouting for a ticket for home.

Klausenberg seems to be the central market-town of the Car-pathian plateau, if the atlas is correct and if

Klausenberg is the same as Cluj. There seems to be only one train per day there from Vienna, at

nine-fifteen in the morning. Since the night-train from Munich arrives at just before seven, that should give

me plenty of time-“
    “You and your railway timetables!” laughed Lucy’s mother, her weariness dissolving into genuine

pleasure at the dark girl’s company, and Lucy hugged her friend again impulsively.
    “Oh, darling, you’re so brave! Going out like this to the ends of the world! Not even knowing the

language!”
    He is watching her, thought Renfield, aware of Wotan’s mind, Wotan’s shadow-aware of those red

eyes gleaming, like a rat’s eyes, in the shadows of that cheerful provincial train-station. Watching her

and waiting for her … and smiling. Smiling like a damned leering devil in the dark of his