Dracula by Bram Stoker

Dracula is first and foremost an enthralling read. Bram Stoker's way with description and theme leads the reader on at a pace of almost mundanity, this is necessary to fully encompass your mind in the horrors that are about to befall. 
The first character we meet is Johnathan Harker through a series of journal entries written to his fiance, Mina.
As I did when I was a child first reading this book, I found myself wanting to skip ahead and skim over Johnathan Harker's journal entries of his meal that night and his breakfast the next morning, I wanted to get to the horror and the bloodshed, but as I allowed the story to unfold before me, his journal entries painted the picture of a rather astute and simple man. He enjoys his meals, he enjoys his travels abroad, he's polite and he enjoys polite society. So stuck in this way that he fails to realize the danger he's traveling towards. 
Johnathan Harker is a solicitor, (see also: fancy realtor) he's traveling to Transylvania to meet a one Count Dracula who's employed Harker's services so that he might move to London and start a life there. 
Through Johnathan Harker's journals we learn that the closer he travels to the Count's dwelling, the more fearful and strange the peasants become around him. 
One of the caretakers at the last inn he stays at begs him not to go and forces a crucifix around his neck. Johnathan describes this as almost blasphemous and idolatrous but he accepts the gift because it's the polite thing to do even though he'd be raised not to rely on such items.
As he rides in a coach towards the castle, the other passengers, all whom speak a different language than himself, each present him with their own gifts, garlic, a dried rose, and silver. The carriage ride is not easy, they're followed by howling wolves on all sides and the passengers urge the driver to push the horses as much as possible. 
Johnathan is more confused than alarmed; he has serious business to attend to with the count and he doesn't want to be a disappointment. 
They reach the spot where Johnathan is supposed to disembark and leave them on another coach and the passengers cheer because they've arrived an hour ahead of schedule. The driver makes the comment that since the second coach isn't there, Johnathan should ride on with them and try again at a later date. 
All too soon after those words have left his lips then a coach rides up behind them, pulled by gorgeous steeds. 
The second driver is chilling when he addresses the first and tells him, "remember, you can not hide things from me."
Johnathan, bound to his polite nature, leaves the safety of the first coach and goes with the second, only have small thoughts that he might be in any danger at all. 
The wolves continue to follow them to the castle and the driver keeps making small stops along the way to mark places where a strange blue flame keeps appearing which encourages the wolves to come closer and closer. 
During one of these stops, the driver is gone for quite a long time and the wolves completely encircle the coach, ready to make a meal out of Johnathan and the horses but before it's too late, the driver returns and it's his mere presence that commands the wolves away. Johnathan tries to soothe himself by saying it was probably a dream or a nightmare but he can't shake the feeling that it wasn't and that he's probably now in a place where he shouldn't be.
Going into the castle he's soon met by Count Dracula, a man he describes with severe features, pale and almost dead-like. He notices that the count and the driver have the same handshake and grip strength and he wonders if they were in fact the same person. 
Before he can inquire about servants in the castle, Dracula is taking Johnathan to his quarters and has laid out a large meal for him. Johnathan thoroughly enjoys the meal and conversing with Dracula and they talk until the sun comes up. He enjoys Dracula's company and his mind is put at ease in regards to the rest of the strange trip. 
Over the course of the next couple of days, his journal accounts the odd things around the castle, there are no mirrors, the one time he produced a mirror, to shave, Dracula came up behind him and startled Johnathan, causing him to get a minor cut on his chin. 
At the sight of the blood, Dracula loses his calm demeanor and lunges for Johnathan's throat but when his fingers touch the rosary around Johnathan's neck, he regains his composure and blames the small mirror for what transpired. Dracula's solution is to then throw the mirror out the window and Johnathan, ever polite and refusing to deviate from this politeness, is left perplexed and unable to understand what just happened. 
One night, Johnathan is looking out the window and he sees Dracula exit the castle through a window and crawl, head first down the outer wall like a lizard. Johnathan is horrified but he says nothing to the count whom he now suspects as being evil. 
A few nights go by and Dracula tells Johnathan that although he can go whether is not locked in the castle, he should make sure not to sleep anywhere other than in the rooms he's been occupying. Dracula says it's because the castle is old and full of old memories that will give Johnathan bad dreams. But Johnathan is losing his polite nature more and more every day and he almost relishes in the idea of disobeying the count. 
On a day when he again sees Dracula leaving the castle, lizard style, Johnathan decides to explore further than he ever has. 
He finds the wing where ladies might have stayed if they still lived there and he finds comfort in the softer furnishings, despite the dust and moth-eaten fabric. He writes in his journal at a table in this wing until he feels drowsy and again feels good about going against Dracula's wishes of sleeping elsewhere in the castle. 
He dozes off and awakens to the sight of three beautiful women standing over him, contemplating his being. They're unaware of him being awake and one of them decides she's going to "give him a kiss."
At this moment, Dracula rushes to Johnathan's aid and flings the woman across the room. He scolds them for going against his orders and gives them a sackcloth with what we're lead to believe has a child in it.
They disappear into the castle and Dracula carries Johnathan back to his room.
After a few weeks of being there, Johnathan believes he's a prisoner and his fears are further solidified when Dracula asks him to pen three letters, one to say when he's leaving Dracula's, one to say when he's left, and one to say that he's reached a town farther away from the castle. Dracula assures him that this is only to make sure Johnathan's loved ones don't worry about him and know he's safely on the way home. Johnathan, however, knows better. 
He starts plotting his escape. There is no way out of his room anymore as the door is locked from the outside, so he scales out the window, much as Dracula had but with less ease, towards the window he sees Dracula exit from. 
He gets into the room quite alright and is surprised to find it empty save for a large pile of gold coins from every continent and time period. Johnathan doesn't dawdle here as he has to find a key so he can escape. He goes into another room and is horrified to find the count asleep in a large wooden box. Not seeing a key anywhere, Johnathan goes back to his own room, sure that he's going to die soon. 
 That night he hears whispering outside his door, it's the three ladies and Dracula. Dracula promises that the next day he'll let them eat Johnathan. 
Johnathan is like. Wut. The. Fuck.
The next day Johnathan again goes into Dracula's sleeping chamber and looks more fervently for a key but again comes up short. 
He knows he must do something to survive but he's unsure of what exactly. He witnesses Dracula leave with all of his possessions, finally bound for England and Johnathan knows he doesn't have much time left. 

This is where Johnathan's journal leaves off and we're transported to the more happy correspondence between Mina, Johnathan's fiance, and her dear sweet friend, Lucy. 
What we learn about these two characters is quite simple. Mina is very practical. She practices shorthand and stenography so she can be useful to Johnathan when he returns and she's not very punctual with her responding timely to Lucy. 
Lucy is very excitable and childlike. She's beautiful and sweet and three different men propose to her on the same day. She accepts one of the proposals and is sad that she disheartened the other two, they vow to forever be her friend and love her and wish her no ill will, as the person she did accept is a good man and their friend. 
We've now met seven of the eight key players in Dracula. 
Johnathan Harker
Count Dracula
Mina Murray
Lucy Westenra
John Seward
Arthur Holmwood
Quincy P. Morris

John Seward was one of Lucy's admirers and was the first to be turned away. He's a doctor at the local asylum and decides to focus on his work to keep him away from heartbreak. John writes in his journal that he has a patient named Renfield who seems to be entirely mad but in a charming sort of way that John wants to examine further. 
First, Renfield begins collecting flies. Then, he begins collecting spiders and feeding the flies to the spiders. Then he begins collecting sparrows and feeding the spiders to the sparrows. John allows this all to play out because he wants to document the extent of Renfield's madness but when Renfield asks for a cat John denies the request, fearing what may happen to the sparrows. 
The next morning, the sparrows are gone and Renfield vomits up a lot of feathers. John is lead to believe that Renfield ate the sparrows himself and John wants to know why. 
He finds Renfield's journal and notes that Renfield is keeping track of how many flies each spider ate and how many spiders each sparrow ate, it's recorded almost as if Renfield is tallying up how many lives are in each now. Fly into spider, spider into sparrow. 
John idly wonders if a man would count as only one life point or if he would count as more. Renfield again begins collecting flies and John wonders if it would be a bad thing to see how far the madness would go if he got Renfield a cat. 

Before we go further with that bit of insanity, we're transported back to the friendship of Mina and Lucy. Mina now hasn't heard from Johnathan in over a month and has taken a trip to stay with Lucy because it raises her spirits. But Lucy's been sleepwalking and acting strange. 
One night, during a hellacious storm, a ship crashes into the harbor with its lone occupant dead at the wheel, his hands tied to it with the rosary beads of a crucifix. 
The captain's log is a thorough record-keeping of the horrors they met at sea. Their cargo being boxes of dirt and nothing more. 
The crew begins frightened and ill at ease. The first mate is hard on them but the captain is enduring. One by one each of the crewmates begins to disappear and one of them witnesses a tall thin man walking aboard the deck during a heavy fog. 
When all that is left of the crew is the first mate and the captain, the first mate decides he's going to go look in the boxes. After some time, the first mate, in a frenzy, comes back on deck and implores the captain to save himself as well before jumping into the ocean.
The captain assumes now that it was the first mate who murdered all of his men but a day later, his record states that it wasn't. He saw a man in the fog and his blood ran cold. He tied his hands to the wheel and prayed for safe harbor.

Mina has taken to sleeping with the key to the room she shares with Lucy tied around her wrist in hopes of keeping Lucy safe in the house at night. Alas, one night Mina awakes and Lucy is nowhere in the house, on an impulse, Mina runs to their favorite bench overlooking the ocean and there she finds Lucy with a dark figure hovering over her. 
The figure disapears and Mina gets Lucy back to the house but Lucy is very ill. All the color has been drained out of her and she seems very weak and listless. Mina nurses her back to health and for the next few nights there are no more issues of sleep walking. 
Mina gets word that Johnathan is in London but that's he's been extremely ill this entire time and has been unable to get a letter out to her. 
Mina leaves Lucy's side, assured that she's on the mend and goes to Johnathan. 

Johnathan is in a state, he's had a brain fever for well over a month and in the throes of his fever, he's been saying the most outlandish things that upset the people taking care of him. He gives his journal to Mina and implores her to not to read it unless she feels she has to and they decide to put the matter behind them and begin their married life together immediately. 

Arthur is visiting Lucy and is very worried about her health so he employs the help of John Seward to attend to her and see what the matter is. John has no idea and consults his old mentor from school, Dr. Van Helsing. 
Van Helsing, upon hearing about Lucy's condition rushes immediately there and says that Lucy needs a blood transfusion. Arthur volunteers to this and health is restored to Lucy. 
A night goes by, John Seward staying up with Lucy, and all seems well, she is yet again on the mend. 
On the second night, Lucy bids that John Seward sleeps in the other room because she thinks it will be more peaceful to him, he obliges, relenting that he is very much exhausted. 
They awaken in the morning to bad news. Lucy once again needs a blood transfusion. It is John Seward this time that must donate and he does so willingly because he loves Lucy so much. 
Van Helsing puts garlic flowers all over Lucy's room and hangs a ring of garlic around her neck for while she sleeps. 
The men leave her home, feeling that things will be quiet that night but it is not so- when they return in the morning, they discover that Lucy's mother removed all the garlic and opened the window, thinking that the garlic made things too stuffy and Lucy needed fresh air. 
Van Helsing is beside himself, Lucy is once again on death's door and needs a blood transfusion. Arthur has had to travel back home to see his father who is dying (of natural causes) so this time it must be Van Helsing himself that donates more blood to keep Lucy alive. Van Helsing scolds Lucy's mother and demands that she not touch the garlic anymore because it's part of the healing process. 
A day goes by and all seems to be getting better. 
This goes for four days and all seems to be getting better. Van Helsing decides that John Seward and himself can retire for the night to an inn and discuss everything that's been happening. 
It is on this night that Lucy awakens, feeling unease from a nightmare. She goes to the hall and calls out but no one answers so she goes back to her room. In a little while, her mother comes in and lays down with her. It's while they're relaxing that a large gray wolf breaks Lucy's window, scaring her mother, tearing the garlic from her throat and dying in a fit of terror.
When the next day comes and Van Helsing and John Seward go to check on their patient, they're shocked to see Lucy worse than ever before and her mother dead. 
Lucy needs more blood but there's no one to donate until Quincy P. Morris comes at the behest of Arthur to check on Lucy's condition. 
Van Helsing immediately asks for blood and Quincy, loving Lucy as Arthur and John love Lucy, readily gives it. 

It is over the course of a few more days that Lucy is unable to rally. She slips back and forth from waking to a trance like state where she does weird things and tears away her garlic garland. All the men are there now to watch over her but that's all they can do, watch and wait. 
Lucy's end comes as expected and the house is sorrowful. Van Helsing puts a small golden crucifix on Lucy's mouth and says they have time to rest now. 
But ho-ho dear reader, fuckery is afoot everywhere and a maid steals the crucifix, thus sealing Lucy's eternal fate. 

Van Helsing is grim in this discovery and tells John Seward that there's much still be done yet. Not right away but in time, all will be revealed. 

Seward goes back to his insane asylum and gets us caught back up on everything that's been happening with Renfield. He's escaped a few times and they keep finding him at Carfax, the place the count purchased through Johnathan Harker. He keeps going on about a dark master whose time is coming soon. Sometimes he collects his flies, sometimes he says it's useless. One night, he breaks into Seward's study and attacks him with a knife, cutting the doctor's wrist. As they wrestle Renfield to the ground, Seward is disgusted to see the deranged man licking up the blood on the ground. 

Then begins the reports of children going missing and turning up later, weakened and missing blood. Van Helsing comes back to Seward in this time and says they have to go to Lucy's grave. 
Seward is just about at his absolute wits end regarding the whole thing but agrees to it. He watches Van Helsing open Lucy's coffin and wonders if Van Helsing has gone mad. 
Van Helsing shows him that Lucy's body isn't there and says now that they have to wait and watch outside. 
They see a white figure carrying a child and Van Helsing rushes towards said figure which flees, leaving the child, in a trance but otherwise unharmed.
Van Helsing says they have to return the next day for more proof. 
Seward is like, this bitch is crazy, but he returns all the same with Van Helsing. 
In the daylight, Lucy's body is returned to her coffin and Seward says that maybe the body snatchers put it back, he muses to himself that maybe, Van Helsing being deranged, is doing this all himself. He's decidedly unconvinced that that Lucy could be getting up and walking around herself as she is dead. And dead is dead. 
Van Helsing telegrams for Arthur and and Quincy to come be with them at once for he has news of Lucy's condition. Upon arrival, Van Helsing tells them everything he suspects and finds that Arthur and Quincy are more willing to believe his fantastical tale than Seward is. 
Van Helsing asks all to go to Lucy's grave with him that night so that they all may believe and see what he knows to be true, that Lucy is undead and praying upon the neighboring children. 
They reluctantly agree to it and are off, at the tomb, they rightly discover that it is empty and Van Helsing instructs them to go outside and wait for Lucy's return.
He makes a putty out of blessed wafers and puts them in the cracks of the door, sealing it, explaining that the undead will be unable to cross.
When Lucy does return, undead as she is, she's carrying a child. Upon seeing her lover and her old friends, she throws the child to the ground and invokes Arthur to kiss her. 
In a stupor, Arthur goes to kiss her but is saved by Van Helsing who thrusts a gold cross in her face. She draws back and the full effect of the vampire is revealed before them. It horrifies each member of the party but Van Helsing stays resolute. 
Lucy attempts to escape into the tomb but the putty blocks her entrance. Van Helsing removes some of the putty and she turns into a fine mist and goes in. 
They leave for the night, planning on returning in the morning. 

Van Helsing tells them that they must drive a wooden stake into her heart, remove her head, and fill her mouth with garlic to return her soul to her body and let Lucy rest in peace. 
It's decided that Arthur is the best among them and therefore is the one to drive the stake. When the time comes, he completes his task and it is finally done and over with. Lucy is returned to how she was and allowed peace. 

Van Helsing tells them that it is now their job to find the vampire that did this to Lucy and he's going to invite two more into their group to help. He means, of course, the Harkers. He's already been to see Mina and Johnathan and has read Johnathan's journal and believes that the Harkers will be indispensable to their cause.

Mina arrives before Johnathan, as he has business to attend to before he can come, and she makes herself useful by typing out all of Seward's diaries, which until that point had been kept on a phonographer. She gives a copy of her journal and Johnathan's journal to Seward to study, as proof that she believes everything that's happening with Lucy and that she can be trusted in this manner. 
It is these journals that help strengthen Seward's resolve in the matter and he feels he's found a kindred spirit in Mina for her wonderful record keeping. Mina is apprehensive at further involving Johnathan, but he rises to the occassion and Mina sees that his spirits are strengthen with the knowledge that the events in Transylvania happened as they did and it wasn't him going crazy. Van Helsing makes the comment that Johnathan Harker is of the best calibur of people and Mina is very proud of her husband. 
When Johnathan arrives, he and Mina take all the articles together and put them in chronological order so that they may be able to decipher everything they can about Count Dracula and how they might kill him. 
During this time, Mina asks Seward if she may visit with Renfield, the patient, as he seems very close to the count and she wants to interview him. 
Seward complies to this and is surprised with Renfield receives Mina in a very sane manner and they have a rather philosophical conversation regarding madness and Renfield's own maddening beliefs on consuming blood to gain immortality but he assures her that that is all in the past. 
When she goes to leave, she wishes him well and hopes that she will see him again, he contradicts this and tells her that he wishes he never sees her sweet face again and hopes that God blesses her soul. 

With all of this in mind, the group each take a copy of the chronology and study it for the evening. They reconvene after dinner and Van Helsing makes a rousing speech about their duty and how they're honor-bound to this cause.
Everyone is moved by his impassioned words and they all join hands, resolute with him. This is the moment that Van Helsing makes a poor decision. But you can't really hold it against him. These great men, full of fortitude have decided that they want Mina to hang back while they do the rest of the work. They believe that including would only endanger her further. 
That night, she's bid to go to bed as they check out Carfax where Dracula had fifty boxes of dirt shipped. Before they can go to Carfax, there's an urgent message from an orderly saying that Renfield wants to see Seward immediately. 
Seward complies and the others go with him, having now read Seward's notes regarding Renfield, they believe him to be connected to Dracula in some way. 
Renfield presents himself as entirely sane and greets each of the men politely, talking of serving with Arthur's father, commenting on the great state of Texas for Quincy, and talking with Van Helsing as if they were intellectual equals. 
Renfield implores Seward to let him go home, saying it's of utmost importance. Seward denies this request, believing it's just another manifestation of Renfield's madness. They leave the patient, crying alone to himself and are off to Carfax. 
In Carfax they find that only 29 boxes remain and have to track down the other 21. In this small adventure, they're set on by thousands of rats, all of which are either killed or scared away by three terriers Quincy calls for using a dog whistle. 
The rest of the exploration goes without an upset and they're able to return to Seward's house safely. 

Mina has a bad dream. She's not doing so well. She imagines she sees a thick fog crawling up the walls and seeping into her room where it collects in a column, she can't remember anything more but she's exhausted when she wakes up. For fear of troubling the others away from their important task, she keeps this to herself. 
The next night her bad dreams persist and she can hear Renfield moaning somewhere below her in the asylum but yet she keeps it to herself. 
On the third night, she asks Seward for a sleep aid and he gives it to her, right before she falls asleep she has the frightful thought that it might have been a bad idea as she would not have the ability to wake up should the need arise.
Johnathan Harker has noticed his wife has looked pale and tired for the last few days but he pushes it off as stress to what they're doing and no longer being in the loop is probably trying on her. No one thinks that maybe all her symptoms are exactly like Lucy's symptoms, but it's fine, this is fine. They're doctors.
Johnathan takes it upon himself to track down the missing 21 boxes and through perseverance and bribery, he's able to locate them. His notes on Mina's declining health are small and he makes the decision to send her back home, away from them. We're 300 pages in and you'd think they'd know not to make dumb choices but here we are. 

The night before they send Mina home, Renfield is attacked in his room. His back is broken and his face badly beaten, his brain is swelling but the madness seems to have left him. Seward goes to him along with Van Helsing, Quincy, and Arthur. 
Renfield tells Seward everything from start to finish of his relationship with Dracula and how on the night he begged Seward to let him go, Dracula visited him and went to Mina Harker's room to feed. 
Dracula had promised Renfield eternal life and all that bullshit and Renfield believed him but when he saw Dracula's plans for Mina he felt protective of the woman and tried to hold Dracula there. A scuffle ensued and Dracula escaped. 
The four men leave Renfield there, I guess to suffer in his wounds? And rush to Mina's room. They break down the door and find Dracula there, forcing Mina to drink his blood. Johnathan is sleeping by the window, under some sort of stupor that Dracula likes to use and Van Helsing is quick to take out his cross. The others join him and they're able to force Dracula to flee from the room. 
They're busy with Mina when word comes that Renfield is dead. The orderly who'd been watching his room had heard shouting and Renfield calling out to God but when he entered the room, Renfield was dead, his face smashed into the floor. 
After that, our dear band of six sit together and decide what to do next. Mina expresses that she'll just kill herself before Dracula can use her for any wicked work but Van Helsing is like, "Nah, dog, you can't, you'll just become a vampire." and she's like, "well, fuck."
They decide the morning is the best chance they have at sterilizing the boxes of dirt Dracula's spread all over London so that he has nowhere to hide and sleep during the day and since he'd already gorged himself on Mina, he'll be rest presently. 
The love and affection everyone felt towards Lucy has transferred to Mina and they all agree to do this to protect her, the best woman they've ever met. She puts on a front of being strong but Johnathan is unsure how that will last. He notes that she looks more vampiric like Lucy did in her last days, but her teeth aren't sharp yet and he takes that as a cool comfort. 
Before they leave to sterilize the boxes, Van Helsing presses a blessed wafer to Mina's head and it scorches her. New grief besets the group as they realize how far the corruption has traveled through her body. She is more like Dracula now than human. 

They're able to easily sterilize the boxes at Carfax and the boxes in Picadilly. Arthur and Quincy go alone to the other two houses where the rest of the boxes are and sterilize them as well. 
All five men meet back up in Picadilly and wait for the count to return.
He does return and there's a small fight between them. The count gets away but Van Helsing says this is a good thing because he has betrayed his wants, his needs, and his fears, all while trying to scare the men. 
They go back to Seward's house for the night and tell Mina everything over dinner, everyone's resolve growing stronger as night comes.
Johnathan confesses that he's never felt hatred like this in all his life and Mina surprises everyone when she asks Johnathan and the rest of them to have pity on Dracula, as he was once a man with a soul and like her, as vampires only choose pure and righteous victims and that when they dispatch of him, they're doing it as a kindness for him as much as the rest of the world. 
Johnathan doesn't like this idea at first but gives in to his wife's words as they all know she speaks the truth. 
That night, Mina has an idea and has Van Helsing hypnotize her, through Mina as a medium they're able to clearly see that the count is on a ship with his last box as a refuge and he plans to flee. 
They feel as if they've got him on the run and their spirits are lifted by this. 
Silly men, dis bitch is a vampire.

With less than one hundred pages left, the story is picking up speed now. The characters are well thought out and feel like living breathing people. 
From the professor, Van Helsing, to the doctor, Seward, the nobleman, Arthur, the American, Quincy, and the business-minded lawyer, Johnathan Harker. Mina says it best when she says, "God bless brave men."

So we know that Dracula is headed back to Transylvania with his one box. The men have used their resources to get the name of everyone involved in the business of helping him escape and they're fucking pumped. I'm pumped. We're all pumped. Except for Mina. She's like, "I'm cursed!" and tries to be brave but Johnathan can tell she's not doing so hot.

First, the menfolk want to leave Mina behind and everyone agrees to it but then she says that she must go with them because she's psychically linked to Dracula and will be of more use with them than apart from them. Van Helsing takes this as sound reasoning and all agree to it. 
They follow the path Dracula is supposedly taken and sure enough, there are strange things afoot which means he's near. But he's weakened by their previous efforts and confined to his one box of dirt and can not leave it except at sunset and he must sleep again at sunrise, so they have the whole of 24 hours on their side and he has only the night. 

There comes a time when the group must separate, as they can not know Dracula's true whereabouts, so they have Quincy and Seward on land, Johnathan and Arthur by sea, and Mina and Van Helsing headed toward's Dracula's castle. 
As their journies progress, each party is met with their own trials but none more difficult than Van Helsing and Mina's.  Van Helsing watches day by day as Mina turns slowly into a vampire. Each night when they make camp, he makes a circle of blessed wafers around them to keep out the undead and he's made uneasy by the fact that Mina can not cross the circle either. He knew the time was coming, but with every solidity of the fact, he is burdened. 
Finally, they camp in front of Castle Dracula and the three sisters materialize in front of them. They bid Mina join them but she refuses and Van Helsing drives them away with a blessed wafer. At sunrise, he goes into the castle, finds their coffins and kills them all while they sleep. 
When he comes back to Mina, she helps him prepare a meal but refuses to eat anything herself. They have won a small battle with the three sisters but the fight for Mina's soul still rages on. 
They make their way down from the castle and find small shelter in a cave, it's started to snow quite heavily but Van Helsing keeps a watchful eye out for anyone approaching. 
As sunset draws near, a band of Slovaks pulling a wagon can be seen on the road and Van Helsing knows Dracula is on that wagon. 
Coming up quickly behind them are two parties, one being Seward and Quincy, the other being Johnathan and Arthur. 
They halt for the wagon to stop but the men want to push onwards. 
Our group pulls their Winchester rifles out and demand they stop but the Slovaks also draw their weapons and the fight is on. 
By sheer force of will, it is Johnathan who throws the box from the wagon and pries it open with his knife, Quincy is brutally slashed in the abdomen but he too helps to get the lid off. 
It is Johnathan who cuts the head off of Count Dracula while simultaneously, Quincy drives his knife into Dracula's heart. 
The vampire turns to ash and the Slovaks, now seeing the real truth, flee in terror.
Mina, now able to leave the blessed circle, runs to Quincy who has been fatally wounded. She holds him as with his dying breath, he says it was worth it to see the scar on her forehead from the blessed wafer gone and her restored completely. 


All in all, Dracula is a fantastical story about the hearts of good men. For the love of Lucy Westenra, they brave the positively wicked and supernatural and for the love and devotion they feel for Mina Harker they do the near impossible. These are not men whose honor can be bought, as we witness quite often in the story. They do not sway from their cause or conviction no matter how many times they're set back and all they do is out of the purest love and devotion for a woman they deeply respect and admire. 
Mina is often referred to as the best and the brightest, with a pure heart and keen mind. There are moments in the story where she comforts each of them in her own way and they feel a sisterly love for her. They do not fear death, they fear losing Mina to Dracula.
I can not help but think that the world needs more like Seward, Arthur, Johnathan, and Quincy. Van Helsing too, but he sort of takes a sideline to these wonderous characters as he was written to already know and believe, and these men were written to be skeptical, but despite the skepticism, they would do what was right and noble by their beloved friend. 
It's written in poetic prose, every description is well thought out and described in romantic detail. I did find one continuity error but as it didn't change the story in any way, it didn't matter all that much. I can see why I first fell in love with this novel seventeen years ago and I cherish it all the more now. 
If you haven't experienced Dracula in its full force, you're sorely missing out.