10 December 2027
Friday. The Count has written me his annual letter in his diary, believing I would never read it. I read everything. It is the one advantage of being dead: one has the time.
Count. You call our quarrel a relationship. I call it a campaign. My recruits will keep going below in Melbourne and your guests will keep climbing your stairs in Northbridge, and sooner or later one of them will do what neither of us has managed, which is to finish this.
Until then I will keep my notes and you will keep your Bride, and readers will keep turning from one diary to the other to see which of us is lying. Neither of us is lying. We are simply writing from opposite ends of the coffin.
To any recruit reading over my shoulder: find a time on the calendar, gather your hunters and come below. My letter is waiting. So, I regret to say, is he.
— Prof. Van Helsing
