A crucifix is a religious item in the Christian faith, a Latinized cross with the figure of the Christo Mortuis (the dead Christ) upon it. Stoker employed the use of the iconic crucifix in his book on a number of occasions. In the first chapter of the novel Dracula, a woman gives Jonathan Harker a rosary that she was wearing around her neck when she learned of his destination. Harker, a Protestant, was amused by the gift and wore it as a polite gesture. Later in the book, the sternsman of the Demeter is found tied to the wheel, a rosary still clutched in his hand; the vampiric Lucy was locked in her tomb with a crucifix and GARLIC; and it was also used to drive Dracula back when he came for Mina.

Stoker used artistic license when he combined the Catholic idea of holy objects and the medieval tradition that vampires fell under the domain of Satan. Prior to Dracula, vampires were not affected by either crosses or crucifixes. However, it was by Stoker’s creation that this bit of fiction, the idea of the crucifix having the power to repel a vampire, found itself woven into the vampire’s lore (See BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA).

Source: Heldreth, Blood Is the Life, 61-62; Johnson, Restless Dead, 4; Richardson, Existential Joss Whedon, 15, 125-126