“Fetch him from his revelries. I have something important he needs to do.”
Walter sighed heavily.
“Is this an inconvenience for you?” Vlad turned to look at the other vampire with a raised eyebrow.
“No, my Lord. Forgive me.” Walter placed a hand to his chest and bowed his head. “It is not my place to speak against you.”
“It is always your place to speak freely. You disagree with what I have done.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Walter looked up at him, red eyes that matched his own betraying the younger vampire’s confusion.
Vlad turned back to the city. “What I am doing here is cruel. Thousands will die. It is wrong. That is…entirely the point, I’m afraid.”
“I fail to understand.”
“I know. Fetch me Zadok.”
“Yes, Master.”
And with that, Walter was gone. He watched the red-winged bats soar off into the sky in search of his more hedonist kin. Zadok was in all ways a difficult creature. But for what was to follow, he would play a very important part. The Frenchman was loyal and valuable for his skills. He was worth the irritations he brought with him.
Most of the time.
Vlad watched as his disease spread throughout the city around him, growing wider with every passing second. The city would be his within the hour. Creatures stalked the shadows and the skies. Twisted abominations hunted their prey. Some resembled their previous condition of humanity to various degrees—and some did not.
By the time the clock struck midnight, the humans would be left only in pockets, sheltering for protection. They would be hunted down for sport. Only one would be spared.
One would be left to wander. Accompanied by his enemies as she may be, it mattered not to him. They would fall in time. But he had one mission for her in all this death—observe and learn. He would come for her in time.
While he was master of the hunt, how it ended would be hers to decide.
You met me in a dream. Now we shall see how you fare with my nightmare.
2
They undid her chains long enough to allow her to change into something more appropriate than the opera gown she had worn last night. She pulled on a dress meant for gardening, not for refined society, and pulled the laces of the bodice tight in the back.
Society is dead. No one will care if you do not wear a proper corset. She pulled on a pair of black silk gloves and did her long, dark hair up in a braid. She could not help but linger as she tied the bit of leather string around the end of it. Vlad preferred her hair worn loose. She cringed. Placing her hands down on surface of the vanity in front of her, she struggled with herself.
There was no resolving her turmoil. Not now, perhaps not ever. She left her hair braided and pulled on one of her fall coats. The weather had taken a sharp turn, fading from the balmy warmth of the summer into the chill of early winter. She did not know where the hunters planned on leading her, but she knew it would require her to be out and about in the city for a good length of time.
Comfortable shoes, a coat, and she was ready to go.
Go where?
To her death? To his? Or to both?
Still, the echoes of the dead and dying plagued her mind. The city was wounded. Many were likely now lost to the claws of the creatures that hunted the streets. The rest might be hunkered down in their homes, terrified and alone. They could not understand what was happening. They could not understand why.
The sun had been robbed from the skies. What else could they do but cower? Life had ceased its pattern. There were but a few constants in this world, one of them being the rise and fall of the very sun itself. But now, like every other shred of normalcy, it was gone.
All because she dared to love the creature who had stolen it from the skies.
She needed quiet. She needed silence from those around her. She would not get it. When there was a furtive knock on her door, she could sense that the hunters had grown impatient. “I’m coming,” she called. The light nature of the knock and the gentle soul across the wooden barrier from her revealed it was Bella.
Each of the hunters had a unique feeling. They burned bright from each other. Bella was sweet, light, and loving. Eddie was curious and resilient. Alfonzo was determined and headstrong. She found herself, despite everything, caring for each of them. They were only trying to do what was right.
She also wondered if she had not been deceived as they had claimed. If her mind had not been corrupted after all. Separate from Vlad’s influence as she was, caught in the tide of the stinking death and fear that surrounded them, she could not help but doubt the love she had for him.
Which was the lie?
Which was the mistruth?
Maxine opened the door. “I am ready,” she murmured to the young girl. That itself was a lie. All she wished to do was cower in the safety of her room and wait for the storm to pass. Wait for the demon himself to sweep into her room, gather her up into his arms, and take her to where she would be safe from such strife.
But she had never been one to turn her gaze away from that which was unpalatable. She was a creature born to bear the suffering of those around her. And, in her own right, it was her responsibility to experience every drop of blood as though it were her own. The city had fallen because she lacked the strength and conviction to try to destroy the monster when she had the chance.
No. She was not ready.
But she would march out those doors all the same.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Eddie stood with the length of chain in his hand. He looked at her, sheepish and apologetic as he always was, and held out the shackles. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Shutting her eyes for a moment, she held out her wrists to him. “It isn’t your fault, Eddie.”
“I know. Still feel like shit for it.” He clasped the shackles around her wrists, clicking them into place. He slipped the key into his pocket and picked up the end of the chain to wrap it around his hand a few times.
“I would ask to be set free, so that I might defend myself. But…I have no means of doing so. I am helpless.”
“Far from it.” Alfonzo grunted as he peered out the patterned glass that framed her front door. “Something tells me the monsters that hunt the streets won’t hurt you.”
He was likely right. If the creatures obeyed Dracula, then she probably had little to fear from their claws. But it was, in the end, the same trap.
For something whispered to her that the things that haunted the usurping night were nothing but extensions of the man she would have willingly invited into her bed had the hunters not attacked them. She had kissed him. She had embraced him and had believed, like the child that she was, that she understood him.
No. She had only fallen victim to the lie he had told so many others. He had only shown her a facet of himself, the piece of the whole that she had wanted to see. Or perhaps this is his way of showing you the rest of him. What if you can weather this and love him still? But how would that ever be possible?
Alfonzo opened the door, brandishing his sword, and strode out into the darkness of the night with not an ounce of fear in his step. Bella followed him, the holsters along her body filled with the daggers and knives that on a moment’s notice she could use to fill the air around her. And beside her, Eddie the deadly marksman. Holding Maxine’s leash.
No matter what she did, she would either become a prisoner or a corpse.
It wasn’t until they reached one street over that she pulled up short. It looked as though a river had tried to overtake the cobblestone streets. Liquid ran between the stones, filling the gaps between them like grout. Wet and viscous, the substance shone in the gas lamps that were lit and now burned an unnatural, ghastly green tone.
It was not rainwater.
It was blood.
Bodies littered the sidewalk, strewn where they had been discarded. Some with huge chunks torn from their sides, some missing limbs. Eaten, abused,
and tossed aside like broken toys. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to be sick, as if by that method alone she could hold back the bile that threatened to jump up from where it belonged.
But the chain was tugged, and she was pulled along behind the three hunters who acted as though the mayhem and slaughter were nothing out of the ordinary for them. Perhaps it wasn’t. She really had no concept of with whom she was dealing.
Step by step, avoiding the rivulets of blood as she walked on the raised portions, they progressed through the city.
They walked from street to street, heading closer to the center of the city. It was slow going. Carriages were overturned, and debris blocked their path. Several buildings looked like they had been demolished by something enormous and torn to pieces, blocking the roads. But everywhere they went, there was death.
He has done this. This is what dwells inside of him. This is what he has unleashed.
After maybe half an hour, they came across their first “living” creature. She could not say that was what it was at all. It was a long, gangly thing. Its skin was purplish in tone, yet sallow and decayed all the same. Its face was distended, as though someone had dug their fingers into a skull made of clay and dragged it forward, uncaring for the pain it might cause the recipient.
She could not even tell if it had eyes or simply sockets pulled out of proportion. Most important was its enormous set of teeth. Fanged, sharp, and rowed like the shark jaws she saw on display in the natural museum of science. Tattered flesh hung from its jaws, stringy and damp.
They had interrupted its meal.
A meal that had once been a man and was now little more than gore smeared on the sidewalk. Emotions roared through her. Fear. Terror. Madness. Hunger. Bloodlust. Joy.
A shake of the chain at her wrists jarred her back into the moment. “Don’t run, Maxine.”
She nodded weakly. She didn’t know if she even could. Backing up, she found a lamppost to lean on. The cold iron helped ground her. The rest was a blur. She heard the monster screaming. She heard gunfire. The sound of steel on stone. Alfonzo and the others shouting to each other, coordinating an attack on the monster.
Death.
The joy of it. The fear of it.
It was too much.
She felt faint. Her breathing was short and shallow. The world was starting to grow fuzzy and strange. She was too hot and too cold. Sinking down to the ground, she shivered uncontrollably.
The darkness that reached out for her was far preferable to drowning in this sea of agony. She let it take her without a fight.
Vlad’s attention was not on the hunters who tangled with the beasts who came from the shadows to fight them. He knew they would likely dispatch his creatures without too much trouble. This wasn’t about killing them—not yet. He would have his revenge, but, for now, he was content to simply wear them down.
Standing on the rooftop of a nearby building, his focus was on the poor girl in the black coat, leaning on the streetlamp. Her head lolled to the side. She had fainted. Concern wrenched his heart. He wanted to go to her, to cradle her in his arms and sweep her off to some dark and silent place.
But he could not.
Not because of the hunters. He could take the opportunity of their distraction and abduct her now if he wished. No. Sadly, a grander game was to be played. One that would test his darling Maxine. And if he were fortunate, it would not break her.
“What’s wrong with her?” Zadok asked from beside him. The Frenchman was standing with his weight all on one foot, his hands shoved into his pockets.
“Think on what this war has done to the fabric of this city. It has become an ocean of blood. The dark tide has swept her under its waves.”
“Why don’t I go take her back?” Zadok looked up at him, yellow eyes catching the light of the red moon. “They will never even know I was there.”
“She must learn what I am.”
“Uh…huh,” Zadok said slowly and looked back down at the warring hunters. “You earned her love, and now you want to earn her hatred, and see which one wins, is it? You really do want to spend your eternity alone, don’t you? I suppose I cannot fault you for childish games, lest I be the pot and you the kettle. But this is foolish, even to me.”
“For once, I fear I agree with him.” Walter spoke from nearby for the first time. “I do loathe it when you put me in the position to side with him. The three of us could end them right now.”
“Be glad, then, that I do not care for either his opinion or yours in this matter.” Vlad smirked, despite their prattle. “And no. We do not attack.”
Walter sighed, clearly disagreeing with his plan. Vlad understood his annoyance. The tactician in him screamed to be done with it quickly. Three hunters could not defeat him and his two strongest children, no matter how talented the humans may be.
“This is not about victory. This is about defeat. I will have them broken at my feet, not only in body, but in soul. I will have them beg for mercy before I let them die.”
“Ah. I see. They’ve gone and made you angry.” Zadok cracked his neck audibly to one side then the other. “If you want to play with your food, fine. What’s the next step?”
“They are strong when they are together…but they are merely human. They draw strength from their sense of solidarity. Shatter it however you see fit.”
Zadok grinned. “Gladly.” He dissolved into a swarm of rats that poured over the side of the building on which they stood, scrabbling down the brickwork and away.
There were two very good reasons he assigned Zadok the task of tearing the hunters apart at the seams. One, it was Zadok’s gift to lie and deceive. And two…he would take great pleasure in the act. There were many adages referring to the fact that a job was not work if it was also a joy.
“Was that wise to release Zadok to his own means?”
Dracula did not look to his second-in-command as he spoke. He did not take his gaze off the girl sitting unconscious on the ground. How he wanted to go to her. But it was not yet time. He would comfort her in her dreams, and that was all he would allow himself for the moment. “Certainly not, no.”
“Then why do it?”
“To deny the artist his canvas and paint too long is to drive him mad. Some hungers are not so easily fed as others.” He gestured idly at a monster in an alley that was quite contentedly ripping the flesh off a young woman it had run down. She was still alive, although her gagging cries of pain revealed it was only for the moment. “And Zadok has a talent in such regard. He will destroy them from the inside out. And when he is finished, when they split, then we will be done with them.”
“And what of the girl?”
Vlad smiled sadly. “Her fate is hers to write. Not mine. She has learned my kindness…now I shall have her learn my cruelty.”
Walter was silent for a long time. “You love her. Why put her through such agony?”
“Do you remember what you endured before I agreed to turn you?” It was only then that he looked at his second-in-command. Walter’s face was drawn tight and cold with the memory, but there was a flare of fresh pain in his red eyes. “And you understand now why I did it.”
“You test her mettle, then, to see if she is strong enough to survive you.” Walter grunted wearily and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “She may hate you for this.”
“It is likely. I will deserve it if she does. But I would have my hopes shatter and not atrophy. If she will loathe me, I would have her love die in a blaze of glory, not wither and fade as she comes to slowly be disgusted by my true nature.”
“Master, may I speak frankly?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think you are worthy of love?”
Vlad flinched. He paused for a very long time before responding, debating whether he should speak the truth. But if Walter was not trustworthy, no one was. “I am not sure.”
Walter let out a thoughtful hum. “So that is what this about.” He stepped to the edge of the building. �
��Very well. I will go along with this. I can only pray to the gods in Hell that at the end of this farce you find your answer once and for all.” He exploded into red bats, soared up into the sky, and was gone.
Vlad laughed.
The hunters had finished dispatching the monster they had found. Eddie had gone to Maxine’s side and was now shaking her shoulder, trying to rouse her. She jolted awake, thrashing in a panic. Eddie stroked her covered arm, trying to soothe her. Vlad watched as someone else gave her the comfort he wished he could provide.
His heart ached for what he was going to force her to suffer. But it was a path he must walk. He would not keep her sheltered from the truth of his soul and let her love only a facet as so many others had done. Like the cards in Maxine’s tarot deck, he chose to be whatever they wanted him to be. Oh, his former lovers would always say they knew him for what he was, but it was always a naïve lie.
It was a fate she had begun to share. But he would not spin that falsehood for her. After all, they had made an accord, hadn’t they?
She would be forced to see all of him firsthand.
Will you love me when all is said and done? Or am I beyond all salvation?
3
Eddie pressed a flask into her hand. Maxine unscrewed the top and took a sip. She didn’t even care what kind of alcohol it was. It didn’t matter. She screwed the cap back on and returned it to him, nodding once in thanks.
“I threw up the first time I saw a real fight,” Eddie said with a helpful smile.
“It wasn’t that.” She rubbed the back of her neck slowly, feeling the tightness in the muscles. “I don’t even think I saw much of it.”
“What’s wrong, then?” Bella was also standing nearby, her brow creased in concern.
“It’s the whole city.” Alfonzo’s tone was dark and flat. He was wiping the blood from his sword. “Isn’t it?”
Curse of Dracula Page 2
