Curse of Dracula

by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

  It didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered anymore. Not her turmoil. Not his cruelty. It was them. Together. The dark threads of his mind wove through hers, like wings spreading wide in the open night sky. He was inside her in a far more profound way than she could have ever imagined.

  Maxine could barely grasp what was happening. All she knew was him, and pleasure, and him, and bliss. He had released her throat, but the throbbing ecstasy of it had not abated. It was as though it was merely a snowball sent rolling downhill now that it had been started. And his deep, forceful, powerful strokes inside her body were all the momentum it needed to keep going.

  She heard his thoughts inside her, echoing about. You are mine, Maxine Parker. You are mine…and I am yours.

  She was above him now, rocking her body in a slow tempo. How long they had gone on, Maxine could not say. She was too bound up in him to have any sense of time. It did not matter. Nothing mattered.

  Just her. Just him. Just them.

  She pressed her palm against her abdomen, hard enough that she could feel him sliding inside her. She wanted to commit that memory to her soul. She wanted him never to leave her.

  But her decision was made.

  The city lay in ruin. Thousands of lives were dead by violence.

  The image of Alfonzo’s tortured body lying in a puddle of his own blood and ruin flashed through her mind. But it was not only that image she saw. It was those of all the souls in their cells that cried out to her. In that moment she had seen it all. All the death…all the pain…all the misery.

  It had to end.

  He had to end.

  Crimson eyes met hers, lidded and dark with passion. But she saw in him what she had come to accept. A gentle touch stilled her movements, and he pulled her down to him. He kissed her, slow and gentle, filled with all the love in his heart that he had for her.

  When she broke away, he smiled faintly and whispered, “It is time.”

  She nodded, tears forming in her eyes as she kissed him back. In that moment, she reached deep into his soul. She thrust herself deep into the center of his very being.

  He gasped, and suddenly she was on her back. But he was not trying to escape. No. He drove himself deeper inside her, leaning his weight against her hips. She wrapped her legs around his waist and met his force, if not his strength.

  She dug deeper into his soul. Into the center of that unknowable mass she had sensed each time she had touched him. There, at its center…was a poison. Tearing his soul free would leave some of it within her. This curse. But she would happily pay the price for her actions.

  It would likely destroy her.

  Good.

  He broke her kiss but did not sever their link. “Maxine…I love you.”

  Her reach rested at the center of the poison. At the beating vein of corruption that drove him. It was as though she held veins in her hand, if each were made from delicate spun glass. It was so fragile there at its core. She could break it. “I…I love you. I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He smiled against her lips. “I’m not.” He kissed her.

  She shattered him.

  It was as though something rent in half.

  Something that was never meant to come apart.

  She could not say exactly what it was.

  26

  Alfonzo screamed. Hoarse and almost soundless, but he tried. It was a sound that was familiar now. He thought he could no longer feel the pain of what they were doing to him, but he was very wrong.

  The tourniquets had done a good job at dulling the pain of the creatures eating his limbs. But now three of the four were gone. His right hand was gone. His arm that ended in the stump of a wrist was all he had left, stitched shut effectively but painfully.

  A ghoul was lying flat on the ground, tonguing the stitches, sucking blood from the wound without fully opening it. He was being defiled. Just as he defiled Bella. More than anything they had done to him so far, now he was being taken apart from the inside.

  He wanted to die.

  He wanted it to end.

  But death was no longer the way it ended for him. This would continue. It would go on for weeks or longer if the mad Vampire King had his way.

  His scream broke off in a hopeless, empty sob. “I give up,” he whispered. “I give up. Make it stop.”

  The Chainmaster—Alfonzo’s new Master—dragged the ghoul away from him with the yank of a leash. “Good boy. Good.” He soothed the ghoul, not Alfonzo. He sent the creature out of the room. “We have one more thing to do before I fetch Master Dracula and give him the wonderful news.”

  The demon left the room and returned with a silver tray. On it…was a roasted hand. The Chainmaster placed it on the ground beside him, dug deep into his shoulder, and wrenched Alfonzo over so his face hovered over it.

  “Eat.”

  And he did.

  There was a temple. A temple in the sand. It was built from stones carefully cut and stacked atop each other, covered in white limestone and polished to a perfect shine.

  The structure would last for a thousand years and maybe more. Maxine stood there in the center of the enormous room, columns of painted plaster and limestone reaching up overhead. It reminded her of somewhere she had seen before. A throne room designed to inspire horror and dread.

  She was in another vision.

  This place was designed to make its visitors feel as small and as meaningless and trivial as Vlad’s throne room. It was meant to compel its guests to kneel in worship. Although this one was built in dedication to a very different god than the vampire she had known.

  Perhaps this was the last dream she would have before she died. She gazed up at a statue of a bird-headed deity. A large, flat disk of polished copper sat atop the head of the falcon. She knew his name. She was not raised among the Roma and did not read the tarot without knowing from where they drew their history.

  Ra. The sun god of Egypt in times long past. No one remained to worship him. No one remained who lit candles to him. And if they did, they were few in number. But it was not the now in which she stood. This was not her dream.

  This was his.

  She had torn Vlad’s soul from his body, and something had ripped in two. And now she was in his mind. But where was she? When was she?

  Fires burned in the distance, and she could smell the desert air. It was night, and the sky was lit up with a hundred thousand stars she did not recognize. Structures in the distance were peppered with large obelisks that reached up into the darkness with their polished faces.

  “I had forgotten this place.”

  She turned to find who had spoken and drew back a step at what she saw. It was not a voice she recognized. It was not a face she knew. But the man she saw gazing up at her, from features that were bronzed and foreign, was familiar all the same. It was not his face. It was his eyes. They were brown, not crimson.

  Not yet.

  He was bald, kneeling on the ground, his hands bound behind him in crude rope. It looked as though he had been beaten. He was mortal. He was…he was alive.

  “Vlad?”

  “In a fashion, perhaps.” He smirked. “I had forgotten all of this.” His eyes drifted shut. “I had chosen to. This is where it all began. This was the start of my curse.”

  “I…what is happening?”

  “I cannot say. You were inside me. I felt you shatter a vessel. My soul was the container for the plague that consumed me. Now that the vessel broken, I…do not know what has transpired. Perhaps we are trapped here for the rest of time. How grand.”

  Two men stood beside him, one on either side. They carried spears tipped in polished metal. They gazed up at the altar, stern and waiting. Vlad—or whatever his name was in this time, since she had a feeling it wasn’t Vlad—was a prisoner. “What did you do to deserve this?”

  “I loved a princess. She loved me. I despoiled her. And this was my punishment for my love. I was advisor to Pharaoh…the right hand to a living God. It was seen as
a deep betrayal.”

  The sound of a cymbal or a bell echoed in the space. She nearly jumped out of her own skin, she was so startled. It seemed the memory wished to play on. She watched, agog, as several men walked into the room. One was carrying a large bowl with a thick, viscous liquid that she recognized. Blood.

  Another was carrying a falcon. Tied and bound, it struggled frantically for freedom. For its life. Falcons were sacred to these people. She could only stand and watch in horror at the memory. There was nothing she could do to change it.

  “They killed my love.”

  She did not turn to look at Vlad where he knelt, so captivated was she by the actions of the priests. They placed the bowl of blood in front of the statue of Ra. While one held up the falcon, the other one said several words she could not understand, before the first submerged the head of the bird in the liquid.

  The falcon thrashed, struggled, and eventually…went still. The priest pulled the dead bird from the substance, his own hands and wrists coated in the crimson liquid, and left the room.

  It was sacrilege.

  Or the worst kind of curse.

  The action left the head priest, gold bangles and jewelry swaying as he moved, to carry the bowl to the waiting prisoner.

  The man on his knees glared up at the priest in utter defiance. She knew his eyes would turn crimson the moment the deed was done. The man would become the Vampire King she loved so dearly. He yanked on the ropes, but there was no freeing himself. Without looking at her, Vlad spoke to her, his voice quiet even as he struggled against the restraints and the soldiers.

  “They drowned the sun within my love and bade me drink of her.”

  The two guards moved to grab his head and hold it still. They meant to drown him in the blood as they did the falcon. And when he rose from that death, he would be a monster.

  “Wait.”

  The action stopped. It froze. She did not know how. She did not know why. But it obeyed her command. She wavered. I should destroy him. I need to destroy him. He wishes for death. To be free of this curse. Of this pain that has haunted him since this moment.

  She walked up to him and took his head in her hands. Leaning down, she kissed him. The shape of his lips was foreign to her. But the creature who burned within was not. He kissed her back. It was a gesture of love.

  It was a gesture that meant goodbye.

  Something in her heart shattered at the notion of losing him. Tears streaked down her face. When she broke away, she shook her head. “I can’t do it. I can’t.”

  “You must. What I am cannot be changed. What I have become is immutable. The torture you have seen me wreak on mortals is doomed to continue. I am what I am. It is as unfaltering as the vision you see here before you. As written in the stones of time.”

  Leaning her forehead against his, she shut her eyes. “I love you.”

  “And I you, Maxine Parker. More than anyone else I have ever known. Do it. Please. Let me die.”

  She placed her hand over his heart. “It may kill me, and if it does not, I cannot—I cannot live without you. I do not know how I can face it.” The idea of eating the end of a pistol or drinking poison was preferable to the ache his absence would leave within her.

  “You will not be alone. A piece of me will live on within you. I will never leave you. You are mine, Maxine Parker…and I will never let you go.”

  She opened her eyes and straightened. Looking at the scene around her, she willed it away. The blood in the bowl of the priest overflowed, pouring from the basin like a fountain.

  She watched in fascination as the blood spread, seemingly intent on devouring the room. Each object it touched dissolved and added to the liquid until she was standing on a sea of crimson that stretched on in all directions. There was no one and nothing there. The priest, the temple, the bowl, the guards—it was all gone. Nothing but her…and him…and the blood.

  He was as she knew him with his ghastly pale skin and long dark hair. He looked defeated, kneeling in the liquid. The fallen warlord. The conquered king.

  “I hope this kills me. I truly do. If am to die, I wish to do it in your arms.” She tipped his head up to kiss him once more. He pulled her closer to him.

  She kissed him.

  She reached into him. She felt the soul burning at his core. Alongside it was the corruption and the poison that lingered there. The ancient curse that beat its black heart through him. It fought her. It did not wish to die. Its roots were deep. There would be no pulling it free from the soul it had infected. They were one and the same. He had been rewritten at his very core.

  She destroyed it. She destroyed him.

  Or…she tried.

  The enormity of him tore at her like a rabid tiger. She screamed in pain as the curse fought back. It did not want its host to die. It saw her as the threat she was and tried to tear her to pieces. It was too much—too strong for her.

  It slithered into her like a vile ink.

  But he was there. Around her. Within her. Holding her. Waves of blood consumed them both. But it did not matter. His arms were around her. That was all she needed.

  This was love.

  “You will go no farther.”

  Eddie looked up at the tall, lanky, red-haired vampire who stood at the top of the library stairs. He sighed heavily and hung his head. “Really? Another one of you motherfuckers? Look. I’m here to kill Dracula. Go save yourself.”

  “No.”

  “And who’re you supposed to be?” Eddie cracked his shoulder. “I’m having a seriously shit day, and I don’t want to waste time with you if you’re only some lackey.”

  “I am Master Dracula’s second-in-command.”

  “Oh, good. That’s a step up.” Eddie pulled his guns from his holsters and cracked his neck to the left then the right, readying himself for a fight. “Better or worse than that green-eyed vampire lady?”

  “I am by far her superior.” The vampire let out a thoughtful hum. “Was.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. She was a traitor and a manipulative wench. I did not care for her.” Walter motioned his hand, and a long silver rapier appeared in his grasp, summoned from thin air. “Turn back, hunter. Your mentor is lost. Your comrade is one of us. You have nothing to gain here.”

  “I can stop this.” Eddie waved a gun at the city and the crimson moon overhead. “I can free this place. I can stop him from doing it again anytime soon.”

  “You do not come for revenge?”

  “No. Turns out that’s not a great way to go. Al came here for revenge. Is he…is he still alive?”

  “Yes. For the moment. Although he may not wish he was. He has begged the Chainmaster for death many times over. He has lost three of his limbs, eaten by ghouls…and is about to be forced to dine on the very limb he used to punch Miss Parker in the head.” The vampire remained stoic through his entire casual and impassive explanation of the torture. “Do you still claim this is not about revenge?”

  “I mean, I’m not going to pretend it won’t feel good to make you sick shits suffer. But no.”

  “That is fair.” The vampire twirled his sword and folded it at his back. But Eddie knew it was not a vulnerable pose. “I am Walter Northway.”

  “I’m Eddie Jenkin.”

  The vampire smirked. Eddie thought he did, anyway. Might have been a trick of the shadows. “Well met. Let us begin.”

  “Maxine? Maxine!”

  Someone shook her. She gasped and thrashed, feeling silk sheets underneath her. Around her. She struggled against whoever was touching her. Hands on her shoulders were touching her bare skin. Flashes of a gutter, of young boys laughing, of a carriage abandoning him on the street.

  Zadok.

  She looked up into his concerned face. She was naked. But she could not find the will to care. She looked at him in confusion and reached up to trace her fingers over his cheek. She gasped and pulled her hand back from him the moment she saw it.

  Her skin! What was w
rong with it?

  She looked down at her hands. They were pale. A ghastly gray.

  She was so cold.

  “By God, Maxine…” Zadok tilted her head up to look at him again. He searched her eyes as if he did not understand what he was seeing. “What has he done?”

  Vlad! She turned and found him lying beside her. He was on his back, the sheets tangled around his waist. He was looking up at the ceiling. But his red eyes were glassy and empty.

  Vacant.

  Regret flooded her. She had lived and she was alone. She threw herself atop him, trying to wake him. She shook him, placed her hand on his cheek, and called to him. She remembered the pain. Of something fighting back. But she must have won in the end. He was gone.

  Tears fell from her cheeks and landed on his chest.

  They were crimson.

  She leaned down to kiss him, but his lips were unresponsive.

  “He will not wake. I thought you were both dead.” Zadok tugged gently on her arm. She was weeping, but she allowed him to pull her from the bed, even though her limbs felt useless and like jelly. He slung a robe around her and pulled her into his arms. “My dove, tell me what’s happened. What has he done?”

  “He has done nothing. This is my fault.” She curled into his chest but could not tear her eyes away from Vlad. There was too much to describe. She pushed away from Zadok and glanced around the room. There, by one wall, was a mirror. She walked to it and carefully stepped up to it to examine herself.

  Crimson eyes looked back at her, set into features that were far paler than any she had ever worn. She recognized herself, but barely. She opened her mouth and ran her fingers along her teeth, finding her canines longer and sharper than they should have been.

  “You are a vampire,” Zadok breathed. “Did he turn you?”

  “No. I…I destroyed him.”

  “You what?” Zadok shook his head. “I don’t—”