A sudden gasp from the far corner drew Vincent’s attention. He turned in the direction of the sound and his eyes landed on an attractive twenty-something couple almost hidden away in the far corner of the room. Their mouths were covered with duct-tape and they had been tied to the chairs with heavy ropes. Panicked eyes ticked back and forth, terror metastasizing with each new arrival. And below the couple’s fear, there was something else. Shocked disbelief. Despite what their senses were telling them, they couldn’t quite accept what was happening around them.
Vincent's eyes locked with the female’s and lingered for a second too long. An expression of disapproval crossed Vincent’s face. Touched by the woman’s mounting terror, he shifted his attention to Angelique.
“What’s the meaning of this? I thought it was only supposed to be the eight of us?”
Faust answered by hurling two wedding bands onto the table.
“Meet Paul and Maria, American newlyweds honeymooning in the French countryside. They had the misfortune of running into me. I guess they should've booked that cruise instead.”
Faust rose and languidly approached the couple.
Maria and Paul began to squirm - this wasn’t their first interaction with him. The numerous bite marks tattooed across their arms and necks told their own story. The man tried to remain brave but was failing as miserably as the woman.
“You can’t have a proper reunion without some party favors.”
Faust ripped off Maria's gag and she gasped. Her voice was a parched whisper.
“Who… are you…? What are you going to do to us?”
Faust's answer was to extricate a SS officer’s dagger from the scabbard chained to his belt. The chain was adorned with SS runes, a reminder of the Nazi fascination with their Germanic pagan roots. The wooden handle was decorated with an eagle, Swastika and enameled runic button. A weapon of another age well suited for a creature who didn’t obey the laws of time. The blade hovered before Maria’s terrified eyes, eight and half inches of polished steel engraved with the SS motto “Meine Ehre Heisst Treue.” Translated it meant “my honor is loyalty.”
Who did Faust swear his loyalty to nowadays, Vincent wondered. Was he loyal to Dracula, loyal to the clan? Or merely loyal to his own selfish needs and hunger for power?
Paul let out a muffled moan, straining against his unyielding ropes. Faust caressed Maria's neck with the cold steel of his blade, its surface capturing her terrified reflection.
Maria spoke, her words a tremulous whisper as the first tears made their way down her beautiful, blood-caked face.
“Please...”
The blade touched her vulnerable skin, its sharp tip drawing a point of blood.
Vincent stiffened, responding to its coppery smell. He had turned his back on his old life but the call of the blood remained. Instincts could be controlled but they couldn’t be completely suppressed.
“Speak up, I can't hear you,” Faust said.
“That’s enough.” Vincent ordered.
Faust regarded him as if he had lost his mind.
“What’s the problem?”
“Feed if you must, but don't torture them.”
Faust shook his head with disbelief.
“Is he serious?”
The question hung in the air.
“He is, isn't he? I guess Angelique was right about you, Vincent. You’ve lost your sense of fun.”
“I knew coming here was a mistake,” Vincent said.
He was about to rise when Rafael intervened, his resonant voice booming within the large dining hall.
“Stop, both of you. We've come together today to honor the passing of our master, not to squabble amongst ourselves.”
There was a moment between Vincent, Faust and Rafael, the tension palpable. Maria was caught in the middle and appeared hypnotized, the blade remaining suspended above her forehead.
“Faust, you’ll have time to play with the meat once we’ve taken care of business,” Rafael advised him.
The German vampire inclined his head slightly, an acknowledgment of Rafael’s authority. The hunting knife slid back into its leather sheath and Faust rejoined the table, his unflinching gaze never leaving Vincent.
Rafael nodded and proceeded with the meeting.
“None of us would be here if it hadn’t been for the generosity of our master. He shared his gift, gave us his strength. We were given a future when death was all too ready to claim us.”
Rafael’s magnetic gaze swept the chamber, taking in the vampires gathered around the table, looking at each of them in turn.
He started with Faust.
“Faust, even if you had survived the war, the Allies would have punished you for your crimes against humanity...”
Rafael turned his gaze to the next member of the clan.
“Angelique, your lovely neck would have been no match for the steely kiss of the French Revolution...”
Little emotion registered on Angelique’s face but Vincent thought he saw her lips quiver ever so slightly. She didn’t like to talk about the past and Vincent knew that she had endured much during her human years.
“Sebastian, what was the life expectancy of an orphan working the streets of Nineteenth Century London?”
Sebastian sagely nodded his head and the grave look on his face suggested that he had far exceeded it.
Rafael fixed his attention on Zane.
“Zane, after gunning down a Highway Patrol officer, both the cops and the Hells Angels wanted you dead. The master offered you a way out.”
Vincent took this in, curious despite himself. He knew next to nothing about Zane except the obvious fact that he had acted like an asshole earlier. He sensed that Rafael had merely touched upon the tip of the iceberg with his words. Vincent reminded himself to query Angelique later. The biker seemed to have it in for him, and Vincent liked to know who his friends were as well as his enemies.
Rafael continued addressing the rest of the clan, using their shared history to remind them how grateful they should feel for being able to sit at this table.
Vincent bristled inwardly at Rafael’s obsequious tone. Rafael, who had encountered Dracula while on some knight’s fool errand, truly was a fool if he believed half of what he was babbling about. Vincent, for one, wasn’t shedding any tears today. He had known what Dracula was when he tracked him across Texas and the passage of time hadn’t changed his opinion. He had come to respect the master-vampire to a degree but felt that, like all of them, Dracula was far beyond redemption.
Rafael finished by summing up Vincent’s encounter with Dracula in the saloon and how merciful the master was in sparing him that night. He then proceeded to address the whole table.
“If not for Dracula, most of us would be dust, like everyone else we once knew and loved. He gave us the gift of eternal life...”
“Some would consider it eternal damnation,” Julian said.
“If that's how you feel, then why not end your unholy existence, father?” Faust asked, a wolf sniffing blood and the promise of a fight.
“God teaches us that suicide is not an option,” Julian countered.
“The words of the creator or the feelings of a coward too terrified to meet his maker?” Faust asked.
Vincent realized that Rafael had his work cut out for him if he wanted to be clan leader. Half the job seemed to consist of a willingness to play cop when everyone else wanted to break the law. As Rafael tried to restore order to the room, Vincent actually felt a little sorry for the former knight.
“That's enough! I didn't call for this meeting so we could bicker among ourselves. The master’s murder must be avenged.”
“What was Dracula doing back in Europe?” Vincent asked. When Vincent spoke of Dracula, he used the Count’s name and never referred to him as “master.” It was a subtle but telling distinction. “I thought he was hunting along the Ivory Coast?”
“Dracula had grown tired of being so far away from home,” Rafael said. “He felt that our k
ind had lost touch with the old ways and wanted to reconnect with his past.”
Vincent's eyes locked with Rafael’s. He chose his next words carefully, calibrating them for his current audience.
“How did Dracula meet his end?”
Instead of providing an explanation, Rafael rose to his feet and tilted his head toward the sweeping marble staircase at the far end of the dining hall.
“Better if you all see for yourself.”
***
Torches swept the underground crypt, flames guttering, and shadows danced across the rough-hewn, calcined walls. The stench of death suffused the air.
Rafael led the group toward an altar that dominated a medieval mausoleum. The master’s charred remains were splayed out across its stone surface. The sun had stripped all flesh off his form, leaving a blackened skeleton behind. The head had been severed and was splayed out next to the bodily remains. The hollow sockets of Dracula’s skull pointed at the ceiling, unseeing. The sharp fangs that dominated the rows of teeth were the lone evidence of what he’d once been. The severing of the head made reanimation impossible, even if some of the movies claimed otherwise. The killer or killers had known what they were up against and what it would take to put an end to Dracula’s bloody reign.
Vincent studied the remains of the monster in contemplative silence. Someone had succeeded where he had failed. Dracula had turned every one of them into monsters but once the change had taken hold, they’d become mirror reflections of their creator. His blood coursed through their veins, his curse branding them throughout all time. In the end, they all followed the same dark call of the blood. How could Vincent judge Dracula, considering the monster he himself had become? There had been numerous times when he’d wished to be free of Dracula’s power but now as he peered upon the Count’s pathetic mummified corpse - all that remained of a once-formidable legend - he didn’t quite know how he felt. Was it relief or horror? Or perhaps a little bit of both? Because the truth was, if the master could be murdered, then none of them were safe.
So much for immortality.
A hushed, stunned silence had descended over the mausoleum. Julian made the sign of the cross, which earned him a smirk from Faust. Vincent was the one to break the quiet and ask the question that was on everyone’s mind.
“How?”
Rafael answered in a halting voice.
“I found him in a clearing about five-hundred feet from the castle. His hands and feet nailed to a cross, a stake rammed through his heart, his body exposed to the ravages of the sun.”
A moment passed as everyone processed the full horror of what had happened. Vincent examined the silver nails and stakes laid out across the stone table next to Dracula’s burned remains.
“The nails and stake were made of silver?”
“Yes,” Rafael nodded.
“The head was removed after the body was burnt?” More a cold assessment than a question, but Rafael still nodded his head.
“Looks like our vampire killer did his homework.”
“I'm amazed that after being exposed to the sun all day, anything at all would remain,” Sebastian commented.
“The master was one of a kind.” Rafael’s voice was tempered with deep awe as he spoke. “The most powerful vampire to ever walk this Earth.”
“What about the chateau’s caretaker?” Vincent inquired. “Any familiars protecting the master during the daytime?”
Rafael pointed at three nearby coffins.
“Dracula had three humans that ran the property: two females, one male, all in their later twenties, all of them Algerian immigrants. They were dead when I arrived at the chateau. Bullets to the head, very professional. No sign of any resistance.”
“Could it mean that they knew the killer?” Vincent wondered.
“Or they were just caught off guard,” Angelique said.
Vincent nodded, and he realized that a part of him missed all this. Analyzing a crime, breaking it into its component parts while trying to recreate what happened. For a brief moment, it felt like the last hundred years had never happened and he was still a Texas Ranger who tracked bad guys for a living.
“How did they get Dracula on the cross?” Coraline asked in a hushed, reverent tone. Almost as if she felt it was a faux pas to raise her voice with Dracula’s remains splayed out before her.
“I’m not sure but my guess is, he must’ve been tricked into drinking tainted blood or the blood of a dead person,” Vincent explained. “It would put any one of us in a coma but a vampire of Dracula’s stature would only be out for a few hours.”
“Enough time for the killer to achieve his objective,” Faust said and regarded Rafael with a sudden trace of suspicion. “I'm curious, Rafael. What were you doing at the castle?”
Taken aback by the mistrustful tone in Faust’s voice, Rafael explained, “The master requested my presence.”
“Could you just be a little less specific?”
Growing defensive, Rafael said, ”I don't know what was going through Dracula's mind. And I don't appreciate the insinuation here.” A charged moment as they stared each other down, neither willing to give up ground first.
So the infighting and power play for the clan begins, Vincent thought. Suddenly, another idea occurred to him.
“The killer could’ve finished the master off within these castle walls. But he wanted to draw out his suffering and send a message.”
“A message for whom?”
“All of us,” Vincent said. “This was personal.”
The vampires pondered the possibility. Rafael finally broke the tense silence.
“I know we’ve all travelled far to be here tonight and it’s getting late. The sun will be rising soon. I suggest we retire for the day, get some rest and continue this investigation tomorrow evening.”
Vincent had to agree with Rafael. They’d needed time to digest what they’ve learned. Best that they rebuild their strength and tackle the problem in a few hours with a renewed sense of vitality.
One after another, the vampires began to file out of the underground crypt. Vincent was the last to leave and now only Rafael and Angelique remained in the mausoleum, the torches painting their alabaster faces an inhuman red. There were important matters that needed to be discussed.
***
Rafael’s wary gaze followed Vincent until he disappeared from view. He didn’t even try to disguise his suspicion or reign in his accusatory glare.
“I thought you said he wasn't coming.”
“I guess he changed his mind,” Angelique said.
Rafael nodded, eyes slitted, his mind churning. “So what do you think? Did he do it?”
“You want my honest opinion? There's no way in hell. Vincent prefers the direct approach.”
Rafael remained doubtful.
“You sure you're not letting your personal feelings cloud your judgment here?”
Angelique responded in a firm, confident voice. “It wasn’t him.”
Rafael nodded as if he was accepting Angelique’s assessment, but his narrowed gaze belied his true feelings. “I want you to keep an eye on him.”
With these final words, Rafael left the crypt. Angelique's attention shifted back to Dracula's remains. She had loved Vincent once, and maybe she still did, but if it should turn out that Vincent had something to do with the master’s murder, his bones would soon be joining Dracula’s remains. She’d make certain of it.
CHAPTER SIX
RAFAEL THREADED HIS way up a narrow stone staircase, its walls bare and beaded with moisture. The eldest member of the clan emerged from the crypt area, passed through a steel door and returned to one of the main hallways. A few candles flickered inside sconces but Rafael didn’t need an external light source to navigate the chateau, not with his vampire senses mapping the way. He traversed a carpeted, wood-paneled corridor that swept away in a gentle curving arc, passing a series of doorways that led to the chateau’s sleeping quarters. His destination lay at the very end of the h
allway: a massive timber door adorned with strange symbols.
The master’s chambers. The place where Rafael planned to spend the night.
With Dracula gone, he would be the new leader of the clan and in his mind he deserved his maker’s quarters. The choice would communicate who was in charge in case anyone decided to challenge his position. The clan wasn’t a democracy, never had been and never would be, not if Rafael had any say in the matter. Picking a new clan leader would not be determined by votes but by seniority. And Rafael was nearly as old as the master himself. He’d been a knight who chose to plunder the wrong tomb. Why had he been spared while his men were massacred? He wasn’t better than the charges under his command, but he was willing to die for his cause. And such blind devotion appealed to the master.
It was something he could corrupt and distort. And he had.
Rafael, the noble, misguided, knight who’d swung his sword at the attacking vampire, all too willing to lay down his life for his men, was no more. Dracula had tainted him. He’d become just another addition to the master’s collection of lost souls.
Rafael inserted a steel key into the lock and its rasp echoed down the dark passageway. Gears clicked and the door opened. Dracula’s private quarters awaited.
Rafael disappeared inside the chamber and the door fell shut behind him. He flicked on a switch and the recessed lights in the ceiling sprung to life. The bedroom was stunning and put the other sleeping quarters to shame. An ornately designed oaken coffin dominated the chamber while priceless treasures decorated the walls. Foremost among them was a giant portrait of the master himself.
Rafael had no idea who had been commissioned for the piece but the artist had captured Dracula’s enigmatic appeal. His face seemed alive in the painting, the hooded eyes seeming to follow Rafael with mysterious intent. Once again Rafael’s heart was wracked by grief and he experienced a flash of growing anger.
How dare someone be so brazen as to go after the master?
And even though they had succeeded, their victory would be short-lived, that he was certain of. Rafael would hunt down the guilty party and make them suffer the way they had made Dracula suffer. They would curse the day they had set foot within his chateau.
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