I’ll do you proud, old master.
Deep down, Rafael felt Vincent was the most likely candidate if the killer should turn out to be a member of the clan but Dracula counted his share of human enemies too and that would be the line of inquiry to focus on first. The final outcome of their investigation was for certain – blood would be spilled, and the guilty party would pay for their crime.
Rafael turned away from the painting and directed his full attention to Dracula’s coffin, which sat atop a platform that had been raised a few steps off the floor. The grand, sumptuous casket had been handcrafted and dated back centuries. None of the other members of the clan slept in coffins anymore but the idea held a strong appeal for Rafael, especially on this night. Some might call it outdated but to his eyes, the coffin represented a rich tradition and part of his heritage. Rafael loved being a vampire and disliked the notion of having to adapt to a crass, superficial age. Dracula didn’t adhere to the post-modern rules of vampirism; he would have scoffed at the notion of a sensitive vampire. Were tigers and lions sensitive to their prey? Apex predators didn’t live on soy patties and tofu burgers. They dominated the top of the food chain for a specific reason - they were vicious killers. Those who forgot this simple truism would end up paying the ultimate price.
Rafael stepped up to the open coffin. It was lined with plush red velvet, a resting place worthy of the king of vampires. Rafael slid into the coffin and sealed the lid with an audible snap. As the world was erased by complete darkness, his thoughts turned to his maker.
I’ll make your killer pay dearly, old master. I promise you that.
It was a promise that Rafael would not be able to keep.
***
Faust added more wood to the fireplace and the flames flickered and sizzled, painting his features a sinister red. There was a fireplace in nearly every room of the chateau, even the kitchen and patio, reminders that the estate had been built before centralized heating.
Faust turned away from the fire and regarded the two hapless human prisoners. They looked like they had stumbled upon a horror movie set. The chamber was dominated by a collection of medieval torture devices. There was a rack, an iron maiden and an assortment of rusting chains that hung from the wall. Paul’s arms and legs were tied with leather straps to the rack and Maria was chained to a stone pillar. Their gags had been removed. Dracula had jokingly nicknamed the chamber his hobby room. No one could say that the master didn’t have a sense of humor, but maybe one had to be a vampire to appreciate it.
A random visitor might think that the Count was just a rich freak with a penchant for the Middle Ages and the disposable cash to take his hobby a few steps too far. But the truth was far simpler. Once upon a time, torture devices very much like the ones in this chamber had been used in the Count’s service. Designed to both terrify and rend vulnerable flesh and bone, they’d been used to inflict terrible harm upon his many enemies. This room was Dracula’s way of expressing his nostalgia for a past long gone.
Unlike the master, Faust didn’t long for times gone by. He’d been a card-carrying member of the Nazi party but he avoided looking back, knowing nothing good could come from it. He had kept some souvenirs from the old days (his dagger was one of them), but generally he avoided anything associated with the period. The Third Reich had fallen and Hitler had decided to snack on a bullet. The End. The stronger force had prevailed, might makes right, and the world had irrevocably changed. So had Faust, for that matter. After all, vampires didn’t hold any allegiance to any nation but stood outside of humanity as the top of the food chain.
If Rafael felt honored to have received the dark gift, Faust almost saw it as his destiny. Spurred on by Hitler’s ideology, he’d grown up believing that he was fated for greatness, but that had changed as soon as he encountered Dracula. The Count showed him the true path to timeless glory. Dracula had eased his transition, allowed him to connect with his darkness and strength. And now that Dracula was out of the picture, a new golden age for their kind could commence.
The Count had kept their numbers low, fearing that humanity would turn on them if they became aware of vampires’ existence. But hiding in the darkness wasn’t a solution. Vampires were superior to humans in every way and foreordained to rule over the inferior species. Hitler had talked about the master race. Well, here they were. Ready to reshape the world in the vampire’s image with humanity’s blood as their clay. A new day would dawn for their kind and the clan would soon be ruling humanity. First from the shadows and then, as their ranks swelled, in plain sight. Most men longed to be slaves, to serve those who were stronger, and Faust was all too willing to satisfy that need. Rafael might want to believe that he was in charge, but he would soon learn otherwise.
Faust stole another glance at Coraline, admiring her statuesque beauty. Blonde and blue-eyed, she’d have been desired and envied in Germany. Screw that, the woman was a hit wherever she went. Blondes never went out of style. Faust watched as Coraline playfully snapped a chain around her wrist while closing in on Paul.
“Castle and dungeons, talk about a mid-millennium crisis.” Coraline grinned at Paul, amused by her own joke. The young man’s eyes were alive with terror. He’d seen what these monsters were capable of. On the surface they appeared human, but nothing could be further from the truth.
As Coraline moved in closer, Maria and Paul’s eyes met for a brief instant. They tried to draw strength from each other but saw their own terror reflected back at them. After the horrors they’d experienced in the last few hours, hope was fading fast and their will to find a way out of this nightmare was being eroded.
Coraline twirled her long strands of hair, synchronizing the movement with the spinning chain, long nails brushing against cold steel. Her eyes lit up, struck by another idea. She fished out her cellphone and started snapping a few pictures of the two hapless victims.
“For the wedding album.”
Coraline paused, sensing movement behind her – Faust had decided to join her. He regarded Maria with eager eyes.
Paul gnashed his teeth and his frustration exploded to the surface.
“Goddammit, take me, but let her go.”
His pleas fell on deaf ears. There was no mercy to be had from the vampires.
Faust and Coraline descended on the hapless couple.
Paul and Maria’s screams echoed throughout the castle, their desperate cries for help going unanswered.
***
That night, Vincent dreamed of the woman who changed his life twenty years before. Her name was Sasha and she hadn’t been on his mind for a few months now. But this morning, as soon as the first rays of sunlight stole across the keep and Vincent closed his eyes, descending into sleep, she was with him again.
Vincent found himself on a foggy, deserted stretch of beach. This wasn’t Venice, nor was it a tropical paradise. The sand was a dark brown-grey, the sky a death shroud that cast a sickly pallor across the foaming, surging sea. Black rocks rose from the ocean like the jagged, rotting teeth of some submerged giant.
Lighting up the darkness in the near distance, a luminescent figure made its way down the endless strand like a lone ray of sunshine. A blue dress accentuated her stunning figure and danced in the furious gusts of wind. Her dirty blonde locks of hair spun around her face, imbuing her with a raw, untamed elemental quality. She strode toward the boiling ocean with a sense of tragic purpose, a siren returning to the sea.
Sasha’s ageless gaze turned heavenward. Toward the horizon where the morning sun began to rise. The sunlight burned through the fog, which parted like dense clouds, turning the gloom into brilliant day. The rays sparkled across the ocean and advanced toward the land. In Vincent’s dream, it felt like Sasha slowed down for a second, stopping her steady advance so that she could tilt her head toward Vincent and exchange one final look with the lover whom she was about to leave behind for all time.
Vincent could feel his lips parting in a soundless scream. He started to run toward her. Ma
ybe if he reached her in time, he could shield her with his body and take the first fiery hits of the sun. But his feet had become clay, the sand sweeping him back so that each step turned into an exercise in futility.
All that Vincent could do was watch. Watch as the sun washed over the woman he loved.Watch as the fire consumed her, reducing her to a pile of ash.
Vincent screamed and the nightmare shattered around him, the beach replaced by the unfamiliar surroundings of the guest room in the master’s estate.
For an eternal moment, Vincent remained frozen in place. His body was shaking, his skin coated with crimson perspiration. Slowly, he centered himself, regaining control and shaking off the nightmare like so much dead skin. The dream brought back the other memories. Memories of that fateful day when he’d woken to find the side of the bed empty, Sasha long gone, the note tucked under her pillow the lone indicator that she had ever been there in the first place.
Vincent remembered being taken aback but not disturbed. It was not common for Sasha to wake before he did, but it did happen on occasion. Having mistaken the note at first for a romantic gesture, a smile had lit up Vincent’s features. As he read Sasha’s final parting words, his expression changed. At first incredulous, his initial disbelief became an icy terror that clenched his gut and seemed to claw its way into every part of his being. The handwritten note was composed in a beautiful, delicate script and read as follows:
My dear beloved Vincent. I leave you with a heavy heart, but I find that there is no other way. For every night I go on living, some unfortunate soul must perish. Why should my own life be worth the blood of another? I hope that in time you'll understand why I did what I did and that you can forgive me. I wish you all the best.
Yours forever,
Sasha
Vincent dropped the note, allowing it to drift to the hardwood floor of their Venice beach loft. A heart-wrenching instant later, he was out the door, not sure where he would start his search but knowing that he couldn’t spend one more moment inside their home, which was filled with the many reminders of everything they’d shared over the years.
Vincent recoiled under the power of this memory. He slipped out of bed and almost as if in a trance, removed the necklace. A wistful, forlorn expression crept into his features as he opened the locket and beheld Sasha’s likeness.
The dream had brought it all back. Correction: it wasn’t the dream but finding himself in this place, surrounded by Dracula’s disturbing legacy, that gave renewed urgency to memories once thought to have been successfully banished to the farthest reaches of his mind. Dracula’s chalet was designed to keep the past alive, and it was living up to its reputation.
Vincent checked the time. It was half-past nine and he had barely gotten two hours of shut-eye. He felt wide-awake, energized, and knew it would be impossible to fall asleep again. He decided to get up and explore the castle while the others rested. There was nothing else to do but fill the long hours before nightfall.
It would be a long day, Vincent thought.
He had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be.
***
As Vincent rose and left his room, somewhere else in the castle a door creaked open and a phantom intruder slid into Dracula’s private chambers. For a moment the shadow paused, taking in the surroundings, before proceeding to the sealed coffin.
Inside the casket, Rafael rested, eyes closed, body relaxed. His mind had already long drifted into a peaceful slumber when the coffin’s lid was torn open. A beam of ultraviolet light washed over him, blinding the startled vampire. Before Rafael could fully process what was happening, there was a flash of metal. The stake tore through his chest and punctured his heart in less than a second, the organ already flooding with oxygen as the assailant brought down the mallet with deadly force.
Rafael cried out, his voice a mixture of pain and shock, and found himself pinned to the bottom of the coffin like an insect inside a display case. He looked up, his eyes finding the assailant... A shadowy figure loomed above the eldest member of the clan, features cloaked in dense shadow, looking like death itself. Rafael’s eyes widened further as he caught sight of the steel blade. He knew all too well what was coming next. The new and soon-to-be former leader of the vampire clan exhaled a final bestial scream before the blade separated his head from his body.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SUN EDGED over the horizon and the first rays of light crept across the rolling hills, caressing Dracula's chateau and chasing away the last vestiges of darkness. A new day had arrived.
Vincent stood inside a glass structure that sat atop the roof of the chateau. Tinted glass shielded him from the sunlight while offering a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and vineyards. Vincent took in the sunrise, delighted and awed by the spectacle. This was his first actual dawn since Dracula turned him over a century before. But his elation was tempered by more troubling thoughts. He was still haunted by his nightmare and the memories it had dredged up from his past.
Sasha.
The woman who changed everything.
Vincent opened the locket he had almost lost the other night and studied the faded photograph inside. The picture didn’t quite match the woman in his memories. As time passed, it became harder to tell who was the real Sasha – the one who haunted his dreams or the one he carried close to his heart. But Vincent would be hard pressed to put his feeling about her into words. All he knew was that she’d been the shining beacon that guided him from the darkness.
Sasha had come to Dracula’s attention in the seventies. She was a Boston girl trying her luck in California. Her appetite for music and art brought her to San Francisco, where everything would change for her but not quite in the way she anticipated. She must’ve been a temptation that Dracula couldn’t resist, so innocent and beautiful, her life ahead of her, flush with possibility and promise. With a simple, brutal act, he changed the course of her existence. It wasn’t enough for Dracula to feed on Sasha’s blood; he had to also steal her light and extinguish her fire, dragging her into his own sordid darkness.
But Sasha refused to follow the script that the master envisioned for her. Instead of becoming a broken, shattered creature that would follow Dracula’s every whim and remain at his beck and call, Sasha stood her ground and maintained her integrity. Dracula might’ve taken her flesh and blood, twisted it into something dark and monstrous, but he would never be able to possess that which he wanted most – her soul.
Sasha died that night in 1971, but she refused to fall under Dracula’s dark spell. She might be a vampire who thrived on the blood of the living, but she would not take a life and blemish her conscience with the sins of Dracula’s kind. She’d feed off other living creatures, becoming weak in body but remaining strong in spirit. She somehow managed to do what none of them had been able to –retain her humanity in the face of the encroaching darkness. It was this defining characteristic that caught Vincent’s attention. It was the reason he fell so hard for her.
Incoming footsteps broke Vincent’s reverie. He spun around and his eyes settled on Angelique. Despite everything that had happened between them, Vincent couldn’t deny that she was a beautiful woman. At least on the surface. But Vincent had gotten a chance to see what hid behind that veneer of beauty – a creature both cruel and venal.
“I thought I might find you here,” Angelique said with a knowing smile. “Amazing, isn't it? Dracula wanted to live like a vampire. But he wasn't quite ready to forego all the privileges of being human. Enjoying a sunrise was one of them.”
“Where's your boyfriend?” Vincent asked.
Angelique’s smile vanished. “Zane’s not my boyfriend.”
“What is he then?”
“A diversion.” Angelique’s gaze remained fixed on Vincent. “How do you pass your time nowadays, Vincent?” Angelique asked. “Don’t tell me you’re resigned to living in the past? Memories can be comforting, a link to better times. But they can also become a prison from wh
ich we refuse to escape.”
Vincent’s features darkened. She was goading him, hoping to elicit a response. He wouldn’t indulge her.
“Why are you still awake?” he asked.
Angelique’s voice softened. “I can't get the image of the master's remains out of my mind.”
Angelique didn’t come right out and say it but for the first time in centuries, she had been reminded that she might be ageless, but she was not immortal. Angelique leaned closer. “I can see in the dark. I can hear anything approaching within a hundred feet. Most weapons can't harm me. And I think, for the first time in three centuries, I'm scared.”
Vincent wondered for a second whether Angelique’s sudden vulnerability was another manipulative ploy or came from a place of real emotion. Almost as if she had read Vincent’s thoughts and meant to prove him wrong, she said, ”I'm worried about you, Vincent. It hurts me to see you like this. To see what you've turned into.”
“And what is that?”
“A shadow,” Angelique said matter-of-factly.
“I was a killer of men. Sasha showed me another way.”
“If she was such an enlightened spirit, why did she walk into that sunrise?”
Vincent was unable to provide an answer. It was a question that had tormented him since the moment he read her farewell note. Sasha had accepted what she had become without losing sight of where she came from. She’d been an inspiration for Vincent and had set an indelible example that he could follow. They were good together and good for each other. The future for them had once looked bright.
The same light that the master had hoped to take from her by force and extinguish for all time, she gave freely to Vincent. What she’d seen in him remained a mystery. But she had chosen him, and he’d been lucky to be on the receiving end of her love.
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