A/N: So this is a story that came to mind after I had visited St. Augustine, a city that I quickly fell in love with, and I had to follow through. This is the work of three minds, not just me, and it took a lot of planning and discussion to get it as far as it has. It is pretty obvious where it begins, and will become more apparent the further along we go.

"Dracula is dead."

Those three words echoed across the cavernous basement. It was made of stone, supported by rows of pillars, and filled with nothing but the light of one flickering candle and a deep baritone voice. The basement was a work of magic, while it did have wonderful acoustics that sent the creatures voice spilling out across the room like gentle waves, it also should not have existed. The building it resided under was tall, three and in some places four stories high, and spanned across a few acers of land. It was an excellent work of Spanish Victorian architecture, with high domed ceilings and plenty of alcoves and outdoor walkways, and in the center courtyard a large fountain sat. A clock tower stood above it all and every hour it chimed a complicated tune that was equal parts joyous and sad. While this building, this estate, had once been a hotel visited by only the handfuls of the rich nobles that could afford it, it was now used as an institute of education. A College if you will. And several hundred pairs of feet tromped through it during the day and few scampered about during the night. While the building was beautiful and prosperous it by no means should have had a basement. You see, this was Flaggler College, a historic building designed and built in the Victorian era, and it rested in the very northern east corner of Florida. Any basement generally built in Florida was either very small, barely reached seven feet in height, or it simply did not last long due to the limestone foundation and streams of underground waterways that made up the undergrounds of Florida.

A fifteen foot tall room spanning the entire length of the college would not have lasted long and would have caused the entire building itself to collapse overt time.

Yet there it was.

"Sir?"

A new voice joined the baritone. It was not as deep but still obviously male and had a curious lilt to its voice. It spoke of years of education and history, of a time long since passed, as all the true Nosferatu's voices did.

"The No-Life King has finally fallen," the baritone replied.

"That is impossible . . ."

The room, already darkened by natural shadows, now became cold and a rising distress built within the walls emanating from the softer of the two. But soon, his own distress was only one of the many that spanned the globe. Across the world, in dungeons and castles, penthouses and grand suits, cottages and mountains, any place that spoke of power and time, any place that radiated the untouchable aura of the monsters that once roamed the Earth and struck fear within the hearts of men, a multitude of emotions burst into life and swirled through the atmosphere. Creatures who had held onto the past with all their might, fingers grasping the edge of the cliff, grip slowly slipping, knuckles white with strain, wailed in grief. They had lived so long, known what it was like to watch as their stories traveled and affected the men of this world, known what it was like when just their name was enough to send entire armies into retreat, known what the world had been so long ago – still so new and at the same time ancient, filled with mystery and wonder, when there was more worth in dying a valiant death than succeeding in a company- and the last vestige of it all . . . had finally passed. The one they had looked to, the one meant to uphold the past, all their traditions, their legacies, had been extinguished. His very life had been a tribute to the magnificence that had come and gone, he had breathed the very essence of creation and destruction into the world with every glorious laugh, men marched to battle under his command with swords and even as time passed and humans dropped their blades in favor of guns his mere presence enough to reawaken the instinct to go to war with nothing but their own bare hands, his posture had been that of true nobility not seen since men had industrialized, every aspect of him had been nothing but the beauty of ages passed, and it had all been bottled up within him and released into the air with his death to disperse and vanish like so much ash. The era of romanticism had died. And now all that was left was a world already scoured by humanity, no stone left unturned, and bare of all its previous secrets. Humans had already begun to fall into a mindless boredom that could only be sated by instantaneous information and pleasure, leaving them as nothing but absent vegetables, no longer interested in what the Earth had to offer them. Everything would slowly dwindle and die like a dry and drawn out epilogue to an epic to glorious to end. And the old bloods would be forced to whether it all, despairing at once was, and wishing for the past to return or, for it all to end.

"This is what I have been waiting for," the deeper of the two voices, belonging to an intimidating figure clad in a cloak of darkness. It hid the details of his person from view but did not diminish his imposing figure in the least. Dark hair spilled out over his shoulders, over his face, and cascaded down his back and his eye peeked out between the strands. Twin specks of pure ice took in the dark room thoughtfully before turning to the other occupant.

"What do you mean?" the other asked. He was shorter by a few inches and had neatly combed brown locks that did not hide his blood red gaze from the world. It was brushed back against his scalp in a rather old fashioned manner. He himself wore a three piece suit of black and white. His brows crashed together in confusion, still distraught over the aching emptiness within his chest, as he watched the other chuckle and turn away to step further into the darkness, away from the flickering candlelight.

"My dear friend, now that he is out of the way, we can begin rebuilding," he crooned.

"Rebuilding?" he scowled.

"Yes," the man turned to look over his shoulder, blue eyes gleaming in the darkness, "His Empire that fell so long ago . . ."