While I didn't particularly enjoy the movie when I saw it, I thought that it could have had some real potential. Althoughthe filming just screamed 'classic hacker',(excepting a few, brief, moments) the idea behind it was really intriguing. WHAT IF Dracula really was Judas Iscariot from the Bible? It raised all sorts of interesting possibilities and endings for me. (By the way, I didn't like the way the movie ended. Where was my closure? Anybody?)

As for the setting, I suggest if you haven't already rented the DVD and watched the Judas Fantasy Sequence or the extended version of the Cross scene, do it. I used a lot of them in this story because it just made the story fit so much better. This starts after Mary is bitten, discovers Dracula's roots and wakes up.

Oh yes, and one more thing, PLEASE review me even if you think it should be flamed like Drac!

Chapter 1-The Awakening

Mary awoke and slowly sat up, looking around herself for...something. And then she saw him;

Drac- no, Judas, standing before the great luminescent cross with his hands clasped, as if in

prayer. Mary stood there, leaning against the wall and trying to get her bearings. She watched the

man in front of her as he ranted at the great painted cross before them. Her emotions were

whirling and she couldn't tell which were really hers and which were leftover from whatever he had

done to connect her to him. All she knew was roiling waves of grief and pain, anger and anguish

and, as she listened to him speak, she began to cry, knowing that she was the only one who could

give vent to their shared feelings in that way.

She thought back to the vision she had just seen, the one he had shared with her. Her terror rose

as she remembered the very end when he grabbed her and pulled her towards him. Then, she

remembered what she had not really heard the first time...his words.

"Free me, Mary."

The pain, the intensity, the desperate hope behind those simple words seemed to reach out and

take hold of her and she closed her eyes against the sudden knowledge that she truly was the only

one in this world who could give him that freedom. And as she saw the world around her with the

new and crystal clearness of her vampiric senses, so also did she see the man now kneeling before

that great cross with a new clarity. It was frightening and bewildering but yet, for the first time in

her life, she knew, without a doubt, why she was alive.

Her reverie was interrupted as she heard his hypnotic voice call her name.

"Come, Mary." She looked up and saw he was now standing and holding out his hand to her. She

felt her feet move almost of their own volition towards him. She took his outstretched hand and

he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. It was everything she had ever thought a kiss should

be. Tender, passionate, utterly compelling. She would never have thought him capable of such a

thing if she were not experiencing it firsthand. She wanted to deepen it, see what other

unexpected responses she could elicit. She raised her hand to his head, just barely touching him.

His hair feels like silk.

She had only made this observation before he raised his head, his eyes glowing red for but a moment and she wondered briefly if her own now did the same.

"Let us feast." And he let her towards the now open French doors and 'Oh, God!' they had Simon

tied and apparently ready to be the sacrificial lamb. 'She couldn't! She could NOT!' Mary's mind

was screaming at her and she felt the panic rising up within her. Simon was her friend! Her

father's surrogate son! She WOULD NOT destroy him! And she would allow no one else to

destroy him either.

Some of her chaotic feelings must have escaped her because she suddenly felt HIS eyes upon her,

questioning her. She unexpectedly saw herchance to aviod thisand turned, burying her face

against his chest and grasping onto his coat.

"I can't touch him!" she whispered fiercely, "I don't WANT to touch him!"

"Oh, come on Mare," she heard Lucy say. Almost sweetly, she whispered, "We saved him just

for you."

Mary shivered and looked up pleadingly into his eyes, willing him to understand.

'Please, I can't do this! Not right now!'

'It will be alright, Mary.' Amazingly, she heard him speak...in her mind. He wrapped his arms

around her and spoke aloud to his minions.

"Stay here and keep him tied. We will return later."

And before she could utter another word, they were gone, Simon staring after them with a

hopeless look on his face.

They landed in the courtyard of her home. Mary stepped away, running her hands up and down

her arms in a distracted way. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that. I've always hated heights."

She turned to find him standing in front of her mother's prized bougainvillea, absently stroking a

petal and staring up at the night sky.

He was such a contradiction to her. She wanted so desperately to hate him, 'he had killed her

father!', but she couldn't. For when she looked in his eyes, she saw not only the eyes of the

creature that had killed him and probably countless others; not just the eyes of a terrifying stranger,

she saw also the eyes of her dream angel. The one who had been with her in her dreams for as

long as she could remember.

The tortured eyes of a man who had no hope.

She walked forward and reached up, placing her palms against his back. She felt him stiffen and

she knew he was going to turn to confront her. She quickly spoke. "No, please. Don't turn. I

want...I need to tell you something and I don't think I can say it facing you."

She felt his back move as he breathed in deeply. "What is it you wish to say, Mary?" Her heart

contracted unexpectedly at the tone of his voice. he sounded so...sad.

She took a deep breath of her own and realized, with a faint shock, that it was the first true breath

she'd taken since awaking. For some reason, that made her suddenly want to weep and she had to

fight the urge, dropping her head forward til it rested between her hands. It was then a disturbing

thought occured to her.

"Tell me, can you read my mind?"

"Only if you wish it. My blood is in your veins, you can block me if you so desire." His voice

sounded husky, strained. Was he hiding something?

"Let me rephrase that then. Have you read my mind?"

He closed his eyes, even though she couldn't see, and swallowed hard.

She must know the answer to that, why was she asking? He had been able to sense her

presence since her very conception. 'But only when she let him in, only when she came to him.'

He had not had the strength to make a mind connection. Only when he was half mad with hunger

and pain, when it broke lose beyond his control, had he been able to feel her, see her of his own

accord and then it had been terrifying, for her and for him. Only since his reawakening had he been

able to contact her of his own free will.

"No, Mary. I can...feel you, see what you show me. When desired, we can even communicate

telepathically, as before, but I have never 'read your mind' as you say."

She sighed in relief. It would be much easier to say what she needed to knowing he hadn't

already read it in her mind.

Unconsciously, she turned until her cheek rested against the spot her forehead had previously

occupied.

"Ever since I was a small child, I've had dreams; dreams of a man I had never met yet whom I

knew very well. I felt him. Not physically, of course, but, all of his feelings, his emotions, they

were like my own." Mary gave a sad half-laugh. "When I was very young I thought he was my

guardian angel and I would worry that I had done something awful because I so often saw him

weeping."

Her hands had gradually slipped down until they were clasped around him. He leaned into this

unconscious embrace, unable to resist something he had not realized he so desired until that

moment. Mary continued.

"I would think, 'I must have been very bad, to cause an angel to weep so.' And when I woke, I

would badger Mother into saying the Rosary with me,I supposethinking, hoping, that would

somehow fix whatever I had done wrong." With a start, Mary realized she had started to cry. But

she didn't care. Her tears continued to flow and ran down her cheeks, leaving trails that appeared

blood red in the hazy glow of the halfmoon.

She carried on, her tear-choked voice husky. "It never worked. As I grew older, the dreams

became more frightening, more real. I began to wonder if I wasn't losing my mind. I started

trying anything I could to escape them. Drugs, alcohol, partying until I was too tired to dream.

And, for awhile, it worked. Then Mother became sick and I had no choice but to try to take care

of her. By then I was rooming with Lucy and I convinced her to come and move in to my

Mother's home with me. And things went okay for a bit; until Mother died and then, it seemed as

if the floodgates opened up and it was worse, so much worse. I dreamed of terror and pain and

blood and being trapped and unable to move and the angel with the beautiful eyes of my previous

dreams had turned into a red eyed demon I could not escape from."

Mary ground to a halt, sobbing now too hard to speak. Judas broke the now crushing hold she

had on him and turned to her. He could feel her pain and confusion as well as he could feel his

own. It actually hurt him to realize that he was the cause of her suffering. Oh, yes, he knew of

what she spoke, although he had thought at the time it was delusions, hazy dreams which his

half-crazed mind had concocted while he was locked in his prison. He remembered the beautiful

dark-eyed child who came to him in his dreams and would take his hand and beg to help. He

remembered as well those glorious dreams which she unwittingly shared. The beauty and

laughter and childlike innocence that he had taken such pleasure in, those sweet, infrequent

moments that had kept him sane. He had never known she was real until that moment in the

plane. To see her, awake as he was, was shocking. He knew then that she was real. Not a

conjured figment of his imagination, not a pipe dream that he pretended he felt for sanity's

sake. No. She was real, and as beautiful as he had ever imagined. And she was his, a living,

breathing part of him. His Mary. And he would never let her go.