To all of you who have been so kind as to read and review my story, I thank you and apologize that this has been so long in coming. This whole story is kind of a tie-in with my other Dracula2000 fics. This will probably be the last chapter in this story as I continue on in Tears of Blood which I WILL FINISH...eventually.
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He smelled it first. Blood. He knew it was just a dream, another torture.
But it was still there. Strong. SO strong.
And close….
He could swear it was getting stronger…closer….
NOISE!
AIR!LIGHT!BLOOD!
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When he stopped, when he finally came to himself and stopped….it was carnage.
It slightly sickened even him. He, who had reveled in blood and death for more centuries than he cared to count.
This….
This was the monster unleashed.
Not him.
He wasn't this….not truly….
Was he?
Perhaps he was…..
He hunched over, hands grasping his head, fingers tunneling deep, pulling desperately at the dark locks.
Deep breaths, deep breaths...
He laughed, suddenly, the sound more than a little manic, a harsh, sobbing sound of confusion and desperation. He looked up and around, wildly.
What was real...whatwasreal...
He shook his head violently, dropped his hands and looked at the gore still upon them, lifted one and licked at the dark red staining his skin. Smelled real. Tasted real.
He reached out and laid his hand upon the strange, silver wall to his left. It was cool, and vibrated slightly against his fingertips. It felt real...
Slowly, slowly, it began to sink into his mind.
He was free.
It was not a dream.
NOT. A. DREAM.
He slowly straightened and walked toward the exit to the room he was in. He could hear them outside, a man and woman, along with the strange, loud hum that never seemed to cease.
And he was still hungry.
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He sat in one of the plush seats of the 'plane', as the man in the front had called it, still as stone, lost in a state of confusion and shock the likes of which he had not felt since that first, awful awakening after his attempted suicide so very long ago. The bodies of his soon-to-be servants still littered the floor in a haphazard mess, the gore of their demise still spattered about the decor of this strange, hollow, flying machine.
It had given him a strange, unsettled sensation in his stomach, when he had looked out and realized he was in the sky. It only compounded the sensation of panic and disbelief he was in after the strange encounter with his dream angel. To have realized she was real, alive, and not a figment of his imagination as he had believed she had been...
He had been frantic, seeking a portal out of the tube-like construct, seeking a way back into that sunlit chamber that contained the culmination of all his dreams and hope. When he had ripped open the last chamber door, he had been quick to realize that the terrified and screaming man in the small room was most obviously the pilot of the vessel. He had been forced to lash the man to the wheel, as he had been so insensate with terror he feared he might do himself a harm, which would be quite bad for him as he still had no idea how to exit the vessel.
Now he simply sat, surrounded but untouched by his own gruesome handiwork, and pondered what to do. He knew not the year, much less the month or day, yet he could sense that much time had passed since his incarceration by that accursed hunter. If nothing else, his incredible surroundings would have told him that much. And the woman in the plane was wearing trousers...
His Mary, his dream, was REAL.
No matter how his thoughts churned and spun, they always seemed to spin themselves back to this one, unbelievable truth.
The angel of his dreams, his one link to life and sanity, the only thing that had stood between him and the yawning chasm of terror and despair and chased it away in his weakest moments, was not a figment of his desperate and insane mind, but a real, living, breathing, creature.
If he tried, he could still feel her presence in the back of his mind, a warm, shining presence that filled him with a sensation he could not describe.
He closed his eyes and remembered. His lips quirked faintly in response as he brought to mind in a rapidness to quick for mortal minds, every instance he could recall of their interactions. How she had managed to connect with his mind so young was inconceivable. The faint quirk of pleasure died a sudden death as he realized why that could be.
Surely not.
But it was the only explanation for how a child could have done such a thing.
She was born of his blood.
And the only way such a thing could have been remotely possible...
He cursed loudly and fluently.
Van Helsing. The man who had the gall to curse and imprison him for what he was, was no better than him. Stealing his blood, living off it, just like the creatures he condemned and killed. Judas hated him and hated even more that, this one man who he had cause to loath and the desire to destroy more than any other...
had also provided him with the greatest gift he could know.
Mary was his, by right of blood, born as she was with his blood flowing through her veins.
No other of his kind had ever been created in such a manner...and that made her special in ways he could only begin to imagine.
And he intended to discover every. single. one.
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Just then, his flying chamber gave a sudden jolt and lurched sickeningly. He snapped to his feet, reaching the forward compartment and the pilot in the blink of an eye.
Well.
He cursed again in sheer frustration.
He hadn't accounted for the fool dying of, apparently, sheer fright.
But nevertheless, there he was, sitting bolt upright with his hands on the wheel, just as he had left him, but as dead as the proverbial doornail.
Another jolting lurch and he felt the entire ship begin to point downward in an alarming fashion. He could see out the forward portal that they were traveling at a truly amazing (and slightly terrifying) rate of speed. However, the current course of the ship would have it slamming at that same rate of speed into the ground…and himself along with it if he could not figure a way to either stop it or remove himself from the ship posthaste. He had tried many methods of ending his existence over the centuries. This, however, was one he was not keen to contemplate…especially since he now had a most excellent reason to continue living.
Removing hastily to the, apparent, main compartment of the ship, he looked swiftly around. The high pitched wail of the air sluicing its way around the outside of this metal trap all the incentive he needed to hurry as he could hear the minute changes of pitch that heralded their hastening to the ground. His sight lasered in upon a sign marked 'EXIT' and he quickly made his way to it. there were many markings upon it but he swiftly determined how to open the hatch. He grabbed onto a section of wall to anchor himself and, using his preternatural strength, wrenched the hatch loose. The sheer, sucking power of wind tearing by them sucked the door off and flung it away and almost tore him loose with it. He redoubled his hold and, his eyes watering at the howling speed of the air around him, leaned forward toward the opening.
The ground was rising ever more swiftly to meet him. He knew, if he were to jump, he would survive, his superior strength and near flight ability to jump long distances as lightly as a grasshopper a welcome advantage. However, he was still not at peak physical condition, his prolonged incarceration having depleted and taxed his bodily systems beyond their ability to heal as quickly as they might otherwise have done. There remained the question of just how much damage his body could take. Through the shrieking winds and watering of his eyes he was able to discern, with no little relief, that he seemed to be headed towards a large body of swamplands and waters.
Perhaps, just perhaps, he may come out of this intact after all.
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He examined the equipment of the blond female and her companion. It had been a stroke of pure luck to find them in this desolate seeming spot when he had awoke. He had taken the chance of leaping from the metal bird when it had gotten low enough that he could see the waters clearly. Even so, he had still blacked out from either the impact with the water or the fall.
Either way, when he had come to, he had heard the sound of humans speaking, a male and female. Fortune had decided to favor him this day, apparently.
He had made short work of them. The female had been comely enough, and smart enough as well, that he decided to make her one of his. It was a new day and age, after all, and he would need intelligent servants to help him maneuver in this new world. She would be most easy to bend to his will. Most women were. He knew the power of his own charm and form, exponentially enhanced by his powers, were nearly irresistible to most women. And he had read her attraction to him in her blood.
After all, the blood is the life…and it will tell you whatever you wish to know, he smirked to himself.
If you know how to listen.