CH8

"Ok, lets just say I believe you, because why the hell not?" I fold my arms across my chest, squaring off against the dark figure of the vampire king across the room from me. His face is unreadable as ever.

"Why did you kill her? And why is she returning from beyond the grave to tell you to keep away from me?"

"That, Rose, is a long tale." For the first time I can see the weight of centuries on his face. The years may not have physically taken their toll, but there's a look in his eyes of having seen countless sorrows. For just a second, I almost feel like I'm looking at a broken shell of a man. It's gone so quickly it almost seems like I imagined it.

"I have nothing but time." I say begrudgingly, brushing the dust off of my now scuffed dress. He seems almost hesitant as he approaches me, or maybe he just isn't advancing in his usual aggressive manner. He extends his hand to me palm up, in an invitation to accompany him. I only hesitate for a second before placing my hand in his. I shouldn't lie to myself; I want this. Crazy or not, that's the truth of it. He rests my hand in the crook of his elbow and places his palm on top of it.

"Come then, let us walk." He leads us out of the room, and into a new hallway, lined with small Corinthian columns. Now as we walk the halls are no longer deserted. Things hurry to get out of the way as we approach. I can only assume they are demons, or something of that ilk. Scaly tails dart out of sight into holes in the walls; claws scrape on stone down side corridors as we approach. I can't get a good look at any of the creatures though, and from what I can glimpse, I don't know if I want to see more. I can't believe what has happened to my life. I'm here, walking arm and arm with the king of vampires, like were a Victorian couple on a Sunday afternoon.

"When the age of the dragons was coming to an end, there were five left on the earth: Sirena the Cunning, and her four brothers; Galdor the Creeping Death, Meloch the Furious, Taleisin the Sword Tooth, and Geralt the Earth Shaker. They were all primal and powerful. It was with good reason they were the last of their kind to survive. A dragons powers were legendary, and so, I began to hunt them." He pauses, as we continue walking, as if in thought. His expression is neutral but his eyes betray that his mind is elsewhere. I take the moment to study his features, and remember the way his cold lips felt pressed to mine. I want to feel that passion again, dangerous as it may be.

"The first one I destroyed was Geralt. I hunted him across the Mongolian steppe." He continues, seemingly breaking from his reverie. "He was overconfident and it was his undoing. He believed he could not be beaten and it made him reckless. I drained his body dry, and at first I believed I had also gained his power. The magic I absorbed from his demise, however, soon turned sour. Before I even began to hunt down the others, it started to rebel against me. It became uncontrollable and eventually it physically split itself from me, leaving me grievously wounded. It manifested itself in the form of an eternal yellow flame. In my quest for power I tasked Nicholas with studying it, while I went to hunt down the second dragon, Meloch. I reasoned that by the time I found and defeated him, Nicholas would have solved whatever problem I had encountered with the first. In that he had no luck though. The magic was pure and potent, but it still had the untamable will of a dragon. He did, however, succeed in cutting off small pieces of magic from the whole, and binding them to a bit of the defeated dragon, a scale." I feel the hard metallic object in my bra pressing against my skin like a hot coal. I'm sure he must know I've taken it; the scale of a dragon.

"With this new weapon in hand, I destroyed Meloch in much the same way I had his brother. This time the rebellion of the magic was much quicker. In just days it felt as if it was tearing me open in its quest to escape. Rather than fight it as I had the last time, I let it leave, and it created a red flame, similar to it's brother." He looks down at me, making sure I'm following his story.

"Go on." I say trying to urge him on. These are the most answers I've gotten since getting here.

"Incensed by their inability to be controlled, I hunted down Taliesin and Galdor out of spite, torturing them to try to break their spirit, and demanding to know why I could not use the power they possessed. For all the pain they endured they would not break. They took the secret of their power to their graves. That brings us to Sirena. She knew of her brother's demise at my hands. However, she had no illusions that she could defeat me as they had. She was weaker than all of them, but she more than made up for it in cunning. I spent years tracking her; she was a master of disguise and could be anything, from a common farmer, to a sparrow among thousands. I believe at the end, she grew weary of hiding. I found her in a small coastal village in Ireland. She was expecting me. I had raced up the stairs of the small keep, expecting to catch her off guard. Instead, she was sitting there in a chair by the fire, waiting for me." The wild figure of the ghost enters my mind, calm and collected, unafraid of death.

"The smile on her face said everything. She knew of my problem, and she knew the answer to it."

"You've failed." The woman in the green dress smiles from beside the hearth, with all the poise and confidence of a queen. A strand of greying red hair has fallen out of its braid on top of her head and has been tucked behind an ear. Her eyes flash with mischief.

"Sirena, you know the reason your brother's power has failed me, and you will tell me before you die." The dark cloaked figure pulls a sword crackling with ice from thin air.

"Sit down. I'm not going to fight you." She says despondently, gesturing with an elegant hand to the empty seat opposite her. "There's no need to." The tall man hesitates, then puts the sword away, crosses the room in a few long strides, and sits opposite her. They face each other like monarchs of warring nations. Each cool and collected yet vicious under the surface. "You want to know why you cannot take our power from us, even in death." She folds her hands in her lap. "You clearly did not understand the true nature of dragons when you started this endeavor. We are untamed, unchained, and wild in our very soul. Our magic is the same; you cannot make it a slave as you have tried to do. That is your mistake, a dragon's magic cannot be taken." There is a long pause, and then the dark figure speaks.

"Then why, is your magic gone? Did you think you could hide its absence from me?" A smile tugs at the corners of her lips, showing small wrinkles there.

"A dragon's magic may not be taken; it can only be freely given. I knew eventually you would find me. We could only keep up this game so long, you and I. I simply decided to change the rules. My brother's magic may be trapped in your foul castle for all eternity, being chipped away at by your lust for power, but I don't intend to let you have mine too. I've given it away, and you will never find it now." She laughs mirthlessly until a fit of coughing wracks her body. Quick as lighting the vampire king flings her across the room with a roar of anger, shattering the chair in his rage. She looks up, blood running down her cheek, and laughs in his face.

"I tortured her for weeks, but she died with the secret of where she hid her magic." It seems like he's led us into some kind of a sitting room, or parlor. It's small, and much cozier than most of the great and foreboding rooms of the castle. There's a blazing fireplace opposite us, with a chaise lounge and a high-backed armchair facing it, next to the chair is a small decorative table with an open book on it, seemingly abandoned in the middle of being read. To the left is a set of double doors that look like they might lead to a balcony. A thick Persian rug lies in front of the hearth. It looks incredibly warm and inviting to my cold tired feet. Dracula leads me over to the couch and I gladly sink down onto it, reaching my hands toward the fireplace to warm them. I'm startled as I feel something heavy sink onto me. I turn to see the handsome vampire has draped some kind of a fur over my shoulders.

"Thank you." I murmur. It's incredibly soft, and I pull it around me gladly. He offers no reply but sits down in the armchair to my left. "You haven't explained where I come in then?"

"That is a bit of a mystery. Rumors of Sirena's descendants show up in the new world three hundred years later. Your family retains much of the secretive solitary nature of her kind; and try as I might your history is still a mystery." Sitting his form is completely motionless. It's like someone carved a statue and placed it in the chair. He doesn't seem inclined to continue, whether he's told me everything or not. We lapse into silence only punctuated by the crackling of the fire in the hearth.

The past twenty-four hours have been a blur. Sitting still now, it's like my body has a prickling crawling sensation under my skin. Magic scratching at my insides. My ghost grandma was a dragon? Does that make me a dragon? What happened to her magic?

"Life was so much simpler before you." I sigh.

"No. You thought it was simpler." he murmurs.

"Touché." I say slumping back onto the chaise.

He stares into the fire for a long time, unmoving. When he sits motionless he looks like marble. What is he thinking? I'm sure he's not telling me everything he knows about my history. His resting face is a decidedly unhappy one. The corners of his mouth are slightly downturned, brows furrowed. Are some of the questions running through his head the same as mine? He must have theories, even if he doesn't have definitive answers.

And then, what about the kiss? I can't say that I didn't want it, because I did, badly. The feeling of his lips crushing mine, is burned into my memory. However, I can say it was probably a super bad idea. He's a mass murderer; a man... no not a man, a creature, that destroys lives. I need to get out of here, or be pulled into his orbit and be burned up, like an asteroid coming too close to the sun.

I study his face in the firelight

"You should be punished for your little display this evening." He says, still looking into the fire. My blood runs cold and my heart skips.

Punished.

He's from a time where that means things like the Iron Maiden or having your hand chopped off for stealing.

"Punished for reacting to being deceived and humiliated? Or punished because I left you alone on the dance floor in front of everyone and wounded your pride?" I ask, plucking up my courage.

"Your insolence is a trait of your youth, and never being taught proper manners." He growls at me completely ignoring my question.

"And your uptightness is a trait that should have been left four hundred years ago, where it belongs." He looks at me with an expression bordering on shock.

"That may be the first time in a thousand years someone has dared insult me to my face." He says coldly.

"Pity, it might have done you some good." I say causticly.

Before I know what isn't happening he's dragged me off the chaise and is holding me by the hair.

"Insolent wretch, I will teach you some manners." He hisses at me, and suddenly I'm being squeezed and spun and pulled through the dark abyss again, except, this time, it's by my hair, and it's a lot, lot worse.

It feels like my scalp is being ripped off of my skull one hair at a time, and is pulling my brain out along with it, and after that my spine. It's a suffocating crushing void... until it isn't. My bare feet hit rough stone and I crumple to my knees, but he yanks me up roughly, still gripping my hair in his claws. I grab at his arm, scratching at his cold hard skin ineffectually with my nails.

The floor is warm under my heels as I'm pulled backwards. The air is dry and hot. Bare rock walls are cast in a red glow

"Let me go!"

He remains silent despite my yelling and attempts to free myself. The vampire king whips me around and sends me sprawling into the dust. My hands and knees are raw as a scrabble to right myself. The beautiful dress is torn and dirty now as I rise to my feet.

"What the fuck was that for?" I growl at him, meeting his powerful gaze head on, but he completely ignores my question and gestures behind me.

"I believe that this belongs to you." I turn to see what he's indicating. Behind me is an enormous glass ball, big enough for a man to stand up inside. It seems to have no way in or out, but inside, what appears to be, a living mass of ink sloshes and breaks against the sides of the globe. Purple electricity dances across the surface of the glass regularly, sending the ink into spasms.

"What...?" I utter in confusion. What the hell is this contraption? I move towards it as a horn appears out of the ink, then dissolves, a talon grasps at air and is claimed again my the ooze, then, for a fraction of a second a bright green eye presses against the glass.

"Oh god no..." I whisper as my hand flies to my mouth. I know that eye. Many mornings I've woken up to stare into a pair of them, their owner demanding food, or to be let out to chase pigeons in the alley. I throw myself at the glass, hammering on it with all my strength. "You fucking monster! Let him out!" I yell, slamming my fists into the bubble "You're killing him!"

"He was found trying to break in." He says in a disinterested tone. "Rather than just kill him I decided to hold onto him for you. I thought you would be grateful. Then you proceeded to insult me and my hospitality and now your companion, I think, will pay the price." Thunk, a shock runs through my shoulder as I throw my entire body against the globe that Duke is trapped in.

"Let" thunk "him" thunk "out" thunk each word is punctuated by my throwing my entire body against the glass.

"No." He says coldly.

"He's dying!" I scream, pointing to the shifter who is so weak he can't even keep a solid form. "Let him go! He hasn't done anything!"

"No, he hasn't, but you have." He says completely emotionlessly.

"Then take me instead!"

He raises an eyebrow at me. "That's a dangerous game you're playing little girl."

"I don't care, let him go." I square my shoulders, ready for the worst.

"As you wish." He replies quietly. I turn to see the glasslike sphere vanishes and the Duke blob splats onto the ground wetly.

"Du..." I manage to get out before a strong clawed hand closes around my throat from behind.

"You did say to take you." He whispers into my ear, his cold breath on my neck sending shivers up and down my entire body. His other hand snakes around my front and splays across my stomach, holding me to him. His cold ivory lips brush just below my jawline directly above the skin where my pulse is hammering. Something hard and sharp scrapes over my skin and I whimper involuntarily. He pulls back a millimeter. "Remember, you asked for this." He murmurs to me, lips brushing my ear.

It's this, or watch Duke get tortured and die. I try to be brave, for him. "Yes." I say, but it comes out in a whisper which morphs into a whimper as he begins to trail kisses down my jawline.

"If you relax," he purrs in my ear "you may even enjoy it."

I feel a stabbing pain as his fangs sink into my neck. I try to jerk away but his vice like arms wind tighter around my body. Pain seers my neck with the movement and I quickly still my struggles. The vampire king grips me tightly to himself, crushing my back to his chest. He lets out a deep guttural moan at the taste of my blood, as he sinks his fangs deeper into my flesh. His hand moves from my throat and tangles in my hair, pulling my head back to get a deeper angle. Then I feel it, a pleasant warmth spreads through me. I feel complete, content to stay here, to not fight the dark lord for my lifeblood as it is drained out of me. This must be a way to keep their victims from fighting back. The thought swims through my muddled brain. As if I could fight him.

A low sound starts next to my ear, and it's almost as if an enormous jungle cat was purring, but it's him. The sound is how I feel on the inside, and I wonder, if for a moment, we are sharing the same sensation, connected by our mutual bliss in this deadly embrace. My heart begins to beat faster, trying to pump harder against the loss of blood, and incredibly, pressed against his ribcage, I feel an answering thud beneath his skin as well. So he does have a heart... I think dreamily. I press into his rumbling chest, I just want to be closer to him; I want to be like this forever. My eyes are getting heavy and my head is starting to pound. My knees feel weak as his strong arms wrap around me, holding me up...he's going to kill me... this is how I'm going to die... I think sluggishly.

The girl sags in his arms, unconscious. The king of the damned stoops to gather her up, and returns her to her library. A bit of her blood still stains his lips. If there was anyone to see, they might notice him brush away a strand of hair from her face, or how his fingertips linger on her cheek for just a second.

I spend what feels like forever drifting in and out of consciousness. I should be pushing myself to wake, but I can't, I'm just so tired. Oh, no, Duke. Wake up stupid. Wake up, your friend is in danger. Wake up WAKE UP!

I squint my eyes, trying to make the sideways view less blurry. Grey stone, pillows, a post to a bed. I shoot up, followed a second later by a spike of pain in my head. I'm back in my bedroom. There's a dark mass in the corner that hasn't been there before. I stumble over to it and collapse on the ground.

"Oh, baby, please be ok, please be ok." I press my ear to his formless body hoping to hear something and hold my breath. For eons time stands still. If there is a god in heaven please let him breathe, let his heart beat, but the seconds stretch on and all I hear is a deafening silence and the plop, plop as my tears hit his slick blobby body. "No. Duke no... I'm so sorry baby, I'm gonna fix this." I say as I try to scoop him up. It's like trying to pick up a blob of jello. He keeps slipping through my hands. "C'mon buddy, don't do this to me." I mumble through my tears. "This is all my fault, you shouldn't have come back for me." My heart is breaking, he's my only friend, he's been there my whole life. He can't be dead, he just can't. It feels like I've been stabbed. I can barely see through the tears as I gather him into my arms and move into the living room. "I'm gonna fix this. I'm gonna fix this. I'm not letting you leave." I mumble.

"He's already gone you know." says a quiet voice from behind me. Turning, I see an impossibly tall silhouette in a black cloak, from under the sleeve extends a skeletal hand holding a scythe. Immediately, I know, I don't need to be told what it is. I always imagined the embodiment of death would be terrifying, like an inevitable monster, you run and run, but it's always getting closer, grasping, clawing. In reality it's quiet; melancholy.

"Please don't take him." I whisper as tears prick at my eyes.

"I don't make the rules kid." he says with a sigh "In time I come for all living things. It just happens today I'm here for your friend, and in the castle you can see me."

"There has to be a way I can save him. People get their hearts shocked back to life, get given CPR." I start to blubber.

"He's too far gone kid, I'm here for a life and that's the long and short of things." he sighs heavily.

"I don't care. I'm not letting you." I set Duke on the ground and begin pushing the couch to the wall and rolling up the rug to expose the bare stone. The specter watches me silently. I go to the drawer and pull out a piece of chalk and start drawing a large circle on the stone around Duke's body.

"I told him I'm gonna fix this and I am; one way or another." I pull candles off the mantle and out of the bedroom, arranging them equidistant around the circle. I don't know anything about bringing back the dead, but I know I can find a way to do it in the library.

"I wouldn't advise it." but he doesn't move to stop me so I continue. I pour salt over the chalk line, creating a barrier to spirits, then wiping my eyes on my ruined dress I climb the stairs to the library. Don't think, just act, just find the right book. It has to be in here, raising the dead, not the mockery of life that undeath gives. Real, honest to god, resurrection. He'll be ok, he's not gone, I'll get him back.

I start combing through the first shelf, then the second. After an hour I'm nowhere. I need Nicholas, he knows the library, he would know where it would be.

"Nicholas!" I yell, running out of the library. "Nicholas where are you?" I run down the halls, yelling for him for I don't know how long but my voice is getting strained. "Nicholas!" I round the corner and run smack into him, knocking the breath out of me. If it wasn't for him steadying me I probably would have fallen on my ass.

"Slow down; I heard you were looking for me." He holds me out at arms length and looks me up and down. "You're still in your dress, and it's all torn up and dirty, what happened? Are you alright?"

I must look like hell, but I don't care at all right now. "It's not me." I sputter, trying to get the words out. "It's Duke, please, you have to help me, the library, I can't find the book, please."

"What are you talking about? Calm yourself and try again." I can feel magic behind his words, forcing my emotions to comply. I take a deep breath and try to slow down.

"Duke is my best friend, Dracula killed him and it's my fault and I have to bring him back, I need to find a book in the library to do that and I know you would know where a book like that is, I need your help, I can't let him die. I inhale deeply after the rush of words has burst out, hoping it's more coherent.

"You shouldn't meddle with death. He's not to be trifled with." A frown has settled on his face.

"I don't care!" I cry "I need him back!"

"Who am I to stop you; I would be a hypocrite." He sighs heavily, he really looks his age, like aeons are weighing on him. "You probably don't want him to be undead." he continues "That would be easy. We don't have any way to resurrect him divinely, which leaves us with only one option: black magic." He's taken me by the arm, and is walking me slowly back down the hallway.

"You will have to be quick, the longer he's been dead the more magic it will take. At a certain point the strain would kill you. It's not my area of study, we will have to find a book for the details, but I need to know you're serious. I can't do the spell, you'll have to, and to bring your friend back, you'll have to take a life."

I'm really sorry for how long it has taken for me to update this. My only excuse is life got in the way, and I humbly beg your forgiveness.