Evil from the Past
Prologue
Storm winds howling through the woods of 19th-century Transylvania hurled drift after drift of snow against the skeletal trees, filling the frigid air with icy whiteness. Against the darkened sky, Castle Dracula loomed amidst the snowstorm, black gleaming stone walls withstanding the icy blasts sent against it. Lightning fizzed and slashed across the sky, illuminating for one brief instant the castle's left tower.
A bat-like creature swooped in through a window, into the laboratory room. "How goes it, my lord?" asked Verona, slipping smoothly into her womanly form.
"Well, my dear." Count Dracula did not take his eyes of the machine to glance at his bride. Dwergi hurried about the huge contraption, which hummed with every lightning strike, adjusting wires and knobs. A group of them staggered in, bearing an elongated coffin. They shoved the lid off and began heaving the body inside into the machine's pod.
"It is the mummy I requested, my loves," explained Dracula to Aleera and Marishka, who had joined Verona at his side. "I must have a test subject before we try the experiment out on our little darling children. Mummies have malevolent powers, like our offspring shall have, so it makes them fitting test subjects."
Marishka fingered a bandaged hand, eyes wide. "All the way from Egypt? Trapped in a time-lock?"
Dracula laughed. "Indeed. Stand back now, my dears. I will work the machine." He leaned over and dragged a few levers upwards.
The machine burst humming and crackling into life. Dracula gave a manic cackle as a lightning bolt bore down upon the machine's conductor. Flashes of energy sizzled through the wire. The mummy in the pod jerked as thunder crashed in the sky above. Another lightning flash struck the conductor, and a blinding flash lit the room. To Dracula, the sight was exhilarating. His brides watched in collective awe.
The mummy jerked again. Yet another bolt struck, this one greater than the first two, and the machine burst into a ball of energy. Several of the Dwergi screamed as they were caught up in its blaze. Aleera gasped.
"No!" Dracula was taken aback. "This cannot be! The machine was...was built to withstand the lightning blasts! No!"
"Darling," reassured Verona, "you can always build a new one."
The flames died down. Dracula stepped forward to examine the smoking remains of the machine, but stopped as he saw an arm reach out of the pod. The arm reached down and wrenched away the iron bonds that bound its body to the pod as if they were mere threads. A skeletal figure rose out of the pod. A bandaged foot trod upon the laboratory floor.
"What?" exclaimed Dracula in disbelief. "This cannot be – how did you survive? Who are you?"
"Who are you, who brought me back to life?" demanded the mummy.
Count Dracula regained his charming, albeit sinister, manner. "Count Vladislaus Dragulia, at your service. It is I who revived you, in an attempt to invent a device that can revive the dead, and you were the first I tried it on." He did not add that the mummy had been a test subject. "And who may you be?"
The mummy fixed his hypnotic gaze with a cold empty stare. "They called me Imhotep. Here, between my past and my future." Memories flooded back. Egypt, in its ancient glory. The Pharaoh. His monks. And then what had come before: Hell. The ones who had killed him, the man – O'Connell. How had he come here? This was no longer the twentieth century – this was before. A beautiful woman, her long black hair shimmering in the torchlight, her slender hands by her side, swaying as she walked. A choking feeling rose in his throat. Anck-su-namun. She who had betrayed him.
Dracula watched the creature before him. Something told him that it would not do to discard him like a failed experiment, to waste him. "Is there anything I may do for you?" he asked tentatively.
Imhotep raised his head. "I need to feed," he spoke. "I must have a living being to feed on, to regain my organs."
Dracula raised his eyebrows. Here was another being after his own habits. "My pleasure," he said, smiling.