The Cross
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Author's Note: Just a brief piece this time, based on the film Bram Stoker's Dracula (yes, I've also read the book and am aware of how they differ from each other). This story basically explores Vlad's state of mind in the movie's prologue when he renounces God and accepts darkness – so expect lots of blasphemy. And just to disclaim, I own a copy of this movie and not the copyright. Also, all feedback is much-appreciated.
-- THE CROSS --
He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness.
– John 8:12.
x-x-x
Like the blade he wielded, the edges of his rage and grief were deadly. The tears were still fresh and wet on his face, but he had forgotten them. He burned with something a world away from despair now. Unbearable horror and agony had transformed into powerful, corrosive rage in an instant. In its eruption, it conquered everything as wrath stormed and rampaged within him. His soul was in the grip of that all-consuming emotion and his armoured body shook with the convulsive screams of the betrayed, the deceived and the forsaken, and in his fury all he desired was blood. Renewed sorrow and pain would come later, but for now there could only be the anguish which prompted action and instigated frenzied destruction. His grief could only be washed away by vengeance and his thirst could only be quenched by the lifeblood of the creator Himself. Death had its own music, and it was in the sound of his suffering and hate.
From the depths, he cried out an animal howl of despair and rage, needing the priest's words to be false - whilst knowing that they were not. All the blood Vlad had spilled in God's name could not restore life to his princess, much less save her soul. To damn her was a sin, a foul blasphemy, and it was God's only reply to him. It was a mocking laugh at all his years of faith and devotion, at all the scars that proved his victories, and at so many trials undertaken and sacrifices made. There was no forgiveness, no compassion, and so Vlad would never practice such things again. All that was defiled would be his. He vowed this, and spat curses filled with venom and bile into the very eyes of God, renouncing all he had once believed in and claiming all epithets proudly.
He had shed blood, his own and that of uncountable enemies, and had been rewarded with her blood, and with the terrible knowledge that she was condemned to shed it again and again in an afterlife of eternal suffering. But her fate would be his. Now he defied and accused, willingly casting himself into darkness, severing himself from God and turning his back on the Saviour in disgust. He freely offered his soul to whatever evil heard his fury and could give him the power to avenge his lost bride, and deep within his blood and flesh, he heard the answer given.
Murderous bitterness flowed like blood, like tears, as he struck his sword, the sword by which he had long ago sworn a sacred oath to serve the way of the Lord, deep into the stone heart of the church's cross. His scream as he did so scourged the souls of the priests still helplessly watching him.
The stone he had struck was more than a cold symbol. It was the cross he had loved from childhood, and had never shrunk from. It was the cross by which he had prayed nightly, when he did not spend his nights away serving in God's war. It was the cross by which he had knelt in supplication to take communion each Sabbath. It was the cross by which he had been inducted into the Order of the Dragon. It was the cross that had inspired religious fervor and profound devotion to blaze within him. It was the cross he had bled for, and killed for. It was the cross he would have died to defend.
It was the cross by which he had knelt to be married. Before it, he and Elisabeta had sworn their marital vows and declared their love in the eyes of God. It had rendered their union sacramental and everlasting. Under its shadow, they had held their sacred candles and spoke soft prayers as they were crowned and offered their lives to each other, entwining endlessly in God. It was the cross that had bound them together forever, sanctifying their joining, uniting them on earth and in Heaven, and made them one before their creator. It was the cross in which he had always found inspiration, strength and hope.
It was the cross he had so humbly served and championed, and that had promised he would be guarded by ministering angels so that he would not strike his foot against a stone. It was the cross that had given him nothing to fear, and had promised forgiveness and spiritual rewards to all who followed and loved it. It was a cross which spoke of eternal love, and of how death was powerless to separate those joined in Christ. It was the cross which he had so fiercely believed in, which had sustained him through so many years of war.
It was the cross that had made him want to be a better man, and the cross he had borne so willingly. On this cross, he had sworn to protect his beloved Elisabeta at all costs; to keep the blood, fire and horror in which he waded from her door. It was a cross he had always believed to be symbolic of all that was good and of the light, in spite of the blood it had demanded over the years.
It was the cross that had failed to protect his wife both in life and in death. It had betrayed them both, tearing up all hope within him. It was a cross blind to suffering and human pain, a cross which knew no justice. It was a cross of foul deception and false promises, a cross that had rewarded a lifetime of loyalty and service with an agonizing, harrowing loss.
From this day forward, it would be the cross by which Elisabeta's drowned and broken body lay; the cross which denied her soul all hope of salvation. It was the cross that cast her under its dark shadow, severing them forever.
As Vlad struck at the heart of it, impaling it as he had so many enemies only hours earlier, he only wished that he was striking at the heart of God Himself. As though he were successful and had made his profane desire a reality, his strike drew blood; a dark testament to his unholy act.
It flowed freely, like the pain and the rage, and in that moment he knew that it would be blood that sustained him. Centuries later, he would still seethe with the same depths of anger and anguish, but as the blood slid down his throat, it became all he cared to know. It would his key to vengeance, a constant sign of his exile from salvation with his bride. His soul mattered nothing to him any longer. Like his beloved, it would be lost for eternity. He would burn in Hell at her side one day, Vlad vowed, and when there at last, he would wrap his hideous, demonic wings around her form and shield her from the ever-hungering fires. But that day would not come before he had taken a fair pound of flesh from Christ Himself; not before he had visited this pain on legions of His innocent sheep and had drawn rivers of blood from them. Tears of gore trickled from holy candles and the stone eyes of angels, saints and martyrs as they witnessed the warrior-prince's fall.
The taste was foul, then sweet; kissing throat and soul with tongues of fire. With this coursing through him, he would be a plague on all God's creatures, and the dragon within him awakened and roared. He would be a walking curse, a divine punishment. The only saint of the Pit. He had made the cross weep blood for him, as his heart had wept blood and life for his lost princess. All life would one day weep the same tears, and know the darkness of this despair.
-- FIN --