The Witch's Contract

Chapter One

One day he would become a monster shrouded in myth. One day he would be called Vlad the Impaler, Son of the Devil, but today he was Vlad Tepes Dracula, Son of the Dragon, and he was going to church.

It was only fitting that he should come armed, and in the company of armed men. He was viovode, or prince, of Wallachia in little more than name, having recently seized power. His people waited patiently and confidently for his reign to end, and none more confidently than the clergy. Dracula had taken over with the aid and support of the Ottoman Empire, and as long as the Ottomans controlled him, the church would condemn him.

The church, was neither as impressive nor as austere as his own castle, but his people were more willing to live in its shadow. No one feared the church. They were afraid to fear the church. People who feared the church soon found a reason for that fear and, for the most part, things ended at that.

Father Stefan waited outside the church's walls, officially to greet him, but he stood as though to bar his way. Stefan's face was as hard and stern as the stone walls behind him.

"Father Stefan," Dracula said, in front of his armed spearman.

"Dracula," Stefan said.

"Prince Dracula," he corrected. For now. His predecessor and second cousin, Vladislav II, was more distracted than defeated, and had joined his Hungarian masters in a campaign against the Ottomans. The duration of Dracula's reign would depend on the outcome of that not too distant war.

"By the grace of God," the priest said, as though God would even have wanted him here. Dracula was an Ottoman puppet, to replace the Hungarian one.

He refused to respond to that remark, that jab. "You have been busy, priest. I have received word that you have been executing witches all week."

"No," Stefan said. "Just one."

"Yes." Dracula smiled at the old and holy man. "I have heard that too. I had become concerned that you and your brothers had gone mad, burning my people without restraint. Then I grew confused, hearing that you were burning the same witch night after night after night."

"This is a matter between the Church and heretics. Which are you?"

"I am the Prince of Wallachia. All that happens here is my business." The Church would never support him, but that was decided when he arrived with the forces of the Sultan at his back—though if he could not make friends today, Dracula would at least subdue his enemies. "But it is true? Fire does not harm this witch you've caught?"

The priest scowled at him, as though searching for a way to evade the question without opposing him or lying. "She burns. We piled on wood and straw until her flesh was gone and naught but a skeleton remained. We cudgeled the charred bones unto dust, but when we finished, the dust formed into bones, the bones formed a skeleton, and the skeleton grew cursed flesh."

Dracula felt a chill that had nothing to do with the autumn air, and he repressed a smile. "Indeed? I would view this creature."

"This is church business, prince."

"This is my country, priest. Show me your witch."

The priest glanced behind Dracula to his armed men, and seemed to consider the benefits of martyrdom before turning. "Come with me, then, but I warn you not to touch her. Brother Ilias came in contact with her skin when she first arrived, and has only recently ceased screaming."

"What was the good brother doing touching a witch?" Dracula mused aloud. "I thought you were men of God."

Stefan halted in his walk and clenched his fist at the insult, but he was beaten and could do nothing but obey. He led him deeper into the church.

In the basement, he unlocked a cell door. "Behold," Stefan said, "the witch."

The witch sat on the floor in the corner—there was no chair or furniture in her cell—dressed in the black and white smock of a nun. Her long green hair fell uncovered past her shoulders, and the dim light reflected yellow in her eyes. She flinched as the door opened.

"W-what?" she stuttered, shielding her eyes as she adjusted to the light. "No, it's not time yet! It's n-not time."

Dracula studied her. He had always had a fascination with witchcraft—curiosity, of course, not practice—but most who were caught practicing witchcraft were elderly spinsters, people with several decades spent studying the dark arts and whom society would not miss. This woman was young, pretty, and frightened. Dracula found himself disappointed.

"This is the one you've told me about?" he asked.

Stefan nodded. "Do not underestimate her. In all my life, I have never seen her like."

"Why is she dressed as a nun?" That was hardly the most important question on his mind, but it still confused him.

"After she burned, her devil flesh regrew," Stefan said. "Her clothes did not, so we covered her with what we had."

That amused Dracula for reasons he couldn't explain, and he bit back a smile. Still, appearances aside, this woman had power over death itself, and he was far too wise to pass over power. "You claim this woman is a witch, priest, but based on what?"

"Based on what? Dracula, this woman does not die! Does that strike you as at all natural? Or perhaps it is. In all your travels, how many of the countless people you've slaughtered stayed dead?"

"All of them," he admitted. "Although, I seem to remember a story from the Holy Word about someone who could come back to life. What was his name again?"

"Dracula …"

"Oh, I remember now! Jesus!"

"That's entirely different! If anything, this woman is mocking the Son of God through blasphemous imitation!"

Stefan was growing angry. Good. Dracula had that effect on people. More importantly, the priest's anger was controlling him. "And which part is blasphemous?" he asked. "The fact that she can rise from the dead two days faster, or the fact that you've falsely accused and murdered a holy woman every day this week?"

"Holy?" His face grew red with righteous indignation. "She—is—a—witch!"

"Again, based on what? Have you tried drowning her in holy water? Does she recoil at the name of God? Has God even permitted her to die? No? Then whom you call I witch, I declare to be holy, and I am taking her with me."

Dracula had always seen Father Stefan as a zealot, a priest who could not be corrupted with ambition or bribed with gold, a man perpetually possessed by righteous fury. But at that moment, all his fire turned to ice. "Are you now? And if I forbid it, then I suppose your men will intervene?"

Few dared bring weapons into a house of God, but Dracula had always been selective in his choices. "They are not decoration."

"Then so be it, Vlad Tepes Dracula, but if you steal away this witch, then may God in Heaven forever damn your soul."

It only lasted for a moment, but Dracula hesitated. Then he pushed aside the priest's warning and stepped forward. He would make an enemy of the church that day, but Father Stefan had never been his friend in the first place.

He extended his hand to the woman in the cell. "Come," he said. "I'm taking you away."

WWW

M.M. had managed to pass as a nun for centuries, forever staying within the sanctuary of the cathedral. It had been a sanctuary for C.C., too, until she accepted immortality. Now, sacred ground promised her nothing but fire.

She knew nothing of the prince, the man Dracula who had promised to take her away, but she'd throw herself at the devil's mercy before another night exposed to the wrath of God. She had heard things about this man, though, things that she would rather not think of.

She followed him into his carriage, never meeting his eyes or opening her mouth. M.M. had never been this frightened. She had always carried her curse with the dignity of the damned, but after only one year, C.C. already wanted to die.

The carriage rocked and creaked as it moved up the road to Dracula's castle. When she had been seized as a witch, the trees had been red and gold, but now the autumn vibrancy had dulled.

All the while, Dracula kept his eyes on her, dark brown that, in the right light, had a sliver of red in them. "You're timid," he said at last. "I had taken it for a performance to fool the priest with a false show of submission, but you are terrified. I admit that confuses me. If you are indeed immortal, why should you be afraid of anything?"

At that moment, C.C. wanted to scream at the man, but she bit her tongue. Once burned, twice shy, and she had burned for six nights straight.

"Well, witch?" he said, abandoning his holy maiden rhetoric. "What are you afraid of?"

She opened her mouth, but had no words, so she used those of another. "'So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.'" She could see the flaming sword in her mind's eye. No, she could feel it, and she knew that mortality was a mercy.

Dracula fell into a pensive silence for the rest of the journey. When they arrived, he led her into his castle and the spearmen in his employ dispersed. The walls of the castle were barren, inside and out, without any of the paintings or tapestries she had come to expect.

Now that there was more space between them and Dracula had stopped staring at her so intently, C.C. could get a better look at her rescuer. No, she was too old to lie to herself. He was her captor, the latest in an ever-growing line. A black woolen cape trailed behind him and a rugged mane of black hair framed his face. He wasn't old, but his face already had a gaunt look to it, and his skin was as pale as polished bone.

"Do you have a name?"

Not anymore. "C.C., your grace," she whispered.

"C.C.?" he repeated. "As you say. You know who I am, I assume. Vlad Tepes Dracula, usurper of the throne of Wallachia. If Vladislav dies in battle, my reign will last years. If not, then I will have to improvise, and that, witch, is why I brought you here."

C.C. bowed. It seemed appropriate. "What can I do?"

Dracula tilted his head. "That is something you must tell me. I have always had a curiosity for the occult, though most witches the church finds do nothing but die. You are something new. What are you that you should have such power?"

M.M. had taken her in at such a young age that C.C. had never asked her what she was. M.M. was … M.M. was Mother, at least to her, and if Mother could do things that no one else could, that was because she was no one else. Now, after a year of walking the earth as an immortal, she was beginning to understand. She moved the bangs aside, uncovering her forehead. "I bear the mark of Cain, cursed by God to be a fugitive and a vagabond, 'and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.'"

Dracula studied the Geass sigil upon her brow. "'And the Lord set a mark upon Cain,'" he said, quoting the next verse, "'lest any finding him should kill him.' I have always found God's curses to be more merciful than his mercies. With so many each day clinging to life, Cain's mark seems enviable."

C.C. lunged for the opportunity before thinking twice. "Would you like me to give it to you?"

His brown-red eyes widened. "Can you do that?"

She nodded. "The process will take time, maybe a year, maybe ten." For ten years M.M. had raised her, manipulated her, used her until C.C. was ready to kill her. "I c-can grant you a power that will start out small, but it will grow, and when it's f-finished, you can take my immortality." Let me die.

"And in exchange for this power and immortality, I assume you will charge me my soul?"

C.C. shook her head. "The Power of the King is its own cost, Prince Dracula. It will condemn you to a life of isolation, and you will lose everyone you once knew." And you will regret it for the rest of your life. Everyone would. C.C.'s desire to be loved had enslaved everyone she laid eyes on for years. She didn't know how Dracula's contract would manifest itself, but people would suffer.

Dracula stared at her. "Is that it?" he asked. "Is that it?" His laughter echoed through the barren halls. "Then, C.C., I accept your contract."

He extended his hand to her one last time, and the deal was struck.

WWW

A/n So I noticed a lot of parallels between Vlad the Impaler and Lelouch, like how they were both sent with their younger siblings to another nation as political prisoners, wear capes, and are sometimes mistaken for Batman, and I thought that a Code Geass Dracula crossover would make a pretty good Halloween story, if, you know, I had managed to publish it on Halloween. Instead I procrastinated and missed the deadline for my Halloween special, but you can pretend that this came out last month and it will seem a lot spookier.

Fun fact: Dracula was in charge of Wallachia three times in his life. The first reign, during which this story takes place, began near the end of October and ended that same year when Vladislav got back from the war. I wanted to signify that this story took place on Halloween, but I couldn't think of a way to do so that wasn't too on the nose. He didn't start impaling people until his second reign.

Everything I know about Vlad the Impaler and Wallachia, I got from Wikipedia, so thank you everyone who edits Wikipedia. But more than that, thank you Magery for editing this chapter and making it readable. I've written this as a oneshot, so I don't have to worry about questions like how Code Geass history will diverge from reality in Wallachia or what sort of Geass Dracula is going to get (probably some sort of hypnotic life drain), and honestly I prefer it that way. Anyway, thanks for reading!