The darkness split into a thine line of amber light. This widened until the candle-light from the hallway outside spilled into the room, fully illuminating the young boy sat on the bed, who looked up in dread expectancy as the voice from the doorway barked out "Vlad, my son, we have her. You must come."
The Dragon had spoken, and so young Prince Vlad arose and silently followed his stern-faced father down the bitterly cold stone hall, the small flame of the candle held aloft flickering, almost at times on the point of being snuffed out in the wind of the night from the windows they passed. And young Vlad fought his terror and grief, and walked tall and proud, as a son of the Dracul should. No gibbering peasant was he, to shy away from holy duty.
The monks were chanting their litanies and fervently clutching their crufixes tightly in their hands when Vlad came into the great chamber and looked down with only the slightest of trembles at the form of his mother bound with silver on the table, writhing in pain and fury at her captors. She shrieked at her husband and at Vlad's brothers, Mircea and Radu. And Vlad found himself fixated on the gleaming, needle-sharp points of the fangs that shone whitely in her mouth, the sign of the nosferatu; the curse of the living dead.
Hands held a pointed wooden stake and an iron hammer. The hands were those of Vlad Dracul, the Elder...the Dragon. And in his eyes swam only empty coldness as he approached and looked down at his wife, she was now damned in the state of the fearful undead. The monks droned, and he whispered "In the eyes of God, I now purge my house of this unholy evil, restore my Christian honour, and grant my wife's soul peace."
The monks droned, and Vlad the younger's mother turned her eyes to him and hissed "Vlad, my Dracula...my Little Dragon! I love you...follow me!"
Sharp wood pierced icy flesh; the hammer struck again and again and drove the point deeper. Prince Vlad Dracula looked around him, and knew they believed the threat of the vampire to be over. His young heart was already cold with the certainty of their wrongness.