Gunshots don't go bang. They crack.
Crack
The sound split the unlikely silence of war-ravaged London, cutting through choked words, "Is this what I wanted?"
Blood flew, the vampire went down, and the cries for his death rang out. "Die! Just die!"
Not yet. The vampire clung to his false life. Not yet.
Sham youth wasn't enough to save him. It was part of what was killing him, Walter knew.
The bullet in his body was also part of it, of course, but he had been dying before the crazed Iscariot's shot had hit him.
He would have fought it, maybe, if he'd had time to come fully to himself.
"Is this what I wanted?"
No. It was what they wanted. They wanted Alucard gone. They had plotted. They had brainwashed him, killed him, gave him this counterfeit life. They had made him nothing but a tool.
His rage at the thought was burning red, and deeper – black and blistering.
They had made him a traitor.
"This is not what I want," the dying vampire grated out, raising the hand still holding the black ribbon that was all that remained of Alucard, all that remained of Count Dracula, all that remained of his former partner.
Death by imaginary numbers.
He had heard, of course, what they had planned. He had known the poison that Alucard would consume in the tide of blood.
Death by imaginary numbers.
Walter's lips twisted. He could hear the Iscariot coming to finish him off. He had time for just one thing.
He rolled onto his side, lying in a spreading pool of scarlet and fought the shaking that gripped him. He held the ribbon in both hands, pulling them apart to spread it tight between them, then brought them together again.
The footsteps were getting closer. Death's or the Iscariot's? Was there a difference?
He licked blood off his lips and smiled grimly. To Hell with Death in whatever shape it chose to come. Let it come.
He held the circle of ribbon and fought to keep his eyes open just a few seconds longer. Almost there. A circle wouldn't do Alucard any good.
He gave one end of the ribbon a half twist, laying it back to front with the other end.
A circle wouldn't do Alucard any good.
But if death by imaginary numbers was possible, then fighting mathematics with mathematics seemed almost logical.
He sealed the not-quite-a-circle with his own blood and let his head drop to the ground as the footsteps finally reached him and stopped.
This was what he wanted.
Crack
In the not-quite-circle of the Möbius strip, a pair of red eyes opened.
If you don't know what a Möbius strip is, hie thee to wikipedia.