Dawn of Eternity

Well, here we are! Part Four of my Vampire Hunter D obsession. Believe me when I say I have some enormous plans for this one, although I , of course, have to build towards them. This story may be a bit more lengthy than the others…or it may not. We will see.

With the exception of Illusions each story of the saga became a crossover, therefore this one will have a bit of Buffy influence. But don't worry…I am mostly just using some ideas. No characters. So prepare yourself. Once again, this is the fourth part of a series. It's highly recommended that you read the previous ones.

Enjoy!

Prelude: Mother of Abominations

"You take the breath right out of me, you left a hole where my heart should be." - Breath, Breaking Benjamin.

2,995 A.D.

She could find no sympathy within his smoldering eyes. No compassion, no regret and certainly no shred of a soul existed within those shimmering, feral orbs. The crimson light had washed away all traces of the soft, vibrant blue that had once been her lover's eyes. Now there was only glaring obsession, and roiling anger.

He did not so much as glance at the flayed little form that floated lifelessly in the fountain. Cuts and terrible mutilations riddled the infants helpless body, the blood that flowed from its wounds had ceased pumping and drifted across the surface of the water in listless ribbons.

Mina on the other hand could not help but to sob, her voice was the warbling wail of a woman whose very heart had been torn from her chest. Her womb had not yet ceased to throb from the agony of bringing her now dead child into the world, and her breasts ached to feel that child take it's nourishment from them, just as her arms ached to hold it in her embrace. Whimpering and distraught she reached forth to touch the sad corpse of her child…their child.

Dracula's pale hand flew out in a blur and struck her beloved in the face, knocking her easily back from the edge of the fountain where he'd disposed of his failure. He spoke for the first time since its death; his voice was akin to a serpents hiss."Don't you dare touch it! It was another failure; it wasn't even worth the effort I went to testing it. Don't honor that filth with your attention Mina!"

"But…but I didn't even…" Mina could hardly form the words as sobs twisted her features. She hadn't even seen the child's face, nor held it in her arms. The life she'd natured and cherished within her own womb had been snatched from her the moment it gasped for breath, and brutally mutilated, and drowned by it's own fathers hand.

Dracula knelt forward and grasped his queen's elegantly featured, pale face. His long nails sank ruthlessly into her skin. "You bore me a daughter Mina! I've made it quite clear that I desire a son to bear on my legacy. Somehow you've managed to use your own psyche to overcome the power of my science! Not only did you curse me with a daughter, but one with no regenerative abilities. What the fuck did you think I was going to do?!"

"Our…our child!" she wailed, her body trembled in a pitiful combination of horror and agony.

"I have made my rules quite clear. You agreed to be one of many to help me bear my child. I am the Sacred Ancestor. I am the greatest king this Earth…no this entire universe shall ever know. I can have no less than complete perfection as my son. This isn't about love. This is about family. It's about blood." His cruel voice was as unwavering as iron. Without a second glance he turned from her.

Mina hugged her quaking arms tight about her form and hunched low to the ground, wishing that the hoarse sobs that issued from her throat would simply suffocate her. She could not disobey the request of her lover. The stench of the rotting corpses that drifted in through the window was reminder enough of that. Beyond the walls of Castle Dracula a forest of impaled corpses loomed. They had once been men that had dared challenge the Vampire King, and women that had refused to lay with him, or had given birth to failures. Only Vlad Dracula's fierce passion for Wilhelmina Murray, the simple maid and school teacher from the Land of Angels, had stayed his hand tonight.

She did not dare glimpse upon the face of her drowned child. Rather she turned slowly away, and whispered a soft vow to herself, to the gaping hole in her chest where her heart had once been. At first her voice was a waiver, yet it soon grew in strength. "I'll be the one to have his heir. I vow it upon this, and every other child he's slaughtered in the name of perfection. But he'll be my child. He'll never know his face. But should he glimpse upon it, than please, my lord who art in heaven, fill him with the hatred needed to destroy him! May God give my future son the power to avenge!"

"Yes! Yes!" Dracula growled as he wiped away the heavy flow of blood that clouded his eyes. His forehead had been slashed open, and the flow of blood refused to cease, but he paid it no mind as he locked gazes with his opponent. His entire body looked as if it had been smashed into a bloody pulp, but impossibly he was standing, and he was laughing. "We should extend this battle out for an eternity, my dear, it's been eons since I have had this much fun!"

His enemy tossed away the weapon it had previously been using, an immense sledge hammer, and instead withdrew a long, curved blade from its back. The atomic light of the castles lanterns caused the blade to glitter with a blinding golden flash. His enemy shook back its long black hair, and glared back at the Vampire King with inhuman eyes. It was a woman that stood before him, trembling with power, and thrumming with rage yet one glance at the woman's elegant, flawless features, and her wide eyes that gleamed with a strange, unfathomable color was proof enough that this creature was anything but human. This was a creature from another world, a warrior…no a weapon forged for destruction, for Dracula's annihilation.

With a whirl of her flashing blade the alien woman spun into action, her form blurred with the impossibly swift pace yet with each brutal thrust of her sword, Dracula's own blade rose to parry the blow. The blood from his brow had flowed down the side of his face, yet it disappeared past the line of his lips. Now the Sacred Ancestor's eyes glowed every bit as violently as the alien woman's. He moved faster than sight could fathom as he attacked, yet the woman met each of his ruthless strikes without effort. Their swords threw off glaring sparks as they crashed, until at last with a mournfully gorgeous sound the woman's blade snapped off at the hilt. Never hesitating for a moment, Dracula lunged for the killing blow, until he sprawled backward with a muffled cry. Blood, pointed teeth and jagged chunks of his sundered jaw spattered across the floor.

A spiked mace hanging from the end of a thin, flexible chain now hung from the creatures slender hands, although how she'd managed to instantly produce such a weapon was unclear. The maddening, unfathomable hue of her eyes glittered malevolently as she regarded her enemy. Dracula pulled himself up; the pulverized horror of his face would have sent any other woman into madness as he seemed to be grinned with what was left of his fanged maw, his lips curled upward and his pointed tongue lolled down onto his throat. Perhaps the gurgling hiss he made was laughter. Darkness seemed to enshroud his face, and when it withdrew his flesh was whole once again.

The alien woman swung the mace about in a deadly arc, building it's momentum before she released the chain and allowed it to fly toward Dracula. The vampire surged upward, and knocked the studded iron harmlessly away with the sweep of his hand. Again she swung, the iron howling as it hurled the air, and again Dracula lunged, curling the chain around his hand and holding it tight.

Yet even his sharp sight failed to see the woman's hand dip toward her hip, and seize a jagged blade from her belt. He did not see the blade until he caught a flash of silver leave her hands and then felt it puncture his chest, impaling his heart. The mace had merely been a distraction so she could get a clear shot at his heart. With a defeated snarl he spat a mouthful of blackish blood into the alien's gorgeous face, causing her to stumble backward with what appeared to be fear, but instantly her slightly dazed expression faded, and was replaced with her usual, emotionless glare as Dracula fell onto his knees.

The Vampire King sank down onto the ground, the color draining from his face as his dark blood spilled down the front of his already crimson hued tunic.

Now, a fragile hint of a smile crossed the dark beauty's glorious face. Only the treacherous eyes gave hint to the fact that the shapely, slightly muscled woman that inched closer toward his body was something was not entirely human. From a sheath at her belt the pulled free a long and slender stake of ash wood. She must have been carrying it just in case the Vampire King had survived her lethal blow. Yet by the time she'd bent down over his body, the Sacred Ancestor had bolted upward, his form nothing more than a mass of shadow.

At last the woman screamed out in shock, she could not physically see her opponent…all she could see was a writhing mass of shadow that must have had some type of tactile form because the blackness seized each of her limbs. Her vision was obscured by the ever pressing darkness, as well as two glittering blood red eyes. The knife she'd stabbed him with appeared to be spat out from the shadows and clattered uselessly onto the ground. 'What….what are you!" she cried her voice now plagued by both disbelief and fear. How could a bloodsucker survive a blow to the heart!

"Never mind me, my sweet. It's you that I am dying to know." hissed a terrible voice from it seemingly everywhere. And then the mass of shadows was forcing the woman backward. She flailed about wildly, yet her hands and feet could find no physical form to connect with. Then she caught a certain scent upon the air, one so vile, so terrible that the hardened woman could not help but to shriek.

'NO! NO PLEASE, HAVE MERCY! NOT THIS NOT THIS!"

Dracula however was laughing as he used merely the illusion of his shadow form to press the woman down against the fountain, the very same he'd used to drown his first love child with his beloved over 3 years ago. He resumed his physical form when he forced the woman's head down into the water, wanting to fully experience her agony. Instantly her body was seized with terrible convulsions, she writhed vainly to try to free herself, yet Dracula had pressed down with all his weight upon her, snapping her bones beneath him.

He yanked her back to the surface, savoring the woman's near childish wails of fear as the water ran down her face and dripped from her hair. That was the single flaw the Vampire King had yet to find in the burdensome aliens that kept appearing, the Outer Space Beings, or OSB'S, that were defiant in trying to claim his planet. But it seemed they had no concept of fluids, and the OSB'S greatly feared what they could not understand. The OSB'S had no understanding of what it was that the Nobility subsided off of, and if caught out in a rain storm, the aliens could easily wind up dead out of sheer fear.

"PLEASE!" the woman begged, but already he'd forced her back down into the water. And this time as he pinned her ruthlessly down Dracula plunged his own head down into the fountain, and he tore into the woman's neck. He was faintly shocked when he tasted the decadent flavor upon his tongue, he wouldn't have thought the OSB's could manage to create a creature that had running blood, but her blood was alive and flowing well enough. A torrent of images assaulted his mind, and soon enough understanding emerged from them.

The first thing he realized that he'd tasted blood such as this before. It had been nearly a thousand years ago, yet its taste, its awe inspiring power was not easily forgotten. He'd last been in America when he'd tasted blood such as this. It has been the blood of young warrior, of a Slayer. Slayers had been a terrible pain to the vampire world for as long as vampires had existed, a stubborn pest that existed only to burden vampires again and again.

The first Slayer had been a woman who'd been possessed with spirit of a demon, and thus became the first in an endless line of women bred to destroy the Nobility. When one died another rose in her place. Yet it was a flawed system, a single woman against a planet infected with vampires was at terrible disadvantage. A witch had seen this disadvantage, and made the mistake of unleashing the full power of the Slayer upon every potential warrior in which the power had not yet awakened. She'd merely put a target upon each of these women's heads. Every warrior had a flaw. The Slayer in America had been utterly seduced by Dracula's presence, she hadn't struggled in the least as he sank down to drink of her. And as the Nobility's power grew, one by one the Slayers had fallen beneath their thrall.

Her succulent blood revealed that had been the true power behind this woman. She had once been a Slayer, until she'd been abducted, infected and changed by the OSB'S into a creature of their own making. A weapon forged against Dracula, against the Nobility. The perfect weapon…if only it had not submitted to an OSB'S fear. Dracula rose up out of the blood stained water, and watched the writhing OSB hybrid in her terrified death throes, until at last it slumped over utterly still.

He yanked the corpse up out of the water, and twittered in laugher. The OSB's most intelligent, beautiful and deadly weapon yet…the product of their collected hatred and intelligence, now lay an empty shell within Dracula's hands. Licking more of her blood from her torn neck with his obscenely long and pointed tongue, he sighed, and began to cackle with laughter.

To my faithful readers, never you worry. I'll be getting back to D's story very soon here…I am again enjoying the advantage of free time! :-D Oh and in case anyone asks, no, the aliens being afraid of water isn't something I took from Signs. (tho that is an excellent movie.) It is actual D-verse in some of the later books. By the way, I HIGHLY recommend reading Pale Fallen Angel Volumes 1-4.…it will blow your mind! I have a feeling that one is going to play an enormous part in this story. Thank you all for your continued support!