Chapter Three - The Vampire King
He caught himself, outstretched hands absorbing the force of his flight to bring him to a dead stop in front of the bier bearing the body of his dead love.
"Charlotte," he breathed her name as if it were part of a sacred mantra as he reached out and stroked her hair. Or rather, tried to.
He could touch it, but the strands refused to move. His hand felt odd too, as if a sort of current ran through it when he touched Charlotte.
"A stasis field?" He asked aloud. "But why?"
"To give you time," a deeply resonant voice answered from the doorway. "We had no idea how long you would sleep after your journey here, and we didn't want you to wake up only to find she had begun to decay."
Meier wheeled about to see who had entered the room behind him.
Presence. This vampire approaching emanated a presence so intolerably weighty that Meier almost felt as if he should bow. He looked into the newcomer's eyes, instinctively seeking the strength of this potential opponent there.
The power slumbering in that gaze stunned him. Vampires became more powerful as the years unfolded around them. The power in the vampire facing him now was such that all the power of all the vampires he ever met combined into one would not begin to approach the nearly divine might...
"My, my lord?" Meier did bow at that, finally recognizing, though he'd never seen him before, "the ancient god" standing before him -- Dracula, the Lord of All Vampires.
"Excellent. Obviously you are not a thuggish excuse for a vampire with no sense of refinement or place," Dracula noted. "Rise. There is no need to bow before me. Such affectations ceased to matter here centuries ago."
Meier straightened and wondered desperately what he was supposed to do. How he was supposed to behave. His wandering gaze fell upon Charlotte's body again, and the emotions that swept over him -- guilt, remorse, grief, regret -- washed away even his concern that the Lord of All Vampires might find him weak and lacking.
"Charlotte," her name, his mantra of sorrow, forced itself past his lips again.
"She's not going to quicken. She was killed, not brought over," Dracula stated, absently stroking his hand through her hair. For him even the stasis field parted, permitting the silk of her hair to twine about the Master Vampire's fingers.
"I know." Two syllables, the import of which brought him immeasurable pain. Carmilla had taken Charlotte's life, freeing her blood to become the quickening flow of a new un-life for the vampire bitch who had once angered Dracula beyond all reason. Charlotte hadn't been bitten, truly, by a vampire. She had died naturally from blood loss, not supernaturally from a vampire's bite.
"Why bring her here then?"
"I promised her... I promised her I would bring her here, to the City of the Night, so she could be free. I promised her I would bring her to where our love would be understood."
"Love? Honoring a vow to a corpse is an odd way to show love," Dracula mused. "Though, I will allow, she is very beautiful. Tell me, did she have a spirit to match the loveliness of her form? Or was she simply a pretty face and a shallow soul?"
"She was a beautiful flower, inside and out. No, a bud, just beginning to open. I have no idea why she loved me, I just know that she did. Despite the sheltered existence she had always known, she found the courage in her love to leave her home and come with me. I could wish now that I had left her in the shelter of her family, but her spirit..."
Dracula waited patiently.
"Her spirit longed to be free. She wanted to be free to love me. For that chance, we tried, against her family, against the hunters they sent after us, against nature, against Carmilla, against everything to come here -- the place I knew, if it truly existed, we could love each other in freedom."
Meier gazed down into her death-composed face again.
"To honor that courage, I had to bring her here, even if now it is only the empty vessel of her body." He shook his head despairingly. "Forgive me, lord, but you wouldn't understand."
Dracula's cold gaze smote him. "Presume nothing of the sort. I, too, have felt the pull of true love toward a human woman."
Meier looked up in shock, as admitting something like that would create a scandal among vampires. Take a human woman for sport, even as something of a pet for as long as the allure lasted (usually only as long as the human woman remained comely) that was behavior understood among vampires, but love? True love? To claim that one loved a human truly was tantamount to treason on the surface among the remnants of "polite" vampire society.
"You are here, in the City of the Night. Seen by many vampires as paradise." Dracula noted, fussing with the drape of the ruffles at his the cuff of his sleeve.
"Paradise? With the mill of Time grinding out an existence of days in a haze of longing and loss. What pleasure that? An eternity of loneliness."
"Poetic," Dracula noted dryly. "You loved her that much?"
"I love her that much -- and more."
"Hmmm."
Dracula turned abruptly, putting concerns of Charlotte and love aside with his gesture.
"I am dismayed to hear that Carmilla has revived."
Meier would have gaped in his shock at how callous Dracula's actions were, except he reminded himself that such an uncaring attitude was normal. At least for vampires it was. He ruefully acknowledged that he had held such callousness in the past, before meeting Charlotte. But, she was dead. The softness she had discovered and refined in Meier had no place here. Meier was careful to show no sign of his turmoil as he responded to the Vampire King.
"No, she was not permitted to revive."
"Indeed? Tell me what happened in detail!" Dracula commanded. "Ah, I forget my manners. Let us away from this charnel chamber and seek refreshment. You have not yet eaten since arriving here, yes?"
Seeing no option that would not risk enraging his host, Meier permitted himself to be lead from the chamber. Garbing his heart in an armor of emotionlessness so as to preserve his existence during the continued interview with Dracula, Meier allowed himself the fantasy that he left the most important part of himself, his heart, mourning at the Charlotte's side.
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"That woman was ever a thorn in my side," Dracula stated coldly, as he reached for the carafe to pour more wine for himself. He tipped the carafe toward Meier's glass, offering silently to top it off. Meier nodded.
He'd learned much in his continued discussion with the Lord of All Vampires.
"She drove me crazy, Carmilla did. We vampires, by our nature, are not a particularly nice lot, not to each other and especially not to humans; but her level of cruelty was staggering in its depravity. I knew that she was more than taking her toll of the humans around her castle, but it was not until the outcry against her from other vampires became too great that I was able to act."
"What would have stopped you, lord?" Meier asked, curious as to what could have stayed the powerful Vampire King's hand.
"Come, now." Dracula's blue-gray eyes pinned Meier's gaze sardonically. "How long would I be able to maintain power and control over vampires if I slaughtered my own people so easily? In some ways I am the least free vampire of all." Dracula's gaze became pensive.
"Still, I must congratulate you. Carmilla was formidable those many years ago when I took her vampire life from her and pinned her in her coffin. From all the trouble she evidently caused you, it seems as if the passing of time did not diminish her power at all. I recall I had to sacrifice a powerful sword to keep her dead."
Meier had only had eyes for Charlotte's pitifully crumpled form when he had invaded Carmilla's room of repose. Still, in the desperation of trying to get Charlotte away from the blood revenant Carmilla had become, he had noticed the gleaming of a sword discarded on the floor, as a weapon could have helped him if Carmilla's power proved too much for him. He closed his eyes.
"The hilt was the body, the crosspieces its outstretched wings and the blade bore the balefulvisage of a fierce dragon all wrought marvelously in a gleaming gold metal," Meier claimed softly.
"Ah! So you did see it!" Dracula seemed pleased. "That was my second-favorite dragon sword. Good to know it survived whatever Carmilla did to free herself. What weapon did you use to finally deal her a permanent deathblow?"
Meier shook his head. He held no illusions about himself. He knew that the final deathblow to take down one as powerful as Carmilla was beyond him to deliver alone. "There was another..." he began.
"Another? Another what?"
"Carmilla's revenant, as powerful as it was, was only her body. Something had interrupted her from bonding body and soul together in her bloody, reviving ritual. Rather, someone. I only slew her revenant, the body that she had tried to revive with my Charlotte's blood. Another dealt the killing blow to her spirit."
"Really?" Dracula leaned forward, steepling his fingers in his interest.
"I couldn't protect her and I couldn't even avenge her death!" Meier's face was bleak admitting the failure he was certain would haunt him all his eternal days. "It was D, with that sword of his," Meier reached up and rubbed his left shoulder where it ached in memory of being pierced by that same sword, "who dealt the final death to Carmilla."
"D?" Dracula breathed. "You met D?"
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Author's notes:
This seems as good a place as any to put in a chapter break. I apologize for the long hiatus. This year has been particularly difficult on me, bringing a personal tragedy that I'm still trying to deal with. However, I'm trying to bring the bits and pieces of my life back into some semblance of order, and writing (and posting) is certainly a part of that!
Now, as for the story, I have had a chance to read the two Hideyuki Kikuchi Vampire Hunter D books that have been translated so far. There are already elements of this story that are contrary to the canon revealed in the novels, so, please understand that I will have to adhere to only the canon as seen in the movies for this story.
Next chapter teaser – Chapter Four – Crossing Over (title may be changed)
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get!
stargarde (at) stargarde (dot) com