Dawn of Eternity
Interlude Part 11: Poisoned Ground
Note: Sadly I write little bits and pieces from this from experience. Lets just hope from now on those pieces can only be inspiration rather than the norm, for myself and all unfortunate women. I hope you enjoy the crossover I have been hinting at forever but didn't finally come out and say until now, I hope I have done the character justice! Oh and yes this is the last Interlude for a bit. I am get way to involved in back-story, time for the present!
"Ich habe Pläne grosse Pläne, Ich baue dir ein Haus, Jeder Stein ist eine Träne, Und du ziehst nie wieder aus." - Stein Um Stein. Rammstein. (I plans, big plans. I am going to build you a house. Every stone shall be a tear and you'll never move out again.)
Mina was paralyzed with defeated fear as she watched Dracula in the tower far across from where she hung. He pulled himself effortlessly into the narrow window, a window she could not help but to think she'd died at once before, and he sprang. Such a length should have been impossible even for a vampires legs, he should have been wreathed in flames as the sunlight touched his bare skin but he was not. With a single effortless leap, his cape billowing out behind him, Dracula cleared the vast gap of the Arges. He landed effortlessly upon the white face of the tower, merely feet from were Mina hung. She saw his slender fingers slip effortlessly into the stone, as if it were made of sand. Mina was trembling violently beneath him, her eyes locked upon him.
How was it possible that he stood unharmed and uncaring within the light of day? How was it possible that his face had somehow changed…become one of such astonishing, unmatched beauty? Dracula stood up, his feet locked against the vertical stone face and his body seemed quite impervious to gravity.
"How…how dare you!" he whispered has he stared into Mina's blank black eyes.
Quivering Mina's closed her eyes, her face was a sad mask of desperation and defeat as her hands let go of the rope. For only a few fleeting moments she was falling, and her consciousness was consumed by the memory of a freefall that she'd experienced in some distant life.
In a blur of darkness Dracula raced down the face of the tower, his hand shot out and seized a handful of the lengthy black hair that trailed out behind her falling figure. She let out an agonized squeal of pain, he'd seized her hair close enough to the scalp so that the strands refused to give even as she halted to a stop, and they did not give even as he yanked her back up to were he was standing. Once close enough Dracula planted a thin, clawed hand at her throat and crushed her form to his. In vain desperation she struggled, kicked and beat against him but it was little use. She could not have escaped him even in his usual form, much less in the glorious one he'd somehow taken on. Her attempts where truly laughable.
"No!" bellowed one of the figures below as he charged off his horse and run toward the tower. As he did so this form, at first weak and quite human, changed. In a single, effortless motion it arched toward the ground and became immense, bestial. It was a tawny wolf that leapt against the towers walls, snarling with defeated outrage.
"Jonathan…" Mina's whimpered, still quite unable to process the terrible plight of her former husband. She'd spoken to her old friends only though the pigeons she'd secretly trained to carry her news of the world outside these walls.
"Is that…is that you Harker!" Dracula laughed his slight disbelief. "My apologies Harker, Fenrir Greyback told me that he killed you, and eliminated the possibility of this little confrontation, but I see that he was lying. No matter, I'll send someone to correct your plight immediately Harker!"
Dracula did not recognize the second figure on horseback beside the raging werewolf, but it was no matter, he gave the scene no further attention as he crushed his wife closely into his embrace and began up toward the window. The moment he stood inside of their elegant and immaculate bedchamber he threw Mina violently down upon the floor, the way one would have thrown a whore.
"Mina…" Dracula whispered, his face…so fair, so flawless and beautiful…was trembling with a horrific rage. "Please GOD, tell me that this is another one of my hallucinations. This is just the poryapria talking…yes it; it has to be…an old touch of madness I haven't yet shed. Just tell me…"
Within the first days she'd fallen in helpless love for Vlad Dracula she was certain that he was mad, but she'd softly vowed that she could cure him. He heard a myriad of voices within his head. The things he saw and acted upon in his visions were far from prophetic. She only wished that her desire to flee was another one of his ceaseless hallucinations.
"Vlad…I am…I am le…le…leaving." she could feel the words twisting her soul…at least what was left of it. For weeks she'd been refusing her meals as the day of her escape drew near and near, but she had somehow managed to show Vlad nothing of her intentions even if that constant stalwartness had taken ever ounce of her strength. Now, however all her resolve had come crashing down around her in a torrent of failed agony.
Dracula's face was stricken with pain, and she felt her own guilt throb in response to it. "Ten years…" he almost choked the words, "It's been TEN YEARS MINA! You're saying that your willing to throw away ten years, the best years of my immortal life to the winds!"
Mina whimpered, "Ten years is nothing to you Vlad."
"No, NO!" Dracula was shrieking out and he clutched the sides of his head. She knew well that this meant he was seeing flashes of his hellish visions. "How can you dare say that, my love!" he moved and fell to his knees beside her, reaching out as if to embrace her.
Mina, her scalp still on fire and bones aching, skittered away as best she could, pressing herself up against the stone walls. Again she watched her lovers beautiful face conclusive with insanity.
"Every moment I have been with you Mina are the only years of my life that have ever meant a single fucking to me! Was that all I lie!" at first his voice was choked, but a second later he was shrieking, "You…you don't know what I have been. Thing things I have done. The monster I've had to play…but you changed all of that Mina! With you I am not Dracula at all…I am just Vlad. You promised you'd keep me that way!"
"It's not my job to save you!" Mina lashed out in a sudden flair of courage. "Nothing can save you Vlad, most especially me."
Vlad's blue eyes were wide and he actually staggered a bit. "You…you told me these past few years were the best of your life to! You meant it Mina; I heard it in your voice!"
"What did I know?" she shot back even as tears betrayed her. "I thought that before I saw the monster you truly are! I thought that before I knew you killed all the women who've failed to bear you this "perfect heir." Before you killed all 18 of our children!" Now there was hint of fierceness to her voice.
Vlad Dracula visibility staggered as these words washed over him and his last thread of calm broke. He lashed out with his opened, clawed hand and slapped Mina with only a fraction of his strength. Mina's tumbled to the floor with a cry, pressing her hand against the wound even as the blood oozed readily. She'd heard the bone snapping within her face, and she refused to meet his blazing eyes. This was hardly the first time he'd struck her, but it was the first broken bone.
"Damn it ,Mina, we've been through this! You AGREED to this!"
She bit past the agony in her cheek to speak even if the words sounded slightly garbled. "I was a fool in love! I wanted a daughter more than anything else in world, more than I wanted you. I was unhappy and barren in my marriage, and all the sudden you come to me from the shadows and promise eternal love and a perfect child! I knew well what the Nobility were capable of, I believed you…but I was too big a fool to see that price!"
"IT'S PERFECTION!" he half shrieked and seized her throat. Mina gagged but she did not attempt to struggle beneath his crushing fist. "You foolish humans! Every last FUCKING one of you is the same! You all dream of glory, but you're too damn lazy to work and to sacrifice to achieve it! Let me tell you something Mina. The universe is festering with a cancer, the cancer of Death. One day Death will consume every last thing that sparkles with life, and then there shall be only unfathomable oblivion. Unless someone is wise enough to overcome Death. And that is me. I must rebuild the entire multi-verse in a far more glorious image."
"Glorious…"Mina gasped weakly, "What is glorious about infanticide? How can love grow on such a poisoned ground?"
"They weren't human or vampire! Not as I see them, what I was killing were leeches in our gene pool. You agreed to help me! Now look, look at me Mina!" Dracula gasped, releasing his wife's throat and stepping back. His fangs were tearing into his lips as his eyes remained locked on the sight of the dark blood flooding from Mina's cheek.
Even from her mounting pain she still found herself quite taken by his sudden shimmering beauty, unlike anything she'd ever before seen of him.
"I am perfect. I am my success…at least temporally. You must forgive me once more Mina, and you must make love to me. I promise that this time I shall bear you the son of your dreams. Everything will be perfect then, just believe me!" Dracula knelt closer to her and laid his left hand across her shattered cheek. Almost instantly the wound disappeared but the tantalizing trail of blood remained.
"Your dreams, Vlad. Not mine. I wanted a daughter."
Dracula froze and slowly removed his hand, for a moment he felt woozy at the sight of her blood, but this was quite amazing in itself. Had he not been under the influence of his own science he would have certainly fell upon wound in lust. "Don't do this Mina. It's now or never, I'll never get the formula as wonderful as it is now. You know for three weeks I lost all track of time, what I discovered about the formula in that time will forever be unknown to me. I just had to work with it. I can't do this again. If I loose this chance and I loose you as well then I'll die. I know it."
"You cannot die. You've splintered your soul just to insure that, how can you expect me to love a man with a shard of a soul left over?"
Dracula stood, his eyes shimmered with hell fire and his foot lashed out and rammed into Mina's rib cage. She shrieked out, and choked, blood poured past her lips. He bent and seized her upward only to send her flying halfway across the room and into her vanity table. She felt a strangely distant flash of pain as the glass fractured around her body. 'DON'T YOU…" The blur of shadow that was Dracula seized her by the throat and hurled her across the room once more, this time she struck the bare wall. She heard something in her shoulder snap loudly. "DARE…" Again he'd grasped and thrown her, this time falling on their marriage bed so violently that the wooden frame splintered, but at least the pain was bearable this time. "…DEFY ME!"
He was panting in an animalistic, yet defeated sort of way as his glittering eyes bore into hers. "You are bound by oath and by marriage to accept my seed, now don't go and make this harder on yourself!"
"Le…leave me alone!" she whimpered, her words didn't carry a shred of hope or command.
At this Dracula breathed a rumbling, maniacal sort of laughter unlike any she'd ever heard before. "You'll have to give me a bit more than that Mina; oh you know I love it when you fight!"
At these words Vlad Dracula's hands feel to the groin of his bulging pants and began to undo them.
"Stop it…" she tried to wail but her bravery had failed as she regarded his seething form. The tears that streaked down her cheeks were no long of sorrow. Never before had she seen his eyes glow with such wild lust. He no long possessed two fangs, but a mouth full of needle sharp ones. He was smiling in a way that should have split the sides of his face, and his hair seemed to be writhing like snakes.
"Very well, since we're all full of lies and secrets here I'll tell you another. There is far more to me than just my personalities: "D", "Vlad" and "Dracula."…they are all merely Dr. Jekyll compared to what I really I am. Heaven would have fallen under my fist and the deepest pits of hell would have spat me out. Only those who've done me a terrible injustice know this side of me. But you've left me no choice Mina. It's time you see what I really I am."
The very air about him seemed to be glowing red, "Releasing Control Art Restrictions to level 2." he began with a steely tone. "3. 2. 1. RELEASED!"
It seemed as though the very fabric of existence collapsed around Mina and dissolved into blackness. From the oppressive black a million blood red eyes opened onto all around her. Dracula's form itself began to twist and to warp about at impossible angels. The face of Mina's tragic lover of ten years, the face of perfection he was temporally wearing, was gone. Replacing it was a face that was a twisted image of those elegant features with eyes that smoldered with an orange fire, a million jagged teeth crammed into his grinning maw. It's jaggedly cut long black hair swarmed about around its form, seeming the writhe like thick serpents. The image of Dracula no longer wore elegant clothing, but a flamboyant, dusty red coat that seemed to swirl about him like tentacles, his head was adorned with a matching hat that was widely brimmed, but other than those articles of clothing he was naked. His manhood was a swollen, barbed weapon that was wet and twitching with lust, and his tongue lolled out from the side of its fanged mouth, it was pointed and so long it fell past his collarbone. Mina was utterly unable to move, to think or even breath as this vision of hell came moving toward her.
"What, you're not going to scream, Mina? Don't you LOVE me, MY DEAR WIFE?" the voice that issued from the beasts throat was not that of Dracula's. It was a brash shout that was dripping with madness and biting sarcasm.
"V…v…Vlad…" she choked out at last, unable to muster any further strength. She didn't feel the scream of her broken bones as she curled against the furthest edge of the bed.
"Vlad?" the voice snarled, and laughed in an almost silken sort of way, "Oh I'd almost forgotten that sniveling, weak name. None of those weaklings can save you now. Now there is only me, the true essence behind the face of Vlad Dracula. I am not a personality. I am the sacred fount that all vampires have sprung, the source of it. I AM, the Sacred Ancestor. I AM ALUCARD!"
A vague memory passed through Mina's otherwise frozen mind, she'd heard distant tales that mentioned such a name. Old war stories from when the races had began to crawl out of the ash of the Poisoning. There were whispers that the greatest monster to rise from them had been named Alucard.
"Please…" she whimpered.
The nightmarish image of him crawled slowly onto the bed, the red coat warping and jutting outward like spines. She could have sworn that the shadows made it seemed like the image of Dracula…no Alucard, that crawled toward her had eight narrow legs tipped with vicious hands that strangely enough were covered with white gloves.
"Please?" he growled, half laughing at the word. "I remember that word…you used to beg it of me all those years back. They were the words you spoke if you wanted me fuck you like the filthy whore you truly are! I wonder how many times you've been asking that word Harker of over the years…"
"I…I haven't left this castle…"
"Don't you lie to me, whore!"
"Please…" she squealed as one of those hellish gloved hands seized her viciously at her shoulder. Another lurched forward to rip her gown apart, and then another fondled her breasts so violently she heard ribs snap.
"Shut up. You're forgetting the matter at hand. We've got a mission to fulfill." Still savaging her bosom and shredding her clothing, another pair of gloved hands wrestled her under his many limbed, writhing shadow of a body. At last Mina began to struggle and shrieked out in defeated terror. Alucard twittered with laughed, "Oh YES, YES! I love it when they fight, do you FEEL that Mina?" He'd pressed his barbed anatomy flush against her thighs, a fresh wave of horror suffused her being and in useless protest she began to scream as loud as her damaged psyche could allow. Distantly she heard the mournful baying of a wolf.
"Oh Mina!" he laughed out and pounded himself against her thighs with all the force of a battering ram, easily ripping open flesh. "Aren't you just dying to be with me?"
She simply had no other choice but to weep, she couldn't possibly fight this monster and her spirit lay in smoldering splinters.
The demon was panting in a bestial way and it began to drag it's tongue across the various streams of blood that trailed across her body. His myriad of hands took turns in between caressing her, and savagely groping her. The stench of decay was choking what air her lungs could pull in, she could taste the fear like metal in her mouth and each countless red eye fixated the blunt of it's maddening gaze on her naked body. It was an eternity later that Alucard impaled her viciously with his weapon, the time leading up to this moment had been agonizing because she knew it must happen. Her shriek echoed thought-out the whole chamber. Alucard rammed himself deeply and mercilessly inside of her, the insanity of his fiery eyes glowing brighter with each stroke, his smile twisted the whole of face. It was impossible not to scream as pain flared brighter and brighter. Strangely it was not a caustic pain, but rather a pain that kept building even as he savaged her flesh. She could liken it only to an orgasm in reverse…to her horror there was a faint element of pleasure but as soon as it uncoiled, it warped, much like the ever changing demon before her, and twisted into agony. Mina was convulsing with pain but still the mouth that reeked of putrefaction locked onto hers and the countless arms pinned her down, caressed and savaged every inch of her bared skin. A scarlet pool had formed on the silk below their joined bodies. Perhaps an eon later the razor tipped wave of agony came crashing around her as Alucard's fangs sank into her throat. Every muscle within her body seized with an inferno of agony, she felt her eyes roll back into her head, tongue gagging her throat and heart seizing in arrest. Alucard then roared out in what sounded like the highest peaks of ecstasy and flooded her with his seed.
In a detached sort of way Mina heard herself weeping afresh, and felt the blinding torment that was surging through every inch of her body. Alucard remained latched onto her neck, the whole of his body heaving as he slurped at her blood. In time reality seemed to reestablish itself, and the hellish being faded into merely the cruel, sensual features of Dracula. No hint of the once perfect being that he'd once been remained. He kissed her savaged lips almost tenderly. "I am so sorry you had to see that side of me Mina." however his voice held no trace of regret.
Deep within her throbbing womb Mina could feel his seed taking root, and felt a spark of life begin to grow within that poisoned ground.
Asenath blinked numbly as the memory faded away. It had not been a memory she'd experienced personally, but rather that of the spirit that lingered about the cavern. Asenath looked vaguely up from the dead child to regard the shimmering, pale ghost that stood across from her. Mina Murray. Until tonight she'd never met Luna face to face, she'd merely experienced some of her memories, but it was far different with Mina. Asenath had encountered and spoken to this ghost quite often.
Mina dropped to her knees beside the lifeless child and touched it with her hand.
"He's dead?" Asenath choked.
"Yes. You see the Horcrux was powerful enough for him to slowly re-grow and regain a body. That in itself is powerful magic unlike anything most are capable of, but it was wasn't enough. It didn't have enough of the spark of life to animate that body. You see D made a grave mistake from the moment he made his Horcrux."
Asenath whimpered but savagely fought back tears, "What was that?"
"He forgot that he was toying with the blackest of magic. Dark magic doesn't respond correctly to love, faith and noble purposes. D created his Horcrux for all of those things, created it using the memory of the terrible sins he's seen and committed, sins he regretted. He created it while reflecting on his love of myself and Luna. Causes like that don't effectively split and house a soul."
"So, then…tearing himself into bits? It was all for nothing?" Asenath could not help to recall her shock at how drastically he'd aged over the years. Ever since creating the vessel for his soul.
"Of course not" Mina informed her quickly. "Without that vessel he'd never have been able to regenerate as much as he has. You cannot forget the magnitude of what you're seeing before you. If he'd merely been staked or beheaded then he would have risen far faster, faster even than the aid of his Left Hand. But his body was destroyed; the silver cord that connected the soul with the body was effectively severed. It takes a phenomenal amount of power to restore that connection…it's hardly surprising at all that the magic simply ran dry." Mina's voice halted momentarily, "He's not the monster that was his father."
Asenath was quite inclined to agree with her, when she'd seen the hellish entity concealed with Dracula, the thing named Alucard; it had felt like all her mind had melted into madness. "So…what do we do then?"
"In any other circumstance there would be no help. What he needs is blood, but only two types of blood could spark life back into his body. There is the blood of unicorn, but that would curse him to remain weak and changing little from this form. The second is the blood that originally sparked him life, the blood of his mother."
"Well…well that is impossible. I mean, you can take my form until my body rejects you, but that won't make you alive. It won't be your blood that runs in my veins."
"Yes" Mina whispered, "that is the crux. I am here though, and I will stay for as long as it takes. There must be away for him to bring him back to life, otherwise he would not have got this far. Fate wouldn't have let him. You know more about magic than anyone of true heart has known for ages, you must find a way."
"That…that's not possible!" Asenath choked out, closer to tears than ever as she took touched the child's frozen and immobile skin. "I've learned all have from books and then a bit on the Wisdom Seat. I have next to no true experience…"
"Well if you two gals are done with the pleasant chit-chat, I've gotta lil something to add. You know, a juicy bit of gossip for you to chew on." A familiar gruff and sarcastic voice rose from the vicinity of the child.
Asenath startled then glared down at the hand that looked quite unsightly attached to the child's thin wrist, as it was still adult sized. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What? Hey, I am helping him, you little brat! I've only spent the last six days trying to pump some life into the tike, and this is my thanks? Look I am sorry if I just up and ran but I knew a lost cause when I saw one. You know I got a good dose of the Wisdom Seat to, and when I had some time to reflect on it I knew that not all of what we saw was a lie. Just the location of the Horcrux, the rest was true. Besides I asked the ol' Universe what D's fate was and it showed me. I knew that by the next day he was going to be toast, pun intended. Is it so wrong to save my sorry little neck?"
"You don't have a neck, you have a wrist. D's wrist I might add." it was apparent that her rage at the symboite would not be forgotten lightly. "Shit, if you knew all this then why the hell didn't you speak up? I mean you do it all the fucking time at the most inopportune times…"
"Shit! I didn't get a damn chance, girl! And you dead wrong…I speak at the most hysterical times, I mean when you've been alive for billions of years and your host talks as much as brick wall you gotta amuse yourself somehow. Now just stop blame-storm for five milliseconds, don't you dare paint me out as the bad guy! You know were I went when I pulled my vanishing act? I followed Dracula's trail! I've been camping out at Castle Dracula and trying to get the dirt on ol' Dracs. I didn't learn much in the way of details but I can tell you that he's very active in something he's calling the "Apophis-VD17 project.", oh and that he's got Randal Flagg, AKA Marten Broadcloak as his chief adviser. And I can tell you that you were damn lucky to have left Krahausten when you did and started moving because Theander has been attempting to follow you about for the last year! Apparently, ol' Randy is very adamant about knocking you off his hit list."
Asenath sighed but she seemed placated…if somewhat shocked. The name Marten Broadcloak didn't even register with her. "Alright, explain yourself. Why didn't you tell D what was going to happen?"
"Like I said, no chance!" the hand defended, "The second we left the Wisdom Seat you had us tearing a wormhole through the fabric of reality just to transport us from point A to point B. A minute later I am destroying a Horcrux and stumped as hell at why it seemed to direct and easy, and then a millisecond after that D is locking lips with you. Can't exactly spoil that moment, can I? And just for the record, I was defiantly rooting for you. And then to top it all off his bunny gets killed and here comes Dracula. Sorry if I got a bit on the overwhelmed side.
"In the end all I could do was run, and hope the Horcrux trick would work because I need him to survive." It took Asenath a moment to realize that the hand was telling the truth, looking down upon it she was shocked to notice that it was skeletally thin, and dotted with small sores.
"Okay fine, I believe you. Now what was it you were going to say, do you know how we can solve this problem?"
"Of course I do. "The blood of the mother that bore him life" that's just a load of flowery crap. That's something that D read long ago in a book of spells, he thinks that the life blood of his Mommy is the only things than can bring him back. The author had a tendency to write in poetic terms, but D took it literally. That's the only reason why it has to be Mommy Dearest to bring him back. The truth is that D is half vampire, and with vampires unless you're reduced to dust or have been dead for hours then blood can always bring you back to life. Any human blood will do the trick; really, all we need is your blood Asenath."
"I'll bleed every last drop for him." she answered without hesitation.
"Not so fast girl, you're forgetting something. D has his mind dead set in choosing that his mother must do it. Mind over matter, you need to make him think that it's Mina."
Asenath nodded softly, understanding, "Yes, I can do that." hope surging into her heart. All she needed was to channel Mina, as simple as that, but in truth Asenath felt a beaming sense of pride. In a sense she was the only one left on the Earth who could have returned him to life. Throughout most of her life her spirit had been cursed to be that of a luckless orphan, but now she felt akin to Isis. The legend of Isis had survived unscathed through the ages, the same bittersweet tale of the Goddesses who'd breathed life into the lifeless form of her slain husband.
Asenath took the empty child into her arms and clutched it close to her breast. She glanced quickly at the stiff umbilicus that that connected D to the earth, and tore it in half. The Earth had played her role in this rebirth. She slashed open the flesh just above the swell of her left breast, and she cradled the child gently toward the wound and pressed it's mouth to the blood. "Come on…please D. You have to live, you must live…" she muttered softly, and closed her eyes. When she opened them they were no longer Asenath's, but were darker and narrower, Mina's eyes. Mina clutched the child to her breast and like the woman before, whispered softly to the child. She recalled in a vague way how it had taken an eternity when the demon that was his father to satisfy his lust for her, but it seemed far longer now as she waited for the life that rape had created to kindle once more. Although Mina was only a simple human she clearly heard the first hesitant thumps of D's heart.
Mina healed in time. She always healed. This had not been the first time that her body had been savaged seemingly beyond repair; however it was the first time it had been directly by Dracula's hands. Other times it had been the children he'd impregnated her with that tore her apart. But regardless of the cause, he was always swift to heal her. He couldn't have an invalid and hideous wife now could he, and boundless healing was one of the few good fruits of his mad genius.
But it was a prison in which she was healing now. The prison that she lay within was the same bed chamber that she'd had her spirit shattered, but the door had been bricked shut, the same with the window. His sentence had been fair in comparison to what he did if any of his other mistresses or wives tried to escape him. Mina knew well that if he'd not been imbued with the genetics of his perfect creation that he would not have spared her life.
Mina hardly left the bed, even if fully healed. She rose only dine and to use the toilet, it wasn't as though she had a choice to do much else. He'd removed all her books, sewing and all form of ink and paper. "It's only for your own good Mina." He'd told her as calm and as even as could be…as if there was no lingering trace of that demon that haunting her every thought. "You've strayed from the path, that's all. It's difficult to love the Nobility, and for that I will forgive you. It's only natural for a woman to want to know if the grass is greener on the other side but I cannot let you go. Therefore I think it best that the only thing you have to occupy your thoughts is me and our son. I pray you'll see the light in time."
It's was fairly close to the truth. All she really could count on his Dracula's visits twice per night (or what she assumed was night.), and the gentle stirring that gathered in her womb. She could not count on the third visitor as regularly, but it was his visits that pleased her the most.
Perhaps the child that grew within her womb really was perfect. She'd not suffered for a moment during her pregnancy thus far. No morning sickness, no aching, no cravings for raw meat and blood (as was typical for Nobel children.), all she discomfort she felt was the slight pains as her womb grew. At this point she'd been pregnant only two months, but the bump in her belly was quite large, like that of a child at five months. She knew that any other woman might scorn a child born through such poisonous circumstances but she simply could not. It wasn't the child's fault. She even vaguely hoped at first that it would be a girl, despite the fact that it would condemn it to death. When she learned it was a son she felt a twinge of sorrow, but at least now the child had a slim chance at life.
Shortly after Dracula had rose from the bed without a departing word and left her to her prison Mina heard a hoarse, male voice. The voice of her only companion within this desolate wasteland. "Christ, I thought he'd never leave. The news aint good, girlie, I think the second you have Lil Dracs he's going to kill you. I knew I said that I'll protect you so long you're knocked up, but he's trying with all his might to hold back Alucard when he sees you. Against Alucard I am about as powerful a flea."
Mina smiled and lifted her left hand, resting within it was a gnarled, grinning face. Mina hadn't been really surprised when the old face appeared within her palm. Dracula had talked avidly of using a symboite power generator within his son, so she assumed the symbiotic parasite had infected her as well. At least for now. "I seriously doubt that, Lefty."
The parasite grinned, clearing enjoying his new nickname. It was a fair more colorful alias than tainted, dusty old Ytfel. "Don't be so sure, Toots. I am what is classified as an Elemental demon. My kind gets our juice from the earth and its living creatures. But Alucard…he gets his power from the very bowels of hell. That isn't much of a fight."
"And my son….what sort of power will he have?"
"Well for you sake, I hope a ton. I hope he gets a dose of that Alucard power…at least enough to be handy in a fight. We won't really know until he grows I guess, but I can tell you all the neurons in his brain are just going haywire with power and information. Never seen anything like before."
"You do recall our promise, right?" Mina whispered lowly.
"Of course I do. Should Dracula end your life I will remind Lil Dracs never to forget you and what was done to you. I am on your side. I got in way over my head with Dracs, and I want to see him fall."
"Please…let's not call my son Dracula any more." Mina said softly, "I want to name him D."
"D?" the hand laughed, "Oh come on hun, please tell me you're joking. I'd think a girl as clever as you can come up with a name that is more than just one letter."
"I like D. That's the name of Dracula's kindest personality…the one I thought I saw when I first fell in love with him. If I must name him after his father, than I'll name him after the only human part of him."
"Aww...AWW! That's touching, Princess, but you really going to damn me to say one letter for all eternity?"
Mina only smiled frailly, it was thanks to this friendly symboite that she allowed herself to keep living at all.
"Okay…fine, D it is."
Mina gasped as she felt the child shift within her belly, this wasn't the first movement she'd felt but it was certainly the first large one. "See, I think he likes it."
With Lefty's friendship, his snide humor and captivating wisdom the months passed effortlessly. It was because of Lefty that she rose from the bed and dutifully finished off every last speck of food that she was brought. If the symboite it carried was compassionate enough to take pity on her, than there might yet be hope for the child. She wondered if the child did not already adore her, as it seemed to restrict it movements when she slept. And it kicked, and protested almost painfully every time it heard its father's voice.
In human terms she'd pregnant only six months, but the child had grown full term. She'd been sleeping when she was stricken with the first pains of labor, and mercifully alone. She suppressed a scream as she bolted up, and for a confused moment she thought she'd lost control of her bladder until realizing that her water must have broke.
"Alright…looks like its show time, Princess." Lefty informed her, "No false labor about this. D knows he's not here and he doesn't want him anywhere near. Kid means business here, your going to start dilating real soon and real fast."
"Wait…" Mina gasped, biting her lips to keep from screaming as pain bolted through her body. "You're absolutely certain that you can't leave a bit of yourself behind to stay with me? I'll miss your company…without you, I'll be helpless."
"No, no I can't say. I told you, I can't disobey Dracs. He's seen to that rather well I must admit. That would be a huge violation of my stupid agreement. This is good bye for a few years, if you make it, but I really would not worry. I like this kid. It already hates Dracs. You've got a good shot."
Mina bit her lip, both against the pain and the possibility of tears, "Well, goodbye then. Thank you so much for all you've done for me."
"Your welcome, girl." the gnarled face smiled up at her once last time before fading away.
The symboite was not lying when it said it was going to be quick, Mina hardly had time to pull herself off the bed before birthing would have been impossible to prevent. Many women did not know that to give birth in that traditional laying position was impractical; it forced the mother to bear against gravity. The easiest way was to give birth for both child and mother in a standing position. Mina only leaned against the heavy bed frame as she waited a few moments longer for her body to prepare itself. It wasn't long. It didn't even begin to compare to her usual agony in childbirth. She only needed a few hard pushes before the weight within her womb was free. She caught the child instantly. In the same instant a single, tiny cry rose from its mouth.
Her tears broke, the way they always did the moment she heard the first cries of her children, but this time it tore all the deeper. The child had cried merely to take its first breath of air, after that it fell silent. The first thing she that struck her about the child was his eyes. They weren't the cool, deceptive gaze of his fathers, nor the maddened gaze of Alucard. They were Mina's own, dark, piercing eyes. Although streaked with blood the child still possessed the lovely image of a cherub. In ten years she'd given life to 19 children, but this had been the only child's whose face she'd laid eyes upon. Her wild sobs of both pain and love escaped her as she gently cradled this child to her breast. This didn't startle the baby in the least. In the end she'd been certain that she wouldn't be able to see this child's face before Dracula killed her. She could never recall feeling such enthralling happiness, even if deep below that happiness was tainted. She rose slowly back onto the bed, and swaddled the child with the silk blankets, and simply wept.
Moments later she smashed the edge of a wine glass and used the shards to cut through the umbilicus, and then to slash the top of her left breast open for the child. Children with Nobel blood didn't grow in their fangs until a few hours after birth, but if they did not receive blood within ten minutes of birth they were thrown into fits of utter agony. Some children didn't survive that first bloodlust.
But as Mina pressed D to her wound nothing happened. The child didn't seem to show any particular interest in the wound. It was more interested in silently and rapidly taking in its soundings. Already he appeared to see perfectly well and was grasping out at tendrils of her hair or at her hands. She wasn't sure how long it was before the child at last became fixated on the smell of her blood, and reached out its chubby arms to grasp her neck and pull itself onto the wound. Mina knew however that far more than ten minutes had passed. The child was indeed the success that Dracula was so obsessed in creating.
Her tears had now transformed into ones of bittersweet sorrow, "D…I don't think we have more than a few more minutes together but I want you to know I am your mother. I hope you can remember me. To me you will represent only the love me and your father once shared, even if that wasn't how you were created. Please, try to understand that I loved your father. What choice did I have?"
****
Asenath's heart was filled with a bitter sweet sorrow, quite similar to what Mina had felt so long ago. Part of it was for the helplessness of her tale and the other part was because she felt Mina Murray fading away, and graciously returning the body she'd borrowed. In truth Asenath had lent her body more to Mina than any other soul in existence, and she'd become quite attached to the soul. In a way she regarded Mina of the mother she'd never truly had.
Soon enough her attention was turned to the life that was growing rapidly within her arms. In only the expanse of ten minutes the D's child like form had grown into that of a toddler and it was still rapidly advancing as it suckled greedily at the flow of blood. Asenath felt the child slide its skeletal arms about her neck, and hoist itself up to press its fanged mouth into her. Asenath leaned her head back to grant D easier access.
She wasn't entirely aware of what words she spoke as D drank deeply of her, but she knew she was saying something as the he continued to grow within her arms. She didn't protest as she felt the blood draining from her body, didn't protest when the cave began to swim before her eyes but it was D sense her faintness because he pulled away instantly from her.
His eye was opened, wide and alert but it was clear he was only half regenerated. While he was now the height he'd been when he had died, he was skeletally thin and skin pale and large portions of his skin, including patches on his face was covered with second and third degree burns, as though his body was unable to let go to the terrible way it had died. The wisps of hair that fell in his eyes were mostly grey. His voice however sounded quite unwavering, "Asenath?"
She didn't delay in sobbing and capturing his bloodless lips with her own. D did not protest this but was far too weak to respond. His horrific appearance didn't matter at all about her; her joy was unlike anything she'd never before known. Asenath could never recall crying tears of joy before.
"It wasn't a dream was it?" D's voice whispered, already losing a great deal of its strength.
"No, probably not. I am sorry."
D didn't say anything else as he merely lay against Asenath's shoulder, clearly trying to summon the strength to stand.
"D, I think you need to drink some more before you try to get up."
"No. I am fine. You get Snow White. We've a lot of do if we've got any chance against him."
"No! D…" she protested and then felt a jolt of shock when she realized that he'd asked for Snow White. She was uncertain if that twinge of shock was because he was disoriented, or because his waking thoughts had been of Luna's soul rather than her own.
They was no time to dwell on the thought however, in the next moment the frail thing that was unrecognizable as the Hunter had slumped in her embrace utterly limp. His eye was still and sightless. She couldn't hear a heat beat.
Before a cry of dismay could begin within her a hoarse voice chimed in, "Hey, girl! Relax he's okay…he just went and pushed himself too hard and fell into instant hibernation because of it. Your right, he defiantly needed more blood, but naturally he's too proud to admit that. Sad thing is that there is no telling how long it will take him to recover in hibernation, but he'll get there."
Stilling her tears she lay him down on the rocky ground, and pulled free an old cloak from her pack and wrapped it around the Hunter. She closed his eye, and lightly kissed his still lips. "We'll…at least he's back. Maybe it's better he rest some. Maybe you and I can figure out a plan to defeat Dracula. Find out more about that project you mentioned, or get a lead on the last Horcrux."
"Oh I wouldn't concern yourself with the last Horcrux, Ase. Only Patchy has to know how for that one. I say anything that gets Dracs and Flagg excited, and keep hush hush is terrible news for anything alive. All I know is the project's name and that he is going to execute it within five years. That's what we focus on. And I just so happen to have the name that will be our only real hope for inside info. Fisher Lagoon. I am sure you know it."
"I…I do." Asenath admitted with a faint blush. She rummaged through the depths of her enchanted bag and pulled free a slender, chrome plated instrument quite similar to what a human would have once called a cell phone. She tapped its glowing screen quickly, and scrolled through the info it brought up concerning vehicles for hire. With the touch of a button she summoned a carriage to find them based on their GPS. It wouldn't be quite as fast as it was if she'd summoned it in a city, but soon enough it would find them.
"Wait a second girl….you said you wanted to work on a game plan while Patchy is snoozing. Well, you'll need to bury him or put him in a coffin so he can get the most rest, and how do you expect me to talk to you in a coffin?"
Asenath paused, "Well…I didn't think about it, I guess. I'll visit you?"
"Girl, there is a far better solution than that. I mean, there isn't much I can do for Mr. Personality right now. Best just to let himself regenerate at his own pace. So…instead of just laying about waiting for you to come and call, well…I could sure use some new digs to kick back at in the meantime. So, how about it?"
"Wait…no…I, you can't mean you want to…"
"Yes! Yes I do, what's so repulsive about it? D's lived with me for 11,000 years, and other than the fact that I like to annoy him, he don't really complain about it. I am not that bad a roomie, Asenath, I keep to myself and I try to lighten the mood. Plus…I defiantly need a vacation so to speak. I am sick of the scenery…it would be thrilling to live somewhere new for a little while."
"You mean…you can..?" Asenath was in a flutter of questions. Something about this request just didn't seem right. "You can move?"
"Of course! You saw what I did with Mina right? That's what my kind do, move about from body to body and we can even make copies of ourselves with a collective consciousness to do the same. I'd have to focus my main consciousness back to D in time though, I am bound utterly to him, so this would be temporary, just until he's done snoozing. If it makes you feel better I'll leave a copy here with Sleepy Head and let you know how he's doing, but I beg you Asenath…you need my help."
"Well…well alight, you can." She whispered, choked with doubt as she said the words. Only minutes ago she'd cursed the parasitic hand.
"Kickass. I promise this won't hurt, and half the time you won't even know I am there. And all the more, you'll have a great story for D!"
The hand reached out for her own left hand, and slowly Asenath clasped it. She felt only a slight pressure on the palm of her hand. When she lowed D's hand and examined her own palm the familiar little face was already grinning up at her, she tried not to look startled.
It even greeted her, "Well, heya roomie!"