AN: After this chapter, I just have to write the epilogue, and then it's finished. Thank you for reviewing, Alanna and Nightcrawlerlover. I'll do my best to keep up my standard of writing, Nightcrawlerlover. Please let me know if it ever slips.
"When I was a child, Mother told me that Zadkiel would absolve me of even the most appalling atrocities if I was truly sorry, and then she gave me the icon. I'm not convinced that he could still forgive me now, but I have kept him close nonetheless." (Bianca)
"He would forgive you; I know he would," Jack told Bianca with an unexpected yet strong certainty. "Whatever you have done, there is still kindness in your heart, and it is clear to me that you feel at least some remorse. For that, I am sure that any watching divine powers will grant you amnesty."
The blonde woman turned towards him with a wide beaming smile on her face. "You're so sweet," she gushed happily. "Thank you, Jack… I can call you Jack, can't I?"
"Of course you can," he told her, with a small smile of his own.
"She reminds you of Lucy," said Mina suddenly. Her voice was surprised and somewhat irritated. Jack hung his head without replying as blood rushed to his face.
A firm yet gentle hand, cool as a mountain stream in late autumn, cupped itself under his chin. He allowed his head to be raised and found himself looking into the sweetly amused eyes of Bianca. "I don't mind," she told him. "Would you like to come for a walk with me? I can take care of myself, Master." The last was stated in a chagrined yet reassuring manner. Vlad watched her and Jack carefully for several seconds, and then nodded sharply.
"I know," he informed her wearily.
"Please be careful, sister. He may have loved Lucy," Mina grudgingly acknowledged, a bitter sneer marring her expression. "But that didn't stop him from been party to her execution."
Looking at Mina sharply, he informed her hotly; "If you had seen her as a vampire… she wasn't meant for that existence. Even so, I never could have struck the final blow myself! It was Arthur who found the courage to sacrifice his own peace of mind to set her free. When we saw her in the crypt, her mind was already breaking under the strain of that existence! If, by some miracle, she had 'survived', so to speak, she would have become the worst sort of monster. She probably would have completely forgotten her human life in time."
"I could have saved her."
"You could have saved her? How's that? Because she loved you, perhaps?" he said mockingly. "You didn't think we wouldn't notice? Well, it was actually Arthur who did, and accepted it as well, although he eventually let it slip to me."
Mina glared.
"Umm… how about we go on that walk now?" Bianca interceded. Jack was quick to agree, and then the two of them were rapidly disappearing into the distance. Ursula grabbed Delilah's hand and dragged the dark-haired vampiress away in the opposite direction. Alone once more, Vlad and Mina proceeded to resume the activities in which they had been engaged prior to Bianca's interruption. Within minutes they found themselves embracing each other as they lay naked in the snow. Were they humans they surely would have frozen to death, but they were not; indeed, their undead bodies were actually more comfortable in the extreme cold that would have maimed their breathing, mortal counterparts.
Meanwhile, Jonathan was leaning against a tree as he wept. He felt shame for his tears, yet he couldn't hold them back. Ever since he had stumbled cold, wet and shivering into a Transylvanian monastery, he had remained stubbornly stoic, hiding his emotions behind an often expressionless mask. Only now that he had lost everything did he allow the tears to finally fall. His wife had left him for the being that had imprisoned him in a waking nightmare and of the men who had become his friends when they united behind a common cause and in shared pain and righteous anger, the only survivor now held him in the lowest regard.
He was startled by a sharp intake of breath. Looking up, he saw Jack Seward, the aforementioned survivor, and clinging to his arm there was…
"You," he snarled when he recognised the deceptively sweet-looking blonde. Well he remembered this modern-day Lilith dining on his blood along with her decadent 'sisters'. It had been a depraved orgy of terror that had reduced him to a state of delirium, and from which he had made a panicked, surreal escape that had seemed to be just as much, if not more, in the realm of hallucinations and dreams than it was in the realm of reality. Disbelief and betrayal were written all over his face as his gaze moved from the sinful beauty to the man at her side. This was the man who had scorned and ridiculed him for submitting to the will of his much loved wife turned vampire?!
"Giving up already, Jack?" he asked mockingly. "Considering your reaction to my decision, I didn't think you would. It actually seems rather hypocritical of you."
"Aren't you pleased that I'm no longer trying to kill Madam Mina?" Jack retorted with both annoyance and puzzlement shining through on his features. "Isn't that the reason you wanted me to leave them be in the first place?"
"I didn't mean for you to keep company with one of those… those… demonic women of the pit! They kept me imprisoned by draining my blood make me weak, Jack. How can you condone that?"
Jack looked sharply at Bianca, who gave him a bitter, self-depreciating smile. "Still think Zadkiel could forgive me?" she asked him. "I told you that I am beyond redemption, didn't I? The truth is that my current placement on this earth goes against the rules of nature set down by God. We Nosferatu are anomalies whose existence first came about through heartbreak and desire for revenge. Since then we have been created out of a desire for companionship. Vlad created all of us – Ursula, Delilah, me, and, more recently, Lucy and Mina as well – because he has been lonely. Yet even with us… Well, we hope that sweet Mina will be the one to finally bring him out of the dark anguish that has been eating at him since long before I met him."
Jonathan turned towards her, his expression an almost mad one that betrayed past traumas. "Why?" he whispered "You sound almost as if you want redemption… but why act as you did towards me, if that is so?"
"My sister Delilah often says that we are the devil's minions on earth, whether willing or otherwise," came Bianca's cryptic reply. "I think she just likes the dark poetry of the idea – Paradise Lost is one of her favourite books – but perhaps she is right. It would certainly explain a lot. Like why we shy from all things holy, and why we gain our sustenance from the lifeblood of the human race. Like why we find ourselves capable in death of travesties we never even dreamed of whilst we still breathed. But I hear that Master was just as terrifying to his enemies as a human as he is to the masses now."
"He was?" asked Jack, intrigued. "Who was he, exactly?"
With a slightly frightening smirk, Bianca replied with a question of her own. "Ever heard of Tepes?"
"I think so. He was a Wallachian warlord, wasn't he? A member of the Order of the Dragon, named Tepes post mortem for his practice of impaling his enemies. Are you saying that that… man is him?"
"The very same," Bianca replied smugly, tossing her head back so that her long blonde hair rippled. The moonstones on her silver circlet caught the moonlight, which caused the gemstones' brilliant luster to become apparent. It occurred to both men that, in that moment, she seemed easily identifiable with Artemis, an Ancient Greek goddess with jurisdiction over the moon and the hunt. Jack murmured something to that effect, Jonathan nodded in reluctant agreement, and Bianca laughed softly, alluringly.
Seeing the love for Bianca that Jack held in his eyes, Jonathan felt the last of his true anger towards the small vampire family fly away with the icy north wind. He was still upset about what had happened, of course – probably always would be – but his feelings about all that had happened had ebbed to a rate that was defiantly more manageable. He stood and gave both Jack and Bianca his farewells, which they solemnly returned, and then he began to walk away. Bianca frowned at the dangerous winter landscape, and then reached out with her mind. With a satisfied smile, she gripped Jack's hand in hers and waited.
Not long after, the cold was sinking deep into Jonathan's bones, and he was beginning to regret his decision to just walk to the nearest village. As he began to grow truly worried, he heard the soft thump of hooves on snow, and then the horse that Quincy had been riding during the chase that now seemed an age ago came trotting around a corner, saddle and bridle still in place. The fine mare stopped by his side and bowed her head, docile as a sleeping puppy. Jonathan smiled a relieved smile. It seemed that God was finally getting back on his side.
Further up the valley, a vampire with the appearance of a moon goddess turned to her male companion and told him; "Jonathan will get home just fine. He thinks God provided transport. A pseudo deity is on his side, but it isn't who he thinks."