Dean was startled awake by the pain in his arm. He was being hauled up by someone pulling on a pair of handcuffs, one end of which was attached to Dean's right arm. The someone fed the other end through a heavy bolt on the wall and then snapped that bracelet shut on Dean's left wrist.
"Glad you could join us," Neal said, seeing that Dean was conscious once more. "Lyssa did a fantastic job, don't you think?"
"Oh yeah, she's quite the actress," Dean mumbled. He was struggling to find his feet, to stand up so that his arms were not holding the weight of his body and shaking his head to clear it. Where am I? He was definitely not in the room where he had found Lyssa. The floorboards above his head said that he was in a cellar still, but the walls here were of packed dirt, not concrete.
"You're not in the same place as before," Neal spoke as though he had read Dean's thoughts. "I had Lyssa wait there in case you tried that location first. She brought you to me as soon as she knocked you out."
Dean finally managed to gain his footing and turned to face the vampire.
"So, I guess you're Bryce Neal," he said. "Yeah…your girl did an awesome job. You must be so proud."
Neal laughed at the mocking tone in Dean's voice.
"I am actually," he replied. "Quite proud, thrilled even. I always have to kill my new vampires – although you already know that I suppose. All the trouble I go to, so they can have their revenge, the offer of eternal life I give them, and all they can do is wail and moan about 'What have I done? What have I done?' But finally, my beautiful creation appreciates the gift I've offered. For the first time ever – after so, so many – Lyssa shows real promise."
"How many times have you done this, you crazy bastard?"
Instantly, Neal brought one foot forward in a sweeping motion. The kick knocked Dean's legs out from under him, and Neal was rewarded with a cry of pain as Dean's fall was jerked up short by the handcuffs biting into his wrists.
"Let's show a little respect now, Mr. Winchester," he said as Dean struggled to his feet again.
"Fine. How many times have you done this, Mr. Neal?"
"Much better. And I've been doing this for longer than you can possibly imagine, little boy," the vampire gloated.
Dean returned a mirthless smile. He really wasn't interested in getting into a conversation – he needed to know where Sam was, and he needed to know quickly.
"I can imagine an awful lot, but I don't really care. Where's my brother?"
"Your brother is close by," Neal said, "and I think he's probably just about ready for you."
"Ready? What do you mean ready?" Dean demanded.
"I think you know, Dean," Neal replied with a slow smirk. "And let me say, I've never seen anyone go through so much agony for their transformation. I really wasn't sure he was going to survive it. Your brother Sam is one..messed..up..freak."
Dean's insides felt like ice. He had feared that Neal was turning Sam into a vampire, but hearing his fears confirmed was gut-wrenching.
"Don't you say that about my brother, you filthy bloodsucker," Dean said quietly. Neal just laughed.
"I figured your brother Sam was barely human before I changed him, so I was actually quite surprised…" as he spoke, Neal stepped in closer and closer to Dean, taunting him. And when he had stepped in close enough, Dean threw one elbow out and swung his arm, hooking the handcuff chain under the vampire's chin, grabbing the bolt with his hands and pulling both himself and Neal upward. Caught off-guard, Neal struggled wildly as Dean clung to the bolt, pressing the chain into the vampire's throat with all of his might.
But the vampire's strength was too much for the shackled Winchester. As he writhed and fought, Neal landed a vicious blow on Dean's already wounded left side. Pain surged through Dean's body like a jolt of electricity, causing every muscle to seize and shudder. He couldn't hold on. Neal twisted free as Dean, unable to hold himself up any longer, slid down the wall, gasping for breath.
"You stupid, pathetic human!" Neal spat the words at him in fury. "I've spent nearly two centuries punishing people who betray their family, evading hunters the whole while, and you think you can beat me? You think you have the slightest chance of winning?"
Only a couple of his words actually registered with Dean.
"Two centuries?" Dean panted. "How freakin' old are you?"
For a moment, Neal said nothing, just glared at Dean in white-hot rage, deciding whether his game was worth the effort or if he should just feast on the hunter's blood himself. Finally, he spoke.
"You should know this. As the last thing you ever know before your own brother feeds on you, you should know who I am. I've gone by many names over the years, and I've played so very many roles – a teacher, a priest, a mobster – but I do have a true identity." The vampire gave a sneering smile of introduction. "Robert Bryce O'Neal Trevalyan, at your service."
In 1814, Edward Trevalyan, the cash poor son of a titled Englishman, was assured by all of his more well-to-do friends that owning property in Ireland, and receiving rents from said property, was really the only way to finance a lifestyle centered around drinking, gambling, and other assorted vices. Without the funds to purchase property, Edward achieved his goal in the most expeditious way possible – he married an Irish lass. She received the title she and her family had always coveted, and Edward received property, rents, and a few months of living in a country that he considered a god-forsaken abyss. He would later report to his friends that "bedding the wife, and other assorted swine of the village, was certainly good fun, but I'm glad to be home to civilization."
Robert Bryce O'Neal Trevalyan was born in 1815, some months after Edward had returned to England. Over the years, the mother and child received only a handful of visits from the man. He was not missed. Robert's mother had what she wanted from her husband – a title, and an heir to carry it on.
The young boy was raised in the "grand house," in conditions truthfully little better than those of the downtrodden peasants who worked the land, but that was of no consequence to his mother. She saw to it that Master Robert was raised on tales of the mighty rulers of Ireland in his lineage; accounts of the noble title which set him even further apart from the humble serfs which his family ruled over; and stories from the Old Testament – focusing on retribution and glorious conquer, and assiduously omitting any precepts of mercy or charity. Young Master Robert was an excellent pupil, and the aloof arrogance which his mother had always displayed soon became seen as very near congeniality when compared to the son's demeanor.
Robert was fifteen years old when his mother was struck with a fever and died within the week. Edward Trevalyan paid for a casket, came for the burial, and promised his son that within a year he would bring Robert to England to live with him and receive a proper education. Instead, Edward returned to his home country, and finding that, due to a complicated aspect of Irish property law, the rent payments would now belong to Robert; promptly remarried. The Englishwoman he married was frail, sickly, and quite wealthy. Many a man had overlooked her charming riches in fear that she would be unable to bear them the sons that they desired. Edward had no concern on this matter, though. If he should ever want a son, he reasoned, he could always call on the one he already had.
To his surprise, Edward's new wife managed to bear him one child – a daughter, Lydia – and then linger on in failing health for the next sixteen years. Once she finally died, though, Edward found himself in the position that he had always dreamed of, funded and completely unencumbered. The wives – dead. The daughter – away at a young ladies' finishing school. The son – playing at being lord of the manor on his dreary Irish estate. Edward could finally have his life of careless abandon. Without the constraints of his wife's family lawyers; who had controlled his access to funds for the past sixteen years while she was alive; Edward's ability to dine, drink, gamble, and make questionable investments flourished. Within four months of his second wife's passing, Edward Trevalyan had managed to spend or speculate away an enormous fortune. And then he was shot and killed in a duel.
The shambles of his estate, the sorting of which would benefit no one other than the lawyers, provided no means for payment of Lydia's school expenses. So, the young girl was packed off to her only living relative, a half-brother in County Kildare. Of all the souls on earth in the year 1846, Lydia Trevalyan was one of only a handful who immigrated into Ireland. For the most part, beggars were leaving the country in droves as the great potato famine decimated the vulnerable population.
Lydia was young, delicate, and beautiful. Her introduction to Ballyniall – which is how the Trevalyan lands were still known; the inhabitants had paltry little other than their pride, and they refused to use the English name – was the equivalent of dropping a fresh, pink rose into the center of a dung heap. Robert was instantly enthralled.
The young lord had been entirely unconcerned all those years ago when he had received the news of his father's remarriage. Having acquired his rightful possession of the rents of his estate, Robert saw no reason at all to debase himself by traveling to England and putting himself under a lesser man's tutelage. After all, Edward Trevalyan's lineage might have provided Robert's title, but his father had not descended from a long line of rulers, as Robert had. Young, conceited, and unrestrained, Robert used everything and everyone in Ballyniall as he saw fit. And now, just as he had reached that point in his life where he had begun to think of taking a wife and producing an heir, a young woman worthy of his attentions had appeared as though by divine intervention.
Lydia's protests as to the impropriety of an intimate relationship between them seemed to have no effect on Robert's intentions. She was appalled when Robert would hold her and caress her, and she would beg him to stop lest someone should see the shameful behavior, but Robert assured her that he made the decisions in Ballyniall and that no one would dare to fault his actions. Finally, after several weeks of increasingly forceful attentions, Lydia appealed to her last recourse.
That evening, as Robert attempted to pull her into his lap as she passed him in the dining hall, Lydia jerked away and faced him head-on.
"No! It is wrong, my lord! In God's eyes it is wrong that we…"
Robert stood abruptly, slapped her across the face so hard that her lip split and her teeth cut into the inside of her cheek, and then dragged her by her wrists to his bedroom. His patience was spent – it was time that Lydia understood who was God in Ballyniall.
Alone and bewildered, Lydia had only one friend in her new life. Nora was the young wife of the local blacksmith. She was known as a fine laundress and often came to the manor house to help with the work. She and Lydia first met on the morning that Nora found Lydia hidden amongst the piles of dirty linens, crying and shaking. Rather than jeering at her as just another English interloper, or dragging her by her hair back to her brother as the senior housemaid had once done, Nora spoke gently to her and made the girl a cup of bracing Irish tea.
After that, the two became fast friends. Nora could do nothing to help change Lydia's situation, but she was kind, and Lydia clung to her. When Nora whispered with blushing excitement that she, Nora, was with child, Lydia rejoiced with her. As the months passed, though, Lydia began to grow more and more disturbed.
Childbirth was an enormously risky undertaking in that time, for both the mother and the child, and the risks were only exacerbated by poverty and malnutrition. But childbirth in Ballyniall seemed to have an especially ominous pall surrounding it. There were tales about crying infants heard where only a stillbirth had occurred. Whispers of young mothers, strong and vital one moment, pale and bloodless the next. Descriptions of bodies, mothers and infants, lifeless and wasted in ways which defied explanation. And every tale, every half-spoken horror, included the handywoman, Dame Ciara. As Lydia listened to the birth stories, which were told and retold amongst the serving women of the household, it seemed that no baby had ever been born, or died, in Ballyniall without Dame Ciara there in attendance.
No one could recall how long Dame Ciara had been accompanying the births in Ballyniall. It seemed that she was older than living memory. Whenever Lydia would question this fantastic possibility, though, or probe anywhere near the subject of the handywoman, backs would turn and tongues would fall silent. The women of Ballyniall seemed to be simultaneously worshipful of and terrified by the old woman.
"You mustn't ask questions, Lydia," Nora told her, fear etched on her face. "Dame Ciara helps many to safe birth, and those that don't make it…" The young woman's voice trailed off, her countenance troubled, no explanation given. Then like the others, she refused to say another word to Lydia about the woman.
Lydia's concern for her friend was certainly sincere, but there was an additional reason for her interest. Her time had not come in over two months. Lydia's hours were now consumed with the thought that something abhorrent, something born of the unseemly relations that her half-brother forced upon her, was growing inside her body.
She had learned very little about the world in her finishing school, but even there she had heard how unwanted consequences could be done away with by making a trip to the midwife. What good did that knowledge do her, though? Lydia was terrified of Dame Ciara. Equally as terrifying, though, was the thought of anyone finding out what she and Robert had done. Over and over, she considered the possibility of visiting the handywoman, only to recoil in fear from the very idea, and then to sicken with shame at the thought of giving birth to the child growing within her. Her thoughts were like wailing banshees swirling in her mind, unable to escape and unable to find any peace.
Lydia had passed a sleepless night when her maid and the senior housemaid entered her room together. They found her standing by the window, staring blankly into the distance, her face as pale as the weak morning light, deep circles shadowing her eyes. She turned to them and knew instantly that something was wrong.
"Oh, Miss Lydia, it's just awful…" the maid said before dissolving into tears. Madame Deirdre, the senior housemaid, was left to deliver the news herself, which she did with ghoulish pleasure.
"Nora's baby came last night. Neither mother nor infant survived the birth. Dame Ciara was quite distraught, I hear." The woman did not even attempt to hide her smirk. "The poor woman was already upset, though. I fear she was so concerned with what you, as the lady of the house, might think, that she was unable to properly attend to your friend. You should not have put your English nose where it did not belong."
Perhaps Madame Deirdre had anticipated the opportunity to relish a devastating scene of crying or hysterics or even fainting, but none of those things happened. Lydia merely stared at them for the briefest instant then turned back to the window. She realized that there was no use for tears now, there was not a soul left in the world to care. Her voice was calm when she spoke.
""Have my horse saddled, Deirdre" she said without looking at either of the servants. "and I'll have my riding habit, Dorcas." She did not turn back to her room until the woman had left, dragging Dorcas behind her, venting her frustrated expectations on the girl. "Stop that sniveling!" Lydia heard her snap at the young maid, and then the sound of a sharp slap. Eventually, the room was silent once again.
Lydia was seated at her vanity, carefully brushing her hair, when Dorcas reentered the room with the clothes that had been requested. Lydia immediately dismissed the young maid, who stared at her with red-rimmed eyes and made the sign of the cross as she backed out of the room. Lydia almost laughed. Apparently, Dorcas considered her lady's preternatural calm to be a sign of some sort of evil possession. Maybe I am possessed. Maybe I'm mad. I don't mind, though. Better this than fear.
She rode her horse across the fields to Dame Ciara's hovel, concentrating on the feel of the sun's warmth on her skin and avoiding roads or anywhere that she might encounter another person. Dame Ciara met her at the door and invited her in as though she were an expected guest. Lydia stepped inside to the center of the small, one room dwelling and then turned to face the handywoman.
"You are a monster, aren't you?" Lydia began without preamble. "I don't know what you are, precisely, I only know that you are evil. You take life away, even as you usher it into the world, and use it to extend your own existence."
Dame Ciara uttered not a word of protest. She did not look shocked or insulted; she merely stared at Lydia with a tiny smile curling the corners of her mouth. For an instant, Lydia felt her spirit falter, but she continued.
"I suppose it doesn't matter exactly what you are, really. I have come to ask you to relieve me of a great guilt. I trust that in doing so you will also relieve me of my own life. Use it as you will, as I no longer care to possess it." Lydia stood silent then, forcing herself not to look away as the handywoman studied her with an air of both disdain and avarice.
"I can take this guilt from you, m'lady," she finally spoke. "And your life, which you now detest, I might take that also. But what do you offer me?"
"I…I assumed that whatever grotesque nourishment you derive from my death would be sufficient payment…" Lydia replied.
Only then did the woman draw herself up as though offended.
"I decide," she hissed. "I decide what I need, and I decide who lives and who dies. I do not need your charity."
"No, no of course not," Lydia spoke hurriedly, finding herself in the bizarre position of placating the insulted sensibilities of a monster. "I have gold also. All that I own." She withdrew a few small coins from the inside of her cloak and held them out. Dame Ciara sneered at the amount, but she snatched the coins away nonetheless.
"Sit there…there on the bed," she commanded Lydia in sour tones, waving her to the tiny cot against the wall. "I must prepare the draught."
Lydia sat on the bed, her hands clenched in her lap, as the handywoman withdrew to the farthest, darkest corner of the hovel. Lydia could see nothing that was going on there, but in fact she did not try very hard. The thought of Dame Ciara preparing whatever enchantment she intended to wield made the young girl feel faint and queasy. Lydia chose instead to concentrate on remembering as much detail as she could about a particular corner of the garden at her school where she had enjoyed sitting in the late afternoon sun.
"Drink this," the woman said, thrusting a heavy earthen mug in Lydia's face. The girl recoiled as the liquid inside the mug rippled sluggishly. It was very dark, and very thick. She sniffed cautiously. The mixture smelled strongly of potent herbs with an acrid undertone of ammonia. Lydia swallowed convulsively.
"It's not fine wine, m'lady," Dame Ciara snapped. "Drink it now. I haven't all day to be messing about with the likes of you."
Lydia drank, forcing down every drop of the vile concoction. The pain was almost instantaneous. It went on for hours, though she quickly lost track of time, and Lydia felt cheated of what she had assumed would be a quick death. In fact, it turned out not to be the final peace of death at all. For when it was all over, Dame Ciara bundled her, half-conscious and burning with fever, onto her horse and pointed her in the direction of the manor house.
There, at Madame Deirdre's orders, she was toted into the kitchen with all the care that might have been shown for a sack of potatoes and then stripped and doused with water until Lydia was shaking convulsively and pleading for mercy.
"Take her to her bedroom, Dorcas," Madame Deidre said. "Sir Robert will be back tomorrow morning. He can deal with her then, if she's still alive." With a last, disgusted look at the pale shuddering creature huddled on the floor, the senior housemaid turned and walked briskly out of the room as though the situation were unworthy of another moment of her time.
Sir Robert's promised return occurred just after dawn on the next day, and he arrived to find his household in an uproar. Servants seemed to be dashing every which way. Robert was forced to snag a young gardener by his collar as the boy hurried by and send him to the barn with the horse. The stable boy who should have been awaiting his master's arrival was nowhere to be found. Robert, fuming, stepped inside the house to find Madame Deidre barking orders to more scurrying servants.
"What is the meaning of all this?" Robert demanded.
"One of the young housemaids is missing, Sir Robert. Dorcas has not been seen since last night," Madame Deidre replied. "I have the staff searching for her and taking inventory of the entire estate. If she has left, she will have certainly not left empty-handed."
"Where is Lydia?" Robert asked immediately. Madame Deidre gave him a sharp look. Strange that hearing of someone possibly fleeing the household should have sent his thoughts instantly to Lydia.
"Still abed, I presume. We've heard nothing from her this morning. Dorcas would have regularly attended to her, of course," the woman answered. "Your sister was very ill last night. You might wish to check on her. Please ring immediately if she has need of anything," she ended with an enigmatic expression on her face.
"I found her bedroom locked, and she wouldn't answer my knocking," Neal explained to Dean, "I feared that she might have left with the maid, and of course I had a master key, so I opened the door."
The scene he found there was so jarring that for a long moment Robert could only stare, agape. Lydia was sitting on the stone floor next to her fireplace, the fire cold in the grate, having obviously gone out hours ago. She was wrapped in a blanket, but it was thin and barely sufficient to cover her. The bare skin that was visible in the dim light looked icy, but she was not shivering. Robert could not see her face. Her head was bent, staring down at her hands as though they were alien things that she could not comprehend.
Her hands, the blanket, and much of the surrounding floor were covered in blood. And when Lydia finally lifted her head and stared at Robert with a look of suppressed terror, he saw that her mouth and chin and throat were covered in blood as well. Dorcas lay on the hearthrug in front of her, her throat torn open as though by some wild animal attack, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, glazed in death.
Robert stepped inside the room and locked the door behind him.
"Please help me," Lydia whispered urgently. She told him everything that had happened then, her voice breaking. Her concerns for Nora and Nora's death, her own shame and fear, and her trip to see Dame Ciara. She told him about the vile potion and her hours of agony. "I don't know what I've become."
But Robert knew. He had heard the stories his whole life. Not stories from his mother of noble rulers or titles or God-ordained conquest, but stories that the old men told when the fires were banked low. Stories of those who lived forever on human blood, mighty and eternal, truly God in their own right, tales of the vampire told to terrorize young children. But Robert had never been terrorized by the stories – he had been captivated. To live forever, to take life from the unworthy and use it to grow stronger, that was true power. He crossed to Lydia's side, ignoring the body of the little maid entirely, and knelt beside her.
"Don't be frightened," he said. "I forgive you for destroying my child. There is no need for an heir now. We can live forever." Then he grasped the back of Lydia's head and pulled the baffled young girl to him in a kiss, biting her lip cruelly and sucking at the tainted blood which welled up there. Shocked, Lydia jerked away from him, her lips curling back as fangs descended. But it was too late, Robert had what he wanted, and his transformation was already under way.
Neal's voice grew faint in his retelling. He was still speaking to Dean, but his thoughts were obviously miles and decades away from the cellar where he now stood.
"We could have had anything, everything – we could have been eternal. All we had to do was leave the house and go off together into the world," the man said. "But Lydia began screaming hysterically for help, bringing every servant in the household running. They beat the door down and came swarming in with whatever makeshift weapon they had grabbed on their way to the room.
Lydia was shrieking, telling them everything she had done and what we two had become, begging them to kill her – begging them to kill me! The last thing I saw were those vile peasants beating Lydia to the ground, hacking at her throat with butcher knives and garden hoes. And she just let them. She just let them destroy her.
I had to jump from the third floor window to escape. My transformation wasn't complete, and I was still weak and human. I had to drag my broken body to the woods to hide – I nearly died there in the dirt. But I survived. And I've made it my mission since then to punish those like Lydia. She was family, and she abandoned me – she betrayed me." He looked at Dean then, clearly under the impression that he had explained his personal motivation sufficiently.
Dean was staring at Neal with a mingled look of astonishment and revulsion.
"You sick son of a bitch…" Dean began, but he got no further before Neal punched him in the jaw.