Foreword; Some of this chapter uses passages from a previous story - The Immortal vows.
OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, 2020
From the roof top, Count Dracula allowed himself be lead and confined to a cell, with only a small leather bunk to sit on for company. He smoothed hand over the wall, then went to the door and put his ear against it. There was a whole array of voices going on. Too many to individualize. He sighed and sat down onto the bunk and looked down to his shirt. Zoe's blood.
He thought back to recent events that brought him here;
Zoe Van Helsing and the baby were in the medical wing of the secret scientific facility known as the Society. It hadn't taken Dracula too long to find where she was. He arrived in a cloud of bats and stood on the flat roof of the warehouse like building in the Oxfordshire countryside.
The full bright moon that he adored so much, was shining down on him as he approached a skylight and peered through it. A security guard with a handgun was present in the corridor inside.
Was kind of place was this? The Johnny Harker Foundation was not this bad. And this was meant to be a place for scientific research.
He put his hand through the glass of the skylight and unlatched it. He then climbed through, conjuring up an invisible sound barrier around the guards earring.
The security guard was caught unawares as Dracula crawled across the ceiling and pounced on him and breaking his neck killing him.
He picked up the hand gun and examined it, then tossed it aside and strode up the clinical corridor to a pair of double doors. His super-sensitive earring found the cry of a baby. He broke the handle of the door and pushed it inward to see the medical wing. Zoe Van Helsing was on a trolley with her legs up in stirrups. Three people were present with her under the clinical lights, surgically masked individuals in white plastic aprons grasped the infant as it cried in a wrap.
Zoe looked tired, although he doubted it was natural. The woman had been probably drug induced.
With no sound at all, Dracula jumped to the ceiling and crawled along. He could see Zoe's tired eyes look up and recognise him. Dracula put a finger to his lips.
Then a door opened and a woman with auburn hair tied back and wearing a white lab coat came forth. Dracula sensed something about her, but couldn't pin-point it.
"Awwww the child...is it a boy?"
"Yes"
The woman smiled, "give him to me..."
The medic in the surgical mask handed over the baby to her. The woman's eyes looked down to him, "you surely are an enigma, aren't you?"
Zoe moved her head, "I want him..."
The woman who held the baby came to her side on the trolley, "he really is quite beautiful, does he get that from you or his unnatural father"
"Please...I want to hold my baby"
The woman's attitude grew harsh at her, "No...I can not permit it...I cannot take the chance of the boy attaching itself to you"
Dracula narrowed his eyes and looked at the woman. Who was she? She is familiar.
The woman smiled at Zoe, "we need to take samples of your blood Zoe...we need to know how a conception of this has taken place...and learn from it"
Zoe swallowed down, there was fear in her eyes.
"Don't worry, Zoe...you are a scientist yourself...you should KNOW the needs for this kind of important research in the abnormal"
And she walked off with the child. Zoe tried to move, but she was clamped down and a needle was shoved in her arm
Later, Zoe had been put in a cell. She sat half drugged with her hair lank on the bunk staring at the floor, and wondering if she was dreaming all of this. How could Jack do this to her? Betray her.
There was a sudden sound and she looked up to see the door to the confine swing open and Dracula entered.
She stood up, "It's you..."
Dracula smiled at her and she allowed herself to fall into his arms and she rested her head onto his chest, "I thought I was dreaming...I saw you on the ceiling...I wasn't sure you were real"
He stroked her hair, "no...I'm real", he reassured.
She pulled away and looked up to him, "they want our son"
Dracula tilted his head in understanding, "I know"
Zoe wasn't sure Dracula was on side, "will you let that happen? For them to take him?"
Dracula met her eyes and holding them, "the boy is of my blood...blood is lives...but I feel no emotional attachment"
Zoe averted her eyes away from him looking deflated, "then they are free to do what they will with him"
Dracula grabbed her upper arms to force her to look at him again, "no...you are the boys mother...for that reason, I will not allow the child to come to any harm...", he lifted her chin, "...you'll have to trust me"
"Trust you...?", she whispered losing her gaze into him.
He chuckled, "It's not so hard, is it? Come now..."
He took her hand and they left the confine and he lead her down the corridor. They found where the baby was sleeping in a incubation unit. Dracula had to kill two security guards on route. The first one had his neck twisted and the second was suffocated by a hand over the nose and mouth.
Zoe couldn't be appalled to the macabre. She lifted the baby from the incubator and cradled him in her arms, "my baby...", she whispered with a soothing tone.
Dracula came forth and coaxed her into the corridor, "quickly...we have to go"
Zoe held the baby close to her as she was pulled up the corridor by Dracula, "Where? Where can we go", she said with an once of hope.
Dracula stood tall and looked above, "we go up in the world...", with swift superhuman moves and unearthly strengths, he jumped to the ceiling and twisted the skylight lock out of shape and opened the hatch.
He looked down to her holding out his arms, "now...give me the baby"
Zoe sudden felt a rush of over protective emotions, and shook her head, "no..."
Dracula narrowed his eyes at her, "Do you want him to live?"
"Yes!"
"Then pass him up to me...", Zoe kissed the boys forehead, and then held him up for Dracula to gather into his arms, he looks at the baby and smiles, whilst glancing down at Zoe, "see...I'm not going to eat him, am I...although I did miss my last meal and it is so very tempting..."
Zoe had a sudden onset of fright and jumped up, "no..."
Dracula shook his head, "I'm joking...", he placed the baby on the roof and gave Zoe his hand, she grabbed it and he lifted her out the corridor and through the skylight like she was lite as a feather.
On the roof, Zoe gathered up the child and Dracula took her hand and they made for the outer wall ladders that would take them to the ground. But from all around them the flood lights came on nearly blinding them in the darkness.
A voice called out, "Count Dracula...there is no escape"
Zoe looked down to the ground below, it was too far of a drop. She looked at Dracula, "the baby...they'll take the baby"
Dracula focused on the child and shook his head, "no...they won't", he took the bundle from her and there was an unnatural blur. A flickering of reds and green. Zoe felt like she was fallen, but she was still on the facility roof top. Dracula held her close as they both fell to their knees.
She tried to focus. Where was the baby?
"Where is he? WHERE IS HE?", she cried.
Her eyes are wide for him. Dracula tried to be reassuring, "somewhere safe"
"Where?"
Dracula pulled her close to him, he spoke into her ear, "he will come to no harm Zoe...he is beyond the mortal plain now"
They both could see a group of figures approach them in the blinding flood lights, "We want the baby..."
Dracula stood firm and let Zoe go, to focus on the newcomer, "well, that's too bad...there's no longer a baby to be had"
Jack Seward was behind Rosa, "where is he?"
Rosa didn't look at him, she spoke whilst focusing on the Counts cold eyes, "I have my suspicions...but I can but try to force his hand...", she turned to the security guards around them, "...kill the woman"
In the cell Dracula could still hear the last screams Zoe rang out before she fell dead into his arms.
He swallowed down wondering what magic was used on the door to stop him from opening it. When he tried, he was blasted by some electric force that hurt him.
Rosa watched him on the flat screen in her small laboratory. Jack turned to her with a burning question, "he said that he knows you"
Rosa didn't take her eyes off the screen as she nodded, "he does"
Jack frowned at her, "from where?"
Rosa cracked a smile and met his eyes, "it's a long, long story Jack - as long as the centuries that have long since passed by"
Jack understood her hint, "you are like him...I suspected as much when I joined the Society"
She confirmed it as she smoothed back her auburn hair and turned back to the screen, "yes, I am a vampire"
Jack swallowed down. He thought about poor Zoe. All this was for nothing, "did she have to die...?"
Rosa shrugged, "she was just a vessel...it was the child I wanted"
Jack turned his attention to the flat screen, where Dracula was sitting on the bunk, "where...where do you suppose he hid him...?"
Rosa tilted her head as she mused, "the past probably..."
"Vampires can do that?"
Rosa chuckled, "we are not time travelers , Jack...but he somehow manages to do what he did with the child...it's an ability I am yet to explore, he has had longer to master it than me...but...", she looked at him with sharp eyes, "...I will learn the secret"
Jack sat down in the swivel chair at the desk that was cluttered with research equipment, "if you forgive for saying, there doesn't sound there is much love lost from you over him..."
"The man is a monster...there is no man I hate more"
"hello...I know you are there watching me you little harpie..."
Rosa cursed as she forced the voice right out of her head, "shush! I didn't give you permission to speak"
Jack watched her closely, completely fascinated by all of this, "what..."
She shook her head, "mind conversing...it's a much more refiner contact than your mortal thought processes"
Jack licked his lips, "so...you wanted the child...what for exactly?"
Rosa paced about the lab with her hands in her white coat pockets, "because I want a child of my own...", she pointed towards the screen, "...he robbed me of that 200 years ago when he changed me...all these years I have felt barren and all alone...my mortal ability to bear children extinct..."
She looked over to him, "...but when you spoke of Zoe Van Helsing and Dracula, I was initially suspicious, but then...then I see that it is true, and Dracula did somehow pass his seed into her"
Jack stood, "but she never said how..."
"no...but he will tell me...he WILL tell me the secret..."
And both of their eyes turned to the flat screen to his image.
VV
Jack clutched the bag of blood and approached the confine. He keyed in the combination, and a hatch opened where he could see right through the thick door and he laid the bag on the fresh hold.
Dracula stood and looked at Jack through the hatch.
"Here...", Jack muttered, notioning the blood.
Dracula reached for the bag with his bound hands and looked up to meet Jack's eyes through the hatch, "a parcel of blood...dare I ask is it fresh?"
"As fresh as you are going to get it"
"Oh I don't know...there's always you"
Jack laughed, "you have to get me first"
Dracula shrugged, "there's time on my side...time is eternal for me"
"and for her..."
Dracula smirked at him, "Ohhh yes...the Holy harpie!"
Jack frowned, "I beg your pardon?"
Dracula enlightened him, "Your friend Rosa...hasn't she not informed you that she used to be a nun?"
Jack shook his head, she hadn't done.
"She wasn't a very good nun...she was a dirty little hoare filled with unclean thoughts, so the other harpies told her...", he looked at the bag of blood in his grasp, "...how do I open this if my hands are tied?"
Jack pointed his finger, "see the small tube on the top, remove the rubber cap and suck..."
Dracula did as instructed and he was soon sucking the bag dry, he licked his lips and savoured the taste as he stared at Jack through the hatch, "Mmmmm...a flavour of intellect...not yours is it?"
"No"
Dracula licked his lips again, "no...this is a female flavour...oh yes, this taste will do very nicely...", his dark eyes narrowed at him, "...especially when I find her"
"Impossible"
"NOTHING is impossible, dear Jack"
Jack went to lock up the hatch, "well...enjoy"
Before he could close it, Dracula called out, "do you sanction Zoe's death?"
Jack forced off the guilt he harboured, "it's not important"
Dracula laughed at him dryly, "you think so little of life...I sense your burning ambition to succeed in your chosen scientific fields...Zoe was a consequence I suppose...she was a fool to trust you"
"and SHE was a fool to get involved with you"
Dracula noted the bitterness, "but alas, she did"
Jack left the hatch open and was determined to get some answers, "how did you do it? How did you make that baby disappear...?"
Dracula looked at him with a playful shrug, "Jack...there is NO baby"
"But there WAS! Zoe's baby!"
"Ohhhh that baby...he's gone"
"where?"
Dracula smirked at him, "and why do you ask? Or is it NOT YOU who is asking?"
Jack closed his eyes, but his thoughts betrayed him...
"Ohhhhh Rosa is asking...Jack, Jack, Jack...hush now...let me let you into a secret...I am a Vampire held in the first order...I go back 500 years and you certainly learn a thing or two in those long years, I can assure you...now...Rosa, she is from an order so down there...she will NEVER obtain my unique abilities, however much she so wishes them..."
Jack thought he had it, "The Immortal plain! Zoe told me that much..."
Dracula smirked at him, "the boy is beyond that..."
"SHE wants a child!"
"ohhhhh that's why she's keeping me here...let me guess...she wants the secret of conception enjoyed between a human and an Immortal?"
"yes..."
"I thought as much"
Jack had hope, "You will tell her?"
Dracula's smirk hardened at him, "she will remain as barren and empty as she was when I sucked that bitter life force out of her...all those years ago"
"what...?"
"you can run off and report back now...or is that thing watching us...", he nodded towards the instrument on the ceiling, "...a camera is it? I still get excited with all these little gadgets you humans have come up with"
As Dracula laughed at him, Jack slammed the hatch into place and hurried off up the corridor.
VV
Later Jack was reporting back to Rosa, "he is playing with you...he will not tell you anything"
Rosa wasn't going to let that stop her quest of having a baby. She put her hands together, "there are ways I can make him talk"
Jack frowned at her, "what ways?"
Rosa grinned at him, "starvation...exposure to sunlight..."
Jack bit his lip and was looking closely at her, "he said...you used to be a nun..."
Rosa sat down and turned to him, "you and him did have a conversation I see...yes, I was...it was a very long time ago and all that is now irrelevant"
She stood and made for the exit door of the lab, "now, if you excuse me I have to get back to work..."
Jack watched her go and turned to Dracula's image on the flat screen...only for him not to be on screen...heart racing, he stood and made for the door.
VV
Rosa was in the small mortuary and had Zoe's pale body on the steel slab. She prepared a needle and turned her back to prepare it, once she was satisfied, she turned back to drawer some blood, but she was aghast to see the halo'd figure of a nun lying where Zoe was a moment ago.
"What...?"
The nun sat up from the slab and smiled warmly at her, "please...don't be afraid Sister..."
Rosa stood back with the needle in her grasp, "sister? You are mistaken"
The nun smiled again, holding her cold eyes, "I'm afraid I am not...I know all of your past"
"Who are you?"
"I am Sister Agatha Van Helsing...an ancestor to Zoe Van Helsing, whom you had slain"
Rosa stared at the nun, she had like a soft glow around her, it was like she was bathed in heavenly light, "are you real?"
Agatha tilts her head, "that depends on what you view as being real"
Rosa tried a different approach, because this holy apparition made her feel uneasy, "Why are you here?"
"Such hatred you feel for HIM I sense..."
"Who?"
"Count Dracula of course...I can feel your pain Sister...he raped your heart as well as your soul"
Rosa didn't want to be reminded of such impure thoughts, "That all no longer matters...I only want one thing of him..."
Agatha understood, "you seek the knowledge of procreation between the likes of you and him, and of the mortal...your body has ached for so, so long for new life..."
Rosa was defiant, "HE knows the secret...who are you to judge? Is this God's punishment for killing Sister Helga?"
"Do you feel remorse for taking her life?"
Rosa raised her eyebrows, "for whom? Sister Helga's or Zoe Van Helsing?"
"Both"
"They are not important..."
Agatha seemed to glow a warmer yellow as she floated forward with her arms stretched out like she would embrace her, "Prayer with me Sister...all you have to do is repent your sins"
Rosa shook her head in contempt, to her, Agatha's face kept switching to the red face of the vile Helga, "Never! Helga wouldn't let me leave...she paid dearly for her abuse!"
"Yet you hope to be blessed with a child?"
"HE will tell me the secret"
Agatha's smile was thinly spread, "From one who's child is gone?"
Rosa looked up, "He spirited him away"
Agatha nodded, "yes...his biggest mistake..."
VV
Jack Seward moved up the corridor, he turned the corner and heard is name called out in a tense whisper, "Jack..."
He stopped in his tracks.
"Jack..."
He swung around, the ghostly voice was behind him, and Dracula was there standing in the corridor.
"How the fuck did you get out!", cried Jack.
He ran to the confine and hastily keyed in the digits and opened the hatch. There was nobody in the cell. He opens the door and turns to face Dracula in the corridor, but from behind the doorway an arm stretches out and grabs him by the throat forcing him out into the corridor.
As his face his pressed up against the wall, Jack manages to turn his head to see the Smiling Count Dracula up the corridor simply fade away.
"Mind tricks", he cried.
Dracula was in his ear hole, "I'm afraid so...but I really have had enough of being cooped up in there, like a bat, I need to go spread my wings..."
Jack's heart was pumping so fast it threatened to beat right out of his chest, "What are you going to do with me...?", he asked, gulping down in fear as he asked.
Dracula chuckled as he turned Jack around to face him, "You surprise me...a very simple question for a supposedly intelligent man...", he took Jack's cheeks in his hands and stared at him, "...I'm going to put you put of your misery"
And he twisted Jack's neck right round breaking his spinal cord, his body spasmed and crumbled to the floor, Dracula stepped over him and looked down with a dry chuckle, "Ohhhh Jack...a slave to research, poor boy..."
VV
In the facility's blood bank store, Rosa grabbed a dosage for herself. She didn't see the mist from the door and the figure standing behind her grinning away.
"If it's from the same source you you gave me, I can recommend the flavour"
Rosa clutched the blood bag tightly, and turned around to face him, "you"
Dracula nodded and came forward, "how long did you think you could keep me locked up for, Ahmm Rosa?"
Rosa swallowed down, and met his dark alluring eyes, "I just want the secret"
Dracula shrugged and circled her as he spoke, "I hate having to kill Vampires...but sometimes there is a need for it"
Her eyes pleaded at him, "I just want a baby...YOU robbed me of that of me...YOU owe me the know how"
Dracula smirked and leaned into her face, "and as I informed your dearly departed friend Jack, that isn't an option...your feeling of complete emptiness and sorrow will be as eternal as your pathetic little life"
Rosa dropped the bag of blood and it's red contents spoiled the floor, "I can't go on without a child...I'd rather die"
He placed a hand over her shoulder, "I can end your misery, Rosa...that's if I want to, I might like to see you suffer"
Rosa lifted her eyes to him and the sorrow turned to twisted contempt for him, "help me? It was YOU who did this to me! I could make you kill me...end it for me"
Dracula shook his head, "No, the thought of torturing your soul is more pleasing"
Rosa wasn't going to let that happen, she would win in the end, "You THINK you helped your son...but you didn't"
Dracula looked at her, "you've lost me..."
Rosa licked her lips, "I don't think so...Sister Agatha has told me the whole sorry story, Count Dracula..."
This was getting to him, he frowned equal contempt at her, "What do you know of HER? Explain!"
There was a relishing element in her tone, "You spirit away your son to the past...to keep him safe from the future...but", she licked her lips and leaned right into him with a finale whisper, "...the only danger he would face in the past IS YOU...YOU killed him"
"Shut up with your words, you stupid harpie, you making no sense"
Rosa delivered the final blow, "your son was brought up by gypsies, Count Dracula, a people you detest more than those of the Holy order"
Dracula shook his head, "you lie"
"NO...Agatha was most enlightening with her tale...his name was Fitz..."
Fitz turned around and widened his eyes at the sight of the coach and horses speeding up towards them.
Cain sprinted forward. The bramble was too thick at the edges of the road to take safety. Fitz gasped as he looked around at the sound of a cracking whip. Cain shouted at him, "never look back...never"
But his Uncle tripped on a stone and went flying to the ground. He cried out in pain as his knee was gaping open where his pants were torn through.
The swag they had stolen went flying into the bracken and was lost. Fitz turned and saw his Uncle on the ground. He went to approach him and help.
"Noooooo, get away!", cried his Uncle seething in pain.
Fitz backed off as the coach and horses came crashing forward and ran straight into his Uncle as he tried to stand. It was all to late.
Cain's body was trampled on like a rag roll, and his battered body was soon beneath the wheels of the coach. Being dragged along. His skin was ripping from his bones and his cries of pain were soon silenced as his body was left twisted on the track behind the coach.
Fitz gasped as he backed into the thorny bracken. A hawthorn bush. If the legends of his people were correct, he should be safe. The thorns were dangerous to a vampire. The coach was at a stop. The horses whining. And snorting in anticipation.
Dracula jumped out of the coach and looked towards the lad, "You...boy...come here", he ordered.
Fitz swallowed down and although the bracken thorns was cutting him to shreds, he crawled further in. His heart racing and threatening to beat right out of his chest.
Dracula was amused and laughed, "Oh come on...must I really do all the chasing?"
Fitz had tears rolling down his cheeks. All he could hear was his Uncle's last dying cries in his head.
"...look, if this is about your Uncles little accident, I can assure you it was unavoidable...", he chuckled as his dark eyes narrowed scanning the forest, "...but I must say, his last cries of pain were silenced far too quickly...I'll bravely promise you that yours won't be..."
Fitz reached the end of the stood up and caught Dracula's eye.
"Ah! There you are...", he went to come forward and gasped at the Hawthorn bush, "...ahhhh...just like a good gypsy from the old country, you know all the legends...it's a shame, how I would loved to have savoured that young supple flavour of yours..."
Disappointed, Dracula looked up to the night sky and lifted his hands and parted them, he laughed out loud, "I hope you can run young boy...because you will need to..."
And with that, Fitz was running though the trees of the forest.
Dracula collapsed to his knees like a thunderbolt had struck him.
Rosa was laughing at him, "YOU FAILED! AND YOUR SON PAID DEARLY FOR YOUR FAILURE!"
It was in the late afternoon shadows, the two nuns arrived back to the village. As they entered the tavern, Mr Kruger was sat ashen faced.
Sister Mary went over to him to where sat in a chair near the taverns fireplace, "Mr Kruger what is it...you look like you have just seen a ghost"
The inn keeper looked at her. His eyes were wide, "It...it is the gypsy boy..."
"Fitz? What about him?"
"After you left here this morning for the manor house, I went into the stable to ready the shire horse for the cart to collect an ale delivery in town..."
Mary nodded, "yes..."
He looked at her and the horror in his eyes betrayed him. Mary made her way to the back, Mr Kruger got up, "sister no"
But it was too late, Sister Mary was already in the stable, and the horror was clear in her eyes as she looked up to Fitz swinging on a hang man's noose from the rafters.
His neck had been slit open, and there was a pool of dried and congealed blood under where he swung.
The rage was building up rapidly, as Rosa laughed at him. Dracula's eyes were bloodshot and wild as he sprang up from his knees, and grabbed Rosa so fast they both went flying into the wall. Rosa gasped as Dracula cupped her neck and crushed her windpipe, he then repeated smashed her head up against the wall, before throwing her down from the ceiling where she lay crumbled in a heap staring up at him with glazed over eyes.
Dracula 's hair hung in his face as he breathed heavily looking down to her, he then glided to the floor and pushed his hair back looking down at her.
"Thank you for ending the misery for me Count Dracula...", she uttered to him in a dying whisper.
Dracula smiled through manic overtones, "it was a fucking pleasure..."
She laughed, "It's just a pity that I couldn't finish the story...and now, you will never know..."
Dracula frowned, he bent down and shook her by the shoulders, "know what? KNOW WHAT?!"
And Rosa died in a sprinkling of dust.
EPILOGUE...
SOUTHERN GERMANY, 1862
The gypsies came for the body of Fitz and he was carried away on a beautiful caravan of wild summer flowers.
He laid peaceful on his back in a traditional coat and with arms crossed over his chest.
The sun was shining and there was a somber mood of his kin. The warmth of those summer rays hit his ice cold skin as he felt it...
and he opened his eyes...
END
