Thanks so much for all the reviews! Here's the next installment. I'm trying to turn them out once a week if possible. Enjoy!
Hours passed, and nothing happened. Well, not true - not exactly nothing.
'Sitting,' 'staring off into the middle distance' and 'drinking' counted as 'something' in a literal sense. Although none of it did anything to occupy her mind. Even less to distract her from the figures she saw standing in the bathroom or the bedroom as she turned her head. Each time, there was no one there.
So, then, she started to pace. If she sat still in the chair for too long, she'd fall asleep. And that was no longer an option. Not with the ghosts that haunted her vision and threatened to take over her body if she let down her guard. Isabel paced, circling the room. Trying the door - locked, no luck. Windows - locked, no luck. Door again - locked, no luck, and so on.
What did it really matter anyway? Where would she go if she could get out of the room? The castle was a semi-sentient maze - and it wouldn't let her anywhere it didn't want to let her go. The futility of the situation didn't help her rising anxiety.
It was on circuit forty - or forty-two, she had honestly lost count - that something was out of place. Something that wasn't there before. And this time, for real.
Isabel stood in the open door of the bedroom of where she had been deposited. 'Her quarters' the priest had called it. Isabel took offense at that - it made it sound like she lived here. She may die here, but she did not live here.
Regardless - there on the bed, placed at the foot, was a guitar.
That hadn't been there before.
Hadn't it?
Isabel sighed. She was going crazy, how could she really be sure? Walking into the room, she looked down at the acoustic instrument and tilted her head slightly. It was a nice, quality piece. But why?
Oh right. The memory that Dracula had dragged her through - he had seen her play guitar for her friends in the C5 plane traveling back from the middle east. He had learned that she played, even if her 'skill' was accidental and by no merit of her own.
Fuck it. Pacing was boring. And she was exhausted. And a little drunk. And doing anything but staring or pacing was starting to sound phenomenal. It would be a nice distraction from the movement she kept seeing flickering in the edges of her vision.
Picking up the guitar, she walked back to the center 'living room' and flopped down in the chair in which she had taken up residence. With a strum, she began to tune the strings. After a few moments, she began strumming a slow tune. She hummed for a verse, then grinned as she started to remember the lyrics. "On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man - in a dusty black coat and a red right hand."
Isabel laughed, and kept strumming the strings as she sung. "He's a god, he's a man, he's a ghost, he's a guru. They're whispering his name through this disappearing land - but hidden in his coat is a red right hand."
Nick Cave seemed like a fitting soundtrack to her life right now, and she played out the rest of the song, humming or whistling along with the tune as she went. She didn't remember all the verses - it had been a long time since she had played this one. After a while, she switched tunes and then to another, moving her way through the songs, happy to have something to do to take her mind off what loomed in her mind. Suddenly, she saw a figure out of the corner of her eye. But this time, it seemed to be walking towards her.
Isabel whirled - her heart pounding in her ears as adrenaline rushed through her system like the flick of a switch. But no one was there. She squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment, trying to force it out of her mind. They aren't real. They aren't there. You're hallucinating because of your exhaustion.
Isabel focused again on strumming the chords, finding a new tune. There was the movement, again - standing beside her. A head whirl, and nothing. "Fuck you," she snarled at the nothingness that was there. This game was getting old.
So instead she decided to try and ignore it. Every time there was a flicker or the thought that someone might be standing near her - she dutifully didn't look, and instead sipped the bourbon. Hence, the disappearance of the liquid. Sometimes she could feel a presence - feel the flicker of an emotion or a thought, but it was evasive and strange.
Great. This was going to be a new thing, apparently. Seeing ghosts. Isabel wondered if it was permanent. She also wondered how long 'permanence' really was in her case. Before either insanity, death, or both took her.
God, she was so tired… All she wanted to do was sleep. But now, even that had been taken away from her as a safe place. Ever since she had set foot in this castle - ever since she had met that fucking corpse of a vampire in the crypt, she had lost the privacy of her own mind.
She strummed away, barely paying attention to what she was playing as she mulled.
Speaking of said vampire - Isabel sighed, and sunk further into her chair. What the hell to do with that scenario.
What was it, between them? He was her captor, her tormenter, the only person she had ever really touched - and now, her one-time lover, it seemed. Dracula had abducted her friends, turned them into willing monsters - and now kept her prisoner. She should hate him - but when he was near her, when she could feel his mind so close to hers, it was difficult to keep that feeling intact. Fear was easy enough to cling to in his presence, at least.
What was she to him? A man that was at least four millennia old, who had worn a thousand faces with a thousand names, had to get unimaginably bored. In that way, she supposed she wasn't surprised that he would adopt playthings and eat through them until they were tattered and spent.
Literally.
But something didn't add up. She had played into his hands at the banquet - lost her temper and allowed him a public rationale to torture her. But why did he need any excuse to do anything? The King of the Night didn't need reasons to wreak havoc - why was she any different?
A flicker of motion beside her, and she growled low in her throat. This again. Her being alone - never mind her pretty-damn-fluffy-but-not-fall-down-drunk state - made it perfectly acceptable to yell at the shadow that wasn't there. Her fingers stilled on the strings, and she shut her eyes. "Quit the bullshit," she called out at the nothingness that haunted the edges of her vision. "You're just being annoying."
"I have yet to even speak - I find that rather uncalled for."
Isabel lept to her feet - whirled, and in one motion threw the guitar at the offending voice and nearly fell over an end table. She staggered to catch her footing, and fixed her best accusatorial glare at the black and crimson shadow looming by a wall, holding the guitar where he had caught it easily in midair. He raised an eyebrow at her, and placed the book on a table.
She hadn't heard the roar of fire that announced his arrival. "I didn't hear you-" The 'lightbulb' that switched on in her mind was almost palpable. "Wait. You do the jet of fire for fun?! You egotistical, officious douchebag!" she shouted at him.
"Not inaccurate," he replied. "Although I do not understand the noun, I am certain to be happier not knowing." Dracula stepped forward, and Isabel took two steps back in rapid fashion. He sighed like he was dealing with a child.
"Don't you fucking sigh at me-" she snarled at him. "You don't get to be annoyed about anything."
"Oh?"
"Get out. Leave me alone. If you aren't here to kill me, then leave."
"No." Now he almost looked amused.
She picked up her empty glass and hurled it at his head, wanting to wipe the smirk off his face. He caught it easily and without any effort. Isabel huffed angrily, feeling very small and helpless. There was no way she could hurt him - no way she could make him do anything. Although a reminder that she was his prisoner wasn't needed, he had pointed it out regardless.
"Go away," she growled again.
"I do what I please," Dracula replied flatly, placing the glass on the table with a tink.
Anger rose up in her - and she wanted to scream at him, to punch him - to do anything. "How dare you-" He turned to look at her with those red eyes, hearing her thoughts, and the cruelty there sent her anger crumbling into fear.
Dracula took another step forward, and she staggered backwards again. Another movement from him, and she backed up into a piece of furniture. Isabel knew she had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. If he wanted to pull her skin from her bones, he could. If he wanted to put her back into the fountain, he could. If he wanted to make her relive every death and vision of horror that she had seen by playing it out with her in the real world… he could.
Seeing motion out of the corner of her eye - she turned, and saw nothing. "God fucking damn it," she swore. First Dracula shows up, and now more of the 'ghosts' in her vision. Unable to handle the flood of emotions that tore through her, tears welled up in her eyes. This must be what a breakdown feels like, she decided.
Isabel put her head in her hands - unable to look at him, unable to handle any of what she felt. "I think you've destroyed me. I really do."
"Tell me what you see."
Why did he give a fuck? But fine. Simple question, less-than-simple answer. "I have… thousands of memories of dying inside my mind. All of them - and none of them - are mine. But I remember ever cut - every spark of fire, every blow, every cut of rope and knife and... And that's not even all of it. Ever since you put me in there, I see things out of the corner of my eye - I feel something hovering at the edges, but I know they're not really there. Ghosts. One of them fucking took over my mind yesterday. This is your fault. You've done this to me… I wish you would just kill me."
A long pause followed before he replied. "No."
Anger took over again as the new predominant emotion. She stormed up to him and struck him hard across the face, slapping him. He let his head turn with the blow, but she was positive it had barely stung him. "Then tell me why," she hissed.
Vlad turned his head back to hers, and said nothing. Isabel snarled, and when she went to strike him again, he caught her wrist in his hand. Another attempted blow, another wrist. He looked down at her with what could have been dismay, but it faded quickly into his dour coldness.
"Why won't you tell me?!"
"You will not understand."
"I am a fucking empath!" she screamed, losing her temper. "All I do is understand!" She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he held her tight. "All I am is a fucking dumping ground for everyone's bullshit emotions and memories - and now this?! You made me see all of their pain - all of their deaths, all of their suffering," she raged. "All of it's mine now. All of it lives inside my head - and you won't even fucking tell me why?! You've taken everything from me - you've destroyed everything I have ever loved, you've taken away the safety of my own mind, and you won't even give me the reason! I will not accept that!"
With that, the throttle that had gone from zero to sixty fell back empty again, and she felt the tears pour down her cheeks as a sob racked her body. She yanked on his grasp, and this time he let her go. She turned away from him, embarrassed by her tears and wishing desperately he would leave her be. She pressed her gloves to her eyes, blotting the tears as best she could, though her hands were shaking.
"Go away," she ordered him.
Silence was all that followed. But he was still there - she could feel his presence like a cloud in the room.
"You spared my son," Dracula finally spoke.
Isabel snorted. What a stupid way to say it. "I stopped the priest if that's what you mean. But I highly doubt he would've killed Adrian anyway."
"He was under orders to do so."
"I don't buy that, but fine. Then why did he stop?"
"He was also under orders to retrieve you."
"Why?!" Isabel rounded, glaring at him. "Why? So you could put me back in that fucking fountain?"
Dracula paused, his face cold and unreadable. "No."
"You missed the first question. You have a hard time with that word, don't you? I asked you why?"
"You were not safe with Adrian."
Isabel snorted again and then laughed hard, a sarcastic and mean laugh, pointed mostly at her own situation. Isabel looked at him now like he was the one who had lost his mind. "You're kidding me. You've got to be fucking kidding me. I wasn't safe with Adrian? That's rich. Listen to me very carefully, vampire-" she didn't know where she summoned the strength turn her anger cold and vicious. "Adrian pulled me from the fountain, where you put me. He is here to stop you, because when you both lost your wife, you decided to make it all about your loss. You drove him away in your stupid, blind hatred. The day or two I spent wandering around with him was the safest I've felt since I've been here as your prisoner."
She felt a flare of something in him - anger? No. Not anger - even better. She laughed again, and shook her head. "You're jealous. Why, because he's the 'good' guy? Because he's the righteous, 'lovable' one? Please. I know you two haven't actually met recently - but he's just fucked as you are. How many times have you gone through this cycle with him? Neither changing, neither budging or bucking the trend. He's an idiot, and you're an asshole."
"Are you quite finished?" Dracula was the cold, impassive wall once more. But it was fake this time, she could sense it. She had hit a button.
"No!" Isabel clenched her fists. "What're you going to do? Lock me away to protect me from everyone but you? Maybe put me back in the fountain? Good. I won't survive it this time. At least then I won't keep seeing these ghosts - keep seeing all this death inside my head!" Tears began to well up in her eyes, as her anger began to crumble. Fear that this was the truth of her life, now. "At least then I won't have to deal with you. I don't care- I can't even-"
Her knees almost gave out underneath her. She was so tired… so sick of fighting, so sick of trying to keep her mind intact. Her limbs felt weak, like they were barely her own, and all she wanted to do was sleep. To make it all go away.
She slumped onto the sofa, leaning heavily on the arm, putting her head in her hands. Although he was silent, he approached her. His nearness made her skin buzz like an electrical charge. Isabel refused to look - but realized she could not outwait an immortal. With a sigh, she looked up. He was standing in front of her, red eyes passive and cold as they were fixed on her.
He held out his hand for her to take it, and she wanted to do so many things at once - laugh, scream, swear, cry - but nothing happened. Every emotion at once tried to cram through a bottleneck, and so nothing came out the other side.
"Come willingly or I will drag you," he said with a small, cynical curl of his lips.
Isabel let out a long, hard sigh, and put her hand in his. He pulled her to standing. "Where are we-" the fire burst around her, and she finished her sentence with a wince, now standing on the other side. "-going."
His sharp nails ran along her jawline, and the tips of his fingers tilted her head up to look at his. "You have half an hour," he said coldly down at her, and spoke again, much quieter. "Remember that I do this for you." He took two steps back, and was gone in another roar of fire that made her shield her eyes with her arm.
Looking around - she knew this place. A cavernous tower, reaching higher than could be seen in the darkness. Now, instead of only whirling gears and spinning machinery… wires ran up through the darkness, blinking LEDs dotted the darkness like a server panel or a router. She stood on the same platform that she had last seen Eric - mid process of being swallowed by the castle itself.
Isabel didn't know what she was expecting - but what she saw made her heart ache more than she thought was possible in her current state.
Eric had dragged her to see the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies on opening night. He was a Keira Knightley fan (read: he had the hots for her,) and fine - Jack sparrow was funny. And cute. The second and third movies had undead sailors that had become a part of the reef that had overgrown the ship they served.
The sailors had become a seamless part of the organic and haphazard construction around them - finding themselves now more at home amongst the barnacles and reef than the world of living men.
Eric now resembled one of them. More circuitry than man. Part of the technology around him. Chunks of PCBs, extruded aluminum and hydraulic fittings, clicking servos and pistons took the place of nerves, muscle, sinew and bone. It broke her heart - tears stung her eyes and she wiped them away before they could fall.
Eric lifted his head - and his eyes lit up as he broke into a smile - his lips blackened and oozing with whatever oily substance was being pumped in and out of his body.
Isabel had once seen a man whose lung had been punctured and he had coughed up blood - and it was exactly like they do in the movies. The man's lips had been stained red with fluid. Much like Eric's was now, except black and unnatural.
"Izzy!" Eric exclaimed happily. He shifted, and pulled his... limbs... from the wall that had seemed to be eating him alive. Eric pulled himself free, but his gait was stunted and awkward - as his legs were no longer flesh at all. Where he had been consumed by the wall, Eric was only metal and machinery. He lacked a left arm almost entirely - only a stump remained at the shoulder. The right resembled his legs, metal and circuit boards, wires and black goop that leaked from where he was still clearly a 'work in progress.'
Isabel tried not to feel sick. Tried not to recoil in horror. This was still her friend... mostly. Maybe. "Hey," she finally responded.
"I know I know. I look like a mess. It's a long process, y'know," Eric looked down at himself. "The castle works slowly. It doesn't understand the modern age of 'instant gratification.'"
Isabel raised an eyebrow. "No offence… You look like shit."
"Hah! Yeah, I bet I do," he looked down at his stump of a left arm, and shrugged. "But I feel great. "
"I'm with her, you look like shit," another familiar voice said as a figure approached. Adam. Isabel smiled faintly at him - and reminded herself that although he looked more human, his corruption by the castle was just as pervasive as Eric's.
"It's a reunion! Shit, I'd clap if I had two hands!" Eric exclaimed happily and Isabel and Adam both laughed. Even barely resembling himself, the nerd had a great comedic sense.
"Except Tex," Isabel reminded the three of them. The three of them stood in silence for a moment, remembering their good friend. "Always gotta be the buzzkill."
"Hey-" Eric interjected, changing the topic. "So... gotta say, this is kinda awesome. But why're we all here?"
"I don't know," Isabel said with a sigh. Yes, she did - she suspected she did anyway. Dracula was playing more games.
"I was told to come here - or else. A very large… very toothy demon took me here before I could even open my mouth," Adam grumbled. "I was busy."
"Doing what, screwing Carmilla?" Isabel said with a smirk.
"No-" Adam said, but his features flushed pink. "I was researching. This place has a… an incredible library. Several of them, actually. The knowledge that is here is astounding. So many things here just… defy modern science."
"So, one of you finally gets to run around all eternity popping a science boner," Isabel walked to a crate, and sat down on it. She was too tired to stand. "The other one gets to be living hardware. It really sounds like you two… got quite a deal."
Adam laughed once, and looked off into the darkness of the clocktower. "I'm scared out of my mind, Iz. I really am. I had a choice to make - this or death. I was a coward and chose this. I'm trying my best to make sense of this new existence. Every moment feels like a bad dream, that this can't be reality. Like if someone were to call you and say your house burned down with your entire family inside… And now, I have to… drink blood." He made a face. "And worst part is, I like it."
"You're just a pussy," Eric grumbled. "This is awesome." The black-veined eyes of her friend looked to her. "Y'know he let me pick?" Eric did his best to limp-walk up to the crate - although there was an umbilical of wires and tubing that dragged behind him. He sat down to the left of her, his back half to her. "He said he was grateful, for us finding him. For us waking him up. Even if we didn't mean to, he owes us. He was grateful that I let him use my head to speak. So he let me pick what happened to me."
"Was 'walk away unharmed' one of the options?" Isabel asked sarcastically.
"Actually, yeah," Eric said with a pause. "Yeah it was. But I didn't consider it for long. I know you think Dracula is still fucking with my head," Eric wiped at his oozing black lip with a mechanical hand - but metal doesn't do well wiping up oil, and it just spread it out. He sighed. "But he let me go, if just for that one moment. So I could pick."
"And you picked to be here?!" Isabel said, in disbelief.
"With my friends. Adam had already been turned. And he said he was not going to give up on chasing you," Eric muttered. "And what he wants, he gets. I told you I was done with that life - of the danger. I'm sick and tired of losing everything that matters. So I picked to stay here."
Isabel doubled over and put her head in her hands with a long sigh.
A hand on her back, carefully on top of her clothes. Adam. He had sat down to her other side. "Iz… I know this is a really stupid question, but… what's wrong? You look… really upset. Worse than the other night. What did he do?"
And so, she told them. Told them both everything - everything that had happened since she had set foot on castle grounds. Adrian, Tim, Maverick, and Dracula. Dracula. After a long debate , she decided to tell them what had transpired between her and the vampire king.
Eric had to stop the story there.
"Waaaaaait wait wait-" he paused the story in dramatic fashion, waving his single mechanical hand around. "Don't just skip over that. Wait. You. Screwed. Dracula?"
Now it was time for Isabel to turn bright red. She stared at the floor.
"Of course you did," Adam interjected before Eric could say anything stupid. "He's a manipulator. And he can touch you. I've seen him. "That alone, Iz… You've never been able to touch anyone - ever."
"Thanks for reminding me," she grumbled.
"And someone like that…"
"Shit, I'd fuck him if he looked at me like he looks at you," Eric said through a laugh.
"What do you mean, 'how he looks at me?'" she raised an eyebrow.
"Honeybunch, you're just too damn oblivious. You always have been, whenever a dude wants to be all up in that." Eric said again with another laugh, gesturing a boney and mechanical hand in her direction. Isabel remembered the memory of Tex that Dracula had shown her, and she looked down at the floor. But Eric wasn't done dragging out the 'good bits.' "And hey - hey - you're leaving a detail out."
"What?" Isabel asked begrudgingly.
"Was it good?" Eric said, grinning wide - his teeth stained black.
Isabel laughed hard and shoved him with her gloved hand. Mechanical monster or not, he was still Eric in there somewhere. "I don't have anything to compare it to, asswipe."
"Oh, bullshit. Don't be a prude," Eric prodded.
Isabel sighed. "I'm not going to kiss and tell," but Eric just kept poking her in the ribs through her clothing, and she swatted at his hand. "Fine! Fine. Yes. It was world-shattering. Alright?"
"Yus!" Eric cheered, and laughed. "Hey, sorry. Been hoping you'd get laid for like, eight years now."
"I don't like how much time you've spent thinking about this," Isabel retorted.
"Continue telling your story," Adam dutifully reminded her. "Now that Eric's had his fun."
God, she wish she had her hoodie - or a coat, or anything. She wanted to hug them both so badly - but Vlad still apparently refused to let her have such contact with anyone. Anyone else, anyway.
Isabel felt the dread well up in her as she got to the next part of her story. "Then… so there was this fountain."
Retelling what happened brought stinging tears back to her eyes - and this time she let them fall. These were her closest friends in the world - they wouldn't judge her. She told them everything she could remember - relayed the deaths that sprung to the front of her mind as she told them what had happened to her. Then Adrian - the priest Lyon, and now… here.
Telling it all made her feel somehow more lost and confused than before. "I don't… I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"Hey. Remember when we went to Kuwait?" Adam began.
"How am I supposed to forget that?" she replied.
"The village that we had to drive to - the one that had just been blown half to pieces. Remember that woman who had lost her family of eight - like, the day prior? Her whole life was gone. And she was still living. Still carrying water from the well to the rest of the village. Still finding a way to keep breathing, one day at a time." Adam paused. "You have to figure out how to keep going. We all do."
Isabel shut her eyes, feeling tears run down her cheeks again. "I felt myself die… thousands of times, Adam…"
"I know… I know… and I can't know what that's like. I don't think anybody can. But you gotta figure out… if you want to keep going, or not." Adam advised, and squeezed her hand. "I don't know why Dracula did that to you - I don't know why he hunted you. Why he still keeps hunting you in a way - even if you're his prisoner."
"Fun? Boredom?"
"Maybe," Eric said, and coughed up some black ooze, and spat it onto the ground next to him. "Sorry. Gross," he muttered. "Maybe. I mean, he's ancient. Ancient people probably get bored. But the castle… Look, I'm plugged into its nervous system now. And it knows Dracula - better than anything. And I dunno… something just feels weird about that. It doesn't sound right to me."
"Have you asked him why he did this to you?" Adam interjected.
"He won't tell me," Isabel answered.
"Then make him," Adam squeezed her hand. "You know you can. Punt the doors in, and go digging," he grinned. "I'm sure I'm not supposed to talk like this, but… show him who he's messing with."
Isabel looked up at her friend, and smiled faintly. Adam and Eric were still in there - even if they were… different than they used to be. Even if they were - all three of them - corrupted or broken versions of their former lives… they were still the people she knew and loved.
Adam was wearing a suit coat, and she leaned against his shoulder, resting her head on it, enjoying the closeness of her friends. The robotic hand of Eric slipped into hers, and she squeezed it. Even if it was foreign to her. She shut her eyes. "Thanks, guys…"
A jet of fire, and Adam sprung to his feet, almost knocking Isabel to the floor.
"It is time to go," a voice said from behind her.
Well, it was nice while it lasted. Standing up, she smiled weakly at the two of them, and walked up to Dracula where he stood in the center of the platform, looking every bit the King of the Vampires that he was. Red eyes flickering in the darkness against pale skin and dark hair. He lifted a hand to her, beaconing her over.
Letting out a wavering breath, she put her hand in his without a fuss, and felt them disappear in a roar of fire.
As they reappeared - she found them not in her 'quarters' as the priest had called them - but his. The study with the blazing fire in the hearth and the chaise lounge. When she went to remove her hand from his, he held it tight, looking down at her as the dour statue he played so well.
Isabel gritted her teeth, and knew what he was waiting for. Just knew. "You think I owe you a 'thank you' for taking me to see my friends?"
"I thought perhaps it would allow you a moment of reflection."
"On what you still have to threaten me with?"
"You said before that I had taken and destroyed all things of any import to you. Perhaps I sought to show a reminder that all was not lost. Everything we care for in this world or any other, exists always as both strength and weakness. If you wish to interpret my actions as an attempt to utilize them for the later, very well."
He released her hand, and she took a half step back from him - a confused array of emotions pouring through her. His words rang true - and he had meant them. Isabel looked away, out the glass doors onto the balcony and the permanent night beyond. He hadn't needed to bring her to see Adam and Eric. Dracula hadn't threatened their lives, or tried to use it as any kind of bargaining tool. It seemed an act of pity, nothing else. Isabel sighed, and shook her head. "I'm not going to apologize for being angry. For being hurt, or… broken… or whatever I am now."
"Of course not."
What a stupid game - and she had no patience to play it. So fine. Isabel paused for a long moment, then said reluctantly. "Thank you for letting me see Adam and Eric." Isabel put a gloved hand to her face. God, she was so tired… And the bourbon had worn off.
He was close to her again, having stepped forward. She jumped, not expecting him to be there - as he took her hand in his, and gently pulled the glove from her hand. Isabel froze, and could only watch as he gently lifted her other hand, and did the same. "I despise that you must wear such things," he murmured.
Vlad lifted one of her hands to his face, and kissed the backs of her curled fingers, and she felt her stomach drop. And part of her loved the terror, the excitement - and another part hated herself for it all at once. Isabel tried to pull her hand away from him - but he refused to let her go, instead opening her hand with his thumb to place a kiss against the palm of her hand.
"After what you've done to me? You do this?" Isabel shook her head, exasperated. The feeling of his cool lips against her skin sent ten or twelve emotions crashing through her all at once. "Stop."
"No."
"Tell me why, then."
"Why what, precisely?"
Isabel laughed once. "All of it. Any of it! This game of yours. What you want from me - why you tortured me. Why I'm here now. Why you pity me enough to bring me an instrument to occupy my time and my friends to provide me some kind of solace - but you hunt me. You toy with me. You sent me through that hell." Isabel shook her head, and tried to pull her hand from his grasp, but he kept her held fast. "You kiss me and kill me in the same breath. Why?"
Dracula stepped closer into her, now looming over her - causing her to swallow once in the back of her throat. His red eyes bored into hers. "You demand to know the reasoning behind my very nature."
Isabel wanted things to be easy again. Wanted things to be simple. Not like this. No phantoms at the edges of her vision. No Dracula and the emotions he wrought to contend with. If he had just forced everything from her, it would still be simple… Instead… Instead, she had to cope with what she felt. Which was both anger and longing - fear and excitement. Dread and pleasure.
Sensing her turmoil, his red eyes met hers, and he slipped his other hand slowly around to the back of her lower back, and pulled her closer to him. His fingers slipped underneath her halter-top to splay against the skin against her lower back. The hand that had kept her own close to his face abandoned its goal and slipped through her hair until it pulled her head to the side. She made a small gasp in shock and pain as he did - and fear roiled through her as she knew what was about to happen.
Pulling her into him, pressing her lower body against his and arching her back with his other hand - he leant his head down, and ran his tongue slowly along her neck. Vlad ran lazy circles around the wound that had almost healed in the past five days - that felt like five minutes or fifty years, but nowhere in between.
Isabel cried out as his fangs bit into her skin, and her hands gripped his vest and shirt tightly as he fed from her. Felt his closeness - his mind with hers again, felt him touch her. The sensation that terrified and thrilled her at the same time. The man she feared - and who reached further into her soul than anyone ever had. Pleasure took over as the low drum of their hearts began to beat in time with each other.
Slowly, after a long few minutes of drawing from her, he pulled away and licked the wounds again, purring deep in his throat. Isabel couldn't even react as an arm slung behind her knees and he was suddenly carrying her. A few strides, and he sat down in his chair by the fire, placing her sideways across his lap and wrapping an arm around her.
Isabel wanted him to let her go. To kill her. To hate her. To stop touching her. To hold her, to slit her throat - to kiss her - to do a million conflicting things at once. She punched his chest, and he simply took the abuse - it didn't hurt.
He waited patiently as the pointlessness of her struggling made her finally give up. Now she just felt… empty. She had wanted simplicity - and he had given it to her. But it didn't fill the void she had hoped it would, still feeling torn apart and left hollow. She kept her eyes shut as he held her. Once she stilled, she felt his fingers running through her hair. He did that often - she could feel the enjoyment he felt at the sensation. But, it was as though he were trying to... comfort her. Why?!
"Tell me, please," she begged again, quietly. This had to make sense - somehow, somewhere, and she needed to know how. "Continuing on without understanding why you did this - it's too much to ask of me."
"I forced your hand in public so that I would have no choice but to follow through with what must be done," his voice was a deep rumble that she could feel echo through her. "What I did to you… was necessary. The fountain was the worst horror I could devise for one such as you." He placed a gentle kiss against her forehead.
She said nothing for a long time. How could someone say those words - say that he had subjected her to the worst torture he could think of, and then end it with a kiss? Every moment was a crossroads in her mind - a split decision between insanity, emptiness, and trying to forge ahead with all of what coursed through her. What he did to her. The memories of thousands of deaths of every kind. Three days she had spent in that fountain - but what she had seen could easily have spanned three decades of time.
Dracula spoke again, pushed by her silence. "I knew I would not be able to complete the act without some manner of additional motivation."
Isabel opened her eyes, looking down at her hands in her lap. "You're telling me… Torturing me was 'necessary,' You're saying that what you did was the worst you could come up with. You knew I'd lose my temper… and you did it on purpose… to make sure you were held accountable."
Vlad was silent - waiting to see what she would do. It seemed he did that a great deal - wait to see her reaction. For her to choose. He had spoke of a 'game' many times… of his game with her. Was this it? A chess match? A chess match to what end?
"That makes no sense," she kept her head lowered, unable to find the will to raise it. "Why do you need any extra motivation? Why any excuse at all? And you'll tell me that you needed additional motives - but not your original motive." She raised her head to look at him, and even sitting on his lap he was taller than her.
"Every time I demand to know what you want from me - you say cryptic bullshit. 'Everything' or 'You will be dead in the ground before you're rid of me.' Tell me, Vlad Dracula Tepes, why the fuck I'm here, or I swear-" her anger filled the void again, and she tried to push off of him, but his arm around her waist held her there like an iron rod. His other hand was at the back of her head now, and it pulled her into a fiery kiss. She let out a 'mnnfh!' against his lips as he did.
Vlad broke the kiss slowly, and kept his head close to hers, cold breath against her skin. "I needed to know if you could survive - intact." He pulled further back, his hand still resting at the back of her neck. Isabel realized he was not referencing her time in the fountain.
"Survive what exactly?!"
"... Me."
Isabel watched him as he said the word with a dark expression that belied so much hatred - pointed both inwards and outwards. So much regret and loathing for a world that made him live like a monster that he hated.
But it was still not an answer. Not a real one.
Isabel narrowed her eyes at him, angry at his cryptic response again. "No more shadows. No more secrets and riddles. You'll tell me, or I'll make you tell me."
Dracula huffed once in a small laugh. "And what will you do?"
"Let's find out," she responded as she put her hands on either side of his neck, her palms against the line of his jaw. Isabel had never used her gift on him willingly. Had never forced her way into his mind. Every time they found themselves in that predicament it had been due to his prodding. Isabel had never forced her way through another person's mind - afraid of what would happen to them. She refused to leave another person dying in a coma.
But for him, she didn't care.
She wanted the answer, once and for all.
Dracula snarled loudly in pain as she kicked down the proverbial door into his mind.
A beautiful woman from ancient times. Long black hair - eyes painted gold, black and turquoise. A princess, in love with a man beneath her station. She was to be a goddess, after all.
He was considered a scholar, by those times - if only because he could read and write the language of dashes and triangles. A language of chisel marks. Crude, but the written language must start somewhere. Sidelong glances in the great hall - a wink, a smile - turned into a secret trist that played itself out in darkened alleys of mud buildings.
Her kiss tasted like lavender and honey. He remembered that, as her blood was poured down his throat at the altar that made him the monster that he was doomed to be for all time.
Isabel stood inside the ancient castle - and watched as Vlad carefully approached a figure standing on the lip of a balcony. The woman was wearing a long, flowing pink dress, and her pale hair flew in the breeze as she looked at him, her eyes wide. A red stain decorated her neck.
"Please, no-" he begged the woman in pink.
He was weak - too newly resurrected to stop her as she flung herself from the balcony. Dracula rushed to the edge, and threw himself over, hoping to catch her in time to save her from the rocks below. To turn them both to bats before the rocks met them.
But he was too late.
He saw her thin, frail body meet the rocks with a horrible force. Her spine snapped, and her eyes instantly became sightless and empty.
He landed on the rocks, ignoring the pain lancing through his legs as he crawled to her - cradling her body in his arms.
It wasn't until he had found her amongst the corpses of the villagers that he knew that her madness had grown too much for him to control. The children laid around her, dead, throats torn open.
His love sat amongst them, dark eyes looking up at him in hopeful pleasure, fangs grotesque against her beautiful lips. "I've left one alive for you, Master!"
He had torn her head from her shoulders before she could feel the pain. He would not make her suffer - it was his fault, after all.
Pregnant - with his child…? How could that be? How could God do such a thing - to offer him the gift of family.
Only to rip it away from him.
He found her swinging from the rafters of her room, having created a noose out of the bed linens.
Lisa. Oh, Lisa. The impetuous, fiercely intelligent creature that dared walk through his front doors. Seeking knowledge - seeking him and what he could offer.
No one stepped through his doors willingly. No one stepped through of their own accord - not truly.
But she had.
Vlad had wanted to turn her- or to bring her halfway, to perform the ritual that would bind them together until they both died. But she had gently refused - wanting to spend her life with him. Lisa knew that he would suffer in his absence - but she could not face eternity. Lisa knew she was not strong enough to endure what endlessness truly was. Even if it was not to be spent alone.
So, she condemned him to suffer the fate that she so avoided.
Her death came sooner than he had ever dreamed. He had believed that in time, she would begin to fear death and finally submit to his plea for her to join him. But the humans had dashed that away from him… Robbed him of the love he cherished.
A building, burnt to rubble - a hovel that she had used to treat the miserable cretins around her. He remembered an old woman, with flowers… remembered sparing her life. But many hundreds died for the loss of the woman he loved.
When he fell at his son's hand, he swore that it was over. The castle would not return - even if he must.
Mina. She was a child, a deliciously naive thing - with such potential. The crushing loneliness sent him to her again, and again, even when he knew it was dangerous.
He had cast the castle away - trapping it inside a blade. He heard it crying and pleading for freedom, for blood, every waking moment. No. He would find another life. No more of this endless cycle of waking and death, of emptiness and endless years sitting upon a meaningless throne.
Even in his wanderings, where he convinced the creature to take a new master, he could hear it crying for his return. The further he distanced himself, the weaker he became. It was that weakness that made him vulnerable to a pair of dimwitted humans who took his hope for a new manner of life away from him.
Never again.
Almost a dozen women - over four thousand years, or more. She saw them all, one after another. Each one he loved - truly, and with his whole soul. Each one he worshiped, each one in turn was his hope for the end to his empty night. To give him another at his side who would fill the void.
Each one played out in front of her.
Each one died in turn.
Each one left him alone.
When she emerged from his mind, she opened her eyes - and found her hands stained with blood.
Brief fear gripped her, before she saw… they were his tears.
He opened his red eyes, and looked at her, forlorn and injured. "I suppose," he voice was barely audible - a rumble in his chest more than anything. "That I deserved that…"
She had torn away his defences. Ripped away the privacy of his mind and jammed a knife into his most open wound. Isabel had found a way to hurt him, finally: make him relive their deaths. Feeling the pain coursing through him - she wasn't totally glad she had.
Dracula had put her through the fountain to test if she would come out 'intact.' To see if… what, she could survive him? To survive… eternity? "I don't understand," she whispered to him.
Vlad brushed his fingers along her face, and slipping his hand to the back of her neck, pulled her in for a kiss. It was slow - gentle… but intense. She felt the need there - but not like before. This wasn't a physical need. Don't be a fool, he whispered in her mind, as he let the kiss break naturally. He watched her - and waited.
He didn't love her. She knew that much. But she felt… hope that perhaps, such things could happen.
Hope. Dracula could hope.
How someone like him could - where creatures who were much younger, like Adrian - no such thing lived… was astonishing. And made her almost pity Vlad. Isabel was positive that if he had the chance to tear out his feelings at the roots, he would. But no one had control over such things.
Isabel felt his emptiness - his sorrow, his pain. She felt the loss echoing through him. Everyone he had ever loved was lost to him. Even Adrian, he could never reclaim.
"You hurt me, to see if I would break..?" she asked him weakly, tears stinging her own eyes. "Which did you want to see happen?"
Vlad shut his eyes, and sighed. "I do not know."
The truth stung, and she looked away. He knew he couldn't lie to her - so he hadn't bothered. At least he would pay her that credit, even if he didn't necessarily want to.
Sleep, he silently urged her. I will keep the dreams at bay. Isabel felt his command run to her core - and she would usually fight or baulk at such a command. But now she was too beaten and battered, tired and worn thin. She let the darkness come.
Isabel had fallen asleep in his arms, curled up against him with her forehead resting against his neck. Vlad felt… content. His little creature had been exhausted, overwrought with all that she had seen. He had felt her desire for simplicity in that moment, and he had granted it. Vlad understood why she was too afraid to shut her eyes. He had shared every moment of her trial inside the Well of Souls. Their link was both burden and blessing.
Every death that she had lived through, he had seen. Every moment of suffering, he had shared. Their bond, from his taking her blood, their sharing of minds - their sharing of bodies - made it so. Truly, he would not have wished it otherwise. Her gift was often problematic and defied his attempts to curtail and contain its bounds. Yet, as much as she could feel his thoughts, he, in turn, shared in hers.
The little creature that burst through the doors of his mind and laid him bare before her. The one who held such sympathy for his pain.
He shut his eyes, and let himself enjoy the feeling of the heat of the fire, and her warm body curled against his. He relished in the sensation, as he had no warmth of his own.
Both would be gone soon enough, he knew.