Thank you everyone again for the reviews! Happy Turkey Day, and I hope you enjoy reading! :)
You could almost mistake this for being normal.
That is, if you ignored the scenery, the conversation topics, and the fact that of the three old friends sitting around laughing - two of them were no longer human. And that the last was on her way quickly down a path with a sharp and irreversible fork in the road between immortality, and death.
Other than that, it was like nothing had changed.
Isabel was lying on the chaise lounge 'upside down,' with her feet up on the raised part where her head should go. Her arm was draped casually off the side, holding on to the neck of a bottle of beer she was resting on the ground. Listening to Adam talk was an old commonplace activity. But now, she couldn't have been any happier to hear him rabble.
Isabel felt real solace for the first time in a long time. The false sense of security provided by Adam and Eric was obvious - there was no mistaking that she was still in as much danger now as she was without them. But like a blanket during a thunderstorm, it was a comfort she couldn't deny.
She had finished recanting what had happened in the last two weeks - and was now listening to their end of it. (Eric had high-fived her when she said she had stabbed Wraith/Tim in the neck with his own knife.) That lead to Eric explaining the finishing touches to his upgrades - showed off more of his hardware and talked about his 'big plans' for futurizing the ancient castle. Then, it started a raging debate between Adam and Eric about whether or not the castle's scientific prowess was 'outdated' or 'advanced.' As far as Isabel could tell, the answer was both.
Adam was now excitedly explaining his most recent research discovery as if they understood half of what he was talking about. That's something the two boys were both guilty of doing - charging forward in a conversation with no awareness that maybe the other two were missing key terminology. But, Isabel was hardly stupid and prided herself on the ability to at least keep up and follow the proverbial bouncing ball.
"So, this place has the scientific proof for a soul - a soul - the existence of a tangible consciousness outside the human body. I ran the numbers myself, and they check out. It's so obvious when you see it, but I can't imagine what it would do to the community at large. I wish I could write it all down and take it to… I don't know, Oxford? Harvard?"
"They'd reject it as a bunch of mumbo-jumbo from a bunch of devil worshiping freaks and lock you in a cage to study you," Eric pointed out dutifully. He was sitting on the floor, his back up against the lounge Isabel was reclining on. None of the three had ever been the 'touchy-feely' type, but of them, Eric was the one that enjoyed close proximity to others. And he had been lonely, he admitted.
"I'd also love to watch you try and explain any of this to a panel." Isabel pushed an invisible pair of glasses up her nose, and did her best Adam impression. "'Well, you see, there's this demon castle run by this… ancient monster… and he can't die. I mean, well, he does die frequently, but that's beside the point-'" She laughed hard as a beer bottle cap bounced off the side of her head, and she grinned over at Adam. "You're just angry because you know I'm right."
"Speaking of demon castles," Adam interjected. "Are you serious - that the castle wants you dead? Like the building. The building itself." His incredulousness on the subject was clear.
"You don't get it, it's sentient," Eric replied. "It's not a thinking thing - it doesn't sit there and talk to itself. It's like… coral. If something attacks part of it, it all reacts. It's instinctual. All raw feeling." He scratched the back of his neck, knowing he was explaining it poorly.
"I'm good with feelings. That's what I do - and I couldn't talk it out of wanting me dead. There wasn't anything I could do about it." Isabel sighed and took a sip from her bottle before putting it back down on the ground.
The three of them sat in silence for a moment, debating their current situation. A vampire, a cyborg, and her.
"What I don't understand," Adam began. "Is why we're here. I'm not complaining - this is the best moment I've had since we arrived at the castle. But why? We aren't going to do much in the way of stopping anything trying to hurt you. We'll try - we'll try as hard as we can, but we aren't going to stand much of a chance against the castle itself."
Isabel looked out the window at the frozen forest for a long moment. It was a valid question. Why had Dracula bid Lyon to fetch Eric and Adam? "Maybe a consolation prize for me, I don't know. He told Lyon to get you, and said you'd both die to protect me if it came to that."
"But why nobody else to protect you? You said there's that thing, Death, here somewhere - but really, is that enough? Three against whatever-the-hell this 'Wraith' thing is, or who knows what else?" Adam puzzled, trying to work out the rational explanation in his own head. "It doesn't add up."
It hadn't occurred to her until then - but once he pointed it out, it felt obvious. "He didn't say."
Eric turned his head to look up at her. "Hey. So. How's it going between you and the Boss, anyway? I really don't want to pry - but, with everything you've told us that happened. This Wraith guy and what he tried to do to you… Lord Dracula trying to turn you into whatever-it-is he's trying to do. But, you haven't talked about him at all. About what's happened. Y'know, like-" he rambled.
"Eric, you're babbling," she said with a small laugh.
"Yeah yeah. I don't like all the fluffy shit. But, you haven't talked about him much. Like things are - I mean, you're not trying to escape, right? Of what's going on, you haven't said that he's a problem. Do you… uh... I mean, when it comes to Dracula, do you… well," he trailed off, not being able to spit it out.
"Oh, for fucks's sake, Eric. You seriously can ask me how he is in the sack but you can't ask me if I've got feelings for him? You have seriously messed up priorities," Isabel shoved the back of his head hard, and he snickered.
"Yeah. Yeah I do. But yeah, that's my question."
Isabel looked up at the ceiling - at the winding, twisting ironwork that framed the vaulted windows. The sky was jet black, with pinhole stars flickering in the night sky. She thought about it for a moment. These were two guys that were as good as family to her. And without Vlad's presence wrapped around her mind like a thick cloak, she felt like she was clear-headed for the first time in a long time.
So did she love him?
Isabel let her mind wander over the past few weeks. His kindness, his cruelty. He could be so gentle - and so hateful and violent. But she saw him as the whole - not a man cut in two parts. He was impossible, incorrigible - and he would always terrify her. He was a vampire, and always would be. And she didn't want him to be anything other than that.
Vlad claimed to care about her. That it was too late to take her life to spare himself future pain. But why? Why her? "I don't know what he sees in me."
"Izzy," Eric turned to sit sideways, and he dropped a hand on her shoulder. "Don't go doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Doubting yourself," Eric sighed. "You do this all the time."
"I'm not, Eric. I'm serious! I'm surrounded by people with goddamn super powers. And mine? I can tell when people miss their cat. Whoop-de-do. I need to be babysat all the time or else somebody off a long list will show up to kill me. He could do better, is all I'm saying."
Eric punched her arm and she grabbed the offending location. "Ow! What the fuck was that for, asshole?!"
"You talk like that again, and I'll punch you harder," Eric waggled a finger in her face. "And you're avoiding the question with the stupid 'I don't know what he sees in me,' bullshit," he said in his best high-squeaky woman voice.
"Fine." Isabel sighed and shoved his hand away from her face, and sat up. She took a swig of her beer. "I love him. I do. And I know it's stupid. It's deranged. It's classic Stockholm Syndrome. But, I do."
"This… 'ritual' - whatever it is he's doing to you-" Adam finally spoke up, having watched the whole exchange in silence until now. "Do you want it to succeed?"
Isabel blinked - she hadn't really thought about it. It was so far out of the question, she hadn't thought about what she wanted to happen. It meant being here, forever. It meant being at his side, forever.
Immortality.
Only a violent death would send her to the grave - and bound to Dracula, who knew what would happen? She would watch the world around her change. Everything she had ever known would fade away, and it would be reborn into something she didn't recognize. She thought of Adrian and Lyon - of all the creatures in the castle she had met or seen. Locked outside of time, shackled to a world that didn't exist anymore. Dragging it behind them like a ball and chain. Eric and Adam weren't mortal anymore - but who knows how long they would last before their candles would be snuffed out.
But she wouldn't be alone. Even if Vlad never came to love her, the way she did him - there would be company on the long trek to the ever-stretching horizon. It was a prospect that was terrifying - a prospect that would probably drive some people crazy.
Well, that's why he put her into the fountain, wasn't it? To see if she could survive the burden? It was still a horrible excuse to torture her. But there was a cruel and twisted logic to it.
Isabel shut her eyes, took a long breath, held it, and thought for one more second. "Somebody hand me a coin," she reached out her hand, palm up.
"What for?" Eric blinked, confused.
Adam dug around into his pockets, and finally fished out a nickel, tossing it to her from where he was sitting at a table a foot or two away.
She caught it, and turned it over in her gloved hands. "When I don't know the answer to what I want, I flip for it. Then, when I see the result, I can judge my gut reaction and whether or not I'm disappointed or happy." She rubbed her thumb over the face of the nickel, thoughtfully. "I try to weigh the pros and cons too much. I try to rationalize the 'right' answer and sometimes I can't tell what I really want to have happen. Sometimes it's hard to know what my opinion is, and not someone else's filtering in. So this is how I get around that."
Eric shrugged. This wasn't the dumbest thing he'd seen her do - not by a long shot. "Alright, well, if it comes up heads, you live forever as Dracula's bloodbuddy," Eric quipped. "Tales and you die a human. Assume it's a dignified, painless death, for sake of argument."
"'Kay," she put the nickel on the back of her nail and thumb and forefinger, and flicked the coin up into the air. She caught it, and flipped it onto the back of her gloved hand. Uncovering her hand, she looked down at the nickel and saw the shiny face of Jefferson looking back at her. Heads.
And she felt relieved. At peace with the result.
Looking up at the boys, she showed them the heads up coin, and picking it up, tossed it back to Adam, who caught it in midair easily.
Isabel looked at them both, and flashed a faint smile. At least there was some solace in knowing what she wanted. "I guess that settles it… I'm all in."
Hours had passed, and they fell into their old routine of playing cards. Today they were playing hearts, which was on of their favorites. The other favorite was Hold 'Em, but that was Tex's favorite, and it felt wrong to play it without him. Eric's suggestion of 'strip poker' was also immediately ruled out.
Typically, Adam won. But Eric would give him a damn good run for his money. Isabel wasn't a poor player - but just wasn't nearly as aggressively competitive as the other two.
It was about halfway through the third game of hearts, and the fourth set of drinks, that the trouble started.
From the floor below them, muffled through the thick flooring, came the loud and cackling laughter of the creature she had met - the one who called himself 'Death.' There was no mistaking that voice. Silence for a moment, then the sounds of crashing - metal on metal, heavy impacts of objects on walls and beams that made their floor vibrate with the force of it. Either he was doing very violent renovation of the space, or something was wrong.
"Shit," Eric summed up nicely. He stood up from the floor and began cautiously approaching the hatch in the floor.
"What do you think is going on?" Isabel asked - knowing full well nobody had the answer.
"It's a fight, but with whom is the question?" Adam responded. Now, all three were standing around the hatch, looking down at it, hearing the sounds of the fight continue. The high-pitched grating noise of metal on metal reverberated through the building, and it made them all recoil in pain.
"Could be Adrian," Isabel prompted, hopefully.
"Or 'Wraith,'" Eric retorted, using air quotes around the monster's name.
"Well, if we wait for them to kill - uh - 'Death,'" he paused, realizing how stupid that sounded out of context, before pressing forward. "We won't stand a chance on our own. If we help him, we stand a better chance."
Isabel reached for the ring of the hatch, only to have Eric grab her gloved wrist. "Whoa whoa whoa, what're you doing?" Eric said as he interrupted her opening the hatch.
"I'm going down there. Either it's someone I can reason with, or it's somebody I can distract. I'm not going to sit up here like some goddamn damsel in distress. I refuse." She left absolutely no room to argue the point. Eric pulled his hand off her wrist with a sigh, and realized, correctly, that it would be pointless to try and convince her of anything else.
She pulled the hatch open with a creak, and pulled up short as Adam cut in front of her. "I'm not letting you down there first," he explained as he took hold of the hatch ladder and slid down it, pressing his hands and feet against the outside supports to slow his fall as he rode it down to the landing about twenty feet below them. Eric followed suit a second or two after Adam had cleared out of the way.
That having been a trick she had never mastered, and this not being a time to test it out, Isabel decided to go down the ladder the old fashioned way. This got her to the landing a good thirty seconds after the two boys.
She hadn't seen this room before - she hadn't climbed the tower like her friends had. So this was her first time seeing the maddening array of giant clock gears and sprockets , rack and pinions, springs and couplings - some the size of her first apartment - that made the giant clock function.
The clock face itself dominated one wall - and holy hell, it must have been eighty feet in diameter. The moon outside provided a glow to the clock that cast dramatic shadows against the machinery. It was a massive construction, and darkness stretched on below the platform well out of sight. Dim amber light from strange, steampunkish filament bulbs dotted the walls and large steel i-beams.
A fight was going on, that was for sure. Several of the gears and sprockets had large trenches cut out of the thick steel by something harder than it - and far sharper. The stage on which the fight was unfolding was a confusing array of rotating giant clock parts. Each notching forward methodically with the tock, tock, tock of the immense mechanism.
Death was floating over one such gear - hovering above the rotating element and completely unaffected by its march ever onward. His scythe was in his hands - and he was surrounded by several smaller, floating blades - that shot forward from him and towards a figure on another gear - a figure she recognized.
She had hoped it would be Adrian.
She could deal with it being Adrian.
Nope. Option 'B.'
Wraith.
Her stomach sunk at the sight of the redheaded vampire whose body the creature now inhabited. Judging by the speed in which he dodged the blades whizzing through the air at him - he was more than holding his own. Fear tugged at her, and she felt the urge to clamber back up the ladder and slam the hatch shut. Vlad! Help! She cried silently, hoping the vampire king could hear her.
"Oh, hey baby," Wraith said in a 'greeting,' looking up at the three of them standing a few platform levels above them. He stood up from a crouched position, and brushed some dust from his tight black pants. He grinned up at her through the stolen face of the vampire - fiendish features that seemed to suit him far better than Tim's ever did. He held a long dagger that was clearly designed to create pain in each hand, and he deftly flipped one of them in between his fingers like a pen trick, darting it back and forth and around each digit in turn. "There you are! I've been looking for you everywhere."
Isabel tried to ignore him - tried to ignore the instinctual fear at seeing him. She turned her attention to Death - who hadn't turned to look up at the three of him. Isabel could sense he was… worried. He was also injured - not that she could tell by looking at him, mind you - but she could feel it. He was losing.
"This is bad… very bad..." she muttered to her two friends.
Adam took a running jump and leapt from the platform they were standing on - landing onto a gear thirty feet below them like nothing had happened. He pulled a gun out of a holster that she hadn't known he had been wearing under his coat.
Eric, meanwhile, was not wearing a coat to hide any weapons, but seemed no less prepared. Two compartments opened up in his legs - sliding outwards like some kind of hidden drawer or… whatever. Each contained some bizarre-looking, science fiction-esque gun. She wasn't surprised. It looked exactly like something he would have designed into the spec's of his new getup. He pulled the guns from the compartments and they closed back up seamlessly into his clothing with a hiss-click noise.
He too, jumped from the platform - but this time to a smaller ledge on the left, and began walking around where Wraith was standing. Eric was trying to flank the vampire, who was still skillfully toying with his blades, grinning as though he had already won.
Wraith's shadow suddenly caught her attention - it was stretching out in front of him - and to both sides of him - and behind him. He had four shadows - and there was not nearly that amount of light to warrant that. In fact, they seemed to be a darker black than even the unlit abyss beneath them. As she watched him flip the blade between his fingers - she noticed the shadows weren't following suit. They were moving - but not in sync with their owner. And not doing the same thing, like they had lives and minds of their own.
"Watch out for the shadows," she called to her friends below them. "He controls them!" She started towards a set of stairs that started a series of criss-crossing landings and catwalks. It was impossible to tell what path lead to where. The path that wound down the building was designed by a madman. She took off her gloves and shoved them into her pockets. Isabel knew that she would very likely have to use her only defense mechanism in a fight. And she'd need her hands bare for that to work.
"Ruin all my fun, why don't you," Wraith said with a fake dramatic sigh. "Half the joy is in them not knowing! Oh well… Sorry I'll have to kill them in front of you, sweetness."
"You talk more than I do, you abomination. Now be quiet, and fight!" Death snarled.
The fight that ensued was almost too fast to watch. It seemed like Wraith should be horribly outmatched - but Adam and Eric were still learning their newfound strengths and weaknesses.
Death swooped towards him, swinging his scythe through the air. But Wraith just vanished - dropping into the shadows at his feet like the platform he was standing on opened up like a trap door. The scythe passed through the empty space harmlessly.
Isabel pulled up short, almost toppling over herself on the catwalk as Wraith appeared in front of her - rising out of her own shadow like a nightmare. "No kiss for your favorite creation?" he said, his grin never faltering as he reached out and snatched her wrists and dragged her towards him.
Pushing feelings onto another person was something she hated doing. For her, it was draining and often left her with a headache the size of a horse. The last time she had used it was on the soldier she found trapped in the vehicle on the streets of Boston - but that seemed like years ago now. It was an 'in case of emergencies' use only. And this counted as an emergency.
She focused all her energy on fear - on the horror she felt when he had attacked her in the crypt. She pushed it onto him like a wave, and she saw his eyes go wide as it crashed over him. He released her wrists and staggered backwards, struggling for breath in his panic.
"What-" he gasped, then let out a growl as his eyes narrowed in rage. "That's cheating!"
A bullet ripped through his shoulder, and he gripped it with a hiss of pain. The bullet had belonged to Adam, who squeezed off a second and a third round. Wraith had already disappeared into the shadow at his feet by the time the third bullet arrived. He reappeared on a platform fifty feet away from her and up a level and seemed unphased by the two bullets he had taken. Wraith replied in kind, and whipped two daggers through the air at Adam. One of them found pay-dirt, digging deep into Adam's leg.
Adam fell to one knee, and quickly grabbed the hilt of the dagger, and yanked it out of his leg. She knew he could heal like the other vampires could - but the question was, how quickly? How many times?
Adam dodged the next three daggers that stuck into the thick steel of the gear he was standing on - and ducked behind an i-beam that supported the escapement that kept that part of the clock moving forward in its unending march.
It seemed Wraith could summon daggers, as he was flicking them through the air at his intended targets, only to have another in his hand a moment later. Between that, and his weird 'shadow magic' - it was hard to tell what gifts came with the vampire, and what was innate to Wraith. Either way - the monster was faster, and better, than her two friends.
Isabel kept working her way down the weird Escher-esque landings and stairs. She jumped over the railing on one to land on a path below her - still trying to make it down to where Eric and Adam were fighting.
She lost track of the fight for a time while she was navigating her way around - and she saw Adam toss his gun aside in frustration. He was out of bullets. With no other option, he decided to go hand-to-hand with Wraith.
The issue was that the monster was made of thousands of souls - if not more. Wraith knew how to fight, and it was clear that he knew how to utilize everything the body of the vampire could provide - and more.
Adam landed a good punch to Wraith's side. Wraith retreated for a moment, disappearing into his shadow to reappear out of another cast by a steel support.
"Look out!" she cried, seeing what was happening from above better than Adam could. Wraith's shadow was stretching out in front of him - like something out of a horror movie. Like something out of Nightmare on Elm Street. The shadow reached out towards Adam - and her warning came too late.
He let out a hurk in his throat, as the shadow had grabbed his own by the throat. The shadow of Wraith tugged at Adam's shadow, and Adam lurched forward with it. As though it were his own throat the shadow had grasped.
Now, Adam was standing on top of the inky blackness. He tried to pull back - tried to escape it. But he was unable to move. Wraith's shadow had hold of him like it was made of tar. No matter how hard he yanked and pulled, he couldn't pull his feet from the abyssal surface.
Wraith laughed, and with a gesture - Adam screamed as the world dropped out from under him. He was gone - swallowed whole by the inky darkness of the shadow.
"No!" Isabel cried, and began climbing down the stairs to another platform. She wasn't sure what she could do to help - but fuck all if she was going to watch her friends get eaten by Wraith.
"Stay out of this, fool!" Death warned, but was too busy with Wraith to stop her. He was defending himself with skill, but Wraith was landing more blows than he was receiving. Eric's bullets were missing the mark - Wraith was dodging both attacks like a blur of motion, if not teleporting through his shadows altogether. No matter how fast Death and Eric attacked - Wraith was gone before either could land a blow.
Maybe if she could reach Wraith - she could stop him. Render him powerless for long enough.
More of Death's smaller, whirling scythes appeared around him, and shot at Wraith like a volley of missiles. Dodging them one by one, he snatched the last one out of midair as it passed him. He darted and jumped, leaping from platform to platform with ease. With a slice of a blade so fast it seemed to cut the air itself, Death let out a loud, horrible wail.
The spectre evaporated - dissolving into dust and nothingness. All that was left was the large and intricate scythe - which clattered loudly to the surface of a gear below him, rattling as it came to a standstill.
"Eric, run," she cried. "Just go. Go!"
"I can't leave you with him!" her friend responded, voice dire.
"You can't stop him! Go!" she pleaded.
The warning was too late. Eric had missed his chance. Wraith was now behind him, and with both hands, he shoved Eric forward. Eric screamed, staggered, and fell into the abyss of Wraith's shadow like it was a cliff into the darkness beyond. His scream was cut short the moment he was out of sight. And with that, he was gone.
Isabel realized, as she reached a catwalk that stretched over the full width of the clock tower - that now… they were alone. Help! She cried silently to Vlad. Please- she begged. But who knows if he could actually even hear her. Who knows how deep he had injured himself when moving the castle.
Wraith jumped from the platform he was on, landing gracefully in the center of the catwalk, thirty feet from her. He put his knives into his belt, and with one hand on each railing - which was more for show than actual need - slowly began stalking towards her, smiling. He slid his hands along the railing, and tapped his fingertips on them as he walked. "It's so good to see you," he said with a slight tilt to his head. "I know you don't believe me."
"Let them go. I don't care what you do to me, let them go-" she begged.
"Oh? Really? You don't care? So I said, 'bend over that railing and let me fuck you up the ass, and I'll let them go,' you'd say yes?" The fiendish, cruel grin returned to his face. "Because I'd take that deal, baby girl."
"You can't be serious…" Isabel was walking backwards along the catwalk - glancing behind her quickly every few moments to make sure she wasn't backing into a trap. Help, please! She silently cried again in desperation.
"I am perfectly serious - you made me, so you're mine. I'm gunna have you - one way or another. As annoying as this fight was, I'm glad you gave me bargaining chips with your two idiot friends. That was a really bad idea, y'know. But hey, maybe now it'll be a little less rape-y with them on the line! Maybe you won't stab me in the goddamn throat," he snarled the last few words over clenched teeth. A split second later his mood shifted again, and he smiled brightly at her, and shrugged as though it were the littlest thing in the world. That stabbing him in the throat was a borrowed pencil in math class, nothing more. "I mean, not that I blame you. I absolutely had it coming to me. Actually, I'm kind of impressed!"
How the hell do you argue with that kind of crazy?! "If you're going to kill me, just do it already. Then I won't care what you do to my corpse. I know you're sick enough for that not to matter anyway." Isabel was running short on options. She could run - but he would catch her in moments. Throw herself from the walkway and, what - die when she hit the bottom, which was who-knows-how-long beneath her? Falling was probably the only thing she was really afraid of. So that was out. Trying to summon Vlad wasn't working. So for now… stall tactics.
"Kill you?!" Wraith said, shocked. He was legitimately surprised, she could feel it from him. It wasn't an act. "Wait wait wait- when did I say I was going to kill you?! How'd you get that idea?"
"You said you were going to stab me," she reminded him.
"I said I was going to stab you if you struggled! Very different!" he insisted, finger raised towards her, making a very clear point. His boots making a hollow and metallic clunk with each careful, measured step as he continued to stalk her across the catwalk. "I've threatened to fuck you 'til you can't walk straight, but when did I ever say I was going to murder you?"
"I assumed-"
"Hah!" he interrupted. "There you have it! And you know what you do when you assume?" Wraith grinned, then made a tsking noise with his tongue. "Oh, sweetness… Killing you is the last thing on my mind. I'm taking you away from here. We're gunna blow this popsicle stand, you and me, and ride off into the sunset."
That was not what she was expecting. "What..?"
He continued as if hadn't heard her. "See, it's gotten a lot harder now, that Vladdy-boy moved the whole goddamn castle to the middle of frozen-bumble-fuck-nowhere." He slammed a fist into the metal railing - and it bent under the blow. The sudden impact made her jump. "I can't very well just walk out of here with you now, can I?! Your tits'll freeze off in twenty minutes. But!" he smiled, shrugging it off, the anger gone just as quickly as it had come. "I have an even better plan now. One I think you'll love."
Isabel shook her head 'no,' still retreating backwards. The idea of going anywhere with him made her skin crawl.
"What happened to 'just let them go- I'll do anything!'" he laughed. "All talk, and no action? Doesn't seem like you. You seem like a girl of conviction. So it must be me, then. Am I really that repulsive?" he fake pouted, and sniffed exaggeratedly, and wiped at a fake tear. "I'm hurt."
"Why are you doing this to me?! I never did anything to you. I don't understand." Maybe she could reason with him - but she doubted it.
"Don't you get it? You made me. I'm your creation. I am the product of all of those bits and pieces of souls from that fountain, given form inside that pretty little head of yours. I am your responsibility!" He pulled in a slow breath, and paused to give his next words the weight that they deserved. "I am the monster to your Doctor Frankenstein."
Isabel shook her head again, still walking backwards at the pace he was advancing. He didn't seem in any hurry to catch her. But that didn't mean she wanted to let him get anywhere near her. "I didn't mean to. I didn't want to."
"That doesn't matter! The fact is, you did. And I'm here now-" he put a hand to his chest over the carefully tailored white shirt. He clearly loved the contrast between black and white. When he had appeared in her dreams, he was dressed similarly. Even if the face was different, everything else was the same. "And it is your duty to care for me. To love me." He was so insistent - so sure of what he was saying. He believed it as pure and utter fact.
"I-" Isabel let out a startled cry as she reached the end of the catwalk and inadvertently stepped backwards off of a set of stairs. Her arms flailed to catch herself. As she teetered backwards, something grabbed her. The downward descent was stopped as she found herself half-laying on the floor at the bottom. Looking up into the face of Wraith, he grinned cheekily down at her, He had caught her, and now was holding her to him, arms wrapped around her. "You didn't have to fake falling into my arms, sweetness."
Isabel shoved at him, trying to push him off her. He held her tight, laughing, as she punched at his chest and struggled harder. "Let me go!" Finally, he acquiesced - and she quickly pulled away and stood up, eager to put distance between them. She had no idea what she could do - how she could stop him. But she knew she didn't want him anywhere near her.
Shrugging, he rose to his feet. "Suit yourself."
"What the hell do you think your end game is?" Isabel saw a door leading out of the open chamber, and began edging her way towards it. "When Dracula gets here-"
"He can't do shit right now, can he?" He clicked his tongue against the roof his mouth once, thinking. "I was sure, soon as I showed my face, he'd appear. But here we are, just you and me… and no sign of him. He's left you all alone with some dumb goon and your two friends, which played directly to my favor, didn't it? So this means one of two things - either he doesn't want to come save you… or he can't."
Isabel turned and made a break for the door - and she heard him let out an exaggerated sigh of frustration. In a blur, she was slammed up against the wall by her shoulders. "Will you quit that?!" he snarled at her, and yelled into her face. "Where do you think you can run that I can't find you?! Dracula isn't here right now, so pay attention to me, will you?!"
Isabel winced at his anger, and tried to push him away from her. But he wouldn't budge. His hands on gripped her shoulders harder. Now she winced from the pain of his fingers biting into the bone. She stopped struggling, and he relaxed his hands just enough to show that if she played nice, he was willing to do the same.
"So which is it, baby girl?" he asked, "Is he bored of you already? Or does he have the flu?"
Isabel refused to respond, and instead glared at him through her fear, and leaned her head back against the wall, trying her best to look dismissive. "Tell me how this ends where Dracula doesn't kill you."
He chuckled, noticing her dodge of the question but letting it slide for now. "I told you." He stepped into her, pressing his body against hers, trapping one of her legs beneath his. He smelled saccharine - cloying like flowers in a funeral home. Too much all at once, and it made her stomach flip over. Now that his hands were no longer required to hold onto her, one slipped to her waist, the other pushed her hoodie off her head, and trailed along her jawline. Isabel turned her head away, but that only made him laugh.
"My plan was to come here, snatch you, and run. That didn't quite go as planned, now did it?" Wraith leaned in close, letting his lips graze the spot on her cheek next to ear. It made her twitch, and she slammed a fist into the wall to keep from struggling. She could feel him grin against her, before speaking. "So, now we're here, trapped in the arctic wilderness - and unable to leave. For now. Until I kill Dracula."
"What?!" she exclaimed. Wraith had to pull his head back to keep from cracking their heads together as she whipped hers to look at him in shock. "I know you're crazy - but you cannot be serious. You don't stand a chance."
"Oooh, sweetness… but I do, don't I… You're going to help me kill him." His cruel grin was unfaltering, even with how absurd his words were.
It was Isabel's turn to laugh. That was the dumbest thing she'd heard in a long time. "And why the fuck would I help you kill him?!"
Wraith sighed, and rolled his eyes, as if he were an annoyed teenager talking to a toddler. "Because he's a madman. Bent on destroying the world. Because you're his prisoner. Because he tortures you. Because he's going to kill you - if someone else here doesn't do it first."
"No. Not now, not ever. I will not help you kill Vlad - no matter what you threaten."
"Then you're forgetting I have two very important bargaining chips in my possession. Either you help me kill Dracula… or your friends die."
"I won't make that choice," Isabel struggled against him again, and gave up with a sigh. "You can't make me pick."
"Oh, baby girl, I just did," Wraith responded with a small chuckle. "Me and your friends, versus Vlad. You can only save one. Which is it? Your family, or your lover, who is going to end up killing you anyway?"
"I won't help you. And I won't end up deciding. Dracula will kill you," she insisted. "He doesn't give a rat's ass if my friends live or die."
"All the more reason for you to help me! And yes - he'll kill this body. And the next one. And probably the one after that. But I'll just keep eating more and more of the souls in this place until there isn't anything left." Wraith seemed enormously pleased with himself. "And that is, in fact, my plan!"
"Explain…?"
"Kill Dracula, and save the girl. Then I kill the castle, and save the world. I'll have the power then to transport us both safely out of here. I march to the horizon as the hero, and I reap the spoils of war…" His head nuzzled into her neck, and she tried to recoil further as he smelled her hair. Lips pressed against her neck, and she felt him shudder. "God, I can smell your blood… I want it so much… But I need you to be able get the jump on Drac when the time is right… He won't expect it coming from you."
"Let them go, please-"
"Not until we're out of here. Not until you help me kill Vlad," his breath was cold against her skin, and she felt him nip her earlobe.
"No, I won't! Stop touching me, you fucking asshole-" she tried to pull her head away from him again.
He laughed low. "How short sighted you are. How am I different than Dracula? I stole the only things you care about, to make you my prisoner. And I will make you my prisoner, to make you love me. It worked with him, didn't it? How am I truly any different?!" His voice became quiet as he whispered to her. "I'll tell you the answer. I'm rescuing you. I'm protecting you from Big Bad Vlad who wants to imprison and poison you. I don't want that… I want you to be free. Out in the world - alive and happy. With me, your lover, your servant, your creation, at your side... "
Isabel shoved hard at his chest, but he didn't budge. She might as well have been shoving a brick wall. He chuckled quietly into her ear, before both hands were on her face, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were ungodly sharp and bright - unnaturally blue like two lapis lazuli stones. "You made me. It's your obligation to bring me into the world and teach me how to live."
His lips crashed against hers. She could feel his need, his single-minded desire, searing and dangerous. Selfish and entirely uncaring that she wanted none of it. She let out an 'mffnh!' and shoved uselessly against his chest. Unable to take it anymore, she put her hands against his neck and summoned all her fear, her disgust, her panic - and pushed it onto him.
He recoiled from her with a snarl, and staggered backwards shaking his head, as if to clear cobwebs. "There you go again, cheating! Stop doing that-" he glared at her. "Or I will break all ten of your fingers one by one, joint by joint! You don't need those to escape. And when Dracula gets-"
There was a noise suddenly that Isabel wouldn't really ever know how to describe. It was metallic - it was wet - it was like the sound of a cleaver moving through a watermelon at high speed. Or a gigantic knife whizzing through wet air.
Death was floating behind Wraith, holding his intricate and elaborate scythe aloft. It was dripping in blood.
Wraith's eyes had gone wide - and she watched as his body fell to the floor… in two parts. Cut through from waist to opposite shoulder. She didn't miss the black shadow that whipped across the floor and under the door nearby. Wraith had said it himself - his host was dead. He wasn't.
That was an odd, mixed relief and horror for her. Wraith was alive - that meant that her friends were also. But it meant that he was still a threat.
"You cannot kill me with my own blade, idiot," Death said to the bleeding remains of the vampire - knowing quite well he couldn't hear the words. But, his ego demanded the clarification be said.
Isabel stayed, back up against the wall, agog at the abruptness of what had just happened. One moment, he was taunting her - the next, he was dead. Her mind was still reeling to catch up with the implications of everything that had just happened. Wraith's words. Death's reappearance. "Wait - you were faking it?!"
"Of course," Death scoffed. "Did you honestly believe I fell to such a cretin?"
"He's not going to stay dead, there was no point to killing him! Now he's just loose again - and he has my friends," she clenched her fists as she tried to wrap her head around what had happened.
"I cannot adequately express the magnitude to which I do not care."
Isabel clenched her jaw, and withheld the urge to scream at him. A thought suddenly occurred to her - rang through her like the tone of a bell. And it was as clear, as cold, as the sound itself. Adam's questioning of why she was left alone with Death and her two friends. Wraith pointing out how stupid of a maneuver it was to leave her so unguarded. Now this. "... Why did you wait so long before attacking?"
"He had said all that I wished to hear," Death replied haughtily. His ego was his mistake, and she saw the crack in the foundation.
Isabel put a hand to her face, and lowered her head. Isabel could feel when people were lying. Even worse, she could feel when people were hiding behind half-truths. Death was hiding something. Clear as day. The ramifications of that were worse than what had just happened to her. Her hand was shaking as she lowered it - anger and shock were starting to form into rage as her mind began to put together what she prayed was not actually happening. "Why else? Why else did you wait?"
"Are you a child? Did you not understand the words that came out of my mouth?"
Isabel pushed herself off of the wall and stormed up to him, stepping around Wraith's 'dead' body as she did. "Don't treat me like an idiot. I'm a lot of things - weak, mortal, helpless - but I am not, nor will I ever be - stupid! Didn't you get the memo? Don't you know what I can do?!" She was past the point of caring about what she said to the hovering skeleton.
If Dracula put her here on purpose - if he left her with Death and her two friends on purpose - to draw Wraith out… Then she was only bait. Her friends were casualties to give her unwanted creation the gaul to play his hand.
The pieces of the puzzle began to click together in her head. None of today had logically fit together - but now, it was starting to form a clear photo. One piece at a time. "So tell me - did Dracula set this all up? Did he tell you to use me as bait and tell you to feed my friends to that fuckhead, or did you decide to do it all on your own?!"
Death, for the first time in her limited interactions with him - was silent.
"It makes too much sense. You faking being dead - to see what he'd do, when left alone with me. What he'd say. What he wants. Why bring Eric and Adam here unless they play some sort of part in this? Leaving me with them is pointless otherwise - they're a liability, paired with me. So why else? What I don't get is why - why do that? To see what I'd do? To see what his plan is?! To draw him out of hiding?!"
Death floated there still, silent, watching her, the tattered edges of his robe blowing in the updraft of the massive clock tower.
"Take me to Vlad," she demanded. "Now."
"I cannot. None can enter his private chamber but the master himself," he finally spoke.
Isabel caught the lie, and she turned away from the floating skeleton in anger. "Bullshit! Utter bullshit. Try again, asswipe."
"I spoke the truth."
"But the reason behind your denial is wrong!" she yelled again, rounding on the floating creature. "He isn't in his crypt, is he?!" If she had anything to throw at him, she would have.
This was all wrong. But why else would Vlad abandon her here, like this? Why did Lyon leave her here? Why bring Adam and Eric? At first, she thought it was for her own sanity. A gift. But maybe not. Maybe this was all to pull Wraith out of the shadows - all to make Wraith spill the beans on his goals.
The worse option was that Vlad was playing some kind of game, the purpose of which she couldn't fathom a guess.
"You are distraught. Go back to the tower, mortal - you will feel better once you've slept. That is what you humans do, is it not?" Death was uncomfortable - unsure how to respond. She had him knocked off his footing, and she was going to keep pushing him until she got what she wanted. Death was not prepared to deal with someone who could see through a lie like glass.
"Fuck you, you piece of shit halloween decoration!" Isabel walked to the body on the ground, and pulled a dagger out of the belt of the former vampire-turned-possessed-host. She tucked the dagger into her own belt. "If you aren't going to give me answers, I'll get them myself."
Storming to the door, she threw it open and heard it slam against the wall with a cathartic wham. He did nothing to stop her.
The room she found herself in was beautiful - intricate and baroque style copper patterns inlaid into black marble. The walls were the same black marble, dotted with elaborately carved frames dominating the structure from almost floor to ceiling. Instead of a painting, or a mirror, inside the gilt framing - it was a window into the workings inside of the wall itself. A shadowbox of clicking and whirring gears.
She would have stopped to marvel at the mechanisms and the stunning overhead chandelier. But all she wanted was to put distance between her and what had just happened - to give some time for her to process.
It seemed that wasn't in the cards for her.
As she approached the door that lead from the room, she felt an achingly familiar presence settle on her mind. She knew who had just appeared behind her. She stopped walking, but couldn't bring herself to turn around and face him. Not yet. "Tell me I have it all wrong. Tell me there's another explanation for this. Tell me you weren't watching that happen, and didn't put me through that. Tell me that you just woke up, just heard that something was wrong, and none of this was your doing…"
Silence.
It was as condemning as if he had admitted the truth. Tears sprung to her eyes - in betrayal, in hurt, in helplessness. She let them fall, and whirled to face him. Vlad stood there, in the center of the room - looking somehow a darker black ink blot against the marble walls behind him. His stern expression was unreadable.
"Why…? Use me as bait - I can almost understand that… But handing him my friends gift-wrapped with a bow on top?! Why?!" her voice cracked as she half-screamed the last word at him.
"To see your answer to his request," he responded, his dark voice cold and unflinching.
The subtext to what he said was what finally cut her to the bone - leaving her raw and bleeding as much as if he had physically attacked her. The hurt was so bad, it felt real. 'To see if I can trust you,' is what he meant. To make her decide between her love for her friends or for him. The same as Wraith had done. Pitting her against an impossible choice. Both of them might as well have been in on it together. "Damn you," she whispered, tears falling now unchecked and rolling down her cheeks. "Damn you to hell."
Vlad remained silent - stoic, watching her idly. Almost seeming bored.
"Tell me, Vlad… which do you want? Do you want me to be telling the truth - that I love you? Or would you rather I'm lying? Would you rather I betray you - and make it easy for you to kill me?" She pulled the knife from her belt and held it towards him - not that she had any thought in her mind it would help her. But she wanted the comfort of it. It gave her something to hold on to, as she felt lost in the waves. "Or is it that you're afraid I might live through becoming your companion - and you're disgusted at the idea of being stuck with me for eternity?!"
That finally got a rise from him - he narrowed his eyes in returned anger, but still said nothing. So she kept jamming her finger on that button - wanting to hurt him as he had done to her. "That's it, isn't it? Of all the women you've tried to do this to - now that you're faced with the reality that it might work, you can't take it. Can't take the thought of being stuck with me." The tears in her eyes were blinding her.
"Be quiet." It was an order. A demand. She felt his power ring through her - and it took everything in her to keep herself from obeying. His hold on her had grown - the command felt stronger, more like lighting in a storm striking a grounding rod. So that was the effect of his blood on her - that was what it felt like to be bound to him. It took her a moment to regain her footing - to push his power off of her.
Everyone wanted her to hurt. The castle wanted her dead. Wraith wanted her to be his pet. Vlad had betrayed her, to see if she would betray him. To make it a simple choice to end her life. Looking at the blade in her hand, she suddenly knew what to do. She knew what she wanted right now, more than anything else in the world. "I'll make it easy on you all."
Isabel placed the tip of the knife against the base of her neck, and drove it into her throat.