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"You're quiet tonight."
It took a moment for Dracula to realise he was being spoken to, and another few moments to recall what Lucy had said, and formulate an answer. Yet Lucy could never resist filling a silence, and so his answer stalled on his tongue. Clearly she had asked the question by rote, as it was the thing to say, and not because she was genuinely concerned…
"I mean you are always the dark and brooding type, you even insist on meeting in cemeteries…" Lucy trailed off, turning to look around her at the silent graveyard.
"I just have a few things on my mind." Dracula replied dismissively, the annoying thought buzzing about his brain that Agatha would have waited, she would have glared at him until he answered to her satisfaction.
"Well that's your problem, you need to think less." Lucy replied with a bright smile, like she had just done something clever, like curing cancer.
"That is not something that is so easy…for me." Dracula replied with a wry smile, and as expected the little dig at her intelligence went sailing past. "My past is bothering me tonight…I need you to entertain me…distract me Lucy."
"Oh well, I can show you some of the strange messages I got this week. Honestly the weirdos on the internet just get stranger and stranger…There was one from this woman, I think she thought she was some kind of psychic. Total fraud. She told me to be careful who crossed my path, that I was going to die soon if I didn't change my ways. Total nutcase. I'm not even twenty-five, and I'm getting married in three weeks, I'm not dying anytime soon."
Frowning Dracula wondered if that was Agatha too? She had certainly fooled him with the dating app, who knows how many profiles she had created just in the hope one would catch his interest. Perhaps she had discovered his connection to Lucy and was trying to interfere there as well?
"I hope you reported her."
"Yeah of course, only the account was shut down, she apparently only set it up to send that one message to me, and then poof disappeared. I told my friends, and they think it might be one of my ex's stirring shit up, now they know I am engaged."
"Ah yes to the stalwart Mr Quincy Morris…Does he know you meet strange men in graveyards." Dracula teased, taking off his trench coat to lay it on the ground, it wouldn't do to get grass stains on his new suit.
"Quincy knows what he needs to know. And besides its not like we're fucking." Lucy countered in the blasé way she did everything. She honestly didn't care what anyone thought, and she never let potential disapproval, step in the way, of her doing anything she wanted.
"Although we will probably have to stop after I'm married. I think a husband might ask, a few too many questions about where I am sneaking off to." Lucy added with a wink.
Sighing Dracula smiled knowingly. "Oh, don't worry Lucy we will wrap this all up, long before you are married…And what a beautiful bride you will make."
"Yeah I suppose." Lucy replied, her bright smile fading slightly. "My dress has turned up finally. Mum keeps insisting I try it on, I keep telling her to wait, that it is bad luck."
"Oh, but I'd like to see you in it, at least once." Dracula teased, as he lay back against the grass, and stared up at the sky. There were precious few stars out tonight, one of the only draw backs from all this technology was the light pollution.
"You could come to the wedding. We could say you are a distant cousin of Quincy's…"
"Alas unless it is a night time ceremony…"
"I'll send you a picture then from the day." Lucy resolved. "We got a top-notch photographer, they are flying in from America."
Flying anywhere…it seemed like such a strange expression and yet it was common now. Dracula couldn't help but wonder, had Agatha flown anywhere yet? Had she managed to cross the ocean and explore a whole other continent?
"What's that!" Lucy's sudden exclamation had Dracula sitting back up, turning his head to follow her pointing finger.
Hearing the rustling and then the sound of giggling. Dracula waited and a moment later, a little head popped out from behind a tree in the graveyard. The face half eaten away, before they ducked back, like playing a game of hide and seek.
"Just a child. Ignore it, or it might think you want to play, and follow you home." Dracula explained, shrugging when Lucy looked at him half horrified. "I am not the only undead thing in this place. Why…" Dracula placed his hands on the bare earth and listened, the muttering and knocking only too clear to his hearing. "There are at least nine others I can hear..."
"All of them like you…"
"No not like me! Nothing like me." Dracula snapped, as Lucy stepped on a sore point.
"Hey, I was just asking, no need to bite my head off!"
Biting down his own irritation, Dracula was forced to admit, he wasn't in the best mood for company tonight. If it wasn't for his continuing hunger, and their prearrangement, then he probably would have just gone straight home, after that scene with Agatha.
"Forgive me…I have had a trying evening…Shall we move things along; the night is waning fast?"
"You expect me to let you, after you just talked to me like that?"
"I expect nothing, but a man can hope." Dracula replied with what he knew was a charming smile.
Rolling her eyes Lucy capitulated easily enough. It wasn't like she wasn't getting anything out of this. Moving to straddle him, she tugged off the silver choker that hid the thin scar. "Only two minutes tonight as penance."
"Five…please Lucy, I need at least five." Dracula pleaded, as he reached up and caressed her throat. The strong beat of her heart was thundering away under his hand, and Dracula couldn't help but remember another woman, who had stood and bared her flesh to him…albeit under duress.
"Just put me somewhere beautiful, somewhere no one can look at me." Lucy muttered, her neck exposed and waiting.
Growling Dracula pounced, deliberately pushing all thoughts of Agatha away. It was bad enough, he occasionally had a brush of her mental tutting, over the murmurs of all the others in his blood. Now her image was invading him at every turn. But for the first time, Dracula struggled to maintain control over the dreamscape. He was back there on the Demeter, the sound of water lapping against the hull of a ship, Lucy's frantic cries as he barricaded her in the closest cabin and turned the key.
On deck she stood against the far rail, her long hair loose and blowing in the wind. That horrible habit back in place, and yet she looked so peaceful. She turned and looked over her shoulder, the face that usually scowled at him, was now adorned with a half-smile.
"I thought I was alone."
"No…no we're never alone, not really."
"I normally am when I'm dreaming." Agatha supplied. "But I suppose, after today, it shouldn't be a surprise to find you here. I tried so hard to move on, but you were always there, a voice I couldn't quite shrug off."
Crossing the deck to stand beside her, Dracula took in a lungful of the sea air. He could almost taste the salt at the back of his throat, so at odds with the familiar tang of the blood, he knew he was really drinking. Turning he reached up and cupped her face between his long fingers.
"You disappointed me today Agatha."
"Why because I didn't swoon at your feet?" Agatha teased, turning to study his profile. "Admit it, it was your own ego that was bruised."
"Perhaps a little." Dracula replied with a shrug. "I had such hopes for you on this ship, but you're not really here, or there, I think you might have lost yourself Agatha. I thought you would finally be the one…"
"The one what?" Agatha prompted when he suddenly stopped mid flow. "Dracula are you alright?"
"No…I need to wake up…I'm sorry…I'll see you tomorrow dearest."
"You need to wake up…wait a minute…I…"
Yet Dracula never heard what Agatha was going to say, he jerked awake, spitting out the last few mouthfuls of blood. Not needing to check for a pulse, to know there wouldn't be one. Dracula had gotten lost in his own fantasy, and in his hunger had fed for too long, and now Lucy was dead…too soon...this was not going according to his plan.
And in a bedroom across London, Agatha Van Helsing sat up shaking…
It had just been a dream…it hadn't been real, and yet that certainty was a lot harder to hold on to, when she could still feel the ghost of his fingertips on her face.
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