Chapter Twelve

Poison was jolted awake by a horrible nightmare, but when she woke she couldn't remember what it was about. She was about to lie down and go back to sleep, when she noticed Dracula sleeping beside her. Well she thought he was asleep, as he didn't breathe it was hard to tell.

She was more confused than angry, she decided to get up and get out of the castle to think about what had happened. Unfortunately she couldn't remember anything that had happened after fighting with Dracula about her and Velkan. She quickly found her clothing and threw it back on. She found all of Dracula's clothing and set it on a chair next to the bed so he could find it when he woke, this was something she used to do with her husband. Although she would not be making Dracula breakfast, which was what she used to do for Nathaniel.

She wandered out of the room into the main area of the castle; once again it was completely silent. There was no wind or rain so she could hear nothing but her footsteps. She scratched her head trying to work out where everyone was. She stopped and ran her hands over her head. Her hair was a mess.

"How did that happen?" she asked herself out loud, using her fingers as a comb to try and tidy it up. After she was satisfied that her hair no longer looked like some dead fuzzy animal she changed to a bat and flew out of the castle.

Poison flew over the village, the sun had just set and yet no one was in sight.

Fortunately Poison wasn't hungry so this didn't bother her, but just added to her confusion. She flew to the mountains that surrounded half of the town and was just about to fly past them when something caught her eye.

She moved in closer and noticed a cave entrance about halfway up the mountain, a small rock ledge at its opening. The cave entrance could easily fit three people across it, she wondered what or who had created this cave. Poison did not know much about animals, but she was sure that they couldn't dig through rock.

Poison landed on the ledge and looked into the cave, it was dark inside so Poison was fortunate that she could see in the dark. The cave seemed to travel down a small distance and then took a sharp turn to the left. Poison couldn't sense any living creatures inside the cave, so she moved towards the cave and sat down just inside it.

Poison had a feeling that if there had been anything or anyone in the cave they would have ran on her appearance, as most creatures knew not to mess with a vampire.

The breeze blew against Poison's face, she was disappointed that she couldn't feel the cool air against her skin, but vampires couldn't feel anything to do with the temperature.

Poison sighed to herself and looked out across the village, it looked so beautiful and peaceful from where she sat. She wished she could return to her life in the village, but knew that that wasn't possible.

"Poison what are you doing?" asked a man's voice. She knew it wasn't Dracula's the accent was completely different.

"Go away!" she grumbled not taking her eyes off of the village.

"Don't talk to me like that young lady," the voice replied.

Now Poison was interested in whom this voice belonged to. No one had ever talked to her like that. She got up and looked around, but could see no one. The voice was to clear to be coming from further inside the cave.

"Who are you?" she asked still looking around.

"That doesn't matter at this point," replied the voice.

Poison pulled an annoyed face. "You know who I am. Shouldn't I be allowed to know who you are?"

"Poison stop being a nuisance," the voice growled.

Poison shuddered at the anger in the voice; she shook her head and pulled herself together. She was a vampire, immortal, basically indestructible; she had noting to be scared of, although her gut told her differently.

"So Mr. Voice, what do you want?" she asked mocking the voice just slightly.

"I want to know what you are doing here?"

Poison laughed at this. "You're a figment of my imagination or something aren't you? Some little voice inside my head telling me to go back home."

"Nope, sorry Poison I'm not a figment of your imagination. You never really were any good at guessing games."

Poison got frustrated; she needed to know to whom this voice belonged to and what they wanted.

"Who the hell are you?" she screamed.

"No need to get angry my dear." The voice replied, "I'm just here to help."

"I don't need any help," she muttered sitting back down.

"Oh really. So how did you and Dracula end up naked in the same bed?"

Poison heard the wind whoosh behind her; she turned worried that the voice had left before she could reply. But when she turned the tunnel of the cave was no longer there, but an image of a small village, she had never seen before. The village had only seven or eight small houses and a small courtyard and was surrounded by a huge lush green forest.

She walked to the courtyard where the rest of the villagers were. She cleaned her hands on her apron and walked up to her mother.

"Mother, are these the men that fought off the beasts?" she asked her mother.

"Yes dear, now shhh. Let them speak."

Men were always coming to their village, mostly to look for young women to marry, but these men were different they had put their lives at risk to save this village. Poison was twenty years old and had had about as many marriage proposals, but she turned them all down. Poison didn't want to leave her mother, as she was all she had left.

Poison had drifted off into her own imaginary world, were a knight in shining amour rides in and takes Poison and her mother off to his castle and the live happily ever after, when she caught one of the men staring at her. Both men seemed much older than her, but both were still extremely attractive.

The man that looked the younger of the two was talking to the crowd. The wind was blowing his brown wavy hair everywhere as he spoke, the other man stared directly at Poison with his deep brown eyes, his long straight black hair was tied messily in a high pony tail. His eyes seemed so full of life and passion; Poison couldn't help but to be drawn to them. She blushed and smiled gently at him, he nodded gently towards her and then looked back to the crowd.

The two men had a long trip ahead of them and as they were both exhausted from their battle so the village offered them bedding for as long as they needed it. Of course Poison's mother being the charitable person she is offered up Poison's bed to one of the strangers. This didn't bother Poison too much as she slept on a couch in her mother's room, ever since Poison's father died, she had slept in her mother's room watching over her.

The man that had been staring at her before walked over to Poison's mother.

"I hear you have a spare bed?" he asked, his accent was so different than any she had ever heard.

"Yes, yes. Anything for a man who saves our village."

Poison's mother beckoned for the man to follow her. Poison stood just staring at her mother and the man walk off. Then the man turned around and shot her a soft beckoning smile, so she followed the two back to her home.

Poison heard the crack of thunder and turned, she was sitting in the cave again looking out across the Transylvanian village. She shook her head trying to understand what had just happened. She seemed to have been living the life of another woman who met Dracula as a man. She felt the deep attraction that the young woman had felt for Dracula. She couldn't blame her; he was the local hero and quite magnificent looking as well, and his eyes, Poison couldn't believe that this was the same man that she knew now. His eyes had once been so full of life, now they were so full of sorrow and pain. What was really strange was that the other man that had been standing with Dracula looked exactly like Van Helsing. She wondered what had happened between them.

Why had she been shown this? Was this supposed to make her feel some sort of sympathy towards Dracula? Poison stopped halfway through her thoughts.

"Oh My God. I get it now." She shouted to herself," The soul of this woman took over my body so she could be with Dracula. Just like I was in her body before."

Poison stopped halfway through explaining to herself what had happened.

"But why?" she asked. Why did this happen. Poison may have the same eye and hair colour that the woman had, but that was it. Their body structure was completely different; Poison was quite thin, as she did not usually bother to cook for herself it was too difficult to cook for one, also her appetite had subsided since her husband's death. This woman had a healthy amount of fat on her bones and a rounder face than Poison. She was far prettier than Poison and appeared to have been loved and well looked after her whole life, something Poison defiantly couldn't relate too. Poison stopped comparing herself to the woman in her vision, finally realising what she had done with Dracula.

"Oh My God. I slept with him." She exclaimed smacking herself in the head. She tried to rub off the dirty feeling that had suddenly taken over her, but was failing. She shuddered in disgust.

"You better not take over my body again, you hear me," Poison shouted to the woman in her vision, although she knew that she wouldn't hear, she had probably been dead four hundred years.

Poison got up; she knew she would have to go back to Dracula. If she didn't he would send out his brides to find her and he would make them baby sit her until he was satisfied she wouldn't leave again. He seemed very protective of her. With that thought in mind she flew back to the castle.

Please let me know if you become confused by the flashbacks. I have not put them in italics for a reason and would like to keep it that way. However if it becomes too confusing I will change it.