K I'm back...sorry I haven't posted in a while.
Dracula carried his wife into their room as he had so often done, but now he was afraid of her waking. She did, however, and her eyes were filled with terror as she looked at him. He tried to take her hand, but she jerked it away. "Begone, monster!" she gasped.

Dracula finally snapped. "I am no monster!" he roared. "I, who have been called the son of the Devil, made a covenant with God, or so I thought, so that I could be mortal and live—and die—with you. I love you, and our child. You do not know what my very existence was before I met you, Tatiana! You do not know what it does to me now, to feed more often than my fair share (here Tatiana winced) that I may never desire nor take your blood or the blood of our baby!"

His bride stared at him, then burst into tears that rapidly turned into hysterical sobs. Suddenly, she gasped as a sharp pain tore through her, and the front of her gown quickly turned red as it was soaked with blood. "This is…not right…" she gasped out. "The baby! Something…flip-flopped…I felt it the night…with the knife…"

The very night he had broken the covenant. Dracula was overcome with a horrifying thought. What if, in breaking the covenant, Lucifer had also…no, he must not think that way.

He helped her through her labor, as there was no time to send for a midwife and the story would have spread throughout the town by now anyway. There was so much blood that the sheets were soaked, but Dracula felt nothing but fear for his wife.

Van Helsing, he realized. Gabriel was sent to destroy me. He could not, so he seeks now to kill my 'evil' child, and, if necessary, my wife. That does not seem like his Knights of the Holy Order…He turned his attention back to his wife, who was now screaming from the pain. She had been in labor for over four hours.

A few minutes more, and Tatiana delivered her baby. Dracula knew little of these things, but he thought that four hours seemed rather short compared to the horror stories he had heard of 36-hour, 48-hour, and longer labors. He found out why as soon as he looked closely at his tiny daughter.

She was dead.

No. No no no. You cannot do this to me, Lucifer. I have been your servant, even against my will. He felt oddly calm. Deadly calm.

Did you really expect the child of an Undead to be born alive? I would pity you, Vladislaus, were it in me to pity.

Can I bring her to life?

No. What is dead is dead. Unfortunately for me, I do not have her soul, which I suppose would comfort you, except that…well, you'll never get to meet her, now will you? Since your eternities will be spent in entirely different places, I'd imagine.

Lucifer!

"Vladislaus?" Tatiana asked weakly. Dracula looked up at her. She did not need a response to decipher the meaning in his eyes. "Let me see her. Let me see Eleanor Anna."

Dracula never learned how she knew the baby was a girl. He handed the infant to his wife, and she broke into a low moan at the sight of her daughter's little face. The eyes, thankfully, were closed enough that she looked to be asleep, but Tatiana examined them anyway. "She has your eyes," she announced in a flat, dead voice. She closed her own eyes and, clutching her stillborn child in her arms, turned to the wall.

"Tatiana," Dracula said softly. "Listen to me. I love you. I could have made you a vampire long ago and forced you to live forever with me, in bondage to me. Instead, I gave up my own immortality." He saw her turn unwillingly back to him, and went on. "I do not know what else to do but to tell you that. My darling, I cannot bring our child back from the dead, but know that her soul is safe with the God who has abandoned me." There was no reply, and he looked down into her eyes. "Tatiana?" They were going glassy, and she was starting to shake. She had lost so much blood, he realized. I should have stopped the blood! It is my life, my very existence, and I did not recognize how much…He gripped her shoulders. "Tatiana! Wake up!"

It was obvious that she was dying. "No! Please! Tatiana! I love you! I can't…live without you." He knelt by her bedside and took her hand, tears running down his face. Then he raised his eyes to Heaven and cried out, "God, what has she done that she deserves this horror?"

As he had when the covenant was broken, he said softly, to the depths of his being, "You did not abandon the sparrow. Abandon me not."

Tatiana opened her eyes and said, "You could have made me a vampire?" in a choked voice. Dracula's face lit up. One bite, and she would be saved, live with him forever, never die, always young and beautiful. He bent over her, but something held him back, and he looked down into her face.

It was then, in that moment of truth, that God helped his servant. "No," Dracula said slowly. "I cannot harm you even that much, and to become as I is to lose your soul. I WILL NOT give you over to the Creature who made me."

Tatiana opened her beautiful green eyes, the same eyes that had stunned him the first time he had seen her, for the last time. "God forgives all, my husband, as do I," she whispered. She choked, and he saw that she was so pale that her face matched the unstained pillow, as if all her blood had been drained from her body. She lifted a hand, touched his cheek, and touched her daughter's bluish body. "Eleanor Anna Dracula." Tatiana looked up into Dracula's eyes. "Bury her, my love, my husband."

She received his kiss on bloodless lips. "I love you, now and forever," she whispered, looking into his eyes and into what he imagined was his soul. Then her expression went blank. "Who…who are you?" she asked, as she had that night in the garden.

When her hand went limp in his, Dracula looked down at it and said, in a broken voice, "Tatiana. How fitting…that it should be so…beautiful."


Okay...I haven't been getting many reviews lately, except from those of you who do so just about every chapter...you know who you are, and thanks guys:)

So all my faithful reviewers and hopefully anyone who finds this story interesting/whatever, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASEread and review :)

OR I WON'T POST WHAT HAPPENS NEXT...(evil laughter)...and I mean it...