Captured

Islene didn't go back to sleep. She was still staring at her bloodied sword. The sword had been a Christmas gift from her sister. It was called a vampire sword, bought from a medieval weaponry magazine. A magnificent piece of work, really, quite imposing. It was rather long with three blood grooves etched into the blade, a polished ebony grip, with a silver plated bat crossguard, and a silver plated pommel which looked to Islene like a pair of floppy rabbit ears. She had always loved swords and daggers and the like, but now she wondered dimly why she had wanted this particular sword.

"Oh that's right," she said to herself. "I used to have a vampire fetish. I wonder why that died." She scowled darkly at the blade in her hand, then sighed. "It's not the sword's fault. Besides, it's still a superb sword. It's all I have left of my sister now." So saying, she cleaned off the blade, dipping her handkerchief in a basin of holy water since she had nothing else, and slipped it back into its sheath. "Well, what am I going to do today? I don't feel like reading or writing, and I've tempted Fate enough for one morning. So what's left?" She thought about exploring the whole church, but she had already done that with Scott while he was there. Then again, they had never made it up to the bell towers…smiling, she rose and made her way to the stairs and began her ascent. On the way, she noticed another room she had overlooked previously. Curious, she entered. The room was full of musical instruments! She looked around, her eyes wide with delight. Spying a piano in the corner, she went over to it, sat down, and began to play any tune she could remember. She had once been a pretty good pianist, but she hadn't played in five months, so she was very rusty. But she eased herself back into it after a while. She lost track of time while she sat playing, so she received quite a start when she was taking a break and the bells started tolling in the belfry directly above her.

"Oh, I guess I forgot what I was doing," she said to herself. She rose, intending to continue her exploring, when she was struck by a stabbing pain in her head. Groaning, she stumbled back, as the pain worsened and spread through her whole body. She retched as a wave of nausea passed through her, and crumpled to the floor, clutching her head and writhing. Finally, the horrible episode passed and she was able to stand slowly. Groggily, she remembered something she had somehow managed to forget. She had epilepsy, and she hadn't taken her medication in a long while because the seizures had stopped. Moving very slowly, and still bent over a little, she made her way back down to the altar to find and take her medicine and take a nap for a while. She was in for a nasty surprise. When she reached her little "camp" and rummaged around in her pack, she found the pill bottle all right, but it was empty.

"Oh no," she whispered. "I do not need this right now." Frantically she searched for her backup supplies, but there were none to be found. She was having seizures again, and she had no medication. This could kill her, she realized, or at least it felt like it, and her hands began to shake. Suddenly she frowned and steadied herself. "Am I going to get all worked up over this? I've been down and out before, but I've gotten right back up again. There won't be anyone out there. All I have to do is break into the pharmacy, find my medicine, and get back here and no one will be the wiser! I'm not going to let this get to me! Not again!" So saying, she jumped to her feet, opened the trapdoor beneath the altar, and descended through it, murmuring, "I will go quickly, and come back as soon as I can!" And yet, for all her outward confidence, a little voice in the back of her mind was saying, 'No, no, don't go now. You can manage another day without it, something's not right here. There is a difference between silence and utter silence, and this is it, don't you see? Listen!' But of course it was silent. She was down below the crypts under the altar; it was literally silent as the grave. She was used to the silence; she had spent her life in silence. 'Why stop now?' she reasoned. Why should today be any more or less dangerous than sneaking out had always been? She came up in the deserted streets through a manhole, glancing around first to make sure there was truly no one there. She could feel no negative energies, and there was no scent of death and blood in the air. The proverbial coast was clear. She pushed the manhole all the way to one side and climbed out slowly. She still felt nauseated from her episode before. At least the pharmacy was nearby, so she would be going back soon. She resisted the instinctive urge to start singing softly to herself, as she often did in tight situations, fearful that it might alert any undead in close proximity. Instead, she sang in her head as she made her way quickly to the pharmacy. Not caring the least for covering up her tracks (it wasn't like the police were going to arrest her for vandalism and/or burglary) she smashed in the glass door, reached inside, and unlocked the door from within. That done, she went in and made her way to the storage room and began to search as quickly as she could for her medicine. She froze for a moment, when the thought struck her that someday there wouldn't be anymore, but she continued, saying to herself, "But it is not this day." At last, at long last, she found the bottle with her name on it. However, the sun was sinking in the horizon by this time. Soon, she knew, she would be seeing dark shapes rising seemingly out of the ground. She left quickly, tucking the bottle into her inside jacket pocket. She ran, constantly glancing over her shoulder. Because of this, she didn't notice the figure in front of her until she ran into him, falling backwards. She steadied herself, and looked up. She saw a tall vampire male with bluish-white skin, glowing red eyes, and thick moon-white hair that hung around his face down almost to his chin. She gasped in shock.

"Hello, my dear," he said with a dark smile.

"Jonathan?" she whispered, her eyes wide with fright. "But you're not real! You're just a character I made up for my stories! You're a dream!"

"The dream's alive," replied the tall albino. With a slight hiss, he lunged at her. She jumped out of the way, miraculously, and backed off. "We're all around you now," he told her. "Now you're in trouble."

"Trouble? No way," she scoffed. "You're only in trouble if you get caught!"

"Gotcha!" crowed a voice from behind her, seizing the front of her shirt and turning her sharply around.

"I'm in trouble!" Frantically her eyes darted around for something, anything that would be of any use to her. Why, oh why, had she gone out without holy water and garlic? Or her sword, for that matter. Well, now was not the time to kick herself for her stupidity. She could do that later, if later even occurred. The vampire holding her hoisted her off the ground, giving her an idea. She hooked her foot around the back of his knees and pulled sharply, somehow managing to get enough force to make him fall back and release her. She fell to the ground, sprang up immediately, and ran for her life. At length, she ran into an alley. Instead of panicking like a cornered mouse, she looked around again, jumped up on a pile of old boxes and crates, and continued jumping up them like a mountain goat to the rooftops above. A pack of vampires came running into the alley below her, saw her looking down at them, and shouted, "You won't get away so easy!"

"You think that was easy?" she asked as she turned and ran. As the edge of the rooftop appeared, she remembered something she hadn't thought of before: she couldn't jump rooftops. She skidded to a halt just before she reached the edge and spun around. As she had suspected, she was being pursued across the roofs. She looked down to the ground.

"I bet I can make that," she muttered, just before closing her eyes and jumping off. Behind her, or rather, above her, she heard a surprised cry of, "I don't believe it! She jumped!" but that didn't matter. She was flying, as she had always longed to fly, even though it would end soon. She waited for the burst of undoubtedly blinding pain from the impact of her body on the asphalt, but it didn't come. In fact, it seemed like she was floating. She opened her eyes and saw none other than white-haired, red-eyed Jonathan smiling down at her as he held her in his arms.

"Was flying fun?" he asked her.

"Let go of me, snake!" she shouted angrily, kicking and fighting furiously. Jonathan just laughed gently, though somehow not at her. With an animalistic snarl, she swiped at his face with her claw-like nails. Jonathan hadn't been expecting that, and dropped her to clutch at his bleeding cheek. Islene seized her chance and bolted.

"Stop her!" someone shouted behind her. "We must not lose His Excellency's fixation this time!" But she refused to be stopped.

"You go tell His Not-So-Excellent-Cy that he can kiss my white Irish ass!" she shouted over her shoulder. Suddenly, her mind was clouded by an all-too-familiar pain. "Oh, the gods, no!" she gasped. "This can't be happening, not here, not now!"But it was. She was having another seizure. She stumbled, putting one hand to her head and the other over her stomach. Suddenly, she realized how very small and alone she was. And how very afraid. Everything slowed down; the very air itself seemed to drag at her legs like the undertow of the sea. Her foot caught on something, but she didn't even feel it until she realized she was falling, truly falling, and yet it seemed she stayed still while the ground came up to meet her. But before it did, it twisted around her so that she was falling into the sky instead. But the sky didn't move. She realized that she was on her back on the asphalt, gazing up into the golden sunset, and realized how beautiful it truly was, and how she had missed watching it as she had always done before. Living shadows, breathing nightmares swam into view above her, but somehow it didn't seem to matter as much anymore. The shadows were speaking to one another: "What's happening to her?" "Is she all right?" "She's sick, really sick." None of it made any sense, really. Then Scott's words came back to her through the pain and confusion:

"I love you. I always love you. And I will always love you… But I don't want you to give up all that we've fought for just for me… They've put us through hell, now we're going to give it right back to them."

She was giving up, and she hadn't even realized it. With numbed fingers, she reached up to her neck and pulled out her rosary.

"In God's name, get away from me!" she wheezed, ever word painful. "Don't touch me!" The vampires above her hissed and shrank back. Then they parted to give way to…

"Jonathan," she whispered. "Will you never leave me alone?"

Jonathan smiled as he lifted her up, cradling her in his arms like her father once had. "I can't, and you know that. I warned you all those years ago."

"I couldn't hear what you said," she said. "I always wondered."

"Well, now you know," replied Jonathan, knowing Islene didn't really know she was speaking or being spoken to. Everything had taken on a dreamlike quality to her; her body's way of trying to shut out the pain. She blacked out as Jonathan took to the air, carrying her away from all that she had fought for.

Scott. Scott and Scott and Scott. That was all that filled her mind when she awoke. Her lips formed the word, but no sound came out, save for a pathetic little half-squeak. A dark figure standing next to the bed moved towards her. Instinctively, and with surprising agility considering her weakened state, she shied away from it.

"Soul, it's OK, it's me," said the shadow. "It's me."

"Scott?" she asked hoarsely.

"Yes," said Scott, sitting on the bed next to her. "The real Scott."

"If it's really you, then talk to me," she said. "Tell me about the faire that day. Tell me about our costumes, what we did, what we saw."

"You wore a Sherwood Forrest gown, black velvet and green silk," he said. "We wanted it to bring out your eyes as much as possible, but they didn't have green velvet. I wore rather tight-fitting black leather pants, old-fashioned black boots, and a loose poet's shirt. You said you liked that style of shirt, so I wore it for you."

"Yes," whispered Islene. "It really is you, then." She looked around, slowly realizing that she was not in the street or the church. "Where are we?" Scott looked down sadly.

"We're in the Castle Von Krolock," he said. Islene's eyes widened. She sat up, ignoring the flash of pain in her head, which subsided quickly.

"No," she said. "You're serious?" Scott nodded. "Then I have to get out of here. There's still a chance if you help me, we might-"

"Soul, it's too late," said Scott heavily. "I hate to admit it, but it's too late."

"What are you saying?" she asked hotly. "You're giving up?"

"No!" said Scott. "No, not at all! But we're locked in, the door and window are both guarded, you're still recovering from that seizure, and I'm just finally starting to recover from whatever drug they gave me. We're both prisoners here, and there's no way out. And I'm exhausted because I haven't fed since I came back last night." Islene sighed as she realized Scott was right.

"I'm not going down without a fight," she declared. "I'll never just surrender, not to them, not to anyone, ever." Scott smiled proudly.

"I knew you wouldn't," he said.

"Just like you didn't," she replied, smiling back. "Scott, I love you."

"I love you too." Their lips met. Scott held Islene close to him tightly, defying anyone to try and take her from his loving embrace. A deep, throaty laugh sounded gently from the vicinity of the door. Islene and Scott looked up to see the charismatic Count Von Krolock standing there watching them. Scott slowly released Islene, rose to his feet, and left the room.

"No, Scott, don't leave me!" said Islene, reaching out to him. "For God's sake, let him stay!" she said to the Count.

"He is no longer needed," replied Giovanni smoothly. "You'll see him again soon, though, I promise." He moved towards her.

"Stay away from me, or I'll-" she broke as she reached for her rosary and realized it was not there. Giovanni smiled at her.

"We couldn't have that," he said calmly. "It would have been a dreadful hindrance, you see. Of course, you've had your other means of hindering us. You certainly have been quite evasive these last five months."

"I defy you to say you don't care, if you can," she retorted. The Count raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"Whatever do you mean by that?" he asked innocently.

"Why me?" she demanded. "Why were you so intent on catching me? There must be another reason, other than that I'm the last human, or else why would you have gone to such lengths to try and trick me? If you were only concerned with my being the last living human, you could have just left me to die in that church, alone. Why so interested in me?"

"You really are perceptive, aren't you?" commented the Count. "And inquisitive. Well, don't worry. You'll soon have all your answers, and more." He moved closer.

"Keep away!" she cried, struggling to her feet and looking around for something, anything with which to make a cross out of. There was nothing, not even candles. Apparently, the Count had kept up with the times and revamped, if you'll excuse the pun, his ancient castle, fitting it with modern necessities like electricity. She spun around again when she heard the Count laughing at her.

"You didn't think I would have thought of that beforehand?" he asked. "None of your old tricks will help you now."

" 'Logic, logic…will not 'elp you 'ere,' " she quoted sardonically. The Count only smiled. To the very end, Islene was looking around for some means of escape or defending herself. And ever after, she would always remember the Count's eyes as he descended on her, plunging her into darkness. Darkness. That was all she had ever had.

"Endless darkness…where is that?"