All right, I have no idea where this came from, or where it's going. All I know is that this is the result of too much time spent at my grandmother's without anything to read except The Lord Of The Flies. And I own nothing that you can find in the film or the novelazation. All I own is the, hmm, weird plot, and such. And my own spelling mistakes, of course. Because I'm still just a Swedish 15-year-old without a spell checker. So please excuse any mistakes… And remember, it's a dream, so it's weird, and people are out of character… Aren't your dreams like that?
Erika's Dream
Prologue
"Now, where on earth have you been?" Dominique asked as Erika entered the room they shared with a couple of other vampire servants.
"I was delayed" Erika said, lying down on her narrow bed.
"What were you doing, snogging one of the guards?" Jacqueline, or Jackie, asked from the other side of the rather small room.
"Oh no, we all know who Erika wants to snog!" Regina said, as she came out from the bathroom.
"Shut up, all of you!" Erika said impatiently. She'd had a long day, and didn't at all feel like discussing that subject right now. Not that she ever did, of course.
"Mind your manners" Dominique said, half joking. Regina snickered at Erika's reaction, but decided to say nothing. She had teased Erika enough for tonight.
"Aren't you at least going to take your frock of, before falling asleep?" Jackie asked. Regina sighed.
"Do you always have to mind everybody's business instead of your own?" she said.
"Like you should be the one to talk" Jackie replied.
"Stop it, both of you! You're giving me a headache" Erika said, sounding tired. "And for you're information, I am going to change, I'm just to tired to do it right now, that's all" Erika mumbled. Regina sat cross-legged on her bed, watching the almost sleeping maidservant.
"Now, tell us! Why were you delayed?" she asked, her voice filled with curiosity.
"And she says I should mind my own business?" Jackie whispered to Dominique, who were combing her dark blond hair in front of the mirror.
"None of your business" Erika answered Regina's question, sounding rather annoyed. She slowly sat up, and then rose to take of her long black frock and get in to her nightgown.
"Come on, Erika, we're your friends. You can tell us" Dominique said, lying down on her own bed.
"But I don't want to" Erika snapped, crawling back into her bed and pulling the blanket up to her ears. Servants' quarters were always too cold, even for vampires. "I don't want to talk about it at all" she added after a while. Her room-mates exchanged puzzled looks. What on earth could have made Erika act like this? Usually they stuck together, being at the bottom of the society since they were each less than a mortal lifetime old. Usually they talked about anything. They also, like most servants, gossiped a lot. But not now, and none of them understood why Erika wouldn't talk to them.
"Hey, Erika, is everything all right?" Jackie asked, still combing her long reddish blond hair.
"I'm fine, I just need to sleep" was the doubtful answer.
"Okay, let's sleep then" Jackie said, turning of the light and going to bed.
Chapter I
When sleep finally came to Erika, it wasn't as deep and dreamless as she would have preferred. No, she slept restlessly, and had a very strange dream. At first, she was in the basement under the servants' quarters, hanging up linens covered in blood. She couldn't understand why she should hang them up when they weren't clean at all, but she just continued doing it. She briefly wondered what activities that had made the linens so bloody, since some of them were completely soaked in blood, not a white part on them at all. Then she heard a strange sound, coming from the back of the basement. She pushed the linens aside, and came face to face with a fully transformed growling lycan. Or, that was at least what she thought it was, it fitted the description perfectly. A little over two metres tall, covered in black fur, and long, sharp yellow teeth. Erika screamed in horror, turned around, once again pushing the bloody linens aside, running up the stairs as fast as she could. She truly hoped that the lycan would have trouble following her, since it didn't look like it could walk a staircase, but Erika was not a Death Dealer, and she had never met a lycan before. Which really wasn't a loss. To her relief, she couldn't hear it run after her, and after making sure the basement door was locked, she went to find a Death Dealer, who were trained to take care of such things. Luckily, the first person she ran into was Soren, Lord Kraven's body guard.
"Soren, there's a lycan in the basement!" Erika said, panting. She wasn't used to running.
"Don't be ridiculous, there can't be a lycan in here, we've got a modern security system" Soren answered.
"It's down there right now, I swear it!" Erika said, annoyed.
"Look, I don't have time for this. Besides, it's Death Dealers who take care of such things"
"Please, Soren! You've been a Death Dealer once! Please!"
"All right, I'll check it out, but then you'll have to give this to Lord Kraven, it's very urgent" Soren handed her an envelope with Lord Kraven's name on it, and the words "Vitam et Sanguinem". Grateful that somebody else was taking care of the situation, the blond vampire obediently ran off to Lord Kraven's suite. She respectfully knocked on the door, and then entered. Lord Kraven was sitting at his antique walnut desk, apparently busy with some papers.
"He's a bureaucrat, not a warrior" Selene whispered in Erika's ear, and Erika turned to face the beautiful female Death Dealer.
"What's the difference?" Erika asked.
"Never mind" Selene shrugged, and pulled her fingers through her dark hair. "I'd better go and take care of that lycan in the basement" Selene left without another word. Erika had the feeling that she should ask how Selene could know about the lycan, but before she could speak, her lord addressed her.
"Erika" Lord Kraven said, finally looking up from his papers. "Why are you here?"
"Soren asked me to give this letter to you, my lord" Erika answered, and handed him the envelope. "He said it was urgent" she added after a moment.
"Hmm" Lord Kraven said, his eyes back in his papers.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" a voice, speaking with a crisp British accent said behind her. Erika turned around, and found herself facing a bearded man with long dark messy hair, who gave her a paper mug without waiting for her reply.
"Thank you" Erika said, and carefully took a sip of the hot coffee. It tasted rather nice, warming her up a bit. And then the phone on Lord Kraven's desk rang. Erika spun around in time to see and hear Lord Kraven answer it.
"Lord Kraven of Leicester, current stand-in regent of Ordoghaz" he said. The bearded man behind Erika chuckled, although Erika didn't really understand what was so funny.
"No, I'm sorry, but she passed away somewhile ago" Lord Kraven said. And after a moment: "601 years ago, to be exact" Another moment of silence. "Not at all. The same to you. Bye"
"Who was it for?" the bearded man asked.
"Your wife" Lord Kraven said, trying to open the envelope that Erika had given him.
"Sonja?" the bearded man asked, sounding very surprised.
"Do you have another?" Lord Kraven asked, and Erika giggled in a very girlish manner.
"But she didn't pass away somewhile ago. She's hiding in your closet!" the bearded man said, pointing over his shoulder.
"Hmm" Lord Kraven said absentmindedly. He hadn't succeeded in opening the envelope.
"Yes!" the bearded man said, walking over and opening Lord Kraven's closet. "Aren't you, babe?" he said into the closet.
"Am I what, Lucian, honey?" a female voice, obviously Sonja's, said from inside the closet. And then a raven-haired young woman stepped out.
"Hiding in his closet" Lucian explained.
"Not anymore" Sonja replied, smiling brightly.
"Hmm" Lord Kraven said, still trying to open the envelope.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" Lucian said again, this time talking to Sonja, who nodded, an received a paper mug. There was a moment of silence. Erika really wanted to know why this beautiful young woman had been in Lord Kraven's closet, obviously for 601 years, but since she was a servant, it wouldn't be appropriate to ask.
"Krave, old buddy?" Lucian said after a while.
"Hmm" Lord Kraven said.
"It's much easier to open an envelope at the other end. That's what they're made for, you know…"
"Aha!" Lord Kraven said, sounding as if Lucian had just had found a new continent. Lord Kraven turned the envelope upside down, and finally opened it. After reading the letter inside, he cried out in fury:
"How could she do this to me? Embarrass me like this? Completely unacceptable! She should do exactly what I tell her to! From now on, she should do what I say! And that is not in anyway unclear!" And so on. Another five minutes of remarks that meant nothing to Erika, since she didn't know what was in the letter.
"Krave, calm down!" Lucian said. "What's in that letter?" Lord Kraven didn't answer, but growled like rabid dog.
"He's been around you for too long, love" Sonja said, pointing at Lord Kraven.
"Well, I'm in league with him, after all…" Lucian said.
"We'll have a long talk about this later" Sonja said warningly.
"She can't order me! I'm not going to do it!" Kraven went on.
"Going to do what, you madman?" Sonja asked.
"Come on, love, he's not a madman. He's just a little upset" Lucian said.
"I've been hiding in his closet for 601 years, I should know. And believe me, he is a madman!"
"Really?"
"Believe me, honey, I could tell you things that would give you nightmares!"
"Try me" Lucian said with a smirk. Before Sonja could reply, Lord Kraven cried out again.
"I'm not doing it! I'm not going down there! She can't order me!"
"Right, fine, whatever. What, exactly, is it that you won't do?" Sonja asked again.
"Arrrgh!" Lord Kraven said, and then he grabbed a stapler from his desk, which he threw at Erika, whose reflexes made her catch it. But it also made her drop her half-empty coffee mug on Lord Kraven's imported Persian carpet. Nobody seemed to notice, luckily enough.
"Take that to the Elders' crypt" Lord Kraven ordered. Sonja tried to hide her giggling. Lucian didn't even try, he roared of laughter. Erika did neither, she just went out, obediently following her lord's order, not matter how weird. Luckily, the Elder's crypt was situated much deeper down then the basement where Erika had seen the lycan, so there was no risk she would see it again.
"You're here with the stapler?" the guard, whose name she distantly recalled as Duncan, asked her when she entered the showing room. Erika held up the stapler where he could see it, which made him chuckle, and open the door to the crypt itself. Erika stepped down the stairs, and then kneeled, unable to believe that she actually saw what she saw. This wasn't normal. Not normal at all…
To be continued… Sometime…
Now, please, I beg you, review, because I'm dying to know what you think. Please!
