Chapter Eleven: 1462 September

He of The Thousand and One Lives

Era Rosario Tijeras la de pistola, espejito y labial en su cartera siempre
llena de vicio, sexo, balas, placer y dolor
La de las mil y una vidas
pam! pam! pam!
Rosario
Nunca amo ni la amaron

…

Rosario asi murio y en el cementerio nadie la lloro

-Juanes "Rosario Tijeras"

…oOoOo…

She is Rosario Tijeras… she of the pistol, illusions, and vulgarity. Her pack always full of depravity, sex, bullets, pleasure, and pain.

She of the thousand and one lives,

Pam! Pam! Pam!

Rosario…

Never loved nor was loved…

…

Now Rosario is dead and in the cemetery…

No one will cry.

-Juanes Esteban Aristizabal "Rosario Tijeras"

The Count looked up. He was in a dark room. He could no longer feel Shyriyh's warm hands on his pained body. But he soon discovered that his body was no longer pained.

"Count Vladislaus Dracula, the impaler," a deathly female voice sounded from somewhere in the dark room.

"W-who are you?" The Count said, readying his strong body for a fight.

"Do not fear, Vlad," a woman immerged from the dark with a young man standing beside her. The woman was tall, beautiful and pale. She had long, black hair and a face that suggested the Devil's beauty.

"L-Lucifer?" The Count became confused. This woman… could she be Lucifer in one of his many disguises? Or was the man next to her Lucifer? Was he really in Hell? He was pretty sure that the mysterious man's attacks had killed him… but what was going on?

"I am Lily," the death woman said. She didn't even acknowledge the young man next to her. He looked like a marionette. He was just standing next to her looking at the floor, not moving, not breathing, not speaking. Just standing. His hair was a dark brown colour and he had a face like a God. Or another beautiful devil. He had such sharp features and a demonic goatee. And yet he seemed like this woman's marionette.

"Lily?" The Count stayed cautious. "Who are you?

"I am the Queen of Hell," she said as she bowed slightly to him. "I have been watching you for quiet some time, Count Dracula."

The Count looked at her for a moment before staring directly into the eyes of the marionette man. He didn't even seem to notice the Count's gaze.

"I am here to offer you a deal," the woman called Lily said.

"And what might that be, your majesty?" The Count asked. He knew now. He had read about her. Lily… the Queen of Hell and sister of Lucifer. They shared Hell, it was split into two worlds: Lucifer's and Lily's. She was a beautiful demon according to his books.

"I will allow you another chance on the plane of the living," she said, "under one condition." The Count felt his knees begin to weaken.

"What condition may I ask?" He said.

"You shall be returned as a vampire," the demon woman said with a wave of her hand.

"A what?" The Count had never heard of such a creature.

"A creature that lives off the blood of others to survive themselves, you shall be the father of a new species of Hell Demon on Earth. Now," Lily motioned to the man next to her. The man suddenly looked up at the Count and walked towards him with very stiff, marionette-like movements. His eyes just stared forward as if he were blind.

"W-what—" The Count attempted to move but the man grabbed his arm and held him tightly.

"Turn him, Johnny," Lily said.

Johnny? Lily? The Count thought, such strange names…

"Yes," the man said with the tone of the dead.

"W-what? AGGGH!" The Count cried out in pain as the marionette man bit into his neck and licked his blood with pleasure. "N-no!" The man pushed the Count's face into his hand and forced him to lick his blood… and forced him to love it. "No!"

"Good job, Johnny," Lily said as she lifted the unconscious Count off the ground of her dark ritual room. "You did it right this time, now we'll have our own species up above." She turned and stroked her son's perfect face.

"I know, I know," Johnny said with the personality of a teenage boy in the body of the young man. His features looked more loveable when he wasn't under Lily's control in the ritual.

3 Days later…

The Count opened his eyes and looked up at the dark, overcast day and knew he was back in the land of the living. He stood up with a bit of a wobble but was otherwise alright. He suddenly began to wonder if he was dreaming. Next he glanced up and saw his castle, looking the same as always: dark, and yet somehow comfortable.

It was only then that he noticed the dried blood all over his front walk and the gravestone that stood nobly by his favourite willow tree. And it was only then that he knew he was never dreaming… it was real.

"Shyriyh," he remembered. He suddenly recalled her sad face as he died, slowly drowning in his own blood.

"Shyriyh!" He called as he raced inside the castle. "Shyriyh!" He wasn't dead, he knew that much. He could feel his solid body touching everything he past.

"Shyriyh!" He ran up to his bedroom to see if she was there and then he noticed the battle in the backyard. No, not again, he thought as he peered out at the fighters and bodies out on his lawn.

"Sh-Shyriyh?" He suddenly noticed with a sick shock that the people fighting the Turks were not Rumanian humans… they were Rumanian Elves… and the dead body in the centre of it all… was Shyriyh. His love.

"No! Shyriyh!" He raced down towards the back doors and out into the battlefield. "Shyriyh!" He sprinted through the fighters and threw himself down upon her.

"V-Vlad?" He looked up and saw her smile.

"Y-you are alive?" He said, shocked and yet relieved.

"I am," she said as blood began to run from her lips.

"N-no… Shyriyh, why? Why did you battle?" He asked as a tear fell down his cheek.

"I wanted… to… to kill the one… the one that killed you… but you are back… h-how are you back?" She asked.

"Shyriyh, it is no matter, I will tell you all when you are well, for now we must get you inside," he said. He leaned over and tried to lift her when he felt a shot of pain stab through his back.

Suddenly he felt a monstrous roar come from his own throat as he grabbed the Turkish soldier who had shot him and threw him as if he were nothing but a tiny doll.

"V-Vlad?" Shyriyh looked hurt. Too hurt.

"Darling we must—"

"What h-happened to you?" She asked as more blood poured down her lips.

"Shyriyh, where are you hurt?" He asked as he examined her. He spotted a bloody hole below her breasts. "You have been shot," he said nervously as he tried to wrap the slit pieces of her shirt around it to stop the bleeding. He felt as if he had to hold himself back… back from—licking her wound… and loving it.

"Vlad… I do not want to die… I want to stay with you, I want you… h-here with me," she sobbed as he tried in vain to stop the bleeding. It was the same with him: she was now bleeding inside.

"Shyriyh, no, no," he said as her eyes closed. "No," he ignored the great battle going on around him as he embraced his love. His only love. The only one… who ever loved him. The only one who was now gone…

"Shyriyh!" He felt the same monstrous roar as he released her corpse and flung himself at another Turkish soldier. He grabbed the soldier with a clawed hand that looked nothing like his own gentle one, but dark, and almost… bat-like.

"You!" He roared at the soldier in a deep voice, deeper than his own. "You killed her! All of you!" He whipped the man across the field before grabbing another and biting anxiously into his neck. He knew what he was doing but it seemed… natural. His head was spinning and it seemed too dreamlike to be anything but… and yet he knew… it was real.

"Monster!" The entire army of elves and that of the Turks began to wail about a monster and despite the fact that he knew he currently bore wings, the Count didn't seem to notice they were shouting about him. It seemed too… natural.

The battlefield slowly cleared as the soldiers and elves ran from the monster.

"I am… a monster," the Count suddenly realized as he looked at himself for the first time in this body. His Vampire body. He felt another roar escape his throat as he took one last glance at his lover's body before swishing his wings and taking flight.

I am a monster… I am not myself… anymore.