After that task is complete, Steve stands with a grunt, grabs the head by the hair and walks down the hall towards the doorway leading to the outside courtyard.

A cry echoes down the hall to Steve's ears. He stops barely daring to glance behind him then runs out into the blue early morn. Steve runs to the courtyard wall, the length seeming far too distant, his run feeling like forever, his legs burning with exhaustion.

A black bullet whizzes by Steve's ear, transforming into a woman before him. Sliding to a stop Steve looks from the head to the woman, to the wall. The woman, horror-filled eyes glued to the head starts to weep quietly, silently moving her lips. Steve looks at the head once more and the wall and smiles.

He drops his knife, grasps the head with both hands and chucks it as far as he can. "NO!" the woman screams, watching the head helplessly as it soars over her head and over the wall. The woman, Jessabelle, races after her lover's severed head, leaning over the wall and screaming.

Steve bends down, eyes on Jessabelle and picks up his blood-stained knife. He slowly and noiselessly stalks towards her. She turns with a demonistic appearance and an animalistic scream. She charges at him clawing and screaming.

The sky turns pink.

Steve slices at her, cutting her forearm but not able to stop her enraged attack. Steve shields himself with his arms, which become terribly scratched by Jessabelle's cat-like claws. She battles him back, closer and closer to the castle. She bites down on his arm, causing him to drop the knife.

Provoked, Steve shrieks, his fangs extending. He clasps his hand behind Jessabelle's naked neck and sinks his fangs into her flash. A warm sensation over takes him, and the pleasure of feeling her squirm courses through his body.

Jessabelle backs Steve so that he is partly inside the shadow of the doorframe. The morning's first rays peek over the mountains. Jessabelle screams in agony, her body in full sunlight smoking and burning into dust. A pain like a million needles stings through Steve's body. He dashes through the doorway into the cool consoling darkness, his body healing slowly.

Jessabelle falls to the ground, a pile of ashes. The wind blows the ashes through the mountains as a cloud comes over the sun. Steve turns, startled sees the boy.

"Hello," the boy says with a friendly smile.

"Hello," Steve says, unsure.

"Are you my family now?" the boy asks innocently.

"Well..." Steve replies squatting down to the boy's level.

"Can you tuck me in?" the boy asks with a yawn.

"Yeah, sure." Steve stands back up sympathetic thoughts in his mind and realization of his own similar condition. The boy slips his hand into Steve's walking down the hall.

"Ya know, we'll have to find you a girl," the boy grins up at Steve's laughing face.

"Yeah, you'll have to show me how things work," Steve smiles down at the boy's fair-skinned face.

"Don't worry," Lucas says assuredly. "It's all in the family."