A/N: Hi! This is Stephanie again! I know it's been awhile since we updated but we've been busy and then hurricane Wilma hit! Broward will never be the same I'm afraid, and because we were the hardest hit we suffered alot of damage. But all is well now and we can get on with our story.
Erik: Thank God! And may I ask why in the world is the fop in this chapter?
He's a part of this story whether you like it or not! Now hush!
Dracula: Yea Erik shut up!
Hey! What are you doing here? SHOO SHOO! Go back to Brittany!
Erik&Dracula: Sheesh what a cranky kid!
SHUT UP BOTH OF YOU!...:cough,cough: on with the new chapter!
He wanted to get her back. He needed to get her back. Hadn't he been patient enough, staying up all night for her return, and all day, and now this is the second night without knowing if she was safe. She hadn't returned, however, and he feared for the worse. And what about the man in the Inn? What he said about the vampires. Perhaps he was right, perhaps the woman who they abducted was his sweet Sophia. If that was the case... oh, but he couldn't bear the thought.
He took another gulp from his bottle of ale and put his face in his hands. He had a pounding headache from all the stress building up. Sophia was causing all of this. That foolish girl! How could she let this happen? He knew there was no way he could have went with her. He was just too busy. He should have refused to let her go. He should have kept her safe in his manor and not run off to the Masquerade. But the excitement in her eyes when she found out she was allowed to attend was hard to refuse. She had been poor most of her life and never would have had this opportunity before. Oh, how he wished he could go back in time. If he knew then what he knew now he would have went through as many arguments and tantrums for her to finally agree to stay. He loved her so much and yet he couldn't help but notice that she didn't show those same feelings towards him.
When they were younger Sophia would always talk to him. She looked up to him, more as a brother than anything else. They got along perfectly. But Sophia was all in all very different from Ralph. He remembered late at night she would tell him her fantasizes of a stranger swooping her up and taking her away to his castle. Her own Prince Charming, Ralph assumed. Being young and careless, he just laughed at the time. But now those stories came back to haunt him. What if those stories did come true? What if those stories came true last night? What if someone did swoop down and take his precious Sophia away. Ralph very well knew it wouldn't have been her Prince Charming.
By now the entire bottle of ale had been drunken and Ralph's headache had yet to cease. He stood up from his chair but immediately fell back down, landing hard on the wood floor. He swore under his breath, although no one was around to hear him even if he had risen his voice. He slowly began to stand again. Ralph's legs wobbled beneath him and the room began to spin. He sat back down on the chair. He would wait for the spinning to stop, then ask the maid to fetch him another bottle. Although drinking didn't seem to ease his pain, it did calm him down a bit, and right now he needed all the help he could get for the worries of Sophia to be erased from his mind. Maybe he was really just over reacting. The spinning began to slowly stop at this thought. Yet the vampires never did leave his mind...
A maid had quickly walked past his room at that precise moment.
"Ah, excuse me?" Ralph called out.
Amelia poked her head through the door, and discovering Ralph sitting at the desk, immediately straightened up and walked into the room.
"Yes, sir. How may I be of assistance?" She curtsied as she said this.
"Now, now. There will be none of that. I was just wondering if perhaps I could have a beverage?" She turned to go. "Preferably alcohol," he added.
When she came back, her hands were empty, much to Ralph's disappointment. "I am sorry, sir. We have no alcohol beverages tonight."
"What do you mean we have no more? This is the manor of my mothers, and I know there must be some kind of ale of some kind!" Ralph put his head in his hands, what would he do with himself if he couldn't at least drown his worries away pathetically.
"Well , Duke von Heinchek, it seems that someone has taken the last of the casual drinks, and not to be offensive sir but I don't think your mother would be to pleased if you drank the guest champagne." Amelia straightened her old back and coughed, why couldn't she just leave the boy and go back to her own worries.
Ralph shook his head not wanting to argue, then he remembered who he was talking to, the very head maid who raised his sweet Sophia, maybe she had a slight clue on where she was.
"Amelia, I assume you know about Sophia's disappearance?" Ralph asked after a violent hiccup.
"No sir I don't know." Amelia said. Ralph sighed then asked her to get the carriage driver ready because he was going into town for a drink.
Amelia left the room and started to the coach drivers room. She had no idea were her foster daughter was, but she knew that she was okay. Amelia had a sixth sense when it cam to Sophia and she just knew in the depths of her soul that she was alive, she had to hold on to that. Amelia also knew how much Sophia wanted to leave this place, it wouldn't surprise her to find out that the girl had run away with some young lover, she knew Sophia had no love for the von Heinchek boy. But it was so unlike her to just leave, she would have thought Sophia would have told her before hand. But for now all Amelia could do was wait and time would tell. She reached the drivers door and knocked.
-o -
Ralph put on his cloak and then adjusted his leather traveling gloves as he made his way out the door and to his carriage. He was going to go to the Inn for a nice warm brandy and perhaps even a nice room so he didn't have to wake up to his mothers complaints about him being intoxicated.
If he wanted to get drunk then by God he was going to be drunk!
Ralph walked out into the chilly night air and took a deep breath to balance himself. The started towards his carriage by the properties iron gate. But then the rustle of another cloak sounded behind him and he spun on his heel staring into the dark.
"Who's there?" Ralph called into the night feeling awkward.
"No one you know…" A raspy voice hissed back at him. He could feel a tingle trail up his spine and all the tiny blond hairs on his arms stood on end.
"Show yourself! Or I will call the guard!" He slurred trying to sound bold, but the statement came out shaky instead.
The voice snickered back and then said. "If you call the guard I'll kill you all, no matter of conscious, seeing as the damned don't have consciences." Then a dark cloaked figure moved out the shadows toward Ralph.
"What do you want…" Ralph said in a barely audible whisper.
" I know where your Sophia is boy." it answered back.
" Where!" he cried into the still night.
"She is with the vampires…Dracula has made her his lover." The voice wasn't hissing anymore, but wheezing now over a uncontrollable almost sickly laugh.
" I don't believe you! This is a trick!" Ralph looked around frantically backing away.
"This is no trick you imbecile!" the voice shot back. "I listened outside his door and learned her name and yours, then I witness them in a sexual tangle by the river! And I can tell you where he is, you can kill him!" The voice said raising to an almost hysterical volume.
" How can I believe you? How do I know you aren't lying?" Ralph replied tears streaking his pale cheeks.
" Because I was the one who took her!" Then the person with the hissing voice threw back the worn out black cloak to reveal something so unbelievably horrible in Ralph's eyes that it caused him to stumble back and fall to the cobblestone drive with a high pitched shriek sounding from him.
The woman who was under the cloak was as pale as death itself her skin shiny and almost translucent. Her eyes were wide and crystal blue and crazed looking. Her hair was red and wild, blazing out to her sharp velvet covered shoulders. Her mouth was painted the color of crimson, but what was in that crimson mouth was what made the picture all the more frightening for Ralph. Her teeth were as sharp as blades and were as long to match, they were stained with blood that dripped from the corner of her mouth and made her breath stink like a rotting corpse.
" My name is Alhondra and I helped Dracula take her to his lair!" she sounded like cracking lightning. "the lair of the vampires can be found off the forest road! You will find the tail! And do before your sweet wife becomes the newest member of Dracula's dead army!" she then grew great black wings and disappeared into the night sky.
Ralph shuddered and then fainted on the cold stone drive.
-o-
Alhondra swooped back down unto her balcony back at the lair snickering,
"That will teach that human lover to betray his people."
-o-
Ralph awoke the next morning in his bed his head pounding. I wonder if it was all a dream…
He then rolled over and tried to fall back to sleep, his last thought being: Dream or not I will check it out, anything for Sophia.