Chapter Six

Dracula kept his gaze on the Jonathan Harker Foundation as it slowly decreased in size, his smile growing as they moved further away, until a turn in the road took it completely out of sight. Satisfied that there seemed to be no one on their immediate trail his gaze fell away from the rear window and towards Agatha, who was currently sitting on the other side of the car, as far away from him as she could possibly get within the confines of the vehicle. Her eyes were fixed out of the side window, to the east where the sun had gracefully made its way out of the sea, but he was certain that she was not half as interested in the scenery as she was furious with him. And, possibly, not without good reason.

He had thoroughly enjoyed walking into the Jonathan Harker Foundation, toying with Bloxham, and tearing his way through half a dozen throats before rescuing his bride. Agatha, on the other hand, had not seemed as pleased to see him. Telling Bloxham to let in the sunlight and then threatening to destroy Agatha himself if she did not comply had probably not endeared him any further to his bride, though they had been necessary to facilitate an escape. And, most importantly, Agatha seemed to dislike being his bride more than becoming a vampire.

Settling back in the seat, his body still angled towards her, he let his eyes wander over her aspect. Seeing her again, wearing that same bloody habit and scowl, had been as wonderful as stepping back into the sunlight; being able to gaze at her in the sunlight for the first time had been sublime. He would have promised her the world at that point but had got off lightly with agreeing to answer any questions she had, which had always been his intention because he was confident that telling her the truth would be enough to convince her to stay with him. He didn't want to force her or break her down; he wanted her to want him, again.

"Don't mind, Frank," Dracula smiled, as she continued to ignore him, her arms across her waist and eyes still focussed outside the car. He'd expected more questions as he'd tugged her towards the edge of the roof, jumped down to the ground and then traversed the open fields that had stood between them and the coastal road where Frank was waiting with the car. But Agatha had not pushed for any more information since he'd told her that she had given him back the sun. "He won't pay any attention to us. Will you, Frank?"

The man in the front of the car stared resolutely at the road ahead but murmured, either genuinely or in an artful display of deceit, "Did you say something, Master?"

His smile faltered a little at her continued silence. Agatha was a curious creature; he felt certain that she'd be demanding to be released from the car if she did not want answers from him. Unless she was just silently plotting his downfall. "I thought you were trying to improve your conversational skills?"

Agatha finally reacted, her head turning towards him and her eyes as cold as her voice. "There seems little point in conversation if you're going to lie to me. I was foolish to believe otherwise."

"I have not lied to you," he said, a frown settling on his mouth. If anything, he'd always been too honest with her and he'd certainly been far too open; he'd let her get closer than anyone else ever had, alive or undead. His threat to kill her if she did not leave with him had been deceitful, because he had no intention of hurting Agatha, but she'd not let that stop her from demanding answers on the roof, which he had given truthfully. Perhaps, he mused, she did not believe he would ever release her, which was technically true but he was still intent on securing her consent. "You have my word, Agatha. I will answer your questions and if you wish to leave I will not stop you."

"But you will not answer them truthfully," she spat back, crossing her arms more tightly around her body. When Dracula only stared at her in confusion she growled in frustration before elucidating, "How could I give you back the sun? I died believing the sun would destroy you and have spent all my time since then at the bottom of the sea or with people who clearly thought the exact same thing."

A small smile returned to his lips, mostly out of relief but he could not deny that her barely contained anger had played some part, too. Perhaps his explanation of her involvement had been confusing though it wasn't something he understood entirely himself. Waiting for his lawyer to secure his release, and wrestling with the loss of Agatha and the appearance of Zoe, he had theorised that it might be possible to transfer Agatha from his blood and into her descendent's body. Bob hadn't been particularly interested in science, though he had taken a keen interest in DNA and its use by the authorities to capture criminals, but the internet had provided a wealth of information on the progress mankind had made in this field of study during his long sleep.

Persuading Zoe to drink his blood had been an experiment in itself; he had controlled mortals with the written word before but e-mails were so much more impersonal that he had doubted his ability to persuade her to do something so reckless, especially when Frank had informed him that Dr. Helsing was taking no further interest in him. But perhaps Zoe had been more like her ancestor than she'd protested because she'd turned up at his apartment with Agatha in tow.

"As promised, you lived on in my veins, Agatha. And your bloodline lived on in Zoe Helsing," he said softly, pleased when she did not interrupt him or turn away again. "During my incarceration at the Harker Foundation, I gave Dr. Helsing a sample of my blood and rather than use it for whatever nefarious research they had planned, she drank it. You came back to me through her. And you came to understand me better than I did myself."

Agatha slowly uncrossed her arms, one hand reaching for the seat between them so that she could turn, just a little, towards him. The scowl that had guarded her mouth now resembled a frown as she spoke, "If what you say is true then I stole Zoe's life."

"No," he said quickly and on a sigh, not surprised that the main point she had taken was how it had impacted Zoe. "You appeared to be working together. I think you recruited Zoe into joining your cause to stop me; you do have a knack for doing that. If you took anything from her, Agatha, it was the painful last moments of a terminal illness. Zoe was dying."

Her eyes searched his for a long moment but just when he thought that she was coming round to the idea that he wasn't a complete arsehole, her frown deepened and her voice hardened as she asked, "Did you kill her?"

"Not exactly," he hedged. It was probably best not to mention his attempt to kill Zoe at Bob and Kathleen's house; he would have drank the doctor dry, would have used the dream world to make her smile at him the way Agatha had done when they'd played chess, the way Zoe had refused to do on the beach, if it hadn't been for the cancer that had tainted her blood. Of course, her blood had still been cancerous when he'd finally drained the doctor's body but Zoe had gone by that point and all that had remained was Agatha herself. "At the end it was just you."

"I see," Agatha said, that small scowl reappearing and the contempt he had seen in her eyes as the Demeter had groaned and creaked beneath their feet present once more. "You killed me again. You really can't control yourself, can you?"

"It wasn't like that," Dracula denied, frustration beginning to seep into his voice.

Her scowl hardened. "So you say."

From the convent to the Demeter, Agatha had a way of subverting his plans and this was no different. Because, he reminded himself, she was different; she didn't know about Lucy, hadn't seen him step into the sunlight for the first time in centuries, hadn't given herself to him in a dream. But he was nothing if not adaptable; it was difficult to survive for so long without being versatile. He could bare what was left of his soul all over again; could reveal his fears, his shame and his foolishness to her but it would mean nothing if she did not believe it. He needed her to see the truth, to see all of his foibles, with her own eyes. "Perhaps there's another way to answer all of your questions," he suggested, letting the idea take shape in his mind.

Agatha frowned in response but was intrigued, if not wary, "And what way is that?"

"You're still inside my veins, Agatha. The 'you' that figured it all out," he began carefully, hopeful that her curiosity would be sufficient to get her to agree to his idea. And that this would actually work. "If you drink my blood you'll be able to connect with her; you'll be able to see everything that happened through your own eyes."

"You want me to drink your blood?"

She was obviously appalled by the suggestion and he silently chided himself for missing the flaw in his plan: Agatha did not want to drink blood. She might loathe the idea of being his bride far more than being a vampire but that did not mean she was happy about the whole undead side of the equation. That the modern world offered more humane ways and means of acquiring blood, and that recent revelations meant nothing else really had to change in her life now that she was a vampire, was an argument for another time.

Right now, he needed to convince her that drinking his blood was the best solution and not just because it suited him; controlling the blood lust was a double edged sword. It wasn't as simple as denying herself Earthly pleasures at the convent. "You must feed, Agatha or you will lose control and it will be a bloodbath."

Across the other side of the seat, Agatha swallowed hard but remained defiant. "I am not you."

"But you can feel it already, can't you? The beast inside you, ravenous for blood and desperately clawing to break free," he persevered. She must be starving by now if she'd refused sustenance at the Harker Foundation and he really would hate to see her take a mortal's life when there was no need. The guilt would destroy her and that in turn would destroy him. "Drinking from me will help tether it."

She swallowed again, not offering any words of dissent this time as her eyes glanced briefly at his neck.

"If that's not enough to persuade you," Dracula said, sensing her weakening defences and going in for the kill. "You'll finally understand me. And you won't be able to stop me until you do."

Agatha stared at him for a long moment, caught between not wanting to drink blood but needing to solve the puzzle that was Count Dracula. "How would I…?" She let the sentence trail off, seemingly uncomfortable with voicing the deed even if she was prepared to carry it out.

Immediately pushing aside the image of her straddling him to gain access to his neck, he began to remove his jacket, leaning forward slightly to work around the confines of the car. It had been a process of trial and error to be able to read the blood of his victims but that level of expertise would not be necessary with Agatha; her genetic material had linked up with that of her descendent so it should be easier, and quicker, to find her own DNA in his blood. And that was all he needed. Placing the jacket on the recess behind the seat, he began to roll up his shirt sleeve and offered a few words of advice, "Try thinking about all the things you really want to know about me as you drink."

Slicing a thumbnail across his flesh, a faint red line emerging in its wake, Agatha only had time to scowl briefly at his suggestion before the sight of his blood had her fangs bared. He held his arm out towards her and she moved swiftly, her mouth latching on to his wrist and one hand holding his own. He grinned at the sight and the fact that, just moments ago, she had protested that she was not like him.

She drank greedily from him and for a long moment he got lost in the sensation of being on the other side of the process and in the way her lips were pressed against his skin. He could feel his vigour dip slightly and it occurred to him that he should stop her, that his previous experiment had proven that it shouldn't take too much of his blood to bring about a reunion, but he didn't want to risk breaking the connection too early.

His energy dipped further and he was vaguely aware that it was now Agatha who was holding his arm in place. He felt himself sink further into the car seat and wondered if it was possible to kill a vampire by draining him of blood.

And then everything went dark.