Pale
Interlude Part Seven: The Rainstorm
Note: Not my best chapter ever, but I am happy with it. Yes. I am rewriting Dracula a wee bit, but hell the story has been written and changed so much over the years it doesn't really matter. And revisiting parts from the D novels, I am going to do that a few more times before the end.
"It's the rain. It makes me sentimental." – Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
With a soft gasp Mina's eyes flew open; she raised her hand up against the glare of the sunlight that flitted in through the windows. She's come to rather loath the stark light of the day, as it drove away the frail images she'd seen her dreams. She could not recall how many times she'd dreamed of the black clothed figure as it road aimlessly through the hostile Frontier. She could just glimpse the riders face, and his was a face of soul shattering beauty yet his eyes were like twin pools of inky blackness completely devoid of life, drained of all compassion by millennia of sorrow. The gorgeous face always brought such longing to Mina's soul, not of carnal need but of emotional one, she ached to reach out and hold him closer than any other had dared before.
Mina hated the sunlight not only because it washed away her strangely beautiful dreams but also it caused Lucy's agony to flair anew. Mina sat upright in her armchair and stared sadly at the pallid form of her friend since childhood, Lucy Westenra. Their childhood memories seemed a lifetime ago as she took in her beloved friend that now lay as if upon a death bed. Her skin was a pale as paraffin; the veins stood out starkly against her skin, her bloodless lips had peeled back from her gums bearing those abhorrent fangs. Presently the helpless woman was writhing feebly in her bed, desperately trying to shield herself from the blinding morning sun that caused the red of her hair to shimmer like flames.
A thick hand clamped softly down on Mina's shoulder, she turned and saw the forlorn expression of a middle aged mans face, "It's just no use child…the Nobel attacking her is far beyond our power. I fear we are helpless; there is nothing left for her but the mercy of the stake."
"No…" Mina whimpered softly, "Please, Dr. Van Helsing, there must be another way…I know another way!"
Abraham Van Helsing ran a hand through his graying hair, "I know, child. But I told you before I am loathe to trust dear Lucy's soul into the hands of potions and witch doctors. Cold hard science is the foundation of the Nobility, there is a genetic link for each of their strange weaknesses and it is with science that our best chance lies."
"Well we have no choice!" Mina cried in a rare fit of emotion as she rose up from the chair. She was usually so calm, refined and collected and rarely let her passionate emotions show to any others. "I am going to London right now, Doctor. I have heard rumors for years about the wonders Mother Sabre can do, mayhap she might just know how to help Lucy."
With a sorrowful sigh of resignation Van Helsing nodded, "If you must Madam Mina. Please take my horse and for god's sake be careful!"
Van Helsing's cyborg horse turned out to be rather dilapidated, and could hardly manage a canter yet this did not surprise Mina. Even well off humans such as the good doctor were only allowed the malfunctioning and discontinued machines and horses the Nobility had no use for. It took Mina more than half of the day to reach the sprawling Nobel and human slave populous of London. It was with a trembling hand that she urged the horse ever onward, terrified to be caught out in the Frontier alone at twilight.
However it was not the darkness that caught Mina off guard but a sudden rainstorm. She cursed near tears as she lowered her thin hood against the onslaught of rain and wind, and dug her heels deeper into the horse's belly. The beast gave off a very metallic sounding whine, and with the screech of metal giving way Mina screamed out as the horse bolted forward only to lurch down to the ground. It gave a feeble scream as it fell, its right leg twisted beneath its body and then the beast collapsed fully. Mina twisted about in fright, yet she was far to slow to keep from being pinned down beneath the heavy metal and flesh bulk and the mud soaked pathway. She cried out more in frustration than of pain, the horse's bulk was terribly oppressive yet she'd landed fortunately and her limbs did not feel crushed. She made a feeble attempt to push the useless beast from her but it resulted only in more angry tears.
It was then that a lone figure stepped out of the rain. Mina's efforts stilled as she took in the slight of the stranger that approached, her breath caught in her throat, she was certain even her heart stopped pounding for a few moments as the figure drew closer and closer. It seemed even the rain was parting so that she could glimpse his gorgeous face and refined features. He wore the most gorgeous velvet attire that Mina had ever dared to imagine, it seemed the rain was loathe to mar it's surface and his black hair hung in a sleek, perfect drape down his back, his eyes were startlingly blue, a blue akin to the ocean depths. It was utterly obvious by the mans pallid skin and enchanting aura that he was a Nobel, and while Mina should have been screaming and shrinking back with fear she could do nothing but to watch awestruck as the man knelt by her side.
He slid his long fingers under the bulk of the beast and with no noticeable effort heaved the horse from Mina's body. She trembled as she rose to a sitting position, her arms moving protectively across her soaked body. She was utterly ashamed of the thin rags she wore compared to the heavy garments of her Nobel rescuer. While Lucy's family was quite wealthy for humans, Mina was no more than a lowly school mistress. Boldly the Nobel reached out and laid his freezing, hard hand against her cheek, tipping her face up to meet his gaze.
"Sir…" she began but the protest died on her lips as she fell hopelessly within the gaze of those azure eyes, of the stark glow of his skin in contrast to the pitch black of his hair.
"Are you hurt?" he said speaking in a lilting, musical accent.
"No…" she whispered just barely remembering to move her lips.
"You must be more careful my dear." The Nobel smiled, revealing his sharp canines yet there was no true malice to his words or his dangerous smile. "Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Prince Vlad Dracula, of Transylvania ." He held out his hand to assist her in standing.
Her better judgment long cast to the wind Mina took his hand, "Wilhelmina Murray." She breathed, unsure why she had used her maiden name.
His cold lips touched her trembling hand delicately, "I am honored Madam Mina."
"D…" the woman that was undoubtedly Wilhelmina Murray whimpered and held her hand out before him.
D did not hesitate a moment, he could hear the soft rise and falling of her breathe and the low throbbing on her heart in her breast. No ghost, illusion or hologram could have imitated such a life force. D rushed into his mothers arms and crushed her to his armored chest and with a vehement sob Mina fell against him, locking her arms around her son's broad shoulders. D had to take care not to embrace her too tightly, least he crush her. Feeling her soft and matronly passionate embrace once again was an experience that seemed so familiar. It was a sensation that he had long forgotten he'd ever longed for. He parted from it first to drink in her face, pushing back her hair so as to fully take in her beloved face. Her features were so like D's, she possessed the same graceful brow and straight nose, as well as the same narrow, and tormented black eyes. All that was different were that her lips were full and sensual. Age had marred her otherwise lovely face, etching itself deeply about her eyes and her mouth that seemed set in a firm sadness.
Mina raised her hands to push back D's hair as well and her face was marked with obvious despair as she gazed upon him. It was as if all her son's glorious beauty and been stolen away in her absence, and replaced with thin lines across his brow and the silvery strands about his temples. Still she did her best to hide her sorrow as she pulled him again to her and kissed his cool cheek, D followed her example and for a few moments' mother and son exchanged their first kisses in over ten millennia. Occasionally their lips met in the tame manner only a close mother and son could have managed to share. Tears of joy poured freely from Mina's eyes, D had failed to notice that a single bloody trail had begun down his own cheek.
"Take me from here, D." she whispered softly.
D nodded, keeping his arm firmly about Mina's shoulders. He cast a glance at Renfield that lay gasping on the ground, weakly trying to pull out the dagger through his abdomen. Another, slender blade flashed through the air and appeared to grow with a bloody spurt from the center of the zoophagous' skull. Renfield gave a single pained gasp before sinking unmoving to the floor.
Mina gave a terrified little shriek as she witnessed this, D regarded her with a sad, but oddly detached glance as he lead her away from the scene, quickly grabbing his coat, hat and sword.
Mina stumbled over own feet, and then fully collapsed as her knees buckled. D turned back. Her face was stark white and sheen of sweat had broken across her brow.
"Mother?" he inquired, still disbelieving of the simple word.
"I…I don't have much strength." She gasped, "I don't think I can walk anymore."
D nodded. For the first time he sensed that the throb of her heart was much slower and more irregular than for a healthy human, and her breath came in sporadic little gasps that couldn't have done much to fuel her body. It was quite evident that her impossibly alive body was clearly resisting this unnatural resurgence into life. D knelt and gathered her easily into his arms. He was used to the women he saved from distress weighing next to nothing when he carried them, but Mina's weight was truly astonishing. Her body seemed to carry no weight, seemed to near defy the laws of gravity and mass with its lightness. He could feel a steady tremor in her limbs as he held her. The same enchanting scent that had caught D's attention when he lay down in the bed again flooded through his scenes, he'd long ago forgotten the comforting fragrance that lingered about her. The smell of roses, and honeysuckle: the smell of comfort.
A fragile smile moved across her lips as D struggled through the reeking zoo that was the living room of the hovel. "This place sure has changed from when we lived here, yes?"
"We…we've been here before?" D inquired rather overwhelmed by the sudden prospect of a conversation with his mother. All these countless years he'd dreamed of glimpsing her, holding her and hearing her voice yet he'd never quite dreamed what it might be like to actually speak to her. What could he possibly say? What could he ever ask?
"Of course. You don't remember? Well…" she laughed bitterly. "It was a very long time ago. This was the second house that we fled to when you were young. I think you were only two in human years. You were reading that ancient fairy tale, The Lord of the Rings, and you said this house was like the burrows the hobbits lived in, and you called it Bag End."
"I…that's right…" said D with a soft nostalgic tone he kicked the circular door open. The rain was still falling softly outside and his cyborg horse was tethered several feet away. Although the area was vastly changed and overgrown from when D had seen the forest in his youth, now he could vividly recall living in its bounty.
The forest had once been teaming with the glow of fireflies, glowing spiders and fairies. The trees, plants and streams had been immaculately cared for by the shy and gorgeous Nymphs. The Nymphs had given Mina Bag End thoughtlessly, their wide eyes already charmed by the face of the gorgeous, albeit quite child in her arms. For the next two years D recalled living in these woods, the memories of the fairies he'd caught in glass jars and of the games he'd played came flooding back to him. He adored the Lord of the Rings so much that he and Mina had turned the whole of the forest into an imaginary Middle Earth, converting fair village of Nymphs to the north into Rivendell, the popular town outside of the woods into Gondor, and the decaying hill at the edge of the wood into Mt. Doom . How many times had D taken one of his mothers golden rings and become Frodo on his dangerous quest, how many times had his mother been a variety of characters, from Samwise the Brave to Sauron himself? How many forgotten memories did this decaying woodland hold?
"You remember" Mina cooed softly as she stared at her son's contemplative face. "You look so much like your father…" she whispered as though she did not wish him to hear but had forgotten his nature.
"I always thought that I took more after you." He answered firmly as he easily mounted the horse, never once releasing his mother from his grasp.
He dug his spurs firmly into the side of the horse; the beast whinnied in response and shot deep into the wood in a blur of silver. Although the vast changes in technology had all but done away with cybernetic mounts, D had been unwilling to surrender his preferred means of transportation, so he merely upgraded them to keep in pace with his enemies. The beast's titanium legs moved with fluid ease at the speed of light, and devices within the beast's saddle kept the forces of gravity from overwhelming the rider at this blurring speed. Although the woodland passed in a haze of mist and color, D could easily discern the shape of each and every tree, every rock and twist in the path before him. With a whimper Mina buried her face into his coat, and D kept his hand pressed against her face as though shielding her from her fears.
At some point the clouds broke and as he watched the little bus disappear into the sun-showered distance, a faint smile started to rise on D's lips.
D urged his horse onward, turning it away from the well trodden roadway that lead from the village of Tepes and ultimately toward the Capital and into the wilds overgrowth of a woodland to the right of him. Like D's smile the sunlight was fleeting, and all the soon a grey mire shrouded the sky. Moisture became thick in the air; soon the heavens were to break.
The Hunters head was hung low, as though he were wearily sleeping as he road, yet his eyes were wide opened and clear, yet if any were there to stare into the black depths they would have been utterly paralyzed by the frozen wasteland of sorrow that was reflected within them.
A thin shaft of sunlight peered through the blanket of clouds, casting a frail beam across the path. D's face grew strangely startled as he beheld the pathetic beam, for a second it seemed familiar to his eyes. It was much like the blinding light that had been the last ebb and flow of her life, the dying throes of the girl whom he'd grown to adore. Somehow the girl with her larger than life personality, her beaming intelligence and insistent nature had charmed him…and yet he'd failed her all the same.
The shaft of sunlight faded away, replaced by the oppressive black of the sky.
A gust of wind rent through the tress yet strangely the gust sounded only like her voice, her final words: "Goodbye D…Oh…the potential we had." The sigh of the wind could have been her final gasp of life, the hiss of her flesh as it crumbled into sparkling ash.
It's not my habit to leave failures around. It was Dracula's voice that whispered from the darkness of D's mind.
That was all Lina Belan had been in the end. Another failure. Another mistake predisposed to die for the imperfections Dracula himself had infected her with. She'd been a girl who should have spent her life in the sunlight, fearful of the Nobility, heading off the Capital to dream of becoming something more...
Rather she had been infected, cursed with Nobel experimentation. She had been condemned to darkness, to her death sentence, and D had been powerless to stop it. She'd been so like his own mother…another helpless woman infected with the obsession of his father.
The rainfall burst from the clouds just as unexpectedly as the crimson colored tears slipped down D's cheeks, a gasping sob quickly followed them. The rain was falling in a heavy torrent as D reined his horse to a stop, and dismounted. The Hunter was actually trembling slightly with emotion as he fell back against the bole of an iron oak tree and allowed his tears to overcome him. He so hated the feeling of how they caused his eyes to sting, his cheeks and mouth to ache, and the way the tears stained the faded scarf about his neck yet he was powerless to stop them. He merely kept his face hidden behind his trembling gloved hand.
"Lina…" he whispered to the rain, certain that he was utterly alone. "Why? She was so innocent…"
"Come on there, D" raised a very shocked sounding hoarse voice. "You can't save everyone…really any that Daddy-O has touched is a lost cause."
D nodded faintly to the voice yet his gasping sobs did not cease. "Why me…why did I alone survive his tests?"
For this the symbiote had no answer. "You know…it's never too late to stop this. You've spent your whole immortality chasing ghosts, and watching everyone you've ever formed somewhat of an attachment to die by his hands. It's not too late to stop."
D's head rose, the last of the bloody tears flowed down his cheeks, "No. Never." He said solemnly. He dried his face with his scarf and took a long, deep breath. The rain washed the last bloody rivulets from his gorgeous visage. Calmly he mounted his horse, his expression now cool and fixated.
The rain that fell about him may have momentarily soaked the landscape, yet in the long run it did not truly change the earthen façade of the land. It merely served to nourish it. That same rang true for D's short lived tears, they'd marred his cheeks for a moment, yet left them unchanged. As D road on now, he held his head high.
Twilight was falling as D at last brought his horse to a stop at a small clearing far from any town he was aware of. The rainfall had tapered to a light mist, yet Mina was shivering terribly even within the warmth of D's arms. He tried to set her down onto her feet, yet she crumpled into a frail heap on the ground, crying out weakly as she fell. D wrapped her tightly in his cape and pushed back her sodden hair. "What's happened? How are you here and why are you like this?"
She merely shook her head. "I….I don't understand it myself. I just don't know. All I know was that I started breathing, I saw your fathers face and I have been with him until now. It was maybe two weeks ago…I am just not sure. Nothing is right. Everything I see is harsh, cruel and cold…."
He softly laid his left hand across her forehead. Her weak condition was all too apparent to him now, her lips lacked any color and her eyes appeared glazed, she was now running a fever. A familiar voice spoke, "Well…I have no clue how he's done it but somehow Dracs has indeed brought her back to life. Only whatever body he's used is protesting it, it knows that there should be no life for Mina. She's been dead for over ten millennia; her home is the land beyond the veil. It's trying to force her out….I don't think that she is going to make it another day, D. I am sorry."
Fevered tears sprang in Mina's black eyes as she reached up and pushed back a lock of D's lifeless hair. "What's happened to you my son? You look so…."
"Human?" he finished softly.
Mina seemed too ashamed to answer. Dhampirs were known to very slowly age, yet that was dependant upon the strength of the Nobel blood in their veins. With D's power taken into account he should have remained unchanged until the end of the Earth.
"I don't quite understand it. It started over 2,000 years ago right before I meet…." He trailed off, unwilling to speak the name. "..Before then I had no true will to live and to fight. I just survived. I haven't had anything to live for since he took her from me, and now age seems to be catching up with me."
Another sob over took Mina, "I am so sorry my son. I know what he's done to you, what he's still wants to do to you…I can't understand how you can bear such pain."
"I learned from you, Mother." He answered gently.
Perhaps in the past Wilhelmina Murray had been strong enough to bear the tremendous weight of her dark fate, of the terrible stigma of rising a beautiful dhampir child, but now her form bore no such strength as she trembled, sobbed and slipped ever closer to death in her sons arms.
D pulled his mother tighter to him, and mitigated by her own cracked facade he let his own tears fall, knowing well that a few tears for his dying mother couldn't break his fierce spirit. Mother and son remained locked in there embrace the whole of the night, until at last Mina's sobs quieted into the soft even breaths of sleep. D laid his head against her chest, right against the soft irregular drumming of her heart. Countless memories of when he'd done this as a child welled within him, threatening to cause more of his cursed tears. The sound of her heart would remind him of what it had been like to be secure, safe and warm within her womb and would never failed to lull him into sleep.
And even now, 11,000 years later and despite his complete dependency on his drugs the soft beat of his mother's heart did not fail to pull him into slumber.