Pale

Chapter Six: Forgiving

Note: Okay, big big warning. This chapter and the one that will follow it will be graphic and gorey. Now I am not turning this into a slasher horror film or anything, I am just not going to shy from showing that Dracula can get even crueler than I've shown him before. Hell, I took a lot of inspiration for my version of him from both Vlad the Impaler and Alucard, that's one cruel baddie.

" The history of the world, my pet, is learn forgiveness and try to forget." -Sweeney Todd, Final Scene

"Wherein even the crown prince of Hell come out of his arrogant shell would falter to better." - Swansong for a Raven, Cradle of Filth

A week passed before D at last began to stir into consciousness. The first sensations to reach him through the confused haze of dreams was the cold hardness of were ever it was that his body lay. He forced his hand to move across the surface and found the texture was that of stone. Judging from the aches through out his back, neck and shoulders he must have been laying against this unyielding surface for quite some time. He tried to force his eyes open, but they refused to obey.

He could distinctly smell blood; some of it was fresh while the rest old and clotted, as well as the rotting of flesh, and the dampness that comes only from being far underground. He moved again, trying to feel about with his left hand but there was no sensation whatsoever. He heard the distinctive rattling of chains however.

A cruel, lilting voice reached his ears then, "Ah awake at last, now the real fun can begin Elena." A thin hand grabbed D up by the roots of his hair and yanked him into a sitting position.

D at last forced his eyes open yet he was hardly surprised to find that he was staring into gleaming blue eyes and a sharply featured face, a face so like his own, that could only have belonged to his father. Dracula smiled terribly, revealing his fanged teeth. "Surprised to see me, my beloved Dracula?"

"Of course not." he answered quite truthfully. A quick glance confirmed that he was indeed a prisoner within a torture chamber. Some of his father's victims lay as moldering skeletons within their chains, while others still oozed blood and struggled feebly. D himself was chained to the floor in irons that not even a struggling giant could have broken, his left hand was gone, only a neatly healed stump remained of where it had once been and he was naked. Still none of these things seemed to show any stress upon D's fierce features.

"Dracula?" rose a female voice from the shadows, its tone was thick with hatred. "So that's what the "D" stands for. I should have known." The woman stepped forth from the shadows, into the flickering torchlight. Hers was a truly beautiful form clothed in black leather biking gear. Her eyes were as fiery as her voice, and her brutally short blonde hair gave her a dangerously sensual appearance. Yet her face, a face rather typical for any young woman, was one that D could not have forgotten.

It was truly strange how in the vastness of time a man could forget the sensual features of his most beloved, could forget the tenderness and passion between them, but he could recall in exquisite detail the face of one whom he'd betrayed, of whom he'd killed. This was especially true to D at that moment.

"Elena?" he whispered, disbelief at last etching across his features.

Elena's face twisted at the sound of D's low voice, pain, sorrow and most especially hate crossed her face all at once. It was that latter emotion that won over.

"So, you do remember me then!" she spat. "I was so sure that you'd forgotten me, that I was just another faceless lamb for that slaughter!" Tears welled in the girls eyes. "You were supposed to save me D! That's what every girl is taught. Right when the night is darkest, when all hope is gone our knight in shining armor will appear to save us from the cold! Even I believed it! I thought you were going to save me, you were SUPPOSED to save me!"

A knife flashed in Elena's hands before it flew through the air and lodged into the center to D's chest.

The Hunter hissed with pain, but he did no cry out, "You choose your own path Elena, you desired to be a Nobel. What choice did I have?"

Dracula was positively twittering with laughter at this exchange. "Yes! Wonderful, wonderful! You see my beloved son; this is what payback feels like. This is karma. The last time that we saw each other, at least physically saw each other, I was terribly mortified in front of my own subjects. Imagine how terribly my respect and authority have suffered in these past few years after I, the Vampire King was ripped in half by a giant squid from outer space, meanwhile my own half blooded son goes on to defeat it within the same hour and become an iconic hero to the humans? Now humans don't fear the Nobility, they envy us! I have fallen completely from grace D, my right and ability as the Vampire King has never been questioned so much since the early days of the Nobility when I was near defeated by that meddling Boy Wizard. But I destroyed him, and today D, I am going to destroy you. Wizard kind quickly fell into ruins once I killed their hero, who's to say that humanity won't do the same?

I lured you into this trap using your own mother and I can assure you by the time I am ready to give you the mercy of the stake that I will have forced you to endure tortures from every man, woman and child that you've ever helped, killed or desired. I've chosen this lovely Elena to step up first, the poor girl has quite the pent up anger for you, and it's only fair. It's because of her soul that this convenient little connection has fallen into my grasp."

D made no attempt to understand what Dracula's words meant.

Her blue eyes aflame with rage Elena stepped closer to D and yanked the dagger out of his chest, "Don't understand what he means? Of course not, what comprehension would you, beautiful, unchanging and immortal have of death and what happens to the soul afterwards?" In a rather unprecedented move Elena stripped off her top, leaving her full breasts bare to D's uncaring line of sight. He recalled seeing the familiar line of scars that crossed her thin stomach, and he recalled the exquisite tattoo that the Nobility had once seared on her right breast. It was of a white rose, one terribly similar to another…

Elena, for lack of a better word, changed. Her features were erased completely as though they never where and Asenath had returned in her place, but her expression was every bit as dangerous. There it was again, the rose tattoo upon Asenath's chest, quite similar to the one that Elena had been marked with. "She's me." Asenath whispered low and dangerously. "Elena. I am her, reincarnated into another body. Our soul is the same, and twice you managed to betray it!" As swiftly as she'd left Elena reappeared.

Dracula grinned at the scene. "Nicely put Asenath. That is essentially what happens to the soul after death, reincarnation. But as I am sure you know well D, the fact that mortal life is reborn from death does not mean that the life that once was just fades away. In fact, it's rare that it does. The soul can progress, but the spirit, the consciousness that remains after death can linger lost and confused upon this Earth until there is no Earth left to tread on . And even the most noble sprit is powerless when it comes to resisting the orders of a living creature. Like myself." Dracula cackled.

D noticed that his father appeared to be clutching something very tightly in the palm of his left hand.

"That does not explain why Asenath can shift form." D spoke up calmly.

At that moment Elena lashed out with her booted feet and kicked D hard in the chin, however he barely felt the force of her blow and he remained rigid. "You have no right to ask such things! Why is he saying anything at all, Master! We ought to rip his tongue out!"

Dracula's eyes gleamed at the fiery woman at his side, "A lovely idea Elena. I enjoy your way of thinking, but we haven't even started. We still must hear him beg for mercy, again and again. Then his tongue is yours."

"Then let's get started!"

"Of course. How do you want to begin, my dear? Blades, drowning, hot skewers, wooden needles, garlic, acid that can ruin the flesh of even our kind? Mind you we'll need to be especially careful of those last two."

"Blades." Elena seethed, and held the dagger she'd pulled from D's flesh up once again, making certain he caught sight of the bloodstained blade before she slammed it down into his abdomen, ripping brutally into the residual organs that dwelled there. D cried out.

"I am sorry." the simple biker girl apologized in a low voice. Her eyes were invested in a dangerous determination. "The princess showed me the way- how the Nobility live, how they think. I want this manor and its traps and treasures for myself. And for the rest of their lives I wanna terrorize all those bastards in the village that treated me like shit. I wanna be a Nobel."

She has no idea what she's saying…D's thoughts raced momentarily. She can't understand that blackness she's condemning herself to. She's alone, she's afraid and angry. She can't understand. "Do you really mean that?" asked D. Bloody foam spilled from the corner of his lips. The wound she'd been forced to deal to his midsection was agonizing.

"Yes. See for yourself."

Taking her hand off the enchanted blade, Elena undid the front of her top. Her breast had no rose emblem on it. It seemed the Princess of the Diane Rose could reverse her own curses. Then she does mean those words. She means to become a Nobel.

"Right after we got here the Princess took it away. Now I'm the very same Elena you met when you first got here. But you're in my way D." Elena said, almost seeming to shout the words as she took a few steps away.

At last D found the strength to push away the Princess' corpse. She'd been clinging to him so tightly in the throes of death, as though he represented the last glory of the Nobility. Both her body and the sword that had killed her fell over, and behind them stood D. A slight wind picked up across the court yard whipping back his ebon hair. Suddenly the Hunter seemed a terrible image, a far cry from the gorgeous youth the sun had once shown down upon and haloed like an angel. His eyes were two cold wells of blackness, the features of his face unyielding as stone, his expression utterly rigid.

He knew what had to be done. She'd been seduced by the Nobility. There was no turning back again. "You said you wanted to be a Nobel, didn't you?"

D approached the girl slowly, she skittered away from him, her face suddenly went pale and wide eyed with fear. It had to be done. Elena desperately searched the gorgeous, unworldly visage before her, the face that she'd dreamed and longed for so fiercely, the face she'd fallen in love with. There was nothing there. Not anger, not hesitation, not mercy or pity.

"That's was just…Spare me D!"

Elena saw the flash of light of D's sword as it sank into her chest. At least it was quick, the pain was only a momentary rupture of agony before she felt the strength ebb from all her form, but she did not dare look up at D's face as her life ended. In the end she wasn't even worth pity, even worth saving to the man she'd loved.

Sheathing his sword D looked around the courtyard.

"So she wanted to be a Nobel?" a hoarse voice said.

It had to be done. There was no saving her.

Without so much as a glance at the two corpses, D began to walk toward the front gate in a horribly weary way. A tiny object fell at his feet. A withered rosebud.

Now deprived of their mistress, the flowers dropped their heads as if to respectfully mark her passing, their colors fading before they fell to the ground. After D walked away, countless dead blossoms rained down on the body of Elena and the ashes that remained of the princess, burying them both.

D did not cry out for mercy even as the girl, once a simple village biker turned into a brutal torturer, even as his insides lay strewn out into front of him, or even when she bathed his already mutilated left arm in acid that could mar even the flesh of the Nobility. He cried out, yes, but never for the mercy she'd once begged of him.

Elena's eyes were now glowing with blood light as she again raised her knife and ran the tip of it's blade across the base of D's left ear. It seemed as if Dracula had indeed granted her what D had fought to prevent.

"You know something D?" her husky voice whispered almost lovingly, "I pity you. I still recall the last moments of my life and the expression on your face. So dead. So empty. So detached. Your soul is nothing more than a gaping black hole, sucking in all the hope, happiness and beauty that surrounds you. Your heart doesn't beat for anyone but yourself. You feel nothing. Not love, or hate. You've been alive for so long, and seen so much that nothing at all is worth the effort of caring, or loving or hating. Or saving. You didn't pause for a second and try to help me." She pulled the knife across the ear, cleaning slicing it off.

D groaned out in pain, writhed in his chains yet his eyes turned and regarded the face of his torturer. Elena gasped as she caught sight of his eyes. Her mind was pulled backward, to when she'd been alive, to a moment when she'd caught eyes with D. Once again she felt as though she were sinking into the sheer depth of those black pools, and instantly she felt the wild anger die away within the heart she was sharing with her vessel. "Elena." D spoke his voice was unaffected by the pain he must have been drowning in. "I am sorry. I did as I had been trained to do; I knew I couldn't save you. It's never easy for me to take a life, any life. Especially an innocent one. Could you forgive me?"

Shocked Elena doubled back, lowering her knife. "What?"

"What!" Dracula growled, "What game are you playing at D? There is no asking for forgiveness for those you've thoughtlessly killed! No forgiveness from the dead! Go on Elena!"

But the girl found that she could not raise the knife again. Could it be that those were the only words she needed to hear? No…it couldn't possibly be as simple as all that. Yet she could not take her eyes from D's, was it possible…could she really be seeing that flash of remorse within those black orbs?

"Elena!" Dracula roared.

"I…I can't!" she whimpered.

"God damn it!" Dracula's left hand clinched tightly upon whatever it was he was holding within his palm, his fingers appeared to move the object about and in a smooth, effortless transformation Elena was gone only to be replaced by the features of another. It was a man that appeared before D this time, a tall, well muscled man wearing the black leathers typical of a Hunter with fair hair and intense blue eyes. In his hand he carried a brutal weapon, a hexagonal staff in which each in end was shaped to dangerous points.

The man blinked, utterly bewildered to be within this place, he appeared unsteady on his feet.

D recognized him instantly.

"It's a curious ability that dear Asenath has, one I am not fully sure how it occurs, but nevertheless I have perfected it. She lives and she breathes just as you and I, she even has her own unique soul like us all…but she is hollow. It's as if she is a living, walking and hollow medium for the dead. Not only is she especially skilled at talking with the spirits of the dead, but she can allow them in her heart, she can take on their physical form and any harm that befalls that form does not affect her body at all. Legend calls them The Pale Ones. The daughter of the thirteenth child of a gifted medium able to assume the forms of the pale, lost sprits of the dead. They are especially rare as you might guess, and terribly feared. When I found her she was able only to hold the transformation for a minute or so and resistant to the Dark Kiss , but a simple bite upon the neck and an infusion of my blood has corrected that."

Dracula turned his attention to the confused looking Hunter at his side, "You, what's your name?"

"N…Nolt." said the man sounding unsure of himself.

He gestured to the bloody mess that was D. 'And him, you know him do you not?"

A cruel smile twisted Nolt's thin lips, "Yes, I know him. That's the man who killed me."

"Well then, go on. Now is your chance for payback."

Nolt didn't hesitate for a moment before he raised his brutal staff with a roar.

For twelve hours the torment lasted, until at last Dracula appeared to have grown weary of seeing D suffering beneath the hands of his enraged victims and returned what parts had been severed from his body, save for of course his left hand. Once whole D's body instantly began to repair itself, and Dracula turned from the scene without a word. He needed him whole to tear him apart once again.

He grabbed the Pale One's arm roughly, currently wearing the guise of a hulking Nobel man. "Enough for tonight, now, wear her face."

The Nobel hung his head in a servile way and began to transform. D was hardly surprised when he saw his mother standing in his place, her hair hung low over her face, shielding her from the sight of her son. Dracula grinned lecherously as he lifted Mina's chin to face him, and he kissed her possessively. "Let's go my love."

She followed obediently, but she dared to turn back to glance at D. He did not fear to look in her eyes. I am so sorry my dear…I really didn't know, still, even all these millennia later he could read her as easily as the books he had treasured in his youth.

"I forgive you." he whispered and closed his eyes. Now his throbbing body had no trouble finding sleep, but all the same he recalled what it had been like to have lain for one night within his mother's arms, safe and complete and he found peace instantly.

When D awoke, his body healed as if he'd never before suffered any sort of burn, blow, cut or stab. It was to the sound of his chains rattling, but not by his movements. His attention snapped up to that of a thin girl, with long black hair and wide green eyes. She wore a white gown that was more like a death shroud than anything else and she had a simple white flower tucked in her hair. She was struggling hard to rip free the chains that bound D to the wall, gritting her fanged teeth together in frustration, but of course the chains would not give. A surge of hope flooded his being as he recognized her face, so sweet and innocent, so full of life and intelligence.

"Lina?"

She released the chains to stop and to gaze at him deeply. "D." she said simply, the single syllable was enough to convey the depth of love and affection she had for him. "Quickly, I have to get you out of here. Dracula doesn't know that I am using the Pale One's body."

He knew his effort was wasted, yet he pulled on the chains with all the strength he could muster. Cracks crawled up the damp stone wall, but the padlocks did not give a centimeter. "How much control does he have over the Pale One?"

"Absolute." Lina conformed in a grim tone. "He made her like himself, made her his slave. And if Asenath is his slave than so is everyone that uses her body." she revived her effort to pull free his chains, relying on the strength of the Nobel genetics Dracula has tainted her with. She made it a point not to look directly at D's face, even if time has made it's mark upon it , it was still so magnificent the girl doubted that she could resist falling onto his lips.

"And what is he using to call all these ghosts from the past?"

"A stone…I think I have read about it before, in a wizard's book or something alone those lines. A stone that was supposedly created by Death himself. He's linked it to Asenath's consciousness and it just maybe that Dracula does know every single person you've lost or slayed in your life."

"The Resurrection Stone." D murmured. "I should have known. Does he hold any other of the Hallows?"

Lina nodded, "The Elder Wand. That's how he linked the stone with Asenath, although he doesn't appear to like toying with magic very much."

"Damn it." D hissed rather uncharacteristically. Again Lina tugged furiously at the unyielding chains, but her eyes fell to D's face once again and the heart that she was merely borrowing hammered wildly in her breast, she found herself unable to move.

The girl shrieked when a ragged pair of hands clapped down on her shoulders and spun her round, the gangly, cloaked figure with the wild shock of matted ginger hair was recognizable instantly as Renfield. He grinned wickedly, flashing his fangs, 'Well well pretty dear, starting the fun with the Masters dog a bit early are we?"

"Let me go!" Lina raged, shoving Renfield away easily. "This ends here!" Renfield stumbled backward, tripping over the hem of his cloak in a most ungraceful way.

"Oh you'll pay for that you little bitch." he growled in a guttural tone, pushing aside the amble folds of his garment.

D stared at the scene suddenly transfixed. There it was. That familiar pulsating, black miasma that he'd been seeking for so long, it was coming off Renfield, off the ragged brown cloak he wore about his shoulders. A vessel. A horcrux. D's mind raced in agitation…yes…yes of course that cloak could have easily been a vessel! It was inconspicuous, entrusted to the hands of Dracula's most faithful servant and hadn't the ancient message from the wizards mentioned the possibility of a cloak being a vessel? He must have overlooked the cloaks aura in his exhaustion upon first meeting Renfield in the guise of R.M. Perhaps Harry Potter's message had not been in vain.

If only it weren't for these chains! Growling deep in his throat D pulled against them once more, his arms quaking with the strain.

From the blackness a million blood red eyes appeared to take form, glowing wickedly about the whole of the dungeon. Lina screamed out in alarm, but she clinched her fists as though ready to take on this stranger still opponent. Renfield gave a started cry and then fell to the ground, bowing low on all fours. "Master!!"

The mass of eyes clumped closer and closer together until they converged into a single, blazing silhouette that was easily recognizably with its black garments and sleek hair. Dracula's face appeared through the crimson haze and as he smiled it was truly a frightening scene; his mouth appeared to be crammed full of needle sharp fangs rather than just the fanged canines that were trademark of a vampire. As he swept his cape backward the rest of the crimson light faded away and he moved slowly over toward Lina, the devilish grin never leaving his face. "Asenath…I know you can hear me beneath that guise. And I am starting to worry that you might not have what it takes to do what must be done. You told me that you wanted to make the Vampire Hunter suffer, and here you go allowing this little failure of mine to help him!"

His eyes bored hard into Lina's, her expression of defiance never faltered. "You, what is your name again?"

"Lina Belan." she answered.

Dracula nodded, "Ah yes, the children from Tepes. More dire failures!"

Lina trembled with anger, "I don't understand! How I am I any different from him!" she cast her eyes quickly at D. "What did you want of me, of the others!"

Dracula sighed, "It's simple really. You crave blood, just as all the others. You would kill for it, just as myself. I cannot have that weakness, that addiction in my creations. I had only one success."

Lina lowered her eyes trying to hide the tears that betrayed her. She tried in vain to hide the battle within her that raged between the burning desire and her jealous envy of the Hunter.

"Oh yes, D does need the blood, and he even craves it, but in him I have instilled a defense that no other Nobel has. The power to simply resist. It was my intention that if I could breed one perfect success, a vampire unlike any other, that could resist the blood lust for far longer than any other, that found it within his power to subsist on blood substitutes alone. From there I would create others, generation upon generation of the ultimate vampire that within a few generations the lust for blood would be forgotten all together. And I would have succeeded had his mother not taken him from me and instilled the twisted mess that is the world into his head. The Nobility had been slowly falling into decline years before D was born, I had hoped that he would deliver us to the next golden age of the vampire…rather he hunted us down. Once the Nobility began to be overthrown by the humans I lost the formula I'd so painstakingly devised for creating another, and I have been trying again and again to create another. D is nothing to me now. He's no more than a ghost from the past I must expel, I have made others. Now come here Lina."

With that simple command Lina was pulled as though by an invisible force toward Dracula, she cried out as he grasped her but he held her fast. "The body you possess is under my complete control child. You'll believe me soon." he thrust a large dagger into her hands and released her. "I want you to go over to D, and take his right hand into yours. And, then you're going to cut off every last one of his fingers. Go!"

Lina gasped out in horror at his words, and then cried out in feeble protest as she found that her body did not dare to obey her command to stand still. It has already begun to walk, to sink down beside D. She reached out for his hand with utter despair on her face. D naturally was faster than her, and he raised the hand to strike the girl away from him. Then it seemed as if all the force of gravity was pressing against him, freezing his arm in midair, crushing his body against an invisible brick wall of pressure. It took all his strength merely to move his eyes, and see that his father had indeed been the source of crushing gravity. Dracula was holding a jagged, jet black stick in his hand, a wand.

Lina's dagger came flying upward and both cried out as there was a gush of blood as D's forefinger thudded onto the ground. "D!" she cried out in helpless protest as she raised the gore soaked knife once again.

"Lina, just fight it." he breathed out, "I know you can." However the girl couldn't so much as command her hand to tremble as the knife claimed another digit.

Dracula hovered closer to the pair, laughter rumbling in his chest, " I promised you D, every one you've ever killed or saved, everyone you've ever encountered and left in agony or tears will have there chance to destroy you, weather they want to or not."

The pain was like an immense serpent, twisting its fiery form all throughout D's body. Yet it wasn't completely unbearable. There was nothing at all wrong with a dhampir's ability to writhe in agony, yet D found that it was easy to push the blunt of it aside. He felt the fresh misery as the knife came again, he cried out merely to release the worst of the mounting pain within him but his consciousness could still linger to a place where he remained calm and centered.

There were always ways to speak to the dead, yet D had never dreamed that he might one day have the chance to speak to Lina once again. There had been much he'd admired about the girl and her firecracker sprit. Her intelligence, her insistence, even her constant presence he'd grown fond of in his brief stay at her village.

As if it had all happened the day before he drifted back to the time when she'd filled his life with her beaming smile. He recalled the single white flower he'd left her at the waterwheel, a simple token of his growing affection for the girl he denied until she had died in his arms. There had been several moments in the time he'd known her where he'd found himself wanting to show a truer sign of his affection, but only his simple touch of her hand at her death would have to suffice. Perhaps his fondness of her had been because of the curse his father had laid upon her life, perhaps something more passionate, but whatever the case he'd wished that he'd had the chance to lay a kiss upon her lips before they fell to dust.

It wasn't fresh pain that brought D back into awareness, it was a realization. He gazed up at Lina's eyes, at the well of sorrow and heartbreak that resided within them. Perhaps that was why Lina was here now; she'd died helpless and broken hearted…perhaps there was a way to make amends.

Only his thumb remained as Lina raised the knife again, but D reached up with the stump of his left arm to pull her closer to him, to his lips and he kissed them without reservation. With the tenderness and the fondness that he'd felt for her so long ago.

Lina gasped, pulling away from him. She blinked bemusedly, and then, fighting her fingers ever inch of the way, the knife slipped from her grasp and clattered to the ground. "D…" she breathed, reaching out to caress his cheek. "I love you D!"

"What!" Dracula raged, he drew a jeweled sword from his belt.

By the time he'd run her through Lina had all but faded, leaving only Asenath's shocked face in her wake. "What the HELL just happened!"

"I…I don't know!" Asenath breathed, pulling the sword from her belly effortlessly. "She just left me."

Snarling Dracula pressed the sword to D's throat, "Think you can get cleaver with me? We'll see. I doubt you can dismiss this one with just a simple kiss." His hand clinched.

Another woman was crouched at D's side, one with silky raven colored hair much like Lina's yet the curve of her bosom and hips coupled with the darkness of her eyes was almost hypnotically sensual although her face was that of an innocent girl. Doris Lang.

"Miss Lang, you have no choice but to obey me. You shall only touch my son in the way I so instruct. I want you to take the knife you have at your feet and I want to you stab him with it 19 times in the chest, but leave the heart alone."

"What…No!" the girl cried, her face hopelessly bewildered, but like Lina her hands were moving to Dracula's whim.

Doris Lang. Another girl…no, a woman whom he'd felt a fierce appreciation of. And his affection for her he'd not hidden. Twice he'd kissed her. The first had been when she'd tried to give him his payment in advance, and the second time after he'd taken that payment. Her payment had been her virginity. It was only natural that the girl had fallen in love with him; he'd rescued her in her darkest hour.

A violent sob escaped her lips as she pushed the knife ruthlessly down into the center of his chest, but D did not so much as flinch. Already he had a plan, yet he was loathe to cast aside his steely façade once again. Still the prospect of besting his father once more, of giving poor brave Doris the closure she needed was more tempting.

'Doris, I wanted to stay with you and with Dan. I was tempted to hang my sword and to settle. I have dreaded every battle I have ever fought, but I know you see why I couldn't give it up. I have spent my life trying to rid the world of him, but I never forgot you. I watched your wedding, I once met the son you named after your brother, I saw the entire village turn out for your funeral. Had I stayed you would have had none of those things. He would have destroyed each of them."

She withdrew the knife, her tears now of bittersweet understanding and once again it clattered to the ground.

A growl of rage passed Dracula's cruel mouth.