Anastasis POV

All of our rooms were connected. Simon took advantage of this to comfort Mary. His room was beside hers, and both her and Dracula were on either side of me. Apparently, she was glad to just get out of her house. Not surprisingly seeing as her father died upstairs and it was a rather large house to be alone in other than Simon's odd company.

If anyone was going to be taking advantage of our joint rooming, I thought it would be the vampire. The door was not locked, yet I did not hear him move much once we got settled.

I deemed it necessary to check up on him. I knocked first, of course. It took a lot longer for him to open, though. On his, the door was locked, and he took his time unlocking it. He never did open the door, I wondered if maybe he locked it instead.

I turned the handle, and the door creaked open. "Are you still alive in here?" A joke I personally thought was funny.

I could hear from the bedroom an unamused mutter, "No, there isn't anyone..."living" in here." Just as fast as he was not in the room, he was. Clearly annoyed, I was there, Dracula stared at me, waiting for me to speak. Of course, he was shirtless. I swear this man never wore clothes.

"I swear you are bipolar... snarky and flirty one moment. Then annoyed and murderous the next. When you are not being an absolute baby rebelling against God like an angst teenager, that is," I crossed my arms as I regarded him. He sneered as he turned away. "Why are you so cranky this time? Was it Mary?"

His head hung back. Hair dangling in the air. With a sigh, he explained, "Not exactly... She was supposed to be a part of me. However, all I see is him, Abraham. I still feel the leeches wriggling on my skin sometimes." He slowly turned around, "This world, it is perfect for me. I never got to see it's making. To think, I could have died all those centuries ago and never got to see it. Or stuck in that coffin as it passes away around me until judgement day. My final hour alone in the dark. No more than a corpse harvested for blood."

"I still don't quite understand..."

He snapped towards me. Hand at my throat again. "Of course you don't understand! You haven't lived long enough yet. But at least you are living! Humans were made for immortality, yet we now long for death. I wait for it every day, to be free of myself. What I have done and He won't let me. Yet, I also hate that i would have missed out on such lively pleasures and chaos in this world. Love being a part of it like the beast I am."

I pulled his hands off my throat and held them by the wrists with mine to stop him from grabbing me again, "You are not a beast." He snorted, but before he could interject, I continued, "Humans long to live, yes, because we were made with eternity in our hearts. That was forfeit for pleasure and sin. This is also a very human thing to want but still not want to die since we still long for eternity. However, we need death to free us from our sins and the sins of others. To escape the suffering of this world. Sometimes you can't do it, but feeling that way is not what makes you a beast, but still a man. Now, what is the problem?"

Dracula blinked, mouth slightly open. He closed his mouth and eyes, letting out a growl, before opening them again, "Van Helsing, got to live. He had a wife, child... many years to him that he shouldn't have. Death was too good for him. I didn't want him to live, and I thought taking his daughter was enough punishment... But I don't have Mary, do I? I don't get the wife, the daughter, the business, and immortality while still being mostly human. I could never be him, and he wanted to be me. Van Helsing still knew he didn't want me, just what I had. Blood, and in that, he found pleasure. He got all of it! Something no man or monster should. He gave that to her, but even that part of me inside her screams betrayal. I only heard it when she betrayed me."

Finally, I understood. Judas thought Van Helsing raised above him but using Dracula. "He didn't have it all... He lost his wife long before she died. His daughter only thought him a righteous man after Van Helsing's death. He, too, only enjoyed it temporarily until he, too, lost it all to immortality. He was not better than you because he was still human. That would be like saying I'm better than an angel because I'm part human. Your logic could apply to Mary, but she is more human than both of us."

"I knew she wasn't going to kill Simon... I thought that was the betrayal. That's why I looked so confused when she picked up the dagger... Surprised when she turned on me," he confessed. The anger in his face was more at himself. A shadow of the man that once was still followed him everywhere

"You can't look in mirrors because you can't stand to look at yourself..." I didn't mean for the realization to come outlook, but as soon as it did, he frowned. Nodding him head, he walked away from me. I followed him to the bedroom as he plopped down on it. "Why did you do it? What started it?"

"What do you mean?" As he raised his head up, I took a deep breath and braced myself. This could turn ugly any moment.

"Why did you betray him? What made you start to stray?"