“But you feel for him. I…watched you at the opera through my scope. You took his hand. You let him kiss you. You touch him. It isn’t merely physical, either. I see how you look at him. You weren’t his prisoner.”
She felt the shame creep over her slowly. “No. I was not.”
“He’s a mass murderer. He’s responsible for millions of deaths over the course of humanity. Think about that.”
“I know.”
“You know, but you don’t understand.” He put down the last piece of his gun and began putting it back together. “You haven’t seen it. I hope you never do.”
“I fear that choice will not be up to me.”
They fell back into silence. She lay back down on the blanket, shutting her eyes, trying to get her head to stop hurting as badly as it was. Alfonzo had hit her hard.
She wasn’t certain how much time had passed before she heard a resounding boom from her courtyard outside like an explosion before a voice carried easily through the windows in the foundation by the back of the house. A voice that she would never forget.
“Hunters.”
Dracula.
25
It was astonishing how quickly Maxine forgot how terrifying Vlad could be. That one word alone sent a tremor up her spine. That deep, resonant voice that was loud without shouting. Heard without insisting. It reflected the effortless power of the creature himself. Eddie looked as though he shared a similar reaction.
She looked out at the sun streaming through the window and furrowed her brow. He had come for her…in broad daylight.
It was clear Eddie had the same thought. “What the fuck?” He stood from the chair and quickly loaded his guns and tucked one into his holster. He kept the other down at his side.
The basement door was pushed open with a creak. “Eddie. Up here. Now. Bring Maxine,” Alfonzo barked down the stairs.
Eddie picked up the end of the chain that attached to her shackles and undid the lock that fastened it to the column. He slipped the key and the lock in his pocket. Looking at her mournfully, he jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
It was not like she had any say in the matter. And so, she stood and followed Eddie, picking up the weight of the chain to carry it as they climbed the stairs. He kept glancing back at her regretfully.
“I’m sorry about this,” he muttered. “It’s not fair. It’s for your own good.”
She nodded once, not knowing what to say. Bella and Alfonzo were standing by the large glass doors that led out to the courtyard in the back of her house. There, standing in the middle of the yard, looking freakishly out of place, was the Vampire King himself. The sun was shining. Her gardens looked peaceful and perfect. Save for the black inkblot that stood in the center of it, long hair loose and hanging around his gray and pallid features.
He did not belong amongst the life of the garden. He belonged amongst dead things.
Alfonzo turned to look at her and Eddie as they approached. She let the chain she had gathered up in her hands fall to the wood floor with a loud clatter, glaring back at the older hunter.
He didn’t miss the point she was making. He sighed. “I’m sorry. I really am. But you are unwell. He’s twisted your mind. You can’t see it, I know, but you’ll understand when he is defeated. When you’re free.”
I am not sure if I will ever be free of him, even if you are victorious. She opted not to say the words. She opted not to say anything at all. Her silence was unnerving him, and she wished to shun him for what he had done. Including for having struck her. Her head still ached.
She did not bother to ask for an apology for the blow. He was a soldier and lived on those terms. She looked back out to the vampire. She realized there was a white line in the grass, and he was standing at the other side of it. Curiosity broke her silence. “What is that?”
“A ward. He cannot cross it,” Bella explained. “The house is protected from him.”
Magic. More magic. She shook her head. She would have to accept the idea that monsters and magic existed and cared nothing for the fact that she needed time to become adjusted to it all.
“I lead. Bella, stay by my side. Eddie, keep Maxine with you and take up the rear. If she moves or runs toward him, shoot her,” Alfonzo ordered.
“But, Al—” Eddie tried to argue but stopped as the older hunter glared at him. “Yes, sir.” Eddie sighed and pulled back the hammer on his revolver. He looked to Maxine sheepishly. “Please don’t run. Please don’t.”
She felt her jaw tick as she clenched it. She met Alfonzo’s steely gaze for a moment and saw—and felt—that he meant every word. “You believe I am better dead than to live in the thrall you think he has placed over me.”
It was a statement, not a question. Alfonzo shifted his grip on his sword, his leather glove creaking. “It would be a mercy. You do not know the things he does to those he keeps. You would be eating insects and tearing out your hair before long.”
She highly doubted that. But she knew a zealot when she saw one, and there would be no arguing with him. She could only hope that he would take Dracula up on his trade. Looking back to Eddie, she did her best to smile gently. “I will not run, Eddie. I will not make you live with the regret. Nor do I have any particular desire to die.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I greatly appreciate that.”
Alfonzo pushed open the glass door and stepped outside. Bella followed at his side. Eddie gestured for her to walk in front of him, and with a shake of her head, she did.
Vlad’s crimson eyes flicked to her as she stepped out onto the brick patio. Upon seeing her in chains, he grimaced. His features twisted in anger as he bared his teeth in a vicious snarl. She could feel his rage pour over her even from that distance, nearly palpable in the air.
He looked as though he had already healed from the violence the previous night. But the sun was out in full, and she knew from his own words that it weakened him, even though it did not seem to harm him.
“Give her to me,” he demanded. “Now.”
“No.” Alfonzo moved to stand on the other side of the white line, within arm’s reach of Vlad. Whatever barrier it posed was invisible, but clearly strong enough to withstand the vampire. Alfonzo had enough faith in it to think the creature could not simply reach forward and rip out his throat. “She stays our prisoner until you are defeated.”
Vlad laughed, a cruel and quiet sound. “We shall see. Your hubris will be your downfall, Helsing. As it was your cousin in London. He was a fool. I see it runs in the family blood.”
It was Alfonzo’s turn to snarl and grimace in anger, although his was far less bestial than his foe’s expression had been. “Do not speak of him or the lives you took.”
The vampire shrugged idly. “They are of no consequence.”
No consequence. To hear him speak of mortal lives with such dismissiveness was a painful reminder of with whom she had aligned herself. She wondered over his words in her dream—if she was truly naïve to think she could accept his callous nature and his monstrous hunger for death.
The vampire’s voice was a low rumble. “I have come to offer you a bargain, Helsing. A trade. The lives of this city, for her.”
Alfonzo took half a step back to look over to her where she stood, a silent witness to the scene in front of her. She gripped the chain that ran between her wrists, needing something to hold. The cool steel links were somehow reassuring. Luckily, the links had not witnessed anything of any real importance. Her gloves were missing.
“Explain,” the older hunter demanded as he looked back to the vampire.
“I will take my children and leave this place. We will go where we will trouble none. Give her to me, and spare this city and the lives of those within it. Refuse me…and their blood will be on your hands, hunter.”
“You’re lying.” Alfonzo turned back to Dracula, his shoulders raised. “And do not dare try to pass the blame for your actions on to me! You are the monster here, not I. Thi
s cruelty is yours, not mine.”
“Men are capable of far more evil than I have ever been. I am but a reflection of what cruelty you pay each other. You have taken a woman who has shown you nothing but hospitality and compassion and chained her in her own home.”
“To save her from you.”
“I do not think she wishes to be saved.”
“You twist her mind to your own ends. She cannot make these decisions for herself.”
“She hardly looks hysterical to me.” Vlad sneered. “Men. Always wishing to make decisions for the women around them. Tell me, did you enjoy hitting her? Did you enjoy putting the ‘weaker sex’ in its place when you struck a defenseless woman?” His expression grew dark and furious once more. “Speak to me once more of cruelty.”
Alfonzo growled and paced away from the vampire, fuming.
“Boss?” Eddie asked quietly from behind her. “Boss, shouldn’t we consider what he’s offering? I mean, an entire city—the whole city—for—”
“Shut up, Eddie.” Alfonzo glared angrily at the young boy, who flinched visibly at the man’s harsh tone. “No. No deal.”
“What?” Maxine couldn’t help but finally speak up in her shock. “My life is forfeit. It has been since the moment you arrived at my door with that brooch. I am one person. There are eighty thousand who live within this city, maybe more. And now he threatens the entire seaboard. Let me go. Take his offer.”
“He is lying! He cannot be trusted. If I give you to him, he will still wage his war upon the human race.”
“He is not lying.”
“I cannot trust you, either. I am sorry, Maxine. But your words, and your loyalty, now side with him. You are corrupted by him.”
“He is a man of his word,” Maxine argued. “I—”
“He is no man!” Alfonzo pointed at the vampire who loomed at the other side of the barrier that kept him from simply sweeping in and likely killing all three of him. “And that you cannot see him for what he is proves my point. No. No deal.”
“Boss…” Eddie interjected quietly. “Even if he’s lying, shouldn’t we take that risk? Isn’t it better to roll the dice? Besides, I don’t like keeping her prisoner. It feels wrong.”
“Listen to the boy.” Vlad smirked. “He seems to be the only intelligent one among you. Although, to be fair, the young woman has yet to speak.” He glanced to Bella. “What say you?”
“I—ah—” Bella stammered, not having expected to be put on the spot. She glanced between Eddie and Alfonzo, then to Maxine, then to Vlad, seemingly searching for some way out of the spotlight. “I think—I think it is a risk we may wish to take—”
“No.” Alfonzo slammed his sword into the dirt, point down. It cleaved easily through the grass and stood on its own as he stormed up to Bella and pointed angrily in the young woman’s face. She shrank back from his anger. “You will not take his side on this. The vampire cannot be trusted. He will destroy this city. And even if he doesn’t—” Alfonzo broke off abruptly.
“And even if he doesn’t, what?” Maxine asked, walking toward the older hunter, the chain scraping on the bricks beside her. She reached the end of her tether a few feet from Alfonzo, but it would suffice. It was then, in that proximity, that she realized what was really going on. Her gift let her tap in to what he was feeling, and the undercurrent beneath his zealous anger was the answer to why he was not accepting the offer. “Oh. Oh, you poor, demented thing.”
Alfonzo growled and stormed away. “Stay out of my mind, empath.”
“It is not your mind into which I pry. It’s your heart. It is not righteousness you seek. It’s revenge.”
“He has taken everything from my family!” Alfonzo roared as he wheeled around to face her. “One after another, generation after generation, he has slaughtered us all. This is my chance—my real chance—to stop him.”
“He cannot be stopped. Even if you defeat him now, you know he will return. It’s just a matter of time. You would end so many lives for the chance to hurt him?” She shook her head. “That’s madness.”
“You do not know what he has done.” Alfonzo stormed up to her then and grabbed her roughly by the upper arms, shaking her once. She heard the vampire growl at the show of violence, but there was nothing he could do. Alfonzo glared down at her. “You do not know what he is capable of. He impaled my cousin on a pike and left him propped in the front yard of his home. Abraham was a father of two children. He was alive when the wood met his flesh. He was left to slide down the length of it as it pushed its way through his organs. He was still breathing when the authorities found him. And he was not alone. All the rest who sought to stand against him met the same fate.”
Alfonzo’s expression turned knowing and cruel, looking down at her with a prideful kind of arrogance. “And do you know why they stood against him? Why they took up arms to defeat the vampire? Not because he wished to destroy London. Oh, no. Because of a woman. He hunted her. Seduced her. Fed from her.”
“Enough.” Vlad was seething, but there was nothing he could do.
“When Mina was too far gone, too corrupted, and flinched away at the sight of daylight for that he was feeding her his own poisonous blood, she begged for freedom. Abraham granted her that mercy. And the vampire, in his selfish rage, murdered them all.”
Maxine yanked out of his grasp and took a few steps away from the hunter. She glanced over to Vlad, whose expression was an unreadable mask of stone. She felt from him only death. Death that he was—death that he would pay others. “Did you love her?”
He was silent.
“Vlad,” she pressed. “Please.”
He hesitated before answering reluctantly. “No. She was a bauble, nothing more.”
She cringed and looked away. She knew he was ancient—he had told her in his own words that he had loved before. And how many “baubles” did a man like him take to amuse himself? She suspected as much, but to hear him say it was another matter entirely.
“Maxine…remember our accord.”
Yes. A promise never to lie to each other. He was telling her that he loved her without saying as much in front of the hunters. She shook her head, wishing it all to go away. Wishing she could crawl into her bed and sleep.
Vlad sighed heavily. “Hunter. Accept my offer. Give her to me, and I will leave this place in peace. I ask one final time.”
“No.” Alfonzo yanked his sword from the turf and took a battle stance across the line from the vampire. “Fight us here and now instead.”
The Vampire King laughed, cold and empty. Devoid of any humor, humanity, or kindness. “How I would love to grant you what you wish. But no. I will make sure you learn the cost of your revenge. I will ensure you will see what you have wrought in your foolishness.”
“Coward. Fight me. Or is the sun weakening you too much and you know you will lose?”
“Hm?” Vlad smirked. “What sun?”
“Wh—” Alfonzo began to speak but did not get a chance to finish.
Vlad lifted his hand above his head. He reached toward the sun, sharp nails looking like talons that extended from long fingers. He closed his hand into a fist.
And all at once…it was dark.
The sun was gone.
Blotted out from the sky as if it had been swallowed into a hole. She looked up in awe, blinking at the sudden darkness. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the change. There were no clouds hiding the sun. But that was not to say there was no glowing disk hanging in the sky. There was.
But it was the moon. Huge, and full, and the color of blood. Stars glimmered about the terrible usurper on the throne.
The city fell deathly silent. No birds chirped. No wind rustled the trees. All the sounds of the city merely stopped. It was as though life itself held its breath.
Then…came the howling. Like a wolf in the distance, answered by another, and another. But the sounds were not like a canine, but something else, something other. Creatures of the darkness who had come to answer their Master’s
call.
Worse than the howling was what followed.
The screams.
Faint and far away, numerous and chilling. His army had already begun to feed. Maxine shivered and shrank back toward the house.
“What have you done?” Alfonzo asked through his shock, his eyes wide in horror. “How have you…how have you done this?”
Vlad laughed and smiled piteously at the hunter, as if he were a parent whose child had learned of gravity and scraped his knee. “You know so very little, Helsing, of what I truly am. Of what I am capable. I could rule this world if I wished it. You would be surprised to know how little in this world I desire. You will be horrified to see the lengths to which I will go to secure that which I do. Now, you will learn who I truly am.” He looked to Maxine with those words. She knew they were meant for her. Vlad took a step away from the barrier and stretched his arms out at his sides. “You will now see the full reach of my curse. Come and stop me…if you think you can.”
And with that, his form exploded into a swarm of bats and soared up into the dark sky above, little more than movement against the unnatural night’s canopy.
She heard screams in the distance. They hung in the air like the morbid calls of birds, replacing their counterparts like the moon had stolen the sun. He had threatened to destroy the city…and now she learned Vlad Tepes Dracula was not a creature who bluffed.
Resting her back against the brick of her home, she looked up into the darkness. “Oh, Vlad…What have you done?”
Fin.
“Curse of Dracula”
Immortal Soul: Part Two
Arrives August 1st, 2020
Order it here!
Also by Kathryn Ann Kingsley
The Masks of Under:
King of Flames
King of Shadows
Queen of Dreams
King of Blood
King of None
Queen of All
Halfway Between:
Shadow of Angels
Blood of Angels
Heart of Dracula Page 27