Black Panther (Poesque; Lovecraftish)

[Countess]

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CHAPTER I METAMORPHOSIS

Millenniums had passed since I first underwent the change. The unnatural transformation, brought on by a random assault, left me bereft of those common qualities that allow humans to go about their daily lives unimpeded by a greater sense of obligation or awareness.
While the consequences of the life-changing event had been dramatic, the altercation itself had been rather simple: I had been attacked from behind by something that had easily mastered me, and accordingly drained me of my blood, enough to send me to sleep, permanently. But I had not died that night, perhaps because the creature that sucked forth my life had borne a conscience, and could not in good faith leave me to my death, and so he had made me what he himself was - a being radically different from the human race, a Noctor. In any case, he departed shortly there afterward, and I was left to unravel the mystery of my new nature - alone.
Lest you think my transmutation was instantaneous and facile, I will give you a broad description of my sufferings and distress. It took weeks for the metamorphosis to occur, and each day heralded new symptoms and new agonies, until I feared I was going to die before the process was complete. At first I experienced a general malaise with body aches, fever, nausea and fatigue as the primary symptoms. But that soon ended, and was replaced with limb twisting and physical changes, until I hardly appeared human. It was at this point I ran away, convinced that staying on would only be a disservice to my family, who could hardly help me and were forced to watch on, powerless, as I underwent the change. I knew my DNA was mutating on a sub-structural level, and my chromosomes were no longer human.
For weeks I lived amongst the homeless, the mentally ill and the addicts. I hid amid the garbage cans in the back alley of a restaurant, subsisting on the remains of uneaten food thrown to the dogs. Soon, however, my taste changed, and I no longer found human food satisfying. It was at this point I became aware of the others, and of my own new nature. A psychic link between myself and my master, at first faint and dubious, had grown to reliable and consistent proportions. I recognized myself for who I now was, the first human-Noctor in existence, and with this realization came the epiphany that I had a purpose, a unique function in the universe: I consumed vampires.
Not surprisingly, I initially resisted my calling, for I was bitter at being ripped from my position in the human race and forced into some other mode of existence. I continued to live on the streets, and discern my newfound abilities: I was, for all intents and purposes, immortal; I possessed superhuman strength, speed and agility and could -- with some limitation – assume the shape of other life forms. Furthermore, with uncanny relative accuracy, I could sense imminent events, and I also enjoyed a keen insight into people, having the power of suggestion at my fingertips. With comparative ease I could induce a trance in the most resistant individuals.
Despite these superior skills I shied away from using them for any social good. I was a freak in an otherwise normal world, and I felt it was not my place to use these talents to alter the course of history. So, I watched on as my parents, and then my child died; I observed historical upheaval and noted the shift in power and the rise and fall of governments and nations as they occurred at certain epochs in time. I also monitored the vampire population, which was initially scant and underground, and as such allowed me to feed without upsetting the precarious balance of the food chain. For a very long time, my isolation from society had little effect on the outcome and turn of events, that was until something happened, something which forever altered the course of human history
The vampire population suddenly grew, almost tripling overnight.
I knew almost instantaneously what had happened.
My master’s mind disclosed the story to me. The fringe-element Noctors had been inbreeding with the Scurge, an inferior albeit pulchritudinous race of scavenger beings that served as universal clean-up for dying, old and ill life-forms. These were opportunistic hunters who drank the blood and consumed the remains of the weakest links, but inbred with Noctors, their useful opportunistic instinct turned deadly, transposing into a predatory lust for lifeblood. The Noctors, a race that eons ago had been subject to this sanguine passion, had overcome their rage through spiritual and logical practices. But, bred with a Scurge, this recessive gene had been activated, the latent ardor aroused and turned into a murderous disposition for higher forms of life – life that had reached the peak of its existence.
The Noctor government, recognizing the epidemic, had established laws prohibiting liaisons with the Scurge and had outlawed murder for food, but the new vampire generation, rebellious and wicked at its very heart, refused to submit to the Noctor authority. Commandeering several space ships, the refugees fled to earth, where they hoped to rule and practice their bloody impulses unimpeded by the Noctors. And now they were here, infesting the general population and infiltrating the ranks of government. The Noctors, though they sought to shoot down renegade ships, refused to interfere in the development of other species on other worlds.
And so I was left alone, the sole individual that stood between vampire world domination and the complete obliteration of the human race. As such, I had no other choice but to re-enter society as I was, a freak of nature, bent on protecting humanity from this new universal threat. I assumed the shape and pseudonym “Black Panther”, a primarily nocturnal beast with a penchant for securing it’s prey. Using this form to detect and track vampires, I systematically hunted down and killed as many bloodsuckers as possible. Soon, however, the Black Panther took on a personality of its own, becoming an icon for human hope and freedom. Whether in masked human form or as an animal, I was the symbol for humanity’s ability to champion the most dangerous of foes. Although I did not welcome this status nor this responsibility, I recognized humanity’s great need to believe in a protector and so with a heavy heart and great burden I accepted it and bore it until, at last, another hope came along, this time in the form of a man: Gabriele Childes.
When I first spotted him entering the only nightclub in the city, I had no idea he would become the boast of humanity. He was only a boy, tall and lean, with a face more like an angel than a man. Although I had sworn to myself, when I first metamorphosed, I would not become personally involved with any human lest I be forced to suffer their death, I could not help but be attracted to Gabe. There was something pure and innocent about him, about the way he leaned his head back when he laughed or tossed it to one side and winked when he was flirting. His body moved through space with an almost fearless determination, although he had as much reason as anyone to be afraid, to hesitate before stepping across the street or in front of a dark alley. But Gabe, Gabe was intrepid in the face of the most dangerous circumstances, even as the coerced sesclave (sex slave) of the great human traitor Arnold Benedict. Perhaps that is why the flailing human resistance targeted him as their next leader.
I had been aware for some time now of a small band of human rebels that called themselves The Alliance. Formed under a charismatic leader that had long since passed away, The Alliance floundered to survive, only managing to occasionally assassinate a small-time vampire official or bomb a local bloodsucker café. I remained apart from them – again, afraid to grow to close to any human – but when circumstances warranted it, I assisted them in their terrorist attacks.
One night as I was observing Gabe a truck pulled up, two humans jumped out and pulled the youngster inside, quickly tying his hands and feet and bandaging his eyes. These were mortals, and so I was reticent to interfere until death seemed eminent, and truth be told, I was more than a little curious regarding their actions. So, I remained aloof, and followed at a safe distance behind the truck as it soon left the city.
Once outside the metropolis limits, the truck came to a stop and the humans exited the vehicle, pulling Gabe with them. The head of the rebel force confronted Gabe about his liaisons, and offered him this ultimatum: work for the human resistance or remain a sesclave forever. The choices, like so many in life, were hardly valid, but Gabe did not seem cognizant of their drawbacks; I saw something well up within him then, something I had not noticed before – an almost fierce resolution – an unrelenting ferocious warrior spirit that caught me off guard. I knew then he would be the one to lead the Rebel Force to overthrow the vampire government, and I resolved to be his guardian until that day.
Gabe returned to the city still a sesclave, but this time one with a mission: infiltrate the vampire government using his relationship with Benedict as a ploy. Standing amongst his peers – for the primary and really, the only means by which the young survived was sex slavery - he hardly resembled the next leader of the human resistance. Little did anyone know it was the start of a massive shift in political power, with Gabriele leading the mortals in a vicious war against their vampire captors.

[Countess]

CHAPTER II IN THE BEGINNING

The ruins at Welbeck Abbey were in deplorable condition, the Praemonstratensian edifice having been abandoned shortly after the European Civil War of 2050 when the host country broke from the Continental Union to join forces with what was once referred to as “America’ but what had since become simply Liberland. The catacombs or underground apartments of the former religious structure, however, were an entirely different matter. Protected from the wrath of time by natural encapsulation, the whimsical caprice of one Lord William Cavendish Scott Bentinck had produced a fantastic labyrinth of tunnels that intersected at various points of the upper estate, which consisted of the remains of a stable, several farm buildings, numerous overgrown gardens and decaying conservatories.
Touring the extraordinary subterranean quarters, I noted with pleasure the vast density of the asphalt walls, which prevented humidity from penetrating the expansive rooms, and the perfect condition of the gas lamps that lit up the library, billiard room, ballroom and observatory by night. Indeed, the hydraulic lift, built so many centuries before, surprisingly remained in working order, as did the ancient ventilation system. The entire underground residence was suitable to my taste, especially since the glass ceilings for natural light had long since been replaced by baroque trimmings and other elaborately designed ceilings, so that one could not tell they had ever been there at all.
Upon purchasing the estate, then, I immediately set about the task of renovating the entire upper area, rebuilding the Abbey as it once stood in the year 1910, save for the interior, which I remodeled to my particular specifications. I reserved the far West levels for my private lodging, then erected an exceedingly dense, soundproof concrete wall between this personal area and the rest of the Abbey, which I fashioned after a schoolhouse with all the modern day conveniences. In addition to this landscape reconstruction I finished the tunneling system, excavating as far as Worksop station and developing several shorter burrows that tunneled up to end in the dense forest.
All of this restoration was achieved swiftly so that I was able to open a charitable school for handicapped children within the year. Of course, shortly thereafter rumors began to circulate regarding the mysterious owner of the newly reconstructed Abbey. My most trusted servant informed me several of the instructors thought me mad but compassionately disposed. Still others claimed Anna Maria Druce had not lied in claiming her father-in-law, Thomas Druce, had faked his death in order to assume the alter ego of Duke William John Cavendish Scott Bentinck, the reclusive and eccentric owner of Welbeck Abbey in the 1800s. Those who favored this account alleged I was a descendant from the legendary eccentric Duke by virtue of this relationship, and that this fact had been recently discovered in the review of some ancient papers, thereby establishing me as rightful heir to his estate at Welbeck. They pointed towards our fondness for underground life, our nightly excursions, our intolerance of daylight and our social introversion as evidence of our shared ancestry. Indeed, the Duke and I shared many habits, but that was hardly surprising: he was. after all, the last Noctor on earth previous to my existence, and his immortality had forced him to reinvent himself. Unfortunately, over time the alienation of eternity had weighed heavily on his breast until one night, in despair, he had killed himself.
Although I was a relatively new Noctor at the time, having been brought across in the year 1915 and thus having suffered only a measly 145 years on the planet, I had managed to accumulate a significant portion of chattels, which had permitted me the luxury of purchasing the estate in its entirety. The assumption, then, that I had inherited it from my long lost “mad Duke”, was false, but I did not venture to correct these misconceptions, as I found them both amusing and self-serving, for I had no visitors and the instructors and other servants steered clear of me.
The only pleasure I desired and that was, in fact, left for me was the presence of the children. I would surreptitiously observe them from afar, delighting in their playful simplicity, in their purity of heart and motives. They did not carry the pitchy soul of the mature adult who had experienced both pain and pleasure to the point of spiritual aberration; they did not love for nefarious motives, or out of salacity or lasciviousness. For these reasons I avoided them on a personal level, but would spend many hours gazing through the schoolhouse windows as they struggled to understand the difficult concepts, or watched them as they laughed while eating their lunch.
One night as I prepared for my nocturnal excursion someone rapped heavily upon my door. Though I was perturbed by my late visitor, for whoever it was had chosen the hour of my departure as their hour of arrival, nevertheless I retracted the heavy iron gate with an irritated “How may I help you?”
Standing before me was one of the senior instructors from the school; I noted he wore a nervous expression on his face and seemed to shake in his shoes from fear rather than cold.
“May I speak with you Countess Moldovia?” he asked rather anxiously. All the teachers at the school had taken to calling me “Countess” since my supposed lineage to the Duke had been exposed.
“Come in.”
The professor crossed the threshold and then crossed himself as he stood gazing at the infernal furnace that lit up the room, licking the walls with its red flames. It was the only source of light as I preferred a strong fire to the artificial brightness of lamps.
“Countess, there are rumors concerning your identity,” he started, ambling over to a chair that lay closest to the door. “A number of the instructors are fearful and some are considering leaving the school.”
“Really?” I answered in mock disbelief, assuming a gaze of feigned surprise. “And who do they suppose I am, that they would resign their positions?”
“A relation to the mad 5th Duke of Portland, William Scott Cavendish Bentinck.”
I grinned at him impishly. “And why do they believe I’m his descendant?”
“The abbey is built to the year 1910 specifications. Yes, you’ve provided the school with all the modern conveniences, but you yourself live with gas-lamps and a fireplace…” he suddenly trailed off. “You’ve expanded the underground tunnels into parts of the forest that are uninhabited. We rarely see you during the day, and there are, well, there are…”
“…there are what, Professor?”
“…there are large carcasses, an exorbitant amount, stacked in the densest thicket just North of Southlodge.” As he enunciated the word Southlodge his voice fell to a mere whisper. “And according to your servants, there is a cat, a rather large, black cat that paces the perimeter and stalks its prey during the late hours.”
“Ah, a cat, I see,” I mused thoughtfully, stroking my chin as if I were given occasion to consider some new piece of data, “and a large black one at that. I suppose she has razor sharp teeth and a wide smile?”
“Countess Moldovia I am quite serious.”
“And so am I,” I retorted, scrutinizing his figure with a watchful eye. “This cat you fear is a black panther, and one I had imported recently from Africa. She is quite tame, but she needs to eat and so hunts in the forest. Evidentially she’s established a burial ground for her prey – this stack of carcasses that befuddle and confound you are victims of her hunger, nothing more.
And let me put your mind at rest once and for all: I’m no relation to the Duke. We may share idiosyncrasies, but that is merely by chance. Besides, it’s only logical that one with an appreciation for subterranean life would seek out such quarters, wouldn’t you say professor?”
The teacher suddenly stood up. “Then why host a school, countess, if you are so reconciled to seclusion? Surely the banter and persiflage of the children irritate you?”
“On the contrary, I love children. They have an innocence and purity of spirit noticeably lacking in the older generation, wouldn’t you say, professor?”
“Yes, some do; still others…”
“I’m not interested in the others,” I interrupted, hoping to bring our colloquy to an end, and thus send my visitor away. “I love our children, the mentally handicapped. They are a refreshing dose of virtue in a fallen world. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a standing engagement I must keep,” I said, picking up my cloak and wrapping it around my frame.
The professor politely navigated towards the door, which I freely opened for him. “Of course. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I just felt you should know,” he said as he departed.
“Thank-you, “ I cried after him, but as soon as he had disappeared around the bend in the road, I went out.

[Countess]

CHAPTER III – THE HUNT

The Coniferous forest enclosed the “dense thicket” that served as the charnel grounds referenced by the elderly professor. I had anticipated the privacy Welbeck Park’s most northern point would afford with its impenetrable mass of brushwood, but clearly now it had been found out – undoubtedly during the day by some insatiably curious staff, who were privy to my nightly activities and had chosen to avoid me by sunlight. Exposed as I was by this discovery, I hesitated to return to the virtual graveyard, and considered other possibilities of hunting locations that would be impenetrable to the human eye – or to the mind’s natural curiosity, which often compelled its owner to pursue the very thing reason argued so strongly against. Of the two, the latter proved most threatening, for the human eye would surrender its pursuit long before nature would yield in frustration; in fact, it seemed the more nature was thwarted the greater it resolved to seek its end.
After a spell, it became clear that any new approach would require a certain amount of risk, for to confound the intellect I would have to venture off my own land and hunt my victims in an entirely new habitat, and in a way that would not draw inferences between the animal cemetery at Southlodge and the most recent slayings. With little else in mind and no clear strategy regarding future conquests I transformed myself into my alter-ego, the savage predator I simply referred to as “The Black Panther”, and raced at a leisurely pace towards the closest town, Worksop, a railway station started in the late 1800s that had grown to reach a population of 339,965 by the current year 2060. With its vast array of life forms and opportunistic offerings it was easy enough to find something suitable to my palate – in this case, a young gentleman of approximately 28 years of age, with dark, chocolaty, puppy-dog eyes, shoulder-length, thick, wavy brown hair (which was pulled away from his face)and a diaphanous goatee complemented by an equally slight mustache. The dark fibers of the aforementioned lent it a thicker appearance while the hairs themselves were silky rather than coarse, a peculiarity that served to soften the high cheekbones and complement the thin, red lips that pressed together from the cold.
Dressed in a long, black, wool coat and scarf, the lad (for indeed, by this time even the eldest of humans was youthful to me by comparison) was scurrying towards the local pub, a watering hole for the city’s artistic community. From my position behind the trash bin I could hear his quick, short breaths, echoed only by his increased heart beat as he raced towards the comfort of the heated quarters. As he reached the door the redolence of his soft, peach skin penetrated my nostrils and intensified my longing, for apart from the soap his body emitted a naturally subtle, sweet fragrance with only a touch of musk from beneath his underarms. Together with his exotic beauty and the lovely auditory patterns of his breath and heart I feared that I might take him there on the street or else swoon with delight, but I dared not….I dared not disclose my presence, for at the moment he was surrounded by a group of males and chances were great that such an irrational act would prove fatal to me.
And so I waited. I waited with all the patience of a murderess awaiting her victim, with all the concentration of a predator awaiting her prey, for I knew back then (and oh, how I have come to regret it, as I have come to regret many vile deeds and wicked acts from my younger years!) that he would eventually depart and in those early hours, under the slight or blatant influence of intoxicants, he would become mine whether he willed it – or not.
Though an eternity seemed to pass in those long-suffering hours he eventually emerged from the pub around 2AM, and for the most part, alone. Waiving off his well-wishing mates, he rushed towards his vehicle with the same sort of determination he had first demonstrated when he fled indoors from the cold.
At first I stalked him – panther-like – crouching behind every garbage can and old car to avoid being discovered, but soon all fear dissipated as I realized his ears did not detect my quickening pace or my strategic approach from behind. In fact, only when the attack was imminent did he discern the danger, and by then it was too late, for I seized him with such force he was thrust backwards against the car, and I drained him till he was almost faint.
Shall I describe to you the sublimity of that moment, when the intoxicating vapor of his bare neck overwhelmed my senses, and his beauty flowed freely into me like nectar from a fruit? Even his moist breath upon my cheek and the contractions of his heart resounded in my brain like a gorgeous symphony, as if Mozart himself were conducting a new piece in the inner sanctum of my breast. For an instant we became one and I knew him as I know only myself, but then his body went limp and I recoiled in horror at my debauchery and fiendish crime. In my delirious ecstasy I had almost committed the atrocity of murder, but much to my relief he was not yet dead. No, his body still clung to life, and with renewed hope I placed him gently in the back seat of his car and drove him home. By now his existence was as transparent to me as glass, laid bare by the dastardly deed I had committed in a moment of weakness, and I understood where he lived and that he resided alone. For that reason I was not afraid when I pulled into his driveway, nor was I nervous when I picked up his flaccid frame from the back seat and carried him gently inside, laying him delicately upon his bed.
Beyond this point I had no knowledge of what to expect, and so I anxiously paced the room, eager for him to regain consciousness, but simultaneously terrified at the prospect of what that might mean to him, and to me.
Shortly thereafter there came groans from underneath the covers and he emerged, half pale with death, half ruddy with life, to gaze at me with what appeared to be a drunken elation, all the while squirming about until his black slacks lay in a heap upon the floor. He was, by this time, fully naked, and I could not help but appreciate his toned athletic form, from his wide, dense shoulders to his full, muscular breasts and narrow, trim waist, which was completely bare save for a small line of downy hair that ran from his navel to his groin and a tattoo that looked to be shaped like a full moon. I was astonished not only by his natural loveliness but also by his actions, for contrary to expectations he seemed to be attempting to draw my attention in a most seductive and charming manner, and I – the very creature who had brought him to this low state and was now deeply repentant of it – felt irresistibly pulled towards him yet a second time.
At that moment I did not comprehend the full import of my prior deed, that my bite had set off a chain of inevitable events that would necessarily run their course until the process culminated in the act of human copulation, and so I assailed him again, this time pinning him down to feed my lust.
He swooned under my advances, and appeared to completely surrender himself to my will, writhing rapturously as my mouth traveled from his long, delicate neck down to his supple nipples and then to the nether regions, from which point I gained the advantage and pursued him until he was completely spent.
It occurred to me afterwards – as he lay motionless upon the bed – that I had unintentionally killed him, and with a waking horror I reached for his wrist and was relieved to discover the familiar throbbing of a pulse. He had not expired as I had initially thought, and I was amazed by his apparent determination to live. As I have previously indicated, I did not understand at the time that he would, by necessity, live; that his initial faint had been the consequent of the release of a powerful cocktail of endorphins and dopamine in response to the bite’s toxin, and that even as he rested beside me changes were taking place inside his body – DNA was transmuting into some foreign recombination, a Noctor configuration.
Once again I rose and paced the floor, in a quandary regarding his dire circumstances and my vicious crime, until the coming of the dawn, when another murmur issued from the bed, and I knew that he had fully regained consciousness.
Through heavy eyelids he stared at me at length, scrutinizing my form with a mixture of what appeared to be trepidation and desire, before he spoke: “Are you going to kill me?”
His inquiry, a natural response to such precarious circumstances, nevertheless caught me off guard. “Of course not!” I countered vehemently, “What a preposterous notion, not to mention an unethical one! Killing humans goes against the principles of my ancestors, and defies the Noctor moral code of conduct.” I spat out before realizing the import of my words.
“So you’re not a vampire?”
“Absolutely not. The suggestion itself is an insult,” I boasted priggishly, unsure of what to say, for I was perplexed by this singularly unique situation and had no precedence or personal experience upon which to draw inspiration. Thankfully, my young hostage seemed more than willing to guide the discussion, and assuaged me with a series of questions intended to elicit the information he needed to understand himself and his predicament.
.

[Countess]

“Well if you’re not a vampire, then what are you?”
“I don’t really know,” I mused, for the question had brought to light the mystery of my own existence. “I am a thing...a creature, not human in the least but an alien sympathetic to the human condition. I don’t fully comprehend what I must know according to reason; for just now I did not realize the disdain my kind has for killing people until I had spoken it. So, in response to your question, I have to say while I know what I am – a Noctor – I do not know who I am, that is, what characteristics and behavior define my race.”
The young man turned to look out the window, drinking in the view of the sun as it rose above the horizon. “Is this my last sunrise then, or do you know?”
“No, it is not to your first question, and in regards to your second, yes, I do know we aren’t destroyed by a ray or two of sunlight. However, I think you will discover that day, in general, has an adverse affect on you if you aren’t resting. We’re nocturnal creatures by nature, but we aren’t limited in any capacity to nighttime only.”
The lad rubbed his temples, as if he were massaging out a headache. “So I am going to become as you are now?”
“I am afraid so,” I answered. “I apologize profusely for my actions, although I don’t suppose I can beg your forgiveness to the extent and degree necessary to make amends for an eternity. Truthfully, I have made a grievous mistake that cannot be rectified, and I am at a loss as to how I can compensate for it, other than to tell you what I am aware of and mitigate your transformation, so it is not as painful as mine.”
“Your blood...”
“Yes, I have already surrendered it to you. You will know me as much as I know you, and in that way the entire transaction shall be complete.”
Sitting up in bed, the young man pulled the covers over the lower half of his body. “You were eating animals,” he began, “but they discovered the grave yard and you were afraid, so you traveled to Worksop, and now I am dead, at least to my humanity. But why me? Why wait in the cold for so long just for me?”
I smiled knowingly at him and then took a seat on the side of the bed. “Have you looked in the mirror?” I asked, searching his eyes for recognition and understanding.
“I’m penalized because you think me attractive,” he retorted rather sarcastically, crossing his arms before him like a petulant child.
“You charmed me...,”
“I wish I weren’t so charming...”
“It is your curse to be beautiful, but there is nothing left to do but accept your condition and begin the process of learning about yourself,” I reasoned with him.
He frowned in response. “I would hate you if I could, but I can’t,” he muttered angrily. “If it were in my power, I would detest you with every fiber of my being, but something prevents me from it.”
The anger and rage in his voice informed me that it would be in our mutual best interest if I departed, so accordingly I rose and strolled towards the exit, stopping just long enough to say these words: “I made you, and for that reason you will never be able to hate me, nor will I be able to hate you. It is, in a word, destiny.”
And then I swiftly strode out the door

[Countess]

Having departed the splendorous abode of my victim – for he was the son of a prominent family of considerable affluence – I retreated to my estate, whereupon I arrived just in time to flee indoors before the first of the professors appeared to open the school. It was no small miracle either, for I was covered in the blood of my prey and would have been immediately discovered if I had happened upon anyone on the road home. But, as design would have it, I was able to throw my gory, black sweater and slacks into the furnace and watch as every remnant of criminal evidence incinerated in the conflagration, forever securing my safety and wellbeing.
Thus situated I fell into a deep sleep upon a mattress, dreaming only of the man I had ravished the previous evening, recounting the events that led up to the attack and then the ebullience of the moment my teeth sank into his throat, rendering him instantly pixilated and forever my bijou, my bonhomie.
When I awoke I rose and, exiting my quarters, began a tour of the schoolhouse, stopping long enough at each room to acknowledge the professor and smile delightfully at the children who, despite my gloomy appearance, demonstrated a natural love and affection for me. In fact, my only solace laid in the small, round faces of those innocent, virtuous creatures, for in their nescience, they lacked the capacity for “acute consciousness” as Dostoevsky would say, and for that reason they were able to freely enjoy the wonders of the universe, of each other and of themselves. Their only corruption – if indeed you could call it that – was a selfish disposition and the occasional maelstrom that was bound to accompany it. However, for such children love was limitless and thus grievances were instantly forgiven and forgotten, leaving no mental token to serve as a reminder of the conflict.
While observing the youth at recess I noticed a young, quite pale lad sitting alone beneath an apple tree, poking holes in the overripe fruit with heavily manicured fingernails. When I say he was pale, I do not mean he looked sickly or diseased but rather his complexion was a lovely alabaster shade, like a sculpture but softer and more delicate. In fact, I secretly envied him for his skin, which had obviously never once been touched by the sun, and wondered how it was a lad so old – he was, perhaps ten at most – had managed to make it through life without a single mark or blemish.
Approaching him I sat down at his side, once again admiring the complexion that from afar had drawn my interest. “I haven’t seen you here before. What is your name?”
“Marcus,” he answered in a most polite tone, ceasing his activity to look up at me with his deep, soulful eyes.
“When did you arrive at the school?” I inquired further.
“Just yesterday.”
‘Well you seem like an ordinary boy,” I ventured cautiously, “that does not belong in a mentally challenged school, so why are you here?
Looking down, he gently placed the poxed apple on the ground. “I can’t read,” he muttered.
“You can’t…you can’t read?” I asked, incredulous that such an ordinary child would lack such a skill.
“No, I don’t understand the words,” he mumbled. “and the letters are sideways.”
“Why, you have dyslexia then,” I announced triumphantly. “That’s easy enough to resolve, but not here at this school. You’re far too advanced for our courses.”
“They don’t know where else to put me. I haven’t any parents and the orphanages are running out of room.”
“You’re a ward of the state then.”
“Yes.”
Gazing off into the distance, my vision suddenly blurred as in rapid succession one image after another popped into my mind concerning this child’s life, including his birth, the death of his parents, and his subsequent peripatetic lifestyle. Each thought rendered me increasingly empathetic, until at last I was forced to look away lest I start to bawl in front of the child. Still, I wiped several tears from my face before turning to look at him again.
“You and I are not so different you know,” I started. “We’re people alone in a hostile world that has no place for us, at least until now,” I said, wrapping my arm around his back and hugging him close. “Your place is by my side; I’m sure of that. You need not fear the present or the future any longer because from this point on you are my son. All that’s left is for me to fill out the paperwork.”
Suddenly and much to my surprise the boy who had heretofore been reserved threw his arms around my neck and hugged me close, and I felt all the love, adoration and gratitude one human has ever felt for another.
It did not take long for me to adopt the child that nobody wanted and for whom no one cared but me. I had my servants arrange the upper apartment to provide for the lifestyle of the modern-age boy, and so the drawing room was converted into a game room, with video consoles, a stereo system, TV and accompanying DVD, and the library was transformed into a bed room, with an orthopedic king-size bed and cherry wood furniture, complimented by blue and white cotton décor. However, when I finally brought him home and joyfully revealed to him his new lodgings, he was far from pleased with it. In fact, he almost seemed to resent the suggestion that he should live apart from me, and the tears he shed over the situation were a great source of torment. But secretly, I could not have him residing in my subterranean refuge, for I spent many a night as a panther sleeping in a tree, or as a Noctor hanging upside down – bat-style, yes, like those despicable vampires! – from my black-coated, iron chandelier, and so I made my series of appeals to his reason. First, I presented to him the obvious advantages of modern technology - all of which I despised and refused to have in my own chambers. Secondly, I argued for his comfort, stating factually that sunlight is more conducive to health than the humid, damp and thus fungal, moldy conditions of underground life. When even this rationale failed to work, I informed him that my quarters were not furnished and I had no intentions of equipping them anytime in the near future, that I slept on a mattress on the floor or on a pile of hay in the corner, and I lived only by candlelight and fire. Throughout my fustian presentation, Marcus remained unmoved in his resolve until at last I was compelled by his stubbornness to compromise my position, and conceded to his desire to cohabitate under the condition that he never approach nor enter my room. He gladly agreed to my terms, and thus began our new relationship.
Initially Marcus adhered to my code, and we bonded amicably through walks in the park and the occasional visit to the theater in town. I hired an instructor who specialized in the treatment of dyslexia and other learning disorders and charged him with the sole task of Marcus’ education, and it was through him I first learned of the boy’s high IQ. Over time it manifested itself in the form of inquiries into nature and theories as well as in an appreciation for fine literature, which we discussed at length over dinner. He seemed to share my love of the classics: the logic and metaphysics of the Greek scholars, the eloquence of Shakespeare, the romanticism evinced in Coleridge and Byron, and the great wit of Oscar Wilde.
At first I believed his predilections to be mere reflections of my own personality and expected him to diverge eventually, forming his own opinion in the matters of politics, philosophy and art, yet he did not depart once from them. In due course I came to understand the reason for their permanence: his preferences stemmed from the same source as my own, the zeitgeist of a by-gone era, a legacy of a happy past.
Although our shared history provided a strong foundation for our relationship, I noticed an increasing precocity that eventually caused me some concern. It began with an appearance at the entrance of my room, something I had strictly forbidden, and continued until one night I returned home to discover him asleep in the corner on the pile of hay. Naturally I was horrified by the disclosure and fearful for my secret alter-ego, but he seemed not to notice the strangeness of the hour or my condition upon my return – only that I had departed the premises and left him alone, a situation that obviously traumatized him. After reassuring him of my love and devotion I chastised him for his disobedience, and the following day went out and purchased a pet for him, a Black Labrador he named “Rolf”.
For awhile he seemed satiated by his pet, who snuggled with him in the late hours when I was unavailable for comfort, but then an incident occurred that shook the very core of my being. By now five years had passed, and my 10 year old had transformed into a 15 year old lad, and a very intelligent one at that.
One night whist engaged in tracking a deer, I heard a rustle in a nearby bush, and observed the disjointed outline of a whitish animal pass deeper into the forest. The scent of the creature reached my nostrils, and in dismay I instantly recognized the familiar nescience of my own son. Slowly and cautiously I retreated behind the nearest tree to avoid detection, but not before he heard me and spun around to identify the noise.
For several minutes we stood, face to face, staring at one another with a recognition only possible between two intimate acquaintances, and then I knew that he not only comprehended everything but did so with a copious sympathy. His features, still fresh with youth, suddenly appeared to age before my very eyes, until they resembled those attributed to pain and suffering in the old.
He turned then and withdrew back into the passageway from whence he had come, the tunnel that, like all the rest, I had attempted to conceal from him with false walls. And though from that day forward we understood one another completely, we never spoke of that evening,

[Countess]

or of the presence of the hidden tunnels or of my secret burden.

[Countess]

CHAPTER V – The SLAUGHTERHOUSE
My beloved Marcus not only kept my secret, but he also provided plausible explanations to justify the presence and increase of the animal corpses on the most Northern point of Welbeck. One day at supper he joined in the professors’ discussion (I was present), and found occasion to tell a tale most mysterious and compelling, concerning a large black cat he had spotted on his excursions and how it had stared at him and Rolf with its large, yellow eyes before retreating into the forest. He mentioned that he had tracked the animal, and stumbled upon it while it was consuming a deer, and added that while it recognized his presence, it did not once turn from its activity, nor did it threaten him in any manner. By the end of his narrative the professors were all mesmerized, for my son, with his keen intellect and love of literature, was able to able to transform the most mundane events into spellbinding fiction, and they craved to know more of the creature and its behavior. But Marcus, understanding the value of suspense, refrained from further revelation, although from that day forward he became a regular at the professors’ table.
Meanwhile I continued my predatory ways at night until I became the most feared creature in the forest; even the reptiles fled my appearance. Still, I sympathized with the animals’ suffering and so I killed my prey swiftly and painlessly, eventually becoming a master executioner. As such I was never required to assume my Noctor form and avoided it not only for mere inconvenience but also to remain anonymous. My natural shape was now quite unnatural, and I resembled what appeared to the human eye like a cross between a dove and a lion, something ethereal but clandestine.
One morning I returned late from the hunt, and found Marcus already in the upper study, discussing the irredeemable character of Shakespeare’s Iago with his professor. Satisfied that my son had commenced his academics, I returned to my underground haven and at once fell asleep upon the mattress.
At this point I should take a moment from our story to elucidate the advantages Noctors have over homo-sapiens regarding sleep. While the average amount of sleep an individual requires to be “well-rested” is approximately eight hours, Noctors need only half that time, and function optimally at five hours. In addition to a decreased sleep requirement, Noctors have extrasensory perception even while subconscious, and are able to detect the presence of others in the room or of imminent danger. While these qualities are trivial and might otherwise go undescribed, it is necessary to mention them here in order to enlighten the reader to the circumstances which were responsible for rousing me from my slumber, for it seemed that I had no sooner fallen asleep that I was awakened by a sense of impending peril. I detected traces of smoke, something that I considered odd since I had for some time been accustomed to the slight scent of the unceasing infernal combustion in my fireplace. Rising, I reached for the door but instantly withdrew my hand in pain: it was practically singed to the bone. Although I recovered at once, I hardly cared, for a scorching metal handle indicated a raging fire on the opposite side, and so I raced out the back door and ran towards the school, which was – alas! –by this time a raging inferno. I watched as the last of the interior walls collapse into flames, and with it any hope of sustained life, for the schoolyard was completely empty save for a single match – indiscernible to the human eye – but easily identified by a Noctor. The fire had been the result of an arsonist, and I almost simultaneously apprehended the culprit. Without delay I sped towards town, my wrath burning inside of me like Hellfire itself.
I arrived at Dorian’s house – I should say Alexander Dorian Hamilton the 3rd’s – within minutes. Dorian was seated outside on the steps, audaciously lighting the matches that remained in the pack of the one he used for the fire. He did not look up when I approached, nor did he stir from his spot, and it was evident from his demeanor that he thought I posed no threat to him.
“You murderer!” I screamed at him uncontrollably. “Villain! What kind of fiend kills children? Are you the devil himself?
He lit the last match and watched as it burned itself out. “I don’t know; you made me. What say you?”
“I made you a Noctor; not a beast. What happened to your conscience? What about your ethical obligations to preserve life?”
“I never had much of a conscience,” he replied calmly, studying his nails, which were tattered and torn from chewing, “and once you made me a Noctor I hardly cared for life.”
“Oh you lie, you lie like the devil; you love your own life, you loved it enough to be jealous of it, and vengeful when it was stolen from you. I am responsible and could hardly blame you if you attempted to kill me – but slaughtering the children as retaliation! It’s unconscionable!”
Dorian studied me at length. “Unconscionable is a relative term but one that I can easily apply to you in the same circumstances. I exacted justice, which is to say I had a valid motive, but what had I done to you for you to damn me to eternity here on earth?”
I fell on both knees, humbled by my dastardly deed, and grabbed his hands in mine, bringing them to my lips to kiss to back of each one. “I can sever my act from yours and I beseech your forgiveness, but do not confuse your behavior as justice for this atrocity. The only interest served in the fire was yours and you merely projected your fury onto God’s most innocent creatures. In this manner your crime was not against me but against God himself, and your punishment will not come from me but Him, however he chooses to serve it.”
I stood then and resumed my previous deportment. “I cannot slay you, for you are as much my child as Marcus, but I feel as if I lost two sons today: one to physical death and decay; the other to eternal damnation. Remember this day,” I added, as an insidious thought was born and began to weave itself through my mind. “Remember it, because I will call upon you again.”
“It will be easy enough to remember as the day I murdered your favorite child,” he replied resentfully.
“I loved you the same.”
“You never visited,” he protested haughtily. “Isn’t that what mothers do?”
“Only when they’re wanted,” I retorted. “You never once wished me here; if you had, I would have come. But as it was, you harbored anger against me, and I knew my presence would only provoke you. And now – and now it has been made manifest for the entire world to see – but don’t worry; it will remain a secret between us. I won’t betray you, but I shall see you again, sometime in the future. Till then, live well.”
And I departed as quickly as I had arrived, and began to lay my plans to teach Dorian a valuable and much needed lesson.

[Countess]

CHAPTER VI – THE INVESTIGATION
Not surprisingly, the police demonstrated a keen interest in the nature of the fire, the consequential destruction and the impact it had on both my personal and public affairs. I was honored by multiple visits from a particular detective who seemed compelled to keep me constant company, although I assured him my grief was within natural limits and I presented no threat to myself or others. He was an older gentleman with large blue eyes that sagged slightly at the outer corners, and which were surrounded by concentric circles that I attributed to both age and a lack of sleep. His mouth likewise drooped on both sides, giving one the distinct but false impression of a continual melancholy. I told him he should spend more time at home with his wife who was also getting along in age and suffered from some unspecified medical condition, but he informed me he was the best estimator of where he should spend his hours and he believed they were best spent in the pursuit of criminals, especially those that managed to elude the police.
So it was the man was there when I slept as well as when I awoke, to the point that I questioned if he had ever returned home between the two epochs.
“Detective Modigliani,” I said one evening, when I opened my eyes to discover him mere inches from my face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were in love with me. Don’t you ever tire of my presence?”
“No.”
“Well, certainly I must grate your nerves occasionally, and I want to assure you the feeling is mutual, so you shouldn’t feel guilty about it. If you were to depart and leave me alone, I might miss you but I would get over it, understand?”
“Yeah, I understand but it’s not going to happen, so get used to me.”
“I’d prefer not to – but honestly Detective; there are rapists and murderers about; don’t you feel the least bit of remorse for not chasing them?”
Detective Modigliani shook his head. “If I could I would catch them all, but I would settle for one at this moment, a really smart one, hard to catch.”
It was difficult at times to avoid engaging the detective in this conversation. I longed for an outlet for my thoughts, or an answer to the mystery that now plagued me: how did I, a Noctor with a telepathic link to those of my own kind, especially those related to me, miss Dorian’s plot? How did I fail to anticipate the burning of the school? In short, how did he evade me? With no sounding board or input, I was forced to rely on my own judgment concerning the matter, and ultimately decided it was the human element that had been my stumbling block, for as time passed I felt our connection grow stronger and his cerebral walls succumb to the growing link, until at last I settled into the unknown regions of his sub-consciousness.
The detective’s consistency and unrelenting tenacity compelled me – at least for a spell – to maintain appearances, including the third reconstruction of Welbeck Abbey along with a reasonable justification for the animal necropolis on the northern point. I explained to him, as I had done previously for the professor, the existence of a black panther on the premises, and indicated I did not consider the animal a threat to humanity and thus ruled it inconsequential. Of course, Modigliani was suspicious and attributed my furtiveness to a conspiracy that somehow involved the creature, and on more than one occasion he even offered to shoot it for me. But for obvious reasons I forbade him, and since I had attacked no one while in this modus operandi, he was legally obligated to concede to my wishes despite his murderous desire.
Welbeck Abbey was rebuilt within a year from the fire, and I invited a convent to establish an orphanage in the upper abode. My altruism did not go unnoticed by Detective Modigliani, who commented that he had never met a known murderer who possessed such a philanthropic heart, and was amazed by the juxtaposition of iniquity with charity. Whether intentional or not, the discovery of this love in me affected him on behavioral level till his visits – although unwavering – occurred during normal hours, giving me the freedom to move about at night as I pleased.
One particular evening at sunset I ventured into my upper apartment study and sat in my favorite reclining armchair. Before me where hundreds upon hundreds of books, many over a century old, containing the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers, the existentialists and post-modernists; the theological considerations of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin; the cautions inside of Christopher Marlowe’s “Dr. Faustus” or Poe’s stories of madmen, and the ruminations of renowned psychologists as Freud, Jung and Maslowe. I had consumed them all over the course of my long life, and it was through them I had first grasped the nature of the human personality on sundry levels, and it was through them that I now understood the dark inclinations of my sordid son and of his predilections towards a sadistic psychopathology.
Closing my eyes, I focused internally, first upon myself and then upon that fateful night, traveling back into the recesses of my mind to locate those faded memories that, despite time, nevertheless remained within me. Suddenly and much to my surprise I found myself alone, standing in the middle of the parking lot of my old town home, and immediately recognized the scene as that which preceded the cataclysmic event by perhaps an hour. For some inexplicable reason – perhaps due to my new nature – I was not afraid, although certainly I had been terrorized by the initial attack, so much so that I had been unable to run away or to fight.
My recollection was marked by a peculiar acuteness of the senses. The damp, heavy air of springtime felt particularly wet upon my flesh and was difficult for me to breathe, the gentle breeze cooled my skin and produced a tingling sensation throughout my body, the stark, naked night sky appeared especially deep and expansive while the twinkling stars seemed to glare down from the heavens.
Just then I noticed one of the celestial bodies was moving at an accelerated rate across the bleak canvas. Like a shooting star it soared down towards some unknown destination, but then I observed it was followed by yet another light that was quickly breaching the gap between itself and the other. It was then I understood these were no meteoroids burning up in the earth’s atmosphere, but ships of some kind chasing one another across the galaxy.
The first craft grew closer and I realized with some apprehension that it was going to touch down nearby, so I gazed around for a spot from which I might observe the phenomenon unnoticed. To my left a low brick wall enclosed the complex’s pool; to the right a small park led into the dense thickets of a wild forest. I decided the wall would best serve my purposes while shielding me from any fall-out, so I quickly jumped behind it and cowered there in the darkness, waiting.
I watched as the two beams of light continued their rapid descent. For a moment it looked as if both were going to crash into the earth but then a flash from the first ship blinded me. Upon recovering my eyesight, I noticed the second ship had almost completely disappeared; only a few traces of scrap metal remained as a sort of token of its previous existence.
The first ship, which was steadily incinerating, struck the ground with such force I felt it quake beneath my feet. Immediately the wreckage burst into flames. Unable to proceed forward to check for life or to turn away and flee the conflagration, I looked on helplessly as the inferno licked the tree tops till all that remained was foxfire.
And then I heard a swoosh! noise, and observed the disappearance of the fire and then strangely my ability to breathe, but within moments another swoosh emitted from the words and I labored to respire no more.
This bizarre and perplexing situation combined with my acute curiosity easily overrode any logical imperative I felt for self-preservation, and I proceeded forward into the dying embers to see what odd supernatural occurrence had taken place within them. A few yards into the debris I came across several shiny, black, colossal panels that I had never seen before, and a few more feet further I discovered what appeared to be a spacecraft built for one -- but as to the identity of the one I could reach no conclusion, though I studied it at length.
Soon the gloomy night and the crash site began to work on my imagination, and within moments I had constructed a potpourri of monstrous aliens and phantasmagoric demons that had piloted the massive spacecraft before me. Struck with terror by my dark fantasies, I turned and bolted towards the open parking space, but just as I reached the aperture in the forest, I abruptly came to a standstill. Something had grasped me forcefully from behind, and though I struggled I could not escape its clutches or prevent the sharp, dagger-like teeth from sinking into the sinewy trapezius muscle. The pain struck like a lightening-bolt coursing through my body, and I cried out, but to no avail. Though I strained I could not move nor were my screams audible, but seemed to come from inside my head, where they echoed and resounded off cerebral walls.

[Countess]

When the creature finally let go its hold I fell to the ground like a collapsing skeleton, but it was a futile freedom. Devoid of a sufficient blood supply, I had neither the energy nor the constitution to crawl away or fight back against my attacker. Nevertheless, hoping to catch sight of my assailant before I died, I opened my eyes -- and was promptly shocked by what I saw:
Before me stood what appeared to be a man. About 6’2 tall, he had long whitish hair, gentle grey eyes, and pasty-colored flesh, like the gypsum of an ancient Roman statue . Two large wings heavy with the softest down feathers protruded from his back, and were the means by which he now covered himself in an act of modesty.
It struck me as strange that such a creature would consider propriety while observing his dying victim, but when he gazed into my eyes my thoughts changed as I felt a rush of comfort and a pervading peace. I knew then that I was not destined to die but to live to become like him, and though this idea should have struck terror in my heart, I could feel nothing but contentment and happiness….
…and that is when I opened my eyes and realized it was but a dream. I was still in my study; Marcus was still dead; Dorian was still flourishing and Modigliani was still suspicious, as he now sat in the high back maroon leather chair gazing at me from across the room.

[Countess]

I had not expected Modigliani at that late hour, for it was his custom to visit me in broad daylight when he could interrupt my sleep and interrogate me during my subsequent moments of exhaustion. Thus, his appearance at such an unconventional time caused me some confusion, and I studied him at length before I spoke.
“Hello Detective,” I said cautiously, “to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
The detective smirked. “I have good news for you.”
“And pray tell, what is that?” I inquired.
“We have a new suspect. A farmer passing by the day of the fire saw a man dressed in black pouring something on the ground. He said the guy had long dark hair tied in a pony-tail. You know anyone like that, Countess?”
“Absolutely not. Why would I?”
“Well, the way I figure it, you two are in cahoots with each other.”
“That’s a wonderful theory,” I retorted bluntly, “but there is only one problem with it: I don’t know anyone by that description. Besides, what motive have I for burning down my own school? It’s a preposterous notion!”
The detective glared at me. “I’m thinking you two did it for the insurance money.”
“You’re being absurd now detective. I used all the insurance money to rebuild the abbey and provide for an orphanage, so that discredits your hypothesis – not to mention that I loved my son more than my own life, and would have preferred to die in the fire along with him.”
“Yeah, but if you were having an affair with this guy, then there may have been reason to get rid of the extra baggage…”
“How dare you?!” I roared, for the detective’s suggestion offended me to no end. “I loved Marcus like he was my true son, and I still love him, even now. Whoever this gentleman is- - he did what he did without my help, alone.”
Modigliani would not be dissuaded. “You two are connected with each other and with the fire and that animal cemetery out there. I have no doubt of it. I don’t know how yet, but I plan to find out.”
“Fine,” I spat back. “I wish you luck in your pointless endeavor.”
“I don’t need luck,” he answered “but by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you: where did you get the title Countess of Moldovia?”
“From my mother, Regina Churchhill,” I muttered, knowing full well I had been Regina Churchhill under a former pseudonym. “Why?”
“Just wondering. Where is that, anyway?”
“Moldovia? It’s in Romania, next to Transylvania. Why do you want to know?” I inquired suspiciously.
“I never heard of it before. Transylvania…” the detective mused “…isn’t that where Dracula lived?”
At this I had to laugh. “Yes. Would you like a detailed history of my native country?”
“No. No,” Modigliani waved the notion away with his hand. “But…is that why you wear those strange dresses?”
“Oh, this?” I announced, lifting the bottom of my red and black velvet dress. “I’m rather fond of the Romantic Era, though I favor La Belle Époque on most days. My red crepe silk skirt with the sash and the matching bolero with leg-of-mutton sleeves reflects the haute couture of Edwardian England.”
The detective looked at me and then down at his dull polyester grey pants, white button down shirt and matching grey and blue tie. “My kids tell me my clothes are out-of-style, but you take that to a whole new level.”
“Well I suppose I am a bit sentimental and nostalgic,” I reflected, “but it’s my property, and I am allowed to do with it what I want, and to dress however I want. If you don’t like it you can always leave. I won’t mind a bit.”
“Actually, I was hoping you would leave – with me. Since you don’t know the stranger who burnt down the abbey, you won’t mind accompanying me to see him, will you?”
The detective’s invitation shocked me, and I let out a small gasp. “Right now? I…I am busy at the moment. There’s so much to do around here I don’t think I’ll be able to escort you. Thanks for inviting me, however.”
“I don’t think you understand me, Countess. If you don’t go with me, I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station to conduct the interview there.”
“Fine,” I sighed in frustration. “I’ll join you. Will that satisfy your obsessive curiosity finally?”
“It’ll help a great deal.”
“Anything to aid you in quitting me permanently. Let me get my frock,” I said, going over to the coat-hanger to retrieve my coat. We then departed the Abbey.
Modigliani’s car was a behemoth thing with a curved silhouette and lots of space inside the vehicle. I did not share the communities’ fondness for this mode of transportation, and so had managed to avoid it save when I was forced to ride alongside Marcus to the hospital or go with friends to the theater. Now was no different; my fear mounted as the speed of the automobile increased, but I was not about to reveal my discomfort to the detective, and so I restrained myself.
We passed several crumbling houses with weed-ridden, brick foundations and fireplaces, and then barren fields, which were occasionally interrupted by a dense brush or woods. Eventually the meadows disappeared and were replaced by old warehouses with flat tops and an occasional country store until we entered the city. The infamous Worsop railroad soon appeared to my right, and we drove for some time, eventually crossing over the tracks into a residential area that I recognized immediately as that belonging to Dorian Hamilton. It was then my worst fears were confirmed, and I wondered to myself how I could cast doubt onto my other son while sending Modigliani searching elsewhere.
The sun had already set by the time we arrived at Dorian’s. I instantly sensed my son’s presence within the house and I knew that he too, discerned my arrival, and through me, the arrival of the detective as well. Though we could not yet speak to each other, our intuitive abilities were superlative and enabled us to reach general conclusions regarding the situation before I had even stepped within his domicile.
“Whose house is this?” I asked the detective in feigned ignorance.
“Dorian Hamilton’s. The farmer knows the family and is fairly sure he’s our man.”
“Your man perhaps,” I quipped, “but certainly not mine.”
The detective rung the doorbell and we waited patiently for Dorian to appear. When at last he arrived, he was wearing black, baggy jeans and a tight black turtle-neck shirt.
“Can I help you?” he inquired politely.
Modigliani flicked open his badge, showed it to Dorian, then shoved it back into his pants pocket. “I’m investigating the fire that occurred at Welbeck Abbey – can we come in?”
“Sure,” Dorian answered, stepping politely out of the way to allow us to enter. We followed him into the living room - a vast area that contained two black leather couches, a matching love seat, armchair and recliner - and sat down.
Modigliani coughed slightly and then turned to address Dorian. “Do you know where you were the day of the fire?”
My son smiled politely. . “I really don’t remember. It was over a year ago and I don’t keep a calendar. Do you recall where you were that day, detective, before the fire?”
“He’s an old man,” I jested “and can’t be expected to remember anything except holidays and the location of my home.”
Dorian laughed and our eyes met in mutual adoration. “I see, and who are you?”
“I’m the owner of Welbeck Abbey of course,” I announced. “Countess of Moldovia, although I answer to the title “Countess”. Detective Modigliani has faithfully visited me every day since the terrible incident. One could easily misconstrue his dedication as love.”
“Oh I see. Well, I won’t destroy his pretense by supplying ready answers to his intrusive questions. Detective, I have no recollection of the day in question regarding where I was or what I was doing. I suggest you investigate my whereabouts further so I can account for my poor memory and please, let the Countess assist you in your search.”
“No, no,” I protested lightly. “Don’t confuse the issue; the detective is my admirer; I simply tolerate him.”
“Unrequited love is such a tragedy,” Dorian sighed sadly, “that is why I prefer it. It lends a dramatic moment to an otherwise dull existence.”
“Oh I adore unrequited love. It is by far the most romantic of all the loves.”
“I’m married,” the detective countered.
“Well that settles it then,” Dorian replied. “You are undoubtedly in love with the Countess; all married men are in love with single women.”
“I’m not in love with the Countess,” the detective snapped. “But I’m more certain than ever that you two know each other and planned the whole thing.”
“Oh, neither one of us planned you falling in love with me. You did that all by yourself.”
Modigliani’s face lit up like the fire he was investigating. “You can play games all you want but I will find out who started this fire if it’s the last thing I do.”
“It may be the last thing you do,” Dorian mumbled.
The detective looked confused. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Nothing,” I retorted quickly. “I didn’t hear him say anything. Did you say anything Mr. Hamilton?”
“No. I suggest you get your hearing checked, detective. Auditory hallucinations are the beginning signs of schizophrenia.”
“We should be going anyway,” I announced rather suddenly, for the conversation had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, and I feared any further dialogue would put the investigator’s life at risk. “I have an appointment I must keep. Modigliani, would you drive me home, please.”
Under normal circumstances, such a request would have ensured the very opposite from the officer but for reasons only known to him, he conceded and within twenty minutes, we had returned to Welbeck Abbey.

[odin2]

Thats really good keep on writing!!

[Countess]

Thanks for the encouragement. I really needed/need it. Sometimes I feel like I write in a vaccum and all is vanity/meaninglessness. Knowing at least one person is moved by it really makes a difference.

[odin2]

you should check out my site,
we could always use some good writers...
The link is in my signature.
Hope to see you there...

[Countess]

CHAPTER VIII – FORMULATING A PLOT

Dorian had performed some significant and intricate remodeling of his home since I first visited him that fateful night over five years ago. The once staid white-walled bedroom had been converted into a flamboyant if not tenebrous boudoir containing medieval elements from both the Romantic and Gothic periods,. The cinnamon colored walls offset by sumptuous white crown molding and decorative base-board appealed to the refined senses while the dark cherry-wood panels and furniture, the black curtains and bed runner, the luxurious cinnamon silk comforter and black silk sheets suggested high gothic style. It was within this room that Dorian now stood, curtain parted, gazing out the window at something taking place in the courtyard below.
Looking down I noticed an intruder, heavily clad in black, creeping through the heavy underbrush towards a dilapidated shed located in the very densest copse The illumination from two dozen candles cast murky shadows upon the walls, and I could not help but wonder if the prowler could see Dorian’s silhouette against the resplendent backdrop.
But I did not have to wait long to find out.
Dorian quickly descended the stairs, entering the drawing room long enough to retrieve his piece from the desk before rushing outside and into the coppice where the intruder lurked. He moved like lightening, ripping through the heavy shrubbery and tearing away any ivy, vines or branches that obstructed his path. Seconds later he stood directly behind the stranger, who consequently whirled around in surprise at his sudden approach.
Incensed by the individual’s impudence, he thrust the weapon into the person’s ribs and hissed. “Take off your mask”.
Slowly and methodically the intruder removed the black opaque stocking that covered his head, revealing none other than Detective Modigliani. Neither Dorian nor I was surprised by the identity of the visitor, although now that he had discovered the gasoline canisters in the shed, something would have to be done about it. Exactly what to do was the question circumstances now posed, and I dreaded what I knew would be Dorian’s answer.
For a moment my son seem to waiver on the point, and I thought perhaps there was yet hope for the detective, but an instant later a pernicious desire struck and Dorian sunk his teeth into Modigliani’s flesh. Although I struggled to dislodge him from his victim, my movements were futile and produced neither force nor change. It was as if I were a phantasm floating in some dimension beyond our current world, able to discern my surroundings but powerless to alter them. Left without any recourse, I naturally panicked.
Had I owned a living human heart that beat within my chest I have no doubt it would have ceased its clamor at that moment, and I would have been shot awake by the consequential asphyxiation and throbbing pain that would have coursed through my body. But as I possessed no human heart nor did my life reside within my chest, it was only sheer terror fused with a subtle Noctor premonition that sent me bursting from my hiding spot in the far corner of the room with fangs bared and in-transit to my natural form.
Finding no imminent danger or enemy threat, however, I assumed panther mode and took off towards Dorian’s house.
By the time I arrived it was too late for Modigliani, who now sat in the far corner of Dorian’s shed with his head half-decapitated and both eyes bulging from their sockets, a sight that I found more disconcerting for its life-like appearance. Dorian was reposed upon a make-shift bench, his eyes closed with the back of his right hand flung haphazardly across his forehead in what had to be feigned angst – or so I thought. Upon hearing me, however, he shot upright to gaze at me with a frightened expression, his eyebrows knit together in a perpetual worry.
“He’s dead,” he announced.
“Yes I know.”
Dorian sighed heavily and sunk his face into his hands. “What should I do?” I didn’t mean to kill him, but he found the gasoline canisters. Regina, he *knew* I set the fire.”
“My name is Countess Moldovia.”
“No it’s not; it’s Regina Churchhill. You forget I know you as well as you know me.”
“Regina died a long time ago and there is nothing left save this mortal coil, which hardly qualifies as something that should have its own term, but as to your question, you have to leave Dorian. You can’t stay here; the police will find you and your secret won’t survive prison, so you must go to Liberland, where you can disappear in the crowds.”
Dorian crossed his arms and pouted in self-pity. “But I don’t know anyone there. Where will I go?”
“Give it time and you won’t know anyone here either. People die, so get used to being alone because solitude will be your only company for the rest of your life – however long that may be. But, tomorrow I’ll crate you up and have you flown overseas to cover your tracks. You will disappear, just as Modigliani has disappeared this night, understand?”
A look of hope crossed Dorian’s face. “What are you going to do with him?”
I turned to Modigliani, whose bulging stare seemed to beg the same question. “You’ve taught me that fire covers a multitude of sins,” I answered gravely. “He’ll burn in my furnace tonight.”
After Dorian and I wrapped the corpse in black linen sheets, we carried it to his car and hurled it into his trunk with great force, snapping its neck and rib in the process. Despite this additional horror, however, we managed to secure the abomination by lodging it between two concrete bricks before departing for Welbeck Abbey. For this reason we were astonished and not a little perturbed when, upon opening the trunk, we discovered the corpse had freed itself from these constraints and now met us anew with its unblinking accusatory expression. Although Dorian felt the uncanny incident was a baleful omen, I was certain there was a more reasonable explanation.
“Dead bodies don’t have wills,” I assured him, “and even if they did they lack the capacity to carry them out. This is nothing more than a strange coincidence.”
“Then why does he stare at me that way? It’s like he wants everyone to know I murdered him because I burnt down the abbey.”
“That’s paranoia brought on by a healthy dose of guilt, which is refreshing considering your past apathy,” I retorted rationally. “Now let’s go inside before we’re discovered and sent to prison.”
I hoisted the remains of Modigliani over my shoulder and carried him indoors with Dorian trailing closely behind. When we reached my room the fire in the furnace was raging, the flames licking the walls with a ruddy color that elongated our shadows and made us appear more demonic than human, although we hardly qualified as members under that term.
Together we removed the dark linen and cast it into the fire, watching as it incinerated till nothing remained. Then, with one accord we also pitched the detective’s corpse, and slammed the furnace door shut to wait out the process.
At first all went well, and the body was consumed according to the laws of physics and thermodynamics, but soon an odd sound emitted from the infernal chamber, a noise low and reverberating that grew into a distinctive shrill and then, a most pronounced and strident shriek.
“You fool!” I screamed at Dorian. “Didn’t you rip his head half-off?!”
“No, I bit him, why?” came the shocked response.
Outraged, I shook my finger at him. “A bite doesn’t kill; it creates life! For God’s sake, Dorian, Detective Modigliani is still alive!”

[Countess]

The frightful monstrosity that was once human howled in pain as he struggled against the iron hatch that locked him within his personal Hell. Half-human, half-noctor now, this beastly hybrid transmutated first into a torched human corpse, and then into something ineffable, a creature with skeletal body and wings, claws for hands and feet and skin burned beyond redemption. The burgeoning eyeballs finally escaped their sockets, and the body – unable to maintain its structure – melted away into bubbling globules that oozed from the remaining form until all had evaporated into the ether.
When it was finished, I quenched the fire with water and retracted the residual bone fragments from their resting spot, shoving them into a bag, which I placed in the crate alongside Dorian. Equipped with instructions to bury the evidence in a remote location, Dorian was shipped out next day air. After two days I received word of his success breathed a sigh of relief, for the police department had already begun a new search of my lodgings and an investigation into the animal graveyard that lay at the most Northern part of my estate.

[Countess]

(Note: I've made some slight edits to the story above (minor changes) but don't have time to post. Here's the next chapter, however):

Once Dorian had departed and the police had relinquished any aspirations they held concerning my imprisonment and punishment for what they believed to be several counts of murder -- once these tribulations had fully ended and released me, I immediately sold the abbey and moved to Romania, a nation toward which I felt an uncanny and eerily oxymoronic affinity.
There is something alluring about the familiar – though it be evil – that the strange and mysterious – though they be safe – lack in any proportion. For this reason man often chooses to remain in his current predicament with the possibility of death rather than alter his course into the unfathomable region of chance and thus the unknown. Not surprisingly, I – who still retained a vestige of human nature – was no different, and now sought to live amongst my enemies rather than continue in undetermined circumstances.
Once in Romania I sought the historical region of the Carpathians, which stood as the current dividing line between Moldavia and Transylvania, and in particular the area between the cities of Bistritz and Bukovina, which is where the original vampires were said to have emerged (although I knew this allegation to be false). What I found there astonished me: an ancient civilization virtually untouched by modern technology. Stylistically medieval buildings now stood on mechanically advanced foundations, and Romanians, clad in the garments of that bygone era, meandered through the city on foot, or journeyed by horse and buggy.
Initially nonplussed, I soon discovered the raison d'être for the phenomenon: an enigmatic gentleman whose visage had never been seen (save in the matutinal hours before dawn) resided in the mountains, and it was he who employed the majority of the town’s denizens in the production and distribution of his wine, Le Rouge. After a mysterious fire had consumed most of the town, this aloof businessman (who was a foreigner at the time) had poured millions into the economy, effectively rebuilding the entire city and employing its populace at his new refinery.
The local merchant who imparted this wisdom to me and whose own business rested entirely upon the munificence of the wine maker’s employees indicated the factory paid well and more than compensated for the loss of life that seemed to accompany the profession. As he explained it, several employees had met their untimely demise while engaged at the press, so that the owner had been compelled to raise wages to offset the associated risk and lure potential prospects into employment. When I asked him if these accidents were regular and ongoing, he informed me that at one time they were almost expected, but since the first of the year the number of mishaps had fallen to zero, leading even the most devoted cynic into reconsideration.
After thanking him for the information, I departed for The Raven Inn, the lodging that the merchant had recommended to me as “most historical”. As I walked I noted with piqued interest the cobblestone streets and the gothic cathedrals in the distance, their high, pointed steeples towering ominously over deep, shadowy myriad panes. Women in long skirts and men in peasant wear bustled about industriously, and young children – evidentially caught up at play – threw a ball in the square. The humdrum of the people’s daily existence soon began to soothe my agitated spirit, and I was just beginning to feel the first stirrings of an unfamiliar joy when I observed something peculiar above an entrance that abruptly jarred me from my thoughts and made my blood run cold. There, in a wood rotted with age, was the Latin word for “Nine”, and a pyramid whose three points intersected the diameter of the circle that enclosed it.
The emblem was exceedingly queer, for while it resembled the archetypal trigon representative of Trinitarian faiths, it was – alas – a pyramid with four points and the word nine. I studied it at length, attempting to access those heretofore hidden planes of existence whereby my new nature might grasp what it has never experienced itself (but nonetheless knows by virtue of my race’s communal memory) yet I could not evoke a single recollection. However, my interest soon stirred the curiosity (or was it concern?) of the shopkeeper, who exited through the doors to ask me how he could be of assistance.
“What is this?” I inquired, pointing to the strange symbol.
“It is a sign,” he stated flatly.
“Why of course, but what does it mean?”
The shopkeeper, who was an older balding gentleman with bushy dark brows and a mouth twisted in a sour expression, started hard at me. “Who wants to know?”
I looked within but detected no heartbeat within his chest. “I am...I am Lizzy Bathory...from Moldovia.”
The merchant’s eyes grew wide as his mouth gaped open with astonishment. “Lizzy Bathory – is it possible?”
“Why not? I took up residence for some time at Welbeck Abbey and even opened a school there.”
“The Duke – I’ve heard of you, but he wasn’t one of us,” the retailer protested suspiciously.
“No, but have you seen his underground estate? He lived in the lap of luxury as you and I know it,” I responded, emphasizing the word “know”.
“Indeed, but how is it you came to be here? And how could you possibly not know the sign?”
I coughed to clear my throat, aware that both humans and non-humans around us were listening attentively to our conversation. “There were some murders in the area,” I informed him, gazing intentionally into his eyes. “An investigation followed in due course, and I felt it was in my best interest to relocate here. As to your second question – I have been alone for quite a while. It seems I have forgotten much, and am unaware of much more.”
The merchant stared at me again, shook his head and sighed. “I can’t tell you what it means,” he nodded to indicate the circled pyramid, “but I will let the others know.”
I bowed gratefully to him, then took my leave and continued my journey towards the Inn. Word spread through the town like wildfire, and by the time I arrived at the motel, I felt strange eyes peering out at me from the darkness and heard the hidden creatures hiss “Bathory!” whenever I passed.
Up until that point, I had felt a certain smug serenity in the knowledge of the superiority of my race and my ability to successfully impersonate the most terrible and gruesome of all female assassins, but late that night, after the moon fell in the sky and I returned home for sleep, my confidence was broken by a dream. It was to be the first in a series of dreams – terrible nightmares – that were to plague me periodically for the rest of my life. In this dream a creature with nine angelic heads, each of a different hue – black, purple, orange, grey, brown, turquoise, red, white, and blue – melded into the earth, and creation was blessed with rain and sun, plant and animal life, and mankind was happy. But soon another creature of similar constitution came - likewise bearing nine heads of nine colors – but with countenances markedly different – malformed aberrations they were, bearing horrible twisted expressions – and this creature also melded into the earth, and darkness fell upon the land, the earth commenced to die, and so did animal, plant and human.

It was the sound of the giant clock chiming the hour of five in the morn that roused me from my disturbed slumber. Shooting up in bed, I discovered that I was profusely sweating – though I felt as cold as ice and the temperature in the room was mild. After washing my face in the bathroom I prepared to retire again when I heard a rustle in the corner, and saw two slanted eyes peering out at me from behind the curtain.
Only then did I realize someone else was in the room with me.

[Countess]

The city glowed with the incandescent red flicker of candle flames and bonfires, which raged in the alleyways between the dark or dimly lit shops. I noticed the departure of the sun had given rise to an entirely different population: the faces I had seen previously at dusk were gone, replaced by white, willowy visages atop wraith-like bodies cloaked heavily in robes of red, black and gold. From underneath hoods red eyes peered out at me, burning with a supernatural light that I attributed to the refraction of fire illumination, although some part of me knew I was in the midst of the damned, and these creatures were not human but those they call “the undead”.
I considered my guide, who likewise was heavily cloaked, though no eyes sought me from within the black hole of his drape. I had discerned that he was or had been male at some point, for the voice that had penetrated the shadows of my room had been deep and rough, not unlike that of a chronic smoker, and that he wished to show me some sight of importance, although I had not gathered where we were going or for what purpose. Indeed, I was still in a state of shock when I had acquiesced to follow; under normal circumstances my intuition, or what others would deem a “sixth sense” (most Noctor abilities deemed superhuman were nothing more than additional senses whose equipment lay in the regions of the brain), would have alerted me to the presence of another, but distracted and confounded as I was by my frightful dream I did not detect his presence. And now I knew not where or to what I was headed, and this mystery caused me great concern.
“Where are we going?” I inquired after a time
“Tonight….”
“Well I hate to ruin this excursion for you, but it’s morning. The sun will be up in an hour or so. I don’t know if this worries you but it worries me.”
“Tonight there will be a ball at the castle. You are invited,” the mysterious individual informed me.
“Ah. I see I’m not the only one stuck in the 19th century. Well-done. A ball. Bravo. The sun will be up in a half-an-hour. Are you planning on taking a tan, or are you going for the blazing conflagration?”
My escort did not answer, but evidentially intent on arriving at some goal, pushed onward until we reached the edge of town. Straight head of us lay the main thoroughfare, but off to the right a hiking trail wound it’s way deep into the surrounding forest.
Then the stranger – who up until this point had been rather slow and precise with his movements – abruptly turned to gaze at me with what I thought were blue eyes. Fearing lest he should see something in me I did not wish him to see I turned away, but upon returning my glance I noticed he was pulling on what appeared to be a handle protruding from the ground. A hatch, heavily overgrown and covered with brush, flung open, revealing the gloomy aperture of a tunnel.
The guide turned back to stare at me then pointed forward.
“Follow the trail tomorrow evening to the castle,” he ordered, then pointed down into the abyss.
“A tunnel: that is absolutely brilliant,” I remarked, for I was impressed by the forethought it required. “Just one?”
“There are burrows leading off the mainline throughout the city.”
“What a wonderful design…so no one gets sunburned. I had the same myself; it was limited, of course, built for one.”
My guide turned around to look at me once more, and again I felt an uncomfortable wave of fear flow throughout my body. Following him down the latter into the deep pit, I soon detected a change of direction, and realized we were returning to the Inn where I was staying. As we moved through the underground channel I could feel the others pass by and could perceive with a strain of night-vision the same red eyes glowing from underneath the cloaks. To some extent I found the entire experience surreal and at moments baffling, for though I conceived of what it was to be a vampire, I felt something more was at hand – something more monstrous, sinister and organized – and despite all my efforts, I could not penetrate that knowledge or determine anything beyond my five senses.
Undoubtedly I was being blocked, and this was perhaps the most troubling realization of all, because only a power of equal strength to myself could muster it.
After a while the stranger ceased and pointed up to a hatch that was directly overhead. Upon opening it I discovered myself back in the putrefying decay that was the Inn basement, although with some surprise I noticed that this, too, was devised based on modern technology. The rotting wood betrayed here and there a shiny steel beam, so that I could only conclude whoever it was that owned the building intended it to appear – to the casual observer – an old, cryptic labyrinth, dreadful and repellent.
A strategic deterrent.
Hoisting myself up I shut the door and began a sharp scrutiny of my surroundings. Various corridors stacked to the ceiling with wine racks lay off the main hallway. Pulling a bottle of the shelf of that closest to me, I studied the label: La Rouge. Grabbing another bottle from the next corridor I noticed that it, too, was La Rouge. Deeply troubled, I dashed from one hall to the next, pulling wine bottles from their respective sepultures, hoping for another brand that would end the mystery, but they were all La Rouge.
Pushing the horrifying thoughts from my consciousness, I uncorked the first dusty jug and took a swig of the dark ruby liquid known as “La Rouge”. Aghast, I dropped the bottle on the floor, watching the red abomination flow out it’s top and stain the wooden beams below. It was as I had expected: human blood. The creatures with their bright red eyes and heavy cloaks were manufacturing and distributing human blood behind a winery front.
Further inspection revealed bottles of pressed wine of inferior quality, undoubtedly manufactured as such to discourage wine connoisseurs from treasuring and seeking after it’s taste, which were intermingled with the true export to conceal the nature of the shipment.
And the entire factory – set in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains – was in such a remote location, virtually unknown and untraveled by man, that detection was unlikely, if not completely impossible.
Returning to my quarters, I sat on my bed tapping my fingers nervously together and wondering what to do when I noticed a letter had been slit under my door. Upon opening it I was surprised to find it was from Dorian and that it contained an invitation.

He was getting married.
I immediately packed my bags and departed. Destination: Liberland.

[Countess]

Her name was Rosetta Lachey, and she was to be the wife of my Dorian.
She was – alas - preternaturally beautiful. Long brown hair adorned with golden rays cascaded down to her shoulders and were complimented by her large hazel eyes, which shone forth like bright bullion or deepened to earth brown depending on the shade closest to them. Her cheek was high, her skin a fair white (completely untainted by the sun) and, as is the case with all women born under divine blessing, she was tall and slender, moving with the grace of the gazelle. Furthermore, she was intelligent and displayed a wit and charm unknown to most of her gender, which naturally made her the most perfect specimen of her sex and a marvelous match for her beau, Dorian, who was perhaps the only man who could equal her in looks and personality.
And for all of this, I completely despised her.
Granted, I did not want to despise her; no woman of any self-awareness is proud of her jealousy or desires it to reign inside her body, and yet I was rather powerless to move it elsewhere. It sat deep within my chest, sulking and pitiful, silently protesting Rosetta’s mere existence on the planet as an unfair advantage that left the rest of us women sorely wanting. Still I did not act upon it but let it fester awhile – I let it rage until it gave birth to an idea - a sense of righteous indignation and recalled retribution - a thought that was justified in the light of the past.
And I smiled silently to myself.
Dorian had changed a great deal in my absence. Whether it was the human companionship of love or some other influence acting upon him, he appeared more amicable and sensitive than I last remembered him. In fact, when he saw me studying the scene from the safety of a dark corner he immediately excused himself and navigated over to me.
“Regina, how are you?”
The name sounded foreign against my eardrums.
“Regina?” I protested, though I knew not why. “Who?”
You, silly. How are you? You don’t seem well.”
“I’m fine,” I retorted. “How are you – oh nevermind. You’re getting married.”
Dorian smiled sweetly, then tugged gently on my arm. “Come – I want you to meet her.”
“You forget I already know who she is. I knew the moment I walked through the door, so introductions are quite unnecessary.”
“I can’t believe it. You’re jealous,” he exclaimed, procuring a wine glass from the waiter’s tray as he passed. “What is wrong with you?”
“That’s not La Rouge, is it?” I inquired, staring at the red liquid, “because if it is - if it is, you need to be careful, especially with your guests.”
“La What? What are you talking about? What is the matter?”
“Oh Dorian, so much has happened I don’t know where to begin. After you left I moved to Romania. I know - don’t chide me – I felt so alone and empty, I thought living amongst my enemies was better than being a hermit in human society. Anyhow, soon after I began to have dreams – night terrors of creatures with multi-colored heads and mass destruction, and then I noticed all these strange signs about town, ennegram symbols and the Latin numeral nine above pyramids, and then bundles of nine: nine carts, nine houses in a row, nine trees together. There’s an extensive tunnel system under the Carpathian Mountains and vampires go to and fro at all hours, hideous beings in large cloaks with glaring bright red eyes, and there’s a wine press there that makes La Rouge, which isn’t a real wine at all but human blood….”
“Okay Regina,” Dorian interrupted, grabbing firmly hold of both my shoulders. “We’ll work through this later, but not now…” he said, and for the first time I noticed my diatribe had drawn unwanted attention of those around us.
“Yes, it’s your engagement party and far be it from me – silly woman that I am - to ruin it for you with my recent nightmare. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you later.” Bowing graciously, I excused myself and departed for my hotel, where I lay down on my bed and immediately fell asleep.
Within moments of dozing off I once again found myself in the terrifying dreamscape of bizarre creatures and odd symbols, except this time I ventured farther into the realm of the unknown, and experienced freakish new horrors and visions: hissing voices whispering words spoken in a strange tongue as I flew through what appeared to be walls. No matter which direction I turned these solid structures rose up in my path, but I soared through them with all the grace and ease of an eagle on a gust of wind. When at last I landed, I discovered myself inside of what appeared to be an archaic crypt, and quickly realized I was inside an Egyptian mausoleum.
Before me stood the tomb of what seemed to be a Pharaoh surrounded by hundreds of warrior statues constructed from various metals. A single, pale light whose source could not be determined strewn down from above, illuminating their faces, which glowered fiercely in the darkness. Beyond these figures sundry treasures were situated, and above all of it – high on the wall that towered overhead – was an ennegram and the Egyptian word “Seth”. The sign I recalled seeing in the basement of the Inn (between the stashes of La Rouge) but the name I had not anticipated, and this new addition to my increasingly intricate nightmare gave me pause. It seemed incongruous to call upon the god of disorder for protection of the dead, especially when said god – within the context of Egyptian myth – was responsible for death itself, and I was contemplating the meaning and significance of it when I was abruptly ripped from my slumber by the sounding of the alarm clock. Looking over, I noticed I had only slept for an hour, and then I rose and departed to do the dastardly deed I had resolved upon at the party.
When I returned I sat silently in the dark, waiting for the inevitable banging on the door that would indicate the natural conclusion to the incident, and it came shortly after 2:00AM.
Dorian stood in the entranceway, still in his tuxedo, his hair unfurled down to his shoulders. With the radiant light pouring in from behind his silhouette he appeared almost angelic, but upon closer scrutiny I observed the anticipated pain in his face and knew he had seen the act through to it’s necessary end. He stood for a moment glaring down at me with a mixture of agony and confusion before at last he spoke in a broken voice.
“She’s dead.”
“I know. How does it feel, Dorian, to lose someone you love so dearly?”
At this, the beautiful creature fell prostrate to his knees and placing his face in his hands, began to sob.
“But why, Regina, why? Why did you do it?”
”Remember the school? Remember Marcus? I told you one day you would regret it.”
Dorian looked up from where he sat. “But why did you tell her? I don’t understand.”
His natural scent – a delicate, musky odor – mixed with hours-old cologne and amplified by sweat and tears wafted past my nose, and for a moment I felt an impulse of regret.
“Because I wanted you to do it...because I can’t justify murder as an act of revenge, but by telling her of your crime, I removed your choice in the matter. You had to kill her or else be killed by her, whether that be through the police or having your heart smashed to pieces. I forced your hand and you saw it through; you met my expectations. That is all.”
“Then you’re no better that me,” he retorted, standing up to glower at me from above. As he did so, the plush seat in which I sat suddenly became uncomfortable.
“But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you did it out of retribution but out of jealousy,” he continued.
“I was jealous that you had each other – of your happiness,” I confessed. “That’s certainly true.”
“No, you were jealous of her, because she had everything you don’t have,” he added in an accusatory tone, “you were jealous because she had me.”
There are times in a person’s life that the mind, under intense strain and in order to preserve the intellect, will fabricate alternative rationalizations and explanations for an individual’s behavior, and there are times when, confronted abruptly with unmitigated truth, these defense structures will totally fall. At such a point an individual is faced with a grave choice: acceptance and change, or denial and fight/flight. Such was my current dilemma, as for the first time I felt the scales fall from my eyes and realized the true motive for what I had done.
“You’re right Dorian; that is exactly why I did it and I used your past actions as an excuse. What can I say – please forgive me, though that hardly seems sufficient. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I added, moving past him to the freedom of the door, “I have a flight to catch. If you need me, I’ll be in Romania.”
At that I departed, leaving the majority of my belongings back in the hotel, and immediately booked a flight to Bistritz. For some reason the companionship of vampires and haunted dreams suddenly seemed bearable when compared to the horror that I now sought to leave behind.

[Countess]

CHAPTER XI – TRISTAN, THE LOVER

Upon my return to Romania I immediately searched for the merchant who had been the stimulus for my unusual visitation, but not surprisingly his store was closed. I resolved then to check into the Inn, wait until nightfall and try him again, but my hasty journey had left me exhausted and soon after entering my room I fell asleep.
I do not know if I dreamed that night, but I awoke at the entrance of a stranger, who I sensed to be the one who had come about seven days before. He wore the same ill-fitted cloak that concealed his identity and carried himself in the same manner, although this time I discerned a cautious sympathy about him that I had not detected previously. After extending an invitation to me for that same night he politely departed, leaving me to ponder how it was he had come to know of my return, but more importantly, why the stranger in the mountains seemed to desire my company so urgently.
Despite my growing curiosity I waited the corresponding hours to the stroke of 11:30PM, gathered about me some materials of importance – in particular a recording device and small camera – then quit the Inn for the serpentine path identified by my guide. Along the way I observed that the town’s population had again shifted with dusk, and that the creatures in large cloaks with glaring red eyes had returned and were actively engaged in their own industry. Horse-drawn carts stacked with crates of what had to be “La Rouge” traveled main street in both directions, stopping every once in awhile to unload at a specific shop or to restock at another one. To my surprise I noted that several were inscribed with the word NOVUM or with an ennegram symbol, or with a pyramid enclosed in a circle.
The town’s center appeared to be the hub of all the activity, for as I edged closer to the city’s limits the inhabitants grew scarcer and scarcer until – by the time I reached the beaten path – I was completely alone.
.
The trail wound round like a coiled snake with every turn providing a steeper incline than the one before, so that I knew we were ascending a mountain. After what seemed like 20 minutes of climbing I detected a large clearing higher up, requiring perhaps three additional evolutions, but just as I was preparing to advance I heard a twig snap behind me. Whirling around I discovered a lone wolf standing about five feet from me, his bright blue eyes filled with that blank expression so characteristic of his species.
For some moments we exchanged glances, with neither of us budging from our respective positions until, at last, an impulse – an odd but compelling one – suddenly took hold and I shifted into feline shape. Though I hardly felt threatened by the beast I scowled a little and bore my teeth, hoping to frighten it into running away, but instead it stood there stoically, unmoved by my hostile display. And then a second impulse – more queer and powerful than the previous one – seized me and together we took off running.
We ran for what seemed like hours, through the woods, across mountain streams and brook bridges, under the haunting full moon that streamed like fine hair between the foliage. I did not understand why or what I was chasing, but only that in the pursuit there was freedom – freedom from the longevity of time, freedom from the gravity of consciousness, freedom from the new soul. The chilly air that raced down my spine, the sweet perfume of wood and pine, the dark shadows and pale moonlight all released me from the heavy burdens of my mind and sent my spirit soaring up, up into the heavens. Had it been my choice, I would have never ceased until death, but alas all mortal coils must weary from physical exertion and my partner, whose role as prey demanded a superior performance, was eventually struck with exhaustion and quit.
Our recreation came to a close on the far side of town and I realized with some dismay that I had lost all the distance I had previously gained, and then some. Sighing heavily, I had just begun my heavy trek back into the forest when the creature spoke.
“If you go they’ll kill you,” it said.
Spinning around I gazed at the wolf. “A talking wolf – how remarkable,” I mused, “and cliché. Do you fetch as well?”
The thing that had formerly appeared like a wolf shifted into what seemed to be human form. “It depends on what you want me to retrieve. Pretty girls are my specialty.”
“Oh a clever dog,” I quipped, peering through the fog to see the details of his face but to no avail. “You’re quite common after all. So how do you know they’ll kill me? Do they know who or what I am?”
The stranger shifted uneasily from one leg to another. “No.”
”Well, are you going to tell them?”
Silence. “No,” he said at last.
“Then how do you know?”
“Because you’ve got all the hallmarks of your race,” he retorted somberly. “And your birth is a matter of legend here.”
“Well I don’t plan to make myself as obvious to them as I have to you, but if you’re so concerned, you could help me,” I hinted, hoping that he would offer up some useful advice that would help me gain entrance without detection.
The shadowy figure remained taciturn for a few moments, but then finally capitulated. “Never use the front entrance of a vampire’s estate; it brings certain death. The dungeon entrance is underground – though a cave in the foothills just east of the castle. You can smell it if you try hard enough.”
“The dead are buried there,” I remarked. “They throw them out like animals, but why are you helping me anyway? How do I know I can trust you?
“You don’t. As to why – I have my reasons.”
“Like what?” I asked.
Though I could not see his face, I sensed a great sorrow suddenly come upon him, and he groaned like a man aged by experienced. “I’m tired of manipulating reality to help someone else’s quest for power. The game has grown old, I suppose because I know too much. I want out.”
“You realize, of course, if I’m successful not just your government will fall: your entire race will fall.”
The stranger coughed gently and I could see from his silhouette that he was staring up at the high yellow moon. “Maybe that’s what needs to happen. Perhaps we are an evil, wretched people, and we don’t need to be here any longer.”
”A vampire with a conscience; what a remarkable oxymoron,” I noted as I wondered if such a thing were even possible, “a miracle of epic proportions. Don’t impale yourself on your sword just yet; there may be hope for you. I’ll be back – and where might I find you when I return?”
“Oh I don’t know – I’ll be around.”
“You’re not going to stake yourself through the heart or cut off your head or anything while I’m gone, are you, because as it stands now, I don’t plan on killing you?”
“No,” he answered shyly and I could tell by the outline of his shiny white teeth that he was smiling.
“Good,” I rejoined and started off towards the foothills, but suddenly stopped as another thought occurred to me. “One more question for you: why did you ever invite me knowing they were going to kill me?”
”That’s easy; I was under orders, but I had no intentions of allowing you to go through with it.”
“Ah, obedient to the end, even in treachery. I’ll remember that.”
”Don’t hold it against me.”
“I won’t. I suspect that you’re more human than you even know,” I shot back, then quickly descended the trail to search for the cave at the base of the mountain.

[Countess]

I'm going to stop being lazy and add the other chapters. BTW- the book is now named "Bastat".

Forgive the intrusion. Thanks - T

[Countess]

CHAPTER XII – INSIDE THE CASTLE
I found the cavern easily enough; located at the lowest point in the mountain’s circumference, it’s large, gaping black cavity was carefully obscured by dense underbrush – but the rancid stench of rotting flesh and organic purification which emanated from within nullified any attempt to conceal it. Tearing the overgrowth asunder, I moved expeditiously into the dark, murky nether-regions of the mountain, palpating my way towards the center while wondering if perhaps the entire situation weren’t a trap with my untimely demise as its ultimate end. Many questions still lingered in the back of my mind regarding my banter with the stranger -- such as his name and the nature of his relationship with the people in the castle. It struck me how poorly I had investigated the source of my information, for in my haste to make contact with the founder of La Rouge, I had failed to spend adequate time researching and verifying my informant’s data. Perhaps he could have enlightened me regarding the word NOVUM, and the meanings and purposes of the pyramid signs and enneagrams – if only I had asked, but instead I had inquired into the means of entering the structure, and no more. I resolved, then, to revisit these subjects at a more leisurely time, and then promptly thrust them out of mind, lest their intrusion should compromise my safety.
Beginning my search at the far right wall, I slowly felt my way around the cave’s perimeter, looking for breaks in the heavily eroded, moss-covered limestone that might indicate a door. My efforts were rewarded when, about a third of the way through, I detected a dry, worn stone and a small latch that, once turned, revealed an entrance large enough for one individual, and beyond that, a spiral staircase that wound up into the darkness.
I ascended the stairs - literally hundreds of them - with nary a flame to light my path till at last I arrived at a platform just outside another door – a sturdy, oak barrier girded with an iron gate. After a moment of intense listening revealed no immediate presence on the other side, I carefully pushed against the structure till the lever gave way and the door slid slightly open.
Peering around its edge, I saw it led to a small passageway that bordered several large, inner rooms from which music now streamed, strange melodies that were at once evocative and erratic, romantic and bizarre. And from these same rooms came vociferous voices and strident laughter, till the corridor walls shook from the cacophonic chords and resounding banter.
Slipping silently into the crowd, I located a dark corner from which to view the carousers, who now appeared to be in the throes of Bacchanalian ecstasy. To my surprise, no one bore cloaks or boasted glaring red eyes, but all were lavishly dressed in the finest romantic garments, with antique lace and plush velvet, gold tassels and silver beads. From the ceiling hung elaborate and intricate tapestries of multi-colored hues, which were separated here and there by objects – a gold staff, a silver stick, a copper whip, a bronze cup, a metal sword and what appeared to be a wand.
And in the midst of this exceedingly colorful and jubilant ball a red-robed creature – statuesque and imposing - sauntered carrying a bronze goblet filled with what had to be La Rouge. Gliding somberly through the crowd, he occasionally stopped to offer a particular reveler a drink or to whisper in their ear before resuming his strange promenade.
I was preparing to approach the iconoclastic priest with a sizeable splinter of wood that I had previously broken off the door when a strong but gentle voice whispered in my ear: “Not here; not now. This is only a party. Destroy it and you affect nothing.”
“Why, then, did you let me come?” I whispered back, frustrated that I had progressed so far only to be deterred again.
“*To see.* Come with me and I’ll tell you more.”
Acquiescing – though I knew not why - I followed as he led me down another spiral staircase, into the castle’s living quarters and finally into his private chamber, where he lit a lantern. For the first time since our initial encounter I could see my benefactor’s face and was somewhat astonished to discover an aging youth, perhaps 20 years of age. His broad forehead was offset by high cheekbones and a perfectly square jaw, deep-set blue eyes, a long face, slender nose and an upper lip that bowed obtusely in the middle. With such features, his dark curly blonde hair might have effeminized him, but his bushy brows and slightly unshaven complexion more than compensated for the softening effect.
“How old are you?” I demanded. “You look about 20.”
”Looks can be deceiving,” he replied, appearing somewhat amused by my naivety. “I’m younger than you are in years, though not in life.”
“Well when did you stop growing?” I inquired further, feeling rather ridiculous for listening to someone who was so much younger, even if it was only “in years”.
“23.”
“So congratulations. You died at the perfect time with the fountain of youth still flowing over you.”
“I’m over two thousand otherwise,” he added.
You’re still younger than me,” I shot back harshly. “What is your name?”
“Tristan.”
“Let me guess, you’re from King Arthur’s court?”
He smiled broadly then, and I could see his pearly white teeth, which had beamed so brightly in the forest. “Not the same one, but the same name.”
“Well Tristan, I’m sure you can see my dilemma; you tell me to go forth yet you impede my progress at every turn. You have me going in completely opposing directions, and if I don’t hear a reasonable explanation from you now, I’m choosing my own path regardless of your counsel.”
Ambling over to the windowsill, Tristan sat down and turned his gaze to the lush, Romanian countryside. “It’s too late. You can’t stop an organization that has its tentacles in every major nation worldwide, especially at such a pivotal time when interfering with it might cause more harm than good.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded, more confounded than ever by his indefinite references and general commentary. Plopping myself opposite Tristan, I too turned to look out upon the countryside, which oddly enough reminded me at that moment of the forest surrounding Welbeck abbey. “Too much has happened...”
“I know, Elizabeth Bathory. Duchess Bentinck. Countess Moldovia. So many identities, none of which are actually you.”
“How do you know?”
“I was responsible for researching your background. I didn’t inform anyone but somehow he sensed your presence and sent me to make the arrangement,” he sighed, once again returning his gaze outside.

[Countess]

con't...

Pouring down from above, the moonlight illuminated his eye and cheek, bathing him in an angelic radiance.
“Your master has the most perverse sense of irony,” I commented, remembering the demonic figure that had moved so gracefully through the crowd just moments before. “Parodying “Masque of the Red Death” in such a manner; I bet Poe wouldn’t have approved.”
”Poe is dead,” he retorted dryly.
I smiled. “And so are you.”
Tristan leaned in towards me till I could feel his breath upon my neck. “You know, you are so pretty Countess Elizabeth Bathory Bentinck of Moldovia, that it makes me wonder as to your real name.”
“A vampire shouldn’t move so close, “I said, leveling my eyes at him. “It could be hazardous to his health.”
Mere inches from my face, Tristan stared back without blinking. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” he whispered, then slunk back against the sill sulkily before adding, “I suppose if I had been Dorian it would have been a different matter.”
“Dorian?!” I practically shouted at him. “Dor – why invoke his name when he has nothing to do with this situation? Tristan, it’s evident you know more about me than I know about you, yet you expect me to respond in kind; it isn’t reasonable. Besides, Dorian is a sore subject right now; you won’t mention him again if you wish to be my friend.” fill
“Because you killed his fiance?”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“No, you made him do it. You must have loved him a great deal.”
“Love doesn’t force itself upon another,” I replied quietly with a pang of guilt. “It frees the beloved, not enslaves him. All I did was hurt him badly.”
“You freed him twice, once when you let him go after he burned down your school; the second time when you helped him escape the police. You loved him.”
A vision of Dorian, crouched over in pain with his face in his hands, now tortured my mind. “How do you know all these things?”
“I’m in intelligence. The shopkeeper mentioned your affiliation with Welbeck Abbey and I searched your records and called my associates there. When you left prematurely I followed you to the airport and put a trace on your baggage. From that point it was a matter of placing another call to some colleagues and doing surveillance. It’s far too simple these days to learn to much for my own good and that’s why I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”
“I see,” I muttered quietly. Although I had heard Tristan’s words, their import had not penetrated my thoughts, which were now exclusively focused on Dorian as I remembered our first encounter and how I had left him prostrate on the floor at the brink of an eminent breakdown.
“You know Elizabeth – if that is really your name – I loved someone once, much like you.”
“And what happened?”
“The establishment considers humans a threat to our international security.”
“You killed her,” I charged.
Tristan’s expression changed then, and I saw in his face the same anguish I had once seen in Dorians. “No, they did. She was already dead when I returned one night.”
“But you buried her, didn’t you? Dispatched her permanently?”
“I couldn’t allow them to consign her to the darkness,” he replied wincing in pain, and I observed as his humor shifted from sorrow to anger, from anger to bitterness and from bitterness back into sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” I said at last, and reaching forth to grasp his palm, squeezed it consolingly, “ but I don’t see how I can help you. Even if I manage to build a reasonable defense against this global institution you mention, it won’t address the pain you feel inside at her loss, so I am not sure what you are hoping to gain, other than defeat.”
Then much to my surprise and astonishment, Tristan withdrew his hand and wrapping his arms around me, embraced me for several moments. “I want to love again,” he said, hugging me closer, “and I can do that with you.”
For a moment we remained that way, like two lost souls in the night, and then gently freeing myself I rose and walked to the door. As I did so the lamp, which seconds earlier had begun to flicker, died out, leaving us in total darkness. “You don’t know that,” I said, after a pause. “because you don’t know me, Tristan, and neither do I.”

[Countess]

CHAPER XIII - THE ENNEAD

The bloody victim hung like a listless doll from a crudely constructed cross at the edge of a wheat field. The head, disfigured beyond recognition, was partially decapitated, drooping down to the right shoulder by what remained of the neck. Likewise the body was also deformed, the epidermis having been burned away and the bones snapped from their sockets. But perhaps most disturbing at all was the heart. As the first rays of daylight shot over the horizon, imbuing the twisted figure with an eerie glow, I discerned a long, slender object protruding out of it. And as the sun rose higher I realized the object was a wooden stake, and that the victim was none other than Tristan.
Appalled and disgusted by the sight, I reeled backwards and was suddenly struck by a blinding light, which rendered me instantly immobile and I collapsed to the ground. Then within this luminosity I saw myself fleeing the castle after Tristan’s confession, followed by Tristan wrestling against several guards and then finally him being dragged across a field. The snap and crackle of a raging fire filled my ears and the ungodly sound of tortured screams, as if hell itself had opened its mouth to let loose the spirits of the damned. Then I smelled the distinct odor of burning flesh, and at last observed Tristan – with bubbling black skin that oozed and fell from his limbs, being hauled from the fire and then nailed to the cross and hung in the air to die.
When I came to I was lying on my back in the field with the sun glaring just over the edge of the earth and Tristan still dangling from the cross, smoke pouring from his back. Petrified, I dislodged the nails that pinned him, and throwing a blanket over my friend, ran pell-mell for the closest entrance to the underground tunnels, praying all the while that when we got there, no one would be waiting for us.
Once we were safely inside my room, I pulled the blanket back and beheld my friend, whose lifeless body sent tears of anger and regret streaming down my cheeks. Placing my hand over his heart and closing my eyes, I concentrated on detecting any particle energy that might indicate time of death but was dumb-founded to discover he had not yet passed. Yes, death was imminent, but despite all the horrors he had endured, he had not expired.
Retrieving a knife from my pocket, I sliced open his chest, and after stabbing my left hand, gently massaged his heart, ensuring I did not touch or otherwise accidentally dislodge the stake that penetrated it.
Three days later I awoke to find the stake on the floor, and knew his body was beginning to heal.
Tristan did not recover as Dorian had, perhaps because he had been a vampire previous to his new incarnation. For three weeks I kept a constant vigil, pacing the floors at strange hours with a candle in my hand, scrutinizing his face for moments of consciousness, and sadly disappointed when his peacefully reposed form did not show them. Yet, the improvement I had seen in his disfigurement clearly indicated he was recuperating, and in moments of torment I consoled myself with this knowledge.
Towards the end of the third week he finally opened his eyes to stare at me with a blank expression.
“How do you feel?”
A rustle issued forth from the bed as he attempted to rise to no avail. “Weak. How long have I been here?”
“About three weeks. You aren’t completely well yet, which is why you have no energy but I expect in the next several days you’ll recover,” I answered, then moseying over to his bed, sat down and began stroking his cheek with the back of my hand. “Who did this to you? I had a premonition...”
“Drones, though they can hardly be blamed; they have no will of their own but simply obey the master,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead painfully, but when I gave no reply, he stared at me curiously. “You don’t know what they are, do you?”
“No,” I blushed. “I’m the byproduct of a misadventure; hence my inability to know who or what I am.”
Studying the candle flame that burned brightly on his bedside table, Tristan cleared his throat and then smothered the fire between his thumb and forefinger, relinquishing us to the darkness.
“Why…”
“We see better at night,” he interrupted. “By the way, I never thanked you for saving my life – I’m grateful for it, and I’m also very sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes, sorry, for all the pain you’ve endured, and you continue to endure, because of what you are.”
“I’m not in pain,” I countered. Still, his words burrowed deep through my consciousness until, at last, like a miner that has struck gold, they found their nugget of truth, and wrapping it in light and warmth, exposed it to my mind, where it exploded and scattered an array of emotion – love and fear, yearning and repulsion – all at once. “I…” I sucked in as I struggled to speak through my sentimental suffocation. “How did you know?”

[Countess]

con't...

“”I feel you, Regina,” he whispered gently, “I feel you flowing through me, coursing through my veins, transforming me into a new being.”
“But Dorian,” I whimpered, “he doesn’t…”
“He was human. I’ve lived a hundred different lives in hundreds of places – all over the world, so it was not a giant leap of faith for me to progress to this next level of existence.
I will tell you this: you must find yourself, and quickly. Love is your greatest strength, Regina, and fear your greatest weakness. You do not fear those outside of you, but rather yourself and greatest of all, that the love you possess will one day provide the means to your end. Your fear is that love will destroy you, and it will, if you don’t know who you are.”
Too shocked to reply, I sat down on the floor and rocked back and forth in concert with the tick-tock of the antique grandfather clock, the warped wooden beams beneath me singing in harmony. The entire time I could feel Tristan’s eyes watching, as if he were fearful that the ensuing moment would harbinger some cataclysmic apocalypse from my internal combustion.
“Is it daylight?” he asked at last.
“Yes,” I answered, gazing at the illuminated aura around the curtains and the striped light patterns on the floor. “It’s dawn.”
Much to my astonishment, Tristan sat up in the bed and rubbed his sleepy blue eyes, his honeyed scent wafting from beneath his arms. “Good. I have something to show you.”
As we passed through town I noted that the shady, clandestine activity which plagued the evening streets had been replaced by the more respectable and legitimate industry of agriculture. Carts brimming with wheat and corn lined the roadsides while peasants darted to and fro and herds of sheep bayed and neighed fretfully after their owners. The abandoned shops that opened at the approach of eve and shut down in the matutinal hours gaped like dark cavities amidst the town now bustling with life, and I wondered how many of the denizens knew the exact nature of their community’s most fruitful labor.
On the outskirts of town we once again resumed our climb towards the peak of the mountain, but about 300 yards up, we abruptly departed from the path, crossing through some dense underbrush before reaching another path that had evidentially been forsaken for some time. Despite the overgrowth, we followed the trail to a clearing that appeared to be somewhat parallel to the castle, but at a fair distance to the right.
As we traveled the snowy ice crunched loudly beneath my feet, its sheen glinting a lovely orange from the rising sun, but this was the only sound I could detect with my preternatural ears. Notably absent were the sounds of life – the twittering of the birds, the snapping of twigs below the deer’s foot, and even the rush of a spring, which would naturally introduce fish into the otherwise barren wasteland. No, the entire landscape was, for all practical purposes, bleak and deserted, so that I was grateful even for the sound of my friend’s breath as it kept me company.
When we drew towards what appeared to be the meadow’s cliff, the smell of death reach my nostrils, and I ceased my approach. “I smell decay and moldering – of people – the number I cannot begin to fathom.”
“Hitler’s incinerators have seen less action than this place,” he replied. “Here death is very old.”
I crossed my arms. “It’s offensive to me; I don’t want to continue.”
“Come,” he answered, holding out his hand to me. When I grasped it, I was surprised to find that it was warm and plump with life, and I could not help but smile at the difference.
We walked a few more feet, and then I finally discerned the spot where he was leading me. Small, colored stones with bizarre symbols jutted up from the ground at the points of what appeared to be three interlinking triangles, although I could detect with my nostrils that it was not paint but rather tinted blood that covered them. In the center of this collaboration stood a sacrificial altar, which seemed the source of the putrefying stench, though I also detected a smaller, secondary source from over the cliff. “What is this?”
Tristan meandered meditatively over to the black stone inscribed with a roofed “X”. “The religion of the age,” he replied, staring down at the stone. “Osirus, God of Order and Hierophant of the Circle, represented by the symbol “Othala”.” Moving onto the next stone, a purple shade, he said, “Isis, Goddess of Healing and High Priestess of the Circle, represented by the symbol “Uruz.”
“What about the blue one,” I inquired impatiently, ready for the rest of his elaborate explanation.
Standing at the head of each stone, he continued. “Tefnut, Goddess of Moisture and Sorceress of the Circle, represented by the symbol “Laguz”. This orange stone is the rock of Rah, God of creation and Magician of the Circle, represented by the symbol “Sowilo”. The one tainted grey is for Shu, God of Air and Hermit, indicated by “Ingwaz”. Brown connotes Geb, God of Earth and Emperor of the Circle, symbol “Hagalaz”. “
“Oh, let me guess, the red one is for Lucifer, God of Hades and Master deceiver of the Circle, symbol, inverted pentagram.”
Tristan smirked. “Were it so simple as that. No, the red is Seth, God of Disorder and yes, the Devil, symbol, “Fehu”. The last one, white, is Nephthys, Goddess of the Dead, and Judge of the Circle, represented by a reversed “Mannaz”.”
‘So what we have here is some bizarre aberration of various pagan philosophies melded together in an arbitrary manner to…, to invoke the aid of the powers of darkness, of earth wind, fire, water, sky and heaven. But indeed, for what pupose? What hope do the nightcrawlers have in summoning up the devil himself ? Aren’t they evil and deplorable enough as it is? What is their objective?”
“Just wait,” Tristan nodded., “There is an explanation. The systems are centuries, sometimes millenniums old. The runes, or Elder Furthark, were used as early forms of divination by the Goths, but were replaced by more contemporary forms of divination, the tarot, color symbolism, embodied deities…”
“Nine heads! There are nine points in the enneagram; that makes for nine heads! And the beast, Novum, whose presence heralds darkness, and binds humanity forever – the giant who smashes the living underfoot – this is it, isn’t it? And you – what of you? Where are you in this abomination? Who are you?”
Tristan circled the external perimeter twice before sitting down in center, upon the sacrificial stone. “I am Hezbollah, the chosen one, God of War and Champion of the Vampires. When the nine Gods and Goddesses meet at last around this circle, they will channel forth Charion – through my sacrifice. I will awake the beast that for millenniums has haunted the subconscious and memories of those that have lived.”
“Then you must die,” I announced, “ and unsheathing my sword proceeded towards him, but Tristan only smiled. “Don’t you see, my sweet Regina, you have already stopped it? The chain is broken, but do not be deceived. The ritual requires a direct descendant of Mordock, the oldest vampire lineage. I may have been the first and rightful heir to this power, but I am not the only candidate; I have only been saved through your mercy.”
I slid my sword back into its casing. “Why nine?”
“Nine – is the number of the Creator Egyptian Gods, the founders of the pyramids which humans have sought for so hard and for so long to explain. They were Noctors, these Enneads, having come to earth on a diplomatic mission of peace. But humanity was not prepared for contact, and so they worshipped them as Gods. Eventually, over time, these deities took on new attributes and symbolism, having very little to do with who they really were and more to do with what the Egyptians wanted them to be.”
Naturally the Noctors departed once they realized their mistake, but by then it was too late. Now the vampires have assumed the roles and have developed strategies to employ the “2nd coming” of these gods.”
“The 2nd coming?”
“The apocalypse, where blood will run higher than a horses head and humanity will be reduced to a food source.”
A few minutes passed without either of us saying a word; then I said “Stand Up and move away from the circle.”
Tristan eyed me curiously, but did as I ordered.
Gazing up at the sky, I flung open my arms and bellowed towards the ether. “God of Heaven and Earth, of all that is above and below and within, hear my plea. Destroy this profane place, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”
For a moment nothing happened, but soon the earth beneath began to rumble, and overhead murky clouds gathered in an angry mass. A breeze stirred up the scarce leaves freed from the frozen ground, whirling them around in a frenzied pitch of disorder as the wind continued to increase. Unable to stand any longer, Tristan and I lay down on the ground as the weathered chaos continued to erupt, raining down hail and sleet like bullets to their final destination. At last, in the final frenetic tempest, lightning struck from above, decimating the sacrificial stone and consuming the circle of blasphemy in a ring of fire. When all was done, nothing remained of the pagan ritual site or of the colors that had once demarked it.
Tristan raised his face off the ground studying the devastated landscape around him. “Your God, it seems, has little tolerance for other faiths.”
Standing up, I ambled towards Tristan and extended my hand to him. “He is the
One and Only God, Creator, Sustainer, Alpha and Omega, but don’t expect him to wave his magic wand at every atrocity or every offense to his glory. It’s up to you and me, now, to make the difference.”
Pulling Tristan off the ground, we walked hand-in-hand, back down the hill towards path that led to the outskirts of the town.

[Countess]

CHAPTER XIV - THE FOOL

My consort continued his lengthy explanation of vampiric culture, a task that took the following day, so that it was dusk before he grew silent. From what I gathered the subversive element of vampires had infiltrated the ranks of every major government, rendering them subservient to vampiric influence. Furthermore, this same group had set in motion a chain of events that, if altered in any way, could result in partial or even total destruction of mankind.
Their strategy betrayed an unrivaled genius and superior intellect: having gained nuclear intelligence for what was once North Korea (but was now part of Asia Major), they pointed their missiles toward Liberland in an act of aggression. In response, Liberland officials had also primed their missiles, directing them at Asia Major, and positioned themselves as if attack were eminent. Both sides were busy constructing a series of bomb shelters, oftentimes using subterranean transport as a launching pad for additional tunnels, which were interconnected at key locations. These key locations were the shelters themselves, allowing for transportation of supplies between shelters.
The export of La Rouge was the vehicle by which the core element communicated with other vampiric clans; the concoction contained a small trace of the master’s own blood, which conveyed knowledge of the conspiracy to any vampire that consumed it. Hence, worldwide distribution was never intended to make money, but rather unite the diverse families for the sole purpose of world domination.
Furthermore, due to this elaborate design, North Korea would launch the first of its nuclear weaponry in less than a year, effectively inciting a war with Liberland. But humanity would not die, for with the completion of the shelters, individuals would seek sanctuary within them, where they would remain until the danger of fallout had passed. However, in such a small area the population would be easy to control, and vampires were prepared throw a coup and establish a new government.
Meanwhile, on the surface, others would reconstruct the cities, establish blood-banks and feeding houses/clubs so that when humans emerged, they would find themselves pre-ordained sustenance slaves for an entire planet of vampires.
When he finished his discourse he asked “So, what are your thoughts?”
“I’m thinking of moving back to Welbeck Abbey,” I replied nonchalantly.
Tristan paused before he spoke. “That’s Dorian talking…”
”….you said it wasn’t possible,” I interrupted him, “that it would result ‘in the total destruction of mankind’…”
“…that doesn’t mean turning a blind eye. What about planning, resources…”
“Aren’t you presuming I care to save humanity? Dorian was right; the heart of humanity is black with hatred, sin, crime, decadence and degeneracy and bent on self-destruction. The effort required to revive such a dying race exceeds the worth of the race itself. It’s a bad investment, if you will, of my talents; I would do better to retire some place dependable and watch from my toppling tower of relative obscurity the species’s natural descent into extinction.”
Tristan stood up, strode across the ancient warped wooden floor towards the exit. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,” he snapped, then disappeared into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.
I only half-cared about the preceding argument or the impending debacle, yet this compassionate part of me revolted against my previous reasoning, chastising the reprehensible phlegm of my soul and rallying my callous disposition towards a charitable defense. But I would not be moved by even the most potent of emotions to change my declared course of action, and it was now with a heavy heart that I called my attorney and requested he require Welbeck Abbey for me at
any costs.
Tristan did not return until the following morn and did so with blood on his lips. Although I had ventured out the previous night as well to feed, I had not intercepted him on my hunt and - not having much of an appetite - had retired early to my quarters. Thus my curiosity was roused by his solitary journey, and what - or who - he had found - to quench his thirst.
“So, what - or who - did you eat?”
“I dined on vampire,” he replied resentfully, advancing towards the bed with a scowl upon his face. “It was delectable. How about yourself?”
Twitching nervously upon the bed, I shuffled through some official papers. “Nothing. I hadn’t an appetite.”
“Your conscience is eating away at you; that’s why you couldn’t eat.”
“You hardly bore one yourself when you devoured an old flame some four hours ago,” I replied, having ingested his memories from the previous night. “So much anger.”
Tristan gazed at me steadily and I could discern a hint of shame in his demeanor. “We’re still headed for Welbeck Abbey, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” I shot back, somewhat surprised by his insinuation. “You’re going with me?”
“I could never leave you now Regina, even if I wanted to,” he murmured quietly. “You’re a part of me, and I a part of you.”
A smile waxed over my soul as well as my face. “Loyal to the end, even in treachery,” I repeated, remembering his faithfulness as a vampire. “It is good to know I have at least one companion who is dependable despite contrary inclinations. Were Dorian so inclined.”
Tristan turned away then to gaze at a small sketch that hung on the wall of the Inn. In it two dark-haired children, holding hands, ran carefree together in a field, evidentially unaware of the approaching thunderstorm behind them. Although his vampiric age permitted him to retain certain ideas to himself, I nevertheless gathered his thoughts were thousands of miles away, washed upon the shore of Liberland.
“You may yet be reconciled,” he answered, his eyes transfixed as if he were in a fugue. “Dorian is not dependable, but he may be unable to sever the ties that bind you eternally to one another. Perhaps familial compulsion will ultimately drive you together - or fate, which in both vampire and Noctor worlds, has a way of uniting relations.”
His manner of speech seemed exaggerated and unnatural at that moment, yet I detected he no longer walked upon land, but in some supernatural spiritual world, one which I constantly strove to attain through meditation but had yet to meet with success.
The sun was rising as we closed our eyes to sleep, and I wondered as I entered into my land of eerie visions, what the future held for the both of us.

[Countess]

CHAPTER XV

The letter slipped under my door several days after my initial inquiry into the acquisition of Welbeck Abbey read as follows:

Dear Mrs. Churchhill,

Per your request, I visited the new tenant of Welbeck Abbey, requesting from him a sum by which you might purchase the entire estate, but he would not be bought. He indicated no amount of currency could goad him into selling, but that a non-negotiable offer could be made in another form, one which he would readily accept, but he remained furtive about the nature of that bid and would only say that your presence at the Abbey was required and was the fashion by which he would make that information known.
If you need my assistance further in this matter, please feel free to write; otherwise I recommend you make an appointment with Mr. James Cagey, the owner’s legal representative, to meet and discuss the issue with the new owner. He is prepared to hear from you in writing.

Sincerely,

Edward Eldritch
Eldritch and Assoc. Law Firm

My attorney, Mr. Eldritch, had been my legal council most of his life, and had grown old during the course of our officious relationship. Currently in his late sixties, he was to date the only human with whom I entrusted the entire nature of my identity and person, and had consequently grown accustomed to my antediluvian manner of dress, speech and communication. While he contacted the rest of the world via teleports and held conferences in a spherical dome on the dark side of the moon, he remained faithful to my preferences, choosing to write by hand ( a now truly outdated channel of discourse, and one hardly known or practiced even by the educated classes) or dealing in person by travel.
Thus, it seemed entirely queer to me that another lawyer, James Cagey, was equipped to hear from me by means of mail and was willing via this archaic method to make travel arrangements for my visit, something that seemed extraordinarily extraneous considering modern developments in communication and civic settlements. Rarely were in person interviews requested or required in any course or duty and left only for those occasional instances where decisions could not be rendered in any other way, yet clearly here was just such an occasion.
The new owner of Welbeck Abbey, like myself and the townsfolk that surrounded me, apparently also lived in the past, and preferred history over technology, something that aroused my suspicion. Nevertheless, I was determined to acquire my former residence at all costs, and so wrote and made plans to meet his principal in two weeks at Welbeck, consequent to which I received a letter confirming the appointment and extending an invitation to me and a guest for a one week stay at the estate.
Naturally I accepted.
On the eve of our departure a full moon, cinctured by a thin layer of purple haze, waxed luminously on the horizon, imbuing the dark Romanian landscape with an iridescent lavender glow. From my crude, single sashed window I could discern a series of eerie figures clad in dingy, grey woolen cloaks and bearing an assortment of objects - everything from books to cages - meandering slowly and methodically towards the castled and heavily fortified mountain.
“It’s time,” I mumbled into the window pane as a wave of concern washed over me, for the disquieting sight in the streets had set off some internal alarm that now warned of an impending danger. I turned to scrutinize Tristan for a reaction, but he only remained immobile upon the bed, his unblinking blue eyes staring into mine.
“Tonight is Charion, Celebration of the Dead,” he responded dryly. “Both Drone and Aristocrat alike worship at the temple and, of course, there are sacrificial rites…”
I slammed my hand angrily against the wall. “You knew this when I scheduled the trip!” I roared, realizing for the first time his indifference to the date had served to hide a manipulative goal.
“I did, and I knew our coach traveled that path and that - if for no other reason than to satiate your intellectual curiosity - you would be forced to cease your activity and watch them.”
“Faithful, even in treachery.”
“The time is short before the poignant becomes trite, Regina,” he snapped in response, his voice quivering with unspoken resentment.
“You know, you’re becoming more like Dorian each day,” I quipped, then gathered together my belongings and ran out to meet the coach that was now racing down the street towards us. I could smell the horses fear from afar but their owner was reeking with trepidation, the sweat tingeing his body with the sour odor of a man in the midst of a immense adrenaline response.
“We must hurry!” he yelled to me as soon as he was within earshot. “Tonight is Charion!”
“Yes, I know,” I sneered more towards Tristan than the driver as I threw up my suitcases. “But don’t worry; we’ll protect you.”
The coachman glanced sideways at me with a look of incredulousness and I sensed he thought me mad; nevertheless, he remained silent and after we boarded, drove the horses on relentlessly, as if someone was chasing him personally and his capture meant certain death.
Towards the mountain’s acme and near to the abominable site I ordered the driver to stop and he obeyed, although I immediately detected an increase in sweat upon his brow, and of the disagreeable stench that had come in so short a period to characterize him. When he inquired into the reason for my hesitation I spoke briefly then sent him into a sound slumber with a wave of my hand, placing his body in the rear of the carriage and covering him with the smell of death, something any semi-talented Noctor could reproduce at will for defensive purposes. Having thus secured his safety I set the horses free for their protection, but under a kind of mild hypnosis and with orders to not wander far from the wagon, and then Tristan and I set out towards the pinnacle of the peak.
Not ten yards forward two unfortunate sycophants fell victim to Tristan and my attack, and soon we, heavily clad in dingy, grey woolen blankets, the age and condition which would have sent me into a frenzy of mad scratching had I less discipline over my bodily reactions, joined the other zombies in the clearing.
Soon there arose from the site such a clamour, a rhythmic chant that sounded strangely like the screeching of tortured cats at regular intervals, yet these were no ordinary cats - if they were indeed felines - for the qualify of the voice and the utterances made seemed remarkably human. In fact, on one or two occasions - though I am certain in my heightened nervous state my ears betrayed me - I swore they recited the following verse:

Is quisnam sceptrum nox noctis divum
is pro quos mille defungo
recipero is , nostrum humilis vitualamen
quod ex is universitas permissum justicia
addo a caligo rabidus patientia.

“What tongue is this, Tristan? It’s clear they form words but with little meaning.”

As I spoke a drone before me turned back, and I could discern his glowing crimson eyes staring at me from beneath his coat. For a moment I froze, unsure of what protocol demanded in such circumstances, but Tristan instantly captured the creature’s gaze and with an equally vampiric scowl dismissed him, which seemed to satisfy the beast, for he instantly faced forward and resumed his trek towards whatever beacon was now drawing him.
“Vampira est lingua superum,” he replied. “Nos es inconcessus oro secus.”
“Um, no comprende, so no hablo, capiche?” I whispered.
Tristan ceased his trek and we locked eyes for a moment. Inside my mind I could hear jabbering, at first soft and indistinct and then louder until I seemed to grasp the the meaning of the barrage, although not through any language known to man. The metaphysical palaver said the dead were chanting to invoke Charion, and that the mantra I so longed to comprehend was this:

He who rules the midnight sky
he for whom a thousand died
accept this, our humble offering
and from this world let justice
bring, a darker, maddened suffering.”

A circle of nine now gathered around a wooden heap of what appeared to be freshly cut timber from Rowan, Dogwood, Elder, Poplar, Oak, Juniper, Holly, Cedar and Apple trees, each baring dewy verdant buds, a fact that from afar made them appear tearful over their approaching fate. On the right a fair lady, clothed in the most exquisite navy blue dress, which was loosely cinched about her waist and complemented therein by a single rose, gathered her long, tightly curled black tresses into a bun and secured it neatly behind her head. The style betrayed an unrivaled beautifully slender white neck, and a set of yellow beads that caused her porcelain skin to glow with life. Within me I felt the undesirable sentiment of jealousy, and looked on with envy at her glowing blue eyes and red ribboned lips. But when she turned towards Tristan and noted his presence with a half-smile, this invidiousness exploded into outright enmity.
“Covetousness is the most repulsive of all emotions and yet here I am, powerless to feel otherwise,” I mused, ashamed of my own ill nature. “In any case we should leave. She knows.”
“She does but she won’t tell,” he replied softly. “The knowledge will remain with her.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I loved her once, and she still loves me.”
“I regarded the silky sheen of the puffy sleeves and the lovely, delicate white hands that jutted from them. “Can vampires love?” I asked.
“They have a form of love, I suppose, insofar as it is possible for the fallen to love.”
“And she will protect you?” I inquired further.
“Yes, yes she will.”
“Then I suppose even in the greatest evil there is good,” I replied. “Save for those angels without redemption, all creatures have an admirable quality about them.”
Tristan pulled back his hood, revealing his bright, sky-blue eyes. “Noctors were once like vampires - fallen and depraved. Your jealousy is a remnant of that time when our species were subjugated to their emotions, having no will to act outside the boundaries of their passion. You must exercise constraint over your fervor, or you will become the thing you hate.”
“How?” I begged.
“There is a way, through meditation and rigorous discipline, but I will teach you the tools. There is an ancient book I must retrieve, but for now, control yourself - and watch the unfolding of Charion.”
Turning my attention I observed the fair lady was soon joined by her counterparts, less compelling in stature but all the more frightening for their appearance. The attractive vampire who had once mesmerized me in the castle was present, dressed in modern black and carrying a large book, a strip of papaya jutting forth from between it‘s pages. Joining him were several others garbed in various shades of purple, turquoise, orange, grey, brown red and white, all of which bore various books or cages, perhaps for sacrificial reasons. Above the wooden heap a child hung from a cross-bar altar, evidentially intended as the sacrifice to whatever gods were being summoned for the event. Immediately sympathetic, I wove a psychic layer of protection around his person, and sent him into a heavy slumber, to save him the trauma of being burned alive.
Tristan and I then retreated into the woods to watch the unfolding of the abomination.
The lady in blue was first to open her book, and read some scripture in an ancient language, the syllables of which sounded comparable to those recited during the chant. Afterwards the master of ceremonies - the vampire in black - opened his manuscript, and read at length some passage as equally as puzzling to me as the first. As he recited scripture clouds gathered overhead, and a strong wind roared in from the west, but it wasn’t until he opened his hands to the sky and declared in a most unnatural voice what I could only surmise was a summoning, that thunder and lighting were roused from their resting place and congregated ominously over the circle of blasphemy. At last a single lightning strike descended upon the altar, the power of which sent all reeling backwards, and to my dismay charred the poor child that I had sought to protect with my power. The ground shook ominously beneath my feet, and splitting in two, raised up a temple of gargantuan proportions, so old and archaic that it preceded any identifiable architecture. Surrounded by stark reliefs, monstrous sculptures of humped foreign creatures and crimsoned friezes behind crumbling columns, the pitch-black portico gaped ominously, and seemed - at least to me - to betray a smile, if inanimate things were capable of such anthropomorphic displays. I looked fearfully at Tristan, who for the first time in his life displayed a severe dread, and said in the shakiest of voices,
“There are some things so unnatural that neither man nor vampire can explain.”
Furthermore and contrary to what one of sound constitution would expect under such conditions, the vampires jumped up from their fallen positions and in the most feral manner began to scream and dance a bizarre jig, circling the building Widdershins, which I had come to know from my studies as another form of incantation. In this manner the natives worked themselves up into a frenzy, twisting and writhing in the pouring rain until off to the right a rumbling resounded, a pounding echo which grew louder until a large number of human burst forth from between the trees, being driven on by demonic beasts with firey whips. Spying these victims, the vampires threw off their vestments and - completely naked - gorged themselves on the blood of these frightened innocents.
Horrified by the sight but more outraged by the brutality, I raced forth from my hiding spot determined to save whom I could, but was immediately thrown down from behind by Tristan.
“You cannot stop destiny,” he declared forcefully. “Charion lives within that arcane temple and will destroy you at will if you should so much as try to interfere. We must retreat, now, to save ourselves for another time, when conditions are favorable and we have laid forth a strategy.”
Even with my face in the mud I realized the truth of his words. Lifting my head one last time to examine the atrocity before me - the screams of humans hopelessly fleeing their attackers, the frightened appearance of the people as their predators mercilessly slaughtered them - I rose and ran with Tristan down the hill, to retrieve the carriage from its wooden mausoleum and continue on course to Welbeck Abbey.

[Countess]

CHAPTER XVI - THE LAND OF STRIGOI


Whether from nervousness or anticipation my hands trembled as Tristan grasped them firmly in his, gazing into my eyes with a steady anticipation. The carriage pitched to and fro from the jagged rocks that typify such rarely traveled paths, and I struggled to maintain both physical and eye contact with my benefactor.
“Close your eyes,” he whispered softly, gently squeezing his hands in mine, “and concentrate on ascending the higher realm.”
I obeyed and shut my eyelids, focusing on the inner being that was Bastat, and upon her mindfulness of the spiritual realm around her. At first all I could see was misty waters smothered with a dense fog, but soon the vapor dissipated and I could perceive a series of haggard figures meandering too and fro among black trees, which jutted forth from the black stream and writhed unnaturally in the pale moonlight, their wavering limbs responding to some unseen force that I could neither account for nor identify.
Although I was formless and without parts, I felt a presence beside me, and understood that Tristan also had risen to join me in this neverland.
“Where are we?” I whispered with some trepidation.
“Don’t worry; they can’t hear you,” he replied softly. “We are in the land of the Strigoi, the kingdom of the second death. Here there are eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear, hands that cannot feel and tongues devoid of taste. Each creature suffers his own punishment, the result of his evil deeds, the number of lives he has stolen, the wickedness he has wrought upon the innocents and upon those touched by grace. Among these you will find the chupacabra, a cryptid found mainly in Puerto Rico, Lilu and Lilith from Adam’s day, the Akhkharu and Vetala as well as those who worship Sekhmet and Kali. All suffer in isolation; they wander the moor but are not mindful of it. Their souls burn with unseen horrors unique to their own history.”
“A personal kind of Hell.”
“Hell is highly private,” he answered, and I felt a chill flow through my essence.
“You are not Virgil and I certainly am no Dante, so why escort me on this tour of second deaths? What do you hope to accomplish here, Tristan, other than to make me aware of the abyss which once awaited you?”
“Because it is Charion‘s dominion; here he resides and rules over darkness. The physical plane is only one existential dimension, Regina. There are multiple realms filled with both the living and the dead, and it is in these realms where we fight; not in the tangible reality that is your world.”
I looked down then, and saw the waters divide, succumbing to a chasm that resided beneath the surface, hidden carefully below its watery fathoms. Here no physical laws defined the universe or created consistency in nature, for it was evident that the abyss had laid silently beneath the waters, and that the trees were rooted not in firmament but in infinite space and darkness, where nothing existed save a frenzied chaos of madness.
From the limitless void rose a smoldering vapor - perhaps the same that had initially obscured the landscape from my view, but perchance more terrifying was the cacophonic dissonant symphony emitted from that same space, a series of rapidly played arpeggios that both mesmerized and repelled by it’s alien nature. Had Tristan not stayed me I would have fallen headfirst into that black pandemonium, for despite its horrifying spirit it at once called to me, “Come, Come.”
“The siren song lures the dead into greater torment,” he said, “be sure not to listen too carefully to it. Charion lives at the center of the void surrounded by his demons, where he orchestrates his plots and devises his schemes to destroy Noctura and conquer earth. The temple you saw is only a representation and source of his power; razing it would effect nothing.”
Tristan waved his hands before the vapor, and I saw the smoke separate, so that the clearing below could be more easily scrutinized. Liquid ice flowed freely upon the firmament, but in the midst I saw the shape of an Enneagram, and the word “Novum” etched into it’s center, and recognized the shapes and names from the little town in Romania and from my dreams.
Sitting down upon the watery land, I laid my head between my knees. “What hope have I of defeating so grand a design, a single individual against a billion strong, each whose might matches my own?”
“Good is no less prevalent or complicated,” he responded, gazing up at the sky.
“See your allies gathered about in equal contemplation.”
Raising my head, I looked up and discovered three interwoven flames of blue, red and orange hues, which writhed together so tightly that they were hardly distinguishable, yet without separation they formed a triple helix. This Flammivomous conflagration burnt so intensely that its brilliance threatened to sear my eyes and I was forced to look away, but not before I remarked with astonishment that the conflagration lacked a source - that the fuel for the flame was the fire itself.
“Tristan, part for me the flame, so that I might see those who fight evil,” I begged, but he shook his head sadly. “I have a tri-fold nature: human, vampire and noctor. What I know I derived from years spent in darkness. I have no knowledge of the light, only what I have heard. What you see before you is what the Jews referred to at the Tetragrammaton, Yodh, Yeshua, Ruah Haquodesh.”
“I don’t understand,” I cried, struggling to comprehend all the various realms, dieties and creatures. “Charion and Satan, Yodh and God…”
“Alien creatures experience life and death differently. Charion or Satan, both are embodiments of the same evil source, the wicked intelligence that gives the new Ennead power over darkness and the authority to work black magic. Good is no different; the Noctor race has a heavenly hierarchy, an army of “angels” they summon to dispense grace. The main struggle for you, I think, is in understanding who is destined for heaven and who for hell. Vampires are fallen creatures, Regina, without redemption. Noctors - they have greater free-will. Most follow the commandments of their faith, live righteous lives and die in an act of sacrifice.”
“And those that don’t?” I asked.
“No one knows,” Tristan mused, “but do not be confused. There are no humans in the Land of Strigoi, and there are no vampires in Hades. Separate realms for separate creatures, separate sufferings and separate glories.”
In retrospect I am certain I was under a wondrous spell at the time and thus suffered a delusion consequent to my happiness, but at that moment as I glanced up to regard for the last time that infinity of greatness in the sky, I seemed to hear a voice amidst the steamy roar, a soft utterance that whispered a single word, “soon”, and then I woke up in our wobbly carriage just as it came to a stop.

[Adolescent09]

I think its all great Countess and although I can't comment any of it mainly because I don't have the time (and I'm feeling very nauseous right now), I can assure you I've read half of it and understand the general gist of your story/rhythm. The only suggestion I would make is to reduce the vocabulary a bit.. Being that I am a very pretentious writer, upon reviewing the chapters of my own book that I am currently writing, I can pinpoint lots of areas where certain words would be better left our or changed in certain places. I can see that certain sentences in your book need change as well but most likely this is just your rough draft and by the time you are done everything will be spick and span. I love the story though, Countess, keep it up!

[Countess]

Thank you so much Adolescent09! You don't know how much it means to me that you're reading it, and you're right about your criticisms. I'll keep those in mind as I write the next chapters.

THanks!

C

[Countess]

CHAPTER XVII - AT WELBECK

The Welbeck Abbey I had grown to love, the Praemonstratensian edifice reminiscent of ancient monastic sanctuaries with their holy inner sanctums was no more. In its stead stood a garish pink marble structure laced with shiny silver and replete with a colonnaded portico of Dorian-style columns on the front and sides. A series of stacked lintels divided the columns from the gable roof, permitting alternating triglyphs with metopes carved with a series of odd bass reliefs, weird Arabesque patterns representing both the cycle of life and the flow of plants. Meanwhile the pediments featured gargoyle creatures with extended wings, preparing to take flight. The entire scenery was eccentric, but the white cobblestone streets and courtyard filled with extravagantly endowed nude statues streaming a white pearlized substance into fountain pools made the landscape pure madness, like the work of a gauche playboy defying his parochial history.
“And they dare call this an abbey,” I declared angrily. “It looks more like a bath-house from ancient Greece.”
“Aren’t you being a bit melodramatic?” Tristan remarked casually, ceasing his walk to admire a particularly muscular, endowed statue. “It’s not so bad.”
“The sculptures themselves indicate the owner has an inferiority complex,” I retorted, somewhat miffed by Tristan’s lackadaisical attitude. Tristan burst out laughing at my response, then stripped down to his underwear and stood in a mocking pose behind the focus of his respect.
“So what do you think? Do I look as grand and impressive as he does?”
“You look like a fool, just like the bust. Now get down from there and clothe yourself. I will buy back this abbey despite the cost and return it to the beautiful mystery it once was.”
“Assuming you can purchase it,” Tristan reminded me.
“It’s mine,” I retorted, staring into his eyes. “And I know you are hiding something from me but I’ll find out.”
“Yes you will - in due time, Regina. Look, here comes the welcoming committee.”
As I turned I discovered a butler had retrieved my bags and was quickly escorting them inside, ceasing his endeavor only long enough to motion Tristan and me to follow him. We quickly obeyed.
Once inside the vestibule the servant motioned us towards another marble door - this one traditionally white and grey - and then quickly departed through an exit on the right, leaving us to escort ourselves into the desired room. After he left, we entered the quarters and I was quite delighted to discover a more conservative, setting, albeit ancient Greek, with walls built from white stone and covered with a series of friezes just below the cornice. As was the tradition of the referenced times, these murals depicted mythological events: scenes from the Trojan War, Odysseus’ travel to the underworld, Zeus’ reign in Mount Olympus and the story of Venus and her Adonis. Likewise the floor was covered with an antique mural of the constellations, most notably Orion, while the inverted dome ceiling featured festoons of warring Ares and Athena on the right and left respectively, while Prometheus squated dead-center, extending the gift of fire to the mortals below. The convex shape lent a certain three dimensional realism to the painting, and I felt if I were to extend my arm far enough, I would be the recipient of the Titan’s treasure.
A second door on the opposite side of the room opened then, revealing a youth dressed in a knee-length scarlet chiton with a Greek Key boarder pattern woven in metallic Gold. A belt constructed of the same material was gathered about his slender waist, with extraneous material billowing out from above it, and he wore leather sandals as well as a string of garland about his dark hair, which hung in beautiful ringlets around his clean-shaven face.
“Dorian,” I declared. “I should have guessed. Not living in the past, are you now, with this outrageous homage to ancient Greece? It‘s preposterous, I hope you realize that.”
He snickered then meandered over to one of the four white couches that formed a diamond in the middle of the room and laid down. “That’s rather hypocritical coming from a woman who fancies herself a Lady Percy Blakeney, don’t you think? Still busy rescuing those poor mortals from their fanged enemies?”
“What is it you want?”
“You know what I want, Regina. I want my soul,” he answered, turning to look at me with his glowing brown eyes.
“I can’t give you that,” I snipped, frustrated by the impracticality of his request. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
Dorian shot up from where he was lying. “No I don’t know it doesn’t work that way because you haven’t told me. You haven’t said a word - I’ve had to learn everything on my own.”
Gathering the folds of my dress, I walked over and sat down on the couch. “I don’t know much either - except what Tristan has told me, but I do know when we mated our souls were attached a fait accompli, and we are a part of each other now, till death do us part. In short, for you to retrieve your soul, you would have to die.”
“Or you,” he spat back, then his eyes flashed and he looked over at Tristan.
“Are you going to kill me Tristan?” I inquired, inclining my ear for the answer, for I had suddenly realized Dorian and Tristan knew each other apart from me and it was possible my death was imminent as a result of their relations.
“No - but I was at one time. As I said, before we met I was in intelligence, and followed you to Liberland to Dorian’s wedding. After you left I knew Dorian wanted you dead - it was only natural after such a tragedy - so I went to him and told him I would murder you, but I had to know more, so I drained him for his information.”
“But he’s not vampire, not even a fraction,” I retorted.
“No, I cut his wrist and he bled into a cup, so he wouldn’t learn anything of the vampire dynasty or our plans.”
Dorian fell back into the couch. “Well that was clever. Wish I had known that at the time. I might not have been as congenial.”
“So what changed your mind, Tristan,” I begged. “What was it that made you betray your own kin?”
Tristan wandered over to the couch and seated himself beside me. “I honestly don’t know. Maybe Dorian’s blood had a greater effect on me than I had anticipated - he is a Noctor after all, or maybe, perhaps I saw you for who you really were, and some human part of me that still remains prevented me from carrying out my mission.”
I turned to face Dorian. “If you’re going to cut off my head, now’s the time.”
“I’ve no desire to kill you,” he replied wistfully. “I just thought with the promise of Welbeck Abbey over your head, if there was some other way, you would reveal it, but it’s clear we are bound together forever - however long that forever may be.”
“But Dorian, I still want Welbeck Abbey,” I uttered softly, sensing some resistance in my friend and hoping to allay it with gentleness.
“It’s not for sale. I should tell you now I didn’t purchase it merely as a blackmail device, there is another reason I moved here.”
I raised my eyebrow curiously and he continued.
“There is a bete noire in Liberland; strange beasts come out at night and dig tunnels underground under the pretense of extending the subway, but I know they lie. For one I’ve never seen construction workers with glowing red eyes, and secondly several of these tunnels have been completed for months but have yet to be opened. One night I stumbled across one of these creatures; we were both alone. He gazed up at me with those phosphorescent orbs of his - it was disconcerting to say the least.”
“Drones,” Tristan muttered, “but you have no reason to be frightened. You are the firstborn son of a Noctor prince. The power contained in you is beyond your imagination.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confounded by Tristan’s sudden knowledge of our ancestry.
“The being who formed you, Regina, was a Noctor prince named Logoi Archenous. I gained intelligence through a treacherous Scurge in a forbidden relationship with a powerful Noctor authority that Logoi was on his way to Khem, our base headquarters situated in the next galaxy and the one we had been using for surveillance. I took the opportunity to try to assassinate him, but only managed to injure Logoi and debilitate his ship. Before we could locate the wreckage, he had refueled via your Ka, repaired his ship and disappeared. You, Regina, are the firstborn daughter of a Prikipas and you, Dorian, the firstborn son.”
“So perhaps your treachery was really driven by an innate selfishness,” Dorian quipped. “You wanted power.”
“No. I was one of the most powerful vampires in existence, descended from an ancient line of Nosferatu, and was known for my cunning and craftiness as well as my deftness in battle. I had no need of your power.”
“Then why did you wait so long to tell me this?! Why?!” I demanded angrily. “It’s obvious you’ve orchestrated this entire debacle from the start. Why should I trust you?”
“Because I love you Regina,” Tristan proclaimed passionately. “I am a changed creature and am as dedicated to the light as I once was to the darkness. I want to help you realize your potential and your destiny, and I even want to assist Dorian - God knows why - to recognize the meaning of his position, his place by your side, and train him to gain the skills he will need for battle.”
“Do you comprehend, Tristan, the import of your words?” Dorian inquired rhetorically. “ We’re humans - or once were - and you’ve introduced to us an entire history of fantastic beings we’ve never encountered or so much as fathomed, concepts that lie beyond human imagination, and events of which we’ve had no knowledge. I feel, though I can’t understand why, that you’ve good intentions, but you’re more or less crippling us with a perplexing paralysis of information.”
“I realize that,” Tristan answered. “which is why I haven’t been so forthcoming until now. Let this be the end of our discourse, then, and I’ll reveal more day by day But for now, let it be said that the Mortal Armageddon is at hand; without interference it means certain slavery and the extinction of the entire race. Though it cannot be stopped - the apocalypse will happen and soon - it can be fought a ex post facto, and
from *that* position, it’s possible to overcome.”
After our lengthy discussion Dorian offered us dinner, Greek style, served lying down and then we retired to our rooms. At my request Dorian conceded and bequeathed to me the subterranean chambers for my home, although it was hardly his loss as he preferred abiding in his Greek mansion. Meanwhile Tristan chose one of the underground rooms for his living space, and we three parted ways amicably.

[Countess]

CHAPTER XVIII - TRISTAN FROM SPARTA

“If something is imminent, it‘s rather futile to fight it, right?”
Dorian had risen during the night and now stood on the stone floor staring down at me with a pensive look upon his face.
“I’ve been wondering the exact same thing all night. It seems you’ve been keeping me awake, Dorian.”
“Or you me,” he replied.
“Possibly, but as to the question, I’ll wager it isn’t disturbing Tristan’s sleep, so lets wake him and find out the answer.”
Dorian and I slipped down the hall and rapped vigorously upon his door. After minutes of horrible banging it finally opened, and a sleepy Tristan stepped aside for us to enter.
After shutting the door he fell back upon the bed. “What is it that’s bothering you at this hour? More questions?”
Dorian took the lead and asked, “If this catastrophe is certain, isn’t opposing it vain? Aren’t we wasting time, energy and effort on nothing?”
Tristan gazed thoughtfully at Dorian’s face. “We have a moral obligation to combat it, don’t you think? We can’t stop destiny, but we can lessen it’s impact on humanity -- however, the reason for your confusion is simple: you’re ignorant because the circle isn’t complete. For this trinity to be fully formed and highly functional, we must seal the blood pact. Then you will know all that I know for better or for worse.”
“And what is worse than having to drink your blood?” Dorian inquired.
“Two thousand years worth of memories, ideas, emotions, thoughts forced through a small opening into a significantly younger creature could cause madness.”
I paced the floor for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of the act. On the one hand, I greatly desired to acquire the knowledge that made Tristan so wise in the current situation; on the other hand, I feared the loss of my faculties, but more so the loss of my precious Dorians, who I secretly dreaded was more likely to suffer the injury than me.
“I’ll do it; but I can’t allow Dorian to risk it,” I answered finally.
“I’ll have you know you don’t control me Regina. I make my own decisions; you are simply a considerable influence in them.”
“And what’s your decision, Dorian, in this matter? Have you made up your mind?”
‘Yes. I will follow your lead. If you seal the pact, then I will also and we’ll be three strong.”
I looked at Dorian regretfully, then reaching over, stroked his cheek with the back of my hand. “My precious Dorian,” I whispered. “I fear for you.”
“Oh mother, I’ll be fine,” he countered, pulling my hand down to hold between his. “You worry too much.”
Both of us turned towards Tristan, who lay prostrate on his back with his arms extended in a sacrificial posture. “You won’t become vampires but you will carry traces of my experience from those years. Now, Carpe Diem as they say.”
Despite my reservations, I allowed Dorian to proceed and each of us took one of Tristan’s arms in ours, and slowly we sunk our teeth into his muscled wrist.
At first I saw nothing, and then a sudden and perpetual onslaught of complex memories inundated my brain, like several rolls of celluloid imposed upon each other, and I could not identify any specifics in content or people - only momentary glimpses into Tristan’s past, from the instant he first became conscious up to approximately 16 years of age. At this particular time the images slowed, and I could form in my mind the vision of a fair youth at 16, with golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes, seated at a table inside a magnificent, regal estate with smooth walls carved from the finest marble. At his side and draped in a rich scarlet tunic an older gentleman with long brunette hair and a heavy brow now sat discussing Pythagoras, Ameinias and Heraclitus. On the page before the child were written these words:

Welcome, youth, who come attended by immortal charioteers and mares which bear you on your journey to our dwelling. For it is no evil fate that has set you to travel on this road, far from the beaten paths of men, but right and justice. It is meet that you learn all things - both the unshakable heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief. - Parmenides

The man went on to explain the meaning of these words, but as he did so he gazed approvingly at the boy’s frame and at his countenance till the boy blushed out of pure modesty and shyness. It was then I guessed that the man was Tristan’s erastes and realized by the opulence of the house and the fine red linen that Tristan had, as a catamite, studied at the behest of an ancient king, perhaps during the Grecian or Roman era, but only when I heard the name “Leonidas” did I realize the significance of his training.
The scene faded from my mind then, and I was cast suddenly into a blackness from which another series of images arose, but these were more like impressions, and I saw the youth enduring numerous lashes at the hands of his elders without succumbing to the pain or injury, and beheld visions of him procuring food at midnight from the stores of the camp, and defeating his peers in what appeared to be to-the-death challenge. In every endeavor he was successful, and grew stronger and wiser at the foot of his pederast, who was hand-picked by Leonidas himself and who himself had once been Leonidas’ lover.
These soon passed and I was thrown into a second darkness before I met with yet another dream, this one of a lighter nature, or so I thought at first. Tristan had begun his education as a member of the Syssitia, and I felt rising within him a delight heretofore unrecognized, and understood that this period had been the happiest time of his mortal life not only because he was approved by his peers, but also because honored among them as their leader. I overheard voices then that paid homage to his performance during the Krypteia, and the number of rogue Helots he had slew, and The Paidonomos exhalted his physical prowess in both athletics and dancing, and in his perseverance during Diamastigosis. Tristan’s ecstasy was unquenchable, and I felt him pause for a moment to relish the fraternal love he had once experienced by his peers, and then abruptly the scene ended, hurling me once again into night and an unfathomable despondency. This, I knew, belonged to my friend, and was the precedent to some even he was loathe to reveal, but at last I saw a flickering candle, and a kiss goodbye - the kiss of two lovers before one departs for war.
For two days Tristan and his band held with Leonidas against 500,000 strong Persians, but on the third day, betrayed by their own blood, the Spartans fell under King Xerxes men. Tristan remained fighting to the last, but was struck his final blow by a rain of arrows that blotted out the sun, whereupon he collapsed onto the heap of decaying bodies below him and commenced to pass out.
He did not die however, for the strike that landed him was not fatal, and he awoke in the dimness of the following night, alone amongst his slaughtered comrades and king. A full moon radiating its supernatural light cast shadows along the countryside, and he could see the faces and visages of his fallen friends, and the traces of body mounds off to both his right and left. He felt then for his blade - or any object - by which he might kill himself and die honorably amongst his fellow Greeks, but he could find nothing beneath or beside him except rotting flesh on the frames of his familiar.
He was pondering the methods whereby he might end his life when movement off to the left startled him. Some figure, ominous and foreboding, was ravaging through the bodies like a hungry stray dog beneath a merchant’s table. It did not struggle through the mortal heaps but appeared to glide over them effortlessly, like mists over the swamp waters. “Surely I am about to die,” I heard Tristan think in his mind, “for I’m seeing phantoms.”
Tristan was straining harder to identify the beast that now scoured through the wreckage when suddenly the creature looked over at him, then hastily appeared at his side.
“You are death?” Tristan inquired through hollow breaths. “You’ve missed one.”
“Not death, friend,” said the other, and much to Tristan’s astonishment, the figure removed his hood, revealing the fresh face of a young man approximately his own age. “I am life, if you would have it.”
Tristan spat on the ground. “What life is left when all I love his dead? There is no honor in it. For the love of Sparta or whatever your native land, kill me now. Let me die honorably.”
“Is death more honorable than revenge, then? Would you kill yourself when you could see Xerxes murdered?”
Tristan raised an eyebrow at the youth. “How is this possible? Who are you?”
“My name isn’t important. Suffice it to say I have a vendetta to settle with the Persian empire, and would like nothing more than one of your caliber to handle this business for me. You’re an aristocrat, strong, clever and cunning. I’ve heard of you - yes - Tristan of Sparta, the Celt adopted by Leonidas for his fair complexion and raised under the strictest, harshest conditions. Not by birth but by effort were you forged and fashioned into a renowned warrior and now, hero. Would you fight for your birthright, or would you surrender to death so easily? Isn’t retribution a settling a differences, a King for a King, hmm?”
Tristan rolled over to stare at the hill of death he knew entombed his King. “What must I do?” he answered at last.
“You must be reborn,” the other hissed. “Allow me to kiss your hand and give you new life.”
Returning to his original resting place, Tristan offered up his hand to the stranger, whereupon the stranger seized it and, placing Tristan’s wrist in his mouth, proceeded to bite down. I felt Tristan loose consciousness under the vampire’s strength, and then everything went black.
“Tristan?”I hollered into empty space, a question that was soon answered.
“There is more.”
Another impression emerged, and I saw an old man wrapped in bloody Persian sheets and lying on his bed with multiple stab wounds in his back, and I saw another figure, this one hidden beneath a black coat, conceal a bloody dagger within its folds and disappear into the shadows.

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