The Red Wizards' offer hung in the night air, heavy with desperation and the promise of forbidden knowledge. Dracula weighed them, his ancient mind assessing the risks and rewards. He needed a solution for the sun, and he needed information about the abominations his own blood had spawned. Prudence dictated caution, but the situation was dire. Perhaps a little nudge...
As Sorcha began to detail the rudiments of her ancient solar rites, Dracula, almost instinctively, allowed a fraction of his power to seep outward. Not a direct command, but the subtle but immense pressure of his ancestral will, the hypnotic allure that had subdued countless mortals and weakened the resolve of lesser beings for centuries. He searched for a chink in her mental defenses, a sign of weakness he could exploit, a way to secure her submission beyond simple desperation.
The reaction was instantaneous, but not what he had expected.
Sorcha, mid-sentence about moonblood catalysts, stopped abruptly, her dark eyes narrowing with sudden fury as a barrier of crimson energy flickered around her. Malakor the Withered let out a low, menacing growl, and the air around them crackled with ozone and chaotic heat. Even Silas the Whisperer seemed to solidify for an instant, and Dracula felt a cold, sharp psychic ripple, like a pinprick of ice, graze his own mental defenses.
"Prince Dracula!" Sorcha snapped, her deference evaporating, replaced by cold anger. Her gloved hand gripped the hilt of her ritual athame. "We appreciate the gravity of our situation, but we are not frightened peasants to be charmed or intimidated by old predatory tricks! Our minds have withstood whispers from the Void and paradoxes of Chaos that would shatter the sanity of your elegant Punishers. If we want a pact, it will be between equals in desperation, not between master and servant!"
Dracula withdrew his mental influence instantly, a spark of genuine surprise (and perhaps a hint of grudging respect) in his red eyes. They resist, he thought. Their Chaos magic, or the entities they have dealt with, have granted them formidable mental resilience. Dangerous, yes. But perhaps... more valuable if their cooperation is voluntary, even if out of self-interest. Forcing them would be futile and likely counterproductive.
"My apologies," Dracula said, his voice returning to a regal calm, though now with a new appreciation for the dangerous capabilities of his interlocutors. "An... old custom. Prove your worth, then. Share your knowledge."
Sorcha stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded curtly, accepting the unspoken apology and returning to the pragmatism of survival. "Very well. The sun... the ancient rites are not like your rings. They do not create a permanent barrier. They involve a constant, personal attunement."
She began to explain, her voice regaining a dark, academic quality. "The vampire's own blood is used, drawn under a new or full moon, and infused with channeled lunar energy—the dark moon is most potent for this—and mixed with specific catalysts: finely ground obsidian powder, certain rare metallic oxides found near deep volcanic veins, and a petrified tree resin that only grows in caverns touched by telluric energy. This mixture is ritually applied to the skin or ingested in small doses. It creates a... temporary sympathetic resonance in the blood, a vibration that interferes with the most lethal solar frequencies, refracting or partially absorbing them."
"It's a painful process," Malakor added with a grunt. "It requires fierce concentration to maintain attunement, and must be renewed every few hours of exposure. It doesn't grant the freedom of your coils. It's a constant struggle. Stamina, not immunity. But," he concluded with a grimace, "it's better than burning to a crisp."
"And the abominations," Sorcha continued, as Silas projected fleeting, disturbing mental images onto the periphery of Dracula's consciousness—visions of musty crypts, windswept mountains, and forest glades lit by a sickly moon. "The Necrovampires have barricaded themselves in the catacombs beneath Vienna, Prague, even some forgotten sections of Paris. They seem to be gathering the newly dead. The Dracovampires are more reclusive; we've detected recent and brutal activity in the Southern Carpathians and a remote mountain range in the Urals. They are territorial and extremely violent. But the Blood Fae…" Her voice tightened. "They are the most elusive and perhaps the most dangerous now. They seem to have allied themselves with or infiltrated the Dark Fae Courts that border your world and the Other Side. With the current chaos, those frontiers
They are thinner. We have seen them near places where Cthulhu's influence is strong, as if they feed on the madness and corrupting energy of nature."
Dracula absorbed the information. The solar ritual was imperfect, demanding, but it was something. A possibility. And the intelligence on the Divergents was specific, alarming, and confirmed the need to act against them. The Red Wizards, despite their chaotic nature and obvious numerical weakness, possessed key pieces that he desperately needed.
He made a decision. Honor was a luxury, survival a necessity.
He extended his right hand, palm up, the lines of his long life etched into his pale skin. From the shadows of his cloak, a small obsidian dagger emerged, cold and sharp.
"Your knowledge has value," Dracula conceded, his voice solemn. "And your fear of the mistakes of my blood is... understandable, given that they now stalk you." Survival demands uneasy alliances and unexpected sacrifices." He looked directly at Sorcha. "A pact, then. Sealed not with empty promises that Chaos or necessity can break, but with the one thing both of our natures deeply understand and respect: blood."
Sorcha looked at the dagger, then at the outstretched hand. She saw the determination in Dracula's red eyes. She knew the risk she was taking by bonding herself, even temporarily, to a being of his power and nature. But the alternative was being hunted to extinction by monsters or cosmic horrors. He nodded once and drew his own ritual athame, its blade glowing with a dark light.
With precise movements and without hesitation, both leaders made a small cut in their palms. Dracula's ancient and potent blood, dark as aged wine, slowly flowed out. Sorcha's blood, an almost unnaturally bright red, pulsed with suppressed chaotic energy. They brought their hands together, and the blood mingled on the stone circle under the Mexican moon.
A few words were spoken in a a forgotten language, a mix of infernal Latin and guttural Chaos syllables, sealing the deal: arcane knowledge of the sun and the Divergent in exchange for the Punishers' lethal protection against abominations and other immediate enemies. A dark pact, born of extreme necessity, as fragile as it was powerful, had just been forged in the depths of night, adding another layer of intrigue and danger to the war for Earth's survival.