For a long moment, the only sounds were the distant drip of water somewhere in the castle's depths and the woman's shallow, frightened breathing.
Isaac finally broke the silence, his voice soft yet carrying clearly in the enclosed space.
"The Son of God remains stubborn," he observed, addressing no one in particular. "Perhaps he requires... motivation."
He moved to the woman, grabbing a fistful of her red hair and yanking her to her knees. She cried out, hands instinctively rising to her scalp.
"Please," she whimpered. "I don't know where I am. I don't know what you want."
Isaac positioned her directly before Lucien, forcing her to face him. With his free hand, he pressed the tip of a knife against her stomach, just hard enough to draw a small bead of blood.
"Look at him," Isaac commanded. When she hesitated, he twisted his grip on her hair. "Look at him!"
The woman raised her tear-filled eyes to Lucien's hanging form.
"This is quite simple," Isaac explained, his tone conversational despite the scene unfolding. "Lord Dracula requires the blood of the Son of God, freely given. All the boy needs to say is 'Yes,' and your suffering ends before it truly begins."
Lucien remained silent, head still bowed, hair concealing his expression.
"Tell him who you are," Isaac ordered the woman. "Your name. Your life. Make yourself real to him."
The woman swallowed hard, her voice emerging as a trembling whisper.
"My... my name is Elaine. Elaine M-Morgan." Her words caught on a sob. "I'm twenty-two. I study literature at N-Northwestern. I have a younger sister named Beth. She's sixteen. We... we were supposed to go shopping tomorrow for her birthday present."
As she spoke, Stefan pressed himself harder against the wall, as if trying to meld with the stone itself.
"I work part-time at a bookstore," Elaine continued, her words tumbling faster as Isaac pressed the knife slightly harder against her skin. "I have a cat named Fitzgerald. I was walking home from my evening class when... when..."
She faltered, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Continue," Isaac prompted, twisting the knife slightly.
"My parents are divorced. Dad lives in Seattle now. Mom still keeps his favorite coffee mug even though she pretends to hate him." A hiccuping sob interrupted her. "I'm writing my thesis on feminist themes in Victorian literature. I... I was going to teach someday."
Throughout her desperate monologue, Lucien remained motionless, giving no indication he was listening.
"I've never hurt anyone," Elaine whispered, her voice breaking. "Please. I don't understand what's happening. Please let me go."
Isaac regarded her dispassionately. "Your understanding is irrelevant. Your purpose is to demonstrate consequences."
He turned his attention back to Lucien. "Do you hear her, Son of God? This life hangs in the balance. One word from you ends her suffering."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by Elaine's ragged breathing.
"I'm... I'm afraid of the dark," she continued unprompted, her words dissolving into incoherent sobs. "I sleep with... with a nightlight still. My sister teases me about it but... but..."
Her voice failed her completely then, replaced by deep, heaving sobs that shook her entire body. Tears and mucus streamed down her face as panic overtook her ability to form words.
For a long moment, the only sound in the dungeon was her broken crying.
Isaac's patience visibly thinned. "Continue speaking," he ordered.
Elaine tried to comply, opening her mouth, but only strangled hiccups emerged.
"I... I can't," she finally managed, her breathing erratic. "Please... please don't..."
Isaac's expression hardened. Without warning, he leaned forward and sank his teeth into her exposed shoulder.
"AAAAHHHH!"
Elaine's scream echoed off the stone walls, high and piercing. Isaac bit down harder, tearing away with a jerk of his head.
In the corner, Stefan began rocking violently, hands clasped over his ears, eyes squeezed shut. Incoherent gurgles escaped his ruined mouth as he tried to block out the sounds.
"STOP!" Lucien's voice erupted suddenly, his head snapping up though his face remained partially hidden by his hair. "STOP TOUCHING HER!"
Finally, he spat a small piece of flesh onto the floor, blood dripping from his lips.
Isaac maintained his grip on the struggling woman, watching Lucien with cold interest.
"I will fucking end you," Lucien snarled, pulling against his chains with renewed fury. "I will tear you apart piece by piece. I will feed you your own teeth and tongue. I will disembowel you and make you watch as I burn your entrails before your eyes!"
His threats echoed in the chamber, each more violent than the last, a torrent of rage pouring.
When his fury finally exhausted itself, silence once again claimed the dungeon. Only the sound of Elaine's whimpers and Stefan's muffled gurgles remained.
Isaac wiped blood from his mouth with methodical precision, his composure unshaken by Lucien's outburst.
"Your threats are meaningless," he observed calmly. "I have consumed human flesh before. For Lord Dracula, I would eat this woman alive before your eyes."
He pressed the knife more firmly against Elaine's stomach, drawing a thin line of blood that trickled down to her navel.
"But you can stop this," Isaac continued. "One word. 'Yes.' That is all Lord Dracula requires to drink your blood. Your permission, freely given."
Lucien's chest rose and fell rapidly, his breathing audible in the quiet dungeon.
"What will it be, Son of God? Her life, or your pride?"
The ultimatum hung in the air between them.
For a long moment there was only silence, broken only by the crackling fire, and the dripping water, and blood.
From behind his curtain of hair, Lucien finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper: "Say 'Yes.'"
Isaac tilted his head slightly. "Are you agreeing to Lord Dracula's terms? Speak clearly."
But Lucien wasn't addressing Isaac. His head turned slowly toward the corner where Stefan huddled.
"Say 'Yes,'" he repeated, voice stronger now.
Isaac's eyes narrowed in confusion. "What game are you playing, boy? The woman's fate hangs in the balance, not the ripper's."
Lucien ignored him completely, focusing solely on Stefan.
"I know what you've experienced is... indescribable," Lucien said, his voice taking on an almost hypnotic quality. "But I can give you peace. You no longer only need to be yourself. For a time, you can also be me."
Stefan raised his head slightly, confusion evident in his hollow eyes.
Isaac stepped toward Lucien, dragging Elaine with him. "Enough of this nonsense. Focus on what matters."
"I can be your salvation," Lucien continued, speaking only to Stefan. "I will bring you peace, safety, power."
Isaac released Elaine, shoving her roughly aside.
She collapsed in a heap, curling into herself, blood still seeping from her shoulder wound. With swift movements, Isaac retrieved a hammer and long nail from his table of implements.
"Perhaps you need a reminder of your position," he said coldly, approaching Lucien.
In a single violent motion, he pressed the nail against Lucien's left palm and drove it through with the hammer. The nail punctured flesh and bone before embedding in the stone wall behind.
Lucien's body jerked, a hiss of pain escaping through clenched teeth, but his attention remained fixed on Stefan.
"I will give you safety," he continued, voice strained but determined. "Peace. Care. Friendship. An escape."
Isaac grabbed Lucien's chin, attempting to force him to make eye contact, but Lucien's neck muscles remained rigid, resisting the movement with surprising strength.
Frustrated, Isaac positioned a second nail against Lucien's right palm.
"Your stubbornness accomplishes nothing," he growled, driving the nail home with a single powerful blow.
Lucien grunted but otherwise showed no reaction to the fresh agony. Blood began to trickle down both arms from his impaled hands.
"So long as I can give it," Lucien continued, voice growing stronger despite his crucified position, "and it isn't something I already have a claim on, or something against someone's free will, I will give it to you. All you need to do is say 'Yes' to me. Let me in."
Isaac grabbed both of Lucien's bare feet, forcibly crossing them within the limited space allowed by the chains.
With methodical cruelty, he positioned a larger nail against both ankles and hammered it through in a single, powerful strike.
This time, Lucien's voice rose to a roar that drowned out Elaine's renewed cries.
"LET ME IN!" he bellowed, the words seeming to vibrate the very stones of the dungeon. "SAY YES!"
Stefan rocked faster in his corner, hands pressed so tightly against his ears that his knuckles turned white. Incoherent gurgles escaped his throat as he tried to block out Lucien's commanding voice.
Isaac stepped back, observing Lucien with growing unease. Something was happening that he didn't understand - something beyond his control.
With sudden decision, he strode to Stefan and yanked his head up by the hair, forcing him to face Lucien.
"This broken lump of meat cannot help you," Isaac declared, though uncertainty had crept into his voice. "Look at him - decades under Lord Dracula's care have left nothing but an empty shell. Whatever plan you've concocted will fail."
Isaac turned Stefan's face toward Lucien's crucified form.
"There is no peace," Isaac continued, his voice hardening. "There is no love. There is only servitude to the wisdom and knowledge of Dracula."
Stefan's eyes, which had been unfocused for so long, suddenly sharpened. He looked at Isaac - truly looked at him - and saw something he had never witnessed before:
Fear.
The forgemaster's composure had cracked, revealing uncertainty beneath.
Stefan's gaze shifted to Lucien, hanging crucified against the wall, blood streaming from his hands and feet.
The boy who Dracula himself had named Son of God was offering salvation, offering escape.
And his tormentor was afraid.
A strange sound filled the dungeon - a hissing, wet noise like meat being reconstituted. Isaac looked down and recoiled in shock.
Stefan's tongue, which he had kept from regenerating for decades, was growing back.
Not only his tongue. Between his legs, the manhood Isaac had removed was reforming as well.
Isaac released Stefan as if burned, stepping back in evident alarm.
"What is this?" he demanded, looking between Stefan and Lucien. "What are you doing?"
Stefan struggled to his knees, his newly reformed tongue moving experimentally in his mouth. When he spoke, his voice was a broken rasp, dry from years of disuse.
"D-do you... mean it?" he asked Lucien, each word an evident struggle. "Is... is it... true?"
Lucien's response was a single word, delivered with a strange, serpentine hiss of relief: "Yes...."
The hair that had been obscuring Lucien's face finally fell away, revealing his eyes for the first time since the torture began.
They burned with crimson light, like twin pools of hellfire.
Stefan stared, transfixed by the sight. In those burning eyes, he saw power beyond anything he had witnessed in his centuries of existence.
Power that might truly free him from this hell.
"Yes," Stefan whispered, the word carrying the weight of decades of suffering and newfound hope.
The moment the word left his lips, the dungeon erupted in blinding white light.
-----------------------
(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter.
So... WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
What did Lucien do?
Any ideas?
Lucien clearly has been contemplating a plan for a while as seen in the last chapter's thoughts of his. And this seems to be it.
But what is he doing, and HOW?
Let me see if you guys get it. I've dropped hints, across the chapters, I hope you guys get it, otherwise I need to do a better job.
Well, I hope to see you all later,
Bye!)