"Don't hurt them. They don't understand. I know it's not your fault, but be better than them. Please!"
That memory, a memory the original Dracula never saw, but one I had watched from the edge of my seat, showed humanity basically asking to be doomed when they made the stupid act of killing Lisa Tepes. Dracula had not been there, and even Alucard had arrived too late to witness the burning. But I had. I had what was basically a front-row seat to it, as the skin melted off her frame, as she screamed her throat raw, as her beautiful blonde hair melted into her scalp and her ey—
My eyes snapped open at once. All that fear, all that worry, had slowly begun to retreat under what I realized was the monumental weight of Dracula's age and sheer inhumanity, numbing my prey like worries and fears. Above it all was his depression, a depression so deep it hung on me like a cloud.
"Where are we?" I found myself whispering as I slowly released my tight fist, watching dispassionately as the powdered remains of my armrest drifted to the floor. The shard of glass I had used to observe myself floated in front of me for long seconds, reflecting how wide my red eyes were.
As if it knew its job was done, it floated away from me and sped far off in a blur, flying back to what I now realized was the study. This was a shard from the mirror Dracula used to view things far away. Why hadn't Hector brought a random mirror? The answer struck me despite the confusion filling me. Vampires didn't have a freaking reflection. That must have been why he had been so surprised at my request. Thankfully, he had been smart enough to remember the magical mirror.
Hector looked at me with sadness in his eyes, and I was made to remember that after Lisa's death, he had been the one I had gone to. Dracula had gone to, I corrected myself. Yet I felt the weight of that distinction to be a waste of effort. There was no distinguishing us. I was Dracula, and Dracula was me.
Which made it hard to suppress the sheer, utter rage that bloomed in my chest at the sight of his face. The first man I had gone to with my plans. The first man I had trusted. The same person who betrayed me, to be strung along by the sash of sweet hips and Carmilla's pretty words and what was his reward? Slavery. Easy, gullible Hector.
She had convinced him too easily. Her words had been easily refutable. It had filled me with outrage to watch it happen. A gentle soul, he had been called. However, this was not that Hector. Not yet. There was still the fact that I had lied to him, not with words. I had never explicitly told him my plans. There was only one person I told those plans to. Instead, I had allowed him to build an idea based on a notion. That was the final thing that helped dull my rage.
"Master Dracula, you seem troubled," a smooth, accented voice called out from my side. Another movement I had heard, cataloged, and then promptly discarded due to my sheer, utter faith in its owner. I would need to stop doing that. Hector had proven that decision a mistake once already. Still, this person was different. The one person I knew whose complete loyalty lay with me.
Dark African skin, with pale brown eyes. He had tattooed dots above his eyes, with dark stripes around the crown of his utterly shaved head. He stared at me coolly. There was none of the worry on Hector's face. There was only a calm sense of apathy. Yet if you knew to look deep into his eyes, there was a madness there.
"I am fine, Isaac. I am tired and weary, but I am fine." I finally allowed my eyes to drop from my most trusted follower. Instead, my gaze fell to the ground. I needed time to think. Time to work through my thoughts.
"Perhaps it is time. You have not fed in over a year now. Not even from the animals in their pens, nor from the blood locked in cold storage. You are powerful, my lord, but even for you…" Hector's voice trailed off.
"Live as a human man would, my love. Do it for me."
"I will take your words into consideration and think it over. But for now, that is all." I dismissed the duo with a wave of my hand. Yet they didn't move. This time, it was Isaac's turn to speak.
"I received word from my night creatures, Master Dracula. Your guests are almost at the doors." The words were punctuated by a heavy pounding on those giant gates that loomed before me.
I let out an annoyed sigh at the banging. I could already tell the identity of the pest responsible.
The gesture came to me easily. I didn't even think it. I simply waved my hand with another sigh and the doors began to swing open slowly. Before I could take the time to wonder how the hell I achieved that, something pushed the door from the other side, expediting their opening. I was immediately greeted by the smell of ale and blood as a red-haired, lanky yet muscled vampire with a ridiculous forked beard walked in.
"Fucking finally. You'd think you didn't want to see us, considering how long I've been knocking already. Now can we get this fucking war council going? I'm up and ready to fuck up some humans."
I knew it was impossible. Our physiology denied it. Yet somehow, I could feel it incoming, a ridiculous headache at the prattling of this stupid, foul-mouthed vampire. I already regretted not killing him the day he and his ragtag bunch of dumb vampires sailed their boats to attack Dracula's castle in Iceland. What sort of vampire sails on boats, knowing how dangerous running water is to our kind?
Stupid Godbrand and his band of smooth-brained vampires. Yes, I was annoyed and irritated by his presence.
Trailing behind the Viking vampire were the figures that would serve as our war council, generals plucked from the corners of the world. Ancient and loyal. Each sworn to Dracula by blood, battle, or fear.
Dragoslav the Carpathian entered after Godbrand. Bald-headed, thick-bodied, and silent, the vampire lord of the Slavic mountains wore heavy armor beneath a cloak the color of old blood. His broad face was all sharp cheekbones, cracked lips, and eyes the color of dirty ice, while his beard had streaks of white in it. He was a vampire whose loyalty had not come easily. It had taken Dracula six months to break past his castle and bend him to his will. The far-casting mirror in Dracula's study had been looted from the man, forged by the old hermit smiths of that region.
He bowed. "My Lord Dracula, Dragoslav of Carpathia attends to you."
Cho followed after him, gliding like a ghost behind Dragoslav. She was tall, not as tall as me, but more than some humans. Long raven-black hair flowed down her back, and her body was wrapped in gold and crimson robes. Her black eyes turned to me. Cho was old. Maybe even older than Dracula, she had been born before the fall of the Tang Dynasty. Once a concubine turned sorceress, she drank the blood of her emperor and turned her imperial palace into a nest. Dracula had not conquered her, Instead, he had earned her loyalty with knowledge. Taught her true magic. A favor for a favor. It had been enough to make her bow.
The twin figures of Raman and Sharma came in next. The duo were a rare occurrence: siblings turned vampires together. They looked younger than the others, their skin not quite sun-kissed like Hector or nut-brown like Isaac, but dark blue, like corpses that had drowned. Dracula had met the duo during one of his travels, roughly in the same lands where he had met Cho. He had encountered them while they fed and had taken them in due to their apparent youth. Taught them etiquette, then released them. Centuries later, they had not forgotten him.
Before today, I hadn't even known their names. They had been mere mooks in all but title. Dracula had called them generals, but their feats had been forgettable. They had only served to highlight just how strong and dangerous the trio of Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha had been. That was all their accomplishments had amounted to.
But here and now, I realized these were real people. They had history. Stories that built them. Myths born from their very presence.
They stood before me, even as that annoying redhead Viking, Godbrand the self-styled general of the North, was already kicking at a chair with his muddy boots, practically pissing all over the room with his presence.
"You lot take too long with your brooding. Let's get to it," he growled, slamming a hand on the long obsidian table. "War waits for no man or vampire."
I said nothing. I simply stared. Already, they were all watching me, my generals, my loyal monsters. They didn't realize I wasn't the Dracula they knew. Not entirely. But they would soon. Now, in fact.
"Fuck off."
The sheer anger and vitriol I packed into those words froze them. Even Godbrand, who had been prattling since he walked in, was silent. But as expected, he recovered fastest.
"I reckon I didn't quite hear you right, because I refuse to believe that I just sailed all the way from—"
"Another word from you, little Godbrand, and I will rip your fangs out of your mouth and feed it to you."
I leaned forward, my whole body radiating menace as I towered over them from my throne, amplified by the difference in height.
I recognized what was happening. I was angry. I was lashing out. And most of all, I had absolutely no interest in continuing Dracula's plan. Some part of him that still lived in me didn't even fight me on that. Surprisingly, we were the same person. I hadn't yet gone through his memories, they must've spanned centuries, but to him, my memories were just a blink of an eye.
He knew as well as I did how futile it all was. That was not the path I was going to take.
"Leave me."
I had only one thought in my head, even as the anger bled out and the depression that clung to Dracula's soul returned to wrap itself around me. The generals shuffled out of the room with nervous backward glances. Only Isaac and Hector remained.
I needed to find a way back home. I didn't care how. I had no interest in mass slaughter, nor in reigning over vampires that behaved like feral cats. If I had to see Carmilla even once, I was almost certain I'd be tempted to break her neck and rip her head off.
But that was Dracula speaking.
I simply needed to leave.
"To where, my lord?" Hector asked. I realized I had spoken aloud.
"Away from here," I said with a tired sigh.
That was when the idea struck me. The answer had surrounded me the whole time. It was the ground beneath my feet, the chair I sat on, the stairs I walked, and the room I awoke in.
The castle.
It had stared me in the face for so long. The castle could travel from one location to another by moving through space and time via magic and some mechanical means I didn't know the details of, at least not without digging deep into Dracula's memories. However, I knew it was possible.
Dracula himself had never tried it, never bothered with it. Why would he want to see even more humans? But theoretically, it was possible. Not just traveling from place to place on this single plane of existence, but across realms.
This was how I was going to get home. I knew the broad strokes. Now all that was left was the how.