[FIC] Wir Glauben Nur Lügen (Tanz der Vampire, PG-13) [Roses for Lucifer]
Another in my Roses for Lucifer series, sequel to Als es Sommer war. No knowledge of Tanz der Vampire necessary, though reading the prequel is.
Fandom: Original/Tanz der Vampire
Pairing: Draculea/Von Krolock (background)
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Warning: Vampires, bloodshed, terribly cute five-year-old
Wordcount: 6,500
WIR GLAUBEN NUR LÜGEN
God is dead, no-one looks for him now
We have been sentenced to eternal life
We're always drawn to the sun
Though we flee from its light
We trust only liars, despise sacrifice
The souls we don't hate, we also don't love
Castle von Krolock, the border of Transylvania, Holy Empire of the German Nation, August of the Year of Our Lord 1622
The moon was gone behind the trees and the window seat was the darkest corner of the nursery now, but it still felt the safest. With his back pressed against the cold glass, the stone snagging at his nightshirt, Herbert knew there was something between him and the night. He put one hand on the sill and grabbed at the stone wall with his other hand. He was trying to make himself as small as he could. Safer like that. He hoped. It was really dark in the nursery now.
His nurse Barbara was making his bed ready. She was his new nurse; nurse Eva, his mother's nurse before she was Herbert's, fell sick last spring and stopped moving at all. She died, he thought, that word for when people went away and only their bodies were left. Eva had died, and his mother had died, though he only remembered Eva.
Nurse Barbara wasn't as nice as nurse Eva. She was younger, and her eyes were better. Because of that, she only needed a single candle in the nursery. It was behind her now and it made her shadow look great and deformed on the wall. Barbara had long red hair all twisted up, and her shadow had long black tentacles all twisted and ready to catch people and eat them.
Now the tentacles went writhing like snakes on pages of Father's books, because Barbara finished with the bed and stood up.
"Are you watching the stars, little one?" she asked.
Herbert shook his head and made a face. "I'm thinking, Fräulein Barbara."
She laughed. He thought it sounded like the dogs in the stable, the ones that were Father's father before. The stable master said they could hunt all by themselves.
"I keep forgetting how grown up you are, young master Herbert. You look almost adult like that. We should see about getting you out of skirts soon."
"I'd like that," Herbert said politely. It would be nice to dress like Father did. He was almost five and a half years old now, and that was too old for skirts like babies wore.
Barbara perched on the sill in the other corner of the window. She didn't have to climb up like he did, because she was grown up and tall. "Oh, you're so grown and big. Too big for baby stories about magical birds and fairy dances. You need to know about the important things now. Did I ever tell you the story of the duchess who was a vampire?"
Herbert shook his head as he turned a little and caught at the stones again.
"She was from a high family, that one, and she was married off young and beautiful. But when she saw her first grey hair, her first wrinkle, she was afraid. She wasn't afraid of death, but of growing old. She was willing do to anything - anything to keep young. And she asked a young maid, an innocent girl only thirteen years old, she asked her to come up to her bath and she had a knife..."
He shifted again. Maybe he could find a crack in the walls and hide in it and no one would find him. Not one vampire or werewolf or demon or noon-sprite or all the other people that Barbara knew, and all of them ate children and bit them and tore them to pieces so little, it was hard to find all of them to fit the small coffin. A small coffin made of pine. He liked the smell of pine, but when Barbara told her stories, he didn't like it much.
Barbara stopped in the middle of telling him how it took the blood of eight girls to get enough for one bath for the duchess. She looked at the door, stood up and bowed. No, not bowed, when women did it you called it a curtsy.
In the dark, Father looked big and sort of scary, with his cloak and his dark hair. Herbert smiled and jumped down. He tripped a little because his skirts got in the way, but it wasn't much, and Father caught him before he fell.
"You are too sleepy to walk straight, aren't you, my little one?" With Father's voice, the room was never really empty or scary. "I'm sorry. I should have been here earlier, not make you stay up this long. I hope you weren't bored?"
Father's arms felt very safe. Herbert put his head on Father's shoulder and swung his legs. He wondered if flying felt this nice, or maybe baby birds could go on their daddy's back and be carried up all safe and warm.
Father was never very warm, because it was always cold in the library, but Herbert didn't mind.
"You're here now, Father." He put his hands around Father's neck, hugging tightly. He stopped, then spoke again. "Father? Can you stay tonight? Sleep with me?"
"I'm sure his Excellency has other matters at hand, young master," Barbara said quickly. "I'll put him to bed, Excellency, he will not be any trouble."
Herbert bit his lip. He shouldn't have said that. It was something little babies did, like Barbara said, and he was a big boy now.
"It's no trouble at all." Father's voice ran all through him, like a cat purring, and Herbert smiled. He liked it when Father stroked his hair. "Dear one, I'm afraid I have a guest and can't stay with you until morning, but I'll be there until you fall asleep. Will that do?"
Herbert nodded, then giggled as Father put him in his bed and pulled the covers so tight that Herbert could only move if he struggled a whole lot. "You have a guest, Father?" he asked sleepily after he managed to put the covers better. "Is it a friend?"
"In a way." Father smiled like he was hiding something. "It's Lord Draculea - he was here last in the late winter, before your birthday. I think you have made an impression, darling one, because he asked specifically if you still left your toy carts on the upper stairs."
Herbert giggled, then hid his head under the covers. "It was a big crash," he said, then covered his mouth and yawned.
"A very big one." Father reached out and started stroking Herbert's hair. "But now he has new business here, and I need to go and make sure there are no more crashes. I wouldn't want to wake you from your sleep, after all, would I?"
In the dark behind Father, Barbara was picking up Herbert's toys and putting them on the shelves, but it didn't matter. Father was here, and the dreams would be good. No vampires to eat him while he slept.
* * *
Graf von Krolock was still smiling as he walked down the hallway that connected the nursery wing to the main body of his castle. There were few things worth honouring with a smile in the bleak existence he had led for four years now, but among them the sight of his son, so bright and precious even as he fell into sleep, was the one that never failed to lift his heart.
Even the thought of his Sire's visit did not tinge his mood with bitterness. Over the years, he had learned to tolerate the man and accept his guidance in matters related to both his nature and the affairs of the Order that lent a purpose to their lives beyond death. The magical tasks required of him had proven interesting and challenging, though when early spring had found him drawn for the first time from the confines of his castle, drawing down darkness and mist on a scouting party that wandered too closely to matters best kept hidden, he had returned to matters not quite to his liking.
Eva had been a constant presence in his son's life, lavishing him with restrained but grandmotherly affection, and he could see Herbert was missing her. He was quite fortunate to have found a competent replacement, of course, and thankfully Barbara's professional manner did not cause friction despite her relative youth. He was surprised at how cold her vivacious features and light sprinkle of sun-warmed freckles left him, even when she wore soft dresses with her skirts pulled up so that she could race after Herbert when he took it into his head to run at full speed from one end of the castle to another.
Still Barbara was a good nurse and Herbert seemed to like her. They often sat together in the nursery as she told the boy stories, both of them springing apart when von Krolock entered the room. And though she made him somewhat uneasy, she was still confined to the nursery wing, out of his way except when Herbert's presence took her through the wards lining the corridors.
Herbert could be trusted to keep to the nursery when needed be, especially when there were guests in the castle. His child seemed more serious these days, perhaps because he was growing older, though his dear one still had it in him to shower von Krolock with hugs and soft laughter, listen to tales of bygone ages and ask him to stay until Herbert fell asleep.
He had been asked to stay as Herbert slept as well, he thought guiltily. He promised himself that he would make it up to his little one later. Perhaps he could take the boy stargazing, or walking in the forest around the castle at night as wild animals moved around them.
With a bitter shard of pain, he thought of how he would never be able to play with his child in sunlight. There were benefits to his damned condition, but none of them equalled the anguish of being unable to share his son's waking moments in their entirety. Once more, he renewed his oath not to let his own fate taint the boy, to keep him safe from sin and harm.
The library was for once warmed by a roaring fire. Vlad Draculea was lounging in a chair in front of the fireplace, one leg thrown over an armrest and his body a shade's breadth from sliding down to the floor, sprawled over the seat in a way that seemed to defy the laws of nature as much as its continued existence over close to two centuries.
"What took you so long?" the vampire lord demanded irritably.
Von Krolock walked up to the mantelpiece, staring down at the flames. "Herbert asked me to stay until he fell asleep. Forgive me if I sometimes place the needs of my son before alleviating your ennui."
He heard a snort behind him. "Bring that brat of yours to me before I leave," Draculea said.
Von Krolock stiffened, half-disbelieving his own ears, then whirled around, clenching his hands.
"I-"
"For Heaven's sake, Johannes." The elder vampire's lips were parted in an amused smile that still showed the length of his fangs. "I just want to take a look at him. And it'll be good for him to meet someone else - you keep him cooped up here with no-one but your brain-addled servants. He's what, six now? Old enough to be playing soldiers, and wanting to meet one."
Leaning back against the mantelpiece, von Krolock allowed himself a reluctant smile. "It's been hunting lately. He plays with my father's old hounds and asks all sorts of questions about the hunt."
"Just wait until he gets it in his head to try it himself," Draculea laughed as he stood up. "I went through it with all five of mine. Hunting, fighting, petty theft - Mihnea never did it again, I made sure of that. I hope you have a good watch on him."
"I have experimented with warding magic over the past six months. I can think of no better use of it than protecting Herbert."
"And the activities of the Order, eh?" Draculea's arm rested heavily on von Krolock's shoulder. "Come, Excellenz, tell me about your new magical toys. And later we can see about getting you to forget about some things. You think too much."
In the fireplace, the flames crackled, and a piece of burning wood rolled down from the pile to rest against the iron wolves that guarded the hearth.
* * *
If he was allowed to choose, Herbert often got up in the second half of the day, when the sun was already going down. He knew it wasn't normal for people like the servants, but Father was awake all night, and he wanted as much time with Father as possible.
When Father had guests, there was less time for Herbert. Because of that he didn't protest much when Fräulein Barbara woke him in the late morning and told him they would go for a walk in the forest. The woods were different in the sun, all warm and green and pine-smelling. Since Eva died, Father took him to the forest sometimes, but only at night.
With Father, Herbert was never afraid of the shadows of the trees.
Fräulein Barbara sat on a fallen tree in the forest and picked him up, then put him next to her. He was a little curious, because she never carried him before, or hugged him like Father did. But this was Barbara, not Father who always answered questions, so he didn't ask.
She sighed. She looked sad, or maybe a little angry, like Father when he said the books weren't talking to him.
"You're a big boy now, Herbert," she said. "I think I have to ask you for help. His Excellency, your father is in terrible danger."
Herbert put his hand to his mouth. The forest didn't look so warm and safe anymore.
"Danger? Like vampires and werewolves and all?" he mumbled through the finger he was chewing on.
Barbara was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded.
"I recognised the name of Draculea, an old legend and a famous vampire, the most powerful of all vampires. After you were asleep, I carried a tray into the library for your father and his guest. It was the face I'd seen in books that spoke of Prince Draculea's cruelty and the horrors he wrought. He is Draculea, and he has walked the earth for two centuries, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord."
She crossed herself and Herbert belatedly followed. It made him feel a bit better, and he wondered why he didn't do it more often. Then again, Father had said it was faith in your mind, not what you did with your hands that mattered.
"I fear he has selected your father as his next victim to tempt away from the light," Barbara continued. "But his Excellency is a learned man, and I doubt if he'll listen to me if I tell him his friend is a vampire."
"Father listens to everything," Herbert said quietly. "And then he checks."
She smiled. "If you say so, young master. I would rather kill the vampire myself, but yesterday... he looked into my eyes and I fear he saw my hatred. He will not let me approach close enough to kill him."
"Can you kill a vampire?"
"Yes." She looked into the distance. "One method is a wooden stake through the heart. If you have a sword, you can cut off the head or cut out the heart. Vampires burn easily. Holy objects - holy objects are best. If you throw holy water at a vampire, he will burn."
Herbert looked down, at Barbara's clenched hand on the tree bark. He put his own fingers on Barbara's. They sat in silence until the sun started going down.
When they went back to the castle, he ate his dinner like a good boy and went to play with the dogs. The stables were close to the chapel, and when the stable master went to feed the horses, Herbert walked through the courtyard before anyone noticed.
The chapel was very cold and very dark, but it felt safe. The great baptismal fount was covered by its metal cover, and it took Herbert a long time to lift it.
There was holy water in it, and he picked it up in a bottle from Father's laboratory that Father had given him to play with.
Before he went out of the chapel, he stopped by his mother's grave. It was the newest one in the chapel, and there was a sculpture of his mother on it. He didn't remember her anymore, but he could see how beautiful she was. She had died in a hunting accident when he was very little.
"I'll save him, Mother," he whispered. His voice echoed in the chapel. "I promise you."
It was dark when he said goodbye to the hounds and went upstairs to his room. He saw light in the library window and one other above it. There was a shadow standing at the other window and it was too short to be his father.
When he came into the nursery, he told Barbara what he saw. She nodded and dressed in her best dress before going to the library to talk to his father. He held the bottle of holy water behind him, but she saw it.
"Keep safe," she told him before she left.
He didn't wait for her to go, but he walked just behind her down the hall to the main castle. Barbara's skirts made a lot of noise, and he walked on tip-toe, so she didn't hear him.
Herbert knew how to walk very quietly even on stone floors. Now he turned to go up the stairs and Barbara went straight ahead. The rooms above the library were guest rooms with beds and closets and everything else that guests needed. They made the best hiding places, so Herbert knew them all.
Lord Draculea - the vampire - was standing at the window and looking out into the night. From the corner of the wall Herbert was hiding behind, he could see the vampire lord's long hair and broad shoulders. Draculea was wearing red with gold trim, a coat like some really old people wore, not fashionable Spanish-style clothes like Father wore. Herbert could see a bit of the vampire's pale face and a long nose, but not more.
The window reflected the room and Herbert was afraid the vampire would see him, but he remembered what Father had told him about mirrors. You can only see someone in a mirror if he sees you, too. And he didn't see Draculea in the window's reflection.
Barbara told many stories about vampires. Vampires were very quick and very strong. When a vampire caught you, he bit your throat until all the blood ran out, and he drank it. You died, but if the vampire wanted it, you woke up again and you were a vampire, evil and blood-drinking and not caring about anything that you cared for before. Would it work like that for everything? Even though Father had said he would love Herbert always?
He shivered, then bit his lip. He had to save Father. He had to.
He had one chance.
The cork of the bottle came out easily. The glass was slippery, but that was because Herbert's hands were wet. Trembling.
He stumbled when he ran from behind the corner of the wall and he hit his leg. The pain helped. He swung his arm around and threw the bottle at the ceiling above the vampire like he practiced all afternoon in the stables. It broke and showered everything under it with holy water.
At the same moment, the vampire whirled around. Herbert saw green eyes turn red before everything dissolved into mist.
He stumbled again and fell. Somehow the mist caught him, threw him on the bed on the far side of the room. Then the mist pulled together.
"Have you lost your will to live, brat?" Draculea snarled.
* * *
Vlad Draculea's night had just taken a sharp turn for the worse.
He had watched the child peer at him from behind the corner for a good few minutes in the reflective surface of the window. It had made him smile, because unless Johannes' taste in playthings had suddenly changed, the boy had to be Herbert von Krolock, the "little angel" he'd heard so much about. He could even see the source of the name, for the brat had clearly inherited Izabela's looks and blond hair. If it went for temper too, his sorcerer would have his hands full in ten years or so.
Then the boy had rushed out - clumsily - and thrown a bottle at the ceiling. Draculea had let his body dissolve into mist automatically to avoid the shards. Then he smelled the hated scent of holiness.
He put one hand on the boy's chest, pushing him down on the pillows, and bared his teeth. "Why, then? It was traps last time, now assault - you've a tongue in your mouth, speak if there are things that anger you. If you have the courage."
No answer was forthcoming.
He frowned as he looked down at the child. The boy's grey eyes were wide as saucers, his body trembling slightly under Draculea's hand, his teeth biting at his lip in what looked like a desperate attempt to stifle a cry of fear.
Oh, for all the demons in Hell!
"I'm not going to eat you," Draculea growled irritably. He grasped the boy's jaw, making him open his mouth before those teeth managed to worry a wound open. "No need to make your eyes pop out of your head."
A soft whimper escaped the boy's lips before the child gathered enough breath to speak. "B-b-but-" Herbert swallowed convulsively, and Draculea felt the movement under his hands. "You're a vampire!"
The cry echoed around the room, and for a moment both of them were still.
Draculea shrugged and bared his fangs. "Yes. What of it?"
He had expected some kind of argument about efficient methods of fighting vampires, or demands on the mechanics of his mist form, the same conversations he'd had with Johannes years before. What he did not expect was for Herbert to cry out and go into a fit, struggling desperately to escape from him.
"La naiba," he swore, though much stronger curses ran through his mind as he realised Johannes would hear, and it would be so much for getting anything useful out of his sorcerer for six months at least, never mind the autumn campaign. At loss for words, he covered the boy's mouth and gathered the child to him, stilling the desperate thrashing with the strength of his own arms and taking care to leave enough room for breath.
He breathed himself, slowly and deeply, letting that rhythm calm the child. It had been more than a century and a half since he last did it, but he still remembered how to hold a frightened boy and soothe away his fears.
He was surprised that apart from the pale gold colour, Herbert's hair was like Johannes', thick and heavy and straight under his fingers.
He eased off his grip when the screaming turned to sobs. At last even those stilled, and Herbert looked up at him with eyes that still looked too large for his size.
"You're really not going to eat me?"
"If you promise not to assault me again, yes," Draculea laughed. "You have my word of honour."
The small nose wrinkled as Herbert cocked his head. "Do vampires have honour?"
"Some of them, yes. It's what keeps us going and lets us be more than simple monsters."
"Oh." Herbert dropped his head, staring intently at the buttons on Draculea's coat. "There was nothing about that in the stories."
"You've been hearing the wrong stories, brat. One day I might tell you about the Turkish raids two centuries ago - now those were monsters to put any vampire to shame."
"I'd like that."
Draculea ruffled the boy's hair again. He thought he could grow to like the brat - Johannes' son had proper manners, at least, a rarity in children if his memory served him well. That on top of the courage to attack a monster despite all the fear instilled by idiotic human folktales, and plan such an assault in a way that would at least maim any vampire of a lesser power than his own...
Oh, he would have to keep an eye on Herbert von Krolock in the future, and not only because the boy was key to his sorcerer's sanity.
The child straightened in his arms, assuming a serious expression that was a miniature of Johannes at work on an intellectual problem. It was amusing - at first sight it was hard to notice any family resemblance in the features, but at certain angles the brat's paternity couldn't be denied.
"Can you tell me true stories about vampires?" Herbert asked quietly. "Can a vampire care for someone?"
"Yes. For people, land, ideas - if anything, we feel more strongly than humans about certain matters. Why?"
The boy buried his head in his hands, as if trying to hide behind himself. "Will you try to make Father a vampire?" he whispered. "Will he love me then?"
Once again Draculea bit back a litany of curses. He reminded himself to make a list of particularly unpleasant tortures that Johannes wouldn't enjoy at all. If anything was a father's duty, this conversation was - how dare that stuck-up German bookworm stick him with it!
Sometimes simplicity worked best. "Your father has been a vampire for four years now."
Herbert blinked several times and swayed a little. Draculea drew him close again just to keep him from falling off the bed and hitting his head or worse. He thanked God and Lucifer that at least there were no screams this time.
Herbert shifted in his embrace and looked up at him. "Is that why Father doesn't play with me in the sun?"
"Yes." Oh, Johannes would be paying for this for years. The great Draculea did not get stuck in a guest bedroom explaining the facts of life to a six-year-old sprog. Or was it five? The kid was small enough for four...
"He should have told me," Herbert said.
"Yes, he should have." Draculea absently rubbed the child's back. By the time his own brats had been that age, they had already been running with toy swords and torturing small animals. Herbert seemed so much more innocent. "How about we go find him and tell him that? I can even kick him for you."
The boy giggled. "Don't kick Father!"
"I only do it when he really deserves it."
Herbert giggled again, then leaned his head against Draculea's shoulder. "I have to go tell Fräulein Barbara. She thought you were here to make Father a vampire and she went to warn him. And I have to tell her she tells the wrong kind of vampire stories that are not true, because she said all vampires were evil and didn't care for anyone, and Father is not like that at all."
"What?" Draculea growled deep in his throat. "She sent you here?"
"She didn't!" Herbert protested, though there was much less fear in his eyes than there had been only minutes before. "Fräulein Barbara is my nurse, and she just told me stories and told me you were a vampire and went to warn Father!"
"Of all the callous bitches in history..." Draculea disentangled himself from the child's arms and grabbed his sword. "A hunter, here in the castle. She means to kill us, or at least his idiotic Excellency. Stay here!"
He didn't know the castle well enough to trust his mist form, but the way from his regular chamber to the library was short. He hoped he would not be too late.
* * *
Von Krolock pressed his hands to his temples. On most days it was a light task to rein in and direct his visionary talent, but for some reason the same incoherent prophetic flashes that were usually a quiet noise at the edge of his mind now threatened to overwhelm him. He could barely hear Barbara's words as she talked about Herbert's development and the toys she thought it would be good to commission for him.
Blood and pain and anguish. It could be any kill, any feeding that would lengthen his existence at the cost of someone else's. What use were visions like this?
He gritted his teeth and turned from the window. In the dim light that filled the library, even Barbara's hair seemed the colour of blood. Familiar, and that was no wonder at all
"Are there any other matters you wished to discuss at this point?" he asked. He knew he was being more brusque than he habitually was with servants, but the pounding of visions in his head was relentless, impeding his thoughts and the most ingrained of habits.
"Last Sunday at Mass Father Peter discussed Herbert's preparations for First Communion with me." Barbara was standing almost at his side, her hands clasped behind her back. "He recommends that Herbert attend his teachings on Sunday afternoons as well as Mass from now on. He insisted on it."
"I will trust you to make sure Herbert attends."
"Ah..." The woman turned her head towards the fire in the grate. "Father Peter was hoping your Excellency would take part in Herbert's First Communion preparations. He mentioned he would be willing to hold the meetings after sundown to accommodate your Excellency's usual schedule."
He shook his head. He was concerned for Herbert's upbringing and immortal soul, of course; why else would he go to such lengths to protect his son? Still he thought that bursting into flame the moment the good priest started Mass would not contribute to his son's devotion to the true faith.
"I'm afraid I cannot accommodate Father Peter's schedule," he said curtly.
"I see." There was a change in Barbara's voice, all concern disappearing as she took a step back. "God hates abominations, after all."
He was moving before she was, a flash of foresight making him step aside. The bolt from the short pistol crossbow hit the window frame, stuck, quivered.
His anger burned through the visions like wildfire. "You dare lift your hand at me?"
"It's my duty as a Christian and a member of my family!" she shot back, then jumped as the flames from the grate leapt towards her. "Wait!"
"A hunter," Von Krolock hissed. "You dare enter my house and ask for mercy..."
"I dared more than that," Barbara spat. "And so did you - this spring, when you came across a man and tore his throat out! You left my brother to bleed out like a dog, and I swore I would do the same to you!"
Circling slowly around the shrilly screaming woman, von Krolock assessed his situation. The control of flames had come to him easier than ever with the fury that gripped him. There were other powers at his command as well, not least of them the imposing of his will upon Barbara's, though that would require her to meet his eyes. She was a seasoned vampire hunter, he realised, for she kept her gaze trained on his hands instead.
And yet with the failure of the covert attack, she was no danger at all. A madwoman, then?
"You have chosen a strange way of going about it," he said. "If you know of my nature, you know of my command of lore as well. Should that somehow fail to hold you, the lord of all vampires in the region is in the castle, and from him there may be no escape. How could you hurt me?"
"I already have, Excellency." Barbara looked up at him, and the hatred in his eyes struck at him with a force that drove all thoughts of attempting thrall out of his mind. "Haven't you wondered where Herbert is?"
It was like a blow to his body, a physical impact sending pain through him and beyond him. Blood and pain and anguish, he thought.
He reached out to the wards he had placed around the nursery wing, but it only confirmed what his foresight told him. Herbert was not inside the wards.
"What have you done to him?" he whispered hoarsely.
"Nothing he didn't do to himself." Barbara spread her hands exuberantly. "You may be an abomination twice over for daring to love the boy, but his mind is twisted far more for loving you back. All I needed was to tell him of Vlad Draculea's true nature and imply you were in danger. Herbert even asked about ways of killing vampires on his own."
"No." Von Krolock desperately reached towards the future, the past, anywhere, but walls were falling inside his mind. He had spent so long fighting the visions that now shied from him...
But he did not need them. Herbert was smart and brave, which meant he would succeed in wounding Draculea. And hurt, surprised, the vampire lord would-
A chance, a shard of hope that Herbert's plan was sophisticated and careful and slow. He ran towards the door, just a short stretch of corridor before the stairs, and then Draculea's bedchamber would be straight ahead.
As his feet carried him over the threshold, he saw Draculea leap down the stairs, sword in hand. The one startled glimpse was enough for him to see how spotless the elder vampire's clothes were, how concerned his face-
"Behind you!" Draculea called out.
Von Krolock whirled in place, his hands snapping out to catch Barbara's wrist. The silver dagger clattered to the floor a breath before his backhand blow threw her across the library.
She did not have time to rise before he was upon her, twisting her body around, casually dislocating both shoulders. He pressed his face against the side of her head, breathing in the scent of her fear. Her hair was matted with blood from where she had struck the wall.
"To complete the circle, I should make you one of us," he hissed and felt her shudder desperately. "But you don't deserve it."
He barely brought his hands in check enough to bare her neck without breaking it. His fangs left deep furrows in her skin, and as he drank, the blood tasted acrid, dead. He let each swallow take away a shade of his anger, until he was drinking the sweetness of her heart's blood and it brought a smile to his face.
He drained the last bitter dregs and let Barbara's corpse fall to the floor. The stones were hard under his knees, but with the anger still making his breath ragged, he felt energised, full of power. He had underestimated Draculea once again, it seemed, and Herbert was safe, upstairs or already in the nursery. He would have to wash off the blood before he went to comfort his child.
A curse from Draculea made his head snap up. Something darted past the vampire lord's legs, and von Krolock barely had time to stretch out his arms before his son was hugging him. It was instinct to seize the child close to himself, hold him close, let the frantic, strong heartbeat soothe his own thoughts.
After a few moments Herbert started squirming. Von Krolock loosened his hold on the child and almost kissed the pale gold hair before he remembered his lips were smeared with blood.
"Father?" Herbert gave him a shaky smile. "You've got it all over your face. Fräulein Eva always said it was important not to get food all over your face."
"She was a wise woman," von Krolock agreed as he took out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood.
Herbert cast a sideways look at Barbara's corpse. "Is she dead?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"Good." He kissed his father's cheek. "She wasn't very nice."
"No, she wasn't, dear one." Von Krolock ruffled his son's hair.
Draculea's boots echoed on the stone floor of the library until they stopped next to them.
Herbert looked up with a chastising glare. "You are not allowed to kick my father," he announced.
Von Krolock winced.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Astonishingly, Draculea sounded amused. "I think he managed to kick himself this time."
"Thank you for that insight," von Krolock said. He rose to his feet, lifting Herbert into his arms. "I think you've had enough excitement for one night, little one. Let's put you to bed, and I'll tell you a story before you fall asleep."
"A story about vampires?" Herbert wound a strand of von Krolock's hair between his fingers. "I only know all the wrong ones."
* * *
The chapel was cool and quiet in the twilight. The barking of dogs outside sent a hollow echo through the stones. Herbert knew why it was so dusty now, and why the priest only said Mass in the church in the village. He wasn't sure what it meant that Father could not touch things that belonged to God, but he thought he would understand when he was older.
He was five and a half years old, and today he was dressed in breeches and a coat for the first time. He was old enough to understand some things.
He put the wildflowers over the clasped hands of the sculpture that lay on top of Izabela von Krolock's grave. The marble shone in the dim light. It was polished and clean.
Herbert bent down and kissed the cold stone cheek. "I'm sure he didn't mean it, Mother," he said. "Father misses you a lot. And I miss you too. I'll take care of him for you. I promise."
His father waited for him outside the door to the chapel, and Herbert slipped his hand into Father's as they walked across the courtyard. A dog ran up to them and barked, asking them to play with it.
With a look at Father to make sure it was all right, Herbert clapped his hands and started to chase the dog. He was five and a half years old. He thought he could act like a child for a few more years.
-FINIS-
Author's Notes:
Vlad III Draculea is recorded to have had at least three legitimate sons - Mihnea by his first marriage and two more by his second wife. Legend assigns him at least one more illegitimate son, and with legends also describing various of Draculea's mistresses, it is quite plausible there would be at least one more.
What do you think? I'm seriously thinking about turning this series into origific - it would be only the matter of tweaking some details and a search-and-replace of the names :) Next chapter is already written, so I'll post it as soon as I come up with a decent title.
Fandom: Original/Tanz der Vampire
Pairing: Draculea/Von Krolock (background)
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Warning: Vampires, bloodshed, terribly cute five-year-old
Wordcount: 6,500
WIR GLAUBEN NUR LÜGEN
God is dead, no-one looks for him now
We have been sentenced to eternal life
We're always drawn to the sun
Though we flee from its light
We trust only liars, despise sacrifice
The souls we don't hate, we also don't love
Castle von Krolock, the border of Transylvania, Holy Empire of the German Nation, August of the Year of Our Lord 1622
The moon was gone behind the trees and the window seat was the darkest corner of the nursery now, but it still felt the safest. With his back pressed against the cold glass, the stone snagging at his nightshirt, Herbert knew there was something between him and the night. He put one hand on the sill and grabbed at the stone wall with his other hand. He was trying to make himself as small as he could. Safer like that. He hoped. It was really dark in the nursery now.
His nurse Barbara was making his bed ready. She was his new nurse; nurse Eva, his mother's nurse before she was Herbert's, fell sick last spring and stopped moving at all. She died, he thought, that word for when people went away and only their bodies were left. Eva had died, and his mother had died, though he only remembered Eva.
Nurse Barbara wasn't as nice as nurse Eva. She was younger, and her eyes were better. Because of that, she only needed a single candle in the nursery. It was behind her now and it made her shadow look great and deformed on the wall. Barbara had long red hair all twisted up, and her shadow had long black tentacles all twisted and ready to catch people and eat them.
Now the tentacles went writhing like snakes on pages of Father's books, because Barbara finished with the bed and stood up.
"Are you watching the stars, little one?" she asked.
Herbert shook his head and made a face. "I'm thinking, Fräulein Barbara."
She laughed. He thought it sounded like the dogs in the stable, the ones that were Father's father before. The stable master said they could hunt all by themselves.
"I keep forgetting how grown up you are, young master Herbert. You look almost adult like that. We should see about getting you out of skirts soon."
"I'd like that," Herbert said politely. It would be nice to dress like Father did. He was almost five and a half years old now, and that was too old for skirts like babies wore.
Barbara perched on the sill in the other corner of the window. She didn't have to climb up like he did, because she was grown up and tall. "Oh, you're so grown and big. Too big for baby stories about magical birds and fairy dances. You need to know about the important things now. Did I ever tell you the story of the duchess who was a vampire?"
Herbert shook his head as he turned a little and caught at the stones again.
"She was from a high family, that one, and she was married off young and beautiful. But when she saw her first grey hair, her first wrinkle, she was afraid. She wasn't afraid of death, but of growing old. She was willing do to anything - anything to keep young. And she asked a young maid, an innocent girl only thirteen years old, she asked her to come up to her bath and she had a knife..."
He shifted again. Maybe he could find a crack in the walls and hide in it and no one would find him. Not one vampire or werewolf or demon or noon-sprite or all the other people that Barbara knew, and all of them ate children and bit them and tore them to pieces so little, it was hard to find all of them to fit the small coffin. A small coffin made of pine. He liked the smell of pine, but when Barbara told her stories, he didn't like it much.
Barbara stopped in the middle of telling him how it took the blood of eight girls to get enough for one bath for the duchess. She looked at the door, stood up and bowed. No, not bowed, when women did it you called it a curtsy.
In the dark, Father looked big and sort of scary, with his cloak and his dark hair. Herbert smiled and jumped down. He tripped a little because his skirts got in the way, but it wasn't much, and Father caught him before he fell.
"You are too sleepy to walk straight, aren't you, my little one?" With Father's voice, the room was never really empty or scary. "I'm sorry. I should have been here earlier, not make you stay up this long. I hope you weren't bored?"
Father's arms felt very safe. Herbert put his head on Father's shoulder and swung his legs. He wondered if flying felt this nice, or maybe baby birds could go on their daddy's back and be carried up all safe and warm.
Father was never very warm, because it was always cold in the library, but Herbert didn't mind.
"You're here now, Father." He put his hands around Father's neck, hugging tightly. He stopped, then spoke again. "Father? Can you stay tonight? Sleep with me?"
"I'm sure his Excellency has other matters at hand, young master," Barbara said quickly. "I'll put him to bed, Excellency, he will not be any trouble."
Herbert bit his lip. He shouldn't have said that. It was something little babies did, like Barbara said, and he was a big boy now.
"It's no trouble at all." Father's voice ran all through him, like a cat purring, and Herbert smiled. He liked it when Father stroked his hair. "Dear one, I'm afraid I have a guest and can't stay with you until morning, but I'll be there until you fall asleep. Will that do?"
Herbert nodded, then giggled as Father put him in his bed and pulled the covers so tight that Herbert could only move if he struggled a whole lot. "You have a guest, Father?" he asked sleepily after he managed to put the covers better. "Is it a friend?"
"In a way." Father smiled like he was hiding something. "It's Lord Draculea - he was here last in the late winter, before your birthday. I think you have made an impression, darling one, because he asked specifically if you still left your toy carts on the upper stairs."
Herbert giggled, then hid his head under the covers. "It was a big crash," he said, then covered his mouth and yawned.
"A very big one." Father reached out and started stroking Herbert's hair. "But now he has new business here, and I need to go and make sure there are no more crashes. I wouldn't want to wake you from your sleep, after all, would I?"
In the dark behind Father, Barbara was picking up Herbert's toys and putting them on the shelves, but it didn't matter. Father was here, and the dreams would be good. No vampires to eat him while he slept.
* * *
Graf von Krolock was still smiling as he walked down the hallway that connected the nursery wing to the main body of his castle. There were few things worth honouring with a smile in the bleak existence he had led for four years now, but among them the sight of his son, so bright and precious even as he fell into sleep, was the one that never failed to lift his heart.
Even the thought of his Sire's visit did not tinge his mood with bitterness. Over the years, he had learned to tolerate the man and accept his guidance in matters related to both his nature and the affairs of the Order that lent a purpose to their lives beyond death. The magical tasks required of him had proven interesting and challenging, though when early spring had found him drawn for the first time from the confines of his castle, drawing down darkness and mist on a scouting party that wandered too closely to matters best kept hidden, he had returned to matters not quite to his liking.
Eva had been a constant presence in his son's life, lavishing him with restrained but grandmotherly affection, and he could see Herbert was missing her. He was quite fortunate to have found a competent replacement, of course, and thankfully Barbara's professional manner did not cause friction despite her relative youth. He was surprised at how cold her vivacious features and light sprinkle of sun-warmed freckles left him, even when she wore soft dresses with her skirts pulled up so that she could race after Herbert when he took it into his head to run at full speed from one end of the castle to another.
Still Barbara was a good nurse and Herbert seemed to like her. They often sat together in the nursery as she told the boy stories, both of them springing apart when von Krolock entered the room. And though she made him somewhat uneasy, she was still confined to the nursery wing, out of his way except when Herbert's presence took her through the wards lining the corridors.
Herbert could be trusted to keep to the nursery when needed be, especially when there were guests in the castle. His child seemed more serious these days, perhaps because he was growing older, though his dear one still had it in him to shower von Krolock with hugs and soft laughter, listen to tales of bygone ages and ask him to stay until Herbert fell asleep.
He had been asked to stay as Herbert slept as well, he thought guiltily. He promised himself that he would make it up to his little one later. Perhaps he could take the boy stargazing, or walking in the forest around the castle at night as wild animals moved around them.
With a bitter shard of pain, he thought of how he would never be able to play with his child in sunlight. There were benefits to his damned condition, but none of them equalled the anguish of being unable to share his son's waking moments in their entirety. Once more, he renewed his oath not to let his own fate taint the boy, to keep him safe from sin and harm.
The library was for once warmed by a roaring fire. Vlad Draculea was lounging in a chair in front of the fireplace, one leg thrown over an armrest and his body a shade's breadth from sliding down to the floor, sprawled over the seat in a way that seemed to defy the laws of nature as much as its continued existence over close to two centuries.
"What took you so long?" the vampire lord demanded irritably.
Von Krolock walked up to the mantelpiece, staring down at the flames. "Herbert asked me to stay until he fell asleep. Forgive me if I sometimes place the needs of my son before alleviating your ennui."
He heard a snort behind him. "Bring that brat of yours to me before I leave," Draculea said.
Von Krolock stiffened, half-disbelieving his own ears, then whirled around, clenching his hands.
"I-"
"For Heaven's sake, Johannes." The elder vampire's lips were parted in an amused smile that still showed the length of his fangs. "I just want to take a look at him. And it'll be good for him to meet someone else - you keep him cooped up here with no-one but your brain-addled servants. He's what, six now? Old enough to be playing soldiers, and wanting to meet one."
Leaning back against the mantelpiece, von Krolock allowed himself a reluctant smile. "It's been hunting lately. He plays with my father's old hounds and asks all sorts of questions about the hunt."
"Just wait until he gets it in his head to try it himself," Draculea laughed as he stood up. "I went through it with all five of mine. Hunting, fighting, petty theft - Mihnea never did it again, I made sure of that. I hope you have a good watch on him."
"I have experimented with warding magic over the past six months. I can think of no better use of it than protecting Herbert."
"And the activities of the Order, eh?" Draculea's arm rested heavily on von Krolock's shoulder. "Come, Excellenz, tell me about your new magical toys. And later we can see about getting you to forget about some things. You think too much."
In the fireplace, the flames crackled, and a piece of burning wood rolled down from the pile to rest against the iron wolves that guarded the hearth.
* * *
If he was allowed to choose, Herbert often got up in the second half of the day, when the sun was already going down. He knew it wasn't normal for people like the servants, but Father was awake all night, and he wanted as much time with Father as possible.
When Father had guests, there was less time for Herbert. Because of that he didn't protest much when Fräulein Barbara woke him in the late morning and told him they would go for a walk in the forest. The woods were different in the sun, all warm and green and pine-smelling. Since Eva died, Father took him to the forest sometimes, but only at night.
With Father, Herbert was never afraid of the shadows of the trees.
Fräulein Barbara sat on a fallen tree in the forest and picked him up, then put him next to her. He was a little curious, because she never carried him before, or hugged him like Father did. But this was Barbara, not Father who always answered questions, so he didn't ask.
She sighed. She looked sad, or maybe a little angry, like Father when he said the books weren't talking to him.
"You're a big boy now, Herbert," she said. "I think I have to ask you for help. His Excellency, your father is in terrible danger."
Herbert put his hand to his mouth. The forest didn't look so warm and safe anymore.
"Danger? Like vampires and werewolves and all?" he mumbled through the finger he was chewing on.
Barbara was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded.
"I recognised the name of Draculea, an old legend and a famous vampire, the most powerful of all vampires. After you were asleep, I carried a tray into the library for your father and his guest. It was the face I'd seen in books that spoke of Prince Draculea's cruelty and the horrors he wrought. He is Draculea, and he has walked the earth for two centuries, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord."
She crossed herself and Herbert belatedly followed. It made him feel a bit better, and he wondered why he didn't do it more often. Then again, Father had said it was faith in your mind, not what you did with your hands that mattered.
"I fear he has selected your father as his next victim to tempt away from the light," Barbara continued. "But his Excellency is a learned man, and I doubt if he'll listen to me if I tell him his friend is a vampire."
"Father listens to everything," Herbert said quietly. "And then he checks."
She smiled. "If you say so, young master. I would rather kill the vampire myself, but yesterday... he looked into my eyes and I fear he saw my hatred. He will not let me approach close enough to kill him."
"Can you kill a vampire?"
"Yes." She looked into the distance. "One method is a wooden stake through the heart. If you have a sword, you can cut off the head or cut out the heart. Vampires burn easily. Holy objects - holy objects are best. If you throw holy water at a vampire, he will burn."
Herbert looked down, at Barbara's clenched hand on the tree bark. He put his own fingers on Barbara's. They sat in silence until the sun started going down.
When they went back to the castle, he ate his dinner like a good boy and went to play with the dogs. The stables were close to the chapel, and when the stable master went to feed the horses, Herbert walked through the courtyard before anyone noticed.
The chapel was very cold and very dark, but it felt safe. The great baptismal fount was covered by its metal cover, and it took Herbert a long time to lift it.
There was holy water in it, and he picked it up in a bottle from Father's laboratory that Father had given him to play with.
Before he went out of the chapel, he stopped by his mother's grave. It was the newest one in the chapel, and there was a sculpture of his mother on it. He didn't remember her anymore, but he could see how beautiful she was. She had died in a hunting accident when he was very little.
"I'll save him, Mother," he whispered. His voice echoed in the chapel. "I promise you."
It was dark when he said goodbye to the hounds and went upstairs to his room. He saw light in the library window and one other above it. There was a shadow standing at the other window and it was too short to be his father.
When he came into the nursery, he told Barbara what he saw. She nodded and dressed in her best dress before going to the library to talk to his father. He held the bottle of holy water behind him, but she saw it.
"Keep safe," she told him before she left.
He didn't wait for her to go, but he walked just behind her down the hall to the main castle. Barbara's skirts made a lot of noise, and he walked on tip-toe, so she didn't hear him.
Herbert knew how to walk very quietly even on stone floors. Now he turned to go up the stairs and Barbara went straight ahead. The rooms above the library were guest rooms with beds and closets and everything else that guests needed. They made the best hiding places, so Herbert knew them all.
Lord Draculea - the vampire - was standing at the window and looking out into the night. From the corner of the wall Herbert was hiding behind, he could see the vampire lord's long hair and broad shoulders. Draculea was wearing red with gold trim, a coat like some really old people wore, not fashionable Spanish-style clothes like Father wore. Herbert could see a bit of the vampire's pale face and a long nose, but not more.
The window reflected the room and Herbert was afraid the vampire would see him, but he remembered what Father had told him about mirrors. You can only see someone in a mirror if he sees you, too. And he didn't see Draculea in the window's reflection.
Barbara told many stories about vampires. Vampires were very quick and very strong. When a vampire caught you, he bit your throat until all the blood ran out, and he drank it. You died, but if the vampire wanted it, you woke up again and you were a vampire, evil and blood-drinking and not caring about anything that you cared for before. Would it work like that for everything? Even though Father had said he would love Herbert always?
He shivered, then bit his lip. He had to save Father. He had to.
He had one chance.
The cork of the bottle came out easily. The glass was slippery, but that was because Herbert's hands were wet. Trembling.
He stumbled when he ran from behind the corner of the wall and he hit his leg. The pain helped. He swung his arm around and threw the bottle at the ceiling above the vampire like he practiced all afternoon in the stables. It broke and showered everything under it with holy water.
At the same moment, the vampire whirled around. Herbert saw green eyes turn red before everything dissolved into mist.
He stumbled again and fell. Somehow the mist caught him, threw him on the bed on the far side of the room. Then the mist pulled together.
"Have you lost your will to live, brat?" Draculea snarled.
* * *
Vlad Draculea's night had just taken a sharp turn for the worse.
He had watched the child peer at him from behind the corner for a good few minutes in the reflective surface of the window. It had made him smile, because unless Johannes' taste in playthings had suddenly changed, the boy had to be Herbert von Krolock, the "little angel" he'd heard so much about. He could even see the source of the name, for the brat had clearly inherited Izabela's looks and blond hair. If it went for temper too, his sorcerer would have his hands full in ten years or so.
Then the boy had rushed out - clumsily - and thrown a bottle at the ceiling. Draculea had let his body dissolve into mist automatically to avoid the shards. Then he smelled the hated scent of holiness.
He put one hand on the boy's chest, pushing him down on the pillows, and bared his teeth. "Why, then? It was traps last time, now assault - you've a tongue in your mouth, speak if there are things that anger you. If you have the courage."
No answer was forthcoming.
He frowned as he looked down at the child. The boy's grey eyes were wide as saucers, his body trembling slightly under Draculea's hand, his teeth biting at his lip in what looked like a desperate attempt to stifle a cry of fear.
Oh, for all the demons in Hell!
"I'm not going to eat you," Draculea growled irritably. He grasped the boy's jaw, making him open his mouth before those teeth managed to worry a wound open. "No need to make your eyes pop out of your head."
A soft whimper escaped the boy's lips before the child gathered enough breath to speak. "B-b-but-" Herbert swallowed convulsively, and Draculea felt the movement under his hands. "You're a vampire!"
The cry echoed around the room, and for a moment both of them were still.
Draculea shrugged and bared his fangs. "Yes. What of it?"
He had expected some kind of argument about efficient methods of fighting vampires, or demands on the mechanics of his mist form, the same conversations he'd had with Johannes years before. What he did not expect was for Herbert to cry out and go into a fit, struggling desperately to escape from him.
"La naiba," he swore, though much stronger curses ran through his mind as he realised Johannes would hear, and it would be so much for getting anything useful out of his sorcerer for six months at least, never mind the autumn campaign. At loss for words, he covered the boy's mouth and gathered the child to him, stilling the desperate thrashing with the strength of his own arms and taking care to leave enough room for breath.
He breathed himself, slowly and deeply, letting that rhythm calm the child. It had been more than a century and a half since he last did it, but he still remembered how to hold a frightened boy and soothe away his fears.
He was surprised that apart from the pale gold colour, Herbert's hair was like Johannes', thick and heavy and straight under his fingers.
He eased off his grip when the screaming turned to sobs. At last even those stilled, and Herbert looked up at him with eyes that still looked too large for his size.
"You're really not going to eat me?"
"If you promise not to assault me again, yes," Draculea laughed. "You have my word of honour."
The small nose wrinkled as Herbert cocked his head. "Do vampires have honour?"
"Some of them, yes. It's what keeps us going and lets us be more than simple monsters."
"Oh." Herbert dropped his head, staring intently at the buttons on Draculea's coat. "There was nothing about that in the stories."
"You've been hearing the wrong stories, brat. One day I might tell you about the Turkish raids two centuries ago - now those were monsters to put any vampire to shame."
"I'd like that."
Draculea ruffled the boy's hair again. He thought he could grow to like the brat - Johannes' son had proper manners, at least, a rarity in children if his memory served him well. That on top of the courage to attack a monster despite all the fear instilled by idiotic human folktales, and plan such an assault in a way that would at least maim any vampire of a lesser power than his own...
Oh, he would have to keep an eye on Herbert von Krolock in the future, and not only because the boy was key to his sorcerer's sanity.
The child straightened in his arms, assuming a serious expression that was a miniature of Johannes at work on an intellectual problem. It was amusing - at first sight it was hard to notice any family resemblance in the features, but at certain angles the brat's paternity couldn't be denied.
"Can you tell me true stories about vampires?" Herbert asked quietly. "Can a vampire care for someone?"
"Yes. For people, land, ideas - if anything, we feel more strongly than humans about certain matters. Why?"
The boy buried his head in his hands, as if trying to hide behind himself. "Will you try to make Father a vampire?" he whispered. "Will he love me then?"
Once again Draculea bit back a litany of curses. He reminded himself to make a list of particularly unpleasant tortures that Johannes wouldn't enjoy at all. If anything was a father's duty, this conversation was - how dare that stuck-up German bookworm stick him with it!
Sometimes simplicity worked best. "Your father has been a vampire for four years now."
Herbert blinked several times and swayed a little. Draculea drew him close again just to keep him from falling off the bed and hitting his head or worse. He thanked God and Lucifer that at least there were no screams this time.
Herbert shifted in his embrace and looked up at him. "Is that why Father doesn't play with me in the sun?"
"Yes." Oh, Johannes would be paying for this for years. The great Draculea did not get stuck in a guest bedroom explaining the facts of life to a six-year-old sprog. Or was it five? The kid was small enough for four...
"He should have told me," Herbert said.
"Yes, he should have." Draculea absently rubbed the child's back. By the time his own brats had been that age, they had already been running with toy swords and torturing small animals. Herbert seemed so much more innocent. "How about we go find him and tell him that? I can even kick him for you."
The boy giggled. "Don't kick Father!"
"I only do it when he really deserves it."
Herbert giggled again, then leaned his head against Draculea's shoulder. "I have to go tell Fräulein Barbara. She thought you were here to make Father a vampire and she went to warn him. And I have to tell her she tells the wrong kind of vampire stories that are not true, because she said all vampires were evil and didn't care for anyone, and Father is not like that at all."
"What?" Draculea growled deep in his throat. "She sent you here?"
"She didn't!" Herbert protested, though there was much less fear in his eyes than there had been only minutes before. "Fräulein Barbara is my nurse, and she just told me stories and told me you were a vampire and went to warn Father!"
"Of all the callous bitches in history..." Draculea disentangled himself from the child's arms and grabbed his sword. "A hunter, here in the castle. She means to kill us, or at least his idiotic Excellency. Stay here!"
He didn't know the castle well enough to trust his mist form, but the way from his regular chamber to the library was short. He hoped he would not be too late.
* * *
Von Krolock pressed his hands to his temples. On most days it was a light task to rein in and direct his visionary talent, but for some reason the same incoherent prophetic flashes that were usually a quiet noise at the edge of his mind now threatened to overwhelm him. He could barely hear Barbara's words as she talked about Herbert's development and the toys she thought it would be good to commission for him.
Blood and pain and anguish. It could be any kill, any feeding that would lengthen his existence at the cost of someone else's. What use were visions like this?
He gritted his teeth and turned from the window. In the dim light that filled the library, even Barbara's hair seemed the colour of blood. Familiar, and that was no wonder at all
"Are there any other matters you wished to discuss at this point?" he asked. He knew he was being more brusque than he habitually was with servants, but the pounding of visions in his head was relentless, impeding his thoughts and the most ingrained of habits.
"Last Sunday at Mass Father Peter discussed Herbert's preparations for First Communion with me." Barbara was standing almost at his side, her hands clasped behind her back. "He recommends that Herbert attend his teachings on Sunday afternoons as well as Mass from now on. He insisted on it."
"I will trust you to make sure Herbert attends."
"Ah..." The woman turned her head towards the fire in the grate. "Father Peter was hoping your Excellency would take part in Herbert's First Communion preparations. He mentioned he would be willing to hold the meetings after sundown to accommodate your Excellency's usual schedule."
He shook his head. He was concerned for Herbert's upbringing and immortal soul, of course; why else would he go to such lengths to protect his son? Still he thought that bursting into flame the moment the good priest started Mass would not contribute to his son's devotion to the true faith.
"I'm afraid I cannot accommodate Father Peter's schedule," he said curtly.
"I see." There was a change in Barbara's voice, all concern disappearing as she took a step back. "God hates abominations, after all."
He was moving before she was, a flash of foresight making him step aside. The bolt from the short pistol crossbow hit the window frame, stuck, quivered.
His anger burned through the visions like wildfire. "You dare lift your hand at me?"
"It's my duty as a Christian and a member of my family!" she shot back, then jumped as the flames from the grate leapt towards her. "Wait!"
"A hunter," Von Krolock hissed. "You dare enter my house and ask for mercy..."
"I dared more than that," Barbara spat. "And so did you - this spring, when you came across a man and tore his throat out! You left my brother to bleed out like a dog, and I swore I would do the same to you!"
Circling slowly around the shrilly screaming woman, von Krolock assessed his situation. The control of flames had come to him easier than ever with the fury that gripped him. There were other powers at his command as well, not least of them the imposing of his will upon Barbara's, though that would require her to meet his eyes. She was a seasoned vampire hunter, he realised, for she kept her gaze trained on his hands instead.
And yet with the failure of the covert attack, she was no danger at all. A madwoman, then?
"You have chosen a strange way of going about it," he said. "If you know of my nature, you know of my command of lore as well. Should that somehow fail to hold you, the lord of all vampires in the region is in the castle, and from him there may be no escape. How could you hurt me?"
"I already have, Excellency." Barbara looked up at him, and the hatred in his eyes struck at him with a force that drove all thoughts of attempting thrall out of his mind. "Haven't you wondered where Herbert is?"
It was like a blow to his body, a physical impact sending pain through him and beyond him. Blood and pain and anguish, he thought.
He reached out to the wards he had placed around the nursery wing, but it only confirmed what his foresight told him. Herbert was not inside the wards.
"What have you done to him?" he whispered hoarsely.
"Nothing he didn't do to himself." Barbara spread her hands exuberantly. "You may be an abomination twice over for daring to love the boy, but his mind is twisted far more for loving you back. All I needed was to tell him of Vlad Draculea's true nature and imply you were in danger. Herbert even asked about ways of killing vampires on his own."
"No." Von Krolock desperately reached towards the future, the past, anywhere, but walls were falling inside his mind. He had spent so long fighting the visions that now shied from him...
But he did not need them. Herbert was smart and brave, which meant he would succeed in wounding Draculea. And hurt, surprised, the vampire lord would-
A chance, a shard of hope that Herbert's plan was sophisticated and careful and slow. He ran towards the door, just a short stretch of corridor before the stairs, and then Draculea's bedchamber would be straight ahead.
As his feet carried him over the threshold, he saw Draculea leap down the stairs, sword in hand. The one startled glimpse was enough for him to see how spotless the elder vampire's clothes were, how concerned his face-
"Behind you!" Draculea called out.
Von Krolock whirled in place, his hands snapping out to catch Barbara's wrist. The silver dagger clattered to the floor a breath before his backhand blow threw her across the library.
She did not have time to rise before he was upon her, twisting her body around, casually dislocating both shoulders. He pressed his face against the side of her head, breathing in the scent of her fear. Her hair was matted with blood from where she had struck the wall.
"To complete the circle, I should make you one of us," he hissed and felt her shudder desperately. "But you don't deserve it."
He barely brought his hands in check enough to bare her neck without breaking it. His fangs left deep furrows in her skin, and as he drank, the blood tasted acrid, dead. He let each swallow take away a shade of his anger, until he was drinking the sweetness of her heart's blood and it brought a smile to his face.
He drained the last bitter dregs and let Barbara's corpse fall to the floor. The stones were hard under his knees, but with the anger still making his breath ragged, he felt energised, full of power. He had underestimated Draculea once again, it seemed, and Herbert was safe, upstairs or already in the nursery. He would have to wash off the blood before he went to comfort his child.
A curse from Draculea made his head snap up. Something darted past the vampire lord's legs, and von Krolock barely had time to stretch out his arms before his son was hugging him. It was instinct to seize the child close to himself, hold him close, let the frantic, strong heartbeat soothe his own thoughts.
After a few moments Herbert started squirming. Von Krolock loosened his hold on the child and almost kissed the pale gold hair before he remembered his lips were smeared with blood.
"Father?" Herbert gave him a shaky smile. "You've got it all over your face. Fräulein Eva always said it was important not to get food all over your face."
"She was a wise woman," von Krolock agreed as he took out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood.
Herbert cast a sideways look at Barbara's corpse. "Is she dead?" he whispered.
"Yes."
"Good." He kissed his father's cheek. "She wasn't very nice."
"No, she wasn't, dear one." Von Krolock ruffled his son's hair.
Draculea's boots echoed on the stone floor of the library until they stopped next to them.
Herbert looked up with a chastising glare. "You are not allowed to kick my father," he announced.
Von Krolock winced.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Astonishingly, Draculea sounded amused. "I think he managed to kick himself this time."
"Thank you for that insight," von Krolock said. He rose to his feet, lifting Herbert into his arms. "I think you've had enough excitement for one night, little one. Let's put you to bed, and I'll tell you a story before you fall asleep."
"A story about vampires?" Herbert wound a strand of von Krolock's hair between his fingers. "I only know all the wrong ones."
* * *
The chapel was cool and quiet in the twilight. The barking of dogs outside sent a hollow echo through the stones. Herbert knew why it was so dusty now, and why the priest only said Mass in the church in the village. He wasn't sure what it meant that Father could not touch things that belonged to God, but he thought he would understand when he was older.
He was five and a half years old, and today he was dressed in breeches and a coat for the first time. He was old enough to understand some things.
He put the wildflowers over the clasped hands of the sculpture that lay on top of Izabela von Krolock's grave. The marble shone in the dim light. It was polished and clean.
Herbert bent down and kissed the cold stone cheek. "I'm sure he didn't mean it, Mother," he said. "Father misses you a lot. And I miss you too. I'll take care of him for you. I promise."
His father waited for him outside the door to the chapel, and Herbert slipped his hand into Father's as they walked across the courtyard. A dog ran up to them and barked, asking them to play with it.
With a look at Father to make sure it was all right, Herbert clapped his hands and started to chase the dog. He was five and a half years old. He thought he could act like a child for a few more years.
-FINIS-
Author's Notes:
Vlad III Draculea is recorded to have had at least three legitimate sons - Mihnea by his first marriage and two more by his second wife. Legend assigns him at least one more illegitimate son, and with legends also describing various of Draculea's mistresses, it is quite plausible there would be at least one more.
What do you think? I'm seriously thinking about turning this series into origific - it would be only the matter of tweaking some details and a search-and-replace of the names :) Next chapter is already written, so I'll post it as soon as I come up with a decent title.