Dracula stood upon the roof of his temporary home, still lost in thought. Now his new fortress, it was the city’s library. By the looks of things, it had recently opened. The paint smelled new, at least to him. But his senses were keener than most. Either way, this building was now his. It was his in the same fashion that all the rest of the city now belonged to him.
The reproduction gothic church that stood across from his home would have an amusing new use. He had plans for it already. What an odd and curious human behavior—to build new places in the fashion of the old. It was an attempt to cling to their past as though it were somehow better and grander than their future.
The past is only ever lesser. What may come is all that will ever give us hope.
He looked down at the corruption spreading through the streets and alleys of the young American city. He had unleashed his curse in full. He had become an unwelcome disease that had taken hold of the center of this little outpost of humanity.
“You are a plague upon your house. You will be a plague upon the world.” He remembered those words spoken to him so long ago, when he could feel the grit of sand in his teeth and taste unwelcome and bitter blood in his mouth. “You will be alone forever.”
He drove away the unwelcome memory with a growl. His beloved empath had dredged up several preserved corpses from the bottom of the bog in his mind. It was disconcerting.
A sign proclaimed this place “Copley Square.” He could not care less. The sign that once stood proudly in the center of the plaza beneath him was now twisted and bent by some terrible nightmare. And a nightmare had come, indeed. He watched his power spread, the shadow consuming all that it touched.
The sound of screams hung in the darkness of the never-ending night.
It made him smile.
This city had thought it understood fear when he had turned the moon to blood. Now it would know true pain. It would know true death.
It, like Maxine, would know what kind of demon he truly was.
“Master. Is this…is this truly wise?”
Ah, Walter. The vampire was a rare direct child of his blood, one of the few strong enough to withstand the kind of power his kiss brought. One of the few creatures with the mental capacity to handle immortality for longer than a few hundred years. Or so he hoped. Walter was also forever attempting to play the role of the conscience that Vlad had given up a long, long time ago.
“It is certainly not wise. It is anything but. Yet it will happen regardless. Where is Zadok?”
“Where do you think?”
It was rare that Walter was sarcastic with him. He must truly have annoyed the redhead with his decision to finally wage his war and claim this city. His question had, in truth, been a pointless one. He knew precisely where the illusionist was—off in the mayhem, wallowing in the slaughter.
“Fetch him from his revelries. I have something important he needs to do.”
Walter sighed heavily.
“Is this an inconvenience for you?” Vlad turned to look at the other vampire with a raised eyebrow.
“No, my Lord. Forgive me.” Walter placed a hand to his chest and bowed his head. “It is not my place to speak against you.”
“It is always your place to speak freely. You disagree with what I have done.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Walter looked up at him, red eyes that matched his own betraying the younger vampire’s confusion.
Vlad turned back to the city. “What I am doing here is cruel. Thousands will die. It is wrong. That is…entirely the point, I’m afraid.”
“I fail to understand.”
“I know. Fetch me Zadok.”
“Yes, Master.”
And with that, Walter was gone. He watched the red-winged bats soar off into the sky in search of his more hedonist kin. Zadok was in all ways a difficult creature. But for what was to follow, he would play a very important part. The Frenchman was loyal and valuable for his skills. He was worth the irritations he brought with him.
Most of the time.
Vlad watched as his disease spread throughout the city around him, growing wider with every passing second. The city would be his within the hour. Creatures stalked the shadows and the skies. Twisted abominations hunted their prey. Some resembled their previous condition of humanity to various degrees—and some did not.