Van Helsing needed desperately to get back to Jonathan, as there was no telling what these drunken fools would bring upon the town if left to murder people they suspected of being vampires or witches.
He was just about to round the corner to Jonathan's house when he heard a very familiar sound: massive wings, as from a giant bat. But they were not targeting him. He stopped dead in his tracks and listened. He heard a tremendous fight break out, and could hear that Jonathan was in trouble. "Begone, demon of the night. In the name of our Lor--" Jonathan could not finish the sentence, for a massive black fist descended from the sky and knocked him out cold. Van Helsing knew he was powerless to stop this, but he tried anyway. He pulled out a stake he had hidden underneath his trousers, and rushed to try and stab at least one of the beasts. Before he could make it five steps, the creatures had carried Jonathan off into the night, and they did not seem to notice Van Helsing.
Jonathan awoke in a sprawling dining room, at the end of the most magnificent dinner table he had ever seen. He slowly looked up and thought he was looking into a mirror, for the briefest of moments. Across the table from him, wearing very elegant clothes, sat Count Dracula, patiently waiting for him to come to his senses. Jonathan began sitting up, and observed that there was even a choir, singing one of the most enchanting pieces he had ever heard, accompanied by a violin. Jonathan realised they must all have been vampires.
"I'm pleased to see you are awake. I invited your friend to attend too, but alas, he had other plans. Please, help yourself to anything you want from the table. You are, after all, my guest of honour. I would see you well fed... before you die."
Jonathan knew there was no escape. He silently embraced his end and began whispering a prayer, apologising for all those he had failed and wishing to reunite with his sister.
"Yes. Pray. As if your God has ever brought you anything but pain."
"You cannot know what you are talkin' 'bout, demon. When I die, I go to a place where I will be reunited with all those your kind have murdered over the years. You've but one place left to go: when we finally kill you, you will be condemned to the deepest circles of hell. And you will never see your wife again. This is the price you pay for your vengeance."
Dracula traveled across the room in an instant and grabbed the young man's face in a grip that cracked his jaw bones. "Stay silent about my wife, worm. I swore I would kill all descendants of the ones responsible for her murder, and I have. All except you!" Dracula released Jonathan's face and teleported to his own seat again. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? You don't even know why you're being condemned yet, do you?"
Jonathan was taken aback by the speed he had just witnessed. It was as if Dracula had simply materialised before him from pure shadow. "I do. My ancestor was involved in your wife's burning. Only he repented, and the Lord gave him the power to stop you, in retu--" Jonathan's train of thought was lost as Dracula began laughing, and he could not recall ever hearing such a chilling sound.
"The irony. I was always the good son, the one who honoured his parents' wishes, until your ancestor, my brother, did what he did."
Jonathan was taken aback completely. "Your brother?"
"He was the eldest, you see. He had always been promised that he would become the next Count. This went to his head, and he could never once allow me to keep any toys he wanted to have for himself. He seemed to extend this to my dear wife too, for when she rejected him, he had her declared as a witch and burned." There was a lot of concealed bitterness in his voice, and it came as no surprise when Dracula lunged forward once more. "I prayed to your precious God to give me justice, and I was completely ignored. As my hate for my brother grew, I began pondering whether such a thing as witchcraft truly existed, for this seemed like the perfect method for me to get my vengeance on a brother who felt no remorse for murdering my wife. Even there, I was disappointed. It was not God who answered my prayers.
"No, it was an old man I met in the town one day. He had the ability to stare right into my soul and see my hurt and vengeful heart. He told me that I could have my justice, for a price. Eagerly, I told him no price was too much to bear, and I meant it. I did not know what a curse I was bringing down on myself.
"I went back to the castle, and felt no different, until night came. It was then when my vengeance manifested itself as an incredible thirst for the blood of those who had wronged me. I didn't act on it, at first, but with each passing night, my thirst grew, until I could not take it anymore.
"My first victim was the stable hand who had looked the other way as my brother carried my wife off, and so I worked my way up to my brother.
"What I did not know, was that he had felt a deep remorse for everything he had done, and that he had given his heart entirely to God. He fled the castle, renounced his titles and his blood, and headed to an abbey a short distance away from here to live out his life as a monk. This was the final insult. God had ignored my prayers, and yet had granted this wretch of a man forgiveness. More than that, he had granted him the ability to set wards against me and my cohorts."
Jonathan was emboldened by his impending doom, so he responded: "You've a vengeful heart, you'll never understand the value of mercy. Had you given up this senseless crusade, had you merely asked for forgiveness yourself and given your heart to the God who loved you, no sin would have been too great to forgive. But that's not possible, is it? For the person you most long to punish isn't the stable hand or the brother who betrayed you, but yourself."
Dracula was stunned. How could this boy know so much about him. Was this the work of God?
"Go ahead. I'm done talkin'. I know there's no escape and I'll not play this game with you any longer. Where I go, you can never follow. You might think killing me will release you from your curse, but that's not what vengeance does. You'll go on living as the beast you've become, until either the world ends, or until someone visits the same vengeance upon you."
There was no fear in Jonathan's eyes. He was absolutely ready to face death, no matter how gruesome it might be. Dracula felt too numb to enjoy this kill. He simply transported himself behind Jonathan and snapped his neck. Jonathan was right. Nothing felt different. He would simply continue as he had for the last thousand years. He turned away from the corpse, and for the first time in over a millennium, saw a reflection in the mirror. It was not his own, but Jonathan. Satan had seen to it that Jonathan's final words would stay with him for eternity.
Jonathan Harker, aka
@Doc, the final defender, has been targeted by the vampires and killed. It is now the day phase again.
