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Never in his extraordinarily long life had Count Dracula ever considered himself suicidal.
Not when his family perished one by one, or when all his attempts at creating a new family had failed in their infancy time and time again. Not when the loneliness threatened to consume what remained of him, and not when his finest bride had to be sacrificed for a higher cause. And, truthfully, there was no certainty that he was feeling it now either.
But the hole in his chest, that gaping abyss, refused to let him accept it. In the past three months it had only grown and now it reached uncomfortable proportions, like it was threatening to burst from his ribs. As the sunlight- oh beautiful, invigorating sunlight – stopped blinding him, his eyes fell to the weak, slumped figure beside that window to the heavens. In all his time spent on this planet, human or other, he’d never encountered one like her.
As much as Lucy was a subject of fascination and study for him, this woman was one of awe, respect, even adoration. The one and only person he truly considered his equal, despite his numerous attempts to cause her suffering. Enough so, apparently, that her spirit had transcended the veil of life and death itself to return to him, for whatever purpose.
Dracula, much like herself most likely, had settled for the assumption that her goal was to kill him. After all, it was her calling, and a logical conclusion.
Now, faced with that void behind his ribs, he was suddenly sure it wasn’t so. Or at least, not anymore.
What had started with spiteful, albeit wily banter and mockery two lifetimes ago had reshaped into a kind of bond the vampire had been craving since his turning, perhaps longer, even.
In all his years dining with and on nobles, the lifetimes spent in castles and high societies modest to renowned, the decades spent in shadowed corridors and dim-lit halls, there had never been one who knew him.
Or to be precise, there’d never been one who truly bothered trying to understand him past the monstrosity of the vampire, or the influence of the Count. Not one who tried to see the whole and what hid behind.
But that nun… Of all things, a nun! An unexpected challenge. Enemy, competition, a reason to continue the game. Not only did she not accept easy explanations or excuses, wouldn’t stop at the surface, no; she dug herself into his mind and flesh like a maggot and refused to give up until she’d found all the vital points to sink her teeth in.
Admittedly at first, her sharp wit and quick tongue had been little more than an amusement, his scramble to uphold his image in the face of her mockery, a humiliating nuisance.
But quickly he became attached to the sincerity of her quest for understanding, not to mention her practice of sheer audacity. He enjoyed watching her struggle against the overwhelming odds and was equally horrified whenever her theories and observations held more truth than he liked.
For that, he toyed with her. Be the final truth that she would die, it would be by his rules. Dracula’s checkmate in their extensive chess match spanning lifetimes. Alas, he underestimated her. So here they were, more than a century later, and she was here again. Dying, but here still.
And as his gaze flickered over her thin frame, the weary, half-lidded eyes, he was overcome with a sudden surge of dread.
Soon, the one person who knew him better than he knew himself would be dead. Gone forever. She’d held on just long enough for the grand reveal and would now welcome the grave smiling.
What of him then? There weren’t many breaths left in her, and once the last one passed, he would be alone again. But this time, she’d leave him with his shame and self-loathing laid bare, sore and festering. Their cat-and-mouse chase was ending at last, and on her terms, no less. A force of nature, that woman.
She’d torn the bandage off and was watching him bleed out at her feet. Dracula wondered if she knew what she had done to him-
Nonsense.
It was Agatha. A nun too smart for her own good. Cunning as a fox, quick as a crow, bold as a honey badger. Of course she knew. The expression on her face spoke of compassion- compassion?! -, fascination and relief. Maybe even regret, if he squinted. The look of a woman close to death, but with a mission fulfilled. Nothing he could do to her now would dull that victory. She’d endure the pain as she ever did, and pass with pride and dignity, knowing she’d made good on her promise and destroyed Count Dracula at last. Not in any way either of them had expected, but destroyed he would be.
The dread ballooned into full fledged horror. How was he supposed to go back to before? Now that he’d been returned to the sunlight and stood confined only by the limits of his own mind, he was supposed to bid farewell to the one who’d brought him there? Impossible.
Unbidden, a memory of the long dead Johnathan Harker flickered through his mind. The lawyer, unfocused and bleary eyed but passionate nonetheless, looking into the warm, familiar eyes of the Count’s favorite nun as he spoke with conviction. “And what is sunlight, if not the face of one’s beloved?”
Ah.
No. Count Dracula had never been suicidal. But as he lifted a half dead Agatha from his chair back into the sunlight, watching her slackened features shift to mild confusion, he knew as well as she did.
He couldn’t live like this again. She had won, and he would concede. After everything, the least he could do was take her pain. By now she was reeking of death. Her blood would be acid in his mouth and burn like he was swallowing the sun itself.
But he would follow her example. He’d take the suffering with dignity and become equal to the pain as it took him. This time, he would follow her into death.
She may not have extended her hand for him to follow, but he’d take hers, nonetheless. Whether for comfort, or guidance or affection wouldn’t matter. As terrified as he was to perish, it wasn’t fair to let her go alone a second time, and he was glad to not be alone either. He’d try to meet death with the same fearless resolve she did.
Maybe, had he not been what he was, there could have been something between them outside of pain, death and endless conflict. But such luck wasn’t for him, not that he deserved it.
Almost reverently and with utmost care the vampire placed what came closest to a partner to him on the sunlit table. The shadows wouldn’t do for this. He wouldn’t condemn her to death in the dark, when he himself yearned to be bathed in sunlight when he did.
Agatha put up no resistance, only sighing weakly when she no longer had to keep herself upright with her own strength. What should he make her dream of?
More often than not Dracula only gave vague suggestions to the ones he fed on and let their own thoughts and desires fill in the blanks. On rarer occasions, he’d actively steer them himself, like when he was draining Agatha aboard the Demeter bit by bit, or whenever Lucy opened her veins to him in exchange for fantastic dreams of her own choosing. Whichever the case, his thirst for theatrics was always sated.
Choosing one for her, for her last one… deserved consideration. But, as selfish as he was, he wanted to be in it.
So when he took to her veins, and let the sour, acidic taste drown his every sense, he settled for what could’ve been. Of course, Agatha being Agatha, she knew within seconds.
“This isn’t real. This is a dream.”
“Of course it is.”
Still too smart for her own good. Oh, that sly nun had him wrapped around her finger, whether or not she knew it. It would’ve been so much easier for the both of them if she wasn’t. Not as intelligent, not as confident or morbidly curious, not as… well, her. But wasn’t that half the fun?
Johnny would still be among the Undead and by his side as his finest bride. Half- no, all of England would be at his feet at this very moment, as the Demeter would never have sunk, and brought the Count safely to the isle. Maybe he’d even have figured out the proper vampire reproduction process by now.
Yet, the time he knew that nun was the most mentally stimulating time he’d lived through in centuries. Back and forth, push and pull. No one ever came as close as her, in more ways than one. And that alone was already worth his admiration.
“You are drinking my blood. But my blood is deadly to you.”
“Yes”, he hummed against the faint thrum of her aorta running down her neck. Her pulse now beat as shallow against his fangs as her breaths against the side of his neck.
“So you’ll die.”
The time when he cared for that was long past.
“So will you.”
For emphasis he intensified the integrity of her dream, smoothing out any gaps and holes that might leave room for her pain.
“After all this time, did you think I’d let it hurt?”
A quiet hum and sigh were all the answers he needed, the tension disappearing from her limbs as her breathing grew ragged. Dracula, too, closed his eyes and let himself fall into the dream with her, embracing the sun itself, the heat and the burn of her corruption nearly indistinguishable from one another. A reunion long overdue indeed. He squeezed her lifeless hand in his as after half a millennium of fear and running, death finally took him.