 |
|
To Die Upon a Kiss Dracula's Account
I will miss it dreadfully when I return to London...
In my hands I held it�the missive that brought an end to three months of revelation and delight. I was acquainted with its contents as if I had read them myself, though the seal remained unbroken and the light-colored stationary safely folded. It had been given me before the rosy gleams of daylight with the request I dispatch it; nighttime gently unfurled and still the envelope remained in my keeping. It seemed so very small an impediment to inhibit the unspoken query glimmering in her dark eyes, silent and resigned. There was nothing for Kelantha in London�she knew this, as I did. Still she packed quietly and composed her dutiful letter, as though London were the only place open to her, the only road rising before her and the only one she intended to follow.
The darkening horizon had just slipped into shadows as I smiled sardonically. Oh, my ingenuous darling, is that what you thought? You thought I refused you coolly, did you? That I was too proud and imperious to voice the offer only I should make? Or that I had intended to be no more than a temporal benefactor?
My grasp on the letter tightened as I grimly surveyed the fate looming beyond a mere succession of hours. I could not watch the carriage that would arrive on the morrow depart again without a singular regret, could not allow the end I sought to procure vanish as mist before the dawn. Defeat had never been acknowledged in life, nor had it any authority in death, yet I watched its excruciatingly real presence draw ever nearer with the imminent removal of the one who personified all my hopes. It had all led to this�the experiments, the thinly guised conversations�even events that unfolded long before Kelantha came to me. The open disapproval of both church and family, the insatiable desire to truly advance beyond the point where others faltered�all served to rouse Kelantha�s evident fascination, but further than that she would not stir. This was one request she would never give voice to, and I would be obliged to escort my plans into the very coach that was to seal our separation; for there was nothing I could do for her that she did not ask. Without her invitation, the Gift would not be hers to possess.
My thoughts turned to the moment when I had received the Gift, centuries before this current age of discovery and enlightenment and much to the wonderment of my own ambitious fascination. Vainly did I seek him who bestowed it, for he never answered my summons or my petitions, no matter how many times I cast the alleged Circle of the dark realm or invoked his spirit to manifest itself to me. His silence I took for refusals, and though this irritated my arrogance I suspected the cause. I was regarded a heretic despite my profession of Roman Catholic faith, and as a blemish to the Church Herself, nothing should have prevented the communication I sought for�nothing except the price he always requires. I saw it plainly�death, though whether my own or that of a sacrifice, I could not tell.
If I could not call upon him I could but wait, though for what I knew not. I expected him to appear in darkness, cloaking his power in shadow, a formless specter of midnight. But which of my expectations proved worthy? He came when I did not call him, appearing before me not as the supremely evil being we are taught to loathe and fear, but aglow with light and radiance. My all too mortal heart faltered within me, so potent was this angel of luminosity. Immobilized by my own pride�for never did I pay homage to any of those who demanded it, exempting my father, and even then halfheartedly�I could only gaze upon this vision of absolute brilliance and staggering perfection.
�Who are you?� I breathed hardly above a whisper. �Why do you come to me now?�
His lips never parted, but I heard the ineffably musical tones clearly. �You know the answer, or I would not have come.�
�But you did not come,� I responded curtly, the angst I had been savoring rising afresh.
�Since you have implored so graciously,� he sweetly murmured. �I may answer your invitation with my own. You wish for knowledge and abilities denied to mortals, to reclaim what was unjustly taken from you; all this I can give you in one exchange.�
�And the conditions?� I asked. �I must become monstrously repulsive in return for trading my soul for absolute mastery?�
His luminance suddenly took on an entirely different gleam, for his entire face shone as he smiled. Reaching out to me with all the fondness of a doting mother, he said softly, �No�you will be beautiful!�
The gentle stroke was succeeded by these words: �I will require that which you will have no further use for, not limited to the bounds of mortality. There are other conditions that you shall discover in time. Know this�the means by which I bestow this Gift to you is how you must extract it from others, for only by drawing the life flow from them shall yours continue.�
I did not ask how this transaction was to be done, for somehow I understood. In looking up at him, the Dark Lord, whose countenance exuded the kindness a sovereign would have for a loyal subject, yet still retained fiery supremacy, I could see how life was extracted and subsequently preserved. It was with this most sacred of gestures that God Himself first breathed life into His creation, the very same that Judas used to condemn Christ to death.
Locking the still-sealed envelope away, I began the lengthy ascent to the upper floors, knowing with each step I drew nearer to offering an invitation that required one in return. If it was truly life Kelantha desired, she would have to first endure the embrace of death. Immortality had no way but this�to die upon a kiss.
This fan fiction is for enjoyment purposes only. You may not reproduce, duplicate, or otherwise quote the written text without written permission.
|