The mountainside was a graveyard of jagged stone and black ice. Alice moved not like a warrior, but like a shadow cast by the full moon.
The Corvinus Order's base was not merely a ruin — it was an active fortress, hidden beneath the façade of a forgotten monastery.
From a high ridge, Alice studied the perimeter. Electric torches and real bonfires lit the grounds.
Modern motion sensors were threaded among ancient silver wires strung between trees — a lethal marriage of technology and superstition.
She couldn't fight them all.
If the alarm sounded before she reached the crypt, it would be over.
Alice descended. She used her vampiric speed only in short bursts, slipping through patrol gaps.
When a guard drew close, she didn't kill him; she tossed a stone in the opposite direction. When he turned to investigate, she slid past his back, silent as death, holding her breath so vapor wouldn't betray her in the frozen air.
She reached a reinforced oak side door. Runes carved into the wood burned Alice's eyes just to look at them.
She wrapped her hand in her coat sleeve and pushed.
The door gave with a low groan.
Inside, the corridor was narrow, heavy with incense, gun oil, and sweat.
She drifted through the shadows, ducking behind columns and saintly statues whenever footsteps approached.
She was only meters from the inner sanctuary when a hand emerged from the darkness, a crossbow leveled at her skull.
"Not another step, bloodsucker."
Alice froze.
A young hunter stood before her — brown hair, piercing blue eyes, the Raven sigil emblazoned on his chest.
Kevin Corvinus.
The last heir.
He didn't hesitate.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
Alice was faster.
She twisted aside, the silver bolt slicing past her ear and embedding itself in the stone wall.
Before Kevin could reload, Alice surged forward and seized his throat, slamming him against the stone.
"Let go of me, monster!" Kevin clawed for the dagger at his belt.
Alice caught his wrist.
She didn't use lethal force.
She used her gaze.
Her pupils widened into bottomless pits, locking onto Kevin's eyes. She invaded his mind — not violently, but with crushing hypnotic pressure.
"Look at me," Alice commanded.
Her voice reverberated inside his skull.
Kevin stopped struggling.
"I'm looking…"
"You won't kill me," she whispered. "You're going to escort me. I'm your prisoner. You're taking me to the Central Crypt for interrogation. Do you understand?"
"I understand…" Kevin echoed, monotone, though part of his mind screamed in protest.
Alice released his throat and placed her hands behind her back, miming restraints.
"Let's go. And act natural."
They walked the corridors.
They passed two other hunters. Alice lowered her head, hiding her face.
"Good work, Corvinus," one of the men said. "Where did you find her?"
"North perimeter," Kevin replied stiffly under Alice's influence. "Taking her to containment in the Crypt."
The men nodded and moved on.
Alice released the breath she'd been holding.
They reached the vast underground hall.
At its center, encircled by a circular moat, stood the gate to Dracula's Tomb — fashioned of black iron and obsidian, sealed with the blood of Kevin's ancestors.
But the entrance was not unguarded.
Four elite hunters in tactical armor and ceremonial cloaks stood watch before the gate.
"Hold, Kevin," their leader said, raising a hand. "No one enters the containment zone without the Grand Master's authorization. Not even you."
Alice's hypnosis wavered under the weight of command.
Kevin blinked, confusion battling the compulsion.
"I… I need to…"
The leader's eyes slid to Alice.
He saw her hands were free.
"It's a trick!" he shouted. "Kill her!"
The ruse collapsed.
Alice shoved Kevin toward safety and exploded into motion.
But these were no ordinary guards.
The first hunter hurled a glass grenade.
It burst midair, releasing a cloud of consecrated holy water.
The liquid touched Alice's skin and hissed like sulfuric acid. She screamed as steam rose from her face and arms, agony blinding her.
"Take her!" the leader barked.
Alice rolled across the floor, ignoring the burning flesh. She shattered one guard's knee with a kick, but another lashed her across the back with a silver whip.
The metal tore through her coat and into her skin, searing to the bone.
Alice dropped to her knees, gasping, blood streaming down her back and face.
The hunters closed in, weapons raised.
"You die here, abomination," the leader said, lifting a spear.
Alice lifted her head.
There was no fear in her eyes.
Only molten fury.
"I do not die," she growled.
"I am reborn."
With a scream of pure exertion, Alice unleashed a wave of raw telekinesis — not refined, not controlled — just pain detonating outward.
All four hunters were flung back, smashing into the stone walls with lethal force.
The hall fell silent except for Alice's ragged breathing and the drip of blood onto the floor.
She staggered to her feet.
The holy water still burned.
The silver still scorched.
She was at the edge.
She looked to Kevin, crouched against the wall, hypnosis shattered, crossbow raised again — hands shaking.
"You… you killed them," Kevin whispered, horrified.
Alice didn't advance.
She leaned against the wall, bleeding.
"They'll survive. I need to get into that tomb, Kevin."
"To free him? To bring hell back to Earth? Never!" Kevin cocked the weapon.
"Not to free him," Alice said, her voice weak but brutally honest. "To kill him. Or rather… to take what he has and slaughter the ones who murdered my family."
She met Kevin's gaze.
"The Council killed the woman I loved. They murdered innocents. If you don't open that door, Kevin, they will keep going. Dracula is the past. The Council is the present. Help me destroy them."
Kevin stared at the wounded vampire.
He saw the burns blistering her skin.
He saw the pain that had nothing to do with flesh.
He was a Corvinus.
His mission was to eradicate evil.
And he knew, from whispers in the Order, that the Vampire Council was an organized plague.
Slowly, Kevin lowered the crossbow.
"If you betray us… if you turn that power on humans… I will hunt you to hell."
"I'm counting on it," Alice replied.
Kevin approached the obsidian door. He drew a ceremonial knife and sliced his palm open.
Corvinus blood touched the seal.
The runes flared gold.
Chains fell away.
The door boomed open like subterranean thunder.
Alice stepped inside.
The air was frozen — ancient and dry.
At the center, upon a stone dais, rested the sarcophagus.
Alice shoved aside the heavy lid.
There he was.
Dracula.
He was not a rotting monster.
He was mummified, gray skin stretched tight over bone, like a statue carved from suffering.
But the aura—
The aura was an endless black ocean.
The mummy's eyes opened.
Red.
Dull.
"Who disturbs my exile?" the voice echoed inside Alice's mind, not in the air.
"A daughter of your pain," Alice answered.
"You reek of grief," Dracula said. "And vengeance."
Alice leaned over the coffin.
"I need your blood. I need your hatred."
Dracula smiled, desiccated flesh pulling tight.
"Blood is memory. If you drink, you will see. You will feel what I felt when they burned her."
Alice didn't hesitate.
She tore into the mummy's wrist with her fangs and drank.
The blood was not liquid.
It was fire.
It was lava.
It was history.
The instant it touched her tongue, Alice was no longer in the tomb.
She stood in an open field centuries ago.
A pyre burned.
And within the flames, a woman screamed.
Elisabeta.
Dracula's wife.
Humans had accused her of witchcraft while he was at war.
They burned her alive.
Alice felt his agony — the moment he arrived to find only ashes.
The torment of possessing all the power in the world and failing to save the one he loved.
She felt his heart harden.
The instant he cursed God and swore to drink humanity's blood forever.
It was the same pain.
The same loss.
Kara in the rain.
Elisabeta in the fire.
Alice was hurled back into her body with a scream.
She collapsed onto the crypt floor, convulsing.
Her body blazed.
The wounds from holy water and silver sealed instantly, steaming as they closed.
Her muscles thickened.
Her senses expanded until the world itself seemed within reach.
She rose.
Her eyes were no longer merely red.
They were furnaces.
Dracula lay in the coffin, suddenly aged a thousand years, his essence drained.
He closed his eyes, slipping back into slumber — perhaps finally at peace, having passed the burden on.
Alice exited the crypt.
Alarms wailed throughout the mountain.
Red lights spun along the corridor.
Bootsteps thundered — dozens of hunters racing toward slaughter.
Kevin stood at the doorway, pale, staring at what Alice had become. Her aura made the air shiver.
"You did it?" he asked, afraid.
Alice looked at him.
"Thank you, kid."
"Go!" Kevin shouted, pointing to a side passage. "There's an exit through the sewer tunnels. If you stay, they'll bring heavy weapons."
Alice nodded.
She didn't want to kill the hunters.
They weren't the target.
She ran.
But it wasn't the same run.
She became a blur.
Solid smoke.
She tore through tunnels, dodging bullets effortlessly, and burst onto the mountainside beneath the full moon.
She lifted her face to the sky, feeling a god's power rushing through her veins.
Kara's pain was still there.
But now—
She had teeth to bite back.
Alice vanished into Romania's night, leaving alarms and the past behind.
The war had begun.