Dracula's coach raced down the road. He stared moodily out the window at the velvet night.
Doctor Porter is gone.
The thought both pleased and saddened him. Many thought of him as a myth, but the doctor was almost a thing of myth to him. Dracula knew she'd hunted him across the country. Now, after all this time, she was dead. And they had never even met! He would never know what she looked like or what had driven her to pursue him.
He imagined it was someone she knew. Maybe he'd killed her mother, brother, or friend. That had set some people against him over the centuries. They pursued him for a while, but he always got the better of them. He either killed or outlived them. If one method didn't work, the other did. Humans may have had daylight on their side, but he had centuries of night.
Dracula appraised the girl beside him. Cassandra. She was a pretty girl, and pretty girls were one of the few distractions he had after all this time. As part of his grand scheme, he would turn her, and she would join him in his crusade.
He peered more closely at her neck. The light coming in through the coach window glinted off something. Dracula leaned forward. A locket. He hadn't noticed it before. Now he told her to remove it and hand it to him.
Clicking it open, Dracula lit a lantern to see the picture inside. He stared. Angling the locket to catch the wavering yellow light from the lantern, he shook his head in profound amazement. 'No,' he gasped. 'It can't be.'
Shocked, Dracula fell back in the seat before angling the locket once more towards the light.
'Cassandra,' he said, swallowing. 'Who is the young woman in your locket?'
'That's my sister, Jane.'
Jane, he thought. The girl in the basement.
'I knew her once,' he said, peering up at Cassandra. 'Her name was Mara then.'
'I see.'
Dracula knew that Cassandra did not see at all. No one could. He was alone in this world. No mortal being could appreciate what it was like to love someone across the centuries. To search for them without stopping. To never give up trying to find them until capricious providence finally returned them to the world once more.
Mara.
'And now she is dead,' Dracula said.
'Yes,' Cassandra replied.
Dracula rapped on the coach's ceiling, and the driver brought it to a halt. He climbed from the interior and stood on the road beside the coach.
She is dead. She is dead. She is dead.
The thought reverberated in his mind.
'After all these centuries,' Dracula seethed with important fury, 'I could have had her, but now she is gone.'
If only I had opened the door!
He would have gazed upon her face once more. He could have told her how she haunted his dreams. Then he would have transformed her, and they could have walked through eternity together.
I love you. I hate you.
He wandered aimlessly from the coach and down the road. Lost in his own thoughts, he did not notice the building until it was almost upon him. It was an austere parish church, its graveyard filled with weathered gravestones. Pushing through these, he rounded the structure to the front door.
It was locked.
Roaring with anger, Dracula threw his shoulder against the door. Once. Twice. Three times. Then it flew open, and he staggered inside. The air smelled of stale frankincense. Pale light filtered through the windows and across the empty pews. Hanging at the end of the nave was a crucifix decorated with the crucified Christ.
It was to this that Dracula marched down the aisle.
'Why hast thou forsaken me?' he demanded.
No answer came.
He stepped around the altar to the cross, grabbed the base, and pulled hard. There was the sound of twisting metal, and then it hit the floor with an almighty crash.
'Who is there?'
The wavering, frail voice came from the other end of the church, and with it came light. Dracula emerged from the altar's shadow and stared down the aisle. A man stood there in crumpled nightclothes, the local vicar. Dracula had seen many such people over the years, and they all looked the same: old and weak.
The man held a lantern in one hand and a musket in the other. 'What are you doing here?' he asked. 'Why are you defiling our church? This is holy ground!'
Gazing about the darkened ceiling, Dracula spread his arms. 'I am searching for God,' he said. 'I expected to find him here, but he must be out for the evening.'
The man stared at him. 'You must go,' he said, raising the musket higher. 'Or I will call the local magistrate.'
'Oh no. Not the local magistrate.'
'Are you mocking me?'
'Not at all. I am seeking answers.' He paused. 'Why does God give us beautiful things only to then take them away?'
The vicar clenched his jaw tightly. 'God has his own plan. He rewards those who follow his laws and punishes those who defy him.' He swung the lantern to get a better look. 'Which are you?'
'Neither.' He strode down the aisle, past the vicar, and into the indifferent night. 'I am Dracula.'