To Spite Another God Pt. 05

Jonathan Harker took a moment to consider the series of decisions that had led to this moment -- and wondered if there were any that he might have made that could have led to something less terrible than the deluge that, even now, soaked him to the bone as he waited for the cheerful humming that Dr. Van Helsing made as he worked to cease. The rain felt as if it was reaching deep into his bones -- and it carried with it a gritty, foul taste that reminded him when the wind blew from the wrong direction and London tasted more than her normal fair share of the factories.

"There we are a going, Mr. Harker," Dr. Van Helsing said, quietly, tucking his clippers into the vest pocket of his thoroughly ruined shirt. The fence of queer alien metal that the Martians had used to enclose the prison camp had a small hole cut into it now, and with the rain and the darkness both concealing them, it seemed time to effect an escape. But Jonathan did pause to glance back at the other human prisoners, who were mostly lurking in the small, low shelters that the Martians had made for them.

"Shouldn't we..."

"Your goodness does you a credit, Mr. Harker," Dr. Van Helsing said, leaning in close to put his hand upon his shoulder. "But now is a time for stealth -- and two may hide where many might draw the ire of our Martian benefactors, yes?" He nods. "You are understanding?"

"Yes...quite," Jonathan said.

How did I come here? He thought. Was there something I could have realized was coming?

Maybe if he had listened to the villagers, before going to that foul beast's castle. Maybe if he had listened to the beast -- to Mr. Dracula -- before he had discovered the man's terrible secret. Maybe if he had listened to his better sense and fled, rather than dallying with the strange creature that had claimed that it had been a wife of Mr. Dracula. Maybe if he had stayed in the hospital in Bucharest? Maybe if he had listened to his first impulse upon meeting Dr. Van Helsing in Budapest and instead stayed right there, rather than fleeing with him towards Prague.

Maybe...

Maybe...

Maybe...

Jonathan was once more forced to focus entirely on the physical, all other thoughts vanishing in the terrible and present danger of crawling through the opening in the fence in the rain. He followed after the older man, as the two of them came to the open clearing around the prison fencing -- and then the two of them were running, low and hunched to the ground as the beam of the search light swept behind them...and then shone upon them, the Martian guard tower having spotted their movement.

"Be running, Mr. Harker!" Dr. Van Helsing shouted over the driving rain and Jonathan sprinted as hard as ever he could -- his feet skidding and slapping. There was a horrid, hissing, rushing sound behind him and then an explosion of pain, dazzling and brilliant. He fell forward with a cry, then landed into a ditch that had been nearly invisible. He almost snapped his neck against the side, but through only the softness of the mud and sheerest luck did he avoid such a sudden and ignominious death. Behind him the sizzling sound was growing brighter and louder -- then faded. The search light shone across him and Dr. Van Helsing, but he remained perfectly still, even as Dr. Van Helsing...was he dead? Had the doctor died in that terrible blast of heat and pain? Was he all alone now, in this alien country, this alien world, with monsters before and behind him?

The search light slide away.

Dr. Van Helsing groaned, softly, and then lifted his head. "Remain...quite still, Mr. Harker..." He whispered. "The pain is merely temporary. It is merely a part of the human being that we must manage, from time to time. It will pass." He sighed, then chuckled. "And you can see, yes, that my science theory is a science fact: The ray of invisible death, it is stymied by something as simple as water! Water in the air!"

Jonathan slowly reached backwards, rubbing his shoulder, and found that his clothing came away as crumbled ash and his back was aching. "...stymied?" he whispered, then saw, in the near blackness of the night, that Dr. Van Helsing's clothing was just as tattered as his, and he was sure, his skin was just as reddened and burned.

"Yes! We could be, even now, in the grips of heaven hereafter!" Dr. Van Helsing whispered.

Jonathan blinked water from his eyes.

"Come!" Dr. Van Helsing started to stand, hissing. "Ah...we must find shelter."

"Find shelter? I don't even know what country we're in," Jonathan whispered -- and the two of them entered into a copse of trees.

"Yes, you do..." The Dutchman's voice was quiet and grave -- and the pair of them emerged from the copse and into a town-like area. The shops and the houses looked terribly familiar, and as Jonathan crept along, like a fox during a hunt, he began to realize...that Dr. Van Helsing was right. He did know this country...for this country was England. He realized, now, that the fact everyone else in the prison had spoken English and seemed to be from England should have been the first clue...but he had preferred to think that maybe they had been plucked from ships, or captured from England during raids, not that the rumors were true, that the Martians had come to his homeland first, and that they had wrecked such total havoc and terror.

Then...he heard it.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.

"That is being a signal...but for who?" Dr. Van Helsing whispered, standing straight, and in the pale moonlight that shone down in the street despite the rain, Jonathan saw that his companion's skin was indeed lightly burned from the shoulders to right above his buttocks, his clothing have turned into a smeared mess of ash and rags. He looked near savage, even as he took off his glasses to look up into the rain. He plucked at the hem of a shirt that wasn't there, as if he planned to rub his glasses clean of the rain. A green flash of light shot upwards, like a massive gout of smoke wreathing a pillar of flame. It cast its light against the clouds and, for a dizzying moment, the entire horizon was illuminated. Jonathan could see, in that single terrible instant, the familiar skyline of London sprouting nearly twenty hundred foot tall tripod walkers, with their tentacles at work, picking things up, setting things down, holding tools. And at their center was a structure, rising from London like a vast bowl, reaching towards the heaven.

But then the green light faded and the sound came again.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuulaaaaaaaa.

The sound, he realized, was booming from every tripod at once.

"You two!" A voice hissed out, pitched urgently low and ferocious. "You two fools! Get off the street! Get off!"

Jonathan jerked his eyes from the sight and saw that a ragged, bearded man in a tattered army uniform was standing before the entrance to a cellar, jerking his hand towards him and Dr. Van Helsing. "Come on!" the man hissed. "Come here! Now! Before you get us all killed!"

Jonathan hesitated -- but Van Helsing did not. He started forward, and Jonathan had to follow. Out of the corner of his eyes, another green flash illuminated the sight of the Tripods. They worked, without noticing the humans that struggled to survive beneath them, and the last sight he saw before the cellar door closed was the inverted bowl they were building growing, moment by moment larger and larger as their terrible construction continued, at a pace that beggared the imagination.

Then, he was once more, lost in darkness.

* * * * *

When Dracula returned to his castle, it was in the late of the evening -- and it was while carrying several large caskets, each of them born upon the wings of his many selves. The bats merged in the shadows, and he stepped forward into the light, and into the emptiness of his home. His eyes closed and he felt the warm tingle of his wives -- Aleera slept in the ground, tired after a long evening of training the newest members of their community. Verona and Marishka were both returning as quickly as they could from their long ranging. He could feel them only faintly.

Dracula badly wanted to waken Aleera, to hold his wife in his arms...but instead, he careful kept his thoughts from his sleeping wife, not wishing to waken him.

Dracula was tired. Weary. Not simply in his body, which had carried the caskets of their newest recruits across the breadth of Europe in a single evening...but in his soul. He had seen terrible things. He had done terrible things. But the scale of the devastation unfolding across Europe was shocking...

"Even to me," he murmured, quietly.

"I see you've collected some new...companions, master?"

Dracula lifted his eyes and saw Lambert, standing attentively. Dracula smiled, wryly. "Yes. They can stay here for a time -- I've given them a slower version of the noctis vitae -- to give me more time to prepare for their training and their integration into our...army." He frowned. "Tell me, how is the bloodbinding with the artillerist?"

"Should be broken in a day or so," Lambert said. "Assuming the lad doesn't fall head over heels for Miss Westenra in the natural means."

"Oh?" Dracula asked, striding away from the coffins, scratching idly at his jaw as he walked.

"Well, I may not have been eighteen for some time," Lambert said, dryly. "But I am fairly sure I recollect what I'd have done if a beautiful woman regularly made love to me day in day out while showering me with compliments and affections."

Dracula let out a soft 'heh.' "Well...he may end up being her first..."

"I take it the population of your associates is about to increase?" Lambert asked.

"Yes," Dracula said, pausing at the door out of the balcony. "Lambert, might you...wish..."

"Ah. No." Lambert smiled. "I've seen what it is to be in your association, Lord. It is not for someone like myself. You will always need us humans here and there. If only to provide something to fight for..." He inclined his head. "Rest well, my Lord."

Dracula nodded and started towards his bedroom.

He paused at the doorway, frowning. His senses told him that there was something beyond the door. He frowned, then placed his palm upon the door, gently opening it a tiniest of a crack, breaking the small spell-seal he had placed upon it. From there, he turned into mist, then flowed through into the room like a shadow. There, in the darkness, he paused...and felt himself growing confused. He had expected...

Well.

He had expected Lucy to be here.

But instead, Mina Murry was laying on the bed, her eyes closed, her dress slightly rumpled, her hands clasped on her belly. She had the posture of someone who had simply laid down to wait, sure that her energy would keep her up until the person she waited for had arrived...only to slowly be stolen away by her fatigue. She must have been working quite hard on practicing her training. Dracula felt a stirring of pride in his breast, but he knew that she wouldn't rest well in this bed. He could carry her to his coffin, situated behind the secret door in the northern wall, but that might rouse her...but even disturbing her that much felt too much like asking a kitten to move after it had perched in the most comfortable spot.

He stepped from the shadows, to do his best to transfer her without waking her -- but his shadow falling across her cuased her ruby red eyes to open. She smiled, instinctively, and the sight of her tiny fangs glinting over her lips made Dracula's heart stir in a way that made him feel rather ungentlemanly. She was...not his wife, after all.

She was promised to another.

A foolish murderer, yes, a part of him thought. A part he carefully ignored.

"You're back...good!" She sat up, trying to look as if she had never dosed off. She swung her legs around, then stood -- and seemed to recognize that she was standing a mite too close to him...and so, she shimmered, transforming before his eyes into a milky cloud of white mist. That cloud flowed backwards, to the far side of the bed, reforming back into Mina again. She beamed at him -- though he noticed that her body was trembling with effort, and her skin beaded with sweat. "I've been learning quite a lot since you left."

"Very good, Miss Murry!" Dracula laughed.

"It...took some reconsideration on my own feelings to really begin to embrace certain facets of my new...life?" she paused. "Is that the right word?"

"It is," Dracula said. "Life is life, even without life."

"Ah, yes..." Mina paused. "...did you..." She wrung her hands together, fingers interlocking, then releasing one another. "Did you find out more about the Martians? What are they about in Europe? Is the war still going badly for...well...all of us?"

"Yes," Dracula said, sitting on the bed. "Germany and France had effectively ceased to exist, in so far as any local government. I believe that the Third Republic has managed to evacuate to the colonies, while the Kaiser is in refuge in Russia, which as of yet, remains untouched...save for their holdings in Poland." He sighed. "The armies sent against the Martians are smashed, but the Martians are not holding land. They're simply disabling our ability to fight back and organize -- railroads, shipyards, that kind of thing."

Mina stepped around the bed, then began to pace along the carpet. "So...that's it for humanity. If Germany and France working together couldn't stop them, with Russia thrown in for good measure..."

"And yet you asked me to fight-" Dracula began.

"I was quite specific in my words, Mr. Dracula," Mina said, her voice edged with a playful, almost mock seriousness. "I said humanity."

Dracula nodded. "So..." he said.

Mina looked aside, resuming her pacing back and forth, back and forth. "Well, we're going to need to make more vampires. And teach them -- I think that if Lucy and I work with Aleera, we can teach them the basics."

"Mina," Dracula said, standing.

"We have to be prepared to-" Mina started, then froze as Dracula took her hand, forcing her to turn towards him again. She was silent for a moment, her red eyes meeting his. Then she looked down. "...did...did you find Jonathan?"

"No," Dracula said.

Mina breathed out a sigh. Her eyes closed tightly. "I...I'm relieved, Vlad..." she whispered. "If he saw what I was now, if he knew what I'd done...and yet...I cannot find it in me to be angry at myself or...to think it is wrong." She bit her lip, then looked back up to him. "And yet, I don't want to have to have the...conversations...with him about everything that has happened. I just...I just..." She trailed off. "I'm sorry. My concerns are rather trivial -- next to everything you've gone through."

"Me?" Dracula chuckled. "I'm not the one who has a missing husband."

"And yet, you look so sad. And...You've seen all the devastation of Europe. I only saw...parts." Mina paused. "And that was enough to give me bad dreams, you know?"

Dracula shrugged. "I will be fine. Now...both of us are tired. We should head to bed."

Mina nodded. "Yes, we should," she said, then leaned up on her toes, kissing his cheek, gently. She drew backwards, her cheeks darkening -- turning from gray to almost black as she blushed. The fact she could blush meant she had definitely fed today, a fact that felt oddly present in Dracula's mind at that moment. The thought of Mina straddling the young Antoni, her fangs plunging into his willing throat, flared through his mind. He froze, momentarily, and Mina stammered. "I...s-sorry if that was...forward."

"No, it...no, it's..." Dracula murmured. "It's fine."

Mina nodded. The urge to give her a kiss -- a stronger one -- was nearly overpowering...he watched her drawing back. Trembled. Thinking. Biting her lip. She was clearly thinking about what she had done. Dracula started to lift his hand, to gesture towards the door.

"Oh to hell with it!" Mina whispered, then, before Dracula knew what had happened, she had leaped upon him. If he were her instruction, he'd have to give her some compliments -- her speed was impeccable, and the fluidity by which she scissored her legs around his hips could hardly be beaten. If he had been mortal, she could have easily sunk her fangs into his neck before he could have even cried out. But as it was, he was a mere vampire, and rather than draining him dry as she clung to his frozen body, she instead kissed him with a fierce hunger that was all the more shocking for the chill of her tongue and the strength of her fingers as they gripped his shoulders. Her mouth and his pressed together and Dracula began to kiss her back, his hands gripping her rump through her rumpled dress.

When the kiss broke, both panted -- ancient instincts that were hard to fight, even for a vampire as old and as powerful as Dracula. Mina whispered against his mouth, her cool breath smelling sweet and promising. "I'm not the Mina that he wanted to wed. I'm not her. I'm...someone new..." She licked her lips.

"No. You are precisely the Mina that Jonathan proposed too...he simply didn't know it..." Dracula murmured. He kissed her neck. "And...If I were a stronger man...I'd leave him to find that out."

Mina let out a confused, eager moan -- and then gasped as Dracula spun and pinned her to the bed, his hands gliding along her sides, up to her shoulders. He pinned her down, drawing back, looking into her eyes. "But there are limits to even my willpower, Mrs. Harker..." I grinned, showing fangs, and Mina whimpered and trembled slightly, her eyes going faintly out of focus. Her mouth opened and she flicked her tongue along her fangs with lewd little flicks, as if she was showing off to him how much he had changed her.

"Dracula..." she whispered.

"Call me Vladimir..." he crooned. Leaning down.

"Vladimir..." Mina breathed.

He smothered his name with his mouth, thrusting his tongue into her mouth as Mina trembled under him. His fingers swept along her body as he took his weight onto his knees and he broke the kiss -- but simply so that there was space for his hands to go to the collar of her dress and begin to undo the tie there. Mina, her eyes half closed, whispered. "Yes..." She rolled her head backwards, baring her throat to him as his fingers undid more buttons, more clasps. More ties. Each movement of his dextrious, knowing fingers exposed more and more of her flesh, and Mina squirmed with more and more eagerness...

Dracula paused, and then pushed her dress fully off her body and marveled at her...

He'd seen her naked.

But...

It was one thing to view her, thinking of how he would change her, and another to look at her as a man (nominally) would look at a woman...and he couldn't help but admit...the fact she was promised to another increased the thrill. He drank in her high breasts, her rosy red nipples, bright against her chalk pale skin, at her flat belly, even sleeker and tauter from her transformation, in the narrow V of her thighs, pressed together to create a tempting, delicious valley of flesh. Her pubic hair was shaved bare -- like her lover and friend, Lucky.

"Oh Mina..."

* * * * *

Oh Mina...

Dracula's voice rumbled in her mind as she lay beneath him -- and Mina marveled at her own excitement and nerves.

As if you hadn't planned this. Oh, but she had danced around the planning in the days leading up to it, after she had made love with Lucy and embraced the fullness of her condition. Even then, she was skittish -- as if she hoped she could pull back her decent, return to where she had been. But she had been lying to herself, hadn't she?