Dark Matters

10. The absence of soul

Dracula was still thinking about Lace's offer to help him regain back his powers as suddenly the door opened and big person in a red dress strode in. The Count stared at her with disbelief. Could this be the infamous Lady Rain? Her style of dressing was almost as antique as the furniture and two of his brides would probably have fit inside that over-decorated atrocity she was wearing. Worse enough, he had the feeling this was not the first time he had met a woman like her.

Lace's face told a whole history as he looked from the Lady to the Count. "May I introduce the two of you? Count, this is the Lady Sanguina Rain de Ravin."

The Count had raised in shock. Now the woman actually dared to hold out his hand to him, expecting it to be kissed. Not really wanting to he took it and breathed softly on it. "A real gentleman, how charming," Sanguina said.

"Sanguina, Count Vladislaus Dragulia better known as Count Dracula."

The vampire silently bowed slightly while he was introduced, but really not that deep. The lustful glitter in the Lady's eyes did not escape his attention. He could not believe that Lace really suffered had her as a guest gladly. Still, aside from the tasteless appearance and the shameless staring there was power in this woman. It was almost as if her powers existence was shielded against people like him. Dracula wondered what she had exchanged her soul for.

"So we have a new celebrity in town," concluded the Lady.

"Actually the Count has not yet decided to accept my offer to stay as my guest, he still does not trust me," the mage interrupted her.

"Understandable, but then again, I did not trust Lace either and accepted. As you can see, I'm still here," she said with a smile that was so breathtaking that a whole room could have easily suffer from death by asphyxiation.

Dracula still felt that he had no choice but to accept this offer. A thought that vexed him, but it also dawned upon him that this might indeed be the only way to overcome his current crisis. If Lace was honest about his wish to have someone to talk to the Count knew he would profit immensely from it. First he thought whether this might be just an clever act. Also the idea never slipped his mind, he was almost sure it was not.

Although the Lady had an aura of power and held an air of superiority, there was something that annoyed him beneath her proud gestures. And not just because he had the feeling he had been annoyed by someone like her before or because her round, chubby face painted over with all these red tones wobbled in an unattractive way as she formed a smile.

"I see no reason not to accept. After all, as a guest I can always move on," Vladislaus replied.

It was of course his purpose to see how Lace would react to the moving on part, but all the vampire could see on his opponent's face was an air of happiness.

"I'm glad you decided to give it a try. I'll have a suite prepared for you," the mage settled the matter and pressed the button on his chair.

"Are you a passionate dancer, Count?" the Lady asked curiously.

"With a beautiful woman, I could dance for all eternity," Vladislaus replied, careful that his pronunciation left no room for her to believe that she might belong to his chosen dance partners.

"I bet you are a magnificent leader on the dance floor," she continued to flirt with him.

Dracula thought about the most efficient way to tell her off, but Lace was already interfering. "My dear, in case you haven't noticed, my guest is already tired by your blatant flirting."

With a hurt look on her face, Sanguina leaned back on her side of the sofa, pouting. Only seconds later the room's attention was drawn to Verbatina. She entered once more and waited silently for Lace's orders.

"See to that the Count's quarters are properly prepared, inform Parker and then, by all means, get for a change a good night's sleep, you have already dark circles around your eyes."

Much to the vampire's surprise, the girl was not happy at all about this generous order. Instead her eyes betrayed that she was alerted, almost panicking. Then the flicker of emotions was gone and she seemed cool and concentrated once more. "Thank you, my Lord."

At Lace's sign, she left with a bow. The mage was apparently very much amused by her reaction. At least that was the Count's impression. Strange and complicated relations seemed to be involved in the Mage's courthouse. It would probably quite entertaining to try and find a way through them.

"So you are into skinny, half-dead corpse like girls, then?" the Lady Rain tried to tease him.

"Sanguina, don't you think you are outdoing yourself quite a bit?" Lace said in an alarmingly low voice.

In any other case Dracula would have hated it that somebody strode forward to fight his battles for him, but in this case, the vampire realised that the mage was as much annoyed by her behaviour as he. In fact it seemed that Lace had never expected her to behave like that. So Vladislaus decided to use this opportunity to return the favour.

"Is she always like that or is it just her idea of making a bad first impression?" the Count asked his host as if the Lady was not even in the room anymore.

"No, consider yourself honoured. Usually she is only interested in tortures. You're the first man she has shown this kind of interest in since she arrived," Lace replied, just as casually.

"Fine," the Lady barked, and cursing under her breath, she left the room. With a loud bang, the door was smashed slammed shut.

Lace took a deep breath and started to laugh. Dracula watched him for a minute with increasing puzzlement, until his host was finally able to say something.

"You know, she is usually quite boring in her single mindedness, but I never saw her behave like this. Must be love at first sight."

"Please, mind your words. I am beginning to feel sick. Even in times when a woman of her stature was considered to be very attractive I used to go for firm flesh to sink my teeth in. If I wanted to drink from her, I would have to stretch her neck so far that I would break it."

"I would not know anything about that, but my taste goes more toward dancers," Lace confessed, but he seemed to be decidedly amused by the image the vampire gave. Then he took a sip of the almost abandoned wine.

"Having seen them I can understand that very well," Dracula thought about three dancers - especially the middle one - he had seen. "And I thought I was doing pretty good with three brides."

"I have so many of them, because I like to watch. All of them have to go through a lot of training to be accepted and awarded with my special protection," Lace said. "But I do have my favourites, for the time being."

Dracula's sank quite abruptly. "Got your hands already on the best catches in town, eh?"

"Not necessarily, but as I said earlier the rules are the rules. Still - I certainly would not mind you to choose one or more, if the girl wouldn't either," Lace said and refilled his glass.

"That is something I can live with," the vampire replied. After all with his powers back in place he could easily make a girl agree to anything. Or did Lace know this? Right now it was of no importance. First he had to get back his powers. In the meantime, he would learn from Lace what ever there was to learn and then eventually he would decide what to do should the mage ever stand between him and his wishes.

"Tomorrow is Halloween and like every year I am arranging a grand ball. In fact, nearly everyone in my service is busy with the preparations I'd have hoped that you'd be my guest of honour and open the ball," his host suggested.

The vampire raised an eye brow at the fact that the mage used the word Halloween. But obviously this abbreviated form was now more common. Still 'All Hallows' Eve' had a much nicer ring, but the use of the older Celtic word seemed to be the more appropriate choice for a mage.

"Well, I certainly won't mind, as long as I don't have to make the first dance with your other guest", Dracula said, pronouncing 'other' quite disgusted.

Although the vampire felt at first quite honoured about this offer, he had the vague the feeling that Lace might use his assorted guest to show off in front of important allies. Then again, this would certainly not have explained the Lady Rain's presence, not by far.

"Oh no, for that dance you may pick any girl you like - all the dancers from the Casino will be there," Lace said.

"Then I know with whom I'll like to dance."

Dracula could not imagine a better choice than the strange, small woman who had performed the sad dance. Maybe she would cease to be so rejecting once he had hold her close to him.

"But you can't have seen too many of them," the mage said, amazed.

"How many are there?" Vladislaus asked curiously.

"Thirty-eight, twenty are women the rest men." He smiled softly. "I am really looking forward to see them dance tomorrow. They always rehearse a formation dance performed by at least thirty of them. It's a beautiful sight. Not that their individual performances aren't quite tasteful either."

"It is surprising how popular and accepted those dancers seem to be," Dracula said, refilling his glass.

The mage took another sip of wine. "Well, I took care that the church and their close-minded moralist attitude won't interfere too much in my city. They always annoyed me, although it would probably surprise you how open-minded certain Christian groups had become toward the end of the 20th century."

"Oh considering that I come from the dark ages and spilled more innocent blood as a knight of the Holy Order than I did as a vampire, I was already surprised how far they had come during my time."

"Yeah, the end of the witch-burning ages cost the devil a lot of souls," replied Lace.

Vladislaus paused a moment, before uttering his train of thoughts: "There was a time when I was still wondering where a certain soul would end. But later all I wanted to do, was… actually I started to wonder what it was I really wanted. Now that I have seen a barely populated, nearly destroyed earth, just like I always had dreamt about - I don't like the idea that much anymore."

"That is how I felt when I participated in the siege of the Vatican. Finally, we destroyed it, and Rome alongside. It was a real shame. But I used to be quite intemperate in my youth. It was such a beautiful city - a waste of energy."

"What happened to all the cities? Travelling through Europe I saw only ruins and could not find any city intact," the Count became more and more interested in this conversation. Eagerly he emptied another glass of blood.

Lace nodded. "I have been there - I don't know how it all came together, but it seems to me that the Holy Order was one day not able to compete with the growing power of our contract partner anymore. It all started in Paris with some obscure sect, their leader was some seriously demented devil worshipper. I'm not even sure whether he did it on purpose, but a large doorway to a nether circle of hell was opened and some very nasty demons leaped through the gate. It has been guessed that he and his followers forgot to build up a proper defence-shield. They were all killed and their blood kept it open for a whole week."

"That explains a lot. I can remember having crossed path with some very unusual things," Dracula remarked, pensive.

"That means a lot coming from you," the mage agreed.

Vladislaus leaned back: "I don't know. It seems you have met even more demonic beings than I."

His host nodded. "The largest city, far and wide, with almost no church influence… - it attracts a lot of things. Even demons have to feed …"

"Was it your intention to create a feeding ground for monsters?"

"Oh no, not at all," Lace hurried to explain, while he fetched a small silver pill box from his left jacket pocket. "I kind of like the comfort of the modern world. I wanted to keep it, even though the rest of the world was beginning to fall apart. So I used my powers and prevented the downfall of this city. It is now my own playground and eventually it will go down with me."

"How convenient," Dracula said, full of doubt.

"Feel free not to believe me. The Masked One did not either," the mage replied, dropping a pill in his glass.

"The Masked One, who is he anyway?"

"My self-appointed rival. Wants to take over the city and rule in my stead. At first his pathetic attempts tended to lighten up my days, but with his last strike he has proved to be very obnoxious. Well, I have the feeling that he won't live to see what ever good the New Year brings."

"The Mad Hatter Tea house massacre, that's what you are talking about, aren't you?" Dracula asked.

Lace agreed: "It already made history, I see."

"How can you be so calm about it?" the Count wondered.

For all he knew, if somebody had dared to interfere with him like that, he would not have spent one calm minute until he had struck the vermin down. But the mage even seemed to think that having a rival was sort of entertaining.

"I like the comfort, but after over 50 years, being in total control was kind of boring. I had not much to do, so the distraction was quite welcome, but this Masked One has not style, talent or anything that would make it worthwhile to call him an enemy."

"So you are going to kill him because he is too weak?" Dracula was confused.

"It's not so strange at all. I mean: what would you crush sooner - an interesting opponent playing difficult mind games or an annoying insect buzzing around you?"

"Well, I see what you mean."

Vladislaus could understand the mage's motives, but he could not bring himself to accept any kind of rivalry. It would be funny, to see someone try and fail, but considering what had happened the last time he had let a supposedly weaker opponent live, he had decided not make that mistake again. Maybe in case he was back in all his gory glory. Dracula went all nostalgic thinking how good it was to be in control.

A knock on the door interrupted the Count's train of thoughts.

"Come in," said Lace and a man that was dressed like a classic English butler came in with some device on a silver tray.

"Excuse me, Count, but this must be an important call."

Then the mage held the device in front of his ear and mouth. "What?" he said after a while and stood up. His face went bare of any emotion. His voice was dangerously calm as he spoke again. "Listen, I don't care, you are the one responsible, if this shipment arrives too late, there is no room in heaven, hell or earth you can hide in. Did I make myself clear? - Good."

Lace handed the thing back to the butler who left with a stiff bow.

"Problems?" the vampire asked.

"The usual incompetence, I have no tolerance for it," the mage's voice was still frightening emotionless. He bent down to take his glass and after he had swallowed the rest of its content, he continued: "If you are willing to give me a blood sample I could try and find out what it is that is interfering with your powers."

"A blood sample?" Dracula said, suspiciously. The vampire did not think it to be a good idea to hand his blood to a mage.

"You can wait until either you trust me or your condition becomes worse," said Lace and added: "Or never - as you wish."

Vladislaus tried to estimate how much of a risk it would be. He began to feel annoyed realizing how much time he already had spent worrying and dreading what was to come. It was silly to believe somebody could control him and if the mage wanted to destroy him, he would already have done so. In this state the Count doubted that he could fight him off. Earlier he had seen things different, but now after seeing him, he was quite sure of it.

"Oh why not, it seems that this city has blood enough to cover up a little sample," Dracula answered.

"If you don't mind, we could go to my laboratory right away and Parker can show you to your quarters afterwards."

"Just lead the way!" The vampire rose from the sofa. The last drops of blood found the way into his mouth and then he placed the glass on the table.

The mage headed back to the elevator and again the Count had to think about the paintings. He was not sure whether he liked them, but this strange feeling seemed to be related to them. He really wondered what kind of a person the painter had been or more likely from what time? How this had come to pass. Had the man seen his own private hell? Or had it been a woman? But most of all Dracula wondered, that those paintings caught his attention again, despite his having other worries.

His obviously very observant host stopped and turned his gaze at the painting the Count had looked upon for a short while. "What do you think?"

Dracula was not sure what he should reply. "Hard to say, I've never seen anything like it. It's somewhat alien and I can't help it, but they are fascinating. "

"One of the few pictures I saved because I personally like them," Lace said. "They are from an artist named H.R. Giger. Unfortunately he died a long time ago, but considering that he was already old when I was born it could hardly be helped. He died four days after my fourth birthday. Naturally it was much later that I grew fond of his work or even knew about it."

"It must have been a fascinating world in which you were born," Dracula replied. "By the way may I ask how old you are?"

"Don't tell anyone, but I am coming quite close to eighty," the mage confessed. "And if you want to study the paintings, feel free to come here anytime you like all corridors on this level have them."

Vladislaus was surprised that he was given access so freely, but he was also sure that he would be notified of more restrictions soon. The vampire believed that he might even start to like the mage, but he could not tolerate being told what to do, so eventually he would have to kill him when the time was right. For now he just followed his host to the elevator.