Dark Matters

A/N: Thx to my beta-readers and I really appreaciate comments;)

Chapter Three: Under the Golden City

Dracula was not sure whether he should feel disappointment or satisfaction. Recklessly he had ventured into the supposedly dangerous zone. He had felt that he needed to prove himself because he was so tired being of afraid of mortals with their modern weapons; but nothing had happened - at least nothing dangerous or threatening.

There had just been a middle-aged guy with a balding head and this woman who had begged the man to go inside. It had been comforting to see her fear, yet somehow it had disturbed him. There was no sense in her being afraid like that. Vladislaus figured that the Nightcrawlers must have been made up by his former guide. 'I should have killed him slowly - very, very slowly,' the count thought, feeling slightly embarrassed.

It was not before he reached the first illuminated street corner that he realised that someone was following him. The vampire felt their heartbeats and warmth in the otherwise cold row of buildings behind him. Without losing track of his pursuers, he ventured beneath the bright light spots further into the Golden City.

Immediately he noticed that the buildings stood straight and did not bend over the streets. There was even light behind some of the curtains. Most of the doors and windows were protected by metal bars. Certainly there was no easy break-in, although he was sure that he was able to force his way in. It seemed strange that people were still awake and yet he sensed activity - not only in the houses, but also not far ahead of him.

He turned into the next street and saw a marketplace of about 120 square yards at least. Right in the middle was the pleasing sight of a scaffolding. Three bodies hang from it. Yet not from their necks, one - a naked man - was hanging on both his wrists, another was bound like a spider and the third - an undressed woman - was dangling in some sort of sling from her midst. Their body temperature was very low and it seemed they were meant to freeze to death. Which was rather a strange method of execution.

Vladislaus began to feel at home despite the fact that nobody in Transylvania had dared to cross the streets at night. Then again only a few young men and women were still awake who seemed to be on their way home. Curious he followed their way back and came to a building just around another corner. "Infinity" blinked down on him in red letters. A strong fellow with a shaven head stood at the door. Some sort of night club that was now closing down for the night.

Obviously the last people still awake were going home and into their beds. Not him though, there was still time before the sun would rise again. Dracula choose to look around a bit more and search for a hideout until he had the chance to figure out how the city worked. The fact that people were active even at night, was going to make his task a lot easier.

Walking back to the great marketplace with the three delinquents he saw that the houses had huge glass windows on the ground level. They were shops that displayed examples of the goods they sold. The Count meant to check out two stores; a new pair of boots and clothing more native to this city seemed an unavoidable necessity. At least judging from the few looks he had got since arriving in this part of town.

Looking down at his current state of robes, he had to admit that they needed replacement. It was a miracle that his boots had not fallen apart - walking through North America on foot for eight years. The dust from his long march had woven itself into the cloth of his coat and he had no means to clean it out. The vampire had not even the option of looking into a mirror and see how bad it actually was; but he was sure it could not get much worse.

Here, at what seemed to be the heart of the community, the chances to find a save daylight hideout were considerably small. Especially with those two Nightcrawlers following him. The vampire decided to venture further into the Golden City and dispose of them. Leaving the square behind him he ventured in one of the other streets that lead away from it. The men were still following him.

Dracula eventually spotted an underground passage and walked down the broad stairs. The tunnel was long and dark, no moonlight found the way in. The walls were uneven and now and then there were gaps, perfect hiding places. After a few feet he pressed into one of them. He definitely liked to see who was following him. Maybe these men had some more money on them as well as other useful things; like information.

The vampire had not to wait long. Thinking that they had lost him, both of them hurried down the tunnel. As they passed him, he grabbed the last one and within seconds he had changed to the hell beast mouth and bit deep into his neck. Warm blood flowed into his mouth. It was no use for him anymore, but the Count did not want to waste it. Blood had been a rare good in the past years.

The remaining one turned and heard the noises created by Dracula in the darkness sucking more of the man's blood.

"Juggs? Juggs! That is not funny!!", he yelled, scared.

Since his pursuer was about to back off, the vampire decided to warp behind him. Only belatedly he realised that he had forgotten that his warping capability was not what it once had used to be. But instead of not moving at all, Vladislaus appeared in front of the man. 'At least a small progress', he thought.

This mortal was not even realising what took place until he was grabbed by his throat and lifted up. The Vampire felt his heart beat jumping up to double speed. "Who are you and why are you following me?"

The guy mumbled with his eyes wide open. Dracula realised that he probably should not press that hard on his throat. So he loosened his grip a bit.

"What are you talking about - we were not …", the other guy began, but was silenced again by the vampire tightening his fingers around his throat.

"Not that I am in the mood for it, but I could do that all night long," Dracula told the guy and he needed not even try sounding annoyed.

Just before the guy was running out of oxygen, he threw him against the wall. The man breathed relieved, crouching on the floor. Stepping on the low-life's chest, Dracula said: "I'm waiting."

"Ba - ale," coughed the guy.

Vladislaus pressed his foot hard on the mortal's lower ribs and an unpleasant crack followed by a loud pain-laden scream was heard. "He is head of the Nightcrawlers", the crushed man replied under his breath, before he continued to groan in pain.

With a slight step the vampire signalled that he wanted to hear more. "He told us to follow you - that's all I know", cried the man in pain.

The Count was just about to make sure that this was the truth, as suddenly a door creaked behind him. Turning - on the heel he had put on his unwilling informant - he saw that part of the stone wall had opened. A stooping figure covered with dirty wool clothing and long, greasy hair -both in a grey colour - looked out of it. There was a certain stench in the air. Part of it a rotten smell, and the other part only to be recognised by people familiar with creatures that lurked in the night.

Vladislaus was not sure what was in front of him, but before he could say anything, it rubbed its hands. Now Dracula saw that it was staring at the dead man right in front of its feet. "Will you be needing that?" said an old man in a shrill voice.

That thing being the first intelligent un-dead creature he had met during his travels, Vladislaus decided to be generous. After all it might give him a few insights on the city that no mortal even caught a glimpse on. 'Maybe a last glimpse', Dracula thought and looked with a nasty smile on his victim. Then he looked up and said: "You're welcome."

"Thanks, that one looks nice - even though a bit bloodless", the figure said and dragged it inside. The corpse had vanished to its ankles as the voice said: "Are you coming?"

Taking that as invitation, not that he needed it to enter, Vladislaus took his still breathing victim by one wrist and followed the un-dead inside. The surroundings might have had something cosy once. The crypt-like room had bricked stone walls, Greek pillars and curved windows to sit, although they offered no view; it was not that the vampire lord minded a bit of dust, cobwebs or even rotting corpses; but this place had too much of it.

Suddenly Dracula realised what this being was and he spoke his mind: "You are a ghoul!"

The thing turned and parted the hair covering its face. Green and swollen skin and beady little yellow eyes stared at the vampire. Yet the mouth was performing something that looked like a smile. "Not really that hard to tell - was it?" the ghoul snickered. "Rufus is the name and who and what are you? You are new here aren't you?"

Then it turned and began to look through various cutting and butchering tools. Being a living corpse, Dracula could not say that he felt comfortable around something that ate corpses. Although he was longing to introduce himself, the audience was not that tempting. "Are you working for Lace?"

An evil laughter came from the creature. "You are suspicious - that's good for you and you are right am working for Lace, already heard of him, haven't you?" Rufus fumbled on the dead body and threw something to him. "Here, you'll be needing that."

It was a pouch filled with coins and papers.

"Don't you need this?"

"Nay, I can't go shopping - it would call for too much attention - Lace likes to have it quiet around here", the ghoul said taking a saw. "Don't worry - Lace will know about you before I could let a word slip - he has eyes all over the city."

"How do you know I am new around here?" Vladislaus demanded to know. That thing was too friendly for all he cared.

"I heard about an un-dead like you - your accent and then you got white sand on your coat - you just look new!" Rufus replied. "Bale will be sure as hell contact Lace when those two don't report back!"

"Bale - again this name!" Dracula looked at the still whining man at his feet.

The man trembled and his eyes were fixed upon a pile of broken human bones; some of them looked chewed on.

"What does Lace normally do about creatures of the night walking into his city?" he said addressing the ghoul.

"Oh, depends on how they behave and what they are", it shook its head and it became obvious that his neck bones were somehow deformed. "Has a lot of different things working for him - except, maybe the Lady Rain, cute little bee, she plays chess with him and is his guest."

"And what is she?" the vampire sounded curious. If she was dear to the power of this city, maybe he should keep an eye on her and take her once he had risen to his old form.

"A witch - real vile one", Rufus said. "She puts a lot of corpses into our stomachs … not even the Black Tower competes with her"

"Ours - there are more of you?"

"Sure - we are keeping the place clean - see the poor freezing guys on the scaffold? She judged them - she always finds new methods of executions… A good tip - be always nice to her, she is horribly powerful and imaginative." Amused eyes blinked for a moment at the Count, before Rufus' head turned back to the work in front of him.

Dracula sat on something that looked like a coffin and leaned against a pillar. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Oh, you gave me a nice tall corpse or maybe even two - giving back a bit of information …", Rufus replied sewing off the right hand of its meal.

It sounded honest enough, but Vladislaus thought about that guy from Merry Ville and that reminded him to be careful in what to believe.

"Won't anyone be bothered about - me killing two of his employees?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, the Nightcrawlers - they are not citizens of the Golden City and they don't have the status of employees - but I really would recommend that you don't kill anyone from here! Unless he tries to kill you first."

The vampire smiled: "What if that someone is an employee of Lace?"

"As long it is not one of the dancers from the Casino or servant from the tower", Rufus shook his head dropping the right hand into another stone coffin behind the table were he was working. "Basically it is: Keep your hands of the citizens, don't overdo yourself on the workers, stay away from the dancers. I remember once this arrogant junior- witch harassing Logan and he breaks her damn neck, cuts the head off and rolls it through the front lobby of his tower."

Any other day Dracula might have been interested in hearing all the nasty details that Lace probably had done to this Logan; but today he only wanted to find out if he should avoid Lace or if it was better to play with open cards. After all they were both evil and he was an excellent chess player. Maybe he was able to convince this magician that he might be useful to him.

The ghoul stopped laughing and threw the other hand in the stone coffin. "Well, today Logan manages the casino for Lace …"

Vladislaus eyes widened in surprise: "He kills one of his witches and gets a casino?" The only thing he would give to somebody who killed someone who worked for him was a slow painful death or a fast one, depending on situation and time.

"Lace commented it with: If you hit someone where it hurts, you better be able to stand the echo", the ghoul said. "This way he can always be sure that his guards are the best, but you better not start with ripping heads off …"

'I'm not dumb, imbecile', Dracula thought, 'but maybe I can arrange to be attacked. If I wanted Lace to recognize me.'

In front of his feet the Nightcrawler gathered all his strength and robbed towards the door. Vladislaus noticed and warping once more, not that far away, he appeared in front of the door. "Noooo," yelled the man as he realised that he was doomed.

A swift move later and he was dangling in the air and blood and a pouch of money changed its owner tonight once more.

"What about the Black Tower you mentioned," the Count continued with his interrogation returning to the comfortable position on the stone coffin. "I assume it is the dark building I saw beside the illuminated one?"

"Yes, you are right. It is some sort of prison," the ghoul smiled mysteriously.

Dracula was not sure how much of what this thing told him was true or at least reliable. He came to the conclusion that either this was the most clever thing on the planet or the most simple minded. To the Count it seemed more like an animal. Before he noticed he had slipped into its mind. At first he was shocked, he thought he had lost this neat ability and suddenly he was in a dark and savage mind only concerned with eating.

Still Vladislaus smiled, satiated. It was coming back to him. He needed to test how it was working on more elevated minds the next evening - but for now he was able to see if that thing told the truth and how reliable the information was. Indeed he learnt after a few sentences to extract what he needed directly.

"Why some sort of prison?" the vampire asked.

"In this town we have only one punishment -death. There are no prison sentences - the Black Tower is the final destination. No food, no escape and certainly no amnesty!" Rufus shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes they jump or down to the lower floors to kill themselves!"

Vladislaus could see in Rufus' mind that the first five stories had been mined. The mines were only deactivated for Rufus when he came to clean up the mess left behind. He also could feel the creature's disappointment that no people were locked in there right now. His informant was obviously the only ghoul responsible for cleaning the Golden City off corpses. Not many murders took place here, so he was glad about every peace of flesh he could lay his hand on.

Now Dracula understood why that thing was so friendly. 'One does not bite the hand that feeds it,' he thought.

"How do people get in there?" he wanted to know for he had seen in the being's head that the bottom was sealed with steal plates.

"By helicopter - that is some sort of machine that flies", Rufus explained. "They must have once had a lot more of them, all action-movies have them, but maybe you survive long enough to see Lace's in action."

The vampire saw it already in the creature, as well as a dark room filled with lots of people that watched a screen where moving pictures appeared. It seemed to be a preferred sort of entertainment for the mortals and daring enough for Rufus to risk trouble. That was another fact he found interesting. The death sentence rule seemed only to apply to mortals - Lace dealt with other things in a different way.

Anyway he asked about movies as well and discovered that a similar technique used to make those called a camera, found it's use in supervising the Black Tower. He was pretty sure that this device was not able to detect him since he had no reflection, but as Rufus said they were turned off anyway when nobody was trapped there.

He extracted some other information as well, but most of it was second-handed. The creature seldom left these quarters, it was forbidden and the only exception was when he went to work there. Unfortunately the ghoul had no larger understanding about the technique still used by Lace, leave alone how it was produced or where the food for the ordinary citizens came from. Still he got some sense of how this city was working and Vladislaus could not help himself - he was beginning to like Lace's style.

Being able to question the ghoul's mind directly he had almost not realised that dawn had closed in. For this day the Black Tower would be his hiding place. So in the end this weak un-creature had proven to be very useful. Still, ghouls were such ghastly things that he was glad to leave this stinking place.