Family

"Damn it!" Dracula roared, storming around the abandoned Valerious home, kicking a globe through a stained glass window.

Sighing, he collapsed into a chair, holding his head in his hands as his rage fled, leaving him hollow once more.

It had only been a year since Gabriel had killed the count's look-alike and Anna along with him. Dracula was torn between elation that finally the last of the Valerious' were dead and he would be left in peace, and a feeling of loss for his unwilling bride-to-be.

But, Vlad couldn't shake the feeling that he had overlooked something; that something was dangerously wrong.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and a bullet embedded itself in the wall next to the vampire's head.

"What the hell?" He leapt out of the chair just as a young woman jumped through the open window, smoking gun in hand.

The count raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest as he examined the woman who had just tried to kill him.

She looked to be in her early to mid 20's, though the black mask around the bottom half of her face made it hard to tell. Her curly, brown-black hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the top of her head, the tied hair curling down around her black-clothed shoulders.

"Today you die, demon!" She yelled, pulling out another, bigger gun.

Dracula rolled hi eyes. "Oh please-" But, when she pulled the trigger a small wooden stake flew out of the gun, pinning Dracula to the wall through his chest.

There was silence in the room, as the woman stared, on guard of any attack that the vampire might launch, and said vampire staring down in dumb surprise at the large wooden pole that currently occupied the space that both his heart and lungs normally used.

"I-I did it!" The girl whispered in shock after it became apparent that the vampire wasn't about to attack, pulling down her mask as she walked across the room to stand before the shocked vampire.

This being the same "shocked vampire" who remained shocked for about .0001257 seconds after she came within his reach.

The girl gave a strangled gasp as Dracula's hand shot out to grab her by the throat, the other pulling the stake out of his chest.

"Nice try, darling, but it'll take more than a stake through the heart to kill me." He smiled cruelly, his hand tightening around her throat, sending her to her knees.

"Now," He hissed, fangs growing, and his eyes glowing an unearthly blue. "Who are you?" The girl opened her mouth, but Dracula cut her off. "If you lie, I will know, and it will be all the worse for you."

"A- Aisha…V-Valerious." Dracula's teeth and eyes snapped back to normal and he dropped the gasping girl on the floor, staggering back. Now that he thought about it, without her mask, Aisha was the spitting image of Anna.

"You lie." He refused to accept it. "The last Valerious died a year ago." He snapped at he girl.

"A-Anna? You killed her!" She ran at the undead man again, this time armed with a silver knife, only to be knocked back with a backhand across the face that sent her spinning into a desk.

It didn't take a genius to conclude that Dracula was not in the best of moods.

"Do not attempt to try and kill me again, you foolish, stupid, little girl." Dracula hissed, fangs inched from her throat. "For 450 years, all those stupid fools I am ashamed to have once called "family" have tried to kill me." Fangs bared in a humorless smile, he continued as he picked her up by the back of her shirt, "And as you can see, none have yet succeeded. Here I am, perfectly and completely undead." Dracula threw her to the ground. "I am already annoyed. To enrage me more would be a fatal mistake. And besides, it was not I that killed Anna, but Gabriel Van Helsing" He spat out the name in hate as he walked over to where Aisha lay and picked her up by her ponytail.

"Now, tell me, are there anymore Valerious' out there?" Aisha shook her head no "LIAR!" Dracula threw her across the room again. Appearing behind her before she hit anything, Dracula caught Aisha up by her neck and slammed her up against the wall. Leaning in close, he whispered, "I'll ask you once more, and only once: Are there anymore Valerious' out there?" This time Aisha nodded yes, tears of shame leaking out of her tightly closed eyes.

The count smirked. "That's better. How many and where?" She bit her quivering lip, shaking her head again, only to scream out in pain as he slammed her against the wall again.

"No!" She shrieked, frantically shaking her head as he continued to slam her into the wall. "I-I won't tell you!"

She knew that the information he wanted would condemn the rest of her family for all eternity. She wouldn't tell him, even if, she shuddered here, it cost her her life. Even though she didn't want to die, she wouldn't tell him. She couldn't.

Finally, once it became clear that she wouldn't tell, Dracula released his hold on her neck. Aisha slid to the floor, leaving a crimson streak behind on the ornate wall, a large ring of bruises around her neck.

She just lay there, gasping for breath and from the immense pain in the back of her head. Dracula was very hungry by now from the scent of the blood on the wall and figured that the woman before him required a gentler touch in order for her to give him the information he desired more than any blood.

He knelt beside her and whispered seductively in her ear, "My dear, if you just tell me how many more of your family there is, I might persuaded to let you live to go back to your home." Her head shot up.

"Wh-what?" He smiled.

"All I desire is to know about your family." She weakly smirked.

"You…should know…you w-were…once p-part of it…"

Dracula imagined several scenarios that all involved a violent, painful and bloody death for her all in the space of two seconds. But he kept a calm outer appearance and merely smiled.

"My dear," He continued as he gently helped her to her feet. "All the family I knew died, or so I thought, last year, and I must admit that I am curious about your little branch of our…dysfunctional family. After all, here we are, you, my some amount of greats niece, and I, your some amount of great's adopted uncle, and we've just spent the past few minutes trying to kill each other." This coxed a weak smile out of her, and an inward retch of disgust from the vampire.

"So, my dear, what say we come to a compromise?" She gave him a look of distrust and suspicion. Ahhh, so young Miss Aisha here isn't as dim as I thought. She at least knows enough to not trust a vampire. This may be entertaining yet…

"…and what exactly would this compromise ask of both of us?" Dracula gave her a charming grin.

"A legitimate question." Ignoring her confusion over the word "legitimate", She must be illiterate… The vampire decided, he continued, voice as smooth as honey, slowly coaxing the young woman before him to her doom. "You shall merely give to me the information of you and your immediate family, and why you've escaped my knowledge for so long."

"And in return?" He gave her another grin, this time without the fangs.

"I will not kill you." She narrowed her eyes.

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"I swear it on the loyalty of my dearest friend." Even though she was still a bit suspicious, Aisha slowly nodded and staggered across the room to the desk, shoving aside papers as she searched for one particular thing.

After a few moments, she grabbed a parchment and opened it, looked at it for a moment, then frowned, and said "no…" and tossed it aside. This process was repeated again and again until Vladislaus thought he would go insane. Finally, she grabbed one and didn't toss it aside, grinning before turning to show it the vampire and revealing it to be the Valerious family tree. "Here." She traced a circle around a blank space of parchment with one gloved finger.

"There's nothing there." Dracula growled, trying to keep his bloodlust in check.

"Now. But," She limped over to the window. "When the sun shines through it, you can see the hidden branch of my family." She looked over her shoulder nervously at the vampire. "We live in America." She didn't seem to notice that she had just told him where they lived.

"Interesting." But Dracula wasn't staring at the parchment, but at Aisha's throat instead.

"One last question." Aisha looked up at him, hope shinning in her clear brown eyes. Dracula smirked, in anticipation of feeling her warm blood run down his throat.

"What?"

"Where exactly do you live?"

"We-" Her mouth snapped closed and she glared at him. "I'm not telling you!" He shrugged.

"That's all I needed to know, anyways. And now, my dear…" She relaxed a bit, obviously looking forwards to going home. But then, his hand shot out, partially crushing her windpipe with the force that he grabbed her and slammed her against the wall once more.

"WH-what?" She squeaked out, eyes wide in panic as she gagged against his hand. "You-you promised!" Dracula smirked.

"Yes I did. I promised on the loyalty of my dearest and best friend." Hs face twisted in hate. "The same man who just one year ago, killed what he believed to be me and felt no remorse about doing so." He buried his fangs in her neck, not even giving her a chance to scream.

As he finished and she lay dieing where he had dropped her, he knelt down and whispered in her ear, "And that man would be Gabriel Van Helsing."

-THE NEXT DAY-

"Master! Master I have it!" A young vampire ran into the great hall of Dracula's icy palace.

"Give it to me." Dracula dropped down from where he had been standing (upside down on the ceiling) and grabbed the parchment away from the man. There were the names, outlined in ink so they could be read.

"Excellent." The count said to himself, dismissing the man with a wave of his hand as he sat his desk, unrolling the parchment and just staring at it for a moment, his finger tracing the names.

"Excellent." He said again, and then remembered one tiny detail.

Aisha had only said that they lived in America.

America was quite large.

They could be anywhere.

"DAMN IT!"

Update: 7-31-07