purple_shad@hotmail.com
July 1999

Author's Note: I owe a big thank you to Sofasoap for her support, enthusiastic interest, and perpetual urging of the completion of this fanfic. I don't know how many readers of this fic there are, and maybe she's the only one, but if I finish it and she's happy, then that's good enough for me. ^_^'

Markus Severnes led them into another lavish chamber that was far bigger than the too-comfortable room Maria had been in before. The vampire stopped in the centre of the room and spun dramatically around to face the bemused couple a few paces behind him. He motioned with his long index fingers for them to come closer, or so it seemed.

 "Have a seat," he said quietly.
Two chairs automatically slid up from behind Alucard and Maria. The girl was knocked off her feet -literally- plopping down into the cushiony chair, but the dhampire stepped forward before the other chair could reach him.
"So talk, Markus," Alucard demanded in his usual, cool manner. Maria remained in her seat.
"Are you sure I can't entice you to a drink first?" Severnes kicked a nearly unnoticeable switch on the floor with the toe of his boot. The far wall sank to the ground with large underground grinding noises to reveal six maidens in varying states of consciousness chained and bound to the real wall in a rather demeaning way. Maria gasped. Severnes grinned sadistically and glanced at her before turning to Alucard, who held a hand over his nose.
"Oh, come now, they are cleaned regularly," Severnes said with his perpetual smile.

 Alucard lowered his hand slowly and nodded toward one of his brother's victims. "That one's dead."
"Eh? Oh yes, I'll have that removed later..."
"Why are you doing this? I've seen worse, what with Father being..." Alucard trailed off, staring at one particular girl who was conscious and aware and staring back, but was too afraid now to plead for help. Either that or too weak, he thought wryly. She would have been pretty, the girl, if it were not for the pain, terror, and exhaustion etched into her features, her very being. A few more days and she would be dead.

 "Just like this one."
Before Alucard could stop him, Severnes pulled Maria up, propelled her around in an obscene little jig and stopped to hold her in position as if he were going to bite her.
"Stop that," hissed Alucard through his teeth. He was annoyed that Severnes could seemingly read his mind, but fear nearly choked him, seeing his beloved in Severnes's deadly embrace.

 "She'd be dead before you could lay a finger on me, brother," Severnes whispered, running the tips of his gloved fingers down Maria's neck. "Such a sad thing you have become, Adrian. Her life should be nothing to you except food, yet you revel in it as if you two loved each other. But how could that ever be? You are predator and prey. You have been alive in this unlife long enough so that you should have figured this out already, but you treat her as if she was worth saving."

 Alucard looked at Maria, who looked calmly back at him. The look in her eyes was nothing like the look of the imprisoned girl behind the far wall. Maria's eyes held a resolute confidence; she was confident that her lover could save her, even as they both stood helpless to the vampire's actions.

 Severnes shifted slightly. "Just look," he said pointing to the scars on Maria's neck. "You've already bitten her once. Who's to say you won't do it again... and again... and one day you'll wake up and she'll be dead. After all, it always tastes best when you take it from the ones you like." Alucard moved forward slowly one step. Severnes cocked his head to the side. "I think I'd like this one, but she is yours... You like her so much, take the bitch and be done with it." As he said this, he released Maria and shoved her hard towards Alucard, who caught her and then immediately pushed her behind him into a chair.

 "Hey!" Maria exclaimed, but one heavy glance from Alucard stayed the words on her tongue.
Alucard, with his vampiric speed, moved even closer to Severnes and slapped his brother with the back of his hand somewhat half-heartedly. Severnes let it hit and staggered accordingly before bursting into laughter.

 "What... was that?" Severnes snickered, arms outstretched, placing his hands on his brother's shoulders.
"That was to get your attention," Alucard said, deliberately brushing Severnes's hands off himself as he spoke. "Maria means more to me than anything I've ever known. She is not livestock to be herded around by vampires like you and Father, neither are those poor girls you use for your sick pleasure." Severnes's smile remained plastered on his face, but his eyes darkened, half lidded as Alucard continued, "You refuse to believe that I can love because your own heart is dead. I am half human and I can see their worth, while you will never understand if you treat them as nothing more than cattle."

 "You sound so sure." Severnes began pacing thoughtfully around his brother in a circle. When he spoke, his tone was insinuating, "This is what you tell yourself is it not? You have to make yourself believe this of your own tragic existence or you'll go crazy. You live this lie to hide from your true nature, because you are too weak to face the truth."

 "You have never understood and you never will; it is not a lie," Alucard said with a hint of exasperation.
"If you insist, Adrian," Severnes replied in all seriousness. "But you don't really love this girl, do you?" He motioned to Maria, while still circling Alucard slowly. "You don't love her, you don't even know her. You love what she is because she is what you can never be!"

 "Don't listen to h--*!" Maria started, but Severnes interrupted, waggling a finger at her.
"Shush, I'm not finished yet." Severnes moved lightning quick to the far wall as Maria clutched her throat and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Alucard knelt beside her and tried to remove his brother's silence spell.

 "Don't bother, Adrian. You can't undo my spell. She will speak when I deem her worthy of speaking again," Severnes said having returned with the dark-haired girl with the hopeless stare. "So tell me, brother, why the slayer when you can have any woman in the world?" The vampire continued while working his hands around his nearly naked victim as she squirmed. "Or maybe it's just because she's so pretty? But this one's pretty too, don't you think?"
He spun the girl around to display her to Alucard. The dhampire tried desperately to avert his gaze from that terrible look in her eyes. He looked at Maria instead, who in turn, looked decidedly uneasy.

 Severnes didn't wait for an answer to his questions. Instead, he spoke, more to himself than anyone else in the room. "Hmmm... I like this one actually. What do you say? Should I turn you, my dear?" The girl only whimpered in reply. By now she knew there was no escaping him and there was little use in resisting. "Heh, but you're so cute when you're scared," Severnes whispered to her as he ran his fingers through her long wavy hair, continuing to ignore his brother.

 Alucard finally spoke, his sarcasm blatant, "You take after Father, toying with your food."
"At least one of us does!" Severnes snapped. "Besides, this isn't considered 'toying'. I don't want to waste her. What should I do?" He asked, turning his head up to Alucard's.
"Do what you like, but you obviously can't turn her," was the reply, almost too matter-of-factly.
"And why not?"
"If she has not the will, she will die; you know that."
"Ah, but I can will her will."
"No you can't."
"Of course I can, just watch." Severnes turned to his would-be dinner, whose eyes were shut tightly, body trembling in his arms. "Look at me," he commanded softly, his eyes beginning to glow gently. Against her will, the girl's eyelids fluttered open and her eyes were instantly transfixed to the vampire's, all light disappearing from them.
"See." Severnes turned back to his brother.
"You and your mind tricks won't work where death is involved," the dhampire said, irritated.
"And your mind tricks won't work on yourself!" he retorted. Waving his hand over the girl's face he placed her gently on the velvet carpet; She curled up, asleep.

 "I don't see what you mean, and I don't care to. I told you before you wouldn't understand." Alucard crossed his arms and leaned back slightly, resigned to his own conclusions.

 "But they don't work, do they?" Severnes exhaled his words, and began pacing around again. "You wake up in the middle of the night don't you? You feel it, the hunger?"
He was crouching by Maria now, bent close to her ear speaking, "He disappears from your side when you sleep, does he not? But he always returns when you wake in the morning. I wonder why."

 "I-I... no...?" Maria stutters, able to speak once more. "Adrian, don't --*" Severnes silences her once more, pushing himself up with the help of the chair arm.

 "You try with all your pathetic human will to ignore it," he nearly hisses, face only inches away from the dhampire's. "But it's always there, the bloodsong, and it sings to you like it does to any child of darkness. It beckons you, and you leave her alone in her bed because you can hear her life pulsing, coursing through that tender flesh. You leave because you can't control the urges of the bloodlust, otherwise you'll kill her. It starts here." Alucard receives a sharp poke in his diaphragm.
"Then it grows here." Behind him, Severnes spreads his hand on the back of Alucard's head. "Then your eyes," the vampire continues even as his brother's eyes begin to illuminate softly.
"Then of course, your teeth." With thumb and index finger, Severnes pries the corners of Alucard's mouth open like a farmer trying to determine the age of his horse. "Hmmm, for something you don't use very often, they sure look sharp," he says happily, flashing his own fangs in a brief smile. "Right, Adrian?"

 The room is strangely silent except for Alucard's quickening breath. He stands perfectly still, arms limp at his sides, chin tilted slightly upward as the glow in his eyes brightens and dims and brightens again. Within him, his tortured body fights for dominance over his tortured mind. A deep guttural growl or purr nearly inaudible rumbles inside him, but Severnes hears it.

 The vampire, Markus Severnes Tepes, laughs aloud long and hard. Spreading his arms wide in a half shrug, he declares, "Who is the master?" His face is split in a ridiculous grin as he sits down in the chair beside Maria.
She looks at him, horrified, before running to Alucard's side.