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I don't love you.
Not like that. Not like you loved her, or the way Hector loves his savior (I saw them walking near that little village today; he didn't notice me), or even the way a mother loves her son (or a son loves his mother, enough to let her die).
You were my life, and now you are dead. It's very simple. I saw you, when you fled from the Belmont and his horde of murderers (your son—I ate dinner with him for half my life). You touched my hand. I don't know how much a single bat knows—does it know that it is you?—but you touched my hand, brushed it, brushed sanctuary. Can mortal flesh shield you from the sun? Would it have killed me the way it killed you? I would have died for you, but you knew that, I'm sure. Everyone knew it. Knows it.
There's still dust, a charcoal grit embedded in the whorls of my fingertips. The last, ashy remains of Lord Dracula. I would cut off my hand and encase it in glass if I didn't have a life to ruin.
It's selfish of me, I know, but my revenge is your revenge too. Adrian and the Belmont, and those wretches from the temple and the village, they killed you, but I can't kill your son. He looks like you—I'm sure he hates to look in the mirror and see the victim of his patricide. The Belmont would kill me, I'm not arrogant enough to think that I could take him in a fight, and the other two are nothing. It leaves Hector.
Hector hurt me, as much as he hurt you, when he turned his back. He hurt me more, I think. Is that conceited? He broke my leg and my spear. He broke my heart.
I don't love him, either. I want him dead and broken at my feet. I want him bleeding. I want to taste his blood.
Did you hunger for it? Did you crave it? His? Mine? I would have given you my throat, but I don't know that you would have respected me in the morning.
Here's a story for you. A joke. Something to amuse you while you rest.
Ah—rest. You can't die. Death cannot touch you. I've seen him bend his shoulder to you. You rest, and rest well.
The joke: I drank blood, once. Once, like it was in some far-away land and time, and not just last week. It was a man.
Is that a joke too? Would it surprise you to know that I am a virgin? Hector isn't—his new bride aside, he was popular enough with the witches. I don't think he has any children by them; they have ways of dealing with that. I didn't lack for opportunity, you understand. I am tall, and well-formed, and quite beautiful, with bright hair and pale eyes. I could have had whoever I wanted. I didn't want them.
Perhaps I do love you, like that.
The blood . You seemed to like it enough. I cut his wrist open and drank from it—my teeth are too dull to tear skin. He tasted like salt and metal. I'm ashamed to say that it made me ill. I killed him for it, but I suppose it was my fault for wretching on his shoes.
I think he would have paid me for drinking his blood. Degenerate, but I have no grounds to criticize.
I watched you once, while you bathed without water. I was a young man, with a young man's self control. I did nothing but watch, I promise. Oil-slick and small. I was not bowed by your grandeur, but rather, struck by your weakness. A man lived under those robes, under that cloak, under that armor and those teeth. You could not be just a man, and yet you were one, do you see?
Do you see? You were enough of a man that you died. A monster cannot be killed. A monster must not be killed—it is against the very nature of a monster to be banished. Something needs to lurk in the dark, or people start to live there. Did I make you human enough, by looking? Was it your wife? You have a son, I'm sure she looked too, at least once.
I want to look again. You can beat me for that once you've rested.
Have I mentioned how I'm going to break Hector? Perhaps I shouldn't say it to you, but I'm going to have his wife hanged. She reminds me of your wife—I never snooped; Adrian told me. Hector and I got him drunk on Odobești—this was before he left to rest —and he told everything. He told us too much, I think, but I didn't believe him when he said he was thinking about killing you. I should have believed him.
Hector believed him. Hector heard exactly what I heard, so he'll know what I mean when he sees her neck snap on the rope. When we watch her neck snap on the rope. I don't want to miss it. I don't want him to miss it. I won't let him miss it.
You can kill me for trivializing it later—I would deserve it—but at least he will be suffering and dead when you do.
I am suffering now.
I hate you as much as I love you I want to be you I want you dead I wish I were dead
I don't think I am as sane as I have always been. I've been pretending lately, getting his wife accused of witchcraft and bewitching me. It's leached. Or I've leached into it.
My sister is a witch, too. I imagine this will hurt her. She still cares about me, you know, still writes. I burn her letters and only sometimes regret it.
I'm lonely. I'm mad. I don't love you like that. I do love you like this.
My clothes are rotting on my back. Hector tore a gash up the jacket when he sliced my shoulder open. The fabric healed into me, but I don't mind. I wasn't going to take them off.
I can't leave this behind.
I can't forsake my revenge.