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His joint venture with the Lobos had started out a success. The mob's prior competition, the powerful "five families", no longer posed a threat. The remnants of their crews either had joined forces with the Lobos or had perished in a slurry of bloodshed (courtesy some familiar strength and a heavy appetite).
The NOPD had been thinned to only keep the Lobo's payrolled employees on the force. Dracula fed regularly on a variety of humans, some innocent and flavorful, others enemies and rivals of the Lobos (those feedings were more for a show of power rather than for the taste of cuisine). With a small army of familiars at his command, Dracula ensured the Lobos remained a destructive force, while his vampiric presence became indispensable to the top mobster family in Louisiana. He had begun to cull through his servants every couple of weeks whenever any thoughts of rebellion swept their minds.
Dracula's plan for world domination was gradually taking shape, affording him plenty of daylight hours to rest and expand his vision. He dreamt of the future to come, with Bellafrancesca a strong, steady force at his side. Even so, a lingering sensation of something missing stirred him from his slumber prematurely on several nights. He would lay awake in his coffin for hours until sunfall, contemplating what had awoken him.
"My prince, what's bothering you? Do you want another young couple? Or perhaps a holy man?" Bella put her warm hand over the vampire's cold fingers, standing next to him in front of the fireplace.
"Tempting, but not what I seek. I have…a need. Something else, perhaps."
"Teddy will acquire anything you desire. I wonder…" The slender woman paused her sultry words as her fingers trailed up the silk of Dracula's sleeve.
"Please, enlighten me. I could use a second opinion." Her partner's pointed smile no longer sent shivers down Bella's spine. She watched the vampire carefully, keeping her movements slow and delicate.
"Perhaps, mon chéri, you yearn for something more familiar? The one who got away, so to speak?"
Dracula wrenched his arm away from the human, fangs flashing. Bella let her arm drop away but kept her ground, dark eyes watching the vampire turn away and pace before the flames.
"If you are referring to that traitor, you are mistaken. He's likely dead by now, knowing his ability to provide care."
"Ah, well, I can assure you he is alive and mostly well. Some of our men found him today in the Quarter; thankfully they managed to disable and transport him. If…you're interested."
Dracula stopped himself from lunging. He flexed his hands as he took a deep, empty breath.
"He's here?"
"Oui, mon prince noir. I had him sent to your chambers upon his arrival."
The vampire was across the room and down the hall before Bella finished her sentence. She allowed herself a smile as she poured a few fingers of scotch and settled into the vacated seat before the fire.
—
As his cloud of transformed bats flew to his rooms, Dracula reached out with his mind in search for his oldest familiar and felt nothing. Not a sliver of connection; no simple thoughts or memories for him to slip into. The emptiness echoed the many previous weeks when he had attempted to locate his servant to no avail. Previously, only death would have kept Renfield hidden from the vampire, but now there was nothing.
He stormed through the doors of his suite, reverting to his cold, pale human form. Confirming that the parlor was vacant, he pushed forward, waving his hand to brush open the bedroom doors.
His stone coffin lay empty, red velvet lining appearing almost black with the dim lighting. The master bed Dracula had pushed to the corner of the room (he had no need for such plush arrangements) now held the vampire's full attention. Long chains and shackles adorned his missing familiar, who lay on top of the covers, trails of dried blood tracking down his slack countenance. Dracula's dead eyes did not stray from his servant as he flowed forward. His sharp nails traced the cracked crimson on Renfield's cheeks, close enough to feel the reverberations of breaths beneath his touch. Once again, the vampire reached out with his mind, but he still could not find his familiar's thoughts as he could his other minions.
"How. Dare. You. Abandon. ME!"
Dracula slashed his claws down his servant's face with each word. With his second swipe, his familiar's eyes shot open, still blue but dulled by the shadows. He struggled against the constraints binding him, unable to prevent his face from becoming a mess of flayed skin, blood, and bone. His screams fell short as Dracula sliced his throat and lunged forward, feeding from his dying servant.
Even his blood was different; Renfield's musty blood was once rancid, rotten corpses drizzled with prolonged insanity. His familiar now tasted like honey, still thick on the lips but enriched with amnesty, honesty, remorse–a trio of emotions that made his flavor absolutely compelling.
Dracula drank heavily, forcing himself to stop after several deep mouthfuls. With each gulp, he felt a closed section of Renfield's mind open up to him. He felt his familiar's exhaustion, his flashes of terror before he started to sink into death's well-known abyss. Dracula pulled back, proficiently cutting his wrist and smearing his own cold blood into the mess he had made. He stopped once his human revived beneath him, the small echoes of his most recent death lingering in his mind that the vampire could feel once again.
"Oh my, Renfield. I have missed you."
"Ma–master…" Dracula admired his servant's mended flesh beneath caked layers of drying blood. He clicked his tongue to prevent himself from leaning in for another taste.
"Tell me–how did you manage to elude me the past several months?"
Exhaustion etched deep lines like wrinkles on Renfield's face as his too wide eyes darted around the room. His thoughts were a mess, muffled and jumbled almost as if separated from the vampire though a thick layer of glass. Dracula's patience waned as his nails slid down the human's arms, drawing forth streams of blood.
"You are mine, and yet you managed to slip through the cracks and hide like the pathetic worm you are. You will reveal how you managed to evade me, slave, so I may rid this world of any future temptation."
Renfield clenched his jaw and dropped his chin to his chest, giving Dracula full view of the bundle of gray strands in his otherwise dark hair. A flicker of realization came to the vampire, and he flashed his fangs and hissed.
"You defiled my gift of immortality! You sought to keep us apart–wished to escape me, your god, in death!"
Renfield snapped his head back up, unable to mask the horror and guilt pressed into the creases of his features. He fumbled for his words, and Dracula felt his icy flesh constricting with fury with each strained syllable.
"Master, I…you're right. I saw you kill Reb–my friends, and I ran. I hoped you wouldn't m–miss me with all of your new…familiars." Renfield appeared wrecked, his voice thick and sweat spattering his temples. Dracula only kept himself from ripping the man apart by digging his talons deeper, past thin skin and into Renfield's taunt muscles, drawing out a pained gasp.
"You will pay for your insolence, servant."
In a swift motion, Dracula drew one set of claws out of Renfield's arm to retrieve a small, ornate coffin box from the depths of his cape. He flipped the lid open, revealing various insects scuttling within the small box. He selected the fuzzy centipede near the top of the batch of bugs, its segmented body and long legs pulsating as it became slick from the blood on vampire's fingers.
After withdrawing his second set of nails from his servant's flesh, Dracula pried apart Renfield's clenched teeth with a tight grip to his jaw. He dropped the centipede into his servant's mouth, watching the insect scamper against his servant's recoiling tongue and inner cheeks before its narrow body crawled down the hollow of his throat.
Renfield gagged, then choked. As the insect crept to its eventual demise, a surge of familiar energy coursed through his veins. The chains and shackles that bound Renfield suddenly felt paper thin, and even his slight struggle popped the metal away from his frame with ease. Renfield lunged forward, but Dracula's swiftness matched his servant's, intercepting his neck with a hand and his razor-sharp fangs.
Renfield gasped and trembled as his bout of strength slowly faded with each draw of blood, his gasps at air shallowing and eyes drawing closed.. Dracula felt his servant start to slip away again, attempting to leave him (once again), so the vampire took a second to slash his own wrist with a wet slip of his elongated nails, thrusting the bleeding wound between his prey's sagging lips.
'I will find whatever kept you hidden from me, and I will rip it to shreds. Show me within those pretty little memories you tried to keep from me.'
Dracula took hold of his servant's mind, rewinding the echo of the last year at high speed. Renfield's terror of being caught, as his wounds disappeared during his fight and retreat, followed by several moments in the darker parts of town, going to sleep with sunrise and waking up at dusk. He had multiple visits to the local cemetery, tears streaming up his face before he fell to the top of the fence before climbing down and returning the way he came, pace slow as dirt crumbled from his worn sneakers.
He found the recollection of Renfield catching his own coffin case of insects from the depths of the Mississippi. He watched his familiar refill the small, treasured box on the river sidewalk from the scatter of bugs that lumped back together into a pile. He closed the lid, the pained, disgusted look on his face morphing from stress to calm. Dracula swallowed another mouthful of the coppery crimson at the sight of his gift being thrown away like garbage, drawing a pained cry from Renfield as his cries and weak struggles forced him to swallow more unholy blood.
The next few months of remembrances involved revisiting the pill box, removing certain insects held over his mouth before placing them back in their case. Fear and guilt for the taste of those squirming morsels, followed by the longing and pure want for control, health, and power they promised. Injuries getting worse before being inflicted by many hands, random citizens, cops, and crews of Dracula's own criminals. No happy thoughts; only a series of suffering and pain after running backwards. Proof his life was misery without the vampire.
Withdrawing from his familiar's mind and throat, metallic flavor still heavy on his tongue, Dracula watched his prey take a few additional deep breaths and needed swallows from his wrist. He removed his hands from his servant, allowing Renfield to fall to the sheets of the bed with his glazed gaze staring unfocused at the ceiling.
"Robert, my boy. We will cure your current case of mortality shortly, once you've livened up a bit. Renewing your vows to me should do the trick."
"Ma–master…please…"
"This go-around, some additional restrictions should be added. Return us to our old ways, when you had no doubts you were mine. That you chose me."
Dracula leaned forward, careful of his fangs as he placed a delicate kiss on the healing wound on his servant's neck. He let his tongue lick up some additional sweet blood as his mouth swept up to the boy's parted lips for another kiss edged with a clip of his canines.
"Till death do us part, Mr. Renfield; just as you promised all those years ago. Body, mind, and soul."
When Renfield returned his bloody kiss, Dracula smiled.
He would have to thank Bella later.