Chapter Text
Inside the Baxter Building, the team was completing their final preparations for the battle ahead. Their target: Central Park and the big, ugly fortress that Dracula now occupied.
Tony Stark cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. He was suited out in his full Iron Man armour. His face-plate flipped up to reveal his severe expression. The din and clamour of conversation slowly petered out as all heads turned to look at him with a mixture of anticipation and expectation.
“The time has come folks. These vampires will not stop no matter what the cost or casualty. They’ll take the whole damn world if we let them.” There was no trace of his usual humour in Tony’s eyes as his gaze swept over the assembled heroes. “So we better not let them. This is our city, and we’re going to avenge it. We have one shot at this, we need to make it count. No holds barred. We hit them with everything we’ve got.”
Tony turned and pointed to Johnny Storm who was leaning with faux casualness against a wall. “Johnny, you’ll give us our opening. Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch will bring down the magic barriers around the fortress and get us inside. The rest of us blast any vampire in our way until we get to their ringleader. Is everyone clear about the plan?”
There was a response of general agreement. The plan on paper was simple enough. Without the vampiric verses, they did not have access to the Montesi formula that could end the fight outright. However, Stephen and Wanda did gather sufficient research from the rest of the Darkhold pages to piece together a counterspell—one that should allow them to weaken the magical traps and wards that Dracula had set all around his fortress.
To buy time to cast the spell, the plan was for Johnny Storm to set the sky above ablaze. Create the light of a mock sun to drive back the vampiric hordes around the fortress. Then Stephen and Wanda would dispel the magical wards that had kept them at bay and held Ratatoskr prisoner. With any luck, once they have gained entry to the castle, they would be able to find the blood Chronovium that kept the city under permanent night. They just need to fight through the resistance that Dracula had mustered and dismantle his stranglehold on New York.
It was not a foolproof plan, but it was enough of one for the heroes to put their fundamental disagreements aside. Exhaustion had enveloped New York. The city was slowly suffocating under the night, absent the sun for so long. It could not be allowed to continue. Their heroes were prepared to fight.
Seeing no more questions were incoming, Tony flipped his face-plate shut. “Alright. Stephen, let’s make this happen.” His distorted voice echoed lightly. “Do your magic thing.”
Stephen nodded, face drawn with determination. He raised his hands and swept them through the air in a smooth flowing arc. With a practised incantation, a wheel of golden light materialised in front of him, splitting open the skin of the world with surgical precision. The gateway widened, pushing reality aside to reveal the grassy lawn of Central Park and the ghastly fortress of Dracula on the other side.
One by one, the defenders of New York stepped through the portal, appearing in Central Park in an instant. Stephen took up the rear, emerging out into the night as the portal spun closed behind him.
The swirling light formed itself into yellowing trees all around and soft earth beneath his feet. The ruddy, otherworldly glow of the blood moon lit the bellies of the clouds above them. Mist drifted along the ground. Stephen heard and smelled them before he saw them—their hungry hisses and the pungent smell of rotting humus. The reek of damp mud over the reek of blood.
“There’s too many of them!” Doreen called, already pelting the hungry horde of vampires with acorns.
Stephen started to reply, but Tony cut him off. “We can’t waste our time and energy out here. Stephen, focus on the wards. Dracula has the advantage here. We must approach carefully, but the longer we delay, the more time we give Dracula to prepare for us.”
“Agreed," Stephen said. "I'm certain Dracula already knows we're here.”
“Then let’s not keep him waiting!” Reed shouted over the howl of the wind. “Johnny, do it! Go supernova!”
“Flame on!” Came the reply. From above, a blast of white-hot fire erupted outwards from Johnny Storm, the rush of overwhelming brilliance bathed the world in a sudden, impossible daylight. Stephen shielded his eyes from the bright flash as the intense heat washed over them.
Instantly, every vampiric eye around was drawn towards them. There was a brief moment of shock before the screams of the vampires rang out. The blasphemous congregation in front of the fortress parted like a wave, fleeing from the orange plasma that burned too bright to behold.
Taking advantage of the distraction, the heroes charged forward toward the castle walls. Stephen looked up and saw figures closing in on them from every side. The heated glow from the light of the Human Torch glimmered on metal armour and bared fangs. Something roared a challenge, apparently undaunted by Johnny’s fiery display. The roar was answered by the gathered heroes, and the fight began in earnest.
Stephen turned to Wanda, the Darkhold held in a white-knuckle grip in his left hand. “Come on, we have to bring down the barrier.”
The two shared a look of solidarity.
Wanda drew a deep breath and opened her soul to the world around her, allowing herself to relax into the awareness of the magic around them. Even as the aether, magic flowed through everything. It was the synchronicity of things, and it pervaded in the background like a localised sort of weather.
Wanda felt the low growing weeds from the loam. Each blade of grass a note in the choir of life bursting forth from wet soil. She felt Stephen beside her. His magic shone in her mind's eye like the light of a brilliant star, radiating out from him in concentric rings. Each beat of his heart was a pendulum swinging in its rhythm. The astral connection that tethered them was a gossamer fractal of colours, reflecting the infinite between them. This was how the warp and weft of the universe was woven.
Wanda examined the magic that formed the wards around Dracula’s stronghold. The whole building was soaked in blood and the odour of suffering. The suffocating stench of the grave cloaked the fortress and everything around it, woven through the mist that coalesced over them. Cruel, tainted magic spewed forth from its blackened walls like a fountain of filth. Death was everywhere.
Stephen was looking at the wards beside her with a deep scowl on his face. “This is truly vile.” He muttered, eyes alight with anger. He opened the Darkhold in preparation to cast the required counterspell, skimming rapidly through the pages.
Wanda resisted the urge to look at the Darkhold at all. Instead, she focused her attention on the barrier. It was supposedly impervious to spellwork, but through the gaps in the interlaced strands, the magic moved. Wanda felt it as mere ripples in the aether, tingling along the tips of her fingers. It was a far cry from the rivers of magic that coursed hard and fast around the fortress. It was a trickle of stray wisps and tributaries—tiny eddies caused by the most minute of flaws in the gem. Wanda focused her mind on only that part of the flow. It may be small, but it was there.
“Here,” Wanda said at last, indicating with her hand.
Stephen was already moving in the direction she was pointing. “Show me,” he said. With her magic, she guided him towards what she saw. Together, they reached out to the ward.
Stephen held the Darkhold aloft and began chanting the complex sequence of incantations to counteract the magic holding the ward together. His gestures were precise, his words steady and confident. With the dispelling spell conjured to his palms, he pressed his right hand into the ward, pushing hard into it.
The backlash was immediate. The ancient, vindictive magic did not wish to be unbound. Stephen winced involuntarily as the seething energy swelled. It was like throwing a boulder into a rushing stream. Writhing lassos of eldritch magic burst out from where his hand touched the barrier, crackling fiercely around them. Undeterred, Stephen continued to chant the counterspell with single-minded concentration.
The Darkhold’s pages fluttered. Spectral shrieks filled the air as the book lifted from Stephen's hand, floating against the force of gravity. Letters glowed darkly on the pages. A low, huffing, wheezing sound filled Wanda’s ears, and she realised after a moment that it was the sound of distant laughter. The strange murmurs in her head became a harsh staccato that drowned out what Stephen was saying.
“...his vessel…prophesied...seed of chaos…”
Different words rose and fell over each other in a loud chorus of noise that she could barely make out anything. Wanda wavered. “Stephen.” She gasped, squeezing her eyes shut and clutching her head in her hands, pulling at the roots of her hair as if that would quell their susurrus. “This hurts.”
“We’re almost there.” Stephen called to her, hardly audible over the turmoil in her head. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his hands trembled with the strain of holding onto the wild magic. The two forces were locked in balanced opposition, each struggling for domination. It just needed a nudge to tip the scales. “Lend me a hand!”
Wanda reached forward blindly to push her hands against the ward. How many lives, blood and tears had gone into the creation of this foul barrier? Blood that once ran in living veins; blood that once wanted for more; blood that now wanted to die.
“Be gone.” She commanded, imposing her will into reality. “Be free of these dark shackles.” The hex suffused with intent burst forth from her fingertips. Red crawled outward from the point of contact. The tendrils of magic fractured and fractured again in an increasingly complex pattern across the surface of the ward until all of it shattered in an instant.
Something dripped onto her hands and the shrieks quietened, all at once. Wanda opened her eyes and saw blood everywhere. The dead remnants of dark magic seeped like waterfalls from every crack in the stone and joined in tiny rivulets to pool onto the floor.
“We did it, the barrier’s down!” Stephen snatched the Darkhold from the air, wrestling it closed. The book seemed to have its own gravity. Shadows and magic spooled around it in a dark haze. Scores of voices sneered at Wanda from within.
“…from the loam…he calls…he sees you…knows you...”
Whatever the unknown thing was that whispered ceaselessly to her, it had only gotten bolder in the wake of their spell. But Wanda had no time to dwell on what that might mean. Around them, the wards fell apart in a chain reaction, accelerating into oblivion as the growing rift expanded. Wanda sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes, grimacing at the sticky fluid covering her hands.
The light from the sky was already starting to peter out. No one knew for how much longer the Human Torch could keep his body burning without consuming himself. Now that the way was open, they must move fast.
Stephen charged forward, fearlessly holding up a protective Shield of the Seraphim ahead of him so that others could follow. The vampires on the other side of the wall launched themselves at him, swarming and snapping at the manifestations of his magic.
Wanda floated up slightly and red began to glow on her skin. The ardour of magic rose, answering her pull as she drew upon it. Presented with a new target, some of the vampires hissed and bounded towards her. With a flick of her wrist, Wanda released her grip on her magic. Chaos erupted from her like wildfire loosed onto dry tinder.
The running vampire fell on its face, its body discorporated as if dissolved, turning into a black smear on the ground around a scattering of bones. And around it roiled a scarlet flame that washed over the remains and surged onward, extending new bolts ahead of it like lightning arcing between clouds. The chaotic magic expanded out in every direction, devouring everything in its path. And every vampire that it touched was swallowed in the wave of red. Wanda struggled to control it, but fire does not distinguish between friend and foe. Even its smoke blackened all that would stand before it.
From the corner of her eye, Wanda saw the golden light of Stephen’s magic settle around her. The calm, precise sigils wrapped her power in an embrace. Their two magics intertwined, curling together like lovers. She felt her power settle as Stephen’s sigil directed their combined magic forwards.
Good. Wanda thought with some relief. Stephen would protect their friends, and ensure that no errant hex harmed their allies in its zeal. She can instead focus her attention on the wellspring of power within herself. Power she had always spent most of her energy on holding back. It was the raw, untamed magic of a younger world—a force of something older than nature and, oh, how it longed to be used—to shape and to sunder as it had once done in the dawn of creation.
Her refocused magic smashed into the ranks of the vampires like a deadly storm. What did not disintegrate outright under the assault scattered before her like birds. The rest of the team worked together like clockwork, taking advantage of her clearing the way to penetrate deeper into Dracula’s stronghold. With Johnny blazing in the sky above like a miniature star, they cut through the resistance before them.
Just as they had planned, Stephen quickly located the shard of blood red Chronovium that Dracula was using to pause the sunrise. Doreen and the others found Ratatoskr and managed to set the captive creature free. Until only Dracula himself was left standing between them and the day.
The horde of vampires were pushed backwards, their numbers dwindled rapidly. As they gave up more ground, their attacks grew more erratic and increasingly desperate. A vampire threw itself into Wanda’s magic, attacking furiously. A claw clipped Wanda’s arm and she twitched out of the way just in time to avoid the set of fangs lunging for her throat.
“Wanda!” She heard Stephen yell from somewhere behind her. Part plea, part warning.
Distracted, Wanda barely managed a half-turn, just enough to see the spear hurtling towards her a split-second before it was driven into her side. The tip—heavy and inlaid with vibranium—pierced deeply just below her ribs, the force of it knocking her off her feet. She hit the wall with a heavy impact that rattled her bones. The pain was blinding venom. Immediate and overwhelming, screaming through her body. Vaguely, she was aware of Stephen also doubling over, sucking in breath through clenched teeth.
The spear ripped back out of Wanda with a sickeningly smooth slide, a gush of blood trailing in its path. Her world spun. She gasped, a small, wheezing sound, and tasted blood on her tongue. Wanda grasped the wall, trying to hold the room still, trying to hold in the scream that desperately wanted to get out, trying to see anything but the pain. It burned inside her mind, tearing at thoughts and memories alike. An immense wave of darkness rose in the distance, and Wanda knew the whelm of that wave meant death.
For a paralysing moment, the world slowed down. She could still save herself, Wanda realised dimly. The wound was deep, but it was not yet beyond her magic, which still buzzed under her fingertips and saturated the air all around her. She could pull her magic back, staunch the spread of shadows with a cauterising blaze and let it envelop her and carry her away.
Wanda looked up and caught Stephen’s eyes. He was still shouting something, but she could not hear him over the pounding of her own heart. But paradoxically, she could still hear the whispers of the Darkhold. It continued to offer her its dark promise, the smug voices a mockery of tenderness. Here she was, desperately drawing forth more power, and the Darkhold eagerly presented her an infinite font of chaos magic on a platter, begging her to use it.
“...dreaming…the vessel…free him…wake him…”
The vampire who had thrown the spear was making its way closer to Wanda, fangs bared and ready to finish the job it had started. For a helpless moment, she wondered whether this was always to be her fate, no matter how much she might try to avoid it. The Wanda of this world had used the Darkhold, for all the good it had done her. Was that a mistake she was doomed to repeat?
Wanda registered the thought, then let it pass. “No.” She muttered, she could not put these people through that pain again. “I am not your vessel.” Wanda punctuated her words with a killing wave of raw chaotic power that flayed flesh from the unsuspecting vampire’s bones.
Wanda gritted her teeth, and allowed herself to lean into the burning, the exhaustion and the pain. The room buckled and swayed, a sickening sensation curled in her gut. Her vision swam with pain and tears, and her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton wool, muting all sound. She just breathed with it for a moment, steeling herself to what she must do.
They had a plan and the plan was simple. Wanda would not flee from this fight. She was the Scarlet Witch, the Sorceress Supreme. It was not a title born, but earned in moments like this. This was what the Sorcerer Supreme is for.
It surprised her how little the thought of dying frightened her. Mostly, it just filled her with worry: worry for her world, worry for Stephen, worry for what would happen after she was gone.
Wanda saw the moment Stephen realised her choice, an expression of devastation came over his face. He redoubled his efforts to reach her, fighting hard against the mob of vampires between them. His magic snapped forward in golden flashes, again and again… but time was not on their side. Her heart ached for him. I’m so sorry, Stephen.
No one else had yet realised what had occurred. Wanda made no more noise, swallowing her pain before it could escape her lips. She needed her teammates’ focus to remain on the battle. Wanda would fight with them for as long as she could. The light in the sky was fast fading, and in that moment Wanda could not tell how much of that was Johnny and how much was her own.
Stephen had the Chronovium, Ratatoskr was free, the vampires were faltering. They were winning. They needed only seconds more to reach Dracula. Only—
“Wanda!” Stephen’s voice splintered even as it crested into a bellow. He had finally reached her in the confusion and threw himself down at her side. The ground was red, red, red. Wanda’s life rapidly leeched out onto the earth, drenching her scarlet coat with scarlet blood. There was a gash down her torso and it's… it's ugly. Wanda coughed, and the muscles in her side moved with it.
Stephen pressed his hands hard into Wanda’s side, exerting as much pressure as he could manage. They were immediately soaked in blood. Sticky and hot. Wanda made a sound halfway between a gasp and a scream. Her body spasmed, then fell limp. The quiet channel between them opened into a roaring inferno as Stephen felt Wanda’s fire surging deep into his soul. Pain blossomed, but Stephen only pressed harder. Pushing all his weight into her in a desperate effort to stem the bleeding, hoping that sheer will alone could somehow shove her life back into her body.
“No, no, no, please no.” Stephen repeated, tinged with desperation. His cynical medical training informed him that this wound was fatal, but he refused that conclusion with his entire being. He was a master of magic and medicine. He couldn’t let this happen. “Hold on Wanda. We still need to fix your world, remember?”
Stephen wracked his mind for a spell, any spell that could provide a solution. The Scrolls of Melsalam, the Blessings of Vishanti—Stephen poured every healing spell he could into her and felt the magic dissipate uselessly into the air. Why had he not accounted for this, he should have prepared better—an injury this bad can’t be mended by simple battlefield cantrips, didn’t he know that by now—an injury this bad needed proper medical care, the Terranotti Healing Spell or something better—
Stephen’s clumsy fingers fumbled at Wanda’s coat, and he cursed himself and every god he could remember for his useless shaking hands. His mind and heart felt torn. He was a young man mourning a loss he thought he had put behind him. Were that he was still whole, he could fix this. He was letting a memory bleed into the present, and along with it came the unbidden echo of a young girl’s panicked face in an expanse of ice and deep cold water.
Tightness constricted his chest. He thought, for a moment, that maybe he would be sick. Stephen had gone into medicine to save lives, and yet here he was again with life slipping through his fingertips.
Why her? Stephen wondered, but he already knew the answer. There were people out there who lived safe lives. People who, when faced with a fortress of death, would turn and run the other way instead of into it. Those people would never be at risk of such a death. And Stephen could never truly care for such a person. Could never—gods, he could not bear to think it, now that it was too late—could never love them.
The other heroes’ shouts of alarm and a chilling roar behind him pulled Stephen’s attention back. With one hand, he conjured a shield to interpose between the undead bearing down on them and the unconscious form of Wanda. Without Wanda keeping the crowd of vampires at bay, the horde had swarmed them again. There was a distant cry of pain. Followed by a hoarse scream that cut off abruptly. Someone else had been hurt while Stephen’s back was turned, and he didn’t see, he never sees—
Stephen scanned the room frantically, trying to reorient himself in the mayhem. Two blood-crazed vampires had taken advantage of his distraction and had circled around them, attacking from the rear. They had separated Dagger from the rest of the team. He watched as Tandy managed to dive out of the way of the first one, only to have the second latch its claws around her.
“No!” Stephen shouted as the vampire began to drag Tandy away, disappearing from his sight. The team needed him in the fight more than ever. He needed to get to Tandy. But he had to keep vigil at Wanda’s side, applying steady pressure. He couldn’t leave her to die.
Stephen knew he had to act, but he found himself suspended between two impossible choices.
Everything was spiraling out of control.
There was a bright green flash nearby. Stephen felt it before he understood what it was—a pull on the pulse and shadow of the aether. A sudden shift in the weather, like the quiet pressure right before the bursting of a rainstorm.
The sudden change in ethereal tensions had Stephen throwing his arms up in reflex to protect himself. The next instant, his mind had to catch up with what it saw. His rapidly thumping heart dropped to his stomach.
A silhouette of a man stepped out from the burst of verdant magic. The figure was clad in fine green and silver armor. Cold eyes pinned Stephen in place from behind a metal mask. “Don't do anything rash, Stephen,” said Victor von Doom. “Your cheap conjurations are nothing in the face of Doom.”
“Victor.” Stephen said, forcing his voice to be steady. “What do you want?”
“I am here to do what you cannot: Save the world.” Doctor Doom said, his voice utterly calm and unaffected. He looked at the chaos around him with an air of disdain. “Your Avengers have engaged Dracula and his creatures. The Moon God Khonshu has dispatched his acolytes to battle the vampires. Richards has concocted a plan to detonate Johnny Storm. A decent attempt. But it will not be enough.”
“You expect me to believe that you are here to aid us?” Stephen glared helplessly at Doom, struggling to keep his agitation at bay, hating the reductive, matter-of-fact way that Doom summarised their efforts while they were still fighting for their lives.
“Your belief is irrelevant. As I have said, I am here to save the world, something you are failing to do.” Doom barely looked at Stephen as he continued. His eyes roamed around the room, clinically observing the battle still raging against Dracula. “Without the Montesi formula, you do not possess the ability. The Scarlet Witch could do it, perhaps. But she is broken and lies dying. New York City has Dracula’s new building as part of its skyline. It would appear that things are going very badly for you indeed.”
“But now I am here.” Doctor Doom continued. He finally returned his gaze to Stephen. His face was inscrutable behind his mask, and his tone gave nothing away. “Now Stephen. Give it to me, and let us begin.”
“Give you what? I don’t follow, Victor.” Stephen snapped, too rattled to decipher Doom’s cryptic demands.
“I should think you would understand. This is an extraordinary work of magic I am speaking of casting here. I alone possess the knowledge of the ritual to turn back the darkness—the spell to rewind time itself. And to enact it, I require Chronovium.”
Stephen’s mouth dropped open in stunned disbelief. “You must be joking.” He exclaimed when he regained his ability to speak. Turn back time? It was mad, it was dangerous, it was—maybe the only way out of their current predicament. With some trepidation, Stephen recalled the conversation he had with Doom the last time they had met, when Victor had demanded the Darkhold from him. “Gods, Victor. Tell me, did you engineer this entire crisis just for this moment? Has this all been your design?”
“Do not waste what little remains of your life posturing, Strange. You have no other choice,” Doom uttered with the confidence of someone who held all the cards, though his cold eyes revealed nothing. “Even you must recognise that only I can save you.”
Stephen snarled an incoherent curse and summoned a spell to his fingers, himself not sure what he intended to do. His hand closed around the Chronovium defensively, compelled by instinct more than conscious thought. He wanted to believe Victor, he realised, even though his rational mind screamed at him in warning.
Doom was not trustworthy. He could just as well make things worse than make them better, but if Stephen didn’t do something then more people would die. Any victory they could achieve now would be a pyrrhic one. The disaster was already in motion.
Doom’s proposal, a spell that could rewind time—such a spell could mend any wound. And why not? Why not restore the people they had lost? Why not save Wanda from her pain? What was the point of these powers if he didn’t use them to make the world better? The gods have allowed realities to be rewritten for worse reasons.
Stephen reluctantly dismissed the magic he had readied, and tried to search Doom’s inscrutable face for any sign of deception. “You say that your aims are noble. Prove it. Prove that I can trust you with this power, that I’ve been wrong about you.” He held the Chronovium out to Doom, but stopped short of letting go. “I want your oath, Victor. I want your word. Once the world is saved, you will return the Chronovium crystal to me.”
“… You have my word. The word of Doom.”
“Very well.” Stephen said, and tried to believe it.
Doom took the crystal from his trembling fingers, and Stephen revisited the idea of being sick.
“As I have said, I have been preparing for this eventuality.” Doom said, and Stephen could hear the satisfied smirk in his voice. “The magic used to create this night is extremely old. A spell penned by the same hands that inked the Darkhold in those dark days.”
Doom raised the blood Chronovium up like a prize, and spread his arms wide. The words of his incantation reverberated in the small space like the clash of cymbals. Magic thickened in the air. The Chronovium shimmered with a shock of white energy. Then a massive arrow of magic, blazing with burning white light, flew at Dracula.
Stephen stared, stunned. Dracula had whipped his body around, blocking Doom’s blow with half of his arm. “Doom! You reprobate! You traitorous snake!” He rolled backward away from the Doom’s second strike, scrambling on the flagstone until his back collided with the castle wall. But it was already too late. Stephen watched with horror as green ichor glowed and crawled up Dracula’s limb, creeping its way toward the vampire’s body and heart.
The magic of Doom’s spell was merciless. Dracula withered away, screaming all the while as his body turned to ash. The arrow vanished, as though a sunbeam glancing off reflective glass, and all around them the vampires were bathed in the intense wash of magic. The remnants of the once-powerful vampire blew away in the wind.
The Chronovium hummed with miraculous power, eating away at death itself, drawing the curse of undeath into the maelstrom of Doom’s spell. Dracula’s thralls, the youngest of the vampires, ones who had been recently turned, transformed under the magic. Their fangs retreated, their sallow bodies filled back with colour, and the craze of blood lust left their eyes.
Wanda, still prone on the floor where she fell, jerked. Blood spun backwards, falling upwards and seeping in reverse back into the ragged wound on her side. Before Stephen’s eyes, it slowly sealed over until it disappeared from her skin without a single blemish.
“Wanda?” Stephen leaned his head down on her forehead, hesitant hope blooming in his chest. He was rewarded by the gentle rush of her breath and that soft sound was the best thing he had ever heard. His heart soared. Perhaps he should feel more concerned—this type of magic always demanded a price—but in the moment he felt only relief.
The remaining vampires, the ones with no humanity left in them to be restored, howled and began to flee. The one that held Tandy left her unconscious form unceremoniously behind, and Doreen ran over to her to help. A blur of gold and red flew across the sky, shooting down repulsor blasts at the last of the ghouls as they fled.
Doom stood in the centre of it all, triumphant. Stephen tried to swallow the stone in his stomach at the sight. For all his blustering, Stephen had never actually conceived the idea that Doom would be his salvation some day. Now he had an entirely different problem on his hands. Horror and gratitude warred in a nauseating mixture within him.
“That was an incredible piece of magic, Victor.” Stephen offered. Loath as he was to admit it—Doom had been right. “Now. Your promise, Victor. Your oath. Return to me the Chronovium as you swore you would do.”
“Yes. My oath. To surrender the Chronovium back to you once I saved the world. And I have only just begun, Stephen.”
A look of profound frustration crossed Stephen’s face. “Victor—”
“Doom does nothing halfway.” Doom interrupted. “I will save the world, for I have given the word of Doom.” He did not wait for a response. In another flash of green, he was gone, taking the Chronovium with him.
On the horizon, the sky rippled as though bent by a mirage. Then, the clouds were scattered by a pinprick of brilliant light. Shafts of golden rays flared out from the gap as it widened, growing brighter and brighter. The midnight sky around it eroded away, blending into cornflower blue.
Dracula’s death had severed the final hold he had over the magic of his eternal night.
Around Stephen, the shouts of battle and cries of fear lessened dramatically and a cacophonous uproar of celebration rose up in its place.
The sun dawned on a new day.