Eternal Night

(I) Chapter 2: A Serpent in the Grass

Dracula's throne was a formidable structure – with a tall back and the head of an enormous horned dragon carved into the crest rail, the gaze of its sapphire eyes covering the breadth of the room. The man himself was seated comfortably in this elevated position, dressed in black trousers and a ceremonial crimson robe with ornate designs stitched in black and gold thread. He never uttered a word as Augustine spoke, expression remaining decidedly apathetic. Suspicion and no small degree of mistrust had long-since taken root in his mind.

"As you may recall, your court-appointed scientist – Gregor – had been working on a way to eradicate our kind's aversion to sunlight through the means of a vaccination. A little over two decades ago, we received word that he was close to finding a cure, but when we went to check on his progress, we found he had been murdered, his research destroyed, and someone had used his work to corrupt the pathogen into a virus that only seemed to have adverse effects on our kind. Those carrying the virus, instead of becoming immune to sunlight, became incurably ill and tended to experience true death within a matter a days, sometimes hours depending on their age and the quality of their feeding habits."

Augustine paused to give Dracula a chance to respond but the man remained unnervingly mute.

"The outbreak originated outside of the city at first – in the border regions of our land. The infection moved the bulk of the population inward as our people tried to outrun the virus, but in spite of our best efforts, the epidemic hit in the city almost a year later. The south side was struck hardest – wiping out nearly every soul in the region. We established a quarantine out of sheer necessity, but even that proved inefficient. The virus spread and rioting soon broke out. To curb the violence, a wall was erected around the north district to keep the remainder of the city which had not yet seen contamination safe. We lost many lives before we could claim control over the outbreak but the damage had been done and the south side remains to this day unsalvageable. In order to lessen the chances of further outbreak, the area was declared territory for the werewolves as the virus did not impact them. There has since arisen a general belief that this attempted genocide of your people had been born from a lycan resistance. Their aversion to his majesty's administration is well known..."

"I have trouble believing that Queen Isabella would sanction this attempted genocide you speak of. We've enjoyed a mutual peace with the wolves for well over a century. I hardly see her being even remotely responsible for this crime, let alone supporting it if such treason had originated from her ranks."

"She insists that her people are not to blame..."

"And you chose not to believe her." It was more a statement than a question. "Instead of honoring her word, you opted for insult and enforced segregation, feeding into the prejudice of peasants." He scoffed his disbelief. "Unbelievable..."

"There was unrest between our kinds. Many believed the wolves killed Gregor and manipulated the virus to destroy us. The segregation was the only way to prevent full-on civil war."

It was clear by the slight arching of Dracula's brow that he did not believe Augustine's story, but he chose to remain silent, motioning with a slight incline of his head for his brother to continue.

"We thought we had the virus under control, but in the last year, we've found that it still lingers within the city in pockets and its evolving. Humans can now be carriers without even realizing it, putting many of our kind at risk."

"We had an agreement with the humans not to feed off of just anyone within the city. Our kind were only to feed on those in the feeding houses – and that was after they had been thoroughly vetted. And if there was ever any cause for concern, cloned blood has always been an alternative. I had set this system in place before my hibernation for a reason, Marcus."