Not a Drop of Honour

Prologue

Jonathan Joestar would never forget that godforsaken face. That horrible smirk beneath glinting amber eyes, framed by treacherous golden hair. Sharp fangs hidden behind refined lips, pressing against his neck in that awful, all-too-real dream. The feeling of withering away, his life-force being drained by this man, this beast.

He knew, the next morning, that his father was gone. There was a new absence he felt, the severance of a tie that he'd never noticed before, as it had been there for all his life. "Father..." he whispered. After waking, he lay there for an hour, letting the sun gradually creep farther into the room until finally it reached his eyes. Like that, the weight of the entire situation hit him. He would never speak to his father again, never embrace him, never see his father's pride that he was always so desperate to earn. The return he so eagerly awaited would never come; the Joestar estate would be all too empty from now on.

What Jonathan would have given for it to have been he who had died like this, and not his father! The next best thing would be to find that vampire who had done this and avenge him. He had to do that, he couldn't live now but for that; this was all that drove him.

Without breakfast, without even alerting the servants as to where he was going and why, he was off. He forwent the comforts of the stagecoach, taking his own horse as to travel faster and without impediment, riding it as fast as he could to that fateful village.

Not one citizen of that village was outside, or even by the windows that he could see; he'd heard in the letters from his father how they lived in fear, only leaving their homes between noon and one o'clock, and then retreating once again inside, so as to keep themselves as safe as possible from the vampire that plagued their town. It was lucky that this was winter, with no crops in need of tending. Still some seemed to disappear in the night...

It wasn't hard to find the place he was searching for; that old, crumbling castle loomed over the village, casting its long shadow over the homes. This was where the vampire lurked, where his father had tracked him down and—it was too painful to think about. The decaying oak doors were open. Stake in hand, candle in the other, Jonathan crept inside. Corpses littered the great hall, pallid and bloodless. At least they're still. They hadn't resurrected as damned creatures of Hell; he could deal with them later. Beyond the great hall lay a staircase and many winding corridors, labyrinthine and confusing. He scarcely dared to breathe for fear that the vampire or one of his undead servants would hear him. And yet he had encountered none of them yet at ground level, only dust and darkness that threatened to suffocate him.

Up, he climbed the staircase, his anxiety mounting as he did so. The air was oppressive, still, with the thick scent of blood. Light barely passed through the grime-covered windows, mostly filtering in through holes in the wall where the stonework had crumbled away, leaving the interior exposed to the elements. It was hard to see anything, his candle barely working against the darkness except to show that the walls were there, nearly impossible to find any clue as to where the vampire could be sleeping. He spotted some form in the darkness and jumped, preparing to fight back a vampire if necessary. It was unnecessary; the body was still. Father...? He stepped closer, holding the candle to the corpse. No, it was not his father. Only one of that vampire's minions, a stake through its heart. He found a few more such bodies scattered about as he progressed through the castle.

Has that foul creature already left, full of his feast? Will I not even have the chance to kill him? Jonathan grit his teeth. Ahead of him was a spiral staircase, leading up to one of the castle's towers. The steps were carved of brilliant white marble, bright enough for Jonathan to make out the specks of blood that dotted them. Father must have gone this way... His heart caught in his throat at the sight, but still he moved on, travelling up the stairs, stake clutched in his trembling hand. Up, up, up, the stairs went, a cruel torture the anticipation they held him in of what he would find. Eventually, he reached the top, met with a thick oaken door that swung easily inwards.

Before him was a closed coffin, gilded and built of dark mahogany. Silently, Jonathan approached. If that vampire were there... this was his chance. It was a hopeless dream, but still his heart beat in his chest, crying for this wish to be true. Slowly, carefully, he opened the lid of the coffin. It was there he found him.

"Father!" he cried, sinking down to his knees. He buried his head against his father's chest, as he'd done as a child—only this time, there was no rhythmic heartbeat to comfort him. He sobbed, not caring even if that vampire were to find him now and kill him.

It was an hour before he picked his head up again. Was the worst true? Had his father been...? He stood up, checking his father's neck. Yes; it was as he'd feared. Two perfect bite marks were on display, the dried blood at their edges the only blood left in that pale body. His own father was to turn into a vampire.

He could stop it. He could drive a stake through his father's heart, stop the process. In fact, he had to. He would—only he cried at the thought. Never would he have imagined that he would ever face this task, the deed of pushing this implement into his own father's chest.

Jonathan couldn't bare to do it yet; his father's body could last the transport to the Joestar estate without being resurrected; he would perform the deed then. Finally moving from his father's side, he retreated from the room to stalk the rest of the castle. He was on edge—any sign of movement and he would stake whatever it was, too possessed by despair to check if it were man or vampire. And yet there was nothing. Nothing that stirred in the whole castle. After killing his father, that beast must have fled, disappearing into the night quite satisfied with his kill and the new servant he soon expected. Jonathan was, for now, denied his vengeance, despite the white-hot rage burning inside of him. Returning from the castle, he knocked on the door of the vicarage, met with suspicion until he displayed his tools and related what he had found.

Returning to the castle, they examined the corpses in the grand hall; none had bite marks. They had been killed for use as food later, not to be recruited by that vampire. They could be buried without any additional procedures. They gathered the villagers to collect the bodies of their family so that they could be prepared for burial, and retrieved George Joestar's body from the tower, still in that dark coffin. The villagers gathered to watch it be carried away and placed in the hearse that had been summoned, offering prayers up in thanks for the sacrifice that had saved them. Jonathan rode just behind on his own horse, not once taking his eyes off of the coffin.

He would bury his father alone, without even the servants around. There were no friends of his father to be invited, and it would just feel worse with only those who had been under his employ in attendance.

First he had to rescue that corpse from the spell of that horrible creature which had killed. Hands shaking, eyes closed, he brought the stake down as quickly as he could. The sound made him shudder and stumble backwards, catching himself against the cold stone wall. He hadn't wanted anyone to see him doing this, to try to offer some words of condolence; he performed the deed in a small, windowless storage building on the estate in the dead of night, the lone candle he'd brought his only light. He slammed the lid of the coffin down, nearly sick. He couldn't bear the sight, the man who'd been such a renowned and successful vampire hunter reduced to this. He couldn't let the news of this get to the world. He opened the door and picked up the coffin, his forearms beneath it so it stayed face-up.

Jonathan had already dug the grave, a place in a quiet grove where his father had read to him when he was younger. It was marked for now only with a wooden cross; the tombstone had yet to be made. He placed the coffin on the ropes stretching across the grave, tied tightly to a winch the he slowly unwound, lowering his father's body until it had finally reached the bottom of the pit.

"Goodbye, Father," he whispered, untying the ropes and tossing them in so he could begin to fill the grave. The shovel lay against his favorite tree; he picked it up, movement by movement transporting the pile of soil into that grave. The coffin was now almost covered, only the spot where George Joestar's head must have been still visible. Jonathan took one last look through tear-hazy eyes before tossing dirt over it.

Dawn broke over Jonathan as he filled in what remained of that hole in the ground, leaving the Earth flat over his father's body. Tossing the shovel aside, he kneeled at the wooden grave-marker, his mind flooded with that horrible indelible image of the vampire who had taken his father's life.

"I will not rest," he vowed, "Until you are gone. My whole life, I now devote to finding you and making sure my father's death is paid for. I will forever be in your pursuit."