Rosalind - Beauty and the Beast meets Dracula retelling

14-In A Room Darkly

"Have you answered my dark thoughts, oh Father?" Agnes whispered as she cradled Troy. From the depth of the boy's throat came faint animal-like sounds. Agnes had spent a lot of midnights listening as wolves in the woods spoke amongst each other, cried together, died before the eyes of their mates. She was often lulled by the songs the wolves sang. In a room darkly shadowed, Agnes Vauclain felt tears sting. She was certain as day turns into night and night into day that there had been no feral wolf in Troy's bed chambers, not one. Agnes saw the young lord arch his head up. His eyes were closed. She saw his bottom lip tremble, long canines protruded from his gums when he parted his lips to whimper. There had been no wolf...no wolf but Troy.

"Many nights have come and left where I have prayed for You to rain Your wrath on the unkindness and evilness residing in this house. Have you dared answer this old woman's unGodly wishes?" Agnes raised her eyes to the ceiling. She felt Troy twitching in her embrace. "Oh, Father in heaven, why dared you? Why dared you?" Agnes bowed her head and closed her eyes. "Forgive me..." she uttered under her breath.

Regret filled the old maid's heart. She was guilty of hoping God would hurl His almighty wrath upon the horrid lord of the manor. Never did Agnes believe that it would actually happen to her master, and now that it happened to the others on the manor, she felt the bitter sting of guilt. For a long, painful few moments, Agnes truly believed that this was all her doing. The whispered words dripping from her lips were a mantra, "Forgive me. Forgive me." But that changed nothing. Guilt crawled into her heart. It gnawed till everything inside her hurt.

In the night-shade, a wandering soul lost his way to his beloved's home. Sorin Rosu was holding a bouquet of ivory flowers in his frozen grasp. The young man, barely seventeen in his years, had been on his way to his love Tatum's homestead when the snow began to thicken and flurries swirled angrily before his eyes. The moon gave off little light and all the stars had deserted him. One wrong turn became another until Sorin found himself in the woods unsure of how to get out.

He shivered in his short brown coat, though it was made of wool, it was no match for the temperature that had dropped drastically. His toes ached in his boots. Were he in his proper hunting clothing, he may not have felt the cold as much. Sorin had lost his hat a few miles back and one of the thieving tree branches had stolen his scarf. The young man looked at his blue-tinged fingers, cursing himself for getting lost with no gloves. He had not wanted to hand over the pretty bouquet to Tatum while his hands were thrust in ugly, thick gloves looking like some peasant, so he had left them behind on his mother's kitchen table before setting off.

Pale blue eyes searched for a way back onto the road, but wherever he turned his head, Sorin saw nothing but the silhouettes of trees and blinding snow. He quickened his step and stumbled over a stump sending him and his bouquet onto the ground. Little ivory flowers landed in the snow gently, but their delicate petals quickly shriveled from the arctic touch and began to wither before Sorin could collect them. The boy's face was covered in snow, it clung to his brown hair and the front of his coat. Tears welled up in his eyes. He believed himself a goner when the sound of horses and a carriage made him turn his head in delight.

"Praise be," he chattered, "I am saved." Sorin waved his hands over his head. "Here, kind sir. I beg of you. Mercy. I am lost!"

The carriage's wheels made a slushing sound, the horses hooves a dull, muffled thud. Sorin heard the animals' neighing as they neared him.

When the lost boy spotted the dark shadow of the horse-drawn carriage he closed his eyes, clasped his hands together in thanks and let out a sigh of relief.

The carriage stopped a few feet opposite the young boy. Sorin heard someone dropping to the ground

"Thank you. Oh, a million times thank you, good sir. May the good Lord above --" When Sorin rose and looked up, what he saw before him was not an angel sent by the good Heavenly Father to save him. What Sorin saw was that which was made of nightmares. The boy's words caught in his throat, the chill that now ran down his spine was far worse than the chill of the snow.

Caspian's long legs brought him before Sorin swiftly. The twin steeds behind the lord snorted like bears. The animals' crimson gaze pierced through the boy. Caspian reached down and grabbed Sorin by the throat. The beast's grip was like ten vices choking the air out of Sorin's windpipe. Caspian's nails dug into soft flesh. The boy was lifted off the ground. Though Sorin tried to break free from Caspian's grip, it was as useless as a fly trying to escape the sticky tongue of a frog.

"Father -- mercy," was all Sorin was able to spit out in a raspy whisper.

"There is no mercy in the Borgo, nor anywhere else." Caspian pinned Sorin against a tree crushing the boy's spine with the impact. The last thing Sorin heard between his cries of pain were Caspian's cruel words. "I am now your God." Then the world went black.

While Agnes prayed and cursed herself over Troy's body, the nocturnal creatures that came out to feed found Sorin's body hanging from the tree. The boy's blood had been drained, two puncture wounds on his neck were used to feed from. A gaping hole had been made in Sorin's belly. Just below his waist, trails of intestines hung out of him like the guts of a pumpkin. The slimy, worm-like viscera appeared to glow in the light of the moon. Sorin's arms had been raised over his head, both wrists slashed open violently. The tendons were pulled out and that was what Caspian had used to hang the boy from the tree with. When the little animals, and the ones that were not so little in size, saw the image of the murdered boy, they fled in fear. The scent of evil lingered in the air. None of God's creatures would be feeding off this lost soul. Poor Sorin had been a feast for a devil.

Caspian led his horses back to the stables. Icicles decorated the steeds' manes and tail. Tiny shards of ice formed under the animals' eyes and sparkled like diamonds. Upon touch, the flesh of both horses and that of the lord's was as cold as the snow itself, if not colder. Caspian released the reins. He heard the leather crackle from their prolonged usage in the cold. He hung the reins on a nail and thought of how the boy had hung from the tree.

Caspian thought of Sorin's tender skin. Even in the chill, the boy's blood was as warm as the cider Agnes used to make for them in the evenings. The boy's skin punctured with ease. Caspian's fangs tore into Sorin's jugular with no struggle. Blood filled the lord's mouth. It trickled down his throat, hot and rich, peppery and sharp. When Caspian swallowed, the urge to devour Sorin whole nearly drove him mad. Caspian's fist entered the boy's belly with a wet sound. The sensation of steaming guts weaving between his fingers made Caspian groan with pleasure. The beast pulled until strings of the boy's insides were now on the outside. When Caspain used his teeth to rip at Sorin's wrists, he noticed the flesh and tendons were hard. He tore and tore until he was able to split Sorin's wrist back. Blood ran from the lad's arms as he was hung up by his wrists on the tree. The cold temperature had turned the boy into stone yet Sorin's head lolled to the side. Caspian cupped the lad's chin. The snow under them turned red and began to melt leaving a dull patch of blood and grass below them. Between the blades of grass, tiny flowers poked out their white heads. With each drop of blood that fell to them, their petals turned red.

Reality blurred before the monster's electric blue eyes. The blood running through his veins meshed with the pained sound of a wolf coming from his son's chambers till he could not decipher one sound from the other. Caspian looked in the direction of Troy's room and at that moment he knew that his son was no longer human either.

Days ago Caspian was but a man. Days ago he was still alive. Today, he was neither man nor alive. Sharply, Caspain turned on his heel and walked into his manor.

Why Christine?

Q-Agnes is rather religious, isn't she? Why should anyone be religious in such a dark tale?

Me-In the eye of the storm you always need something to hold on to.