The Vampire's Bride Book II Gothic Mysteries of Dracule Revised

Chapter I

I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it. I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, they threw no shadow on the floor.... There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me....

----Bram Stoker: Dracula

Prelude to a Dark Dream

Transylvania

1680

I

Stefan

The songs of the night revelers woke him.

Stefan Pelles reached over to embrace his lovely wife, Analise, but his fingers did not touch her soft, black hair, but fell on the cool linen sheets of the bed. He sat up and stared at the place beside him where, just an hour ago, his beloved had lain beside him in disheveled slumber. Her absence sent a tremor through his limbs.

"Analise!" he whispered.

Nothing stirred.

He squinted into the gloom of the bedchamber and saw only the wintry gleam of the tall, diamond-paned windows lighting the bed curtains with a ghostly pallor.

Heart hammering, he sprang out of bed.

"Analise!"

He inhaled deeply and slowed his thoughts. Perhaps she'd merely stepped out for a moment, but he could not quell this sense of foreboding.

He pulled the bedding apart, expecting to find the marks of blood that would prove to the people of the village that Analise had been, before this passionate wedding night, a virgin. Indeed, she was as pure as he'd expected her to be, but the sheets were spotless, trailing off the bed like an abandoned shroud whose occupant had risen in silence, and melted into the night.

How strange to have thoughts of death on his wedding night! He pressed his hand against his chest to calm his tightening heart, and stared at the bedroom door that stood half open on the corridor. There was no doubt in his mind that an evil presence waited the darkness of the house. He could feel it; could smell the stench of the grave that tainted the perfumed air.

The image of a hand mirror flashed into his mind's eye, the mirror he'd taken from the ruins of Castle Drag as the perfect gift for Analise. The glass was round as the moon and surrounded by the coils of a dragon. His fingers burned at the thought of holding it. The dragon's ruby eye stared, its golden scales scintillated as if it were alive, mocking him with their supernatural power. His heart pulsated sickening and wild. The mirror had belonged to a Vampire, and once in her possession, had driven Analise into a mad obsession with her beauty. It was as if the Vampire's mirror had seduced her with her own image, slowly pulling her through the glass into another world where he could no longer reach her. Their holy marriage vows should have redeemed her. Was it possible they had not?

Air wafted through the door as of a spirit passing. The sensation of long, cold fingers slithered through his hair.

"Analise!" he shouted.