Most of them stay dead...

Part 4

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This was not what she had been expecting.

Agatha Van Helsing had never bought into the popular version of heaven, but she had dreamed of a place of light, a place where her soul resonated in harmony, where all the questions she had ever asked would be answered...a place she finally felt at home...perfectly known and perfectly loved just as she was.

Staring up into the blood-stained face of Count Dracula as he called her wife, Agatha felt horror claw up her throat.

"Is this hell?" She managed croak, not that she expected this demon to answer her true.

"No...no Agatha it is not hell." Dracula's reply was almost gentle. His touch light on her cheek. "England remember?"

"I failed...they all died for nothing...Capitain Sokolov, all my sisters..."

"Yes, they did... But honestly dearest Agatha did you really think you would win?"

Yes, she had, and perhaps it was this bitter truth that was hard to swallow. She had been so certain, so certain that her faith wold finally be justified, that their efforts would be enough, that her God, who had allowed so much suffering in the world, would finally, finally be revealed and she would rise to meet him.

"So I'm dead."

"Ahhh no, undead." Dracula corrected with indulgent patience. "Believe me there is a world of difference."

"Well you would know." Agatha muttered testily, batting away his hand that continued to touch her face.

Struggling to sit and glaring at Dracula when he even offered to help her. Dead...undead she was no fainting flower, she refused to let the fact that she was newly risen from her own coffin bother her. Right now, she needed answers and the potential source of those answers was more than a little unreliable. Looking around at her surroundings Agatha was startled by what she saw, lights as bright as daylight, expanses of glass, and metal...metal everywhere. It was like no place she had even heard of, let alone seen.

"I know, it takes some getting used to."

"Stop reading my thoughts!"

"Agatha, I don't need to read your thoughts, what you are thinking is written all over your face." Dracula chided her, standing up he offered his hand to help her stand.

Accepting it reluctantly Agatha stood, gathering her skirts in her free hand as Dracula guided her out of her casket and over to a chair.

"Now I know this might sound a little farfetched..."

"I'm undead and talking, how much more farfetched could it get?"

"This would go a lot easier if I wasn't being constantly interrupted..."

"What a shame for you." Agatha retorted, sinking down on the chair and turning a mocking expression upon Count Dracula.

"You know, I am almost sorry they disturbed by little nap on the sea floor."

"Feel free to go back there, anytime."

Laughing Dracula impulsively reached down and cupped Agatha's face between his hands, his thumb rubbing over her blood-stained lips; relishing the way she tremored from barely repressed fear and yet still had the gall to frown at him.

"I dreamt of you, whilst I was sleeping my Agatha. Did you dream of me?"

"No, that would be a nightmare I think, and quite at odds with the concept of eternal rest."

Smiling at her continued resistance, Dracula's hand slipped to circle around her slender neck. One of his large hands practically wrapped around it.