DRACULA: A VERY SPECIAL FLAVOUR

The Conflicted Soul - Part 5

1885

The convent was bathed in sunlight. A church bell rang in the far off distance over the mountains that choked with forest. Inside Sister Agatha was eager for the older nun's tale to be over. She wanted to know all of it.

Sister Mary looked at her, and smiled as she continued in between her labored breaths.

1863

Fitz drank ale in the tavern. From the dark shadows, La-Freda came over to him and tilted her head and watched him in the soft light from the fireplace.

"You and the Captain have been here for 3 days, and yet you haven't found the Vampire?"

Fitz looked up to her icy eyes, "she is very elusive"

La-Freda chuckled and sat down on the low wood stool opposite him, "oh come now...how do you know this Vampire is a she"

Fitz swallowed down and wiped the froth from the bitter ale from his lips, "most are"

"Is that what the Captain tells you?"

Fitz downs the rest of his ale and pushed the tankard aside and stood up. She looked up at him in question, "you are going to bed?"

He nods, "I am tired"

La-Freda smooths a hand over the lacy satin of her cloak, "but such strength you have...like the other evening with your rumpus with Paulo"

Fitz shrugged, "What of my strength?"

La-Freda's face was all shadowy in the flickers of light, "Your heart is dark"

"My heart?"

Like unholy magic, La-Freda holds Fitz's gaze, "You and I are the same"

Fitz's head was fuzzy, he holds his stance, "the same...?", he uttered.

La-Freda nods, "your deepest desires are not yet met OR satisfied. Where did the Captain find you Wonder?"

Fitz shook him self out of her hold and moved to the stairs, "you are strange...you say I have a dark heart? Your mind is darker"

La-Freda was suddenly at unease, "why do you say that? How would you know?"

Fitz smiled and strode up the stairs.

XXX

Fitz was floating. It was all misty and vague. There were faces calling out to him. One was a woman who was a stranger, but was somehow, very familiar.

He tossed and turned in his bed, up in the tavern's top room in the roof space. He moaned in his sleep as a dark veil of darkness struck him.

Eyes so dark.

And a whisper.

He opened his eyes and sat up in bed. The sweat was pouring off from him. The wind had picked up outside as a low lying mist came from underneath the door and danced at the base of his bed.

And there it was. It formed from the mists. A hooded figure of a woman. She sung to him in his head. Like a siren of death.

Fitz clamped his hands over his ears and tried to shut out the song.

The hooded figure reached out a pale finger within the robes and pointed at him. Fitz jumped off the bed and tried for the door, but it was like the mists had glued his feet to the floorboards.

The figure seemed to float towards him. The face hidden in the darkness of the hood. The crucifix around the boy's neck then suddenly shone bright as the moon's rays came in through the roof windows.