Dawn Will Be Under My Control, Part 2

Dracula turned around and flew down the hallway, propelled by the darkness emanating from him and under his control. It wasn't that he suddenly realized he couldn't handle some low-level demons. He had decided to dispatch them quickly and mercilessly, finish this quickly, and retrieve another fragment of the medallion. However, he had changed his mind.

There was no reason not to enjoy this, so he had gone to check, just in case 'it' was around here. He couldn't be certain. The castle's layout constantly changed in six cycles of sleep and awakening to wreak havoc on the world again, mainly because of him. Maintaining a clearly defined mental image was not one of his strong suits. The castle wasn't exactly real until he made it real, but he couldn't reproduce it perfectly. Hence the constant changes.

Still, he recognized this part. It was very possible that 'it' was nearby. If it wasn't, well, he would turn around again and finish what he had started. Efficiently and boringly, but everything had its limit. He wasn't going to wander around just in case it was somewhere else.

"The great Lord Dracula running away? You must be very weakened. It's perfect for me, for us; we want to devour you to the bones. But still, I'm disappointed. Give me a real fight, supposed Lord!"

Laughter. Sarcasm. What an idiot; he genuinely thought he could afford to mock him. If he had anything between his ears, he would deactivate the medallion fragment of the castle. That would take them back to the real world, and they might have a remote chance of escaping.

Fortunately for him, there was nothing there, so he let him proceed. Flying swiftly through the halls, flapping his wings, stirring the flames that flickered on the walls—ghostly torches. Until he reached his destination. There it was, floating in the middle of the room, illuminated by the light of a nonexistent moon as if it were his personal spotlight. Dracula made his sword disappear and grabbed the weapon with both hands.

"What the hell is that?"

Dracula turned to face the demonic horde...

With his ukulele.

"Pure fire, mangy dog!"

He played the strings randomly. Yes, he had no idea how to play, but he had called it a weapon, not an instrument. That wasn't the point.

With each sound he produced from the ukulele, no matter how poorly he played, a bolt of electricity shot out. Burning the horde of demons, making them retreat. The air quickly filled with the smell of burnt flesh.

He continued playing his way, as best he could. It wouldn't be that bad. Few things were. To be fair, he believed he couldn't judge the music when it was drowned out by the crackling of electricity and screams.

Unfortunately, this weapon was the only instrument he had. He scorched them. Made them fall to their knees. And just when he thought it would be that easy, one of those bastards used their last strength to throw a knife that hit the ukulele dead center and sank deep. Cutting the strings. Cutting the magic, the spark that made all of this possible.

"What the hell. I liked this one."

He tossed the ukulele over his shoulder, back to the cradle of the nonexistent moonlight. Okay, the old-fashioned way. He had had enough fun. As much as it weighed on him, he had failed with Bob, so for his own sake, this had to go perfectly.

For the sake of his ego, of course.

His neck had never been at stake. Dracula flew forward, almost like a bat, but without transforming into one. He landed in the midst of them, slashing, spinning. Blood and flesh flew everywhere. Blood of all colors, pooling on the ground. It was a quite picturesque scene. If the Lord of Darkness knew about confetti, he would compare it to that, but he didn't.

Either way, one thing was clear. This was a party just for him. A party with lights, shadows, and plenty of refreshments. His throat was quite dry.

***

This was Dracula.

The Dragon, the darkest darkness.

This was his power, his will.

The leader of the demon bikers, named Dagon, had done nothing but retreat since he began attacking them seriously. Several died with each launched attack. They posed no challenge even though Dracula wasn't even at forty percent of his power.

If it weren't for one of them having the power to create autonomous short-lived clones, they would probably have been annihilated by now. The clones served as a buffer for the real demons, taking the worst hits and giving them time to fall back, to regroup. Fall back? Hahaha. None of that.

They had to give it their all because there was no turning back. Ambitious, Dagon had dreamed of taking the head of the prince of darkness. Now he understood it had been a terrible mistake. When it was already too late...

Life was cruel and short, even for demons.

"It's a shame, but I suppose I have to accept..."

What? That he was going to die miserably here, disappear without a trace, without achieving a single thing he had desired with all his soul? It couldn't be defeated. He couldn't just accept defeat. Darkness, oblivion, that would always be unacceptable.

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I don't want to disappear.

"I'll still be here long after you're gone!" roared Dagon defiantly. The ground under his feet was traversed by lines of lava. Fire also danced in his hands, shining on his long claw-like nails. Well, he was also a kind of dragon if you looked at it that way. And right now, he did. Dragon against Dragon.

If he couldn't overcome the seemingly unstoppable enemy in front of him, it wouldn't make sense to continue living anyway. He flew towards the enemy. At least I won't be the first to die, he thought. It felt like it had been ages, but incredibly, only a few seconds could have passed since the beginning of this disaster. As late as it was to regret, he wished he had never dared to think he could do this.

He hadn't lost hope, they hadn't gone into battle expecting a horrible death... But his survival wasn't certain either. Dagon liked to play it safe. Cautious and professional, not biting off more than he could chew. It didn't fit too well with the wild and inhuman image of a demon, but that was him. And that's how he hoped to remain. He hoped that Count Dracula wouldn't rearrange his entrails with his hands.

In the first clash, the first attack, one of his arms flew off. Dagon laughed. Oh well, he thought as the tentacles slid out of the stump, wet and pulsating with a tar-like liquid. He felt no pain. This body was nothing more than a flesh suit, after all.

***

At first, Dracula was surprised to have cut off the leader's arm so easily. It was expected that he would have withstood at least two blows, but then the tentacles crawled out of the hole, and he realized the obvious. He was wearing a flesh suit. Classic demonic possession.

Certainly, he hadn't withstood even a single blow. Normal humans could barely breathe in his presence when he released his killing intent. He could and had killed people without lifting a finger. He didn't do it often because he preferred the blood of the living; it tasted better, but that's another story.

The leader of this gang of demon bikers (call it whatever you want; the tentacles weren't exactly a great identifying sign, and he had never been good with names; that's why Bob had a three-letter name, simple and direct) attacked. Not with the tentacles but by spitting fire from his mouth. Which seemed somewhat contradictory, even counterproductive, depending on how things played out. I mean, he had wet and viscous tentacles like a creature from the unknown depths of the sea, a creature that only had darkness and water, but it also breathed fire? Well.

Anyway, Dracula effortlessly dodged it, propelling himself upward. Not with black bat-like wings, but with the help of the shadows in the room. He was the master of shadows, lived and breathed them; it was his element, just as fire and water were for that guy, no matter how contradictory they were. He had no contradictions.

The shadows of his castle were especially effective. Malleable. Not only did he dodge the attack by propelling himself upward, but also, Dracula grabbed one of the demons by the neck and dragged him along. Before landing, he spun and threw him through one of the windows, shattering the image (an image of himself, of course, what else in his castle?) and hurling him into the darkness of the 'space.' When he reached the 'stars,' the demon disappeared without a trace.

But he was intact; he knew it. Alive. Although he wished he weren't.

As soon as he landed, Dracula found himself face to face with the tentacles of the leader of these mangy dogs. He cut the tentacles in a tenth of a second, making him scream like a beaten dog. Okay, it had surprised him, he had the decency to admit it, but in the end, he was just a small-time demon. No matter how weak Dracula was compared to his original self, they were nothing compared to him. Not even Bob, who had made him flee. Bob was a special case in too many ways.

The continuous massacre. He had the strange feeling that he had killed one of them more than once, but it was probably because he didn't pay much attention to details. Especially now, focusing only on killing his enemies. Yes, that was probably it. I mean, people died when they were killed. It was that simple. No one escaped Death.

Except him because they were friends. There was an exception for everything, hey. And he usually was the exception in question.

He should focus on the leader to end this as soon as possible. If he cut off the head of the snake, the body would die. Oh, they would still resist, but they would have lost something important and impossible to recover. If it weren't for the support of the leader, he didn't think they would have dared to do this, assuming they had known who he was, and that assumed (otherwise, he wouldn't have been called Dracula openly).

So, they would crumble like a tower made of manure.

However, the fight was abruptly interrupted by more of the castle manifesting itself in this space between the real world and something beyond. A garden grew in the room, full of dense vegetation and high fences covered in so much ivy intertwined that you couldn't see through to the other side.

It wasn't an advantage for him. It couldn't exactly be called a disadvantage either; that would be ridiculous. But it gave more time to his enemies. To get away from him, desperate. To regroup and make plans, thanks to the new obstacles and hiding spots.

Dracula shook his head. He knew something like this would happen sooner or later, but he was a little disappointed. He had been about to achieve it. Besides, there was something else that bothered him.

"I didn't want to see so much vegetation so soon," he said. It sounded a bit silly, but it was true. "But I know. I know it's my fault. I should have taken the medallion fragment from you from the beginning. I held back because I wanted to play with my food, but that's over now."

Dracula advanced through the garden, circling the fences, bushes, decorative statues of imps, and other creatures, now disordered, randomly placed and without any sense.

The demons came out to meet him. They now had hiding spots, but they didn't even think about taking advantage of them. Perhaps a part of them understood that they had no chance even if they hid. Their goal hadn't changed. He wanted the head of the leader of these demons. No diversions or distractions. He had promised.

"I can control myself," he said, as if in response to his own thoughts. Well, he wasn’t the one who should be the one looking for a place to hide. Fearing to speak and reveal his position. "The problem is that everything, humans, demons, any kind of monster, to me, they're like ants in a box. I like shaking that box. See what they do when the world is falling on them. When some strange god passes by, trampling everything. And they don't know what's happening. Nor can they stop it. How could it not be fun?"

He spoke as if he were about to reach an orgasm. But better to control himself. He had been doing well so far; there was no need to mess up in the home stretch. Yeah, the home stretch, definitely. He heard something like a secret signal to his ears and launched himself, propelled by the shadows, through several fences, taking the shortest path, the straight line...

To his target.

He found him shedding his skin, that is, getting rid of his flesh suit. So big that it barely fit in the hallway, it was a huge palace with huge corridors, as if prepared for his army to march through at all times.

So tall that he had destroyed the ceiling, and now the false stars shone brightly above them like the blind eyes of an ancient dark god.

Speaking of eyes, his whole body, a tangle of tentacles, was covered in red eyes from corner to corner. No pupils. Nothing human in them. Not even a killing intent.

Normal for demons, to summarize. The only important thing was that he was clearly gathering strength to launch his ultimate attack. Water was appearing out of nowhere, joining a large ball floating above the beast's head, continually expanding.

Dracula clicked his tongue.

"Oh oh."

Dawn Will Be Under My Control, Part 2: FIN