Chapter 29
TOBIAS
Tobias ran blindly through Rothburn. His mind swam with lightheaded fatigue, his body aching with the lack of blood.
In that moment, as he fled the destruction his lies had made, he felt more monster than human.
If anyone saw him, they would know the truth.
Between Tobias’ elongated teeth, gore-smattered neck, and crimson-hued eyes, he fit in at Rothburn more than he had before.
The only difference now was he navigated the corridors and stairways with the stake in hand.
His disorientation was thicker than common sense.
Alexander had seen into his mind and pieced together a puzzle of an image with little context. There hadn’t been time to tell him everything. Not about Maria’s proposal or just how deep Tobias’ change of heart went. Instead, he was sent away.
And it all came back to Vladimir. This was his fault.
Tobias reached the hallway beyond Alexander’s rooms and stopped.
He’d passed the portraits on the walls already but seeing them in this state was different.
Nailed to the wall in a neat line were paintings of Vladimir Damianos in different eras.
The monster who had destroyed Tobias’ life.
The demon who drank from his own son. The thorns separating two roses.
The stake ached in his iron grip. He hadn’t remembered retrieving it, further proving how far gone his ability to think clearly had become.
As the adrenaline wore off, it was replaced with a deep exhaustion.
How much blood had Alexander taken? Tobias felt empty, as though he was running on fumes.
But he couldn’t harbour the least bit of hate for Alexander.
He had lost himself to bloodlust because of Vladimir.
Everything bad to ever happen to Tobias was because of the man glaring down at him.
Perhaps he should’ve turned his back on the portraits, walked into Alexander’s rooms, and waited for him like he’d promised, so that he could explain.
Even better, he should’ve escaped from Rothburn.
But there were many things in Tobias’ long, tortured life he should’ve done differently. Hindsight, after all, was both a blessing and a curse.
Tobias’ entire focus was on the portrait. There was a brief moment of contemplation, before he truly lost himself.
He attacked it with the stake, feral screams tearing out of his throat, followed by the burning of tears cutting paths down his cheeks.
He swung and stabbed, ripping the canvas in strips, which fell around him.
The gilded frame shattered, the glass littering the floor like snow.
Tobias didn’t stop, not even when the first portrait was nothing but a pile of ruins at his feet.
Shards of glass had torn at his knuckles, splinters of wood had embedded into his flesh, but on Tobias fought against the face of the man who had ruined him.
He unleashed every ounce of emotion, all the torment and hate and fury, until he felt his mind detach from his body.
By the third portrait, Tobias fell to the ground, utterly drained.
Kneeling amongst the ruins of his outburst, he sagged to the floor, crying deep from the pit of his belly.
Soft, careful footprints sounded at his back.
Tobias didn’t turn, because he recognised the gait.
He closed his eyes, hung his head, and expelled a breath so tense it made his lungs ache.
“You can hate me. You can find me repulsive. But Alexander, I’ve lived hundreds of years working towards something I believed gave me purpose.
I thought that getting revenge on your father for turning me would heal me, but now I’ve realised how wrong I was.
What we have is worth more than any vengeance.
I will live hundreds more just to prove myself to you. ”
Alexander didn’t respond. Instead, he continued to walk towards Tobias, boots crunching over glass.
Tobias refused to open his eyes, to see the reaction in Alexander’s face.
He refused to accept anything but love, even if that was the farthest thing from what he deserved.
When a hand rested upon his shoulder, Tobias almost screamed in relief at the physical touch. At the acceptance.
Until the vampire spoke. “What a mess you’ve made, Tobias.”
Tobias’ eyes flew wide. He tried to turn around, but he was weak beneath the grip of the vampire behind him. Instead, he looked up to the shattered remains of glass in the frame and saw the reflection of Vladimir Damianos staring back at him.
“You asked me if I remembered you,” Vladimir said, his vile mouth terribly close to Tobias’ ear. “Even now, knowing who you are, knowing what you came to Rothburn to achieve, the answer still stands. No, I don’t remember you. Because you were as unimportant then as you are now.”
Tobias tried to swing the stake around, desperately longing to get the monster off him.
Even though he didn’t have a clear shot at Vladimir’s chest, he still tried to cause damage.
But Vladimir had recently fed from Alexander, and Tobias himself was drained.
He moved with speed unnatural even to a vampire, snatching the stake from Tobias’ grasp and then driving it into Tobias’ body.
The tip pierced the soft part of his skin where his neck met his shoulder, driving in brutally deep.
The pain came swiftly, a deep, burning agony.
“I thought I could goad my son into learning a lesson for himself for once,” Vladimir said as darkness crept over Tobias’ vision. “I thought he’d get rid of you. That was my first mistake, one I shall not make again.”
Tobias sank his nails into Vladimir’s hand, drawing blood and peeling off flesh.
It reminded Tobias that the man was not indestructible.
It gave him hope. But that soon was squandered as the stake was pushed deeper inside of him.
He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but the darkness was overwhelming him.
Tobias gave in. But even as consciousness slipped away from him, his mind was imprinted with one final image. Vladimir’s name etched into the stake. Except it was Tobias’ blood that ran into the carved words instead.
Echoing silence encased Tobias, except for a constant drip, drip, drip sounding close to him.
It wasn’t that the sound was loud, but its endlessness woke him.
Next came the agony. It was in his arms, the sockets of his shoulders.
He tried to wiggle his fingers, but to no avail.
Tobias mustered what little strength he had left to open his eyes.
As his vision steadied, it revealed a dark room.
The only light that was offered was from the burning sconces hanging from the dark stone walls.
He could only move his neck as much as the agony allowed.
Although Tobias longed to reach for the wound, to feel the open hole the stake had left, he couldn’t.
His hands were cuffed with metal, wrists bound together, then looped over a hook from the ceiling where he dangled like a fresh side of beef.
A cool breeze worked over his bare chest. Tobias tried not to give in to panic, tried to take in the details around him, but that was close to impossible.
He discovered, as he craned his eyes down, that the sound of water was actually blood dripping onto the floor beneath him.
The skin across his stomach had been flayed open.
It took a moment to realise that the messy slicing of lines was actually a word, upside down to him so that it would be obvious to anyone viewing it.
Forgotten.
Tobias read it over and over, wishing to scrub the word from his body but being unable to do anything but hang there and read it.
“Alex… xander.” Tobias’ attempted shout was closer to a hoarse whisper. The word seemed to get stuck in his dry throat. No matter how he tried to force it out, even he could barely understand it.
“Oh, please try to scream,” came a voice from the shadows. “It will make this all the more enjoyable for me. I do hate when my victims are quiet.”
There was the sound of more shuffling as figures stepped from the dark edges of the room into the golden glow of the fires. Vampires, some still wearing their masks from the ball, others bare faced. But what Tobias could tell was they each shared the same feral hunger in their eyes.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve made full use of this chamber,” Vladimir said, pacing before Tobias.
His sleeves had been rolled up, but his arms were covered in so much blood that it looked like he was wearing gloves.
The stake he’d taken from Tobias was still in his hand, the wood stained a russet brown.
“Last time we did this, the vampire screamed so much that we swore her voice could be heard echoing here for years to come. But not you. You see, even she, a minor Damianos, was more important than you. After we’re done here, not even the walls will remember you were here.”
Forgotten. By time, by history, by Alexander.
Tobias did the only thing he could, gathering blood-flecked phlegm in his mouth and spitting it at Vladimir’s feet. “Fuck… you.”
“Nasty little mouth,” Vladimir said, smiling as the crowd laughed in tandem with him. “Alexander must have enjoyed you, since you’re very nearly drained… so it is only fitting I would. Like father, like son, am I right?”
Tobias pulled against the iron chains as much as they allowed, but it was impossible given that his feet were dangling above the floor. He was sure he looked pathetic, leaning forward, longing to tear into Vladimir with his teeth. “You are… no father.”
Vladimir’s mouth contorted in disgust. “It’s poetic, almost, to know that you should’ve died all those years ago. But like a cockroach, you persisted. I’m only relieved that I get to eradicate you as I should have done a long time ago, after all the trouble you’ve caused me.”