The music came to an end and Reggie could not help laughing as Dracula swung her to a stop. She had never danced with a partner like him before. It was exhilarating. It made it easy to see how Dracula seduced his victims.

Dracula smiled at her as she recovered herself. If she hadn't known the monster she was with, she might have liked him.

"You dance beautifully," he complimented her.

"You dance beautifully," she replied with a laugh, "I flail along where you lead and try and keep up."

When he had suggested they dance, Reggie hadn't been sure how to refuse. She had felt awkward, underdressed and incompetent, but Dracula was a considerate partner and had soon had her twirling.

"You do not give yourself enough credit," he replied and kissed her on the hand.

She felt bad for leaving Magda just sitting on the other side of the room, but she had Dracula right where she wanted him. There had been no sign of the demon beneath the surface since its earlier appearance, but, as Dracula pulled back, Reggie saw his eyes blaze red for a moment. He paused, as if re-centring himself.

"My apologies," he said, "I find in this incarnation certain hungers are less forgiving than they once were. It is late and I must leave you for a little while."

He turned and stepped away.

"Would a willing lover help curb those hungers?" Reggie asked.

The last thing she wanted was for Dracula to leave.

He looked at her then, that penetrating stare which seemed to see into her soul, and he smiled a dangerous smile.

"Ah, Regina, this hunger must also have blood."

"I know what I am offering," she said.

"But do you?" Dracula said, stepping back up to her. "I am not as I once was, Beautiful Regina. Jonathan Harker and his friends saw to that. I would not subject you to the beast when it feeds."

He slipped his hand behind her head and leaned forward, his lips just brushing hers.

"It was free for too long and it hates being caged. I must relinquish control for a little while, or it will fight me. Sometimes I think it is only that it is my power which keeps our army asleep, that prevents it from trying to wrest back this shell for itself."

"Your power?" Reggie asked.

"The beast has infinite strength, but it lacks the abilities of a human mind," Dracula replied. "It is raw power, but I am control."

"So you will control your army?"

He nodded.

"I control them now," he replied, "they sleep at my will and, when the time comes, they shall walk to it as well."

Reggie's mind raced.

"And to wake them you merely have to release your hold?"

"Precisely," Dracula said. "I like to think of it as the prefect revenge. In the unlikely event I was to fall to mortal hands once more, my army would rise to destroy all in its wake."

She wanted to laugh hysterically. Here she was, ready to fulfil her life's work, only to find it would unleash devastation into the world anyway.

"How large is this army?" she asked.

"Big enough, but not as big as I wish it to become," was the succinct response.

"How long before you are ready?"

"Impatient already, My Dear Regina?" Dracula asked, that patronising look back in his eyes.

If it had not worked to her advantage she would have slapped it away.

"Humans are weak," she said, "but they have powerful weapons. Surely delays give them more time..."

He brushed his lips against hers again, effectively shutting her up.

"Not long," he told her, "but all must be prepared. And now, I must go. I will see you later, Regina."

All the possibilities flew through her head. Dracula was leaving and one thing screamed in her mind-if she let this chance go she might never have another. Right now she was new and interesting, but Dracula was an old vampire who had seen empires come and go, he was mercurial and unpredictable. Reggie doubted she would be interesting for long. If she let him leave, he might return later and simply decide to make her one of his army.

"My blood is sweeter than any human's," Reggie made her decision.

She could not kill him, but she had to do something.

"Take my warning, little girl," Dracula said, glaring at her now, "you do not understand what you are saying."

"I am not a little girl," she shot back, "and I think I do understand. I want to feel your power, all of it. I want what you offered Mina and more, and I offer what you will never find anywhere else. What would the beast give to taste what it has never tasted? What would it allow to feel the power you gave to Mina, grown and changed through generations of humanity?"

Those deep green eyes flashed red, darkening to black, shining at her, until Dracula blinked and the changes were gone.

"You play with fire," he said, his voice husky, on the edge of control.

"Of course I do," she replied, stepping up to him. "I am a daughter of Wilhelmina Murry, whose spirit you tried to free. I am no human sheep. I feel your power in my veins. The beast was once a separate thing, but it is now you, it has been you since it submitted to your will in that dark place all those centuries ago. You fight only yourself."

In the blink of an eye she found herself pinned against the wall. The move was so hard and so fast her skull cracked against the plaster and stars danced in front of her eyes. Dracula's power crackled invisibly in the air around her. It was thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.

But, she heard the snarl before she figured out how to react.

"No, Magda," she said sharply.

A whine of protest met the command, but she had more to worry about than a werewolf that wanted blood. She blinked, forcing her vision to normal. Dracula had abandoned his human mask, but the creature holding her effortlessly in place was not the demonic thing he had shown her earlier either. The eyes were black holes, the teeth long, the cheeks half sunken, but there was some semblance of the man in the monster still.

"Why do you challenge me?" he hissed, voice guttural, but reverberating with barely controlled power.

"Because to rule you must be one," she told him, forcing her vampire nature to the surface. "Because your power is glorious. Because I want to be your queen."

She spoke each of the last words slowly and surely and then, closing her eyes she turned her head to the side. All she had learned danced around in her head as she held to the tatters of her plan. Reggie knew what she had to do, and she could only pray it would work.

"Never before," she heard Dracula say and she knew it was the beast speaking.

There could so easily be death behind those words. She could not hide her fear, but she did not move.

"Brave, little girl."

That was all the human part of the monster.

When sharp, inhuman teeth slid into the flesh of her throat she gasped, stiffening in Dracula's hold. Pain sparkled down her nerves like tiny knife points, dancing along every fibre from her head to her feet. Vampire power flowed with it, old and enormous like a slow flood, trying to sweep everything before it away. Her own supernatural nature rose to meet it, but it was so new, so insignificant in comparison. The energies snaked around and through each other, hers like a golden thread in Dracula's blood red blanket, almost overcome in its deep folds.

Dracula drank from her greedily, taking everything she had.

"Please," she begged with a heartfelt sob.

It would have been so easy to die, to let go, to allow the power to become her. All she had to do was surrender and she would have been one with the monster, lost forever as one of Dracula's loyal minions.

When he drew back she sobbed again, sagging again his chest, all her strength gone.

"Well done, Regina," Dracula said, the rasp still in his voice, but the guttural growl gone. "Take what you want, if you can."

While one arm held her up, he used his other hand to rip open his expensive shirt. Reggie could barely keep her eyes open as the last of her energy slipped from her grasp, but she forced herself to watch. His fingers grew long and gnarled, neatly manicured nails becoming sharp, yellow talons. Then, with slow precision he dragged the index and middle fingers over his chest.

Two rents opened in his pale flesh, like knife cuts in foam rubber. Only a second later did thick, black blood ooze from one, then the other, deep and ponderous, just like the immense power she had already felt.

Dracula did not move to help her, remaining still as his blood trickled, barely keeping her standing anymore. Forcing her body to move was the hardest thing Reggie had ever tried to do. He had drained her almost dry, enough to kill a young vampire, enough to incapacitate one far older than her, and this was her final test.

It hurt.

She felt empty, like a husk that might shatter at any moment. Her joints seemed full of sand, her muscles like bags of dry dirt, but she refused to give up. Millimetre by millimetre she made her reluctant frame shift until, finally, she reached her goal. The blood was like thick oil as it slid over her lips and she licked to take it in. It tasted like heaven and hell, metal and sulphur, all mixed into one.

"Good girl," Dracula said and then he was supporting her again, cupping her head against his chest.

Now the blood flowed into her mouth, not just a trickle, but a flood, and the real power in her rose to meet it.