I was a little smokey on the shoulders, but I made it before the sun was fully ablaze. After dropping Abraham in his bed chamber and making sure he had a concubine to tend to his needs, I stormed in a rage through the castle. I had a bone to pick with someone.

"VLAD!" I roared.

"VLADIMIR DRACULESTI, YOU GET YOURSELF OUT HERE RIGHT NOW. OH, I'M SO MAD WITH YOU RIGHT NOW!"

I felt a gentle breeze on the back of my neck and a deeply masculine voice beside my ear.

"You called. Cousin?"

If I was alive, a chill would have run down my spine, but I'm not. Instead, a warm shudder ran down my cold back and I couldn't help but jump.

"Aagh! Oh, for devil's sake, don't do that Vlad, you know I hate it"

Vladimir's booming laugh echoed around the vast dining room "That, my dear Reginald, is what makes it all the more fun"

I wasn't in the mood for humor, I was much too angry with him.

"What have you been saying to Abraham. He's very upset with you, with both of us. Explain yourself"

I watched as defiance etched itself across Vladimir's pale face and his fangs extended down over his lower lip. They were impressive fangs and very long. I've heard it said that size isn't everything, but Vlad's fangs were something to behold. Luckily for me, they also say, it's not the size that matters, but what you do with them!

Anyway, I digress. Vlad was stubborn to a fault, but soon as his own anger set in, he soon let me know how he felt.

"I told him what he needed to know. I gave him the answer he has been searching for. I told him he was adopted"

I saw a flicker of regret, even shame in Vlad's eyes, enough to soften my anger towards him, just a little.

"Why Vlad, why would you do such a thing to poor Abe?"

"He knew something already or at least suspected it. Often I would see him staring up at our family portraits. He knew he didn't have the classic Draculesti good looks or physique. He would spend hours in the library studying all the old scrolls about our exploits and our ancestors. He found out that Draculesti children were only human up until the age of ten, at which age we are gradually weened with the Dracul strain. And once we reached the age of twenty, when we are at our full physical prowess, we would stop aging and remain the perfect physical specimens we are now. He is now sixteen and we have not given him the slightest taste of our Dracul blood. He saw and read all this whilst you turned a blind eye"

My anger at Vlad was growing again "Still, it wasn't your place to tell him anything"

Vlad looked down at his feet and with a calmer voice, said "Yes, you are right, I shouldn't have. But the night he ran away I found him here in the great hall. He held an open book in his hands and was studying a drawing within. A drawing of the book's author. I watched him looked from the picture to his own reflection in the mirror over there. He was putting two and two together and soon he would have come up with the answer, four"

Vlad walked over to the book shelves, retrieved a single leather bound book and tossed it to me. The book I now held was the autobiography of our sworn enemy, Doctor Abraham Van Helsing. My heart almost started to beat, it ached so much.

Vladimir sighed "So yes, I stepped in and made sure he understood the truth from someone who was there the day you adopted him, Reginald"

Vladimir's words were painful to hear, but now I understood why Vlad did what he did and that at the end of the night, it was all my own fault. I should have dealt with this year's ago. I knew from the day I saved Abe that he would never taste the Draculesti blood, never receive the Dracul strain. I had decided I would raise him as human and when the time was right, I would send him back to the human world, back to his own kind. It seems I miss judged when that time would be. I let Abraham down and that will always be my shame.

"Did you tell him what happened to his biological father, Vlad. Did you tell him that Doctor Van Helsing died at......"

Vladimir cut me off, placed a hand on my shoulder and said "I told him what he needed to know the truth. I told him that I awoke in my coffin chamber one afternoon to find Helsing standing over me. With a stake in one hand pointing at my heart and a hammer in his other hand, he was ready to strike"

Vlad shook his head sadly. I myself, if I could, would have cried. I let him continue,

"I told him that with my inhuman speed, I broke his father's neck, emptied his veins and threw him off the tallest battlements of the castle. And that I did all this as Helsings five-year-old child sat on the stone floor playing at our feet. I mean, who in their right mind takes a five-year old on a monster hunt. Van Helsing was taking the, Bring your kid to work scheme, a little too far!"

All the anger I felt for Vladimir, disappeared, quickly to be replaced with exhaustion and deep sadness. I nodded and said,

"I guess that being a full-time Vampire Hunter and on the road a lot was hard. It must have been difficult to find good child care. Especially after his wife's death during child birth"

I slammed the leather bound book down on the dining table and tiredly sat on a gold gilt chair. I looked up at Vlad.

"And me, what did you tell him about me," I asked forlornly.

"You, my dear cousin, I told him that you found me with Van Helsing's lifeless body in my grip and that if it hadn't been for you, he would have joined his father at the foot of the castle too. I also told him that I wiped his memory of everything that happened to him before he turned five years old. When I finished my tale, Abe screamed at me, told me he hated me. He wished I was alive so he could kill me"

I stood, embraced Vladimir and thanked him sincerely. How could I have been so mad at him and not at myself?

"Oh my dear Vladimir, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my desiccated heart. I can't imagine what Abe would say or do if he knew it was me who killed Van Helsing"

Before I even finished saying the word, Helsing, I heard a roar of anger, a scream of anguish and a moan of despair. I had been so distracted with Vladimir, I hadn't sensed Abe, having awoken from his slumber earlier than expected, walk into the hall.

I went rigid and whispered out the corner of my mouth "Do you think he heard me?"

Vladimir, not one to hide behind a whisper, replied loudly "He heard everything"

"Oh, bat guano!" I slapped my forehead.

Abe screamed at us from the far side of the hall.

"You killed my true father. You killed him in front of me, a child. Why didn't you just kill me too? It would have saved you all the effort of raising a weak human. But no, instead, you kidnap me, wipe my brain and raise me in a house of cards. Did you kill my mother too? Did you?"

I worked my mouth, but nothing came out. I found that there was nothing I could say that would appease him. Vladimir just stood there and remained silent for once. I reached a hand towards Abe as he turned to flee.

"Please son, come, let me explain!" Even to me, my words sounded as hollow as my husk of a heart.

Abe shot me the most terrible of looks "I hate you, both of you. One day I will return and when I do, I will end you and the family of Draculesti. You will both be deader than dead at my hands, I swear it!"

With that Abraham ran from the hall. I stood there rooted to the ground, shocked ridged at what had just happened. Once I regained my composure, with my inhuman power of speed, I went after him. Vladimir's power of speed was much greater than mine. He grabbed hold of my arm before I had moved more than a hairs width and said calmly,

"Reginald, leave him be. Allow him to leave. Give him time to think and work through all he has learned. Once he remembers you love him, he will return to you, I'm sure. If you chase after him, he will only run all the faster from you"

I knew that Vladimir was right of course, but my heart ached at the loss. Unbeknownst to me at that time, I would not see Abe again, not for fifty years.