“Come to me,” says the orphan, alone and afraid. “Hear my call,” he whispers, desperate for connection. For any sign of hope.
The darkness listens.
It speaks.
It purrs to him in a low, lulling tone. Hypnotic. It promises him attention, companionship, even love.
When? He asks.
Soon, it whispers back. When you are ready.
—
{years later}
“So sorry I’m late,” Stephen Strange says, out of breath, as he makes his way into the offices of Mr. Mordo and his associates. He’s fifteen minutes behind schedule.
“No trouble at all, I was still drawing up the paperwork,” Mordo assures him. “Sit, please,” he says, taking a seat at his desk and gesturing for Stephen to take the chair across from him.
Stephen does, propping his crutch against the desk and smoothing a hand self-consciously over his hair.
“Now, I must warn you, this client is a bit of an unusual one,” Mordo says, glancing up at Stephen over his round spectacles.
“Unusual how, sir?” Stephen asks.
“Well, he’s not in particularly good health, for starters. He’s also a bit of a recluse. He owns half of the company, and some years ago he retired to his ancestral home in the mountains,” Mordo says. “So you’ll have to travel to him and meet with him there, then accompany him back here once the contract is signed.”
Stephen’s brow furrows. Traveling hadn’t been mentioned as part of the deal when he initially agreed to it, but he has spent every penny he had to pay for his medical studies and now he has to get the money to set up a practice, so he’ll do it.
“No trouble at all, sir,” he says, putting on a smile. “I enjoy traveling, when I can.”
“Excellent!” Mordo says, smiling back. He folds up the paperwork neatly, seals it with wax, and hands it to Stephen. “There you are. Go home and pack your things, and leave at first light tomorrow.”
Stephen tucks the paperwork carefully into the breast pocket of his coat and stands, fitting his crutch under his arm and holding one hand out to Mordo.
The next morning, bright and early, Stephen loads up his horse and rides swiftly out of town, heading for the mountains.
He can’t quite shake the eerie feeling that he’s being watched.
—
The journey takes longer than Stephen was expecting, and as the sun begins to set, he realices he’ll have to find somewhere to stay for the night. It’s too cold out to camp, and even if Stephen wanted to ride through the night, his horse is too tired.
So he stops in a small village at the base of the mountains, leading his horse towards what looks like an inn as curious townspeople stare at him, pointing and whispering.
He does his best to resolutely ignore them, and gives his horse to a stableboy to tend to. He ducks into the inn, which is dark and smoky, packed full of people, with a fire roaring in the hearth in the corner.
A slender young woman with blonde hair and a dour expression stands behind the bar. She looks up from the drink she’s just poured as he approaches.
“I need a room for the night,” Stephen tells her, putting coins down on the bar counter. “I’m looking for the home of Count Kaecilius Mikkelsen, do you know-”
She interrupts him by spitting, and crossing herself.
“Do not say that name here,” she says tersely, scowling at him. “Take a room upstairs and leave as soon as the sun rises.”
“Fine, I will,” Stephen says, a bit bewildered. What had he done to deserve such curt treatment? Never mind. He makes his way up the stairs, and settles into his room for the night, the stump of his left leg aching from the cold weather and the long day’s ride.
Sleep doesn’t come quickly for him, and when it arrives at last, he has the most hauntingly vivid dream.
In it, he sees the same townspeople he passed earlier, all of them storming into the forest with torches and weapons. They come upon a small graveyard, and as he watches, transfixed, they disinter a coffin, throw it open, and stab the corpse inside.
It sits up with a howl of rage, and erupts in a great tide of dark, viscous blood.
Stephen sits up in bed with a gasp, his heart hammering.
It’s just past dawn, and it’s past time he left. He gathers his things, feeling that odd, creeping something again. He can’t quite put a name to it; it unnerves him so it’s hard for him to think of much else.
The inn, when he comes downstairs, is completely deserted.
The fireplace is cold, the cups on the tables are empty, and there are no signs of life anywhere.
When he steps outside, the village itself is desolate, too. Even his horse is gone. Vanished.
Cursing, Stephen walks out of the village and begins the long, slow trek up the mountain road, questioning all the decisions that have led him here as he goes.
He walks for the better part of a day, the forest growing closer and darker around him, the road narrowing. He’s exhausted enough that he thinks he might be hallucinating when he sees a carriage thundering towards him, drawn by four stately black horses.
It comes to a smooth stop sideways in front of him, directly blocking his path. The door opens, and Stephen only hesitates for a moment before climbing inside.
The carriage is empty aside from him, and he can’t see a driver, but surely the captain sent it for him. A welcome show of hospitality from his reclusive host.
Stephen leans back against the satiny interior of the carriage and sighs, hoping the ride won’t be too long. He’s already been through enough.
It’s fully dark by the time the carriage comes to a stop outside what can only be described as a castle. It’s decrepit, all cobwebs and crumbling bricks, but it’s clear it was an impressive place at one time.
Slowly, Stephen approaches the large front door. It swings open when he pushes it, and he follows the distant, flickering light of a fire to the main hall of the place.
The hall itself is a long, cavernous room, with a fire blazing at one end. A large table with easily a dozen chairs around it takes up most of the space. Sitting in the chair at the near end of the table, his back to Stephen, is a man – the man he’s there to see, he assumes.
“Count Mikkelsen?” he asks from the doorway. “I apologize for being so late, I…it’s a long story. I won’t bother you with the details. Thank you for sending the carriage.”
In response, Kaecilius raises one hand and beckons Stephen closer without so much as turning to look at him. His hands are old and weathered, almost skeletal, with long pointed nails like claws. As Stephen hesitantly steps closer, he can see that Kaecilius is dressed in a moldering blue frock coat, the likes of which were stylish a hundred years ago.
At last, his host turns to regard Stephen. His appearance is- haunting. Haunted. He’s pale and drawn, with brown eyes and gaunt, sunken features. He looks like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in years.
He takes a deep breath, his chest rattling audibly as he does. “Sit down, Mr. Strange. Please. You must be cold.”
His accent is clipped, as aristocratic and outdated as his clothing. He’s like a relic from another time, Stephen thinks as he pulls out a chair and sits down by Kaecilius.
“I am glad to see you’ve made it here in one piece,” Kaecilius says, and there’s something eerily familiar about his voice, but Stephen hasn’t the faintest idea what or why. “The mountain roads can be treacherous.”
“Oh, it was no bother,” Stephen says, hoping he sounds more at ease than he feels. “I’m glad to be here. Now, as for the paperwork I’ve brought you-”
“Not yet,” Kaecilius interrupts with a wave of his hand, dismissive. He gestures towards the outlandish spread of food on the table – how had Stephen missed it initially? – and looks pointedly at him. “Eat, first.”
“But sir, I really-”
“Sir,” he snarls, his upper lip curling, his eyes narrowing. He inhales deeply again, wheezing, rattling. He curls one gnarled hand into a fist, making direct and almost intoxicating eye contact with Stephen. “You will address me by my proper title. I am owed that respect.”
“Yes, s- Count. My apologies,” Stephen says, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Meekly, he serves himself some food and eats, keenly aware that Kaecilius is watching him and not eating a thing himself.
Kaecilius pours him some dark red wine; Stephen drinks it. He can’t refuse his host’s hospitality, after all.
“Now, then,” Kaecilius says as Stephen polishes off the last of his food. “To business.”
“Right,” Stephen says, taking the paperwork from his coat pocket. “Mr. Mordo is very pleased with your interest in this property. I can vouch for it myself, in fact – I live a stone’s throw away,” he says with a half-smile.
“We will be neighbors,” Kaecilius rumbles, and smiles back. Is it just Stephen’s imagination, or are his teeth remarkably sharp? Kaecilius takes the paperwork from Stephen in his long fingers and peruses it, reading over the contract. “It is agreeable,” he says at last, picking up his quill pen and signing the final page with a flourish.
“Wonderful,” Stephen says, taking the paperwork back. He folds it up again neatly, and tucks it into his coat pocket. “Tomorrow morning, then, we can travel to your new home.”
“I only travel at night,” Kaecilius wheezes, blinking slowly at Stephen. He retrieves a parcel of paperwork from within a pocket of his own coat, unfolds it, and pushes it towards Stephen. “Sign this. Please.”
“I, ah- what is it?” Stephen asks, reaching out to pick up the papers. The handwriting is spidery, and the language doesn’t look like English or Latin, whatever it is, Stephen can’t read it.
“Simply a contract of temporary employment. You will escort me to my new property, and in so doing, work for me.”
“Just…temporarily?” Stephen asks, looking questioningly between the papers and Kaecilius.
“Yes,” Kaecilius breathes, the exhale making his chest rattle again. “I do not ask much of you, Mr. Strange. Only your time.”
Stephen signs it, feeling an odd, creeping sense of dread even as he does.
“Very good,” Kaecilius sighs once Stephen has passed the signed contract back to him. He gestures towards the fire, which should’ve burned down by now but is instead an impressive blaze. “Get closer. You must be cold.”
Stephen means to say something about how he’s feeling rather warm, actually. Lightheaded, even, all of a sudden.
But something comes over him. He finds himself doing exactly as Kaecilius bids him, moving to sit closer to the roaring fire.
Kaecilius moves with him, much faster than Stephen would’ve thought him capable.
The world goes abruptly black.
When Stephen comes to, he’s lying on his back on the cold stone floor of the main hall. He’s at once freezing and hot all over, as though he’s been beset by fever.
He sits up slowly. Then he feels a sharp pain in his chest and, grimacing, pulls his shirt away for an inspection.
There are twin wounds in his skin, half-healed and slowly weeping blood, right over his heart. It looks like he’s been bitten by- something large.
He looks around wildly, but he’s alone in the hall. His crutch is leaning on the table nearby. He reaches out for it and gets up, speedily leaving the hall and retreating to a bedroom that has been set up for him – how he finds it, he’s not sure.
He falls asleep at once, and hears a voice whispering to him, calling out across the vast void of his dreams.
You are mine.
—
When he wakes, he feels stiff and achy all over, still plagued by whatever malady struck him the previous night.
The wounds on his chest are gone, though. He chalks them up to a fever dream.
When he leaves his room, he’s surprised to find it’s nearly dark already. Has he slept away an entire day?
Just after dusk, he finds Captain Kaecilius in the main hall again, with a fire burning in the hearth and another sumptuous feast laid out in front of him. It’s untouched.
“Good evening,” Kaecilius wheezes when Stephen comes into the dim room, looking up. His eyes, half-blind as they are, seem to have a new, odd sheen to them.
“Hello, Count,” Stephen says, clasping his hands behind his back so Kaecilius won’t notice his nervous fidgeting. “Are you nearly ready to travel?” he asks.
“You are unwell,” Kaecilius rumbles, staring unflinchingly at him. “It is a black omen to travel in poor health.”
“I’m fine,” Stephen lies. “I assure you.”
“Eat,” Kaecilius says, gesturing to the food on the table. Either he didn’t hear Stephen, or he doesn’t believe him.
Reluctantly, Stephen sits down at the table and reaches out to fill his plate.
The next thing he knows, he’s in bed, caught somewhere between awake and asleep. He’s dreaming of a dark ocean churning under him, and it’s so vivid he would swear he can feel the rocking of the waves, smell the brine in the air.
When he opens his eyes, Kaecilius’s face is mere inches away from his.
The world goes dark again before he can scream.
—
When he returns to himself, it’s not quite dark yet. Wracked with pain and that strange, terrible fever, he staggers out of bed and begins roaming the corridors looking for his host.
He doesn’t understand what’s happening, but something tells him that he must find Kaecilius.
Most of the doors he tries are locked. At last, in a tucked away corner of the hulking castle, he finds a pair of heavy wooden double doors that open when he pushes hard on them.
It’s the same stone as the rest of the place, barren and cold, empty but for a long, narrow wooden box in the center of the room. The box is dark wood, ornately carved, and a very particular shape.
A coffin.
Something he doesn’t understand compels Stephen to approach it, to push the lid off. It takes all the strength he has, weak and sick as he is.
He knows almost without looking that Kaecilius is inside. With a roar of indignation, the creature rears up out of the coffin and throws itself at Stephen. Kaecilius – for he is the creature, and the creature is him – is unclothed, and his nakedness betrays the extent of his deterioration: he’s rotting, falling apart.
Stephen just barely manages to slip his grasp, and he flees into the castle. He can hear Kaecilius close behind him, moving faster than he should be able. Terrified, Stephen runs and runs until at last he finds a door he can push open.
He stumbles blindly out into the darkness and the swirling snow, and doesn’t even see the precipice until he’s falling over it, tumbling down into the icy black waters below.
As he falls, he remembers the dream he had at the inn, about the townspeople stabbing a corpse.
The corpse, he realices with a jolt, was Kaecilius.
—
When next he wakes, he thinks at first that he’s looking into the face of an angel: deep brown skin, long-lashed dark eyes, a wrinkle of concern on her otherwise flawless brow.
He blinks a few times, and his eyes adjust to the candlelight. She’s a nun, not an angel.
“Where am I?” he whispers, his voice hoarse, sounding exhausted even to his own ears.
“Shh, rest. You’re very ill,” says the radiant woman.
He closes his eyes, and has interminable nightmares of a rotting creature following him, stalking and skulking. Hunting him.
He feels a little better when he wakes again a day or so later. The nun – Christine – explains to him that her order found him washed up on the bank of the nearby river. It was a miracle, she says, that he was even alive.
At that, he lets out a bitter laugh.
He wants nothing more than to flee, go home, put this place and this horror behind him. Christine and her sisters insist that he stay another few days to recover, and as he does, she tells him more about Kaecilius.
He is an undead thing, although he was a man once. He is a monster, she says, whose very existence defies natural law. By signing his contract, Stephen may very well have promised him his soul.
It’s all he can think about as he rides towards home on a horse generously given to him by the order. The snow falls steadily around him, and he startles at every snapping twig, every rustle of a small animal in the brush.
A wild hare darts out in front of his horse and he sees himself in its wide, panicked eyes.
—
Once home, he finds himself still plagued by a fever that just won’t break, and maddening, terrifying dreams, the likes of which he hasn’t had since childhood.
He tries to push on and ignore his symptoms, but rather quickly they become too much for even someone like him to endure.
He calls around to his doctor, Wong, and tells him as much as he can bear for him to know.
“I see,” Dr. Wong says as they sit in Stephen’s parlor, frowning at Stephen over his half-moon spectacles. “This particular case, I’m afraid, may be somewhat beyond me. I’ll need to call in an expert on such matters.”
“Who could possibly be an expert in things like this? In- creatures like him?” Stephen asks, wary.
He gets his answer when he and Wong travel the next evening to the home of a tall, elegant hairless woman with keen eyes. Her sitting room is cluttered and close, books piled on every surface, candles burning low and more than one cat wandering aimlessly amidst the chaos.
“This Count Mikkelsen…I believe what you’re describing is a strigoi. A vampire. Call him what you like, but at his core he is a monster who feeds off the blood and life force of people such as yourself,” Ms. Ancient One says, after looking in Stephen’s eyes, taking his temperature, and interrogating him about everything he saw in Kaecilius’s castle, down to the last detail. “And now, he has you in his thrall,” she pronounces with finality. “Mr. Strange, were you a lonely child? Sensitive, perhaps?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She just blinks at him, idly petting an orange cat that’s settled on her lap.
“I…suppose,” Stephen finally responds, haltingly.
“That is why he chose you,” she says. She leans closer to him, her eyes glittering. “Your dreams you told me of? My dear boy, he’s known you since you came of age. He’s had his eye on you for a long, long time.”
“What do I do?” Stephen asks, feeling terror creep over him, chilling him like a draft. He remembers calling out to the darkness, desperately alone. He can still hear that purring, almost sultry voice in his head, clear as day. “Why me?”
“You drew him to you, whether you intended to or not. Ah, in antiquity you would’ve been an oracle of Apollo, like Tiresias. One of the lucky, chosen few who are graced with an understanding most of us may only dream of. You possess such power – a pity it’s wasted on this grubby little century,” she says, and smiles sadly. “As it is, I will speak plainly: when he comes for you – and he will, soon, I’m sure you’ve felt it – you must occupy him until daylight. Keep him distracted, near a window that receives the light of dawn. The sun will kill him, and this world will be rid of him forever, at last.”
“That’s it? Just- keep him occupied all night and let the sun kill him?” Stephen asks.
“Yes. But be careful,” she says, leveling a serious look at him. “He means to possess you, Mr. Strange. He will do everything he can to seem attractive to you, to make you docile for him, like a rat hypnotized by the gaze of a snake. He has chosen you, and he will have you – blood, body, and soul.”
—
Blood. Body. Soul.
Her words echo in Stephen’s head the next evening, and as a long, unnatural shadow begins to creep across the wall of Stephen’s room, he knows in his bones what is happening.
He sits up in his bed, hands clutching the covers at his waist.
“You’re here,” he says to the darkness, and with a rush of cold air, Kaecilius appears to him, standing silhouetted in moonlight. He’s still wearing that threadbare frock coat, although he’s thrown a decrepit fur over it, as though to protect his decaying flesh from the icy weather.
“Yes,” Kaecilius wheezes. “I have come for you, Stephen. You asked for me, you signed my contract. You are mine,” he says bluntly, walking slowly towards Stephen.
“No,” Stephen protests weakly, shaking his head even as Kaecilius draws nearer.
“You called to me when you were alone,” Kaecilius whispers, and draws in a rattling breath. “You summoned me, my boy.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Stephen protests, slipping out of bed and standing to face Kaecilius, holding his hands up in supplication. He ought to feel repulsed, frightened, but he- doesn’t, not really. Strange.
“You are mine,” Kaecilius says again, reaching out with one ancient hand to stroke Stephen’s cheek. His skin feels clammy and cool.
Stephen shudders. “What do you want of me?” he asks, feeling a thrill of fear and something else race up his spine. He feels like there’s something he should be remembering just now, something Ms. Ancient One said, but for the life of him he can’t recall it.
”I am an appetite,” Kaecilius rumbles, his voice that same purr that Stephen has heard in his dreams. “Nothing more.” Slowly, he bends his head towards Stephen’s neck, and there’s the barest scrape of his teeth on Stephen’s skin. Kaecilius inhales like an animal catching a scent, and moans, pleased.
“You cannot love,” Stephen whispers, closing his eyes, heart hammering in his chest. He’s scared, yes, but aroused, too, as little sense as that makes. A part of him is quivering at being wanted so openly.
“I cannot,” Kaecilius agrees, his lips moving against Stephen’s skin. “But I cannot be sated without you.”
Kaecilius’s fangs sink into his neck at last and as he drinks, he pushes Stephen roughly down to the bed, and goes with him.
Stephen finds himself clutching at Kaecilius’s hair, his back, his shoulders. He would’ve expected being fed on to be a horrifying sensation – but instead, it’s blissful. Erotic. He doesn’t remember it feeling like this before, in Kaecilius’s castle.
Kaecilius shreds the nightclothes Stephen is wearing easily, tearing them off with his claw-like fingernails. Stephen can hear a sound like a breathless panting moan, and it takes him a moment to realice it’s coming from him.
The metallic tang of his blood is heavy in the air as Kaecilius, naked now too, settles on top of him, lying between his spread thighs. At last Kaecilius pulls away from Stephen’s neck, and Stephen gets a good look at his face.
The blood has invigorated him, given a nearly human flush to his skin, although there is no denying his monstrosity. He must’ve been handsome as a living man, Stephen thinks woozily. His eyes, though clouded, are bright brown, and his hair is shining ash blonde in the cold light of the moon.
He pushes inside Stephen with little preparation and no regard for his physical comfort and god, it hurts, but it feels so good, too.
As he moves, Kaecilius bends his head to drink from Stephen again, this time from his chest – over his heart. He suckles there and Stephen groans, petting Kaecilius’s hair, cradling the back of his head in both hands.
“Yes, good, do it,” he gasps, wild with desire, his voice foreign to his own ears.
Kaecilius spends himself within Stephen shortly thereafter, but he doesn’t stop – if anything, he redoubles his efforts. It’s as though he possesses a kind of superhuman stamina.
He brings Stephen off then, and thereafter again and again, touching him, fucking him, milking him of everything he has to give.
Stephen fades in and out of consciousness, finding himself on top of Kaecilius and then underneath him, Kaecilius’s fangs in his thigh, his belly, his lip. Blood pools in Stephen’s mouth as he comes for what may be the fifth or eighth or tenth time.
He’s left sobbing with delirious pleasure, orgasmic shudders wracking his body even when he has nothing left to spend.
“I can’t,” he says, as Kaecilius slides into him yet again, his fist closing around Stephen’s aching cock, still hard somehow.
“You must.”
Awash in feral pleasure, covered in bite marks with his own blood tacky on his skin, Stephen loses all sense of time. He knows only his body and Kaecilius’s, and the searing, sacred places where they’re joined.
The sun could rise, the world itself could end, and he would know nothing but Kaecilius.
—
The next morning, Dr. Wong slowly pushes open the door to Stephen Strange’s bedroom, dreading what he and Ms. Ancient One will find there.
“Be careful,” she warns from directly behind him. “We must be sure the creature is dead before we tend to Mr. Strange, if he yet lives.”
Gates takes in the scene: bloodied sheets, torn clothing, a side table knocked over, its contents scattered across the floor.
The bed is empty, though, and the window is wide open, gauzy curtains fluttering in the fresh morning breeze that’s doing little to help the overwhelming scent of blood in the room.
The sunlight is streaming in, but there’s no desiccated corpse, no pile of ash. No Stephen Strange, either.
“They’re gone,” Gates says, looking questioningly at Ms. Barlow. “Does that mean…?”
“No,” she says with a little shake of her head and a grim smile. “No, Doctor, I don’t think Mr. Strange has killed Count Mikkelsen,” she says, pacing around the room, bending to examine the ruined sheets.
“What, then?” Gates asks her, looking again at the open window, unsettled.
“If we’re lucky, he has unmade him,” she says, straightening and turning to look out the window herself. “If not…” She shakes her head, apparently unwilling to finish the thought.
“Is he- with him, do you think? Wherever he is.”
“Oh yes,” she says, nodding. “Kaecilius can’t be without him now. If either lives, they live together.”
Dr. Wong never sees Stephen Strange again.
He hears rumors, however, of a pair of strange creatures who live together in a falling-down castle in the forest.
Just stories, he’s sure. Old wives’ tales meant to keep foolish travelers from venturing into dangerous territory alone.