Whadayamean I have two?

"Two vampires cannot sire a single vampire. That is ridiculous. It is impossible," the pale skinned man insisted. Dressed all in fine whites and a white cape to boot, the man practically glowed in the dark.

"You question me on what is possible?" Axe spoke with a very convincing sneer on his lips. Jay grimaced. They were in an apparently abandoned part of town, but with the way things were going, Jay wondered if they'd get loud enough to call attention.

"Though I would not be so bold as to question you, I do have to admit that my pale friend here does have a point," the average looking man spoke meekly. This man dressed so that he would not stick out of a crowd. Jay thought that somewhat wiser than the pale man's approach.

"And why would you know anything of this? How could you possibly know who sired this sad little creature?" The pale man spoke again.

"You vampires don't know who it is that speaks to you," Axe's eyes glittered with something dangerous. "Let me show you..."

"Rasputin," Axe looked into the pale vampires eyes and the eyes widened.

"Gabriel," Axe looked at the meek man and he cowered away.

"How could you know that? How dare you look into my mind!" Rasputin stepped closer to Axe, incensed. One glare from the ancient dragon silenced the arrogant vampire.

"I know that one or both of you was involved in Jay's turning, I will have the truth," Axe growled. "The treaty has been broken by one of you."

"Treaty?" Rasputin laughed haughtily. "What treaty?"

"You don't know about the treaty?" Gabriel looked stunned. Rasputin affixed him with a withering glare.

"I know of the hunt. I know of the glorious taste of blood and the ecstasy of draining the life from another. I know of the power!" Rasputin roared into the night. "I know nothing of any treaty."

"The treaty with the dragon elders? Know you nothing?" Gabriel ran his hands through his shaggy hair in frustration.

"Oh, we should fear the dragons now? This fool of a dragon thinks I had something to do with this... Jay's creation!" Rasputin was going to use a much less kind word to name Jay, but a mere blink from Axe put a stop to that. Rasputin growled in frustration.

"Powerful he may be, but correct he is not," Rasputin insisted. "I had nothing to do with Jay's turning."

"Deny it all you like," Axe said coldly. "You cannot lie to me."

"Um... in all fairness, I look a lot more like Gabriel than I do like Rasputin," Jay pointed out helpfully. Axe smiled at the young vampire.

"You will find that looks can be very deceiving," the ancient dragon pointed out to the young vampire.

"That's all well and good, but then how could both of these guys be involved in my turning and me not remember either of them?" Jay scratched at his head peering at both vampires in turn.

"Because of something they are both trying so very hard not to think about," when Axe grinned at the guilty pair his teeth appeared far too sharp to be human. Even as vampires, the pair seemed unsettled at the sight of those teeth.

"The blood orgy," Gabriel admitted.

"The who what?" Jay demanded, sounding very shocked. Gabriel rolled his eyes.

"The only way that you could have been turned as you were without your knowledge or ours is if it happened at that disastrous blood orgy that Rasputin threw," Gabriel explained with a dark look at Rasputin. The pale vampired was unimpressed.

"That blood orgy, as you so indelicately describe it, was a masterpiece," Rasputin replied haughtily. "It was one of the first times vampires were able to congregate together without ill effects."

"How could that be possible?" Axe demanded. "All know vampires cannot stand to be in the presence of another vampire for any length of time. Look at the three of you!" Axe did have a point, since Jay, Rasputin, and Gabriel were all awash with nervous twitches and often took involuntary steps away from one another.

"It is possible for one simple reason," Rasputin sneered. "I threw a normal human party of excess first, inviting the young and inexperienced and placed access to all manner of enjoyments at their fingertips. The vampires were invited in later to sup upon the blood of those intoxicated youths."

"You fool," Axe growled at Rasputin, his teeth once again a frightening array of razor sharp fangs. Rasputin held his ground in the face of the old dragon's wrath.

"You have no right to tell me not to have such a party," the pale man's smug face did not twitch, even when Axe took a step forward.

"According to the treaty, he is right, even if he was totally unaware of the treaty," Gabriel pointed out.

"So in this... orgy, you got young men and women all manners of intoxicated, mesmerized them, and then drunk of them freely," Axe stated what was not directly said. "And, because of their state, you vampires were calmed enough to stand each other's company and take part in this horrible debauchery?"

"Indeed," Rasputin sneered.

"What you said is true," Gabriel nodded. "It is possible that one or both of us fed upon Jay.

"How many of your unwitting victims survived the night intact?" Axe snarled. Somehow Rasputin grew more bold in the face of the dragon's anger.

"Oh, at least two or three made it out alive," Rasputin taunted. "It was such a wild night, it's hard to remember every detail. And there you have it. Jay must have been one of the young men at this party, and through sheer luck, must have been turned by a vampire who knew no better."

"That would explain why one day I was a normal man, and then after some hazy days, I was suddenly set on fire by sunlight," Jay grumbled. "Thanks a lot, whichever one of you two at fault for this."

"If I had a part in this, I appologize," Gabriel bowed to Jay.

"I guess it's not..." Jay started to speak but silenced when Axe suddenly took a step towards Gabriel.

"Very good, oh ancient one," Axe contratulated Gabriel. "Very good indeed."

"What are you talking about?" Gabriel asked, stepping back a step from the dangerous dragon.

"You know of what I speak," Axe gloated.

"I don't," Jay pointed out. He glanced at Rasputin. "Hell, I don't even think this arrogant idiot knows what you are talking about." Though he received a glare for his efforts, Jay blithely ignored the pale vampire. Axe smiled at Jay.

"This vampire you see, the so-called Gabriel, is more than he seems," Axe explained. Gabriel started to protest, but silenced at Axe's glare. "Gabriel was a vampire, and he may have even been at the distastefully named blood orgy, but what you see before you is no longer Gabriel. Another vampire, a much older vampire, has taken his identity."

"That doesn't sound possible," Gabriel, or apparently not Gabriel, insisited. Axe's eye's glowed for a moment.

"Of course it is possible, Roderick," Axe said triumphantly. "You almost had me fooled."

Any sense of medocrity or averageness melted away from Roderick as he let go his glamour, revealing the twisted and evil creature behind the illusion. The creature looked goulish, teeth distended, sunken eyes burning with horrible strength. A palpable aura of evil sprung up around the creature named Roderick and he backed away from Axe slowly.

"Roderick here is a very old vampire," Axe said grimly. "He may be older than I. And, unless I miss my guess, he is the self same vampire who is responsible for some of the most horrific testing in the name of science that our world has ever known."

Roderick hissed, but didn't respond otherwise.

"You have been hunted for a long time," Axe bowed to the ghoulish vampire. "It is an honor that I might finally destroy someone as long hunted and hated as you." Roderick suddenly grinned.

"You think that you, just you, stand a chance against me Thirax?" the creatures rasped out. Horrible laughter was what followed. "You are old, and, unlike you, I have only grown stronger as I have aged." With that Roderick surged forward, quickly even for a vampire, and slammed his arms into Axe. The ancient dragon blocked the strike, and though the ground beneath him crumbled, Axe looked none the worse the wear.

"A pity," Axe grinned, those horrible teeth peeked out again. "I expected more from you." Then Axe swung his arm in a circular motion, smashing down atop Roderick. The goulish looking vampire cracked and broke in multiple places, his desicated old body unable to take the sheer power of Thirax' mighty blow. The ancient dragon reared back and kicked Roderick's body and the ancient creature exploded into a hundred pieces of petrified flesh and bone.

"Hmm..." Axe glanced around at his handiwork with a frown.

"That was... Amazing!" Jay gasped. Even Rasputin's cold mask of a face had cracked with a bit of wonder.

"It's not over," Axe informed Jay, reaching over and picking up Roderick's head.

"What do you mean?" Jay asked. Axe tossed him Roderick's head.

"See something wrong?" Axe half smiled with a sigh of frustration. Jay frowned at the head for a moment before realization spread across his face.

"This isn't Roderick's head! It's the head of a statue!" Jay realized. With a quick glance around Jay realized that all the broken pieces of Roderick were nothing more than a shattered statue.

"Exactly," Axe nodded.

Rasputin laughed.

"I rather figured the old man would have something up his sleeve," Rasputin sneered at Axe. The ancient dragon frowned, then snarled, grabbed Rasputin and smashed him up against a wall.

"You know who he really was," Axe growled.

"I did," Rasputin replied, unconcerned.

"At your blood orgy, you knew what he planned to do," Axe accused.

"Guilty," Rasputin smiled.

"I should kill you for what you allowed to happen," Axe growled.

"But you can't because the treaty does not allow it," Rasputin sneered a triumphant grin. Axe glowered, but slowly lowered Rasputin to the ground and stepped away from him.

"Wait, you do know about the treaty?" Jay asked.

"I may play the fool well, but I am no fool," Rasputin grinned evilly at Jay.

"You mean, you knew what Roderick was going to do? Create me and abandon me to see what would happen?" Jay gasped.

"I did," Rasputin laughed mockingly.

"Damn you!" Jay swore and lunged forward only to be caught by Axe.

"Stop, Jay. You cannot fight him," Axe told him sadly. "I know that you would like nothing more than to take your revenge upon him, but he would kill you."

"Goodbye, young fool. We shall meet again," Rasputin mocked Jay one final time before floating up into the dark of the night and disappearing.

"Damn him!" Jay snarled and smashed his hands into the wall, cracking it in places. "Why did you stop me, Thirax? Why?" The ancient dragon sighed.

"How long have I known you Jay?" he asked.

"Uh..." Jay blinked, his anger distracted. "Two days?"

"In two days I have come to be fond of you," Axe admitted. "You are a good man, or vampire, you are honest, kind, and you think of more than yourself. I find those traits to be rare among your kind. If I let you fight Rasputin he almost certainly would have killed you. I'd rather that didn't happen."

"You honor me," Jay bowed his head.

"I merely speak the truth," the ancient dragon waved his hand to dismiss the issue. "Come now, my young friend. We have an ancient evil to expunge."

"I don't know how useful I'll be in this hunt," Jay said.

"I think you'll be more useful than you think," Thirax promised with a pointy-toothed grin.