World War Two

[Istanbul, Turkey - September 12th 1943]

A gentleman sat in a teahouse sipping his fragrant drink out of a frail piece of china. The gentleman was getting on in years but still had thick dark brown hair slicked back over his strong head with gray coming in on the sides quite heavily giving him a mature but still attractive look. The bottom half of his face is graced with a full but well-groomed mustache and beard. His chops are mostly gray with just a few strands of the color signifying his age upon his furred upper lip and spread around his chin. Wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and between his brows accompany cold and calculating eyes that betray an infinite hopefulness that had not been seen in this man's eyes for over two decades. The reason for this hopeful gaze is a missive that he had read and burned earlier in the day.

He had been wrong.

{Frank's POV}

Alive. She is Alive. ALIVE. SHE is ALIVE. I was wrong. I had thought our father had killed her as he had killed our mother. But no. He had her condemned to an asylum. But she is ALIVE. Or at least she was over 20 god-damned years ago when I thought her dead and abandoned her once more to protect random people over my own flesh and blood. She had escaped the asylum a few months after our father put her in there. They had given her electro-shock therapy, and by the end of their treatments, she did not even know her own name. They had to inform her of who she was. She started calling herself Alice. Well, at least she wanted to remember something. I wonder if she is still alive. It doesn't matter. I am going to find her. I swear it. She would be 42 years old now. I wonder if she married. Had children. I certainly never did. I served my country. I married my purpose.

For nearly a decade after the war, I worked with Yardley at his Black Chamber. After that fell apart I was recruited by the Brits to work for their Secret Intelligence Service. I was given a new name and a death certificate was issued for Henry Francis Brandon. In 1931, Henry Francis Brandon died and I took his place. I am now Francis, or Frank usually, Lockworth. But none of that matters anymore. I must finish my mission here, intercept a Nazi communique to their allies in Egypt. The messenger is coming through Istanbul and I am to kill him and take the message to my superiors at the SIS. I've done this dozens, maybe hundreds of times over the past two decades. But mostly recently, with the new war. And is that not just the most terrible thing? Another fucking war. This one even larger and more destructive. I fought at the fucking Somme and even I shudder when I hear casualty reports from the Western Front. But none of that matters. She is ALIVE. And I am going to find her. Just one last mission and I will request leave. I'm getting old and my limp grows ever worse. My lungs are flaring up recently and I cannot stop myself from coughing blood into my handkerchief. I fear I have very few years left and I need to see my sweet sister's smile just once more before I die. Just one last mission.

~~ Time Skip ~~

[Istanbul, Turkey - September 16th 1943]

{Frank's POV} 

There he is. The Messenger. I stand up from my spot in the front of the teahouse. I tuck my newspaper into the inners of my coat. Between my vest and my overcoat lies my gun. A small thing. A Welrod. I place my hand on my cane and begin slowly limping towards the retreating figure's back. I rarely use the gun. My cane holds a sword hidden within, just twist and pull and I can kill silently. Much quieter than even my suppressed Welrod. I've bloodied my blade many times in order to protect the innocent. This will just be one more life taken in pursuit of my goals. But this one means so much more. A chance to find my sister. Alice. 

~~ Time Skip ~~

[Istanbul, Turkey - September 13th 1943]

{Frank's POV}

I've made a terrible mistake. I should have just left. I should have gone AWOL and just went to find my sister. Now I will never find her. I lay here dying I am certain of it for the Messenger was no man. He was a Monster. I had snuck behind him in an alleyway and swung my blade aiming to take his head so he would not suffer a long death. It bounced off his flesh. It Fucking Bounced. The noise generated by my attempted decapitation was like nothing I've ever heard. It sounded as though I was trying to cut through stone. He laughed. He Fucking Laughed. LAUGHED. He turned around and I swore I was looking into the face of the Devil. Pale as milk and eyes like pools of blood. 

(Flashback)

"That did not particularly work in your favor now, did it?" the monster asked with a sadistic smirk and mirth in his horrific eyes. 

"What are you?" I asked breathlessly, frightened more than I have ever been. The trenches of the Somme and London during the Blitz were like a carnival funhouse compared to the visceral terror flooding my veins with adrenaline. 

"Me? I am a Vampire," the now-named Vampire answered me with a light and playful voice. A Vampire. VAMPIRE. What has the world come to that the fucking NAZIS are employing monsters of fiction and myth as their spies? 

"I see. I presume you are telling me this instead of killing me because you want something?" I asked realizing that he knew I was following him. If he has any of the abilities that the vampires of fiction have then I am most certainly a dead man. The only reason for him to be humoring me is because he either wants something or is simply playing with his food. "My blood?"

"Oh yes, certainly I do want your blood. You smell quite fantastic," the Vampire laughed as though he was talking about a fresh pastry. "But I do not only want your blood. I have heard of you Frank. I want you to work for me, to join me."

I paused at that. Did this psychopath really think I would work for the fucking Nazis? "I will never work for the fucking Nazis, you monster," I snarled at him, for it was the truth.

"Oh, I see. I actually do not work for the Nazis. I work for a far older organization, the Volturi," the Vampire apparently decided to clarify for me, not that it fucking did so.

"And why do you think that would make a difference? It is clear to me that these Volturi are working with the fucking Nazis," I questioned gripping my blade harder. If I was going to die to this mons- Vampire, then I was going to go out fighting. Nazi Vampires sound like a bad horror short, or maybe a comedy if the reality was not so fucking terrifying, but if any creature upon this earth ever deserved to die it was almost certainly this beast before me.

"Because you'll have nowhere else to go," the Vampire stated as he suddenly disappeared and reappeared right before me, mere inches away. I swung my blade with as much force as I could possibly muster but he merely grabbed my wrist and crushed it with minimal effort.

"AGHHK, FUCK!" I exclaimed with a pained grunt. It seems I will not be completing my last mission. I will not find my sister. God, I failed you so many times Alice. I love you, I'm so sorry. Tears began to gather in my eyes as I saw my sweet sister's smiling face, it has been so long that I was not even sure if this memory was real or if it was some little French girl I rescued. Or a little Jewish girl I saved. But it was all I had.

"You have strength, it will be useful for us," the Vampire proclaimed like a statement of fact and then lunged, holding my crushed wrist with his left hand and my jaw with his right he sunk his teeth directly into my throat. 

(Flashback End)

~~ Time Skip ~~

[Istanbul, Turkey - September 15th 1943]

{Frank POV}

The Vampire, whose name I still have not learned, has just finished explaining the LAWS of the vampire world as apparently cannibalistic corpse-people need to self-regulate, who could have guessed? Anyway, I have now learned all I need to know, according to the Vampire, my Sire, my Maker, my Creator, like some abomination of the Lord's name, not that I believe in God but it is still sick how arrogant and pompous this creature is. It is time to feed. To hunt. Humans. I must now eat my own people to survive. Well, I guess they are not my own people anymore now that my heart does not beat and my skin feels as though it is made of marble. So I create a list in my mind:

For: Immortality, great strength and speed, my leg and lungs are now healed and all my old scars are gone, a chance to see my sister again.

Against: I AM A FUCKING CANNIBALISTIC CORPSE

Now that against is pretty fucking powerful. It almost makes me want to destroy myself. Immolate myself in fire so I can die as apparently that is the only way to kill me. But. BUT. The chance to find my sister. To see Alice again. Well, that is the only reason I still live.