Queen of the Amazons, Queen of the Dead!

Making her way through the grounds of the palace, Diana looked around to find it empty. The guards were nowhere to be seen and the royal army nowhere in sight. It was unnerving to see her home so… Empty, the air was cold and carried a chill breeze that made the amazon warrior hug herself to keep warm. The birds did not sing, even in the broad daylight, if anything she had not seen any of the local fauna of her home. The stables were empty, the coops barren of chickens, the silence of inactivity was truly unnerving.

The palace was no better…

She had always known the palace and barracks to be a place alive with activity and constant training, but instead the area was as quiet as a tomb. The same could be said of the local market, the training fields, and the stables on her trek up to the royal grounds. The only places that seemed to have any occupancy were the homes of her many amazon sisters, now closed and shut during the day. Looking up at the many shuttered windows of the streets, she could have sworn she felt many eyes upon her when she approached the palace. Staring at her as if she were an intruder to her own homelands. When she had crossed the cobblestone path up to the palace steps, she had looked up at the window of one such dwelling, spotting a pair of eyes glaring back at her in the shadows. Waving up to the amazon, the shutters closed completely, leaving Diana confused before continuing up the steps.

Walking up the many steps to the palace and opening the unguarded doors, her eyes and face softened at the sight of her mother sitting at her throne while surrounded by her royal entourage. sitting up from her throne, Queen Hippolyta approached to embrace her daughter halfway down the halls of her throne room and stay that way before separating a minute later.

“My loving daughter, I take it you will be returning to man’s world then?”

“Yes mother, my visit may have been brief but I wanted to see you again, to ask about what you are to do with Dracula and Oliver.”

Tilting her head with a smile and turning to return to her throne, Diana followed her mother until the Queen sat back in her throne and leaned back, tapping her chin in thought. She seemed more relaxed than she remembered of her mother, accenting her own natural beauty with lip stick and eye liner, and yet… She seemed so pale, even in the sunlight filling the royal chamber.

“I had discussed the matter with Artemis, and I had a dialogue with the vampire count not too long ago. Oliver Queen will be spared my hand, he may live within the castle for as long as he is welcomed by Dracula.”

Closing her eyes and clasping her hands at her chest, Diana exhaled a sigh of relief to her mother’s news. Smiling back warmly to her mother and Queen, Diana bowed graciously. “Thank you, mother, it pleases me to know that we are still a people of love and peace.”

“Yes… Peace. Well then, I take it you will be heading back to your ‘Justice League’ then? Go now with my blessing my daughter, and come back when you can spare the time.”

“I will my Queen and thank you.”

Giving a final bow, Diana turned and left the halls of the palace. The moment the doors closed shut, Hippolyta made a gesture to her guards who immediately closed the silk blinds of the windows and eclipsed the palace in total darkness. Getting up from the throne, Hippolyta took to the right of the stone seat as the high priestess took to the left, the two vampires bowing to their TRUE queen and goddess who stepped out of the dark behind the throne to smile at her new kingdom and take her seat. The Black Canary wore a sleek and sheer black dress of black silk that exposed her thigh down to her ankle and her arms and upper chest. Bands and ringlets of gold adorned her wrists and neck and her luxurious golden blonde hair flowed down her back and shoulders like molten gold. Her skin was stark white as the moon and her inhuman beauty highlighted with black lipstick, eyeliner and blush that made her the very embodiment of desire itself.

“Well done, Hippolyta, she is no wiser to the fate of her own people and will not interfere in what I have planned.”

“Yes, my goddess.” Smiled the former Queen with a bow and smile of her fanged lips. “But why do you not wish for my daughter to know your blood kiss? Would she not make a mighty champion for your armies?”

With a dismissive wave of her hand, Dinah scoffed and rested her chin in her hand. “Such a tempting desire, to twist her into one of my slaves as I did your people. But even I know better than to anger her ‘extended’ family. No, better that she bears witness to my apotheosis as the one true blood goddess than be my herald. To see the horror in her eyes as I claim victory would be most exquisite indeed!”

Crossing her legs and resting her hands at the arm rests of the throne, Dinah stared out into the horizon from the windows that showed the view of the island. A cruel, salacious smile graced her fanged lips as her fingernails carved into the stone of the seat. “I shall rule this world, and as reward for all of your services the men of this world shall be your playthings as YOU were in ancient times. You shall slake your lusts and blood thirst on their flesh until they cry out for mercy… And offer none.”

The guards and her two advisors cheered out Dinah’s name, making the new vampire queen smile and bask in their loyalty. Inspecting her razor-sharp fingernails, the vampiric siren chuckled to herself. She won. In but the span of a week she had taken over the most powerful fighting force in the known world. In time she would send out her vampiric amazons to the far reaches of the Earth and have them conquer in her name. All would be hers in the dying light of this world. And there was no one who could stop her. Zatanna was off in deep space and if her benefactor was telling the truth, she would be destroyed in her venture. The Justice League were no match for her abilities, and neither would the lycanthropes of New Gotham.

When the night of Halloween falls on Gotham. She would be the true Queen of vampires with the Death of Dracula, Queen of Gotham with Bruce’s severed head on her mantle, and Queen of the damned and a blood-stained world of her own forging. A roar echoed out from deep below the palace that interrupted Dinah’s musings. A smile gracing her black lips as she gestured to two of her guards nearest to her to approach and bow.

“I see it that my pet is hungry, feed him another horse from the stables.”

“Yes my goddess, there are not many left, his thirst is unquenchable.”

“I know… I MADE him that way, but do not fret my minions, soon all of you shall slake your thirst on man-blood soon. It’s only a matter of time.”

Laughing out loud from her throne, she watched as the Javeline took flight and flew off over the horizon, leaving behind a dead kingdom ruled by an army of vampires who were once Diana’s sisters and friends. Never having ever known of their end during her visit. Wonder Woman had unknowingly become the last true Amazon left in the world.