Author's Note: I really meant to publish this much earlier, but I've been working 11 hour shifts for the past week and a half and I am exhausted.
TWO
The World at Stake
After Trevor's crude (albeit understandable) outburst, no one said anything for a long time. Trevor was looking entirely to Sypha and Alucard for answers, but Sypha had her arms wrapped tightly around her curled knees. Her gaze was focused intently on a single pebble in the middle of the path. Beside her, Alucard had drawn his eyebrows together delicately with an elegant curved finger lightly touching his bottom lip.
At last, Alucard's gold eyes focused on his companions. "It seems, Trevor, that we just died."
At that, the Hunter snorted mirthlessly. "Yeah, except we all seem to be pretty damn alive right now."
"A dream…" Sypha ventured carefully in a soft voice. Her eyes remained on the path. "Or a prophecy, perhaps?" Even as she spoke it, her words lilted upward in doubt.
"It was entirely too vivid and detailed for either," Alucard argued. He stood in one fluid motion and looked up toward the limbs above him. "We weren't here before. We were fighting Carmilla's armies within the city gates, but now... I'm not even sure where we are now." With long strides, he began circling around his two human companions to take in his surroundings: A half-rotted hollowed tree, a little dip in the path where rain water had formed a slight ditch. "It seems so familiar though," he muttered, more so to himself than the others. His fingers drifted over the bark of a tree.
The vampire's antsy motions were getting on Trevor's already frazzled nerves. With an annoyed huff, he stood also and held out his hand to Sypha. She took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet. "Right, because this particular spot in the middle of this particular forest is so much more familiar than all the other damn spots in the other damn forests."
Alucard shot him a harsh glare, and for one manic, hysterical moment, Trevor thought: Oh God , they're alive. They're actually alive right now. He wanted to grab both Sypha and even Alucard and pull the two into an embrace and tell them to never, ever do that to him again. Instead, he said, "Definitely feels like I've died and gone to hell, what with the Prince of Sulking in Dark Corners here and all. Seems I can't escape you even in death, vampire."
This time, Sypha glared at him. "Trevor…" she chastised.
"What?"
Alucard ignored both of them. "This isn't right," he muttered. "This doesn't feel right."
Trevor examined the tree that Alucard had seemed so fascinated with earlier, but it revealed no secrets buried within the bark. Just a damn tree. With a dismissive shrug, he asked, "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. I feel…" He spread his arms as though it would help him find the words. "Misplaced."
"Right, that explains a lot."
Sypha shook her head. "No, I know what he means. I feel like we shouldn't be here."
"Would you rather be back on that battlefield?" A cold dread overcame each of them at the memory.
If Trevor were an honest man - which he was, but not if it meant agreeing with Alucard - he also felt like his entire universe had chewed him up and crapped him out into the forest with no survival guide. But in the process, it had given him back the only two people alive he called his family, so it couldn't be all bad, right? No use looking a gift horse in the mouth, as they say. And what could they do about it now?
He dragged his fingers through his unruly brown hair and let out a long exhale. "So you guys can continue your deep philosophical journey. I'm going to find the nearest town and more specifically, the nearest bar. I think I need a few dozen beers."
And for once, neither Alucard and Sypha could argue with that.
"A simultaneous illusion!" Sypha exclaimed. "Caused by a Succubus to trick us into doing terrible things!"
It was her twelfth suggestion in their half-hour nature walk, and neither Trevor nor Alucard paid her any mind. Occasionally, Alucard would tilt his head and politely hum an agreement, but the distant look in his eye said he wasn't truly listening.
Sypha tapped a finger on her bottom lip. It didn't matter that her companions weren't listening to her; speaking theories aloud kept her mind from spiraling back to the battle. Her theories gave her levity. "Or maybe we're in the Succubus' illusion now, and the only way to-"
"FINALLY!" Trevor held up his arms at the sign before him, ignoring Sypha's pout at being interrupted.
The sign rounding the corner announced their arrival. "Targoviste," Trevor read. "Hey, Alucard, isn't that the town your -"
"My father destroyed?" Alucard finished. He didn't want to think about the alternate ending to Trevor's sentence - And by extension, his mother's death at the stake. "Yes. There still may be some travelling supplies left over there that may prove useful."
The trio looked to the town that should be ruins at this point. There were lights and the smoke of fires in chimneys and voices. Each of them had seen decimated towns. Hell, just an hour ago, they were in one themselves. Whatever area stood before them was definitely not abandoned.
Alucard paused. "Though… Humans can rebuild quickly." Too quickly… It was disconcerting. Though he didn't condone his father's destructive actions, he also didn't want to see it thriving again quite so soon. Some part of him wanted Targoviste to feel remorse for what it had done to his family.
"Are you okay with making this stop?" Sypha placed a light hand on his arm. "We can keep going, if you'd prefer."
He shook his head. "It's getting dark. It's only logical to stop when we can. What happened here is in the past." Yet still, his hands tightened into a fist to hide the slight tremor going through him.
Trevor clapped a heavy hand on Alucard's leather-clad shoulder. "I'll buy you a drink at the bar." As he started to move past the tense vampire, he patted the shoulder twice and added, "So you won't eat the townsfolk instead."
The gentle jibe did help relax the vampire very slightly. When Sypha hooked her arm around his and pulled him towards the town, his fist unclenched entirely. "I'll punch them for you if it will help!"
"A bar fight!" Trevor called over his shoulder. "A dozen beers and a bar fight sounds like a good time right now."
"So you can start a bar fight," Alucard argued with a very slight smirk. "But I can't eat the townspeople?"
"Don't make me stake you, vampire."
Upon entering the city, an older man with greying hair and a walking cane greeted them. He was busy packing up his wagon from a long day of selling apples and oranges, and by the raise of his grey eyebrows, he hadn't expected to run into anyone that late. His gaze landed on Trevor first,whose rough exterior marked him as a trouble maker from the very start. Sypha caught his gaze next, and despite her bold manner of dress, she looked friendly enough. It was Alucard who attracted most of his attention. Knowing just how out of place his more inhuman features could look, Alucard lowered his eyes and turned his head to the road before him. It was enough to make the man dismiss the reflection of glowing yellow as a trick of the light.
"Come to see the event, have you?" The man's eyes squinted at them in suspicion even though his words were light. He lowered the tarp over the unsold fruit. "Just in time."
"Event?" Trevor asked.
The man smiled, showing off his blackened teeth. One tooth was missing in the front. "A woman was just accused of witchcraft and condemned. They say she sold her soul for impossible, cursed abilities. Good thing they caught her before she brought all sorts of horrors to this place." He pointed with his cane to the town center. "If you hurry, you'll be able to see the church burn Lisa Tepes alive."
Words have power. With the right words, you can reverse the flow of time or even stop the apocalypse. Words can be binding, such as an agreement muttered as the life leaves a body or a confession of love. On that day, the words an old man stated at the entrance of Targoviste shattered a half vampire's view of everything.
Alucard's head snapped back around to the man, who immediately recoiled at the dhampir's sudden change in demeanor. His eyes were burning in the dimming light with anger, adrenaline, and shock; a dangerous combination for a supernatural being to have. It triggered every one of the man's human instincts to run , to get away from what was obviously an apex predator that had him in his sights.
Recognizing the man was useless, Alucard shifted that stare to Trevor and Sypha, who were used to their friend's more inhuman characteristics. They seemed equally surprised. Trevor cautiously ventured, "Uh, did he just say-"
He never had time to finish the sentence. With vampiric speed no human could ever emulate, Alucard was rushing toward the city center in a blur of black and gold.
"Shit!" Trevor exclaimed, moving to follow him.
Sypha was right at Trevor's heels. "What is happening?!"
"I've been asking that for hours now!"
Alucard slowed when he neared the hordes of people at the city center. He took in what was happening before him: The lifted torches and pitchforks, the bodies pressed against each other, the flames just starting to blossom before them. Angry shouts filled the air, driven by fear and hysteria. It was nothing short of bloodthirsty, not unlike the feral hordes of Dracula's army. The feel and smell of it caused all of Alucard's instincts into overdrive.
And in the middle of it all, high upon a wooden stake, was an unconscious, still-living Lisa Tepes.
The flames had only been started a short time before and hadn't quite reached her feet, but the heat was already causing her skin to burn in vicious shades of red. The air around the pire was heavy with smoke.
With an inhuman growl and muscles tensing, Alucard leapt into the air, implementing his superhuman powers to glide over the heads of the crowd. A few townsfolk noticed this and grew quiet in wary awe. He turned gracefully in the air before he landed in a crouch before the mob. One clawed hand tensed on the ground while the other was resting upon the hilt of the silver sword at his side. His normally calm, carefully controlled expression was contorted into a savage snarl. His eyes glared up through a curtain of blonde, silky bangs, glowing like melted gold capturing the burning flames around him. Lips curled over long, sharp fangs in a threatening promise of violence should anyone move.
Gasps and startled cries replaced the angry shouting. A great deal of people in the front row began retreating, stopped only by the people in the back who were pushing forward to see what was causing the commotion.
"Shit," Trevor repeated. Could Alucard look any more vampiric at that moment? And in front of a torch carrying mob, no less.
Sypha took the lead this time. "Come on!" She grabbed Trevor's arm. "We have to help him."
They circled around, slipping in between the people who were stuck in indecision on what to do, and broke through the uneasy townsfolk. Alucard's gaze flickered to them as they approached from his side, and he straightened slowly, somehow making the simple action look threatening. "Sypha," he called in a low tone, and made a motion with his head toward the blossoming fire behind him.
She immediately understood. With an elaborate hand motion, she cast a spell of ice-like mist to spread out over the flames and smother them.
More startled cries. Someone in the back shouted, "Witch!" Another person said, "She's summoned help from Satan himself." The crowd was shifting between fear and panic. That wouldn't do. A panicked mob was a dangerous mob, and there was strength in numbers.
Trevor snapped his whip to the side. It didn't hit anything, but the loud cracking noise was enough to gather their attention and silence some of the nervous accusations. "We're taking this woman," he said. "Leave us be, and no one gets hurt."
A man near the front picked up a large rock and threw it with all his might. His aim was for Lisa Tepes, but with quick movement and a flash of red eyes, Alucard caught it in mid air. He hovered there briefly, eyes scanning the crowd for the culprit, before gliding to the ground again. It caused even more frightened whispers.
Alucard had found the man that had provoked the attack- Early twenties perhaps, brown hair, an outline of some muscles, and altogether average looking. The man suddenly didn't feel so confident in his violent actions. His mouth fell open in surprise and he took a cautious step back. Afraid. Prey, a more inhuman part of Alucard said. Scared, weak, with a racing heartbeat that could bring the blood to the surface oh, so easily. This vampiric nature wanted desperately for him to tear open the man's throat with his teeth and drain him dry for even daring that stunt. He blinked slowly. Deep breaths. Focus on saving Lisa.
With the tension rising, the archbishop decided to finally make his presence known. He stepped to the front, moving with bold confidence and fearlessness. "Are you really so cowed by Satan's minions? The witch with the enchanted tongue used for casting evil? The devil with the angel's face and such terrible eyes and fangs! And the outcast warrior with such unholy weapons…"
"These weapons are blessed and very holy, I'll have you know!" Trevor shouted back, but it went ignored.
"Satan is using these creatures to mock God himself!" the Archbishop continued. "They are weak before the glory of our God, but we must have faith to overcome them. Lisa Tepes has summoned these demons to save her, but nothing shall save her but the vengeful flames of God's wrath!" He turned to his crowd, his faithful congregation. "This woman has made a pact with the demons of hell to become a whore of Satan. She has bared her breasts and spread her legs to the devils so that they may take her with false promises of unholy pleasure. They have had their way with her and filled her with seeds of -"
There was a flash of silver and then silence. The archbishop made a nauseating gurgling noise - the sound of blood spreading through the throat into the windpipe - and with eerie slowness, his head rolled from his shoulders to the ground. His body soon followed, crumpling into an awkward heap in the dirt.
Directly behind him, Alucard stook entirely still, holding his silver blade dripping red with blood. He had moved with frightening speed, becoming nothing more than a blur as he made his swift strike to cut down the church official.
A woman screamed. Others were shocked into motionlessness. Even Sypha gasped and placed her hand over her mouth.
Still holding that bloody sword to his side, Alucard bared his sharp teeth and spoke in a deceptively calm tone. "Does anyone have anything else to say about Lisa Tepes?"
The town grew quiet with frightened whispers. They stepped back, their former confidence waning with the heightened tension.
Breaking out of her own trance, Sypha made a series of quick motions with her hands and muttered a spell under her breath. An ice wall ascended in front of the crowd, effectively separating the three from the townsfolk. "That won't hold long," she told her companions. "We need to get out of here quickly."
With a twist of his wrist, Alucard flung the blood from his sword and placed it back in the sheath by his side.
"Jesus Christ, Alucard," Trevor said. He dragged a hand through his shaggy hair. "If we weren't already on the church's shit list, we sure as hell are now."
Alucard's lips tightened to a hard line, but he said nothing. Instead, he focused on his mother's unconscious form above him. He took off his gloves and stuffed them in his pockets. His coat was removed next, and he draped it over his arm before leaping into the air. The ball of one foot touched a branch near the top of the pyre. Despite the vampire's weight, the branches didn't break or tumble down, and Trevor suspected he was using his powers to defy gravity.
Lisa's body was bent forward, her body weight supported by the ropes bound around her thin wrists. She was breathing though - roughly, hoarsely - but the breath was still there, and that was what was important. Alucard placed a hand on his mother's collarbone to hold her steady. He noted the warmth of her skin and the beat of her heart - all signs pointing to her life. Dear god, she was alive. The nails of his other hand extended into long, sharp claws, and he used those claws to carefully slice through the ropes at her wrists.
Her body tumbled into his arms like a ragdoll, but he adjusted her in his embrace with natural grace, wrapping his long coat over her form as he did so. His other arm tucked under her knees, and once he had her supported comfortably in his arms, he glided back to the ground.
Both Trevor and Sypha looked at the woman with a mix of curiosity and caution.
"That's really her, huh?" Trevor asked. "And you're sure we're not under some succubus illusion?"
Alucard's eyebrows drew together as he gazed at the woman in his arms. "It is her," He responded softly, but his concerned tone reflected all the questions that were racing through all of their minds.
The shouts of villagers broke their reverie. "We need to go now," Sypha said. "They'll come with more weapons."
Alucard nodded. "We'll loop around through the woods and avoid the main road. They'll expect us to go back to the nearest town, so I suggest we go the long way to the east - It's a road used for trade."
"It's getting dark," Trevor commented.
"And I can see in the dark. It will be to our advantage. I will guide us."
With that decided, they quietly left the town, stealthily ducking between buildings and avoiding pitchfork-wielding townsfolk until they reached the edge of the woods. Behind them, the sounds of panic and accusations built.
But it didn't really matter. Because that day, they had died and come back to life.
And somehow, so had Lisa Tepes.
Author's Notes:
Everyone's alive. But what does that mean?
All magic comes at a cost.
Bonus points if you catch the Symphony of the Night references in this.
Next Chapter:
A Lesson in Vampiric Nature
