Chapter 9: Into the Shadows of the Hell House
It wasn't long before Alucard arrived at Castlevania. Noticing that the hallways were once again littered with the undead, he gave a tiny bat-sigh and flew around the castle until he found his father.
"Saccubus, do you suppose mahogany or terracotta would best frame the plants in the day-garden?" The lord of the night queried, holding up a piece of darkened wood in one hand and a well-crafted ceramic molding in the other.
"Who cares? It's the day-garden," Saccubus sighed beside him.
Tearful-fury built within Dracula's eyes as he cried back, "No room is unworthy—"
"—of interior decoration, I know," the succubus sighed, caving in to his usual demand and pointing to the terracotta.
Alucard swooped down, ready to shift back to his human form, but it seemed Dracula had already noticed his arrival. Tossing both pieces to the ground, the lord of the night quickly extended a gloved-hand, providing his son with a convenient perch.
Dracula smiled when he felt Alucard cling to his finger, flapping his leathery wings slightly to balance himself until he safely hung upside-down. Carefully, the lord of the night brought the peacefully dangling dhampire closer to him, beaming with happiness. "Adrian… you don't know how long I have waited for you come home of your own volition." Gently, he ruffled the small bit of fur on the bat's head with the gloved tip of his index finger.
"That's Adrian?" Saccubus marveled, leaning in closer to peer at him curiously. "He seems a little… thin. Have you been feeding him properly?"
Alucard huffed a bit but chose not to reply. He remembered Saccubus from long ago. She was one of the many demons in service to his father that had treated him as a son when his true mother, Lisa, had died. The succubus fed him, sheltered him, and comforted him on those lonely nights when he had cried lonely angstful tears of sadness over his loss.
Though he had brutally killed Saccubus years later and condemned her to a fate worse than suffering in Hell, it appeared his father had successfully brought her back. He couldn't say that he was entirely unhappy about it.
It seemed Saccubus had forgiven him and had chosen to take her formerly caring role as she pricked the tip of her finger on one of her razor sharp fangs and offered it to Alucard. "You look half-starved. Here, drink up."
Before Alucard could even respond, Dracula had swatted her hand away angrily. "He doesn't drink blood anymore, did I not tell you that?"
"No, you did not," Saccubus responded, sucking on her finger to close the small wound and eyeing Dracula suggestively.
Her attempts at seduction fell on blind eyes as the lord of the night had already returned his attention to his son. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
Alucard squeaked a high-pitched reply.
"You are concerned that I am in danger?" Dracula asked, taken a bit aback. Glancing at their surroundings, he frowned, "We are in the day-garden, but the sun is hours from rising. Adrian, where did you get this idea?"
They were graced with another small squeak.
"Intuition? Hmm…" Dracula furrowed his brows, a deep frown creasing his lips. "Then this must be very serious indeed."
Alucard merely blinked in reply.
"I have worried much about you, as well, and I am relieved to see you are safe," the lord of the night confessed, closing his eyes momentarily to breathe a sigh of relief. When he opened them again, he glanced quickly at Saccubus and then more carefully at Alucard, "Saccubus, prepare us dinner."
"Yes, my lord," the succubus curtsied and began to fly away.
"Oh, and don't make any more of those phony 'grape' flavored potions. Those were positively dreadful," the lord of the night called after her.
"Of course, my lord," she called back, disappearing into the next room.
Alone with his son, Dracula sat upon one of the marble benches adorning the garden. "Adrian, you look different. Or, should I say, more familiar? Change back, if you would." He suggested, carefully raising his hands into the air.
Alucard easily flew from his perch and shifted back to his human form, taking a seat beside his father. Instantly, his father's smile brightened. "Ah, that's the boy I remember," he beamed, embracing the lithe blonde-haired dhampire beside him.
Alucard endured the hug and sighed, "It was not as if I had a choice."
Hearing this comment, Dracula gazed at his offspring critically, grasping him by the shoulders and observing him so much the half-breed wanted to fly away from embarrassment. Finally, he gasped, "Your magic levels… they are only a fraction of what they used to be before your 'Genya Arikado' seal. What happened to you?"
"Leon blessed me," the dhampire grimaced.
"Leon?" Dracula frowned. "He never seemed like the sadistic type."
"Sara wanted it done before their wedding," Alucard clarified.
The lord of the night scowled, "I never liked that woman." Angered by what had happened to his son, the vampire continued to fume. "If she ever harms you again, I swear that I shall break her seal and permanently confine her to that cursed whip!"
Lightly, Alucard touched his father's arm, "Do not swear to things you cannot take back. I do believe Sara will have a larger role to play in what is to come quite soon."
"You have had a premonition, then?" Dracula mused, leaning back as he watched his son nod in confirmation. "Do tell."
"The vision was perplexing, but perhaps it will make further sense to you," Alucard stated, digging into his memories. His clear grey eyes assumed a faraway look as he recalled everything he saw to the present. "You will be faced with terrible danger very soon. More than one adversary of the past will return to take something close to you. You will have several allies yet numerous enemies."
"Well that was vague," Saccubus declared, returning with various flavored potions, sans grape.
"No, no it wasn't at all," Dracula said fearfully with a distraught look at his son. Quickly, he pulled the dhampire close to him again. "Adrian! They mean to take you from me!"
"Who is they?" was Alucard's muffled reply from within the confines of his father's thick cloak.
"I have my suspicions," the lord of the night said, narrowing his eyes as he thought about all the possibilities. "But first, there are more important matters at hand."
Releasing his son, and ignoring dinner, Dracula looked at Alucard squarely in the eyes. The dhampire was prepared for the worst. Anything from telling him that the castle floors needed to be scrubbed to a declaration that he had decided to start burning and pillaging the countryside again would not have surprised him.
"Would you like to go fishing?" the lord of the night asked.
Alucard's eyebrows lifted in shock. "What?"
The evening passed without much event, and as the new day dawned, Maria finally allowed Richter back inside. Though the Belmont was sore and dragging, Maria assured him that he was more prepared now than ever before.
"Prepared for what?" Richter asked glumly. "Dracula isn't even evil anymore. Leon said so."
"Don't be such a downer," the woman commanded him, opening up the refrigerator and tossing him an apple. "Eat that and go to sleep. You never know what you may need your strength for."
Grumbling and half-chewing his apple, Richter walked sleepily past Soma as the youth barged into Leon's home unannounced. "nnn…goodnight…"
Soma brushed past the sleepwalking Belmont, throwing him a strange look. As he entered the kitchen, he immediately went to Leon's fridge, grabbed himself a can of Coke, and sat at the table. "What's his problem?" he asked Charlotte, who was calmly spreading jam on her morning toast.
"Maria trained him all night," the girl explained helpfully.
"He must be prepared," Maria said severely, tossing back a large chunk of ham and a glass of milk. "Tonight, we go to Castlevania."
"Shouldn't he be prepared from the last two times he was at Castlevania already?" Jonathan asked.
"Richter must learn," the warrior woman's voice was grave as she set her empty glass of milk in the sink. "If he doesn't…"
Jonathan was expecting a response, or at least a continuation of that sentence, but he received neither. Instead Maria walked away, presumably to finally get some rest herself.
"Maria has a point," Leon said as he looked up from his morning paper. "It never hurts to be prepared when visiting Castlevania. Would you like to bring some vials of holy water? I have a few boxes stored in the basement."
"Please," Charlotte agreed.
Meanwhile, Jonathan had noticed Soma as he discreetly tried to place a small potted plant on Leon's table. "Aha! It's you!"
"Huh?" Soma asked intelligently.
"You're the one moving around the furniture around!" Jonathan accused, pointing a finger at the silver haired youth.
"Jonathan, don't point, it's rude," Charlotte criticized him, pulling his hand down. "Besides, that plant doesn't go with the kitchen décor at all. It's obvious Soma isn't the one."
It was true. The small plant bloomed with vibrant purple and pink blossoms, and on the rim of the simple orange ceramic pot, cheerful bubble letters claimed, "Good Luck!"
"Hey!" Soma scowled. "I have good fucking décor!"
"Of course you do," Simon agreed with a smile, sliding into the seat next to the pale haired youth with a plate of scrambled eggs he had prepared. "Soma Cruz, correct?"
"The one and only," Soma grinned proudly.
"Tell me, does Alucard emit any luminescent auras to you?" the Belmont asked casually, neatly collecting a few pieces of egg with his fork.
Soma stared at him blankly.
"Does he glow?" Charlotte rephrased for him.
"Ohhh!" Soma murmured in understanding, then seeing the odd look Simon was giving him, he coughed and attempted to deepen his voice. "Allie does lumence. A little."
"I see…" Simon murmured, then went back to eating his eggs.
"Well, that was random," Jonathan commented. "So Soma, you never explained why you brought that plant?"
Soma rolled his eyes. "My mom heard I was going to a fucking housewarming party tonight and told me to bring it."
At this, Jonathan couldn't contain a snicker, "Your mom gave you a plant… to give Dracula?"
"STFU!" Soma bellowed, folding his arms angrily.
Leon was perplexed by the new lingo, but chose to silently watch on.
"I wasn't actually gonna bring it anyway," the pale haired youth grumbled.
"Oh, really?" Jonathan said with a smile. "No problem, then, I'll bring the plant to Dracula."
Sensing that her counterpart was scheming something, Charlotte glared at him. Before she could say anything to him, Isaac leaned back in his chair from the other room and queried, "Hey, you guys ready to go to Castlevania?"
"Not yet," Leon said, shaking his head. "Richter and Maria just went to bed, and Joachim can't be outside in the daylight."
"Oh," Isaac frowned for a moment, then asked, "You mind if I buy another $50 pay-per-view UFC fight or ten with your account, then?"
"Of course you can," Leon agreed good-naturedly.
Jonathan leaned over and murmured to the magical girl beside him, "It's a good thing insurance salesmen don't know about him. Or Girl Scouts."
Charlotte nodded.
"Obviously you haven't seen the back room in the basement," Simon mentioned softly. When he noticed the quizzical looks from those at the table, he only chose to offer two words. "Thin mints."
Eventually, the sun set. Joachim's eyes snapped open immediately, and he tossed aside the covers, leaving his bed unmade as usual. Anxiously, he drifted upstairs, nearly colliding with Richter as he groggily trudged around, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Hey, watch it," the vampire sneered at him, making his way into the kitchen to prepare some much needed tea.
"Oh, sorry…" Richter mumbled as he bumbled into the next room, finding a kitchen full of people. Maria immediately pressed a warm turkey sandwich into his hands. "Eat this."
"Okay," he agreed, and dutifully started chewing the sandwich as he watched and listened.
In the kitchen, Leon, Sara, Simon, Juste, Soma, Jonathan, Charlotte, Joachim, Isaac, Shanoa, Maria, and Richter had gathered together. The group shared a final uneasy dinner, knowing that very soon they would embark upon a journey from which they would be unable to return for a few hours.
"Fucking shitty-ass housewarming parties," Sara scowled. "He's not even coming to our wedding."
"Honey, Mathias can't enter the church," Leon tried to explain cautiously.
"Then he shouldn't have chosen to be an evil vampire dark-lord, now should he?" She growled back.
Simon nodded in agreement, then turned from where he had just finished throwing the finishing touches into his soup. "Laurel soup, anyone?"
Having tried Simon's specialty laurel soup earlier, Juste, Jonathan, Charlotte, Shanoa, Maria, and Richter all shared a bowl with the culinary Belmont. The others remained skeptical and stuck to sandwiches.
"I simply cannot trust anything that has plant matter in it," Joachim declared as he sipped his tea.
Jonathan started to point towards Joachim's cup, but Charlotte quickly pulled his finger down. "Don't even bother."
Once they had finished dinner, Isaac looked at them all in turn, "Ready?" Seeing affirmations from each of them, he nodded back and set off wordlessly.
The group followed Isaac as he walked through the town, boarded a train into the city, got off said train, walked around through the somehow still crowded streets, boarded a bus, got off the bus, walked a few blocks further, and eventually stopped in front of a large building. As they looked up from the ground, the sheer black facing of the skyscraper seemed to go on forever, disappearing into the clouds above.
"As he stepped off the rail-line, wandering the busy streets of the city, the weariness in his features was ever-present. He is lost in the sea of people. Would that he could be one of them! If only he could blend into the masses, leaving all his cares behind to return home to his beloved! But that is not meant to be, no, that is not his destiny. He must fight! He must continue to persevere! Only then can you return to your world and even hope to regain that which you have lost."
"I never imagined he would choose such a high profile building," Simon murmured, watching the steady stream of people enter and exit through glass revolving doors.
"Tell me about it," Isaac grunted, leading them all through the doors inside. Once within, he showed something to the guards, who waved them all through.
"Isaac, are you sure this is the right place?" Leon asked, his eyes curiously following several people dressed in business attire. "This seems like an office building."
"It is," Isaac agreed, leading them through a series of hallways and doors until they reached a non-descript elevator door. Ushering them all inside, he grinned and added, "From the 94th floor down."
They all crammed into the elevator, sucking in their breath so that they would all fit into the small space. Once the doors closed, Isaac procured a magical emblem, causing a new elevator button labeled "97" to appear.
"97?" Soma frowned. "What's on the 95th and 96th floors?"
"A restaurant." Reaching through Juste's hair, Isaac pressed the glowing magical button.
Instantly, the elevator began racing upwards at a breakneck speed. Leon was certain that they would have all collapsed to the floor if they hadn't been crammed wall-to-wall against each other.
"I'm getting dizzy…" Shanoa murmured uneasily.
Richter, who was standing right in front of her, pleaded, "I don't like that."
Thankfully, a few seconds later, their ride came to an abrupt end. As the doors slowly opened, the group fell through the doors, gasping for breath.
"I see you all made it."
Recognizing the source of that voice, Maria stood up. "Alucard."
"Maria," he nodded back politely from where he sat on a decorative divan.
"Where are we?" She asked.
"We are in the lobby of the 97th floor," he answered, gesturing around them.
A large plush burgundy rug, embroidered with an oriental theme, covered a large area of the finely crafted mahogany wood floors. Intricate paintings adorned the beautiful marble walls, and various pieces of furniture, similar to the ornate piece the dhampire sat upon, were positioned tastefully about the room.
Juste narrowed his eyes at a table on the left hand side of the room.
"This doesn't look like Dracula's castle at all," Maria said with a small, suspicious frown.
"Of course not," Alucard agreed, standing from where he waited, "It is merely a precaution in case the magic charm on the elevator happens to malfunction and lead businessmen astray. Any who arrive here will find all the doors locked. Allow me to guide you the rest of the way."
The dhampire strode to a large set of double doors, resting his hands on the decorative wood and murmuring something. Slowly, the gateway opened of its own volition, and the group stepped through.
As Leon looked around, he smiled, "now this is the Castlevania I remember."
Dreary dungeon-like stones surrounded them on the ceilings, floors, and walls. Ornate chandeliers hung from above, and tall candelabras lined the walls. The air was somehow filled with an earthen scent, and in the distance the quiet groan of zombies shuffling about could be heard.
"Indeed."
The group looked over as Dracula stepped out from his hiding place in the shadows, smirking in response to Leon's statement. With an over-flourished wave of his cape, he gestured for them to enter. "Welcome to Castlevania… again!"
LateNiteSlacker's Notes:
1 – Thank you, dearest reviewers! It never fails to amaze me (and encourage me) that you like reading this story as much as I like writing it!
2 – In case you were wondering, yes, Alucard did take Dracula up on that offer to go fishing. If you would like to read about what happened, it's in the ficlet I wrote titled "Gone Fishing." The title may change soon, but chapter 1 will have the same name. I separated that fic from Modern Problems because it didn't blend with this story at all. Too much fluff, too much melodrama, not enough wimpy vegan Dracula or over-angsty Alucard.
3 – TrueHyperSonic, ShinnYagami, and anyone else who doesn't have PMing, please email me! I like to respond to all of my reviewers, and I don't know how to respond to you… =(
4 – Congrats to the MANY people who answered the questions correctly this time around! I've got to say, I'm impressed!
Chapter Trivia – ShinnYagami, Selfish Vampire Mint, Willowfur, Jotepaine, SunLord89, NeoseekerDarkKnight, Auragonian, and True Hyper Sonic!
Bonus Trivia – ShinnYagami, Selfish Vampire Mint, NeoseekerDarkKnight, Auragonian, True Hyper Sonic, and Heavenschoir!
Title Trivia – Selfish Vampire Mint, Jotepaine, NeoseekerDarkKnight, Auragonian, and True Hyper Sonic!
5 – Tee hee. Any of you happen to know what building they're in? ;D
Chapter Trivia #8 Answer: Who is Maria's sister?
Maria's sister is Annette Renard. She is engaged to Richter in Rondo of Blood, and later is assumed to be his wife in Symphony of the Night, if you managed to save her. However, it's never proven that she ever married him… hmm… plot point, I wonder? ^_^
Bonus Trivia #8 Answer: What are Maria's sub-weapons based off?
Maria's sub-weapons are based off China's legend of the four sacred beasts. They have various names, depending on the game you play, but they are the Dragon, Tiger, Turtle, and Phoenix. (And yes, in Harmony of Despair, she can sing a holy song, part of Bloody Tears! All I've got to say is that her singing must be pretty awful if it kills things so easily.)
Title Trivia #8 Answer: From where is the title "Laurels In Your Soup Enhances Its Aroma"?
A random young man in the Town of Veros tells Simon this in Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest. He never says anything else.
Chapter Trivia #9: In this chapter, it is mentioned that Alucard killed Saccubus long ago. When did he do this?
Bonus Trivia #9: Magic points aside, can Alucard actually fly through all of Castlevania as a bat?
Title Trivia #9: Where is the title "Into the Shadows of the Hell House" from?
