It was noon when Abraham went to check on his misbehaving monster again. Mina and her husband were with him, both with loaded guns and Holy Water. With them to watch over him, Abraham felt a little more confident in his protection should Dracula be awake and violent. It was also useful to have their assistance as he navigated the stairs. Seward would be by to check on his leg tomorrow, but for now, he was still using those damnable awkward crutches.
At least it didn't hurt now. Seward had confided that he'd been prepared to take the leg off as soon as they had the vampire contained again. He'd said it had gone septic and his concern had been that Abraham remain lucid long enough to recapture the vampire...he'd given up on keeping the leg. How the blazes had the vampire healed it, anyways?
Father Jacobs had told him that the vampire seemed exhausted afterwards, which was to be expected, it was well into morning by the time the beast had been discovered. And he'd had some burns from the sun, probably very minor ones. The beast had been seen out and about in daylight by Johnathan Harker himself, so it clearly wasn't overly detrimental. And the blood he'd been fed had healed the vampire, though Abraham himself hadn't gotten to see that.
No, by the time he was functional again, the beast was back in the basement. And it had avoided him since then, refusing to cooperate. The gratitude had been leavened with suspicion from the beginning, and now it had nearly evaporated from the anger.
Still, handling crutches and a splinted leg beat the hell out of being a bedbound amputee. And the Harkers were willing to carry the bottles of blood, lanterns, and weapons to the basement, then return to lend him a pair of shoulders to make it back down!
x x x x x
The door creaked ominously, though the lanterns in the narrow windows showed no sign of the beast. Once the outer door was closed firmly behind him, he prepared to open the inner door. Sweat beaded and his heart raced; he fully expected the vampire to be waiting beside the door, ready to attack. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the door open, thrusting the Rosary in front of himself, and flinched, waiting for a roar of anger...
To hear nothing. Cautiously, he peered about, entering the room slowly...no vampire at all. He was asleep, or feigning such. Back to the wall, he circled about, crutches thumping steadily on the floor, gun at the ready, trying to catch a glimpse of the vampire sleeping behind the coffin. No vampire.
One of two things had occurred. Either the vampire had regained the courage to sleep in his coffin on his own...or it had escaped. A sudden thought had Abraham flinching and jerking his head about to stare at the ceiling...but no vampire clung to it.
Dear God, please let it be in the coffin...
x x x x x x x x
His gasp upon seeing what was in the coffin had brought anxious questions from his two guards, and he motioned them in.
"Bring all the blood, and the lanterns." His voice was quiet, calm, and very, very serious. "He's not posing any danger at the moment."
The bright lights of the additional lanterns fell on the vampire. It lay quiescent, the blanket from Father Jacobs still partially wrapped around its form. The skin was pale, wrinkled, and incredibly thin. The eyelids were paper-like, the lips dry and flaking. Every part of the beast seemed dessicated and emaciated. Even the skin on the fingers was pulled back from the nailbeds, making them look like talons instead of the well-groomed nails the vampire had sported. The bones of the body, the hips, shoulders, ribs, protruded up, pressing against the thin skin, looking ready to split it. The hair had gone to a ghostly white, so thin and wispy as to look like a tangle of cobwebs.
The vampire wasn't injured this time. And he looked marginally better than when Abraham had opened the coffin a month ago...but he was still clearly in very, very poor shape.
Abraham had noted the shattered bottles when he first came in the room, but had simply thought the vampire had broken them in anger. Leaving the Harkers to stare, shocked, at the vampire, he moved closer to the broken bits.
Rats. There were the marks of gnawing teeth on the corks, dozens of sticky little prints all about the shards, and a great half-dried pool of sticky blood smeared across the floor. Alucard hadn't had any of this.
And the vampire had clearly been far, far more exhausted by healing Abraham than the others had led him to believe, or far more badly burned by the sun than a few red patches. With a twinge, Abraham hoped the vampire had been asleep and unaware of what had occurred. Otherwise... damnation. It was a repeat of what had happened before, and the vampire was nowhere near sane enough to come through that unscathed. Starved and trapped in his coffin, yet again.
Frustrated with himself and feeling the slightest touch of guilt for the vampire's condition, Abraham moved to stand by the coffin, looking down at his sadly neglected charge.
"Mina, would you bring me the chair from the hall?"
Settling down in the chair by the coffin, he pulled out the funnel and the first bottle of blood, and began to feed the vampire.