He puffed his pipe a bit, leaning back and watching the sleeping conundrum that was the vampire. Rising, he sent the butler back to sleep and the cook back to the kitchen, and returned to his chair to see the vampire as motionless as before.
Briefly motionless; the head flew back, eyes flying open but staring blindly, a choked gurgle in its throat as the vampire's entire body jerked. He stared at it in shock, but the vampire blinked rapidly, swallowed heavily, and shuddered. Eyes closed, it leaned down, hugging its legs close, whining softly.
Abraham remained silent, watching the odd display. The vampire had said it had nightmares, and he suspected he was seeing one. For now, it remained unaware of his presence, though the room was well-lit and he'd done nothing to conceal itself. It simply buried its face in its knees, still shaking slightly, and the whining tapered back off to silence. Unfolding, it lifted its head, leaning it back against the window, watching the rain streak the panes.
And then it startled again, head whipping around to stare at him. A few moments of panicked fear, and then sense returned to those eyes, and concern. The vampire ducked its head, well aware it had been caught, cringing as Abraham continued to silently observe it. Abraham continued to watch it, observing as it got increasingly twitchy and nervous. When it began whining, barely audible, he finally spoke to it.
"How did you get out of the room." It wasn't even a question, simply a flat, inflectionless demand, though the words made it clear the vampire damn well better answer.
Its answer was a whisper. "Someone opened the doors." The hands curled and uncurled, the vampire trembling slightly in its fear.
Well, this was certainly a relief, then. But it created additional questions, and he expected the answers to those, and immediately. "Who?"
Alucard's hands crept up to his hair, and his head wagged from side to side. "Don't know."
Of course not, the vampire had met very few of the household residents. But Abraham wanted specifics. "Describe what he looked like, Alucard." His piercing glare remained on the vampire and the words tumbled over each other in its eagerness to answer. The vampire would cooperate, usually with the clear intent of relieving Abraham's focus on him. It clearly unnerved the creature to have itself as the sole object of his attention, and Abraham didn't really give a damn right now, either.
"Three, young, two boys, a girl. Two were dark, one boy was blond. Not dressed in fancy clothes. Servants?" It hazarded a guess, almost inquisitive, only to immediately melt under Abraham's burning gaze.
Three kids. He even had a good guess as to which ones, too. One of the maids, the one that had "woken" when they checked her room, was new, young, and the housekeeper had already warned her for spending more time flirting with the young men than doing her work. The two young men she chased and who pursued her in turn were the cook's assistant and the head groom's son, who did random odd jobs about the house. The three of them had already been reprimanded more than once in the past, mostly due to pranks and stunts instigated by the maid. She'd dare the boys to do something foolish, from stealing the aprons in the kitchen to letting the hounds loose in the house, and then, as Nature took its course, the boys would do just that to impress her. And often add their own inventive embellishments, too.
So far, the pranks had been no more than amusing and nuisancy, but this latest one could have gotten all three of them killed.
"Did you have anything to do with them opening that door?" He wouldn't put it past the beast, but it's violent headshakes told him no. And it wasn't as if the brats had needed any urging.
"You knew you were to stay in the room, Alucard." The head dropped lower, with a faint sobbing sound. "If you can't be reliably contained in the room, we'll have to consider some other options. None of which you would enjoy in the slightest." It had begun a slight keening, eyes shut, rocking back and forth in its fear. Abraham would usually relent when the vampire reached this point, but after tonight's fright, he was not feeling at all charitable towards the beast.
"And what did you do when they opened the door? Clearly, you did not stay in your room." He glared at the beast, but Alucard was entirely unaware of this, eyes clenched shut and shaking and rocking in his fear and nervousness.
"I...put out their candle...and came here."
"Did they see you? Why did you come here?"
"No, no, not see me, not." It paused, mind clearly cracking and having to work hard to regain the coherence it had held previously. Fluency was far beyond it, but it could respond. And would, damn it. "I...bored...lonely. Moon." A white hand fluttered briefly at the window. "Wanted to see it, but rain. Didn't want back downstairs." A little gasping sob. "You'd...I...here before, in this room. Came back, sat back, same window." The hand disappeared back into the tangled black locks, and it began weeping brokenly.
Well, that explained a lot. Abraham sighed, the first strains of pity showing again. It had been bored, and no wonder, with nothing to do and nothing to see. His own visits rarely lasted an hour. He really couldn't blame it for taking the first opportunity it had to leave the room, and it had been surprisingly good. It had stayed out of sight and not gone anywhere but where he'd taken it before...and then waited there.
It didn't change the fact that it knew it should stay downstairs, or the worry and stress it had caused, but aside from leaving its room, it had behaved so innocuously Abraham almost wondered if it really was a vampire. It should have indulged in a bloodbath, not gone to watch the rain.
Would it go downstairs again with him?
One way to find out.
"Let's go."
x x x x x x
The trip downstairs was terribly anticlimactic. It followed right at his heels, almost stepping on them in its attempts to be obedient, nervous and flighty and jumpy. It went into the cell easily, then stood there, swaying, arms crossed and hands gripping the opposite shoulders, head hanging. "Alucard, you are not to leave this room without my express permission again. Understood?" Rapid head-bobbing indicated yes. "You will not be punished this time, but if it happens again, you will be. This won't happen again, will it?" The head shook so rapidly Abraham wondered idly why it didn't detach.
As he was leaving, he realized something else; the state of exhaustion the vampire was in. It had fallen asleep sitting in the window well before dawn, when it should have been wide awake. It hadn't been able to sleep in its coffin for days...and he'd seen a nightmare and its results with his own eyes. He turned, catching the vampire folding itself down behind the coffin, blanket gripped by those thin white hands.
"Alucard?" It froze, uncertain, scared of what he might do, then the face lifted slightly, the red eyes finding his own, pleading and frightened. "If you'll sleep, I'll place you in your coffin."
Fear changed to astonishment, and a heartbeat passed before the vampire whispered a quiet, "Thank you." It finished curling up on the lid, and before Abraham could even cross the room to it, it had fallen fast asleep.
He left it settled and sleeping in its coffin. The pillow was tucked under its head, the blanket draped across its body. He locked the doors behind him, deciding that he'd have to get locks with keys, not simply the stout deadbolts and latches he'd been using. The vampire might be kept in, but there was little to delay anyone else releasing him.
He'd originally set it up that way on purpose, in case he should end up trapped with the vampire and someone else needed to reach him, or if he needed to enter the room quickly. He hadn't even considered that anybody else would willingly open the door of the vampire's chamber.
Children. He'd have to explain to his friends why they'd been rousted out of bed to rush to his home. And he'd have to have words with the three miscreants; this time around, they might well be out of a job. Even so, it was better than having them as ghouls or vampires.
It was very late, or very early, and now that the stress was removed, he realized how exhausted he was, himself. In barely more than a week, his vampire had escaped, his leg had been shattered, he'd found his vampire, lost the means to control it, locked it away in the basement, and then spent a highly stressful night with it loose and missing. Exhausted didn't begin to cover it. He was getting too old for this crap!
