Death was at his back and nothing lay before him, but in dreams he could forget.
There were no flames there but those that blazed merrily in the fireplaces of the estate, warming a family that was fearless and strong and whole. There were no thoughts of all his life had become, that endless escape through the shadows to nowhere, but memories of a glorious past and the promise of an infinite future.
There was some sense, somewhere in the deepest depths of his mind, that these moments were as hazy and untouchable as smoke, the details faint and always shifting. But he couldn't question it, not when everything was as perfect as it had always been. It could have been any casual family reunion, one bright spot of peace in the war against the night.
Sometimes his father would be there to show off a new trick with the Morning Star, something that looked so fluid and easy that it had to be nearly impossible, and declare that one day Trevor would do the same. And then sometimes his mother would start to scold her husband for using the whip indoors, saying that their home wasn't a demon castle from hell and shouldn't they at least try to set a decent example, but would break off laughing before she could finish. His relatives would tell him how much he'd grown, and his cousins would swear they could take him anyway.
Talk would turn to the battles ahead: the conquest of creatures more terrible and fantastic than any legend, with prizes beyond the reaches of imagination left to be claimed. Trevor would always lose himself in the moment, encircled in the boundless warmth of now.
It would fade, though. It always did.
As he'd become aware of himself again, realizing that he must have given in to sleep and shifting from his position underneath a tree that never was quite enough to keep out the rain, the weight of the massacre would descend upon his shoulders like a shroud. The pain and the hunger would soon follow, along with all the grim realities of the waking world. He would be left with nothing of his family—the happiness that felt almost real—but a memory of a dream just beyond his grasp.
Trevor hated those fucking dreams. Somehow the waking seemed the cruelest trick possible.
Of course he knew what had really happened then, on the last night of his old life, all he'd done and failed to do. It was impossible to forget. As long as he still lived, though, as long as he could think and fight and just keep moving, he could handle it. Maybe not well, but he could handle it.
But to believe, if only for a moment, that he didn't have to...
He wished for nightmares instead.
It was with these hated, familiar thoughts—by now even the hatred was becoming routine—that Trevor fully woke. Remaining still but for the movements of his eyes, he cast a quick glance around the area.
Weapons: intact.
Predators (human or otherwise): none.
Weather: gray and damp and just cold enough to be distracting, but bearable.
All clear.
He pushed himself upright and moved out and away from the shade of his current shelter: a tree with low and leafy boughs, deep within the woods of wherever the fuck he'd ended up now. He didn't want to risk getting close enough to civilization to find out.
For now, there was really nothing wrong with the spot he'd chosen. As a Belmont hunter and, more importantly, one who'd grown up with a forest as his closest neighbor, it wasn't as though he'd never slept outside before this. The tree was decent enough at shielding him from the elements, and far back enough from the edge of the woods that no human on the outside would sight him. It would almost feel like a regular hunt, even a camping trip, if it weren't for the fact that he felt like several kinds of shit and the trip would never end.
He'd become used to it, though, after weeks of avoiding the main roads and keeping to the shadows, used to it in a way he'd never have thought himself capable. Sometimes, he felt he should fight it more, that sense of finality, of acceptance that this was his life now. Mostly, he was too tired to try—and, what, did he think he still had honor? Dignity?
The days had already begun to blend together, with nothing in between the caution of now and the panic of then but all the little horrible firsts.
His first hours utterly alone in the world, face still streaked with blood and every sight an enemy and every sound a possible death.
The first time he'd grown too exhausted to keep moving and finally chanced capture, letting himself fall into a sleep from which he knew he might never wake.
The first night he'd dared to build a fire, gazing into the darkness beyond its glow with whip clenched in hand as he kept watch and tried not to remember.
But now he was living—or at least surviving. The rare opportunistic night creatures that crossed his path, lesser demons all, met a fiery end with little more than a single lash from his consecrated whip. There was no shortage of game along the trails he kept to, the overgrown forests and disused paths. Even the constant itching of his wound was only a sign it was beginning to heal.
He knew this life could not last forever.
Something worse could always come along, some unfamiliar monster or a vampire or just more fuckers with a grudge. He'd been capable so far, even lucky, but how long could he keep that up? And the emptiness in his stomach seemed to gnaw at him constantly, no matter how much he killed or gathered. He knew he was young, still growing, that he needed more food than the small beasts that were easy kills and whatever roots and berries were safe. Eventually the temperature would drop and the snow would fall and his prey would move on. There was much worse harm that could befall him than a scar across the eye.
That was where his newest target came in: those houses just outside the woods.
He wasn't stupid enough to ask anyone for help, not with the Belmont crest on his tunic and a whip at his belt and the smell of smoke that he swore still clung to him, no matter how long it had been. He was certainly not stupid enough to put his weapons aside to feign innocence, however briefly. He wouldn't have been stupid enough even if his family still lived—they'd made sure of that.
If luck was on his side one more time, though, there wouldn't be anyone there to ask.
By now, Trevor had a clear view of the overcast sky as the woods thinned out around him. Slowly, carefully, he approached his lookout site: the weathered and hollowed remains of a tree trunk. With one more quick glance around the area, he pushed himself inside.
The space within the trunk was narrow and tight, difficult even for him to enter but surely worse for a larger predator to attempt to drag him out. It was dark as well, rife with insects and fungus and the odor of damp and rotting wood. It was, on the whole, a much shittier shelter than the tree where he'd slept.
It also had a perfect hole just at eye level.
From there, he was safe to stare at the cluster of four small houses in the distance for hours at a time—and by now he'd done so several times already. He'd detected no signs of life from any of them in the days since he'd arrived in the area: no voices, no light, and especially not anyone entering or leaving. It even seemed that the closest of the houses had a half-opened front door.
He wasn't sure exactly when he'd begun staking out the area: here in the middle of nowhere, with every day the same. Four days ago? Maybe three? He wasn't even sure exactly how long he'd been on his own. Weeks, definitely. Months, probably not. About a month? Probably the safest bet. He had quickly come to realize it no longer mattered.
But, either way, three or four days—or more—seemed entirely too long for at least four households to all be so still and quiet for so long. The structures seemed shabby, with one room at most; their inhabitants would have to be getting food from somewhere. Wouldn't at least someone go out hunting, or to the nearest town? Did none of them practice a trade, or even go out for fresh air?
The simplest explanation was that no one was there at all.
Off traveling, gone shopping, fled and abandoned the whole damn place—whichever. That didn't matter either. As long as they'd left something behind.
Something he could wear as the weather worsened, that could cover up the golden crest that might as well have been a target right above his heart. Something more substantial to eat than whatever nature deigned to throw at him, if those houses had some stocks of food after all. And maybe money, or something he could sell, if he ever got up the nerve to enter a town: to pretend he was perfectly normal, that his family hadn't been viewed by damn near every Wallachian he'd ever heard of as a useful annoyance at best and hellspawn at worst.
If he weren't a Belmont, it would be so easy to go back to civilization. Just some poor pitiful orphan with a scar, sad and alone but so smart and hard-working—why, he'd find work in no time, they'd say, maybe even win over a local benefactor. He'd know what day it was again, with birthdays and holidays and greater gifts to look forward to, in a world where life meant more than the mere act of survival.
Such bullshit. His most pathetic fantasy yet.
Clearly he'd been watching here, on the outside looking in, for much too long—like a stray dog waiting for scraps before a closed door. He needed to just get it over with, before the owners of the houses came back if nothing else.
Turning his gaze away for a moment, he carefully freed himself from the hollow of the trunk. Then, more deliberately than ever, he took his first steps outside the bounds of that stretch of forest, facing forward once more. There, inside those tiny, run-down houses, lay the closest thing to hope he'd felt in a long while.
If he were more trusting, or just more desperate, he would have sprinted across the empty field before him, straight into the possibilities of what lay beyond that open door. Some small part of him wished he could. But what was a trap if not something the prey went to willingly—like the forbidden fruit in the midst of Eden, or the melodies of sirens from the rocks?
He covered the distance as furtively as he would on a night hunt, slow and somewhere close to calm. He had all the time in the world.
No matter what, he'd retreat and leave this place entirely if he found anyone home. There was no point in trying to sort out the potential killers from the potential saviors. Even his family had barely felt safe about entering strange villages on business in the times when tensions ran high, not without traveling in numbers and staying on guard—and they'd killed vampires. Defending Wallachia may have been their duty, but the Wallachians themselves were too often a risk.
Once he'd traveled a suitable length, in range of the house with the cracked-open door but with distance enough for escape, Trevor stopped and scanned the ground, clutching the handle of his whip all the while. He gathered a handful of stones, small enough to throw easily and heavy enough to hit hard. Then he straightened up and tossed one at the nearest window.
Another at the door.
The side of the house.
The roof.
Silence. Every time.
He aimed the last stone into the black void of the doorway, and heard nothing but clattering against the floor.
Either whoever lived here, murderer or saint, was the most patient and tolerant person on earth, or the place was empty. Trevor bet on the latter.
He walked the remainder of the distance ahead. Stopped. Took some deep breaths. Then, with a trembling hand, he pushed the door open the rest of the way, flooding the shadows of the house's interior with the gray light of afternoon.
His eyes adjusted to the change in light, and his heart dropped in his chest.
There were several people in the house, it turned out. But they'd all been slaughtered days before.
Every bit of self-preservation he still had left screamed at him to get away. The shock held him in place.
Blood, dried thick and nearly black, seemed to paint the floor, even climb up the walls. The figures that lay scattered within it did not appear merely dead—they looked like they'd been shredded. Long, deep gashes had been cut into them all, remnants of clothing hanging in gory ribbons across mangled frames. Trevor could not easily tell how many there were, or how old they'd been, or even which were men or women. The carnage before him reminded him more of an abattoir than of anything remotely human.
The one closest to the door, just inches from where he stood, had taken the worst of the attack. Its body lay twisted at an unnatural angle, chunks of flesh ripped from arms and face at close range. A sickle lay beside it on the floor, just out of reach from where one gouged arm stretched.
Trevor kneeled down on shaky legs to get a closer look. The blade of the sickle was stained with blood, but the tool seemed much too short and dull to have been used for the murders. No—it must have been the closest thing to a weapon those poor bastards had, as they fought to protect themselves from... what?
Another mob attack? On some destitute family out in the backwoods? He doubted it. Even the ones who'd burned the estate hadn't been as thorough as this.
A monster? More likely. But a monster that didn't even bother eating the prey it had so gleefully killed? One that just left through the door?
Something pale and shining caught his eye amidst the dark tangles of bodies and blood. One of the victims was gripping something in its hand. With some difficulty, Trevor pulled the object free from its grasp and held it to the light.
It was a scrap of fabric, white with an opal sheen, something elegant and fine and more ornate than anything else in the rustic house. One end of it was frayed and uneven, the end that Trevor had gripped first as he tugged it from the corpse's hand. It must have been from some garment the killer was wearing—something its victim had grabbed and ripped away while struggling in vain to defend itself.
The thing that killed them had looked human, then.
Trevor tucked the piece of fabric into a knife holster and stood back up. It wouldn't feel right to search this house for more supplies, however necessary they might soon become. The deaths had nothing to do with him, of course, but still—
Or maybe they did. If the rest of his family had lived, some hunter of the House of Belmont, nobler and more capable than he, might have been there to prevent this attack before it could begin. Another innocent family could have been saved. If they had lived…
Nausea snaked through him. Trevor could no longer tell if it was from the scene before him or his own fucked mind.
He should have been used to it by now. Used to violence and horror, to the metallic tang of blood and the sweet rot of decay, to sudden and brutal death. What was all that, if not the Belmont trade? He'd been on hundreds of hunts, seen thousands of corpses—his own family among them.
Was this his fate—his punishment? To relive his failure on the night of the massacre for the rest of his life, until he finally joined them?
These victims should have meant nothing to him. They were people he'd never known and never would, people who may very well have approved of the Belmonts' murders just weeks before. For all he knew, this served them right.
And he couldn't have saved them anyway. He'd never been able to save anyone but himself. There was no point in remaining here, drowning in memories and the stench of death, pretending he was a coolly detached hunter on the trail and not some lucky idiot with a whip.
He stepped out from the bloody core of the house, and gulped in fresh air as soon as he was free. The door remained open behind him. Telling anyone what had happened was an impossibility, but the least he could do was give the victims a chance to be discovered by someone else.
It hardly seemed worth checking the other houses, but he supposed it wasn't the worst decision he'd made that day. There was always a chance that the other residents had fled when these killings began. And if they hadn't? Then at least this time he knew what to expect.
He opened the door of the next house, bracing himself for the worst, and choked from the smell anyway. The scent of death had only been amplified within the enclosed space, intermingling with something he hadn't noticed just before: a rich and floral fragrance, like perfume. Trevor took in a breath and stepped inside.
There was no doubt he'd found more victims here. But their deaths had been different.
No blood stained the floor of this home, and its residents even seemed to be in one piece, lying too-silently upon their beds. The killer had gotten to them while they slept.
It seemed an intrusion to step to the nearest bedside, to pull back the covers just to stare at the remains of a young man scarcely older than himself. Trevor found himself doing it anyway. He needed to know what had happened here—or, rather, what hadn't. Why hadn't this household fought back?
The first thing he noticed was the mark on the corpse's neck.
A bruise like a storm cloud stood out livid against the chilling pallor of the skin, seeming almost to radiate from two small holes at its center. Fang marks.
Mystery fucking solved.
Growing up with legends and cautionary tales about vampires and their deadly vices was one thing. Actually witnessing the damage they left behind was another matter altogether. Trevor felt his eyes wandering across the bodies still tucked peacefully into their beds, even as he realized he'd seen more than enough already.
What was left of the young man before him seemed simultaneously swollen and gaunt, bloated from decay yet drained of blood. A faint trickle of something had leaked from its face to stain the pillow beneath, something that looked dark and clotted and sticky, like blood mixed with something worse. Its clouded eyes stared up at nothing, while its mouth hung open as if in shock.
Trevor wondered how much the man had seen of his own death, and how much he'd known it for what it was. Would it have been better to go out fighting, like the other family (—like the Belmonts—) had? Or to believe one was merely lost in a nightmare that would soon end?
It didn't feel his place to guess.
Trevor turned and exited this house as well, leaving another open door in his wake. Something told him that the figures in the other beds would look much the same up close.
A quick glimpse into the two remaining houses—not quick enough to miss the couples that had died side by side, the small forms that must have been children—confirmed that the gruesome bloodshed within the first house had been the exception. What had driven the vampire to be so careful with its other kills, and how did the other households not flee the instant they heard the horror from the first?
Then it hit him.
Because that was actually the last house, you stupid fucking idiot.
("See that?" His father pointed to the blood staining the village square, where the vampire he'd slain had publicly attacked just the night before. "Don't think that's where it started killing. That's just where it got caught.")
It seemed easy enough to fill in the blanks: vampire finds some easy targets, vampire sneaks in, vampire does what all goddamn vampires do.
Vampire fucks up.
Maybe it had gotten careless, thrilled with its triumph and bloated on blood, and left someone alive. Or it just didn't count on a potential victim actually waking up. Perhaps the family in the last house had realized too late what was coming for them, and chose to lay in wait instead.
Those peaceful victims in the other houses proved the demon had been careful before, even quiet. It had only become so desperately violent, prioritizing escape over blood, when something in its plans shifted—when it lost control. The family had actually managed to injure it, or the sun was close to rising, or it had simply never been challenged until now.
Whatever had happened, exactly, the results were sickeningly clear.
One of the most frightening things about vampires was how so few actually played at full strength.
At least this vampire had fled long before Trevor arrived. But what about the next?
The Morning Star was said to bring down vampires with a single strike, their cursed bodies swelling with sparks and bursting into holy flame. The crimson brilliance of their deaths bloomed like a flower, one that had been watered since Leon's age with the damned blood of their kin.
Now the Morning Star was probably hanging on some shithole tavern's wall.
His own whip was a holy weapon too, and, even if it hadn't been, it was damned useful. But it was not his family's ancestral whip, the one that blazed with a spirit that cried out to shed vampire blood. Trevor had never even touched the Morning Star. His parents had been firm that he wasn't to handle it until he was grown, truly capable to take up the mantle of vampire hunter.
They really should have planned things out better.
Trevor had no idea how many lashes from an ordinary consecrated whip a vampire could withstand. He hadn't thought he might have to discover it firsthand. His other relatives had managed, but they'd had years of experience, hadn't needed to fight alone. Would there really be a difference between himself and those mangled victims if a vampire caught him off guard?
If he was to continue surviving, he'd need more than he had.
There was nothing for him in these houses, he realized, fighting back another swirl of nausea. He wasn't desperate enough yet to be a graverobber, to grope through these poor families' meager possessions and claim. Like the man who'd killed his mother, or the vampire that had crossed their thresholds. Had he really expected to empty their stores, or tug a wedding ring from a lifeless hand?
Even those who'd fought back hadn't really had weapons.
But at least they'd died together.
It didn't matter that both the great and poor houses alike had despised the Belmonts, or that his family had had no servants simply because they had no one to trust. He really was just a spoiled rich kid after all, blind to the realities of the world outside his estate. He needed to break out of his fantasies, his self-pity, and come up with an actual plan.
Trevor found himself once again retreating into the relative safety of the woods, the scattered remains of a broken family left far behind him. But this time he knew what the hell he was doing.
He'd have to return to the estate.
If he had to take from the dead to ensure his safety, he'd at least do it on his own property. He'd dig through the ashes and the rubble, find whatever useful things the mob hadn't carried off. He'd approach the stone that blocked the hold, hope it would recognize the true blood of a Belmont and grant him passage.
He'd bury what was left of his family, if he had to. At this point it would be a token gesture, the absolute least he could do. But it felt fair.
And if any Belmonts had lived...
The idea of his relatives finally home from the hunt with open arms and bags of treasure was another bullshit fantasy, he knew. He could not let himself indulge, no matter how much he wanted.
No one would be waiting for him, even if they'd survived. But if someone else had had the same idea as him, perhaps there'd be a sign. The family crest streaked in ashes across a tumbled wall, or a hidden note left for anyone who still cared. He'd never know unless he saw it for himself.
The return would not be easy. The trek back through the shadows would be manageable—he'd done it once already, after all. But, the closer he got to the estate, the more likely it would be that the most vengeful of the Wallachians would dog his steps, desperate to finish the job they'd left undone.
They wouldn't hold back. They'd seek his blood and wallow in his fear and take from him everything they could.
Well, then, let them. Let the bastards try!
They'd done their worst already.
Author's Note: Am I really uploading a new chapter less than an hour before the new season drops?
...Yes.
Thank you to Justsayapple on the Castlevania Creatives Discord for answering my weird questions about human decomposition! Any inaccuracies in this area are entirely my own.
I'm very excited to get to the events of the final chapter, and hope to have it up sooner than this one was!
Thank you so much for reading, and see ya on the other side!