Chapter 11: Dracula's Intentions

Wallachian Countryside

'I'm still not completly clear on why you don't catch fire in the daylight,' Sypha said to Alucard.

'Human bit cancels it out,' Trevor said bluntly from where he was reclined on the other side of the fire.

'Human bit?' Sypha asked.

'I am half-human,' Alucard clarified. 'My mother's name was Lisa, and she was mortal.'

'I would very much like to hear the story of how that happened,' Sypha remarked.

Alucard gave a light chuckle. 'She actually showed up at his front door. She found the castle and banged on the front door with the pummel of her knife.'

Sypha smiled. 'She sounds interesting.'

'Oh, she was remarkable. She beat on the door until my father let her in, and then demanded he teach her how to be a doctor.'

'Wait.' Trevor sat up suddenly. 'Dracula taught a human woman how to be a doctor?' He snorted. 'What was first? Bloodletting?' He laughed.

Still rude, but...Sypha could actually understand his sceptism at the whole concept. It was bizarre. Dracula was known, throughout the ages, as being a monster who destroyed. The idea that he knew how to heal, and that he'd taught a human woman how it was done, seemed so outrageous.

'God, you still think you're funny. My father...'

'Dracula,' Trevor cut in with a pointed tone.

There was a level of acquiescence in Alucard's tone. '...is a man of science. A philosopher, a scholar. And knows things our society has forgotten three times over.'

Trevor and Sypha shared a look. Sypha wondered if he even knew things that may have gotten lost to the Speakers. That did occassionally happen.

'Do you still not understand the enormity of what we're doing?' Alucard asked before turning to the flames. 'He's gone mad. And from that, there is no recovering him.'

'Shame,' Trevor drawled with no sympathy.

Sypha was tempted to reprimand him for it, but it occurred to her that all the stories indicated the Belmonts began demon hunting because of Dracula. Trevor had probably been brought up with that mission in mind. He wasn't likely to be very empathic to anything about this situation. It might even be fair to say that any Belmont would respond to this the way Trevor was.

Alucard ignored it. 'It's a tragedy. His repository of centuries of learning. He could have changed the world – I think he might have, if mother hadn't died. She'd sent him out into the world, and that's why he wasn't there when the Bishops took her.'

'She sent him away?' Sypha asked.

'She sent him to...travel, to learn the true state of the world, true nature of humans and how they live.'

That made it perfectly clear to Sypha. 'She was...turning him.'

'Imagine if he could've been,' Alucard said. 'All that knowledge, improving lives; if the religious inquisition hadn't proven true all of his worst instincts about humans.'

'And now he's going to use her death as an excuse to destroy the world?' Trevor asked.

Alucard averted his eyes. 'Oh, the world will still be here, Belmont. Trees will still grow, birds will still sing, animals will still hump in the undergrowth. But you won't be here.'

Trevor's eyes narrowed.

Alucard looked at Sypha. 'And you won't be here.' He looked back at Trevor. 'None of you. The sun will still set, but you will not see it rise. There will only be Dracula, and his war council and the Hoardes of the Night. He wrote some great books, you know. He bound the covers himself and wraps them in the preserved skin of the people who he hated most. And he writes plans; I've seen them. Ideas of darkening clouds and making them as permanent in the air as the clouds of the north. Creates strange flying machines that push shrouds across the sky to block out the sun. Imagine it: a world without humans, under endless invented light, and Dracula and his castle – his revenge so complete that there is nothing left to do but look out over a world without art or memory or laughter, and know that he did his work well.' His expression tightened. 'That he did it all for love.'

A sound suddenly pulled them out of the horrifying image that Alucard was painting.

Trevor looked over his shoulder. 'Did you hear that?'

Alucard apparently didn't. 'Animals humping in the undergrowth?' He cocked his head. 'Wait. No.'

The two men were very quickly on their feet. Trevor first as he quickly kicked dirt on the fire and extinguished it. 'Which is the nearest town? Is it still Gresit?'

Sypha quickly mapped out the area in her head. 'Arges is closer to us.' The benefit of being born into a Speaker caravan was that she knew the towns of Wallachia like the back of her hand.

They all fell silent and hear the snarling of the Night Hoarde. It was time to stop them before they got to Arges. Trevor moved first, falling into habits that'd likely been ingrained into him from early childhood. He ran to the nearest large tree and swung himself up into it, going higher and higher to a doubtlessly far better vantage point.

Alucard turned and walked in the other direction. He walked towards the road, his hand wrapping securely around the hilt of his sword. They were obviously going for a frontal assault. Sypha closed her eyes and sighed before pulling her hood over her head. Speaker robes were designed to help the speakers blend into the countryside, and it was even easier at night.

If they needed her help, she'd be ready and remain unseen until then.

Alucard stood in the road, directly in the path of the demons.

They stopped when they saw him, surprise on their faces. Still, they knew who he was. The fact that they didn't attack instantly told him that. Alucard stood still for a moment, letting them take him in. The two demons he knew to be Slogra and Gaibon looked at each other. Then he pulled out his sword and cast the sheath away. He flicked it around so the point was facing the demons and made one statement.

'No further.'

Two of the lesser demons roared and charged. Alucard teleported, coming up alongside them and then stabbed, piercing both through the brains. They immediately erupted into flames. Alucard landed and flicked them off of his blade. He raised the sword in front of him again and watched the remaining demons.

Slogra and Gaibon attacked in their trademark attack. Those two demons preferred those particular forms for just that reason. Gaibon grabbed Slogra's shoulders and lifted him up in the air before releasing him. Slogra came at Alucard with his spear. Alucard deflected the slash and then jumped back to avoid the stab. He then ducked from Slogra's kick.

Slogra snarled and attack again, forcing Alucard to defend. The demon was ancient and Alucard was having a hard time finding an opening to attack, especially when he was attacked from the side by a fireball and had to duck and roll to avoid that. As he blocked Slogra's attempted sneak attack, the demon bounced into the air only to be caught by Gaibon again. They came at him again.

CRACK!

Gaibon was struck in the head. Alucard looked over and saw Belmont, perched up in a tree. He pulled his whip back to himself and then jumped, sliding down. He came off the branch and was airborne for a moment. Slogra's spear had landed just out of reach, and the demon was reaching for it. However, Belmont cracked his whip again and snatched the weapon out of the demon's grasp.

Yanking the whip back to himself, Belmont grabbed the spear and rammed it directly into Slogra's head as he came for his landing, knocking the demon back a few feet. If there was any doubt he was a Belmont, it was gone in that moment. Belmont stood up with a grin on his face, but soon they both had to dodge fireballs being thrown at them.

Just before a fireball nearly made its mark, though, they all stopped in midair. Instantly, Alucard looked over to see Sypha standing just on the side of the road. She promptly threw all of the fireballs back to where they'd come from. Two of the demons were destroyed and the third was never hit. The largest of them, though, the smaller fireballs bounced off of. That was because his throat glowed before he released a stream of fire at her.

Sypha's eyes widened only for a moment before she put her hands up and projected a protective barrier around herself. The flames shot off to either side, even as Sypha was forced back and had to steady herself. Then she straightened up as the fire faded off. Alucard looked over in part annoyance and part amusement as he realised that Belmont was getting off on watching this.

Sypha took a breath and steeled herself.

The demon's throat began to glow again.

Sypha immediately lifted her hands and held them as if she was holding a circular orb upright in both of them. A red glow appeared in the centre. The fire immediately became stuck in the demon's throat. It began to groan and struggle. Sypha forced her hands to clamp together. There was an explosion of fire around the demon and, when the flames cleared there was nothing but a burning and fried head left.

One of the demons, though, had evidently survived and, still on fire, struggled up and began to fly away – back the way they come and away from the town – still on fire.

None of them bothered to try and stop him.

'Nobody's going to Arges tonight,' Alucard said.