Chapter 14: Conspiracies and Secrets

"I shouldn't be gone much longer than an hour or so," Bernadotte said as he withdrew the Mirror of Fate from its carved box, setting free the thousand obsidian shards. "Short enough time that I will not be missed at any rate. Except by you, of course, ma chére."

"Don't flatter yourself, love."

He returned his lady's smirk with a grin of his own and leaned down to draw her into a tight embrace. "Do take care of yourself while I'm gone," he murmured into her shoulder. Even though he knew Seras could look after herself, and had done so longer than he'd been alive, this court of serpents was becoming more and more perilous every night. With their new alliances so fresh, he feared he would return to find Hector or Godbrand had betrayed them, or worse, Dracula had discovered her plot.

As if sensing his thoughts, Seras tightened her arms around his torso, vice-like in her strength. "You worry too much, Pip. Carmilla is no match for me, and as for my sire, you forget that I won't face him alone. Even if Godbrand and Hector prove false, Walter and the Werewolf will not let me down."

Bernadotte tired to take solace in that, but it was grim at best. Could the three of them really stand against the vampire king? Walter had already been defeated, or outwitted rather, by him once, and the Werewolf was old and weary. He sighed and pulled away, placing his hands on either side of Seras' face. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

A longing so intense he thought she might cry flashed behind her red eyes, but she shook her head. "Oh, I do, but please don't tempt me. If I have an unexplained absence, Master might suspect something. He may be oblivious to Carmilla's behavior…or maybe he's not and he just doesn't confide in me anymore. I don't know…it's just better if we don't run the risk."

He wanted to argue that Seras could easily explain away an unaccountable hour or two. She could say she was out hunting. She could say she'd gone out for a walk. She could say it was nobody's damn business what she did with herself during the daylight hours. But he knew she was adamant. So far, Dracula had shown little interest or concern with his son's apparent survival. Perhaps he viewed him as of little consequence, but if he realized Seras was colluding with Adrian to act against him, nevermind there really was a Belmont and a potential magician involved, then they would all be in danger. No, no matter what, Seras would not want to draw any attention to her brother if she could help it. Not after she had spent months believing he was dead. And especially now that she had decided—

Bernadotte turned to the waiting Mirror and commanded, "Rassembler ensemble, Speculum de Fatorum, and show me the son of Dracula, Adrian Țepeș." At his voice, the shards aligned themselves again into the seamless plain of starless night, then began to swell with the inky blackness they had witnessed before. Bernadotte waited patiently as Adrian's image, along with that of his Speaker companion, came into view. They were outside, both overseeing a small cookfire. Nearby, two horses drank from a puddle of water, but of the Belmont, there was no sign, though they both guessed he was somewhere nearby. "Well, off I go." But before he could step toward the mirror, Seras lashed out a hand and seized his arm in a grip that made him yelp in pain as much as surprise. "Ah! Ow, quoi, quoi!"

Without speaking, the vampiress reached for the Mirror and scratched a rune with her long fingernail, and then the exit point retreated away from the ruined house until it was somewhere on the barren road. Bernadotte cast a questioning glance in Seras' direction.

"When you've been around as long as I have, you learn two things," she huffed.

"Only two?"

"Never startle a supernatural creature, and on top of that, never startle a fucking Belmont unless you want a whip in your face."

Bernadotte shook his head. "I wasn't going to just leap out at them like a half-mad lunatic, you know."

Seras rolled her eyes. "Just go already. And be safe, will you?"

"That goes both ways."

"Go!" She lay a hand on his cheek as though to slap him but only pushed his face away. "You are losing the light."

"Ah, yet the morning has only just begun." With a wry smile, Bernadotte chuckled and stepped forward. "Au revoir."

"Hold on!" Seras widened her eyes. "The Mirror will only take you to the Belmont Estate, Pip! How do you intend to get back?"

It was moments like these Bernadotte wished he still had two eyes. It was impossible to wink with just the one. He made do with a smile over his shoulder and a wave. Seras reached for him as though to pull him back, but she was too late. In a heartbeat, he was engulfed in the Mirror's grasp, and the disconcerting loss of gravity and momentum made his stomach lurch. His ears popped, his joints began to ache, his fingers and toes tingled, and his blood ran cold in the brief instant it took him to cover the several dozen leagues between Castle Dracula and the old Belmont Estate. As he landed on the dirt track that led up to the house, he nearly stumbled as his foot struck a clump of snow, but he caught himself against an old tree. "Hah!" The Librarian grinned and looked up at the opening in the forest behind him. Back in Dracula's archives, Seras stood watching as though she considered leaping after him and to hell with her previous fears. For a moment, Bernadotte thought she actually would and held out his hand to invite her.

His lady hesitated, took a step toward the Mirror, then shook her head. No, her lips mouthed.

Bernadotte gave a resigned nod and then the portal closed. He waited just to see if the vampiress would change her mind and reopen the Mirror, but after several minutes of nothing but chirping birds and the rustle of dead leaves sweeping past his boots, he accepted her decision and began to make his way up the road. He kept his pace leisurely, not too fast or predatory so as not to alarm Adrian, whose inhuman senses would surely detect him from even this far away with no trouble. Despite what Seras might have thought about him, Bernadotte was not a fool. He had lived among vampires long enough to learn caution, and he knew full well startling a vampire, even if he was only half vampire, often led to unfortunate or murderous consequences.

As he approached, hidden by the trees, he found Adrian and the Speaker girl as he'd seen them in the Mirror, only the latter had moved away from the fire to tend the horses. As for the Belmont, he was still nowhere to be seen, which gave Bernadotte pause. If the hunter was not here, then it was likely he was roaming the surrounding trees in search of firewood or he'd gone down to the river for water. Growing up here, he would've known exactly in which direction the Argeș River lay and how far it was.

"…really love the horses, don't you?" Adrian's blunt voice drifted back to him as he waited. "Even though they've only been with us a day or so?"

"They are harding-working and long suffering," the Speaker answered primly, and Bernadotte was startled by her Iberian accent. Was she Castilian? Aragonese? He wasn't sure. He knew Speakers were a well-traveled culture, but to think he'd meet someone else from the west all the way out here. As she spoke, the young woman ran her hands affectionately along the horse's neck, then stroked its companion's forelock. "They don't say annoying or hurtful things and they don't care if I'm a heretic or not. Why shouldn't I love them for that?" She said something else, but the wind picked up and obscured her words as she rejoined Adrian at the fire, staring intently at the skewered carp roasting over the flames.

The dhampir shook his head. "…too expensive for us to keep. My mother used to walk to see her patients or sometimes…but no, my family didn't keep any animals at our home."

"I'll bet Belmont's family kept horses. They seemed—"

Right then. Bernadotte nodded. He'd lurked long enough. Belmont or no, he had to approach the pair. Tightening his cloak around him, he prepared to step into the open and hail Adrian, only to become aware of a sudden presence behind him. Without hesitating, Bernadotte whirled around, long knife drawn and he flicked the cold steel against the throat of the heretofore absent vampire hunter. Almost simultaneously, he himself felt the edge of a dagger just under his jaw, a hairline of blood nicked into his skin. Bernadotte blinked in surprise. The Belmont was younger than he'd guessed, not yet thirty, and now that he saw him clearly, something about him seemed almost familiar.

The Belmont stole a quick glance toward the long knife at his throat and grimaced, "You're fast."

"Très bon, M. Belmont," Bernadotte answered, and the younger man frowned. "It's been a long since anyone has snuck up on me like zhat."

"What gave me away?"

"Not much. Just a breath of air at zhe last minute. I doubt an ordinary human would have noticed."

"And you're not ordinary?"

"Now zhat I'll leave to your imagination." With a flick of his wrist, the Librarian withdrew his knife and lowered the weapon to his hip, then looked over his shoulder. "It's good to see you again, Adrian."

Seras' little brother stood behind him, astonishment in his bright eyes. Astonishment and a good deal of sadness. At a glance, he knew Adrian was no longer the optimistic and endearing youth who was always mapping the constellations and designing clever machines. Now he seemed…lost and melancholy…like a lonely night during a long winter. Bernadotte swallowed and flicked his gaze momentarily beyond the trio toward the blue sky. He supposed it shouldn't have surprised him that Lisa's death had changed her son, but it was still disheartening to see. Are you seeing this, ma chére? Do you see what your brother has become?

"You know this man?" Belmont asked as the Speaker joined them, her hands raised in a gesture Bernadotte recognized as an invocation of flame. So she really was a mage. Elemental for certain if she had command over fire, and he regarded her with a bit more caution than he had before. He didn't think the situation would turn hostile, but one could never be too confident.

"I do," Adrian answered as he stepped around Bernadotte to face him entirely. Additionally, he grasped Belmont by the arm and forced him to lower his dagger, which made the latter scowl in annoyance. "This is Master Pip Bernadotte, keeper of the library in my father's castle."

The Speaker's eyes flickered in surprise. "A library master? I didn't know someone like Dracula employed anyone to safeguard his knowledge."

Amused by her directness, Bernadotte turned to her and bowed his head. "Safeguard is a bit romantic, mademoiselle. My job is more or less to organize zhe castle's collection and procure whatever relics and artifacts the master desires. It's a postion I was raised into by accident more or less."

She looked as though she wanted to say more, but Belmont cut her off, "And what brings Dracula's archivist to this corner of the world?"

"Nothing too nefarious, I assure you." Bernadotte smiled at the younger man. Seriously, why did he look so familiar? Was it on account of the sketches he'd seen of other Belmonts? Turning to Adrian, he slipped the long knife back into his sleeve and stated, "I have a message from your sister."

All three of them tensed, trading quick glances.

"But first…" Bernadotte raised his hands and parted his thin lips in a roguish grin. "Have you enough food for one more? I am famished." This wasn't entirely untrue; in keeping the company of vampires, he had rather neglected his nutritional needs in recent weeks. Too much tip-toeing his way around the bloodsucking undead and such. "And I would like to learn zhe names of your comrades, Adrian. You've fallen in with interesting company it seems."

"Of course," the dhampir said as he finally lowered his guard. The girl followed suit, and after a moment's hesitation, the Belmont knelt and slipped his dagger into his boot. "This is Trevor Belmont of House Belmont and Sypha Belnades of the Speakers."

"One of the Iberian tribes?" Bernadotte asked.

Belnades tilted her head and frowned. "My father was of the Valladolid Speakers. I was born in Castile, but soon after, my parents emigrated east to rejoin my mother's people, the Codrii." Both her companions seemed surprised by this knowledge, but the young woman continued, "Why do you ask?"

"Curiosity, mostly. My own mother was of the Aquitaine Speakers in France," said Bernadotte, and the girl's lips parted. "But zhat's a story for another time. Now about zhat breakfast, Adrian?"

"Yes, yes," Adrian seemed to snap out of whatever train of thought was on his mind, then gestured toward where the horses were picketed. "Come and sit with us."

The four of them made their way back to the cookfire where Bernadotte was shortly provided with a dented, tin plate of grilled carp and a slice of bread slathered in raspberry jam. The others were quick to fill their plates, clearly as hungry as he felt. Belmont especially. The Librarian watched in bemusement as he downed his share of the bread with impressive speed, then started on the fish with equal vigor. The Speaker eyed him in thinly veiled disgust but opted to nibble delicately at a slice of dried apple, having foregone the fish entirely.

"Much obliged," Bernadotte said. "Where did you find so much food though?"

"Alucard went to Poenari," Belnades answered as she filled a cup with water.

Alucard? That petty nickname the humans called the son of Dracula? He threw a questioning glance toward his young friend, but Adrian avoided his gaze. Bernadotte swallowed. "Well, it's good to know Seras' pantry can still provide for guests. And thieves."

That, he was gratified to see, made the dhampir smile a little. "Where is she, Pip? I saw no sign of her at Poenari, and the place looks like it's been abandoned for months."

"You're not wrong." Bernadotte paused as the others raised their heads, eyes wary, then continued, "When your father…when Dracula called his forces to war, Draculina summoned her own household to the castle. They're all there now, Walter, Zorin, the Werewolf, the whole lot of them."

Adrian…Alucard's face fell. "So she's…"

Merde. For the first time, Bernadotte considered how it must've been for him to wake up from his long sleep in Gresit, only to see that his father's forces had already gained a foothold in the world and no word from Seras. Looking around at the faces of all three of them, he realized what a daunting prospect it must've been to have to worry about potentially fighting Dracula and his fledgling. "Non, non," he amended quickly, wondering where best to begin as he took another bite of the soft bread. "Last year, after your mother…Dracula immediately ordered Seras to gather the Generals to take up arms against humanity, but despite her own grief, ma cheré recognized the madness of total genocide."

"She resisted then?" Belmont asked dubiously.

"Mm-hm." The Librarian set his plate aside and steepled his fingers. "At first, she tried to reason with her master, but his madness had already consumed him. And when he threatened to 'send her after her brother,' she gave in to his commands and began to organize the war effort as his Grand General."

Ad—Alucard widened his eyes in alarm. "She thought I was dead? I had only gone to Gresit to recover! If she was opposed to Father in the beginning, why did she not seek me out?"

"Because of your wards," Bernadotte explained. "You placed some rather potent spellwork around yourself when you went into hiding. None of us could barely even remember the Gresit Keep's existence, much less even think to look for you there. And Seras did look. She desperately searched for you for long time."

The dhampir's eyes clouded as he processed this information, sinking one of his fangs into his lower lip in a nervous habit he'd had since he was a small child. Bernadotte smiled. Some things never change, I guess.

"What happened next?" asked Belnades then. "Once she accepted Alucard was dead."

"She returned to the war and clung to a desperate hope Dracula could still be turned away from this course. She lost two loved ones in a matter of hours. She could not bring herself to kill a third, even if the attempt proved unsuccessful."

"She tried to end a war gently," the Speaker whispered. "Reason with a madman."

"Reason with a beloved sire, the last of her family." Bernadotte corrected. "Until now. Seras Victoria Draculina stands undoubtedly against Vlad Dracula Țepeș."

Silence hung over the group as his words sunk in. By betraying her sire, Draculina had placed the life of her brother above her father. Alucard looked especially subdued, and Bernadotte did not blame him. The idea that Seras, so fiercely loyal to their father for as long as either of them had been alive and longer still, would betray Dracula was an utterly alien thought to them both. Truthfully, Bernadotte was still reeling from her decision to do so, no matter how much he'd urged it.

"How did you find us here if you all suddenly remembered the Gresit keep?" asked Belmont. "And how does your mistress intend to move against her sire?"

"Ah, that was the doing of the Mirror of Fate," the Librarian admitted. "Since Adri—" He cleared his throat and began again. "Since Alucard's wards blocked the effects of ordinary transition mirrors, we tried to locate him through a more powerful one."

"Is that what she was looking for then?" Belnades asked, raising her head suddenly. "When she confronted my people in Moldavia?"

"Possibly." Seras had searched high and low for any information of the Mirror's whereabouts. It would not surprise him if she had terrified a Speaker Tribe or two in this endeavor. Bernadotte cleared his throat again. "But you wanted to know what she was planning, so I shall tell you. Zhe vampire Generals of Dracula's court are eight in number: the Grand General herself, Zufall of the Germanic states, Dragoslav of Slavic territories, Godbrand the Berserkr Chieftain, the Raja Sharma and the Maharani Raman of India, Cho-hime of the Far East, and Carmilla, Countess of Styria. In addition, there are also two forge master magicians known as Isaac and Hector, a small group of outrider vampire Generals that are currently holding Targoviste, and a contingent of a hundred or so lesser vampires."

Belmont noodded as though he'd expected as much. Maybe he'd even guessed some of the names would have been in attendance. "Shit."

"What's a forge master?" asked the Speaker.

"It's a form of necromancy," explained Belmont. "Dark sorcerers who draw up souls from Hell and transplant them into corpses to create night creatures. I think your people call them hell smiths or something."

The young woman's face lit up briefly in recognition, before descending back into a dismal expression. "Well, we never said this was going to be easy."

"Easier zhan you might expect." Bernadotte plucked a twig from the ground and began scratching tallies into the dirt. "Among Seras' private household, she trusts Walter Dornez and the Unknown Werewolf. Including myself, zhat's three loyal supporters, and she is hopeful she can gather others. Many of Dracula's Generals are already disaffected with his leadership."

At the mention of potential instability among the enemy ranks, Belmont narrowed his eyes in a thoughtful expression, mentally considering the odds and options before asking, "The Vampire King has an impressive retinue. Who is Draculina hoping to sway?"

Bernadotte scratched two more lines in the dirt. "She hopes to recruit Isaac, as well the Sharma and Raman. However, we've already persuaded Hector and the Berserkr to our cause."

Alucard's yellow eyes flashed. "Godbrand? But he hates Seras. She hates him. Can he be trusted?"

Two everyone's surprise, it was the hunter who answered, not looking up from the five lines the Librarian had drawn. "Under circumstances like this, Draculina and Godbrand are the two I would most expect to band together in a castle full of hostile, territorial vampires, being old allies and all."

"Old enemies maybe," Alucard scowled.

Belmont looked at him, eyebrow raised. "Well, she was his wife for nine years or so, wasn't she?"

Bernadotte flinched as Alucard spat out a mouth full of carp, narrowly missing Sypha's skirts and would have smacked square into her food had she not yanked her plate away in time. "Watch it!" she snapped indignantly.

The dhampir ignored her and rounded on his comrade with a murderous glare. "Explain yourself, Belmont."

The hunter glared back. "I'm surprised you didn't know. You've been reading the Compendium, haven't you? She's your sister."

Alucard bared his teeth in a snarl, and Bernadotte felt a sudden urge to back away from him. However, rather than leaping forward and striking Belmont down, he suddenly rose and stormed away from the fire. Belnades glanced back and forth between all of them, made to rise herself, but Bernadotte raised a hand and shook his head, then pulled himself upright to follow the dhampir.

…

"She was his wife for nine years or so, wasn't she?" Belmont's words echoed in his skull like the rattle of loose bullets, rapid, insistent, intrusive, and his step faltered as he reached the edge of the estate's forecourt. His wife? Seras was married to that…. He brought a hand to his brow as he desperately tried to remember everything his sister had said to him where Godbrand was involved. He'd only met the draugr a handful of times, but it was enough to remember him. Seras despised him and rarely spoke about him with anything but biting scorn. He knew she had spent some time in the northern territories and had once ruled over vast swathes of them. Much of Scandinavia, part of Russia, the Baltics…but until now, he had assumed Godbrand had been her rival, a resentful chieftain who chafed under her occupation. Only…in his lessons as a child, he recalled Godbrand too had held considerable lands and until the decimation of his fleet at Oltenița, courtesy of Seras, he had been the unquestioned overlord in the north. Alucard felt sick as it occurred to him these lands, the vampire empire of the north, could have—must have—been under a joint rule. He clenched his teeth and slammed his fist into the side of a tree, splintering the bark by several inches. Damn it! First the existence of the Hold in her territory, then the infant skull, then what he'd found in the Compendium of Vampyres about his father and Walter…Seras' letter from T. Belmont, and now this! His outrage was beyond words. What else was he going to find along the way of this venture? How could Seras have….?

"She didn't tell you zhat about herself, I take it?"

Alucard paused at the sound of the Librarian's calm voice behind him, then scowled, "I'm starting to see there are a lot of things my family never told me."

"Maybe so. Zhere is a lot to talk about." There was a rustle of fabric as the man presumably shrugged. "For zhe record, I'm not surprised Seras never said anything. I doubt even Lisa knew."

"But you knew."

Bernadotte narrowed his green eye. "Do you think zhat's something Seras likes to talk about? It wasn't a happy marriage. Dracula wanted a northern alliance…and daughters have zheir uses."

At such callous words about his father, the sick feeling Alucard felt at his core twisted.

"I guess old habits die hard. Even for zhe undead."

"You're lying. My father would have never—"

"Your father was a very different person a hundred years ago. He has not always been the benevolent, retiring lord you've always known. Surely, you've heard the stories."

Alucard thought of the massacre at Kronstadt…the destruction at Bucharest…and he shook his head. "Human stories."

"Does that make them any less true?" Bernadotte asked. "Embellished certainly, but lies?"

The dhampir looked to the fire where Belmont and Sypha appeared to be having an argument, and he thought of the Compendium's account of Dracula's rise. What his father, and Walter, had done to Sara Trantoul, and how it had given rise to the greatest vampire hunting family in history. Every war tells their own side of the story, yet only the victors' are heard. Had it been a lie when his father chose to turn Seras because she reminded him of his first wife? If he loved Seras like a daughter, why would he subject her to so cruel a fate as to send her to marry a stranger who treated her cruelly? Why would she forgive him? Then he remembered the letter he'd found where Father had asked Seras' forgiveness for an unmentioned wrong and asked her to return home. Had her enforced marriage been the wrong? Or had there been others? Why would Seras allow herself to be sent north? He knew she would never agree to that.

Yet that was the crux of it, wasn't it? The only Seras he had ever known in his comparatively short life was the confident, indomitable, fearless, and a little arrogant creature she was today. A hundred years ago…would he even recognize that Seras?

"Why," he began, and Bernadotte lifted his head slightly. "Would Seras forgive father?"

The Librarian did not ask what for. There were too many slights. Too many cruelties. Instead, he drew in a deep breath and turned to look at something in the distance. "I don't think…I would call it forgiveness. When Dracula sent her north, she didn't have the strength or the cunning to disobey him. She could have run, yes, but where would she have gone? She'd have been an outcast, a lesser vampire. Again wandering alone in the wilderness hiding from sunlight."

Alucard swallowed the bile in his throat.

"But you know somezhing. I zhink her time in the north did her some good."

"How so?"

"Well…it's hell in the north. Zhe draugar clans are constantly warring with each other, human settlements are raided by vampires every night, and zhe night creature regime is so predominant that not even the Belmonts wanted to fuck with it. It's a constant struggle of life or death." The Librarian grinned. "And you know how strong Seras' will to live is."

He said nothing.

"She learned to fight in the north. She learned to command armies, how to organize defenses, how to be cruel, when to show mercy, how to negotiate with hostile neighbors. In short, she learned to be Seras the vampire, the Red Death, Belmonts' Bane, and everything else she is. And zhat," he said. "May have been Dracula's intention all along. Maybe Seras figured that, too, and maybe zhat's why she forgave him."

"He could have easily made her his worst enemy that way."

Bernadotte broke in a short laugh, "He fucking has now. When she was younger, it suited ma chére to serve Dracula. He was zhe stronger vampire, she is yet his fledgling. And now zhat she has turned against him, it suits her to side with old enemies and rivals like Godbrand and the Maharani and Raja. Just as it suited her to keep the Belmonts alive. She used to call zhem her attack dogs."

"Is that why she wrote letters to them?"

The Librarian blinked in surprise. "Quoi?"

"When I was at Poenari, I found some of her old letters." He refrained from mentioning Bernadotte's mawkish proclamation of love and adoration and instead fished the missive from the unknown T. Belmont from an inner coat pocket. Holding it out for his friend to see, he asked him, "Do you know who this was? Can you read the awful hand-writing?"

Bernadotte took the parchment in hand and squinted at the ink. "'…my dear Seras…sometimes there are nights when I feel as though my'—soul, I think—'my soul is barren, and I remember…" He shook his head. "Jesu, whoever taught this fellow how to write must've had the worst form of palsy."

"Yes, but look at the signature."

"…yours always…T. Belmont." His brow creased in a frown. "T. Belmont…"

Alucard nodded. "Who is T. Belmont?"

"Who was T. Belmont, I think you mean. This letter is dated thirty years ago." He looked up at him. "So unless I've forgotten someone, I would guess he's the Trevor Belmont that Seras rescued from the vampire Lady Lenore."

Unconsciously, Alucard glanced toward his comrades by the fire. Both were looking his way but lowered their eyes as soon as he caught them staring. "Lenore," he murmured. "That name sounds familiar."

"She was a member of Seras' court at Poenari for many years, one that she brought with her when she left Godbrand and returned from the north."

"And she attacked the Belmont Estate?"

Bernadotte shook his head. "I don't know all the details. It was long before my time. All I know is that Lenore stole a child from that house."

A cold pit formed in Alucard's stomach as the implication struck home. A child. An innocent. And he remember how Seras punished those who harmed the innocent.

"He was maybe four or five years old," Bernadotte continued. "And when Seras learned of it, her fury was…volcanic. Walter told me Lenore pleaded for forgiveness and mercy, even after your sister flayed her alive. I think she wanted to do more, but the lady escaped and they've never seen each other since."

"And the boy?"

"Seras returned him to this house relatively unharmed, and he never forgot what she did for him. He grew up to be one of the family's most proficient hunters, the Mercy-Giver, Trevor the Elder." He nodded toward the campfire. "And if memory serves, he was your companion's grandfather. And your sister's favorite."

Alucard tried to imagine Seras, generally uninterested in humans beyond his mother and Master Bernadotte, being anything close to investing interest in a vampire hunter. Sometimes there are nights when I feel as though my soul is barren… "…what you read in that letter…it doesn't seem as though this were a mere acquaintanceship."

Bernadotte shrugged. "Who knows. You would have to ask Seras herself for more information. She doesn't talk about him if she can help it."

He tried to smile at the thought of talking with his sister again, but the prospect seemed bleak at best, given the circumstances. "You said she had a message."

"Oui." His green eye flashed as he looked at him. "But you're not going to like it."

Alucard stiffened. "She doesn't want me involved, does she."

Bernadotte's hesitation confirmed it before he spoke. "She wants you to leave Wallachia. Go south where the Horde has not yet spread. Her exact words are these: Leave our sire to me. Stay away from Castle Dracula."

-0-0-0-

Author's Note: I had a whole author's note here, but then fanfiction didn't approve of my formatting.

Standard disclaimer. I own nothing.