En Medias*
by Half-Esper Laura
Based on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (and a little bit on Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse) by Konami
Part 1 of 6
Author's Notes: The story switches back and forth between Alucard's narration and scenes from his life as I've invented it (I have no illusions that my Castlevania/Alucard timeline reflects the official one). The narration sequences are in italics to set them off; in other file formats I did that with font or color, but I don't think those devices are available here, and I want to avoid confusion. This story was originally written all in one piece, and I am posting it in parts for ease-of-reading, rather than having the breaks for aesthetic reasons or anything.
***
If you really want to know, I'll tell you. Maybe then you'll understand what I'm trying to say a bit better. That there really is no other way. That it has to be like this for me.
So what do you want to hear? The good times that were nothing but deciet? The bad times when I barely held on to my mind?
Ah, yes, always the best place to start. But the very beginning is something that I really don't know.
***
Lisa began to wake, but in the night darkness it took her a moment to realize there was someone else there. He loomed over her bed as a large, ominous black shape, surmounted by a strong and attentive white-haired head.
She sat up modestly in bed, pulling her feet under her. "What do you want?"
"You."
A moment passed in silence, then she looked up and met his eyes. They seemed to glow like hot coals in the darkness.
"Then I am yours, but you must marry me," she said.
The night-visitor lowerered menacingly over her, so close she could feel the cold of his voice on her face. "Do you think you can keep me from taking what I want...?"
"No," she said, very calmly.
"Why should I do what you say?"
"Because you want to."
He regarded her with that piercing, unnatural stare for a long moment. Finally he rose, with a surprisingly human sigh. "Yes, I do."
***
I was born the day before All Hallows' Eve, late in the evening, or so I'm told. It would have been a good thing if I could've waited through the next day and been born on All Saints' Day, but I suppose that was not to be.
I seem to recall being told also that I was a quiet and good-natured baby, but that was all very long ago. I might be flattering myself.
The first things that I do certainly remember seem strange and dreamlike now. I've had so many dreams that sometimes the line between them and my waking memories seems indistinct. But I know which is which, and I remember my mother's house in the village.
I spent most of the day inside, because I burned easily in the sun. My mother was a healer. She was quite good at it, but it was only the desperate people who came to us, the ones who were willing to try anything, because my mother was ready to try anything. If she could save a person's life with gypsy herbal concoctions or ancient chants, she would do it.
Of course there was a "respectable" doctor in the village, too. It seems very ironic to me, the way people are terrified of vampires---and rightly so---and then go to someone who bleeds them or uses leeches to cure them of diseases.
Ever since I remember, people avoided us, unless they were desperate. I grew up around whispers that my mother was a witch, that there was something evil in her devotion to helping the sick and injured. It sounds even more foolish to me now than it did then. And I think they must have sensed that there was something different about me, that I was something other than human.
***
"Don't you climb trees, either?" the boy asked.
Adrian shook his head silently.
"My dad taught me how."
"My dad doesn't do things like that," Adrian said softly.
"Wow! You talked! I never met anybody as quiet as you."
A silent shrug.
The other boy considered. "So, what could we do...? Oh, I know! I can be your dog!" Immediately he dropped to all fours and started panting like a dog.
Adrian just stared at him for a moment.
The other boy made a couple of barking sounds and rubbed his head up against Adrian's chest, to give him the idea. Apparently it worked, and he started laughing and petting the "dog's" head of coarse brown hair.
Suddenly, the boy jumped up and ran off, getting back to two feet in his haste. Adrian barely had time to wonder if he'd done something wrong before his playmate returned, carrying a short stick which he dropped in Adrian's lap before returning to all fours and panting.
"Oh, is this for me?" Adrian said, picking up the stick and petting his head again. "Thank you. You're a nice doggie."
"You're supposed to throw it," the boy said aside to him, although there was no one to listen in.
"Hm?"
"You're supposed to throw the stick."
"Um, okay." Adrian tossed the stick a short distance, and the boy went romping after it on all fours. He picked it up and returned with it, pouncing on Adrian with such energetic canine affection that he knocked him over, and the two of them fell over laughing in a heap.
Adrian had just picked himself up and started rubbing his dog's belly when a shout from nearby interrupted them. "Trevor!" a man's voice called.
"Coming, Dad!" the "dog" called, getting to his feet.
Adrian turned to see the man, who was coming closer but stopped about ten feet from the tree. "Trevor, come here!"
The boy ran over to his father, who grasped him firmly by the arm and began leading him away. "I don't want you anywhere around that boy, do you understand me?" If he had intended to hide what he was saying from Adrian, he wasn't trying very hard.
"Dad...!"
"Don't argue with me. Never go near him again."
Their voices faded away as Adrian watched them go. He stared after them until they were out of sight.
***
Sometimes I wonder if my mother would have had such troubles if I hadn't been there. The only devil they ever saw her consort with was me.
Yes, it is. Be patient and I'll tell you about it.
And yes, my father was there, but it was a secret thing. He came only at night, and I think only Mother and I ever saw him. It shames me to think of it now, but I did love him then. I fell asleep sitting in his lap many times, although in the winter I had to be wrapped in blankets because he was so cold. I don't think any of us said anything about what he was. Or if we did I'd forgotten about it by the time I grew up.
It was already in me then, however. I remember that once in a while Mother would cut her thumb and let me suck the blood from it to calm me. Even then I had the hunger for it, every so often.
But it was a very good life. I was happy then. There were signs; I should have known that trouble would come, but I had no idea. I couldn't imagine anything horrible happening. My mother, she was... She was the most wonderful woman I could ever imagine. She never struck me when I was a child. When I misbehaved she talked it over with me calmly, made me understand why I should act differently. She was very kind, harmless you could almost say, and yet so strong. I think the violence of an army would be less good for stopping wars than my mother's smile of compassion or that ever-so-slight frown of reproach.
I suppose it did stop a war, at that. Of course my father was awake when the Belmonts still lived in Romania. Otherwise I wouldn't have been. But he made no violence or trouble during my mother's life. I suppose he must have found sustenance somewhere, but he must have been discreet about it. No one ever heard anything of him.
Well, yes. Yes, he did, but that was after... You'll forgive me, I've been... I've been reluctant to speak of this part.
***
"MOTHER!!!"
Adrian's scream pierced through the rumbling voices of the crowd as he sprinted through them, shoving desperately through to the center of the village square. He was still running when a powerful grip caught his arm, and his forward momentum sent him crashing to the ground. Even has he fought to free himself, another pair of hands took his other arm.
"LET ME GO!" he screamed, as viciously as a child's voice could. "MOTHER, I'LL SAVE YOU!" Something was surging through him, something even more than the fear and the anger. With every beat of his heart, the grip on his arms seemed less inescapable. Every pull against his captors came closer and closer to overpowering them, he could feel it. The strength had to be there. He wouldn't let anyone stop him.
"Adrian, no!" Lisa called from above him.
He stopped fighting and looked up at her. She was bound to a great wooden pole, with a horizontal beam at the top to which her wrists were tied. It looked as though she were hung on a cross.
"Mother!" he cried, but this time more sedate, more pleading.
"Adrian, it's all right," she said, her voice as soft and comforting as it had been in a thousand evenings at home. "I'm so glad I can see you again before I die."
"You're not going to die!"
"If this is the price I have to pay to save other people's lives, I will give it gladly. I'm only so sorry that I can't be with you and see you grow up."
His legs gave out underneath him, and the men let him fall to his knees, sobbing.
"Please, don't cry just yet. I don't want you to cry the last time you look at me," Lisa said.
He wiped his face and looked up at her. His eyes were sparkling, but he met her gaze steadily, even as he heard the crackle of flames from somewhere nearby.
"Adrian, my dear, beautiful son, these will be my last words to you, so always remember them. Will you do that for me?"
He nodded, unable to speak.
"Do not hate these people, Adrian. Do not hate mankind. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm, for they have enough troubles just in themselves.
"And you must give my message to your father. Please, Adrian."
He had to squeeze his eyes shut against the tears, but he nodded.
"You must tell him that I will always love him, for all of eternity.
"And I will always love you."
Those words were the last sound Lisa made.
Adrian sat there on the cobblestones on his knees and did not open his eyes as he heard the roar of the fire, the crackling of the burning wood. He could feel the heat and smell the smoke from the burning cross, and all too soon, a smell that was new to him, but he somehow knew inside that it was the scent of burning flesh. He tensed with the dread of hearing his mother scream in pain, certain that if he heard such a horrible sound it would strike him dead.
But there was no scream. He waited forever and forever, until finally the roar of the fire died down. Only then did he dare to open his eyes, and the image before him tore through his mind like a jagged blade. There was only black ash left where the cross had been, and his mother with it. A skeletal base of the pole remained, with charred shapes scattered around it. He only opened his eyes for a moment, but even in that flash there was the ghastly recognition. Some of those black shapes were the shapes of human bones...
After that, there was nothing. All the world seemed obliterated in his scream of grief, and there was nothing left at all except his own body, tiny and helpless, wracked with sobbing, tears pouring down his face. He didn't even notice as one of the men picked him up and carried him away.
***
Yes. I was eight years old then. After she died I didn't care what happened to me. I thought my life was over. I've never understood why they didn't kill me, too.
They took me out and left me in the forest surrounding the village. Whether I was supposed to find somewhere else to live or to be killed by wild animals, I'm not certain. But when I finally came to my senses, it was late that night, and what brought me around was the sounds of wolf-howls. It sounded like there were hundreds of them, running through the forest. I wasn't especially frightened. I was too grief-stricken to be concerned about losing my life. But late in the night I thought I heard some commotion, perhaps screaming, very distantly. And then the wolves came back through the forest. I knew then because a huge black one walked right up to me and smelled me, then walked away.
A few moments later my father appeared. It was much later that I realized that he was the black wolf. Probably all the wolves in the country were under his leadership that night, making that village pay for its mistake.
But when it was over my father took me home.
Yes, to Castlevania. I don't think I saw much of it then, however. Or else I didn't understand what I was seeing. It was... well-appointed. I was used to a small village house, and now I had a castle-room with a canopied bed. It didn't matter at the time, though. I was inconsolable. My father tried what he could to comfort me, but I'm sure you can imagine how that was. I was so distraught that I never even thought to tell my father my mother's dying words. It saddened me for years that I broke my word to her.
I've told him by now.
In any case, I didn't stay long in Castlevania at that time. It was apparently decided that I should be educated, and as well as possible, so I was sent to England to study. It was the first time I had been more than a few miles from the place I was born, so it was really quite impressive, seeing the Swiss Alps and France, and then across to England. The change of scenery began to take my mind off things.
At first I studied at a monastery school. Yes, I wonder what he was thinking of, but there weren't very many other schools at the time. This was only the start of the fifteenth century, you know.
Oh, I hadn't? I'm sorry. I suppose you know now.
But I did study at a monastery school. The constant exposure to crosses and other symbols of holiness wore on me greatly, and at times I was overcome and fell down in fits. Thankfully, the monks didn't interpret this as evidence of an unholy nature. Some thought I had the falling sickness or a similar malady, others thought I was weak-willed and easily posessed by spirits good or evil. Some of my more affectionate teachers believed me prone to violent religious ecstasies.
Once I got the basics down I went to Oxford to study. I learned Latin and English, and such literature and science as there was at the time. Of course it all seems very outdated now. At that time we thought barnacle geese came from barnacles. Human physiology was known only in the most nebulous fashion, and there was no New World at that time. But you can only imagine how wondrous it all seemed to me then. Where before there had been only my village, my world grew larger and larger every day. Language and literature, science and history, I pursued it all with wonderment and joy. Once I was even able to take a trip to see the "classical world." Rome, Athens. Italy was the most instructive thing of all at the time, in hindsight. The Rennaissance had begun there, and we found all sorts of interesting ideas that we wanted to try when we got back to England.
Yes, we. At Oxford I was finally able to find a circle of friends; they were perfectly wonderful to me. Loyal even to the end. Of course they all thought I was a bit odd. Because of my sensitivity to sunlight, it became my habit to wake around noon, make the mid-day meal my first of the day, and then stay awake to all hours of the night. Once one of my fellows, William, I believe it was, stayed awake with me on a bet, because none of them had ever seen me go to sleep at night. He barely made it, and he couldn't believe that I was awake until about four in the morning.
But I loved the night. I still do. They say that evil things are afoot at night, but the feel of night air is so wonderful. Back then I did my best work quietly, at night, and the evening walks with Joan were truly a blessing.
Ah, yes, Joan. Then in my youth was the only time that I have ever been "in love." She was a native of the area, named Joan Carter. She and I agreed to be married, but of course it never happened. Looking back on it, I suppose that is for the best. Heaven forbid that Count Dracula should ever have grandchildren.
But we were waiting for my father's blessing to proceed with the marriage, you see.
I never really finished my schooling there. It ended on... very bad terms. That was really when my troubles began in earnest.
Well, to tell you of that, you must know of another thing that was happening during my years at Oxford, the dark and disturbing thing. I mentioned things of the Rennaissance, ideas that my friends and I caught on to? Among them was the dissection of animals.
***
The four young men huddled around the kitchen table, staring intently at the contents of a metal pan set in the middle of it, with candles right beside it for as much light as possible.
"It's a shame you can't do this while it's alive."
"Oh, God, that's disgusting!"
"Well, think of it," Richard said, pointing to the innards of the skinned rabbit laid open in the tray. "Here's all this stuff, and you never get to see it work. It'd be fascinating, just once so you could see it all in action. I don't know, maybe we could knock one out and-"
"Oh, shut up, Rich, you're making me sick," Robert cut in. "This is going to be dinner, you know."
"May as well see what we can see, though." William wrapped his fist around the rabbit's snout, then lowered his lips to his fist and blew into it. "See, there's the lungs," he said as the whitish tissues expanded.
Richard was making exploratory cuts into some of the obvious organs. "Oh, here's the stomach. Looks like greens anyway. And here it goes into the guts..."
"You've been just watching intently up until now," William said, turning to the fourth member of the group. "What do you make of it, Adrian?"
"Hm?" Adrian came around to realize that he had a corner of his fingertip in his mouth. "Oh, nothing really. I've been kind of distracted..." He spoke perfect English, but with a distinct East-European accent. He'd been told this made it harder for native speakers to detect subtle emotion in his voice, and at the moment, he hoped it was true.
"Huh. The way you were staring, I thought this rabbit had become your whole world," Robert said.
"If you're just going to sit like that, I'll tell Joan you were thinking intensely about her while staring at a dead animal," Richard added.
"I'm not!"
"I had to take a shot guessing something you were thinking about to the point of total distraction."
"No, she was far from my mind at the time." Thankfully.
William took the knife and touched another conspicuous organ.
"I think that's the heart," Adrian offered.
"Wow, he talked!" Richard said.
"Well, when you want to aim an arrow at the heart, it's around that area, and see these vessels going out and branching off... When the heart beats, it forces the blood out into all of those, and then when it rests it all draws back in again."
"I wonder if it's empty or full," William mused.
"Well enough blood drained out it ought to be empty," Robert noted, pointing to the blood collected in the tray."
"One way to know, though," Richard said, picking up the knife again.
Adrian spoke up despite himself. "Please don't."
"What's the matter?" William put a hand on his shoulder.
"Just... don't. It seems... It seems wrong somehow..."
The door to the kitchen opened, and the middle-aged house mother leaned in. "Are you boys done playing with that poor rabbit yet? I'll have to get it in the oven pretty soon."
"Yes, Miss Bartlett, we're done," William said.
The four of them began to scatter away from the table as she walked over and picked up the tray. "Oh, goodness, what a mess!" She took it outside, and Adrian followed her as far as the doorway, while his three friends started back toward their rooms. Miss Bartlett hefted the rabbit by all four legs, then turned back to the door. She opened her mouth to shout, but stopped without making a sound. Seeing Adrian watching her from the doorway, she had the off-balance look of someone who had set about to force a door open and found it unlatched. "Go throw this out for me, will you, dearie?" she said, with a tired voice and a nod toward the pan of blood.
"Yes ma'am." He picked it up and carried it off into the surrounding trees, trying his best not to look at it. But he couldn't help but notice the way it sloshed around, no matter how steadily he tried to walk, pooling into deeper areas that were crimson, almost black, and leaving a thin layer of vivid red behind it, the way it glistened in the light...
He walked far enough into the trees that he was sure no one would see him, although he wasn't really sure why he did so. And he stood there dumbly with the tray in his hands for far too long. Something inside him didn't want to throw the blood out, didn't want to get rid of it. The compulsion was a total mystery to him, but was insistent, almost overpowering. At last he squeezed his eyes shut so that he wouldn't have to see it go as he started to tip it out.
Without any conscious intention to do so, Adrian brought the edge of the pan to his mouth and drank from it, down to the last drop. Immediately, he realized what he'd done, and threw the pan on the ground in horror. He stumbled back against a tree, and his hand darted to his mouth as he felt his stomach knot up. Struck with a sudden fear, he felt around his face, but it was dry. Apparently he had managed to commit the crime without getting blood on his face. If he had, and Miss Bartlett---or anyone else---were to see it...
But even as he felt that he was about to be sick with disgust, even as he indeed wanted to be sick, to vomit up the blood rather than keep it inside him, there was something wonderful about it, something warm and satisfying. Exhilirating, in fact. He'd heard things about the taste of blood, that it was supposed to taste like salt, or like copper, but it didn't. It tasted sweeter than the finest wine he had ever tasted. Somehow he had known that all along.
But it didn't taste the way he expected. It tasted familiar, but fell short of whatever it was being compared to. This was only a shadow of the flavor that he remembered, but didn't quite remember fully...
He wanted to remember fully. And that was what made him tremble inside more than anything else.
***
You see, I didn't know anything about my... peculiar ancestry at the time.
Of course I kept it to myself. People were burned or hanged for less in those days. Mother, for example.
I exchanged letters with my father the whole time I was at Oxford. I was young and naive and thought that he was a usual sort of nobleman. These letters were the only place that I dared to confide my secret to anyone. I thought perhaps it was some inherited defect that he could counsel me about. He wrote back to me and said not to worry myself over it, beyond keeping it a secret. Of course now I can imagine how he must have laughed at me when he read those letters.
And I did worry about it, despite what he said. When it came upon me, I would fight it day and night, but I was never able... never strong enough to fight it off. In the end it always got the best of me. If I was lucky, I could drink the blood of some slaughtered animal, but I wasn't always so lucky. There were times when I was forced to bite a live animal and suck its blood, like a vampire. I never looked at myself in the mirror when I did this---I doubt I could have faced myself. But the point is that I never saw the fangs. I didn't know the mechanism of the bite at the time.
I do have a reflection. Not like normal people; if you saw me in the mirror you could see anything behind me also, but I do show up.
But that's beside the point. Back then, I never bit another person. Although now and then, the worst happened, and it came over me in company, when I was at a lecture, or with William and the others. Necessity is the mother of invention, so I did devise a way to avoid attacking other human beings-my own blood. I excused myself and bit down on my own hand or wrist, and sucked the blood from it. Of course it made me lightheaded and weak, but it satisfied that horrible hunger. In fact it was... It was better than the blood of animals. Richer. This all must be disgusting to you, this talk of drinking blood, but my own instead of a rabbit's was like drinking wine instead of water. In time that came to be my preferred way of handling it.
I've worn gloves like these ever since then, by the way, to hide the scars from those bites. I don't know why they haven't healed in so much time, but I can show them to you. Here. Yes, it's very odd. I have had scars almost as old, and larger and worse, and one can't see them anymore, but I still have these.
But as I was saying, this secret. It only grew larger and larger, until I was utterly consumed with it. The fear that this hunger would come, thinking what to do if it did... As I was nearing the age of twenty, it reached the point at which these thoughts were near me every waking moment. I think that those close to me noticed that something was amiss, but they didn't know until...
This habit of biting myself, it was my undoing. Although God forbid I had done another thing that night instead...
***
"'If only you would forgive their sin!'" Adrian read. "'If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you have written.' The Lord answered, 'Him only who has sinned against me will I strike out of my book. Now, go and lead the people whither I have told you. My angel will go before you. When it is time for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.
"'Thus the Lord smote the people for having had Aaron make the calf for them.'"
"It's nice that you have all of these stories written out," Joan said, tugging at a thread in her sewing.
"When I was learning to write, the teachers would have us copy things out of the Bible for practice. We'd write them down as the teacher read them, and I was sure to keep them all."
"That's so wonderful. I could never do that."
"But I know you can read. If you can read, then you can write."
"Well, no," she said, "It's a much different thing..."
"But you know what the word looks like," Adrian argued. "Once you know that, it's a simple thing to write it yourself. Let's see... 'Dog.' You know how it looks, so try it."
"Hm?"
"Just trace it with your finger on the table. Come now, try it."
Joan paused for just a moment, then set her jaw at a determined angle, leaned over, and traced d-o-g on the table with her finger.
"Now, see, that's just right!"
She laughed. "Well, what would I want to write about anyway?"
"Hm..." Adrian leaned back in his chair, thinking. "If I were to go home, it would save you a lot of money. You wouldn't have to hire someone to write your letters to me, and then you could write anything you wanted, and not have to be embarassed about saying it to a scribe."
"You think I'd send you a letter I'd be embarassed to have someone see...?"
"Well, I didn't mean anything by it!" he said, with a nervous laugh.
Joan started laughing, too, to let him know it was a joke, and the two of them had a little laugh together.
"So when might you be going home?" Joan asked, starting to sew again.
"Father still hasn't mentioned any plans of it," Adrian said. He sat and watched her in the candlelight, which tinted her face gold. Her laugh had left a hint of blush in her cheeks.
"And he still says he won't consider letting you marry until after that? What does he want you to do? Dear me, I hope he doesn't have some girl picked out for you."
"He says he doesn't."
"Well, you should ask him when he'll have you home and give his blessing, then."
"I do, everytime I write to him."
"Ouch!" Joan jerked her hand away from her sewing and sucked on her finger.
"Are you all right?"
"I just pricked myself," she said, and held out her finger.
Why did she have to do that...? Her finger was moist from her mouth, and so the blood from the pinprick spread slowly at first, tinting her fingertip pink like her blushing cheeks, before pooling into that jewel-red drop. Adrian took her hand in his, and found himself bringing it closer to his face.
I want to know how it tastes!
He jumped up from his seat, letting go of Joan's hand so abruptly that it was as if he had roughly tossed it aside.
"Adrian?"
"I'm sorry, I'm just... I feel a bit faint all of a sudden. Please excuse me, just a moment..." With that, he hurried into the next room and shut the door behind him.
There were no lights in that room, but that was better. Less chance of being seen. Hurriedly, he pulled the glove off of his right hand and bit down on it, feeling two of his teeth sink in, as they had so many---too many---times before.
But this time was different. For the first time, the sweet taste of his own blood flooding his mouth was not enough. The hunger, yes, it could satisfy, but not the craving, not the curiosity. Joan... So sweet and beautiful, I want to know... The taste of her blood... No! Not Joan! Oh, God, please not Joan! I love her! I love her... so I have to know...
He sucked desperately on his hand, determined not to let it go until this feeling was gone, totally, utterly gone. His hand throbbed with pain, from the desperate crushing force of his teeth, and from the way he sucked the blood from it, violently, mercilessly in his panic.
The world around him swept around as if in a storm, and he fell to his knees, with his free hand on the floor to steady himself.
"Adrian?" he distantly heard Joan's voice from the other room.
But it was all chaos. Nothing could be seen, nothing could be understood but the relentless voices of his mind. No, Joan, don't come in here! No, I can't find out! Not Joan... Biting down harder, sucking harder on his hand, and protecting Joan, protecting her from himself... He ceased even to understand how these things connected as they spun faster and faster around him, buffeting at his mind like a storm-wind until all meaning and knowing was blown away.
Continued in Part 2
Footnotes:
*The title, at least as it's intended, means "In the middle." Ever notice how it's the people in the middle who are always the really interesting ones? Half-Espers, Half-Dragons... Heck, even back in ancient Greece Hercules was an interesting one because he was Half-God. Oh, and Spock, half-Vulcan. You know how this fits in. Or if not, keep reading.
