Just because I'm in a really bad mood, and she's not needed anymore, Bat stays dead. Yep, she never revives; Alucard did actually out-and-out kill her.
No one's expecting it, it's a complete surprise, and darnit, this is a story about two half-vampires, it should be dark and dire and doom-filled! I think Alucard's mad at me that everyone thinks he's 'cute', too. >_
Why on earth did it take me to Chapter Twelve to find the darkness needed to write a vampire story?!
*Read anyway!* ^_~
Chapter Twelve - Beauty
"Alucard?" Fairy called.
Alucard parted his cloak revealing the sling he'd fashioned to carry Fairy and Bat in.
"Yes, Fairy?"
"I think...something is happening," Fairy told him.
"We can stop here," D offered, spying a fallen tree. Alucard sat on the log while D opted to stand and lean against a tree.
"You should hold her," Fairy told Alucard as she flew around his head. "She'd be thrilled to wake in your hands."
"Fairy, I'm not sure it's wise to encourage her," Alucard admitted. "I would be sad if Bat dies. She is a very useful familiar. I find her affection endearing but..."
"Oh, don't worry about that!" Fairy interrupted. "Bat thinks you are the handsomest bat she's ever seen, but she knows you are more than that. She just wants to be your familiar. There's nothing to be concerned with. What she feels is the appropriate affection of a familiar for her master."
"Okay," Alucard took Bat from the sling and laid her across his lap.
"She is bigger than she was, isn't she?" D asked.
"I think so."
"It is a very unique solution to your problem, if this worked," D continued.
Bat shivered suddenly. Automatically, Alucard reached down and stroked her wings, calming the shuddering. D felt a slight, familiar weight on his left shoulder.
"Isn't this exciting?!" Fairy exclaimed.
"Yes, it is."
"D! I can't see!" Left Hand complained.
"Master D, please let Left Hand see. I know you don't like being so mean to him all the time," Fairy pleaded.
"Yeah, what she said!" Left Hand agreed.
D removed his glove and stared down into Left Hand's face.
"You will behave?" D demanded, "No comments, no nicknames? This is important to Alucard."
"I'll be good," Left Hand squirmed. D sighed and turned his hand over to show Fairy that Left Hand was trying to cross two fingers to negate his promise.
Fairy giggled. D smiled slightly too before glaring down.
"Honestly, will you behave? If not, you won't get to see. I won't let you ruin this," D warned.
Left Hand blinked his eyes several times innocently as if the last thing to ever cross his mind was an evil thought. Fairy giggled again, "He'll be good!"
Sighing, D turned his attention back to Alucard and Bat. Violent shudders were passing through poor Bat as the last of the change went through her. Alucard stroked and soothed. D knew it was quite possible these were the last delayed death throes. Bat might still simply...die.
"He...tried. No matter what, Master Alucard tried," Fairy whispered, evidently thinking the same dire thoughts D did.
"Don't worry," Left Hand offered.
Bat flailed about frantically before going completely stiff. Alucard gasped and leaned over her.
"Oh, no!" Fairy cried out.
Alucard looked up into D's face. It was the subtlest of changes, but D could read guilt, dismay and sorrow in Alucard's eyes.
"Master Alucard!" Fairy darted over to reach out and touch Alucard's shoulder, "You tried! It's okay...it's okay..."
"Why did I have such a vivid dream about drinking blood, if not to lead to this?" Alucard whispered.
"Heh, heh!" Left Hand cackled.
"What?" D demanded.
"It's kinda funny, D. Alucard was so sure this would work and Bat is a stiff pile of fur and wings in his lap. C'mon, isn't it funny?!" Left Hand stuck his tongue out at Alucard.
Fairy charged right up to Left Hand and belted him just as hard as she could.
"Ouch!" D complained.
"Oh! I'm sorry, Master D, but Left Hand is so mean!"
"No one ever believes me about him," D muttered.
Alucard wished he could muster even a sad smile that Fairy was acting like his champion. He'd been so sure that his bite would work! That dream he'd had about drinking blood and Val's prediction that he had the way if he remembered what he was, seemed to indicate that this would work. All the signs were that he could save Bat himself, without requiring a lifelong sacrifice from Fairy.
Alucard felt something. He looked down into Bat's softly glowing red eyes and realized she was licking his chin to get his attention.
"Hungry!" she conveyed the thought somehow very directly and unmistakably to Alucard.
"BAT!" Alucard hugged her cautiously tight.
"BAT!!! She's okay, she's okay!" Fairy damn near turned cartwheels in the air.
Bat stroked her head along Alucard's cheek affectionately. "HUNGRY!" Her demand, again somehow mysteriously planted in his mind, was more insistent.
Alucard laughed, "Okay, okay! D, I've got to take the little one out for a hunt. She's famished."
"Go," D suggested. Alucard shifted to his bat form, Bat delightedly took her accustomed place under his wing, matching wing beats as she did so, and they flew off.
Fairy calmed down and very deliberately turned her back on Left Hand. "I didn't see it! Because of you!" she accused.
"Fairy," Left Hand began quietly, "would you have wanted such a private moment observed if it were you?"
Fairy turned around again in surprise, "You knew?! You knew she was okay?!"
"Yeah, I've seen awakenings before. I could tell she was fine."
D looked in astonishment down into Left Hand's face at that.
"But I missed it!" Fairy pouted.
"Yeah, Bat and Alucard had their moment alone. Don't worry though! I'm sure you and Bat can gossip about it to your heart's content later!" Left Hand declared. "Besides, I couldn't let the opportunity to have you slug D pass by!"
"Oh! I'd forgotten about that! Did I hurt you, D?" Fairy was apologetically concerned.
"No, Fairy, I am fine," D told her with a straight face.
"Oh, that's a relief! I should go and tell Demon and the others," Fairy decided, "D, would you please let Alucard know I've gone when he gets back? I sure hope he summons me again right away so I can talk with Bat..." Fairy drifted up and disappeared.
"You're pure evil," D told Left Hand.
"Yeah, ain't it grand?" Left Hand winked.
********
"I can summon both of them at the same time now," Alucard observed as Bat and Fairy flew off together. Fairy was giggling, reaching out to touch Bat's wing every once in a while.
"How did the hunt go?" D asked. Despite himself, he was curious.
"She's still eating the same things she used to. Even though she's a vampire bat now, I don't think she's become a vampire. I don't think she's going to need blood. I have to admit, I didn't even think of that before I bit her," Alucard responded.
"That would be inconvenient," D agreed. "What changes have you noticed?"
"She's bigger and stronger, and a little smarter too, I think. She's got Force of Echo now, that's very useful! She can use it to talk to me."
"Talk?!" Left Hand interjected.
"Just a word or two. The interesting thing is, it works when I'm a dhampir too. I don't have to be a bat for her to talk to me."
"I just wish I knew if the whole reason for doing this worked," Alucard mused.
"She's alive, well, not dead," D observed.
"But will she still age and die? Has she become something supernatural, like the rest of my familiars?" Alucard questioned.
Left Hand shook and scrunched his face tight. He groaned and bit his tongue. He finally said aloud, "Yeah, it worked. I wasn't gonna tell you, and let you sweat it out. Dammit! That stupid fairy is rubbing off on me!"
"Yes, you've become the soul of sweetness," D commented drily.
"Are you sure? How do you know? You aren't just teasing, are you?" Alucard demanded.
"No, I'm on the level, kid. I haven't exactly seen a dhampir sire a vampire bat before, but I've seen things like it. It worked, I can sense it. You don't hafta worry about Bat anymore. She and Fairy," Left Hand gagged dramatically, "will be friends for a long, long time!"
Alucard still looked skeptical.
"Sheesh! What's a parasite gotta do to get some cred around here?!" Left Hand complained.
"Earn it," D stated.
********
A face before him. A handsome face. No...a beautiful face. The curve of cheek flowing as gently as a bird's wing. The jaw line stunning in its strength and force. Skin as pure and unsullied as a child's or as new-fallen snow. The nose straight and proud, never broken, so right in its alignment and symmetry with just enough flare to the nostrils and just enough curve to the arch to earn the adjective 'perfect'.
A mass of dark, wavy hair, a vanity at such a length, but what a perfect vanity! And not a thing feminine about it, when it flowed past such broad shoulders. No tendency to slump here, the carriage and posture hinted at strength and lightly held power. But back, he found his gaze drawn irresistibly back into the beautiful face.
Sensual lips, he longed to reach and touch to feel the curve and softness for himself. Such lips...could actually be made less beautiful by curving into a smile.
The eyes so perfectly placed in this beautiful face were surrounded by thick, dark lashes that most envious women were forced to aid nature to obtain. The shape of the eyebrows hinted that this beautiful man was more that what he seemed.
Not a wrinkle marred his forehead or around his eyes, laugh lines didn't detract from his beauty, the line of his jaw flowed into the strength of his neck without the interruption of the least sag or wrinkle. Unmarked by time, his beauty gave no hint of his age.
But his eyes. Therein hid the answer. Dark, stormy sea-blue, holding pain and sorrow and death, the unshielded gaze betrayed the secret weight of the beautiful man's years.
He'd seen many faces of beauty, usually worn by women, sometimes enhanced by artifice, glittering beauty, soft beauty, gentle beauty, undemanding beauty, the beauty of a snowflake, candle flame or flower petal that asks only to be recognized. Beauty for its own sake and nothing more.
But this! This beautiful man! This is the beauty of the hunting cat or thorned rose, the beauty that conceals lethal danger, the beauty one ignores to one's own peril. This is beauty become a weapon. This beauty he would choose to make his own. This beauty is the beauty he would become!
The beautiful man's eyes focused on his. He waited, in breathless anticipation for the flash of recognition in the beautiful man's eyes, for his own beauty, which he knew rivaled this man's, to earn the admiration and respect he knew it deserved, just as this man's beauty had earned his near-worship.
The beautiful man's gaze slid over him as if he were nothing.
NOTHING!
Something black and horrible curdled within him.
Alarm shredded his dream. Alucard stood over himself with a sword in his hand...no, Alucard looked up and recognized D standing over him with bared steel...
Alucard broke the synergistic connection with his brother, wearily brushed his hair from his face and sat up.
"Again?"
"Yes," D replied, lifting his sword out of Alucard's way.
"Look, does this mist ever do anything threatening? If it's just hovering and your sword can't hurt it anyway, maybe it'd be best to just leave it alone," Alucard commented. "And stop scaring me awake," he added in a low voice.
Unexpectedly, D chuckled, "Not getting enough beauty rest?" He offered his hand to help Alucard stand.
"It's almost dawn anyway. We should be heading out," D noted as he pulled Alucard up.
Suddenly eye to eye with D, Alucard gasped, "It's you!"
"What?"
Alucard seemed startled. A look of intense loathing passed over his features before he shook his head.
"Nothing. It's nothing," he muttered, "We should get going."
Alucard wondered at the hidden meaning in his dream as they trekked in the direction of the next town. If his dream about drinking a woman's blood was to help him discover how to save Bat, what did this dream about D's beauty portend?
Trying to recover the details of his dream, he watched D. He did admit D was an extraordinarily beautiful man. This fact had never meant anything to him before. For some reason today, it filled him with a vague anger, almost a hatred. Why was D so damned beautiful?! And why had he never mentioned Alucard's beauty?! Didn't he recognize it?!
"You've been quiet all day," D noted as they set up the camp that night. Though they could have gone into the nearby town and sought out an inn, they'd mutually decided not to. D tended to avoid spending too much time among humans if he could and Alucard was busy wrestling with his unsettling feelings.
"I've been thinking today," Alucard replied shortly. It was crazy! He almost felt like he hated D, for not recognizing that he was fully as beautiful as D! Yet, Alucard knew that beauty, D's or his own, didn't matter. He had never been vain before, why were such feelings troubling him now? Just because of a dream? It made no sense...
"I'm...tired," Alucard finally said aloud. "I'm going to sleep."
D nodded. They never talked much, but there had never been a day where they didn't talk at all. And this morning, when he'd waken Alucard...it seemed as if Alucard hated him. This went beyond the understandable mistrust D had seen once in Alucard's eyes, upon waking to see D reaching for his sword and finding no reason in the camp. Alucard was not acting like himself.
Oh. D had attacked the mist again this morning. What was it Alucard had said? To leave it alone since D couldn't do anything to it anyway? Maybe whatever the mist was trying to do to Alucard would explain the change D noticed today. He always reacted as soon as he realized the mist was there, trying to get it away from Alucard as quickly as possible. Maybe it was time to leave the mist alone. Perhaps he could find out what it intended if he let it have Alucard without interfering. He had decided to use Alucard as bait once, but he always stopped whatever the mist was trying to do whenever it appeared.
He hadn't realized his instincts had become so protective of Alucard. It appeared as if they had started to get in the way of determining what was going on and taking care of the threat, if threat it was, once and for all. He resolved to leave the mist alone the next time it came to hover over Alucard. Maybe then he could figure out what its purpose was. Maybe the hatred he'd seen in Alucard's eyes every time he looked at him today, the hatred that D didn't want to admit distressed him, would go away if D solved the mystery of the mist.
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Author's notes -
Yeah, down here for once! Did I scare ya up top? I think it's amusing that everyone assumed Bat would survive. Is this story really so predictable? Of course, Bat did revive, so maybe it is... *sigh!*
Part of me really did want to keep her dead, y'know. The story's gotten so sweet, some bitterness and death would bring it back to where it belongs! >_ Darnit that I'm too weak to be so ruthless! I probably don't have what it takes to be writing a vampire story in the first place! Sentimental dhampirs?!
Maybe I can make it up with what happens in the next chapter. *Heh, heh, heh!*
Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get!
stargarde@stargarde.com
Next chapter teaser - Chapter Thirteen - Alucard's Final Dream