"Some think vampires don't need to concern themselves with Time. We do. After all, we have so much more of it to deal with." from The Book of Blood, Teachings of the Ancient God
Didn't Master Bat realize?! The danger was not in the thing in the middle of the room, but in something in one of the walls. She tried to pinpoint exactly where it was, so she could tell him. It was strange, almost as if it were moving behind the wall. Alucard reached down to pick up the blood-red arrow. The tile it was on shifted, sinking into the base.
Still trying to find exactly where she sensed something dark and scary, she hovered on quiet wings. The feeling settled in one place, right behind Master Bat!
"Alucard!" she cried out, beating her wings as fast as she could to throw herself between her master and the black, evil thing speeding so fast toward his unprotected back.
Alucard turned at his name just in time to see the arrow, the real arrow of vampire slaying, piercing through Bat's heart.
She vanished into dust taking the arrow into nothingness with her.
"BAT!" Alucard screamed. Frantically he pulled one of his other familiar cards out, summoning Fairy to his side.
"Fairy! Do something! Bat was...! Bat was...!"
"I can't!" Fairy cried out, tears streaming from her eyes. "I can't do anything to help a familiar!"
Alucard looked in horror at the small pile of black dust that was all that was left of Bat. He'd been so concerned when Fairy had told him that she was mortal, and concerned in an entirely different way when Fairy told him Bat was in love with him. Alucard, cursed by the blood of his birth, had vowed to let his blood die with him. He had resolved to never love. Maria Reynard...he'd seen love in her eyes. He's seen interest, if not love, in the eyes of other women too. He'd wondered if it would truly be so bad if he weakened from his vow. His own mother had loved Dracula, even to the day she had died. Alucard contented himself with milder forms of love. They'd never bring the ecstasy of passion, or the soul-altering power of true love, but they comforted him just the same. After all, he had lived in his half life, waiting for Castlevania to rise and then dealing with it, out of love for the humans who lived near the castle. A remote, unrecognized, unreturned love, but love nonetheless.
And D. His brother, with whom no words needed to be shared to know they bore the same pain of destiny. Alucard's already tangled feelings about Dracula, his father, snarled even more when he considered that D was also Dracula's son. That D was as he was, protecting humans at the cost of his own happiness, not only gave Alucard the comfort of knowing he wasn't absolutely alone, but also seemed to show that Dracula was not quite the completely evil being Alucard thought.
But his familiars. They were five entities with whom Alucard could freely admit there was affection and love. They knew his darkest secret already, so he didn't have to hide it from them, or 'protect' them from it. With his familiars, he allowed himself to smile, or even laugh, enjoying the freedom of simply being himself. And if he tweaked Demon's tail affectionately, or invited Bat or Fairy to ride on his shoulder, what was the harm in that?
He'd been worried when Fairy had told him of Bat's feelings for him. It had cast all of Bat's actions into a new light. Alucard had been relieved when he realized that Bat's intellect was only slightly higher than that of a normal bat, as it made her loyalty and affection more like that of a cherished pet. The undemanding love of a natural creature he could easily bear. Such a love required no return.
He hadn't expected her intelligence to increase with the change he'd made in her, siring her to become vampire bat. But she had behaved as before, not troubling him at all or getting in his way with her feelings for him. Alucard found himself anticipating the signs of her attraction, the restrained little dash to fly closer whenever he assumed his bat form, and her slight confusion whenever he abandoned it. Slowly, that confusion had disappeared whenever he assumed his true form. Gradually, she started flying closer to him whenever he was a dhampir too. He'd fallen into the habit of patting his shoulder, inviting her to perch if he were just walking somewhere and not anticipating needing to fight. She never missed the opportunity to obey that command. Every once in a while she'd stroke her head along his cheek.
"She can't be gone!" Alucard slumped to his knees next to the pile of dust that had been Bat. "Fairy...I think I...love her!"
"I know," Fairy said calmly. "I wish you had realized it sooner."
"But...I am...she is...!"
Fairy smiled and floated closer to hover just before his anguished eyes.
"You are a dhampir; she is a bat. Because of you, she is a vampire bat, changed from what she was, made much more than just a natural animal."
"All of us love you, Master Alucard. Not only because you found our cards and made us your familiars, but also...just because. You are nice and kind and honorable. Demon won't admit it, but even he likes that. Of all of us though, only Bat was like you, sharing a similar form. She loved you before. Once she became even more like you, that love deepened."
"I think...every creature wants to be loved and wants to matter to some one person more than any other in all the world. Even vampire bats and even dhampirs. Even you, Master Alucard."
"Is it so terrible that you found a response to Bat's affection in your own heart?"
Alucard considered what Fairy had asked. Is that what it was? Was he only responding to Bat's affection? But...he had liked simply talking with her, once Bat had found a way to talk to him. Maybe there was something to how she just loved him without ever asking for anything in return. Maybe he was so concerned about not falling in love with a human woman he never considered he could fall in love with something else. True, she had once been only a natural animal, little more than a pet, but he himself had made her more. Without even knowing it, without planning it, without any sort of machination or artifice, Bat had scaled the wall of his stubbornness, breached the adamant keep of his resolve and successfully besieged his heart.
"No, Fairy. What is terrible is that I didn't realize it in time to tell her," Alucard looked down in horrified sadness at Bat's pathetic remains. The fact that she had died protecting him was a final irony not lost on Alucard either.
"Time...such an interesting concept," a deep, sepulchral voice commented.
Alucard lithely vaulted to his feet and whirled. Death floated behind him.
"Why are you here?!" Alucard demanded.
"That little pile of dust. If you'd left her alone, I wouldn't have to trouble myself to collect her, but she's not just a simple animal any longer. Therefore, I have to be involved. It's a bother really. I don't know why you couldn't leave things well enough alone!" Death groused.
"She has...a soul?!" Alucard demanded in stunned amazement.
"Soul, spirit, seed of cosmic energy...whatever you want to call it, she's not just a beast to pass easily into the void. Such trouble you cause me!"
Death gestured toward the pile of dust. A mist of velvety blackness rose from it and hovered. It darted over toward Alucard. There was no sound, there wasn't even her Force of Echo 'voice', but Alucard still knew...this was the undying essence of Bat. The comforting darkness of a warm summer night, the quiet darkness of his sanctuary's coffin and the gentle darkness of Bat's own soft, shadowy wings somehow brushed up against his soul.
"Bat...!" her common name was a tortured syllable wrung from his deepest emotions.
"Oh, really?!" Death crowed. "Proud Alucard of the unassailable heart brought to heel by the creature he himself made?! How Pygmalion of you!" Death gestured and the hazy mist of Bat's soul responded, tearing itself reluctantly away from Alucard and hovering above Death's hand. Bat's soul resolved into a black globe that Death hefted within his skeletal grasp.
"Tease me all you want," Alucard told Death in a thickened tone. "But don't torment her. What purpose is there in claiming her soul?"
"Torment? Even after all this time, you don't understand my purpose. I don't torment, I merely usher souls to their final destination. Either unending punishment, for those who deserve it, or ultimate reward. As for purpose, I never ask. It is not my place to trouble the powers of the universe with such philosophical questions," Death told him.
"Please..." Alucard's voice was ragged, "Leave her with me. Even as...just a soul. Surely the universe won't care what happens to the soul of one vampire bat."
"Her soul? It cares more than you know! Sorry, ducky, no can do!"
"Please!" Alucard fell to his knees, pleading with Death. Death chuckled to see Alucard's unabashed supplication.
"Well, well, well!" Death floated all around Alucard looking down on him in satisfaction. "Who knew this could be so rewarding to me? Sometimes this job does have its perks! To see you this way, what an unexpected treat!" Death crowed.
"I'll tell you what. I'll give you a challenge: enter my castle, defeat the monsters in my dungeon, and find the chamber I place her in before her remains trickle through my hourglass," Death gestured. Bat's dust floated into the air and Death's Hourglass materialized around it. The connected double-drop chambers were clearest crystal, but the design was predictably morbid. The three pillars supporting the hollow chambers were crafted of bone.
Death hefted the gruesome thing to gaze with glowing, attentive sockets at the upper crystal chamber to make certain it was empty before theatrically turning the instrument over. The fine black dust of Bat's mortal remains acted as the sand, flowing from the top chamber to the bottom through the narrow neck.
"Find and stop this before all of her dust runs through and I'll release her soul to you," Death promised. "If you are late, if all of her dust has trickled to the bottom chamber, the power interested in her claims her instead. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Alucard regained his feet. "But where...?"
Death vanished, taking Bat's soul and the hourglass holding her remains with him.
"I'll treat you fairly and set you in the starting place," Death's voice spoke aloud. Alucard and Fairy disappeared.
********
Alucard opened his eyes to find himself standing in the courtyard of a keep of some kind. The portcullis behind him was closed and the gate to the keep itself yawned open before him.
"A fly in Death's web..." Alucard mused aloud. Hearing no reply he looked around. Fairy was gone. Alarmed, Alucard reached into the easily accessible, hidden pocket in his cloak for his familiar cards. He fanned them out. Only Bat's card had remained the same. Each of the rest of them had been altered. Fairy's card depicted not only her gossamer winged form, but a bat hovering behind her as well. Puzzled, Alucard resummoned Fairy.
"Master, I'll always help you!" Fairy greeted as she materialized and floated down to attend to him.
"Eeep!" she squealed, for a bat floated down just after her. Fairy darted around Alucard, putting him between her and this unexpected creature. Alucard absently handed Fairy her card while he examined the bat.
This one, unlike his own Bat, was a natural creature. It appeared as any common bat, leathery black wings and furry body, flapping to remain in the air in front of him. From force of habit, Alucard tapped his shoulder. The bat continued flapping, showing no interest at all in coming closer to Alucard.
"Who are you?" Alucard asked, using the Force of Echo voice that let him speak so clearly with Bat. There was no reply.
"Fairy...any ideas?" Alucard finally asked.
"This is strange," she observed, returning her altered familiar card to her master. "It looks as though someone wants you to have a bat with you whenever you summon me."
"Not just you, all the cards now show a bat on them," Alucard showed her. "And with all that's happening, I'd say it's Death who put it there."
"He's just a regular bat though," Fairy told him, glancing at the strange new familiar. "Why would Death force you to have a bat with you at all times now?"
"I have no idea."
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