Chapter 53
He held onto her for but a second more, then allowed her to sit up with the questioning look upon her face. He turned his head sideways to get a better look at her, his red eyes full of playfulness.
"I think a little walk in the forest would be best. There should be a nice moon out tonight," A smile curved around his lips as he looked down at Seras.
"Hmm..." She stood up and moved to the side so she freed Alucard; she looked down on him. "Sounds even better, then."
He slowly, due to his long legs, got up; it took him a little bit longer than expected to get balanced, but was okay otherwise. He looked to Seras and in one swoop of his hand; he grabbed her arm and moved her closer, grinning smartly.
"Let's go." He, holding onto her arm gently, led her out and they walked down the long corridor. She noticed how quick they were making tracks, covering a lot of space in a small amount of time.
"My, master, we sure are in a hurry."
He slowed a little and held tighter; his eyes shifted to her and the hallway periodically.
"I was just thinking: if Walter would see us like this...not like he wouldn't have a clue, he's a smart old geezer."
She remembered when she had visited him a couple of nights ago; he had practically read her mind (if he could have, he would have) about Alucard turning black. She nodded in strong agreement.
Reaching the gates, they walked out; there was a slight wind and the moon was almost full. His eyes reflected the image of the moon, and he turned to Seras.
With a wide, evil grin, he lifted his other hand; as if on cue, his mushroom hat and his glasses appeared out of nowhere to their respective spots on top of his head and shielding his eyes. He decided to leave his tie behind.
"Better."
She looked over at him strangely as they continued to walk.
"You forgot your tie, master." She pointed at the spot. He looked down; it wasn't obvious, but he shrugged it off.
"Ah, it strangled me anyway." He grinned a little. "Not like my head is going to fall off without it." They started to walk down the path by the forest's edge. Seras snorted.
"'Strangled,' master? You must tie it on too tight, hmm...It also just gets in the way." She looked past him to see into the forest, and then looked straight ahead.
"No, it's how it is supposed to be worn; not like I need to breathe." He looked at her, debating whether to go as his preferred dog form, as some trees started to pass by.
"Whatever you want, then." She eyed him. Alucard noted the glint in her eyes and his smiled widened a bit as he looked at her. His red eyes concentrated on a single point, reading her eyes.
"'Whatever I want' could be many things..." His glasses fell to the crook of his nose as his eyes glinted evilly, still keeping his hold on her with his hand...
Seras craned her neck to look up at him; she knew exactly what he meant by that. Her eyebrows rose at the same time as a silent reply.
"Master...What are we doing out here, anyway?"
Alucard looked her over with amusement. He, of course, intended to say that.
"I mean what I said, we are here to walk." And with that he moved away from Seras, unclenching her hand, and turned to her. In an instant his body and clothes melted to complete pitch, swirling mass of black; all that was seen was a pair of red eyes and a crooked smile.
The shape descended low and shrunk, lower to the ground, extending itself fairly long to its size. Seras recognized this at once; when he finished, he had four legs, a tail, a large, thick silver collar around his neck with a cross hanging from a chain around it, silver cuffs around each of his paws, and six dark red, piercing eyes on the top of his head.
Seras just stared down at him, smiling at his dog form that she found unusually appealing.
"'Walk', master?" She snickered. "But I don't have a leash."
With his six eyes, he looked toward a nearby tree and pranced over oddly; smelling the bark, he took a chunk out of it. Because it was a vine tree, he ripped off a vine itself and unraveled it from the tree's branch for about a foot. He tugged harder and it fell off; with the vine in his teeth, he walked back to Seras.
"Will this work?"
Seras facefaulted and started laughing at the weirdness of it all.
"Master...this is very strange...but," She took it from him and looked at it. "...Okay." She knelt down and tied it around his large silver collar and then stood up, holding the other end of it.
"I can't believe I'm doing this." She muttered to herself.
Alucard wagged his tail and yapped, prancing oddly around her as if a dog that had not seen the night in years.
"Hmm..." He hummed, making it sound more like a growl. "Now this is a walk." He walked ahead of Seras, just like a normal dog would, tongue hanging out lazily and all. Seras walked quickly to keep up with him.
Master was very moody tonight, going from depressed and dark to extremely mobile and athletic; she thought about this as he practically dragged her around the castle grounds.
"Master is acting very peculiar tonight."
He walked down the road a bit, farther from the castle but not past the gates just yet; keeping out of seeing range. He stopped and stood, panting, waiting for Seras to catch up to him; he barked when she finally did.
Closing four of the eyes on top of his head, he left the regular two, so he would not attract any unneeded attention when going out to the streets briefly. Looking like a normal dog, and Seras no more than a human in a strangely revealing police uniform, he was confident nobody would look twice.
He leaned up against Seras' leg a little and looked out at the road ahead, past the gates; the road was two miles or so from a small town.
"It is a nice night for a walk." He started off at a normal pace again, keeping strides with Seras. She blinked down at him.
"But..." She stopped again; why was she worrying? She was already in deep shit with Integra anyway, so sneaking outside the gates with her master probably wouldn't make any difference. Her face changed to a smile. "Yes master, it is a nice night...but we have spent much of it...playing around." She tugged on his makeshift leash, still finding the whole situation quite weird. Alucard looked up at her solemnly; he understood where she was heading with this...but she still didn't understand what he was doing, or trying to do.
He pawed at the ground a little and sat down, facing her; his tail lie limp on the ground.
"Seras, I know that, but there is a reason for this, too...you shall see." He stood up again; it was a nice momentary rest for his tiny paws.
She suddenly got very curious as to find out, and peered at him with wide eyes. He knew the question behind them, and turned away, tugging on the leash a little so that they would continue walking again. He kept in stride with Seras, giving off the air that he was a well-behaved dog.
Looking ahead into the distance for something, he focused in on one particular spot.
"After you turned into a vampire, and even now, have you ever started to notice little things that you couldn't before?" One eye watched her from the side, while the other remained on the road.
She looked around, scanning the area; she also remembered being able to 'see' the invisible intruders she fought a couple nights ago.
"Hai, master."
"That was only based on where you were attacked, like a millisecond beforehand. Tonight, I hope to get you better at this and other things." He stared down the road after reading her mind. "Down about a mile and a half, there is a bench on the outskirts of the woods; that is where we are headed."
Seras walked with wide strides down the road, looking ahead to spot it; she was surprised with the sudden ability to see things so far away...something she really didn't give much thought to ever since she was transformed.
Alucard nudged her leg a little with his nose, sort of a way of showing that he appreciated her, as they both walked. He knew that she saw the bench up ahead, but it took her awhile to tell that it was there to begin with.
"It will take time, Seras, but you already seem to be improving."
Seras smiled briefly as she stared ahead at the now-visible-to-her-too bench, and said politely.
"Thank you, master."
His tail flopped back and forth a little as he pranced like a dog overflowing with pride.
"Will you play ball with me later?" He asked, laughing at how weird that sounded, though he was serious.
If Seras had been drinking something, she would have spitted it out right then; she snorted otherwise, laughing in between talking.
"I didn't know you were so athletic, master."
"Only when in this form, Seras," He wagged his tail more. "I don't prance as a vampire, that would look very wrong indeed."
Seras raised both of her eyebrows and looked away.
"I would quite so agree," She got a horrible image of her master, clad in red and his hat and glasses, frolicking down the corridors, and she made a face like she tasted the utmost of foul blood.
As he looked back to the road, he realized that they were almost to their designated spot; it didn't seem so long as it should have been. Alucard bobbed his head a little like if he were listening to music as he strutted down the street. He stopped and spoke, deep in his throat like a growl.
"Only in this form, would I strut, eh Seras?" They were approaching the bench; it was coming closer and becoming clearer for Seras to see.
"Yes, and only in that form, master." There was a hint of laughter in her voice, and she tugged very lightly on the leash. Feeling the strain on the vine he went along; he wasn't about to go loose. Not yet, at least; he still found the thought of having a leash in the first place quite amusing.
"Maybe I should wear the leash all the time, a way to keep the master in check."
Seras nodded right away, agreeing wholesomely; they came up to the bench and she stopped in front of it and put her boot on the edge of it, the space between the hell and the top of her foot resting on the edge of the bench. She felt her master catch up, due to the slack in the leash.
He jumped onto the bench, his paws landing in front of him as he sat down, facing forward; pawing the seat, he indicated for her to come and sit with him.
"Sit, girl..." He said, as if addressing the tiger that she was.
Seras shot him a 'look and sat down, switching the leash to her other hand so the end would be closest to him. Alucard rubbed his wet nose against her arm, a common gesture a dog would show for affection. His tail lie limp on the seat of the bench: an indication that he was about to be serious.
"Hmm..." He eyed Seras. "Time to rest, and help home-in on your hearing...ears usually go before sight as they hear all around, and your eyes only see three-fourth's around." Seras nodded and looked ahead, as the black dog that was Alucard leaned his head back and disappeared into the black of the night.
"Now a test of the ears," His voice seemed to come from everywhere, and his eyes and his Cheshire cat grin were nowhere to be seen. He was more than invisible, he was seemingly everywhere; in the distance came forth a small, high-pitched sound.
Seras closed her eyes and listened; hearing the sound, though, she whipped her head in the direction of it, opening her eyes on reflex.
"Nani?"
Alucard was definitely shifting around her; from far in the distance she heard the faintest whisper, and could barely make out what it was.
"Concentrate on what is not heard, Seras," He was referring to the high-pitched noise that he was issuing; it was way above the human range of hearing, more like a dog's. Fluttering of little wings in the distance was present as well, but very hard to hear. Seras vaguely heard his voice and nodded for some strange reason, and closed her eyes again.
Alucard purposely disappeared, trying to make her use the extent of her hearing ability; as to not mess it up, he was going to speak to her telepathically. Part of him, though all of this was hidden in blackness, became one single bat...growing out of the swirling mass. The bat gave off the high-pitched screeching.
He commanded it to fly at a variety of speeds, altitudes, and screech in assorted pitches; she should be able to get them all.
"There are some rocks by your feet. When you hear a small shrilly screech, you should try and find where it is coming from, and hit it with the rock. This exercise will focus-in on your hearing when other things are happening around you."