Beginning's End
By: Lazeralk
Standard disclaimers apply.
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." – Semisonic
Part 5
"On your feet police-girl." Said Arucard, his child had slept the entire flight. Seras blinked groggily up at her master, her ruby eyes impossibly huge as she fought her sleepiness in a truly kittenish manner. She yawned, showing dainty fangs and small pink tongue.
"Up." He repeated, struggling not to laugh at the adorable image she made.
"Yes sir." She said climbing to her feet. The skirt of her uniform had ridden up around her legs as she slept and wrinkled horribly. She looked down at it and smoothed it as best she could, but it was no use. The garment was ruined.
Arucard was torn between laughing at her miserable expression and moving heaven and hell to make it better. He settled on getting her a new outfit in Bucharest.
"Are we there yet?" she asked.
"Of course we're there you nit-wit. Why do you think we've stopped?" snapped Katrina, her clothes, what little of them there were, were perfectly in order. Not a strand of her hair was out of place, and she didn't have bags under her eyes. Seras glared at her.
"Come along you two." Laughed Arucard as he led them to the small exit.
"Master? Where are we?" asked Seras as she looked around. The place was full of rocks and mountains, but the sky was clear, a beautiful sunset paining the clouds with a splendor of color.
"It's beautiful." She said.
"Whatever. Master, I'm hungry, can't we eat now?" whined Katrina.
"We're in Bucharest police-girl, the capital of Romania. We'll leave the jet here and take the manticors up north to Bran. Come on, we can't have you walking in that wrinkled old thing, you'll embarrass me." Said Arucard holding his hand out to Seras and completely ignoring Katrina.
"Yes master." Said Seras shooting a smug look at Katrina as she took his hand. Serves the little wench right.
Katrina fumed for a moment before a sly look entered her eyes and she followed them quietly.
*
Arucard signed as he leaned against the wall, waiting for his child to come out of the dressing room. Blasted females, he'd be damned if he ever did this again. He'd shoot himself in the head if he even considered it. Wait, not the head, it'd be bloody embarrassing if he ran into another wall. Maybe he'd shoot himself in the heart next time.
"Um, Master?" said Seras; trying to pull the hem of the very short, very low necked, black dress she was wearing down. Why had he given her this to try on of all things? There wasn't a mirror in the dressing room, so she'd have to go past her master to get to the one on the wall. She snuck a glance at it and nearly fainted.
"Oh god." She whispered.
"I like it police-girl!" Arucard declared, giving her thumbs up and a crazy smile.
Oh, of course he'd like it, she snarled mentally, the damned pervert!
She walked back into the changing stall and picked up the next outfit. Very tight black pants of some sort of cotton/satin hybrid, a ruby red sleeveless turtleneck and an equally sleeveless black leather trench coat with a high neck, no lapels and a built in waist. It had buttons but no tie, and the hems were trimmed with braided leather. She pulled on her black elbow gloves and opened the stall door.
She held her breath, not even looking at her master, and opened them when she was fairly sure she was facing the mirror. She looked amazing. Exotic and lethal.
"That one." Said Arucard.
"Yeah." Breathed Seras turning this way and that.
Arucard had her take it off and paid for it, and then he had her change back into it and trash her police-girl outfit. He handed her the holsters for her guns one by one and watched her slide into all of them with practiced ease. The guns came next, all except the halconnen, which had been mailed in pieces ahead of them. The Cassul went under her arm; the spare clips with the 13mm explosive FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) rounds went into the tooled leather slots on her belt. The two Berettas were stowed on each hip, the extra clips of 9mm rounds vanished into pouches strapped around her thighs.
The sleeveless trench went over it all and the guns magically disappeared. She smiled and looked to her master for approval. He nodded and led her out of the store, ignoring the horrified look of the shopkeeper who was muttering about invaders to the homeland and cowering under his desk. As soon as they stepped out of the shop, they came. No, not assassins, or werewolves, or vampires or monsters. Men. Lots of them, all very drunk and waving around photos. Seras looked at them with confusion and apprehension. Arucard looked at them with such hatred that a few of them actually stopped.
One of the drunks bravely wrapped his arm around her waist and settled the other hand firmly on her breast. Seras screamed and punched his so hard the bones in his jaw shattered. Arucard mealted into a mass of black ooze with millions of blood red eyes and a mouth so wide he could have swallowed a man whole. His fangs dripped with blood, the razor edges nearly three feet long.
The men, drunk or no, fled for their lives, leaving the photos behind to float gently to the ground before Seras' and Arucard's newly reformed feet to reveal the horror they contained. Seras looked down at the picture and gasped. They were of her, turning this way and that in the tiny black dress she'd been wearing about an hour ago. Some one had taken pictures through the shop window and given them to all the men in the bar across the street.
Arucard glanced at the picture, did a double take and then stiffened. He whole face shut down, his maniacal grin gone as if it never were, his eyes reflected blood, cold and dispassionate. He became the blood, because blood doesn't care how much you scream.
His body dissolved into bats and took to the sky, leaving Seras standing alone.
"Master!" she called, reaching after him, but he didn't turn back. She let her hand drop and stood outside the little shop all by herself in a strange country, where she was lost.
A moment passed and a horrible scream rent the air, coming from the direction her master had gone. Seras broke into a run and then leapt for the rooftops. She hadn't been dead nearly eighty years and learned nothing, she'd overcome her fear of heights and learned to jump farther than humanly possible. Her master had taught her to think like a vampire and not a human. She was beginning to understand that.
She bounded from roof to roof, sliding on the clay shingles and eroded wood planking. Faster, she pushed her body; she ran and leapt, dodging chimneys and vents. Finally she came to the end of the roofs and the smell of blood freshly spilled reached her senses.
Below her, struggling to breathe and scream through the massive hole in her chest was Katrina. Arucard stood over her, one of her deflated lungs hanging limply from his fingers, staring down at her, his face blank and empty as a perfect sky.
"I will not tolerate such childishness. I will not tolerate such disrespect. You are not so precious to me that I would not kill you fledgling. Dishonor me again like that and I will kill you."
Seras had never been more terrified of her master than at that moment. The fear gripped her heart and she let her instincts guild her. 'Run!' they said and that's what she did, 'here is a predator to big for you, run!' Seras turned and ran, her eyes wide but unseeing, the only image that filled her mind was the precious face of her master, so cold and hard, and the blood on his hands. Would she heal? Could a vampire live without a lung? She didn't know. She didn't know anything.
She just ran, ran until she was on the other side of the city though she didn't know where. She dropped into an alley and found a wall. She turned her back to it and sank to the ground. Her chest was heaving, her eyes still blank with horror, but the adrenalin was wearing off. She wrapped her arms around her knees and fought the shock of what she had just seen.
That hadn't been her master. That had been a stranger, a monster. That man was nothing like Arucard, her master would never do such a thing. But it was Arucard. It was him, and he would. He did, to his own child. His own child. How could he? How could he do such a terrible thing to his own child?
Would he ever do that to her? Would next time be her? Would he rip out her lungs and threaten her life like that? Would he?
Seras cried, the tears snaking down her face in hot rivers because she knew the answer to that question.
Yes. He would.
*
Arucard punched the wall. It obediently crumbled.
Katrina was sitting in the corner with Isabella relearning how to breathe through her half reformed chest.
Why did she have to follow him? Arucard punched the wall again, in a new spot that also crumbled. He was still angry with Katrina for the photo stunt but he was angrier with himself for showing that side of him to Seras.
How could he have been so stupid? He should have taken care of the police- girl first and then gone to sate his bloodlust and anger. But no, he had to be selfish and take his vengeance first and now Seras was missing. He could read her thoughts and would have been able to find her except that Seras herself didn't know where she was and the surrounding alley wasn't giving him any traceable clues.
Damnit. He punched the wall a third time and whole thing just gave up and collapsed. He listened to her thoughts trying to get a clue as to how far she'd run when the questions began. He winced when she asked herself if he would ever hurt her like that, mentally growling. Didn't she know he could never do that? Didn't she know she was too precious to him?
He winced again when she answered the question for him, and hung his head in sadness. He sighed and put fingertips to his temples, ignoring the painful tightening in his chest, and concentrated.
His body began to slowly dissolve into blood and settle on the floor. From that blood a figure began to rise, the blood moving inward as the figure rose, almost as if being sucked in through the bottom. When all the blood had left the floor, a six-eyed hellhound stood fully formed. The dog stretched its back and then leapt for the roofs, sniffing along at his feet for his child's scent.
He jerked his head when he caught it and bounded off in the direction it went, jumping from roof to roof.
* Seras didn't know how long she'd been sitting there but her rear end had gone numb some time ago. It wasn't until a white gloved hand appeared in her vision that she looked up and noticed that the sun had moved several hours worth. Arucard held his hand out to her, his face calm and sad. Her initial reaction of scrambling away caused pain to chase across his eyes and she stopped at seeing it there. Her master was never in pain.
She took a deep shaking breath, still not quite trusting.
"Master?" she whispered.
"Police-girl. I'm still me." He said quietly, not moving, as if he were coaxing a wild animal to his hand.
She sniffed dryly, her tears having run out long ago. She very gently touched his fingertips with hers, not even resting the weight of her hand on his. He grasped her hand and pulled her to him, trying not to see her flinch. He hugged her tight, wrapping his long arms around her.
"I'd never hurt you police-girl." He whispered to her, willing her to believe him.
"Master?" she asked, relaxing slightly against him.
"Never." He promised.
She nodded slightly and wrapped her own arms around his neck, not having to reach far as he was still on his knees.
"Please don't scare me like that again." She said softly, burring her nose in his hair.
"I'll try police-girl."
He pulled back and held her at arms length, just studying her. Then his face broke into his usual crazy grin and he chuckled.
"But I'm a pretty scary guy."
She smiled for him and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
*
"Where have you two been?" demanded Galina, hands on her hips.
The six manticors lounged around on the rocks, their giant wings fanning them lazily. One of the large rexes had what looked to be the remains of a goat between its fore paws. The beast sunk its massive teeth into the meat and pulled an entire leg off, swallowing the chunk whole.
Arucard watched it was a tinge of jealousy. On his mad search for his child he'd totally forgotten to feed.
He glanced at Seras who was attempting to explain to Galina where they'd been without embarrassing both of them. She showed off her new outfit and the motherly vampire completely forgot about being mad at them. He smirked; she always managed to get him off the hook.
"Let's go. I want to reach the castle before sunrise tomorrow." Said Arucard moving towards the rex with the goat.
"O-key doe-key, let's get going." Said Galina, re-strapping the AKM to her back, making an 'X' with the sawed off shotgun.
The manticors all rose at her words and formed a line before her. She picked the big rex she'd pointed out earlier, Ranja, and climbed on his back. She settled between the large shoulder blades, carefully avoiding the wings and grabbed two great handfuls of the tawny mane.
The other four followed her example, all mounting the manticor nearest to them. The one that was left over snorted at them and took to the air before the others had settled.
"Up." Commanded Galina.
The Manticors rose, their massive leathery wings moving tons of air. The resulting wind flattened the trees and rocks below them, the wood splintering and boulders crumbling with the gale force.
"To Bran Castle." Said Galina, pointing Ranja northward.
The manticors roared, the sound shaking the very air, before rocketing at a blinding speed towards the town of Bran. In seconds they crossed the mountain range, the Transylvanian Alps and the lights of Barsov came into view. The manticors dropped in altitude and Seras was glad she was dead and couldn't get an infection when her eardrums burst from the sudden pressure change.
The monsters and their riders glided the thirty kilometers to the forests that surrounded Bran Castle, the deadly predators utterly silent.
After one of the longest centuries of his life, Arucard laid eyes on his home, the mighty castle that had served as his fortress since he'd taken it in 1390. A wicked smile crossed his lips as he absently ran his gloved fingers through the manticor's mane.
"Home, sweet home." He said, pulling the Jackals from his coat.
"Home, sweet home."
End part 5
Information and pictures of Bran Castle can be found here: http://www.ici.ro/romania/tourism/c_bran.html
Part 5
"On your feet police-girl." Said Arucard, his child had slept the entire flight. Seras blinked groggily up at her master, her ruby eyes impossibly huge as she fought her sleepiness in a truly kittenish manner. She yawned, showing dainty fangs and small pink tongue.
"Up." He repeated, struggling not to laugh at the adorable image she made.
"Yes sir." She said climbing to her feet. The skirt of her uniform had ridden up around her legs as she slept and wrinkled horribly. She looked down at it and smoothed it as best she could, but it was no use. The garment was ruined.
Arucard was torn between laughing at her miserable expression and moving heaven and hell to make it better. He settled on getting her a new outfit in Bucharest.
"Are we there yet?" she asked.
"Of course we're there you nit-wit. Why do you think we've stopped?" snapped Katrina, her clothes, what little of them there were, were perfectly in order. Not a strand of her hair was out of place, and she didn't have bags under her eyes. Seras glared at her.
"Come along you two." Laughed Arucard as he led them to the small exit.
"Master? Where are we?" asked Seras as she looked around. The place was full of rocks and mountains, but the sky was clear, a beautiful sunset paining the clouds with a splendor of color.
"It's beautiful." She said.
"Whatever. Master, I'm hungry, can't we eat now?" whined Katrina.
"We're in Bucharest police-girl, the capital of Romania. We'll leave the jet here and take the manticors up north to Bran. Come on, we can't have you walking in that wrinkled old thing, you'll embarrass me." Said Arucard holding his hand out to Seras and completely ignoring Katrina.
"Yes master." Said Seras shooting a smug look at Katrina as she took his hand. Serves the little wench right.
Katrina fumed for a moment before a sly look entered her eyes and she followed them quietly.
*
Arucard signed as he leaned against the wall, waiting for his child to come out of the dressing room. Blasted females, he'd be damned if he ever did this again. He'd shoot himself in the head if he even considered it. Wait, not the head, it'd be bloody embarrassing if he ran into another wall. Maybe he'd shoot himself in the heart next time.
"Um, Master?" said Seras; trying to pull the hem of the very short, very low necked, black dress she was wearing down. Why had he given her this to try on of all things? There wasn't a mirror in the dressing room, so she'd have to go past her master to get to the one on the wall. She snuck a glance at it and nearly fainted.
"Oh god." She whispered.
"I like it police-girl!" Arucard declared, giving her thumbs up and a crazy smile.
Oh, of course he'd like it, she snarled mentally, the damned pervert!
She walked back into the changing stall and picked up the next outfit. Very tight black pants of some sort of cotton/satin hybrid, a ruby red sleeveless turtleneck and an equally sleeveless black leather trench coat with a high neck, no lapels and a built in waist. It had buttons but no tie, and the hems were trimmed with braided leather. She pulled on her black elbow gloves and opened the stall door.
She held her breath, not even looking at her master, and opened them when she was fairly sure she was facing the mirror. She looked amazing. Exotic and lethal.
"That one." Said Arucard.
"Yeah." Breathed Seras turning this way and that.
Arucard had her take it off and paid for it, and then he had her change back into it and trash her police-girl outfit. He handed her the holsters for her guns one by one and watched her slide into all of them with practiced ease. The guns came next, all except the halconnen, which had been mailed in pieces ahead of them. The Cassul went under her arm; the spare clips with the 13mm explosive FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) rounds went into the tooled leather slots on her belt. The two Berettas were stowed on each hip, the extra clips of 9mm rounds vanished into pouches strapped around her thighs.
The sleeveless trench went over it all and the guns magically disappeared. She smiled and looked to her master for approval. He nodded and led her out of the store, ignoring the horrified look of the shopkeeper who was muttering about invaders to the homeland and cowering under his desk. As soon as they stepped out of the shop, they came. No, not assassins, or werewolves, or vampires or monsters. Men. Lots of them, all very drunk and waving around photos. Seras looked at them with confusion and apprehension. Arucard looked at them with such hatred that a few of them actually stopped.
One of the drunks bravely wrapped his arm around her waist and settled the other hand firmly on her breast. Seras screamed and punched his so hard the bones in his jaw shattered. Arucard mealted into a mass of black ooze with millions of blood red eyes and a mouth so wide he could have swallowed a man whole. His fangs dripped with blood, the razor edges nearly three feet long.
The men, drunk or no, fled for their lives, leaving the photos behind to float gently to the ground before Seras' and Arucard's newly reformed feet to reveal the horror they contained. Seras looked down at the picture and gasped. They were of her, turning this way and that in the tiny black dress she'd been wearing about an hour ago. Some one had taken pictures through the shop window and given them to all the men in the bar across the street.
Arucard glanced at the picture, did a double take and then stiffened. He whole face shut down, his maniacal grin gone as if it never were, his eyes reflected blood, cold and dispassionate. He became the blood, because blood doesn't care how much you scream.
His body dissolved into bats and took to the sky, leaving Seras standing alone.
"Master!" she called, reaching after him, but he didn't turn back. She let her hand drop and stood outside the little shop all by herself in a strange country, where she was lost.
A moment passed and a horrible scream rent the air, coming from the direction her master had gone. Seras broke into a run and then leapt for the rooftops. She hadn't been dead nearly eighty years and learned nothing, she'd overcome her fear of heights and learned to jump farther than humanly possible. Her master had taught her to think like a vampire and not a human. She was beginning to understand that.
She bounded from roof to roof, sliding on the clay shingles and eroded wood planking. Faster, she pushed her body; she ran and leapt, dodging chimneys and vents. Finally she came to the end of the roofs and the smell of blood freshly spilled reached her senses.
Below her, struggling to breathe and scream through the massive hole in her chest was Katrina. Arucard stood over her, one of her deflated lungs hanging limply from his fingers, staring down at her, his face blank and empty as a perfect sky.
"I will not tolerate such childishness. I will not tolerate such disrespect. You are not so precious to me that I would not kill you fledgling. Dishonor me again like that and I will kill you."
Seras had never been more terrified of her master than at that moment. The fear gripped her heart and she let her instincts guild her. 'Run!' they said and that's what she did, 'here is a predator to big for you, run!' Seras turned and ran, her eyes wide but unseeing, the only image that filled her mind was the precious face of her master, so cold and hard, and the blood on his hands. Would she heal? Could a vampire live without a lung? She didn't know. She didn't know anything.
She just ran, ran until she was on the other side of the city though she didn't know where. She dropped into an alley and found a wall. She turned her back to it and sank to the ground. Her chest was heaving, her eyes still blank with horror, but the adrenalin was wearing off. She wrapped her arms around her knees and fought the shock of what she had just seen.
That hadn't been her master. That had been a stranger, a monster. That man was nothing like Arucard, her master would never do such a thing. But it was Arucard. It was him, and he would. He did, to his own child. His own child. How could he? How could he do such a terrible thing to his own child?
Would he ever do that to her? Would next time be her? Would he rip out her lungs and threaten her life like that? Would he?
Seras cried, the tears snaking down her face in hot rivers because she knew the answer to that question.
Yes. He would.
*
Arucard punched the wall. It obediently crumbled.
Katrina was sitting in the corner with Isabella relearning how to breathe through her half reformed chest.
Why did she have to follow him? Arucard punched the wall again, in a new spot that also crumbled. He was still angry with Katrina for the photo stunt but he was angrier with himself for showing that side of him to Seras.
How could he have been so stupid? He should have taken care of the police- girl first and then gone to sate his bloodlust and anger. But no, he had to be selfish and take his vengeance first and now Seras was missing. He could read her thoughts and would have been able to find her except that Seras herself didn't know where she was and the surrounding alley wasn't giving him any traceable clues.
Damnit. He punched the wall a third time and whole thing just gave up and collapsed. He listened to her thoughts trying to get a clue as to how far she'd run when the questions began. He winced when she asked herself if he would ever hurt her like that, mentally growling. Didn't she know he could never do that? Didn't she know she was too precious to him?
He winced again when she answered the question for him, and hung his head in sadness. He sighed and put fingertips to his temples, ignoring the painful tightening in his chest, and concentrated.
His body began to slowly dissolve into blood and settle on the floor. From that blood a figure began to rise, the blood moving inward as the figure rose, almost as if being sucked in through the bottom. When all the blood had left the floor, a six-eyed hellhound stood fully formed. The dog stretched its back and then leapt for the roofs, sniffing along at his feet for his child's scent.
He jerked his head when he caught it and bounded off in the direction it went, jumping from roof to roof.
* Seras didn't know how long she'd been sitting there but her rear end had gone numb some time ago. It wasn't until a white gloved hand appeared in her vision that she looked up and noticed that the sun had moved several hours worth. Arucard held his hand out to her, his face calm and sad. Her initial reaction of scrambling away caused pain to chase across his eyes and she stopped at seeing it there. Her master was never in pain.
She took a deep shaking breath, still not quite trusting.
"Master?" she whispered.
"Police-girl. I'm still me." He said quietly, not moving, as if he were coaxing a wild animal to his hand.
She sniffed dryly, her tears having run out long ago. She very gently touched his fingertips with hers, not even resting the weight of her hand on his. He grasped her hand and pulled her to him, trying not to see her flinch. He hugged her tight, wrapping his long arms around her.
"I'd never hurt you police-girl." He whispered to her, willing her to believe him.
"Master?" she asked, relaxing slightly against him.
"Never." He promised.
She nodded slightly and wrapped her own arms around his neck, not having to reach far as he was still on his knees.
"Please don't scare me like that again." She said softly, burring her nose in his hair.
"I'll try police-girl."
He pulled back and held her at arms length, just studying her. Then his face broke into his usual crazy grin and he chuckled.
"But I'm a pretty scary guy."
She smiled for him and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
*
"Where have you two been?" demanded Galina, hands on her hips.
The six manticors lounged around on the rocks, their giant wings fanning them lazily. One of the large rexes had what looked to be the remains of a goat between its fore paws. The beast sunk its massive teeth into the meat and pulled an entire leg off, swallowing the chunk whole.
Arucard watched it was a tinge of jealousy. On his mad search for his child he'd totally forgotten to feed.
He glanced at Seras who was attempting to explain to Galina where they'd been without embarrassing both of them. She showed off her new outfit and the motherly vampire completely forgot about being mad at them. He smirked; she always managed to get him off the hook.
"Let's go. I want to reach the castle before sunrise tomorrow." Said Arucard moving towards the rex with the goat.
"O-key doe-key, let's get going." Said Galina, re-strapping the AKM to her back, making an 'X' with the sawed off shotgun.
The manticors all rose at her words and formed a line before her. She picked the big rex she'd pointed out earlier, Ranja, and climbed on his back. She settled between the large shoulder blades, carefully avoiding the wings and grabbed two great handfuls of the tawny mane.
The other four followed her example, all mounting the manticor nearest to them. The one that was left over snorted at them and took to the air before the others had settled.
"Up." Commanded Galina.
The Manticors rose, their massive leathery wings moving tons of air. The resulting wind flattened the trees and rocks below them, the wood splintering and boulders crumbling with the gale force.
"To Bran Castle." Said Galina, pointing Ranja northward.
The manticors roared, the sound shaking the very air, before rocketing at a blinding speed towards the town of Bran. In seconds they crossed the mountain range, the Transylvanian Alps and the lights of Barsov came into view. The manticors dropped in altitude and Seras was glad she was dead and couldn't get an infection when her eardrums burst from the sudden pressure change.
The monsters and their riders glided the thirty kilometers to the forests that surrounded Bran Castle, the deadly predators utterly silent.
After one of the longest centuries of his life, Arucard laid eyes on his home, the mighty castle that had served as his fortress since he'd taken it in 1390. A wicked smile crossed his lips as he absently ran his gloved fingers through the manticor's mane.
"Home, sweet home." He said, pulling the Jackals from his coat.
"Home, sweet home."
End part 5
Information and pictures of Bran Castle can be found here: http://www.ici.ro/romania/tourism/c_bran.html