"CastleVania 2000"
Chapter I of III : "Daywalkers"
Cali, Colombia
December 27th, the year of our Lord 2000 A.D.
The vaguely copper-esque scent of blood lingering in the darkness. The faintest audible hint of movement among the warehouse, such thatany human could never have picked up on any of it.
Blade wasn't human.
Silver katana-like sword drawn, black leather longcoat whipping behind him, Blade sprinted and leapt forth, cleaving off the head of an advancing figure in mid-air, then swiping a second figure clean through the torso. In another precise, practiced movement, he thrust his sword backward on landing. A figure only inches behind gasped, then slid off the blade and hit the floor. Blade heard the three vampire corpses disintegrate around him. The immediate battle over, he allowed himself only a moment to breathe.
"Ah, the gringo Daywalker. Or do you just prefer 'Blade'?" a shrill voice spoke in heavily Spanish-accented English. "I heard you took out Frost's gang in the States." The lights flickered on and an entourage of trenchcoat-clad men were standing by the entrance, all of them flanking a well-dressed gentleman, the one who had spoken. "You will find we do things a little different here in Colombia. We're not so... lax. So... inefficient." The click of guns clicking off their safeties could be heard even before they were drawn from the gang's coats.
"Let's do this shit," Blade seethed.
With cat-like agility, Blade sprang to the side, sliding across the floor as he pulled his matte-black and silver-finished MACH pistol from its hip holster with his free hand. Vaulting to his feet, avoiding the beginning of the inevitable maelstrom of gunfire, he sheathed his sword for the moment. Without hesitation he cut loose with a barrage of silver-tipped firepower, mowing down the gang in sweeping salvos.
"Die, Blade!"
In unison with the falling of the last vampire gunman—by this time the piles of ash from the disintegrated corpses covering the floor—only Blade and the gang's leader were left standing.
"You first, asshole." Pulling an Indian-style katar punching dagger from his boot, Blade shucked it at the man, catching him in the throat. He stumbled back, choking, gagging, and spurting blood for a few seconds before the silver in the dagger took effect.
Alone again, Blade stood still after retrieving his dagger.
"The one they call Blade..." reverberated a new voice. Blade felt a tinge of worry—even his heightened senses couldn't give him a bearing on where it was coming from.
No one did that. Ever.
"I have heard of you," it continued. "I have also heard we are much alike."
Blade glared, adjusting his sunglasses as he scanned the dark recesses of the warehouse. "I'm nothing like you monsters."
"But we share the same goal, you and I... we hold similar pain in our past..." The voice went lower, "We are both dhampire... we both walk the day."
Blade narrowed his eyes to slits. "You know nothing about me."
"I know your human mother was attacked by a vampire when she was pregnant with you. This gave you the vampire strengths... without the weaknesses."
He still wasn't impressed. "So you've done your homework. Good for you."
"I am half vampyre. I bear no weaknesses save for the bloodlust... the Hunger."
Blade harrumphed. "Then you're no different."
"Am I not? Perhaps you are too quick to pass judgment. When need be I sate the Hunger on no innocent... only on the dregs that society has spawned over the centuries. I oppose those of my father's ilk, though I generally turn a blind eye to them."
"Your father..." Blade couldn't help but cock an eyebrow, "... who was he?"
"Count Dracula." The answer was spoken almost matter-of-factly.
Blade furrowed his brow, not sure how to react. "Assuming I believe you... what do you want from me?"
"I require your assistance. My father's castle, the Demon Castle Dracula—"
"CastleVania," Blade finished for him. "I've heard the legend."
"It has risen once again. With it, my father is resurrected."
"You would kill your father?" Blade inquired.
"He must be stopped."
Blade said nothing. He could tell the stranger how he had killed his own mother, how he had looked into her eyes as the life drained from her body at the thrust of his blade. He could tell the stranger, but Blade was never one to volunteer any information he didn't have to.
"You had to face your mother, the mother you thought lost forever." Was the stranger reading his thoughts? "A vampire, the wench of the one called Deacon Frost. You killed her."
"I had to free her."
"Then you do understand."
"Yes," Blade's tersely formed the word.
"The vampires you've dealt with over the past few years—vampires across Chicago, New York, Florida, New Mexico, Moscow... oh, I've been keeping track of you—mere hoodlums and pests next to the Prince of Darkness."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"Then you agree? You will accompany me?"
Blade crossed his arms, his katar dagger not-so-subtly gripped and held beneath his forearm. "Show yourself. And tell me your name."
"As you wish."
First an almost inaudible hissing emanated from some unseen location. Blade became aware of the thin, gray mist seeping in from the cracks in the windows and walls.
"I have taken the name... Alucard."
Holding his pose, he made no move when the mist suddenly started solidifying and taking shape. The shape of a man.
"Now... satisfied?" the man asked, standing unabashed in intricate eighteenth century garb, complete with sash and antique sword.
"I should kill you where you stand."
Alucard stood undaunted. "Then why don't you do so?"
Blade's lip twitched. He could tell the famed vampire hunter did not take kindly to accepting help from a vampire, even a brethren. "You can take me... to him." The King of Vampyres, celebrated in the Bram Stoker novel and countless films of the century. Blade had probably done his research, connecting the dots between the novel, the historical Prince Vlad "The Impaler" (Tepes) Draculea III of Wallachia, the Book of Erebus, and the legend of CastleVania—even the rumors that the novel was based on a real life collection of diaries. Blade most likely figured early on there really was a "Count" Dracula, but the vampire epidemic in the States kept him from making the trip overseas to try and find out for himself.
"Yes," Alucard agreed. "And I can help you slay him." It wouldn't be the first time. Since his mortal death as a sickly child in 1482, he had three dealings with his father in the late-fifteenth and late-eighteenth centuries.
"I need help from no one," Blade snapped. "Never. Not from you or your kind."
"Fair enough."
Blade tucked his weapons away beneath his longcoat. He started walking out of the warehouse, passing Alucard without a glance. "Let's roll."
The hunter stopped at the exit. "Coming?"
Alucard smiled, nodded, and turned.
He had been successful in finding the Daywalker. That left only one other...
Sunnydale, California
December 28th, the year of our Lord 2000 A.D.
A bitter chill hung in the air, the sun setting on the cityscape horizon. Christmas may have been over and New Year's was just around the corner, but the Holiday Season still didn't quite seem to be sticking in just yet.
"Judas... hmmm-kay."
Leaving the movie theatre she had killed two hours and a half watching a late night showing of an uninspired (in her general opinion) Wes Craven Presents : Dracula 2000 at, a very unimpressed Buffy Summers made her way to the park, backpack slung over her shoulder. She was on time but no one was around.
"Angel...?" Buffy called the name of her on-again, off-again vampire boyfriend (currently something equivalent to "business partner"). He was generally prompt about their late night meetings, even with the lone mission he had chosen some time ago to undertake in L.A.. "Angel, you here? Um, anywhere?" She laid a hand on her waist. "C'mon... this dark and spooky routine... it's getting old."
"Angel's running late," a voice thundered from the shadows of the shrubbery. "I'll take his place... bitch!"
Buffy quickly got a fix on the voice.
A large, burly vampire with blood-engorged muscles lunged forth, taloned hands reaching to rend Buffy's tender, young flesh. She didn't recognize the vampire, but he looked deadly enough to warrant a threat.
The original Spanish settlers of Sunnydale called the then-small town Boca Del Infierno, rather accurately translated as "Hellmouth," she thought.
A side kick to the vampire's face sent him stumbling. The roundhouse across his temple that followed threw him to the grass.
Buffy bounced on the balls of her feet, ready as the vampire gathered himself and charged her once more. An elbow to the eye and a knee to the crotch later, she was prepared to finish the job.
"Say nighty-night, shitface." Buffy drew a fresh oak stake from where it was thinly concealed at her side, plunging it into the heart of the leering thing before her. It gasped out, clutching the stake it had been impaled with as it quickly disintegrated from the inside out.
Buffy caught her stake in the air before it fell with the rest of the ash. "Chalk one up for the Sunnydale slayer, folks," she chimed.
"Indeed, Slayer," came a deep voice accented in a language she couldn't place. Two figures were standing behind her. They'd come out of nowhere!
"Who... who're you?" she snapped at them. She grasped her stake readily, ready to take the two of them on if they posed a threat.
"Friends." The lead, thinner figure stepped forward, into the light of the nearest streetlight. The second figure remained in the shadows. "Friends who come to you with a proposal."
Buffy eyes the figures with wary suspicion. She'd been betrayed before, but knew enough to trust them until she had reason to do otherwise. "I'm... listening."
"Have you heard the legend of CastleVania?"
"CastleVania?" Buffy harrumphed. "The fairy tale about some schizo cursed castle that pops up outta nowhere every hundred years with the Dark Prince Dracula himself?"
"It's no fairy tale. It's very real, in fact." And so was the tone in the figure's voice.
"I... see."
"The castle is the Demon Castle Dracula, and it does indeed belong to the King of Vampyres."
"Er, Dracula? That creep? You gotta be kidding me—I thought I took care of his ass back in October."
"I kid you not, and no, though you did put forth a noble effort you most certainly did not 'take care of his ass.' Three years ago, as is the legend and the curse, Castle Dracula reconstituted itself over the river Arges in Transylvanian Romania, Count Dracula resurrected with it." The figure's gaze became deadly serious. "Right on schedule."
Buffy gave him a good-humored look. "I fought him, yes, I know he exists, yes—I even drank his blood, fer cryin' out loud—but... c'mon, Dracula? You mean that guy's totally for real, CastleVania Legend and Bram Stoker novel all rolled into one?"
"He is my father." The voice lowered a tone. The pain behind it was genuine. "But he is also my sworn enemy."
Alucard then went on to, at great length, explain his history. Of his mortal death in 1482, his dealings with the Belmont Clan beginning with Sonia later that century, then Trevor, then Richter and Maria in the late 1700s, all of them detailing how he had opposed and, on two separate occasions, directly partook in the slaying of his father. When Alucard was done with that, he told Buffy why he and his companion had sought her out, and what they must now do.
"So who is your pal?" Buffy asked when he was through, pointing at the nearby bulkier figure in a leather longcoat.
"Blade," the figure answered, just as Alucard was about to in his stead.
"Uh... fellow vampire hunter?"
"Something like that."
"Oh-kay..." Buffy made an uncomfortable face, let the silence hang for a little while, then looked back to Alucard. "You got a name?"
"I am called Alucard."
"You're called Alucard? Is that your real name? Hmf, it's 'Dracula' spelled backwards, I know, so I'm guessing it's some kinda nickname...?"
Alucard faltered, hesitating. "Once... I was called Adrian. Adrian Fahrenheit... Tepes."
"Tepes... Tse-pesh... that's 'The Impaler' in Romanian, isn't it?"
"It is."
"My father's lineage... he is a hero in Romania but there is no hiding his actions."
Buffy nodded, then turned to Blade. "What about you, Mr. 'Blade'? You got a real name?"
Blade furrowed his brow. "What's it to you... blondie?"
"All right... I'm detecting some bitterness here. You really don't like the idea of having us around, do you, Blade?" Buffy pressed. "Why is that? What's your story?"
"None of your damn concern."
Alucard laid a hand on Blade's shoulder in defense of Buffy. "Blade, please..."
Blade's intensity relented, if only a few notches after he shook off Alucard's hand. He was in the company of a lady. "I... I had a mentor once... a partner," he eventually explained. "Whistler."
"You said 'had.'"
"Yeah." Blade met her gaze. "I did."
"Oh."
"I don't let nobody close no more. Nobody."
Buffy shrugged. "That's cool, I guess. So you like it solo." Reminds me of my boyfriend, she made a mental note, thinking idly of Riley.
"Yeah. I do." If Buffy didn't know better, she'd say he was thoroughly irritated. "Just don't expect me to be saving your ass when the heat is on. I don't need a liability when we're doing our shit."
Buffy grinned. Blade was underestimating her, as most had in her past. "I can take care of myself just fine. But hey, who knows... maybe I'll have to save your ass sometime, Blade?"
Blade grunted, about the closest thing Buffy imagined he did to a laugh. "You're trippin'."
"You two will have to learn to cooperate," Alucard spoke. "Our journey is long and our peril is great, even with our combined talents and tools. I suggest we begin."
No one offered any argument. They knew what had to be done just as they knew what was at stake.
