Author's Note: A very belated gift for edude-makes-comics on tumblr, who was interested in Grant-centric CV3 fic, as part of the Castlevania Creatives server's Secret Santa 2021 event.
Another goddamn axe spiraled through the air, at just the perfect angle to slice off someone's head. Before it could connect, Grant dropped to the floor, his features twisting into a grimace. The second his knees hit brick, he dared to look behind him. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed the rest of his team had made the dodge too.
One side of his mouth turned up in a smile.
A monster hunter could learn a lot on a journey through the lair of the most prolific and vindictive monster gatherer himself. Lesson number stopped-counting-at-the-collapsing-tower: thrown axes get slightly less alarming once you've been avoiding them all night.
Grant felt the ends of his bandana lift in the rush of air above his head that signified the axe was heading back the way it came. They'd settled in place against his neck just as the shambling suit of armor towering before him caught its weapon by the handle, the clanking of wood against metal resounding through the crumbling and bloodstained halls of Castle Dracula. As if by unspoken command, the team of hunters stood up as one.
A volley of hellfire from Alucard's direction set the floor in front of the axe armor ablaze, bringing the knight to a clattering halt. Sparking blue orbs of lightning followed from where Sypha levitated overhead. The electricity danced down and encircled the monster in a twitching embrace, outlining each plate of armor in wavering blue as their opponent was stunned still further.
The holy fire of the Vampire Killer gouged a chunk of metal from the axe armor's breastplate. Another burning lash from Trevor's whip tore the breastplate off entirely, revealing the sloughing, pallid skin of the zombified creature beneath.
Grant threw a dagger directly into its heart. With a dying groan and a metallic crash, the monster collapsed to the floor.
Another job well done. Damn shame that, after killing those same monsters all night, the thrill of a perfect kill wore off as quickly as the terror of their axes.
"If this is the reception hall, it sure ain't very welcoming," Grant commented, gazing down at the latest demonic corpse. He kicked one limp and plated arm aside and proceeded further down the corridor, to the staircase the knight had been guarding. "I take it this castle's seen better days, huh?"
"Yes," Alucard answered curtly. "It has."
"Stay on guard, everyone," Trevor said. "If there's one thing we've learned these demons love, it's knocking intruders off the steps." He pointed to a rack of axes and spears, conveniently arranged just below the flight of rickety and missing stairs. "Might be wise to avoid that this time."
The hunters continued in wary silence to the staircase that stretched still higher into the vampire's domain. They stopped in their tracks as a too-familiar noise sounded from overhead: something wet and splattering, like a monster's spilled organs hitting the floor. Then Sypha groaned.
"Oh goddammit, not again." An amorphous slime monster, green and translucent and sticky, had fallen from the bottom of the staircase to cling to the hem of Sypha's blue robes. "Thought we killed these little bastards already."
For a priest in training, Sypha could have a surprisingly foul mouth. Not that Grant was one to judge, though—he supposed Wallachia's recent mutation into a hunting ground for the unholy and the undead was as good a reason as any for the Church to loosen up a bit. Hell, if this was any indication of what one of the Reverend Sypha's future sermons might be like, it might just be the first service Grant would consider attending.
"You want me to—?" Trevor began, already reaching for his whip as the monster inched further up the robes.
"No need."
With a single swing of the Belnades staff, the slime monster was beaten into the floor, lying flattened and still. The glittering mystic flames that danced across the staff's carved surface, blue as Sypha's narrowed eyes, seemed almost to soften the sounds of the weapon's second strike: a heavy metallic impact, and the sizzle of fire on flesh.
What lay on the floor once the staff rose again was no longer an oozing blob but a splatter of viscous chunks, blackened and faintly twitching. After the third strike, the twitching stopped too. The monster had never stood a chance.
Sypha lifted the weapon once more. To his own surprise, Grant felt his stomach drop in time with the sight of the staff descending yet again.
But the hit never landed. Sypha's weapon stopped mid-swing, hanging still and silver in the air.
Alucard had taken hold of the staff too, one gloved hand circling it tightly, just beneath the reach of the leaping blue flames.
"You've done enough."
With eyes widened in shock, Sypha attempted to wrest the staff from Alucard's grip. It stayed firmly in place. From beneath the cowl, the monk's face tightened with rage. "What do you think you're—?!"
"Think he means that thing's been a stain on the floor for a couple hits now," Grant filled in, placing himself in between the remains of the monster and the raised length of the staff. "We didn't come this far just for one of us to break his neck slipping on a pile of guts. If his dad's gonna kill us all anyway, let's at least make the bastard earn it."
A tense silence fell upon the group of hunters. Sypha continued to fix Alucard with a doubtful glare, posture still locked in a fighting stance. Alucard returned the gaze, face impassive as ever. He did not release his hold on the staff.
"All right, break it up, you two," Trevor said, stepping away from the staircase and toward the staredown. He leaned forward to unfold the map before them both, finally breaking their concentration as both turned to regard his sketched layout of the castle instead. "Let's try to make it out of here before sunrise. Alucard, you said the route two flights up leads back outside, correct?" He traced a line from left to right with one rough finger.
"When last I saw it, yes," Alucard responded.
Grant stepped away from the slime monster's remains and approached Trevor to study the map from over his shoulder. If the descriptions that Alucard had provided only hours before concerning the layout of his former home were even close to correct—the damn castle apparently liked to change its architecture as frequently as humans changed their clothes—they'd be approaching that impossibly hanging tower that was Dracula's keep much sooner than felt real.
But he refused to dwell on it, to pick the wounds of memory and allow doubt to fester. Whether it came to scaling a wall or slitting an enemy's throat on the battlefield, nothing could kill you before you began faster than overthinking did.
He'd learned from experience.
"And Sypha…" Trevor began.
"I'm only doing what's necessary," Sypha said. "We can't afford to be careless. I know better than anyone here what these demons are capable of—and I won't let it happen again."
The time Sypha had spent imprisoned in stone as a result of a cyclops' attack, dead to the world as a statue on the castle grounds, was like a barrier separating the magician from anyone who tried to get too close. While Trevor wasn't shy about how the Belmonts were perhaps second to Dracula as Wallachia's most hated, and Alucard would volunteer information about traversing his father's castle whenever he deemed it necessary, whatever Sypha had experienced in those months of solitary confinement was as much a mystery as the person beneath those featureless robes.
To everyone, perhaps, except Trevor.
"I know," he whispered, leaning closer to his teammate than seemed typical for two hunters outside of battle. He straightened up just as quickly to regard the group as a whole. "But let's save our energy for whatever's upstairs," he went on in a louder tone. "We're all aware that none of our resources, magical or otherwise, are unlimited. We need to pick our battles while we still have the option. After all, my family has a saying: 'give a monster an inch, and it'll take your life.'"
"And they're right," Sypha said, eyes locked on Alucard for an uncomfortably long moment.
Before another silent battle could break out, Alucard let go of the staff and proceeded to the staircase. With a quiet rustling of robes, Sypha, too, stepped away from the monster's corpse.
As Trevor strode forward to catch up with the others, Grant lingered behind, unable to fully tear himself away from the blackened streaks of slime and ash that stained the brick floor. He was being foolish, he knew. They'd been killing Dracula's monsters all night, and all night before, and for the last several months of their lives, even before they'd joined forces. So what difference did it really make if one slime demon, lowest of the low even within a literal hellhouse, got a bit more punishment than it probably deserved?
It was dead either way. And every hunter in their group knew it was "kill or be killed" from the moment they set out to face the Lord of Darkness alone.
But with this monster's death, it was as though something between them all, hastily buried in their minds, had been dug up and brought to light in all its twisted reality. One look into Alucard's golden eyes when he'd taken hold of the staff had confirmed that the newest and least trusted member of the team—and possibly the only vampire hunter to be a vampire himself—was feeling the same way.
It was hard to glory in a monster's suffering when you were a monster too.
Grant heard the voices of his teammates carry down the staircase from somewhere above. "You know, if another slimeball gets stuck on me, I might just hit you first," Sypha said, voice on the edge of laughter.
"Try it," Trevor replied. "But don't blame me if I 'accidentally' take you for a ghost next time we're in a dark room. Could've sworn we saw some downstairs in the same outfit as you."
The sound of rapid, back-and-forth footsteps and shifting weight that echoed down seemed to indicate Sypha and Trevor were now playfully shoving each other on the stairs. The relative silence around them also indicated that Alucard, as taciturn as ever, was apparently content with letting this unfold.
So much for staying on guard, Grant thought. For two hunters that were otherwise deadly serious when in the heat of combat, Sypha and Trevor's recent interactions during their brief moments of peace were nothing short of a mystery. With a shake of his head, Grant, too, made for the staircase, leaving the remains of the monster behind.
The sight of its corpse still clung to his mind like slime.