Castlevania Tales: Blood Under the Moon

by victor-cardigan

More than a decade after Reinhardt fought Dracula, he is living in London. Drawn to a series of murders he may find that his past his catching up with him.

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10.

His eyes opened. He was in a corridor. Immediately he jumped to his feet and stood on his toes. His nose sniffed a familiar scent in the air. His animal mind worked so fast that he did not bother to think about where he recognized the scent, only that he did and he remembered that he must follow it. On all fours he ran into the light. The light struck him hard for he had been in darkness for a very long time. Slowly he scoured back into the coolness of the dark. He positioned himself under a box where he could watch the light. When it was gone, then he would search for the scent. At regular intervals he willed his muscles to turn and move so that his limbs would not fall asleep. For many hours he watched the man-things walk back and forth and do their business. Males and females walked the stone roads dressed in fluffy outfits that he could not at the moment contemplate ever wearing. They were different from him. Or so he thought. He was not sure. He had seen man-things commit horrible atrocities just as he had done onto them. Perhaps the man-things were not that far detached from him.

After many hours of sitting and waiting, the dark came. He stared up at the sky, a full moon. Not his, but perhaps the moon belonged to the other, his other. He wanted to find it, but first he must follow the scent he recognized. It called to him as though he knew it. Could he know it? He did not remember. Perhaps it would tell him. He jumped out into the road on all fours and began to gallop in the direction of the familiar scent. As he galloped the man things looked at him in both fear and with curiosity. Many pointed at him. Others screamed or laughed. Several of them he rammed with his head and dropped them to the floor. At one corner he stopped. He felt that sensation in his head. It was so familiar. It was the feeling of the other. The other was on the streets as well. With his eyes he could also see what the other saw. The other was behind him. He began to run faster and faster, his animal mind unable to reason that he was leading the other to his prey. With the other close behind him he finally reached the source of the familiar scent. It came from a red brick structure. He saw steps leading to a door but instead leapt to the air and scaled the walls to the roof. On the roof there was a window that looked down to one of the upper rooms. He kicked the window with his left foot and the glass shattered at his feet. He jumped down and landed perfectly on all fours.

Henry awoke to the sound of breaking glass. Such an unusual sound that immediately his instincts told him that something was afoot. Henry got up slowly from the desk where he had been reading and walked to the nearby sofa where he had left his weapons. Quickly he clicked his gun belt on, dropped their hinged barrels and checked the chambers on both guns. The only noise heard was the clicking of the guns as their barrels came back up and clicked in place. Henry pulled back on their respective hammers as silently as possible. The door leading to the living room was open. He could not remember if Rosa had left it open or not. With great caution he stepped outside and into the living room. He rolled across the floor behind one of the sofas. From behind the sofa he had a clear vantage point to check the 180 degrees in front of him. Staring at the front windows and door he concluded that the intruder had not entered through the front. Henry spun around to face what was behind him. To his left was the door to the kitchen, it was closed. To his right was the door he had just come through. Directly in front were the stairs leading to the bedrooms. Guns raised and poised to shoot at anything in his field of vision, he slowly went up the steps. Halfway up, one of the wooden steps creaked under his weight. Henry stood still for an instant and breathed. The upper hallway was slightly visible from the halfway point of the stairs. He was aiming to the right of the hallway that led to Carrie's room. Had she returned? Could she be practicing her magic in her room and accidentally dropped something? Henry also had to think of Rosa. She could be cleaning even at this late hour. Henry paused and considered calling out Rosa and Carrie's names. In that split second of thought, a great shadow ran across the hall to the left. Henry allowed himself to be distracted. The speed of the shadow eliminated all doubt from Henry's mind; he was not alone. Henry switched the direction of his guns to the left side of the hall where Reinhardt and Rosa's room was. Coming up the stairs the left side was a complete blind spot but Henry stood aiming anyway. When he reached the top of the stairs he backed his way into the direction of Carrie's room. He wanted to see how this invader entered. As he moved he saw something moving in the shadows. It hovered close to the ground. An animal perhaps? Perhaps the were-wolf they had been hunting?

The sound of breaking glass would surely have wakened Carrie, especially if it happened in her own room so she could not be in the house. Rosa on the other hand was not known for being a light sleeper. She could be in her room, Henry thought, oblivious to the danger. The shadow seemed to walk closer to Henry as he backed into Carrie's room. It matched his each step but stopped short of the light coming from the staircase. Henry kept his guns aimed in the direction of the shadow but now looked up at the ceiling of Carrie's room. The skylight had been broken through on one side. Henry looked at the shadow intently pondering his next move. He considered just letting the animal make its own move first. Henry stood motionless feeling the slight breeze coming from the now broken skylight. Suddenly the breeze was gone and Henry felt a sudden instinct to look upwards. The darkness of the night sky did not let Henry see what was falling through the skylight but he could see that it was large enough to fill the whole frame. The huge figure crashed through the ceiling and landed on all fours in Carrie's bedroom. The animal was twice the size of any normal wolf. Looking at it Henry was reminded of the giant three headed dogs that had taken over the entrance to his parent's villa. The giant wolf's eyes shone red in the darkness. He could see that they were looking at him. Its long jaw dropped and salivated all over the carpeted floor. The wolf suddenly charged in Henry's direction. So large was the beast that it shattered the frame of the bedroom door.

Henry moved his aim away from shadow across the hall to the wolf. He was ready to fire his weapons when the shadowy figure leapt straight at the giant wolf. As it passed him Henry saw that the shadowy figure he had thought to be an animal had really been a man. Henry heard two distinct howls. The large wolf seemed to almost get on two of its feet and battled the human with its front two feet. The man seemed to be giving the wolf quite a fight when suddenly it took a bite at him and threw him aside. The human shape fell down to the first floor of the house. Henry yelled and fired his weapons as rapidly as possible. The wolf charged at him and in seconds Henry felt himself being thrown through the hall and through the door to Reinhardt and Rosa's bedroom. Henry tried to get himself up but his arms failed him. The sound of breaking wood attracted his attention and he looked up to see the oversized wolf breaking through the doorway and coming towards him slowly. The last thing that Henry saw were the two blood red eyes staring into his.