Soma gripped his sword and got ready to charge on signal. They were almost through the castle, right in front of Dracula's throne room, but that didn't change a thing. He and Alucard would go in first and occupy the monster by stabbing it a lot, while Maria ran interference and Charlotte charged up her biggest magic spell. It was a strategy that hadn't failed...yet.

The ruffling of pages behind him stopped, and Charlotte gave her crisp "Ready". Out of the corner of his eye he saw Maria give a big thumbs-up, while Alucard just tensed. There was a silent count to three and they jumped into the throne room.

Soma skidded to a halt two steps after he'd started.

Dracula was there. That was an expected problem. The unexpected problem was that he wasn't alone. The was a rather - correction, very - pretty blonde woman perched on his lap, and they were...occupied. With each other, mostly.

Under most circumstances, Soma would probably try to rescue a woman in that position. Beautiful young woman, terrible vampire lord, there was a script. But Soma didn't think helpless damsels usually reacted to assault by throwing their arms around their attacker's neck and trying to suck their faces off with enthusiasm bordering on aggression.

No, wait, that was definitely an aggressive attempt to lick Dracula's tonsils. Wow. Damn.

Soma took a moment to lament the face that his horrible evil monster preincarnation was getting way more action than he was.

Way more. Dracula's hand was up the woman's long black skirts, which seemed to suit her just fine, judging by the happy, breathless noises. And she moved on to his neck, which, wasn't that backwards? But it sure made Dracula happy and shit, Soma didn't really want to see his preincarnation come. That was just awkward.

He was just figuring out how to switch his frozen legs from 'full speed ahead!' to 'retreat!' when a hand grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and forcibly threw him out of the room and right into Maria. Who, on being smashed into by a boy twice her height and mass, fell backwards right into Charlotte. Who didn't have anyone to break her fall, so she went right down to the floor. Which meant Soma and Maria no longer had anyone to break their falls.

Soma spat Charlotte's hair out of his mouth and tried to look at it philosophically. Good boots were important in a demon castle. The fact that Maria's were currently jammed right into his kidneys just showed how tough they were. Charlotte's book digging into his stomach probably meant something too.

Alucard was still on his feet, because of course he was. The bastard.

Maria wigged her way out of the pile, and Soma was sure she didn't mean to keep kicking him in the process. Probably. Hopefully. Either way she was the first on her feet, and the first to find the breath to speak. "What's wrong? Aren't we going to fight the bad man?"

"Uh...he's busy. We'll have to come back later," Soma said, dragging himself to his feet. He wasn't going to be the one to explain what was happening inside the throne room to a 12-year-old. The internet could take care of that one. Maria didn't have the internet in her time? So much the better.

"Busy?! What are you talking ab-" Charlotte was cut off mid-rant by a high yelp followed by a lot of laughter, including some distinctly feminine giggling, from the throne room.

Alucard shut the doors, turned around, and stared in the middle distance in the way Soma was beginning to understand meant he was deeply, horribly embarrassed.

"Well." Charlotte was blushing so hard she almost glowed in the dark. "Well, that's...that shouldn't be there, I mean, that's not in any of my books and we're in a book, so...that shouldn't be happening!"

"Explain that to them," Soma said with a shrug, before jerking back from the glare Charlotte gave him and raising one hand in defense. "Well...it's there! She's there, whoever the hell she is. We have to deal with it. Yeah, it's weird for this book, but you're the one that knows about books!"

Charlotte sputtered. "It...well... We're in a book, about the...the defeats of Dracula, so...he was laid low by love?" She looked distinctly uncertain about this conclusion.

Soma and Maria looked at each other, then at Alucard, who was still practicing his 1000-yard stare, then back at each other. Finally, Maria spoke up, confusion written across her face. "I thought the book was about the deaths of Dracula."

"Yeah, me too. Something something deaths something something heroes throughout time, right?"

Charlotte blushed even harder, if that was possible. "Defeats! It was definitely defeats!"

Soma and Maria looked at each other again, both looking distinctly skeptical. "I'm...pretty sure it was deaths," Soma said, again.

"Defeats!"

There was another high-pitched, extremely pleased cry from inside the throne room.

Alucard finally finished rebooting and strode past them all in an overly-dramatic swirl of jacket and cape. "There's nothing for us here. Come. I saw wine barrels a floor down."

That was all the argument Soma needed. Alucard was a high-handed, cold-hearted, stick-in-the-mud most of the time, but he had one redeeming quality: a medieval attitude towards minimum drinking ages. Soma trotted along after him, Charlotte alongside and Maria running to catch up with their long legs.

"But seriously," Soma said, slowing a bit to let Maria join them, "it's a book about the deaths of Dracula, isn't it? She didn't look like death was on her agenda back there."

Charlotte just clutched her own book and walked faster.