Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Cheese omelets, a couple of pancakes, some sausage links and some fresh toast with a thick spread of butter. Absolutely delicious for breakfast and dinner if you had the inclination!
Max plated the cheese omelets despite over easy being the preferred type of egg for Sam. Yet so far she hadn't felt confident making anything that called for fine tuned forking. It only took her watching his hand shake just cutting into the pancake. Reminding her of his time out cold on the hospital bed. Then when he got up he had been so weak and washed out.
Such a strange consequence for being struck by 'holy' Angels. She was there when they took him off the breathing machines, and left him with a hefty mug of cold water. But he hadn't been able to lift it, pulling it onto himself, instead. The lid had been the saving grace only a few drops spilled, but it was a sharp reminder of his condition.
He had gotten his strength back of course. Good enough for release from the hospital, still not good enough to get back to what they did for a living. At least not on the front lines of it.
The news stations were making sure of that, she could already hear the snarling growls of the outraged Weres. Politics were going into overdrive, in the most bombastic way she couldn't even have imagined being possible. There were currently two different issues at play in the states, the Cult and their Black Mass Murders, and the Vatican's Thralls. It made sense for the church to be protected, and double down on the Black Mass Murders.
Only instead of one side doing that and the other pretending like nothing was out of the ordinary at all in the world... They 'both' were doubling down on the same exact issues. With only different facets of it being discussed. One on the loss of the core family values, the evils of alternate religions, and the tolerance of abnormal people. Which the last one hooked into the other side who was starting sensationalize it!
No way to excuse a cult murdering people of course, instead they were trying to deduce 'who' the cult was looking for.
A question that nearly made Max drive off the road as the suggestion hit her!
They were trying to find Dracula or Alucard!
'The twins are going to love this, I mean absolutely love that their lord is about to have a fan club of sorts.' Max grumbled as she passed a billboard currently advertising a local diner that she had gone to a few times. Great cheap steaks, but Sam wouldn't be able to have those for a while either. "We use holy weapons all the damn time. How the hell does a couple of angels have the power to wreck our shit like this?"
She griped into the empty air of her car. It wasn't as though anyone in the clans read scripture only for their ears to bleed. Holy water igniting both the ground of the Castle and the hunter as well, crucifixes also where safe in their hands, so how? HOW!? Did these angels either not recognize Sam as one of the Good Guys, or prove capable to do that much damage?
'Well the Morris clan isn't direct enough for starters. After all even the Vampire Killer turns on them.' The little voice in the back of her mind, often ignored because it was her common sense, piped up.
With a disgusting truth.
Aulins' were an off shoot of the Belnades, who they themselves, were witches. If Angels wanted to strike them down there wasn't a great deal of biblical explanation of why it 'wouldn't' happen. Both clans were witch clans, old Christian theology stated witches die.
The LeCardes would also be considered 'witch blooded' and serving a Vampire Prince wouldn't exactly raise their standings either.
While the Belmont clan was dealing with an out right curse.
Which was its own thing.
Cursed items were not easily broken, they had set requirements if they could ever be broken to start with. So it was like as not, the Belmonts were immune because they were cursed to hunt the opposing force of 'Heaven'. While the Morris clan was obviously not.
'So the question becomes 'what was the worded out curse that was placed on the Belmonts?'
Given their conversations regarding Leon's curse, it appeared the man had no real magical training. He literally treated the magical items of his time the same way they treated a cellphone or a computer. Using it, but not understanding anything about how it worked. "A curse could have been the same thing too. If he didn't realize it, he could have just been trying to make an oath and it became a curse instead. Given he was actively using magical items... It could have woven..."
"Something up? You've gone quiet," Sam noted as he cut into his omelet his eyes going up to his partner.
She did look fixated on something, with her eyes constantly drifting left to right as though she was reading. A trait he chalked up to being an Aulin and thus requiring books for spell casting. She had her hair pinned back as well making it easier to see that intense focus. "I was just thinking back to the news and pod casts I was listening to on my way here. As well as what I was thinking at the time since I'm trying to figure out the Angels. Like why would they have such an intense power over you. Being a witch I know why me, but just because you're not cursed like the Belmonts?"
"Well what's a 'curse' exactly?" Sam asked, jutting his fork at her for a moment before he stuck it in his mouth.
Max's expression twisted into a slightly amused one, "really? You are asking a 'premier' witch what a curse is?"
"Here me out," Sam replied after he was finished chewing and swallowing his bite. "While I was in the hospital I had plenty of time to think about this. The Vampire Killer is a cursed item, and the Belmonts themselves are cursed to fight Dracula. Think of the cursed items we find in the castle and then the ones that are considered 'blessed'. Blessed items are just items that someone basically decides should have special properties. Cursed items have a point, a task that must be fulfilled."
Taken a bit aback by the amount of thought Sam was showing over the field of magic, Max tried to feel out where he was going with it. Filling the air with her own thoughts to afford him time to eat his dinner/breakfast while it was still warm. "So, original theology says we don't have free will, everything is destined. So a cursed item would be something strong enough to rewrite the destiny of the item and anyone it encounters. Which would mean it was strong enough to defy God. This conflicts though with the idea of man having free will. Because Free Will places the responsibility of the state of man and the world strictly on our shoulders. While prewritten destiny means that we're merely following the letter of our prewritten path. But then implies God has limits to his power."
"On the one hand people who want to argue predetermined destiny has to accept that the state of the world is what God 'wants' for us. Yet with no explanation as to why, thus making God look like a Devil. Then you have Lilith, supposedly she was 'cursed' to have her children die. Yet its pretty clear that the demons aren't running low of numbers..." Max mused aloud...
"Right, to bless or curse an item, it seems to me you have to have a strong emotion, something that Angels lack and Demons are full of. If an item is cursed, it has a strong sense of hate, its targeting something and until its settled down it won't stop. Kind of like its frozen in the moment of its most enraged state and just gets triggered every time its seen that target. So Vampire Killer goes off its handle every time it senses Dracula. But once that hate is released it can shut itself off, the way Killer no longer is active when Soma behaves himself." Sam pointed out, pausing to see if Max would argue.
Resident witch, she was going to be the one he depended on to make sure his hypothesis didn't go that far into the weeds. She sat there, her eyes 'reading' again as though she found the funnies as she began smiling this small introspective smile.
"You know its funny, I never thought of that angle, but you're right that is a strong element of crafting cursed or blessed items. We witches are taught emotional control because our emotions are so integrated. It sounds like a great idea in battle, if we get royally pissed off and cut loose, but we could screw up so its not advised. When we in the Aulin branch bless the books we use for passing on," she pulled out her own book as a source of point. "We focus into our books knowing its going to the next generation. We pour our love, our confidence, our faith into these books to strength them, and each time the book is passed on the prior witch pours more of the same. 'When you place your strength into this book, give it your love, your confidence, pour all that is good and positive of you into it. For the time when one of our daughters or daughters daughters has need of our strength. Let them open these pages and know that countless women love them, even if the world of man does not'. Its written into the front and back of the book covers but on the inner covers!"
"And because Angels don't feel emotions they can't sense the rage of a curse or the warmth of a blessing so they can't 'see' the Belmonts... and we Morris aren't cursed."
Sam was right.
Vampire Killer feeding on excessive holy power was no different than a Vampire feeding on the blood of the living. A cursed being feeding on another. More over Angels never really showed up in the in castle when the Belmonts were active. More so when it was Alucard or others...
"Yeah, Angels never did make a solid appearance in the Castle before did they. 'Unless' it was someone other than a Belmont.. huh." Sam mused for a moment, "So we know the cult leader in question isn't cursed either because if he was. He couldn't summon any Angel after all Angels can't be summoned from nothing right?"
Max gave a 'huh' as she played with her sausage link in thought. "So whatever Michael is, he has some form of protection, or permission, to get the Angels to respond to his summons." Her expression flattened in growing concern. A concern that was starting to be mirrored on Sam's face.
"So ok, a religious organization," Sam suggested slowly.
"Maybe one that has suddenly gotten itself in hot water regarding thralls..." Max followed up...
The soft rumble of the fridge, the cooling air that was blown through the house via the air conditioning. Somewhere there were people just shopping, working, having to live the daily grind... and then there were these two self proclaimed knuckle heads...
"Annnd no one knows who exactly 'turn' those priests and nuns into thralls to start with.." Sam shook his head. His breakfast was cooling in the air, the flavor slowly dulling so he took another bite of that cheese filled omelet. "Could be a partnership, or the person in the church 'is' a thrall and used to give this blessing... Right now though, we need to ferret out who though. A good number of the thralls were established for a while in their churches. A vampire on the outside could keep putting in as many thralls as they want."
"Or the reverse and its a vampire 'in' the church, and I don't mean Dionysus." Max countered with a slice of pancake on her fork. "Soma has no problem walking on holy ground and he's literally 'Dracula', so whatever kept vampires out must not be in effect. Or there's a way to circumvent it, maybe even a thrall was in the church first to help them get in."
Holy Oils were a big one in that respect, the list of things that had been discovered in the Vatican was deeply troubling. Oils and Water weren't working, yet had an effect on Alucard, illusions that had messed with the children. Leaving concerns on the mental and spiritual wellbeing of over several possible 'generations' worth of Cherub Choir members. The Vatican taking on Castle like attributes that night, with statues and paintings giving rise and warning to the dangers going on.
Though if the castle was a creature of chaos, what was the Vatican meant to draw its identity from?
"So either a vampire has been 'in' the Vatican for a while now, or has what is likely a series of thralls that got stationed in. Explaining the reason why the Pope stopped visiting nations and basically got locked in the... vati..." He blinked and after a bit more of thinking he began nodding. "Roughshod thought, but wouldn't it be possible that the Vatican's 'identity' is coming from the popes over time? They generally have the 'love your fellow man' vibes, so it could have become part of the Vatican."
"Maybe," Max thought about it between bites, "And if so I'm glad its going for the most 'recent' versions of the Popes. We don't need a Vatican doing witch hunts while we're busy."
Suddenly the idea of a door acting like a D mimic and trying to eat Yoko sprang unbidden to their thoughts.
"From the people who persecuted you for playing a game that put teeth on a treasure chest, its churches that put teeth on their front doors." Sam quipped before getting serious again, "so you got any suggestions for what I can do if this doesn't stop?" he rested his hands, palms down on the table and noted the tremor. "Once we realized what the penalty for using Vampire Killer was, death was just accepted as inevitable. But what about this? Uselessness via Angel Blasts?"
Max floundered, Sam was a hands on, physical guy, but with the way his hands were now he couldn't exactly go into construction or such. The trembling had gone down substantially since their time in Europe. But Max was still making more robust complex meals for the guy, the best he was doing was hot dogs, simple sandwiches and the such. "I'd like to have access to the castle's library or my ancestors..." She began slowly.
"A proper evaluation, since doctors only know the physical and we're talking metaphysical. I'm not just giving up on you because of some stupid angels." Max jabbed the point home with a bit of omelet.
"Thanks but that's not what I asked. There's a difference between straight out dying or even a slow, but confirmed, death and..." Sam waved his free hand. "I'm supposed to host the next BBQ and I can't if I'm shaking like this."
It was so inconsequential, and yet so on topic.
"I mean if we're talking curses, the idea was that Lilith got cursed with losing her children by Angels. We could look in the avenue of if that the Angels put a curse on you as well." Max pointed out before adding as an afterthought, "though the notion of it being shaking feels off."
"Well it makes some sense," Sam noted with a slight gesture towards the tv in the other room. "It shakes things up don't you think? This vampire has been quietly working to disrupt some major institutions for a while now. He put his plan into action and has chaos going in the Catholic Church going on, and this little hunters group."
"You think this vampire wants to replace the Belmonts?!" Max sat there, the idea rolling along down the hill at her. Like a snowball of stone getting all the bigger. An absurd idea normally, if she brought this up with the others they would say the same likely as not. Yet now the world was reeling from the Vatican being destabilized and if the Dark Children were forced to rise up in their defense. Something that America was pushing 'super' hard to making them feel. It would normally fall on the Belmonts or the other clans to deal with it.
"If I'm a test run for what those Angels could do, its possible they're not true angels at all, perhaps some manufactured one. Hell there's a vampire who is also a former pope, guy's been busy..." Sam observed.
Max quietly guttered her thoughts and brought them back to the church for a moment, "maybe find the prior Cherubs too. See if the only thing that was affected was their ability to see the distortions or if there was lasting damage. Besides the psychological ones from being gaslit into thinking they were very bad at telling directions 'only' when in the church. They might have been the thralls grown up for all we know."
"We need the Castle Library and likely Alucards' permission for the Master Librarian to help us research..." Sam finally announced before shuddering at the word 'research'.
"Its not that bad..." Max noted, "also we have our ancestors so we might be able to just ask them about what they know too. Would help in narrowing down the search, Angels, Angel adjacent, stuff on curse creating, thralls..."
By then the food had cooled, and while most of the appetite to eat it was now under boulders sitting in the bellies. It was still food and they needed to keep up their strengths. Somehow it even felt befitting, cold breakfast foods for dinner paired with the mere thought of the Belmonts being replaced, and a Vatican being put on its ear.